The Small Doings of Our Life

We've been busy, busy, busy! We took the girls to the circus on Thursday night.
They were totally transfixed by all the bright lights and activity down below and watched with rapt attention as all the "stuff" came in. Fortunately, we are still at an age where they did not realize that all the bright and shiny junk for sale in the outer area of the arena is actually stuff to buy and take home.

This picture's not great, but it's the best I got. Shortly after this, Carolyn got tired of sitting still, even to watch the circus. We'd just gotten back into town and she'd been at school all day so she was pretty overstimulated to begin with... but she still had fun, and especially enjoyed the elephants and the sno-cone she got to eat at intermission. :)

We've been experimenting with new ways to help Nora adjust to solid foods. She's not been a big fan from the beginning and has been kind of slow to embrace them... might possibly be slightly because she's my baby and I just didn't really feel ready for her to move on from nursing into the wider world of solids just yet... I'm ready now, and it's time. So we're trying some new tactics. This week we tried just giving her some of whatever we're eating. She's definitely more interested this way than she ever was in the baby food I so carefully made for her!

She seemed very happy with the spaghetti... and some of it actually made it down! Today we also tried some organic, commercially-prepared baby food, and she enjoyed it! So we are making progress, I think. If she doesn't start getting the hang of it better in the next couple weeks, I might take her in to the doctor to have him check and make sure she doesn't have a swallowing problem or anything...

Carolyn enjoyed the spaghetti, too. :) And I love how you could just get lost in her eyes, trying to figure out exactly what color they are!

I played around with the camera at the park the other night, trying to capture the exuberance of Carolyn on the big girl swing, as well as the motion of the swing. Most of the pictures are like this, or blurrier.

A few look pretty good.

And one picture came out perfect! I love it!

And, to end the story of our week, my little fledgling business is starting to gain some interest (I actually made one sale on my website to someone I don't know!), and I'm excitedly working on all sorts of new creations- like this flowered headband that I love. :) I think it's so cute!

Painted!

Basement is all painted now! And the electrical finishing work is almost done. Flooring goes in tomorrow. By the end of next week, all our inspections should be done and we'll be able to move in! It feels like we're getting a whole new house... and sort of, we are; we're getting about 75% more living space! Yay!!

The "great room" with my favorite little nook over to the left.

The other side of the room.

Showing the game closet, the bathroom, and doors to the storage area and the upstairs.

The girls' hideout- Carolyn doesn't know it yet, but there will be wall stickers of fairies in here!

The amazing pantry, complete with built-in wine rack. :)

And the bright bedroom with my favorite little bookshelf. :)

I'll post more pics when the flooring goes in. :)

Seattle In Pictures

Well, we've been back a week and I am clearly WAY behind! We spent a wonderful long weekend in Seattle last weekend. Brad had an ultrasound conference to go to for work, and the girls and I tagged along to see our friends Chandra and Andrew. Chandra was my roommate at Hope College and one of those special people I've remained close to over the last seven (yikes!) years since I graduated. It was sort of funny how this trip came about- the opportunity came up about 6 weeks ago and we just jumped on it- by contrast, last time we went to Seattle (about 2 years ago), we planned the trip for almost a year! But this was just one of those unexpected blessings. We had a great time. Here are (lots of) pictures.

We stayed at the downtown Sheraton Hotel. It was a bit crowded with four of us in our room, and I wouldn't qualify our sleep as the best we've ever had... but the price was right because the girls and I stayed for free! Carolyn's favorite part of the hotel was the pool and hot tub.

It really was pretty awesome, because the pool was on the 35th floor and this was the view!

Our first afternoon, we went to a great little doughnut shop downtown. It was a big hit with everyone.

We were all pleased to see how quickly Carolyn bonded with Chandra and Andrew even though it had been quite a long time since the last time we saw each other.

It did not take Nora long to warm up either; I think children have a sense for people who genuinely love kids, and both Chandra and Andrew are amazing with children. It was fun to see them interact with our girls.

Old roommates giving two sweet girls a lift... everyone was fading at this point... it had been a long, busy travel day!

If you don't look too closely at my still-mushy, post-partum extra 5 pounds, I love this picture. :) The Pikes Place market was one of my favorite places we visited last time, so as we were walking from breakfast over to Chandra's place, I had to have this picture. You can just spot Nora in the Ergo Baby back carrier I got as a concession to not renting a car. She spent an awful lot of time in it and I was comfortable the whole time we were there! Seriously, if you have a child (and especially if you have more than one!) go out and buy one of these things. They are awesome! I wore Nora on my front in the airplane and she slept nearly the whole time both flights, and I wore her on my back when we were walking around and she had a great view of everything and could lay her head on my back when she was ready to go to sleep, and best of all, my back didn't even hurt after carrying her for long distances, and I could easily push the stroller or hold Carolyn's hand or take pictures. It was awesome.

