a little ride

the weather was beautiful at the beginning of the week – i heard a lot of people calling it a "fake fall." seriously, in the 60s in the early morning. gorgeous, really. jeremy saw that it wasn't going to rain for at least three days, so he stripped the jeep down...

and mr. cayden got to experience the real jeep ride for three whole days...

farmers market

even though we've all been a little under the weather at the allen household (yes, cayden brought something else home from daycare!), we decided to try out the farmers market this morning. we drove a good half hour to the east lake farmers market.

a little bit of a drive? yes, maybe so, but honestly, we were going so that we could meet up with our good friend, mopsy. we hadn't seen her in ages, and well, i thought it would be fun to be outside (cause it was beautiful) and i thought cayden might enjoy it.

we ended up having a wonderful time, and were even able to hop over to mopsy's house for a little bit and get caught up. we picked up some good veggies while we were out and are looking forward to cooking them up over the week.

i even managed to get a little sunshine on my shoulders! and i promise jeremy was there... he just didn't make it into any of the photos...

three months old

another before and after

when we decided to list our house last spring, we (quite) obviously didn't have a baby. so our before of this shot is completely different. not only did my parents lose their place to sleep, any other friends that came to visit also lost their place to sleep (no worries though, our sofa is a sleeper – look for it in a post in a few days).

anyway, the before is a true guest bedroom. the after, is our nursery. and most of my after shots have been taken at night, so there's not a whole lot of natural warmth in them... but you'll get the idea nonetheless.

we've had the nursery done for a few months time, but there were a couple things that needed to be touched up in there in order to get it ready to list. so here's our completed after (and really, if you've followed this blog for any length of time, you already know what it looks like...)

first completed home project...

... in the quest to get our house ready to put it on the market, we took a look around and decided that some things needed to be done. some rooms just needed a simple de-cluttering, and others were going to need a little bit more.

we've finished our first project: repainting the master bedroom

and well, with new paint came new bed linens. and then we needed new artwork on the walls...

with that said, we're pretty happy with how it's turned out. the wall color is a lot more neutral (while the bedding is not; but i'm in love with the bedding). we took an art gallery approach to hanging artwork. (the artwork is framed prints that jeremy and i took, and one special one from my great friend, tom – thanks again!)

thoughts? anything constructive is nice... and we thought about hanging something over the bed, but really couldn't find any frames we liked, and the original piece of artwork no longer worked in there – no worries, it's moving to the nursery. (btw, jeremy did the artwork that was hanging above our bed – if anyone is interested, he does a great job at a decent price. hmmm, a new blog post at some point, perhaps?)

ok, on with the show... here's our before and after:

so. not. funny.

ok, so remember this post? yeah, that chair i love? apparently cb2 thinks i need it so bad that they've teased me about it in an e-mail. not. cool.

one more lake post. promise.

here's cayden enjoying the water. i realized after i posted those last photos that i didn't have any of these in there. he did really great. i think he was really tired cause he seemed a bit zoned out... but he didn't get fussy at all and maybe even perhaps enjoyed himself. our boy is getting so big!

a lazy weekend...

we spent the weekend at my friend stephen's lakehouse. ah, sweet bliss. we had a ton of fun with some good friends. instead of going into a ton of details, here's a few photos from the weekend.

aunt rachel and uncle justin

i told you i'd fall in love with my bumbo. it's my most favorite thing ever right now. i'll love you forever for getting it for me.

ooohhhhs and aaahhhhs (that's him thanking you),
cayden

a rant, if you will

dear mr. driver of a really expensive car. yes, i know you're trying to merge onto the interstate. i understand. really, i do. but do you see that little bar thingy that's sticking out to the left of your steering wheel? yeah, that's your blinker. learn how to use it and i might ::might:: consider letting you over in front of me.

and dear mister i'm sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic. do you see my blinker and that i'm trying to merge over? you aren't getting anywhere, so please ::please:: just let me over.

double standards? not so much. see, i was using my blinker. the easiest (and quite possibly the only) way to really communicate in a car. grrr...

to sum it up, i'm using my blinker. please let me over. i'll show you the same courtesy as soon as you use your blinker, too. i know that fancy car has one.

