Looking Forward to Christmas

We're looking forward to Christmas a little early this year -- and probably with a lot more anticipation and anxiety than ever before. It is the day that Baby Evans is due to join our family!

Spencer and I are thrilled, of course. Here are some answers to questions you may or may not have.

Did you plan on a Christmas baby? Um, no... who would do that to a child? At the same time, we are happy for the prospect of a growing family on any day of the year. We are also excited that we'll probably have some extended family in town for the holidays when the baby comes.

Will you name a boy Jesus or a girl Mary? You never know what Spencer might pull out of his sleeve on blessing day. One of my nephews, in a moment of sheer brilliance, suggested Santa.

How are you feeling?
Pretty good, considering I'm growing another human. I'm about as tired as anyone might be while growing a baby (read: very). I think I have fared pretty well compared to all the stories I've heard. I'm starting to get over it, but for the first 12 weeks I hated the thought of planning or preparing meals. I would gag: at the grocery store, while putting away groceries, retrieving anything from the refrigerator, trying to plan my dinners for the week, trying to prepare any meals (especially anything with meat). Thankfully, this seems to be improving.

Do you guys think it's a boy or a girl?
No strong inklings yet. When I imagine the doctor handing me a baby at the hospital, it's a girl. When I imagine a small child (gently) tearing the house apart, it's a boy. I'm not sure what this means. In a poll taken of our nieces and nephews, the nieces think it's a girl and all but one nephew thinks it is a boy. We're definitely planning on finding out the gender (this should happen in early August). I can't wait to start painting, sewing, and shopping for our wee one. We'll be thrilled with a boy or a girl and are only hoping for a healthy baby.

How did you tell your families?

We found out that I was pregnant in mid-April and decided that Mother's Day (May 9th) would be the perfect occasion to share the news with our families. Both sets of our parents, Spencer's sister Carol, and my grandma Betty would be at our house for dinner. I wanted to do something clever to make our announcement, but wasn't really sure what. About a week before Mother's Day, my sister Mollie sent me an email suggesting that we create something similar to this for our mom's gift. Unbeknownst to Mollie, this was the perfect solution to my "telling the family creatively" dilemma! Everyone on both sides of the family took silhouette photos and emailed them to me so I could create the charts; one for each mom. Here's what we came up with:

I printed, framed and wrapped them up for our moms. Carol (Spencer's mom) noticed the newest posterity right away. My mom remarked on how lovely it was and passed it around the table for my dad and grandma to see (to my mom's credit, I think the new baby is not quite as obvious on the Madsen chart). I told my mom she should look a little closer... Soon enough, the whole family was in the know and smiles and misty eyes were everywhere. We emailed the final product to out-of-state siblings and called them to share the news that day.

Have you picked out names you like?

We both have names that we like (I have lots of favorites; Spencer's list is a bit shorter). There are several that we agree on. I have a name philosophy (and rules to boot) that probably merits its own post. We probably won't name our baby before we meet him or her, just settle on a few strong contenders and then make a final decision once the babe is in our arms.

I am a little more than 14 weeks along and things seem to be progressing perfectly. Now we're just counting the days until Christmas...

Have You Seen This?

One of my favorites so far.

Chairs!

About three years ago I picked up some chairs at DI for $10 (for 4). I recovered them in red stripey fabric, but now my dining room is headed in a new direction, so they needed a new look. Besides that, the seats were sinking and starting to get uncomfortable. I reinforced and repadded the seats and chose a pretty aqua floral for reupholstering. It's actually a quilt - from Home Goods (TJ Maxx) - so there is a little extra padding in the fabric itself. What do you think?

Garden Planning

After my great gardening experience last summer, I was anxious to get started on things this year. I started planning what I would grow back in January, and just came inside from building a new raised bed -- it will double our garden size from last year. I've been clearing out old bushes to make way for blackberries and raspberries and identified the perfect spot for a strawberry patch yesterday (under 6 inches of fresh snow, then hail).

I've always used an excel spreadsheet to make a little map of my garden plan, but I just discovered a great new tool! Gardener's Supply has an awesome garden planner that goes by the square foot method. It's got cool little pictures that show you how many of each plant go in each square as well as lots of pre-designed garden plans based on your goals (salsa garden, kid's garden, high yield garden, etc.) to make it even easier. This is one of the best (free!) garden planning tools I've found yet, so I just wanted to share. Enjoy!

