Girls' Night

The feeling of wearing one pair of boots but you immediately want to wear a different pair of boots. I know it well.

Pointing out a partially masticated but ultimately rejected lump of CHEEZ.

I think she's trying to take a picture of Josie.

Right now C calls the phone 'mah ellow' (my hello). Mah ELL-low, mah ELL-low. As you might expect, it's the cutest.

This post is subtitled Josie Is A Very Good Sport.

Josie needs to try on boots too.

Resting. For a moment. 

'Clementine, smile! Like this!' [demonstrates smile]

Deep thoughts. And a monkey photobomb.

Our puffy, back-from-the-dry-cleaner comforter is the perfect landing pad - she jump/flops on to it. (Postscript: going to buy this for summertime San Antonio).

Help me.

Breakfast before the Y.

Vacation starts tomorrow, woo hoo! If I take this many photos of the kids in the living room, imagine how many I'll take when we actually go somewhere!

Friday Night

Finally got around to that linen closet purge and I know you've been waiting with bated breath for this:

Josie and I took about an hour while C was sleeping to sort and discard.

little helper

Almost everything in the bags and bags and bags of cosmetics was aspirational - items I would love to wear but don't. Because I don't have the time, energy, elan, or daring (why do I own yellow eyeshadow?) It felt good to let go of these tokens of 'wouldn't it be fun - wouldn't it nice' and embrace The Now, The Me. My stuff. I wear sunscreen and Armani CC cream, foundation, and concealer (sometimes) and mascara that I buy at the grocery store on a whim. Once in a while I'll wear lipstick on the weekend and it feels racy and fun. In keeping with my 2015 credo of QUALITY I will resist other impulse buys (years of which resulted in this purge) in lieu of a few highly researched, highly coveted, and wearable products. TS Eliot measured his life in coffee spoons; I might count mine in tubes of once-applied lipstick; personas tried on for size for $7 a pop at CVS.


Bye-bye stuff. Especially you, basic perineal cold pack. (Someone out there: invent one that actually stays cold #fireinthehole)

What else, what else? More spaghetti.

Before I had kids and saw parents feeding their children pasta with red sauce I thought, that's crazy. So messy. Why???

Now I realize it's because IT'S ONE OF THE ONLY THINGS THEY WILL EAT.

Is it just me or does Josie look like Gary Busey here?

Tonight was a late night at work. Because of an accidental lane change and exit mix-up, I ended up at the McDonald's drive-through instead of Taco Cabana. That may seem like 6 of one - half dozen of the other, but have you had Taco Cabana tortillas? The ones that come separately wrapped in foil? Delicious. 

Another before & after kid observation: until you have two kids in car seats, you will never understand the importance of a drive-through. Never. Never.

First Happy Meal. She ate all of the sweet and sour sauce via a 10 minute dip nugget-lick nugget cycle. Nuggets went essentially uneaten, as did the fries. 

C has been delighting herself by making a new sound, somewhere between a roar and a high pitched scream. Here is Josie's reaction to it:

Another long weekend, folks! Yay! Hope it's great one. 

1/15

I'd like to take weekly portraits of our girls but as that's unsustainable right out of the gate, I'm going to shoot for monthly.

First installment of 2015: SPAGHETTI DINNER. Photos by Luke, art direction by me.

With a side of avocado.

This little face... and C in the background...

We don't know where she gets this eyes-upward expression from.

Working on concepts from the Opposites Book

OPEN!

CLOSE!

What's Making Me Happy

 // Listening to Life After Life, recommended by my sister. I had no idea about the genre, the publish date, the subject, nada. I'm really enjoying it and was listening while cooking the cream for Jeni's black coffee ice cream and was so content -- I thought, how can I make making ice cream while listening to audiobooks my profession? Anyway, listening to something with no expectations, no NYT review, no Terry Gross interview has been great.

// For every season, churn churn churn... black coffee ice cream is so delicious!!!!!!! Recipe here.

// Rao's jarred marinara is pricey and worth it. It was recommended in Sheet Pan Suppers and appeared in a recent Real Simple. No added sugar and an ingredient list that includes *only* the things you would use if you were going to cook a tomato sauce yourself: tomato, garlic, olive oil, basil, salt, onions. Wait I can build a case?

// Spin class then yoga class then off to work. I'm not messing around in 2015! However, I'm cycling-naive: saddle + self = sore spots.

// Still Kickin: not exactly happy but a celebration of love. I heard about Aaron Purmort's untimely death from brain cancer through the several Minneapolis* institutions and tastemakers I follow on Instagram. His widow spoke to NPR about her husband and his illness, which she chronicled in her blog My Husband's Tumor.

“He’s the light, I’m a prism,” Nora told Yahoo Health. “All I have done is bring his light to more people in our world.”

 
Below is a trailer for the upcoming documentary about the Purmorts:

This t-shirt fundraiser is back on, and I'm buying some. Then going to crush my family with hugs. #stillkickin

*Why Minneapolis? It's the Seattle of the Midwest, and my spirit city. My spirit city because I long to live in a city with well-developed public transit. The arts! The science! The light rail! NOTE: That's my spirit. My mind and body have lived in the South too long and cannot bear to think of months of cold and ice and snow.


// New BOOS! Speaking of cold, the girls needed some warm clothes for our trip north, including this sweater and Baby Bogs boots (BOOS!) I wasn't sure how C would react to the new boots - she is very attached to the floral boots she's been wearing for four months. [And I'm getting attached to them because they are the first item of clothing for which she's shown a preference]. This weekend I brought home a pair of tall rain boots from Target for her and she reacted violently -- refused to put them on, when she finally did put them on she wouldn't walk in them, grabbing on to furniture for support (very melodramatic - she puts on Luke's boots and is more nimble), and, later, seeing the boots out of the corner of her eye on the wire shelving, ran over to fling them to the floor. Curiously vehement anti-rain boot sentiment. Thus I was worried about the reception of the $50 Bogs. I let her take them out of the box (BOOS!) and pull them on. And she was off, walking with her chin to her chest, inspecting them. She even pulled them back on after donning her pajamas. I wonder what her feelings are about them today.

Best pic possible.

// More Dallas Clayton.