weekend, weekend!

Oh, sweet weekend, you have arrived. It was a "short" week for us since Brett had Monday off as his family was here, but more rough nights with Grace (and a couple with Stella, too), and it feels just as long. Besides hanging out with my brother and sister-in-law, going to a cousin's bridal shower tuesday night, and a play date yesterday, I basically have been doing lots of laundry and other domestic duties, and today I took the girls to the park.

me, corinne, and susie at the bridal shower for our cousin, heidi

me, corinne, mom, susie

my cousin, heidi is getting married in september, and her sister erika (my cousin as well) is getting married in october

This week I started offering Grace little pieces of regular, solid food instead of giving her pureed baby food, and she loves it! Last night she had tiny pieces of roast beef and green beans; today she ate little pieces of mango as well as Puffs, and a little bit of egg. It seems like it was just yesterday that I was buying Puffs all the time for Stella, and now my second is old enough to eat them. Cue the sad mom tears. Just kidding. I'm happy she is reaching her milestones. :) It's fun to see her get so excited about trying new foods, and I'm excited that the baby-led feeding is going so well in addition to nursing.

drinking water from a straw now

trying to pick up puffs!

she loves "holding" grace

i love love love excelsior

where did that big sister go?

It seems like everyone is selling or trying out Jamberry nail wraps these days, so I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon and order some through a friend. I bought two sets for myself - silver and a light pink, and then two sets for Stella. I think I'll try applying them on Stella's fingernails this weekend. To be continued...

I'd like to try the Young Living Essential Oils, but I'm not ready to cough up $150 for the starter kit, which is the best deal. I'm kind of on the fence about essential oils. Whoa, did I just say that out loud?  ;)

I'm into chia seeds these days. Well, chia seeds incorporated into another food or drink (see the two images below). Chia seed is having a popular moment right now, and is supposed to deliver lots of health benefits, so have at it!

We have decided to move ahead with getting the deck power-washed, stripped, and refinished as well as having the downstairs painted. This fall we plan on having the hall and rest of kitchen trim painted white as well as some other odds and ends. I am so excited especially about having the downstairs painted. Since we experience cooler weather way more than warm temperatures, we tend to spend a lot of our time in the cozy basement, and I can't wait to spiff up the space down here, and hopefully get some new furniture down here - we're thinking of a nice, big sectional. I also want to makeover the play area, and I've been researching toy storage and decor on good old Pinterest. I am gravitating toward an aqua/white/gray palette for the play area. Some of the items catching my eye:

IKEA

Land of Nod pouf

Land of Nod rug

Land of Nod

Land of Nod

We've been living in our "new" house for one year, and I think we've made pretty good headway with fixing things and other home projects considering the CRAZY year we had, but there are still so many projects hanging over our heads (some of them literal), that I believe it will take at least a decade to complete all of them. And who knows, maybe even by that time, we'll be getting ready to sell it. Ha. Like I said, who knows.

Brett and I finished the show Breaking Bad last night. It was unlike any other show I've ever watched. While I appreciated the story-telling, character and plot development, etc., I must admit that I'm glad we're done watching it because it was so intense. We watched two intense shows back-to-back (House of Cards and BB), so I think we need a break. We watched Monuments Men (SNORE!) and Catching Fire (I lost interest after watching the first hour). I would really like to watch The Grand Budapest Hotel tonight. We really enjoy Wes Anderson's films, and this is the only one of his we haven't seen yet. 

Weeeell, time to badger the husband with a barrage of texts of the WHERE_ARE_YOU_IT'S_FRIDAY_FOR_GOODNESS'_SAKE! variety as I always do on Friday at around this time.

I hope we can be hermits this weekend with maybe one or two outings. I am exhausted from the week, and I have already changed into my loungewear after we returned from the park.