Things I've been working on....

I knew hosting Buttercup's first birthday in our new home was a bad idea. But I refused to listen to reason and stressed myself out trying to get our house in some kind of order. We have no furniture, no car, no blinds and a daughter that doesn't sleep through the night.

On the bright side, this pressure to have our house look somewhat presentable to the masses forced me to make quick decor decisions-which is very unlike me.

Here are some of my purchases.

These towels and bathroom rug for the guest powder room.

And this rug for our living room which I've had my eye on for a while.

I couldn't believe it when I showed it to my husband and he said he liked it, "lets get it." We never agree so easily on home furnishings. I'm pretty sure the rug is too small for the space but I do love the color against our dark hardwood floors.

And I bought this shower curtain for the upstairs bathroom.

Since this is Buttercups bathroom I wanted it to be "fun" but not too childish if that makes sense. I think the bright colors are perfect.

And I lied about not having any green inside our home. I decided to go with green towels and a green rug to go with the curtain.

I'm desperately trying to add some color to our home since its a sea of neutral right now. And I accepted that our house wouldn't be "done" by BC's party.

The only room I wanted to be picture perfect was Buttercup's room. Before this girl was conceived I've been itching to decorate her room but it hasn't come together as planned. I was talked out of trying to paint her room before the party. Let's just say there was a family intervention and I was told that I was trying to do too much. I saw everyone's point and agreed but still wanted to get some wall art or SOMETHING up in her room. Inspired by Pinterest, of course, I thought fabric hoops with pretty fabric would be a quick way to get color in her room. This was my inspiration:

I absolutely love everything about this. But just like everything that I've found on Pinterest that I've tried to duplicate, my version never looks quite as nice. The hardest part is choosing fabric. I wish I could just CTRL C this nursery and paste it to BC's room. If only it was that easy.

My first trip to the fabric store did not go so well. I crumbled in the face of too many options. I lost focus, forgot what color palette I was going for. It didn't help that I went to the store on a busy Saturday afternoon. I was surrounded by a bunch of DIY, sewing savvy women that knew their way around the store like they owned it. I, on the other hand, felt lost in a sea of fabric. Here's a few fabrics I pulled out but was not feeling them together. I gave up and left empty handed.

 

I have no idea why these pictures aren't displaying properly!

I went back to the fabric store a few days before the party with a do-or-die attitude. I knew I wouldn't have time to come back to store before the party so this was my only chance. I told myself,  "just pick something it's only fabric." And I gave myself 30 minutes that's it. Well it took me 40 minute but I came out with a pretty decent selection that I think works well together.

 

Here they are on the wall.

In the end I didn't get the hoop art up for the party. Womp womp. It's still an uncompleted project since the letters need to be painted. And I'm thinking I might need more hoops? Looking at these pics the hoops seem a bit spread out. I'd also like to try to find fabric with some yellow in it to tie in the yellow handles on her dresser.

By the way the dresser is inspired copied from here. I saw how great her dresser turned out and realized that my childhood dresser with a fresh coat of paint and spray painted handles could be just as beautiful. And just so we're clear, I did not do any of the painting or sanding involved in the dresser project. Buttercup's got an awesome Grandpa! ;)

So that's what I've been up to. I've been writing Buttercup's birth story in bits and pieces. I had given myself up to her birthday to finish and yea that didn't happen so maybe by 13 months? [EDIT NOTE: 13 months didn't happen either we're keeping fingers crossed for 14 months!] You really shouldn't wait a year to start writing birth story or these are the kind of conversations you'll have with your husband.

Me: Do you recall exactly what the intern said when she checked me at the hospital?

Husband: long, dramatic pause. I see the head! The baby is coming out RIGHT NOW!

Me: That is absolutely NOT what she said.

Lunch Date

Buttercup,

Sometimes in the daily grind it's easy to forget how good I got it.

Here we were having lunch together. Just us girls, no grandparents around. (We both had eggs scrambled with spinach in case you were wondering) And admiring your cute self I couldn't help but think, where will we be in twenty years?

Will you be away at school? Although I firmly believe in state school. Student loans suck. Maybe you'll study abroad! I'd love to visit you in Paris or Spain! I tried to picture you as a twenty year old meeting up with my "fifty-something-self"for lunch.

I asked you if you'd still love me as much as you do now at 20. Probably not. Ha! But right now I am your favorite person. You are friggin adorable. Lately during feedings, you've been grabbing my face with your messy hands and pull me in close. Gets me every.time.

 

God, I hope I remember this lunch date today when you're all grown up.

Not enough hours in a day

Why do I wait 11 months and three weeks to decide to organize a year full of baby pictures in an attempt to produce a monthly photo banner for BC's first birthday party?

Did I mention I am determined to also produce a photo slideshow and a video montage set to music?

It's called setting myself up to fail people!!! All the while Buttercup and DaDa are on their second or fourth REM cycle.

Green, verde, vert

In honor of St. Patrick's Day, (which technically was yesterday and by the time this thing actually gets posted probably two days ago) I present to you our very, very green house.

As if the house wasn't green enough there's even a green door.

I gotta tell you, I'm not digging the green and I didn't pick it but according to Robert De Niro in "Meet the Parents" that makes me an idiot because "geniuses pick green." See for yourself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVDtcno4uP0

We bought a home in one of those new planned communities where each house color and design is predetermined by a team of architects that in my humble opinion chose the ugliest green out there. By the time we bought there weren't many choices, in fact, this was the only house available in this particular model. So no brick or lovely stone which would have been out first choice.

