The Domestication Project

My friend Benjamin Derkin (a most excellent photographer) took this photo of Eli in October, during our first corn maze experience. I love this picture, but I’m not sure I can say the same for that Ohio corn maze. I’m posting it as a tribute to Eli’s hair’s former glory. He looks great now, but …

2010: didn’t blog much. read a lot of books. fulfilled about 5 of my 1,000 goals for the year. (and am okay with that) bought a house. acquired a baby. 2011: less complaining. more books. less wasted time. more music. less soda. more babies?

Well, well, look who decided to join the party — and only 16 days late! Sophia Lois was born at 7:47pm on July 4 (to her uber-patriotic daddy’s delight) after a long day of laboring at home with my supportive husband and wonderful midwives. She was 8 pounds, 10 ounces + 21 inches long. We …

Welcome to our foyer, halfway through our renovation. Please note the freshly drywalled walls + ceiling (previously beyond-repair cracked plaster), carpeted stairs, and really scuffed/dirty wood floors. Here’s our foyer now. I feel the need to preface ALL “after” photos, especially in this post, with the disclaimer that we are nowhere near finished with these …

Don’t even get me STARTED about the living room. Sure, it looks pretty bad in the above photo. But at one point, it looked like this: Yes…if you were wondering, THIS is the stage of the renovation that brought me to “we’re-never-going-to-be-able-to-move-in” tears. Of course, I blame a little of it on the pregnancy hormones. …

Next stop on the house tour: the dining room. This before picture doesn’t even show the previous horrendous light fixture and acoustic tile ceiling, which we tore down and replaced with drywall. And by we, I of course mean I didn’t do any of this. But I DID occasionally walk through and make encouraging remarks. …

Yesterday was Nathan’s 27th birthday. That sounds a lot closer to 30 than any of our other ages so far. But we’re not scared of 30. Bring it on, 30. (In a few years.) For his birthday breakfast, I made him this baked French toast from the Pioneer Woman. It did not disappoint. The topping …

For the first of my house updates, I’m showing off this little bedroom. We’ve decided to make it our combination guest room + nursery for now, with plans to later turn it into a room for both Eli + Sophia. At that point we’ll relegate the guests to the smaller bedroom (sorry, future houseguests). This …

Congratulate me; baby Sophia and I have officially made it to 41 weeks. Besides being psyched out by an entire day of consistent contractions (and on my due date, no less), there hasn’t been much action around here. Being called overdue makes me feel like a deliquent library book, but the good thing about it …

About a week ago, we thought I was going into labor, and we finished up some of the big projects around the house + got it all cleaned up. It would have been a great time to take some pictures for the blog. We missed our window, however … and not only have I still …