Playdates, parties. Dolly Parton.

This weekend was one of those where we look back at ourselves in London and go...HA. Well. Here we are. We knew we'd find ourselves here someday: old marrieds who do old married things. Not that we mind, mind you - it's about all the three of us can muster. I had a playdate, the three of us went to Eliza's first birthday party and grabbed Mexican with our amigos Katy, Gabe, and their baby girl Blake, and my taller half had to work the rest of the weekend - which means suddenly my weekend becomes just like any other weekday too. Nap, eat, play, repeat. But hey, I'd much rather be here playing with Sweetcheeks than reading legal briefs, and I know he would be too. I'm well aware of who got the losing end of that deal.

Friday's highlight was a nice morning walk and playdate with my friend Lisa and Eliza's friend Madeline (4 weeks younger than E.). Because we're their moms, we find everything they do together adorable, when really they pretty much just lay there and chatter to the animals overhead, only occasionally aware (when they catch a flailing arm to the face, for example) that there is another baby beside them. Eliza is putting everything in sight into her mouth lately, which at one point included Madeline's arm.

Saturday morning: once spent sleeping off one drink too many, instead we wake up bright and early, put our daughter in her party dress

...and attend children's birthday parties after a wild night of envelope addressing and a pizza. Little Ellie turned one and a charming one is she. I didn't get many pictures due to my primary duty - holding Eliza while she soaked it all in, inevitably followed by a colossal sack-out mid-party. But when Ellie dove into her cake it was too much. Perhaps I haven't disclosed my debilitating weakness for babies eating (I'm sure this blog will see a healthy dose of it shortly...I'll spare you until then). But it's true. I love a good cakeface. I hastily rolled my sticky, limp sack of sugar into my husband's arms and squeezed my way through the similarly cakeface-minded onlookers for a couple of shots. We also learned that Ellie is going to be a big sister in March! Nothing like pulling together a party for 2 dozen of your favorite babies and their parents in your first trimester! Darby pulled it off effortlessly (or so it seemed...). Congratulations Berra family and happy birthday precious Ellie!

Yesterday was so uneventful I won't bore you with the details. But I did break out this little gem of a onesie, a gift from Miss Mackenzie a few weeks back:

What can I say, she loves her some Dolly. Or at least, she will if I have anything to say about it.

We're heading on an 8(+???) hour car trip tomorrow with two dogs, one baby, and a whole lot of baby stuff for a relaxing week out at the Kritser Ranch. It's somebody's 30th birthday (hint: not mine) and also our 4th anniversary! We're pretty excited about getting up there and soaking in some slightly cooler than 112 degree weather, as long as we arrive with our sanity in one piece. If you're the praying kind, throw one out for us!

Better in threes

Three months have now passed with such simultaneous haste and sluggishness that I can hardly believe we are here, in the magic month. I didn't quite get it - these strangers would come up to me at places like Target and assure me it would all be better at 3 months. I hadn't complained; they just offered this encouraging tidbit out of the blue. Maybe it was the circles under my eyes or my generally haggard appearance with my tiny baby in tow. I'm not going to completely sugarcoat it - some parts have been no bueno, and I'll just leave it at that. Miss Eliza Louise, however, is a little ray of sunshine. And Miller continues to shine despite it all. And we are here! Three months! Hallelujah!

So, here's where I get a bit gooshy. This baby is so darn sweet I sometimes just can't handle it. Do you know what I mean? I am starting to understand what our moms have always talked about - wishing I could freeze time. I already know I will miss her being this small, nuzzled so contentedly into the crook of my arm as she drifts off to a nap. I hate putting her down in her crib (and so does she, for what it's worth) because I know someday I will really, really long for this - reading aloud and rocking my only little one down to sleep in a quiet house. Sometimes I look down from reading, thinking she's surely off to sleep by now, only to find her suddenly wide-eyed and staring straight up at me. She breaks into a huge grin through her passy, like she's been caught. Oh! Lordy. It's just too much.

