Feasting and Family

This is pretty much my new favorite picture! Our Grace is so smiley now!

When my family gets together we focus mainly on one thing...food. Of course we really look forward to spending time together and visiting, but truly our time together is always centered around eating together. This Memorial day weekend Dave, Grace and I went to Spokane to visit my family and the food rule held true. We had a wonderful time introducing Grace to everyone and hanging out with family. Friday night we started with an Indian feast complete with all my favorite curries. Saturday it was classic American bbq feast, Sunday was a lamb roast feast and Monday a pork bbq feast (with a bonus sushi feast for lunch). At my house we spend a lot of time preparing the feast and then sit down as a family to enjoy the event of eating all the yummy dishes. I love it! There are times when I feel bad that it takes so much work to make the meals and I wish we could spend the time doing other things, but I face the facts that it wouldn't be home without those meals. We love food and love good food even more. By the time the whole day is done we inevitably spend a few hours just talking with each other (usually it is all anyone has the energy for!).
Also over the weekend we did some shopping, where Grace did the best of course. I got to go through the icky task of looking for a swimsuit, with no success, (figures, it always takes many searches to find something that works) but it was a good thing I had my sisters in tow for sympathy and for uplifting comments!
I am so glad that we got to spend some quality time at home with family. It was fun to reconnect and strengthen our relationships. I couldn't ask for a better family, they are my favorite people to feast with.

Decorating for dummies

So I think that I am like most people in the fact that I imagined I would move into a place of my own and decorate it just how I always wanted. "Oh it will be so cute," I thought, "with fun paint and contemporary designs!" Over the years I have been addicted to decorating shows and would dream of one day picking out all the fun stuff for my new digs. Then, Dave and I finally moved into a place that we actually owned and I immediately decorated the whole place beautifully, right? Uh, Wrong! Our first four months living here I was student teaching and pregnant, so that was pretty much what I focused all of my energy on. We got a few key furniture pieces here and there, but I still felt like I was living in a design nightmare. The first project was Grace's room, it was BRIGHT blue when we moved in (the previous owners had interesting color taste, our bedroom is Orange for goodness sakes) and we painted it, got furniture, etc. Now that she is taken care of I am slowly trying to work on the rest of the house. I have come to two conclusions during this process: 1. decorating is expensive and therefore must take place slowly for me! and 2. I am a crappy decision maker when it comes to picking out how I want things to look so it takes me a long time to make a design commitment.
So today we made another small step towards looking like we are actually putting forth some effort in the place we live...we bought lights. Our main room is basically a dungeon in terms of lighting so we bought a floor lamp and new kitchen fixture. It is amazing what lights can do with a room! (Besides the fact that now I can see how badly I need to sweep my kitchen floor) Next up, a real dining table. One day we will not seat our dinner guests on our lovely card table and folding chairs for a meal.
Needless to say, all of my design dreams have not yet become a reality and somehow I doubt they ever will. Perhaps because when I could buy a decent piece of wall art or whatever, I would just plain rather spend the money on a new pair of shoes or something cute for Grace.

Mother's Day

Today is my first Mother's Day where I am actually a Mother, how exciting!! Dave surprised me with breakfast in bed and some thoughtful and awesome presents :) I am more than grateful today for the fact that I have such a wonderful family and that we can be together forever! It is an amazing thing to have Grace in our family now. She is such a joy (even though I have never talked about poo so much in my life!) and is already very entertaining. Life is quite different now, but I couldn't be happier!

The First one

Here, I have done it! After much prodding I finally started a blog and will do my best to actually keep it updated. Hurrah!