For the faint and broken hearted

Well this past week I had a birthday! A few weeks earlier I got my birthday present which was a new lens. I wanted to get a new one mostly for taking pictures of Oliver once he's here so I went with a fixed lens a 50mm 1.8f. The lens I was using was the old kit lens from the d50 and its lowest aperture was 3.5 or something like that and I only shoot in aperture now with the d300 and the bigger the aperture the happier I am so its been pretty nice to have this new lens. I've only really gotten to take cat pictures so hopefully i'll get the chance to take some portraits sometime soon to really see how wonderful it is. Maybe of some people I know in thunderbay... wink wink....

On my birthday chad had to work that evening so we went out to lunch at old country buffet and was deeply disappointed. They didn't even have warm plates... isnt' that like a buffet requirement? Then we went home to hang out till he left. And of course chad surprised me with a little a little birthday present even thought I already got my lens. He got me a little collection of gardening stuff like gloves and seeds and a pot. cute cute. 

Here's an example of an unedited picture of kitty that just gets me so excited for this lens! Normally I hate taking pictures of her because being mostly black shes usually just a blob in low light. But here shes so sharp with her color details showing and how her body is perfectly blurred. Its just wonderful. 

 And i've also been excited to be able to buy stuff for Oliver now that we know he's a boy. His room colors are going to be sea foam green, gold, and white.. and a little grey. I've started buying little decorations for his room at thrift stores.. here is one i got for $3 a little gum ball machine we are going to put marbles in. I painted it a gold to go with the room.

 

I see your vitals on your EKG

 Well this past Thursday we had an ultra sound and found out our little baby is going to be a boy!

Since chads family was going to be here the next day we decided to wait and tell them with a little gender reveal celebration.

 I made some pink and blue cupcakes

And chad and i emptied eggs and filled them with blue glitter, which everyone got to crack to find out the gender.

And here's a little family photo. 

 And a little announcement photo. 

Just hold my hand. I think that would help.

Here's what we have been up to.........

Found this adorable ship music box at good will it slowly rocks up and down and plays the cutest song. Its the first purchase for the babies room! If it is a girl i plan to paint it all white.. and if its a boy the boat will be gold and the waves will be navy blue.

Here is the little wind up that makes the boat look like its rocking on the water. ..... so cute.

Chad rearranged the bookshelves.

Darcy looked out the window. 

Kitty looked out the window.

I made some pretzel bites, some with salt some with cinnamon and sugar. From this blog. She uses rhodes rolls so it makes it real simple. But it still takes time because you have to thaw, boil, and bake them. But they were quite good.

And the cats and i have been going out on the deck. The weather has been super nice. Wednesday it'll be up to 70!! I can not wait we have big outdoor plans.

And the new walmart is opening that day as well which is a big deal.

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go.

Well we've been out and about a little bit lately.

Back when we went to the rain forest cafe last month we signed up for their club card which includes a couple other restaurants in Minneapolis and you pay $25 for it and then get $25 for signing up and then $25 every year for you birthday. We thought it was a good deal. So we went to bubba gump shrimp co. which is one the the restaurants for dinner the other week and it was pretty cute and kinda good. Compared to rain forest cafe I wasn't impressed with the food.  But the set up was really cute.

Next month is my birthday so i guess we will Have to eat out and we are definitely going back to rain forest.

We also explored downtown Saint Paul a little bit today because chad had a job interview at the science museum so we went down to the water and walked around which was freezing and then over to the giant Saint Paul's cathedral. The cathedral was just amazing. First we just walked around it and it was hard to take a picture of it because its just soo big. And then chad went inside and i forced myself to be brave and followed him. At first we went through some doors that just had classrooms and a little chapel and then were going to leave but saw someone go into another door which we followed into which lead to the giant... chapel? .. not sure what its called.. but it was beautiful. We walked around for awhile. I felt scared to take pictures inside even though there was a sign that said you could so i just took a few quick ones but they don't even do it justice. Its just so grand. I wish building were built like this these days. Also all these pictures are on my phone. :( All day i took pictures with my film camera though so we will see if those turned out eventually! 

I gotta cold beer with your name on it.

Chad and I have been attempting to wake up earlier these days and by earlier I just mean up and ready for the day by 12, and so i've ended up with some extra time and decided to do some crafting. 

Heres a little jar I decorated to hold my vitamins. hmm.. that made me sound like an old lady?. Anyways... Im going crazy not knowing the gender of the baby, we still have about 4 more weeks, and i am looking forward to making stuff for the future babies room. My baby pinterest board is filling up of baby room ideas with too many to decide on. 

And.. it was Saint Patrick's day. We didn't do much for it but i wanted to celebrate it in some way so i made lucky charm rice crispy treats.