A few days ago, I had E. in the sling as we cruised through the ice cream aisle (as I mentioned, my drug of choice these days) and I reached down to stroke her sleepy little cheek. She reached up and pulled my hand down and clutched it so tight to her chest that my heart skipped a beat. I pushed the cart around the rest of the store one-handed so she could keep holding on. Such a little thing, during such an ordinary, routine day, but one of those moments you cling to. She has started grabbing for my hand all the time and I simply can't get enough.

And tonight out of nowhere, she just started having a conversation with me, making a zillion different sounds I've never heard before as she tried with all her might to tell me about our day. She'd been cooing plenty, but this was different. Rapid-fire exclamation and emotion. It was, well, adorable. I adore her. The magic moments we don't see coming are the ones we will look back and treasure. I wouldn't mind trading out a few days here and there (screaming through a nap stand-off? anyone?). But suddenly there are entire days I just want to rewind and relive. There it is - the magic switch. I hope she always knows how precious she is to us.

While it takes mere hours for a baby to make you "parents," looking back, we didn't really become a father or a mother overnight. We are still shedding some of ourselves, our old lives, our previous expectations to make way for these new people - parents - that we are becoming. I am not sure if it's gotten easier or we've just adjusted, or both. Weeks are filled with days that are rocky and smooth, smooth and then rocky as we navigate our ever-changing baby and adjust to her evolving needs. Each day we learn more about her, and our new selves, and each day we get a little further from the people we were before she came into our lives. But we are better for it! Most days anyway.

Our little family of 3, for better and worse, has found itself happily at 3 months. We have fallen madly, deeply in love with our little Lizzy Lou - and we are pretty sure she's smitten with us too.

Part 2: Eliza's room

All right, folks. Finally, the nursery post. This is the happiest room in our home, and the one with the most precious inhabitant. We spend a lot of time here these days!

I started out designing this nursery knowing I wanted to incorporate a lot of fabric, and otherwise make it very modern in style - Oeuf crib, minimalist, sleek lines, white white white. Somehow though, as soon as we found out little E was a girl, I changed my tune. We had a vintage name picked out, and suddenly I wanted cozy, vintage, sweet, with lots of handmade touches and bits of our past. Just about everything in this nursery was a project of some kind. Every piece of furniture was lovingly assembled, customized or painted; much of the artwork and all of the fabric were custom-made just for her. Of course we could have made this easier on ourselves, but since I pretty much sit around all day dreaming up ways to turn things into complicated, time-consuming projects, this was a dream come true for me. I loved watching it come together bit by bit.

We tried to sprinkle bits of our childhoods around the room, and of course got her started on some toys, books, and keepsakes of her own. Our families also kindly pitched in; Nicholas' parents gave us her beautiful crib, my father and stepmother paid to have the chair slipcovered and converted into a glider, and my mom and stepdad generously paid for all the fabrics and labor. So much love surrounding our girl as she plays and sleeps. Below is the grand tour:

The quilt I made on bedrest now hangs on her crib. Although the fabrics were designed by me, a lovely woman in Oregon named Wendy (found through Alchemy on Etsy) sewed all the bedding, panels, and cushion because I knew my sewing skills weren't up to the challenge. I love how the white ties and box pleats turned out. All the bedding and drapery panels are printed on linen-cotton canvas; the bench cushion and chair are printed on upholstery weight twill.

Eliza's newborn shadowbox: her measurements, bracelets, hat, some little booties I made her (which she quickly outgrew) and the announcement I designed that we handed out to our families at the hospital.

The white dresser is an IKEA hack. I really loved this piece from Pottery Barn which was $900+, but not quite in the budget. I took the handles off this piece we found at IKEA and ordered some pewter English bail pulls to make it a little more traditional. I added the changing topper from Land of Nod. I actually really love this dresser - the drawers are roomy and glide beautifully. Let me tell you, Miller LOVED putting this one together - it was an all afternoon project and the universal illustrations provided as "instructions" weren't exactly clear. He had a big role in this room from an assembling/painting/nailing/doing stuff only tall, un-pregnant people can do standpoint, and was a great sounding board for the fabric designs.

