weekend recovery.

be honest. we all need a little pick me up on a monday morning. whether you're digging your face out of your cereal bowl or trying to ignore tiny human boogers that were just wiped on your shirt. here are the happies i've found recently that gave me a merry little boost.

*best enjoyed with COFFEE.

1. have you seen the weird baby doppelgangers?

2. if dwight schrute quotes were motivational posters. so basically, the best thing ever.

3. i'm getting so excited and nervous for thanksgiving! i can't wait to try the Pioneer Woman's turkey roasting bliss this year since last year wasn't that awesome. i'm doing her turkey, her gravy, and her no-knead rolls. i am PSYCHED. also because my family will be here this year and i love having family for the holidays. last year was very lonely without everyone.

i'll probably be MIA until next weekend. preschool feast tuesday, family arrives wednesday, thanksgiving, black friday, christmas decorating, ice skating, cuddling. it's going to be a great week with lots of pictures to come!

this and that.

the girls have discovered the fun of hide-and-seek. genevieve likes hiding in the same one place over and over, or the last hiding place i used. i'm waiting for her to figure out the fun of creating something out of nothing. emmy, on the other hand, is a little cheat. she likes counting with the counter. standing at the wall with you with her eyes shut tight, but she gets bored after getting to 3 so she follows the hider to their spot. then runs back and leads the counter to the hider, shouting, "there-you-are!" CHEA.TER. it's really fun, though. they're so excited about it.

we recently started the tradition of waiting to put up christmas decorations until the day after thanksgiving. a quiet day after such a big one, digging through christmas boxes and running out for black friday shopping if we feel like it. it was really relaxing last year and i'm excited for this year. however, the lure of christmas is intoxicating this year! i was trying to stay away from the seasonal coffees, the christmas music, perusing the christmas sections at target, all of it. buttttttt i can't! i'm NOT decorating. scout's honor. that waits until the day after thanksgiving. but i'm cheating a little bit on the other things. we've been enjoying idina menzel's new holiday wishes album, surprisingly genevieve hasn't figured out that it's elsa's voice, and i had my first peppermint mocha of the season last week. i feel guilty but i'm trying to own the feeling instead. i love christmas! fall gets 3 months, why can't christmas get 1 1/2?? christmas has always been my favorite. it's one of the reasons kyle and i got married 4 days after christmas. probably why he proposed on christmas! the whole season is just magical.

genevieve has been saying really funny things lately. i think 4 is the doorway to the crazy kid imagination years. last week i was putting lotion on her skin, winter + eczema = a sad, itchy kid, and she told me that 2 of her red bumps weren't itchy because they were her boobies. "these are my boobies. they're little but when i'm a grown up they'll get really big. and then i'll have pricklies on my legs and i'll have to shave them. and it'll hurt but i won't cry because i'll be a grownup." ha! she slays me. i'm open about body parts with the girls, and it's interesting to see them register what's the same and what's different.

i booked my plane tickets for my 2nd girls trip to NC since we moved. the first one halfway counts since i came to finish packing my house and had a girls night out in the process, but this one is all about the ladies! i'm so excited! after the horror of our first few months in baltimore, things have leveled out and there's nothing really wrong about it up here, but it's very lonely. i'm very thankful for facebook and my marriage to my best friend, but girls need girl time. i miss girl time! i'm also feeling lucky because i'll be getting a little girl time with new acquaintances this weekend. friends are hard to come by as an adult. and they get harder the older your children get. and it seems i get more introverted the older i get and that's a whole new obstacle i was unfamiliar with.

i've been looking into photography classes locally recently. i hate that as a stay at home mom, my stereotypical answer is that i need something to do, but it is. i can get through the day usually with no problem. but i'm just so bored. i need something to challenge the part of my brain that makes me tick. cleaning house and being mommy gets old really fast. i love my babies and wouldn't go to work all day and leave them, i just need a little something to make me feel like an adult. like a person who is worth more than how often i clean sippy cups. we'll see if i find anything good and affordable.

thanks for hanging out through my random ramblings about life currently. sometimes it feels good to just let all those little thoughts and events out.

this year's christmas cards.

i have a love hate relationship with christmas cards. i want the picture to be just right and the design to be cute enough without being too expensive. it's a process haha.

it seems like all of the usual sites have gone up in price. even shutterfly is trying to charge upwards of $50 for 30 cards. that just seems nuts! that's a christmas present wasted on cards! so i'm trying something new this year. i don't know the quality of vistaprint but at this point i don't really care. i've got a 50% off coupon and it makes the cards less than $1 a piece! that's too good to pass up. so i'm hoping the pictures take the focus off of the paper quality.

i didn't love any of the vistaprint designs because i'm nit-picky. i love birdesign's shop and have used her stuff in the past so i ventured over there for a card template this year. we settled on this one.

