[Fun] The Faust House is famous!

A friend of mine is getting his master's in fine arts and contacted us last year about using our house to film a movie. We were game for it, but one of the crew members was allergic to cats, so it never came through. One of the other crew members remembered our house from when they scoped it out, so he contacted us about using our house for an independent short he was doing. It worked out they could film things when we could easily be out of the house, so we went for it!

They wrapped filming this past weekend, and things went really well! They movie will premier in a few months and we're going to be invited. It will be neat to see our house on screen! They used the kitchen and living room, garage, Whitney's room (which they transformed into a boy's room!), and the backyard. Here are a few photos from the shoot:

Lights set up outside

Filming in the backyard

[Fun] One year apart

Spent the afternoon with dear friends from high school and our daughters are all almost one year apart exactly... so fun!

[Fun] Photo website

Since many of our family members aren't on Facebook, I have uploaded all of our pictures to a personal Shutterfly site so everyone can see Whitney grow up! You can order photos directly from this site, too, and they can either be mailed to you, or picked up at a Target store for no charge. I will include more photos on here than I do on Facebook, and have an album for all of our mobile photos... and we take a handful every week! :) Enjoy!

http://doubleufaust.shutterfly.com/

[Whitney] Shoes!

Whitney went to 8th grade promotion at Wes' school this week, so we got her all dressed up... including some cute white sandals! This is the first time she's worn them, and she was very interested in checking out her feet. I couldn't capture a good picture because she was moving her feet so much, so I grabbed a quick video:

[Fun] Trips to the beach!

Baby toes in the sand for the first time!

All in one fell swoop, Whitney had her first and second trips to the beach! My Mother's Day present every year will be family pictures, so we scheduled time with a photographer to do portraits on the beach Friday night. At first we thought we would have to cancel because the weather was yucky, but it cleared up and turned out to be a gorgeous night.

We met with the photographer on Saturday to select our pictures, and got a great one of the three of us, and a fun one he took of our feet in the sand. We should have the "real" pictures in a few weeks! Here's one of Whitney and Daddy when we were done with photos - her little nose looks so pink because it was COLD! Thankfully Wes kept her snuggled and warm! She smiled and looked absolutely adorable in all of the pictures!

Then on Sunday, we took a family trip to the Huntington Dog Beach! The dogs were in seventh heaven, and Whitney slept nearly the whole time. Here's a cute photo of her in her sun hat as we were headed to the beach (Wes thinks she looks dorky in the hat, and I think she looks adorable!):

[Fun] Family vacation!

We spent a few days of Spring Break traveling through California's beautiful central coast. After visiting my college alma mater last summer, Wes commented that he'd love to go back to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to visit (he went there for two years before transferring). A girl friend recommended a darling B&B in SLO, and my parents recommended a great inn in Cambria. Trip booked! We hit a few wineries during the trip, enjoyed some amazing restaurants, played tourist in a few spots, and got some great relaxation time (with a five week old... can you even imagine?!). Whitney was a total champ the entire time - we see many more road trips in her future!

A few photo highlights from the trip:

Our darling B&B in SLO - Petit Soleil

Our view during lunch at Cass Winery

Whitney's first bottle!

Elephant seals everywhere!

Linn's ollalieberry pie a la mode

View from our hotel room in Cambria

New additions to our wine collection

Got to spend 4 days with these 2

[Fun] Happy Easter!

Whitney's first Easter was quite the fun celebration! We spent Saturday with my family and went to lunch and church. Whitney got all dressed up in her darling yellow dress:

We got to church and things got started, and she started crying so I dashed outside with her. Wes and I stayed out there the entire time (they show the service on big screen TVs) while she fussed - at least it was a beautiful day to be outside! :)

On Sunday we took off for Central California for our first family vacation! Thanks to my friend Gina's cute hand me down, Whitney was dressed in the Easter spirit:

[Whitney] Meeting the Easter Bunny

Went to the mall today with Alicia and her two kids to have pictures taken with the Easter Bunny! Whitney got all dressed up in a cute outfit, and then the Bunny put his big paw over her, and you couldn't even see it. So I'll blog it for posterity! :)

[Fun] Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Hanging out with my lucky charm today! xo

=

[Fun] Birthday weekend... and not BIRTH DAY weekend!

We had a relaxing and fun weekend, and celebrated my birthday... Saturday night we had a lovely dinner at the Anaheim White House. They surprised us with free champagne (ginger ale for me!) and a lovely dessert plate. The food was fantastic, and it was a lovely way to celebrate!