Room By Room

We've lived in our house for just over a year now, and I'm starting to feel more antsy about getting everything more.... decorated. Just for the record, I'm not a big fan of "stuff" and try to limit my decor to functional items, beautiful artwork, a few treasures from traveling, photos and good books. The first room I've set out to conquer is the dining room. It's already gone through a few changes since we moved in and I have the main pieces in place. Here's what I'm starting with:
The table is a mid-century piece I picked up on sale at my cousin's consignment shop. I love it because it has three leaves, allowing it to expand for large meals with lots of guests. The table top is painted a beautiful tiffany blueish teal and the legs are creamy white. The hutch is one I bought off of craigslist and have been meaning to paint (this will happen this summer, promise). The chairs were 4/$10 at DI and I recovered them with red stripey fabric from IKEA before I got the table. They need to be repadded and recaned, so I'll probably recover them once again in the process. The jute rug (Pier 1) was also a find at my cousin's consignment shop. The blinds are an ivory on linen damask pattern. Also, I have blue and white dishes in the hutch.

Now for the mood boards. I can't quite decide on the color palette, so I made two. I'm starting with a very neutral base and plan to use everything I have, but I want to make a few changes to add a spalsh of color and tie it all together.
The teal/blue room would involve painting the hutch a creamy white, while adding teal beadboard to the back (wouldn't that be pretty with the blue and white dishes?). I'd hang white curtain panels at the windows and sliding door and give the table top a fresh coat of paint to match the beadboard. I'd buy and frame "almond branch" by Van Gogh from allposters.com and hang it on the wall next to the hutch. Also, I would recover the chairs in a blue/teal/white stripe or pattern to match.
In the red room, I'd paint the table top red, find a cool piece of artwork to hang, recover the chairs, but probably in a similar fabric to what they are now, hang Chris Madden checkerboard curtains, and paint the hutch a creamy white.

Oh, I also forgot to mention that I'm planning on doing a family history wall on the wall that currently has three photos on it. It will be similar to this:
I think the color schemes are both good options, but can't really decide. Thoughts?

Pumpkinlina Xue Bai Monkey Face

It's kind of sad, but I still feel like our cat doesn't have an official name. At the vet she is on the books as Pumpkin (mostly because it was too hard to explain and spell Xue Bai over the phone) and so that's what I tell people when they ask. But on any given day she's called by dozens of names - including but not limited to: Whiskerlina, Pumpkin, Pumpkinlina, Monkey, Monkey Face, Bebe, Bebekins, Stupidlina, Fatty, Charlie, Monkeylina, Xue Bai, Kitty, Crazy, Cheese Monger, Dirty, Dusty, Blackie etc, etc.

Poor thing. I think we make up for her lack of name by how spoiled she is and how much we love her. Fair trade, right?

The Second Half

Last weekend Spencer and I headed down to Green River and Moab for the Canyonlands Half Marathon. We had signed up for the race together, but a back injury made it difficult for Spencer to train for, and run the race. Instead he got me psyched for the race, made sure I was hydrating and fueling properly (great excuse to eat multiple candy bars), and was there to take photos and cheer me on as I crossed the finish line.
This is right before I crossed the finish line. Those first few minutes after finishing are so incredibly painful, it's difficult even to stand up and walk. It's amazing that within 48 hours my body felt completely back to normal and free of pain.The course was beautiful. We ran right along the Colorado river and sheer red rock cliffs and on into town. It was a sunny but chilly day. As we made our way into Moab, we tuned into a local forecast that informed us of the current temperature on race day morning - 27 degrees. Yikes! The hardest part of the race was waiting at the top of a cold and shady canyon for over two hours after being bussed up. I stayed in my warm clothes for as long as I could before stripping down to my race attire and tossing my sweat bag into one of the trucks. No worries though, by the third mile I could feel all of my toes again.

Pasta Primavera

I've been trying to plan at least 3-4 meatless recipes a week so we can focus on getting all our veggies and more "clean" eating. Also, I recently watched Food, Inc. so I've been having a harder time eating meat and processed foods. (I still do, just not when I'm thinking about the movie...)

Last night I made Pasta Primavera, which I adapted from a recipe posted on This Week For Dinner. It was really tasty and I wanted to share. I can't wait to make it in the summer when I can get most of the ingredients from my own garden!

