If You Liked Bumptastic, You’ll Love…

…Jantastic?

…The Jansenator?

…The Weekly Photo?

…The Jansen Project?

I need a name. Help me, my dear creative readers! I decided I’d take weekly photos of Jansen to watch his growth, much like we took weekly photos of my belly. Then I saw that Young House Love takes pictures of their daughter on fun pieces of fabric. I loved that idea. They are fancy and Photoshop a weekly label on her onesie, but I don’t think I can copy that. We have a bunch of bright blankets so we’ll just take the photos on the blankets each week.

Today is Jansen’s 4 week birthday. As of this post, I have week one through three taken and I think they are looking good. I don’t have a good camera and I’m not very talented, but I have a cute subject… so that helps. My mother-in-law is also taking weekly pictures. Between the two of us, we’ll come up with something amazing!

Here are the first three weeks.

Week 1:

Week 2:

Week 3:

Pretty cute, huh? Give me a name so I can add a tab at the top of my blog. I don’t promise to update that tab each week. I’d be fooling myself if I thought I could pull that off. It’ll be hard enough to remember to change him into a white onesie and take a picture each week. I promise to do a post each month with monthly photos because I have some darn cute monthly onesies to show off! (A friend of mine MADE them for him! Uhhh, awesome!)

So while we are talking about pictures, I’ll show you a few more. As a thank you, you can give me some name ideas for his weekly photos.

He is probably the cutest baby that has ever existed. (I only say “probably” because I haven’t actually seen every baby that has ever existed.)

Seven Quick Takes (vol.6)

I am loving this four day work week! If only corporate America would adopt this into their regular schedule, that would be fantastic. I’ll keep dreaming.

Today’s edition is a little bit different, as my comments aren’t totally random. If you’d like to read more Quick Takes, go to www.conversiondiary.com or click on this photo.

1.
Today is a big day for three reasons. On this day last year, we were evacuating because a monster named Ike was heading our way. On this day eight years ago, I was sitting in Biology II when a girl ran in the classroom and told us that terrorists had hijacked a couple planes and crashed into the Pentagon and World Trade Center. On this day 51 years ago, my dad was born. While there may be a lot of discussion about the first two today, I am choosing to discuss the third.

2.
My dad is the smiliest man you’ll ever meet. “That’s not even a word!” Okay okay, he smiles the most of anyone I know. I can’t even tell you how many people have asked me, “Does your dad ever get mad?” Well, yes. Yes he does. But he mostly smiles.

3.
My dad is one of the most Biblically smart people I’ve ever met. Well, actually he’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. But I tend to think that Biblical knowledge is superior to any other type. In fact, my dad is Jesus. And a rabbi. Or at least he played those two things in plays at church. This would be a great time for a picture… But I don’t have one. Sorry. Just imagine a 6’4 tall, skinny man with a fake beard. Here, just throw a beard and a robe on this guy.

He’s written his own Bible studies that are used all over the country. You can click here if you’re interested in using them, they’re free. He even records them so you can listen to them. He smiles when he’s talking too, you’ll hear it.

4.
There is a history of weird license plates in my dad’s life and he thinks they are pretty cool. He owned a car that had the license plate: THE KAR. His initials are KAR. His truck’s plates are THE TRUK. Don’t think that’s clever? Well, his name is Kurt and “Truk” is Kurt backwards. Ahhhh.

5.
My dad runs down the stairs sideways and at a very risky pace. One time when I was in college, I brought a boyfriend home with me. Dad ran down the stairs and fell. It was quite awkward for all involved parties. That didn’t slow him down though. He still does this. Although we think he’s slowing a bit because the stairs at the beach house are wood and slippery.

6.
If you want to know where I get my creativity from, it may or may not be from my dad. I think we are all pretty randomly creative. Some areas we excel in, some we are just awful. My dad writes limericks. My parents have thrown a New Years Ever party every year for about 26 years and each year, my dad writes a limerick for the invitation. He writes them for random parties and cards. It’s one of his sweet skills.

He also changes the words to songs. Keep reading if you’re willing to have a common song ruined… forever.

Each Christmas there is a song that is played that I HATE. Angels We Have Heard On High. HATE it. “Blasphemy!” No, it’s true. When I was a little kid I always thought they were saying “Gloria, in ex Chelsea’s deo” instead of “Gloria, in excelsis deo.” And that’s annoying to a little kid. (Except when you’re listening to your Chipmunk’s cassette tape and they are singing Jesse’s Girl and you think they are singing “Chelsea’s Girl” just for you even though that makes it a lesbian song and the Chipmunks just aren’t down with that.) Anyways, in about 4th grade my dad made it much worse. He changed the words to “In my Chelsea’s day bed.” I have hated it ever since. Just sing it in your head right now. Awful. I’m sure I’ll talk about this again when Christmas rolls around.  You’re welcome.

