indoor picnic

I don't know if you'd call it nesting or what, but I've been bit by the design bug lately. 

I feel like I have been flooded with sources of inspiration.

Not only inspiration for Parker's room ... but also our kitchen and living room.

I know I have to contain myself and focus on his room.

The main problem with all of this excitement and inspiration is:

1. I'm battling a huge cold - I can't decide if it's pregnancy or being stressed out at work, but I can't seem to kick this cold. And I feel like it is getting worse. 

&

2. I'm feeling bigger each day and lacking energy.

Maybe once I get rid of this cold I'll find the energy to work on a couple of projects.

For this morning, I'll leave you with a little inspiration I found the other day:

an indoor picnic

(found here)

enjoy!

going the chapel & girl christmas - and lots of crafts

Wow friends it has been one amazing weekend ... full of surprises and a lot of quality time with friends. 

For the past 72 hours, we've entertained house guests, ate a lot of food, celebrated engagements, celebrated birthdays, celebrated work Christmas parties, and celebrated girl Christmas.

Not to mention that we stayed up until like 3:00 am like we're still in college. 

No pregnant lady should still be awake at 3:00 am - but it was so worth it.

The weekend started out with a little surprise! 

Our friend Andy popped the question ... and she said yes! 

We celebrated with a late night surprise engagement party!

Here we are huddled around her lovely rock :)

A couple other photos from the night

(Holly was telling little baby how much she loved him) 

Congrats Shannon and Andy :)

E and I are so excited that we were able to share in this amazing weekend with you. Marriage is an AMAZING blessing. I can't wait for you to experience it.

Shannon- 

I can't wait to help you plan your wedding! I can't wait to see you walk down the aisle ... you're going to be one lovely little bride! I might even cry a little. 

I can't believe that I'll have a little baby at your wedding! I really can't believe it. 

So many good things to come :)

 Now onto the crafts...

Last year I shared about our annual girl Christmas here. Since our Junior year of high school a few of my favorite ladies in the whole wide world have got together to exchange gifts. 

The group has changed a little over the years, and we've added a few, but four of us have been celebrating together for over 8 years. 

I love these ladies. They are amazing women. 

(Cory is so so pretty)

"Girl Christmas" is probably my favorite gift exchange of the entire year. I love it so much because for the past three years we've added a little stipulation - all the gifts have to be handmade. 

For the past two years we've committed to making one small craft for everyone - so I make 5 of the same small crafts. When you really get creative, it's amazing the creative and super useful things that you can make for $20 - $30.

Here are a few of this years creations ...

Little baby boy (who will have a name someday soon) also received a little handmade goodness

So much joy in one weekend.

Now it's going to be really hard to go back to work tomorrow!

I'll be back soon with this week's preggo update...

first homemade christmas decoration

 I did it! I finally made a yarn wreath. My first homemade Christmas decoration of the year. Hopefully there will be a few more to come.  I've been eyeing these wreaths on etsy for months now, but  I am way too cheap to shell out $40.00 for one.

 So I followed this little tutorial and made one myself. I didn't take any step-by-step instructions because the diy tutorial that I followed was very detailed and had a lot of great pictures. I was a little surprised by how it turned out. The part that I thought would be easy was more difficult and the part that I thought would be hard was super easy. By that I mean, I thought that wrapping the wreath in yarn would be easy, but it was actually tedious and annoying. I wouldn't say that it was hard, but it was very time consuming. Then, I was intimidated about making the roses, but they were super easy.

 If you follow this tutorial, you can't go wrong. 

PS - the wreath will not always hang awkwardly like it is in the picture. That's just the first place I found to hang it and snap a few pictures. 

Alright bloggers, I am off to do some paperwork for work (boo). I'll be back tomorrow with a preggo update.

Holly's Ghost Lamps

I saw this DIY over at Life in the Fun Lane. 

It is one of my favorite DIY's that I've seen in a long time.
So so creative that I just had to share.

Check it out here.

my bedroom smells like an old book

Here's a little DIY!

E kept trying to convince me to name the title of this post ... words with friends ... I refused because I HATE that game.

If you've been reading the blog, then you know that I've been wanting to cover one of our bedroom walls with pages from an old book.

I bought a couple of old readers digest books many weeks ago, but I've been putting the project off. 

Since this is my last week off work {I start my new job on Monday}, I figured that I better get busy. 

So here you go ... the evolution of a wall...

Before

{sorry about the picture of the cats butt}

1. Buy old books, wall paper paste, and some foam sponges. 

2. Tear out pages and cut off rough edges with scissors.

3. Cover the back of each page with the wallpaper/border paste. Stick to the wall. I'd also keep a credit card handy to smooth air bubbles!

{Yes, I am wearing strawberry shortcake pants. What can I say, I'm a classy lady}

4. Stand back and enjoy!

Here's the wall from a few other angles

It was a little time consuming, but overall a very easy project!