Our Family is Growing!

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After keeping mum for months (pun intended) and pinning away on a secret board, I’m so excited to share this happy news with you today, friends…Kevin Mumbles and I are expecting our first child this October! We are absolutely thrilled, and filled with joy and love.

I’ve mentioned that Mumbles proposed in Lake Havasu, a very meaningful place for us which is now even more memorable since we were able to announce our baby on the way to some of our family while there over Valentine’s Day weekend.  So, so special.

I’m a little more than four months along now, feeling great (I’ve been fortunate not to have any morning sickness, although the fatigue of the first trimester was no joke for about 3 weeks. geesh!) and enjoying the magnificence of pregnancy.  And bacon cheeseburgers.  Mumbles and I keep marveling at how blessed we are and how happy, grateful and fulfilled we’re feeling.  (Apparently those pregnancy hormones are no joke either!)  I’m trying to enjoy every part of this experience and we’re really looking forward to all the incredible moments yet to come…finding out the gender, watching my belly grow, choosing a name, getting the nursery ready, giving birth, and holding our baby for the first time.

I’ve been obsessing over baby blogs and product reviews so for all you moms and dads out there, if you have any can’t-live-without-it products to recommend, please leave a comment below to share!

(custom watercolor illustration by Bamee on Etsy)

A Bike Messenger and His Cat

If this guy can figure out how to hang out with his cat while working as a bike messenger, I should surely be able to find a way to get Baxter to work with me.  Happy Friday, friends!

A Baby Squirrel and a Dog

Nick Radford is a wonderful photographer I follow on Instagram (@_nickradford). Lately he’s been posting photos of a baby squirrel he rescued interacting with his loving dog, Maverick. The cuteness is killing me.

 

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Happy Friday!

P.S. Baxter totally would’ve tried to eat that little guy already.

I’ve Been Busy…Buying

Lately, I’ve been buying a lot of stuff. A lot. What can I say? I’m in a good mood, it’s spring and I love clothes.

A lovely lady I know named Lyndzee (I love alliteration!) has fabulous style and is an incredibly impressive thrift shopper. Lucky for me (and you, though I’d rather you not like her stuff so that I can keep scooping up her fun pieces without as much competition), she has started selling some of her finds on Instagram in a lovely shop called Thrift Archaeology. It’s been quite fun following her posts, albeit a bit distracting as I anxiously refresh my Instagram feed all day. Last week I was the lucky winner of this plaid skirt, this vintage bag, and an amazing beaded cocktail dress that I cannot wait to wear! So excited. And feeling the buzz of finding good thrifted clothes but not actually wanting to go out and hunt myself (though it is one of my favorite things to do), I hopped on over to Etsy and discovered a darling vintage shop called secretlake, which just so happened to be having a moving sale with all the merchandise marked down 30%…yay! I picked up this fabulous cobalt dress (you know how obsessed I am with cobalt. see here and here) and this wool coat (what I like to call “grandma chic”…read: totally my style).

But I haven’t just been thinking of myself! My mom loves to wear lace tops with skirts to work — they’ve gotta be comfy and simple like throwing on a t-shirt but chic enough to look like a smarty pants at the office. I got her two from Banana Republic, though I’ve also been swooning over this one from Madewell (found via DesignLoveFest).

And, wait, there’s more.

I haven’t just been buying clothes. I promise. I bought my Dad some awesome dog books for his birthday, I got my mom some lipstick in a totally fierce shade (which I’ll wrap up with those blouses for mother’s day just around the corner), and picked up some of my favorite loose mineral powder (which now reminds me I need to invest in new makeup brushes…).

Lastly–and maybe my favorite–I scored an awesome dresser on Craigslist that is in such great shape I can hardly believe it. The guy I bought it from said it’s been in his family since the early 60’s! Love it. It needs to be cleaned up a bit but I think I’m going to keep it just as it is for now before I do anything drastic like painting it.  It’s made of real wood (read: it’s heavy), has a beautiful color tone and wood grain, original hardware with an awesome patina, dovetailed drawers, and the larger drawers have built-in wood dividers which I think are just so neat. I was going to say “they definitely don’t make furniture like they used to!” but that’s probably not true. I bet a lot of places and people make furniture of such great quality, it’s just I can’t afford any of it. Thank heavens for Craigslist, right?

Here’s a closeup of the hardware and details…

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P.S. How quickly I forget…I also bought this adorable dress from Madewell and wore it to a bridal shower on Saturday. The colors are so pretty and it fits like a dream. Even the girls at Anthropologie asked me where I got it when I stopped in to buy the bride a gift. Best compliment ever, I’d say.  And I’m super excited for our trip to Havasu in two weeks so I splurged on this gorgeous paisley swimsuit top from my favorite, J.Crew (found via A Cup of Jo). Goodness me, that’s a lot of stuff I’ve been buying.  Please don’t judge me. And don’t tell Mumbles. 😉

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Birthday Books for Dad

My pops is a hard guy to shop for. The one thing that never disappoints him is shirts with pockets. Sounds simple, but the man has spent his life in pursuit of quality shirts (the right cotton weight, good stitching in the crew neck, appropriate upper arm coverage by way of long enough sleeves) and while there are many makers of fine tees, finding all of that plus pockets is a bit like a really anticlimactic treasure hunt for my family. So for his birthday this year I decided to ditch the shirts and went for something I know he’ll enjoy: dogs. My dad’s two dogs are like children and he dotes on them a lot like Mumbles and I do with Baxter.

I found this awesome book Maggie on Things via A Cup of Jo. And I’d heard of the Underwater Dogs photos but I was delighted to find they’d been made into a beautiful coffee table book. It’s so goofy and fun and the whole story about how the author found fame and his calling — very cool.  I think it’s awesome that both books were never intended to be books at all – they were just a collection of photos on a blog or on a website.  How reaffirming it must be that the thing these people are most passionate about or find simple pleasures in has found a place in the hearts of so many others. Just captivating!

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