Fiona in January

Fiona in January

Friday, May 31, 2013

A Long-Awaited Update

Oh faithful blog readers, I have to apologize once again for my erratic postings.  I do have a fabulous excuse this time that will hopefully garner me some slack...we moved to a new apartment last weekend!  Yes, Memorial Day weekend might be the worst possible weekend to move, but we did it with the help of some fantastic friends who probably will never speak to us again since we didn't tell anyone we'd be moving umpteen boxes of books up to our 3rd floor apartment.

























Needless to say, next time we move (hopefully not for at least another year or two!), we'll be hiring movers and sparing the collective backs and knees of our community.

Even though all the insanity of packing with an 11-month-old crawling around, trying to eat tape and cardboard, it was absolutely worth it.  Our new place is 200 square feet bigger and has an open floor plan so I can basically give Baby Knives free reign to crawl all over the place as long as I close the bathroom and bedroom doors.  A baby's dream!

So, for those of you who have been asking, here is a basic tour of our new place.  Please come visit, we'll take you to the pool!




















This is what you see when you walk in our front door - to the right are a large closet, washer/dryer AND a pantry - my favorite thing in the whole house!





















If you turn left after walking in our door there is a full bath and down that tiny alcove/hallway is Baby Knives' room, which is about as big as her old room but seems much larger since we don't have to cram all of our stuff in it too!  Just started hanging things up on the walls and I'm sure my mother-in-law would want me to add this caveat: She made the adorable owl curtains on the window for our old apartment where the window was smaller, she will be adding more fabric on the bottom!




















Walking out of Baby Knives' room you get a view of our fantastically large kitchen, which is approximate 3x bigger than our old, sad galley-style kitchen.  I am in love.  I have more cupboard space than I know what to do with and that kitchen island is a godsend!





















Baby Knives is currently enjoying our huge living room where she can spread out her toys and we can still maneuver around them.  She also seems to delight in the taste of the coffee table.  The light in there is incredible due to the vaulted ceilings and the door out to our balcony.  I don't ever have to even switch the lights on during the day!  I have plans for a tomato plant and a few herbs (if I don't kill them this year) to grow out on that balcony.





















Our bedroom is the last to be set up, we kind of used it as a holding area while we unpacked and there are still guitars lying around and pieces of artwork we haven't decided on where to hang yet stacked here and there.  Just had to show a few photos to give an idea of how much bigger this room is than our old master bedroom!  It has a full walk-in-closet and a giant master bath too.  I mean, that bookcase is 6'x6' and fits perfectly - amazing!  Oh and anyone want to donate a smaller/flatter/lighter TV to us, please feel free.  Pretty sure we caused at least 2  hernias hauling that monster up 3 flights of stairs!

In all seriousness, we are extremely blessed to be in this new space.  The apartment complex is only 5 years old and is extremely energy efficient and even the carpet is new.  We felt at home immediately and while we would love to be living in PA, if we are staying in this area for the time being, this apartment makes it much more doable!

An incredibly sincere thank-you goes out once again to everyone who helped us schlepp all of our worldly belongings over here last weekend, we love you and tasty baked goods are coming your way soon!

Oh and did I mention we have a wonderful pool?
















Yeah...in love with this place!

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

"Sunny Days, Chasing the Clouds Away..."

I'm not a huge fan of a lot of kid's television shows, we don't even have cable right now, but we do have streaming Netflix and I love the selection they have there.  So I let Baby Knives watch a show or two on occasion.

Sesame Street is by far her favorite and it doesn't drive me insane, mostly because it is comprised of short "episodes" within the show that last 10-15 minutes interspersed with information and songs about the letter and number of the day.

She loves Elmo, must be that high-pitched voice, and laughs whenever he dances.  I just had to share this video because it is rare that Sesame Street actually makes me laugh too, but I about died seeing this...love Ricky Gervais!




And of course I couldn't do a Sesame Street post without sharing this one too...you're the best, Jim Parsons!

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Thinking of Mothers...


















I have been incredibly blessed to have a wonderful mother, that has been clear to me for many years, but especially hits home on my first Mother's Day as a mother myself!  No mom is perfect (thank God - we would all hate her), but I like to think that mine raised my two sisters and me pretty well since we're all functioning adults most days!

She's also a fantastic grandma to Baby Knives and her cousins, they love her like crazy and the only complaint is that she and their grandpa live too far away (Oklahoma).


















As a kid, I remember thinking on more than one occasion how I would raise my own children differently.  These thoughts usually took place after I had been grounded for a week for doing something generally unthinkable and consisted of ridiculous ideas such as: When I have kids, I'll let them eat all the cookies they want! or When I have kids, I'll let them hit their little sister back when she bites them!

Mom definitely had her hands full with us over the years - Happy Mother's Day Mom!