More Treasures!!!

Check out these adorable finds...the first is an authentic vintage porcelain lamp updated with a new shade and the cutest little felt flowers.

The second one is a cute toddler tote with a little shy hand embroidered kitten on the front. I don't really get into cats, but this sweet little kitty won me over.

And the last one is a set of little notecards with a singing birdie!

These are just a few of the treasures found at The Baby Gardner. After looking at all of these, I guess you could say I'm in a red and blue state of mind!

Sweet Vintage Find!

I love finding vintage items. Something about not quite knowing what little treasure may be out there waiting for me combined with the fact that most are one of a kind, a little chippy and worn, but sweet, sweet, sweet. Before I had Grace, I loved waking up early on Saturdays (okay not the waking up part but the shopping part :) to go to estate and tag sales to search for that perfect item. When we were just out of college, in our early twenties and carefree (geez, I'm making myself sound old, must be a side effect of being in your 30's), my friend Michelle and I would meet up almost every Saturday for our weekly garage sale hunt. Our routine included granola bars and caffeinated drinks pre-hunt and bagels or breakfast sandwiches post-hunt. She was always the responsible one having marked the newspaper listings the night before and prioritizing our route. I was always the last minute one having to stop by the ATM to get cash. We always had a plan and we would even make sure we weren't too nicely dressed (yea right, like jogging suits are so...nice) so that we could bargain shop with the sellers. She was a better shopper than me - still is! While I was picky, she could truly envision an item's beauty and she scored some fantastic deals. Some of our favorites: vintage linens, cake plates, ornate wooden frames, quilts, old children's books and shiny brite christmas ornaments.

Fast forward some 10+ years and while I still love vintage finds, my early saturday shopping trips are rare and few these days. Mostly, I shop ebay, etsy and local antique malls. So you can imagine how happy I was when Michelle told me about a new vendor at a local antique mall I had visited years back, but forgotten all about.
This past Monday, Grace joined me for her first ever vintage hunting expedition.

And - drumroll please - I found THE cutest little vintage pillowcase dress at the vendor's booth Michelle told me about. It has a sweet little doily in the center to give it even more character (or perhaps to hide a stain :) AND it was only $19!!!!!!!

Nevermind that it is way too big for Grace or that it had some small stains I didn't know if I could get out (the main one came out with Shout Advanced Gel, which works wonders :). I absolutely fell in love with it!!! It has the cutest little raggedy ann hand embroidery at the bottom in sweet tones of lilac, brown, and golden yellow.

It is the same cute pattern that Angel of TaDa! Creations embroidered on Grace's pink/red/blue summery peasant top.

I guess as of late, I have a raggedy ann obsession. It all started when I was 3 and my mom dressed me as raggedy ann for halloween... All I can say is that I've had a smile on my face ever since I found the sweet dress. To top it off, when I called Michelle to tell her about my find and the one that got away (a little aqua blue plastic juicer that would look adorable in Grace's little play kitchen but I didn't buy), she had a wonderful surprise for me. Not only did she say I could have the vintage Raggedy Ann and the Cookie Snatcher Little Golden Book she had acquired a while back, but she also had a little aqua blue plastic juicer she had thought about giving me for Grace's kitchen when I first told her about the playroom!!!!!!!!!!


Talk about Christmas in July - ahem, April! Thanks, Michelle!!! It's so nice having friends who share and appreciate your quirky habits. I heart vintage finds!

Itty Bitty Piggy Tails and Fun at the Park

So I cannot tell you how long I've been waiting to put Grace's hair in piggy tails! I just love them!!! They are so girly and cute and fun and sassy! Well, I finally managed to gather a few strands of Grace's hair and put little clippies in to make the two sweetest itsy bitsy piggies in the whole wide world!!!!!!!

Never mind that I had to bribe her with tickies (stickers) and her favorite book (thanks Emerson and Marshall!!). She did look more grown up with the piggies - all toddler like and no baby, so maybe I'll save the piggies for later since I feel like she's growing so fast anyway.

While waiting for Papa A.J. to join us for lunch, Noonie joined us for a quick trip to our neighborhood park. Have I mentioned that Grace loves being outside? She was even more excited to have so many people with her, including our dog.




Oh, and one new trick to share. I've been practicing with her and now when you ask her, "Are you a boy or a girl?" she says, "Girrrrrl"! I'm so proud I taught her that one all by myself :) Just this morning I heard her grab one of her fischer price little people (a little girl) and say "girrrl, girrrl", then she grabbed the dog little people and said (dow, dow) so she gets it!!! Yeayyyy!

Playroom Update

Grace's playroom is really taking shape. Lance installed the gate this past week being that it's really a play area rather than a playroom since it opens up into another area of our house. Thanks to a birthday present from Grace's Mimi and Pop, Grace will soon be playing with the stove and sink from this cute kitchen!!!

