a new print set and a spring sale

I have been wanting to paint a rocket for a long time!

So I finally did it.  I love the way it turned out and so does Noah, so that means it passes the test and has been added to the shop!

But to make it even more fun, I painted two more to make it a set.

Here they are:

the rocket

the moon and stars

a planet to visit

And to celebrate the much anticipated arrival of spring...

we're having a sale!

It's the Spring BOGO Sale!

All you have to do is purchase any PRINT that you wish, then tell me which print of equal or lesser value you would like for free in the "message to seller" section during checkout! Again, if you Buy 1, you get 1 FREE, buy 2 get 2 FREE, buy 3 get 3 FREE, etc.!!!

Just a note, this is only for single prints.

**Print SETS excluded.**

**Original paintings excluded.**

**Paper goods/cards excluded.**

So come visit the shop for some great savings!

Noah turned 3!

I can't believe my little boy is 3 already!

I know I say it too much, but time really does go by so super fast!

Noah's birthday was on April 1st.  He was lucky enough to have two birthday parties!  One at Grandma Eve's on March 31st with Abe's family where Aunt Kate made him this amazing under-the-sea themed cake that he's still talking about.  And where he got so spoiled with presents and attention... and where I forgot my camera.  

And one at our house on his actual birthday with my family.  We decided to do two seperate parties because I just had a baby and can only handle small crowds right now.  Turns out that two parties made this birthday extra special which is just what a 3 year old adjusting to a new baby sister needs.

So here it is in pictures:

Noah devouring his birthday cupcake

part of the crowd

we had a yummy pasta bar and cupcakes

Here are just a FEW of his many presents! 

(Thanks, everyone, for spoiling my kid!  It's so fun!)

lots of playdoh!  Noah loves this stuff

new crayons for the budding artist

of course... Lightening McQueen

(don't worry, his pants are wet because we spilled water)

also, of course... anything Toy Story

gotta have a new ball and bat for summer

and Mr. Potato Head was feeling lonely, so he got the Mrs.

(don't mind me, I'm on percocet!)

a toy camera (pronounced:  kwamwa) and phone

And so much more!  Seriously... so much.  Noah is such a lucky little kid!  He had so much fun playing for hours with his cousins, who take such good care of him!

He is so loved and spoiled by his aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents!  And the older he gets, the more friends and loved ones he aquires too! 

Abe and I feel so blessed to have all of you in our lives.  There is no better feeling than when other people love your kids!  Really!  It means so much to Abe and I, and of course to Noah. 

Thank you all for making this birthday so special for Noah!

Lola at two weeks

Although Lola is 3 weeks old today, I thought I'd share some pictures of her at 2 weeks old.

She looks so much like Noah did at this age.  I guess we know what she's going to look like... ??

At 2 weeks old, Lola was sleeping like a little angel all the time.  Only waking up to eat.

Now she's awake a lot more often and is usually not very happy about it.

But what a cutie!  Look at all that hair!

She's still so tiny!  At her 2 week check up, she was only 7 lbs.  I remember Noah getting so big so fast.  Maybe I'm just remembering wrong.  But Lola IS tiny!  She's very petite.  Especially her hands.  They are tiny with super long fingers.  She's so sweet and we're anxious to get to know her!





baby!

Wow!  Has it really been a month since I posted last?  Where did March go?  Well... I'll tell ya.

On March 12, this happened:

37 weeks pregnant

I know!  Scary.  But it had to be documented.

Then at 38 weeks pregnant, on March 19th... contractions started.

So we went to the hospital, where they abruptly stopped.

But when the nurse saw that I was 6 centimeters dilated and fully effaced, they decided to let me stay.

So after a full night of NO sleep... for me, this scary picture happened:

Then they were kind enough to break my water and

get things moving.

And things moved!

I was ready to push in no time and then three contractions later, this sweet little girl happened:

She is so pretty.

Lola Grace Carlsruh

Born March 20, 2011 @ 7:36 am

6 pounds 12 ounces

19.5 inches long

She has so much hair!  Every time the nurses would take her away for a test or something, she'd come back with a new bow in her hair.

But probably my most favorite moment at the hospital was this:

Noah sang Rock-a-Bye Lola to his new baby sister.

It was so cute, I wanted to cry.

And if I can figure out how to post videos on this thing, I will post it.  It is the sweetest thing to hear!

So March was uncomfortable and busy, as you can see.  The last two weeks have been quite an adjustment.  But I have a 3 year old's birthday party to post and 2 week baby pictures to post coming soon!

my little artist

Lately Noah has been so into drawing!

The funny part is that he prefers pencils over crayons.  He loves to draw tiny little details.  He'll sit and draw and tell the story of what's on his paper as he draws it.  It's really adorable so needless to say, I've snapped quite a few pictures.

Here are a few:

Noah working on his valentines

making each one special

first thing in the morning

he always has to come show us what he's drawn

decorating my grocery list

getting some drawing in before bed

distracted at lunchtime

some close-ups of his scribbles

I love his fat little hand in this one

 on some paper scraps

and on some unusable lion valentines

Ok, so that was more than a "few" pictures.  I just think it's so cute!  If only he'd let me video him while he's telling the stories that go with his drawings. 

This is a really difficult age with the tantrums, the time-outs, the potty training, etc...

BUT... It's such a cute age too!  He makes Abe and I laugh so much with the things he says and does.  He's a funny little kid and he makes me so happy to be a mom!



another sale ends

The February Set Sale

has officially come to an end!

Thank you so much to all those who participated!  It was a great success and I just got all the rest of the packages out in the mail today!

Thank you!

another SALE!

Time for another SALE!

In honor of my sweet Abe's birthday this month, we are holding a sale on all of our print sets!

