Daddy Meets Penny for the First Time

Many of you know that my husband was deployed to Afghanistan last October during my 7th month of pregnancy (pretty good timing, eh?). It was a long 7 months, especially after the baby was born; not because she was a tough baby to deal with, but because I wanted more than anything for him to be able to see her.. hold her... kiss her... to know her like I did.

When Penny was born, I emailed Dan pictures from my cell phone, but that was all I could do to make him feel a part of it.

Well, 7 months has passed and our new little family has finally been united. Thanks to the amazing Ryan Southwell Films, we will have this moment to treasure forever. I can't say ENOUGH about Ryan and I'm so glad he was able to be with us documenting one of the most precious moments of our life. Thank you Ryan for the greatest gift anyone could ask for.

If for some reason the video image isn't showing up, refresh the page or just go HERE.

Lieutenant Dan has been deployed in Afghanistan since last October and is on his way home. But what makes it special is that he has a new baby daughter waiting to meet him for the first time. Watch as this journey unfolds throughout the day as the tension builds and the family reunites for the first time as three. It's a crusher. You can't help but feel some of the patriotism when he arrives home. As I said in a prequel to this post, this is the stuff life is all about.

I chose this song because it starts soft and subtle, with a little bit of mystery. But the end has a huge payoff that I love. Lifehouse - "Everything".

To My Valentine

A sneak peak of my Valentine's Gift for the hubby:

A HUGE thank you to the amazing and talented Lori Hull Photography.

Lori lives in California but also travels to Utah and Oregon for group photo sessions!
She also shoots in the comfort of your own home (as seen in my session)!

Although you won't need any ideas with her extensive and impressive creativity, she is always open to your ideas.

Her use of color, editing, and skill is absolutely amazing.

And best of all... if you mention Shabby Addict and book a session with her before the end of March you will receive $100 off your portrait package!

Thank you, Lori, for capturing Penny and I together in one of the most precious stages of our lives.

Special Christmas Delivery

She's finally here!

Penny May
December 4, 2009
6 lbs. 6 oz.

We're in love.

My Big Fat Belly Won't Stop Me!

Only 2 more months to go until I pop this little creature out of me... but until then, I'm not wasting any time! Let the shopping begin (not for baby... for me, of course!)

Much needed settee pillows...

How cute is this? My favorite rusty green/aqua color. Will be put to use for my linens in our master bath.

Such a sucker for rustiness!

Hmmm... what to do with this robin egg blue treat? Sometimes I buy things just for the color. Do I have a place for it? No... but I'm sure I'll find one...eventually...? There's always room in the guest room, right?

PROJECT!! This will be fun. Hmm, what color? Oh, and where should I put it? Another minor detail.

Still on the hunt for the perfect dust ruffle... have yet to find it. I love this one. Wish I knew where to get one like it!

Still on the never-ending hunt for a giant lean-to mirror. LOVE the look of these! They used to have one in Rachel Ashwell's store, but it was like $10,000. Could never justify spending that on a mirror! Sure did love it though...

Last but not least... can you even believe Christmas is RIGHT around the corner already!?? I'm too drained to get ready for Christmas! I feel like I JUST put my decorations away! Fastest year ever... This is my "I love you dear beautiful tree" look. This tree was absolutely gorgeous.

Stay tuned for next post.. shopping spree for baby! Found some cute things.. can't wait to set up camp ; )

Back From the Dead (literally)

WOW! I cannot believe how long it has been since I have been on my poor, neglected blog!! I am starting (and I repeat.. starting.. KNOCK on wood) to feel a little better now that I am a little over 3 months along FINALLY. Not only have I neglected my blog and everyone else's wonderful blogs (because EVERYTHING about going on the computer made me nauseous), I have also been neglecting my business, my poor house (you should our bedroom!) my friends (because socializing even made me nauseous), good food, the bills, and basically everything important in life... can I just tell you (or remind you) how BORING life is when all you can do is lay around all day.. and not even read a magazine without feeling nauseous? ..but now that I have arisen from my grave, I am starting to get back into the swing of things. I am sure the PS (pregnancy sickness- what brilliant man ever decided to name it "morning" sickness anyway?) will hit again because it seems to always come back right when you think it's over!...

