The things that fall by the wayside

Hello Anybody!

If it's not crazily apparent, I've been a bit preoccupied being a new Mama.

Wynne Bennet (that's right, after the Bennet sisters from Pride and Prejudice!) was born a day before her Daddy's birthday (!) at about 7 AM, she weighed in at 7 lbs 7 oz and a little over 20 inches long.

As a result, this blog is one of those things that has been allowed to gather dust, along with the dust bunnies that have accumulated around the house.

Lemme interrupt myself right there and say the hubbster has stepped up like I never imagined cleaning and doing everything that I would just have let go to pot (clean bathrooms? who needs 'em?!) along with being an amazing and sweet father. Thanks to loving, wonderful family, food was never a problem, and my Mama even helped me get some sleep in the first few nights when I just wasn't used to getting that little sleep (I cannot sleep during the day, I'm sorry! That whole "sleep when baby sleeps" neeeeeever worked for me!)

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I considered still making blogging a priority and then realized that I just didn't want to talk about a lot of that stuff (labor and delivery, hormones, chronic lack of sleep, etc...) and didn't think anyone who was here to see a wedding blog would want to read it anyway.

But it's clear that I won't be blogging about weddings anymore, so with much bittersweetness, it's time to retire Eleven Twenty Five Eleven, and dedicate my very limited free time to more appropriate topics. But you know what? I picked the right one! The Man has smoothly transitioned to The Dad and still looks sexy as hell doing it! This blog was not just about budget and DIY and the stupid dress ;) It was about marrying my other half, and I'm so glad I took that step with him, and even more glad we took the next step!

I WILL be creating a new blog as soon as  the dust really settles, and it will be dedicated to all things baby.

My New Baby Blog!! (coming soon)

Thank you all so much for following me on the crazy wedding ride, the Mama roller coaster is ten million times crazier but 100 million quantities of AWESOME!! So continue on with me... if you dare. In the meantime, while I won't bombard you all, for those who don't mind seeing baby pictures, here's a representation of the past six months of my life:

 Her first photoshoot! I did it myself!! She was an amazingly cooperative 2 month old :)

Besties!!!

(Actually, Bailey is terrified of Wynne, but it gets a little better everyday)

 

Don't they look great as grandparents!!!

 

We call her Monkey, Wynnie Bear, and Bear-Bear, she's got the brightest, bluest, biggest, beautifullest eyes a Mama could ever want to look at everyday!

Rae Rae, her paternal grandma, is the best at getting her to smile for pictures! Boppi, her maternal grandpa, is best at making her laugh!

Her first food was avocado and she absolutely loooooooves it! Since then, she's graduated to pears, sweet potatoes, carrots, peas, bananas and peaches!

I've succeeded so far in making all her baby food from scratch... SO FAR! It's no picnic and I have no idea if there would be any bit of difference from Gerber, but she's a fantastic eater, and I think (based on no scientific evidence) that homemade baby food has something to do with it.

Besides, no baby food company makes avocado puree, we don't know what we'd do without the mighty avocado!!

 
Sitting up and rolling over at 5 months, and she loves the bouncy gyms!!

 

My little six month old munchkin, checkin' her e-mails! So big!! Well, that was just this morning, so that's all I've got (I mean, you know, as an overview). Again, thanks for trekking along with me, I hope to still see everyone as the journey continues!!

When you love something too much

I was musing recently about why I still haven't even attempted to put an album together (no one else, by the way, seems to think this is a big deal, not the man, not my parents, not his parents, no one), and it struck me last night while I was ordering some photos from Shutterfly, because I got another one of those awesome 101 free prints e-mails, for no reason, other than that Shutterfly is awesome, that it's because most albums contain about... 80-160 images or so.

Our photographer gave us over 1,000... I cannot narrow down my favorites past 300-some! I mean come on!! How do you do it?? So here I am blogging about albums again because all this time I thought I was holding back because of price when in reality it's because I don't WANT to narrow down my favorites anymore.

At the end of the day, I know I have all 1,000+ images from our wedding day on a DVD, all hi res, that is ours forever. However, like so many other brides out there, I know that I still want a hard copy album that we break out every anniversary and giggle at, that my daughter(s) may someday fantasize over (and point out how skinny Mommy used to be! And Daddy used to have brown hair?!)

