Our new house!

We've been moved into our new house for a month now and so far we've made pretty good progress! Especially since I am now 9 months pregnant! Yikes!

Thought I'd share just a few pics of the house pre- move-in. We love it so much! It's pretty much a blank slate so we're just starting the process of picking paint for each of the rooms and deciding what updates we're going to do first.

Our house hunting process was a long and arduous one, as most of them are. We looked at many, many homes, considered homes in other nearby towns and even put an offer on a house we thought was perfect. The house was a pre-foreclosure and in the end, ended up being a big pain in the ass and just not worth dealing with. We were disappointed but as with everything in life, when one door closes another opens and soon after we found a house that worked for us in the exact neighborhood that we wanted to be in from the very start. We feel so lucky that the previous house we made an offer on didn't work out. Our house is soooooo much better and BIGGER! :)

Like I said before, we've actually made some great progress in just the one short month we've been here. One of the first things we started on was, of course, the baby's nursery! We just put the finishing touches on it yesterday (only two things left to track down- a rocker and a diaper pail) and I will be putting up a post for it and all the details very soon! I LOVE it sooooo much. It turned out amazingly better than I ever expected. There are so many handmade, cool details that both me and my husband came up with and made ourselves.

For now I leave you with a few pics of our house....  gotta say again that they were taken before we moved in so I lay no claim on any of the furnishings. ;)

 Traditional colonial

 Large foyer!

 Yep, that's a lift chair that you spied in the previous pic! Of course we took it for a spin a couple times. :) It's actually come in handy with me being pregnant, I use it to carry heavy boxes and the laundry up and down the stairs. It's for sale if anyone is interested!

 My soon to be office/craft/sewing room!

The light and airy sun room.

Santa Barbara... our go to event/party/vacay spot!

In July I headed across the country (6 months pregnant) to Santa Barbara again for a bachelorette party. Santa Barbara seems to be our (me and my friends) spot for all events, parties and vacations. In the last several years I've been there many times, one of which was for my wedding at Firestone Winery! So of course SB holds some really great memories for me and I'm always glad to go back.

I must admit I was really nervous about traveling at 6 months pregnant. I'm not sure why since my doctor said it was perfectly fine. But having never done it before I expected (of course) and prepared for the worse. I wasn't sure if I was going to get air sick (which I've never been before), if the 5 hour plane flight would be totally miserable or if I'd be too tired to keep up. But all of those concerns were happily unfounded as I soon discovered I was just fine!

We stayed at our tried and true Hotel Mar Monte, where we always stay when in SB. It's a great mid-range hotel that's recently been updated and is located right on Cabrillo Blvd, right across from the beach. Conveniently there's a trolley (it only costs .25 cents!) that picks up right in front of the hotel (on Cabrillo Street) that'll take you to State St. where all the shopping and restaurants all.

We booked the wine tour through EOS, a transportation company that does wine tours to the Santa Ynez valley about an hour north of Santa Barbara. The price was very reasonable, they provide you with a gourmet sandwich lunch, pick your group up at your hotel and even offer a cheaper price for those in your group who may not be drinking- like me and our friend Donna who are both pregnant.

Anyways, enough about the deets... onto the fun photos...

 Good ol', trusty Hotel Mar Monte! Our go-to spot in SB.

 Part of the girls...  me and my burgeoning belly!

 The bride-to-be flanked by her beautiful sisters.

 Me and Donna with the Stork wine glasses I made for us. More deets on that after the photos!

 Two prego mamas on a wine tour- he, he!

 The whole gang.

 Can't get enough group pictures!

 Firestone Winery! My FAVORITE stop on the tour but I'm biased

because I was married there in 2009!

Stork/Baby Wine Glasses

It may seem like an oxymoron- stork/baby and wine glass but I thought I'd paint these wine glasses for me and my friend Donna to use while on the wine tour so that we would have something to drink water out of and to hold up in all the pictures I knew we'd be taking! I didn't want us to be left out!

