It's the most wonderful time of the year

So, how about my triumphant return to blogging?!  HA!  One post a month does not a triumphant return make, but that's all I've got my friends.  I write in my head all the time but when it comes to getting it on the computer, life ends up happening and I never get around to it.  Oh well, let's talk Christmas!

This is the first year that Sofia really gets what's going on, and despite my Santa misgivings, Sofia has decided all on her own that Santa is real and we're going all in.  I still won't do the damn Elf on the Shelf, but for now I won't burst her bubble with Santa.  It's actually really interesting because neither Drew nor I have even really talked about Santa, which goes to show you the power of influence that school has on kids, even this young.  She already knows that Santa brings presents on his 'sled' and you have to go to sleep for it to happen.  We'll go with it for now, but I still have my misgivings.

This is the first year that I really got into decorating the house and I have to say, it was so validating to have Sofia get excited about all the details in the house.

I bought some red seat cushions for our porch furniture and sewed green pillow covers and switched out the bow on the door wreath and it looked so festive!

Remember Andrea's crib skirt fabric?  That was back when I didn't know how to do sewing math and if something called for one yard, I bought eight yards just to be safe.  Therefore,  I have a TON of leftover fabric and the burlap and gold was just right to make a runner for the dining room table.  I cut it to length, hot glued the hems and I had a nice free table runner!  I found the red sparkly candles at Marshall's and Sofia LOVED them.  The early morning light hit them just right and the sparkles made her day.  "Mom!  Check out these candles!"  

The girls each had gingerbread houses this year and I nearly had a heart attack because they kept wanting to eat the candies and all I could think about were the toxic dyes and preservatives and I must have said "Not for eating!!" a million times.  Next year I'm making my own gingerbread houses.  I think every parent has their one thing they go nuts over, and mine is definitely food.  I'm not as neurotic over other stuff, but food will put me over the edge.

Anyway, when I was single and living in an apartment, this was my Christmas tree and it sat on my dining room table.  It plays We Wish You a Merry Christmas and every day I'd put another ornament on the tree.  Now, it's on our dining room table and it's *my* older daughter who's putting the daily ornament on the little tree.  So cool, right!

ALSO, check it!  I sewed those placemats!  They were such a festive addition to the house and I'm so looking forward to using them every year; I even put a decorative border around them and everything!  Of course, it's still me we're talking about here so they're not perfect rectangles and the decorative border isn't straight but they'll do!

I have a crap-ton of jars of various sizes so I went to Target and got some sequin trim and decorative garland and made a little centerpiece thing and put some little candles inside; it took me about ten minutes and I love how it turned out.  I went to a gift exchange in the neighborhood and came home with the Santa mugs and the girls promptly claimed them and thoroughly enjoyed having hot chocolate in *their* Santa mugs.

Also, here's Santa on a plate.

Why did I get two mugs but only one plate at the gift exchange?

I was trying to get them to say cheese, 

but it looks more like an 'arrgh.'

This is also the first year we've had actual stockings.  I got them from Pottery Barn and they had S, M, L and XL.  The mediums looked too small so I went ahead and got the large ones and when they came they were enormous!  However, they're growing on me and I think they go well in the living room.

They are huge though; It's almost as big as Sofia!

My sofa pillows got the festive treatment too!  I have one big pillow and that got the green pillow cover and the other three small ones got the red and cream chevron.  I'd intended to use the red and white striped fabric but next to the existing cream pillows and throws, the white made the cream look dirty.  So those became the placemats and the chevron worked out perfectly.  

Christmas cards are my absolute most favorite thing about Christmas.  I love everything about them and I get a little thrill every time I got one in the mail.  I have to find our earlier ones, but my plan is to decorate our stairs with our yearly cards.  

Christmas morning was awesome.  The girls loved their presents and seeing the look on their faces was priceless.

I live for matching Christmas pjs.

