Who's ready to party?

A typical night for Emigre.

Annie Liebowitz we might not be...

But we did get a little inspired tonite, and took some updated family pics with the belly. Peanut is quite a little kicker these days. Grace can feel the baby moving all around like crazy. The other night she woke up in the middle of the night and yelled at Ben "STOP poking me!!". Then we thought about it for a minute and Ben reminded her... why would he do that? and we realized that the poke came from Peanut. Anyway, enjoy the new pics :)

cleveland rocks

we went up to cleveland with friends several weekends ago, it was just like a college road trip. We had a great time. So, we're finally getting around to posting a couple of pics from the trip.


this is Ben G. climbing the FREE stamp statue downtown. we were amazed at how fast he scaled that stamp.. it really was a big stamp.

this was the kind of italian family restaurant that you dream about finding in a hole in the wall... it was a TOTALLY cool place. We could tell that almost all of the tables around us were "regulars".



I just liked this picture, and wanted to include it because, how often do you see something like this? by the way, Greg has vowed never to squeeze back into that tiny little space again.
anyways, it was a great weekend.

post halloween

We tried playing some more tunes for Peanut, this time we went with an assortment of U2, the Fray, Cold Play, and some Derek Webb. We got the best response to U2 and Cold Play. We pretty much decided that anything upbeat and happy sounding is the most popular. It was so fun, Peanut was having a regular dance party and kicking like crazy!

We had a great Halloween. We passed out (some) candy at our friends' place in Pleasant Ridge, we also ate some... :) It was a great night outside though, perfect for trick-or-treating. Our pumpkins were a hit. Then we headed to Chipotle for free burritos...

We found out that if you "dress like a burrito" (AKA: put some miniscule amount of tin foil somewhere on yourself) you get a free burrito on Halloween. All of us share a deep appreciation for burritos, so we were all over that. As you can see, we went a little further than maybe we HAD to with the foil...
Ben chose a more traditional ensemble: a canadian mountie's hat and a very fahionable neck tie. Foil is the new black.
AND we got some practice in for the big day while we were at it...


You'd never know that Biz hasn't delivered squillions of babies from her professional performance :)
this week: back to reality. Grace is on deadline, and Ben's busy as usual at work. But we DID get started on the paint job in the baby's room. So, even though home is a bit of a construction zone in the midst of painting and working on baby furniture, it feels great to be making progress.

the weekend that EVERYTHING happened

This was pretty much the weekend that everything happened. At least that's been our name for it. Thursday night was a bachelorette party for my friend Steph, then Friday night was the long awaited live tour of So You Think You Can Dance (which was A-MAZ-ING). Saturday was errands, then a wedding at 1pm, then a bonfire at our friends' house. Today we had church, then we tried to do stuff around the house for a couple hours, and then a pumpkin carving contest at our friends' house... you can see the fruits of our labor.  Grace's is the "POW!" pumpkin, and you can see Ben hard at work on his. 

The belly continues to grow... and grow :) and Peanut is kicking more and more. Apparently the baby has a taste for root beer. We had another doctor's appointment this week, and everything is going just as it should be. Here is Ben's latest obsession: artsy belly photos.

We continue to make slow progress on the baby's room... Moving our whole office/studio out of there and condensing it into a corner of the living room has been more of a project than either of us has much energy for after 10-hour work days, but it's on it's way. It's hard to believe that it's only about 2 weeks until our hospital classes start... Peanut will be here before we know it!!!

Here's one more photo for you to enjoy, complements of Ben.

peanut

We have been totally lame about updating our blog lately... Probably because we've been getting ready to welcome another little saunders into our house!!! yahoo!! Yep, we've got a bun in the oven! and, the baby belly has ARRIVED. check out this photo. Emigre seems to have noticed something is different :)
We are BESIDE OURSELVES excited about little "Peanut's" arrival. We're busy working on rearranging home to get Peanut's room ready. (that's our name for baby saunders, since we've decided to be surprised by the baby's gender once he or she is born. We get so few huge surprises in life, we're going to milk it for all it's worth) The due date is February 6th. We thought the doctor was joking when he said that was the due date, since that also happens to be Grace's 30th birthday. We'll see when the little one decides to ACTUALLY grace us with his or her presence :)

Right now we're right at the 6 month mark. Peanut is kicking lots, and wiggling around, some times it's enough for Ben to feel too, which he is PUMPED about. Below, Ben has decided that it is VERY important for PEanut to have exposure to Led Zeppelin as early as possible.


