surviving winter

twice in one week, i'm on a roll!  ow ow!

today was snow day number 12 for good ol' Lexington and school has already been cancelled for tomorrow.  my teacher of a husband will be going to school til july.   it was wonderful to have my sweet hubs home for the day but my little monster was actually, kind of a monster.  it was one of those days where lack of napping led to one baby meltdown after another.  bedtime couldn't come soon enough - for either of us.

but even on the hard days, i have it pretty good.  here's a few from the last week trying to survive winter.

emmie just started letting me leave bows in her hair!  you have no idea what a huge development this is for us!  i have been collecting hairbows for 19 months in anticipation of this!  and now that her bangs are constantly in her eyes it's more of a necessity than just an accessory.  i wanted to send ben a pic of em in a bow and this is the face she made when i said 'smile!'

one great way to make it through eternal frozen nightmare is with an adorable scarf.  this little stinker helped me enter and win a giveaway from my bestie, cory!  what are the chances!?  i always threaten her to pick me & she never does, now my luck is turning around!  i submitted this pic of em in her eclectic joy  baby scarf, how could it not be lucky? cory's clearing out all her fall/winter scarves to make room for spring.  grab them while you can!

over the weekend we got to celebrate our sweet friend, lu's birthday, a little earlier than her actual birthday.  thai food for everyone.  i wanted a sweet family shot.  hey, we tried.

i always bite emmie's cheeks, like play bite not for real, and i guess she's catching on.  sadly for her, my cheeks are a little less adorable to nibble.

which brings us to today.  today, like i said, was one of those days.  i know i have it super easy, our life is crazy blessed but today i felt like i cleaned up the same pile of toys 10 times, emptied to sink full of dishes to turn around and it be filled to the brim again, and was a tad low on patience. [by tad i mean a lot low].  but those aren't the things you want to remember in your family blog / journal.  you want to look back on flowers and puppy dog tails but sometimes that ain't true so lets call it how it is.

in all the frustrations that come, there are those sweet, totally worth it moments too.  we spent the morning at home because the roads were pretty bad.  i made breakfast for us which was yummy if i do say so myself.  we pretended we were at josie's with the brehms & junkers with chef jen jen. 

later on we ventured out.  cabin fever is setting in thick around these parts.  i cannot wait to feel the warm sun [will that ever happen!?] and take em outside to run around daily.  oh man, she can't wait either.

we ate linner as a family in an almost empty restaurant, which was good because ems was a hellion.

and then to burn some energy we took em to the book store to run some laps.  she found a $25 little stuffed bunny [what?!] that we had to pry from her tiny grasp upon our exit.  my favorite part besides watching em with the train table and trying to climb into the fountain was this scene...

playing dollhouse with poppa & tiny kitty cat dolls.  real men sit in tiny chairs and play with their babies.  ugh, my heart.

soaking up these little moments with my favorite people.  hope you're surviving the snow with your favorites too!

 

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i have friends who are working on fun business ventures doing things that they love.  life is short, why not do things you enjoy?!  i am so proud of each of them for putting themselves out there.  i love these girls and i must say, my friends are so talented.  check these ladies out and support them, they're the best!

 

eclectic joy: handmade, beautiful infinity scarves for ladies and babies

thirsty heart designs:  digital and physical prints to make your home happy & inspired

two belles & a bride:  two precious girls with a passion for people and a love for the wedding industry have started a blog to be an encouragement toward the Lord and eye-candy of all things pretty.

emndesigns1: brand new instagram vendor with digital prints for purchase coming soon.  she is so super creative and i abuse her talents often! 

stella bella boutique:  hopefully returning to the scene in the very near future my dear friend rachel makes unique & thoughtful handmade jewelry.  maybe shoot her a message and tell her to give the world her jewels stat!?

winter 2013::2014 with emmie bean

originally written at the end of january i'm pretty sure.  kept hoping to add to it but obviously failed, so i'm gonna go ahead and hit the 'publish' button. without further adieu...

