Three Wedding Color Cards

 Green Wedding: A picture from a friend's wedding day shows the multiple green hues with silver and black accents. A beautiful wedding :)

 Muted Bouquet: This came from my brother's wedding... with a few tweaks in photoshop!

Muted Glitz: Golds and reds were center stage at my cousin's fall wedding. Perfect for autumn!

More Low-Quaility Phone Pics

The Many Faces of Peanut... we have yet to get a picture of her smiling (gassy or otherwise) and I refuse to take pictures of her crying (so far... I'm sure that will change eventually!). This refusal leaves us very few opportunities to take pictures other than of her sleeping, but at least we have a few of her awake and alert. The bottom left picture shows Peanut contemplating about wether or not she likes the swing yet. She has improved  - as long as we put her down when she's content, she'll stay content swinging for about 5 minutes :)

She is still a cuddlebug! I still can/t get over how much she likes to have her head in a crack while sleeping - in my armpit, neck, between my legs, between my arm, body and/or the chair/bed, etc. She'll just wiggle herself around until she finds the perfect placement for her face!

We've been having her practice sleeping in her pack-in-play in front of our porch door during the day. Then we'll wheel it back into the bedroom at night. If there's one thing I've learned about being a mom, it's "you do what you gotta do." She's mostly been sleeping with us - either on my chest or on her side next to me. I have figured out, though, that she'll sleep well on her own on her tummy. I know, I know. But it works. She even slept by herself for two sessions last night and with me for only one session. Improvement!

There's Peanut with her cake at the math teachers' shower. So cute! The bottom picture shows a blanket she received from one of Grizz's coworkers. It's John Deere cotton on one side and minky on the other. It's perfect for this future farm girl :)

Last up for today is the quilt from Grizz's mom. (I'm still waiting to take a picture of the quilt my mom made... I'm hoping to hang it up as soon as we find a dowel long enough to hang it up with). Back to this beauty, tho :) She machine appliqued with verrigated thread and added hand-embroidered details to the cute bugs. She even hand-embroidered Peanut's name and date of birth. Peanut is lucky to have precious quilts from both grandmas! I know I still treasure the quits I have from both of my grandmas! This quilt has a special place on top of our ottoman to brighten up the room and it's perfect for supervised tummy play time!

*Her fussy times are still sticking around. We tried gas drops to see if they would help, but they actually seemed to make her crying/screaming worse, so we stopped those. I'm still concerned about what seems like "silent reflux," but for the most part, I've resisigned myself to having a colic-y baby.
*I think her hair is growing a little bit. Her Alfalfa rooster-tail only shows itself every once in awhile, instead of all the time!
*She's starting to enjoy bath time a little more; well, at least she isn't screaming while in the water! She still dislikes the drying off part and the lotion part.
*Cloth diapering is actually going really well. We have only done it during the day and at home - but because it has gone so well, I may even try it at night or while we're out in public soon!

Ok, Happy Tuesday! I'm a single parent for the 2nd time in my life tonight; Grizz has to stay overnight somewhere up North for a night. This also happened a few weeks ago. Wish me luck - hopefully she has a better evening than usual :)

More Color Cards

It's been awhile since I posted color cards, but I found these while I was cleaning folders off the computer (Peanut is asleep in my arms again!). These are made using my own photography in Photoshop.

 Garden Full: Perfect for the Spring and Summer... purples and greens are my favorite colors, plus this combo reminds me of my wedding. I didn't care what the shades were; I just mixed and matched all shades of purple and green... I like to think it created more depth than if I had just stuck with one shade of each. :)

 Golden Flight: I come from a big bird-watching family, so I was excited when I got a great picture of the common Goldfinch as it ate from one of my dad's many birdfeeders. I think this combo would be a great color scheme for a sunroom.

 Gravel Road: Yes, this is an actually picture of a gravel road. I grew up in the country, and I look forward to moving back to the country soon. This scheme is full of great neutrals...

 Mini Exotic: I still don't know what type of plant or bug this is. I took this shot in McCrory Gardens in Brookings, SD. This combo would be great in a kids' bathroom or even a bedroom or playroom. Bright, saturated colors!

