bye bye austin! (part 6 ... the end!)

ok, you've probably had it with austin photos! a few last snapshots to bid the lone star state adieu... come sunday afternoon, it was just les, ali and myself. we headed to BARTON SPRINGS, a natural spring water pool and stream, for a cupcake picnic...

let's pretend my arms/legs really aren't that ashy/pale/white!
i really tried to push my tummy out for this one guys!!

austin - saturday (part 5)

we started the morning with fruit + mint from the garden (luckily the girls slept in a bit, so i was able to prep a few things before sleeping beauty made her way downstairs!) and a BASKET o' BLOOMERS for leslie!

leslie and her basket o' bloomers

tons of leslie's friends, even those who couldn't make the bachelorette party, sent skivvies ahead of time to my house. they were given instructions to attach the tag i sent them to the knickers, with a note to leslie as to what she should do while wearing them (but no name indicating whom they were from!).

as leslie opened each pair, she read off the note on each tag -- and tried to guess who sent them.  it was HILARIOUS!  some of the tags were pretty clever!  wish i'd written them all down!

wondering what else we did on saturday!  tons!

• finished our tshirts and got ready for a day on the range - the shooting range
• went trap shooting
• hit up iron works BBQ after we showed off our shooting skills
• topped it off with blue bell ice cream sundaes
• rested up for the night by downing some wine in the early warmth of evening
• received instruction on rodeo bingo from jen (who graciously accepted being tasked with 'games' for the bachelorette weekend)
• gussied ourselves up and hit the town!!

see saturday photos here!

austin continued: friday night (part 4)

back to the bachelorette weekend:

after we ran around south congress all afternoon,

it was obviously time to go pick up a few guns!

• les, ali and i headed over to hank vice's house. who the heck is hank? well my friend dave used to live in austin, but is working in france for a few years. last year when i was in austin, dave took me and patrick to a shooting range and i learned how to shoot his rifle. well when he left for france, he left his gun to be babysat by hank. so i called up hank and arranged to borrow dave's gun.
• hank was really nice and patient with us. he showed us everything about the rifle ... but leslie reeeeeeally want to try his bb gun. so we all went in the backyard and shot beer cans with the bb gun well past dark.
• meanwhile back at the casa, jen, tara and trish were setting up festivities for our return. jen was in charge of decorations and did a bang up job!! when we finally came back to the house with the rifle and the bb gun (and the pizza we were supposed to pick up), the place looked amazing! the girls made a gigantic "yee haw leslie's gettin' hitched" poster on top of everything!

time for a girl's night!!

as we all know, anything leslie does involves a tshirt! so there was definitely tshirt making in the mix. i brought the supplies and trish brought the tees. turns out all the ladies were pretty serious about tshirts ... and after we were good and tired from tshirt making, we hooked up ali's ipod to the house system and chair-danced til we could chair-dance no more!

here are the rest of friday's photos!

so ready for a wedding!

this time next week, i'll be with les in so cal!
can't wait to see les as a bride!

and they're environmentally friendly at that!

the diapers that leslie sent are awesome!

from greendoula.com:
Top Picks for Eco-Friendly Diapering
To Cloth or not to Cloth that is the question. Many parents are curious, confused or somewhere in between when it comes to selecting the most environmentally friendly diapering system for their little one. Adopting a cloth diapering regime may not be for all, especially for the many who live in the city and do not have access a washer and dryer on their floor or within their building. Thankfully, there are other eco-friendly options out there that can be adaptable for all lifestyles. My suggestion is to have both a stash of regular diapers such as the ones referenced below as well as either a hybrid cloth diapering system or cloth diapers in case of emergencies.

also, this is pretty funny...

(was able to elicit a hearty chuckle from patrick)

Nature Babycare Featured on The Colbert Report

Tuesday, April 13, 2010 By Blog UK on

"Finally, you can find your baby's poop in corn, instead of the other way around." While it probably won’t become the tagline on our packaging and website, we were very excited to be featured on The Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert just a couple of weeks ago.

We focus so much on research and development working towards a disposable diaper that is completely compostable. We let our product speak for itself and believe in the performance, health, and environmental benefits of disposable diapers that are more environmentally friendly than other leading brands."

if you want to watch it, here you go: COLBERT REPORT

(and stick around for the jamie oliver portion while you're at it ...)

mystery diapers

A little over a week ago we received another package. 

It was a large box from a diaper company, chock full of newborn diapers!

But no sender information, invoice, nada ...

We have no idea who sent them!?!

