Halloweeeeeeeen!  My new favorite time of year since I started having kids!  (Segue: Is it possible any parent on the internet hasn’t read this yet?  I find it hard to believe because it’s being re-posted all over the damn place but if you haven’t, please go there.  Read it.  I find that it captures most accurately how most of us (or at least myself) probably feel.  Especially this part, when I think about how much I love days like Halloween now, “There’s no better way to understand just how amazing humans are than the front row seat a child gives you to observe it all unfold from scratch each and every day, from literal square zero. Children give the first four years of your life back to you.“  Right???  Sigh.  I freaking love my kids.  And then to add to the earth-shattering, heart-breaking-love I feel about these two little wee wobblers I birthed from my loins, my friend Sarah posted this the other day and I read it while snuggling close to Noah in my bed, nursing him to sleep so of course I seconded and thirded every sentiment she wrote.  Beautiful, Sarah.  DITTO.)

Okay, back to the (cue Oprah’s BIG! EXCITED! VOICE!) Obligatory Hal-lo-weeeeeeeeeen pooooooooost!  For weeks now Avelyn has wanted to be a butterfly and by default of being too young to voice an opinion, Noah was going to be a caterpillar for his FIRST Halloween.  I found a great inspiration image online (seriously it would have been so great) but then the day before I planned to buy the needed materials she changed her mind.  She wanted to be a pink and purple witch.  We even practiced with some colorful wigs I have had lying around for years from the Chicago movie making days.
She looks good, no?  I thought so too.  I surely can’t rock that look.  Well anyway, a few days after the witch idea she moved onto wanting to be Coraline, from the movie, which is totally cool with me, but then a few days after that she wanted to be a fairy.  Long(er) story short, we were running out the clock, short on homemade costume time so I decided to take her to the mega store (I know, I know) and let her pick whatever she wanted.  And what she wanted was this:

Fierce!  Well of course we had to walk around and find a compliment costume for Noah because what would a good pirate do without a trusty pirate parrot sidekick?

Don’t you want to eat up all the adorableness???  I DO.  Pirate Avelyn was pretty confident in her ability to teach sword fighting, regardless of the fact she only took up the skill two days prior.  And as you can see, Noah took to it with a little gusto.

(Sword’s pointing the wrong way Baby boy.)

I’m not sure I’ve ever bought a costume-in-a-bag in my whole life for myself or anyone else, but for the price and the lack of stress involved in my usual “I’M NOT GOING TO FINISH ON TIME!” creative process, Avelyn wore that costume out!  She wore it to SeaWorld for the Halloween Spooktacular the Friday before, then all day to school on Halloween, only taking it off after school was out to take pictures with Noah at the pumpkin patch, then again that night for the big evening.  Plus they were the best looking pair of pirates the world has ever seen, DUH.

So anyway, if you’re interested and want to see all Halloween related SeaWorld/Pumpkin Patch/Trick or Treat related imagery, feel free to click the picture below and check them out on flickr.
I hope your holidays were as fantabulous as ours were.  Here’s to a great holiday season!

My little Hobo turned three a few weeks ago.  THREE, INTERNETS.  Gah!  Even more astonishing is that she keeps getting better and better with age.  So basically, she’s just like me.

Embrace your week here

But enough about me. The real news is that my baby man turns TWO MONTHS old today.

The even BIGGER news is that this little GIRL turns THREE today!

How is that possible? And how did it happen so quickly?

Where does the time go???

Happy 3rd Birthday to my fabulous daughter! You impress me every day with who you are and who you are becoming. What a gift it is to watch you grow! I love you and I am SO proud of you.

Come around she did.  While still at the ripe age of two years and eight months old, my itty bitty gigantic baby girl had her FIRST dance recital a few weeks ago.  She woke up the night before with a fever, achy, feeling miserable and I was not sure we would make it.  There was no way I was going to force her to go either.  When it came time to leave we dosed her with some antipyretics, asked her if she wanted to try and go and she wanted nothing more.

“I get to wear my tutu costume!”

SO excited before the show

For me, the excitement of watching her up on that stage, performing a few of the moves she had spent weeks working on was going to be my shining moment.  My daughter’s FIRST performance.  Clearly the draw for her wasn’t the dancing, or the time she’d spent practicing every week for months, but it was the little pink tutu.  And whatever makes her happy, makes me happy.

