I loved my life...I love my life

6 years ago I thought my life was pretty great. We lived 6 miles from my office where I worked 8:30 - 5 every day. Chris worked in Dallas, left the house at 6:30am and got home about 6:30pm. I got up with him every morning, made his lunch and kissed him goodbye. Then I had about an hour before I had to start getting ready for work. On most any fall or spring morning I worked in the yard. If it was icky outside, I worked on projects inside the house. We'd bought our first house after being married 2 1/2 years. It was in great shape but needed updating. We ripped down A LOT of wallpaper and I had a blast doing fun things with texture and paint on the walls. Anyway, I would then get ready, go to work at a job I totally loved, come home & have another hour to do more work around the house or read a design magazine before cooking dinner & having it ready on the table when Chris walked through the door. I loved it all!
5 years ago this month I surprised Chris at one of those home made dinners with a plate that read, "Congratulations, Daddy." He literally dropped his fork & knife on the table :) If I recall correctly, that was about 2 weeks after he started a new job...after being laid off over the summer for turning down a move to lovely, frozen Minneapolis. By October we decided we should move closer to my family as I would need help with the baby since he was traveling a bit with his new job. In December we moved. We thought the new house was "in great shape, just needed some updating." No problem. That's what I'd been doing in the other house for almost 2 years. Oh wait, now I have to leave the house at 7:30 to get to work, not 8:20. That's OK, I have the evenings & weekends. My amazing mom & grandparents helped with a desperately needed re-work of the back yard. Along with the help on my mom & grandmother, my sweet husband who hates to paint also painted almost every room in the house - as I was pregnant with our FIRST child and therefore unable to inhale any water-based paint fumes, according to him. :) And, I can't live in a house with white walls! Then we started working on the nursery. We got all that done in 3 months. In April our sweet Rhiannon was born. 3 years later we had Bridgette. Yes, I just jumped ahead 3 years because from April 2005 to today has been a whirlwind of bows, tiny shoes, toys and one messy, messy house with 600 projects on "the list" but not completed. And I love it all!!!

...going on...

Growing up my mom would always refer to me as "6 going on 16" or "12 going on 21." I think Bridgette is 14 months going on 3. She won't sit in a high chair. She's discovered that she can stand in one of our dining chairs and be at the table just like everyone else. And, I'm pretty sure she's convinced she is just like everyone else. Before she could walk or even crawl, you could just sense the frustration in her watching everyone else move about the room. You could "see the wheels spinning" in her little head trying to figure out why she wasn't moving. Well, she was moving. She is always moving. She just wasn't getting to where she wanted to be. These days, shes walking, running, dancing and I think she was even singing in the backseat the other day when Rhiannon was. She amazes me the way she learns. All babies do. Everything in the world is brand new to them and they are intent on studying it all! (All but those $40 toys we buy them that light up, spin & sing! They'd rather throw everything out of the lowest bathroom drawer onto the floor then bend down & fling it around everywhere.) I love when she picks up an object that resembles a brush - or doesn't - and rubs it around on her head or imagines something is a phone, puts it to her ear & says "uh." Today when I was loading the dishwasher, she went right over to the cabinet (you know, the ones with the child locks that she already knows how to open), pulled out a pan & tried to put it in the dishwasher. As I'm sitting at the table writing this, she has found Rhiannon's orange juice cup and is blowing bubbles in it through the straw. I cannot imagine what God has in store for us raising this girl but I know it will be amazing!

lost my blogs!

So I just logged onto blogger for the first time in a month - bad Jamie!! - and went to look at what's going on with all the genius crafters and entertaining writers on all the blogs I follow and instead got this message: "You are not following any blogs at this time." What??? I don't know why they're all gone but they are completely and totally gone. I am so bummed!!! Now I have to find some time to go find them all again...as if I didn't have enough to do!

Comfort

Rhiannon came in our room this morning at 6:30am so rather than Chris or me getting up, we turned on Disney channel , plopped her down between us, rolled over & tried to go back to sleep. With my left food & elbow hanging off the bed and the rest of my body carefully balanced on the edge, I said "We need a bigger bed." Rhiannon replied, "Why? I'm not squished."

Rhiannon's 4th birthday

I can't believe its taken me this long to blog about Rhiannon's birthday, sorry!!!

For her 4th birthday, Rhiannon got a puppy! She's been asking for one for a very long time. I have to say here that I don't think I would buy just any 4 year old a dog, especially since I have vowed I WILL NOT be the one to take care of it. But Rhiannon is quite the Farrar -that is, she is a total animal lover. Everyone in Chris's family loves animals. His parents are full time RVers and share that tiny space with 2 small dogs & 2 love birds. His 18 year old niece has a horse & has for several years. Before she could drive, the school bus would drop her off at the stables every afternoon to take care of it. Rhiannon got that gene.

