PhotoBoothing with Hattie at 6 mos.

Every month, my goal is to try to get Hattie to smile while on PhotoBooth. 

She really doesn't have anything to smile *at* though...

just my boring computer screen, so this becomes quite a difficult task.

Although, sometimes she *does* smile when she catches a glimpse of herself on the screen. ;-)

And I try to get her to smile by giving kisses...

Or acting like a goon...

 

 

And what *finally* gets a real smile out of her? 

Daddy walking into the room! Hee hee hee. 

Oh no. My blog is becoming one of *those* blogs...

one that revolves around adorable photos of an adorable baby.

*sigh*

Okay, I vow to blog about organization and decor and scrapbooking too. :-D

In other news, my most-viewed post this week has been an older post about

my niece's toenail collection. LOL. 

*What* on earth are people searching for out there?!?!

Growing Up: Hattie at Six Months

Has it *really* been half a year?!??!

She's 26.75 inches long.

She's 14 pounds, 7 ounces.

Favorite toys: my cell phone (she doesn't play games on it; she just likes to smile and talk at it... LOL), her trumpet, and Mickey Mouse doll.

Favorite books: Goodnight Moon and Babies (This was my favorite book when I was a baby, and I'm so glad she loves it too. I *highly* recommend it!)


Favorite thing to do: Skype with her Auntie Shaina and cousins.
(She LOVES her cousins! Nothing makes her more excited. LOL.)


Loves photographs and looking in the mirror.
(Okay, she also gets SUPER excited when she looks in the mirror.)

Most of her clothes are still 3-6 months. 

Still barely fits into 0-3 mos. tops and sleep sacks, since she's just so gosh-dark skinny. ;-) 

She's nearly grown out of all her 6-9 mos. pants and footies (save Joe Boxer... that brand makes HUUUGE baby clothes!) 

Wearing 9+ mos. pants before 6 mos. old?! LOL!

Has TEENY feet. Still wears a size 1, which is 0-3 months. 

And there's still a bit to go in those. 

I'm wondering if she will wear a size 3 by the summer? Hmm...

Doesn't mind strangers holding her. Not one bit. 

She LOOOOVES people. LOL. :-p 

She gets passed around at church... 
to *at least* 12 different people. Hee hee.


Hardly *ever* cries. I think the only time she cries is at night, in her sleep
if she's teething or has a tummy ache. 

Has two bottom teeth.

No longer sleeps through the night. :-( It was nice while it lasted. 
Now she wakes up 2-3 times. Either teething or... I can hear her poor little tummy growling. :-( 
The doc says that once she's on solids regularly, that will help. Yay. 
I got so spoiled for five months! LOL. :-p

Has started eating solid foods. Loves everything she's tried. :-)

She's starting to drink out of a sippy cup... 

with just a *little* help from me.

Still takes three naps during the day. 

Taking two doesn't help the sleeping at night. It makes it worse. LOL. 

She needs her beauty sleep, I guess. ;-)

Can sit up on her own.

Loves being outside.

Has started to sit up on her hands and knees... though one knee is outstretched, 

so it's technically two hands, one knee and a foot. ;-)

From the hands-knees position, she can push to a sitting position. 

(She's only done this three times...)

Loves being either on her tummy or sitting up. 

If I put her on her back, she just flips herself over. LOL.




She's just SUCH a sweet baby. 
Loves giving hugs and kisses. 
Loves to cuddle. 
Loves to smile.


And we think she just gets cuter and cuter every month. :-D

Sharing FULL Scrap Room.

So... back in May, I posted a sneak of my scrap room.

It was so cool to be in Creating Keepsakes' special issue (Creative Spaces),

and I figured I'd give it a couple months...

they probably wanted us to wait like 30-60 days or something.

I didn't ask about the exact time period. Maybe I should have. ;-)

So it dawned on me the other day that I STILL hadn't shared

my scrap room in full. UGH! I had to get on that.

So....

Without further ado...

My Scrap Room!

(you can click on the photos to make them larger!)

When you walk through the the french doors 

(that we actually removed because I wanted the room to be an extension of the living room...) 

And when you look to the left... 

