Belly Shot

As promised to various curious family and friends, here's a shot of Baby Girl Valentine from the outside at 23 weeks:



Here's a shot of her from the inside at around 18 weeks:

Pretty cute, right?

The Next Big Project

I've been mulling this post over for at least a month, or I guess more like almost six months now. I think it's fair to say that anyone who pays attention to my little blog is already aware that I am preggers, though I hadn't gotten around to announcing it here officially. I'm not ashamed to say that as soon as I found out we were pregnant (Can someone explain to me why we say "we" in this context?? Jason is most definitely not pregnant. I remind him of this often and demand that he rub my back to make it up to me.) my mind leapt pretty quickly from "Yay! We're bringing new life into the world!" to "Yay! I get to decorate a nursery!" And since we found out that we're having a girl (!) I've had a difficult time talking about or thinking about anything other than The Nursery. Several things have been purchased already, but none of it has been assembled or put into place yet. Quite a pile is beginning to stack up in the spare bedroom.

I think part of the reason that we're dragging our feet a bit is that I will be quite sad to give up our office/movie watching room. It's the tiniest room in the house, so it makes the most sense to turn into a nursery, but since we moved in it has, much to my surprise, become one of my favorite spots in the house. It's an odd space, barely big enough for twin bed, with slanted ceilings and a funny little closet. But, it has three enormous windows and we painted it a pretty shade of blue (after we stripped the nasty wallpaper). Here are a few pics of it now, pre-baby:

The somewhat maligned futon is, of course, my favorite spot to read. And that messy desk is where I happen to be sitting at this very moment. The other odd thing about this room is that it has evolved into what we call "The Bird Room." It started with a framed print that I bought in Asheville of a bird nest with eggs, then I found the wacky peacock lamp, so naturally the peacock rug followed. Strangely, I hate birds. Living ones, anyway. They gross me out. But, as a decorating motif, I kind of love them.

The bird nest print is rather perfect for a nursery, so I think "The Bird Room" it shall remain. Here are a few pics to give you an idea of the direction I'm heading in:

Pottery Barn Kids bedding.

Jenny Lind-style crib.

Eames rocker.





Tree wall decals.

I'll keep posting as we make progress.

First Triathlon

Jason completed his first triathlon earlier this month (something he's been training for since last September) and I was so impressed I had to post about it. I was also very impressed with myself for waking up at 4:30 a.m. (!) to drive him to the race. That is how much I love this man. I struggle to wake up by 8 a.m. in order to get to work by 9 a.m.--and they pay me to show up. Here are some pics from the big event:

Getting ready for the swim start. I was very grateful for the kayakers.

I am clearly not the world's best sports photographer.

Just a few feet from the finish line.

Big smile at the end of the race. He finished in less than two hours (despite stepping on and breaking his glasses, thus spending more than 10 minutes trying to fix them) and far exceeded his goal of merely finishing in one piece.

Bathroom Redo

It only took us about a week to mentally recover from Toilet Fiasco '09 before we were ready to dive back into our mini-bathroom overhaul. It's just taken me forever to get around to posting about it. I'm not sure why, since I'm really pleased with the final result. The paint color (Valspar Carolina Inn Aqua) is particularly lovely in the morning light when I'm getting ready for work--very calming. Much better than meh tan color that was there before. Unfortunately, since the bathroom is so tiny, I haven't been able to get an photos that really capture the full effect. Here's my best effort:

(Paris-style train rack scored on amazon.com for 1/3 the price of similar Restoration Hardware version. Towels are from Pottery Barn and cost way more than is reasonable. But they were exactly what I was looking for, so I couldn't resist.)

If I could sew, I would maybe make a skirt to go around the sink basin to hide the plumbing. Eventually, I will get around to framing and hanging this print (bought on our Honeymoon four years ago) in the bathroom too:

And, we are planning to replace the sink faucet with this one. If only I could get around to actually ordering it! OK, so we're not really done yet. But it is clean and toilet is intact and functioning, so I'm happy.