Handmade Christmas!

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

We survived Christmas!! Sadly it's over but we had a blast! It was a fun filled but EXHAUSTING week. On Friday Sierra's daycare was closed so I took the day off and Sierra and I got some last minute Christmas shopping in for friends and family. At around 3:00 we picked Mama up from work and got on the highway to head to New Bedford, MA which is where I'm from and where Gramma and Papa still reside.

We have a tradition called "The Night Before the Night Before" which is when my family and a few close friends (Uncle Will, Uncle Matt and Aunty Jill) all meet up eat some dinner and exchange gifts before the hooplah of Christmas Eve begins the next day. It's a low key and enjoyable night that I love and am glad we've been doing for all this time. This year Lauren and I decided to get everyone's gifts hand made by our crafty friends instead of forking our hard earned dollars over for some cheap plastic junk at TARGET. Don't get me wrong we love cheap junk and TARGET as much as the next people but figured it would be better to give our forty bucks to our pal instead of tar-zhay. So....

For Uncle Matt we got this really neat Mason jar light. One of my best friends Chad is an electronics whiz who creates his own custom guitar pedals and in his down time makes other things in his bed room workshop. The jar was filled with clear glass beads and then some how motion activated so that when you tip it upside down it lights up. Matt seemed to really like it and I'm jealous and will be ordering one for myself ASAP. If you want one for yourself or want one of the most bad ass sounding / looking guitar pedals ever made please contact Chad @ http://chadderboxfx.tumblr.com.




Uncle Will is a huge horror buff and also a lover of screen printed t-shirts so for his gift I turned to my good pal Alex Dakoulas who runs an amazing little company called Dance Party Massacre (who BOTH of the Hipster Dads have modeled for in the past I might add! photo below). I'm sure you're all familiar with The Breakfast Club right? Well DPM decided to make "The Horror Club" and for only $15 bucks you can get yourself a beautiful 18x24 hand screen printed poster of it! I put this guy in a plain black frame from Target (Yes, Target) and wallah. Merry Christmas Uncle Will!















What a couple of sexy models. <3
I had a bit of trouble finding something hand made that I thought really fit Aunty Jill. So I did the next best thing- I went to a store that my friend Jared Vasconcellos owns. The store is called The Artificial Marketplace and it's in New Bedford. If you are ever driving through the South Coast of Massachusetts you HAVE to stop here. It is hip / cozy little shop in the heart of Downtown New Beige that sells new and vintage EVERYTHING. They have furniture, records, wall art, some clothes, jewelry, appliances and just about anything you can think of (p.s. Jared also runs a mini iPod/iPhone repair shop out of here so get a cool Eames chair and your iPhone's screen fixed all in one stop). Anyway now that my commercial for the shop is out of the way; I found Aunty Jill this really cute blue necklace, a thermos from the 60s (she loves camping) and this adorable little vintage anchor brooch. All these things screamed Jill to me and I hope she liked them!








Lastly is my sister Alison. Although she's not part of the "NB4TNB4" festivities, we did get her some pretty awesome hand made gems! My sister is the mother to two beautiful little 2 and ½ year olds named Ashley and Autumn who I've blogged about a few times before. For Alison we ordered two custom embroidered hoops from our friend Liz Brown who runs an adorable little Etsy store here: EightOhEight. Liz is a new friend who we just met and love to death! She is currently at home with her brand new baby Eila! This child is beautiful people, if you don't believe me check out Liz and Andre's co-mama/daddy blog here: Dear Husband | Dear Wife | Dear Baby. Anyway you should totally order something from her for your babies nursery. Her prices are ridiculously low and the quality is amazing! 


Last but certainty not least was our gifts to the twins. I run a small little design shop called Rain or Shine if you didn't know and our photographer is an awesome guy names Chris. Now the best thing about Chris is his better half: Annie (just kidding Chris we love you!). Annie is the most amazing crocheter you have ever seen. Her work is amazing and her speed blew my mind. On Monday she asked me "what are their favorite animals" and on Thursday I was on my way to New Hampshire to pick up three hand made stuffed animals. For Sierra she made a horse and for the twins she made a Moose and a Deer (yes those are their favorite animals!). They are one of a kind, cuddley and adorable and get this... she only charged me $30 each! You should ALL contact her and get one of these guys made for your children. Sierra hasn't stopped playing with hers and Ashley clung to her moose all night telling everyone "No No not touch my mwoose'. Contact Annie here: http://www.facebook.com/ayonkers. Sorry for the crappy cell phone shot but I forgot to snap a pic of all three together before they were clamped down into toddler hands. I assure you they are beautiful:








So thats that! Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday!! Whats the best gifts that you gave or got? Tell us in the comments below! <3 -Craig



p.s. please take a second and click the banner to give us a vote on Top Baby Blogs? :-)


Whats New Friday

Thursday, December 22, 2011

So a long time ago in a blog not so far away I used to do "Whats New Friday" (yes I know Whats New Wednesday sounds better but it's too late to change it now!). I haven't done one in a while so here we go!
Whats New With Us:
The biggest new things with us is that I got a new job (yay!) and we bought a car! (yay!). The car thing has been awesome for us. We live in Boston so we use public transit a lot but it's nice to have a car when you want to leave city limits, go grocery shopping, do errands or not walk your toddler to daycare in 20 degree New England weather. We went with a 2011 Rav 4 and we LOVE it. If you live in the New England area and are looking for a new car I highly suggest checking out Boch Toyota in Norwood, we had an amazing experience and didn't feel pressured etc. Thanks Boch!


