some of my favorite things

 

tonight our house is overflowing with cuteness. 

first, we are trying curlers for the first time in faye's hair to practice for uncle chad's wedding on friday. what is it about tiny girls in tiny curlers?? i love it.

second, she is snuggling watching football eating popcorn with daddy. she is definitely his little girl. she loves to snuggle with him. they both have the same favorite snack. i love them.

Anniversary Mushy Gooshy

I love this man.

He is kind, and sweet, and generous. He uncomplainingly does everything I volunteer him for- teaching classes, doing the dishes, making bread, babysitting 2 babies that are not his own, taking Faye out so I can get work done, changing my mom's lightbulbs, carrying heavy things... he. is. the. best.

He rarely utters a cross word. I take a secret pleasure when Faye has been naughty enough for him to actually use a stern voice and tell her "NO!!" because he NEVER raises his voice. He may seem kinda tough on the outside but has a heart of JELLO on the inside. Even when I am upset at someone or something, he never fails to really try to understand how or what they are feeling, what the motivation was, how it could be looked at positively. (It's annoying how open-minded he can be, actually.) He is always encouraging me to think of it "from their perspective."

We have our differences, but really, they are few and far between. I'm about half (ok, realistically, less than half) as nice and kind as forgiving as Brad. He makes our marriage work about 75% of the time and I take the other 25%. He asks so little from me, it makes me ashamed how much I demand of him, his time, his energy.

He listens. He cares. He is observant. He can tell you almost all the people he has ever met and something about them. He remembers all the details about all the childhood memories. When we are with his family or friends from growing up, he can fill in all the gaps in their stories.

I think I am the luckiest girl in the world. He is funny and clever, he loves our children, and I LOVE HIM. He is the answer to many prayers. He is my better half. I love our children more bc they are part him. He makes me happier than I could have ever imagined a friend, confidant and husband could.

For our anniversary he took me to Amelia's on Balboa Island where we went on our first date. It was delicious and romantic and lovely to be out with my favorite person all to myself.

Brad Barttels, I love you. Thanks for the best years of my life. Here's to an eternity more!

halloween 2012

This picture is from the Trunk or Treat on Saturday. It's the best one I got this year...poor Faye has been sick with croup, so Halloween usuals (pumpkin carving, seed roasting, dressing up) all went out the window. Instead we snuggled on the couch this week enjoying the cooling weather (CAN I GET A HALLELUJAH!?) and trying to get better. Daddy was really disappointed bc he really wanted to take her trick or treating...so we went to a few apartments in our complex and boy! did she get the hang of taking candy fast! It's like kids are born knowing how to work it. Even her scratchy-throated "Thank you" was just so down right adorable, she usually got another candy just for saying it. People are suckers for tiny polite children dressed up. :-)
Maybe next year...

fishy!!

Faye won this tiny fish at our church's "trunk or treat" party on Saturday. Our first family pet! She talks to it all day long, "fishy! hello fishy!" It's quite cute. I asked her if we should name him Octavius, and call him Gus, but she yelled "NOOOOO! Fishy!" So I guess that's his name. :-)  Brad even bought fish food, so I guess we are now invested...we will see how long it lasts!

Big Girl Bed!!

who is letting my tiny baby grow up??

so 2 over weeks ago my kid started crawling out of her crib.

WHY DOES SHE HAVE TO BE SO TALL & STRONG & SMART? i mean, come on.

so then we fought her to stay in the toddler bed. mostly it resulted in sleeping on the floor.
we pushed her toddler bed up against the side of the twin bed so she wouldn't fall out, but still had a large gap to GET out. this has resulted in sleeping mostly through the night. half the time she just asks to sleep in the big bed and points at it, wanting to sleep there. but it's a twin bed ON RISERS, so if she fell off it would definitely hurt. i finally bought a bed railing for the side and installed it today. moved everything back, taught her how to climb up & down out of the bed & then put her down for her first BIG GIRL NAP!

she barely fell asleep bc she was SOOOOOOOOO excited. i mean, look at this cheese???

First day of nursery!

Hooray! Hooray! Sitting through church and getting to pay attention....will to our primary class at least!
She is only 17 months but they said it was ok. My baby is getting so big!
She made a little"kite" thing she is  dragging around. Love her!

Captivated

First time watching The Sound of Music. She is loving it, as she should. I keep telling her this is a very important moment of her life :-)
Let's see if she watches more than 10 minutes...
And to update: yes,I sang her "you are 16 months going on 17 months..."

Tiny hiking shoes

Faye has tiny feet. Well, at least she did until this week. All the sudden nothing is fitting so we had to find some zapatos, pronto!
Kohls sends those free $10 cash things in the mail, plus we had some change left on a gift card, so off we went.
These little puppies were $35 originally! ARE YOU SERIOUS? I mean, who would pay $35 for shoes kids out-grow in 2 months? Even the cute tiny Tom's shoes are less than that! Anyway...
So these are half off, making them $17. Plus the Kohls cash, makes them $7, which is waaaay more remotely reasonable....plus a scratch off 15% at the register...ok...it's like they WANT me to have these shoes.
At the end our gift card had more on it than the  needed $6, so we got cash back. They actually gave me money to take these tiny shoes off their hands! Lol
Shoes she can wear on our first big family camping trip next week?! For Free!?
I'll take it! :-)

Banana bread

my little helper! she loves to help me put ingredients into the bowl, stir with the spoon, and of course lick it afterwards!

Family Picture

ya ya ya there are a TON of good ones with brad & me and all of brad's family... i may post some later, but what you really came here for was THIS little lady. she. is. gorgeous. i love her! 

(now if only we could get her to SMILE for a picture... it's like she see's a camera and immediately stops all smiling.. oh well.)

the moral of the story: love italians

Faye has had this weird diarrhea thing going on- like she's had it for 2 weeks almost. no fever, but just poop. POOP! this morning we all got woken up at 6 AM by shreaking eels and a whole crib full of poopy baby. poor thing.

so today i was trying (and succeeding) at restricting her diet to the BRATY and seeing if that helped- luckily she loves rice, but bananas are suspect lately, and applesauce...eh. i was trying to be pretty strict bc i KNEW it would help with the crazy pooping. i'm a good mom, i want her to feel better. this WILL HELP. all day she was an unhappy, pooping baby monster. and i was an unhappy poopy baby mom.

finally, relief! after at least one tearful phone call, daddy came home from work a tad early and immediately put all grumpy girls into the car and trucked them off to Lucci's Italian Restaurant (our new fav hole-in-the-wall).

CARBS! EAT CARBS. When the day is crappy, and your baby poops- EAT PASTA ANYWAY. my kid DEVOURED her dinner.  i thought she was just not feeling good all day- no, she was HUNGRY!! who wants to eat applesauce and rice and bananas when you can CHOW DOWN on meat raviolis, spaghetti and garlic bread?? and you know what else- so was i! i basically looked at my food and it instantly went to my stomach; i didn't even have to use my fork.

HAPPINESS RESTORED!! smiles, laughs, conversation and we even had time, energy and happiness enough to go to Disneyland and walk around holding hands! i even treated myself to a chocolate dipped mickey ice cream. (something about eating mickey ears just makes it more delicious!)

moral of the story- CARBS: why fight it? forget this nonsense about healthy eating! who cares if someone is going through a pooping phase!? eat what makes your family happy, and BY GOLLY today it was ludicrous amounts of pasta and marinara sauce.

dear italians- i thank you. love, lindsey