Glamour girl

I have been getting lots of comments from people lately when we are out-and-about regarding how pretty Lucy's hair is. It is getting long and it has such a nice color and curl. On Saturday morning, she actually let me blow dry it for the first time (rather than scream and run away at the notion). It came out looking like Veronica Lake...very old Hollywood glamour.

[thanks for the inspiration, veronica.]

When the cat was away...

[does my butt look big, or is it just my cloth diaper?]

...the mouse played!

Thanks to Nonni & Nonno for having Lucy for a funnnn-filled weekend on Cape Cod! She had a marvelous time (she's still talking about it, of course) and Phoebe loved having Mommy & Daddy to herself for a little while.

House peek

We've been in our new house for a few weeks now and we're still sorting through what feels like millions of boxes. In between, we are trying to get the house interior painted and I constantly have my hands into all sorts of little projects. I should probably focus on the bigger projects, but they are hard to accomplish with the kids constantly underfoot. So I've been doing a lot of things that require only a few minutes here or there (because, let's face it, that's all the time I have to myself!). I plan to blog a lot more about my house someday, but in the meantime here is a peek at how our kitchen is shaping up. We're thrilled with it so far...so bright and happy!

We painted the cabinets bright white and the walls orange-yellow (Benjamin Moore Semolina). We're crazy about the color -- even Jeff, who was very tentative about it at first. We still need some drawer pulls and I am leaning toward chrome cup pulls. I will probably just use them on the drawers and go with no hardware on the doors, or perhaps white milk glass nobs on the doors.

My wall of open cabinets. These were closed with doors when we bought the house but I had vision! I am filling them with things that I find pleasant to have around, like a footed jadeite hobnail cupcake plate, hobnail dessert cups, and a vintage milk glass rolling pin. All from Ebay! I also plan to buy some basic white dishware because I love the white-on-white look.

Another view of the open cabinets. You can see my cupcake stand well in this one. I got the two yellow teacups at Anthropologie and the white one, made of English bone china, on the side of the road after a yard sale in a box labeled "free." Now that's a bargain! The pithcers in the middle were purchased at a tiny store in the tiny village where we stayed in Italy. One says "Aqua" and the other says "Vino."

The window over my sink. To the left you can see the edge of a canister container I got at a yard sale for $2. It was dark knotty wood and I spray painted it bright yellow and added milk glass egg-shaped nobs from Anthropologie. I am still working on getting the tops to stay on correctly, but I am determined to make it work. The two jars are former spaghetti sauce jars that I have re-purposed as "memory jars" for the kids. I decorated the one on the left for Lucy, complete with a bight yellow L, and will do Phoebe's soon. The point of the jars is to put little notes in when the kids do or say cute things. It will be fun to hand them a bunch of full jars someday!

I found a dalmation and a flower on my back steps...

We hope you all had a Happy Halloween!!!

Tagged again

Sarah tagged me...I've been tagged before, but that was for different questions. So here are my responses to the new tag:

10 Years Ago, in October 1998, I:
1. Had just started law school & was studying my butt off all the time
2. Had just met my friend/roommate/maid of honor/child's Godmother Laura (Laura...10 years! Do I get a gift??)
3. Heard Laura telling me about her little sister Sarah, who was starting to date a kid from their hometown named Andy
4. Was dating a resident and fairly miserable about the whole thing

Five things on today's "To Do" List (there were waaaaaay more than 5):
1. Finish priming the little table in my kitchen that I rescued from the side of the road and am giving a new life to
2. Laundry
3. Cook dinner for my parents
4. Nurse the baby, nurse the baby, nurse the baby
5. Clean up the nuclear bomb of clothing all over my bedroom that I still had not sorted out after the move

Five things that I would do if I were a millionaire:
1. Pay someone else to finish all the stuff that my house needs
2. Go back to Italy with my family for a few months
3. Go to a warm beach with my husband and stay in our own hut :)
4. Get weekly pedicures and monthly facials
5. Have more children

Five places I have lived:
1. Cape Cod
2. London
3. Manhattan
4. Boston
5. Sudbury (home sweet home!)

Five jobs I have had:
1. Sales clerk at my dad's jewelry store in high school
2. A/V squad in college...the greatest job ev-er
3. Lyme disease researcher
4. Lawyer who makes money but hates her job
5. Lawyer who doesn't make money but loves her job

Ok, I tag...Courtney, Melissa, Joannah, and Kate. I know you all are reading!

The Fall Gals

Remember that show "The Fall Guy"? I know, it didn't have anything to do with autumn, it was about a stunt man, blah blah blah. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you...The Fall Gals:

Wacky Wednesday

This morning, Lucy decided she would be "Spiderman." Thus:

{phoebe's hat, on backwards ~ gloves on her feet ~ boys' underwear, borrowed from dylan, on backwards}

Phoebe looked on intently, soaking it all in and learning as much as possible about wacky childhood behavior:

Applying her new-found skills, and not to be outdone by her big sis, Phoebe came up with the following:


Happy Wednesday! More photos soon...if you like pictures of a two-year-old in a dalmation costume, let's just say you're in luck.

