Hi Friends. Are we still friends?

Ahem. Hi. It's been a while. How are you? Good? Good!

I can start this post with all sorts of apologies and excuses for why I've abandoned my blog for five months. It's to the point where I feel this reacquainting with each other is a bit awkward, like I should ignore my absence entirely and pretend like it never happened. I have no stellar reason for quitting. I just stopped. I've even forgotten what it's like to read others' blogs. Do you guys still blog? I bet you do. You superstars you. I went about my days thinking in written format but for some reason couldn't write. I don't even have draft posts sitting in the works to be finished and published. I got nothing. Everything I thought to write about seemed so stale. You want to read some more about being tired and my babies not sleeping? Yah, didn't think so.

I could also start by proclaiming my reason for returning from my hiatus as something totally dramatic like I'm pregnant or we're moving or I've lost all my baby weight plus another 80 pounds. But none of those are true so that doesn't work either.

I could also write about every bit of minutia from my babies' lives. Oh man. You're just begging for that blog post aren't you? It'd be worth it though. My babies are pretty fab and blow-your-mind adorable. Sydney's not potty trained yet but she knows her alphabet and cuddles while we watch Tinkerbell movies (over and over and over). Holden now follows Sydney everywhere to include on top of the dinning room table and he blows kisses and waves "bye-bye" and it melts my heart every.single.time.

I decided to write for no other reason than I want to still consider myself a blogger. And because it's 2:00 am and I can't sleep and Jericho is asleep on Sydney's floor (as per usual) and I can type without waking him. I also am writing because I enjoy it immensely. It's cathartic. It's mentally cleansing. It helps remind me that I'm a literate, educated adult. I also write because I know some really cool ladies who also write and I want to be like them. Also, the other day I was thinking about all the nutty things about my babies and our adventures together and realizing how much I wanted to make record of things beyond Instagram and Facebook.

I guess this post is a transition post into more substantial, regular posting. Hopefully. I really am going to try harder. I promise. Is that sufficient? Have we lost a bit of the awkwardness of our absence from each other?

And for good measure, a few pics from our recent family picture session by my awesome friend Nikki:

Mommy Q&A

I've only been a mom for a whopping 23 months. I've been a double-mom for 10 of those months. I still feel very new at this ballgame. I continually reference books and websites for answers to questions. I learned when I was pregnant that the best resource is other moms with tried and true experience. You can always find a mom to answer your questions and, more importantly, you can always find a mom that makes you feel better when you feel like you totally suck and want to run away.

The following are a few questions I've thought about recently. Some are actually worth while. Some are just because I'm curious and hope I'm not the only one that any of these apply. [Note I didn't ask: "Have you ever spent 3 days straight in your pajamas?", because I really don't want to know the answer]. Instead of searching aimlessly through questionable authorities online, I thought I'd hit up the amazing moms I know, or I know through social networking that may also see this and chime in with their knowledge.

You may answer with "anonymous" if you wish but know this is a safe space. No judgments. You all rock the socks off of parenting even if you don't feel like it.

1) What is the worst injury you've sustained from one of your children?

2) What is the most expensive thing your child has damaged/destroyed/eaten/flushed down the toilet?

3) How messy have you let your house get because you honestly stopped caring?

4) At what age did you start doing time-outs, or other forms of discipline? Did it work?

5) When did you successfully break your baby from using a pacifier?

6) When do your children start to listen to you and do what you say? Ever? EVER!?

7) Do you have a mommy-only-hiding place in your house?
[your secret is safe with me]

8) How do you get anything done when you have children that ransack your house at every opportunity? How hard do you have to work for any semblance of productivity?*

9) Do you ever stop being completely smitten by your children when you see the sleeping? Is it a least before it starts being creepy?

*this one is particularly daunting to me right now. i try to read, they attack me. i try to do projects, they destroy the house. i try to do dishes or cook, they pull stuff out of the dishwasher or the freezer. i could go on, and on, and on. this might help explain my aforementioned pajama issue.

My Entertainment

I try to tell people that Sydney's a funny baby. It's very difficult to explain. I don't really say too much because I don't want to be one of those people that talks about their kid like everything they do is so unique and wonderful and that everyone else in the world cares as much as they do about the minutia of their toddler's life. I also don't think I can ever verbally do justice to Sydney's personality. I quickly realized I needed to have a camera on the ready from the moment this girl wakes up.

You just have to meet her.

I was going through the several hundred pictures on my phone and decided I'd publish Sydney's nuttiness in blog form. Again, I recognize that these mean more to me than you and that you may glance through and think they look like pictures of everyone else's kid and yawn and forget about my blog entirely. That's fine. I know the grandmoms will love it.

Trust me when I say this is only a snippet of the things that make us smile.

The Thinks I Think {At 2:00 AM}

photo credit

I have a moderate to severe addiction to the following: Diet Coke, chocolate, Honey Nut Cheerios. In fact, I'm thinking of getting together with my dietitian sister to construct a diet comprised solely of those three things.

I've previously alluded to my interest in sewing. I think it's time to take a real sewing class. I have a delusional concept of my own abilities. Every time I see cute quilts/curtains/pillows/chair covers I am totally convinced I could whip out something similar without breaking a sweat or, more accurately, swearing at my sewing machine. I'm often wrong. I'm mostly self-taught. My skill set isn't too limited but what I can do is fine. I can do things. But man, they could definitely look better. If you have any recommendations for places/sources of sewing lessons, please share.

The other day I misplaced a pancake. In my bedroom. 

Aside from the actually birthing of a child, coming in at a close second for the most physically difficult aspect of parenting is putting on a fitted crib sheet. I know babies are dropping left and right from loose crib sheets or whatever, but come on. Can we loosen it just a little? Just when I think I've got it under control, one corner pops back up and I end up yelling at the crib and Sydney is waiting patiently with her blankey thinking, "Dude, what's your deal? Haven't you gotten this down yet?" It would probably help if I took the mattress out of the crib but there are crib bumpers and they all tie on and there are six and they each have four ties that are double-knotted and you can see how this is just way harder than it needs to be... 

We have Netflix streaming to our TV. I love it. The Walking Dead and Jericho are among my recently watched TV shows. This might help explain my recent Pinterest board titled "Apocalypse Now". My sister thought I had a new calling at church. Nope, inspiration via zombies and nuclear bombs. I am now convinced I need to have random certifications in my back pocket like knot-tying, Morse code, marksmanship, helicopter pilot, and M.D.

A little while ago, I managed to painted all ten of Sydney's toenails. I consider this my highest parenting achievement to date.  

Oh. And the dude's crawling. It's sheer madness over here. 

Photo Dump Courtesy of the SLR

Now that I have a Smartphone and can take, edit, and post pictures without having to leave the couch, the idea that I have to hard-wire my SLR to my desktop in a whole different room seems excessively laborious. I took some pictures the other day and saw that I only have 17 pictures left on my card and realized there must be a boatload of pictures hanging out in there that need to go on the computer. Many of them had too much cuteness to be contained solely on my computer so I decided to dump them on here. This is only a piece of the bunch. Jericho says one of my jobs is to clean out the excess pictures of the babies on the computer. I don't know what he's on about.