Whats New With Sierra:
Hmmmmm where do I begin? So Sierra has left any sign of being a baby in the dust and is a wacky / energetic / hysterical little toddler. I truly miss my little baby but am enjoying this period of her development so much! I can actually play with her and not just play at her anymore if that makes sense. Her favorite game right now is pretending to be a mama and/or cooking us food in her kitchen. The thing that makes her laugh the most is beeping the horn in the car, if she's upset in the car I just beep wildly and she cracks up laughing.


Whats New With The Blog:
So I'm sure you noticed that we blog a lot less lately and I don't have an excuse. We're just both super busy and this takes a back seat unfortunately. My New Years Resolution is to try to blog in here MUCH more often! So keep checking back. We haven't done a give away in a long time so perhaps we'll get one rolling for next month. Any ideas for things you may want to win?
Whats New (and cool) On The Internet:


-Craig <3

p.s. please take a second and click the banner to give us a vote on Top Baby Blogs? :-)




Tonight we went to the zoo!

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Happy Holidays everyone (whichever holiday that may be!). For our family it's Christmas and I have to say I'm getting super excited. I love Christmas and everything about it pretty much. I love watching my loved ones opening thoughtful gifts I gave them, I love seeing friends and family that I don't get to enough anymore, I love the movies, the carols and all that other stuff. Cheesy as it is it's just a great holiday that brings family together and if you can't get down with that than bah humbug to you.


Tonight to start the festivities off we headed north to Stoneham, MA  to the Stone Zoo! From Thanksgiving until New Years they run an event called "ZooLights" which was awesome! They deck the whole zoo out in fancy lights, you can take your photo with Santa, theres a few small rides and lots of weird vintage animatronic animals. In addition to all the normal "Christmas stuff" you can also see some animals (duh). We saw tropical birds, owls, monkeys, otters, a tortoise and even a reindeer. All in all a great night and admission is only 5 bucks! I suggest it to anyone with kids in the area! -Craig



Jorge and Alexa Narvaez wish you a "Feliz Navidad"

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Have you seen our pal Jorge and his beautiful daughter Alexa on the new holiday Hyundai commercial? They are movin' on up in the world! SO RAD! Way back when Jorge wrote a Guest Dad post for us which you can read here: "GUEST DAD: Jorge Narvaez"

 

Remember Family Swap Day?

Sunday, December 11, 2011

About 2 months ago we posted about a Family Swap Day we were attending. Well it was super fun and we can not thank SWAP enough for all their hard work. Anyway I just stumbled upon some super cute photos and wanted to share with you!


All photos were taken from The Swapaholics Facebook Page <3



Sierra & Henry being adorable in the photo booth

Two proud mamas and their kitties.



Searching for just the right color.

Me having a staring contest with some random baby.


Tell us what to blog about!

Friday, December 9, 2011

I'm stumped on something interesting to blog about this week. So how about YOU tell us what to blog about? :-) -Craig

I have a Love / Hate Relationship with technology!

Friday, December 2, 2011

On one hand I am a graphic designer who reads TechCrunch, Engadget and Mashable. I have owned every apple product in the past 10 years and use them every single day. On the other hand I love "old stuff" meaning I have a nice hifi stereo  instead of a TV, my book collection heavily outweighs my movie collection and I even tried to institute a Disconnect Day for my family. There is nothing I hate more than when I am talking to a friend and realize they aren't answering me anymore so I look over at them and low and behold they are on Twitter or Instagram. It's like "HELLO! I'M RIGHT HERE A REAL HUMAN BEING!!!". But I can't lie, I'm just as guilty of doing the same to others. I feel we miss out on (real) life because we are so immersed in the digital lives we all lead. It's just setting priorities and finding that balance I feel we all struggle with. I do LOVE aspects of the "connectedness" of the technology though, it's not all bad and evil. While sometimes it makes us disconnected from our friends and families, other times it can have the complete opposite effect. Recently I went to Chicago for work and got to see and hear my family "face to face" because of this technology.



Sierra's grandparents live an hour away so although we visit often it's nice to catch up in between visits. We call at least once a week, but sometimes it's nice to send videos and on occasion we even video chat. Yes my Mom can video chat! Just like the Apple iPad commercials! Sierra loves doing it! Here is a cute video we sent last week:




So this post wasn't saying much, it was more of an declaration of how I feel: I love and hate technology. Or perhaps, I love it but I wish I hated it? I don't know. Anyway what do you guys think? Do you find your friends and family more or less disconnected now that we have smart phones, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Or do you like me see it both ways? Would love to know how you and your family find that balance. Let me know! -Craig


p.s. please take a second and click the banner to give us a vote on Top Baby Blogs? :-)




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