Happy Parley

Its a long one...aka this one is for the grandmas :)

My 2-Month Chunk

What is happening?!  Stop growing so fast!!  I was planning on fitting Parley in this basket till month 12, and did not expect him fill it head to foot in TWO MONTHS!  I guess I should have expected this when at his 2-week appt. (when babies are just supposed to have reached their birth weight again), he had done that and put another pound and a half on top.  I'm convinced that my super-eaters are the reason I can lose so much weight so fast and still eat like a teenage boy. 

Parley continues to be Angel-Baby.  He is hardly any work at all.  He is the best smiler, hates getting the hiccups, usually sleeps a 6-hr stretch at night, and is such a conversationalist!  As soon as you lock eye-contact, he will coo and squeal and babble your ear off!  I can't get over how much in love with this baby I am.
 

Sometimes I Pretend That I Can Quilt

...and then I make something and I'm reminded that its not really my thing.  Sometimes I sing, "I'm trying to be like Kati..." (my sister-in-law "From the Blue Chair" who you surely know if you are a quilter).  I have a Kati-original draped over our couch and I fold it up a different way every day so I can admire different parts of it.  Rest assured I will never make anything bigger than this wall hanging.  And I will never show you the back or disclose how much unpicking I did.

Yay Boston!  I know, I know, another thing "Bostony".  What is this obsession I have with this city?  I'm trying to figure that out myself.  I think I love it because we decided when we were engaged that we wanted to live in a big city for at least a year, and we're doing that.  I love that its an adventure all our own (and all alone) that no one in the family has done before.  I love that it'll always be the symbol of our first frustrating and exciting, occasionally dangerous, busy and expensive life experience! Where else are there at least one hundred ways to get towed!?

And now we finally have pictures of our kids on our wall!

Summer Outing II

We love a good work party.  ESPECIALLY when the ice cream truck shows up and all the ice cream is free!  Cambridge Associates may work its employees like slaves, but they sure know how to make the wife and kids happy once a year.  Speaking of work, Jason got a 7% raise today!  Who hoo!

Peg Person Plethora

 

A few girls in my ward saw the peg people on our blog and wanted to paint their families too!  We got together for a couple nights and painted up some more cuties.  

Thanks Emily, Jessica, & Charisse for coming over!

I like how this picture looks like me and Jason just had 17 children.

Circus Mcgurkus

 I'd like to thank Groupon for sponsoring practically every family activity of ours this summer.  We came across a deal for circus tickets and unlimited pizza for the whole family for a total of $16.  I know, right?  However, it was a beastly hot day (high of 96 degrees), especially inside a tent, and we were starting to feel like bad parents for taking our boys out in that kind of heat on top of an hour car ride with no a/c.  Mothers were stripping their babies down to their diapers and we were fanning our kids with our pizza paper plates.     

  But Lincoln loved it all!  He probably won't remember any of it, but hopefully he feels loved and knows that we try to do fun things with him :)

Button Button

I was skipping through Shabby Apple's dresses one day, and decided I wanted the "Lois Lane" dress!  Obviously, I made my own variations, so its not exactly the same dress, but mine cost me $6 vs. $79.  I love how its a little nautical, completely modest, and now I finally have a dress that works with breastfeeding.

 

 Cheers to weighing in at 2 lbs. under my pre-baby weight!  No, Doctor, I have not been exercising.  Just pushing 80 lbs. of boy + massive double stroller around town.

Here's a behind-the-scenes demo :).  I always start with a picture.  I don't often work with patterns, but for detailed garments, I'll find a similar pattern, then alter it how I want.  With this dress, I pulled out my generic slopers from patternmaking class in college.  The general concept is to take a sloper and manipulate the darts in order to make or remove seams in different places.  In the first picture, I didn't want a bust seam, only seams in the front so I could put buttons down one side.  I copied this sloper in newspaper, then sliced and taped to make my new pattern piece.


I made the petal sleeves by making two sleeve caps and joined them at the underarm seam.





For the collar, I joined the front and back slopers at the shoulder seam (overlap them a little to make the collar stand up a little) and traced the neckline.

 Ta-da!

Let Us Entertain You

We had another adventure week with mom!  We took her on a Boston Harbor cruise and to see the U.S.S. Constitution (finally!)  Its the family joke that we can never get on to see it--we've been trying for the last year and a half.  We showed off Jason's new work building, played on the carousel downtown, and ordered Eastie's famous Santarpio's pizza.

We played in water fountains, had a picnic in Boston Commons, and took a ride on the swan boats!  We made ice cream, played card games, and passed around Parley.  Jason and I fit in a lame date (I was entirely serious about getting a hotel room for an hour and then going skinny dipping at the beach, but no hotel on priceline would accept my $20 offer, and it got cold and rainy, boo).

THANK YOU mom for coming out for Parley's blessing!  We LOVED having you here!

Parley's Big Day

 Today was Parley's Blessing Day!  Jason gave a beautiful blessing, and Parley was a sleeping angel in his cute little tuxedo and wingtip shoes.

 Mom Millar came out for the blessing!  We've been enjoying her for the past few days and are wearing ourselves out with daily adventures around town. 

 Perfect Mr. Parley

Beardy

Do you know this man?! My husband has gone missing, and this scruffy hunk with a beard has taken his place!  Jason (along with his entire team at work) grew out his beard during CFA-study-week. They all agreed that the manliness of their team increased by 60%.  

 

 

He studied pretty hardcore upstairs with earplugs for a week straight, using the last week of his paternity leave, and took the CFA II test last Saturday. He recommends I have a baby every year right before CFA so he can use the leave for studying again.  Let me know if you've seen the clean-shaven man I married!

Peg People

 It kills me to have outdated family pictures, but this might be the closest we get for a little while! 

I bought lots of extra little boy pegs, just in case we're a family of all-boys, like I seem to get the impression lately :)