kapachino

Category: personal

  • holiday 2012 to-do list

    First of all, a reminder – if you are participating in the Book of Lists, we’re posting our first list on Monday (December 3) and the topic is wishlist. So if like me you haven’t done it yet, work on it this weekend!

    And now, since today is the last day of November, I give you my holiday to-do list. I am pretty happy that I can already cross off a few things.

    1. Put up household decorations.

    2. Put up tree and decorate it.

    3. Make advent calendar.

    4. Fill advent calendar. (Decided to skip this.)

    5. Buy gifts for family. (In progress.)

    6. Assemble my Christmas wish list and send to family (we all do lists).

    7. Decide whether or not to send Christmas cards. (Going to do New Years’ cards!)

    8. Drive to see the lights in River Oaks (a fancy Houston neighborhood).

    9. Go shopping with Dad.

    10. Attend the Messiah singalong with Mom.

    11. Bake my sister-in-law’s delicious Christmas cookies.

    12. Go to the Christmas tree farm with family.

    13. Do something for Meredith’s teachers.

    14. Work Christmas party.

    15. Nursing home Christmas party.

    16. New pajamas for all of us.

    17. Drink a lot of peppermint mochas. (In progress.)

    18. Keep up with December daily.

    19. Cook whatever my family tells me to cook.

    20. Shop the sales after Christmas for holiday items.

    What’s on your list?

  • Currently

    Meredith and her cousin Cameron yesterday on Thanksgiving. The hand-holding kills me.

    Time // 10:00 a.m.
    Place // kitchen counter
    Eating // bacon and Christmas cookies
    Drinking // coffee
    Watching // my husband feed Meredith leftover snacks
    Reading // Moby-Dick by Herman Melville – agreed to a readalong with my brother-in-law (he’s smoking me on speed though) and am enjoying it a lot more than I expected to
    Wanting // some cool weather to arrive and stick around
    Thinking // about venturing out to a few stores
    Creating // Christmas decorations
    Hoping // my uncle’s health improves
    Needing // to do a purge of stuff we don’t need or use throughout the house
    Anticipating // Christmas :)

    ***

    Our Thanksgiving was a little untraditional – after a quiet morning at home we spent the afternoon in the hospital visiting my uncle where my family had Chinese food. We’re gathering again later today to eat barbecue too. Then that evening we had our big meal with David’s family. I think the best part was watching Meredith sample the different pies.

    http://youtu.be/V1V3o9o6roQ

    So funny. Anyway it was good, and now we have three more days to relax, and my husband and I are about to head out shopping. Not for gifts yet (I’m not that ahead of the game) but for things we need (and want) around the house.

    Happy long weekend! :)

  • two new holiday traditions : december daily and advent calendar

    I know it’s just about time for Thanksgiving, but that means December and advent (my favorite) are right around the corner and I am already preparing for it. One of the fun things about starting your own family is figuring out what your holiday traditions are going to be. I’ve written before about what my family’s traditions were, and many of them are still intact, but now that we have a kid we are adding new ones. Here are a couple that I’m starting this year.

    December Daily

    One of the memory-keeping blogs I read is Ali Edwards. She has so many great ideas, and one of them is that every year she makes a December daily album with a photo a day focused on the holidays. I’ve been interested in making more minibooks, but at first I wasn’t sure if this project would be redundant for me since I’m doing Project Life. But once I thought about it, I realized it would be really nice to have because I can capture some of the details of the holidays that I might not otherwise, I wouldn’t feel the need to inundate my Project Life with holiday stuff, and I can display the completed books every year as seasonal decor.

    In order to simplify things I wanted my album to be as ready as possible before December starts so that all I’ll have to do is print photos and add journaling & extras. Since I already had a pack of chipboard on hand I decided to make mine the same format as the Book of Lists. On the cover I repeated a stamp that says “December” for a patterned look.

    I made a simple title page with a stamp, some gems, and handwritten text.

    Then on the back inside cover I embossed “Noel.” I don’t do near enough embossing; it’s like magic.

    For the bulk of the album I bought these digital files by Ali and printed them on cardstock. I plan to just adhere the photos to the backs of them so I have a 2-page spread per day, and I’ll add embellishment as I go. I’m definitely going to keep it simple since it’s my first year and I don’t want to get overwhelmed.

    If everything goes as planned I’ll be sharing updates of the book with you throughout the month of December!

    Advent Calendar

    I love advent calendars and the feeling of anticipation they bring. I mean who doesn’t love a good countdown? But I especially love the kinds that are handmade and have you do something each day, whether it’s just adding a piece to a puzzle, filling in a picture, doing an activity, or hanging an ornament.

    Several years ago I bought a kit from this shop to make my own advent calendar, but the problem was that I didn’t know how to sew and I didn’t have access to a machine. Well finally this year I made it happen! David’s grandma is letting me keep her machine and she recently came over to teach me to use it. I sewed a few practice lines but I really couldn’t wait much longer before digging in to the real project.