In my husband's campaign to convince me this was the house for us, he would go around rapping this line, ""Green is my favorite color it's a sign I made it to the top." He'd attribute it to Chubb Rock but upon further investigation he really just made it up.

One of these days I hope to show you the inside of our green house. I can assure you there won't be any green inside.

A good day

Dear Buttercup,

Today..

I baked AND cooked (all for you of course)

You ate like a champion, including the green stuff...

And now you are asleep IN CRIB and I'm snuggled in bed with my kindle listening to you breathe and make sweet sleeping noises and I'm NOT reading a sleep training book.

It does suck that Dada is working late, and I haven't finished my work and that even before I could finish this short note you woke up and I had to shush you back to sleep but still all in all, I'd say its a good day.

Did someone say photo shoot?

I think I missed my calling. I should have been a set designer. There's something that comes over me whenever I see an opportunity for a photo shoot.

When I got it in my head that I wanted to do a vintage inspired birth announcement, I spent hours searching for a retro style stove. I scoured Craigslist, posted ads for vintage and antique stoves, I even located showrooms that featured high-end retro cooking ranges. Unfortunately, I could not convince my husband or sister to casually show up to one of these showrooms, stand in front of a oven and snap a few pictures.

It was literally my mission in life to find me a stove. This is me at Williams Sonoma in Columbus Circle eyeing their cooking ranges.

In the end, I found not one but two kitchens for my little photo idea. One had a green stove-GREEN!! My first choice would've been aqua blue but hey, beggars can't be choosers. (Ignore the fact, that I don't look pregnant here. I promise you there was a bun in the oven at the time-my oven, as in, my uterus not the actual oven with the bread)

 

 

When Buttercup turned six months I pinned a zillion pins on Pinterest for inspiration. I gave my husband very specific requests on the color balloons we would need for the photo.

For Christmas, I had my husband dress up as Santa Claus.





It did not go so well.

My latest photo project? Valentines Day. While searching for a photographer to do Buttercup's one year portraits I came across a photographer doing a Valentine's Day mini session and I was all over it. An excuse to dress up my kid for a made-up commercial holiday? Yes, please.

The beauty of this photo shoot is that I actually have me a professional. In my past endeavors it's been me begging my sister to humor me. You don't even want to know how many times during our shoots she'd take the camera away from her face stare me down and hiss, "hire yourself a professional!" I know deep down she loved every minute of it. Maybe...

Of course there are drawbacks to having a professional, like I can't send random texts to the photographer whenever I get an idea in my head. Five minutes ago it was, "CONVERSATION HEARTS! We NEED to buy a pound of conversation hearts for props!!!!" My photographer seems nice but dont think her fee includes putting up with a crazy woman.

And I AM crazy. I'm kind of embarrassed to say I've just spent at least an hour online searching for the perfect tutu. A TUTU. Not just any old tutu will do. First of all, it has to be red. It would appear that pink seems to be the color of choice for tutu's--red not so much. And I want soft and whimsical. Not hard and pointy looking.

I'm not sure what it says about me that I get so excited and determined over red tutus. I take that back. I have a pretty good idea what it says about me and none of it is good but I can't help myself. I'm off to find me some heart-shaped sunglasses.

Buttercup

Here's the story behind Buttercup-as in why we actually call Buttercup-Buttercup. In a nutshell, you can chalk it up to commitment issues. I just couldn't commit to a name and so our daughter was nameless for a day, maybe it was two days...

I know, horrible right?  I feel kinda bad about the whole thing but I was sure we were having a boy and so when SHE came out it threw us for a loop.

I always had a particular girl's name in mind, and surprisingly my husband liked it too. I thought it was a classic name and didn't think it was trendy but suddenly it was on the top of all the baby name lists. I really didn't want my kid to be the third or fourth "Jennifer" in school.  Seriously, I can name at least five Jenn's from school.  So since we kinda had a girl's name we both liked (even though we were turned off by its surge in popularity) we decided to put all our focus on boy names because, let me tell you, we could not for the love of all that is good in this world agree on a boy's name. Thus, convincing me that we were definitely having a boy. (So much for mother's intuition)

I found choosing a name for our child to be stressful. What if our kid hates the name we select-what if after we go with a name -someone with the same name decides to go and do something stupid/tacky thus causing a distasteful association for every other poor soul that has the misfortune of sharing the same name. Perfect example--Lorena Bobbit. I rest my case.

It's a lot of pressure! So we stalled on officially naming her. Luckily, everyone was so distracted on learning the baby was a girl to give us too much of a hard time.  I learned very quickly in my pregnancy that when you opt to not find out the sex of the baby people become very invested in guessing telling you what you're having-the cleaning lady in the office, strangers on the subway, your dental hygienist.. . it even becomes competitive. At our baby shower we had a "guess the sex of the baby" photo booth.

It was a lot of fun. Overwhelmingly everyone, myself included thought boy for sure. I come from a family of all girls-surely it was time for some testosterone.

But no -what we thought was a he was a she all along and we couldn't be happier but we weren't 100% sure about her name. When the hospital pediatrician came in to examine her she of course asked us what her name was. When we told her she didn't have one she held up our nameless, wrinkly, tiny piece of perfection paused and said,  "I think I'll call you Buttercup" and we liked it-we liked it very much. And so it stuck. And that's how Buttercup or BC for short came to be.

Eventually we went with a name. Although, not our original first choice but not to fear it still tops the charts for most popular names. :/