I purchased two cheapo wine glasses at the 99 cent store and a small, paint pot strip of acrylic paints at Joann's that cost $2. Not being a particularly great artist, I perused the internet for clipart of a stork and baby that I could use as a template. After finding what I wanted I printed it out and taped it inside the glass to use as a guide as I painted.

I also purchased a black, fine point paint pen which I used to outline everything and to write on the glass. After painting in the solid parts of the birds body and adding a white banner where I'd later put the month and year we each were due, I let the paint dry over night. (Depending on how much paint you put on it could take longer to dry) The next day I when in and outlined everything, putting in the details on the stork and baby and writing in the initials and due dates.

Of course I coordinated the color of each glass to the baby's gender. On the sack with the baby 

I later wrote in the initial of the baby's last name.

 

 I decided to paint the bottom of each wine glass filling in the middle with light blue and outlining it with white. I did it freehand so it was perfectly proportioned but that just adds to the whole "handcrafted" feel.

It was as easy as that! Simple and quite fun to do. Donna loved the glass and we both had something to use during the tasting, hold up in the photos as well as a keepsake of the trip and our pregnancy.

An eventful two months...

Hey everyone- it's been a little over two months since my last post! Shame on me! The last post I left you with was about the Neti Pot. Yuck and so boring. Oh well, I feel as though I have several valid excuses for being M.I.A.

The last two months have been very eventful. Let me review with a bullet point list:

• Attended my best friend Paige's bachelorette wine tasting party in Santa Barbara, CA.

• Searched high and low for a house to buy. 

• After seeing many, many homes finally put an offer on one.

• My sister-in-law's wedding shower, where I baked and decorated all the beach themed cupcakes.

• Home inspections and all that "fun" stuff that goes with buying a house.

• Attended Paige's wedding in Lake Tahoe, also swung by Reno, NV to visit with my parents.

• Moved into our new house.

• Not to mention that I am now 8 1/2 months pregnant!

We've been in our new house for two weeks and have made decent progress. Most all of the boxes have been unpacked, now just to organize it all. One of our first priorities is putting together the nursery. So far we've painted the room but still have a lot to do to finish it up, like um... a crib and changing table would be a good idea!

We've also managed to change out a few light fixtures and plan to start painting the rooms and removing the oh-so-offensive wall paper in a few of the rooms. All that after the baby's room is finished of course!

It's a really busy time for me but I hope to post about all of the stuff I just rattled off now that we are kind of, sort of settled down a bit. First up will be my super fun trip to Santa Barbara, wine country and the super cute stork wine glasses I made for myself and my friend Donna (my fellow prego friend at the bachelorette party).

Look for those posts soon! :)

Wedding inspiration board- Art Deco & Peacock Feathers

The very first place I considered having my wedding at was Casa Del Mar located right on the beach in Santa Monica. (Read the post about my wedding location search here!) Built in the 1920's the hotel has been fully restored to its full Art Deco glory! It is truly a gorgeous venue and lends itself perfectly to a Art Deco/Peacock/Art Nouveau type wedding.

I thought it was THE place for sure. That is until I found out that the food and beverage minimum, regardless of the size of your party, is $30,000 for a Friday or Saturday night. Um... no thank you. But of course the day after I saw it and before I had a chance to price it out I had already in my mind and on my laptop started dreaming up an inspiration board for it.

Here's the board I started before my dream was abruptly interrupted... $30K yikes!

Gettin' there...

So of course I've planned to document my belly growth from month to month but until just recently, 5 months to be exact, I really didn't have much to show. We took a photo at 16 weeks but I didn't think it was enough to post! BUT now that I have a burgeoning lil bump to show off I can post my 16 week pic for comparison.

It's kind of weird... not at all what I thought my belly would look like at 5 months. I guess I just pictured more of a low, round bulge not the high, flat-ish bump that it is but I'm sure in another month it'll transform into a big round belly. :)

*See my full progression in this post**