Close

Month: November 2010

10 months old.

Some of you may have noticed that I never posted Dhara’s 10 month update + photos last month.  Well I’ve been holding onto them for something a little bit special and a little bit different.

Instead of the usual photo session with my daughter, we decided to do a family session with a little bit of both — photos and filming.  The film below shows Dhara at 10 months old.  A big thanks to my brother, Josh, for shooting the video footage. This is our first official family film and my first official attempt at using Josh’s high tech filming software to create this film and sync it with music.  We also ended up using a photo from this shoot for our Christmas card this year — I just love it’s indie feel!

My sweet Dhara is becoming a little girl.  She just loves being around people.  She is like her dad in that way.  Not that I don’t like people or being around lots, but Greg is just more gregarious that way — hence the name, Greg.  : )

Dhara is quite the cruiser these days.  She freely moves around her Ammachi’s house pulling things down from reachable table tops and eating things that she shouldn’t off the floor.  She loves climbing steps and hates when someone removes her from off the staircase.  She loves playing with mama’s ball of yarn when I sit down to knit.  Her words for the month are “baby”, “papa” [her great grandpa], “dada”, “mama” and “hi”.  When she sees another baby, she’ll usually greet him/her with an exuberant, “hiiiiiiiii!!!”  She shakes her head, “no”, and nods her head, “yes.”  She loves her daddy.

“We love, because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19

elviz + chino.

It was a pleasure to meet and photograph Elviz + Chino.  These soon-to-be-married love birds are hopping on a jet plane next month to their motherland, India, for a wedding that is sure to be unforgettable.  In the meantime, here are some snaps of two hip folks living it up in the countryside.



design love: wren’s natural habitat.

I’m pretty particular when it comes to design, layouts, color, and texture.  Greg always says, “Susan knows what she wants.”  And I pretty much do most of the time.  It’s not hard for me to say yes or no when it comes to things pertaining to fabrics, furniture, home decor, etc. — those words actually come pretty quickly — to even a fault at times because sometimes it’s hard to find something I really like..

The design blog, Ohdeeoh, features real-life baby/kids rooms.  While many of them are nice — none of them ever strike me as, love.  But, they recently featured a baby/child’s room combo that I absolutely loved.

From the wood stained door molding to the vintage inspired linens, colors, and crib — this room is what I would like to call design candy of the tastiest kind.  It’s so cozy, sweet, simple and nostalgic of times gone by.

source

3 years!

easton, maryland

It’s been three years since Gregory and I said, “I do.”  The wedding and honeymoon all seem like a blur now.  It all went so very fast.  One thing I do remember was how exciting it all was.  It didn’t hit me, the magnitude of it all, until I began to walk down the aisle with my dad.  Up until then, I was just planning an extravagant event — an event that would forever change my life.  For the very good of me.

I really don’t know how I landed a husband such as him.  Alot of days I feel like I don’t deserve him.  I’m not saying he’s perfect — he’s not.  But I am saying he is a special human being.  He’s a kid at heart — but a wise one.  He is so patient with me — even though I make the same mistakes over and over and over again.  He tells me everyday that he loves me — and I can see in his eyes that he really means it.  He is an amazing daddy who loves his baby — his little girl knows it, you can see it in her eyes that she knows she’s loved.  He has a heart that yearns for more of Jesus — and that is so captivating, especially in a husband.

Greg, I love you.  It’s been an amazing 3 years being your wife.  I’ve learned so much about life and living life while being married to you.  Remember that dream I had back in college, junior year?  In it, you were older with salt + pepper speckled hair.  That dream is prophetic of many more wonderful years growing old together.  I have this pleasant feeling in the pit of my stomach that says, it’s going to be some of the loveliest years ahead.  To my husband of 3 years and dearest friend of 8, happy anniversary!

faro, portugal

sevilla, spain

apples.

The babers and I went on a day trip to go apple picking a few weeks ago.  We went with Hannah’s Circle, a mom’s group I joined back in September.  The timing of our trip brought us to the tail end of mid-October apples, only a few rows remained of the lightly russet Stayman apples.  But it sure was enough for our group of mamas and kiddos.

Dhara enjoyed watching all the other kids running about picking their apples while taking huge bites out of them too.  She loved her apple and was satisfied licking it for a while.  Dhara-cakes and I picked just enough to make homemade apple sauce and apple pie.

I used Smitten Kitchen’s baby blog for a recipe to cook up my first batch of homemade apple sauce.  Delicious.  While the Stayman apples made it more tart, it was still very good apple sauce.  I can only imagine what a sweeter apple would do to the flavor!  Double yum.

First Applesauce
from Smitten Kitchen “Goo”

“I know people say this a lot about homemade food, but in this especially there is absolutely no comparison in the flavor from this applesauce and the stuff from the jars.”

4 pounds apples, peeled and cored
4 strips of lemon peel
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon or 1 cinnamon stick
1 cup water

Peel, core and chop your apples into large chunks, about 8 pieces per apple.  Put all of the ingredients in a large pot and bring to a boil.  Once boiling, reduce it to a simmer and cover the pot.  Cook for approximately 30 minutes, or until apples are quite soft.  Fish out the lemon peels and whole cinnamon stick, if you used one, and let it cool.

Puree in a food processor, blender or food mill and freeze in small portions.  It will be difficult, but try to remember to share the deliciousness with your baby.

mossy sweater.

This week I finally completed knitting a sweater I started back in the summertime during a trip to Texas.  In my opinion, it’s a huge accomplishment for me because I normally run to friends like Gifty or Lakshmi when it comes to reading a pattern, but I took the leap and battled it all on my own — buttonholes and everything.  I’m glad I did too because I realized it wasn’t so bad and that I was totally capable of working through a pattern — slowly, line by line.

I used Jolene Lye’s Mossy Sweater for Kids pattern in size 18 months found via Ravelry, my favorite pattern go-to website thanks to Mazhalai.  The sweater pattern was for a long sleeved pullover, but I decided it would be cuter if I kept it short sleeved so Dhara could wear a long sleeved onsie underneath.  I knit the sweater using Lion Brand’s Fisherman’s Wool in oatmeal — Fisherman’s Wool comes in the most loveliest of natural, earthy colors.  Love this stuff.  I also added a couple of woodsy tree-etched buttons to finish it off.

baby eyeing mama’s pattern drafting supplies

By the way, this size 18 month sweater fit my 10 month old baby just perfectly. : )