My guess would be a mom, in that ‘knowing what a new mom needs’ sort of way ... ideas?

austin! friday shenanigans (part 3)

boot shopping!

leslie and ali got in on thursday evening and jen and tara arrived late thursday night & we stayed awake until who-knows-what-hour catching up with each other, then awoke on friday looking forward to trish's arrival. 

after a leisurely morning, we all finally got ready and headed out to pick up trishy and to explore for the day!

click below to expand for photos!

getting ready - girl style

getting ready - tara style

tex mex!!

these boots were made for ... shopping!

random boots

who forgot to put her sunglasses on??

what is this??

hey cupcake!!

after roaming SoCo for the afternoon, we ladies packed up our cupcakes and headed home!

where we dined on our baked goods ...

... swung in the hammock ...

and laughed until the sun went down

austin! house tour (part 2)

our house!

we stayed in a place called "the architect's house" as it was named by the people who remodeled it (in the tropical minimalist style) for rental. it was featured on apartment therapy awhile back (see it here!) and turned out to suit our needs quite well ... just a few short minutes from downtown in the up-and-coming east austin neighborhood.

click below to expand to the full house tour ...

upon entrance, the living room

living room faces the front yard

off the living room is a sort of sun room

fresh flowers smelled so good - what are these?

minimal, light & airy!

this room becomes an outdoor room
the glass panels behind the blinds are essentially hanging walls that lock into place.  when unlocked they can be swung completely out of the way, and filed into the wall, or they can be moved to create a new wall between the living room and sun room, to create a completely outdoor room...

opening blinds and unlocking panels

panels can be filed away as jen demonstrates

or the panels can be moved to begin creating a new wall

now the room on the right has become separated from the house, and is completely open to the outdoors on two sides. who doesn't love moving glass panels on a saturday morning?

past the living room is the kitchen

eating area

going upstairs

futon sleeping area

the first sleeping space was kind of a room in a hallway ... but it had its own little balcony.  somehow les ended up sleeping here 2 out of the 3 nights.  but sometimes there is no stopping les once she has made up her mind. i selfishly climbed into the master bed at night, as ms. preggo was consistently the first to retire. there was no saying who i would wake up next to! like bachelorette roulette!

down the hall from the futon area was the second bedroom and bathroom

second bedroom also had a balcony

this is only about half of the HUGE-O shower with big ol' rain showerhead.

kind of boring & weird photo with the shampoo bottles, but showers in this monstrosity were heavenly.

master bedroom

the master bedroom has a little windowsill to the sink area, behind which is the shower, with two showerheads and nice CLEAR shower curtains. for some reason, none of the girls chose to shower simultaneously, or hang out in the room when anyone else was in the shower.  the little closet-like doors on the left side lead to the toilet.  then there are doors on the right side of the showers that lead to a separate little room for the master closet.  pretty fun.

doors off of master lead to its own patio/balcony

balcony off of master

notes

• i can't believe how many blog updates there have been out there lately -- i have a lot of reading and commenting to catch up on! i promise, i love reading my bloglist, i have been reading your blogs, and i will leave comments soon!
• i WILL post more on austin!
• as for my belly post/pics, all i know is that every mom grows differently!
• oh and i still take the weekly pics in my regular clothes, that i overlay with a note about the week. i think i am really going to like those when the pregnancy is over - i just don't post them anymore!

back to the bachelorette! (part 1)

leslie's bachelorette party was the weekend of march 25, 26, 27, 28 in
AUSTIN, TEXAS!

i loved planning this weekend of celebration for our favorite little bride-to-be and wish her every joy in her upcoming marriage to the very outstanding jamie kanter. not to mention i am pee-in-my-pants excited for the wedding in just two more weeks!!

our darling bachelorette!

apparently there was question as to whether or not attendees would be quizzed upon arrival on the contents of the invitation, or "the packet," as it was referred to all weekend long - clearly, some studied the packet, while others only claimed to have studied the packet ...

the packet

• the packet was hunkered down with a rough itinerary + info on austin (25 pages of quality reading, right?)
• a separate brunch invitation and details on how to send skivvies ahead for leslie's basket o' bloomers
• as well as a few fill-out-in-advance preference cards on: breakfast foods, groceries, pizza, tacos, and t-shirt size (because really, what's an event with leslie if there's not tshirt making involved?? for examples, see here and here and here and here and here)

(stole from les - she took better pics than i did!)

we somewhat followed the itinerary, which was really just a compilation of ways we could keep busy while livin' it up austin style ... but once you put les, jen, tara, ali, trish and i together, we were quite capable of keeping ourselves occupied.  honk honk!  mmm, thank you.

feel free to study the packet yourself:follow link or expand full screen (there were some conversion errors and i'm not sure which draft this was ...)

Leslie’s Gettin’ Tied to the Hitchin’ Post