merry christmas (eve)!

Santa came early in St. George.

And he brought a puppy.

 Which may save her dad from having 

to buy the real thing for at least another year.

Merry Christmas!

May opening your presents be as fun as this girl makes it!

while we were out

So listen. I customarily dream up random Christmas projects every year. And it's not unusual for me to push my projects to the very last minute because I pretty much thrive on procrastination. Ask any of my employers: there is nothing like a deadline to get me to produce the most excellent work ever. 

The problem this year was (actually "the problem IS" seeing as how I still have a few more unfinished - seriously?) that along with these projects, I have a Little Miss, who is growing up. And doing it fast. Gone are the one word pointing gestures of yester year. We're working on counting (one! two! teeeee! then ten!), she decided she'd go ahead and learn M and O to go with A and Y (these are always random, and a product of her alphabet puzzle, totally swear by it), and she's decided sentences are fun: "I lub ewe!" (I love you!), "I did eet!" (I did it!), "I got eet!" (I got it), "Dad, woke? Come back?" (Dad's at work? He'll come back?). I wish I could complain that my baby is growing up, but really, it's a total joy to be a part of her life. Even if my projects don't get done and my blog gets totally ignored, my Belle makes my day, every day.

Oh, and she's totally dressing herself these days. Don't be jeal. Her outfits are sweeeet.

 And listen, don't even try to pretend you haven't had an itch before...

random

1. I've been going through old photos. I miss the above "concentrating face" more than you can possibly imagine. 

2. I have only one real complaint about this wintery weather. It makes it nearly impossible to voluntarily crawl out of my warm bed and drive through the icy tundra land to a spin class at 5:45 a.m. Impossible really. I got busted for my no-shows today. Ooooops.
3. Belle had a pooper of a virus for a few days. It was good times. Blow outs a plenty. Stinky good times. She now waves her hands frantically whenever I change her diaper and yells, "Stinky! Stinky!"
4. I still have a smidgen of thread in my neck. It won't dissolve. I want to get tweezers and yank it out. But then I'm afraid what's left of my thyroid will come out with it.
5. We saw a house today that had a hot tub in the sunroom. Even better than that, you had to go through the sunroom to get to the basement. One of the strangest layouts we've seen so far. And trust me, we've seen plenty. The other house we saw had a mold factory in one of the bathrooms. We're having really good luck, let me tell you what.
6. Annabelle routinely (at least 500 times a day) asks to watch "Hot Choc?! Hot Choc?!" In other words, I want to kill the Polar Express, particularly the hot chocolate scene as once is never enough, "'Gain? 'Gain?"
7. On that note, she's been obsessed with Train's "Hey, Soul Sister" for as long as I can remember. She completely rocks out to it and it's her all time favorite song. Let's just say I'm over it. Over and over and over it.
8. Belle knows the letter "A" and the letter "Y." However, she also calls "T" "Y."
9. Today we had some time to kill before our house showing, so we went to PetCo. Holy heaven. She was so happy. "Ah-mulls! Ah-mulls!" She particularly loved the "neows" (cats) and wanted to know why they were "stuck"??
10. I think I could eat Mel's Tuscan Macaroni and Cheese Bake (my sister and I totally call her by her first name, as though we know her personally) every single day of my life. No lie.

blizzard what?

Guys, the BLIZZARD was actually just a FLURRY. It looks pretty much the same as the below pictures. The only difference this time? It was flippin' freezing. Like below freezing. This morning I attempted to attend my spinning class. And when I say attempt, I mean I looked out at the ice rink that is our parking lot and went back to bed. It was -8 degrees. No way, Jose.

But last night, as the snow started fluttering down, the Little Miss stood at the window, pointing with all her might, you know, using her whole body for emphasis, and let us know there was "Zno! Zno!" And so we bundled her up (apparently I need to buy some more snow appropriate clothes - like gloves, maybe?) and let her play. She lasted like three minutes, and then we came back in and watched the "Zno! Zno!" some more. 

