dear spring, hurry up!

while the snow is very pretty and falling snow is always magical, after valentines day i am over winter. it's been freezing since november so i'm good to go on some 50's-60's weather soon, please.

i'm glad the girls seem to love it more and more, though. emmy stomps around the house in everybody's snow shoes and says over and over, "outside? snow? snow shoes? outside? snowman? sled? snowman hug? snow? outside?!" and genevieve is newly fascinated with the fact that apparently the dogs go pee-pee quite a lot as is evident by all of the yellow snow. ;)

we've missed almost all of this session's (8 weeks) toddler playtime classes due to weather cancellations, enough 2 hour school delays and keeping our water running so our pipes don't freeze overnight. it's time to be done and move on to warmth! momma is ready! plus, we're going to Austin in march for SXSW and i'm flying to Florida a few days later for Kaleigh's wedding so i'd like to ease on into that weather. plus, i'm so tired of playing candyland in my living room. i'd rather blow bubbles and ride bicycles outside right now, thank you very much.

i'm pretty sure everyone can get on board with the fact that i am over my winter clothes. i don't want to wear socks, my shirts are all washed out and i'm bored with my heavy scarves. capris! flip flops! light scarves! COME ON, SPRING.

i win valentines day.

haha but no really. valentines day has never really been a huge deal to me. sure, i love any excuse to get flowers from my hubby but otherwise NBD. but over the last few years it has kind of become special on accident.



emmy is a valentines day baby, for starters! valentines day was our, "we'll wait till then and then start trying for baby #2" day, but i'm fertile myrtle so it was pretty exact. HA. last year, kyle had been away on a business trip and we'd been snowed in until valentines day when he came home. he waltzed into chili's to meet us with tulips for the girls and roses for me. it was quite the spectacle and made us all feel really special. and this year. THIS YEAR. it wasn't for valentine's day specifically, but it happened on the day so it counts in my book! ;) this year the man bought me a new car! i'm so excited! we downsized from a van to a chevy equinox suv. we were really only using the extra space in the van to store forgotten toys and empty snack bags from the backseat litter bugs. we used the 3rd row only when family was in town and for that we can just take 2 cars places for a few days, no big deal. so we have the same trunk space just no 3rd row but WAY nicer insides. genevieve kind of loved car shopping. she wanted to sit in every seat and test drive them all. she announced today that she wanted a pink sparkly car and i was on board with that vote. chevy, get on that. she kept asking if we were going to buy this one, how about this one, this one?? so it was exciting to get to tell her, "yes, this one!" i'm sure i'll be posting instagrams of it tomorrow since it's getting dark out and kyle hasn't made it back yet from the dealership just yet. we split up since it was the girls' nap time. he did all the financial dealings and we just had to look at the cars. it worked out in my favor, for sure haha.

it's been rough this year with all of the crazy that comes with major depression and a husband who travels a lot for work (not that i mind, i love his job! i just don't do that great on my own after a few days, unfortunately). so it is really really nice to have something good happen to us. i feel super thankful and grateful today. i got a nap and a car, how about that. heehee just kidding.

branding for my photoblog

i've had that love/hate fun with re-branding/rebooting my brand for Studio Britt. it's hard to get past each creative roadblock, but once you do you feel great! i love the direction my new logo went. i initially had my sister sketch out some ideas since she's brilliant with sketching typography and i'm more of a digital cat. her handwritten type for studio led me to find this sweet font. i love it!

so i think i've finished it but you know how that creative bug never quite dies. the website is done and i'm wrapping up my marketing materials and business cards. i'm hoping to get those sent off to print this week and maybe pass them around local bulletin boards next weekend. i think the feel from this branding page really does represent the type of sweet magic i try to get in my photos. i'm nowhere near the photographer i'd like to be, but i do have a sort of style and i'm trying to find strength in it. so without further rambling, here's the branding Studio Britt Photography! i'd love to know what you think!

lately.

i feel like we've been going a thousand miles an hour and my grand plans for blog posts fall to the side. so i'll do a low-expectation catch up post instead. ha.

1. big news for me! backstory: i pinned my st. patrick's day woods shoot with genevieve to pinterest years ago. she was 18 months old. since then, i get 1-5 emails a day saying someone has repinned it. just the photo i put up there has been repinned over 2300+ times. pretty crazy! well, i got an email last week that i heart faces wants to use one from the batch in a st. patrick's day inspiration blog post. i just love i heart faces. i used to be on there constantly when i first became interested in photography so it feels fanfreakingtastic to get something featured!

2. we're getting little waves of snow storms. an inch or two here and there. it hasn't been bad at all. at least there's a reward to the cold! the girls love it and emmy now begs to go "SLED?!" we're waiting for our next wave on thursday for some more snow for our little hill behind the house. it's perfect for sledding littles. i'll have to get a video of it the next time we all go out together.
i remember all of our vacations to go skiing during christmas time and as we'd go to dinner while it snowed and drove by houses blanketed in pretty snow, i always thought "this is some people's real life. they get to live where it snows every couple weeks during the winter. not once a year on a ski trip. how lucky are they?" i craved being somewhere with seasons even then. and if i'm honest, even charlotte didn't give me quite the winter i wanted. baltimore is doing a good job, so it gets points for that.