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per usual, i have one billion things i need to post.  a thousand things i want to remember about this time in our lives.  i've come to the realization that my hold up is pictures.  i don't have all my images in one place, some on my phone, some on ben's, some on my camera and none on my computer.  it always seems like such a bear to upload from 3 different devices just to post & no post is complete without pictures.  true?

so anyway, these next few posts will be of seasons past, out of order, and half-remembered but it's better than nothing.

memories to remember:

we were out to an informal family dinner, just the three of us, like 70% of our nights...bad momma.  when we went into the restaurant it was just cold as heck & dusk but when we came out it was a full blown blizzard in the dark.  i hope to always remember how precious little em was when she watched the snow come down for the first time with her little furry hood on.  it was sticking to her bangs and her little eyes were fixed with wonder toward the sky.  the parking lot lights lit up those perfect, fat, fluffy snowflakes (i'm convinced they're the best kind), she was in heaven.  i could have watched her smile at the sky all night, if i wasn't freezing my buns off.  it was a really precious few moments.

since then we've had relatively no snow in lexington.  all surrounding areas get pummeled, and we get a rain shower or something equally lame.  since that first snow i've had one other opportunity to take sweet mem's out into flurries.  the wind was kickin' something fierce & she could barely stay standing against it in her 'christmas-story-esque' outfit.  i snapped a few shots and let her stick her mitten hands in snow before i dragged my screaming [freezing] baby inside.  she's obsessed.  i have a wilderness babe that is for sure.  i like to be outside and all, but mostly in a laying on a beach towel sense, so i'm not sure where she gets it.

in other news, i try and stay on top of rotating emmie's clothes in and out for sizing, as she grows out of one size and then into another.  we've been super blessed with adorable hand-me-downs, or future outfits that couldn't be passed up by a certain nana.  if i slack, she might even miss wearing them all together since she grows so quickly.  all that to say, in rotating into a new size i found these awesome faux-cowgirl boots.  i had been waiting for her little feet to grow into them and now that it was fall, the stars were aligning and it was time to squeeze those little chunky toes in there.  much to our surprise they had their own squeaker in the shoe and seriously, watching emmie stomp all over the house, stores, restaurants with these boots brought me at least a years' worth of laughter.

other little emmie-isms that currently kill us:

she now puts her hand up to her face to giggle.  she still belly laughs the most at her poppa.

she tries to fake snore like i do when i 'fake' sleep but really she just opens her mouth, breathes really loud and keeps her eyes open.

she squints her eyes when she smiles at me sometimes, intentionally.  i think she's mimicking me but what's funny is that it's just the way i normally smile at her.  i'm not making my eyes squinter than normal, that's just my face.

when she runs or walks really fast she breathes, huh huh huh, really short little breaths because that's what i do when i fake run holding her.  it's awesome.

she shrugs her shoulders and put her arms out to say "i dunno." without words.

she's starting to sing and dance more.  she loves music.  anytime she hears any kind of tune her ears immediately perk up and she starts to wiggle and/or hum.

she uses her chin as an extra pair of hands or a pocket. i've never actually seen anyone else do this so i guess she's just resourceful.  she wants to be hands-free to grab one more leaf or carry a few more plastic pieces of food, insert object under chin, keep walking like normal.  she's makes the best concentration face when she does this & also creates a classic ecb double chin.

she's known how to hug and kiss for a couple months, and let me tell you, it doesn't get old, but now when she hugs it's real hard when you mean it.  sometimes she wraps her arms around me and pats my back.  i may have created the most overly affectionate baby in the whole world.  she seriously would give hugs 85% of the day if i didn't distract her with necessities like food, tea parties & mickey mouse club house.  and sometimes even that results in hugs.  she's really into giving hugs between bites, to both parents at one time.  i found scrambled egg in my hair the other day.  anytime she sees ben and i hugging, she almost whines and then runs as fast as she can to squeeze in the middle.

em knows most of her body parts, her favorite far and away is her belly button which she will whip out on command, in public.

she loves to sit in her toy corner or go shut the door in her room to read by herself.  she pulls out all of her books, surrounds herself and then gets to work flipping diligently through all of the pages.

everyday is an adventure with this little miss.  being together is far and away one of my greatest joys and undeserved blessings.

hopefully we'll be back again...someday.  she's already grown so much since this!