I wanted the girls to get presents for each other and of course right now, it's more of a thing for Sofia than Andrea and I'm so proud of Sofia because if you ask her what Christmas is about, she'll tell you Christmas is about giving.  Now, picking out the gift for her sister was a bit rocky because I know she would have liked it for herself, hence the identical Pup Pads.  But it was still sweet to see them give their gifts to each other and I hope they'll keep it up as they get older.

Now if we're being honest here, I'm quite glad the holidays are over.  There were a ton of parties and I went out more this month than I have since the kids were born and I do NOT have the stamina for that!  I'm exhausted!  Not to mention, Drew was gone for the majority of the month so all the shopping and decorating and Christmas concerts and going to see lights and Disney on Ice and school parties and cookie exchanges and baking and cooking and staying up late and wrapping and wrapping and wrapping ALLLLL fell on my shoulders.  I need a nap.  But as stressed out as I was, it was truly worth it and I know that's super cliche, but it really was.  The girls had a wonderful time and it filled my heart to the brim to see their faces and watch them really get the magic of Christmas.

It was a good Christmas and it's been a good year; I hope that you can say the same and I hope that next year is even better!

I know what you did this summer

...Is what you'll be able to say when you finish this post!  Oh yeah, it's me, I'm back, corny jokes and all.  But seriously, I think fall is upon us.  School has started for almost everybody and up here, that means the turning leaves and cooler temperatures are just around the corner.  Of course, this fall is going to be different in that we're getting out of here and heading south before it gets nasty cold (thank the baby Jesus) so why not take a moment to look back on this past summer?  

Without further ado, "What I did this summer" in pictures, by Desiree.

While technically not summer, this was the start of warmer weather and we celebrated by having a homemade Easter egg hunt at the playground in my girlfriend's subdivision.  The dads went down and hid the eggs and we had so much fun.  Last Easter it was too cold to do anything outside, so this was a real treat.

Checking out her haul with Daddy.

We took the kids to Sesame Place, and you talk about a production!

This is how it is everywhere we go.

Sofia absolutely loved it and didn't stop talking about it for days.

Aimee held the baby and I even got to ride a couple of rides with Sofia!

There was a trip to the Philly Zoo.

The big kids were obviously thrilled about having to indulge

their mothers and take a picture.

We spent some time at the Please Touch museum.

She was all about the carousel and just couldn't understand why we couldn't spend the entire day just riding around and around.

We went out to the Trexlertown Zoo as well.

Of course, Sofia didn't want to feed the cows and insisted 

that I do it.  Letting a cow lick my hand for my daughter?  That's love, people.

One of the coolest parts about the zoo is that there's an ankle deep river (creek?) right next to the zoo and the kids had a blast throwing rocks and splashing around.

I put on my water sling and the baby and I got in there too!

Actually, that was a really awesome day.  

Probably one of my favorites this summer.

We also went to Kansas for a week for my high school reunion

and to get some Grandma time.  She was over the moon to see them.

Andrea is named for my cousin and

it was high time the two of them met.

 Snuggles from Tia.

Then there was the one time this summer that I got dressed up, 

put on heels and partied out for my 20-year high school reunion.

It was so much fun and there was much dancing and drinking

and for one night I wasn't a nearly 40 year old mother of two.

I need more nights like that.  I mean, I don't need the drinking (I won't lie, it was fun though) but I sure did like getting out and having fun just for me, you know?

The next day, it was back to being a mom

and back to the farm.

I went with a friend from high school and we took our kids

to the Deanna Rose farm where Sofia got to feed

baby goats.  It was quite possibly the cutest thing I'd ever seen.

We also took a trip to Raleigh to look for a house,

which I NEED to blog about.

We went to the Durham Museum of Life and Science

and it was so cool.

They had this walking path with all these dinosaurs and I called

myself trying to get on the dinosaur for a picture.

It didn't work.

Then we found a house and I got to pick out all the stuff that's going in it.

This is going to be my kitchen and I seriously hope it ends up looking good.

