And my baby girl who’s almost all the way over her cold was back to her normal self and ran around and played like a crazy woman. But if I ever left the room, she was right behind me. She was attached to me all weekend and I gotta say, it was kind of nice.

So I followed her around a lot with my camera and got cute pictures of her making her “thinking face” and her “happy face” and I loved it all. My little baby girl who I had fun dressing up in ALL homemade clothes because while I adore me some Target and Gymboree, Etsy and custom made stuff for my girls is where it’s at.

Know what else hits the spot for me? Watching The Man with our babies. It’ll never EVER get old to me.

And so by the time Monday came along I was ready to eat some burgers and hot dogs and laugh with the family and see my oldest baby girl who had a great time on her weekend trip away with her Nana. It was a weekend away from eachother we both probably needed and when she got home I just KNEW she’d be different.

I was right.

She came running up to me and told me she missed me and couldn’t wait to see me. That’s the daughter I knew was in there.

And Livie missed her too.

And so we did just that. We ate. We laughed. We told stories. We did what we do best when we all get together. It may sound corny but to me it’s magical how this family operates. I can’t say enough how grateful I am to have amazing in laws and people that consider me blood just as much as they do The Man or my girls. I feel like I was born into this family and that I’ve always been here.

It was a good, good weekend. The last weekend of summer…at least according to me. So now I anticipate fall and all the stuff I LOVE about fall. We may not get fall weather here or fall colors but we have our family and our get togethers and our pumpkin spice punch and Halloween parties. And that? Makes me happy.

It makes us happy.

I saw this on my way home yesterday from work.

I just knew it was a sign that my evening was going to be good. Hannah left today to go on a weekend trip with her Nana and Bebe and she’s been so excited for it for months. Last night I told her I loved her and that I’d miss her. I meant it. Truthfully I’m welcoming a little break from her because the last week really sucked me dry. But when she gets back on Monday evening we are gonna start this new track together, her and I. And it’s gonna be good.

So this weekend it’ll just be me, The Man and Liv. Poor, sick Livie. She’s still a sicky baby but she’s finally playing again and smiling.

And back to getting into EVERYTHING. She was being mighty quiet in the kitchen and I caught her in the laundry, behind her high chair just sitting there babbling away.

It’s gonna be a good, long weekend, y’all. I can’t wait.

Happy Labor Day!

After about an hour of being there this older man, probably in his 50s, comes in. I only noticed him because he came stumbling over and said something to us like hi or how are you and then went on his merry way. About 2 minutes after that this lady comes in and I immediately noticed her. She had to have been the same age as him but dressed like she was 25. She had on a bikini top and short shorts. Right away I whispered to The Man that she was way too old to be dressing like that especially in a bar. We giggled and watched her with that man and then all of a sudden I felt this feeling in my gut. It felt like I had been punched.

See, The Man always jokes with me and says that men don’t get old, they get wise. That saying insinuates that women DO in fact get old while men don’t. I always smirk at him or roll my eyes but in that moment, it all became clear to me. I kind of think this is true! The man and woman were the same age and yet I thought he was totally cool to be there and thought this woman was out of place. The Man insists it’s because of how she was dressed and if she had on regular clothes I wouldn’t have paid much attention to her either. There is some truth to this. HOWEVER….I feel like when we are in our 50s he’s gonna still be hot and cool and won’t look out of place in a bar whereas I will look my age and young girls will think ” WTF is she doing in here!?”. Omg. I never want to be that lady. But at that age I will want to go out still, right? My kids will be grown. We’ll be retired. That’s all we’ll want to do is travel and go out and have fun. It was a harsh realization and probably a dumb one (fueled by vodka)..but one I had nonetheless.

A few of my friends had/have a problem turning 30. I have no problem with 30 at all. I’m content with where my life is and I’ve accomplished most of the major goals I wanted to accomplish before I was 30, BEFORE I turned 30. I’ve joked that 35 is probably gonna hit me hard and that it’ll be my last birthday. 35 is a good, solid age. Not too young and naive. Not old at all. Women say sex peaks for us in our 30s. My girls will be teenagers and independant. We’ll be able to go on dates whenever we want without having a sitter. I look forward to my 30s. And so I told The Man this again at the end of the night. Lots of people turn 21 5 times. Or turn 29 10 times. Not me. I’m going to go the extra mile and get to 35.

After that, I’m done.

*This post brought to you by random, insecure, shallow, drunken thoughts.*

4 years old:

me: aw Nettie I love you so much
her: I love you too.
me: You’re such a beautiful little woman
her: *nods*
me: You’re my precious little baby
her: And you’re a grown up.

5 years old: (on me getting pregnant)

“mama, do you have a baby in your belly yet?”

“nope honey not yet”

“well I hope God puts one in there soon and I hope it’s a girl. If it’s a boy, that won’t be right”

“um, it would be right. whatever God wants to put in there is what’s right. He doesn’t make mistakes”

“but I ordered a girl!”

I remember having these talks with her and I’m so glad I put them here to look back on. We used to lay in bed at night and just talk before we went to bed. I need to start doing that again. I miss how we used to be.

And as promised, a HAPPY Hannah in her dance stuff.

Let’s hope this lasts!

