Graduation Present... to myself

So today I bought myself a little graduation present... a brand spank'n new vehicle! More precisely: a bike, bought with graduation gift money. We currently own one car and do not want another, so we are very grateful that our new home is only one and a half miles from my work.  Thus, I will be able to stroll in through downtown Montgomery on this bad boy...

...sweaty but sleek. And on rainy days I'm sure my wonderful wife will give me a lift. She'll just be grateful for what pedaling will do for my glutes. On that thought, I think bicycles are pretty brilliant: they use the age old technology of the wheel and gears to increase the efficiency and efficacy of man-power, which is not only free, but clean and renewable! Thankfully they are coming back into fashion as a serious mode of transportation.

Anyways, this bike has great customer reviews and has been ranked at the top for commuter bikes, plus it is gorgeous. What sealed the deal for me was, of course, the classic lines, the integrated bell and lights, and the avocado fenders... so I decided to go for it, even though I couldn't take it for a test ride.

Its expected delivery day is my first day of work. I was hoping to have a few free days to practice and regain my 5th grade biking skills, but I'll probably just go for it as soon as it comes in. Now all I need is a helmet, a new pair of Tom's, and a couple toddler bike seats for the kids.

Diploma!

I am officially done!  Today was my graduation commencement that sealed the deal. I am now a college grad with degrees in Architecture and Interior Architecture.

The only person more ready for this day to come than I was my fantastic wife. Since our marriage the summer after my freshman year, she has managed to give birth and care for two children, run our little business and only income, babydarling, all while putting up with my intensive architectural education. Amazing... even a few professors during the CADC reception this afternoon congratulated Brooke and told her how instrumental she has been. These last five years have been pretty intense, and exhausting... but I would not change anything.

The work has paid off.  Now I can be paid for my work, and we can enjoy being young parents... we are now off to new and exciting things. Wish us luck!

Pure Joy

I am so incredibly thankful to God for my family.  It is such a wonderful thing to hear the words, "Mommy, I love you" come from a two year old. I try to soak up the conversations that I have with my little boy.  Just last night he was handing me a "present" and I asked him what it was.  He said, "It's a Cindewella dwess for you, and I'm the prince.  I will dance with you."  I cherish those moments.

It's an amazing thing to have a tiny little babe depend completely on you.  To be able to make her laugh and gurgle when I blow raspberries on her tummy.  To watch her grow and change so much in such a little bit of time.  To see her eyes light up and a big smile come across her face when she sees her daddy and her big brother.

Ah, motherhood. Tis a pure joy.

When I got out of bed this morning and came into the kitchen, I found a jar with beautiful flowers and a card next to it. It was the sweetest and most special card I have ever received.  I didn't realize it right away, but when I went into to kiss Nick on the cheek to say thank you, he asked if I looked on the back of the card.  I turned over the card and it said "hennstudio."  My sweet sweet husband stayed up last night and handmade me this card.  When I read those words now, I can hear his voice reading them to me.  It means so much for a wife to have the approval of her loving husband.  Thank you, my love, for everything.

Almost Done

I am posting this from the digital resource lab in the Ralph Brown Draughon Library where I am working on my thesis book (which was supposed to be turned in at 1:00 today... oops). Needing a little break from staring at InDesign, I came across this picture on the class folder and thought I would share it. This was my climactic thesis presentation a couple weeks ago... fun.  I am at the end of a five-year saga.  I graduate in 9 days, and all I have to do is finish my thesis book (I just reached page 91), complete a design project for Parametric Modeling, begin/finish a full scale mock-up for an independent study, and reformat my boards into a competition entry. At least the end is near... and now I will get back to work.

Flat

This semester I've been doing an independent study with one of my favorite architecture professors. The subject matter was completely open to what I desired to investigate, so I turned it into an opportunity to design and develop a product to add to our now latent shop, HENNstudio.
To include a research component, I began by assembling a quick collection of flat-packed designed objects.  Flat-packing is of interest to me because our business completely relies on shipping.  Flatness has both economic and environmental benefits for shipping.  The mobile we sell on babydarling, for example, has a shipping thickness of about 1/2 inch.