It was a super last minute trip and Drew's company would only pay for 

plant tickets for Drew and me so for the second time ever, we left Sofia with

friends for two nights.  It was so hard but I knew she was in good hands

and picking out house stuff went so much more smoothly without a busy little 

girl running around touching everything.

It was such a great summer; we hung out at the pool, we had lots of playdates at our friend's houses, we ate lots of ice cream, we caught fireflies, we stayed up late, we slept in, we watched movies and ate popcorn, went to birthday parties and tons of other stuff in between.  

That's what we did this summer!  Now, we're gearing up for our next adventure in our move down to Raleigh.  The movers have been tentatively scheduled and we have a closing date on the new house.  Now all we have to do is go under contract on the house here and things will be perfect.  I'm still crossing my fingers on that one.  Cross your fingers with me, my friends!

A most epic birthday celebration

Three cheers for sleeping babies!  Let's all do a quick sleep dance (I have no idea what that looks like, so improvise) so I can write an epic birthday post.

You know, if and when I ever stop blogging, I will probably check in once a year, well now twice, just so I can do birthday recaps.  I love birthdays and even with all the stress and the last-minute and the no sleep, I really love doing it.  I love celebrating my babies and ironically, I thought of a working theme for Andrea's first birthday just today.  It may end up being something different between now and then, but the thoughts have already started swirling for my second baby's first party.

But this post is about my first baby.  And how she's no longer a baby.  I think when you turn three you're officially a little kid, which makes me sad but at the same time she is turning into such an amazing little person that I'm so excited to be able to watch her grow.  I know I'm biased, but Sofia really is the coolest kid out there.

So let's talk birthdays!  However, I'm feeling a teensy bit nostalgic so will you join me for a quick walk down memory lane?

My sweet girl on her first birthday; it was a garden party theme.

Birthday number two was all about Yo Gabba Gabba.

This year, Lightning McQueen was in the house.

This is the best picture I have of Sofia because the kid would not stand still.

Most of my other pictures are more like this.

I asked Sofia over and over again what kind of birthday she wanted.  She's obsessed with Frozen right now and I was sure that's what she would want for her birthday.  But true to form, she surprised me and every single time I asked "Do you want Lightning McQueen or Frozen?" she'd holler out "Lightning McQueen!"  She never wavered, she was never unsure, so Lightning McQueen it is.

Now, a Cars birthday is usually associated with boys and while that didn't faze me in the slightest, I *was* a little unsure where to begin.  Lucky for me, Cars is a very popular birthday theme and there was already a blogger that did a Cars birthday for her daughter.  I am not trying to reinvent the wheel and I say with no shame that I used a ton of elements from her party and found other elements on Pinterest.  I don't think I had one original idea and I'm okay with that.

First up was the invitation.

I searched Etsy and found a super cute design from KraftyKansas - had to give my home state some love!  Turnaround time was super fast and I had the image printed at Ofiice Depot - easy peasy.

But wait, let me back up.  I was actually late printing and sending the invites because I didn't have a location for the longest time.  The blogger I was copying rented a movie theater for her party.  That sounded like the coolest idea in the world so of course I had to rent a movie theater too.  Except, I couldn't find what I wanted.  I found a theater I could rent but I couldn't show my own movie, and what's the point of a Cars themed party if you show The Lego Movie, I ask you?!  Then I found a theater that would let me show my own movie but I couldn't have my own food, which also wouldn't work because I *had* to have themed food with my themed birthday party.  I mean, DUH.  Like I'm going to serve non-themed food.  What am I, an animal?

I'd just about given up on the movie theater idea and was just going to have the party at the house again when my girlfriend suggested The Strand.  It was a 40 minute drive from my house, but they would let me show my own movie, have my own food, I could set up the night before, *and* it wasn't an arm and a leg to rent!  For that, I will drive 40 minutes.  I got my movie theater!