So, my newest scheme/solution is this:

1. Order prints every time Shutterfly sends me these awesome deals, 101 or 50 or however many at a time, until I have ordered all my favorites!
2. Spread them out on the table by category; details, formals, portraits, ceremony, reception, cake cutting, etc...
3. Now that they're all spread out in front of me, finally conceptualize that I don't need five shots of my dress, even though Ben put the dress in so many beautiful spots and there are so many awesome shots to be favorites!
4. Narrow down my favorites to no more than 180 or so, I'm sure I can find an album that will let me squeeze that many in, and finally put together an album
5. DAMN THE EXPENSE!! and finally get my hard copy that I can hold and touch and see whenever I want, and get parent albums even though they never asked for them, because that's what a good daughter does; says 'Look how pretty, Mama!! Just what you needed, more pictures of me!'

The end, that's my five step program to finally be able to stop talking about albums. Can I talk to you about some other stuff???

We're slowly putting our house together, we have lots of hand-me-down furniture which was all chilling in the basement, well, now our guest rooms are arranged! The baby's room is getting set up, which has me super excited:

The ceiling is burnt orange, the walls are pickle juice green. Say what you will, it looks awesome in person. This is the first time I got to pick a room color and no one try to talk me out of it, and they actually go really well together, add our awesome new crib, and it's officially a baby's room! Freaky, right?!

It might seem jarring, but picking our color scheme; orange, green, and brown, was similar to picking out wedding colors. His favorite color is green, mine is orange, we didn't know if it was going to work, but when then when you add brown, it makes everything else mesh. Trust me.

Since this picture was taken, we added a few dressers and a lamp, and a freaking awesome rug:

It's my new favorite room in the house, that rug is 7.5' by 9.5', so it covers almost the entire floor, and it's super soft and super awesome.

This kid is going to be the coolest in town. I always wanted to be different, but our tiny human has no choice :)

In other news, anniversary/birthdays/Christmas is coming up. First anniversary is supposed to be paper, and I once ruined a copy of the Lord of the Rings that I borrowed from Kyle (I put it in a bag with a coffee mug that I thought was empty... it wasn't). It was never a real collector's item anyway, so it was no biggie to him, but it's one of our favorite books and so not only do I want to replace that copy, I also want to have a really nice copy for our library.

For the record, Kyle doesn't read my blog but I know there are those out there that do that are friends with him, PLEASE DON'T MENTION A WORD OF THIS!!

After extensive searching, I found a whole bunch of this:

However, you have to be willing to pay the price for this kind of thing... and we're talking the $600 variety. Cheaper on eBay, but harder to find a complete set in great condition. SO, then I reflected on the fact that J.R.R. Tolkien himself wanted the three books of the Lord of the Rings to be one volume, but at the time it was written, this was going to cost too much paper, so I'm also considering getting a one volume edition, but those are much cheaper and so they make me feel like I'm cheating... which sounds stupid, but I don't know whether to go with separate volumes for the cool, leather-bound look, or one volume for the author-intended look. Any ideas???? Suggestions????

We're also movie buffs, and one of The Man's favorite movies is The Big Lebowski:

For anyone who's been living under a rock since 1998 or has no sense of humor, it's a very silly movie about a guy who does nothing but bowl and drink white russians. That's The Dude, and his last name happens to be Lebowski but everyone calls him The Dude (either that or His Dudeness or Duder or el Duderino, if you're not into the whole brevity thing).

There does exist, however, an older, much richer, much more accomplished man named Lebowski and there's a classic case of mistaken identity. Rugs go missing, toes get chopped off, and The Dude finds his zen-like world thrown for a loop as he has to run around trying to make shady deals and ransom trophy wives. Also John Turturro wears purple and refers to himself as The Jesus.

Anyway, Jeff Bridges, The Dude, rocks this sweater for the majority of the movie:

And unfortunately, the company that makes this sweater is no longer in business. Kyle and I consider it the essence of The Dude and I found the pattern online to knit this sweater!!

I couldn't keep this one a secret because I knit it right in front of him, but the point is, this is his birthday/Christmas present, and I'm telling you because I'm super excited about it!!!

