Project 52 Update

I know I haven't kept up with posting my photos on here, but I'm going to share them with you anyway before the bean arrives (yes, it's April 12th and she's still in the womb).  Better late, than never, right?  Instead of bogging down this entry with all of the photos and also in an effort to keep the chaos down somewhat, I'm going to back-date the posts, so you'll have some mouse-clicking to do to see them all.  Get your mouse-clicking finger ready! :)  And away we go...

Project 52: Fourteen

Photo Fourteen: Growing Bump!
The bean keeps getting bigger!  This was taken around 39 weeks pregnant, one week before my birthday.  Can you see that we painted the nursery?  We painted it a really pretty lavender color.  I'll have to take more photos of the nursery to share on the blog.  Oh, and I also cut my hair shorter since the last bump photo.  I was hoping to have enough hair to donate this time, but that didn't work out.  Maybe I'll be able to do it someday!

Project 52: Thirteen

Photo Thirteen: The Bean's New Bookcase
This girl better be a bookworm! :)  Here's a photo of the Billy bookcase assembled, anchored to the wall, and cabinet doors attached.  Great use of space and I'm really happy with the way it looks!

Project 52: Eleven

Photo Eleven: Happy First Birthday, Fiona!
My niece, Fiona, is making a cameo appearance this week (along with her mommy, Lori).  Her big O-N-E birthday was this week and we celebrated it with presents and her first taste of chocolate cake!  Chris and I got her "My Pal Scout" from Leap Frog and here she is after "opening" it (Fiona had a significant amount of help unwrapping her gifts from her mommy this year).

Project 52: Ten

Photo Ten: Bump Profile From Above
I think it's funny how the curve of one side of my belly is different from the other -- definitely not symmetrical thanks to the bean.  It took me leaning forward a bit, but you can see my gray slippered feet below. :)

Project 52: Nine

Photo Nine: The Bump!
This was taken March 5th at around 34 weeks pregnant.

Project 52: Eight

Photo Eight: IT'S A GIRL!!
The gender is revealed -- the bean is a GIRL! :D  The photo frames were given to both sets of grandparents and the cookie is what was in each goody bag given at the shower.  A yummy shout-out to Cheryl's!  They're an Ohio-based company (I was introduced to them during my time at college in Columbus), but if you aren't local, they do have an online website where you can order their delicious cookies and they will ship them to you.  I'm so glad I didn't have to bake the cookies myself and I also think it was much nicer that they were all individually sealed.  I think they were a hit!

Update:  I'll go ahead and link you, if you're interested in checking out her website: Cheryl's Cookies.  If you want the "It's a Boy" or "It's a Girl" cookies, the only way to order them online is to go "Shop by Product" > "Create Your Own Assortment" > "Create Your Own Cookie Box" > decide how many cookies you want > then from the drop-down menu, you can choose either the frosted "Boy" cookies or the the frosted "Girl" cookies.  Voila!

Project 52: Seven

Photo Seven: Baby Shower Goody Bags
These are the goodie bags that I made for the baby shower my mother-in-law hosted for me in Michigan.  I enjoyed crafting these together and am really happy with how they turned out!  Chris and I wanted to wait to reveal the baby's gender until everyone was together at the shower and we decided to do it with cookies!

Project 52: Six

I'm late with posting this photo, but I did take it last week!  (February 12th, to be exact.)  In anticipation of the baby shower this weekend, when we'll be revealing the baby's gender to everyone, I've got a photo of me and the "bump!"  Some people say if you carry high or low, it's a boy vs. a girl.  I don't really feel like I'm carrying high or low, but if this helps, here it is:

Here's a bonus shot of me and the bean, straight-on:

Check it out: I even created a spiffy form for you to cast your vote!


The gender will be revealed Saturday! :D  Here's a quick peek at our project for the gender reveal; people will get to choose pink labeled bags if they guess girl or blue labeled bags if they guess boy:

(Our last name is blacked out in the interest of Internet security.)

