Last week Piper went on her first road trip. She did so good on the 7 hour drive to Burlington, Vermont. Papa had to travel there for work and was able to bring us with. We were more than happy to tag along since we missed him so much while he was in North Dakota for another work project earlier that week.

At first we were worried Piper was going to cry the entire car ride since she hasn't been a fan of her Peg Perego car seat. Surprisingly, she was a happy baby. We figured out that she's not a fan of short distance trips around a city. As long as I was seated next to her in the backseat, she was either sleeping or smiling and cooing at me.

Even though we were only there for 2 days, we enjoyed the mini vacation. It was nice to get out of the house and explore. Vermont is a very beautiful state. I hope we get another chance to go back there.

What I Love

octavio bird rattle {Blabla}

Piper's Closet

pirate tank {Misha Lulu}

7 Weeks Old

These were taken last month on Easter. Since we were dressed up for the day, we decided to take some of our first family pictures. It was so much fun and Piper was even enjoying it too. These are some of my favorites.
I love, love the last picture. Piper is just glowing with her papa. Can't believe she is my daughter. I heart my family so much.

Vintage Love

Little Queen toy sewing machine {Vintage Sams}

Piper's Closet

striped romper {The Children's Place}

(Mother's Day)

Sorry for my sudden disappearance. The last few months of my pregnancy I was very tired all the time and didn’t have any motivation to blog. I was going to delete my blog but lately I’ve had this itch to blog again so here I am.

And yes, I had my baby! A healthy beautiful girl name Piper Fern. Her birth story will soon to come. I feel so lucky to have her in my life. I am truly blessed. These last two months I have been busy learning how to be her mother. There’s not a day goes by that she teaches me something new about her and about myself. Just when I think we have a schedule formed, she surprises me. So majority of my time I tend to her needs.

For the last couple weeks she has been going to bed about the same time every night and giving me a couple hours to whine down, relax, and read a blog or two before I hit the hay. During this time, I plan to also make simple posts here and there of things that inspire me, things I love, and tidbits of my life. Hope you enjoy my return.

We’re starting to cross off the big items that we need for the baby from our buy list. We purchased a beautiful white crib and our bedding set from Babies R Us. We went with the adorable bunny meadow six piece set pictured below. I love it so much! The pattern is modern and will work great for ether a boy or girl.


The bunny mobile wasn't included in the set, but it was too cute to pass up and had to get it too!

About two years ago my husband, sister and I back packed through eighteen cites in Europe. It was such an amazing experience. I feel very lucky to have been able to do this. We lived from our backpacks for twenty days, so extra space for souvenirs was limited. I made just enough room for two small keepsakes from each city.

The other day I came across my travel journal and a few souvenirs I had forgotten about. One of them a postcard of Vincent van Gogh's painting, A Wheat Field, from the National Gallery museum in London. It’s too nice of a painting to be tucked away, so I decided to get a frame for it the other day. Now it sits so pretty in my living room.

Organize Your Cleaning Schedule: Week 3

My least favorite thing to do is clean. I wish it wasn’t. I feel a clean home is a happy home. Every once and awhile my husband and I give our place a good deep cleaning. Afterwards we try so hard to keep it that way, but it never seems to last. In a matter of days it’s messy again. And we don’t even have kids yet! Yikes!

This week focuses on your cleaning schedule. Most of the goals gear towards involving your family to help complete them. My favorite is to write down jobs on small pieces of papers and stick them in a jar. Each day have a child pick a chore from the jar and complete the task. I think this would definitely make chores fun for the entire family. The vintage blue mason jar pictured above would be perfect to hold those small pieces of papers. Also to encourage and motivate your kids have them place a sticker on a chore chart once they have completed their task. Who does not love to add stickers to the mix?!

Surprisingly, most of the remaining goals Matt and I kind of already do. We just need to keep up with it more on a daily basis. I can just imagine how disastrous our place will be once the baby arrives. Maybe it's a good thing that we don't know many people in the area and won't have to worry about any surprise guests.

31 weeks

The weeks are flying by and we're getting more and more excited everyday to meet our little peanut. These last few months we've constantly discussed baby names. Recently, we've finalized our boy and girl name. Our girl name has been a favorite to us for quite some time, but we were undecided on the middle name until now. We thought we were sure on our boy's name but changed it last minute. Both names are perfect!

Lately, I've been feeling very tired. My motivation to complete anything is at a zero. I'm having a hard time to even keep up with my blog. I haven't completed much from my to-do list that I created months ago, but I'm not going to worry about it too much. Either way our little baby will have everything it needs and more. It has two loving parents waiting for its arrival.