we took the girls out a few weeks ago for some fall photos and i just couldn't land on one that fit the christmas card look, so we tried again last weekend!

we got some seriously cute ones.

i'm pretty happy with how they turned out and i'm excited to see the finished product in person. here's what the card will look like after i added our photos and tweaked the color a bit:

sweet, right? just enough happy to make you split a grin when you open the envelope. now i just hope the quality is passable. fingers crossed! ho ho ho!

christmas morning happies for moi.

while i'm prepping to take some more christmas card pictures of the girls, picking a christmas card to order, getting the house thanksgiving ready, planning the thanksgiving food schedule...i've been thinking about what would make me happy on christmas morning. that's not an un-fun job!

in some ways i just want general girly goodness but then there are a few specific things i'd love to have. of course, i just had a fantastic birthday -- minus the hair, but the idea that i was getting pampered was the good part, so i feel a little selfish actually thinking of more things. but here i go anyways!

earrings // camera // curling wand // speaker // popsugar musthave

i think of all of them, the earrings are the most spectacular. i only rate them over the musthave box because i've had the box all year so the earrings are a new spectacular thing to lust over. they come in the multicolored, gold sparkle and silver sparkle. i want all of them! they're way too expensive for mom earrings but just inexpensive enough that i'm tempted so on the wishlist it goes. aren't they pretty?

the fujifilm camera looks so fun! i'd rather print my instagram photos directly, but i'm not a stranger to carrying a camera around with me! it would be so fun with the girls.

i got my sister a curling wand for her birthday and i've been wanting my own ever since. i don't know how to use it, but kara certainly looks good using hers and i want to try!

and a little speaker since i'm always turning on pandora with the kids in the playroom or playing an audiobook for myself while i do the dishes or fold laundry.

in general, i'm loving painting my nails lately. it gives a little pep to my day to glitter a little. and since i'm a solid color shirt kind of girl, bib necklaces are what i've been craving to dress up my outfits these days. and last in the "in general" category are workout clothes, or giftcards for workout clothes. i've been going steadily the last few months(!) and while i don't necessarily see big differences, i'm working towards it and have started the habit successfully. and i've noticed a definite need in gear when i'm running around in the dark in the morning looking for clean workout pants.

and last but certainly not least, the popsugar musthave box. i have absolutely loved getting it each month and am going to be seriously sad when it's over. i wish the holiday box isn't $100 because i'd love to give them to everybody i know! i'm sure it'd be a great special edition box.

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so, that's the scoop on me! some are sweet, simple things i peruse at target while others are more what i window shop for. that's the fun of the christmas list!

weekend recovery.

or "the 2 videos that are so much freaking better than the original."

be honest. we all need a little pick me up on a monday morning. whether you're digging your face out of your cereal bowl or trying to ignore tiny human boogers that were just wiped on your shirt. here are the happies i've found recently that gave me a merry little boost.

*best enjoyed with COFFEE.


so, the world of disgusting overly-sexed television and music reached a new low with Nicki Minaj's Anaconda video recently. fortunately, some very hilarious and talented people put a spin on it to make it amazing.

beautiful alternative #1.




beautiful alternative #2.




that certainly started my monday off with a giggle and a grin. hope it did for you, too!

well that didn't go as planned.

well birthday weekend hair was a grand disaster.

i went in with my dorky, over-researched photo, talked at length about color and picked out strand colors and out i came with BLACK hair and about 6 tiny white strands that are supposed to pass as highlights but just look like grey hair. my cute angled bob is actually the mom-bob. it's longer in the back than the front and very frumpy looking. i didn't need any help there.

and it was $200. i wouldn't normally harp on the price if it was a good deal but that's a lot of money to pay for a disaster. if i bought a phone that was 100% not what i was supposed to get i'd return it asap.

i talked to the manager today about fixing it and she actually tried to get me to agree with a half-laugh that it's much easier to go darker than lighter so this will be near impossible. i had to remind her that i paid $200 for them to destroy my hair so it's not exactly funny. nor do i have the time to come in week by week to fix it in sections.

and the manager talked like she was chewing gum and talked out her nose, much like you'd expect from the manager of a hair salon. it was annoying. mostly it was annoying that i had to talk to her in the first place.

so i had to have a very grown-up confrontational phone call today, something that makes me supremely uncomfortable. and now that i've had another good cry about it, i'm just grumpy.

the herrrr.

mama is getting her groove back! and we'll call that groove Birthday Weekend. i've been gifted clothes, a massage and a very much needed hair cut and color! my first salon color since...middle school? yeah, i'm pretty excited. my hair is box brassy blonde and long like a horse's tail. IT'S TIME.

so as far as i can tell, i want a light brown/neutral color with maybe a few highlights. and a longer bob with nice layers and only just slightly stacked in the back. i'm so FLIPPIN excited. my hair is so heavy now and it's in a ponytail most of the time. i hate that because i really hate what a wet ponytail looks like on my head. hopefully i'll have just enough for a gym ponytail and just little enough for a quick blowdry on gym days when emmy watches elmo while i shower like a time bandit.

i have no idea if that color would look good on me and i'd like to go more chocolate but baby steps. actually going in there and talking to a person about my head is scary enough. i stutter and make sound effects and giggle inappropriately when i'm nervous so i figure i'll come out with a purple mohawk if i talk too much. fingers crossed i look semi-like these photos tomorrow night!

emmy turns 2!!

since we're still settling in with baltimore, we didn't have a big party for either of the girls. luckily we have awesome family so mom, jerry and susan flew up for a little mini party weekend for the big girl.