sweet baby reese

one of my best friends at work had her baby last night. reese is such a lil cutie. and he has these lips that angelina jolie would be jealous of. ::sigh::



i kept saying to rachel that cayden was never that small; she continued to tell me that he was that small. and i said, "but was his head that small?" and she said, "well, no, cayden did kind of have a big head." ha! it's true... reese's head is perfectly proportional – no worries. jeremy and i did used to kid about cayden having a big head and little arms (and for any dorks out there, that movie "meet the robinsons" that came out a couple of years ago... anyway, there was a t-rex in it that said something along those lines, so it always made us laugh...)

anyway, a few photos of us girls holding the new guy. welcome to the world, reese. we can't wait to show you around...

and, he laughs!

and, surprisingly, we caught it on video! it's probably the second time he's laughed like this. honestly? the first one was the best one (and maybe that's because it was the first one), but this laugh is just as beautiful and we wanted to share it with everyone. enjoy!

all seems well...

i woke up with a slight headache, but it's slowly subsiding. jeremy woke up saying he was feeling at about ninety percent. and well, cayden had mostly solid poop this morning and no throwing up since this incident (again, so exciting, right?). so yay! and just in time for the weekend and lots of projects around the house.

why so many projects? well, i believe we're about to put our house on the market again. we tried it out last spring, and had no luck. but, at that time, there were still about eight brand new homes in our neighborhood for sale. currently, there are three, maybe four, homes listed in our neighborhood, and only one of those has the same floorplan we do. but there's less natural light in their family room, so we're hoping that might help us out. add in the fact that we completely replaced our air conditioner in may, and i think we might have something going...

i'll post photos of our projects over the next few days... it'll mostly be a lot of painting this weekend... but hey, a little paint can go a long way when one wants to sell their house. (thanks hgtv!)

poor jeremy...

... he's definitely caught the grown-up version of cayden's bug. bummer. i'm pretty sure i'm coming down with something too, but i'm trying to psych myself out that i don't have it. not a ton of fun. it feels somewhat flu-like, but jeremy went to the doc-in-the-box down the road and the flu was ruled out.

either way, i really just wanted an excuse to post this picture of jeremy that i took over the weekend. i think it's a great shot of him... and well, i think i did a pretty good job with it (the human subject is probably my weakest; trying to work on that!).

two words:

projectile vomiting. wow. who knew someone so small could produce that much liquid with so much force? jeremy had just left for poker night; the first one in a very long time. i had just sat down after changing [yet] another diarrhea diaper. (i know, my stories here are SO interesting, right?) i started feeding him again, and all of a sudden, there was this fountain of puke. so. gross.

poor cayden just looked up at me like, "um, mom, what's going on? and why am i so nasty?"

ugh. so i put him on the floor thinking that was a good idea. but really, it wasn't. i needed to get him up in the bath and fast cause the smell was awful. i took him upstairs, put him on the rug in the bathroom, started running the bath and realized that i needed jeremy. not so much to clean up cayden, but to clean up the mess we'd left behind downstairs. (not to mention the fact that i didn't want to be alone should another episode like that occur.)

i called jeremy, and the sweetheart that he is, turned around, leaving poker night behind. i heart him. cayden got his bath (a little earlier than planned for the evening) and jeremy came home to my rescue and cleaned the couch and carpet.

i suppose i could've taken a photo of that. but believe me, you didn't want to see it. whew. what a night.

p.s. cayden still doesn't act like he feels bad, and for that, i'm very grateful.

totally random

i want, no NEED, this beautiful orange dream of a chair. it's absolutely gorgeous and i hear it calling my name. please, can i haz it?


(photo courtesy of cb2)

sleepy head

poor thing. we're having our first bout of sickness at the allen household. cayden's had a rough case of diarrhea the last few days. and last night and today, we've added throwing up to the mix. it sucks cause the doctor says all we can do is to let it run its course. apparently two and a half months old is simply not old enough for any medicine of any kind. my biggest fear is that he'll get dehydrated and we'll end up at the er. we're keeping our fingers crossed that that doesn't happen. i came home at one today to be with him. i couldn't stand the thought of him being sick at daycare and not being able to be with him. (not to mention the fact that he probably would've been sent home anyway.) just keep us in your thoughts that he gets better soon. this new mommy's not handling it so well...

rachel's new house

rachel and justin (and lexie and ethan) moved into their new home this past saturday. here's just a quick little peek into the new home; i'm sure rachel will be updating her blog (as soon as they get internet) with more photos.

saturday fun

there's nothing like a saturday at sam's eating grapes out of your cart while sitting on a crate of green tea. no, really. just ask my nephew and he'll tell you that it's the best thing ever. even better, just watch ethan enjoying those grapes. too funny.