The hutch. A Craigslist find that was originally painted cherry, with brass knobs. It still has a sweet little bouquet painted on top that we couldn't bear to mess with. Most of the stuffed animals and dolls on the hutch were ours. Nicholas' teddy bear, Spacey, is my favorite. I crocheted him a new yellow and white scarf with a leather button to make him a dapper gent for our daughter's new room. The booties in the shadowbox were mine, crocheted by my great-grandmother. Nicholas' baby cup sits on the shelf, as does my little Peter Rabbit music box, and some of our favorite books growing up. The knitted toys are new - they just seemed to fit in well. The silhouette is me, age 2.5 (I had a crazy amount of hair!). That doll with the gorgeous lace dress is actually a Prince William in his Christening gown, brought to me by my grandmother from England when I was little. Annie and John brought Eliza that Paddington Bear from their most recent visit to London; they made it home just in time for her arrival. Highly recommend the retro "This Is..." series! The illustrations are fantastic and it gives its readers a lovely (if somewhat dated) tour of Texas. We also have "This Is London."

Hello from Suzette! This is my favorite corner (and the one I spend the most time in). We converted a club chair that we already had into a glider, and we decided to have a slipcover made so we could wash it. I designed/ ordered the e. fabric months ahead of time, but didn't get the pillow sewn until about 2 days before she was born. The quilt is the one my stepmother made and gave to me at Eliza's baby shower; she is a very talented quilter, and knew I was crazy about fabric so wanted me to help design it. All the fabrics are from Amy Butler's Soul Blossoms line. It is a treasured gift and it such a perfect addition to our nursery!

Above the crib: Eliza's mobile, which I think might be the thing I'm proudest of in this room. I crocheted it over a period of months. I can't take credit for the idea; it was inspired by Emma Lamb's Delilah mobile on Etsy. She's crazy talented! I'd decided I wanted to crochet my own, and googled around until I found one that matched what I had in mind. I decided to drop some hummingbirds down the center, so found a hummingbird pattern, crocheted the different flower motifs, crocheted around the hoop (very. frustrating.) and put it all together. The individual flowers and discs are actually fairly quick to whip together, but it was a pretty challenging project overall. She loves watching it spin, which makes me so happy. I hope once we've outgrown mobile age around here it will hang in a corner of some Miller child's room for years to come.

I designed the Good Day, Sunshine poster with my husband in mind. He loves the Beatles, and I thought it would be one way we could infuse a little more of him into this very girly room. (Sweet MJ took this pic - good shot, friend!).

Book nook: From the get-go, we both knew we wanted a corner that encouraged reading. I wanted her to be able to pull the books out herself to read when she is old enough, so this bench with its little cubbies seemed like just the thing. I had the cubbies styled a bit more interestingly at one point, but we've already been reading lots of books, and well, this is how it looks now.

The best job I ever had was working at the wonderful (and now sadly closed) Toad Hall Children's Bookstore in high school. I loved going there growing up, so it was always dear to my heart, and I learned so much about children's books while working there. I had the idea back then to frame illustrations from my favorites and use them in a nursery someday. The movie "You've Got Mail" used Toad Hall as a reference for their set and storyline, and just like the store in the movie, it eventually folded due to its inability to compete with the heavily discounted books at the big national bookstores. It closed its doors the day I left for W&L, which I've never gotten over, but I always found strangely symbolic and fitting in a way. I always dreamed about opening a similar store someday. But I digress...

Above: Madeline, Charlotte's Web, Winnie the Pooh, Bread and Jam for Frances, Little House in the Big Woods, and Eloise. I scanned them into my design software and then typed up the accompanying passages below. Miller kindly printed them out for me at work, although if they hadn't been such a TOTAL pain to line up straight in the frames I probably would go back and have my printer print them on a heavier cardstock so they don't curl in the frame. My perfectionist self can deal with it. I'm not redoing them.