Bowled away

My friend Kristen turned 35 last Saturday and decided that it would be fun to go bowling with the kids the celebrate. Lucy had a blast throwing the balls down the lane...no actual pins struck down, but some really amazing gutter balls. Oh and for my readers in parts of the country other than, say, Massachusetts, those little balls are for something we do here in the Bay State called candlepin bowling and yes I know it's weird but it's how we do it here so calm down :)

{me & kristen with our baby girls -- katie & phoebe}

{phoebe indulging in her latest obsession...shoe eating}

{phoebe goofing around with katie}

{phoebe snuggling with daddy}

{i have no idea what she's doing}

{lucy leading the crew in cake booping, as always}

{waiting her turn behind henry}

We're home!

Again I find myself apologizing for my absence from the blogsphere. But I have a really good reason this time -- we just moved to our very first house! We have owned condos before, but now we have an honest to goodness house. No walls shared with anyone but ourselves. It feels really good and a bit scary at the same time. So far, we really really really love our little house -- a yellow Cape celebrating its 50th birthday this year. I'll post more soon, including photos, so stay tuned!

Maybe she's mine afterall

{her}

{me}

This is a follow-up to my last post, in which I said that Lucy doesn't really look much like me. But maybe she does. What do you think?

Daddy's girl?

{phoebe, the other day}

{jeff, 1973-ish}

I know that Lucy doesn't look a lot like me. Well, some people think she does but I don't really see it except maybe in the shape of the face/chin and also in the mouth. I have thought that despite Phoebe's blonde coloring, she looks more like me. But then I unearthed this baby photo of Jeff and I see a strong Phoebe-esque quality in it. What do you think?

Five generations

Cape Cod, August 1973
My grandmother, my mother, my great-grandmother, and me

Cape Cod, May 2007
My Grandmother, my mother, my daughter and me

I just found the first picture above. I remember it from long ago and have regretted many times pulling it out of the photo album it came from. And tonight, I found it, tucked away inside a school project (presumably, the project for which I pulled the photo out of the album) and inside a big box of photos. I feel so lucky to have it back in my life, and to have my scanner so that I now have it digitally. I just had to post it along with a "four generations" photo we took last summer. Now I just need one with Phoebe in it!

hi my name is phoebe

and i may be a ton of work but i SURE AM CUTE!!!!!!

and mommy, i love you, too. sooooooooo much.

Love, continued...

Before Lucy goes to sleep, she gets a story or two read to her in bed. She usually requests to put her head down on the storyteller (me or Jeff) while she listens. Today before her nap, she gave me a book to read and asked to lie down on my stomach, which she said would be ok because "there isn't a muscle there any more." And I still love her anyway. So there, that's love, too.

Love is...

I looked up the definition of love today. It was a bit longer than I had expected. Apparently, love is: when your baby is crying when she should be napping (that's nothing new, so you leave her for a while) and you finally check on her and she is standing there with her diaper off (silly mommy, it's your fault for putting her to bed in only a diaper!) and a HUGE blowout poop is covering the bottom of her crib and approximately 90% of her body, including her entire face, and you try to put her immediately into the bath but she's crying her head off and you realize it's probably because she has the taste of poop in her mouth so you take her out of the bath and nurse her on the bathroom floor so that she can get the taste out of her mouth, while all the while she is pawing you with her poop hands and nudging you with her poop feet. Then you put her back in the bath and clean her up...SCRUB the daylights of out of her...and then clean her crib with vinegar and water spray...SCRUB the daylights of of it...and now you have a very clean crib and a very clean baby who smells like baby wash and perfection. That, apparently, is the definition of love. Who knew?

How to eat a PB&J

Little gymnast

{the proper outfit and hair are essential}

Guess who started gymnastics? (Hint: rhymes with Goosie!) And she loves it. She is going to a "real" gymnastics place and she gets to use actual balance beams, bars, vault, etc. Her favorite parts are the trampoline (of course) and the rings. I haven't broken the news to her yet that rings are a boy thing. Heck, maybe she'll be the first female to compete on the rings...who am I to stop her...at anything!

Ring rot

Sorry if this sounds gross. I have what I believe is called "ring rot" -- an irritation on my wedding ring finger that I think is caused by water getting trapped under my band. I stopped wearing my rings for a while and used an antifungal cream...I thought it cleared up but I started wearing my rings again and it came back (I have started to take them off when I shower and at night hoping it would make a difference). Any advice out there? I miss my rings!