Dinner with Aunt Jessica and Uncle Eric

In other news it's snowing here - i love that snow can make even a parking lot look magical.
And also i ate my lunch already but i'm still hungry.

wiggity wigity wednesdays came back for a visit

our weekly dinners have been moved all over the calendar. This week found us with a wednesday meal of roast chicken, black-eyed peas with bacon, asparagus, and salad. yum, yum. And then it was time to read a story and go to bed, full but happy.

Oh Casey, My Casey

It's crazy how people use their babies to shamelessly advertise their brother-in-law's bands on the internet. More The Code Here.

actually, this is my hoodied toddler climbing the stairs. Which has two implications
1) This is incredibly dangerous and one day she will do it without supervision and fall and crack her head and i'm an irresponsible mother.
2) Send it baby-girl!!!! Mommy's on Belay!

(Hoodie, care of Casey Jones and Badu or Andrew Tamaskavic or however the hell you spell his wacky-ass last name.)

Ok, so they're not x-mas pics

So, putting up pics is my way of avoiding putting any real thought into my posts. There are plenty of things i would like to post about, real things...

Such as, why are geeky girls never portrayed as being part of geeky girl groups in the media but always as loners (I recently read an article in BITCH about this and i'm intrigued).

or perhaps,

A contest: the weirdest place you've ever (or been privvy to someone else) breastfed.

or um...

A list: my christmas presents

or um...

How freakin' insane i am to be (many of you already know this but some of you may not) considering taking Esther to Sri Lanka this spring. Also: if you have something negative or a warning about my taking a toddler on a 24 hour sojourn including a 12hr overnight flight to a 3rd world country please keep it to yourself.

That tantalizing piece said: Here are some pictures of my baby trying to dress herself.






And this is my baby in a dress. I know shocking, eh? I really do dress her like a girl sometimes. This time it was my father's birthday (happy birthday Dadda!!!) and i thought he'd get a kick out of it.





And my charming husband hamming it up while doing the dishes.



Oh yeah. And spaghetti face has messy hair.

More on Christmas, but the excitement of the day

Just a couple pictures of our early morning festivities at my parents' house.

My brother, Jeremiah and Cecelia
My Dad, the only one who looks truly awake in all these pictures, notice he he's also the only one holding a mug of coffee.... hrmmmm.
Esther making "mean face" and my soon to be brudda-in-law, Andrew... aka: Badu.
This is me catching the christmas tree as it fell over almost smushing Esther. Although, she was the one pulling on it... we had to wire it to a nail in the wall after this point.
And the Christmas litter... not referring to Esther of course, simply the wrappings that she is making her way though.

There will be more pictures to follow but these are the ones of my camera, which had a full card (oops!) Also, there aren't any pics of Casey or my mom. So those will hopefully be in the next batch.

Hope everyone had wonderful holidays and is recovering nicely.

For West - Cause we love her!!!! and SHE LOVES US!!!

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you...

Esther has a new best friend:

Snow White goes hunting?

Okay some i'm running out of creative ideas for titles of posts... what can i say... the holidays are sucking the life and money right out of me...

Word of the Year

Locavore

Hunting Baby

Poor Esther and her parent induced gender confusion...

Our IV Wedding Anniversary. *cutesie vomit warning*

copied and pasted from an e-mail i sent my friend (hi jodi!!) this morning:


It was our 4th anniversary yesterday. We went to Petite Louis, a French bistro in Roland Park.

I had been bugging him for 3 days asking him what he got me for our anniversary. And he kept putting me off. I gave him his presents the night before in hopes of getting my own early but alas, he told me I had to wait until our dinner.

So we get there and he sneakily retrieves a package from the back of the car. It's about the length and width of a postcard and about 3 inches deep. As we walk into the restaurant I beg him to let me open it he says no. He puts it on the table between us and every 8 minutes or so throughout or meal I ask if I can open it now.

Well just after we order dessert he says I can open it.

It is a box full of mother of pearl buttons with a velvet jewelry box in the middle. (Now I should explain here that when we were in high school I always had a spare button or six in my pocket and when we dated in high school any time I passed him in the halls I would hand him a button. Quirky - I know... I don't know why I did that). Many years later when we reconnected he bought me a jar of buttons from an antique store and so they have become a thing with us.

Anyway, I open the velvet box and it's a gold ring with a beautiful pearl. Ben takes the ring out, gets down on his knees in the restaurant and says, "The last 4 years with you have been amazing. This is the engagement ring I never got you. The pearl is because I know you love them and because of how much we both love the ocean. Will you please promise me again to be with me for the rest of our lives?"

Our dessert arrived with two glasses of champagne on the house.
Then he kept saying sweet things the rest of the evening like "I know this has been our hardest year yet and I know we've been bickering a lot but I wanted to tell you that I love that we fight and it only strengthens our relationship...." and he goes on to tell me what a wonderful mother I am...

I got all gooey and soft and smooshy and was completely embarrassed by how much i thoroughly enjoyed the moment.

November is over so here's what happened.

I haven't posted anything decent in a long time so let me catch you up during this lull.

On the 9th-11th of November j&i came with us to Pittsburgh to visit my sistaw and my goddaughter (and good friend, Kali). Aside from the atrocious drive there (I blame myself) it was a good trip. Esther made instant friends with Kit-Ten and proceeded to wrestle and put her in a head lock every chance possible. My allergies stayed relatively at bay until the last day there when they kicked into full gear. We went to the handmade arcade which was pretty neat. Lots of Etsy participants were selling their wares. We did our christmas shopping. Casey and Kali were as gracious hosts as they could be to 5 people intruding on their space (granted they got a lot of space)... and i forgot to take pictures...

On the 17th and 18th 3 pigs were slaughtered and butchered in the wood shop. They are currently residing in freezers all over the county, one of which is ours. poor pigs. yay us. yay organic meat, yay knowing where your food comes from.

We spent thanksgiving with Ben's mom (Hi Oma!). It was a glorious feast. Ben's sister and her fiance (hi Jes and Eric!) brought Mercury (their tiny-faced, gravity defying sweetheart of a dog) who followed Esther around because she left a trail of crumbs behind her everywhere she went. Aside from gnawing on slightly stale bread, Esther was quite taken with the 'ish (fish) and would lead anyone in arms distance over to the fish tank and then pat her chest and say 'ep (help) meaning "can you please lift me up so i can poke at the glass and eventually try to climb in the fish tank to be with those oh-so-interesting bug-eyed little fellas."

Opening day was last saturday. Opening day is a pretty big event here in Redneck-ville. While the majority of my family did, we did not participate except later that night when Ben assisted in hosing out and hanging up the 5 deer that were shot and pulled from the family farm and he did go out Wednesday at 4:30am...My brother (hi-ya Miah!) came into town for the weeks-worth of hunting.



And then: There's our anniversary!!!!!!!!!! (see next post)