And I'm like, And I'm like...

I attempted making homemade poptarts. I thought it would be a great idea since chad loves poptarts and the recipe asked for my food processor.  I used this recipe from pinterest. First problem I had was my food processor is a mini one so i had to split up the dough ingredients into two. Which worked out but i guess i mixed it too much before adding the egg and milk.... but i added flower till it felt normal again. Second problem i don't have a rolling pin so the poptarts were too thick. 

But all in all i liked them. Next time I'll just make the dough a little sweeter and thinner. 

Also my final grade in my first grad school class was an -A. Im now taking two classes per term (8 week course) and its a lot of work. But i've planned out my classes and i'll just have my final thesis class left by January 2015 and then i'll graduate. So pretty exciting stuff! 

I got a good feeling it will be alright.

Well i finally got around to finishing the hutch. Here is the before......

And the after.........

 I really love it. Its exactly how I wanted it to look. The paint was a little odd though. The brush marks are pretty visible but oh well.

And here is an adorable painting i got from the thrift store the other day.

And here is kitty... She was playing on this tall wooden chair we have (its chads... its like a wooden mid-evil dinning chair thing from homegoods?..yeah..) and it fell over with her on it. Some how she hurt her foot in the ordeal and has been limping around since last night. She seemed a little better today so we are going to wait another day and see if she keeps improving but if she doesn't we will have to bring her to the vet to get it looked at. Its swollen compared to her other paws, and today i found her sleeping on her back sticking only her hurt foot up in the air. It was pretty cute.. and sad.. hopefully she gets better real quick.

She just limped into the room while writing this.. so sad.

The cold never bothered me anyway.

Im proud to say i've started cooking food again. I feel like i constantly have to eat or i start feeling nauseous which isn't as fun as it sounds... anyways.. i've been using my new food processor as often as i can. I make myself my own personal single smoothie every morning. I've learned that little mini prep plus can't handle ice cubes so i cut the fruit up before hand and then freeze it and then in the morning let it thaw just a little before blending. Anyways.. its great. 

Its was super sunny the other day and it brightened up our gloomy dark apartment for once which made me extremely happy. If only it was like that every day :(

I also started making individual brownies in cute little ramekins. Which chad is very pleased about. Im going to try individual cookies next.

And... here is cute little darcy. being cute.

You've got me on my toes.

So we all traveled down to Jeni's to see little lexie's baby blessing. It was of course lots of fun and im excited for the next big get together that is hopefully soon. Here are a few pictures from the trip....

This is dukes batman face... 

Here is a my handsome husband and i... maybe some day he will learn to smile? Or i will learn to make funny faces? 

Lexie getting lots of attention. 

Also... as everyone must know, i am pregnant. I had a horrible month starting at 6 weeks where i didnt leave the house and pretty much stayed in my bed until i had to throw up and then returned back to bed. My doctor had me switch my prenatals and i take half a sleeping pill at night and lots of B6 throughout the day and that seems to be helping a good amount. I still have a bad start most mornings where i loose my breakfast but the rest of the day is pretty good as long as i keep eating little things. 

But anyways... here is how we announced it to our families. I wish i could have sent them to everyone because they were just so cute! I bought them off of etsy here. Its a little egg you have to crack and inside was a piece of paper that said we were pregnant. I mailed mine to my family and they were smart enough to call me while opening it but not smart enough to suspect anything but it was fun to hear their surprise. And we were lucky enough to be able to give chads family theirs in person. Lots and lots of fun. 

Also while were were at jeni's i had photographer kasey take our announcement picture and she did a great job. Here are some others i liked that she took that i didn't post.

And.. we bought our first baby item yesterday. They are blue so kind of boyish but the patterns are totally more girlish.. sooo i decided that made them neutral. :) I mostly bought these onesies for this one.. it has castles and little deer in the forest and says once upon a time.. just adorable.

No you don't stand a chance for a second in my world.

If you did not know, i have a dream to someday buy a victorian style farm house. It would need lots of work, would be around $150,000, and have more then about 6 acres of land (with trees not just a field). There is a house outside of Minneapolis that i dream about quite regularly that meets all of these qualities. Its on zillow of course, here  and is $140,000 needs tons of work and is on 29 acres. 

Here she is.... 

Along with my day dreams i enjoy reading blog post on how to refinish hardwood floors and installing drywall. When i buy my fixer upper i'll have to know how to do somethings right? Well while we were in texas visiting my family we went to a thrift store and chad spotted this book series on home repair. It seriously has everything and has these cute little pictures. I bought just about all of them for like a $1 each it was great. 

We also bought our first tool a drill.... i know we are very lame right now because everyone and their mom's probably have one of these in their house already, but i have to start somewhere and this was the most useful tool for me right now. :)