1. Be more patient
2. Embrace change
3. Find a creative way to continue to document my life, especialy as my family grows from 2 to 3
4. Don't sweat the small stuff.
5. Waste less, spend less, want less
6. Focus on the big picture
7. Be the best mother I can be

I realized this past weekend that it's been a while since I shared pieces of the nursery. The last time you saw the nursery there were only small pieces, some of which have actually been replaced. Here's a little sneak peek at what it's shaping up to be as of late, complete with hand-me-downs and some homemade artwork.

Looking back on my trip to Honolulu, I wish I had taken a little more time to myself. I don't think it would have been an issue if while we were all gathered around the pool, I stepped out on my own for an hour.


As an introvert I literally crave alone time, even from those closest to me.This is not something I am ashamed of, as I truly believe there is no reason to be. I love being around friends and family, but I also love the alone time that comes after it. So, Honolulu. I wish I had stolen some moments for myself - found a quiet spot on the beach, or sat out on the hotel room balcony - because now I'm back home and back in the thick of the mess that I left behind, feeling trapped and running out of patience with the status quo.

Before I go any further lets get the obvious out of the way: yes, i'm sure that all you been-there-done-it mom's are laughing at me right now, but I never claimed to be a pro when it comes to babies. In fact, I've told my husband a few (hundred) times now that because of his 8-years-younger sister, he probably has more experience with babies than I do. So, now that that's out of the way....

What goes in a diaper bag? Well, opinions vary; mostly because some mom's like to keep things to a minimum, and others are packing as though they are going to be gone for three weeks at a time. Judging by the state of my purses that I carry, I think I will probably fall somewhere in between, maybe  tipping a little more towards the apocalypse-type packing.

One thing is for sure: when I first began my search for a diaper bag I quickly found out that what I really wanted was a bag that I could use a a diaper bag, but didn't scream that it was one. I wanted something that was functional, but still stylish so that I'd be happy carrying it with me everywhere. Also important, was that it was something my husband wouldn't be embarrassed to carry around if need be.

What we decided on came as a surprise, because I found it at a Quiksilver store while we were on vacation in Honolulu. I spotted it the first day, pointed it out to my husband and said I would sit on it for a while and think it through. Needless to say I thought about it every day we were there, so the day before we packed up for home we went back and bought it.




Now that we have the bag - and four more months until my due date - I have time to think about what needs to go inside. Here is what I have come up with so far (not counting my personal items such as wallet, keys, cell phone, etc):

• Diapers: D'uh!
• Baby wipes
• Anti-bacterial hand sanitizer 
• A foldaway changing pad
• A small tube of diaper-rash cream
• Burp cloths
• Receiving blanket
• Nursing pads
• An extra change of clothes
• Cover up for breast feeding
• Babys bottle
• At least one toy or comfort object (I had a blankie when I was younger)
• A bib
• Two pacifiers
• Plastic bags for sealing and tossing dirty diapers or for taking home soiled clothes

Bonus items:

• A business card with my name, address, and phone number, in case the bag gets lost
• An extra shirt for mama for those unexpected spit-ups

I have to say that I think this is a pretty good start. Naturally, I'd love to hear some opinions from all you mom's out there!

I've been beginning to feel a little under the weather, which has come as a surprise seeing as I've been sleeping + eating well. In fact, my appetite has taken a big turn and I'm probably eating a little too well, if you know what I mean!

I think I'm going to blame it on the time of the year + the drop in the weather (in the mornings and evenings, because lets be honest; the days have been beautiful). So for the next few days I'm going to try and take it easy, which of course made me think of all the things I love to do when I'm feeling sick.

- drink plenty of tea + hot chocolate.

- watch silly shows and movies on netflix

- make + eat plenty of soup

- enjoy leftovers

- write in my journal

seeing as i'm pregnant and there isn't much I can take to help out with the cold i'm just trying to continue to eat well + get plenty of sleep.

i hope everyone's work week goes better than mine!

I've been delayed in posting this what with the vacation and everything else, so I'm a little overdue in announcing that we're having a boy!



































Dom and I are both very excited to be welcoming a little man into the family, and because I'm sure that many of you are curious about names, I'll fill you in: my husband is Dom III, so we will be passing down the name, making this baby Dom IV.

Last night I dreamt that I was back home in Canada going to the church I used to attend when I was younger. I was planning to sing with the choir but twenty minutes before mass the choir director told me I needed to perform a flute solo because their flutist had come down with the flu and had called in last minute. I immediately began panicking because – while I did play flute for many years – I hadn’t picked it up in at least six years. I wasn’t even sure that I remembered all of the keys. I wasn’t really given a choice as to whether or not I wanted to play so I began reading over the music and practicing the best I could but I soon found out that not only did I not remember some of the keys, I couldn’t even recall how to read the music very well. I began to get visibly upset and about five minutes before I was to go on stage I ran up to the choir director with the intention of telling her that I would not be playing. Right as I was about to burst into tears I woke up.

