33/52

This week's portrait is coming to you a day and a half late because...wait for it...

WE MOVED! 

My back hurts, my nails are broken, and my allergies have punched me in the sinuses and are holding my eyelids hostage, but we did it. WE DID IT!

Paul, Emma, and I awoke bright and early yesterday morning for the big move. We packed up a moving truck (DEATH, BROKEN BACKS, PAIN) and made our way over the bay to a little area called Alameda. I am still shocked that we made it with our sanity (mostly) intact.

We plopped in to bed last night and had one big sigh of relief. Thank the Lord.

Being the crazy organizational and obsessive individual (no shame, it's a blessing and a curse) that I am, I have spent all day today organizing and unpacking. We are finished for the most part beside everything in our little storage closet/attic of sorts. It's mostly filled with miscellaneous decorations, picture frames, outgrown baby stuff, holiday decor, and all our sporty gear. Now that I typed it all out, it does seem like a lot and now I will obsess over that room until it's completed.

I will do a whole apartment reveal when we are settled and our couch arrives (still a over a week until delivery, D;AFJA;DSLFK). 

I read on the interwebs that when moving with a toddler, you're supposed to pack the kid's stuff last and unpack the stuff first. Welp, who am I to go against all the wisdom of mom bloggers past? 

Under our living room window, we set up Emma's play corner. And it might be my favorite little place in the apartment. She's in toddler heaven.

Heaven is a place on foamy alphabets, Ems. 

For Mass tomorrow, we are going to a new to me parish. Yay! 

Enjoy the rest of your weekending. It's off to bed for us because I'm 26 going on 82. 

jg injlffjn n    j b jdj j

- By Emma

Bye Emma. 

32/52

Only twenty more weeks left this year. 

Did I scare you? 

Okay, the burning question is... What should our Halloween costumes be this year?! I am thinking a family costume again this year because last year's was a hit.

This week has been another busy one. We are attempting to take loads here and there over to our new place and of course that has me in a stress tail spin. But we will be moving the bulk of the stuff over next Friday so hopefully my sanity will hold on by then. 

Hopefully. Maybe. We'll see. 

I have been eating this non-stop this week and who knows if my poor husband will every forgive me.

On to this week's portrait.

Lately, Emma has been incredibly clingy. I attribute this to the fact that little molars are attempting to disco their way onto the mouth scene (<-- weird). Enter, desperation. Last night I was attempting to make dinner and my little shadow would not leave my side so I let her play a rousing game of match the lid. This has been a sanity-saver lately. Right beside unravel the entire roll of toilet paper and run around naked after the bath.

We will be taking another load or two over this weekend and hopefully I'll be able to organize a little bit here and there, lest my marbles fall out of my head.

Happy weekending. 

On life lately, weekend edition

Oh it's weekend recap? How original, Samantha. No one ever does those.

Blogger's gotta blog, yo.

As you know if you read any of my weekly ramblings, we are in the process of moving from San Francisco to Alameda this month. We decided we needed to do a little furniture upgrade on a few things. In our current place, Paul and I have somewhat of an amalgamation of furniture - hand-me-downs, the sturdiest particle board "wood" furniture (sarcasm), some new pieces we bought when we were expecting Emma, and some things we even had back in our dorm days.

I do not like packing. Let me rephrase that, I HATE PACKING. I get really overwhelmed and have twenty panic attacks on the daily. Sorting, organizing, unpacking - I'm great. Packing, boxing, moving - death.

However, the moving box obstacle course is Emma's heaven on earth.

We kicked off our Friday evening with some cold ones.

(Hers is unopened, obvi.)

Come weekend, we are all ready to put our feet up if ya know whuuut I meeeean. We watched Insurgent (SO GOOD) and had 3.4 minutes of down time before the madness of Emma's bedtime regimen began (more like her bedtime regime, am I right).

Tell me this is a normal part of toddlerhood, but Emma has been especially vocal about her various frustrations. 

Can't open the lid - wail. 
Can't close the lid - whine.
I open the lid for her - scream.
She asks me to open the lid and I say no - yell.

Le sigh. So there's that.

But there is nothing like her beloved bath to keep her calm and keep the little bit of evening sanity that I may have left. 

For the two of you who are still reading this...

On Saturday, I went to a Blessed Brunch in Berkeley. It was such an amazing experience to meet some incredible women. We shared our stories, shared a meal, and prayed together. What a day!

I am still reeling from it all and I cannot wait to continue to get to know them even better.

Sunday was our big shopping day. We took a load of stuff to the new apartment then hopped down to a newly opened Living Spaces. They were having a grand opening special (spend this much get this much off, you know the kind) and we found exactly what we were looking for. PLUS, they deliver and install. Can I get an Amen!? The last thing I want to do is carry a couch up two flights of stairs.

