Guest Post: Rachel from Tunes and Spoons!

Boy, do I have a treat for you today!
When I came across Rachel's blog a while back, I was giddy with excitement. She is so charming, classy and just an inspirational woman. She just recently became a mother to beautiful Evaleigh and it's been so wonderful to relive those newborn experiences through her. {P.S. you HAVE to check out Evaleigh's nursery. It is TO DIE FOR!}


Hello there Little Almanac readers!  I'm Rachel from Tunes & Spoons.  I'm really excited to be guest posting here today and a big thanks to Kendra to finding me and putting us in contact with one another. I love reading about her little Evelyn and her adventures as a mother, wife, and just down right stellar lady! With Valentine's Day just passed, love is on my brain.  Particularly how we express our love. Often times we use Valentines as an opportunity to express our love in grandiose ways, however I've always been more partial to the small everyday acts of love.   A box of chocolates or expensive jewelry will never mean to me what a kiss on the forehead, brush of my hair away from my face, or a little love note 'just because' ever could.  That is not to say that each does not express love in its own way but I believe that deep and abiding love is built on small moments.  And when those moments are mounted one a top the next what is built is strong and eternal. I have recently been schooled in what it really means to love.  My heart grew 1,000,000 times bigger just 4 weeks ago as I gave birth to our darling Evaleigh. I am so looking forward to building tiny moments of love with her while having my dear husband by my side.

Wishing each of you a love filled life!  Come visit us and follow along in our journey of love if you'd like!


Thanks Rachel for spreading your joy! I hope you all will hop on over and say hello!

Happy Love Day!

Pink crepes. Pink milk. Pink caramel filled "hugs." Snuggles under the bed covers. Homemade cards. Baby kisses. 

So far it's been a pretty good Valentines Day. 

Last night I thought it would be fun for Ev and I to make dad a little love note, so I smeared her hand with some paint thinking she would love the creativity to be had. Nope. You would've thought I was torturing her the way she screamed when I put the pink on her hands and pressed it on the paper. Oh well, I think it still turned out cute :)

Evelyn loves this book "Snuggle Puppy." LOVES IT. There comes a part where it says "fuzzy little snuggle puppy I love you!" Without fail after that line, she always looks up at me for a kiss. It is the CUTEST thing in the world. And then she'll go find dad give him a kiss too.

I love today.

Hope you are having a LOVEly day!

Grandpa.

My dad came to stay with us over the weekend, and it was so fun to have Grandpa around! We hadn't seen him since our move in August so it was great for Evelyn to see him up close and in person rather than through Skype {which I thank my lucky stars for every day. I don't think I could do this coast to coast thing if we couldn't video chat with fam}. On Thursday we took him to the Air & Space museum out in Chantilly, which actually ended up being our only outing the whole time he was here, for on Friday evening Evelyn had a bad reaction to her MMR shot and broke out in itchy chicken pox. {Luckily she didn't break out until after Jared and I had our date night out - Cheesecake Factory never tasted so good!} This resulted in her sobbing uncontrollably all night, Jared and I giving her a baking soda bath at 4am, me crying a half hour later, and Evelyn finally falling asleep on me at 5am, where she tossed back and forth on my chest until 9am. It was the WORST experience and Jared and I both felt so helpless trying to console her. So yes, Dad had to endure all of that and so we ended up just kickin it around the house the whole weekend.

Despite plans going out the window, we were grateful to have you, Dad!

P.S. Pediatricians are sometimes stupid and waste my time, which causes me to dislike them.

Funny Friday - kitty cat edition

Jared is way in to youtube. The guy finds the most random videos and most of the time I am sitting behind him scoffing at this weird indulgence of his. But scoff I no longer shall because I am outnumbered by the youtube fans in this household. Last Sunday Jared found this cat video, which I will admit is super hilarious, and it got Evelyn laughing sooo hysterically. By the time I realized she was laughing incessantly  after repeated watches, I grabbed my camera and we watched cat clips for probably 5 min. It was the best way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Also, tonight Jared and I are going out to dinner just the two of us! My dad is in town and he was so gracious to offer us a little getaway for a couple hours. I'm sure Ev would rather be with Grandpa than the two of us anyway.