We got a new camera to be ready to snap all kinds of photos of every move the PEanut makes, and we've been taking turns playing the role of Annie Liebowitz around the house. So naturally the belly and the dog are favorite subjects :)

burritos and bowling

I've accomplished something i wasn't sure would ever work. I pulled off a mini surprise party for Ben, and he actually enjoyed it!! this is a serious coup for me, an admitted "teller". I am HORRIBLE at keeping secrets, not to mention i hate having to do it anyways. And Ben, being your sneakier than average hubby, is usually incredibly good at foiling my schemes. Here are a couple of photos. I decided to pair up his two favorite things: burritos and bowling. Above are some of our buddies who joined us for the festivities, and the custom t-shirt i designed for the occasion :) (check out the exclamation mark made out of a burrito and a bowling ball, sorry for the sub-par photo of it) it sure was a great time!

life has been and continues to be ultra-crazy for both of as at work. Ben is working on setting up all the new equipment and systems at work, as well as all of his video projects, and learning all that new equipment to boot this week. I am still in the process of redesigning the magazine, though i can finally say that we are nearing the end of the process, which is a great feeling since this has been a huge project and i've been working on it now for almost 5 months, along with the regular issues of the magazine. Someone share a great analogy that fits perfectly "it's kind of like changing a tire on a car that's still moving".
well, that's our update for now!

A Sign From Above

This is a picture of the double rainbow that appeared in Chicago on the 22nd as the Cubs completed a sweep of the White Sox. I don't want to jinx anything, but it looks like the Cubbies might have a fan upstairs this year.

And another thing

I also just realized that the dog can handle hotter salsa than I can. Sad.

The case of the disappearing burrito...

So earlier this evening we enjoyed Chipotle for dinner and, as usual, Grace had about two and a half inches of burrito left over. The leftovers were on the coffee table when we went into the office for a matter of minutes. We returned to find a solitary piece of foil and a very content puppy. What is most disturbing (aside from how upset Emi's stomach is going to be) is the fact that there was no evidence of a struggle. Not even a stray grain of rice remains. She managed to completely devour about a third of a burrito on the coffee table and make less of a mess than I usually do.

Craziest wedding album ever.

This is a picture from a wedding in China. Apparently they were taking the post ceremony pictures when the earthquake hit and the photographer kept shooting. Some of the images are pretty crazy, you can see them on the photographer's site HERE. Amazingly everyone survived.

This is why its on ESPN

The best part is that he went on to win the whole thing.

hockey husband

i discovered a new side to the love of my life a few nights ago. we've dubbed him "hockey husband" (referred to as "HH" from this point on). HH is kind of like Ben's loud opposite twin. We went to a CYCLONES game on Sunday night, since they are having a GREAT season, and are in the finals for the tournaments, game 2. We decided to to go with some friends since we could stay up late. We bought our tickets and sat down, all jumbled up in the row, so Ben ended up a few seats down from me. once the game started i heard an unusual amount of SCREAMING, and wondered which of our friends that was. I looked down only to be shocked that it was my own husband. I have never seen anything at all, not even remotely close, to this come out of Ben's mouth. My friend leaned over and said, winking, "that's your husband", and i had to ask myself... "is it???". i was so surprised at HH's behavior that i couldn't help but stare and giggle almost the whole time, in disbelief ofcourse. Now, you may wonder, has she never been to a sports event with him?? YES. i have. But, this has never happened before. 

Unfortunately the cyclones (though they won game 1) lost game 2. Despite HH's incredibly loud (we're talking screaming at the VERY top of his lungs) heckling of the opposing team's goaley... the Las Vegas team scored one goal in the last 3-4 minutes of the game.

but still, we all had a good time, and i learned a little more about my special man.

back from costa rica...

finally.
we'll post about it as soon as we can get our life a little bit caught up. with 2 extra days we didn't expect to be gone, it might take us a couple more days than we had hoped. but, we're FINALLY back in cincy. wa-Hooo!

