Little Family

Sarah took some pretty awesome photos of Dave and me when she came out for a visit. Here are a few of my favorites... To check out more of her photos of us, click here and browse through (there are several different posts of our photo shoot). I'm 33 weeks along in these pics (I'm now at 35!)




Thank you Sarah for helping capture these wonderful moments and memories!

Tomorrow Is The Last Day...

Since August 15, "Painted Red" been downloaded over 16,500 times! Tomorrow (November 1) is the last day that you can get it for free (legally and guilt-free that is). I hope you have a chance to download it:)

Still Growing...

Chair Vision

I finally found a photo to illustrate what I'm picturing for my little orange chair. It looks like these chair renovators chose to use latex paint instead of spray paint. I really like how it looks, so I might go ahead and do it that way. To see more photos of their chair makeover, click here.

Thanks for all your advice and insight regarding this project! Whatever I do, I'm still planning to wait until after the baby comes. Hopefully we can all be patient!

Where's Waldo?

Orange Calls To Me

I'm not sure what it is about orange, but I'm totally into it right now. I saw this chair at one of my favorite antique stores in Nashville last week but decided to pass on it. When I went in again a few days ago, I couldn't resist it's retro charm... especially with a $42 price tag.

I've seen so many "chair makeovers" in magazines recently, and I saw potential in this really solid, comfortable beauty. I'm planning to paint the wood white to give it a much fresher appearance. I'm going to wait until after the baby's born just to be safe (no toxic paint fumes!). Since it has those wicker sections, do you think I should try to use latex paint and a brush, or semi-gloss spray paint? I've never painted anything like this before. Ideas?

Dave's One Request...

... for the nursery was a lava lamp. It doesn't exactly fit the overall aesthetic of the room, but I figured I'd oblige since he let me pick out everything else. He chose a pink one from Target, and he's already spent a significant amount of time being mesmerized by the little mutating blobs.

Dave LOVES lava lamps. I actually almost bought one for him for Christmas last year. There were several in the studio when we were recording, and I'd always catch him staring blankly at the pretty shapes. I think Lucy will like looking at lava too :)


By the way.. the side table is new too (it's also from Target). I like how the natural wood ties in with the branch/nature theme.

Shower #3

My wonderful friend Sarah flew out to Nashville (from Pasadena, CA) to throw a shower for me (what an amazing gal!). I LOVED the decorations and the food.

Sarah (wearing pink) made all of the brown paper flowers in the windows (which I'm TOTALLY going to use again).

I have lovely friends...

... who spoiled me with lovely gifts :)

Sarah made these adorable onesies for Lucy.

Carol made this gorgeous quilt!

That concludes all of the showers for baby Lucy. She is so loved already!

Stair Makeover

Our stairs that lead down to the basement are pretty treacherous. They are really shallow, which means that if you have normal-sized feet, your heals will scrape the back of the stairs as you descend, leaving dirt and scuff marks on the white paint (as shown below... especially if you click to enlarge the photo). They are also steep, thus earning the adjective "treacherous."

We couldn't do anything about the steepness, but we could do something about the scuff marks. We decided to paint the white parts with the same brown paint we used for the basement floor. It's a totally different look, but it will be SO much nicer not to have all those visible marks on the stairs!

Thanks for painting, Dave :)

Lucy Love-Birds

I just finished another nursery project that I've been planning for months now. I found the branch at a Nashville park where Dave and I go for walks. I sewed 3 birds using this free pattern that I altered a little bit. After attaching the birds, it still seemed like something was missing, so I used the bumper pad fabric to make little leaves.

My vision was to hang the branch from the ceiling, but Dave wasn't too excited about making two big holes up there, so we came up with a compromise. We ended up attaching the two strings to the curtain rods. It's not exactly how I pictured it, but it's still super cute.



I only have a few more projects to go until it's all done!

Petunia Pack

I came across this diaper bag from Petunia Pickle Bottom and it's SO AWESOME! I totally love it, and Dave wouldn't be embarrassed to wear it either.


Three cheers for Petunia Pickle Bottom! However, at $136 all of those lovely qualities don't quite seem worth it. Let me know if you guys run across anything similar with a smaller price tag.

Oops

Thanks to all of your encouraging words and prayers about our birthing class today. We were planning to go from 1-5pm, but it turns out that it started at 9am (we realized this at 11). SO, we drove to the hospital and spoke to the instructor about our options and we decided to reschedule for mid-November. I guess it just wasn't time yet!

Nursery News

At my shower in San Jose, an old family friend gave us this very cool, very detailed banner that she made just for us! There are spots to attach photos of Lucy as she grows each month. What a thoughtful gift! I hung it up yesterday.


I FINALLY finished working on the bumper pad. I got a little discouraged halfway through the process when I saw one at Target that was almost exactly like the one I was making. I almost abandoned my project to buy the pre-made one, but I decided to stick it out. I'm glad I did, because it turned out pretty cute.

Shower #2

My mother-in-law, Pauly, threw me a really wonderful shower in Phoenix. My good friend Stacy was very kind to let us use her gorgeous home! She also helped out a TON with food preparation and invitations and lots of other little details. Basically, I feel very loved.

Here are some photos I took of the food:


And yes... it all tasted as good as it looks!

Aunt Jes and me.

Grandma Pauly and I having lovely time looking at some of Lucy's wonderful gifts.

Thanks to all of you who helped us celebrate!

Prayer & Babies

Tomorrow we start our birthing class at the hospital. It's from 1-6pm tomorrow and Sunday. Hospitals/medical stuff have been a source of anxiety for me for the past few years or so, so I'm feeling a bit uneasy about the class this weekend. Do you think you guys could pray for me if you think of it?... that I would have peace and even enjoy the process.
much love,
*jj

Apron

Before I load photos of my Phoenix baby shower, I thought I'd do some catching up. Here's a photo of the apron I made for my wonderful sister-in-law, Jessica. It was her birthday on the 3rd :). The fabric seems so happy and perfect for an apron. Happy baking!

Shower #1

My mom and her friends threw me such a wonderful baby shower! So many special ladies showed up and I felt so loved. These are photos taken by others to commemorate the event...

The day of my shower also happened to be my mom's birthday. This is a photo of her with the apron I made for her. She requested black and red to match her kitchen colors (she's holding it lining-side-out, but you get the idea :).

A woman from my church made these fantastic cupcakes... lemon with lemon curd, and chocolate with nutella. So good.

Mom, sister and me surrounded by an unbelievable amount of gifts. Lucy is spoiled already!

It was so great to have Steph there to celebrate with us. She wrote down who gave me what (for thank-you note purposes), and also found ways to express a bit of silliness :).

I'm so glad that some of my dear friends from college and high school could make it! Thanks SO much for making the drive, Debbie. I love you girls!