Meet Miss Anniston Ruth!

Here she is! The love of our lives. Our little angel was born on 10/10/11 at 6:18 pm. She weighed 8 lbs and 1 oz.

Here I am holding her for the first time- it was love at first sight!


This is one of her favorite faces to make- we have TONS of pictures with her making this face. How funny!

Mom, Allie, and I have had tons of photo sessions with her. She better get used to picture taking- there is going to be a lot more to come!

She already has Brandon wrapped around her finger- he loves her so much!

Look how different she looks at only 2 weeks old! We are so lucky:)

Nursery Pictures!

The nursery is FINALLY done. Aside from a few more odds and ends that I have coming from Etsy this is the finished nursery!! I think it turned out so cute and sweet. I hope Anniston loves it as much as I do!


Here is the crib! I ordered my bedding from Land of Nod. The vintage Barbie prints are from Ebay. I took them to Michaels to get them custom framed for an antique/vintage look. The border around the prints I had to custom order. I got the idea from a picture in Pottery Barn and decided to try to find someone who could make something similar. I love the finished look- I think it's so different from anything I've seen!

The bookshelf below I already had- it just had to be painted (thanks, Mom). I ordered the ABC print off of Etsy and bought a ready-made frame from Hobby Lobby.

The chair and ottoman I bought from Target! I was so impressed with the quality of it- and it matches perfectly! The little doll in the chair is from Pottery Barn.

This bench is one of my favorite pieces. I bought it from the Pottery Barn outlet and the cushions from West Elm. The pillow I had made at Cotton Tails. All of it turned out so cute!

The dresser and chest of drawers I bought used off of Craig's List. I changed out the knobs for a different look and it turned out perfect! I have a custom diaper caddy coming from Etsy that will sit on top of the dresser. The little Madame Alexander dolls Mom and I found at Tuesday Morning for a great price. I think they are such a great accent on the shelves! The mirror I searched high and low for. I finally found what I wanted at Home Depot! Who would've thought? It was exactly what I was looking for!

Here is my grandmother's dress that she made for me when I was a little girl. I love this collection of hangings on the wall.

And that is it! Now all I need is for Anniston to arrive!

DIY: Nursery Edition

I thought I would share a couple of projects I've been working on for the nursery. Allie and I have found so many cute ideas on the internet and if we can't find exactly what we want from a store then we just make it ourselves!

I had been searching to find a cute letter "A" to hang on the wall. I really wanted something that would soften up the look of just a plain painted wooden letter. I found a standard wooden letter and bought some cute yarn to wrap around it to soften it up a bit. Look how awesome this turned out! Perfect for a baby's room. The entire thing cost about $8.00 and took about 10 minutes to make!

My next project was inspired by some pictures Allie had found of a nursery with these "pom-poms" hanging from the ceiling. I had no idea where to find them and even if I did it would be hard to find in the exact colors I was using for the nursery. Allie convinced me that we could make some ourselves. So off to Hobby Lobby we went with absolutely no clue as to what we were doing! These pom-poms were actually not that hard to make. All it took was some styrofoam balls, artificial flowers, and a hot glue gun. It was a little tedious gluing the flowers to the balls but with two of us working it wasn't too bad. They turned out SO much better than I originally thought they would. I think these are so unique and girly!

Belly Pics!

I've had several people ask about belly pictures so here are a couple...

This picture was taken at 19 weeks- right after we found out we were having a little girl! My "bump" looks small in retrospect, but at the time it felt so big!

Whoa! Look how much I've grown! This is my belly at 30 weeks:

Vintage Dresses for Anniston Ruth

I was so excited to find out we were having a little girl, which we have decided to name Anniston Ruth. (The "Ruth" is after my great-grandmother, or "Ruthie" as we called her.) I was ecstatic for it to be a girl so I could dress her up in all of the beautiful smocked dresses my grandmother made for me when I was a little girl. I am so glad she saved them all! I have so many pictures of me wearing all of them and now I can pass them down to Anniston. How special! Most of them are still in great condition for having been made in the early '80's:) Here are some pictures of a few of them:

Me and Allie 1987

This one is adorable. I'm giving grandmom a sweet kiss on the cheek. The dress I have on says "Kelly" on the front with balloons around it. I still have this one- made specially for me!

Allie gave me this creative idea from a blog she had read: I bought a frame at Hobby Lobby, some cute material for the backing, and pinned one of the dresses grandmom made when I was itty bitty. How perfect that it matches the colors I'm doing in the nursery. It's going to look so cute hanging on the wall!

January Favorites!

1. SHARPIE PENS- I am so picky about which pens I use at work. They have to have a fine tip so I can write neatly and they ABSOLUTELY cannot smudge! These types of pens are hard to come by! The sharpie pens are amazing. I feel my handwriting is so neat when I write with them. I get ill if someone takes it from me at work; everyone knows they are MY pens:)











2. Origins VITAZING- this stuff is AMAZING! It's a moisturizer that is slightly tinted to even out your skin tone. When I put this on before I put on my Bare Minerals foundation, I feel like I get such a better coverage. I even wear the Vitazing by itself some days with just a little face powder and blush on top.

3. KASHI GO LEAN PROTEIN BARS- This has been an old favorite of mine but I recently started eating them again. They are pretty low in calorie for a protein bar and taste so good! My favorite is the caramel:)

4. P90X- It has been a couple of months since I was consistent with my weight training. I am so glad I've gotten back into it though. I still like to go to the gym and lift weights or use the machines there, but this is great to rotate in your workout schedule so you can mix it up!

5. AHHHH: MCDONALD'S CARAMEL FRAPPE- I need rehab to wean myself off of these! I have recently downsized from a medium to a small so I feel that's improvement. I try to only get them a couple times per week but it is HARD! They are so delicious. I never eat the whip cream with the caramel drizzle so I can justify that it's fewer calories that way:)

Photo Project!

A couple of weeks ago, I purchased a couple of hanging photo trays from Archivers. They had all different sizes to choose from and some really great project ideas for them. I decided to use pictures from mine and Brandon's trip to Boston in 2008. I LOVE the way it turned out! Here are some of the things I did:

I took a map from a book that we used on our trip, photocopied and printed it out on resume paper, then inked the sides to give it an "aged" appearance.

I used my wonderful Cricut for the letters in "Boston."

I used themed stickers that had famous Boston landmarks.

I found some cute bronze hardware in the shape of a suitcase, antique-like ribbon, and really fantastic buttons to add a little flair!

I can't WAIT to hang it up!!!