Photos of Baby

Let's go ahead and file this under: "Great Intentions with Unlikely Follow-Through."  I would really like to do weekly or at least monthly photos to document the first year of Lil Homey's life, but I'm afraid it will always go to the bottom of the to-do list, and once you miss the month, it's gone.  Maybe Henry can keep us on track to do it all year...look at these cute ideas I found on the internet:


I can't find a legit source for this, sorry.



Spelling it Out

White Board Baby

"Calendar Girl" - sorry for the blur

Laundry Baby

Adventure Baby

I love the last one the very best - creating little scenes with the baby seems so fun!  But realistically, I'm probably going to want something quick and easy...I love the "Calendar Girl" idea too.  And using the photos to make little calendars or books for loved ones at the end of her first year would be easy and awesome!  Anyone else have ideas for weekly or monthly baby photos?

Inspired by Downton

via

I finally got the message and watched Downton Abbey this past weekend (just season 1 so far). And, just like everyone else I know who's seen it, I'm hooked. And how awesome would it be to have someone pick out beautiful, albeit very formal, clothes for you every day? I especially love Lady Mary's dress in the pic above. With the drama of Downton on the brain, thought I would put together a pretty little modern day summer outfit inspired by her look:

Braided sheen hat - anthro  /  Songbird dress - madewell (Think Madewell may have gotten their inspiration from Downton on this one too?)  /  Refined silk cashmere wrap - jcrew (had to add a splash of mint - my biggest color crush of the moment)  /  Gumdrop studs - kate spade (Katie gave me these as a gift for hosting her shower, and I've worn them pretty much every day since.)  /  Braided belt - madewell  /  Summer wedge - fossil (These are my new fave shoes for summer.)


One of my favorite quotes from season one: "What's a 'weekend?'" (Lady Grantham)

Cheers,

Come and Knock on My Door

I would love to paint our front door a wild and funky color someday.  Some inspiration (all found on my pinterest board):

Which is your favorite?  I think I'd have to go with the first one (plus the house number, 24, is my lucky number!)

IHWSH - A Trophy

We are still pretty new to this whole "blogging" thing (you can tell by the crazy font situation below, not to be remedied today), but we've had a lot of fun dreaming up and creating posts almost every weekday since last September.  And we're excited every time someone tells us (or emails us) to say that they read our blog.  Our friend Megan B. texted a picture of a project she did that she saw on our blog a couple weeks ago:

Her pots and plants look awesome (cute placemats too)!  We really appreciated her message.  If you like something you see here, buy something we posted about, or "craft" something from our blog, we'd love to hear about it - please leave a comment or email us at katieandjayne@gmail.com.  Thank you for reading our posts!

Our friend Abby (who writes a fun blog about her adventures living in France) nominated us for a "Versatile Blogger Award"!  We are flattered and grateful for the shout out.  There doesn't appear to be criteria for this award, so we are passing it on to 5 of our favorite reads each day.  Check them out (along with some strange-but-true facts about us below).

 The rules for this award are as follows:

• Nominate 5 Fellow Bloggers for the Versatile Blogger Award
• Add an image of the Versatile Blogger Award
• Thank the blogger who nominated you in a post with a link to their site.
• Share 7 completely random facts about yourself.
• Include this set of rules.
• Inform each nominated blogger of their nomination.

Our nominations go to:

• bobbi+mike - duh-town, of course they're our favs! they photographed both of our weddings and gave us the best images, but they are also great friends.
• Little Green Notebook - she has the coolest style and inspires us to try awesome DIY furniture and decorating tricks.
• Dinner, A Love Story - chronicles one family's beautiful dinners and the fun that they have putting the meals together and sharing them (and has great reviews of kid's books).
• Suri's Burn Book - makes fun of hollywood tots from Suri Cruise's sassy perspective.
• Kendi Everyday - we love her style and her short, funny commentary at the end of every post.

Seven random facts about us:

1. During a summer in college, Jayne was a traveling sales rep for Hershey chocolates; Katie's first job out of college was as a traveling marketing and sales rep for Rubbermaid (Jayne wins, she had boatloads of free candy!).
2. We love the phrase bomb.com and like to pretend that we invented it (who could prove that we didn't?)

3. We were playing "post office" together when our Dad came to tell us we were headed to the hospital - our brother Sam was born later that night.  (He graduates from high school next weekend!)  For those interested in playing "post office," it is pretty simple: tie strings to random objects throughout a room, write notes to whoever you want, fold them in half, and mail them (slide them) along a string to their destination. 

4. We were in a co-ed a cappella group together at Indiana University called "Selective Hearing."  (Katie was in grad school, Jayne in undergrad).  We had so much dorky fun singing with this group.  The group shortened the name to "SH" and then would put "SH" on the beginning or ending of a lot of (way too many) words, like SHong IdeaSH, SHKatie, JayneSH, SHconcerts.

5. Growing up, we had an orange husky named Chelsea.  She was the best dog ever.

6. We lived together at IU during the summer of 2005.  One day we each came out of our room to go to the gym together in the EXACT same outfit.  We didn't change.
7. We lived with our grandparents (Beeps and Beep Beep) during the summer of 1990 while our house was being renovated.  We spent a very large portion of that summer watching "The Little Mermaid" on VHS and playing four-square with super-cute neighbor boys on the front porch.