I know what this dream was really representing.

Yesterday afternoon I admitted to my husband that I’m scared to death about giving birth, and that’s the truth. But I know that what is waiting for us on the other side of that is our baby, our family, and I try to focus on that. And even more so, I am trying to accept that it is perfectly normal for me to feel scared; "Bravery is the capacity to perform properly even when scared half to death."

Well, it's hard to believe that it's here already, but I'm 20 weeks today, at the halfway mark!


























Late, late Saturday night we head to the airport to fly out to Honolulu for five days and I couldn't be more excited or more in need of a break! Like many many women out there I struggled through weeks and weeks of horrible morning sickness that lasted all day long, and I've been busting my hump at work all week long too, so I'm more than ready to get out of Vegas and relax with no schedules or deadlines or emails!

Happy hump day everyone and congratulations to Barack for being re-elected! I'm a proud Canadian living in the U.S. today!

Make sure to come back later this week as I will be revealing the baby's gender!

I've got to say: I'm having a lot of fun building up this nursery from scratch. You've seen pictures of the room, so you know that we really do have a blank canvas to work with. Since we're waiting a little longer on most of the bigger purchases (the crib, rocker etc) I've been able to really focus my attention on the little details - and HELLO! the little details are often what make a room!! The art, the colors, the textures... I'm dreaming of how they will all come together.










If you don't already follow me on instagram @racheldelgrosso, be sure to add me as I tend to show a lot more of my daily life on there.

I wasn't even yet pregnant when I began day dreaming about what the nursery would look like. From the moment we moved into this house in October 2011 this room was kept empty, knowing it was being reserved for a baby's room. When were trying to get pregnant I once found myself sitting in the middle of the empty room touching my stomach and whispering aloud to no one in particular: please. please. And someone listened.

We have a long wait as of yet - at least it feels that way right now - but we will need all of the time we can get in order to not only prepare in the sense of buying a crib, researching daycares, etc, but also to wrap our heads around the fact that we are going to be parents.

To be honest, there's probably going to be a lot of baby talk on the blog for the next foreseeable future. I thought that one of the most fun and exciting ways to start off would be to show you the before photos of the room.

Well friends, the news is out.

I have a little person under my shirt who is expected sometime around March 27, 2013.

I've been doing a lot of thinking since my last post about opening up more and being real with myself. Thank you everyone for your comments; they have all given me plenty to think about.


I've spent the past couple weeks thinking about my childhood and everything since (if I'm doing this at 28 imagine what I will be like when I hit the big 3-0....), and while I can't yet quite put into words how I'm feeling about everything I have made some realizations, mostly about changes I would like to make in my life. Are you ready?

1. Cooking - My mother is a great cook, something that I now realize I took for granted growing up. These days I think often about her homemade soups that she would throw together with anything leftover in the fridge, or the zucchini bread she would make and the way it made the kitchen smell for hours. I'm not a bad cook, but I'd like to be more like my mother some day in the sense that she could look in the cupboards and whip up a great dinner with whatever we had on hand.
2. Sewing - Again, my mother is a whiz at sewing and yes, looking back I wish that I had taken advantage of learning from her while I could because now I think of how many little projects I would love to take on (I still dream of making black and white striped curtains) but can't because I don't know how to sew. Of course, there is still plenty of time to learn, and I intend on doing so.
3. Photographing Life - I know that I talk about this one a lot and there's a reason it keeps coming up; I start and then it fades off. I want to be able to look back one day and see not the big moments (birthdays, etc) but what my every day looked like; a new recipe that I tried, the bedroom with it's new grey accent wall, dinners outside - I want to remember it all.
4. Family - I moved away from all of my family friends in January 2011 and I would be lying if I didn't say that some days are a struggle. I've been telling myself that I need to take advantage of the new family that I have here more, and I am determined to do just that. I mean, I always wondered what it would be like to have a sister, and now I have one just a 15 minute drive away. And maybe I miss my dad tremendously (because I'm a total daddy's girl) but I have another father just across town to visit with. I need to accept that it's okay to lean on them as if they were the family I was born in to.

These are not dramatic changes, in fact they are changes that I can make little by little, day by day which somehow in my mind makes them more easily attainable.

So here I go.