And my poor baby girl…she’s all sicky and yucky. She’s getting better little by little daily but I still hate to see her all mopey and whiney.

She still finds time to be cute though because she can’t help it. I speak the truth.

So my week is going better now and I’m SO thankful for all of your input and ideas. I honestly don’t know where I’d be without this online community that I’m a part of. I’m truly blessed.

Except for this tiny moment on Saturday. “MOM! Get a picture of me and Sassie!”

*sigh*

I know we will overcome this. We will get to the other side of this HUGE mountain sometime (soon I hope) and I’ll look back and be able to make a list of all the lessons we BOTH learned. I’m looking forward to that day.

And then Livie got sick. Her nose started running Saturday evening and by yesterday she had a full on, raging cold complete with lots of this

and only a few moments of this

So to sum this all up? I’m exhausted. Mentally and physically. BUT I’m determined to change this. I’m determined to change my focus and instead of everything being out of focus right now…I’m gonna rotate my lens of life and get this thing in check. I don’t like a hazy view of my life. I don’t like this feeling of not knowing what the fuck I’m doing and wondering if my children are conspiring against me. They aren’t. And I’m not an idiot. I’m not a clueless moron attempting motherhood. I AM a good mom. I will prove this to my girls.

And to myself.

She was so excited for me to come home from work to show me and actually didn’t fight me to take pictures of her in them because, after all, they “make her look smart.”

“Take a picture of me thinking, Mama!”

Hannah, you ARE smart and you DO think and I know things are going to get better from here on out. I love you.

And so I thank God for Livie because she’s 1 and a 1/2 and my hardest struggle with her is the fact that she doesn’t sleep and makes my house look like a hurricane swept through. I find myself secretly wishing for her to be like 3 so she could be potty trained and talking and able to do more on her own. But not last night. Last night I embraced her age and her innocence and I will continue to.

She’s been loving the phone lately. She picks it up and says “Hello?” and then she’ll talk and laugh and use crazy hand motions and then suddenly say “BYE!” and put the phone on the floor. Then she’ll start the whole process over again. It’s to die for and so freakin cute. I love her.

Last night was definitely a life out of focus night for me. I get used to our routine and even the normal things that throw me off like I said before I can handle. Sure, sleepless nights because of Livie suck but I’m used to it. Fighting with Hannah to write her spelling words sucks but I’m used to it. And then there are hazy, fuzzy, out of focus nights like last night that derail me. I’m grateful for The Man and his family and my babies for picking me up and putting me back on track again.

When we first walked in and I heard Ice Ice Baby I was like ok, these guys are cool. When they sang The Cupid Shuffle I fell in love.  Nelly. Flo Rida. Snoop dogg. All my favorite hip hop songs coming from a group of nerdy white guys dressed in crazy outfits…pure genius. We danced our asses off all night long and took silly pictures and pretended like we were 21 all over again.

I love being a mom to my girls. They are what completes me and makes my life whole and fabulous. But every now and then I like to send them off to Nana’s and have a night out with MORE people that I love and make my life fabulous. Most people go out with a group of friends. Not us. We go out with family. The Man’s brother and sister and cousin and their significant others….This is why I always say that most my friends HAVE to be online. I have an amazing life with my family here. I have a handful of close friends I see here that I go out with or do things with outside from my family. But 90% of the time I’m with my family.

And I love it.

And you can see why.  This weekend I got all of Livie’s hair in a ponytail and it was so super cute. I think she loved it even if she DID try to take it down a few times. It’s been a solid 97-101 degrees for weeks now and having your hair up is such a relief.

So she liked it, right?

Hannah being goofy with her friends. Another favorite thing of mine.

Words can’t express how grateful I am that we had the coolest people ever move in next door to us a few months ago and our daughters have bonded and gotten so close. They play together EVERY. SINGLE. DAY and it’s so awesome to watch your babies have a mini social calendar of when they will do their homework and when they will play and whose house they’re going to play at at what times.

Livie getting into the tupperware. Again.

And her cuddling with Daddy when she’s exhausted.

And last but not least a few pictures from our photography session a few weeks ago. I finally put in my order last week of the prints I wanted to get but OMG it was so hard to decide which ones. I wanted to get them all but since I don’t have a few grand laying around to do that, I picked a few favorites which included these 3.

Family. That’s always my favorite thing of all.

I had a friend recently tell me that my house looks so clean in all my pictures and how do I do this…well, as you can see from this picture that is not true. At all. Usually when I’m chasing the girls’ around taking pictures I’m kicking toys out of the way as I go so the house looks semi decent. I was about to do the same thing yesterday but then I decided to leave it the way it USUALLY is because hello…I have a toddler (OMG A TODDLER!!!) and keeping toys off the floor is pretty much a distant concept. And to show how she’s NEVER still, I tried REALLY hard to get her smiling. This is what I got.

Smile, yes. Clarity? No. Ah well. Can’t win them all.

So I have to pimp out this site super fast. It’s getuncommon.com and OMG if you have an iPhone or iTouch you can make a case for your phone like this.

Is that not the awesomest idea EVER?! I made one with Hannah’s picture too and The Man’s mom currently has it on her phone. Best idea ever. Yes I know. I plan to make many more and change them out often. I can see this becoming an obsession of mine.

Phone cases and Etsy.

God help my checkbook.