Fun gifts for Charlotte!

I am continuously blown away by how generous our friends and family have been before, during, and even after Charlotte’s arrival. I just want to brag about a few very sweet people who recently gave very sweet gifts to our sweet girl {things getting sweet enough for you?!}. I’m a sucker for something unique and different so of course my favorite gifts are the ones that required a little extra thought and/or creativity!

This adorable quilt arrived in the mail just before Christmas from a sweet {haha, I can’t stop using that word!} friend from college. I was blown away! It has “Charlotte” embroidered in the middle with a little buzzing bumblebee. Absolutely precious. Charlotte wasted no time checking out her new snuggly blankie.

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And quickly proceeded to determine how it would hold up to her new rolling over tricks.

Perfect. Just the right size. Thank you Megan!

Charlotte on blanket 2

 

Another box arrived a few days later containing 5 adorable board books from my bff from college, Kat. How thoughtful! I am a sucker for books {as is every speech language pathologist} and these are so unique!

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Inside Beach Babies Wear Shades:
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Inside Urban Babies Wear Black:

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Inside Country Babies Wear Plaid:rh-181_2z
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Inside Artsy Babies Wear Paint:

Artsy babies express themselves.

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I can’t wait to get the other 5 books in the series {there are 10 total!}

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Here is the link to her website if you want to look at/purchase all of the books in the series: http://www.ubwb.com/blog/my-books/

I particularly like the ‘about’ section where she explains how the idea for the books came about.

We are so excited to get reading, though for now mommy has to hold the books when we read or else they’ll become a soggy slobbery mess.

Thanks mom!

I am writing this from my phone so I have to be brief (and please forgive any spelling issues) but I just wanted to share something unbelievably cute I got at target today. I used a gift card that my mom and dad gave me for Christmas. I thought this would be so cute as Charlotte’s ‘other’ diaper bag – sometimes it is more practical to throw a backpack on rather than have a tote over the shoulder. I guess technically this is for ‘the baby’ but I’m the one who gets to sport it around so really it’s for mama!

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20130105-181259.jpgYippee!!!

 

Early morning confessions

Yesterday I ate TWO Little Debbie Swiss Rolls.

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Actually, 4 if we’re getting technical. TWO packs with TWO rolls in them.

And they were amazing.

I had one at work between seeing some patients. The other was as I was leaving work. Here’s the confession part 2, I guess: It was so yummy and I was trying to savor every last bite because I knew I was going to feel bad later about eating two packs; Then I came to a busy intersection where two homeless men {maybe homeless… at least that’s what their sign says} always walk down the line of cars waiting at the light holding their signs. Gah, one was already at the car in front of me and was walking my way! For some reason I didn’t want to be gnawing on a tasty snack in front of him so I quickly crammed the rest of the roll in my mouth. By that time he was walking past my car at a slow stroll so I could read his sign and then dig around for some cash, I guess. “Do I look at him?”  “Do I look the other way?”  “Do I look at him?” “He knows!”   I didn’t have any food other than the ball of fluffy chocolatey cake I was hoarding in my cheeks like a chipmunk, not even chewing it because that would be a dead giveaway that I was eating something and not sharing with him. I opted for ‘look at him and smile’, but lips closed smile as to not alert him of the snack that was quickly absorbing all the moisture in my mouth. Once he had passed I tried to swallow the obscene amount of cake that was in my mouth but it had taken on a different form and was no longer fluffy cake. I was eventually able to clear my mouth, the light turned green, and I proceeded on my way home.

I’m sure he went back to, er… the place he sleeps {almost just typed ‘home’ there} and had a good laugh with his friends about the crazy girl binge eating cake in her car.

DIY Thank-you notes for babies

Coming soon to a mailbox near you!

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I saw this idea on Pinterest {of course} and knew it was something I wanted to try for Charlotte’s first thank you notes. It was fairly easy and took me only about an hour from start to finish {not including getting the pictures printed}; plus it was way more fun than writing!

The basket is one that I snagged at a thrift store and painted {using Pinterest inspiration as well}, then adorned with an old black belt from my closet {just my luck, I’m sure large black belts will be all the rage next year, just after I’ve glued my only one to a basket… the things we do in the name of adorable-ness}!

Once I had decided on the photo I wanted to use I modified the text for each gift then saved the document as the ‘gifters’ name to help me keep everything organized. It was so easy to then take them on an SD card to be printed. There are always print deals going on this time of year so the cost for this will not be more than a pack of thank you notes. I will just include each photo in along with my thank-you note so no additional postage will be needed!

I can’t wait to try this again for Charlotte’s birthday!

 

**UPDATE**

Something was bugging me about these thank-you notes but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I finally decided it was the ‘brightness’ of the text in the frame; just too abrasive. I use an online program called PicMonkey to edit my photos {It’s free and has a lot of really cool features to help fix the many booboos in my photos}. I chose a font called ‘chalkdust’ {for obvious reasons} and just discovered a handy little sliding bar titled “fade”. By increasing the ‘fade’ of the text I was able to reduce the ‘brightness’ {very technical terminology up in here}. Yay! Much better. Happy thank you note-ing!

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