During my pregnancy, I've tried keeping my spending on maternity clothes at a minimum. This way I can splurge a little more on the baby's adorable toys, clothes, books, etc. For the most part, it's been really easy. I went through my exsisting wardrobe and selected tops and bottoms that are stretchy friendly and packed the rest away for the time being. This allowed me to see what I have to work with and what I need to add to my wardrobe. I hardly needed any dress wear, because I'm currently not working. When I was in school, I was barely showing yet and wore my pre-pregnancy sweat pants almost daily. And now that I'm taking a break from school and lounging at home, I really have no reason to get all dolled up. With the exception of the weekends when Matt and I run errands and to take my updated belly bump pictures.

I do have a few maternity pieces that were my favorites these past few months...

The BeBand is a great invention. I used this so much during my first trimester. It allowed me to wear my pre-pregancy jeans comfortably until about my fifth month. I'll be using it again after the baby is born since losing the baby weight doesn't happen over night.

I LOVE these Old Navy full-panel skinny jeans. They are so comfortable and stylish. If I wasn't wearing sweat pants, I was wearing these. Unfortunately, they started becoming uncomfortable around my sixth month when my belly outgrew the panel.

I can't forget to give credit to these roll panel yoga pants from Old Navy. I have the gray and black pair and they are so comfy.

I'm impressed with Old Navy's maternity section. I rarely shopped there before I was pregnant. And, there selection of baby clothes are adorable and affordable as well. Looks like the store has become a fast favorite of mine.

I've enjoyed watching my baby's book collection expand these last few months. Matt and I love to read and we plan to share our love for reading to our new little guy or gal. There's so many great children's books out there too. It's also been fun going back in time and rereading some of my favorite childhood stories.

Recent additions to our baby's book collection include:

Love You Forever is one of my favorites. It's a really sweet classic story.

This collection of Sesame Street board books are so colorful. I just love them. And I found them in the dollar section of Target...bargain buy!

What better way to introduce our home state of Minnesota to the baby. I picked up a copy the last time I was home visiting.

The Belly Button Book! is a very adorable board book. Love this find!

Pat the Bunny is another all-time classic. I love its touch and feel feature.

Organize Your Schedule: Week 2

This week's goals focus on your daily schedule and tasks. I can be the queen of to-do lists. Sometimes I make too many of them and find the little scraps of paper and post-its scattered throughout my place. The book suggests to only make them in your planner, something I need to work on. Also, there's a guide to how you should sort your tasks by importance, something I need to work on as well. I love to make them but have a problem actually completing the tasks in a timely order. I need to learn to make more realistic deadlines to fit my lifestyle.

I'm a little old school and still prefer using the type of planner pictured above versus my BlackBerry for all my appointments. Right now I'm using a simple weekly planner from DayMinder. Without it, I feel overwhelmed and stressed. This handy little book keeps me organized and puts me at a ease. It's going to be even more useful once the little guy or gal arrives too.

Style by Lauren Conrad is a book on make-up and fashion that I very much enjoyed reading from start to finish. I normally don't buy or read many style books, because I feel they become outdated so fast. Trends are changing constantly that I would rather get the latest fashion and make-up tips from magazines. But I adore Lauren's simple and fresh look that I had to read and have it.

After reading this book, it has inspired me to...


...give red lipstick a try. I wore my ruby red lips on several different occasions during the holiday season, and I would have to say that I loved the look. I'm wondering why I never tried this classic lipstick color before. I guess I didn't think I could pull it off. It made my face pop out nicely in my photos too. There are about a zillion different shades of red to choose from, I went with L'oreal's True Red.

...be brave and try liquid eyeliner on my top eyelid. I normally use pencil eyeliner on my bottom lid only. In high school, I stopped using eyeliner on my top lid because of once reading that it makes your eyes appear smaller, which is not what I wanted. For the past month, I have been wearing liquid liner on the top and not the bottom. It took awhile for me to get the application down, but I'm liking it. If anything, they make my eyes stand out more. I'm not too crazy for Revlon's Colorstay liquid eye pen, so I'm planning to try another kind.

...wear a black blazer with jeans and a casual tee. I really think it makes a nice bold statement to an outfit. Unfortunately, I'm having the hardest time finding the right blazer cut. The boyfriend blazer is so popular right now, but it's not the look I'm going for. I'm trying to find the shrunken blazer, like the one pictured above from J.Crew. However, the very few that I have found are way out of my price range. I'm crossing my fingers that I find one soon.

After my doctor's appointment the other day, I found these adorable sock monkey babies at Target. They're so cute! I couldn't resist adding one to Baby Lindstrom's collection of plush toys.

