Let There Be Bright

I have been heavily wooed by the gorgeous pastel and muted nurseries that are out there. However, the reality is that babies aren't swaddled in pastels for long. From baby gyms to Bumbos to pretty much every toy that Fisher-Price makes, BOLD primary colors are going to take over the nursery (and the rest of the house...).  The other thing I love about bright colors?  It takes kids a long time to grow out of the room because the theme isn't limited to the soft tones of a newborn and it's easy to add their new interest in Thomas the Train or Dora the Explorer without having to redo the whole room.

So what are we thinking?  Let me first start with some of the colorful, gender neutral nurseries that I just LOVE.

I have to start with this gorgeous nursery from Joy (and fellow Bee!) at HowJoyful. I was instantly inspired by the whimsical circus theme paired with muted walls, bright colors, playful patterns and the beautiful marquee letter of the changing table.  If you go to the blog, you'll see that she actually made many of the unique elements herself like the hot air balloon mobile and the elephant lamp. Seriously, my love for this nursery is just so much.

I love the way that color is used in this nursery to liven up the otherwise white space. Not to mention the adorable use of pompom garland and polka dots to fill the room with whimsey at Raising Miss Matilda:

If you're looking for a quick inspiration, Lay Baby Lay is an amazing resource FULL of boards spanning every theme and color combination you could thing of.  Here are a couple of my favorite primary color and brightly colored boards the have.

Cherry Lemonade at Lay Baby Lay

Alphabet Zoo at Lay Baby Lay

Brights & Whites at Lay Baby Lay

And to round out this round up, take a peek at this gorgeous nursery from Amy Mallory. Each element feels handpicked for the space and not a single corner or tabletop has been over looked. The original post has dozens of beautiful photos highlighting all the details, so be sure to head over there and take a look.

What do you think? Have I convinced you that bright, gender neutral nurseries are the way to go?  

Next post reveals our inspiration board for our nerdery!

A Pregnancy Unicorn

It was brought to my attention this weekend that I am a Pregnancy Unicorn. A dear friend of mine is due 3 months after us and was hoping to commiserate with me when we were together in Minneapolis this weekend, but I was a total let down.  Every gripe she had, I was all "oh, yeah, I didn't have that."

I'll be honest, I've noticed that I'm suuuuuuuper lucky this pregnancy. In fact, that's why I haven't been blogging about it. I mean, who wants to read a blog that's all sunshine and rainbows? No gross morning sickness stories, no terrible "I peed my pants when I sneezed" stories. That's BORING.

So I've been following this advice. I've been keeping calm, and I'm a pregnancy unicorn.  What does that mean exactly?

 - I didn't have Morning Sickness

 - Very limited food aversions (I wasn't big into chicken for a couple weeks and one week I couldn't stand the smell of cooking beef)

 - I magically lost 10lbs in the first trimester, probably because I was happy to eat all the new summer vegetables and started a new workout routine at Barre Code (yes, dr approved!)

 - I haven't broken out with acne

 - My boobs are bigger, but aside from some bra extenders, I haven't needed to buy all new bras

 - I have some fatigue, but for the most part, I have just as much energy as I did pre-pregnancy, although now that I pee 5x a night, I'm a bit more tired than earlier in the pregnancy

 - I started to really show, pretty late. So I have been able to wear a lot of my tops, and only had to buy all new maternity bottoms

- To date, I've gained 15 lbs, so I'm only really up 5 lb vs where I was pre-pregnancy

 - My worst symptoms have been: carpal tunnel, super tender boobs all first trimester, achey back, really gross gas (sorry, husband), snoring (sorry again, husband) and I'm just starting to get swelling in my hands and feet

Am I the only pregnancy unicorn out there?? How was your pregnancy?

Back to the Blog

Are you there readers? It's me, Kelsey.

I've been pretty MIA this year, and I have lots of excuses.
- I got a new job (Yay!)
- We're having a baby (Yay!)
- Pregnancy is tiring
- We have to retrain our dog (boo)

But the big one? I've been lazy. Instead of opening Blogger when I get home, I sit on FB or Pinterest, or don't even open my laptop.

It's been a big fat lazy summer, and before that, I was not in a great headspace - really stressed with my old job, stressed trying to find a new one, stressed about not getting pregnant right away. Stressed. Stressed. Stressed.

So now that fall is upon us, I wanted to ramp this bad boy back up.  No promises on 3-4 posts a week, but I'm going to set a very attainable goal of one per week until I get back in my blogging groove thang.

See you soon!

OH BABY!!

