Finally!

Dear new house,

 

After what felt like the longest and most absurd process conceivable we finally closed last night and made you ours forever! It's official! Officially, official! It's still hard to believe that by the end of this month I'll be sipping tea in your beautiful sun room. Probably whilst sitting amongst a pile of boxes since we don't have any furniture for this room yet, but those are just the details.

 

 

I can't wait to watch the boys run around your backyard and play on the swing under that big beautful tree of yours. Also, we are going to throw Weston the greatest 5th birthday party back here in just a couple of months and I can not wait.

 

I'm going to relax in this claw foot tub so hard. Just you wait and see.

 

We will also be taking many stroller rides down this new street of ours and I'm so looking forward to spending the summer getting to know our new neighborhood.

 

 

And to our new porch swing, get ready to become bff's with Josh because he's looking forward to making you his new morning coffee spot. Although, I have a feeling he will have to fight the boys for this claim.

But mostly, new house, I know that what I'll really be doing is re-painting every single square inch of you from top to bottom. I hope you're okay with that, but I think you are. (Also, what's up with that red runner?) Yes, I think it's safe to say it's time for some big changes around here but I know we're gonna make a real fine team.

 

Here's to looking forward to many late nights and early mornings and everything in between changing you from a new house in to our forever home. You will be a great labor of love, my dear, and I can't wait to get started.

 

See you soon,

Emily 

Happy 30th Birthday, Josh.

Tonight's the night! Arrested Development triumphantly returns and I thought nothing would be more fitting than a throwback post about Josh's 30th birthday party. Josh's birthday is the day before halloween so a costume party was only natural. We went with an arrested development theme.

and why yes, that is a stair car. 

Cast from left to right: Lucille, Lindsay, Ann, Buster (being run over by the stair car), Gob (with Franklin), Maeby, Tony Wonder, Michael, Tobias (as Mrs. Featherbottom), Stair Car driven by Meryl, Maggie Lizer, George Sr., Lucille II

Remember that time we had to try to fit a stair car into the house?

Marisa dressed up like the blind and pregnant Maggie Lizer. I actually was pregnant and yet decided to dress up like Lucille and carry around a martini all night. Cuz I'm a classy lady like that.

 Why yes, that is a piece of shoe fashioned into a yarmulke on Ben's genuinely shaved head.

These girls amaze me with their craftiness.

Ann/Bland/Egg/Her?

So not everyone took part in the AD theme and there were some other REALLY good costumes

Why yes, Shawn does look EXACTLY like Kenny Powers. 

The winning costume of the night had to go to Adam who arrived fashionably late as Mrs. Featherbottom and stayed in character the entire night. At one point he was actually dancing along the railing of my deck with an open umbrella doing a Mary Poppins bit. It was spectacular.

 but not quite as spectacular as what happened after that.

I laughed

until

 I cried.

best night ever.

Let's Talk About Hormones

Shall we?

Because, I'm sick of thinking about work and buying and selling houses and Josh is sick with the flu and the boys are in bed and so why not? I mean, I'm just sitting here alone in my pj's with a pint of Ben & Jerry's half baked when I should be sleeping, so I might as well, all things considered.

To begin, I think it's safe to say Oren is officially weaned. We stopped nursing on the 1st of this month and haven't looked back since. One week later, bam! Everything is back in working order. The human body is an amazing thing, I must say. But this also means I'm back to my old, pathetic, emotional, cry at EVERYTHING self. Allow me to illustrate:

Exhibit A. This post made me weep. Not just cry, WEEP. I'm telling you what. I haven't sobbed that hard since I read the Joy Luck Club. (omg the part where she has to abandon her babies on the side of the road because she's too sick to go on? Forget about it. FORGET. ABOUT. IT. I'm still traumatized.)

Exhibit B. Abby and I were discussing my instagram feed (as you do) and we realized about 90% of the people I follow I do so solely for the purpose of oogling their cute babies. That's pretty much all my instagram has become useful for. If one considers an on demand supply of random stranger-baby photos useful, that is. (p.s. If you're not following Amelia's blog and/or instagram feed you are missing out on literally, and I do mean literally, because I've checked, THE cutest baby in the world. And I'm allowed to say that because I don't have any babies any more (wahhhh!) But, oh that Ralphie, he's a dreamboat!)

Exhibit C. I bought some baby girl shoes off the internet. No, seriously. And I know what you're thinking, because then it would make sense (!) but I'm not pregnant, nor will I be anytime soon. I think with all the house stuff going on if I were to become pregnant Josh might actually have an aneurism. I'd give it a good 80% chance of happening and since I love my husband dearly, no. No plans for that anytime in the near future. But, in my defense, these shoes were ones I first saw made by a blogger/shoe designer I follow as a cool little design challenge she did for her blog. They were never meant to be for sale but I loved how they looked so much that I even emailed her and suggested she sell them. Well, apparently so did a lot of other people (they're that good!) and now, over a year later, they suddenly popped up in her shop and were 25% off! How could I resist? I don't know if I'll have another baby someday, particularly a girl for that matter, but I had to get them juuuuust in case. Besides, I would like to let it be known that this is also a bribe I'm throwing out there to all of our brothers and sisters so that they know that whichever one of them has the first baby girl in the family and finally makes me an aunt gets the shoes if I'm not using them. Let the races begin! Anyway, yeah, I'm now the proud(?) owner of a pair of size 4 toddler girl shoes. And that's where my hormones have taken me this month, folks!

No wait, actually this where they've taken me.

but, I mean, pretty cute though, right?

Graduation Weekend

He did it, guys! My little brother's officially a college graduate! The best part of the whole thing was he came home for the weekend to attend the ceremony and I got spend a little time with him before he headed back to Nashville this morning. Not too much time though, I worked pretty much all weekend long. Thank you Designer ShowHouse and also to my very favorite - inventory. Not to mention friends from Chicago were in town and a friend from DC (which, by the way, happy birthday Rence!) and we wanted to make time to see all of them. It was a busy, busy weekend, but aren't they all, really? And so, to commemorate it here are some blurry and/or dark photos from my mom's camera and my iphone of the blessed event/impromptu dinner at La Strada afterward (whose bolognese I must report, gets two very enthusiastic thumbs up).

Congrats again, Ben! So proud of you!

Happy White Coat Day, M!

Marisa was supposed to have her white coat ceremony for her nursing program Monday night, but "due to administrative changes" the whole thing was canceled at the last minute. Which, after all her hard work, is a complete and total ripoff. So, we decided to throw her one of our own instead. It was fairly short notice so please excuse my lack of table cloth and the limited number of guests. But we did play graduation-y type music and I made cookies and the fancy fruit punch with the sherbet floating on top. I mean, that's something right?! Isn't she so cute in her nurses gear, though? So proud of you Marisa!

We had to pull out the obligatory arrested development banner.

Which by the way, only TWO MORE WEEKS! omg. omg. omg. omg.

Josh got the role of master of ceremonies

 very official, as you can see.

 

 My mom and I made these spur of the moment. Don't judge.