Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Clothes...

For the last month or so I've been so sick of all my clothes and wanting new ones really bad. But all my shopping is pretty much devoted to getting Cohen clothes because he actually needs them and I don't since I'm not out growing my clothes every 3 months (thankfully). But here are some of the clothes I've found that I've been wanting (oh and if you click on the picture it'll take you to the site):
Cardigans-


I also really want a 3/4 length sleeve cheery yellow cardigan but haven't found one that I LOVE yet. But otherwise I'm loving this blue/green color motif lately.
Skirt-
I've been DYING for a light pink pencil skirt these days... so far the only place I've found that has one I like doesn't have it at our store and they don't sell their clothes online... oh H&M
I also want a new fun summer dress. Some brown flats and new black flats (mine are dying). And a new pair of vans sneakers (I miss my old pair and converse look goofy with anything except bootleg jeans)

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

To Remember

I LOVED this that one of my old Young Women Presidents wrote in regards to the Boston bombs after having been there as a participant in the Boston Marathon when it happened.


"Yesterday we were touched, over and over again, by the goodness and kindness of others. The people in charge of the medical tent at the race were heroically calm and immediately did their best to meet the needs of the injured. All over the city, outside the city later in the day, and at the airport this morning, a marathon runner's jacket brought questioning looks. The silent questions about whether we were there, what we saw, if we knew anyone who was hurt - were all in the eyes of those who saw us. There was also concern and fear. I felt the greatest desire to pass along the positive things we had seen and I felt some sense of responsibility to reassure. The people of Boston took care of the large group of runner "refugees" and their families. Lots of people were helping with directions. Others were offering hotel rooms, etc. I fell in love with that city in the few days we spent there before the race and my heart aches for the pain and loss of so many.

I was asked today about whether or not I will return to Boston to run. I will. Evil doesn't win as long as so much good is present - and Boston is filled with good.


Her thoughts go so nicely with this quote from Mr. Rogers:

I wanted to save these to be able to share with Cohen one day (as well as my other future children); to look for the light in the darkness. "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works"

Monday, April 15, 2013

A New Series of Illustrations in my Drawing Life

This is the start of a new series of drawings I've been working on...
I'm a big fan of the Curious George books by H.A. and Margret Rey as well as the Madeline book series by  Ludwig Bemelmans. I wanted to do some simple illustrations like those and this is what I came up with. Some of my first drawings in this style were done a while ago back in Washington and I hadn't been able to get back into it until now and this is the start of the new series. Having a baby boy it was easy to just imagine some of the things I can see him doing in a few years. It's also fun because this series is more boy oriented while my other one was more geared towards girls with my Alice in Wonderland, Wizard of Oz, "Start Reading", and so on... while boys may enjoy those books they're more girly in their look as far as my illustrations go. I may go back and add to that series (I had a huge list of books I wanted to do "Anne of Green Gables", "Little Women", and even "Tom Sawyer" were all included) but don't count on it.
I'm still adding more and more animals to my alphabet animals series (that one will never end I feel...) and I work on my "Into the Woods" series too a little bit. I have so many projects I want to work on with so little time now with the baby. Including a book Dave and I are working on for him!!

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Walking

So this year so far Cohen and I have gone on a lot of walks. At first it was a for sure once a week thing going walking up the hill, walk through a couple stores, and walk back home. This last month we've gone walking for sure twice a week and I love it! Spring is BEAUTIFUL here with the warmer weather and the pretty little wild flowers. This week I decided to be brave and we even walked down some trails right by our apartment. The reason this normally doesn't happen is because of these guys:
Yeah, I'm terrified of them. And it's way more likely to run into them while on the trails rather than walking up the hill on the sidewalk, except for that one time when they were across the street and I had to take a picture of them with my phone and then walk a little faster/check over my should a couple times.
Cohen likes our walks a lot too. He loves getting to look at all the things and just chill in his stroller (which he gets sick of when we go places like Babies R Us). I've even strapped him into the baby carrier a few times and walked with him up the hill that way. He's getting too heavy/I'm too weak for that now though until we get like a hiking approved one which I can't put him into by myself.
It's great getting the little exercise though and enjoying the weather until summer comes (thank goodness I'm not going to be HUGE this summer like last year).

 

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

attempted and failed

The other day while Cohen was playing I tried to sketch a drawing of him and failed greatly (drawing people I know is always a lot harder)... The sketch version was closer though than the one where I went back with my colored pencils over it... oh well... it was still fun to actually draw something (other than using my tablet)
a little closer in the eyes

a creepy looking random kid / coloring pencil 
In other news Cohen now fits into his Mike Wazowski beanie that Camille made him... So cute... So I had to take pictures of him in it
January / April

Monday, April 8, 2013

First Year Book

I never posted what I have up to the first 6 mos of Cohen's life for his First Year Book. I love seeing the little changes in his face over each month. I still can't believe he's 6 1/2 months old now. He's growing up too fast!!!

Friday, April 5, 2013

Sleep...

Every time I feel like Cohen's finally got it down something changes that all of the sudden... The worst has been these last two nights where the first couple of hours he wakes up every hour (last night he was awake for two hours too after the first 4 hours waking up every hour). But every night I'm hopeful. I just wish his consistent good sleep habits could last forever and not just two weeks.
But his naps have been improving over all though for about the last month so at least he's got that going for him as far as sleep goes and I'm loving being able to actually do things with my day now because of it; or in this case take naps when he does.

Here are two cute pictures I got of him playing the other day. At least he's such a happy baby

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Easter

So the day before Easter I decided last minute I wanted to dye some eggs since I hadn't done that since getting married. Having no "Easter dye" I googled making your own and found out it's way easier and cheaper than getting the official stuff. It's just water, a little bit of vinegar, and food coloring if you were wondering. I decided to do only three colors and came up with yellow, orange, and this really pretty robin's egg dipping them in for different amounts of time to get different shades. But other than that our home wasn't decorated (we only decorate for Christmas... so far) and I wasn't really in the "Easter" holiday feel (other than of course appreciating the true meaning of Easter, especially now as a mother and understanding just a little bit what it must have been like for Heavenly Father to watch as everything happened). 
Cohen and I had been invited to an Easter Egg hunt for the Thursday before but we passed on it since Cohen doesn't like to actually be on grass. The farthest he gets is crawling up to the edge of the blanket and touching the grass with his fingers very gently. Plus with all the kids running around I figured it just wouldn't work. So I had no plans of doing an egg hunt but since I had dyed some eggs Dave said why not lay out just a couple on the floor for him to crawl to the next morning. 
So because of this after Cohen woke up for the morning and I fed him I handed him off to Dave for a little bit while I grabbed my camera and four eggs for Cohen. I told the boys I was ready and saw Dave helping Cohen walk into the room (one of his favorite things to do). Then Dave set him on the floor and let him go to town. Cohen crawled to the first egg and played with it very gently, never picking it up, for a second and then I'd put it in the basket I had put all the eggs into and he'd move on to the next egg. It was short, simple, and sweet and Cohen had fun. Dave and I had our hard boiled eggs for breakfast. We hung out for a little bit and then it was time to get ready for church (one thing I do like about having church at one is there's no rush in the morning).
Church was great even though we could only stay for sacrament meeting because of having a very grumpy and tired little boy who can't fall asleep at church. Easter and Christmas are the best for church.
We came home, ate some lunch, napped, and then got dinner ready. We had pork (I know it's not the traditional ham but I hadn't ever cooked pork and wanted to try it out), artichokes, and ranch potatoes. It was super tasty. All in all it was another successful holiday.








in the kitchen while I dyed the eggs


post egg dying in front of Cohen's master piece