And thanks to Grace's Noonie and Papa A.J., the larger version of this cute rug will soon be cozying up her playroom!!!

She has been so excited to have a larger area to play in and loves looking out the windows.



For my part, I've been busy buying play food and cute little felt cookies and CUPCAKES, of course! I'm like a kid in a candy store!!! I love all these girly things.



So far, Grace seems to like the fake mac-n-cheese box the best...a girl after my own heart!

Grace has also started doing the cutest thing ever (well, at least in my motherly opinion :) When someone says, "Where's Grace or Who's Grace?", she points to herself, smiles from ear to ear, and says "ME!" Thanks Noonie for teaching her this!!! Love it!!!

Cousins

Grace and her closest-in-age cousin Carson are just 2 1/2 months apart and it's been so much fun seeing their little personalities develop. Grace loves Carson. She smiles at his picture on our refrigerator and tries to say his name ("cars, cars") after I tell her "that's cousin Carson". But when Carson and his parents come to visit, Grace gets all shy around him! She does her little tuck-head-and-look-away pose.


But it doesn't take her long to get over it and start smiling and babbling to him.

Carson gave Grace a gift certificate to Build-a-Bear for her birthday and we had so much fun going to pick out a new friend. Grace picked out a yellow chick (go figure!) and Carson picked out a baseball bear.

Here's Carson with his mama - I just love this picture of the two of them!

And here he is at Grace's birthday party crawling through the tunnel. We can't wait to go to Carson's 1st birthday party next month!!!

First Haircut

Grace was born with a head full of hair. Some of it fell out and then filled back in, but some little pieces especially right behind her ears stayed and just grew and grew and grew. She had one really long piece behind her left ear that no matter what I did to brush/comb it down, just kept popping back up, so after much debating I decided I would cut it after she turned one. Just recently she also started having the sweetest little curls and I refuse to touch those, but the long piece had to go. After our trip downtown to check out the fountains and the azaleas this past Monday (more photos from our mini trip later), I decided *I* was ready for the "big" haircut. Grace was in a great mood and so it went smoothly. She actually laughed and cheered the whole time, so that made it easier. I tied the little piece of hair I cut with a pink ribbon to put in her baby book. I must say I was a little teary eyed at the end, my little pumpkin is growing so fast...

What I loved about this week

I know I'm sometimes guilty of taking on too much, rushing around too much, dwelling on things that have gone wrong and so on, so I figured one way to turn that around is to each week take some time to write down what I'm thankful for. I often say little prayers of thanks in my head for things I'm grateful for, but actually seeing a list - I have a feeling - will help me counteract any down moments. I actually stole this idea from a blog I recently stumbled upon A Journey to Our Daughter . So here are some things I loved so far this week (the right, straightforward-brain-part-of-me thinks I should wait until the very end of the week and then list everything for that week, but the left, creative-brain-part-of-me thinks just do it spontaneously), so the creative part won and here it is:

* I loved spending time with Grace and my mom on Monday going downtown to the fountains to check out a new photo spot.
* I loved seeing Grace smile at the fountains and discover the beauty in the bright pink azaleas.
* I loved hearing Grace's infectious laughter, even her newly developed talent for "fake laughing" to copy others.
* I loved that my husband put up the gate in Grace's playroom area the same day I bought it, even missing part of his favorite tv shows to do it.
* I loved seeing the sweet comment my stepdad left for me on our blog.
* I loved hosting a baby shower for our office manager and seeing the look of surprise and love on her face when she realized we secretly invited her mom to join us.
* I loved giving Grace her "first haircut", albeit if I only cut one long, long piece behind her ear she's had since birth.
* I loved finally creating the shadowbox with Grace's dress and booties she wore home from the hospital.
* I loved seeing Grace, Noonie, and Papa AJ on the floor enjoying playtime on Sunday.
* I loved that two special friends, both pregnant, are doing well with their pregnancies.
* I loved babysitting my niece/goddaughter last Friday and seeing her create a "heart of love" out of stickers I gave her in her Easter basket. I really love that she made one for me!
* I loved that my mom found my grandparents original wedding invitation and some sweet photos.
* I loved that my sweet sister-in-law in CA emailed me to tell me that it's Cupcake Week on the Martha Stewart show just because she knows I love cupcakes :)
* I loved stumbling across this saying, "All children come from God, for some the journey home just takes a little longer" Author Unknown, in reference to adoption.
* Most of all, I loved it when I was saying prayers with Grace Monday night and she looked up at me, put her sweet little hand on my face and said "pum-pin" (copying how I cup her face in my hands and say "love you pumpkin").

Thank you God for blessing me and my family with these wonderful moments this week!
~Jessica