Wandering Browns

When pondering how I wanted to do this birth story post, I decided that in order to get the whole picture of what was going on with me in my head, and how it all turned out, we had to start at the beginning, with my parents arriving to await the birth of my little guy. Then I realized that if I did it in one post, it would be so long that no one would read the good part- when he popped out 2 hours after arriving at the hospital! So if you just want to read that part, go to part 3. If not, here is the entire birth story.  My labor and birth encompassed all 3 types of labor that I read about while I was pregnant: false/practice labor, prodromal labor, and REAL labor.  Practice labor:  The month of August, for me, was spent in anxious anticipation of the birth of my little boy. My parents and baby sister Claire flew into the Chicago area on August 7th to help me finish getting ready and to be here for the birth. They were able to be here for my birthday on the 10th...

Proof we were there... the giant jelly bean... We wanted to go do something fun for the 4th.We had not gone into the city yet, so despite 100 degree temperatures, we ventured into the city of Chicago via the train and checked it out. We ordered a dinner picnic basket from this gourmet grocery store/deli, which included beef tenderloin, edamame and carrots, delicious Italian cookies, and pasta salad. YUM! We took this over to Millenium park and got to watch an awesome free patriotic concert on the lawn. I couldn't believe it was free in this great venue, until Austin reminded me how much we pay in sales tax as residents of Cook county (almost 10%!!) This was the pavilion where we listened to a symphony orchestra concert on the 4th! Too bad it was over 100 degrees! As crazy as it might sound, Austin and I went camping last week. Don't worry, we brought an air mattress so  that I could sleep on the ground in relative comfort. Austin, on the other hand, was not...

So we have finally finished decorating and putting things together! Here is our townhome: Living room view from the stairs... Yay for pianos! Living room, front door and stairs up to the bedrooms/main bath Our red wall and new couches in the living room, from the stairs Mostly this picture is here because I wanted to show off our fake flowers. Austin was instrumental in letting me know that I needed to go find fake flowers to fill our vases we got with our furniture set. He even critiqued what shape/kind of flowers should be put in each vase. He surprises me every day with the things he chooses to care about... Our kitchen... with our cute menu board Little dining room area off of the kitchen- we are investing in new dining room chairs at some point, as our current chairs we bought from an arcade that was closing down for VERY cheap Our newly painted bedroom- green and white with navy curtains is SO much better than dark purple... Other half of b...

If I had known that my license would take a month and a half to process, I would have planned to occupy my time elsewhere. As it is, I have had time to organize the house, make a bunch of cute things for the nursery room and start stocking up on diapers and wipes. Here are some of my creations... Photo collage with pictures of both of our families... since our little guy won't be seeing much of them in person, as well as 2 ocean/sea pictures that we took while he was incubating... one at Big Sur, CA and the other Positano, Italy Nursing cover... my first sewing project I didn't royally screw up on Whale wall art Paint chip mobile...  In conclusion, THANK YOU PINTEREST for the great ideas, and for keeping me sane the past month. I'm hoping that I will have my license by next week. HOoray!

This is our living room! Now with furniture! After living with virtually nothing in the way of furniture for 5 days, our living room furniture set we bought was delivered! Now at least we have 1 comfy place to sit in our house. Living in a town house with just the things Austin was able to squeeze in the car has been... interesting. It's kind of hilarious some of the things I forgot to put on the list of things for Austin to bring, including... Measuring cups... Austin brought all of our baking materials and dry goods as far as food goes, but no measuring cups or spoons. I'm getting pretty good at estimating :) The mixer attachments for the Bosch mixer. I have the blender and the mixing bowl, but none of the attachments to actually mix anything in the mixer. Bummer. Can Opener- this might be the worst. Thinking about all the food options that we like to have around the house, and the dinner options that I like to make, it was interesting to find that many of them requi...

So this post is dedicated to all the weird little things that are very different between Italy and the U.S.: -           Italians love to sweep, mop, and iron. If we were out and about amongst shops in the morning, everyone would be outside sweeping their front step. If we were passing by residential communities, ladies would be sweeping, or mopping, or ironing. Rosa insisted on ironing all of our clothes (even Austin’s T-shirts and jeans!) because they were a little wrinkly.   Italians like old things, and doing things the same way they have been done forever. Instead of ripping down old buildings to build new ones like in America, Italians keep the pre-existing buildings and fit them for whatever use they need. For example, in the old part of the city in Bergamo, there were several shop spaces that were “under construction”. Austin says that they can stay under construction for a very long time. I can see why after se...

We signed our lease to move into a townhome a few days ago. Austin left almost immediately to retrieve some of our things from Utah; the relocation company is not able to get the rest of our stuff out to us until at least the 16th of June. Even so, I'm pretty excited that we have a place to live and that soon, we will have at least the necessities to live with, even though we won't have any furniture for awhile... Thus the emptiness of the place. I will have to post "after" pictures when we get our furniture and our baby stuff too... Here it is! One half of kitchen other kitchen half Our little boy's bedroom... probably going to do bright blue accents with the yellow Outside in front of house (but in back of where the driveway area is) Front of the 4-plex with our attached garage Living room with our red wall Our huge bedroom... we are painting the 2 purple walls a different color View outside of our bedroom window We ha...