This giraffe is from Anthropologie - E. loves looking up at him while we change and dress her. We both love the prints on the left of little girl in London, found on Etsy. The painting on the right is from my good friend Dottie, who lives in Amarillo and whose daughter Lisle is 6 days younger than Eliza. We did a nursery artwork exchange that I posted about awhile back. She has been a wonderful and special friend to have through our pregnancies and early days as mamas.

Above the crib: a blessing needlepointed by my great Aunt Billie (Eliza's great great aunt). I have one too that she made for me when I was born. We were looking for something small and safe to hang over the crib and this arrived one week after she was born (!). It is just the perfect thing and goes perfectly with the handmade theme of this room.

3-weeks old Eliza and her dog, who both love playing on the floor in this room. I can't believe how much she has grown from this picture. Now excuse me while I dig into my tub of Blue Bell Light...it's been an unusually long day with the above. She's a delight 90% of the day, until naptime, when she acts like I'm dipping her into a pit of snakes when I put her down. A fun new phase, and lately instead of wine (almost never worth it it seems...sad face) I self-medicate with ice cream.

Thanks for coming along on our nursery tour!

Our nursery, part 1: the fabrics

From the day I found out I was pregnant, I began dreaming up projects for our nursery. I love projects, love design, love fabrics, so needless to say while I may lack much talent or true experience in these realms, I was undaunted and very excited to design this room from the ground up. I studied textile design during our time in London and really wanted the baby's room to be the first room done in fabrics I designed entirely on my own. Because I'm crazy like that. This was a fun but challenging, and at times all-consuming project. Lots of blank canvas fear. Lots and lots of tweaks were made and rounds of swatches were ordered before I was happy with it, but I love the end result.

I began working on a girl collection, which was always silhouettes of hummingbirds (in many different forms), and a boy collection, inspired by Nicholas' family's ranch up in Amarillo. The boy collection was much more developed and exciting to me, despite the fact that I was totally positive we were having a girl. Once we got the news that she was a she, I was challenged. All I had were silhouettes of hummingbirds I'd done, and a cherry red hutch we'd picked up years ago on Craigslist that we'd be using in the room and the dear husband did NOT WANT TO TOUCH. This was made clear early on. Somehow he sensed I'd want to paint it. I also knew I wanted a light blue nursery regardless - I love light blue for little girls and think it is such a sweet and feminine color despite its masculine rap. Case in point:

(Eliza asks that you not look too closely at her baldy patch. She's sooo embarrassed. We've assured her it's only temporary.)

So for months I was stuck on a muted aqua and cherry palette that I just couldn't love. My mom was the one who suggested I just take the cherry I'd started with down to a rosy, raspberry pink, and that way it would still work with the light blue. But yes, we did end up painting the hutch and what a JOY that was trying to hit just the right shade. That day, and the 7 trips to Lowe's, was one of those stand-offs where you're not sure what path the marriage will take on the other end. But I won. Ha! Sweet, sweet victory. And he agrees it was worth getting it right in the end. So ha! Anyway, I love how cheerful and feminine it is without being too babyish; hopefully it will grow up with her. Now that you've peeked into my crazy brain, below is a tour of Eliza's nursery collection:


Hummingbirds: We'd been up at the Millers' cabin in Colorado for my sister-in-law Katie's wedding last summer, and I loved watching the zillions of little hummingbirds happily flit all around the hanging baskets on their gorgeous deck. I'd never seen so many in one place before and thought of how cute the hummingbirds would be as a little girl's nursery fabric. I tucked that little idea away for the time being, only to pull it out just two months later when we discovered we were pregnant! These silhouettes, once drawn, took on so many forms and color palettes. They were always the centerpiece fabric of the nursery, so I wanted to get them just right. The silhouettes ended up being larger than "true to size" - a swatch ordered in true hummingbird scale turned out to be far too busy.