So we went.  With red eyes, bright red cheeks and the biggest sense of pride I’ve ever seen in her.  My heart swelled.

Then it broke a little when I was waiting with her before her turn to dance and she laid her little sick head on my chest, obviously tired.  Why did we bring her? I started to wonder.  I shouldn’t have let her come, she’s going to get more sick.

When the time came for her group to go on stage I whispered for her the exact same instructions I whisper every week at practice, to follow the group, listen to the teacher and have FUN.  “I am SO proud of you,” I told her, “You’re going to be GREAT.”

I gave her a hug and watched her walk off with six other little girls.  Again, my heart swelled.  My eyes swelled.  (I had to remind me and my pregnancy hormones to cool it.)

Look at my BEAUTIFUL girl!

There’s really no words for me to describe to you how awesome it was to see her up there, smiling bigger than anyone else (she really was!), knowing how bad she felt that day and watching her give it her all.  After a little hiccup with her position my girl danced her little heart out.  My girl, danced.  Up on a stage.  Fearless.

I had the hardest time not just bawling the entire time.  I was so excited for her, so proud of her, so in awe of who she is becoming.  I apologize if there is any shaking in the video, I had to keep laughing and smiling to prevent from completely breaking down like the crazy emotional pregnant lady that I am.  I am telling you, my cup overfloweth.

It will go down as one of the greatest days.

See the whole set (it’s only like 20 pictures) here.

OH!  And she was totally well and fever free by 10pm that night

The gist of Birthday Week went like this: I turned 29 last week.  Hobo turned 2 and we had a party three days after that.  Kevin turned 33 three days after that.  The end.

Since I know you really only care about the birthday with the party, here are a few teasers of our fantastically-bad ass-awesome Owl Party as well as a link to click over and view all the photos on my Flickr.  There are only 47 photos, as opposed to last years party of nearly 100.  And it’s totally worth the click over, in my humble opinion, so do it and then come back and tell me if you think she had a good time.  Because bottom line, that’s the only reason I do most everything I do; to give her the best life and the best time I can.

I cannot believe this child is TWO.
I cannot believe this child is MINE.
I cannot believe how LUCKY I am to have her in my life.

Avelyn, you are amazing.

Pop on over here to view the whole set.  Again, it’s not nearly as many as you would think, since I was too busy hosting the party to take pictures myself.

Welcome to Operation: Avelyn Turns Two in Three Days! central. Sorry (again) for being MIA (again) but I’ve been knee deep S.T.R.E.S.S.I.N.G.O.U.T.

The to-do list is so much longer than the done list that it’s not even funny and as usual my grand ideas have led to more planning and more to-do lists than actual accomplishments. Also as usual, if I am able to pull it all together I just know it will be fabulous. And for my little lady I would put forth nothing less.

For as much stress as this planning process can bring forth, I am having so much fun dreaming it all up.  I wish you could see her face when we talk about her party.  Her chosen theme (of the bunch I offered to her) is “Owl” and we talk thoughout the day of the impending “Ow pah-tee!  Ow pah-tee!”

“Yes, Avelyn”, I say, “We are having an owl party in – days.  Are you so excited?”

“Uh huh!” she nods enthusiastically, and my heart melts into a puddle which makes it all worth it.

Here’s to hoping I can pull it together the way I envision it.
Here’s to hoping I don’t lose my mind in the process.
Here’s to hoping it doesn’t rain (literally) on our parade.
Here’s to knowing if it all falls apart that we will have a fantabulous time with our friends and our TWO YEAR OLD anyway.

Oh yeah, I am 29 today!

Of utmost importance is always attending your last day of anything with sweet new kicks.

Friday

Friday morning we woke up, packed up and left San Antonio in the dust as we headed for 4 days in Oklahoma City with my best friend, Katie.

It only took us TWELVE hours to get there, what with the toddler traveling with us and the 3 or 4 horrible, no good, very bad boughts of parking lot traffic we encountered.

Saturday

We started Dance Party OKC in Katie’s living room and rocked out in the A.M.

Afterwards Avelyn got acquainted with JFK.

and continued to blow me away with her awesomeness.