And when you look to the right...

*cute curtains from Pier 1... now discontinued :-(

And when you keep walking straight ahead to the right,

you turn that corner, and enter my little sitting area nook... 

Took me a lot of tweaking to get the nook just right.

The loveseat is an Ektorp from IKEA. 

Didn't plan to have this loveseat in here, as we bought it 

as our "for now" furniture for our first apartment in Austin.

This cover was on clearance for THIRTEEN DOLLARS (yeah, down from like... $140).

So I was *ecstatic* that it matched perfectly. :-)

The bookcase behind the loveseat?

Believe it or not, that used to be a twin bed headboard! 

My dad and sister added spindles to each side, and they made it

into an entertainment unit. And I inherited it from them. :-)

Jeremy added legs, so that it would sit perfectly behind the loveseat.

(Jeremy's brilliant idea, not mine. ;-) )

(It REALLY needs lamps and/or plants on either side. Some day... :-) )

So I re-painted it, altered the inside with October Afternoon's Hometown 

scrapbook paper (one of my favorite collections of all time),

and added cute knobs and fun things. :-)

Pillows from Target.

Poms from Jo-Ann's dollar spot.

Stool from IKEA (painted to match my color scheme).

Knobs from Anthro.

Document boxes from The Container Store.

Everything else was found secondhand at thrift stores/antique stores/vintage shops.

So here are more shots around the room...

This is looking back toward the door of the room,

so the left wall when you first walk in... 

elfa Shelving (on sale right now till Feb 13th!!)

Canvas bins.

American Crafts albums.

Photo drawers (a la Stacy Julian's LOM).

And a close-up...

Shoe storage holds punches.

Acrylic organizer (that I'm now finding a new home for...) holds stamp pads and stuff.

Ribbon cabinet.

Dress Forms.

Jane Joss fabric branch.

Be Inspired print.

Desk chair is a commercial/retail chair. 

I got it at a vintage shop in Austin, but what's really funny...

these same chairs are used at Taco Cabana all over Austin! LOL. :-p

And my work table.

Cardstock and patterned paper under work space.

Embellishment drawers (original and altered).

Kit storage.

Friends frame with my altered switchplate.

At other angles...

"Reyanna" sign I've had since 1985. 

My dad had them made for all of us kids.

He *only* took them out at Christmastime, 

so I was so glad when he gave it to me to look at every day. :-)

After MUCH debate about altering it, I decided to keep it

in all its original wood glory. :-D

Alphabet sticker/Thicker organization (far left on paper shelf).

Bold boxes (under paper).

UglyDoll: Wedgehead.

Current kit/favorite papers in progress (on left) sit in this.

Phew.

I know... A LOT of photos. But I hope you enjoyed my scrap room tour!

Thank you for looking!

I hope to do a video tour too. :-)

That would have to be in pieces though because it would be LOOOOONG!

And you would probably get sick of me. LOL. :-p

If you have any questions or need more close-ups, 

please let me know! 

I can always do a follow-up post. :-D

Wanting Mama.

I didn't get much done today...

After Hattie's first nap, we went to the post office and then grocery shopping.

That was the extent of me being productive.

I "wore" her in the Moby to both places.

She fell asleep in the car on the way home.

And then when she woke up, she just wanted her mama.

She was interested in a book for five minutes. 

And maybe her OBall Rattle for another five minutes.

I sang to her. 

I talked to her.

I just carried her around.

I tried to put her down for another nap,

but she wasn't having it. 

She wanted her mama.

We laid down together.

We talked to each other.

I sang to her.

We just... looked at each other.

I tried putting her down,

but she just wanted her mama.

So I put her back in the Moby.

And she fell asleep. 

I love these photos. 

You can see my lunch plate and Nutella in the background.

I didn't have a chance to put them away.

My shoes are kicked off in front of the loveseat.

The mail is strewn about.

Her laundry, waiting to be hung up, lays on the floor.

But she needed her mama. 

The chores can wait.

As the saying goes...

babies don't keep.

So I'm milking this for all its worth. :-)

It's okay that you needed me today, Baby Girl. 

I'm all yours.