Costco runs are for gigantor sized bags of toilet paper, paper towels, and diapers. And for driving momma crazy with her Costco disappearing acts. 

We also popped over to Target and bought some much-needed curtains and floor rugs. Seriously, I am in love with those curtains. But who would have thought Paul would have such strong opinions on curtain types. 

"We need the silky ones, they are prettier." - unpredictable Paul 

Of course, in the chaos of trying to try out different couches, desks, beds, etc. I did not even think to take any pictures of what we decided on. Oh well, I don't think I will want to take any pictures of the chaos in the new place right now but I'll do an apartment tour as soon as we are all moved in. 

I will tell you though that furniture stores might as well be toddler Disneyland. She was ecstatic to crawl around, attempt to move ottomans, and throw couch pillows. 

I should make a new clichéd expression like, "happier than an Emma in a furniture store". 

If any of you managed to get through this long-winded diatribe then congratulations. I applaud you. 

How were your weekends? I'm all eyes. 

31/52

Friday! Freedooo! Frawdaw! 

What.

It's Friday and that means this week's portrait post is here! Wee!

Some behind the scenes thoughts for you... I always enjoy picking out the week's photo. As you know, I am an obsessive/serial/crazy iPhone paparazzi and my camera roll usually looks like I just held down the shutter button for the entire week. (I have been working on being more selective with photo-taking and deleting near duplicates and ultra-blurry photos. I'll keep you posted on my intervention.)

But every week, I get to look back on the photos I took and I get all those warm fuzzies. Emma is constantly growing and amazing me. Paul spends sweet moments with us. We take funny selfies and I marvel at Emma on the daily.

Because you can always find me on the gram, I do spend time picking out photos for each day. Some days I have the perfect gem for a gram, other days I have too many good ones to choose from (and I usually limit myself to a maximum of three grams in one day because I know that I am  this close to scaring everyone away with my mamarazzi games).

Where was I? Oh yes, today's photo is one of those that did not make the instagram cut, but one I love oh so dearly.

I was feeling like I deserved an ultra gourmet meal last Friday and where else would I be craving other than IHOP? Can you say stuffed french toast?? Before our food came, I enjoyed a quiet moment watching these two do their thang. He wrote out her name, she threw crayons on the floor, I smiled at my good fortune.

May every day have one of these quiet moments at which to marvel. And may I always have my camera ready. ;] 

(This was probably one of the most mom blog mom posts I've ever written and I am laughing at myself.)

Have a grrrrrreat weekend!

Do you know the muffin woman?

Alternative title: Adventures at Costco 

We did a little weekend trip to Costco this past weekend because we like (we like) to party. Emma insists on using an inordinate number of diapers, so off to restocking we went. (That's what I like to tell myself, however I am certain Paul and I wanted to go to Costco just for the free samples.)

Emma be like, "I'll drive." 

Thanks, peach.

Side note: She was INSISTENT on wearing her backpack all day long and death to all moms if I dared take it off, so to Costco the backpack went.

Our Costco trips usually proceed thus so...

Attempt to park.
Honk at wreckless folks on cellphones (seriously??!).
Find spot.
Grab cart.
Strap tiny human in.
Search frantically for Costco card.
Find said card.
Enter Costco.
Mull over all products and rationalize why we definitely need a new 100-inch television, four-karat diamond, three-pack of new travel coffee mugs, bamboo bathrobes, 20 pounds of salmon, and a lifetime supply of cheese puffs.
Battle checkout lines.
Glare at attempts of cutting.
Debate getting the hotdog/soda combo.
Sigh at the Amex bill the next month.

This particular Costco trip gave us some extra laughs.

Our eyes widened at the muffin display and, OH LOOK, a dozen muffins for really cheap?!? I am sold. We debated for a solid two minutes on flavors and went with blueberry and double chocolate. We let Emma hold on to one of the six packs...

Hmmm, why is there suddenly a hole in the plastic wrap. Hmmm... 

A head scratcher.

The muffin woman had unceremoniously gnawed through the plastic to the gift with purchase/holy grail. 

We have a thief in our midst.

Oh sweet baby puppies...what is that glorious, fluffy mountain of carbohydrates I have stumbled upon? How did it end up in my hands? Oh mother, there you are, I have no idea how that happened. 

I guess we'll never know.

She went back for seconds, thirds, and fourteenths.

Emma be like, "you're going to have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands".

We stood there, completely awestruck. If carb-loving is wrong, us Wetterholms don't want to be right!

Of course, she needed to wash down that type 2 diabetes-inducer with milk.

Got muffins?