7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol. 51)

1) I would like to start by saying "Merry Christmas, Joseph!" I finally got around to buying his Christmas gift this week (Yes. That is in the singular.). I mean 4.5 months late isn't too bad, right? I didn't want to set the bar too high the first year we gave an actual gift to our son at Christmas.

2) I bought him an IKEA play kitchen. I spent months researching play kitchens, looking up used kitchens on Craigslist, hemming and hawing about what to buy. Once I finally decided I was going to get the IKEA kitchen I kept an eye on their website waiting for it to be in stock. I was hoping to buy both the kitchen and a couple spice racks at the same time, but it seems the spice racks are pretty much never available. So, I finally took the plunge and went to IKEA to buy the kitchen and just skipped the spice racks. Now I just have to put it together. Hopefully that won't take another 4.5 months.

3) Joseph was so good during our 4-hour trip to IKEA (I went with a friend and we took our time, what can I say?). The highlight for him, I think, was the helicopter that flew by as we were loading the car. He's still talking about that "hapidodur."

4) I love Ann Taylor LOFT. I bought this dress (in 2 different colors) and this shirt (in 3 different colors) this week. I've been wanting to buy some non-maternity + breast feeding friendly clothes for a while now and finally took the plunge. I took the boys with me and just powered through. And I'm so glad I did. I feel so much better in non-maternity clothes (I'm still looking for some shorts I like and am willing to pay for, though). It was definitely worth going (especially since the stuff I got was on sale!).

5) Our yard is a mess. About a month ago Pepco (our utility company) dug up a good portion of our front yard for "quality improvement work." Now Verizon is digging in a very large portion of our yard (all along the side and front of our house - we're on a corner) to install FiOS. I'm ready for all the destruction to be over so I can take Joseph out in the yard again. I just hope it doesn't take too long for grass to grow again.

The flags mark where they will dig/where lines will go.
This is about 15-20% of the flags in our yard.
Obviously, they haven't dug here yet.

6) Joseph loves to wear Will's hats. He wants to be just like daddy.

7) I let Joseph play with water in the sink a couple weeks ago. He LOVED it.

In heaven.

Completely soaked.

He played at the sink for over 2 hours! It was amazing. I was able to cook dinner, nurse John, read blogs.... But the mess. It took a while to clean up all the water/Jospeh. I'll probably let him do it again sometime though. Probably on one of those days where I hit a wall around 4-5pm and just. can't. do. anything. else.

Thanks for hosting, Jen!