Saturday afternoon we took Avelyn to the zoo for the FIRST time.  The Oklahoma City Zoo is amazing and I highly recommend it.  She had a hey day in the Children’s Zoo.

We stared at monkeys

and birds

and even touched some!  She was way more excited about this than I was, as evidenced by my perpetual sharp intake of breath whenever any of the birds flew toward me.  Have I told you about my NOT CRAZY fear of a bird flying at my face and getting it’s sharp little beak stuck in my cheek?  It’s almost happened too many times for this to be an irrational fear.

I am not making this up when I say we walked for hundreds of miles. Maybe thousands.

So we made sure to take breaks and be cute as often as possible.

But while the grown ups thought these guys were pretty neat

my daughter went freaking apeshit over this little guy:

I wish you could have seen it. I hope my memory doesn’t ever fail me and erase the image of her running all around the aquairium screaming “Nemo! Nemo! Fishy! Fishy! Oh! Oh! Oh!!!!!” It was pure joy. The kind only an innocent can muster, something that comes from deep within. It was amazing to see.

After the height of fish city excitement died down we moved onto another FIRST – the carousel. Here we are clearly being stalked by the papprazzo.

We lucked out to find a crowd favorite animal to ride on, the peacock.

We were having a great time before my inner ear issues started to migrate south to my stomach (as evidenced by the facial grimace starting here) and before Katie decided to forego all warning by the carousel driver man and hop out of our peacock ride and onto the ostrich in front of us (as evidenced by Avelyn’s frantic cries of “NO, Ka-dee! NO KA-DEE!”.

It did nothing to quell my stomach churning but Katie came back for Avelyn and all was right with her world.

On a side note, don’t we totally look like royalty here?

We finally got a good shot of the family before calling it day. Although not before Hobo ran off all her extra energy at the playground.

That was just Saturday. A day which will henceforth be known as The Day Avelyn Did Not Take a Nap. She promptly passed out in the car for all of one hour before being woken up to go to dinner with Katie’s family at a great restaurant. The food and the company were fabulous, Hobo’s mood was not. I had a great time at dinner amid trying to console the whining and cajole a friendly smile all the while interpret to Kevin via facial tics and head nods that this wasmynightoutwithmypeoplesocanyoupleasetakecareofthisbabynoIdon’tcarewhatittakes soIcanenjoythisdinnerwithmypeople.  He didn’t totally catch on folks. I know you’re reading this honey. You didn’t totally catch on.

Sunday

Sunday was the main reason I made the decision to take us to OKC in the first place becaaaaaaws Sesame Street Live was in town!! We prepped before the show with mall walking and Icee drinking. This child of mine is an Icee nazi. Don’t give her yours unless you want your fingers chewed off trying to get it back.

I’m serious and Katie can vouch. Her steely fingers were clamped around that cup and she was not letting go. As a matter of fact, this was the trip that Avelyn became aware of her independence. Everything this week has been “I do it!” This phrase is repeated to infinity with increasing volume unless you do in fact let her do it. She has specifically perfected this phrase when crawling into her carseat. She wants to crawl into the car and up into her carseat and she knows where the latch goes and SHE CAN DO IT! “Okay, I KNOW you can DO IT!” we cry, “So DO IT!”

Sunday night was Sesame Street Live AKA The Elmo Show. Elmo wasn’t even central to the show but we could get her excited talking about going to see him.

The show got started.

Umm, she was really excited.

And she danced her little heart out. I am not exaggerating nor am I biased in any way when I say my child enjoyed the show more than any other child there. There is no one that clapped louder, danced harder or squealed with more glee than my little Hobo.

For example, here is an image of me holding onto the back of shirt so she would not take flight and shuttle toward the stage.

I think she had a really great time. She was enjoying it so much that I didn’t bat an eye at the price tag on the Zoe doll she picked out. Or the Elmo balloon we had to get at intermission because EVERY WORD OUT OF HER MOUTH WAS “ELMO BALLOON! ELMO BALLOON!” This Elmo Balloon which we left at Katie’s apartment when we left. Wah wah wah. Hope you’re lovin’ you some Elmo, Katie.