7.
One of the most important things that my dad ever taught me was this: Everyone’s favorite word is their own name. ALWAYS remember someone’s name. This is so true.

Another extremely important thing he taught me was to ALWAYS pay the church first, then pay yourself. You’ll always have enough money if you remember to pay the church first. I’ve been adhering to this since I was a little girl and got my first allowance, and he has yet to be proven wrong. The Lord always provides.

Happy birthday to my daddy! He is one of the most loving and generous people you will ever get the honor to know. If you know him, he’s touched your life. Guaranteed. I love you dad!!

And because I know many of you will be reading about 9-11 today and I don’t want you to ignore Ike, I’m posting a couple photos so you non-Houstonians/Galvestonians can see how terrible it was.

This first one isn’t so bad. This is my mom and dad cleaning up all the smaller branches in their yard.

And here is the tree that fell in our backyard. It’s this tree’s branch that punctured a hole in our bathroom ceiling. At this point, we had no idea that our bathroom was ruined.

And here is where the tree fell.

Just a few more from my neighborhood… you can click on any of them to make them bigger.

Pictures of My Grown Up Life

Happy 090909, friends!

Remember yesterday when I talked about being a grown up? I thought I’d show you a few pictures of my grown up life.

First, here are the photos of our bathroom that I’ve owed you for quite some time. In case you forgot, our bathroom looked like this on September 12, 2008.

That’s mold. Ike hit our neighborhood pretty hard. A tree in our backyard fell on our neighbor’s garage and on the way down, a branch punctured our bathroom ceiling, resulting in mold. And this.

So we gutted our bathroom. We played around with the idea of redoing it ourselves since we’re poor. But after about 7 months and no bathroom, we decided to hire someone. We patched up the skylight because we thought it was quite ugly. We tore out the furdowns above the vanity and above the shower to open up the teeny room a bit. This is what we’ve got now.

This is the view from our bedroom. It’s a very tiny bathroom. Just a toilet, standing shower, and sink. And here is the view from the toilet.

So there you go. You waited all that time for those pictures and I’m sure you’re underwhelmed. I make no apologies.

I’m not posting photos of our painted bedroom just yet because we just bought some curtains. Once we hang those, I’ll take some photos and show you how pretty my tissue papered walls look.

Want more pictures of my adult life? This is what we did on Saturday.

Those are our disgusting wood panel walls. Actually, that is one of the built in bookshelves. The walls are real wood and are actually pretty rough so they don’t need to be sanded. But the area behind the shelves and the area around the bay window are super glossy and fake. We sanded them down so that I could prime and paint this weekend. I like how Stephen’s arm is blurry from the vibrations of the sander. That black stick looking thing is the vacuum hose. I was waving it in the air while he sanded so we could try to capture some of the dust. I’d like to think that it helped, even though our house was COVERED in tiny dust particles.

And here is a picture of me taking a sanding break to put Molly in her game day clothes and force her to take a picture with me.

It should be noted that I’m wearing a homemade shirt that says “My Buddy Has Sweet Skills.” Lyndsey and I made those shirts in college. We were in an organization called Diamonds. Long story but we did stuff for the University of Texas baseball program. We were all assigned “buddies” on the team. Our job was to be their #1 fan. I could write an entire post about my mixed feelings on that subject, but I won’t. I’ll just say that my Sweet Skills t-shirt is about 40,000 times cooler than my buddy that year. Although it did speak the truth, my buddy did have sweet skills.

Please also take a look behind me. That is our monstrous fireplace. That is one of the things about our house that I actually love. You just don’t find those in new homes. You’ll see more photos of the living room next week after I paint it.

I hope you enjoyed the quick peek into my life. I’ll leave you with one more photo of how my life is so adult.

Sometimes my husband chases geese.

Puppies Are Better Than Apologies

I am having the worst blogger’s block ever. I know, I know. Second time this week. I think it’s because I’m really tired. (No, I’m not pregnant, I’m just tired. I’m allowed to be tired and not be pregnant.) So instead of coming up with a bunch of junk and then apologizing for it later, I’ll show you pictures of Molly. For all of you newbies, Molly is my mom’s dog. She got her from my dad for her 50th birthday.

I’ve shown you a few pictures of her in the past. This is me when I kidnapped her one day.

This is why I kidnapped her. You can’t leave a puppy alone when she looks at you like this:

You just can’t. She’s always had that cute, innocent look to her. I think the breeders trained her to look like that. Deep down she’s pretty evil. Just look at her trying to attack my mom’s face the night they brought her home.

I know what you’re thinking. “Silly Chelsea. That’s not a dog! That’s a guinnea pig.” You may be right. I’m not sure. All I know is that she barks… you be the judge of that. I’m just here to show you cute pictures.