Last Christmas/birthday time was chaotic and sort of dismissed because of the wedding but he's been so awesome and worked so hard for the past year and done so much for me, and now we've got a baby coming and I don't want to act once again like this is just another unimportant birthday/Christmas/anniversary because 'too much is going on.' (Also I never know what I want, I never really want anything in particular, so I always just say, 'Oh, let's just go to dinner and a movie.' and he ends up paying for everything and then we call it "birthday/Christmas" but it's always one-sided and it always feels like a cop-out). It might be one of the last times I can afford (time AND money) to do some really nice things for him.

Lastly, my baby shower is next weekend!!

My invitations!!! They're so cute!! And how funny is it that we found ones in our color scheme?! See, I told you it works!

So, I'm super excited about everything that's going on, it's a good time right now, work is slow but it will pick up. And although there's a lot to do around the house and Kyle stresses non-stop about getting everything done AND getting all his work done, we're doing awesome.

Life is good, I am thankful. I hope everyone else has a super awesome day!!

Oh I've got the funk!

And so, half a month after my last blog post, I've got a job (YAY!!) and have come into a pretty hectic time. Unfortunately, this coincides with a not-so-great period of my awesome pregnancy.

I still wouldn't trade it for anything, but my lungs are officially in my cheeks and my heart is in my esophagus and my stomach is in my throat. The whole rest of the body is reserved just for Peanut. My heartburn (although I wouldn't trade it for one day of morning sickness... gotta' keep reminding myself of my luck there) is near unbearable. I have a hard time focusing, sitting down, being happy, etc... It's not everyday... damn near, but I didn't have any yesterday... but when it strikes, it strikes long and hard and lasts all day. No food or drink or lack of food or drink helps. I've tried chewing gum, I've tried Tums, of course, I've tried massive quantities of water, no relief. The worst is that it isn't the acid-in-the-back-of-the-throat burpy kind of heartburn, this is hard core deep chest pain that feels like there is a blunt object tumbling around in my esophagus or windpipe or wherever. I don't care where it is, it's in my chest and it feels like 'Damnit if I could just swallow it down into my stomach, this feeling of something lodged in there would go away.' but that is not the case because obviously there is no object lodged there.

My lungs and heart feel like they're working beaucoup overtime. My blood pressure is fine, but my cholesterol is up (a little known fun fact about pregnancy; your cholesterol can increase by as much as 50% in your third trimester!). So after one flight of steps, I'm winded AND my heart feels like it's beating out of my chest. I would accept this as 'this is just the way it is' but I thought I was in shape, so it's kind of discouraging. Don't you have to work, kind of really hard in the delivery room? Can my squished lungs and overworked heart take it??

My job keeps me busy all day, which is nice. I haven't even really started working yet, just making research plans and settling in, but ordering supplies and getting all my paperwork filled out has really kept me busy. Add physicals to that, doctor appointments, and running back and forth to Philly to deposit my thesis at UPenn (WHOO HOO!!), and you've got one packed schedule. Unfortunately, Kyle is also super busy at work and when he's at home, he's usually worrying about all the stuff at home and back at work that still needs to be done. It's upsetting because he's very hard to cheer up when he decides to be in a bad mood or when he decides to be pessimistic about this or that getting done. I suppose this goes along with his massive job responsibilities, a new house, and a new baby. Maybe I'm overly optimistic but it can be rough sometimes when you feel like your hubby is slowly slipping into a permanent funk and you're all by yourself on Happy Island. When you're both in a bad mood?? Fugettaboutit! Just stay out of each other's way.

So I have to apologize for a long-winded and unorganized post. My brain is muddled and like I said, the heartburn makes it hard to focus. I'm going to get back to work now and try to get more stuff done for another two hours or so before I give up. Hopefully I'll be in a better mood next post, but today I just needed to vent. Thanks for reading.

Being lazy is a full time job!

I'm not even going to apologize, you know how awful I am, just picture my sad, repentant face, not being able to look you in the eye:

I can't even lie and say I've been busy. Per my last post, I had defended my thesis, got my PhD, and then went home and chilled basically! I had revisions to make on my written thesis, that sucks because you think you're done and then you have to get back into it. Final product is 127 pages long! Revisions didn't take up all my time though, basically, my time has been spent being a little stir crazy. Some people would blog every day. I, on the other hand, feel like if I have nothing to do, I don't want to do nuthin'! I still don't feel like a doctor, I feel unemployed! That's right, I'm STILL waiting for my official letter of employment from my new job, I've been assured that it's been written, just hasn't been mailed to me yet. I should have a job within a week... which is really really important as I am officially off the payroll at Penn, and for the first time in six years, I didn't get a paycheck at the end of this month... I'm freakin' out a little!