For the research, I was less interested in IKEA-type assemblies, and more interested in maneuvers such as tailoring, bending, and folding.  Instead of relying on a multitude of small parts and hardware, these take advantage of material properties and rely on very few and simple steps for the customer to turn the 2-dimensional cutout into a spatial object.  I thought I would share a few fun designs:

This is a spread from the catalog I intended to produce... I decided it wouldn't leave enough time for design. This is one of my favorites: the Piegato designed by Matthias Ries Design Office in Berlin.  The powder coated sheet of laser-cut steel is shipped completely flat. The customer then bends by hand, along perforations, the desired number of shelves with ease. The entire process, including mounting with simple screws, takes only a few minutes.

Above are a couple other examples of products that use bending. I adore the Real Good Chair.  The powder-coated steel ships flat and folds along laser-cut lines to create a dynamic and comfortable chair. "As skinny as a supermodel, yet far more sturdy." There is a fantastic little documentary on the chair that I would recommend.

Above are just a few more fun designed objects I happened to come across. Enjoy.
1. belkiz feedaway : portable feeding chair
2. unless coral lampshade
3. sara paculdo's flatchair
4. fuchs+funke's papton chair
5. josh jakus's floppy basket
6. fozzils

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

I've been wanting to work on some new pictures of the kids to put up in our new apartment. We are going to have a whole lot more wall space than we do now in our little trailer, so I'm excited for us to take on the challenge of finding art/taking pictures to put up when we move in! Here's a few of my new favorites.

We have a new niece!

Our little niece Casey Grace was born this morning and we can't wait to meet her! She weighs 10 lbs. 11 oz.! We'll be heading to FL next weekend to visit Nick's family. Nick's sister Alicia and her husband now have three daughters, Alyssa, Brianna, and Casey. ABC...cute! So now Noah and Olive have a new baby cousin! Olive and Casey are only three and a half months apart. It will be fun to watch them all grow up.

We've moved...

...not to Montgomery, yet, but from wordpress to blogspot. We originally chose to blog with wordpress because it seemed to be more customizable. Wordpress's downfall for us, however, was that it does not support Google Friend Connect with which the rest of the blog world stays connected. I actually emailed wordpress to ask them about adding it as a widget, and they said they were thinking about it. Soon after, they added one that would allow people to subscribe through email... I guess that was their solution. Well, here we are. We can now follow and be followed and finally feel like part of the blog community. The page is a little cleaner and less chubby now anyways. I've copied and pasted the posts from wordpress... but comments were left behind (sorry to those who commented). Anyways, enjoy the "new" blog.

I’ve never won anything before!

One of my favorite bloggers is Marta. I started reading her blog a while back when she contacted me about doing a giveaway from my shop as part of her holiday giveaway collection back in December. The giveaway was for a giraffe and a set of party hats. It was lots of fun and I was honored that she chose my shop to be part of it.

She’s now doing a mother’s day giveaway and I thought it would be fun to enter. She has tons of readers so I knew it was a long shot. For yesterday’s giveaway she asked that we comment on what we love about spring. I said, “What I love about this spring in particular is the fact that my husband is graduating from architecture school and we are moving to a new city. Exciting new adventures.” And, guess what? She chose me to win that giveaway! I was so excited this morning when I opened my email and saw that I had won!

What did I win, you might be wondering. Well, I won a $75 gift certificate to lisa leonard designs. I am so excited! I’ve already looked through her shop and am pretty sure that I’m going to choose this bracelet with my children’s names on it. Can’t wait! What a wonderful mother’s day gift!

new apartment = fun

It’s official! Well, almost. We still have to sign the lease, but we put a deposit on an apartment in downtown montgomery. Woo hoo! We are super excited about it and can’t wait to move in. And, one of the best parts about it is that nick will be able to ride his bike to work (note to self: get bike for nick). We will live only about a mile and a half away. We’ll also be able to WALK to a lot of fun places in downtown. one of our number one requirements in finding a place to live was walkability. Definition: a measure of how friendly an area is to walking. Check outwalkscore.com to see if the area you live in is walkable. Downtown montgomery isn’t exactly the best place for walking. There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done to make it more suitable for walking like bigger sidewalks and more narrow streets, but at least we’ll be able to walk and not have to drive everywhere. We’ll be close to several restaurants, the baseball stadium, and the riverwalk. And, there’s a cute little park near old alabama town which is just a few minutes away. I thought i’d share a few pictures of the new apartment. Keep in mind, the pictures were taken while someone else was living there, so that’s not our stuff in there. I like to look at the pictures and think about where we’re going to put our furniture and things. enjoy!

And the Winner Is…

Montgomery, Alabama!

