My 28th Birthday

I have to say, this was probably one of my best birthdays yet. You see, back in July after I spent a weekend being an awesome sister and basically doing manual labor for my brother and sister-in-law, we all decided that they needed to return the favor and come to St. Louis and help us with a project at our house. That project: our bedroom. See, I really really did not like bedroom the way it was before. All the furniture was collected at random times, there was nothing on the wall and they were not painted. Basically, it wasn't pretty. So we picked this weekend for them to come so that we could do our redecorating project, eat really good food, and spend our birthday together (my mom, brother and I have the same birthday). So James and Steph got here on Thursday and we went out for our birthday Thursday night at a great St. Louis restaurant Vin de Set.


Then bright and early Friday morning we went to work. We painted, we hung curtains (I had made them earlier completely under Steph's guidance), we hung pictures, a mirror, removed furniture, added lamps, and changed out light switches and face plates. We were busy. And it paid off. I love our room now. I can't wait to go to bed at night.
The before:


The after:



We rewarded ourselves with great food- on Friday night we went to Brasserie by Niche and on Saturday night we had Chinese food.
Today James and Steph had to leave and I am pretty sure I was in a bad mood for a while. But after looking at this little trick-or-treater, who can remain grumpy for too long?

A Good Day

To steal from Kevin Henkes, today has been a good day. We went to Grant's Farm and saw a lot of animals, including some goats we got to feed and then some elephants that were throwing tires back and forth to each other.

Tripp also decided to set a record for his longest nap yet during which I did some serious sewing. I tried my hand at a romper and came up with this:

We also read lots of books and played dress up.

So in honor of Tripp, who goes around saying "day" while looking for a certain book- it has sure been "A Good Day."

Our baby is growing up

I think my son went and grew up overnight.
**Photo taken by my very talented brother-in-law and stolen by me while he was busy watching TV :)

My recent relationship with Coupons

I love using coupons. A lot. But recently I have been feeling a little overwhelmed with them. Well, mostly overwhelmed with having to clip them all. So I decided to take a different approach with my coupons. I am not going to clip them. I am doing as some people do- they just keep the insert, and then when they are going to use a coupon, they clip it. This has already saved me a lot of time. And tonight I celebrated by going to Walgreens and spending $10 to get all this.

Yes, using coupons is totally worth it.

Sewing Projects

I have a few sewing projects I am about to undertake. One is a romper for Tripp, the other is some new curtains. I am really excited about both of them, mostly because today I got an awesome new-to-me sewing machine. I have one already, but this one is one of those old school kinds- with all metal parts and it folds out into it's own little table. I got it at a garage sale, and I am super excited to give it a whirl. However, I had trouble finding my fabric earlier. I guess this is why.

the Big D

We spent the better part of last week and the weekend with Nelson's family in Dallas. We met our new nephew, got to spend lots of time with our old nephew (old as in age, not in that he is not our nephew anym0re- in case you were confused), and spent time together just as a family. I am not sure anyone could want for anything else.

on libraries

It seems like people are always updating their blogs about the books they read or recommendations of books they might have for others. I have nothing against that, and in fact, I thought about trying to write one myself (so that my blog would not always be about Tripp). But then I realized that would be futile seeing as though I really do not like to read and I actually have a pretty strong hatred of libraries. It all started in highschool when I would be studying away during study hall (read: trying to get a certain boy's attention while pretending to work on my homework). Then Ms. Peters the librarian come by and ask if I had gum in my mouth and of course I did, so I then I was always faced with a moral dilemma: do i lie and keep my piece of gum hidden under my tongue (seriously, I just put it in, it is such a fresh, juicy piece of gum. and you want me to waste that!?!) or should I tell the truth, get up and spit out my gum all while risking getting a detention for breaking the stupid "no chewing gum in the library rule." I will be honest- I was usually fifty-fifty on this one (and it usually was depending on if I could afford a detention that day- like if I had a game instead of practice so I didn't have to be somewhere right after school). Ms. Peters also made us be really quite and actually study. I am not sure what that was all about. I mean, come on, it was my senior year- I didn't think anyone was supposed to study their senior year. But she made us. So my hatred of libraries began slowly. Then in college, it grew. See, we were given SIP carels (little study places where we could work on our senior integration papers) and that was nice, but the library smelled. Sometimes it gave me a headache. And then that is when I realized that libraries are just a stop on the drug trafficing train. How is that, you ask? Well, let me tell you. It's quite simple. You know those little plastic flaps on the covers of books, well, drug dealers just slip in the drugs underneath those flaps and return the book to the library. Then they tell their compadre to go check out "The Grapes of Wrath" and lo and behold, when their friend gets the book, the drugs are right there under the cover. I know, it's a pretty genius idea, but it is illegal and it makes the library smell. So books and libraries and reading pretty much went to the bottom of my "things I like" list. Until Tripp was born. Then I was re-introduced to books. Granted they are kids books, but they are books none-the-less. And now that Tripp does some talking, his favorite thing to say is "Ahh More!" after we finish a book and are about to move onto the next. Well, since I don't like libraries, this reading habit was getting kinda expensive- since the only way to get books without a library is to buy them. And it was also getting really old to read all the same books over and over again. So seeing as we live one block from our municipal library, I thought it was time I sucked it up and got a membership (or whatever you call it there). Tripp and I bravely ventured out recently and went the library. And we checked out five new books. Five books! For free! And we even were encouraged by the children's librarian to sit in the rocking chair and read. Read aloud? In the library? I was shocked. But we did it. And we had fun (I think I was even chewing gum, but Miss Karen didn't even get mad). We went home with our books, read them over and over and then went back the next week for five more books. For free again! This time we even stayed and played with a few toys at the library. I even plan on going back this week, for more books. So while I am not ready to write any book recommendations for people (I will leave that up to the serious book worm in the family), I have to admit- my like of libraries is growing. Slowly but steadily. And I am looking forward to the day when I might possibly be able to write a blog post with my own book recommendations. Don't hold your breath though, seeing as though it has taken 28 years to get to this turn around point in my life, it will probably take another 28 years before I am ready to make any recommendations to the public.