Are You My Mother?

Sorrynotsorry for the varying light/tints of the pictures and my appearance.  I'm too afraid of messing with the concoction of our bedtime routine.

I know there's a big push for people to read to their kids, but how can you not?  This is one of my favorite times of the day.  If we don't read anything else, we read this book.  And Frassati loves it.

What are your bedtime favorites?

Chili v. Frassati v. Harper

Last night, Mr. F. goes,

"Remember when you used to blog.  and take pictures of our food?  I miss that."

Dawww.  Well, here it is.

venison chili

and the pot o' gold at the bottom of the rainbow.

But who really wants to see pictures of food?  Especially when you could see pictures of an adorable BABY!?  Baby trumps food.  Every time.  

Babies trumping things also makes me think of our walks lately.  I'm used to going to the commissary for groceries, and little F is the rockstar of every aisle.  Every. single. person dotes on him and waves at him and oogles over him.

However, when we go on walks with our neighbor who has an English bulldog puppy named Harper, everyone dotes and waves at and oogles over her.

Unacceptable.

Watch Out: Insomniac--New year edition

I can't sleep anymore.  I don't know, for like a week straight, I can't sleep.  Maybe it's because Mr. F is out of town.  That's so weird.  I used to teach with a lady who said she couldn't sleep when her husband was out of town, and I thought it was weird then too.

My insomnia is your blogpost.

Dear people who are awake at 2 in the morning,

Do you know what I'm learning from my 9 month-old baby?  We aren't so different, he and I.  He's had nine and a half months to get used to this world.  I've had 380, and I'm still getting used to it.  There are plenty of days or moments when situations make me wait too long to eat or someone wants to do something I have no interest in or I bump my head or I burn dinner or someone says something really hurtful, and I feel exactly like that picture up there.  I just want to sit down and cry and let everyone know how miserable my life is at that very moment.

But as we grow, we learn to put things in perspective.  We learn to think about the other person in the situation, too.  I want to get better at that.

I'm better at it than when I was a baby, but not 371.5 months better.

Plato, take us out:

White Elephant Motto + Christmas Treat

"When you go to a white elephant, 

you better bring something fabulous

                                                           but

                                                                        be prepared to leave with a piece of shit."

                                                                                     ~my friend who invited me

If you keep this in mind, you will be less mad when you come home with something horrible that someone else thought was great.  Or--more likely--didn't have time to put any thought into it, so they grabbed the closest thing to them and shoved it in a bag.  

In other news, last night as we were getting little F ready for bed, there were sirens really close to us.  As I was asking Mr. F. to go outside and check it out and make sure everyone was ok, my neighbor called my phone.  My heart vaulted to my throat:  my first thought was that their house was on fire.  Such an alarmist.

Turns out, she was calling to remind us that Santa was coming through the neighborhood on the fire truck tonight.

Phew!  and Woo!

So, we chose our new Christmas pajamas to celebrate with and went to say

 hey and merry Christmas, Santa.

And that, my dear friends, is Frassati's first exposure to Santa.

I love that it was a straight from the 1950s sort of way.

Christmas is coming soon!

And I am no where close to finishing my over-zealous Christmas project.

I'm reverting to a high school-like procrastination--

doing everything but the project.  

Ok, I'm going to work on it.  

Say a prayer and a cheer for me.

Christmas miracles:

I still believe.

{the lovely}

{the ugly}

Gimme Some Sugar

This weekend I went to my very first cookie exchange.  

It seemed like too much when I was making the cookies.

Perhaps it was, since I'm in the middle of some other over-zealous Christmas project.

But each of us brought a dozen per attendee.  

plus a white elephant gift.

I must say, I haven't been so excited for a party in ...what feels like ever.

I am so thankful that Mr. F. just let me spend all day getting ready and 

giggling and skating around on my over-exuberance.

{more on white elephant gift exchanges tomorrow}

I got to bring home mounds of cookies.

And now I have something to give each of my neighbors for being the kind who will always let me borrow a cup of sugar or cut some rosemary from their yards because I have not inherited my father's green thumb; rather I kill every single verdant thing 

with my grim reaper fingers.

I took my mound of cookies and divided them into these great boxes.

You did alright with these, Martha.  

Thanks for saving me some time.  

Now, when my little elf wakes up from his nap, we'll go a-deliverin'.  

RIP + lesson learned

Welp.  I may as well tell you.

I haven't backed up our computer once since Frassati was born.  (You know where this is going.)  And while I was trying to juggle a 25 pound baby and lunch and a computer, I dropped one.  Thankfully it wasn't lunch.  Or my baby.

...so...

Requiescat in pace, all the darling photos of my little bugsabooza, rest in peace.

So, I have no 8 month pictures to share.  They are all in the crypt.

The good news is, these days we have cameras on our phones.

And blogs.

Good thing I blogged a time or two. 

Back it up, y'all.  It's worth it.

7 months

eating sticks

chewing on fingers

gnawing on all toys

your papa

wearing socks

Emma's baptism

your first cold

growing teeth

{oh how i wish you'd let me take a picture of those two scraggly pearls}

g.i. joe crawl

singing