Happy Friday!

4 thoughts on this Wednesday

1. Bedtime for Evelyn is a bittersweet time for me. When 7pm rolls around, I am exhausted and ready for some alone time. It always seems that the minutes between 6:50-7:00 creep by, but a weird thing happens when the clock strikes on the hour. For when I go scoop Ev up, cradle her in my arms, lay her down in her dark crib, and tuck her in with her blankie I hardly want to let go. She always gleams with this smile that melts my heart and I end up playing with her for a couple seconds more. I almost can't bare the thought that I won't see her for the next 12 hours until morning comes. She is my everything.

2. The other day I was walking by the maintenance room in our complex and I thought from the corner of my eye I saw a severed arm laying on the custodial cart, so I did a double take. Then I really did LOL. Did I REALLY expect to see a dangling lifeless arm when I glanced back? Do your eyes ever play tricks on you like that? No. Ok, I just have weird eyes that flash horror scenes.

3. I love blogging because I can make up any words I want and upset all the proper rules of grammar. I remember my 2nd grade teacher telling me that you can't start a sentence with the word because. Well guess what, I do that all the time. You might also notice that I misspell alot of words or use the improper form more often than not.  Like on a post a wee ways back I said "quarks" instead of "quirks." Just a minor typo that has now been changed. All of these mistakes make me look uneducated, but in reality I have such a high respect for proper English and my college papers prove my love for excellent prose, but this is my blog and it's fun to do word remixes every now and then :)

4. When I was little a whole box of mac and cheese used to feed me and two siblings. Now it just feeds me. Is that saying something about the box getting smaller or my greedy mac and cheese self getting bigger?

That's all.

Oh, and thank you all for your input on the shoes. #2 is a definite yes and still deciding between 1 and 4 :)

cast your vote!

I have all four of these shoes in my cart right now for Evelyn and I can't decide which one {or two} I should buy! I'm in LOVE with all of them, so I need your input! Here are my thoughts:

Shoe 1. Pros: LOVE LOVE LOVE the canvas material! Super duper easy slip on, gender neutral. Cons: is this a "winter" shoe or can it be carried over into spring?

Shoe 2. Pros: Leather, adorable stitched round toe, a shoe/sandal so great for seasonal transitions, can be dressed up or down. Cons: none.

Shoe 3. Pros: Leather, sturdy sandal for summer walking. Cons: summer shoe. so I guess I just answered my question and I should wait a couple months until summer to buy it :)

Shoe 4. Pros: adorable! Easy slip on, dainty, dress up or down, works with all seasons. Cons: $30 and I don't think I can pay that much for a shoe that Ev will grow out of in 3 months {the others are all either $15 or $20}

What say you? Which two shoes should adorn Evelyn's feetsies?

Funny Friday - Ellen Edition

I was dying when I saw this on Ellen this week. I can so relate to Kristen's emotional scale of 3-7. I tear up over anything these days. The other day it was over the ending of "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" when Caesar leaves James Franco for his monkey friends. I turned to Jared with tears in my eyes and said "I don't want Ev to grow up and leave us!" But crying over a sloth? I don't think any furry creature could initiate such a reaction from me, but it's cute and hilarious that she has this attachment.
Happy Friday!

motherhood.

Motherhood is hard. H-A-R-D. I know everything isn't always cupcakes and roses, but for the most part life is pretty dang good and I like to celebrate that joy on this blog because joy is what life is all about. But I would also be unwise if I did not give motherhood it's proper explication.

I am a busy-body, go-getter, list-maker, organizer, strong woman. Motherhood has kinda undone all of those things for me. Well, just toned them down a bit. I've realized that I will be busy ALL THE TIME, but not with things that I would necessarily like to busy with. For instance, last night I wanted to be busy making homemade breadsticks, complete with warm insides and buttery-garlic-cheesy outsides, but instead I was spotting up spaghetti sauce from the carpet after Ev threw it overboard in disapproval.