The view from the Ergo.

Something went a bit awry with the quality of this picture, but I still enjoy the scenery- on Sunday Chandra and I went to another, littler market, where I picked up some souvenirs and enjoyed absorbing the aura of Seattle.

After we wandered around the market for a little while, it was time for the main event- a tour of the Theo chocolate factory. This was probably my favorite "activity" we did the whole time we were there. It was really fascinating to learn about how fine chocolate is made and to watch it being taken "from bean to bar" right in front of us! I also learned a lot about the concept of "fair trade" and why it's important. It, of course, smelled GREAT; there were free samples; and it was a totally kid-free afternoon for me, thanks to Andrew!

We wore these fetching hair nets. I chose my shirt especially to match... (not really).

Apparently, it's pretty unusual for a chocolate factory to actually perform all the steps itself to make the chocolate. But Theo chocolates are especially fine in that the process is supervised by these experts who truly love chocolate and are invested in seeing the finest product produced. These buckets are full of "nibs," little pieces of cocoa beans after they've been roasted and cut into little pieces, ready for the next step in the process.

We got to taste some of the nibs, which were crunchy and not very sweet, but actually quite good. Our guide explained all about the chemical theobromine, which is related to caffeine but not as potent, etc... which was interesting to a chemistry nerd like me.

Clearly it was very interesting to our guide as well. He was really, really knowledgeable about chocolate and very engaging to listen to. He seriously made the hair net look cool.

Nora and Carolyn had a lovely nap at Chandra and Andrew's place. I was so thankful for some time to spend with my friend without kiddos! :) Those moments can be few and far between, so they are especially appreciated!

Our trip was so short this time, we filled just about every minute with something... After the chocolate tour, we went back to grab the girls and walked over to the Olympic Sculpture Park, which is practically in Chandra and Andrew's backyard.

There we enjoyed some gourmet cupcakes which were seriously a little taste of heaven.

Carolyn frolicked and played and we watched her with this incredible view! [Nora is not pictured because she was trying to take a snooze at this point].

That night all of us grabbed dinner at our favorite restaurant from the last time we came to Seattle. It was pretty much awesome. :)

The next day, I took Carolyn to the Seattle Children's Museum. I am quite sure this was her favorite part of the whole trip. There was all sorts of stuff to climb around on and explore.

There were dress-up clothes to prance around on stage in.

Best of all, was the pint-sized art studio where messes are welcome. :)

Carolyn was SO happy!

She liked painting her hand. I rarely let her do this at home...

I wonder why...

She does make some wonderful masterpieces, though.

Even Nora had a fun time at the museum. There was a nice baby area that didn't seem obviously disease-ridden, so she got to crawl around and explore.

It was such an exciting and fun time that it didn't take long for Carolyn to tank out in the stroller when it was time to leave.

She perked right up with some pink gelato from the awesome gelato place by the market.

Our last night in town, Chandra watched both girls while Brad and I went out with Dr. Blickley and his wife Ani. Dr. Blickley was the one who recruited Brad to join the practice at Grand Rapids Womens Health, which has been such a great experience for Brad so far. We had a lovely time together.

It was a VERY long travel day to get home... Carolyn did not take a nap the entire day and was a little bit of a challenge... consequently no pictures... but we made it, we had a wonderful time, and it was totally worth it!

Stuff I've Been Working On

I have lots of pictures to post from our recent trip to Seattle, but that's a big job, and this afternoon I sort of got sucked into working on my Etsy site and my tiny little home business making these clips I love using for my girls hair. Here are some pictures of what I've been up to. If you want to see more, check out my new Etsy store at http://ittybittyclippies.etsy.com . Let me know what you think!!

I absolutely loved this set of 7 Gymboree body suits I got for Nora, so I made clips to match each one and I'm giving it a go to sell them as a set to match the bodysuits since to my knowledge Gymboree doesn't sell any accessories specific to this set. Nora's started wearing the bigger clips now that her hair is sort of EVERYWHERE so I'm still working on a similar set mounted on the tiny snap clips instead of the alligator clips.

I haven't had much luck selling individual clips (at least not on Etsy), so I'm kind of trying to produce some different "sets" to sort of attract an audience of gift-givers.

This is my "fall set." Basically I went through Nora's (too extensive) wardrobe and picked out the colors I would use the most- these seven clips would match about 95% of what I have for her. I figured some people out there would be into having a simple, relatively inexpensive set of accessories to match the current fall colors.

And these are my latest "babies." I love the look of crocheted flowers on clips, especially with all the floral patterns that are so "in" right now.

So this "business" has been pretty slow starting and really more of an expensive hobby than anything else at the moment, but I'm having fun, and I like what I'm making. :)