Monday, April 4, 2016

currently...kisses, cleaners, and cake ed.

(Insert obligatory tired excuses for not having blogged in 2.5 weeks...)

So anyway, YEAH. As it turns out, I'm much better at keeping things current on Instagram and Facebook these days, so if you're miserable for lack of Erika (or Millie, more likely) updates, try finding me there. Ha.

Currently, I'm...

Listening...still mostly to the Gilmore Guys podcast. I just can't stop, even though the current episodes are often 3 hours long and I spend 20% of the time rolling my eyes. I mean, the alternative is listening to NPR and thinking about politics and wanting to drive off cliffs (luckily Georgia has a distinct lack of available cliffs)...so Gilmore Guys it is.

Eating...Smitten Kitchen's Carrot Graham Layer Cake. Now hear me out. I don't bake. I mean, I can, I suppose, because I'm literate and I own a KitchenAid stand mixer. But I don't particularly enjoy it. So I just don't do it. But for whatever reason, I got it in my head a few months ago that I was going to bake Matt something really amazing for his birthday. Every time we've come across an amazing-sounding recipe for the last month, we say "THAT'S what I'll bake for his birthday!!"...and so finally the time came, and this is what I went with. I'll have to say...spending 12 hours (ish...or so it felt) in the kitchen getting every single pot and spoon I own filthy is not really my idea of a great time. (Or should I say a "grate" time? Because what kind of DESSERT recipe starts out with grating THREE CUPS OF CARROTS??) But it was really, really good. Like really good. So I guess it was worth it. But also, bakeries are a great thing and well worth the money. ;)

I know, I should be a professional food photographer. It's a gift.

Then again, maybe I should just be a baker.

Turns out, Millie's extremely pro-cake. Who woulda thought?
Drinking... LOL the only thing noteworthy I can think of is that I bought the Aldi knock-off of Blue Moon the other day. I don't know why. But it's pretty good! And way cheaper than the real thing, so...there's your money-saving tip of the day. Aldi beer. What is this world coming to?

Wearing... In general, nothing special. But since I never got around to blogging about Easter, I'll show off our Easter outfits! Please note that this was my third-choice dress for Millie. Option #1, purchased five months ago, ended up being way too big. Option #2, purchased recently at a consignment sale, fit perfectly but was inexplicably MISSING ALL OF THE BUTTONS ON THE BACK...and since I didn't happen to have 10 tiny buttons nor am I a professional tailor...that option was actually useless. So this is last minute, eleventh hour Hail Mary Option #3...most notably, it is the exact same size and brand as Option #1. Go figure.

Millie wasn't really in a picture-taking mood.

My dress

Feeling... Extremely excited. Two reasons. 1) I am mere hours away from winning my office's March Madness competition. I chose the Final 2 teams correctly, and whether or not my pick (UNC) wins tonight, I will win the office in points. I am WAY MORE EXCITED THAN IS REMOTELY REASONABLE about this. 2) Someone that IS NOT ME OR MATT is going to clean my house on Wednesday!! That's right. My lifelong dream of paying someone else to do the dirty work (literally) while we're gone during the day is coming true and it starts in a mere 36ish hours with a much-needed deep clean. I literally could not sleep last night because I was so excited.

Wanting... I'm winning March Madness (and a cool $100 haha) and a professional cleaner is coming to clean my house. What else on earth could I possibly want? Okay, fine. I want to eat these adorable, precious, painty-toes, stripey-tanned little feet.

It's only barely April. She's been wearing sandals for like...a month. What will her tan lines be like in JULY?!
Needing... to feel motivated to exercise. Ugh. I'm impressively productive from 6:30 a.m.-8:30 p.m., but the minute that Nuggie hits the crib for the night, I am DONE. My backside and its BFF the couch hang out until 10:00, and then I hit the bed. I'm SO unmotivated to get up and run or do a workout video, but I really need to. Wah. At least I get at least 10,000 steps every day (okay, maybe 90% of the days). Does that count? (My jeans say no.)

Thinking... as always, about how incredibly lucky I am to be this girl's mama.


It's a shame we don't like each other. (heart eyes emoji)
Enjoying... Toddlerhood. Apparently it's even better than babyhood! I had my doubts, but now I'm a believer.

I love trying to drink out of cups! Barefoot, so Mommy can be distracted by my feet tan lines.
I run everywhere! Especially into the street! But I'm learning to play the "Freeze! Go!" game. But I only play when I'm the one calling the shots!
I'm fearless on a playground and I have no interest in anyone catching me at the bottom of the slide. I would rather add my 2,820th bruise to the collection on my legs!
Watching... not much. Either HGTV shows (on Netflix) or Gilmore Girls.

Reading... Life After Life by Kate Adkinson. It's really good and reeeeealllly long. Before this, I read Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (super cool name) and it is freaking amazing. Like, stop whatever you're doing and read it right now. And if you have a book club, this goes quadruple for you. We discussed it last weekend and it was fantastic. Even the girls that hadn't actually read the book (haha, we have liberal requirements for book club attendance...but we don't budge on bringing snacks. Mama didn't raise no fool.) were able to get into it. This is probably the most thought-provoking, terrifying (without actually being terrifying) book I've read in a long time. Since The Red Tent, I guess (although that wasn't terrifying). Anyway. Check it out.