PhotoBoothing with Hattie at 5 mos.

So... we had a crazy busy weekend, so Hattie is not herself today 

for our PhotoBoothing session. She's just so tired! :-( Ah well. 

I LOVE this outfit (given to us by our friend Michelle), 

so I decided we needed to do our PhotoBoothing anyway. :-)

This was me trying to hold one of her favorite toys up over the camera. 

She *always* smiles at this toy, but i don't know... because it was over the computer's camera,

these are the looks I got instead... LOL.

Then I decided that I'd put her closer to the camera, 

so she'd see her adorable self on the screen and want to smile...

*sigh*

Still no luck. Okay, THEN I decided to tickle her chin. 

That always gets a smile...

Nope.

Okay, didn't want it to come to this, but now Mom decides

she should act crazy, so Hattie will smile, and then I'll try

to get a quick smile in before the camera takes the photo...

Uhh... yeah. The result is... Mama looking like a silly fool,

while Hattie has a look on her face that says,

"My mom is ridiculous. Seriously? This is what she's doing to get me to smile?!

Oh, brother. Are we done yet?"

And so, I claim defeat. No smile this month, 

so we just try to look pretty instead. ;-)

Rolling Over.

Okay, so this is a month old (she was just under four months), and I totally forgot to post it. It's just too cute. :-p

So glad to get this on tape. She did it once, just minutes before this one, so I grabbed the camera... hoping she'd do it again right away. Success! :-D




I totally think she could have rolled over long before this, but honestly, she had never even *tried* before this! LOL.

Writing One Line a Day.

So... in 2010, I decided I would write a sentence or two 

(what I did, what I ate, where I went, a thought or two... whatever i wanted to write... as long as it was *something*) 

EVERY day in this blog here. 

Um.... Yeah, as you can see, I only did that 76 times out of the year. Oops. :-p 

I found my problem. If it's online, I won't do it. 

It didn't matter if it was a blog, Facebook or Twitter. I just like paper better.

So at the beginning of 2011, I decided I'd find myself a journal that provided me space to write a sentence or two per day. And I promised myself to give it a try... even though I knew 2011 would be tough... being pregnant and having a baby.

But all the more important that I document that year. ;-)

And I found the One Line a Day 5-Year Memory Book.

 Well, actually, the Mom's One Line a Day was on sale ($11) when I went searching, 

so that's the one I went with. I figured... "Hey, I'm becoming a Mom in 2011! Why not?" ;-) 

(Even the fact that it's pink didn't deter me! ;-) )

There were some other ideas out there. Like this one from Ashley Ann:

But in the end, I wanted something small, something bound,

and something I could keep by my bed (on my nightstand) or by my computer.

And guess what? 

IT WORKED!

I'm happy to announce that I have an entry for EVERY.SINGLE.DAY of 2011. :-D

Now... don't get me wrong... I didn't *actually* journal every single day.

If I missed a few days, I didn't sweat it. :-p Some weeks, I'd wait till the weekend to record the week,

but I still made sure to put a sentence or two for each day... even if I had to go back and do it.

If I couldn't remember, and I needed ideas...

Sometimes I'd go check photos I took, check Facebook statuses, check the calendar, etc.

It didn't have to be exact, and if I didn't remember something that happened,

I just recorded a feeling I was having that week.

For example:

On September 21st, I wrote,

"Hattie always wakes up smiling and cooing and giggling.

I love it so much!

I can't get enough of her.

And she's just SOOOOO adorable! :-) "

See? 

Not necessarily what happened that day, but just something that was on my mind that week. :-)

So I wanted to have a good record for 2011, and I'm glad I actually made the effort.

I'm SOOOO glad I did because it was an important year,

and I love looking back. 

When you're pregnant or have a new baby, things get fuzzy.

When you have little ones, the days mesh together. 

They fly by.

It needed to be done. :-)

Kinsey has a cool idea on her blog too! This is her day-planner, 

but you could totally use the block-style calendar to write in 

a thought or two or what you did that day. :-)

What do you think? 

Are you going to give it a try?

Do Project Life?

Project 365 with notes?

I'd love to hear how you plan to document 2012!