Ingredients:
5-6 cloves of garlic
2 tsp olive oil
3 cups chopped tomatoes
1/4 cup white grape juice (the recipe called for white wine, but I don't keep that on hand. I'm sure you could probably use chicken stock as another alternative)
1/2 cup basil leaves (I actually forgot this and it was still really good)
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
2 small carrots, peeled and cut into 2-inch matchsticks
1 red bell pepper cut into 2-inch matchsticks
1 generous handful of sugar snap peas, cut in half
1 generous handful off green beans, cut into 2-inch chunks
salt and pepper to taste
1 pound farfalle pasta
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (or you can use Pecorino)
(these are the ingredients I used, you can also add any number of additional vegetables... asparagus, snow peas, zucchini, green peas, etc.)

image via This Week For Dinner

Directions:
Bring a pot of water to boil. Meanwhile, saute the garlic and oil in a saucepan for about 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes, grape juice and salt and cook on medium heat for 5 minutes. Add the basil and red onions, cover, remove from heat.

When the water is boiling, blanch the vegetables. Put the carrots in first. After one minute add the remaining vegetables. Cook for another minute or two and then lift them out with a slotted spoon (or colander if you're fancy like that). Reserve the pot of boiling water and add the pasta. Cook until al dente.

Stir the drained veggies into the tomato sauce. Add salt and pepper, cover, and set aside. Drain the pasta, reserving 1/4 cup of the cooking water. Toss the pasta with the reserved water and 3 tablespoons of the grated cheese. Finally, top with the tomato-veggie sauce. Sprinkle with remaining Parmesan and serve immediately.

Yum!

two years

From Scratch

I have to share my internet find of the day. Spencer and I always talk and dream about building furniture. I love knowing that something is solid, made of real wood, and built with love. After my adventure in construction last year, I feel a little more comfortable and knowledgeable in working with wood and tools. Which is why I was so excited to find Knock Off Wood. It's a completely amazing site full of plans for knock-off furniture from all the (overpriced) favorites - Pottery Barn, West Elm, Land of Nod. I seriously can't wait to get started.

2009 In Review

It's become sort of a tradition to review each year with some random lists. Here goes:

Best Things 2009:
1. Buying a house that we love
2. Taking a family trip (Evans) to Yellowstone and the Tetons
3. Weekend jaunts to Colorado, Oregon and Moab
4. Running my first half marathon
5. Helping my business grow
6. Growing my first real garden
7. Adding a cute kitten to the family

Not So Amazing Things 2009:
1. Losing a few key clients on the freelance side of things
2. A few house problems (thankfully solved) - termites, broken water valve, etc.
3. Some things just not working out as I had hoped

Places I visited in 2009:
1. Yellowstone
2. The Grand Tetons
3. Moab, UT
4. Portland, OR and The Oregon Coast
5. Loveland/Colorado Springs, CO

Concerts I attended in 2009:
Honestly, I can't think of any. Wow. Seriously?

Realizations of 2009:
1. Sometimes even despite your best efforts, you just can't please everyone
2. Losing a client is not always a bad thing
3. LOST is one of the best shows on television and I'm kind of sad that we're gearing up for the final season. I watched seasons 1-5 this year and everything since then has been more or less a disappointment.
4. Michael Cera is not really an actor. He's the same in everything, which I'm pretty sure is himself and not even a character. Despite this, I still enjoy some/most (not sure) of his movies/tv.

a proud Christmas moment

This year, as far as the holidays go, I'm trying to do things grown-ups do. You know, sending cards, making treats for neighbors. We've been getting treats from friends in the neighborhood for the past several days and while a love a good soft ginger snap, or beautifully frosted sugar cookie, I wanted to do something a little different to give everyone a break from the sweetness of the season.

So I came up with pico de gallo. And little cello bags of tortilla chip strips. Yum. I spent most of yesterday afternoon slicing, dicing, chopping and mixing. In the end, I think they turned out kinda cute.

Highlights from the Recent Past

Here are some of the things that have been keeping me busy:

• I turned 28 about two weeks ago. I didn't think about it until just now, but we celebrated with cuisine from the two countries I've lived in for extended periods (outside the US) - churrasco from Tucanos and a liege waffle from Bruges Waffles & Frites. I've also been treated to family dinners and friend lunches. All lovely!
• Spencer got me a kitten for my birthday! After much debate, I decided to just name her what I'd been calling her all along - Pumpkin. She's pretty much doubled in size since we got her. She's been a joy and such a good little companion to me during my lonely work days at home. She spends most of the day curled on my lap while I type/design/fill orders.