Then came decorations.  Dusty was kind enough to provide some printables for the party, but not all of them and I had a very specific vision for what I wanted.  I intended to make them myself, then I remembered that I don't have the first clue about Photoshop. I was able to find a free version online and I was able to erase backgrounds on the images, but that alone took me several hours.  I asked my girlfriend for her help because she knows thismuch more than I do about Photoshop and it took us several more hours to try and figure out how to resize pictures and put them on a background.  We finally turned the project over to her husband who is a computer genius and he was like ClickClickDragDropClickClickSaveDONE.  It was seriously a joke how fast he did everything and how good it all looked.  So while I would like to contribute to the Internet and give out printables and all that, I got nothing.  I barely know how to upload pictures to my own blog.

How kick-ass is this logo!?

I got it from NhelyDesigns and put it on everything I could.

My girlfriend's husband designed everything for me, from the birthday banner to the food labels.  If it was printed, he designed it and I was so grateful to him.  But that meant I had a lot of cutting and taping and gluing to do and I'm super bummed that I didn't get to use all of his designs, which was totally on me because once again, I ran out of time and bit off more than I could chew.  It's all good though because it turned out to be a wonderful party.  Now, you'll have to excuse the photos because it was a movie theater so it was pretty dark but I'm sure you'll get the idea.

I fixated on a lot of details for the party.  

Some might say it was unnecessary, I say that's what makes a party.

So of course my girls had to have coordinating outfits.

From KooCooSay

The Strand is a single-screen, old-timey, mom and pop 

movie theater and it was perfect.

It was the perfect size and we had the whole place to ourselves.

Even though we brought in all our own food, the concession stand was

open for anyone who wanted soda or candy.

There was a separate party room but everyone pretty much stayed in the theater.

We used the party room for gifts, food prep and coats.

They already had the red tablecloths which worked out perfectly and I sure did return the ones I'd purchased for a refund.  Keep those receipts!

I bought five yards of checkered fabric from JoAnns, cut and hemmed them and they

were perfect table toppers.

There was a foyer at the back of the theater and that's where we had the main party stuff.

Yes, I was setting up as the guests arrived.  One of these days I'll get it together.

Give me a couple more parties and I'll have this down to a science.

One thing I did right and I'm really proud of were the cupcakes.  I made them several weeks beforehand and froze them and they thawed beautifully.  I seriously might do this from now on.  Also, they're from a mix but I doctored them and I got lots of compliments on how good they tasted.  Also plus, you NEED to use this frosting.  It takes two days to make but it is SO worth it.  My cupcakes were the bomb, which was absolute torture when I had leftovers and then decided to cut sugar out of my life.  

Another thing I fixated on were the food labels.  I had themed food so I needed cute labels for all my food.  Again, I straight up copied off of Dusty's party.  No shame, people.  

 I wanted to go for a hybrid between her food label and pit pass for my food labels

and my friend's husband did an amazing job.

I think he did an amazing job.

I had labels for Ramone's Body Art - that's where the kids could put on temporary tattoos, Sally's Cozy Cone Fruit Cups, Luigi's white- and black-wall tires - those were chocolate and powdered donuts, Maters Taters - potato chips, Doc's Dipsticks - those were veggie sticks and Flo's H20 Cafe.

I loved how her water bottles turned out.

This was the first stop.  

I got some wipes and put them in a lunch box 

that I found on clearance at Target the night before.

After you washed up, you could put on a tattoo from 

Ramone's House of Body Art.

The bottom part of his sign says "Get the ghost flames!"

Then it was time to get some sandwiches.

I did all finger foods because we were in a movie theater and I didn't want

people to try and cut things with a plate balanced on their laps.

Then we had Mater's Taters.

His sign said "Like puh-tater, but without the Puh!"

You'd have to know every line of the movie to get the puns

but seriously, coming up with them was the most fun for me.

Each cozy cone was supposed to have a dollop of whipped cream on top

but again, I ran out of time.  

I'm going to have to prep more food the night before, but I was scared

that it would get wilty and slimy so I left the majority of the food prep for the day of the party

and with only thirty minutes to get it all set up, it just didn't happen.

