Friday, March 29, 2013

still around ...

i'm back.  and with more pictures of avery!  flickr and i got in a fight for a bit but we're friends now so i can actually log into my account.  it's funny how without pictures i have little motivation to blog.  

here's how things are in our little world.  

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01.  winter refuses to leave colorado just yet.  i swear that every weekend this month we've had a snowstorm.  as much as i'm happy that we're finally getting snow, i'd rather the temperatures would warm up and dump some rain on us.  i think we all have cabin fever.  we took avery out last weekend to play in the snow and she had a blast.  she loves watching the dogs run around and play with each other and she loved how charlie would built a fort around her and then let her knock it down.  the extra big snowsuit that we got on end of season clearance for next year has been getting a lot of use.  but.  i am ready for spring.  whenever we get nice weather avery whines to go outside.  i can't argue too much but it's nearly impossible for me to work outside.  

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02.  i've been thinking a lot about what things were like exactly one year ago.  i remember march really well because we were in the middle of home inspections and loans and debates over breaking our contract.  not some of our finer moments but we closed on march 31, which means we've almost been in this house one year.  that seems crazy to me.  i've been thinking i should take some pictures so i can actually look at some of the stuff that we've done.  i'm a compulsive furniture rearranger so some of our rooms have had multiple lives since we've lived here.  

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03.  i also remember how tiny avery was this time last year!  i was telling charlie that she didn't have anything to wear for easter sunday and he asked if she couldn't just wear one of the dresses that she had last year.  i swear she actually has grown in the past 12 months.

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04.  avery's still not walking and it's slowly driving charlie crazy.  she just started standing at 14 months but really has no interest in walking.  i'm not worried although i do wish that she would start walking on her own.  i think she's just one of those kids that's pretty careful.  she can go up and down the stairs just fine but we've never had to put a gate up because she has no interest in doing it on her own.  

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05.  i think that we might have gotten motivated enough to paint the two rooms left in our house.  our master bath and 3rd bedroom have been a dark blue ever since we moved in and i have always hated them but they were the last rooms on our list and we were so sick of doing the others that we've waited for a while.  i also hate painting in the winter if i can't open a window in the room.    

Monday, March 11, 2013

this weekend was ...

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watching snow fall 
and melty grilled cheese sandwiches 
and playing with a baby for hours on end 
and afternoon naps in the big bed 
and family french toast on a sunday morning 
and barnes and noble train and lego tables with house building contests 
and facetime
and an impromptu caramel pie
and cleaning out random closets
and italian wedding soup
and losing an hour of sleep 
and messy toddler activities
and daytime baths
and pizza on a saturday night
and learning that dogs say 'woof woof'
and reading books
and wrestling in bed
and cleaning everything in the house
and easter basket shopping 
and not doing any work
and recovering from the week.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

painting with yogurt.

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on saturday i was looking for something to do with avery that was different than what we usually do every day.  i finally had a decent amount of time to give her my undivided attention and we didn't have anywhere to go.  she's sort of at the age where she can't really do crafts yet, mostly because she doesn't have the attention span yet, and also because she still likes to put everything in her mouth.  but she's ready to start doing short activities that are different than just playing with her toys.  i have a recipe for edible play dough but i was trying to find something that wouldn't require much work.  i found a few recipes for edible paints but they all required cooking to make the paint and i really wasn't in the mood for that.  so i ended up taking some yogurt, adding food coloring, and dropping it on her highchair tray. she had a ton of fun and quickly discovered that it tasted pretty good, too.  and then we took a bath.  

Saturday, March 9, 2013

a snowy saturday...

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it snowed all day today and avery and i spent the day doing random things around the house and trying to recover from our week.  charlie left to go skiing at 5 am and thankfully both avery and i slept until 7. we had a hard week last week.  between mastitis and last minute work deadlines i was ready to just spend some time with avery without trying to do a million other things at the same time.  and although usually by the time saturday rolls around i'm dying to get out of the house, the fact that the snow was piling up outside made me happy to get a few things done around the house and play with avery.  we took two naps, 'painted' with yogurt, did a bunch of laundry, cleaned out closets that i've been putting off, ate grilled cheese for lunch, read lots of books, and watched the dogs run around in the snow.  

tomorrow we're looking forward to french toast and i think after this snow i'm ready for spring.  and with the forecast showing temperatures in the 70s next week i think we may just get it. 

Thursday, March 7, 2013

a bit of randomness...

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... we got some snow a week or so ago and i tried to take avery out in it for a bit but she was hating all of the wind. i tried putting sunglasses on her but she kept pulling them off. the next day the news headline was "denver buried by blizzard" which I thought was a bit dramatic but it was nice to get some snow. I feel like we haven't had any all winter. I took the dogs out to run around for awhile and they had a blast. We also made French toast for breakfast that morning. And by we I mean Charlie. And we may even have made some bacon as well. It was a pretty good snow day in my book.

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... I'm looking for a nanny for Avery. I still have mixed feelings about this but I'm trying to find someone to come once a week so that I can go into the office or just get a bunch of work done while someone else is playing with her. There's a part of me that's nervous to do this but I think it might be good for her, too. She's really attached to me and sometimes won't even go to Charlie without a fight. I know this can be really normal for a kid her ago but I think it would be good to figure out that other people can be fun and comforting, too. I haven't had much luck yet with the search. But I'm being pretty picky and I don't think that what I'm advertising is all that appealing to a lot of people since it's so part time.

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 ... In other work news, I am officially an independent contractor as of last week. I didn't realize how much of a pain this was going to be before I got into it and now I'm trying to figure out invoicing, and sepIRAs, and how to file quarterly taxes. Also, I am missing direct deposit because I hate going to the bank.

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 ... Avery's standing! And learning new words every day. Some recent ones that she's picked up are toes, owl, whoo-whoo, and bow (to tell the dogs to bow). She also says gentle every time she pets the cats, which is pretty cute. She's been getting better about actually being gentle with them lately.

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... I am getting over mastitis for the second time in 2 months. This time was definitely worse than the first. I always laugh when I read about the treatment for it because everyone advises bed rest. Which would be fabulous but isn't very realistic. I have been climbing into bed a lot earlier lately because feeling like you have the flu will make you not want to do much of anything else. After a day of working and chasing after Avery, I'm tired!

she brings me the books and the blanket. 
 ... I'm trying to figure out what I want our Easter traditions to be. We haven done much in the past and Charlie's vote is for doing nothing but I'd like for us to dye eggs the night before, have a small Easter basket that morning with an Easter egg hunt, and cooking a nice dinner that night. We'll see how this year goes since last year all that happened was that Avery and I went to church and then left after 2 hours because she started freaking out.

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... We're planning on heading back to Maryland in June and here's a million things I want to do while we're there. I'm excited we're going in the summer because I want to take Avery to the beach when it's warm enough to go swimming. I also want to take her to the Baltimore aquarium and then back to DC for the air and space museum and the natural history museum. I'm not sure how we're going to squish all of that plus a wedding! into a week.