FENWAY PARK

Mark and I fell in love with this Thomas Kinkade painting of Fenway Park and thought it would be just perfect in Boston's room. That is, until we saw the price tag. So Mark decided he would do his own rendition of Fenway. He started by penciling in a field, stadium, and background. He has just started filling in the drawing with oil paints, and I think it is coming along nicely. It still has a long way to go, and we will post more pictures along the way, but hopefully before Boston comes, we will have a finished product. Way to go, Mark!

Time's a Wasting

Mark found a VERY bad website this week. It is nintendo8.com. It has Super Mario Bros 1, 2, and 3 as well as other popular "old school" games from nintendo, atari, sega, you name it. Paperboy, Sonic the Hedgehog, and the list goes on and on. This is my new favorite way to waste time.

Recognize this? Good 'ole original Super Mario...

And this is Super Mario 2, which I have been playing A LOT of. I was always the best at this one. Super Mario 3 was always a favorite too, but it is pretty hard to play on the computer... Give me time, though. I have lots of in class time to kill...

Boston's Room

As most of you know, Mark is VERY picky about decor when it comes to Boston's room. He wants his little boy to be ALL BOY. We quickly decided on a baseball theme for the room, and it was definitely sealed when we found this quilt and these throw pillows from pottery barn kids. The quilt has all the national league team logos, and then we got the accent pillows to go with it (the front one being the Boston Red Sox "green monster").

We looked all over the place for crib bedding to go with it, since the quilt is twin size and is actually just an accent for the room. We were going to do just plain colors, but then we found the PERFECT set that goes great with the baseball stuff. And it was on clearance at Pottery Barn Kids. We got such a steal on it! Online, it looked as though it would go great, but we were a little worried until we got it, since it was a non-returnable clearance item. But I think it looks like it was meant to be!

Here's another view of the crib all done up. We still have yet to get a bed skirt for it, and we don't know whether we even will or not. But I think it looks pretty dang cute in there. The twin quilt will be placed elsewhere in the future obviously, but I liked that it kind of shows the theme of the room. Thanks to Mark's mom for getting us the crib! I think it is absolutely perfect, and I am very excited about how it all came together.

Trucks and cars and tractors galore!

Last weekend, TJ threw a baby shower for little Boston (and for me!). While there were only four of us there (TJ, Vickie, Jessica, and me), you would never have known by the smorgasbord TJ had prepared for us! She had the cutest theme, and the food was served inside dump trucks and diggers (which had all been fully clorox wiped and saran wrapped - as if TJ would have it any other way). We had yummy chicken salad croissants, spinach and strawberry salad, ham rolls, cucumber limeade punch, M and M's and cake. Can you believe all that food was only for four people? And we actually did a pretty good job clearing most of it...

We had such a great time (as the four of us always do) just talking, laughing, doing Adam Lambert impersonations, you name it. And these girls seriously spoiled me... Check out this picture below. I put all his gifts inside his crib and had a hard time getting them all into one picture.

TJ made me the cutest bath towel with hoodie. It matches our bathroom perfectly. Actually, I almost bought this set to go in our bathroom. It will be so nice to be able to wrap Boston into something so plush and cuddly after his baths. Thanks, TJ!

And Vickie had such a cute idea: she got me her favorite children's book, Make Way for Ducklings (with the cutest little mallard duck toy to go with it) and one of Travis' favorite children's books, How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? I love books, and Mark and I had already started a collection, so this was absolutely perfect. Thanks, Vickie!

And this is quite the collection here from Jessica. You guys all did WAY too much for me! TJ apparently informed Jessica that while I do already have quite an array of clothes for Boston, I didn't have anything yet that wasn't "designer label" or that was "poopy diaper friendly." I wanted to die laughing, because that is actually quite true. I really needed stuff that would be OK for Boston to poop in! So Jessica gave me two of the cutest night gowns (back left) that have the little hand mittens on them, two one piece sleeper sets in baseball theme (that actually go quite perfectly with his room - bottom), and the cutest little cow outfit with bib (top right). I wish I had taken a picture of the pants, because the butt has a little tail embroidered on it... so funny! She also got some cute duck bath soap, and a rubber duckie that tells you if the bath water is too hot (TJ got me the same one... ha!). Thanks, Jessica!

They all made so much fun of me when I asked what the duck did. I don't know! I've never had a kid before! I had no idea there was such a thing as a toy to tell you when the bath water is just right... How cool is that! Anyway, if my wedding is any indication, I know thank you cards are not my strong suit, so I figure this is a good way to tell all three of you girls, THANKS!

Starkisha's Hot New Summer Look

Yes, we know we are dorks with our dogs... We were at the park a few weeks ago, and Starkisha wouldn't run around with Daisy because she was too hot. She kept trying to sit behind us so she could be in our shade. We felt pretty bad and thought that must suck to have that much hair in hot weather. So we decided to give her a little hair cut. This picture kind of shows the "before look" with all the long hair.

Part way through, we were thinking, what in the crap did we do?! It was really looking pretty bad...

At this point, her body was starting to look OK, but we were wondering what the heck to do with all the ear hair, leg hair, etc. And can you see the mullet on the back of her head? She freaked whenever we got close to her head with the buzzers, so it was looking pretty funky back there. We eventually had to bring out the scissors to continue.

And this is the mess we made...

As you can see we missed some spots (on her chest by her leg), but after a few touch ups later that night, she ended up looking pretty cute. We gave her ears a little trim, so she looks a little more like her puppy self, but we ended up leaving her tail long. I think she looks pretty cute.