color of the year!

hello earthy, wine-colored pick! i knew i liked burgundy for fall and winter, but i'm excited about the possibilities to use it all year long. i know the color of the year is a silly thing, but when you're a creative-brained person, it's like getting a present. ;)

i actually really like the potential since i wouldn't generally pick this color in my home. i like blacks and metallics, bright pops and grey neutrals. browns and deep reds don't mesh well with the color scheme i've created for my life and it's good to get a nudge in a different direction every so often! pantone says marsala pairs well with sandstone and classic blue. both of which aren't my go-to choices. it's fun, stretching yourself this way.

wood furniture is the first thing that comes to my mind when i think about using this color in my house. i can imagine a small console table painted marsala with pretty vibrant flowers on it, maybe an oversized gem paperweight on a stack of coffee table books and a lamp with a bright aqua base. of course, if aqua is involved, i could get on board the marsala wagon!

thanksgiving.

thanksgiving is rapidly becoming one of my favorite holidays. it was always kind of a dud holiday growing up. we did a lot, but it was at great uncle's houses and i didn't do any cooking. there was a trip to the movie theater at night but that wasn't insanely out of the ordinary. but now, as a grown-up, it's turning into a pretty BA holiday. i love hosting thanksgiving. not a huge one, but just enough to fill my table and couches up with people. i like being in charge of the menu and researching all the best recipes and tips to get it done. eventually i'd love to get an awesome table setting if we continue to host pretty regularly. and the best part of all, i love that we get to decorate for christmas in the same weekend. 2 of my favorite seasons jam-packed into a long weekend! what's not to love.

this year mom and kara flew up during a freak day of snow. it was such a fun welcome!





emmy was totally mesmerized, saying "is snow! is snow!" and g wanted to build a snowman, of course. we baked pumpkin pie and cookies and deviled eggs and prepped the food for thanksgiving. i love falling into that groove.

thanksgiving was fantastic. we cooked all day in my teeny kitchen, there was snow on the ground and the girls were fascinated with the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade for the first time ever. mom and kara and i ended up wearing the same color on accident, as is custom for the women in our family. somebody always ends up wearing identical colors.

  

the food was surprisingly all done at the same time, on time and delicious! i was kind of amazed. i've never cooked that much food at all, let alone in a small kitchen.





every year something happens with the turkey. without fail. last year i pulled the innards out but apparently left a whole head inside. that was the scariest thing i've ever seen before. thing still had its gobbler and everything. this year, i failed to notice that the packaging said turkey breast. so there was no inner cavity to stuff, no thigh for a thermometer, no legs to tie and no wings to tuck under. it was literally just turkey boobs. it wasn't necessarily bad since we don't eat dark meat anyways, but oh my god it was a shock to rip that puppy open on the day. and when it was time to boil the innards for the gravy, i opened the package to find liquid. LIQUID. there were no innards, just a pureed juice in a bag! it was so crazy! the gravy was still good but dang i was definitely feeling stressed after all the surprises.

we followed the pioneer woman's directions for cooking the turkey, but we did the sage/rosemary butter rub variation instead of citrus. and this recipe for southern green beans that were divine! we also had mom's famous bread stuffing, kara's famous deviled eggs, kyle's family's corn casserole, turkey gravy and rolls. i was trying to make ree's no-knead rolls but everything wasn't meshing right so i chucked it (partially of sheer exhaustion) and did pillsbury homestyle biscuits. ha! we totally forgot to make mashed potatoes until about 30 minutes out so we also nixed those and i'll make them later. it's funny, none of it went as planned but it was still very enjoyable and i didn't get overwhelmed or cry or anything. this is a big deal for me!

later we braved the cold for a few family photos. it's always nice to update our photos, especially when it's so hard to get one with all of us these days!







all in all it was a really really great weekend. it was kind of magical. i'll blog the ice skating pictures later. for now it's laundry laundry laundry. ;)

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!