    Here is what I came out with:

    It was the perfect first sewing project because it has a rough unfinished look so my mistakes really aren’t that noticeable. The hardest part was just cutting the numbers out. But if you look closely you can see some wonky stuff going on. For example, the second pocket I sewed looks like this up close:

    Yeah that’s not straight. :) But look! I got better!

    The back isn’t great either and I’m thinking the bobbin might be a little loose…? (I am still learning this technical stuff.) But anyway I am now sort of obsessed with sewing. I think I am actually going to try my hand at a quilt pretty soon. It could spell disaster but I’ve gotta practice!

    Back to the advent calendar though. Currently the pockets are empty, and this year I will probably just put chocolates in them. Next year, since Meredith will be old enough to sort of understand what’s going on, I am thinking I will either put mini ornaments in them for her own mini tree, or slips of paper with a family holiday activity. Or both!

    What kinds of things do you do to document the holidays? Does your family have an advent calendar?

  • project life 2012 : week 38 (our kansas trip)

    This is from October 14 – 20, which was entirely taken up by our road trip to Kansas.

    I think this week was the easiest to put together because I wanted it to be almost all photos. Since it wasn’t a sightseeing trip – we basically just hung out at our friends’ houses – I didn’t need to journal much.

    For the date card I used a photo of the typical Kansas landscape outside my friend Ellen’s front window. On this first page I included a few pics of the journey, Ellen & I + our girls, and one of Meredith in motion at a library story hour. The journaling card on this page sums up the whole trip.

    On the right side is more photos of us just hanging out. I love them all. The morning we left I realized I hadn’t taken any pictures of Becca & I and of course I had to have at least one to include here. The background was dark since it was so early so I just cropped that part out.

    It was nice to be able to just slip photos in and be done, but I like the look of my pages a little better when they’re more a mix of photos, journaling, and ephemera. Still learning as I go here!

  • day in the life // girls’ day off

    This year I decided that it’s good for my health and sanity to take a random day off work every month or so. Sometimes I need those days to be “me” days where I still put Meredith in daycare and have some time to myself. But other times I want some extra time with her, and that’s what I did yesterday.

    7:00 a.m. / we’re up and David’s up and we see him off to work shortly.

    8:00 a.m. / Meredith still has a cough and congestion so before we do anything else we take a steamy shower/bath. Her favorite thing is to fill a cup up with running water and dump it out over and over.

    8:30 a.m. / it’s kind of cold today so I blow-dried her hair. Now it’s a big puff.

    8:45 a.m. / time for breakfast. For her it’ll be eggs and banana, for me a bagel, coffee, and whatever she doesn’t eat.

    9:30 a.m. / I open all the doors to the house because it’s beautiful outside. Meredith plays outside while I putter around taking care of odds and ends.

    10:00 a.m. / I get to spend some time working on my advent calendar (and actually finish later on in the day). I’m very pleased with it.

    10:45 a.m. / we are all dressed and ready to head out for some errands. We drop something off at my brother-in-law’s house, return some books to the library, then head to the craft store.

    11:35 a.m. / my dad calls me and says he’s driving right behind me! He pulls into the parking lot of the craft store and we have a quick chat and hug. Then I buy a few supplies for my December daily album.

    12:00 p.m. / we visit David at work! Meredith cries when anyone other than us tries to hold her, but she gets excited when she sits in his chair. Everyone wants to see her and talk so we’re here about an hour.

    1:10 p.m. / I was hoping to get lunch in her before nap, but she fell asleep on the ride home. Unfortunately she doesn’t stay asleep when I try to lay her down.

    1:30 p.m. / so I try to feed her lunch but she only eats a few ravioli before throwing them all on the ground. The dogs are happy.

    1:50 p.m. / I expect her to be grumpy because she’s barely slept or ate but she’s actually being really silly and adorable. She played peekaboo with the curtains and tried to ride our dog Cleo. In the meantime I finish up the advent calendar.

    3:30 p.m. / I transition my craft focus to prepping my December daily album.

    4:00 p.m. / Meredith still hasn’t napped and is starting to lose her cool. I decide it’s time to take her for a drive and induce a car nap. We pack up and drive into town and park at West Elm in anticipation of the Young House Love book signing I’m going to later. Meredith wakes up after about an hour and I give her some snacks in the car. I try to read but she’s becoming antsy so I put her in the stroller, go buy my book, and get in line.

    5:45 p.m. / Lauren joins us! It’s a long 2-hour wait in line but she makes it lots better. Meredith does pretty well but wants to get into everything and I am exhausted from holding her & constantly entertaining her.

    7:45 p.m. / we made it to the front of the line! Our interaction is brief, but John & Sherry are super nice. They comment on Meredith’s hair (it’s the first thing anyone notices about her) and how they got their daughter’s name the same way we got hers (a grandmother’s name).  Afterward we go straight home.

    8:30 p.m. / trying to nurse Meredith to sleep but she’s still restless! What is with this kid today? It takes at least an hour to get her to sleep and when she finally does it’s on top of me, and I’ve drifted off too.