My actual birthday was Super Bowl Sunday... wasn't it nice of Madonna to perform for me? :) My birthday is also Jager's birthday, so we started the day with brunch at the Lazy Dog Cafe. She and Latte split a bowl of rice, and relaxed in the sun. Happy 2nd birthday, Jagey!

That afternoon we headed to join the Glazes for Charlotte's annual Super Bowl party. It was fun to hang out with friends and watch everyone's kids run around - we can't wait to add one more kid to the mix next year! We had fun visiting with a darling 3 month old who was at the party - Wes can't wait to introduce his daughter to football next season! :) We ended the day by winning the Super Bowl pool, so we walked away $80 richer! Happy birthday to me!


While I would've loved to share a birthday with Whitney, she stayed put, and will get her own special day in the next few weeks. We can't wait to meet her!

[Fun] Horton Family bassinet

We've been planning to have Whitney in our bedroom when she first comes home, and had registered for a pack-n-play with a built in bassinet and changing table. About a month ago, my girlfriend Juliana contacted me to ask if we had a bassinet...

I met Juliana and her then boyfriend/now husband my sophomore year at Sonoma, and she is my sorority sister. We were in one other's weddings, and have always had an amazing connection. She's mom to four handsome boys, and has a heart of gold. Her husband and his family are equally fabulous, and his mother-in-law heard I was pregnant, and asked Juliana if I would be interested in using the Horton Family bassinet.

Now this isn't any old bassinet... it's been in their family since 1956! Every child and grandchild born since then has slept in it, and it is not only incredibly meaningful, it's absolutely precious! Juliana & John bought new bedding for it when their oldest son was born, and it is all darling. I mentioned it to Wes, and we were both overcome with how sweet of an offer it was. We gladly accepted, and can't wait to bring Whitney home to sleep in it!

[Fun] New year

I think I speak for both of us when I say we couldn't wait for the calendar to turn to 2012! Now we're just weeks away from meeting our baby girl. Ack! Even typing that seems crazy! In just 52ish days, Whitney will make her arrival! We spent a lot of time during our holiday break doing things to prepare for her arrival... I think Wes has gotten the 'nesting' bug more than I have at this point, and it was awesome to get some random projects completed around the house.

Pregnancy has been treating me well, although I'm definitely exhausted most of the time. Having two weeks off was a huge blessing, and I took advantage of napping whenever possible, and living in slippers as much as I could! My feet and hands are starting to swell pretty badly... not surprising given our 80+ degree temperatures lately, too! I thought I would luck out being pregnant through the winter, but Mother Nature's giving me a little does of heat to keep things interesting. :)

We saw our doctor over the break, and things are progressing just as they should be! I'm measuring right on track for our due date - fun fact... did you know that the measurement of a woman's belly from the top of the uterus to the pubic bone should be exactly how many weeks pregnant she is in centimeters? It can be plus/minus three centimeters, but I measured right at 32 centimeters when I was two days shy of being 32 weeks along. Interesting!

We toured the hospital during the break, and I'm very thankful to be delivering where I am... all of their labor & delivery rooms are private, and so are the mother/baby rooms! The whole maternity wing was redone just a few years ago, and it's very nice. We went back a few days later and met with one of the L&D nurses, whose daughter I went to high school with. She was great to answer questions we had and give us some great advice about delivery and recovery.

We can't wait for the holidays this next year to have Whitney here with us... life is about to change, and we cannot wait! <3

[Fun] New (to us) car!

We started doing some research on where to put a car seat in our car, and made the icky discovery that our car was one of the worst for child seat friendliness! Solutions included moving the driver and/or passenger seats up all the way (not an option for long legged folks!), or using towels or other items to get the car seat in the right place. To us, also not an option (especially since it negates the warranty on the car seat if you do something like that!).

So we did some research and started looking online at cars for the past few weeks. Thankfully there was a nearby dealership that had several cars we were interested in, and they're owned by a family at my school! We reached out to them and went down yesterday... and left with a new (to us) car!

It's a 2008 Buick Enclave, and it's rated in the top three for family-friendly and child-safe cars. It has a third row seat that folds flat, and gives lots of space for carrying baby gear and bringing Latte & Jager along, too. I've never been a fan of "colored" cars, but this red color is very pretty, and unique. And it matches our front door, so it looks nice parked in front of our house. :) 

An interesting fun fact about the color is that it was manufactured in a facility that was completely destroyed by the tsunami in Japan earlier this year... so they don't make cars in this color anymore! They have enough supply for touch ups, but no new cars will be made in exactly this color ever again. Interesting!