The Henninger family is packing up and moving to the state capital. Nick just accepted a job offer from Seay, Seay, and Litchfield, an architecture firm that he interned with a couple of summers ago. We really feel like it’s where God is leading us at this time in our life. Nick is thinking pretty seriously about grad school in a couple of years. So, maybe Boston next? But, for now, we’re moving only an hour away!

We are excited though. We’re excited to see what God has in store for us there. Excited about meeting new people and living somewhere new and experiencing what a new city has to offer. I’ve already been googling things to do there and have come up with some pretty fun stuff!  They have a zoo which we’ll be getting an annual membership to. Oh, and by the way, I expect my Auburn friends to let me know if they come to town so we can get together! There’s also a splash pad by the riverwalk amphitheater which will be close to us since we’re planning on living in downtown. Have another loft apartment to go look at tomorrow. That’s a whole other story which I will be devoting a post to in the near future- the reasons why we want to live in downtown. But, for now, back to things to do in Montgomery. There are several fun museums and parks. I also have family there and several family friends. My three half brothers and their families live in the area. It’ll be fun for my kids to get to know their cousins better. And, I plan on visiting my auntie ceil for lunch dates. She’s not really related, but she lived next door to my grandparents for many years and she makes awesome healthy food!

We don’t have a moving date set yet, but we know it’ll be by June 1st. Nick graduates on the 14th of May and he’ll probably start work on the 17th, so we’re hoping to be moved in by then- which I’m now realizing is very soon!  It’s been a good 5 years here in Auburn- since we’ve been here we got engaged, got married, and had two babies! and we knew this day would come, but it is kind of bittersweet. We’ll miss our church family and our friends, but we won’t be far away.  We are so thankful that Nick has a job when many of the graduates from last year still don’t have jobs. God is good. The end.

Easter, Eggs, and the Hunt for a New Home

We had a very busy, fun-filled Easter weekend. It began with a  morning egg hunt on a lovely little farm. Then, a cute little friend’s second birthday party. And after that, apartment hunting in downtown Montgomery. Yes, Montgomery. More on that later…

Spring is in the Air

We’re enjoying the spring weather!

Two Months Old

My has time flown by! Our little Olive Jane is now 2 months old! She is growing and changing every day. She smiles a lot and is starting to coo and gurgle and “talk” to us. She loves to listen to her big brother Noah tell her stories about dinosaurs and spider man. She’s discovering her hands. She sleeps pretty much through the night (even though it’s with us!). She loves bath time and hates to get out.  And, she’s about to go on her first big road trip to Chicago! We’re so blessed to have her in our life.

Diaper Duty

We all know that changing diapers is part of having babies. Here is my big question of the day…Why, oh why don’t men’s bathrooms have changing tables? Granted I’ve never been in a men’s bathroom, but according to Nick there are never changing tables in the men’s bathroom! A thought just dawned on me…maybe he just tells me that so he doesn’t have to change the kids’ diapers when we’re out. No, he wouldn’t do that…I think.

But, seriously, I just don’t understand why. The modern day dad is much more involved with his children than he used to be. Nick does just as much of the child care as I do when he’s home. And, by the way, he is an absolutely wonderful husband and daddy. I hear stories about men who come home from work and plop down in front of the tv while mom continues to take care of the kids (even though that’s what she’s been doing all day) and cooks dinner, cleans, does laundry etc. I don’t know how women who are married to those kind of men make it.

Back to the dilemma. I realize that there are family bathrooms in some places, but they’re not that common. I really don’t mind having to change diapers while I’m out, but I think it would be nice to have the option for dad to change the diaper when we’re out of the house. Oh well. It’ll probably happen when my kids have their kids and I’ll say something like, “They didn’t have those when we were raising you guys and we were just fine.”

Life’s Changing Fast

It’s been awhile since our last post. Guess that’s to be expected since life’s CRAZY right now and is about to get even more so. But, what’s new?

I’m realizing how quickly Nick’s graduation is coming up and keep wondering what’s the next step for us. Nick’s been applying to quite a few firms, but we keep hearing about how horrible the job market is right now. Nick just heard about another round of lay offs in the architecture world. I know how incredibly talented my husband is, but I also have to be realistic and know that he might join the slew of jobless college graduates. And yet, we are hopeful all the while. We’ve talked about how fun it would be to just move to Chicago, job or no job. We do have our business babydarling that could keep us afloat in the mean time. If we went ahead and moved there it would be a lot easier for Nick to pursue job opportunities. We’re heading that way next weekend for Nick to hopefully interview, or at least visit some of his favorite firms. Apartment hunting is also on the list of things to do. We’ll see what happens…

We take comfort in knowing that God has a plan for us and are really excited about this new phase of life!

Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Life as a Family of Four

Where to begin? It’s wonderful, exciting, joyful, scary, busy, exhausting, happy, amazing. We are truly blessed. As my mind tries to peer through the fog of the last few weeks and realize what just happened, I’m overtaken by the sweet moments we’ve had together as a family of four.

The first is when Noah came wide-eyed (even though it was almost 11 at night and he’d been sleeping) into the delivery room just half an hour after Olive was born. He was so excited to meet his baby sister. He climbed up onto the bed with me and couldn’t take his eyes off her (that is, until he spotted the nurse’s latex gloves and just had to have some)!

The second is when we came home from the hospital. We all rode home together in our little car. Noah was being so sweet, and Olive slept the whole way home. Then, we walked up the steps and into our “humble home on wheels” just the 4 of us.  Noah was so excited to show Olive his room and his toys. It was special.

We’ve had some rough moments too- Noah had so much attention from grandparents the first 2 weeks that when they all left he apparently forgot everything we taught him the last 2 and a half years. But, now that we’ve had some time to adjust he’s done really well. He’s been really sweet to Olive the whole time though- and protective of her. When other people hold her he usually gives a scowl and says, “That’s my baby sister” in a gruff voice. It’s kind of sweet, actually.

The last few weeks have been sort of a blur, but I’ll never forget the very true words that someone once told me, “It’s amazing how your love can grow.”

Meet Olive!

Recap of 2009

Here’s a little recap of 2009 for us:

• Went to Kentucky for cousin’s New Year’s Eve wedding
• Noah was ring bearer- 15 months
• Visited friends in Cincinnati
• Nick turned 22
• Noah said, “I love you” for the first time-18 months
• Took Noah camping and hiking in Pine Mountain, Georgia
• Found out we were expecting baby #2
• Visited Chicago
• Celebrated our 3^rd wedding anniversary
• Nick completed his interior architecture thesis program
• Found out it’s a girl!
• Visited Saint Louis
• Nick began 5^th and final year of architecture
• Noah turned 2!
• Went to Kentucky for Henninger family reunion
• Brooke turned 23
• Noah became Peter Pan
• Nick finished his second-to-last semester
• Spent Christmas at our home here in Auburn

It has been a busy year for us as I’m sure it has been for you. We are very excited for what’s coming in 2010. Here’s to a blessed new year!

Fresh

The new shop is up!… well, it has been for about a week or so now. We started it because we needed something a little more flexible than “babydarling” for any non-baby items we may want to make. So far “HENNstudio” only offers two basic items: fabric bookmarks and pen pouches. You may be wondering what exactly a pen pouch is. It is something I developed about a year ago. Being an architecture student I am very particular about my drawing/sketching/writing utensils and these would fall out of my pocket and be lost, all the time. This pouch keeps my precious drawing utensils in order and together as one manageable unit, like a wallet… and like my wallet I never leave home without it! There are other things we’ve talked about making but we’ll see if we ever get around to it. And the shop is not doing too bad. We’ve had 5 sales – all pen pouches – and all possitive feedback. One person even wrote: “WOW….I couldn’t get my pens in this sweet pen pouch fast enough. You did a beautiful job making it. Great communication and fast delivery. I may have to have another one…it’s so darn cool. Many thanks!”… that was pretty exciting. Here’s a screenshot of my SOLD page.

We’re also in the process of adding some fresh items to babydarling. Just today we had a photo-shoot for a couple new crib sets.  We’ve decided that bumpers might be a little too intense for us to keep making (especially with the new baby on the way), so hopefully these new bumper-less sets will be well received.  Also, authorities on infant-safety now say that bumpers significantly increase the risk of SIDS, so these sets are a great option for those who feel uneasy about crib bumpers.

Anyways, the photo shoot went pretty well.  We rearranged our living room, assembled the crib, borrowed Noah’s mobile and mattress, and turned our little living room into a photography set.  We have more to do tomorrow, but here are the two sets we were able to add to the shop today.

This has been a nice break from schoolwork, but we have so much more to do before baby Olive gets here, including my portfolio and thesis book (that I should be working on right now).  A new baby is sure to slow things down…