Did I mention we're pregnant?! Yeah, I did, last post. I'm looking decidedly preggers now:

And this picture is even two weeks old. I've gained about 2 or 3 more pounds since this was taken... all in the belly, hopefully. Oddly, I've been not freaked out at all about the number on the scale, maybe because I've never really paid much attention to the scale, because I'm lazy. Now, all I have to worry about is that I don't gain too too much weight, about a pound a week, and I'm OK! I still love waffles, every day, but I've also started chugging milk hard core. A gallon lasts about three days now, and Kyle doesn't drink milk.

Funny story, our besties Mia and Dan came to visit us for Labor day with their little man, who is 10 months old now (!!) and I was drinking milk out of the carton (yeah, whatever, because I'm a slob, get over it!) and Mia gave me a hard time. Apparently bacteria from your mouth make the milk go bad faster. I said 'Mia, this milk is not going to last more than another day.' She asked where I picked up the habit and I said from my dad, there was a pause, and before she could say anything I said 'Milk was lucky to last two days in my house growing up.'

I think my dad will appreciate that one. So I'm so sorry to say I didn't think to take a single picture of the little man while they were visiting (because it's about the most exciting thing to happen to us since I last posted) but what a cutie he is!

(via Dan's Facebook) He's a shameless flirt, and he's got this smirk he does that makes you blush, then you remember you're a grown woman and this kid is smooooooth! Ha, just kidding, but he is smooth. He was so happy all weekend, Bailey on the other hand was not. Her whole world was thrown upside down, she and I had to have words, a lot, and she spent a lot of time in time out in Mommy and Daddy's room. She was jealous of who was in my lap and yet constantly worried about Gabriel, following him around and whimpering. So if there's anything I'm nervous about, it's how our baby, which will obviously be a full time live-in, will throw her world into chaos. I love her, but she is no longer the numero uno priority.

Does anyone else have kids and dogs? And did you have issues? If so, how did you deal with them? Everyone tells me she'll get used to the extra tiny human. We shall see.

So, I'm getting ready to watch the Eagles hopefully play nice together. I'll post soon about registry (because sure this isn't a baby blog, but everyone loves registries!), nesting and hopefully having a confirmed job. P.S. our lovely wedding photographer Ben Weldon and his wife Rose had their first baby this past week!! Hooray!!! They named him Grey. Cool, no? We're getting old enough now that we value our friends for their potential future playdates :)

How's everyone else doin'???

A doctor and a baby

What a jerk I am, I know it's been way way too long. In normal circumstances, I might consider ditching a person who hadn't updated her blog for this long! But as I'm sure we all know, sometimes life happens. This is what's been happening:

Writing a thesis...

Writing a thesis...

Writing a thesis...

DONE!!

Preparing for my defense...

Preparing for my defense...

.............

DEFENDED!!! GOT A PhD!!!!!

Can't believe it's over, still hasn't sunk in, but I am done reporting to committees and dreading every meeting and feeling inadequate... well, I am sure I will continue to feel inadequate in life, but not in this sense anymore. I'm supposedly the equal to my doctor peers now, so they have to respect my authority!

Here's how a defense goes: You give a presentation that sums up, in about a half an hour to 45 minutes, five years of intense, spirit-breaking work at a bench or a computer or wherever, and then everyone claps and no one asks you any questions because you had to leave so much out that they never really followed you anyway (and according to Kyle, I spoke too fast). Then everyone leaves and your committee grills you about anything they felt you left out. It's funny, you think, they don't ask you any questions about your presentation or your thesis, which you're prepared for, they ask you all the questions you didn't think about first.

They asked me a few questions about what I thought was going on; like a model of cell behavior, that I really really had no answer to, and I gave it my best shot but I really didn't think it was going to fly. But I guess they were satisfied enough with the effort. At least I didn't cry :) (that's a joke. I would not have let these people see me get frazzled).