I love conquering things, and in the past it's been stuff like writing a thesis paper, conjuring up marketing ads and designing websites. Now I feel like I've accomplished something when I make it to the post office to mail something off after it's been sitting there for a week, clip Ev's toe nails and unload the dishwasher.

It's not that I have become lazy since being a stay at home mom. All the more opposite. I am occupied now by things beyond materialism and am working on raising a very independent soul. I'm learning that a one-year old has a personality that she is unleashing on me that is very different from the docile baby that I've been used to for the past 12 months. I have become completely driven by this little person that is my everything and sometimes she can even drive away my sanity. Would you believe it if I said our little Evy Rae is a tantrum thrower? I know, it's hard to believe. The past 2 weeks have been grueling. I feel like she's a sargeant putting me through Navy Seal training {which is super hard. Read this book. It's fascinating}. Between teething, shots, and transforming in to a toddler, we have seen many food fights, tears, sleepless nights and complete exhaustion on both ends.

Again, motherhood is H-A-R-D. So, so hard. And I say that not out of regret, resentment or weakness. I say that out of humility, compassion, and courage. Nothing is more painstakingly rewarding than rearing a child and nothing brings more joy. I guess we're just in a time of transition.

{first mother's day - may 2011}

It's Party Time!

Candles, streamers, balloons, blowhorns, friends and icing all made this girl very happy on Saturday. Putting on a child's party is harder than I thought it would be considering you have to cater to the food likings of both adults and kids. I was a dimwit and didn't take a picture of the table before hand, so all I have is a sad looking display of what once were apples, homemade scones, crackers, mac&cheese bites and an empty cake platter. Oh well, I guess we were too busy with friends and the birthday girl, which is what mattered most.

Silly Evelyn, though. The girl didn't even touch her cake during the party. After everyone left we went for round two and she was still hesitant. There are few things that she will eat with her fingers these days and apparently cake was not one of them. I had to fork it to her. Once she realized that the stuff was amazing, I let her sit on her own and she was stabbing away. Haha, even toward the end she was licking the crumbs off her plate. I told you little lady it was good ;)

p.s. my mom made Ev's linen birthday dress. She did amazing, especially since she had to eyeball the measurements seeing that we live two coasts apart. I wish these photos showed more of the detail, but thank you mom for making this day extra special! 

Happy 1st Birthday, Evelyn Rae!

Mother. I can't believe I have had that glorious title for one whole year today. That six letter word has forever changed every fiber of my being. When I held Evelyn for the first time, a surge of love deeper than anything I can describe penetrated my veins and burst through my heart. Looking at this tiny soul, I understood completely for the first time the supreme gift and unbelievable power that is harnessed inside us women to bear children. It felt divine. I was never more sure that there was a God than at that moment. And God has continued to manifest himself through her as I watch her grow. Nothing could be this perfect and feel so innately right unless it was heaven sent.

Evelyn, your birth day will always be my greatest gift. You are the gift that keeps on giving. You have completely changed everything about me - the way I view the world, the way I understand life, my ability to love deeper and stronger without bounds, my excitement for learning, the magnitude of your father and I's relationship, the time I get up in the morning and how I manage my day, how excited I get when I see a dog because I am anticipating your joy when you see that furball - you have changed EVERYTHING about me. And I love you all the more for it.

One year ago today you came in to this world completely dependent on me for life. I could cradle all 7 lbs 8 oz of you in my arms and you would sleep peacefully. Now you are walking, eating kiwi and throwing green beans on the floor, splashing in the tub, sucking on my headphones, tearing apart my wallet, squealing for your giraffe, "reading" books, and addicted to water. While times have definitely gotten more challenging as you've grown older, it has equally become more fun and engaging. 

It's been one lovely year, my dear. My heart hurts on one side because you are no longer a baby, but the other half flutters in excitement to see you come into your own. 

Happy 1st Birthday, Evelyn Rae! 

Your daddy and I love you eternally.

You can watch Evelyn's birth day video here.