TWO. she's two!!

turning two, emmy loves ketchup, fruit and chocolate. she hates vegetables, pizza and casseroles that mommy makes. she loves elmo and likes mickey mouse, daniel tiger, tinkerbell and the disney princesses. she's just started getting interested in coloring and painting, she's getting really into blocks and loves carrying around little people and similarly sized character toys. she always takes her shoes off in the car, loves the bath, blows bubbles in her drinks and regularly rubs her food in her hair. she's so fun!



she was so excited when we brought the cake out and started singing! big big smiles all around. and now that we've been singing happy birthday all weekend she's trying to sing it to herself haha.







emmy's party was sweet and simple. and genevieve took so much pride in picking out her present and wrapping it and making the card. i was getting worried about jealous feelings but it was all for nothing. genevieve loved celebrating her sister, and who can complain when there's cake??

we picked up an emmy-sized elmo balloon for her birthday and girlfriend is hanging out with it like it's her boyfriend. she kisses it and carries it around. she even knocks it to the ground and gets on top of it hahaha. so now i know all that she needs for christmas is a balloon friend. ;)



we took emmy to her 2 year checkup the next day and she's growing very much like her sister. slightly above average weight and height and a huge head. the doctor said she was going to ask if this was abnormal for her except that i started laughing about the fact that they're always at 90-100% with their heads. gotta hold those big brains! what got me was that in weight and height she's not too far from genevieve. genevieve was 3 ft at 3 years old and is just barely over that now. and emmy is just barely under 3 ft currently. they're going to be wearing the same sizes sooner than i expected, i think!

the only thing she didn't pass perfectly at the doctors was speech. i'm not worried because our previous doctor said that 2nd kids hold it in and observe for longer and then the speech explodes out of them all at once. that's certainly happening with emmy since she went from 0-75 words in a matter of weeks! she scored poorly on 2 word phrases because i couldn't think of any that she had. but kyle reminded me this week that she does have a few! "ready set go" and "i love you" and she tries to sing whole songs, too. happy birthday, elmo's world and twinkle twinkle little star! so i'm officially NOT WORRIED. the doctor mentioned getting her evaluated in 2-3 months if her speech doesn't pick up but it's no sweat off my back. my kid is talking a ton and i'm sure it'll double and triple in no time.

halloween recap.

we win for fun halloween weekend this year, i think. almost all of our favorite people came in for the weekend. it was halloween AND emmy's birthday weekend. emmy's mini party will be in the next post.

mom arrived first and in time for halloween! genevieve decided to be doc mcstuffins (can we get a WHAT WHAT for not having to ruin her pretty elsa dress on the trek up all the neighbors' stairs?). so we rolled with it and made emmy be lambie. it worked out perfect because emmy just loves sheep right now and "baa-ing." thumbs up! mom wanted in on the party, too, so she was nurse hallie. i LOVE how her costume came out. we made little felt ears for her nurse's cap and she had all the accessories. they were a super fun trio together.



it was such a great night. emmy was a little confused and mesmerized by all the people and the candy. she was silent the whole night. but she did cart her pumpkin bucket to each house and grabbed her candy like she saw big sissy do. she only made it about 45 minutes before she seemed tired and over it. over walking and holding her bucket and going up to houses. so kyle took her home at 7 and mom, genevieve and i kept walking all over the neighborhood.

genevieve was so adorable and so brave. it was the perfect evening with her. she was so happy and funny and told every single person thank you. she was SO proud of herself. it was the most fun to watch. and at 8 we got to the end of a street and she says, "i think i'm ready to go home now." no tears or fighting, no whining when she got tired, she just decided she'd had enough and happily went home. we had some hot chocolate because we were so cold and a little bit of candy and then she went to bed.

of course, she wasn't in bed for 20 minutes before kyle's parents arrived and then it was a new level of excitement. pop pop went up to see her real quick and you could hear her chatting a mile a minute telling him all about her trick or treating adventures.

love those girls. love them all the time, but when you see them in comparison to a million other kids pushing their way to the front and stealing candy from abandoned buckets, i love them so much more. my kids rock. they're gentle and sweet and funny. and so much FUN.