I love freezing. Coats and hot chocolate and warm fires and the smell of the heater when you turn it on for the first time. Winter is good. Blizzard or not.

snow advisory

It's in the air. Winter. I realize that fall basically got skipped, but I love winter just as much. Last weekend, we got a mini snow dump (the photos were taken in the dead of night from our apartment deck). And for the past two days, all anyone has been talking about is the impending BLIZZARD. Apparently there's a blizzard a brewin'. I was up at the crack of dawn (okay not really) running all sorts of errands and buying food to get us through the hard times ahead. (It's really only supposed to last like twelve hours, but I am nothing if not a planner.)

So far, all we have is a bitter, frigid wind that is blowing this apartment to pieces. And so we wait. I think one of the most beautiful things in the world is waking up to fresh powder, the world cloaked in sparkles. I'll snap photos if it comes...

genuine property virgins

So I'm an avid HGTV watcher. You might say I'm an addict. The good news is that we don't have cable or satellite service, so I don't watch it nonstop, all day long like I wish I could. But whenever I'm near a TV that possesses my channel, and it isn't already occupied, you better believe I will slyly switch it to HGTV, settle into the nearest couch, and veg. I could do it for hours at a time. When I was pregnant with Annabelle, I did just that (it's what I termed "bed rest"). And then she came out, and I've never done any one thing for any amount of consecutive hours since.

One of my favorite shows is House Hunters. This show cracks me up because even people who say they hate HGTV find themselves sucked right into these homebuyers' decisions. Will they buy House Number One, which had a great floor plan but a high price tag; House Number Two, with it's big backyard but in need of some repair; or House Number Three, with a beautiful kitchen but small bedrooms? And then everyone in the room weighs in because who doesn't want to win this competition anyhow? A similar show, Property Virgins, features new homebuyers buying their first home. I am constantly mocking the people who look at dozens of properties and never make a decision. Like, come on, just pick one already! You're never going to find the "perfect" house!

But let me tell you something: WE ARE THAT COUPLE. Minus the camera crew, we are that couple that wanders through perfectly livable home after perfectly livable home, and shakes our head because we're sure we'll find the "right" one next time. We have looked at dozens (and dozens) of homes. And we're still looking. 

We've made four offers: Offer one was on a fixer-upper that we were only willing to spend so much on, and the bank didn't like our offer. Offer Two was a duplex that we both loved; however, we put our offer in just twelve hours after a cash offer that was immediately accepted. Offer Three was on a darling townhome downtown (Jess could walk to work); we knew we were the second offer on this one, but we hoped the first would back out. They didn't. And Offer Four. Jess and I saw a house last week that we thought had solved our problems: shorter commute to work, huge backyard, incredible kitchen. We put an offer in, but when we woke up the next morning, both of us suddenly remembered the "hobbit basement" (it literally has six foot ceilings), the lack of a dining room (necessitating an add-on), and the final straw: there is only a large, jetted garden tub. Raise your hand if you want to stand in the tub and bathe your kids every day?

And so really, we are that couple. It's annoying. I'm to the point that I'll take almost anything. As long as it has a bath tub.

And maybe a really incredible kitchen.

P.S. The photos really have absolutely nothing to do with anything. Except that she's wearing her finest house hunting ensemble, and still. Nothing. (Sorry about the bit of blur - Jess grabbed the closest camera which was missing its flash. And our apartment has about as much natural light as a rat hole.)

perpetual weight gain

I'm not sure how it's been a whole week since I last posted. Especially since all I really have to show for the past seven days is a bunch of sugar consumption. I've seriously been eating holiday treats and doing little else. Silk Nog, Silk Chocolate Mint Milk, Cherry Cordial Creme Kisses, Andes Cherry Jubilee Chocolates, Target's new Pumpkin Holiday Cookies with Cream Cheese Filling, and the list goes on and on.