Millie (and Mommy) would like to recommend her current favorite book, Eight Animals Bake a Cake. It's a super fun bilingual book with the BEST rhymes and pictures and a pretty fantastic Spanish tutorial to boot. Evidence: Millie can now point to vaca, gato, cerezas, pastel, la puerta, and a bunch of other stuff just because she loves listening to this book so much! Also, I think my Spanish pronunciation has gotten infinitely better in a short period of time. So like...mad props. We've had this one on loan from the library for probably...uhhh...six weeks...so we could have bought it with the amount we're going to pay in fines eventually, but I think it'll be worth it. (Also, this could have influenced my desire to bake a cake. Maybe.)

So that's life lately. I would promise to blog more often, but then I'd probably be a liar, so I won't. I can promise, though, to keep on enjoying life, taking tons of pictures and sharing them when I can, and smothering Millie with as many kisses as she can handle. And I think that's a lot more important. Til next time, friends!

PS. All of the book links are Amazon affiliate links!

14 comments:

  1. Ha--I literally just checked your blog for an update (I love your posts because they just crack me up and Millie is adorable), but there wasn't one. So, I checked your IG for something new (I don't even have an account but bookmarked yours) and then when I got back to your blog there was an update! Yeah! Promise I'm not a psycho stalker. ;)
    Can I just say that to me Millie is like your baby twin!!! Do you hear that all the time? We are adopting internationally and our son is the only one with dark hair like me (our bio kids are lighter brown) so my husband jokes how our adopted son will be the only one who looks like me. <3
    Anyway, love your blog and precious daughter! But, totally get the lack of blogging. Enjoy life!!! Each day, every moment really, is such a precious gift from God!

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  2. Presh pics as always- and I'm with you on the baking thing. Also, hiring a housekeeper is also a goal of mine so I look forward to hearing if it was everything you hoped it would be and more!

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  3. I was just thinking today that I hadn't seen a blog from you in awhile!

    I finally got a smart phone, whooo Hello 2016!! So I'm now stalking you on IG!

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  4. Mmm, now I want carrot cake for breakfast... Also, I approve of Millie's back-up Easter outfit AND the housekeeper! Hope it is everything you dreamed of and more (the housekeeper, not Millie's dress)!

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  5. LOVE Millie's little tan lined feet and her toes. . . adorable!

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  6. It's crazy how big she has gotten and cuter than ever!! That cake looks so yummy!!

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  7. Why wasn't I following you on IG already? Anway, I fixed that! Y'all are just too precious. I LOVE your Easter Dress (and Mill's too!).

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  8. When you do these life update posts, you just have to be prepared for a long response... 1) HER TAN LINES!!! 2) YES on both Life After Life and Station Eleven. Some of the lives in Life After Life really got to me, so good! I am so 2015 and reading The Nightingale right now and just LOVING it. 3) Your library charges fines? Ours only does if you pretty much keep the book, ha. We are ALWAYS late returning books!

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  9. She's such a cutie! I'm also glad u get to be her momma. Going to look into that book, I realized that I stocked up on books but 0 bilingual or even straight Spanish. #mommyfail

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  10. I love love the update! And your Easter dress. I went to Old Navy the other day and tried on all but that dress (there was only an XS left I think) and left with NONE. Who am I? Gah, I'm so sad I missed the Station 11 discussion! Well done on the baking! I'm being ambitious for J's bday cake in a couple weeks...fingers crossed.

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  11. The more you are a blog slacker, the better I feel about being a blog slacker (true story). So as much as I love your updates.... keep slacking, please!

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  12. I'm all about Aldi beer and wine :) Since I'm still up in the middle of the night (sometimes multiple times), I decided to start Gilmore Girls. I really loved the first 3 seasons but I'm finding the college stuff a little boring. Love the tan lines on Millie's feet. My kids don't know about tan lines since they have no chance of ever having a tan!

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  13. I love all of these pictures! Toddlerhood is so great. Kids getting older and growing into who they are is awesome, but oh man, I love dem toddlers. And toddler girls in bathing suits. There is really nothing cuter than that.
    We've had a housecleaner come one time and man oh man, I was like, let's do this once a week!!! But I also want to save for my kids college education, soooo, maybe once every few months. But it is SO worth it.

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  14. We should hire a cleaner. And Station Eleven was chosen as our One Book, One Community book a couple of years ago and none of us (in my book club) were interested in reading it so we didn't. However, I trust your book recommendations so maybe I should pick it up...?

    And I'm super-envious Millie has been wearing sandals since March... We were only able to really pull ours out this past weekend but now hot weather has hit with a vengeance and we're hitting 27C (80F) today which is about 30 degrees Celsius warmer than it was last weekend when we were hovering around 0C. Crazy weather...

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