Baby Stuff

It's crazy how much baby stuff I have so far! Yesterday, to try to motivate myself, I took everything out and spread it out on the couch. This is just the stuff I have at home, my mom and sisters have been buying stuff and keeping it at their house till I'm ready for it, which I cannot thank them enough for. As you can tell by the color scheme, we aren't sure yet if it's a boy or a girl, but hopefully we will know in the next couple of weeks. l  I have a lot of cleaning, purging, organizing, and redecorating to go before the baby gets here, and I'm trying to get most of it done before I go back to school in 12 days- YIKES winter break is too short!

Baking

My Hubby and I, between the two of us, have a very large family; so for the past three years we decided to give baked goods instead of "things" for Christmas presents. This year everyone got their own little bag (instead of larger boxes for couples / families) so no one had to share :) Each bag contained chocolate, pecan, and almond fudge, cookies and cream fudge, and little cocoon cookies. 

We also celebrate Christmas at three different houses, and this year we decided it would be nice to bring a dessert to each house! This is my grandmothers pound cake- it is the first time we managed to bake it correctly. We took it as an after breakfast snack at my mother in law's house. 

  I forgot to take a picture before we started to eat, but this is the Oreo crust, pudding pie, that my hubby made for our lunch dessert at my mom's house. (The crust was store bought, but the pudding was home made and really yummy)

Lastly, this is the white chocolate, hazelnut, pumpkin cheesecake I made for the dinner dessert at my hubby's father's family's Christmas dinner. It was a new recipe and delicious! It was fun to do all the baking, and I enjoyed spending the time with my husband, but I may not bake anything till next Christmas! 

Christmas Cheer

I love Christmas. It's taken awhile for me to love it- its hard to love the holiday when you were born the day before. I probably didn't appreciate the holiday until I moved out of my parents house. My mom is a Christmas nut, she starts playing Christmas music the moment Thanksgiving dinner is cleared from the table, she covers the house in decorations, and she loves buying presents. 

When I moved out I realized that life wasn't the same, and that if I wanted Christmas cheer in my home, that I would have to make it. This is my tree this year- its just a baby tree, but I was too worn out for much more. (This tree took me a good hour to decorate as it is! ). My hubby and I put up lights too! Those pictures will be coming soon (we ran out of lights, so we aren't really done yet). In addition to this, I am listening to a Christmas station on Pandora while I write my last two papers of the semester. Wish me luck I have two papers, two presentations, two exams, and two weeks left till I am off for break!   

More Ramblings on Fashion

So despite being a Fashion Merchandising major, and despite making my own clothing, I pay very little attention to mainstream fashion and runway shows. What the designers are doing never has much interest to me. However, I am truly in love with the work of Alexander McQueen (may he rest in peace) and John Galliano . While pursing the internet, doing research for a homework assignment, I stumbled across a collection I hadn't looked at in a "long" time, and I forgot how amazing it is. These photos are from John Galliano's collection for Christian Dior, spring 2007. I only hope that one day I have have a quarter of the talent that he has. 

The photo on the bottom left is the man himself at the show, and the dress on the bottom right I think is my Favorite, either that one or the one above it, I can't decide! These photos came from style, and if you click on the link you can see the rest of the show.  

A funny kind of Mood

I've been in a funny mood as of late. . .I have about a million ideas of things I want to make, but since I have no time to make things, the ideas kind of slip away. I have to say it's making me nuts. I haven't been sure these last couple of months where I want my "style" to go, I have a closet full of clothes and nothing to wear! or at least nothing I want to wear, Do you guys ever go through this? and now that I am expanding, nothing fits right either. This morning I was looking at Modcloth and felt really inspired.

I'm really loving maxi dresses right now, normally I obsess over them during the summer, so I have to start thinking about what shoes work best with them in the winter! any tips? The dress on the left  is really appealing because of the vertical panels and the neat bust details. I love the lace on the dress on the right, it has such beautiful drape to it. I work a lot in cotton, but I really want to expand, or go back to, working with different fabrics, and challenging myself more.  

More beautiful dresses: the Young Composer Dress (I love the sheer sleeves), and the City of Emeralds Dress, which looks like a mermaid to me. 