I can't believe it, but we're having a BABY!   

We'd been trying since last fall, and were actually about to take a break when I got a Big Fat Positive! 

This whole thing has been overwhelming, but we are super excited to welcome our little pickle into the world in January (due January 16). I've stocked up on pregnancy books, baby bargain books, and parenting books; and I've signed up for more baby apps and newsletters than my inbox can probably handle. 

But after love, and after marriage, but before the baby, comes the pregnancy announcement!

Since the Baconator is a huuuuuuge Star Wars fan, as proven by our dog, Leia, and his killer Jedi costume (that I handmade), I knew I wanted to incorporate that into our announcement. We used a Star Warsy Font (SF Distant Galaxy Alternate) and the iconic saying along with our wedding shoes and some itty bitty Converse to announce to our friends and family on FB that a baby is coming! A friend took our pic in our backyard after work, and this bad boy was up online the next morning.

How did you tell the world? Do you have any newbie parenting advice to share?

#WEverb14: Sent

The more of these I do, the more excited I get about these prompts. I legit think they are getting even better.  For Day 7, we have... SENT.

What was the best thing you sent to someone in 2013? What will you send this year (hint: think about “send” in many different ways… mail, packages, email, text messages, etc.)

I don't have a single thing that I sent that was the best... in fact, I still have two Christmas presents sitting on my desk from 2013 that I haven't sent yet (sorry guys!). But you know what I did send this year? Oh yeah, BUNCHES of SnapChats. I first heard about Snapchat at the beginning of the year, but didn't actually start using the app until this summer. My friends and I send each other selfies of pretty much the ugliest faces ever and so many photos of our dogs. Every time I open the app I have at least two wacky dog pics preparing to load, and it is seriously the best. 

I know that teens use it for sexting and that I'm about a decade too old to have an account, but it's so fun. I got a Snapchat birthday message this year of my friend Cory singing Happy Birthday with a pointy hat drawn on his head. This is the future, and it's so amazing.

So for 2014, I'm excited to see what new technology comes out! 

What's the best thing you sent?

Love and Bacon,

Kelsey

#WEverb14: Capture

Have you been following along?  Here we are on day six of #WEverb14 and today's prompt was CAPTURE.

Share your favorite memory captured from 2013. What's your plan to capture 2014?

So the preferred memory capturing technique of 2013 was definitely selfies. Legit, we are in our late twenties and love taking selfies. It was so intense that I couldn't find a decent photo of the two of us for our Christmas card and ended up using a selfie taken at a wedding.   Don't believe me?

Here's this year's Christmas card (with a selfie from Mrs. Scooter's wedding)

So in 2014, I plan on capturing more photos using our digital SLR camera. I started the year with our DSLR at the NYE party, and I want to keep on using it.  We are planning another trip to Jamaica and a trip to DC and a trip to NOLA and (hopefully) having a baby - all of those are great reasons to take proper photos!! 2014 will be the year of lots of photos!

What are you going to capture?

Love and Bacon,
Kelsey

#WEverb14: Sing

Yay!! Today's prompt is SING.

What song or lyrics will be forever tied to 2013 in your mind? What songs are you excited to keep with you through 2014?

Guys, I LOVE singing. Back in high school I was in not 1, not 2, but 3 choirs and I was even nerdy enough to go to choir camp. I love singing that much.  I'll admit, I was not the best, but I can hold a tune, and belting along to Taylor Swift is still one of my all time favorite things to do in a car.  And now that we have a car, I've been doing LOTS of that. So naturally, the song that I most associate with 2013 is Taylor Swift's 22 - I liked it so much I blogged about it. While I was actually 28 for much of 2013, I can't help but love lyrics like "It feels like a perfect night to dress up like hipsters" and "We ditch the whole scene and end up dreaming instead of sleeping."  In case you aren' t familiar with it,  turn your volume on full blast and get your dancing pants on when watching the video.

But what about the song I want to keep singing in 2014? It's the rhythmic lovechild of my guilty pleasure artist (Pitbull) and the Baconator's (Ke$ha) - TIMBER!! This little gem worked its way into my regular rotation a couple months ago when he discovered it somewhere on the internet, and now it's a staple of every car ride.

What song do you want to keep on singing?

Love and Bacon,
Kelsey

#WEverb14: Rebuild

Today's prompt is: REBUILDWhat do you plan to pick-up or rebuild this year?

