Dan leaves me alone for the weekend with a paintbrush and some blue paint...

My friend Becca bought me "The Nesting Place" book.  One of the many reason we are such good friends, because it is SUCH a good book and I can't put it down.  Except I did, only because she already inspired me to redo our bathroom.  I have been wanting to do something to our bathroom for the past year, but I wasn't sure what.  When we did the first walk through of our home, I remember thinking that the bathroom was OK.  It wasn't totally 100% new and updated, but it was big, had some good bones to it, and had a lot of good light.  Fast forward to two weeks ago when I saw this pin on Pinterest.  Yet another reason to love Pinterest, not only do creative women showcase their talents for women like me to copy in their homes, they also provide my husband with the comfort he needed when I told him I wanted to paint our vanity blue.  

So, Dan left last weekend to head off to Colorado for his brother's bachelor party and I got working on the bathroom.  Basically anytime Jake was sleeping, I went crazy painting and I got a couple little things from HomeGoods- because who doesn't LOVE HomeGoods? And this is what we came up with.  I hope you like it!

Before:

After:

This was Dan's stool that his grandpa made him :)

Our visit to Chicago :)

Two weekends ago we ended our travel season with a trip to Chicago! (well, Dan was in Colorado this last weekend but as a family we are done traveling for a couple weeks!) Our dear friend Becca is expecting so I helped host a shower for her and it was so fun to see everyone and celebrate Baby E!  (Jess was our photographer at the shower and also helped host so she took all the pictures- I will post some of those later)  Our old small group has grown so much- with new babies and pregnant mama's and new couples, it is so fun.  When we visit it still feels just like home- almost like we haven't missed anything.  Obviously, it's been a year so we've missed a lot, but we still love that they feel like our family and we love seeing them even if it's just an extended weekend visit :)

Willa is already ONE!

There was lots of food for our after church brunch :)

Claire's hair. Love it.

Little RJ :)

 I enjoy taking way too many pictures of my handsome husband :) And thankfully it doesn't look creepy to others when I have the camera pointed at him for a majority of the afternoon.

Jessica and Lane expecting a baby BOY (surprise!) in December!!

Beautiful Jen :)

We love this family!

A lesson over Mac and Cheese

So tonight, being the stellar mom that I am, I was making Jake some mac and cheese for dinner.  Before you start throwing judgement my way, I didn't use the blue box which requires difficult operations of the stove, I used the small cup where you simply fill the water up to the designated line and heat it up for 3 minutes in the microwave.  Now you may judge.

Jake, was LOVING the fact that I was making him something in the microwave so he asked that I pick him up to see.  Since I was simultaneously making myself a summer pasta (side note: super good recipe from Pinterest) I didn't have the free hands to hold him for the 3 minutes so I pulled a chair up to the microwave and let him stand on it to watch his pasta go in circles.  (Oh the joy toddlers find in things lol)

When it beeped, I brought the powdered cheese packet over to pour in but Jake insisted on doing it himself.  I knew exactly where this was going.  In that moment, I had a choice- do it myself and make sure I avoid a mess, OR let him try.  I opened a super small sliver in the corner for him to pour the cheese out of and told him that the best part of this exercise was getting all of the cheese in the pasta cup.  Of course, he shook it vigorously and the cheese went everywhere, to which he pointed at the floor and said "Uh Oh!"  Sighing, I replied under my breath, "Yes, Jake, that is exactly the uh oh I was trying to avoid."  And then, in true toddler fashion, he did something that totally threw me off.  He looked at me and said, "Thank you, Mama!"  Then he crawled off the chair and headed to play with his mower until his mac and cheese cooled down.

This parenting thing has totally rocked my world.  I have this child who thanks me for giving him the opportunity to put powdered cheese in his mac and cheese, and I'm left about ready to cry in the kitchen because he is so thankful for such a small thing that I just viewed as such an inconvenience.

And then that made me think of the other day when we were at a friends birthday party and he is chasing around a bunch of kids.  Of course, Jake gravitates toward the older kids and starts running around with them.  They start to run behind a shed and from a distance I see Jake start to follow them.  The kids emerge from the other side but I don't see Jake.  I start to walk over there to figure out where he went and I see him slowly walking around the other way.  I'm sure what happened is these kids ran too fast for him and he just turned around because he realized he couldn't catch up.

That night, laying in bed, I was thinking about the day and Jake playing with those kids, and I literally started tearing up.  This was the first time where I witnessed Jake feeling "left out" and it completely broke my heart.  (way more than it bothered Jake lol)  I don't think that Jake thought about it for more than 2 seconds, but my mommy protective heart felt overwhelmed by what was to come.  I started thinking about middle school and the awkward moments and the heartbreaks and the cliques and I didn't ever want him to experience that kind of hurt.