After the show Kevin headed to see a basketball game by himself and I headed home for an evening with Katie and strainer head, also known as Baby High on Elmo Show.

She was cracked out, I’m telling you. It was another incredibly long day that ended in another embarrassingly early bedtime. Some of us may have gone to bed before 10 pm every night. What can I say? Kids are exhausting.

Monday

See that mirror in the next photo? The one reflecting the image of the adorable toddler who looks radiant in yellow? That mirror tried to kill me the night before. I have a huge bruise on my right hand to prove it. Just thought someone should know should this ever happen again.

I think we spent Monday morning walking around another mall on the never ending (fruitless) search for Kevin’s new hoodie. After lunch we headed for cupcakes. The Cupcake Lady made sure we knew NO nuts were used in ANY of their products. Thank you for the attitude served with that statement.

Avelyn liked the cupcake and has subsequently shouted “Cupcakes! Cupcakes!” every time she has seen these photos now.  Also, she said her FIRST sentence ever during cupcake time.  She needed paper towels and Kevin thought he would be so polite as to bring her milk too, and told her so.  “No!” she said “No milk, just paper towel.”  WHAAAAT?  Where the poop did that come from?

Somebody got a better nap that afternoon, followed by some really cold playtime at the park. Mostly I took away from this set of iPhone images that a tapered peacoat makes me look like I have a shape, and maybe I ought to go clothes shopping. (Thanks again for the loaner coat, Kate)

We had dinner that night at a local establishment (actually everywhere we ate was a local establishment I think, so again, thank you Katie for coming up with interesting places to take us) where we ran into Cupcake Lady! What a small world! I hate this photo of me because I look fat and like my face is receding into my neck like my mothers side of the family but oh well, Hobo is too cute not to share.

We ended the day with yoga and hugs.

Oh, and more of  this.  (Note that the mirror is no longer sitting precariously above us on the couch.)

And that was our trip. We came home on Tuesday, forgot it was St. Patrick’s day until Wednesday around lunch, dressed Avelyn up as THE CUTEST IRISHBABY EVER and have been enjoying our wonderful spring weather back home.

The End.

And no, I can’t believe I am posting this picture either because
    a) check out the metal mouth (5-1/2 YEARS of metal mouth mind you)  
    b) we look like infants and  
    c) it is yet another example of why I should never EVER take self portraits

Unfortunately there are a lot of photos like this, most of which have been burned if you know what’s good for you Katie Richey!)

Anyway Stef’s daughter is 3 months younger than Avelyn, and they were clearly meant to live closer together so they could be BFF’s and scream their little heads off with each other everyday. The introductions were a little rocky, with Avelyn refusing to speak to anyone or sit further than 1 inch away from me at the table.  I also suspect I’m not the only one who noticed her penchant for scowls and silence when she’s uncomfortable.  Who knew it was genetic? 

Once lunch was over and we got the girls to an unoccupied room in the restaurant they discovered they could run free and really hit it off.  And by hit it off I mean Avelyn decided that not only was running around really-super-duper-freaking-cool but running around with her mouth wide open screaming was FREAKING AWESOOOOOOOOOOME!  Like a natural born big sister (and don’t read too much into that statement; it’s not ANYTIME SOON) she set the example for her little friend who quickly followed suit. 

It turned out to be pretty cold in Austin that day and I started to wish I had worn something warmer than my old maternity sweater and my black leggings (Of which I am starting to think make me look fat.  Still considering this prospect).  Regardless of the cool temps, we felt it would be in the best interest of restaurant go-ers everywhere to take the screaming girls outside, where they proceeded to do two things very well:

One: look ohmygod-ohmygod-ohmygod-SO-CUTE!

And two: continue to run around screaming.

I had such a good time catching up with an old friend.  It was loads of fun to see Stefany again and introduce our husbands and A-dorable baby girls.  How lucky am I to have friends that would drive 200 miles to have lunch with me(!) after they already had 2,100 miles under their belt that trip.  (Really lucky for me is that I like her, as it is probably true that I might know several people who would do that, but not necessarily many that I like.  But anywho…)

(This picture has nothing to do with anything I’m typing, I just love it. Isn’t she a doll?)

