Another Mantle Project

I'm slowly putting together our Christmas mantle for the season and I keep getting myself wrapped up in these projects. There is one more easy one and then I'll be able to reveal the entire mantle! For now, I'll just show you this one.

This is how our mantle looks every day (minus the pumpkin on the books - that's seasonal, haha!)

Ahh!! I just love our mantle. It may be my favorite thing in our house. Now, if we could just get the tree outside trimmed so that we could actually use the fireplace we'd be all set :)

I've had this idea in my head about the Christmas garland. I wanted something full and green, but with something unique and personal. So I started with a big, fluffy strand of fake greenery from Michael's for about $7. Then I got some paper for about $12. I used the glittery paper to punch out 120 stars.

Then I glued these words onto these precious little gift tags. Oh, how I love these!! I think both sets were $15. I still have about twice as much for other projects so that's awesome.

I'm lovin' the words this year!! I strung the stars and gift tags on some twine that we already had and wrapped the twine around the fluffy garland. So easy!! This is the final product:

I've photographed carefully so as not to show you much more of the mantle so it's a fairly big reveal next week sometime :) The total cost of this garland was about $35, which is by no means cheap. However, when I looked into buying garland it would have cost me around $80 or more for the look I wanted. So, in comparison, it's actually quite cheap. Or, you know, I can just justify the money I spend rrreeeaaallll well :) Here's another looky:

I'm pretty pleased. There's a few things about it that I'm not thrilled with. For example, the length doesn't quite take up the whole front of the mantle, and the words aren't spaced evenly the whole way across. Overall, though, I like it and think it fulfills the image I had in my head.

A Never Again Project That I Happen to LOVE

I've been seeing them in blogland for months. Subway Art. Basically, a board full of words all fitting into some category. I love the way this looks but more-so, I like the sentiment behind being able to create something that has the words that mean something to you. Making something that will carry meaning is so fulfilling to me.

That being said, I will never, ever make another piece of subway art (not this way anyway) as long as I shall live. I know they say never say never - but I'm serious. NEVER.

I wanted to create a mantle piece since this is our first year with our beautiful mantle that my dad built for us as a gift last Christmas. For some odd reason I'm loving a more whimsical feel of decorations this year as opposed to my usually more traditional decor. I'm hoping to happily marry the two. Anyway, Christmas themed subway art was what I decided on for the mantle. It would be cheap, red, whimsical and meaningful. The perfect combo.

It started with a big piece of plywood we had left over from some other project we had done at some point. I spray painted it heirloom white and let it dry overnight. Then I chose three different fonts and sizes and created the words to print and lay out. I printed 2 sets. The first set I trimmed up neatly to lay out and plan the board.

The next step was to take the second set and glue them to contact paper. Then the real fun began. I honestly don't know what I was thinking. I saw the instructions and thoroughly read them before attempting this project, but I guess I didn't fully think through what each step would entail. See, the next step is cutting out every letter of every God forsaken word that you will put on this board. And, while it's not hard, it's very, very labor intensive. I think it took close to 7 full hours (with Ritchie's help) of cutting out these damn letters.
See what an amazing husband I have? That's love. Xacto cutting out all the holes in the "o's" "a's" and "e's" not to mention the "p's" "b's" and "d's". Not to mention the letters that I just got lazy on cutting and left for him to do.

I put the cut letters in labeled bags. In a perfect world the glue would have held and we would have had the printed black ink showing up for each letter. In our world, however, the glue did not hold up and not only did we have to hold the letter in place while we cut it out, we had to out white contact paper on the white board. Super fun. See my neat little labeled bags? I'm crafty and organized!
Next I had to peel off the back of the contact paper and stick all of the letters on, replacing the laid out. It was very challenging to get everything lined up straight and as a result there are some definitely crooked words. Ah well, what are you going to do?
Next I sprayed over the letters with colonial red spray paint and seriously prayed that I had done a good enough job of sticking the contact paper down so as not to have the red seep all over the white. Let that coat of paint dry, pull up the contact paper (MUCH easier than I thought it would be) and voila! Approximately 20 hours later you shall have a lovely piece of subway art.

I really do love it! The biggest thorn in my side right now is that it's simply too small for our grand mantle, so I'll be creating a little something more to go with it. Dare I say another piece of subway art?? Never say never...

A Trip to the Zoo

We decided to take Max to the zoo on a dreary Saturday afternoon. We hadn't taken him to the Oakland Zoo yet so that's where we headed for a different experience than we've had with him before at the San Francisco Zoo.

Our little cutie with his favorite expression!
Riding around on Daddy's shoulders. He always tugs on Ritchie's hair like he's pulling reigns.
They are both just so cute I had to post another one! I happen to think my husband is quite the catch :)
It was the day before Halloween when we went and the zoo was decked out! See the pumpkin hanging with the sheep?
Max got to take a few steps around the zoo.