And it reminded me of this picture I saw on Pinterest the other day:

via

I honestly don't know if a picture like this should go in a nursery or in my bedroom.  This little guy has stolen my heart and sometimes the love I feel for him is so overwhelming it scares me.  It scares me because I feel myself wanting to shield him from everything awful in this world and anything that can hurt him, and then I become even more scared because I realize that is impossible.  And that's when I realize that this is true parenting.  Yes, I loved Jake when he was 2 months and 6 months and 18 months, but this feeling I have for him, it's just beginning the long journey in parenthood. This balance of letting go and holding on and training and raising up and preparing to go out on his own is hard stuff and let's be honest, I haven't even really gotten my feet wet.  Parenting is such a huge blessing and privilege and so so hard all at the same time.  And I find myself thanking God one moment for the amazing gift and questioning Him the next wondering how he could ever entrust our little man to me.

And then I remember the gospel.  That God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that we could spend eternity in heaven.  That He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world.  And I remember that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.  And I can breath easy because I know that we have a God who loves Jake even more than I do or ever could.  And this Savior loves me just as much and doesn't leave me to do this parenting thing on my own.  And I am so thankful because I don't know how I could do this alone, because  really, you can't.

And all this came from a little boy thanking his mom for letting him help prepare his mac and cheese.

A weekend trip to Boston

Yesterday I mentioned how Steph started off our "travel season" and it is in full swing!  The following week after Steph was here we met up with our friends Andy and Becca for a couple days in Boston.  When we were relocated to New York from Chicago, we knew one city we definitely wanted to check out was Boston, and we were thrilled when Becca and Andy said they wanted to visit as well.  With a 2 year old and a 31 week pregnant lady (yay Becca!) we knew we would have to take things easy so we didn't do too much traveling outside the city expect to visit Fenway park.  We initially just wanted to do the stadium tour but that sold out.  Thankfully, we found tickets to the actual game at 1:30 for the same price as the tour so we ate some brunch, hung out at a playground for a couple hours, and headed to the ballpark.  Jake actually made it to the bottom of the 5th inning before he split his lip open bouncing his seat up and down so we made a swift exit after that.  But if that was the worst that happened the whole weekend, I'll count it as a win :)

Dan was pretty adamant that while we were in Boston we experience the historical side of the city (insert large yawn here... j/k Dan I love you :) ) so we made sure to walk the Freedom Trail and Andy was a good sport and actually stopped to read the signs with him lol.  On the way there Dan asked me what I was most excited to see in Boston, and I told him I didn't really have anything I absolutely needed to see. Then after about five minutes of thinking I told him that I was most excited about the food (typical Stef).  And I was right- the Boston Cream Pie from our hotel, Canolli's from Mike's Pastry, and Lobster Roll were seriously the highlights of the trip for me.  And I was also thrilled there was an Anthropologie to walk through :)

The last funny memory of our trip was when Dan thought that the marking in the ground saying "Boston Massacre" was really marking off where the Boston Marathon bombing happened.  Dan couldn't figure out why so many people were kneeling down and smiling as they were taking pictures in the spot that said "Boston Massacre." You can imagine how horrified he was when Andy told him since he thought smiling was inappropriate, he should just lie down on the ground and pretend that he was dead and we would take a picture (assuming Dan knew this was the spot of the Boston Massacre). It was only later that Dan realized that the Boston Massacre was not the same as the Boston Bombing. Oh my, good times.

Here are some pictures from our trip!

Yes, we were those tourists who did the Duck Tour :)

Jake was too young to drive but they let him sit up front :)

We have good friends who sit and wait for Jake to burn some energy off at the playground :)

Who knew Restoration Hardware would be such a hit with Jake?  PS, I LOVE the wall of basketballs and footballs behind Jake 

Lobster Roll in Boston :)

The site of the "Boston Massacre" where everyone was kneeling down and taking pictures :)

And of course there were some stops to watch the World Cup 

Great Sam Adams draft and clam chowder here!

He's sneaky this guy :)

Jake was too scared to run through the fountains by himself so Dan helped him out :)

It was hard to tell whether Jake loved the fountains or hated them at times lol

This is Jake's, "I'm feeling brave" face :)

At Fenway Park!

Last stop at Frog Pond right before we headed home

This picture cracks me up- I have no idea what Jake is doing lol And on another note, yes we were those parents who let our son go in the pond with his "street clothes" on.  However he's wearing a swim diaper- so that counts, right?