Baby oh baby, what to call you...

As I've mentioned before, we're getting pretty close to choosing our baby's name, but I'm still going back and forth between our 2-3 choices, and wondering if we should go with something else entirely. It's driving me nuts quite frankly, because I want to call this giant belly shown above something other than "bébé" (Dan, of course, has pretty well chosen, so it's just me holding the decision back). So I thought I would ask you all, my dear online/blog friends, for help.

What should we name Kid A?

Some things to consider:
1. It's a boy
2. No "J" or "K" names please (I'm just not a fan of them)
3. It has to be able to be said in French, or at least 'Frenchly". So a name like "James" would be out (even though I like it, despite the "J"-ness)
4. It can be unique, but nothing too extreme

So, will you help me? What names do you love/hate/think are interesting but would never attempt on your own child? Share in the comments if you can, you'll forever be remembered as helping the increasingly scattered and frenzied mind of a pregnant woman with way too much to do.

Happy mid-week, can't wait for the weekend already!

December Goals

My ideal scene...

My real-life scene.

Before listing my December goals (which will be far less extensive than last month's), let's see what I actually did in November (bolded ones are tasks I did):

*Make a Christmas music playlist and upload it to my phone

*Research washer and dryer prices

*Pay off one credit card, start paying off the other

*Buy more cloth diapers (possibly online to save some pennies)

*Start prepping for handmade Christmas presents (research, gathering supplies, etc)

*Set a date for holiday craft making with the girls from work

*Write to Jelena (with pics!)

*Make the cute little trees found above, come up with cute display

*Work on Consulting pitch for my job

*Go through clothes and household items, find what I can give away before we move

*Make an Operation Christmas Child box

*Research cribs/car seats/strollers

*Aim to do at least ten 52Q cards (or more) <--I did get 5 or 6 done, but not 10

*Start a few Christmas decor projects

*Wash and pack baby clothes that I've bought so far

*Work on new blog design

*Print more pictures from the last couple of months

*Record my Week 14-20 vlog and take my Week 22, 24, and 26 belly shots

*Blog at least twice a week (and write the posts ahead of time)

*Throw out BBQ and clean off porch before snow comes

*Put items for sale in Etsy shop

*Make new baby name list

*Buy supplies needed to start December Daily album; start building book and think of journaling prompts <-- didn't get this last little bit done, perhaps this week!

*Buy supplies needed for Christmas cards and look for some cute samples

*Practise embroidering

*Take at least 10 self portraits (not just belly shots)

So overall not too bad! Now for December; like I said, I won't have nearly as many because getting anything done these days feels like a major challenge (I think I'm starting to panic about how short and quick the next 12 weeks are going to be, but shh, don't tell anyone.)

Anyhoo, here we go, December Goals:

*Make 6 more Christmas cards, write in store-bought cards and have all of them sent out by the 11th
*Finish gift for my friend in Italy, mail by the 7th
*Have 95% of my Christmas shopping done by the 18th
*Journal in my December Daily album every day and take a photo every day (print pics once a week to add later)
*Have a turkey dinner with Dan
*Put up Christmas tree by the 18th
*Pack up everything that's non-essential to living for the next 10-14 Weeks
*Learn how to make the tabs at the top of my blog like the ones everyone else has (I need a cleaner design)
*Get the car winter ready (I'm so paranoid about it now that I'm expecting!)
*Find out my delivery date and tell the people at work my final day
*Continue paying off other credit card and saving money; keep spending to a minimum
*Have a name chosen (we're about 65% set on one name, I still have some thinking to do though)
*Wrap all my gifts in an eco-friendly way (re-use items, natural materials, etc)
*Write to Jelena (carried over from last month)
*Record my Week 20-26 vlog, take Week 26.5, 28.5 and 30.5 Shots (eek!)
*Watch Elf, the Sound of Music, Charlie Brown Christmas and other Christmas favs
*Blog at least twice a week (write posts ahead of time)
*Make candied citrus peels, White chocolate bark and shortbread cookies with icing
*Decide on a stroller/car seat and crib; look for a 2nd hand glider, make list of baby items that are needed
*Try not to let this season rush by in a panicky whirl!!

Umm, I think there may be as many goals this month, if not more, than last month! Oh well, that's just me, I won't hold myself accountable if I don't get everything done, lol.

Now, because of all the boxes and messiness going on in my house at the moment, it's getting really hard for me to get into the Christmas decorating spirit. I think that this year most of my viewing pleasure will be done online, but I have grand plans for next year once we're in a more settled space. In the meantime, though, I'm dreaming of looks like this:

(I HAVE to do something with pinecones either this year or next!)


Gorgeous.
(all photos via Country Living)

Well, that's December, it will fly by I'm sure, but there's lots to look forward to, friends that are visiting, a growing baby, family to see, good food to eat, snow (hopefully) and getting some plans set into motion!

Happy December to you :)
G.

