Our California Trip

We took a road trip to CA to go to Disneyland, stay with Brent's cousin (It can be SO SO wonderful to stay with family. staying with her was a delight.) and go to the beach. We drove there.... it was a rough ride there- we didn't break it up over two days, just a one day 10 hour drive and it was rough. Throw up. tears. refusal to sit in car seats. the works. thankfully, disneyland was a treat, an expensive treat, but a treat. Mr Toad's wild ride was too scary. but seeing ella and lucy meet Snow White and Tinkerbell and Micky and Minnie was such a sweet experience to see that.

Our sweet new house: a Tour

We've lived in our new house for about 2 months now, and its been so lovely. I've been finding out its quirks and that makes it feel more like a home, I think? They've been more negative quirks, so hopefully I'll get used to them. When its windy, it whistles through the front porch. The fabulous big windows and vaulted ceiling- while theyre a huge fabulous pro in most every way- except they make the living room and kitchen either hotter or colder than the rest of the house.

and don't get me started on black widows. I've seen and squashed about 20. They love the space between the foundation and the rain gutter and the garage door sensor thingy close to the wall. they nasty. I have called a pest control company and they have sprayed. but Brent is still annoyed by how often I talk about the widows.

The house is such a pleasure. Our mudroom is the BOMB. I've never had one before and it is a delight to corral the shoes and sweaters. The keyholder on the wall was in Granny Phoebe's house when I was growing up and I love seeing it every day.

 That door goes in to the garage. There is also a bathroom to the left there, which we debated about having, but I am glad its there close to the main living area.

Our kitchen is my dream come true. I adore our two dishwashers (on either side of the sink). I love the colorful island lights. I love the open shelves (i put my very often used plates and bowls there and they're so easy to grab). I love the pot filler above the stove (its fairly EXTRA but every time I use it for my big pot of noodles, it is so wonderful). I love the black faucet- I love the white sink and how big it is. I'm so lucky.

 The light is so wonderful. lil lucy is wearing her pink nightgown and you can see her little toilet! Moving to the new house made potty training tricky for a while, but just recently I thiiiink she has it down again and fingers crossed it will go more smoothly from now on. i debated for a while whether or not to have these living room windows as open-able windows or not (would the screen and line in the middle detract from the views? would i use them very much? those were my thoughts) and Im thankfully very glad that I can open them. the breeze is great, I use them often, more often perhaps then Brent would like :) and the screen and line dont bother me at all!

Guest bedroom and girls shared bedroom on the left, girls bathroom on the right, laundry straight ahead.

 I love the blue tile- but part of me wishes I would've done something more girly. Ah well. Maybe we'll have baby boys later? Doubt it...

 that laundry room window is so wonderful.love the light, love the breeze.

Went with a dark bedroom and it isnt too dark at all. I almost wish I would've painted the ceiling too.

Our bathroom has a separate water closet, which is tiny and traps smells easily.... but there you are. The shower is bigger than any shower probably should be, and it is lovely.

We have these holes from our closet to our laundry room so we dont have to walk around carrying the hamper. super unnecessary and yet convenient.

Auntie Eleanor, thinking of you and hoping you are so well! xoxo

Ella: Kindergarten!

Ella had her first day of kindergarten and it was just excellent. It put both her and me at ease that her aunt is her teacher and her cousin and several preschool friends are in her class (Grantsville is so nice that way). She is even riding the bus to school which I think is so great and she quite likes. A few neighborhood girls ride the same bus and they look out for Ella which just makes my heart so warm.

Lucy of course wanted to go to school too... but not yet lil sis.

Summer loving

I feel lucky that my sister in law took some photos of our small family and the beginning of this forever home. I treasure them and this time. I feel so lucky.

 this tree is my saving grace- it provides NECESSARY SHADE for our outdoor summer time. it's a bummer that i'll have to wait so long to have big trees at our new house.

I'm feeling good right now because I just found a bunch of light fixtures for my house cheaper than I thought. excellent. these are all the light fixtures I've been staying up too late looking online for:

Lights:

Dining chandelier 

Island pendants

2 Kitchen Shelf sconces

2 Living room sconces

Girls bathroom vanity

Master vanity

Pantry flushmount

Laundry flushmount

Mud room flushmount

Mud room bathroom vanity

Foyer

4? Outdoor lights

my budget for all is $2000. and I found all of these for $1700. The only catch... I need 6 ceiling fans (3 bedrooms, our master closet, and the living room) so I guess with the fans it seems pretty hard to come in at $2000... so we shall see.

Parenting

I feel anxious about riding the fine line between giving my kids too much attention and not enough.

I need to play with my children, give them a free childhood, let them experience enough boredom, talk to them while they eat their lunch. But at what point am I giving them too much attention? I also need to teach them they can't play all day every day. Chores are required with life. I just read Lucy 4 books, if I want/need to do the dishes instead of read a 5th book I shouldn't feel like her childhood is slipping through my fingers. I find it hard. 

Ella had her last day of preschool yesterday. They sang songs for the parents and I felt like I was the only one crying about how sweet and smart and cute Eleanor is. Though I can't have been the only one! 

Lucy is very excited to go to preschool in the fall- I'm nervous about it because she's not potty trained yet, but I know she would ADORE school- her birthday is in the end of September, so she would have 3 years of preschool before kindergarten. we shall see.

They put the shingles on our house today! I'm a little bummed our house doesn't have a "cuter" shape- but whatever. It will look fabulous. I'm thinking a deep blue exterior with white molding around those windows and along the roof line.