So I just set the whipped cream next to the cones and told everyone to help themselves.

I was literally running around the table, trying to snap a picture

of each thing with our guests patiently waiting to eat so this one was super blurry

which is a shame because it's my favorite.

"Look at me!  Here I am!  Love me!"

Guido's Pit Stop Popcorn was in the back and Flo's H20 cafe was the last stop on Route 66.

Also, ask me how much I love my food label holders.

The answer is SO FREAKIN MUCH.  

I'm using them for every party from now on forever.

Once everyone got their food, it was time to get situated for the movie.

There was a stage in front of the screen that turned out to be perfect 

for sprawling out and watching the movie.

She did such a good job blowing out her candle!

Most of the kids stayed still for nearly the entire movie, but towards the end they got up and started running around which was totally fine.  It went amazingly well, the venue was perfect, Sofia had a blast and I felt like it was a success.

I got a racing pennant and I was going to string it criss-crossed over the food table

but yeah.  Ran out of time.  

The birthday banner came out really great though!

We had a pretty wide age range for the kids so I wracked my brain

trying to think of a party favor that would appeal to a 12 year old as well as a three year old

and I came up with stoplight playdoh.  Well you know, *I* didn't;  Pinterest did.

But you know what I mean.

It didn't take long to make and I think they came out really cute!

Sofia ran and played for nearly three hours straight

and I barely had her buckled in before she was knocked out and snoring.

I'd say that's a successful party.

The next day, we went to Disney on Ice.  It was another birthday present and I wasn't sure that Sofia would get it or sit still but she was entranced.  She didn't stop talking about the 'princess ice-skating' for days.

I don't think she blinked the whole time.

She and Carter loved it!

I seriously love these people.

Aimee was there when I was laboring with Andrea, Marcus designed everything for Sofia's party, Aimee helped with setting up for the party because I wouldn't have gotten anything done without her.  Then they treated us to Disney on Ice for Sofia's birthday?!  I'm not joking, I LOVE them.  Sofia has stayed the night at their house, and we've joked that we should just get a compound somewhere and be sister-wives, but we'll keep our own husbands.  It's just so we can hang out together all the time.

And while I'm not trying to marry the two of them off,

I sure would love if they stayed friends forever.

So, we had to have Sofia's birthday party the weekend before her actual birthday because Drew had a last minute work trip and had to leave town the day after her birthday.  He came back for her actual birthday but then had to leave again, but not before we celebrated just a little more.

I took the leftover cupcakes to her school the next week

and they had a little party for her and she got *another* crown!

Drew likes to leave messages for her since he leaves before she gets up.

When he got home, she opened her presents from 

Mommy and Daddy.

Every doctor needs a coat.

She's very serious about her craft.

"Just a little pinch."

She also got some more magnetic building blocks.

Either a doctor or engineer, people.  I'm working

that subliminal messaging now.

My sister even flew up for Sofia's birthday!

My mom came up too.

*That* was a fun time.

But also, look how big my little baby is getting!

The Sunday after Sofia's birthday, she went to an Easter egg hunt

at one of her little classmate's house.

It was so much fun watching her scramble around gathering eggs!

So, we ended up preparing and celebrating Sofia's birthday for two weeks straight, with Drew being home for about four of those fourteen days and silly me, I was trying to thrive during that time *and* dealing with thrush.  At the end of those two weeks I was delirious and I'd abandoned all attempts at thriving and trying to cut sugar out of my life.  I need fruit and cupcakes and maple syrup in order to stay sane and deal with my husband traveling as much as he does.

And that, my friends is how my big girl celebrated three whole years on this Earth.  She is the light of my life and I am so blessed I get to be her mother and I get to celebrate her like this every year.  She's the greatest kid a mom could ask for and I know all moms say that, but seriously, even when she's trying me (and good Lord, does she try me) she's still the greatest.

I love you, Sofia.