And it's happening RIGHT NOW!

Receive 25% off!

Prices are as marked.

Come visit the shop! 

The sale will be ending on February 28th!

baby name!

What's in a name?
When Abe and I found out I was pregnant with Noah, we had a bit of a hard time agreeing on a name.  I, of course, pulled out my list I had been adding to since the third grade and we started going down the list.  We picked a girl name and a boy name.

Noah was the first boy name on my list that we both agreed on.  And his middle name is Harris, which is fun because that's my maiden name as well as Abe's grandpa's name who lives next door.

As far as the girl name we had chosen, we loved it.  But as soon as we started trying for baby #2, for some reason we changed our minds and chose a totally different girl name and could not settle on a boy name at all.  Luckily this upcoming arrival is a girl... or so they tell me.  You can read about my doubts in this post.  We also decided that we liked the family name idea.

So for this baby girl that loves to jump on my bladder, we chose:

Lola Grace

We chose Lola after my great aunt on my dad's side. 

This is my Aunt Lola on the left:

She is the one pointing at the camera.  So cute!

(click on photo to enlarge)

I LOVE this picture!  Look at that fridge in the background!  And their clothes!  So fantastic!

With Lola is her husband, George Rapich, and my grandma Mildred Bosta, who is George's sister.

George and my grandma (my dad's mother) are Croatian or Slavic from what used to be Yugoslavia.  My sweet Aunt Lola hails from Rexburg, Idaho. 

She and George had such a fun relationship.  I have fond memories of them teasing each other, but always following up with a kiss or saying something sweet to each other.  My dad remembers her as always being so pleasant to be around and just a very good natured person.  She was witty with a great sense of humor.

I always loved to say her name as a kid and had a real fondness for her and George growing up.  She was such a lovely woman and I think it's a beautiful name.  Luckily Abe loves the name too!

We chose Grace after Abe's great grandmother:

She is Abe's dad's, dad's mother.  It's her bloodline that Abe gets his Jewish heritage from.

Yes, my quiet, blond haired, blue eyed husband is a quarter Jewish.  Clearly he does not take after his dad's side much.

Abe only met Grace a few times since she lived in Milwaukee.  She loved entertaining and was an accomplished artist, which was extra fun for me to learn!  She was very proper and loved to entertain.  She was also a very gracious woman and made sure everyone was well taken care of. 

Another beautiful lady and another beautiful name.

We are so excited to welcome our little Lola Grace into our home.

Now I've just got to get passed the nightmares I have that we did all this prep with girlie bedding and pink dresses and bows for a baby girl only to come home with a little boy!  And no little boy name to boot!

I guess it would make for a funny story... much later.

2011 valentines are in

Yay!  The new 2011 Valentines are in!  I fell so in love with the tiny ones I did last year that I decided to do it again!  This will most likely become an annual thing.  They are about 2.25 x 3.25 inches and come with tiny white envelopes to keep your message private and/or stick some candy in with your note.

Here are the sets:

And as I said last year, who says Valentines can't be year round??

Some possible uses for tiny Valentines include (but not limited to):

-Classroom Valentines

-slipping in a lunchbox

-tucking in a purse or wallet

-leaving around the house (ie: computer, mixing bowl)

-inlcude with other letters as a fun little extra

They come in sets of 12 (4 of each design) with 12 tiny little envelopes.
These are made from my own original pencil illustrations, then colored digitally. I have printed them on a light weight, white cardstock and hand-cut each one!

Enjoy these! They are available in the shop now!  You can pick up a set (or more) HERE!

silly christmas tradition

Before I get to our silly Christmas tradition, I promised a post with some detail of the tree decor, so here ya go...

I always thought I wanted a themed tree until I noticed how much Noah loved looking at all the different ornaments on Grandma and Grandpa Carlsruh's tree.  So I changed it up and now every ornament is different.

I have to say, I love this tree the most so far and it's so fun to collect neat little ornaments throughout the year.

Here's a few of my favorites:

It's hard to pick out favorites when the whole tree is full of them!

 

And now for our silly tradition!

I love the look of lots of presents under the tree and I can still do a theme with my wrapping paper.

You can see last year's theme HERE.

And for 2010 I used newspaper.  I know it sounds weird, but I LOVED the way it turned out!

Here it is:

It turned out to be somewhat of a challenge trying to avoid gruesome headlines and crazy pictures.  And... I still ended up with a few cooky headlines, but I loved how they looked with the bright red ribbon and the tree tags!

the silly part

So, in the last post I mentioned that we are minimalists when it comes to presents at Christmas so it must seem strange to have so many packages under the tree.

Well, Christmas 2009 I decided to have a plethora of packages because: a) I LOVE wrapping presents, b) it's fun to have a wrapping paper theme and c) it's so cute to have a pile of gifts under the tree!   So instead of shopping us into debt, I thought I'd just wrap some empty boxes.  As I was gathering the boxes, I had the funny idea to just put random silly things inside so we could have a few laughs Christmas morning.  Abe had no idea, so that's what happened.  Christmas morning, we laughed as Abe opened all the silly presents and found things like toilet paper, old Halloween candy, light bulbs, etc.  Turned out that Abe loved it and suggested we make it a tradition.  And so we did it again this year, only I gave half the boxes to Abe to fill so I could be surprised too.

So this year I got some things like soap, some quarters, old candy, a picture of a barn (that we dream of having one day) and other silly things.

Abe got some yarn, a can of tuna, some preggie pops, this lovely portrait of me that my mom painted years ago and more funny stuff.

It really is such a fun tradition for us and hopefully we'll get more and more creative as the years go by.  It's our own little white elephant gift exchange every Christmas!  Good times.