Chick-Fil-A. 3 years of free CFA and still goin’ strong. Love it. Never gets old. Sadly, Dave doesn’t like their breakfast there. Seriously, I mention breakfast at CFA and he actually FROWNS. Grimaces even. I couldn’t imagine why until he told me: “It’s a better value to use our cards for dinner.” Oh Dave. Love him.

Camera Specs: Canon 5D Mark II, Sigma 24mm f1.8 Macro

Disastrous. And I wonder why I run out of creativity.

Camera Specs: Panasonic Lumix LX3

Camera Specs: Canon 5D Mark II, 50mm f1.4

Here’s 3 of 4 owls that I’ve made for the little one. And if he doesn’t like them, then I’ll say I made them for me.

This is the diaper bag we registered for. I love the colors and I’m a sucker for geometric patterns.

Sure, this bag is colorful and patterned and obviously says “diaper bag”. (Which is why it’s probably ok for Dave to carry it around proudly.) As someone who uses Vera Bradley bags, I tend not to care when my Vera bag inevitably doesn’t match 80% of my clothing. (This is the great mystical power that Vera Bradley has over it’s consumers. Fashion sense, better judgment, and an overall understanding of when something just doesn’t “work” is thrown out the window if you’re a VB owner. And on a completely unrelated note, have you seen the new VB “Slate Blooms” pattern???)

Still, I wonder if I will ever truly be happy using this diaper bag. Will it hold everything I need it to? Will I use it instead of a regular purse for my personal belongings? Will it fall apart after 6 months? Will I actually ever leave the house after baby? Will Dave look just as manly carrying it around? Will it bring me lifelong fulfillment and satisfaction? I know these questions and many more are going to be left unanswered until experience can speak up for the matter. For now, this Skip Hop Dash Deluxe is a winner. But…

There’s another option/idea/two-birds-to-kill-with-one-stone-concept. What if..what IF I could have a diaper bag that could ALSO ( and incredibly, fantastically, majestically even) hold my camera?? No not the point and shoot camera, silly, the BIG camera. With a lens attached. And maybe another lens too. Wouldn’t that be something?

The Kelly Moore “Boy Bag” might be the thing. It comes in this ruggedly sexy brown number and…

…this little mustard delight. Be still my heart.

From the inside shot, it would seem that this bag could do double duty as both a camera protecting tote and a diapers-and-other-baby-stuff-catch all. But for $200 (that’s 9 months of Chick-Fil-A, people!!!) I can’t help but wonder if I couldn’t just go to any department store (forget that, MARSHALLS) and find something similar that I could customize with padding for at least half if not a fraction of that cost. Bonus points are given to the Kelly Moore “Boy Bag” for being, well, boy friendly. As in, Dave would probably look absolutely mantastic carrying this around.

I also found the “Missy Bag” by Jo Totes. It costs less than half what the KM bag costs and it has even more room for the camera/lens/diaper combo. Just look at all that space in there!! Seriously.

I like that this bag is black and certainly more affordable but it gets major points deducted for looking exactly like a purse. Great for me of course, but not great at all for Dave to be saddled with. Yes, Dave sometimes holds my Vera Bradley tote for me. He doesn’t seem to mind and he holds his head high (probably to avoid making eye contact with strangers). Still, I don’t want my husband to have to carry around a purse. Come. On.

I suppose I could always carry around my own purse, the Skip Hop diaper bag, AND my $20 falling-apart camera bag. I have shoulders of steel, I can handle it. But wouldn’t order be restored to the world if I could fit those 3 bags into 1 bag?

****UPDATE****
You know, that Skip Hop Dash Deluxe diaper bag is cuuuute. But it’s also $55. I think we should take that moolah and apply it to something that’s going to be more practical. And leathah’. See: http://digital-photography-school.com/what’s-your-bag-a-quest-for-the-perfect-womans-camera-bag

We’re thinking about having this series of images printed for our living room. They would each be 16 x 20 and we’d put them in good ol’ Ikea Ribba Frames. (We already bought the frames which are hanging on the LR walls right now.) We have so many images to choose from but we like that these are all from our summer trip out west last year. Without a doubt, it was a life changing experience so I don’t think I will tire of looking at these photos every day. We think we like this selection and arrangement:

I’m awaiting these in the mail sometime soon. Inexpensive nursery art. Kinda fanfriggintastic.

These are just dandy. I must add them to the running Ikea shopping list.

We saw this cute envelope clutch at Urban Outfitters over the weekend and we (my friends and I) all loved it. After inspecting it, I realized it would be super easy to make. I haven’t had good luck working with vinyl/pleather so I’m not even going to try. But I bet an upholstery weight fabric with reinforcement would work just as well.

Maybe when I’m done with the following projects….

-The sewing of 4 Crib Sheets
-The sewing of the crib skirt
-The sewing of the Stuffed Owl Pillow (or 2)
-The sewing of a Small Blanket/Quilt from leftover fabric
-The sewing of 2 large Floor Pillows
-The sewing of 2 slings (or 3)
-The never ending basket spray-painting project
-About 4 hours worth of sewing/repair work on some closet draperies (bane of my existence at the moment)
-The painting of the hanging nursery mobile
-More general sprucing and completing of the nursery on a whole
-Posting on this blog!
-and more! (See: Grace Leigh Photography)

….I can try making this envelope clutch. Which means I will probably be getting around to this sometime in 2011.

I’ve been thinking about how I might like to record our son’s growth in photos over his first year and I’ve boiled it down to two ideas that I’m going to go with (that I’ve totally ripped from other bloggers).

This first idea comes from Young House Love. We’ll take a monthly photo of our boy in a white onesie and lay him down on different colored/patterned backdrops for each month. Since I’m completely obsessed with patterned fabric, this is perfect. I also like YHL’s idea to simply Photoshop the month number on the onesie rather than buying already decorated onesies. Duh! And so easy to do! I LOVE this idea.

This second idea comes from Nicole at Making it Lovely. The “gimmick” for this set of photos is that we’ll be putting our boy either on the couch or in the nursery rocker next to his stuffed owl pillow (that I have yet to make) where we will be able to track his growth based on the size of the objects he is around. I like Nicole’s idea of 24 monthly photos. She uses a cute badge pin with the numbers of each month but I think I’ll print out the month numbers on small white card stock in a fabulous typeface like Archer that we’ll prop up next to him. I’d also like to find a solid colored or subtly striped onesie that I can buy in the multiple sizes needed until he is 2 years old.

Thank you to the wonderful bloggers who’s ideas I am “borrowing”!!! Mom, Dad, friends, family: “See, I do NOT come up with this stuff all by myself.”