The baby's due date is about 10 weeks away now. I've been feeling so many mixed emotions. When I think of my little baby, I feel overwhelmed with excitement, and other times I feel frighten when I think of the delivery. I plan to have a natural birth with no pain medication. In preparation, I've been reading informational books and birthing stories from other blog moms that I follow. These ladies have given me inspiration that I can do it! I also hope after Matt and I complete our birthing classes in February, my concerns and worries of the delivery process will be put at ease.

Over the weekend, we ordered an adorable white crib. We plan to order the car seat and stroller within the next few weeks too. Since I found out I was expecting, I've been slowly collecting a pile of gender neutral baby clothes and toys in my closet. This weekend I went through the pile of baby clothes and carefully folded each tiny outfit and placed them neatly in a basket. It's becoming so surreal.

mmm so yummy in my tummy! I can still taste the butternut squash soup that's pictured above. I love homemade soups! They're my absolute favorite and it seems like Baby Lindstrom enjoys them as well. Matt recently picked up a cookbook with more than 120 soup recipes!! That's a lot of soups! I can't wait to try them all.

Organize Your Mind: Week 1

Way back in November I mentioned about an organizational book that is broken down by weekly checklists. It helps you organize your life, your living space and more. My goal was to complete the book before the baby is born and blog about my weekly progress; however, starting this project a few weeks before school finals was not a smart move...didn't even get to week 1, ha! So, I'm making a second attempt at it and what better time then the beginning of a new year. There's 52 weeks to the book, so I won't be able to finish it before the baby is born, but I can get a good start on it and then see how it goes from there. Here's week one...

This week's goals were very simple. It focuses on me and my well-being. Since the school semester came to an end, I have definitely been getting enough sleep, if not more. This I know will soon change once the baby is born, so I'll soak it up now. I seem to be already doing the other goals...make to-do lists, journal or blog, limit the amount of TV you watch, etc.

However, I feel I could be exercising more. In the evenings with Matt, I walk on the treadmill or lift small weights in the gym that we have free access to. Before I was pregnant and when we lived in California, I enjoyed participating in cardio workouts at 24 Hour Fitness. Even though I'm already in my third trimester, I don't think it's too late to order the above DVD. It would have been nice to have it in the beginning of my pregnancy since the workouts accommodate to your trimester. I plan to have more kids, so I'm sure it will get it's use.

Below is our wedding announcement that was in the newspaper of our hometown.



Jennifer Wigdahl and Matthew Lindstrom of Buffalo, New York were married August 14, 2010 at Carlos Creek Winery in Alexandria.

Jennifer is the daughter of Delia and the late Vernon Wigdahl of Alexandria. She is a 2002 graduate of Jefferson High School (JHS) in Alexandria and is attending the University at Buffalo, where she plans to graduate in 2012.

Matthew is the son of Harvey Lindstrom of Carlos and Jamie Henderson of Carlos. He is a 2001 graduate of JHS and a 2010 graduate of San Diego State University. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 2001 to 2005. He is a civil engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Buffalo.

The couple’s attendants included William Hayden, Heidi Wigdahl, McKenzie McKay, Melanie Penalosa, Cody Lindstrom, Joe Lindstrom, Laine Lindstrom, Audianna Henderson, Richard Zastrow ands Gregory Vollan.

For Christmas, my mother sent me some cash to spend on whatever I'd like. So, I made my first purchase in 2011 on myself. I went with this super cute tweed fedora from Urban Outfitters. Like I've said before, it's not as fun shopping for me as it is for the baby right now. But, I'm excited about this hat! Matt's not too thrilled on this style, but I know I can make it work into my wardrobe. I already know it's going to be the perfect accessory to a casual outfit.

Smith's Rosebud Salve is my new favorite beauty product! My lips literally drink it and scream for more! I normally use Burt's Bees, but since moving to a colder region, it hasn't been working these days. I'm still in awe that I've never heard of this gloss until now, and a tin of it is only six dollars at Sephora...worth every penny! Your lips will thank you.

Let it Snow

I'm rockin' my new winter gear and ready for the inches of snow Western New York is known for. It also happens to be my first winter in five years. However, it's January, and I've only seen a few flakes hit the ground and then disappear within that same day. If anything, my home state of Minnesota has been hit harder with snow storms this winter. The picture of me above was taken in November during our visit home. As I write this, it's currently snowing in Buffalo. I hope it continues through the night and doesn't stop. It would be nice to have that snowed-in feeling but with how mild temperatures have been, I'm sure it will all be melted by morning.

Happy New Year!

My resolutions for the coming year are simple:

1. Worry less

2. Eat healthy

3. Spend wisely

4. Read more