The weather here is still in the 90s, although the past few days have had cooler afternoons with a slight breeze. When I take Penny and Berlin outside for Berlin’s afternoon playtime, it’s actually been enjoyable, almost feeling like Fall.

Yesterday Matt got home from work early, so we took the girls to the park for a walk. After getting some exercise, we found a shady spot and pulled Penny out of her stroller to lounge in the grass for a while. I don’t know who loved it more, Penny, or Berlin who couldn’t stop licking and snuggling up to the newest member of our family.

My mind has made the shift to Fall even if it hasn’t actually hit the calendar yet, mainly because of the arrival of butternut squash in our CSA box. In the past, butternut squash in the grocery store always triggers Fall in my mind, so I guess it’s happening a little early this year. Because of it, I am spending significant portions of the day dreaming of cooler weather, long hikes outside, trips to local farms to pick apples and pumpkins, Trick or Treaters, and Thanksgiving feasts.

With Autumn on the brain, I decided to welcome it in a bit early by putting Penny in her very first hoodie.

From Daily Daguerreotype

Never look back, kiddo. You will know your mama by the hoodies she wears.

Penny’s also really starting to love bath time. I’d imagine every mom’s favorite part of bath time is when they get out of the water and need to be snuggled dry in a big fluffy baby towel.

From Daily Daguerreotype

I can’t wait for the weather to cool off so I can take her out of the bath, snuggle her into her towel, and sit in front of the fire to read her bedtime story and sing her bedtime songs.

When Matt and I were dating, I made a CD for him called “The Autumnal Mix” filled with songs that made me think of this, the greatest season. I think I’ll put it on today because it’s about that time in my daughter’s life when she should be introduced to Elvis Costello.

Maybe after bath time.

And maybe I’ll even risk it and let her go without a diaper for a whole fifteen minutes – the best way to enjoy Elvis Costello’s music, methinks.

Perhaps the best part of having a kid is getting all of the amazing hand-made gifts that will be treasured and passed on for years to come. My brilliant Aunt made Penny this elephant paci clip which I pulled out for the first time today.

So far, Penny has been hooked on “Soothie” pacifiers which don’t have a clip on the end. I’ve been wanting to switch her over to regular pacifiers for a while now, but it wasn’t until I dropped her final Soothie on the floor in her nursery and was unable to find it that I pulled out this amazing elephant paci clip with a delicious bpa-free pacifier on the end of it. I was doubtful that she’d make the switch easily, but as soon as I stuck it in her mouth she was sold. As for me, I’m sold on clipping it to her outfit and never losing the pacifier again!

From Daily Daguerreotype

Doesn’t that elephant just make you swoon!? WHY DO I LOVE SAFARI ANIMALS SO MUCH?!?!? Thanks, Auntie Lynne!

While we patiently waited for Penelope this weekend, Matt and I sprung into more nesting action to finish off a few projects that had been lingering. He put the final coat of paint on our laundry room cabinets and installed the hardware for them which means that our laundry room is officially finished.

Here are some before and afters from when we first bought the house. The projects in this room included ripping out lower cabinets and countertop, moving the extra fridge to the basement, tearing down old wallpaper, putting up new wallpaper, painting cabinets, running water and electricity for the washer and dryer, installing a new floor, installing beadboard on the walls and ceiling and putting in crown molding & chair rail.

Before:

From Daily Daguerreotype

From Daily Daguerreotype

After:

From Daily Daguerreotype

From Daily Daguerreotype

I’m so pleased with how it all turned out, which is a tribute to how good Matt is at actually creating what I have in my mind. As you know, I love doing laundry, but probably because of my adorable laundry room and its convenient location right off my kitchen. We’ve started parking our cars in the backyard now, so this is becoming our main entrance and has been really functional so far. I’m also seeing via the picture that it’s time to take out the recycling.

We also tackled a project this weekend that we had been wanting to do for years. I had inherited an old beat up bookshelf that my grandfather built years and years ago. It had been sitting in my parents basement for a while holding cans of paint, so it was in pretty rough condition. This weekend we sanded it down and put a few fresh coats of black paint on it giving it new life. Then last night Matt hauled up the boxes of books we’ve had in storage for a year now, and I organized them on the bookshelf. With my new zest for reading, we’re both tickled pink that our books are finally accessible. Although we realized we need about 2 more shelves of the same size.

From Daily Daguerreotype

Matt’s currently down in the basement putting the second coat of paint on a coffee table he built years ago, which is getting a new life in our newly finished den upstairs. The den and guest room are slowly coming together, so I’ll have pictures of those perhaps later this week if Penny Cate is still snoozin at the wheel.

Feels good to be finishing up some of these things and finally moving into our house.