After lunch I rounded out the afternoon with a genius plan I’d cooked up months ago when Stef told me they were coming to Texas.  There is an Ikea just north of Austin and we would just happen to be 15 minutes away the day after Thanksgiving.  SCORE!  I spent too much money and didn’t get nearly enough stuff but now I have an excuse to troll through my thousands of pictures on my computer and print out some good ones to be framed.  I also purchased a set of glass jars that I thought would make great craft supply organizers.  I was right.  AND I ONLY BOUGHT ONE FOUR-PACK.  WHAT WAS I THINKING?!  I could have bought 100 and found uses for all of them!  Now I have to make a point to drive back up there.  Ohhhhhh noooooo. 

So, that was my day after Thanksgiving.  And it was great.  And free of stress.  And to top it off I didn’t have to work that night.  What a difference a decade makes.

Luckily it didn’t come to that point – yet - but only because once dinner/bath/book was over with I flopped her down and ran  sweetly placed her (no really, it was sweet and with tons of kisses and “I love you”s) in her crib and took off. I just couldn’t take one more second of the whining.  The sheer amount of whining I tell you!  Seemingly about nothing!  Maybe her tooth hurts, maybe she’s bored, maybe she’s hungry, maybe a fly landed on some stray hair on her head, I DON’T KNOW because the child is still just a baby and can’t talk.  AGH I have never wanted a child to talk more in my life.  Please talk, Avelyn.  Please.  Mommy needs you to form actual words and tell me exactly what you are thinking.  I’m not a mind reader and this crying thing is not the best communication tool. 

I can hear some of you now.  You’re talking to the computer screen in a really obnoxious sing song voice saying, ”Be careful what you wish for!  One day you’ll beg her to STOP talking.” Well, you can keep your big mouth shut, thank you very much. I know that day will come and when it does I will appreciate very much if you would keep your, “See, I told you so” to yourself and if you just can’t resist don’t say I didn’t warn you when I reply back and call you a really dirty name.  When that day comes I will be the first to reference back to this very day, when I begged and pleaded for my child to speak.

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(Today)
Thanksgiving was fine. The usual annoyances with the usual family members (but hey, that’s family) but thankfully (no pun intended) there were no tears, no breakdowns and no name calling this year.  A success in my book and that’s all I want to say about Thanksgiving. The Hobo helped me make a homemade cheesecake the day before and had a marvelous time with her “cookin’ stick”, which she uses to help at every meal she prepares.  Let me tell you that girl makes a mean cheesecake. 

Speaking of which, how long is cream cheese good for?  I’m still nibbling on it now, literally right now as I type.  Hope that doesn’t come back to bite me in a few hours…

I will say one more thing about Thanksgiving and that is A looked ravishing in the dress I bought for her to wear the day after Thanksgiving, but she insisted on wearing the day of.  She has hit an independent streak (don’t know where she gets it) and is very vocal about what she wears sometimes.  See above paragraphs regarding SHEER EXHAUSTION FROM THE WHINING.

The kid barely ate anything but if I recall she did quite enjoy the homemade cranberry sauce she helped me make and for that I was satisfied.  The rest of the day was spent trying to keep her calm and feeling safe since some other people had brought their dog to the house and A is scared of dogs.  Please don’t ask why they didn’t remove the dog from the family room where the family and my terrified daughter was because a) I have no polite answer and  b) it might cause WW3 and I really don’t think we need another unnecessary war right now.  Also I’m totally over it because the real reason I could come up with is rather sad and pathetic and anyway the Hobo and I had a great time walking around outside picking flowers and generally looking cute.

Thanksgiving.  It’s over.  The End.  I AM SO EXCITED FOR CHRISTMAS!

is this little BABY from last year??

NEITHER CAN I.  GAH!

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The Peacock was the last idea I had for a costume, after a few superheros, a fairy or two and a spork.  Okay, maybe the spork was never actually thought of until just now but how awesome would a spork costume be?  I’ll have to file that one away.

