Welcome to my week...

I reread the Hobbit for the first time since 4th grade... it went much faster this time.

Anni actually went in the potty four times... three of which she told me beforehand that she *needed* to go, and none preceded by an accident.  We may be taking a step forward in the potty training world!

I had to scrub the entire bathroom down with bleach yesterday.  A) I hate using bleach.  B) It was necessary.  C) You can throw your shoulder out plunging a toilet... just a forewarning.

I got sick with a nice, basic cold.  That basic cold made feel like death warmed over the first night, migraine included, but has actually been pretty mild otherwise, which is awesome because normally it takes me several weeks to get past a cold.

I'm putting together a couple "boxes of sunshine"; however, it seems all the people I'm putting them together for have necessary dietary restrictions (gf/low sugar etc)... so any thoughts on adorable (yellow & happy) things to include would be lovely, as most examples include a lot of candy.  

My sister will be having her little guy any day now!  I'm still amazed by the amount of things she gets done being 40+ weeks pregnant (there is no procrastination bone in her body... I think I got hers in addition to mine).  We were pregnant at the same time during my first pregnancy as well, so I always know I can start my countdown once her baby is born (her third baby and my first - Nugget- were supposed to be born 12 weeks apart and ended up being only six, but these two are supposed to be six weeks apart... so I'm hoping for at least a few more weeks and some time to soak in her sweet little boy's pictures before Lil' Bit makes her debut). 

We've started house hunting!  That's about it... as we have really *just* started, but we're hopeful and excited.

And, just a few of the things on my menu for the week (you can skip this, but I love when people post their menus... it gives me ideas to mull over for the next week): Meatless WW Lasagna & Bread (making an extra with meat to freeze!), Homemade Sloppy Joes (We leave out the brown sugar and replace half of the ketchup with bbq sauce...mmm...), Stew (the best for basic stew because it's so easy to customize and add extra veggies we like... and remove the mushrooms that we both really, really don't like), Cottage pie, Zuppa Toscana (I replace the cream with half and half sometimes... it's delicious both ways!), Chicken Pot-pie Soup (trying for the first time!), Brinner and some kind of chicken and rice casserole.  Yum.  I always love days when we get back from the store, because Anni and I sit down and eat fruit almost immediately (fruit goes fast in our house and seems to run out about a day or so before we can make it to the store again).

I had a newborn shoot pop up this week at the last minute, which meant randomly having a backdrop set up in our living room for a few hours.  Anni got to be my light tester, and while she mostly pulled the backdrop down and tried to lie face first on the ground (it is a pretty soft backdrop in her defense), we pulled off a couple of sweet photos in the space of five minutes. 

There you have it.  A pretty average week in our household.  My goal for today is to love my family and make their day special with a clean house and yummy dinner... barring that, I'll at least try to keep my pregnancy hormones reigned in and be a cheerful wife and mommy :). 

Best Birthday Gift Ever

Remember how I mentioned that my husband had been able to surprise me with an awesome birthday gift?

Well, this past weekend, we cashed that gift in.

My beloved hubby, he got me a babymoon.   

He watched deal sites for a few weeks and found a sweet little getaway for us in southern Colorado, tucked in a valley and hemmed in by mountains, in a town full of art galleries and good food.

The bed in our little suite was so high off the ground that Daniel had to give me a hand anytime I wanted to climb into it (for real, climb).  It was also like sleeping on a soft, fluffy, happy, cloud... and I spent a good portion of our weekend napping in it. 

And when we weren't exploring the surrounding mountains (by car... because I'm 30 weeks pregnant and the wind still nearly knocked my rather substantial self over), snoozing in that fluffy cloud, doing a little Christmas browsing in the local shops and art galleries, or eating fantastic food (which I will make sure to discuss at the bottom of the post for my foodie sister), we curled up on the couch in our little living area and watched Diner's, Drive-ins and Dives... because it was always on, entertaining, and easy to walk away from when we found something more interesting to do.

 

Our last morning, we awoke to a blanket of snow and flakes continuing to drift into the courtyard and town.  While it made for a bit of a tricky drive out of the valley both to Mass and back home to see our sweet Nugget (she was thoroughly spoiled by Nonna and Papa for the weekend), it was a beautiful sight to wake up to.

Should it be of interest, our yummy meals are below.  Should it not be of interest... just skip to the last paragraph.

1st Night Dinner at the Inn: I had steak, with some kind of mashed beans (there where whole beans as well, I'm not sure what the exact make-up of it was), and delicious veggies on the side.  Daniel had a surf and turf over mashed turnip (we think) that he raved over.  