I think she’s trying to bite my mom’s neck here. I’m telling you, this chick is trouble.

Every now and then she’ll do something really cute so that you let your guard down.

This was her trick at the beginning. She loved to sleep on our shoulders. We aren’t sure what to make of it. We have a few theories. She’s either trying to be cute. Or she’s the little devil on our shoulders. Or she thinks she’s a bird. The latter is her namesake. They played with the name “Polly”… it didn’t work. So my sister’s friend recommended Molly. It felt right.

Awww, yeah I know. I can hear you. Yes, she’s cute. She looks more like the angel on her shoulder. Everyone looks innocent while they are sleeping. But what about when she’s awake? Just look at her, feeling trapped in this life. She wants out. She’s longing to be wild.

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to catch her living her double life. She had sweet-talked my brother and grandma into supporting her behavior. I’m so thankful I had my camera with me or you’d never believe me.

No Shih-Tzus were harmed in the making of this presentation. Well maybe one of them, but don’t worry, only her pride was hurt. For the record, we found out later that Molly was downing an O’Douls. PETA, you can move along.

Comfortable Guests

I’ve had this one pair of yellow Soffe cheer shorts since 9th grade, 1999 to be exact. It’s 2009, in case you haven’t noticed. (And, no, I wasn’t a cheerleader. Cheer shorts were quite the fad back then, everyone had them.) I still wear them regularly. They are worn around the elastic, probably from being pushed to their limits. I’m not exactly the same size I was 10 years ago. But they are soft. And oh so very comfortable.

 

Comfort drives a lot of areas of our lives. Clothes especially. We have outfits that we know we can count on to fit properly even on the bloated days. But also food. We have “go-to” meals… things that are quick and easy and delicious that we make more often than we’d like to admit to the general public or anyone who isn’t required to love us until death do us part. (Lemon feta chicken is ours… check out the recipe blog for that one. Yum!) We have comfortable shows. You may have seen every episode but you know you can watch it again anyways. Because it’s comfortable, familiar, and there won’t be any surprises.

 

I think this also applies to friends. There are people in your life that are comforable. You know you can turn to them on those bloated days. They aren’t offended if you only need them when you are in a hurry and need something quick. They are those quality friends that often blur the line between friends and family. My friend Jim is one of those. And by default (and vows taken before God and man) Sarah is as well. Stephen and I love them dearly. It had been about 9 months since we’d seen Jim, but seeing him over the weekend felt normal. Conversation was normal, comfortable. Nothing was forced, we didn’t feel like we had to impress them or keep them entertained. We just spent good, quality time hanging out. Those types of friends are hard to come by.

 

Our community group back in Austin bred a lot of those friendships. You’d be shocked to hear how many marriages came out of that group, and how many true friendships were developed. At each wedding we attend, we try to get a picture of the entire group. I remember at our wedding, we saw them taking this picture from a distance. Stephen and I were meeting and greeting and doing the normal bride and groom “thanks for coming, so great to see you” rounds. I heard someone yell “Yeah, a CG picture!” and saw them assembling. A few shots were taken before Stephen and I butted into their picture and scolding them for excluding us. These photos were taken on multiple digital cameras and a few of the table throw-aways. The other day I was going through some old pictures and I found this one:

 

Before Stephen and I cut into the picture.

Awww, what a nice looking group. They are all smiling and so happy to be there! That’s what I thought too. Then I looked a little closer at this “friend” I call Jim… Take a gander…

 

Top right... the tall fellow...

 

Horns down? At my wedding?

 

I guess I shouldn’t feel bad about forgetting to put pillowcases on their pillows.

Sophie Grace

There are no words for how adorable Sophie is. In case you haven’t been keeping up with the ever-interesting goings-on of my life, Sophie is my cousin’s baby. She’s about 6 weeks old and 5.5 pounds. She is pure joy, swaddled in a onesie. Instead of trying to tell you how precious she is, let me show you. Over and over. (I have Kim’s permission to introduce Sophie to the world wide web.)

 

That's my hand. And I have small hands. Really, I do. Freakishly small.

Sophie holding Lindsay's finger. She has a death grip. I think that would be an okay way to go... squeezed to death by a sweet baby!

The Cutest Little Longhorn! (As you can see, this onesie is still a bit too big for her. But she wanted to wear it to show it off! And you don't argue with that face.)

(Insert Mommy-related "you look like a natural" comment here.)

There is no better place to be than on a comfy couch with a sleeping baby on your chest.

Four Generations

 

Okay okay. Is that enough? No? Okay, just one more…

She started getting an attitude with us. Something about being tired of cameras...

 

I know I said that was the last one, but I lied. Here’s just one more…

I know what you're thinking, but I promise that she's real. That's not a doll. She's really that cute!

I love you Baby Sophie!! I can’t wait to see you in July. Please don’t forget me… my ego can’t take that!