So, it started with an idea.  An idea that went a little something like this:

I should start by saying that I have a lot of grand ideas.  Lots.  However, I tend to get caught up in the details and obsess about getting everything just right so many of my ideas never come to fruition.  Also hindering my creative outlet is the fact that a) I had no children until 18 months ago and b) I was in school during most of the last 18 months and had no time to do anything artistic.  I should also say that I have waited my whole life to have kids to do art projects with and make costumes for like my mom did for my siblings and I.  I get my creative gene from her.  (Thanks Mom).  It’s one of the few genes I will claim out loud she gave me.  (Ha ha. Sorry Mom).  I’m not sure if I ever wore a store bought costume in all my years of trick or treating; she made them all.

Foil Head (kidding), Can of Paint, Shaggy Dog, Snowman

Granted, I was not appreciative of all of them.  After all, as Annalee wrote just today, there is something so wonderful to a child about that awful vinyl store bought costume all your friends are wearing.  And when you’re the only kid wearing a city trash clean up bag the size of Rhode Island you might feel a little jipped no matter how long it took your mother to shred that bag into a Shaggy Dog.

So anyway, I love making things with Avelyn, and I LOVE coming up with her costume ideas.  In fact, two weeks ago we took a cue from the brilliant SAJ and recycled a few giant diaper boxes and cut out cardboard Halloween shapes and painted them.  We had a black bat swinging in our kitchen window, a friendly ghost with rosy cheeks, a cackling witch with bright green skin and my favorite, the spooky house.  I really wanted to take pictures of the whole process and the final product and share them with you but that would have taken time away from the fun we were having, which seems a whole lot more important.  I only have three photos to show for it.  It is a super easy, super cheap and really fun project to do with kids and it’s recyclable when the holiday is over.  You do the cutting and let them do the painting.  (And yes, as you can see I did most of the painting this time around, but I swear to you that Avelyn painted the whole pumpkin all by herself, you just can’t tell from this distance.)

(First round of painting, Our giraffe playing in front of the spooky house, Breakfast with the ghost)

Back to the real Halloween.  I planned to have the costume finished two weeks ago so we could have her pictures taken.  That didn’t happen.  I wanted it to be perfect and I figured if I had two weeks until Halloween then why rush just for some crappy portraits?  We take better photos anyway.

My biggest problem when it comes to making anything is 1) I don’t have a sewing machine and 2) I don’t know how to sew.  Although I’m pretty sure the latter problem could be easily rectified if I just BOUGHT A SEWING MACHINE.  KEVIN.  HINT HINT.  (I say that but I will probably buy one before Christmas because I still need to make Avelyn a stocking and I have big ideas.  SURPRISE!)

So, I knew exactly how to make the tutu but I thought long and hard about how to make the shirt.  I came up with several ideas

and in the end settled on the last one.  But the Top/Right image is just so darn cute I may have to make her that shirt to wear in her regular wardrobe.  How adorable would that be?

It really was not difficult, just a little time consuming, but that could be because if you haven’t picked up on it by now, I tend to pay attention to detail.  Like, a lot.

“Hello, my name is Jennifer, and I am a detailaholic.”

I’m not kidding when I say that.  I believe it’s all in the details.  I feel most happy when my floors are vaccummed clean, my child is always color coordinated (when I dress her), my kitchen countertops are always crumb free and wiped clean, and I’m not ashamed to admit my gift wrapping skills are superior to most.  That doesn’t mean I judge you by my standards, I just have a nervous NEED to have it this way at my house.  I also organize my Skittles into piles by color so I can make sure I have the same number of each and eat them in order ending with red, of course.

Just so you know, I’ve always been this crazy.

Back to before I told you I was crazy, I glued two colors of large sequins together to make the multidimensional green feathers at the base of the peacock body and glued them all individually to a white long sleeve shirt.  Then I glued green beads between all the sequins and cut out and backstitched three layers of felt by hand to make the “peacock eye” feathers and glued them to the shirt.

I put some peacock feathers and some blue feathers in her hair and that was it!  I am really proud of the final product.  For one she looked adorable (no more than usual of course since she is always stunning) but she also won first place for best costume at the party we went to!  Double proud!

Costume test run: nothing fell off the shirt.  SCORE!

Five minutes at the party and she’s already hitting the bottle. My Little Lady indeed.

This is definitely being printed and framed.

I would love to post all my favorites but I already uploaded them all in the Fallness folder on Flickr, and there are only about 30 of them so you really have no reason not to click over and view them here.

I hope your holiday was as fantastic as ours!