This is something I've thought about a lot. When I was a teenager I was on the phone all the time, like on the phone until 3 am on a regular basis, but now that I'm in my late twenties, I avoid the phone. I spend my whole work day on the phone and answering email, so then when it comes time to do those things in my personal life, I simply don't want to. The consequences of that mean that my relationships with my very best friends are conducted sporadically and via social media. That's simply not good enough for the women who have been by my side throughout it all - high school, college, my wedding - nope, the occasional Facebook poke isn't enough.  So what I'm going to rebuild this year is my real life friendships. This means more calls, more emails, more face to face time with my friends, even if that takes some work.

I can't wait to hear about the projects that they are working on and the hot date they went on and whether or not they are planning to buy a house or have a baby - all this not from a Facebook post or from a photo on Instagram, but from them one on one.  This year, I'm going to be a better friend.What are you rebuilding?

Love and Bacon,
Kelsey

#WEverb14: Hasten

Sorry for the late update, I didn't have a chance to check out the prompts today.  Here's the 3rd one:

3: HASTEN
What new trick or shortcut did you learn in 2013? What do you want to speed up in 2014?

Ooh this is a tough one. I mean, I have two whole Pinterest boards dedicated to exactly this idea - one is Clean & Tidy (dedicated to being clean and organized) and the other is Good To Know (Things that don't fit in Clean and Tidy like remedies and charts).   I think the best thing I've pinned this year that actually helps me do things quicker is from the Kitchn - the article breaks down how to cut, dice and chop fruit and vegetables. 

The one most helpful to me was definitely cutting onions. Onions always make me cry, so I don't have a lot of practice with them, but their method makes tons of sense!  You essentially cut the onion in half, then use a grid pattern to get perfectly sized pieces of onions - GENIUS! I've even offered to cut onions for dinner now that I know this trick!

Source: The Kitchn

For 2014, I really need to apply myself to keeping a clean home all the time. The Baconator and I are both pretty messy, and we both go through bouts of cleaning, but my goal is to figure out how to get my house cleaner faster and how to keep it that way.  A clean, mean, twenty fourteen!

What are you hoping to Hasten in 2014?

Love and Bacon,
Kelsey

#WEverb14: Remember

Here's the second prompt for #WEverb14:

2. REMEMBER
What did you do in 2013 that you will remember the details of forever?

Last year (OMG, that went by so fast!!), I purchased my first car. Well, we purchased it, and technically, it's not my first car. But it is the first time that I've had to buy a car. I made spreadsheets and we did test drives and it took foreverrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Who doesn't love The Sandlot??

Not just picking out the car, but the actual buying process. I am not kidding around here when I say that it took us 3+ hours to buy the vehicle once we got to the dealership. We decided to go with a Toyota Prius V Five because we liked the drive, the liked the features that came with it, with liked the storage capacity (only 3 cubic feet smaller than the Rav4) and of course, we liked the amazing gas milage. As an added bonus, the Baconator gets a family discount on Toyotas because his dad works for them down in Indiana. We walked in knowing exactly how much we'd pay for the car, and we'd even been emailing with the dealership and had picked out the exact vehicle we would be driving off the lot.

There was no haggling on price, but man-oh-man, the things they try to up sell take hours. I mean, we talked to 5 different guys, maybe even 6, on the day we bought the car from the showroom to when we finally got the keys. But now that we've had our little red car for 4 months, I could not be happier.

In 4.5 months, we've put over 4000 miles on it, filled up gas 10 times, drove back and forth to Evansville 4 times, road tripped to Peoria and I have filled the windshield wiper fluid. (Ok, so that wasn't actually significant).

Here she is: Penny, our Red Prius!

What's your Remember moment from 2013?

Love and Bacon,
Kelsey

#WEverb14 Kicks Off Today!

So you may have noticed that I'm a little... willy nilly with my blogging frequency, so I've decided to kick of the year by tackling one of my resolutions: blog more often (yes, I realize that this was one of last year's resolutions, too).

Anyway, what better way to get back in the swing of things than to join the #WEverb14 cycle that is kicking off today? None that I can think of :)

So what is #weverb? It's essential 31 prompts that will help you reflect on 2013 and looks forward to 2014!  How you participate is up to you, one prompt, just a handful or every one of them.  My intention is to answer each of them through the month of January.

I'd love if you did it along with me! I'll post the prompt along with my response every day.

Kicking it off, here's the first prompt:

1: COMPOSE
Write a haiku for 2013 and one for 2014

2013:
Travel (Gold Status!)
Sky blue waters, wedding days
And Cincinnati

2014:
My resolutions
Last all year, no matter what
With no excuses

What are your haikus?

Love and Bacon,
Kelsey