Breakfast: Ryus Ave Bakery: They are only open Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, so we were pretty excited after reading the awesome reviews online that we were there one of the days they are open.  It was lovely.  Coffee (for hubby), hot chocolate for me, a (free!) cranberry coffee cake on my plate and a pecan cinnamon roll on his.  And then,  because we were feeling a bit extravagant, we bought an almond roll to round it out.  So. good.

Lunch: Next Door Deli: Tiny little place, delicious sandwiches!  I had a cubano (only without cheese, because I'm odd like that) and Daniel had... hmm... I don't remember, but it was a sandwich and it was good :).  

Dinner: Alys': Oh. my.  This was by far the best meal "experience."  It's set up in the living room of a former home, so there are less than 10 tables.  Alys wanders through periodically to check up on you and your meal comes in three amazing courses.  I had the best salad I have ever eaten (seriously, I want their house vinaigrette for every salad I ever eat), chicken marsala over linguine, fresh squeezed tangerine juice (because she noticed I was pregnant and not drinking while Daniel had wine and offered, "I just squeezed some tangerine juice, would you like some?" YES!) and pear and walnut cake to round it out.  Oh. my.  Daniel had a buffalo sausage and potato soup, steak of some kind and tiramisu.  We were both very happy customers when we left.  

The best part about this little trip was that my hubby and I had time to just be.  We adore being a family and the time and energy we put into our sweet girls, but we also recognize that maintaining a healthy marriage makes our family that much stronger.  I have a hard time leaving our Nugget, and I'm grateful that my hubby knew that and found something close and short-term, but still just for us.  Happy Birthday to me! 

Because two is a sweet, sweet age to be

It's probably about time for that "how we celebrated Anni's birthday" post, right?  Well, here it is!  It's a bit of a combination as we actually celebrated her birthday twice - once on the actual day in Colorado and once with my family in Wichita the following weekend.

On her actual birthday, we woke her up singing Happy Birthday, and she very excitedly discovered that we had put balloons in her room in the middle of the night.  (She started out calling them "balls," but quickly switched to "boons!")  

Breakfast was whole wheat raspberry waffles with chocolate chips on top.  This girl was excited!  The chocolate chips were an after thought after Daddy got a waffle without very much raspberry in it... and after melting into little puddles in the waffle squares, Anni took to just dipping her finger into them and licking it off.  Girl after my own heart, she is.

Her birthday dinner was small - we wanted to celebrate her special day, but knew we were having a big party with my family, so we kept it pretty low key... or as low key as something with chocolate cupcakes and presents can be with a two year old.

Anni's Nonna and Papa came down, bearing all kinds of lovely gifts and our favorite neighbors hopped over to join us.

A pre-dinner cupcake was necessary to combat the crankies from getting overly hot and tired at the park that afternoon.  It perked her right up for birthday dinner: Annie's Mac&Cheese, pizza and fruit.  Anni kept declaring, "I eat piz-za!  I eat mac on cheese!  I eat keeeweee!"

And, oh goodness, the gifts.  Our dear girl was quite spoiled.  Am I allowed to admit that I loved her gifts; though?  Her Papa made the below table and chairs by hand (seriously, he is amazing!), she got the cutest little grocery cart, books, puzzles, a step stool... just a whole lot of fun.

Last year, I really struggled with the memories of how Miss Anni's birth and first few months weren't exactly ideal.  This year, there was so much to focus on in her little personality and how much she has grown, changed and amazes us every day, that while I told her all about her very first birth-day, there wasn't a pang to be had, just immense joy that she is ours and that we are truly blessed to have her sweet little person with us.

She also broke a rather nasty streak we had going on of being hospitalized and cancelling trips around her birthday.  Good work, baby girl!

Anni's "big" birthday party was a joint one with her cousin "Q"... a joint effort between my sister and I between two states.  When Anni and I need a little pick-me-up, we call "Aunt Kaekee" and recently we talk through our plans to celebrate our babies. 

We settled on an animal theme because it was the easiest way to encapsulate these two personalities.  Mostly, we just went for a lot of fun and enough food to make sure everyone was well fed.

The daddies finished off our decorations with some awesome streamers.  They definitely deserve props for those.  Then we had some zebra balloons in the window, french doors covered in pictures of the littles (Anni on the left and Q on the right), some animal masks on the wall (the opposite wall), more pictures on the table and, of course, our food.