Hummingbird path: I knew that for the curtains, I wanted a large-scale print that featured plenty of white to play off the pale blue walls. Carrying on the hummingbird theme, I started drawing the frenetic path of the hummingbird - the single squiggle you see repeated above - and built the pattern up from there. It takes on a sort of trellis effect on the textile, which I really love - it reminds me a bit of being in a garden.

Spindle: This fabric started out as one thing and ended up as another. It echoes the Jenny Lind-style spindles on Eliza's crib and serves as her cribskirt. It's so cheerful and might just be my favorite in the room.

Chevron block: I love chevron prints, but I wanted this to be a little different; I wanted it to have more of an organic, block-printed feel. Since we were using it for the glider slipcover, I also needed it to be gender-neutral so that it would potentially work in a boy's room too someday.

Pearl drops: This is one of the fabrics used on the crib sheets; it's done with a watercolor brush and reminds me of a strand of pearls - incidentally, little E's original birthstone before she decided a May birthday suited her a little better.

Medallions: This was a happy accident I made while playing around with an early iteration of spindle. It serves as the bench cushion cover. A version of it is also found on the Good Day, Sunshine print I did for the room.

E. - Pretty self-explanatory, I designed this fabric to make a pillow for the glider, which I backed in the spindle fabric. I made it right before she was born and had to keep it hidden so no one would guess her name!

Coming up later this week: Part 2 - the nursery, which now also serves as the "before" since this morning I spilled a full cup of coffee all over the carpet, and it's showing no signs of coming up without a fight.

The dog days of summer

Lake day came just in the nick of time as we learn the true meaning of the dog days of summer. Georgia, Maddie, Eliza and I were starting to go a little stir crazy sitting in the house trying to stay out of this relentless heat, and our friend Mackenzie invited us to her beautiful lake house for the weekend. Although we packed half the nursery up with the intention of possibly staying the night, we ended up driving home after supper, but it was such a relaxing day and just what we needed. The dogs swam until they were half-dead, Miller kicked back a few well, Millers, and I sat on the shady, breezy dock with my baby, just happy to be outdoors catching up with a good friend. As an added bonus, Eliza got to break in her new swimsuit and bonnet, bought just for the occasion. I assure you that the dock was actually quite pleasant or else we wouldn't have stayed out there long with a little one in the 108(+ ??) degree heat. Eliza has pretty much only known 100 degree days in her lifetime so she thought it was downright cool out there. Welcome to Texas, baby!

Happy guy. He needed a break too - he's been working hard and late these days. That's Camp Longhorn in the background; their property is adjacent.

Maddie, a water dog if there ever was one, wears a life jacket at all times at the lake because otherwise she might drown from exhaustion (seriously). Her favorite game, when people tire of throwing balls for her, is to innocently play with found objects like water bottles on the very edge of the dock and then "accidentally" drop them in the water so that she has to go in after them.

4 foot drop. NBD. I live in constant fear that one day she will jump from somewhere way too high.

E loved this game. And she definitely loved Miss Mackenzie, who was her very first non-family visitor in the hospital 11 weeks ago. Mackenzie moved up to Fort Worth shortly after Eliza was born, so this was a fun treat for them to get reacquainted.

Baby book moment: Eliza got to take her first dip with Daddy. A small one, due to the heat and intense sun, and my paranoia about lake germs. She only went in up to her diaper but seemed to take to it! Of course she was covered head to tiny toe in sunscreen and got an extra good scrubbing that night.

Since coming out of the seemingly universal newborn fussy period, our Miss Lizzy Lou is turning out to be quite the angelic little thing; she didn't make a peep the whole time we were there and slept peacefully all the way home. She also did two six hour stretches that night so needless to say we all woke up Sunday morning feeling very refreshed. It's hard to imagine we could love her more each day, but we do - and she sure makes it easy.