So Innocent

Barely Surviving This Blizzard...

Picture Time!

Our new camera came today--time to play around and we have the perfect little participant! :)

Tis' the Season

Pre-Christmas shopping warm-up. :)

Step 1: Christmas onesie and festive shoes.

Step 2: Take a nap while Mommy gets ready.

Step 3: We're off!

Showered with Love

Over Thanksgiving break, Sage met a lot of her extended family at two separate baby showers thrown on her behalf. The first was hosted by my stepsister, Kim, and my sister-in-law, Cammy, at Carlos O'Kelly's. We had a great time playing games and catching up on life. I will pass on those pictures as soon as I receive them.

The other shower was thrown by my mom for her side of the family--The Schumachers. Well, as Lauren could confirm, Schumacher actually means "Shoe-Maker" so the theme was shoes, shoes, shoes. My mom decorated with all of my old "fancy" shoes that I wore to school dances and then found shoes for Sage that looked like her Mommy's. It was adorable. :)

Aunt Trina helped me show off a pair of my new shoes that just-so-happened to match the cute outfit that I wore on my big day.

Great-Grandma Schumacher

More pictures showing how big I am getting:

My cheeks look like the little critter's cheeks on my shirt.

This is where I take A LOT of naps.

Brian, this picture is for you! :)

I'm not really into the book Opa is reading--Perhaps if it had a few more pictures.

So happy!

A little TLC goes a long way

When we bought our house a little over two years ago, it was somewhat of a "fixer-upper". Every aspect of the house was outdated, from the light fixtures, to the wallpaper, to the flooring, to the appliances. We were in no hurry to change everything right away, but over the past two years we have made a lot of changes. Most recently, Ross installed wood laminate to over 700 sq. ft. of our main level. It brought our home from the 1970's to 2009. :)

Below is the kitchen over the years. I will post other rooms later.

Final walk-through before we bought the house.

Summer 2007: Tore down wall paper, retextured walls, painted cupboards, new cabinet hardware, (soon after replaced baseboards and trim).

Fall 2009: Replaced appliances, painted backsplash, replaced bowling alley light fixture, and replaced the floor.

Here are some alternate views:

Summer 2007 (Yes, that is a bird cage on the wall. What you can't see from this picture is that there is a 5 ft. parrot cage just past that one in the middle of the living room!)

Fall 2009

Slowly, but surely we are making this place our own. :)

Pleasantville

Disclaimer: The following post may cause some of you who completely dislike your jobs to become a bit jealous, so you may not wish to continue.

So this stay-at-home-mom stuff is pretty cool! Before having Sage, I said that I would never want to stay home all day, but these first three weeks have started to change my mind. Now, I'm not saying that I don't love my job, because most days I do, but it's going to be extremely difficult leaving our little one every day to drive to Ankeny. (Thank goodness for summers!) With that said, I am going to cherish every moment of the next eight weeks.

Sage is starting to get into a routine, well kind of... She gets up for the day around 8 and is wide awake for the next three to four hours. During this time she gets a bath (every other day) and we have music time. (She LOVES classical music!) We have also started taking field trips around the house (thanks to Johnni's idea) and discovering all of the new, somewhat blurry, items that seem to be totally amazing to an infant.

Today we had a little wrench thrown into our schedule, due to our new fireplace insert being installed, so we spent most of the morning hunkered down upstairs while the guys worked for about four hours. It was definitely worth the slight inconvenience. We don't have to tape off our fireplace with plastic this year, and instead we can use it to help heat the house.

After enjoying the BEAUTIFUL weather from inside the house while the fireplace was being installed, we took a long stroll through the neighborhood. Sage slept the whole time, but I enjoyed saying hello to all of the elderly folk taking walks and changing their oil, and to the few others that were mowing their lawns and walking their dogs. Life doesn't get much better than that!
While on our walk, Sage and I traveled along the path that she will someday walk to school. At that moment, I began to get teary-eyed thinking of our three-week old growing up too fast and starting kindergarten. To those of you who have also recently entered into motherhood for the first time, you understand these irrational thoughts and to the rest of you, it's okay to think I'm just nuts.
**I will also take this opportunity to reiterate the fact that, yes, our child will walk to school--I know, I am a horrible mother for not waiting in the line that wraps around the block, thirty minutes early, just to pick up my pride and joy from school every day. And, yes, Mollie you can hold me accountable for this just as you did the orange paint in Sage's room. :)

So I leave you with this...some days it just takes a simple walk on a beautiful fall day to remind us how fortunate we really are and to be thankful for all of the little things in life.

(Sage still tuckered out when we returned home.)