I'm glad I remembered to grab a picture of the food before things got crazy... we have animal cupcakes on top and below: Safari Snacks (carmel popcorn/rice squares), Rabbit Food, drinks in adorable milk bottles and zebra stripe pudding.  We also feasted on pizza... because what better way to feed our family (nearly 20 people) and keep everyone happy?

Katie and I made the animal cupcakes the day before the party... I'm pretty excited by how cute they turned out!  We had some monkies, fishies, butterflies, lambs (or... polar bears), frogs, zebra striped and a couple plain ones for good measure.  The cuteness factor is mostly due to my sister's skills... I mostly just spread frosting and ate extra twizzlers.

And don't worry, we had sweet favors.  Everyone (including the adults obviously), spent the party trading and trying on all of the different animals.

We, of course, had some post dinner coloring.  It wasn't planned, but the best things aren't.

When it came to singing, all three triplets got in on the action.  The adults surrounding are doing a mixture of holding up the candles (they didn't want to stick into the frosting all that well) and making sure no one burned themselves trying to blow out said candles.

Q totally rocked his blowing out, Nugget was very intent, but didn't quite have the wind power.

It was so good to be with our family!  I love getting to see the babies grow and know that Anni will grow up familiar with her cousins even if they aren't in the same state.  (She has been making up songs about her Aunt Hannah with frequency since we got back, and tonight she made sure to pray for each uncle by name... I love it!)

And see, I even grabbed one picture with the birthday girl.

I hope all of your celebrations are as sweet as can be.  I'm so grateful for family and friends that love us and cherish our little one as much as we do.

Thanksgiving: Crafty and family filled... nothing better.

I know I'm a few days late on our Thanksgiving update, but I've been away from my computer... and what's a fun blog post without pictures of equally fun and adorable kiddos?

We started our journey on Tuesday night, driving a few hours with a very tired baby refusing to sleep and finally stopping at a hotel three miles after she fell asleep.  Wednesday, we finished off the drive and arrived at the home I had grown up with.  I'm going to tell you now - I was lucky growing up. I grew up in a family that was loud, a little bit quirky (okay, a lot bit) with a whole lot of love. 

And on that day that home offered a very long nap for our sweet little and then an epic dance party with her cousin Charlie.

 I mean epic.

Then I spent the night churning out a little project, more on that later.


Thanksgiving day was about the pigtails and turkey dress....

Watching the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade with her milk and cheerios.

then breakfast at my sister's with pecan rolls, yogurt parfaits, quiche and sweet littles...

And... our annual family picture...

Not that the babies were thrilled about their picture, but all of the adults standing around yelling "YAAAY!" as loud as they could did confuse them long enough to snap one.

From there I finished my project.  Everyone in the family sent me an email telling me why they were thankful for each other member of the family.  I then compiled the lists and printed them for each member, glued them to pretty paper and marked their places at the table with them.  (There is another table to the right of this one).

    (If you've never seen someone strategically plan seating placement for 19 people, 7 of whom are little ones... you've never seen genius in action.  One of my brothers and my oldest sister magically did this).  I think everyone really enjoyed having that little piece of familial love to take home.


It was most fun reading it to the little ones.  I got to watch my niece's face light up as I explained that these were the reasons everyone was thankful for her.

Oh, and I made turkey cookies, stemmed from a small addiction to pinterest.   They were adorable, if I do say so myself and the kids loved them.

 There was also just a little twinkle of Christmas as well.  Because we won't see my side of the family for Christmas, we gave them their gifts now.  I love giving gifts, so here's hoping they loved them, because it was so much fun to see them open them :).

Then I took a little trip with my daddy to cheer on our Cornhuskers.  I hadn't gotten to go to a game with him in two years, so it was awesome being back.

It was a little nostalgic as well.  The lumberyard we always meet my uncles before and after games (where my Uncle has been manager for years and years) is moving and this building is getting torn down for the new arena.   It's funny, I've been going to games for 15 years, and this walk is so very familiar to me.  We always sat at the same table, in the same chairs and ate popcorn while we waited for the parking to clear and the trains to pass.  After the game, I would listen to my dad and his brothers talk about the game, and by listen, I mean half listen.  The truth is, I love my team and I love going to games, but I'm not all that overly passionate about football in general. 

After a late-night arrival home, we spent the next day hanging out with my sister and taking some really fun shots for her etsy shop. Twinkly Christmas lights make everything a little more magical. 

Anni also made sure to leave her hand prints all over the glass doors.  

Have I mentioned my husband is an amazing daddy?  Well, he's a great Uncle, too.  This scene makes me all the more excited that he's the one raising our baby with me. 

And then, we ended our trip the same way we started.  Dance Party.

Epic.