If You Weren't Aware That Home Decor Is Not My Forte

I give you

Duplo Guy

He has been standing in the niche at our stairwell since my brother built him and put him there 3 weeks ago.

We have been in this house for 8 months now.


The niche used to look like this before we moved in. (BTW: we also have absolutely nothing on the overlook where these lovely plants once sat.)

And yet, I am unmoved to fill this lonely niche with something actually decorative. (Although blogging about it keeps it on my mind enough that I just might!)

I can appreciate beautifully decorated houses, but I have no idea how to go about doing something beautiful to mine.

And I'm strangely dead-set against looking in a magazine and copying something. Too unoriginal. I guess I'd rather have no decor than something I copied (save, of course, the guest room paint job in our last house. Thanks for the tips, Mom!). I am not opposed to others doing such things. In fact, I mean it as a compliment when I say someone's house looks like it came out of a magazine. I just feel like my fraudulence is waving a huge banner: "Look at me! I'm pretending I know something about home beautification!"

As I alluded to earlier, my family visited a few weeks ago. It feels strange saying that, since it was only three people, but I guess I can still say "my family" visited. My parents watched the girls for us one evening so I could take Casey to dinner for his birthday (paid for out of his gift fund--perhaps I'll post about that someday).

Right before we left, Case took this picture of everyone being way into the children's movie. Good times for all!

Is it me, or do my children look scared of bubbles?

Haley (five months now!) just figured out the reaching and grabbing thing this week. Until now, this is how she's been teething on things. Poor girl. Babies this young shouldn't have teeth. They simply do not have the resources. (Or knowledge of what is okay to teethe on and what isn't, if you get my drift.)

Ruby is enjoying her dance classes. They are doing a Christmas show and we aren't signing up Ruby. She is the only girl in her class who is not doing the show. She, fortunately, is not aware of a Christmas show and does not have pressure to be in it. (Ms. Diedre is so good about just teaching them things and not telling them what it's for--at least for now.) I, however, am asked by other moms every week if Ruby is doing the show. I can't believe how much peer pressure there is to deal with as an adult!

As fun as pictures are, there's nothing quite so entertaining as a bunch of two-and three-year-olds tap dancing! (Ruby's in the black/leopard leotard.)