And so my question is, why not offer these delectable treats year round? I feel like the weight gain would be much less noticeable when spread over twelve months instead of just two.

And for the Grandma...a squinty eyed (smiling), naked, coloring baby. She colored on a kitchen chair the other day. If you were wondering, Crayola's washable crayons really do wash off.

our very own bag lady

1. She collects all the jewelry pieces she can find and puts them on (those first pictures are her attempting to steal mine). Consequently, I'm now missing many inks (earrings), necks (necklaces), ings (rings), and baybets (bracelets).

2. She's a little obsessed with pants. (I believe the need for pants comes from her need for pockets. {To store her dolls, of course.}) Of course, I'm obsessed with skirts, so we compromise. Both together make a wonderful fashion statement, don't you think?

3. Also obsessed with bags. She regularly strings up several on those short little arms and toddles around the house, jewelry hanging off her neck, unbuckled shoes (put on by herself) dragging behind her. And she always takes one to the store (because I make her leave the other dozen at home). I often find random things stowed in these bags: her boots, batteries, hair clips, chapstick, crayons, dolls. The other day I found a small Ziploc bag full of socks. And why shouldn't you store your socks in Ziploc bags?

a fitting post

When Annabelle was small and in that stage where babies put everything in their mouth, Annabelle didn't. She'd find small things on the floor or sticks and leaves on the ground outside and instead of plopping them in her mouth to determine their origin, she'd turn them over and over in her tiny, precise fingers until she figured it out. If she was interested, she'd hold on to the item. If not, she'd discard it. After smacking me in the face a few months ago, we had a small discussion about hitting and being gentle. She no longer hits and instead pets babies and small animals when asked to be gentle. She brings us scissors when someone has left them in her reach. She lightly touches car surfaces or the oven to determine if they're hot. She stands or sits at the bottom of the stairs and waits for someone to take her up. She stays on the sidewalk. When she runs away, just ask her to come back. She will. She chews gum, and when she's done, she puts it in the garbage. No. Joke. (Okay, she's swallowed it a few times.) And this has been the very typical trend of our very atypical baby. She's always acting a few decades older than her tiny body says she should.

Until recently. Recently, she's decided that being a toddler and maybe getting a jump start on those terrible twos is a fabulous idea. She throws fits when she can't get her shoes on by herself, and of course fits louder if you try to help. Tantrums are becoming more common than not, and usually for no apparent reason except she feels like fitting. When we play outside, she occasionally runs away from me, and unlike the past, when she'd turn around when asked to, she runs faster - away. She often says no when we make requests. She attempts the stairs on her own and leaps off couches (always assuming someone will catch her). Last night she got into the spice cupboard at her grandparents' house four times; the first time she dropped a bottle of beef bullion on the slate floor, shattering it. The next three times, she just got in trouble.

Our little atypical baby, while still fascinating in her own "old soul" kind of way, is no longer a baby. She's a toddler, with ideas and preferences and dare I say passions. We have moments that we long for that little baby who couldn't roll over, who crawled backwards for a month, but then we realize that she's completely lovely still, even in her fits of rage. She's growing up into her own little self. It kind of makes my heart hurt, both because I'm sad to see her leave those baby days and because it swells with pride to watch her become. She's becoming Annabelle, and she's doing it so beautifully.

Sometimes I think that all these stages that we watch for in our children are just as much stages and milestones for the parents. We're marking time with their growth, and it seems that if time is going to fly (and it always does), the best way to watch it speed by is in the small sprinting body of your perfect-even-in-her-fits toddler.

And although I swore I'd never post "naked pictures" of my child, this is for all those tantrums yesterday young lady. Seriously. :)

chick cheat! (trick or treat)

So it's no secret that I decided Annabelle would be a cowgirl for Halloween for the sole purpose of buying her pink cowboy boots. But throw in a little bowleggedness (she's got a tad bit bowed legs), a pink bandanna, and a cowboy hat, and oh man. Halloween just got really cute.