• Sugarhouse Ink has been BUSY. I couldn't be more thankful. December has been a record month and has grown significantly over last year.
• I finally got some furniture for our living room (aside from the couch we already had). With the tree up and the new additions, it's definitely feeling more homey!
• We had two of my college roommates and their husbands over for dinner last week. It was so great to spend the evening with Jenny and Nigel (visiting from Boston) and Whitney and Jeff (who live in Provo and I don't see enough for being so close!).
• Just as I completely stopped running (for sub-freezing temps and/or lack of motivation), Spencer and I got word that we got into the Moab Canyonlands Half Marathon. We signed up twice before and weren't selected , and now I'm wondering why we kept trying. :P Training in freezing cold of winter? Training in busy season? Training while the days are the shortest and the coldest? I'm not sure what we were thinking. Race day is set for March 20th.
  
• Every Christmas Design Mom hosts Christmas giveaways with really big prizes. This year I won one of them! $250 to Cambria Cove... still trying to figure out what to buy. ($100 cheesecake anyone?)
  
• In an attempt to be a real grown up, I've been gathering addresses for Christmas cards. I just haven't designed ours yet... It may end up being a New Years card instead. (or a Valentine?)
  

the name thing

Do you read Design Mom? It has been one of my very favorite blogs for a long time. I have always loved the names of her kids, so when Ask Design Mom Week rolled around, I decided to ask her where she found her inspiration. And she answered! I had to figure I wasn't the only one wondering what the stories were behind Ralph, Maude, Olive, Oscar and Betty were.

way better than the real thing

Tuesday

One of the things that feels more and more like it's fading into a former life, is my relationship with music - namely my constant search for the new, the chill, the undiscovered, the raw; the subtle harmonies and rhythmic acoustic goodness that were ever so sweet and constantly bombarding my hard drive, overflowing with itunes playlists.

I used to look forward to Tuesdays - new album release day - and would purchase new CDs (so old school, right?) or download entire albums so I could hear songs in the context the artists intended. Tomorrow is Tuesday. And I don't know a lot about which albums you should be anticipating, but aren't - except for one. I've long been a fan of Kings of Convenience, and their happy, honest, understated music is coming together once again after a nearly five year hiatus. Declaration of Dependence debuts tomorrow. Check it out.

Bright Star

I just got home from the movie Bright Star. I knew nothing about the film before seeing it, but would have to say Abbie Cornish's performance was fantastic. Add her to the short list for deserving a nomination this year. Her character made me want to sew all of my own fashion-forward clothes - ok not really, but they were stunning none the less. The movie leaves you somewhere between deliciously depressed and in a post-Keats euphoria. So, so good.

Also, Toots was my favorite.

New Designs In My Shop

I don't usually plug my shop on my personal blog, but I've been working hard on lots of new designs and thought I'd share a few.

Here are some of the latest birth announcements
And some new Christmas card designs
If you're really interested in all the latest, you could sign up for the newsletter, twitter stalk, check out the blog, or become a fan on facebook. Also, I've started selling digital print-your-own designs on Etsy. Ok, enough of this shameless plug... time to get back to work.

here comes autumn

The only thing I find moderately depressing about autumn is that the days start to get noticeably shorter. The rest, I can definitely live with. My love affair with autumn is no secret. I savor every chance to bask in the glory of the season we call fall. The crisp air, the cooler days, the beautiful rusty colors of pumpkins and apples and gourds, the celebration of harvest and smell of spice, the foliage, the fresh start of a new school year... I just love it all.

Back when we got married, some generous soul gave Spencer and I a gift card to Williams Sonoma. Of course nearly everything in their store is delectable and tempting, but I knew I'd probably end up spending the gifted money on something more spontaneous than practical. When I stumbled across these pocket pie molds yesterday, I knew I had found my treasure. {I bought an apple peeler/corer too, for good measure. I'll be a mini pie making fiend!}

128.65 miles (of training)

A long time ago I set a goal to run a half marathon. I tried twice to run a Utah race, but due to it's popularity and my lack of luck, I was never selected to run it (it was lottery style). When my sister made plans to run a race in her new hometown on her birthday, I thought it would be the perfect excuse to train for one myself.

Amanda and I ran the American Discovery Trail Half Marathon on Labor Day and had a great time. We were both pretty nervous in the days leading up to the race, having never attempted such a feat, but everything went really smooth and we had a really good race.

This is right before the race while we waited in the infinitely long bathroom line and tried to warm up and stretch a bit.
Waiting for the starting gun...
Coming around the final stretch (trying to give a thumbs up)
Just after finishing
All done!