Project 52: Five

We rang in February with a severe ice storm this week which caused a power outage.  We were in the middle of watching a movie when the power went out at 10:30 p.m.  It didn't come back on until 4:30 a.m. the next morning, but I was thankful we weren't without power for very long, because we needed the heat!  So, here's the picture for Week 5:

Our useless remotes in the candlelight!

Project 52: Three and Four

I'm late posting these, but I'm not giving up!  Here's week 3 and week 4:

Week 3: Our newly painted master bathroom!

Most of the walls in our house are white, partly because I'm indecisive about choosing a paint color and partly because I consider it to be a two-person job.  Eventually, I'd like for every room to be painted, but we don't mind taking our time with this endeavor.  Over the MLK holiday weekend, Chris and I decided to tackle painting our bathroom and I love the new soft, silvery blue color.  It's just what I imagined for a soothing, relaxing feel.  The paint color is called "Icicle" from Sherwin Williams.  Here's another picture of it, which I think represents it better (call this a bonus picture for being tardy with posting my pictures!):

Week 4: Neighborhood hawk watch.

For the past month or so, Chris and I have periodically noticed this hawk flying around our backyard.  He looks like a majestic creature and we appreciate him eating any vermin in the area, but he's also the reason why I would never be comfortable taking our rabbits outside!

Project 52: Two

Posting this a day late, but am backdating it for simplicity's sake! :)

This week, a bunny appearance!  This is Lily in Bender's cage, after we just cleaned it.

One of the tasks I was hoping that this project would help me with, is regularly downloading my photos from our camera. The great thing about memory cards is that they hold so much, but on the other hand, it takes me a while to actually get them off of there! So, the other day I downloaded everything that's been stored for the past couple of months (yes, "months," eep!) in order to use this photo for the week, and I saw a lot of other photos I'd like to share, including a trip to the Lehigh Valley Zoo in Pennsylvannia and a speech given by former President Bush. I hope to recap those eventually!

Project 52: One

I will edit this entry later with an explanation, but I wanted to post this before the week was over:

Christopher's birthday cake and my pregnant belly!

Edited January 9, 2011 to add:

A friend of mine, Shawna at StyleberryBLOG, has committed to doing a weekly photo challenge called Project 52.  Intrigued, I did a quick Google search and found this website, MCP Actions, which probably provides a better explanation than I can.  Basically your goal is to post a photo every week of the year; so 52 photos in 52 weeks.  It seems that some people have an overarching theme for their photos or some have a different theme each week (if you need ideas, check out MCP Actions as they suggest something new each week).

As for me, I thought about having an overall theme, but then I wasn't sure of what topic I wanted to focus on and beyond that, I wasn't sure if I wanted to "limit" myself to one.  Sure, this blog is baby/family-oriented, so I hope to already post photos with that in mind.  Then I thought about doing a different theme each week, suggested by a website/community like MCP Actions, but then that seemed more like "homework" instead of something fun, so I scratched that.  Some people are using this challenge as a way to better their photography skills, which I think is a great idea, so I thought that maybe I could do that and just post photos taken with my DSLR.

But in the end, after all this thinking, I decided that I'm just going to play it by ear and not take it too seriously.  I realized that I'm a perfectionist and I don't want that to get in the way of the spirit of this project.  I want this to be fun and something that I can stick with! :)  So while there isn't a "theme" per se, you might say that my theme is "letting go."  That's something that I'm going to have to learn how to do more often when I'm a new mommy anyway, right? ;)

My photos each week might be snapped from our fancy DSLR or from my husband's smart phone (thanks, honey!).  They might feature me or my family or they might be something random that I found interesting/pretty that week.  The photo might be edited or I may post it as-is, unretouched.  Shoot, I know that I won't even be able to commit to posting my photo on a certain day of the week!  For this project, I'm quieting my perfectionist ways and am simply sticking to the heart of the project: to post a different photo each week!  My hope is that in the least this will keep things interesting and recent around here! :)

If you want to join in, feel free to hop in anytime, and please let me know!