The official pictures from wedding weekend

Grace posted our pictures from the Baker wedding in D.C. on shutterfly. In the event you weren't included in the email, just follow these links:
Wedding Photos Part 1
Wedding Photos Part 2

snapped this on the way home from Maryland

I spotted this in the airport on the way home from Maryland. I made Ben pretend to pose for a photo in front of our snoozing friend, so that i could get this shot. how peaceful...

This one is from last weekend

Not from this weekend, but still awesome...

I just came across this picture of what is definitely in the running for best wedding cake ever.  You'll find it is quite operational...

Please tell me where I can buy one of these...

Part of me hates to post this and bump the picture of the swat team, but it's for a good cause.

fun news in Communication Arts magazine

I've always hoped that someday my name would appear in Communication Arts magazine. I've been drooling over the pages of this magazine since i was a freshman in college in the library. One of the illustrators i contracted to create artwork for the August issue of the magazine has been recognized as an up and coming talent. Since working on the illustrations in our magazine last summer, she has worked on illustrations for LOTS of other magazines, like WIRED. Anyway, what especially exciting to me is that she included two of the pieces she worked on for me on the pages allocated to her in the March/April issue. So that means that my name is in the magazine in teeny-tiny type not only once, but TWICE ! goal #352 is now crossed off my list. To take a look, click here. She really is a frighteningly talented gal.

Nothing says Bible study like...

When we pulled into Amy's street for our small group meeting on Friday night, it seemed odd that there were a handful of police cars at the end of the street but we didn't think much of it.  We finished eating dinner just in time to watch 2 swat teams load their weapons and surround the house at the end of the street (about 5 houses down).  They parked their APC in the driveway, hit the windows with spotlights and started using a loudspeaker. After an hour or two of politely asking Bruce to come out peacefully they went in and got him. Thankfully no one was hurt, and we still managed to have our small group meeting.

the blizzard

we just got through the blizzard. the most snow in something like 10 years here. We had about a foot. IT just kept on snowing and SNOWING. Everyone pretty much was trapped in doors friday and saturday, but life as we know it is back to normal now. Oh, except for the mountain of snow that got dumped by our garage, since.. there's really nowhere else to put it.
Luckily, even though we were in the midst of the "white death" our new furniture still got delivered. FINALLY. It seems like forever ago that we ordered our christmas present, but we're thrilled that it's finally here, and we finally have a couch WITH back legs :)
But one thing we didn't count on was how much the littlest member of the family would love the new rug. Now, to be fair, it really DOES feel like you're walking on marshamallows... but, she LOVES to lay on this thing. unfortunately it sheds more than her right now.And, this is just a cute picture of Emigre the wonder dog.She had just been to the doggy spa and they gave her a cute little pink bandana.

a new hobby

I've developed a new hobby over the last few months. although i'm pretty much self-taught at this point (which has it's drawbacks) i'm really enjoying having a different outlet for my creativity, that isn't exactly what i do all day at work. I've made a few different pieces, some as gifts, and some as my own little experimental trophies. Mostly it's just for fun though. Although i have had a few people ask me to make them some custom pieces. If I ever find time i'm thinking about putting a few things up on etsy.com. we'll see what happens.

check out our newest linked blog

Now you can link to Joanna's "african diaries" blog with the link to the right. Definitely take a look at the video on her site, VERY exciting!! And i've heard that Rachel and Chad have just started a blog too, so we'll add them soon as well.
by the way, here is something i saw while driving through downtown at 8:30 am on my way to work the other day. A woman in a very large, very elaborate fur coat, and a fur handbag, riding a bike down the street in the rain. P.s. her fur handbag was perched in the basket on the front of the bike. it required a double take. i had to be sure of what my eyes were seeing...

Haircut Day!

Finally, Haircut day is here! I love my new 'do. I've been hearing about this guy (my new permanent hair go-to guy) from everyone i know it seems. So, today was finally the day for my first appointment with him. Wow, this guy knows hair. it's exactly what i wanted :) So, now i'm sure i'll be getting mistaken for Posh spice all the time, again. ha ha Emigre may have gotten a pink bandana the last time she went to the spa, but i got the good haircut, i just hope i can make it look like this every day.