I was blown away when I was selected to be a recipient of handmade Etsy gifts from the folks over at Etsy Baby Shower. Essentially what happens is that a bunch of generous shop owners gift expecting mamas with their hand-crafted baby wares as of way of congratulating them. My sister tipped me off to it, and my due date with Penny (as well as my obsessive love for all things Etsy) qualified me to be one of the lucky mamas!

I’ve had such a fun time emailing back and forth with the various shop owners who sent me beautiful gifts. Once again, I was thoroughly impressed with how many talented and crafty people are out there, and I love that Etsy gives them a wider audience and hopefully more business. So this week, I wanted to show you the beautiful new gifts for Penny and tell you a little more about the shops behind them.

From Daily Daguerreotype

Tessa from T & T Crafts sent over these adorable blue and green booties with fun non-skid soles. Of course I died when I saw the colors and the little green rosettes, but I also loved that Penelope will have a bit more traction while zipping around on our wood floors. As if I’ll even be able to put her down for a second. I can’t wait to see these babies on her wee little feet!

Tessa sells a wide variety of crafts including homemade soap, reusable produce bags, and dog collars, not to mention her sustainable baby wares – cloth dipes and wipes! You know that makes my green heart squee with joy!

Check out her shop if you’re looking for a fun and eco-friendly gift for that person in your life who loves all things hand-crafted! And thanks so much, Tessa (and Etsy Baby Shower!), for your generous gift!

I’ve discussed our car shopping before, and yes, we’re still shopping. Because we loved the Outback but wanted to wait until the 2011s are on the lot so we might be able to get a gently used 2010. At least that was our thinking until I found a used 2009 Nissan Rogue at an outrageously good price where we would be allowed a 3-day rental to test her out.

After much finagling, I finally picked her up today, and was surprised to see she was blue after being listed as grey. 8% of men are colorblind, so I chalked it up to that, and proceeded to drive her home with the volume cranked. Since we’ll be listening to music on Marshall 11 with sleeping kids in the back seat.

Most people would want to try out all of the funky features and see how it performs at high speeds. Not me. The first priority I had was to pull out both my infant carseat and my convertible carseat and snap them in with every possible configuration. Two rear-facing, one front facing, side-by-side, and with space in between. This I did crammed into the backseat myself, at 8 months pregnant, with both doors shut because there was a thunderstorm and torrential downpour taking place at the same time.

Take this photo, and then imagine, if you will, my big fat white booty squished in there between the carseats pushing, pulling and groaning to make sure the seats were secure. FOR MY INVISIBLE CHILDREN’S SAFETY!

From Daily Daguerreotype

Quickest route to premature labor EVER.

Tomorrow I’m taking the car for an inspection to make sure that no disasters are hidden under the roof. After which I plan on flying to DC to square away this oil spill disaster, then on to Baghdad to get our troops out, and then to Africa to stop world hunger. While my physique would beg to differ, I have never been so efficient, so stream-lined, and so thorough as I am now, at 35 weeks pregnant.

A few years ago, after much debating, my parents decided to keep the house they had lived in nearly my entire life, but renovate it throughout. They figured that in their mid-fifties it might be nice to have things like, oh, say… central air. And a fridge that wasn’t puke yellow and from 1989.

Projects like installing central air and wood floors throughout your house are a bit of a pain, but nothing is as much of a pain as knocking down a wall in your kitchen, gutting it, and putting in a new kitchen from the ground up. This I know from experience, although my parent’s budget and timeline was far different than ours. They hired an awesome contractor and over the span of several months lived in their finished basement while the kitchen was being renovated. For those many months, they referred to the room in the finished basement as “The Studio” and became well accustomed to cooking with a toaster and microwave and living out of a dorm-sized fridge.

This past weekend, we blocked off our own kitchen to finally get around to painting the wood floors. Because we didn’t want to push our luck, we decided to plan the painting with the most conservative of timelines including two full days between coats for optimal drying time. Which meant that I had 5 days worth of food to plan out in advance with a toaster oven and basement fridge as my only options.

I spent much of Friday at the grocery store and in the kitchen making up a whole host of sandwiches, cutting up cucumbers and summer squash and marinating chicken that could be grilled outside. We’re on day 4 of living without a kitchen, and I’ll be honest, the sandwiches are getting old. Same for washing our dirty dishes in the bathroom sink. And going outside and around to the back of the house to get milk from the basement fridge.

Here’s what our dining room currently looks like with a mattress blocking off the door to the kitchen and the dining room table covered with our picnic staples.

From Daily Daguerreotype

And here’s the kitchen floor drying.

From Daily Daguerreotype

After five days of living like this, I honestly cannot imagine how my parents lived for months on end in The Studio. But then again, our finished project is nothing like theirs.

From Daily Daguerreotype

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that every time I go to my mom’s house I beg to cook a meal, and the entire time I talk to my pretend audience as if I’m a Food Network chef.