Tree Rings: I've always loved taking macro shots of tree stumps trying to get as much detail of the rings and cracks as I could. "Tree Rings" is another neutral color scheme, perfect for a muted lap quilt or for a rag rug... understated details in a simple room.

Finally, a Semi-Crafty Post!

Just a little glimpse of some clothing projects I did while waiting for the Peanut to arrive...

I dyed some onesies (some I bought, some I received at a shower) red and blue. Then I created the designs using both PhotoShop and a word document and printed them out on normal printer paper. After tracing them onto freezer paper (placing the printed page underneath and tracing with a permanent marker), I cut out the freezer paper designs with a regular scissors and an exacto-knife. Then, following a tutorial from Dana, I ironed the freezer paper onto the onesies and painted them white!

You can see the fermata on the red onesie and the math joke on the blue one. I also have a few more - another math joke, plus a mountain climbing on for Grizz, and a Montana one to honor the state she was born in. The "Cutie Pi" was made with only paint, but the others are a combination of painted designs with iron-on letters for the words. When I do this project again, I will do my best to only use paint - the letters look like they're starting to fall off from stretching the onesies so much while getting them over Peanut's head.

The bottom onesie is one that was created at a baby shower. The hostess had a lot of onesies, burp rags and bibs to be decorated with paint and stencils. I made the cow one :) I decided to switch it up and paint the outline instead of just the inside of the cow. It was such a fun project at the shower!

**The "Acute Baby" onesie was worn to the shower thrown by a few math teachers I subbed for often :)

One Month

 So, by now, little Peanut is over 5 weeks old, but humor me when I call this the 1 month post :) The top picture shows one of her favorite positions when she's fussy... Grizz will just carry her around in a football hold and she'll calm down (for a little bit at least!). Her other favorite position is of course sleeping on my chest (she's there right now as I type this!). The bottom picture shows here there... we were getting ready to walk in to the funeral last week and she stuck this pose. It's like she knew that she could bring some joy to the family during a very sad time. Everybody oohed and ahed as she held that position for a good couple of minutes :)

 And bring joy she did. The aunt who passed away loved children, and it's hard to think that she never got to meet little Peanut... but little Peanut was able to put a smile on a lot of faces amongst the sadness, and for that, I am grateful. It was also fun to see her with her 2nd and 3rd cousins who are about 6 and 2 months older that her (when we move back, they'll all be in the same grade!). Here she is with her great-grandparents (Grizz's mom's parents), her grandparents (Grizz's parents), and with one of Grizz's sisters. The short night and morning we were able to be with my parents went by in a blurr, so no new pictures with my family.

And finally, the comparison picture. 1 week to 1 month. And even as I hold her now, I promise she's still growing! (Maybe we should call her a Little Dandelion instead of Peanut for how fast she's growing!).

A few highlights of our little girl:

• She's starting to like baths a little more, and she likes diaper changes maybe 50% of the time (sometimes she'll be so calm and stare at the basket holding cloth wipes, and sometimes she'll scream and show off her lungs). 
• She does not like really warm days (she barely slept at all yesterday because she was so warm and fussy - don't worry, she's making up for the lack of sleep today! Yay!). 
• She does tend to be a bit colic-y in the evenings, and she has been fussy during the day as well. We're still working on reducing the amount of air she takes in while feeding; plus, she's a hard baby to get burps up... this all leads to a very uncomfortable, gassy baby. But when she cuddles her little head under my chin, it makes up for any amount of fussiness! She is such a cuddle bug! 
• She loves to bounce, so we'll hold her and sit on the exercise ball to calm her down sometimes. 
• She is slowly starting to enjoy her swing a little more, but it definitely doesn't work to calm her down. 
• She struggles sleeping on her back (remember the gassiness!), so she'll sleep on my chest or in her bouncy chair. 
• We've started using the cloth diapers a little bit every now and then, but she has a pretty bad diaper rash and we're using a cream that is not cloth diaper friendly. When it clears up, it's back to the prefolds and covers!

Ok, I'll stop boring you :) Plus, I think it's time for another episode of Grey's Anatomy on Netflix... Have a great day!