I don't think I could love this little guy more if I tried!!
Stopping to take a little milk break.
He was all about the Giraffes!! He kept giggling at them.
More practice with steps...

I really appreciated that they had already decked out the zoo for Christmas. See the lights?? Too bad they weren't lit yet - we'll just have to come back!
Daddy and Max admiring the elephants.
Caught daddy giving Max a little love. They are so sweet together.


All in all, it was a great day at the zoo!

Halloween Happenings 2010

We had a ton of fun this year continuing our annual Halloween traditions. They become more and more fun the older Max gets. Things started out this year with Uesigi's Pumpkin Patch.

This is THEE place to go if you live in the Bay and celebrate Halloween. It's got some gorgeous flower fields that you can view on the Enchanted Hay Ride.

Trying to get a picture with a slightly grumpy boy with the marigolds behind us. Don't worry - he cheered up soon!
Max took his first ride on a cow train.
Then we picked up the wheelbarrow to go get our pumpkins!
Max was very thoughtful in his selections...
This is the new face. It comes with an "ooohhhhhh" sound. Almost like "uh-oh" but WAY cuter in my biased opinion ;)

At home we decided to let Max have at it painting his pumpkin while we carved our big one. Here he is all ready to go!
Let the fun begin!

His finished product!
We like Halloween okay, but REALLY like Christmas and wanted to get a jump on the upcoming holidays, so we carved a Christmas tree into ours.
So pretty, huh? It had a very Nightmare Before Christmas kind of feel. So we think it counted.

Onto the big day! We loaded the cutest puppy in town into his big boy wagon for his first trick-or-treating experience.
He was walking enough to take some of his own steps up to houses! The rest of the time he happily held the grown-up's hands.

Getting his first candy! He didn't really know what to make of the whole experience at first, but after just a few houses he had it down and was pretty thrilled about it!
He couldn't stop starting at Papa in his clown costume.

Happy Halloween from The Lincolns!!

Now onto the best holidays of the year ;)

The Beginning of the End

It's the beginning of the end of a few important things for Max.

He's not nursing during the day anymore. He is practically sleeping through the night, though I am sneaking one early morning nursing in there to gain an extra hour or so of sleep, so that nursing may soon be gone, too. Within a month, I suspect he won't be nursing anymore. Even as I type this I begin to well up. I'm so ready, but at the same time it's a big step. It's autonomy from me, his momma. He won't need me for nutrients anymore. He's becoming independent. I know this needs to happen and it's good for us both, but part of me want to hang on just a little bit longer. Maybe I will do just that. Each time we nurse I drink it up and let it linger because I know this form of bonding is slowly but surely coming to a close. I will miss these days, as hard as they sometimes were.

In more exciting news, we have a step taker!! Max had previously taken a few random steps here and there without any consistency. But, tonight, oh, tonight - he took several steps in a row not once, not twice, not even three times! Mr. Step Taker was just chugging along every time we stood him up! There's definitely still a ways to go before he's fully walking, but it's the beginning of the end of his crawling days. I'm not as nostalgic over this step as I am with the nursing because I know it means big things for our little explorer! I cannot wait to see what else this guy does. Here's a little glimpse into the magical happenings in our home this evening.

He's my favorite. I love him so.

12 Months

Sometimes I still can't believe my little man is one year old!! The last month before that big milestone was really busy prepping for his party but we still snuck in some exciting stuff!

Max tried whole milk for the first time and continued to cut down on nursings. He took his first three steps, but since then has taken none. Little stinker!! He's so resistant to walking because he's such a pro at crawling. He even crawls with his little head held high and this very stubborn, sassy look on his face. Oh well, I'm sure he'll walk in his own time.

At Max's one year check-up he weighed 22 pounds and was 31 inches long. He's really thinned out over the past few months as he gets more and more active. Some of his favorite activities are playing with bubbles, cruising furniture, chasing doggies around, and listening to mommy sing songs to him. He continues to fuel us with love and happiness.

The End of the LLCC

I know I totally left ya'll hangin'. Sorry 'bout that. The last week and a half of the LLCC was a mixture of good days and bad. In the end I ended up losing a total of 8.5 pounds in about 3 weeks and then gained 1 pound back in the last week. So a total of 7.5 pounds weight loss for the month. I've never lost that much weight before so it was a really great experience for me! I'll check in each month as I continue down this path. I'm still having a mixture of good and bad days and am trying to make the good outweigh the bad, but I'm having a hard time jumping back in with both feet. The good news is I've maintained the 7.5 pound weight loss from September and am hoping to soon have the motivation and will power to start up strong again and lose some more.

Thanks for being a part of the journey! Blogging about it helped a lot. Hope you enjoyed :)