Knits are something I haven't really messed with in a long time, but right now I am loving leggings and tunic tops, and knit tunic tops are even better, and I love pairing long sweaters with my dresses- but I don't have enough long sweaters either. You can check out these sweaters here. 

Before I end this post, I want to show you this beauty! It's way out of my very limited budget right now, but I can't help but dream. It's the From Babylon Dress, I love everything about it, I love the print, and how they worked it so the sleeves are pink, I love the puff of the skirt, and I love the pockets. I wish I could find fabric as cool as this. 

By the way, I am in no way associated with Modcloth, I just like there clothes :)

It's been awhile. . .

SO. . .  I have a lot of excuses as to why I have disappeared from my blog. Firstly, school has taken over my life, why is it professors don't think you take any other classes, or do anything else with your life besides take  their class? and secondly, and most important. . .

I'm pregnant! It's crazy, and unexpected, but my husband and I are thrilled. I am now 15 weeks along, and everyone keeps telling me that I should start doing better now, but I'm not quite feeling it yet. So far I have had morning sickness, migraines, dizziness, mood swings (mostly sad), loss of energy, and about every other negative side effect there is to being in your first trimester of pregnancy. 

So that, in combination with school, and frustrating family members, has left me with no energy to do anything besides sleep and do homework. However I am tired of not doing things I enjoy doing! I have been neglecting my blog, and I have to apologizes to you (my readers) (I hope you are still reading!), and I have to say that I am determined to get my act together! 

This is our first sonogram, this was at eleven weeks, so it doesn't look like much, but it was a truly remarkable moment that I cannot even describe; it made everything so real. I am going to frame this photo and hang it on the wall in my house. Today I had a Dr's appointment and we get to schedule our next sonogram! I am so excited even though it's still three weeks away. Good bye for now dear readers, but I promise we will "talk" again soon!   

A Trip to the County Fair

So, I kinda kept putting off this post because I knew it would have sooo many pictures in it! In August we have the Montgomery County Agricultural Fair, and my family has been volunteering at the fair for as long as I can remember; because of this I normally don't walk around the fair for fun- but this year I did. I went with my nephew chase, my hubby and our two good friends.  

I always enjoying seeing the animals, especially the bunnies. My Favorite type of bunnies in the Rabbit barn are definitely the huge fluffy ones.

These are all pictures from the "Old Macdonald's Farm" barn, which is kinda one of the only animal barns I go into (besides the rabbit barn) because they normally have baby animals.

There is my hubby checking out the sheep!

Next stop was the "Home Arts" barn; this barn contains sewing, cooking, crocheting, knitting, quilting, and other things considered "home arts". The pictures above are all things my sister created and entered! To see more of her stuff go here.

The "Arts and Crafts" barn is where my family has always volunteered, so it is always my favorite barn.

Look! its the things my mom and I made during our crafting day :) On the Left is our plaster cloth creations (I blogged about mine here) my mom made the snowman and won a first place, and I made the day of the dead bride and won a second!

 On the right I made the cat (on the left) and my mom made the hippo on the right (I blogged about them to). I won a first place and mom won a second place. 

My nephew entered a bunch of stuff too, I am really proud of how well he did!

For the past three years (I think its been three years that is. . .) my sister has made a huge collage for the fair, this is the one she made this year. Its a sea dragon, which I didn't know even existed, apparently its a type of fish that lives in the waters near Australia. They are neat looking. 

The building splits entry's up by age, so there are children's, teen's, and adult's sections. The teen's section had tons of neat entries, so I had to take pictures of the ones that blew me away. 

My hubby and I feel in love with this entry in Adult's of a hippo eating peanuts. The artist said she painted the peanuts from memory.

In addition to arts and crafts, the barn also houses the photography department. Normally I get overwhelmed walking through this part of the building, but these three photos caught my eye.

Next we took a swing through the "Old Timers" barn. People can enter flowers, veggies, and assorted other things in this barn.

and the blacksmith is always set up outside of the old timers building. 

It was a really fun evening, and I'm glad I got to enjoy it with such fun people.