MORE BLOG ENTRIES TO COME!! Because I was feeling a little better last weekend, my mom, sister, and I went antiquing... great pics to follow!

How the Time Flies!

Can anyone else believe that we are almost through with November already? Where is the time going?? I can't believe how fast the end of the year always flies.. It seems like just yesterday I was last on blogger but looking at that date it has already been 3 weeks! I guess it just wouldn't be considered "The Holidays" without time flying the way it does.

On to more important things... like my chandelier project ; ) I am almost through; just adding the finishing touches and hanging a few more prisms here and there. I have to admit, I actually am pretty unhappy with the base color I chose. Originally I was going to go light blue/aqua-ish, then I changed my mind to white, but then I decided to combine the white and blue and do a powdered blue/white chandelier distressed look. I wish I would have stuck with the white. It took my hubby quite some time to hang it back up and rewire it, so I don't think I will be asking him to take it back down anytime soon!! I may have to paint it while it's hanging up there... I'm kind of OCD like that- if I am not completely satisfied with something, I have to change it right away or it will just bug the life out of me!! I still have to paint the cord anyway, so I may as well fix the base too!

Before:
After:
And on to even more important things...

My husband, sister, and her boyfriend all went to Disneyland last week and it certainly was magical as always! I love going to Disneyland during the holiday season because the whole park is decorated beautifully! We went on a Friday and it was WONDerful! No lines at all! Our longest wait was about 10 minutes- it was the d-land trip to die for!

Sleeping Beauty's magical Castle decorated for the holidays...

The Haunted Mansion all spruced up for the holidays...I just love the way the Haunted Mansion decorates for the holidays because they keep the overall "dark and creepy" feel while still adding holiday fun.
There were wreath swags all over the park in all different colors and themes.
This tree was SUPER tall and all decked out with beautiful bulbs and lights.
Please excuse our nastiness in this picture... we had just gotten off Splash Mountain an hour earlier and were SOAKed! My hair never completely dried until the drive home!

Just to give you an idea of how wet you get on Splash Mountain (if you are "lucky") see my sister below:


If you haven't been this season and you live in Southern California, go simply just to see all the decorations and to eat a warm and yummy apple fritter!

Calendars, Memos, Message Boards, and Pianos!

After months of searching, I finally found and purchased my dream white baby grand piano! I am so excited! It plays beautifully and fits right in with my living room decor ; ) It was a long and tedious search (it's hard to find a new white piano; they are pretty rare) but it well was worth all the driving, patience, and time that it required!
The pictures aren't the best quality because the sun was gleaming through the window which ruined my camera lighting!

I also found these darling calendar/memo board ideas I wanted to share:


Isn't this kind of cool? It's a life size calendar constructed with ribbon!
I fell in love with these sea foam shutters framing the memo board!

Simple, fresh, colorful.

Perfect symmetry. Life sized. Love it!

Inspiration

Wow how the time flies in between blogs! It has been so hectic and nutty around here! I know, I know.. I'm not the only one with a lot going on so it's no excuse! But, this morning, things slowed down a bit and I had time to get on my beloved Mac and do some blog hopping and create a blog post myself!
I was driving home from a soccer game last Saturday and saw this little fella just sitting on someone's driveway garage sale at 10:30. I thought to myself, "what in the world is a chair like that still sitting at a garage sale at 10:30"!! So of course I pulled over and got myself an amazing deal on an amazing antique chair! I am so excited to recover this beaut! As you can tell, it's in storage along with all our other belongings (as we wait for our home to close on October 3rd!) so, until then Mr. Chair!

Aren't these curtains beautiful? The whole bathroom is amazing, but the curtains just totally stuck out to me!

I love the simple elegance of this room. The mirrors on the wall are perfectly hung (sometimes when people try this technique it can look a bit cluttery). This room has nice clean lines but still allows for a "home-y, lived-in feeling".

I absolutely love this room. I am a huge fan of color because I feel it makes a home "a home". I love the combination of yellows with the mint oversized chair. Beautifully done!

Isn't this a fabulous glass bottle collection? The mirror behind the bottles was a brilliant choice! Love it!

I have finally started putting my "idea notebook" together which consists of hundreds (maybe thousands?) of magazine clippings and printouts of pictures from the wonderful blogs I visit who provide such beautiful pictures! Thank you all for the inspiration! There are SO many ways to go when decorating a home, it's hard to narrow it down! But that is the beauty of design; you can change and rearrange any time you like!