PS-Oh, today my friend Anna sent me an early Christmas present, I was so excited! She gave me an adorable pyjama set from Roots for the baby and this book, which is soooo yummy and dreamy and inspirational, it kicked me right out of the no-Christmas-for-me self-pity/gloom I was feeling today. Hopefully I'll get to share some of the projects (and recipes) inside over the coming weeks. Thanks my love!

Sunday Scrappy Vault -Volume 1

*Sorry this is late, I meant to auto-post it on Sunday, but I didn't get to finish it, as with many other things in life these days. So this is technically a "Sunday/Monday Scrappy Vault" post.

This 'series' is something I wanted to try out after recently going through my old layouts on Flickr and on my computer. There were so many that I hardly remembered, so I decided I wanted to come back to them to explore a bit the process of making the page itself, as well as what inspired it. This concept is also inspired by Cathy, who does it frequently on her blog. Not sure how many of these posts I'll be doing, but it's a nice Sunday blog filler :)

Here we go, my first dive into the Vault:

(sorry so blurry, as always!)

Title: "The future of my life?"

Layout date: September 2007

Supplies used: Brown cardstock, Slab paper from Michael's, random flower paper (can't remember the brand), Dollarama sticker, Stampin' Up! tag, K&Co chipboard letters, Dollarama rub-ons, Bökmark word stickers, MM Letter sticker, brad.

Techniques used: None, ha!

What I like about the layout: The thing that caught my eye with this layout (get it, eye? lol) is the fact that I actually JOURNALED. Like, the page is mostly journaling; for me that's incredible. I remember going through a phase where I took a page from my journal, filled it, then stuck it in the middle of an 8.5X11 and basically embellished it (I have another one just like it from around this time too.) So that's pretty awesome, since I struggle so much with journaling these days. I also like the bold colours on the brown background, the cut-outs, and how I did the title over this blurry generic photo of my eye. The "Random thoughts on" is from Eternal Sunshine, a movie I was obsessed with at the time (and have been thinking about re-watching lately).

What I remember most about making this layout: I remember being at that stage in my life where I still wasn't quite sure what I should be doing. I had been temping/working at HPP (where I am now) for about 9 months and at that point it was still pretty menial, non-stable work, so I didn't know if I should stay or move on, whether I should start trying to have a baby or not (this is about the time I went off BC for good after taking 2 randoms packs of the Pill over the summer), where we should live, all of it. Dan was just starting plumbing school, so I also remember that this was a time where I had lots of free time to scrap because he was in Springhill during the week, and we didn't have a lot of money (hence the cheap-o supplies). Overall, it was a time of uncertainty, and I'm glad that I documented those feelings (it shows me how far we've come!)

Well that's all for this round. Hopefully I'll be back every Sunday this month checking out my long-forgotten layout friends.

Back tomorrow with my December goals (holy, how did it get to be DECEMBER tomorrow already?!)

Loves,
G.

More Christmas-ness beginnings...

So I guess you could say I've been dabbling into Christmas decor for a little while now. Right after Halloween I took out my bottle brush trees and they have been wooing me even since, I love them so much. I have about 30 of them all over the house in little clusters, and at night I light tea lights amongst them and enjoy the glow, it's really pretty. These will probably stay up until we move. Other than that though I haven't done a whole lot, I usually wait for December before getting *really* into it. But I did manage to do a few little projects, the biggest being the felted sweater wreath.

I originally saw this project on someone's Twitter, it's a project by the folks over at Value Village, my favourite thrift store (not sure if they have them in the States? They must, it's like a Salvation Army or something...) Anyway, it looked really cute and I had it in my mind for a bit, and actually planned to buy some wool sweaters on my next trip to VV, but then on my last Modified Day Off, I was bored and was going through clothes to give to-who else?-Value Village, and I came across this tree-green acrylic sweater. It hit me all of a sudden, and I was inspired to try to make the wreath using it, even though it wasn't wool. So I took my scissors and cut out 2" square-ish shapes (they really weren't uniform at all, I just kind of free handed it depending on the sweater's shape). It took me about 45 mins to cut out all the squares.

(blurry shots of all of squares from the sweater)

Once that was done I used some of Dan's soldering pipe-stuff for the wreath (since I didn't have any wire), and basically just poked the solder through the middle of the squares, it was really easy since the sweater was kind of a loose weave or whatever. Once I had a long string of squares, I coiled it into a circle, made a little hoop at the top for hanging, and voila! I eventually added a bow and now it's hanging in my back door, I love it :)

I might switch up the ribbon to a more 'modern' colour combo later, this was just an old ribbon I had lying around, but I love the fact that I can switch it up from year to year, or add little ornaments/felt flowers to it, it's a great basic wreath that I can modify for Winter/Fall and the holidays. And it was FREE!

(The other thing I might change before putting it away for next year is the soldering wire, it's a bit too 'loose' and the wreath sags, I have to keep adjusting it, but if you use a fairly thick gauge wire it should hold its shape.)