This is what I want out of my summer:

• Please tell me that know who Ali Edwards is. Her Week in the Life project is just so incredibly inspiring, and each year that she does it I get more and more determined to do it myself one day.
• Do you follow the Habit Blog? It's full of daily photos capturing pieces of every day life.
• These photographs from Elsie's vacation in Hawaii make me really miss our honeymoon. Since that trip to Maui I've known I want to go back again one day.

I've been living in my head these past few weeks, consumed by anything and everything... until yesterday when it just kind of... clicked.

My mind is full of clutter.

And what do you do with clutter? You sort through it and get rid of what you don't need, careful to shelve anything of importance.

For too long now I have had this idea of what my life should look like, and this idea has been far too heavily influenced by the blogs that I read and the photos that I look at every single day.

Well, no more.

I'm taking a break. Stepping back. Rethinking things, and then rethinking them all over again.

I'll be back, eventually. Until then, only my journal knows.

I don't know what it is about typography, but it has always appealed to me; so it's really no wonder that I began incorporating it into the design on my home (here and here, for example). A couple months ago now I had pinned a cute letter idea that I knew I could do myself, and I finally got around to completing it this past weekend.

1. Left Neglected by Lisa Genova - "Sarah Nickerson is busy trying to have it all. One morning while racing to work and distracted by her cell phone, she looks away from the road for one second too long. In that blink of an eye, all the rapidly moving parts of her over-scheduled life come to a screeching halt. After a brain injury steals her awareness of everything on her left side, Sarah must retrain her mind to perceive the world as a whole. In so doing, she also learns how to pay attention to the people and parts of her life that matter most."
2. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand - "On the surface, it is a story of one man, Howard Roark, and his struggles as an architect in the face of a successful rival, Peter Keating, and a newspaper columnist, Ellsworth Toohey. But the book addresses a number of universal themes: the strength of the individual, the tug between good and evil, the threat of fascism. The confrontation of those themes, along with the amazing stroke of Rand's writing, combine to give this book its enduring influence."
3. If You Have to Cry, Go Outside by Kelly Cutrone - "In her trademark, no-bullshit style, [Kelly] combines personal and professional stories to share her secrets for success without selling out. Raw, hilarious, shocking, but always the honest truth, If You Have to Cry, Go Outside calls upon you to gather up your courage like an armful of clothes at a McQueen sample sale and follow your soul where it takes you. Whether you're just starting out in the world or looking to reinvent yourself, this book will be the spark you need to figure out what you have to say to the world—and how you're going to say it."
4. Bossypants by Tina Fey - "Tina Fey had a dream that one day she would be a comedian on TV. From her youthful days as a vicious nerd to her tour of duty on Saturday Night Live; from her passionately halfhearted pursuit of physical beauty to her life as a mother eating things off the floor; from her one-sided college romance to her nearly fatal honeymoon -- from the beginning of this paragraph to this final sentence. Tina Fey reveals all, and proves what we've all suspected: you're no one until someone calls you bossy."
5. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky - "This haunting novel about the dilemma of passivity vs. passion marks the stunning debut of a provocative new voice in contemporary fiction. This is the story of what it's like to grow up in high school. More intimate than a diary, Charlie's letters are singular and unique, hilarious and devastating. We may not know where he lives. We may not know to whom he is writing. All we know is the world he shares. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it puts him on a strange course through uncharted territory. Through Charlie, Stephen Chbosky has created a deeply affecting coming-of-age story, a powerful novel that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller coaster days known as growing up."
6. The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins - "In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were defeated. As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised event called, "The Hunger Games," a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the Games. The terrain, rules, and level of audience participation may change but one thing is constant: kill or be killed."
7. Rework by Jason Fried & David Heinemeir Hansson - "Most business books give you the same old advice: Write a business plan, study the competition, seek investors, yadda yadda. Rework shows you a better, faster, easier way to succeed in business. Read it and you'll know why plans are actually harmful, why you don't need outside investors, and why you're better off ignoring the competition. The truth is, you need less than you think. You don't need to be a workaholic. You don't need to staff up. You don't need to waste time on paperwork or meetings. You don't even need an office. Those are all just excuses. With its straightforward language and easy-is-better approach, Rework is the perfect playbook for anyone who’s ever dreamed of doing it on their own. Hardcore entrepreneurs, small-business owners, people stuck in day jobs they hate, victims of "downsizing," and artists who don’t want to starve anymore will all find valuable guidance in these pages."
8. Before I Go To Sleep by S.J. Watson - "As I sleep, my mind will erase everything I did today. I will wake up tomorrow as I did this morning. Thinking I’m still a child. Thinking I have a whole lifetime of choice ahead of me. . . ." Memories define us. So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep? Your name, your identity, your past, even the people you love—all forgotten overnight. And the one person you trust may be telling you only half the story. Welcome to Christine's life."