This is Water

Alpha shared this video with me yesterday.  We talked about how true the description of every day life is and how it makes us feel ashamed.  Ashamed that we haven't always been choosing in the way he describes.

I think the hardest part about growing up is realizing that you can't control the way others treat you.  You can only control your reaction. 

 

Bow Ties for Babies

Last Saturday I threw a baby shower for Janelle to help celebrate the impending arrival of her baby bundle of joy.  She graciously arranged for us to have it in the party room at her apartment complex and I did my best to decorate the huge space.

Tiffany lent me a bunch of her party supplies (including her awesome collection of pom poms, which I strung into a garland for the buffet) and helped me with ideas, and basically just made my job easier. 

Combined the party-planning genius of friends with a trip to Costco, and party planning ain't half bad. 

Janelle has a picture on her desk of her husband, Logan, when he was just a little guy.  He's wearing a bow-tie and looking mischievous.  I wanted to make that the center of the party.  The animals on the invitations wore bow ties, the cupcakes toppers were bedecked in bow ties, and we all made bow ties for her little guy to wear.  You can see from the picture below that they all turned out really well.  She is going to have the most dapper little man around.

Of everything there, the thing I was most proud of was the grey and white chevron blanket that I made.  Mostly because I actually finished it on time (hooray!). 

Congratulations, Logan and Janelle!  I'm excited to meet baby M. in July!

Around the house

I know you've all been dying to see some grainy iPhone pictures of the current state of our home.  Well, your wish is my command.

Without further ado, I give you:

1.  The blue velvet couch. My favorite piece of furniture.  Also, a self-made parsons table and a pillow with inquisitive zebras on it.  Because who doesn't need a flock of zebras looking at you incredulously every time you sit down?

2. The entry way.  (For the record, this is not an iPhone picture...it is courtesy of Blake and his camera skills).  I love the way it looks when it's so sunny.

3.  Flowers from the garden on the kitchen counter.

4.  My new coat hooks.  Do I love them? You bet giraffe I do! (That joke never gets old.)

5.  New (cheap!) pillows for the living room couch.  I've since re-arranged them so that the patterns aren't both facing in the same direction. It's absolutely driving me crazy in the photo below. Alas. First world problems.

And that, my friends, is a quick tour of our house as seen through an iPhone lens.  You're welcome.

More of Spring

I can't get enough of our house in the springtime.  The forsythia bush blooms bright yellow and is followed shortly by the tulips (I planted them last fall and was ecstatic to see them come up in such force).  Then there's the piece de la resistance - our cherry tree. 

Blake and I have both decided that if anything ever happened to the cherry tree that we'd have to move.  It's just so much a part of the identity of the house.  Our yard would feel naked without it.

When it's in full bloom, I can smell it wafting down the street about a block and a half away.  The sun is always hitting it just-so as I'm walking home from the metro and it makes my heart burst with how much I love where we live.  The first thing I do when I get home on those nights is to crank open all of the windows and let the scent fill the house.  It feels and smells like spring.  It's magical.

On a different note, I also think we're single-handedly employing all of the honey bees in the metro area during the two weeks it's in bloom.  The whole tree buzzes happily with activity.

Azaleas

One of my favorite things about springtime DC is that the color comes in waves.  Not everything blooms at once.  The daffodils come first.  Then the cherry blossoms and the tulips, then last (but certainly not least) the azaleas.  I'm pretty sure it's nature's way of easing us through 'til summer.  Just when I think the soggy blossoms littering the pavement are going to break my heart - wham, here comes the next round of color and I'm perking right up again.

Blake and I have been taking walks around the neighborhood at night to enjoy our neighbors' azaleas.  Our neighborhood is absolutely filled with them - in every shade you can imagine.

These photos are from my iPhone and were taken at dusk, so they're nothing special.  But, you can imagine how amazing the colors are in person.

When we bought our house we had only two azalea bushes on the property.  Huge, white, puffy ones by the patio.  We've kept those, and added several more. We can't be outdone by our neighbors now, can we?