It's been raining a ton lately. look at these clouds we saw today! 

Barnyard Babies & Weight loss

We went to the Clark Historic Farm this weekend where they had a baby animal petting zoo, pony rides, blow up slides, farm games like cornhole, and best of all for Ella, a cotton candy stand (she cared a little bit about the baby zebra... but mostly the cotton candy.). I thought it was so magical. I forced Brent to go, which I regret. ha. he was like Mr. Mad the whole time, well... i'm not giving him enough credit... he doesn't like animals and he doesn't like being outside in the sun doing what he thinks is stuff that's too expensive and doesn't matter- so of course he hated it, but he came and a thank you for that.

Lucy was in love with this lady dressed up like a fairy princess who had a little white pony with a unicorn horn. Lucy asked her, "Princess? is this YOUR unicorn??!?!" I should've taken a picture... but I was trying to be in the moment, I guess? whatever. it was lovely.

yet again, i am trying my dangest to lose a little weight. It lit a fire in me when I went to New York at the beginning of April with Brent to see the musical Hamilton-which was VERY GOOD by the way. It lived up to the hype. Anyway, I was with two of my high school ballet friends who have amazing bodies and I was feeling uncomfortable with myself. I think my body is of course fabulous, but I'd like to feel better with myself and that's ok. I weighed in 2-3 weeks ago at 156 and now I'm 149. Which I feel great about. Not that the numbers on the scale are the end all be all, but they are the easiest to measure my progress so I feel ok about sharing that sort of thing. My diet is going very good at home- I'm even eating separate dinners sometimes- which I thought I would never do- but it's too hard to get my kids to eat all the same things as me. But when I go to a social event its hard! We went to Mari and DJ's birthday party and I was planning to only have 1 piece of pizza and no cake. But of course I had 2 pizza slices and some cake. it's fine its fine.

Some people emotional eat or social eat... but I honestly think my issue is I LOVE GOOD TASTING THINGS. I didn't feel like I needed to socially eat that second piece of pizza- but dominoes pizza is so good. and the cake was very yummy. anyhow. here we are. I'm working on it and that is good enough.

(this upcoming weekend is Ella's spring dance performance and I am so excited to see her. She's been practicing at home and is quite pumped about the gloves she gets to wear for one of her dances. She dances to Cruisin for a Bruisin (which is kinda a sassy number) and the Rainbow song from the kids dance movie Leap.)

I'm also planting a bunch of flowers this week and I'm excited to see how they'll look and hopefully they'll grow good. zinnias and petunias

Spring, Our house, Mosquitos, and flowers

This spring has been so refreshing and beautiful. It's been raining more than usual and you can tell when you look at the grass and plants! really lovely. Especially the tulip and daffodil bulbs that my mother in law put in the front yard because they grow without any help from me! and they are a beauty. The weather is such a breath of fresh air.

We are park regulars these days, too. Sunscreen and bug spray aplenty (the mosquitos are crazy because it rained so much. our smarty neighbor was telling us about the life cycle of a mosquito and how the rain makes them come out!)

I feel more settled into Grantsville and that is noticeable by the amount of playdates we've had. the girls love them and i love them. moms need each other.

Here's some more if you'd like to see:

New York and Good girlfriends and...

my thoughts:

• real good friendships don't come all that often, but once you have them- treasure them. these ballet girls (who i met as a child and grew up with) planned a New York trip as a reunion (as ms silver sparkly thing Lindsey now lives in New York) and of course it was fantastic to be with them- but i've also loved the rekindled text conversations we are having now. so nice to know i always have a listening ear to turn to.
• coming back from vacation is hard. I've come back to my sweet babies, but i feel like im lacking some motivation in my day to day. like i just want to sit and watch tv allllll day. and its ridiculous i feel this way- i just went on a fabulous vacation and i should feel rejuvenated. but i dont, and i feel guilty about it, which doesn't help either.  
• The Tenement Museum was so fantastic in the city. We walked through preserved apartments of immigrant families in the early 1900s and their lives were fascinating and SO HARD
• The Jewish restaurant we went to, Russ & Daughters, was such a new experience- I've never had Jewish food- and it was fantastic- and so fun to see all these new things. A lot of smoked fish on the menu. I had salmon fishsticks (with a rye breading!) and a whitefish chowder soup. I also tasted Borscht soup (beet soup- which was good but only cause i like beets- it needed something else going on) and challah bread pudding for dessert. i also tasted caviar for the first time- tasted good- buttery and salty- i ate it on a little pancake with creme freche. such a unique menu

 I think fire escapes are so geometrical and beautiful- this was outside our bedroom window of our Airbnb.

 One of my more photogenic friends styled our positions for this lil brooklyn bridge shot :) the bridge was stunning as always. but so so so crowded this nice weather holiday weekend

 An impressionist painting i saw at the Met that was really breathtaking. i loved that place- it took me back to my London study abroad days when i went to museums and historic cathedrals and beautiful scenery all day every day

 we still got it. The new yorkk city ballet nutcracker was so magical- rather the ballerina Tiler peck that did Dewdrop was magical- the way she dances is so expressive- she fills every note of the music to its full potential and her body like fills up the space in every direction. watch this link to a YouTube video of Tiler Peck and i think you'll see what I'm talking about

 Also this good man, who came with me to New York and is the best man and girl could ask for.

Cheers.