My Latest Jams

I did a LOT of driving over the past couple weekends, for two amazing baby showers in a row. So naturally, I have some new favorite songs since I had a lot of time by myself to jam out. Here were the ones I played over and over again.. and still am:

1. Some Nights - Fun (really fun to drive to - I feel like I'm in the Lion King or something)

2. Payphone - Maroon 5 (feat. Wiz Khalifa)

3. The Funeral - Band of Horses

4. Rivers and Roads - The Head and the Heart  (thanks for introducing me to these guys Erin!)

5. Shake it Out - Florence and the Machine (also love Katherine McPhee's version on Smash)

What's on repeat for you?

Plain Vanilla

As Jayne mentioned a while back, Henry and I made homemade vanilla extract for family and friends this past Christmas.  It was fun and super easy, and something that everyone can use!  Also, making your own is WAY less expensive than buying it at the store.  The bottle we have for ourselves will probably last us 5 years (and it doesn't go bad!)

I used Annie's instructions from her blog "Annie's Eats" (amazing food and cooking inspiration - and she lives in Indiana!)  Thank you Annie for this great idea!  Here's what Annie has to say:

"With as much baking as I do, I go through vanilla extract like nobody’s business.  I don’t give a second thought to buying most of my baking staples but I would always flinch a bit when I picked up an $8 bottle (Really?!  For that much?!) of vanilla extract from the store.  It seemed like I was doing so more and more frequently, and something had to give.  Thankfully making your own vanilla couldn’t be easier and it is far more economical than buying the store bought variety at an alarming rate.  Do you have five minutes?  Then you have time to make vanilla.  And now is the perfect time to make your own.  The holidays are fast approaching and bottles of homemade vanilla extract could make wonderful gifts for the bakers in your life.   How cute would these look tied with a little bit of holiday ribbon and a personalized tag?  Be still, my heart.

All you need are vanilla beans, cheap vodka (save the good stuff for drinking), and bottles or jars.  Really just about any container that closes will do.  Fill your containers with vodka, split vanilla beans, and add three beans per eight ounces of vodka.  Close your containers tightly and place them in a cool, dark location for about two months.  Shake occasionally.  That’s it!  Whenever I finish a bottle, I refresh with a new bean or two and refill with vodka.  I have three bottles in rotation in my kitchen and so far it has been just the right amount to keep me stocked.  Try it and your wallet will thank you."
While Annie recommends doing it 2 months in advance, I would actually do it earlier to have ready for Christmas - ours still needed to "brew" for a bit longer after two months.  I followed her advice and tied them with ribbons and made little personalized tags - quick and easy!  And it was nice that it was something you can do way ahead of the holidays and have them ready to go.

I used these bottles from Sur La Table.  They are inexpensive and airtight.

I used these vanilla beans, purchased at a great price on Amazon.  I had never used them before in a recipe and was a little nervous "splitting" them. It was very easy - just ran a paring knife from one end of the bean to the other so that each bean was "open" before I dropped it in the vodka.

I used the cheapest vodka the liquor store had.

My leftover vanilla beans and classy vodka.

If you make a batch now, you could have some ready in your cabinet in a few months, to gift as a thank you, happy birthday, hostess gift, etc.!  I love having small, useful gifts on hand for all of those times I'm not prepared (pretty much every time).

Patio Dreams

1 / 2 / 3 / 4

Sigh. We're into perfect patio weather time - and I am envious of all the gorgeous patios I've been seeing, like the ones above. We opted for the view in our apartment building over having a patio. And granted, we can open the large windows and get some fresh air... but it's just not the same. Can't WAIT to have a patio to hang out on and grill out. Katie and Henry have an awesome top floor deck at their house that we ate on Saturday night while I was in DC. Henry made some amazing hamburgers, and it made me want to really get on this house hunting process. Our grill is in pieces stuffed into our utility closet. Soon enough!

Some fun outdoorsy stuff:

1. Hanging Chair: AM/PM  2. Rug: Dash & Albert  3. Planter: CB  4. Metal Drink Bucket: West Elm  5. Hartford Bench: Home Decorator's Collection  6. Banda Coffee Table: Serena&Lily  7. Rattan side table: One Kings Lane  8. Galvanized Chair: DWR

Anyone else in the same boat as me?  Hope you get out and enjoy the prime patio time this week!

Rainbow Run

Our awesome cousin Maria posted about "The Color Run" and the pictures looked so fun I had to check it out.  Turns out it's coming to DC this fall, near the end of October - it's a 5k for which you wear white and get covered in color throughout the run (or "easy-paced jog" as I prefer to call it).  I do not like running and I'm really bad at it, but I want some motivation for getting in shape post-baby, and I've done the "couch to 5k" program before - it's not too bad.  Anyone want to join me for the race?  If you're not in DC, they run them all over the country!  More information here:

The Color Run

IHWSH - A Vacation!

We're both really craving a vacation...a REAL vacation.  For this week's "I'll Have What She's Having," we are dreaming of pool-side lounging and relaxing in the sun.

We love our families so much, and always have fun spending time with them.  But it's hard to live far away from them, and that usually means we use pretty much all of our vacation time for "family events."  We don't want to trade that time away, so we really just need MORE VACATION TIME!  And then some money to get us where we want to go.  Yes, highly unlikely.  Maybe a long bubble bath will do the trick?

Calgon, take me away!


Source

 Katie's Vacay Picks:


Sicily



Bora Bora

Santorini, Greece

Jayne's Vacay Picks:


Portugal "Country" Home



Outdoor Snooze

Australian Beach House

Ok, maybe this is a little more realistic:


Source