And then it was over and they switched from this:

To this:

It was gross. Just kidding, but it is weird, it's a very bipolar experience.

Anyway, so that's the PhD process. They call you doctor and you go on your way, it's over, go find something else to do! Hopefully the funding for my new job will be all set and then I can sit back and just relax till the new job starts. I'll hopefully be working at Fox Chase Cancer Center starting late August or early September.

Buuuuuut, that's not my only news... of course, Kyle and I are also expecting a little bundle of joy!! (or poop, depending on how you look at parenthood) It'll look a little something like this:

Crazy yes?! I'm five months pregnant!! I had no morning sickness, no problems so far, and I've officially felt it moving around. I want sweet things all the time. I can't function without my morning waffles anymore or my afternoon jello. And I'm starting to show enough that I had to get new pants and a few new shirts... but mostly I just feel fat! I can't reach my toes anymore!! Although I might just be out of shape flexibility-wise. If I have one piece of advice, it's stay at least a little active, it's made my weight gain not so so bad and kept me feeling good. I was really really tired at first, and then I started walking, nothing major, just a half hour in the mornings, and I stopped feeling like I had to take a nap every morning and afternoon.

So the blog focus might shift a little again, don't worry, it's not going to be crazy baby. In fact, a good friend is getting married (yay!) and has asked me to be bridesmaid, so I will still be talking about weddings. I am also going to start album planning as well, because my mom wants an album, and I'm still interested in DIYing an album, you know, self-binding. I think it'll be fun! I also want to play with the pictures with this instagram-like website called pixlr, it makes your pictures go from this:

 To this:

That's a little extreme of an example (I already loooooove that photo as it is), but you know what I mean, you can modify the colors of your photos AND add effects. It's pretty awesome. More on that as I make more.

That being said, there will be some baby stuff. For now, just me, five months preggers!

Just starting to pooch out a little :) I've started a poll with my family and friends, I'll post more about that later. Right now it's been a half an hour and of course, I have to pee again :P

Don't tell anyone I was here!

I'm supposed to be writing my thesis! I have TWO WEEKS to get it done! I am literally just here to say hello, and share a photo:

See, I have this wonderful man who, when I said I love the flowers around our house, went out and cut some for me! We have lots and lots of hydrangea already established around our house and they bloom in all sorts of pretty colors! I was also delighted to find that we have a few garden rose bushes around the house (those cute little light pink flowers in the middle there). We have lavender and daisies and even Gerbara daisies (none that were in cutting shape though).

Isn't he sweet?! He'd be proportionally sour though if he knew I was blogging instead of writing :) I must get back to work! Can't promise I'll be around for the next two weeks, but I'll have some big news when I get back ;)

We break for houses!

Double entendre, a break in recaps and the Man and I do indeed break for houses. It's necessary, we've been faced with a difficult decision; actually having options!

What a pain, right? So we're at a bit of a standstill because we've narrowed our house search down to two houses and both are fantastic. Neither are in the ideal location of being close to work for Kyle BUT they are both closer to work than he is where we're living right now. Anything is an improvement I guess. Oddly enough, both of the houses are really close to where I hope to be working in 6 months. As in, 3 or 2 miles away. I feel like it's so unfair because where we live right now is 3 miles away from my work... He just can't catch a break!

Anyway, wanna's see them?? You'll enjoy it!

This is a 118-yr-old Victorian completely restored and in fantastic condition.

All the floors are redone or refinished and are in fantastic shape and there doesn't seem to be any floor unevenness. Also check out these huge Victorian windows and doorways! And ALLLLLL those windows were new.

You'd never know it was as old as it was, it was in such fantastic shape. The bottom level has a living room, a family room, a formal dinning room, and a kitchen with an eat-in area. Loooots of space.

The kitchen was not the most up-to-date, but fairly large and in good shape. There's a double sink not in this picture, but yeah, that's an island with a sink in it!

The stairs were new, and then there are three bedrooms on the second level. The paint jobs were fantastic, the bathroom was another instance of not being in modern condition but so well-maintained.

The attic had been converted into the master bedroom, and from my perspective, was very well constructed. Don't like that carpet (newer but just meh), and most attics don't have hardwood floors so there's little luck of finding hidden fantastic hardwood underneath. But the master also had a master bathroom to the left there with a jacuzzi and his and hers sinks.