3. i'm 2 doses (2 weeks) into my vitamin d meds and 4 days into my light therapy. i do really feel a difference. it's small, but it's the difference between staying seated on the couch for an extra 10 minutes or putting away that little pile of laundry during those 10. it's already making a dent in my productivity. i've started in the basement and have a huge load for goodwill from the girls' closet, playroom and basement. i'm still taking naps pretty regularly but i don't feel so drugged and lethargic mid-morning. if you have a problem with fatigue and the normal remedies don't touch it, i would highly suggest getting tested for vitamin d deficiency. it's totally changing my world already. the only con i can find is that with the light therapy, i need to sit in front of it for 45 minutes before noon. so i keep trying to get up at 6:30 and working on my computer and watching the news while i sit with my light. it's HARD. today i sat for only 30 minutes while the kids ate breakfast before school because i did NOT want to get up when my alarm went off. kyle suggested we do yoga together in the morning for an hour while the light shines on me. i don't know if you can really do something like that during light therapy, but why not? and it's a way to keep each other accountable and exercise.

4. genevieve is a few weeks into her dance class at the Y. she's obsessed and pretty good at it. she's a good listener in class and is so excited about it. she remembers the moves and practices a little at home (any excuse to put on the ballet and tap shoes!). i think the end is in another 3 weeks, so we'll for sure have to sign her up for another round. if she's excited about it all the way through another 2 months of it, i think we'll look into summer dance lessons at a real dance studio. right now the Y is just simple and short, just enough for little kids. it's the cutest thing i've ever seen. kyle offered to take her last week but i just didn't want to miss it! i should work out during her lesson, but we're allowed to sit in the room and i'm so addicted to seeing her blossom.

vitamin d deficiency

you learn something new every day! i'm serious. i had post partum depression with both my girls and have had at least a low level depression for as long as i can remember. i'm a two scoops of emotion kind of lady. so i would say that i have gone very far down the depression research rabbit hole and i have never come across the words vitamin d deficiency. in november, susan, my wonderful MIL, said i looked a little paler than normal and asked if i'd had my vitamin d levels checked. baltimore is a very cloudy place, i've discovered, and november was about the time i was starting to see improvements in the severity of my depression. i didn't ask my doctor about it at the time but as the weeks went by and i still had that need to sleep all the time, i figured i should at least check with her. my doctor, being incredibly awesome, ended up bringing it up with me before i got the chance!

so i had my bloodwork done and i do have a deficiency. i am oddly excited about this. i mean, this means i'm not the laziest piece of work ever! there's actually something still wrong! i was feeling really down recently because while mentally i can definitely see improvement, my body is still so lethargic even when i push myself to get up and workout 3 times a week and clean the house. knowing that this feeling will eventually go away and i'll have my energy back feels incredible. now we just wait and watch for improvement. i have 8 weeks of the supplement so i guess i'll report back in 2 months haha.

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.

nature walk.

the leaves are getting some good color this week so the girls and i headed down our street for a little fall scavenger hunt. i found a hunt off pinterest that i liked and seemed to suit what we we could find. genevieve in costume, of course, since we're never really without costume anymore haha.



genevieve was really into it, as expected. she put the small items like leaves and acorns into her bucket and pointed happily to the big ones we couldn't take with us. it is so nice to be outside when the weather is nice and the leaves are floating down. it really is one of the best times of the year. emmy wasn't as into it, but she did pick some leaves to put in the bucket and rolled around on the sidewalk. ha. that kid.

it's the merriest time of my year!

it is no secret that i LOVE fall. LOVE LOVE LOVE fall. i love saying peace-out to summer, pulling out some yummy boots, picking up another round of pumpkin spice candles and enjoying the way the world fades to gold.

gorgeous print from Lindsay Letters' new fall line!

we're planning to fill the season with fun activities! last year was quite fun, but i hope this year is even better. the older the girls get, the more we can do together!

we went apple picking a few weeks ago and thoroughly enjoyed the spoils. emmy and genevieve helped make their own things. applesauce, apple pie, and apple butter, plus a enough for our little apple eaters to eat whole apples for snacks. heck, one of emmy's favorite words right now is apple! i knew fall would treat her right.

enjoying their cider donuts at the orchard

since this is our first fall up here, i've been searching for just the right activities and places for pumpkin picking. just like in charlotte, every place does something different so i'm about ready to make a pros and cons list for all the pumpkin patches! that and our bucket list for all the things we want to do this season!

next up on the list, a fall nature scavenger hunt and apple stamping with the girls. i'm trying to hold our pumpkin mania until october!

seriously, i have a crush on Lindsay Letters

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