So, we started researching what kind to get & where to get them. I have fairly severe allergies to animals so we had to get one that is hypoallergenic. When I was in high school, my mom got a long haired Chihuahua for this reason & Chris loved that dog. So, when Rhiannon asked me one day from the backseat, "Mama, when I'm Bella's old (5ys old), may I please have 2 giil (girl) chit-wa-was?" we knew a long haired Chihuahua was what we needed. Chris found a black & white one that would be 8 weeks old on Rhiannon's birthday. Her birthday fell on a Saturday so he made plans to pick up the dog Friday night after Rhiannon was in bed & we would give her the dog Saturday morning then have her puppy-themed birthday party that afternoon. She was sooo excited when we brought the puppy into her room that morning with a bow tied around her tummy. She immediately named her Cupcake which couldn't be more perfect for this 2 lb blk & white furry puppy. Cupcake slept through most of the party but everyone enjoyed looking at her anyway. We got dog-ear headbands for the kids & painted their noses with brown eyeliner. I made a cake with a white "moppy" dog (thank you, Angie!) with black ears which Rhiannon informed me did not look like Cupcake. Gotta love their honesty! :) For some reason I always forget to take video at birthday parties and this year was the most upsetting. Her group of friends has really grown & when all those kids were standing around the table singing Happy Birthday, just singing their hearts out, it was the cutest thing ever!!! I guess it'll be just as cute next year, right?? Here are some pics, hope you enjoy!

New York Girls' Trip

My mom, sister, grandmother & I went to New York for a girls' trip the weekend before my 30th birthday. Chris arranged it all for my for my birthday! :) He booked us at The Hotel Wellington, at 57th & 7th. It was 8 blocks north of Times Square & 2 blocks south of Central Park. We could see both when we stepped out the front door of the hotel.

We did so much in the 48 hours we were there! Thanks to Michelle, we ate a hot dog within minutes of leaving the hotel the first time and a slice of pizza at the very next Subway stop 10 minutes later. :) After spending a little time shopping in China Town where we all gave in & bought Pashmina scarfs, we had dinner at Angelo of Mulberry in Little Italy. The pasta melts in your mouth! We went to Times Square next, which was Grammy's favorite part of the trip - she was amazed at all the lights. Mostly, we laughed. We laughed at Mama, who is afraid of flying so she takes valum before boarding. It doesn't ware off at the end of the flight. We laughed at ourselves when we thought it was a great idea to all lay on the bed, 2 facing one way & 2 facing the other, and take a self portrait in our new scarves. We laughed when waiters told us to "enjoy your trip" & we asked how they possibly knew we were tourists. We laughed, we laughed, we laughed.

The next day we found this great little diner for breakfast where the wait staff is comprised of "starving actors" who sing Broadway songs while while waiting tables. Next we headed toward Central Park, with a quick tour through The Plaza & a little shopping at FAO Schwartz on the way - where the door man sang me Happy Birthday. I love the park! I could spend hours & hours there! In my 2 prior trips to NY, I had never found the time to make it to the famous Bloomingdales or Macy's Herrold Square. We decided that was definitely a girls' trip thing to do. Bloomingdales was very cool. Macy's was decked out in the annual flower show which was amazing. There were incredible flower arrangements covering the display cases and in the middle of the isles. We did a little more shopping on Park Ave and went to the very awesome ABC Carpet in Union Square. The girls treated me to my birthday dinner at Serendipity III. The desserts there are AMAZING! We had the frozen hot chocolate and a very yummy banana split on humble pie.

Monday was rainy. We did some more shopping. We stumbled on a Diesel store where Mama & I got these awesome rain boots. In the picture we both look a little pissed but I'm not sure why because we were actually very excited about them!

The whole trip was such a blast. So many people have asked me what my favorite part was & I just can't narrow it down to one thing. I really just loved being there with my girls, showing them all the things I love & laughing non-stop.

Photographer

If we suddenly became mega-millionaires, the first person I would hire for my "staff" wouldn't be a housekeeper or nanny, it would be a personal photographer. You know how hard it is to get a candid picture of the whole family or group you are traveling with (we had some great laughs trying to do that in NY this weekend - I'll blog about that trip soon!)?? I would love to have someone just following my family around, snapping shots of our real-life moments. OK, really that would be a little much but here's one that I would have loved to have a picture of today but it just wasn't possible...I was mowing the lawn on our new but very old riding mower. Rhiannon wouldn't stay in bed. I finally let her come outside with me. She played with the rake for a minute, then told me she wanted to clean up "the stuff that helps us swim" which meant she picked up 1 small inertube & brought it out of the pool fence with her. Next, she wanted to ride on the lawn mower with me. I told her she would have to remove the inertube which she now had around her waist in order for us to both fit on the seat. She was OK with that but wanted to hold it. No problem. I also warned her that our trip around the yard would kick up a lot of dust & be very "coffee" - that is, cough-y - as she had told me when she was raking that I had made the yard to "cough-y" for her. A few minutes later I looked back to drive in reverse & out of the corner of my eye saw the inertube on top of Rhiannon's head. I looked down & she was just enjoying herself thoroughly, along for the ride. If only that photographer had been following us around, that would have been a keeper...