Pass the Wine, Please

This mama is hittin' the road in a few hours. It seems a little self-indulgent to be leaving Anna and Mike for the weekend, what with Christmas and Anna's birthday right around the corner, but sometimes a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do, right? And this girl couldn't be more excited for a few bottles glasses of wine, some Christmas shopping, and bonding time with my sister. I also get to dress up and wear a mask to help celebrate a friend entering into her third decade. If you hear someone shouting "I'm free! I'm free!" around four this afternoon, it's probably me as we pull out of the driveway. Don't judge.

And just so I have some pictures to look at when I start to miss my little family, probably right around five o'clock, here are some from the past few weeks that I've been meaning to share...

Our first big snowstorm of the year. All these outdoor shots were taken by Mike.

Nose kisses!

Taking a walk with Oma and Opa.

Our pin-head snowman. I got lazy. Anna was not pulling her weight.

Cheese!

I also want to share a few pics of my bathroom.

Remember when it looked like this?

Well, my amazing mother-in-law Winnie came to the rescue last week. And if I felt stupid before for waiting so long to scrape that damn wallpaper off, I can't begin to tell you how moronic I felt after our work was done. Because the bathroom looks amazing. Like, I walk in there and I'm all "Ahhhhhh." And we had a ton of fun sanding and taping and painting. So, lesson learned: don't look at something ugly for almost two years when it takes like three enjoyable hours to change it.

I just noticed the empty paper towel roll on the floor. Sigh. Some things never change, right?

Winnie painted this cabinet - how awesome is it?

That's all I've got for now.

Enjoy your weekend - I know I will!

Happy Friday!

Everything She Knows I Taught Her

I would like to submit the following as proof that Anna is, without any shadow of a doubt, Mike's daughter. Not that there were really any questions, but this pretty much seals the deal.

The quality isn't the best, but hopefully you get the idea. Anna really, really likes Baba Ganoush.

If that's not enough evidence for you, please take these pictures into consideration:

Anna is extremely insistent on feeding herself. As you can see, she does an excellent job.

And I shall proclaim this "The Summer of Constant Bathing".

Do I have something on my face?

On a completely different note, I would like to show these pictures as proof that there may, in fact, be hope for me yet:

Lighthouses, be gone!

You can't tell from these pictures, but all the boxes are gone and the scrapers are back to their permanent homes in the garage. Now, all that needs to be done is a little painting. So, by my calculations, that should be done within the next, oh, eight to ten months. In all seriousness, though, I almost feel even worse now that it's done, because the whole job took me all of an hour and didn't even suck that much. For over a year, I looked at wallpaper I hated because I couldn't find an hour to scrape it off. Which means that all the other annoying tasks on my to-do list probably aren't that annoying after all, and I should just stop whining and do them already.

First up? Scraping baby-flung yogurt off the ceiling...

Happy Monday!

Hey, You Guys!

"Mikey, this ain't the kind of place that you'd want to go to the bathroom in."
-Chunk in The Goonies


Let's take a moment, shall we, to discuss my bathroom. Because I'm pretty sure this bathroom situation I have going on is representative of everything that I do wrong when it comes to being a normal, responsible, non-messy grown up. 


To begin, I should give you a little background information. Mike and I are renting the house we're living in. We actually lucked out, because it's a pretty nice place on almost two acres, with tons of room for the dogs to run around, a huge finished basement, and a grueling four minute commute to Mike's office. 


But when we were looking at it the first time with the Realtor, I immediately decided that I absolutely, unconditionally hated the master bathroom. My problem? Not the size (tiny) or the shower (dingy and very unglamorous) or the fact that it lacked the ginormous whirlpool tub I dream of. Nope, my biggest concern was the fact that the walls were a color I did not like, and were bordered by lighthouse-themed wallpaper. Horrific, I know.


I was adamant to Mike that we could not, under any circumstances, sign the lease until we had the go ahead from the landlords to strip that nasty wallpaper off and re-paint the walls something up to my (obviously) very high standards. It was a deal breaker.


So the very first day we moved in, over fifteen months ago, I got to work right way with my Wallpaper Chomp and some scraping tools and went to town on that detested border. Until, like a half an hour later, when Mike kindly pointed out that there were probably more important things to be worrying about that day. Like unpacking boxes or tending to our three-month-old child. I admitted he was probably right, and I set off on more appropriate tasks, leaving my tools sitting on the windowsill. Because I would be getting back to them very, very soon. 


I would like to show you what my bathroom likes like as of about twenty minutes ago. 

Please notice that all of my tools are exactly where I left them.

I sort of got started on this section, but mostly because it's conveniently located next to the toilet. 

Don't worry. The boxes aren't in the way of anything, because we use our guest bathroom to shower and stuff.

As you can see, I got right back to it. Clearly, making a big stink about that bathroom was worth it, because look how great it looks now that I've had a chance to work my magic. Those boxes? How about those boxes have Christmas presents in them. Because when we were cleaning up for Anna's birthday party, I threw a bunch of stuff in there that I would deal with the next day. Are you noticing any patterns here? Sigh.

I'm hoping that by putting this out there, by finally admitting I have a problem, I'll be motivated to get it in gear.  I have no more excuses, and I've come to this crazy realization that I don't really like all the messes. I avoid this bathroom at all costs, because it's a constant reminder that I'm pretty much a complete failure when it comes to this type of stuff. (And also, there is sometimes a weird smell - moldy Christmas cookies, perhaps?) It's time for me to put on my big-girl-wallpaper-removing pants and get on with it, because surely, surely, if I can run a half marathon, some stupid lighthouses shouldn't be able to bring me down.

Wish me luck, people. I'm going to need it. Now, hand me that scraper.