Hand-Painted Onesies: Erin Lynn Designs

Recently I was the lucky winner of two hand-painted, custom-made onesies from Erin Lynn Designs.

Erin's business is new to Facebook; thus, she offered a giveaway drawing for 2 free stenciled baby bodysuits once she hit 100 "likes" and I was the randomly picked winner...woo hoo!

Here is what she created for our Claire Bear:

And this one was part of our Father's Day gift to my CPA husband, "Daddy's lil Tax Deduction":

I think they turned out great and are an unique addition to Claire's growing wardrobe. By the way, she also creates some beautiful baby blankets if you are in the market for a gift.

Last but not least, is some good news for you: Erin Lynn Designs is offering up another giveaway when she hits 200 "likes" so head over to her Facebook page and like it today for a chance to win!

I blame this dress...

...for inspiring a crazy woman to start cataloging ideas for Claire's 1st Birthday already.

And yes, if you are keeping track, she turns just 3 months old this week :-)

And yes, the crazy woman is me.

Isn't it adorable though? It was a great deal today on zulily.

For the record, I do not want this year to rush by whatsoever. In fact, I wish I could press pause and freeze time with her with each passing day, but you never know when & where inspiration will strike and today there was no denying it. The colors, patterns and textures from the dress are perfect for a future Claire Celebration.

So if you are interested in my proactive party-planning ideas, check them out on this pinterest board. And if you have any ideas that fit the vibe, please share! I have nothing but 9 more months of time.

First Father's Day

Happy First Father's Day to the best new daddy I know.

Claire is a very lucky little girl.

Drink Your Vegetables

I really needed a way to pack in some more nutrients to my maternity leave diet. Most of my daytime meals are whatever I can fix in a flash, often microwave leftovers or quick snacks with a few too many boxes of mac n cheese making an appearance. Veggies are usually for dinner only...if we're lucky.

Since I had been hearing a lot about Green Smoothies (smoothies including fresh greens such as spinach or kale), I decided to give one a try for breakfast today and I really just winged it.

First, I threw some blueberries in the freezer overnight to chill the smoothie and act as my "ice", but in the future I will likely get frozen fruit to skip this step. If I'm going to freeze it anyway, frozen fruit is cheaper and less perishable.

Next, I layered the following ingredients in my blender:

• 1 large handful of frozen fresh blueberries
• 6 fresh strawberries
• 2+ handfuls of fresh baby spinach
• 1 whole banana
• enough skim milk to cover the blueberries below

I gave it a few pulses, stirred it with a spoon to get the spinach to sink down, and proceeded to blend. This was the result:





My only trouble is I woke a sleeping baby with the blender...oops:



Here it is ready to drink, and wow was it delicious! I like spinach, but even if you are a greens hater this is a great way to hide them from yourself, or your family, because you really can't taste them!

Moral of the story: Do not fear the green smoothie (which is actually purple). I think I'll add even more spinach next time!

On the Pinterest Bandwagon

As if I needed another way to waste precious time online, in walks Pinterest. With its appealing social sharing ways, its design-centric slant and overall ability to organize every random thing I ever find online... how could I not give it a chance.

One night and I'm hooked. I literally pulled an all-nighter "pinning" once I figured it out.

If you are into online browsing, cataloging, mood boarding, or just looking at pretty, shiny things, you must check out Pinterest.

If you are already a member follow me as a newbie getting the hang of things :-)

If not, leave me your email address and I can send you an invite! Once you're "in", you can link it to facebook, twitter or even your gmail or yahoo account to find other friends who "pin" and your network just grows from there.

Happy Pinning!

Strawberry Fields

On Memorial Day we started a new tradition with our new little family: Strawberry Picking!

We were in St. Louis for the weekend, so we invited the grandmas and our friends to join us for a morning of picking berries at Eckert's in Belleville, IL.

Growing up I had been to Eckert's to pick apples, but never strawberries so we were excited to see what was in store for us.

The grandmas both got to work right away in the fields:

Claire was blissfully unaware that there was any strawberry picking taking place, but she did sport a strawberry print romper for the occasion:





Then we showed her the crop (apparently, she was not as impressed as we were with her perfect strawberry):



It really was a gorgeous day.









And our friend's daughter, Little Miss O, made sure to sample the goods:



Our pickings. We walked away with 5.75 lbs of berries from which we made strawberry pie, strawberry jam and strawberry mojitos:



Claire was very excited to be creating these family memories:





I think we'll make this an annual event.



We are looking forward to apple picking this fall, too, expecially since Claire will be a little older. Last year we went apple picking in Wisconsin at Apple Holler Orchard since it is quite a bit closer to home, but perhaps we'll trek back to Eckert's this time around. Oh and I already ordered her an outfit for the occasion...these adorable apple dungarees from Boden:

How cute are these?

Here's to many more fruitful family outings :-)

Claire's Room featured on Ohdeedoh

After spending most of my pregnancy bookmarking and swooning over all the remarkable nurseries featured on Ohdeedoh, suffice it to say that I was more than humbled when they found our nursery on flickr and deemed it worthy to feature.

Check out their post: Claire Elizabeth's Cozy Nursery in a Contemporary Loft Nursery Tour

I hope our nursery helps inspire future parents-to-be as so many others did for me.