We'd have a third of an acre and an unfortunately detached garage. You also have to share a driveway unfortunately. But this house was so charming and well-loved that I fell in love with it as soon as I walked in. Being a Victorian, it had high ceilings and crown molding and was just so impressive. It has more space and more land than the next one I'll show you, but that garage is a pain to get to and Kyle doesn't want to share a driveway. Again, I mentioned the appliances being a bit dated, and the bathrooms needing modernization, but the skeleton of the house; pipes and wiring and ducts and heating system- which would cost muchos money to fix- are sound.

So here's the second one:

Yeah... fantastic, right? so stately. This house is 77 yrs old and currently occupied by a little hipper of a couple, so it was more modernized.

The kitchen was complete with all the modern amenities, two ovens, built-in fridge and dishwasher and a massive copper sink. Smaller kitchen though...

But a larger living room, and a sunroom that would be perfect for an office. Oh, and check out that fantastic cutout/breakfast bar that opens up the kitchen.

Formal dining room rounds out the bottom floor. In general, it felt smaller than the Victorian; the colors are darker and, because it was fully furnished, it just felt like there wasn't as much space. This house is smaller but still large enough for us. I think we forgot to ask about the windows, I don't know how old they are... but replacing windows is an expensive pain in the ass.

The bathrooms were all original tile but impeccably maintained and they had updated the sinks and toilets.

The upper level had three bedrooms, all kind of small-ish... This one above is the master. Not to complain; it was not small, but when you compare bedrooms to the Victorian, this one, as a master, was just not all that impressive.

The other bathroom, also with original tile but modern sink and toilet. Very cool mix of old and new, and also very very clean. The fisheye is making my eyes hurt though.

Gross. Haha, the basement of the Victorian was unfinished, but at least it wasn't finished like this.

The last advantage that the Colonial has over the Victorian: attached garage. However, slight disadvantage, attached garage means no back porch. No real outdoor entertaining area, and we love grilling. The backyard was also smaller than the Victorian but completely flat and still a quarter of an acre (hey, anything is better than what we have now).

So we have to choose between the huge but slightly old-fashioned Victorian (a little more sentimental, is what I mean, not old-fashioned in terms of paint and floors and whatnot) and the smaller but more modern Colonial (with radiators :P). One is imposing with its stone front but feels a little closed-in once you walk inside, the other is, I mean, it's a Victorian, it's tall and impressive-looking and once you walk in, the ceilings are high and the windows let in so much light, it feels HUGE (however, the Victorian was not furnished, no furniture = lots more space to move around). The Colonial feels more like a young family home too, and the kitchen is awesome (also you have your own driveway). I could keep going on and on, we have been back and forth so many freaking times, it's ridiculous.

I believe where we stand right now is that the Colonial is a better value and therefore won't be on the market for long, I think we are going to strategically put in an offer there first, and if it falls through, we would still be happy in the Victorian. I think that's the only conclusion we can come to... It's good to have choices, but I almost feel like I'm trying to choose a BFF between two best friends.

I can't believe we're almost homeowners! I'm ridiculously excited... But I shan't count my chickens before they are hatched. Watch both of them go off the market by the time we put an offer in... Stop that thinking!

ANNOUNCEMENT TIME!!!! I don't want to string you along any longer (and wait till you hear it, you'll be like 'that's it?!') so... a few weeks ago, I submitted our wedding to The Knotty Bride and I just heard back at the end of last week that SHE'S GOING TO FEATURE US!!! I'm a little excited about it. I know this blog is all about DIY projects and using inspiration to make this photo shoot-like wedding, but I was doing it because I thought it looked good, not because I thought it needed to be featured. Well, I submitted it anyway, just to satisfy my curiosity and she was like YES! And I was like YAY!!! And please believe me when I say I'm super psyched that our vendors are going to get some mad props! So I will post again when she actually posts our wedding, but keep an eye out on TKB in the meantime! A dollar to anyone who spots it before me and reports back to me!!

Also, SHE OPENS HER EYES!!

Yes you are pretty! (Julie and Nick's new bundle, Olivia!)

Back to recaps tomorrow!!