Other than that I've made a few little cards, usually I try to make a few cards every year at least, but this year I'm taking the easy way out, I had these silver blank cards from another project lying around, so I simply added some Christmas papers/embellies from last year to them, but I think they turned out kind of cute, I'll probably make 10 or so over the coming weeks.

There are tons of other projects I'd like to attempt next month, but I'm not sure if realistically it's going to happen, there's so much going on already, my days at work are getting busier and busier (my to-do list keeps getting longer and longer, plus I have all my going-away stuff to prepare) and my energy levels, though still pretty high, will probably take a dip in the next 6 weeks or so, so I need to be choosy about what I can do. Basics like gift buying/tree trimming/turkey dinner making will probably be at the top of the list and everything else will have to be put off. But I'll try (Luckily for me I'll have lots of pretty things to look at online if I can't get them done in my own home) :)

Well, better go pack for tomorrow, we're heading home and I can't wait!

Hugs,
G.

December Daily

Well, here it is, my first ever December Daily album. I saw this, of course, on Ali Edward's blog back in October and decided immediately that I wanted to make one. Last year I had done a mini about Christmas memories from my childhood, but I wanted to capture something about this year, the daily preparation of getting ready for Christmas, moving, baby, and everything else in between. It seemed like an appropriate year to capture.

When it comes to Christmas in general, I really tend to stick to more traditional things...some would even say 'country'. I just love the homey, nostalgic feeling of a beautiful green tree with ribbon and wooden ornaments and traditional colours. Not to say I don't appreciate the more modern Christmas looks out there, I do, but when it comes to my own tree/home/decor, I tend to stick to a traditional Christmas (I'll post pics later this week showing what I mean.) This December Daily book is no different. I used pretty traditional colours and looks, though it's not 'them-ey' by any means (not a Santa or elf in sight!) I knew that a lot of my days wouldn't be necessarily Christmas-related, so I wanted to keep it fairly 'neutral', but still appear to be appropriate for Christmas, if that makes sense.

(Pardon the flash and dirty linoleum floor, there's not a lot of options when it gets dark at 4:30!)

Album details:
-6X6 chipboard album cover (it was originally 12X6 but I cut the sheets in half)
-Most of the pages are chipboard, with a few envelopes and vellum sheets tossed in as well.
-Mostly used BG, K&Co and random papers from my Stash. Also used some brown velour, green textured paper and silver sparkly paper.
-Embellies include MM clocks, random ribbons, bits, journaling cards, vellum pockets, some Thickers and a few buttons (again, kept it simple and inexpensive)
-Numbers are by Shabby Chic crafts, I love how they fit into the album! I had no idea if the colours would work but they did on almost every page :)

Well that's all for tonight. Will post more Christmas projects tomorrow (including that long overdue wreath), and maybe some more Christmas inspo on Friday if there's time. I'm heading home for a long weekend on Friday, I can't wait, it's going to be busy but sooo nice to get away and see friends/family.

Happy Thanksgiving to the Americanos out there, enjoy the rest of your week!

Loves,
G.

The Numbers.

They're starting to add up on me today....

....I'm having a baby in about 13 Weeks
....I'm potentially moving in 10 Weeks
....I'm finishing work in 10 Weeks
....Christmas is in 4 Weeks from Friday
....I have approximately 30 more boxes to pack (at least!)
....I have approximately 98% of my Christmas gifts left to make/buy
....I've gained 15 pounds
....I miss 3 of my friends and am thinking about 1 constantly
....I'm waiting for 3 long overdue packages to arrive in the mail (and 1 to come for my sister)
....I have approximately 25 outfits for my baby so far, and 12 cloth diapers
....I'm starting Season 3 of Dexter
....I have 3 weeks until my next ultrasound
....I have more debt than my mind can think about right now

....

....and I have zero motivation to deal with any of it.

But tomorrow's another day.

A Pair of Prints.

These lovelies will soon be arriving at my door (an early Christmas present to myself, ha!) I love Ashley G's work, and when I saw she was having a BOGO sale in celebration of her 10,000th sale (!) on Etsy, I knew I had to take the opportunity to snatch a pair up. The one on the left is for me, and the one on the right is for the baby's room, I thought that the green would go well with the nursery colour scheme (the non-existent nursery, but you know what I mean...)

Today I picked up a few supplies for my craft-and-eat-a-thon tomorrow, picked up some pictures that I had printed (and will probably return later this week, they came out way too dark), and washed some more baby clothes :)

Oh, and took my 24.5 Week shots (I have to take .5 shots from now since it's dark by the time I get home on Tuesday, boo to winter!)

Definitely getting bigger, I just read today that in 1.5 weeks I'll be starting my 3rd trimester, holy moly! Not much time left now...

Well, off to watch more Dexter, have a good Saturday, more bloggies tomorrow!