Finally Back in Town!

Wow! I feel like I have been all over the place this summer! I am so excited to be able to be back home (well, my temporary home while I wait for my REAL home to close escrow!) and excited to catch up on everyone's blogs! I haven't been able to blog for a while now!

First things first... I started off with this whole out of town deal with a little trip with my husband to Santa Barbara to stay with his parents. Little did we know it would turn into a whole shopping extravaganza! We pulled in Friday night and my husband says, "you better get on Craigslist and get some garage sale addresses together. I don't know if there are going to be a lot of garage sales in Santa Barbara, but we should give it a shot.." Because we were in Santa Barbara, I definitely didn't have high expectations because it is such a ritzy little city, so we assumed that most people just give away their unwanted items to Salvation Army. We sure did misjudge! I had never been to better garage sales in my life! There were SO many garage sales and people were selling GREAT items and at really good prices. Too bad Santa Barbara is 3.5 hours from where we just moved to! SORRY I didn't take any pictures! Everything is being stored at their home in SB but I will definitely take pictures when it gets moved down to our place.

After coming home and hanging around the house, I (of course) decided to check out the city's Craigslist. There wasn't a ton listed, but everything that was listed were some fabulous craigslist finds! So frantically I emailed all the listings I was interested in (I hate it when they don't put phone numbers in their ads!) and patiently waited for a response. The three things I was most interested in were 1) A Rachel Ashwell Settee (If you have followed my blog, you know how LONG I have been wanting a long sofa settee!) 2) A matching set of 2 antique chairs and a small 2 seater settee 3) A Rachel Ashwell big comfy sofa (perfect for our loft!) SO to make a very long and stressful story short, it was the same woman selling all three of these items and she emailed back the next morning saying she had SO many responses to these items that she was going to take bids and the highest bidder would win. You KNOW she was loving this! I've never had craigslist turn into a live auction before! So, we went over to the home to take a closer look at the items and of course fell even more in love. I know I promised to make the long story short, so I will just tell you now that I "won" all three of the items thanks to the woman who happened to take a liking to us!

I didn't take any pictures of the items I bought, but I found the same settee in a magazine:


And here are the pics from the actual craigslist listing for the chair/settee set.. they are really BAD quality but you can at least get an idea:
The comfy couch we purchased had never been used (I guess she kept it in some random room) which is a big bonus because I'm not a huge fan of "used couch" buying. The couch is the one pictured at the top of the blog. It's not the actual picture but it's pretty much the same couch.

SO that was our Santa Barbara weekend in a nutshell! I can't wait to move it all in! Next on the list? A baby grand piano!

Would Haves, Could Haves, and Should Haves

I have now officially moved to Southern California! The housing market is extremely competitive right now! Thank goodness the prices are low because it is at the point where, if you really want the home, you can't play around with your offers; if the house is listed as $500 and you are really interested, then you have to bid like $520... Kind of a bummer because it was way different during the beginning of this year where you could have low balled the offer, but unfortunately we weren't ready to purchase then. My husband always tells me how much he despises the "what ifs" or "could have/should have" statements because they are things that have passed and cannot change. So I try real hard to not make those statement, HOWever, I was looking back at some photos from Northern California and have a few regrets...



About a week before we moved out, we went to Summer's Cottage in Petaluma, CA and I fell in love with this cabinet and rocking chair. Because we hadn't picked out a home yet, I worried I wouldn't find a spot for them. What if the front porch wasn't one you could put a chair on? What if it just didn't go with the look of the home? Usually I go by the philosophy that if I love something, I will find a place for it- but in this case, I was hesitant and not sure why. So, I took some pics and told myself I would go home and think about it. Well, things got pretty busy with the move and all, and I never had the chance to drive back up to Petaluma. I look at these pictures today and, yes Dan, I REGRET not purchasing these when I had the chance!!

I did, however, purchase some little things including an aqua mercury candlestick, a vintage crystal lamp, and an awesome watering can. These were things I felt I could absolutely find a place for and couldn't pass up.
I think I put Dan to good use here haha... what a trooper. The brown plaid thing he is holding is not from Summer's Cottage- it's a doggy seat cover for our car... just in case you were wondering : )