food...coming out!

well...around Christmas time my sister asked if i was going to start feeding evelynn food. i was not sure i wanted to be gung-ho about feeding her food for a couple reasons:
1...feeding her food would take away a little bit of her baby-ness
2...her poop was gonna change!!!

and that it did, well #2 at least! she is extra cute when she eats (except when she does raspberries in my face)...

...but i hate coming in every morning and seeing this! her smiling face helps me get through it all!

this occurrence has slowed down a little bit since her little body is getting used to other things besides the sweet nectar. but its still interesting to see the changes that do happen when she eats different foods. lets see what happens since we just gave her sweet peas! anyone want to see pictures?!? :] just kidding, i dont really have pictures of her "business"!

an ounce of creativity!

so i have always seen blogs with cool banners. never had any idea how to get one or make one, and i wasnt about to pay for some sort of program. well a friend found all the answers for me! she figured out a way to make a banner and use it on her blog...all for free! and it was easy. so this was my outcome:and this is my friends banner:

and because her instructions were so easy, i thought id share my new-found knowledge with all 5 of you! plus this picasa program allows you to touch-up pictures (my new favorite thing to do!). so here are ashley's instructions-verbatim-i did add one thing thats in orange (why change what already works!):

-I use Picasa for all my photo editing. It's free - click here to download. It will search your computer for all your photos, you want this so you'll be able to use them.
-Go find a cute background for your blog- here or here have some great ones. Once that is on your blog, you are ready to make your banner.
-Open Picasa and highlight a few pictures that you want in your banner. Click 'Create Photo Collage' at the top of your folder. (one thing i noticed here was that if you are selecting pictures in different folders youll want to click on the little green thumbtack that is on the bottom left in the "selection" box; otherwise, as you select pictures in other folders, the previous ones will be unselected)
-When it pulls up your collage, make sure that 'Picture Pile' is selected in the top left corner under settings. I picked 'no border' for the pictures and a solid color for my background. You can also use an image for the background, if you want. Under Page Format I picked 'Custom' and typed in 650x 350 and made sure it was on landscape.
-Re-size, change the angle, and move your pictures where you want them to be. To add more pictures- Click the 'Clips' tab in the top left corner by Settings. Click 'Get more' to add or delete the pictures you want. You'll have to play around to figure out how to do everything, but it's pretty easy. Once you are done click 'Create Collage' under Settings. (Don't worry, you can come back and change things if you need to.)
-Under 'Projects' on the left you will see your banner. Click on it to open. Under 'Basic Fixes' there is a 'Text' button. Click that. Pick your font (downloaded ones will show up also), size, color, etc. You can make the text box larger or smaller the same way you did the pictures. You can also rotate it. You can add as many text boxes as you need. I used three.
-Get the words where you want them. If you need to move the pictures to fit with the words, just click 'Apply' on the left. At the top left, there is a button 'Edit Collage'. You can go back and forth from pictures to text until you get it right. {The text will not show up when you are arranging the pictures, but it is still there.}
-Once it's perfect, click the 'Export' button at the bottom in the middle. On 'Image Size' mine is on Re-size to 600. It worked, so I didn't mess with it.
-Go to your Blogger dashboard and click 'Layout'. At the top is the header. Click it and browse to find your new collage. Click 'Instead of title and description'. Click 'Save' and you're done!

well there you have it. i followed her directions to the T and ended up with a cool banner. and as you fiddle with picasa youll learn what its really capable of. if you have any issues or questions, let me know and ill see what i can do. if i dont know the answer ill find it for you! hope you find this helpful and fun!

will you be my valentine?

happy day o' love to you all (all four of you...if that!). it felt more of a weekend celebration though. on friday morning steven surprised evelynn and i with flowers (love the "vase" he grabbed to put them in; there used to be a candle in there). he also brought me a vanilla bean frap and a cupcake! nice little treat before work.
as i was taking a picture of the flowers, i notice a little stalker! can you spot her?

friday night the family drove in. of course, mom came with her valentine goodies in tow. steven and i got some treats and an applebees giftcard (yay date night!). she was so excited for the baby's present. she got her some ghirardelli chocolate (yay for chocolate) and the book "all the ways i love you" narrated by herself.
and of course, all evelynn really wanted was the tissue paper.
we topped off saturday with an early dinner at 25 main...yum!!!!
today was the day everyone was going back to cali. so we hung out and had breakfast here. the family took off and the three of us headed to the park for a little valentines day photo shoot of evelynn. she performed well for the camera today!
steven even got in on the action!
and then with the help of a folded bib, we got a family shot...
happy first valentines day baby girl!
<3

i did it!

so some friends of mine bought me this flower and a scarf for my birthday.
i hadnt had the chance to wear the scarf, but i had been struggling with this flower. id do my hair, throw in the flower, look at myself for a few minutes, then think it looked funny so id take it out...

but today was a NEW day! i did my hair and put the flower in a few different places. this is where it ended up and i wore it!
love it... maybe im turning a new leaf with this whole accessories thing. could be a problem... especially if you saw my last post with the necklaces and earrings.

wishes...

i wish i could get away with wearing some of these (and i had the cash to buy them):
And I would almost consider taking out my plugs for these...and theyre only $18!
It was a bad idea to look at the Anthropologie site...grrr!

3 years...

...and counting!

on january 13th, steven and i celebrated our 3rd anniversary. it has been an amazing three years. full of laughter, happiness, joy, craziness, and a baby! we celebrated that weekend by going out to dinner and had planned to see where the wild things are at the dollar theater but they switched the movies out the night before. so we picked up frozen yogurt, rented a couple movies, picked up evelynn and had a night a movies at home.

thank you LOVE for being such a wonderful husband...and papa! i love you MONSTEROUSLY!

like her mama

as she gets older i see more of myself in evelynn. for instance, she sleeps like her mama.
slobber at 2 weeks old and now she is sleeping with blankets on her face at 4 months old!