Pregnancy post

Our friend Matthew left a comment wondering about a possible pregnancy post. This is the only one I'm posting: I'm due early February. I'm sick, but not as sick as with Little S (thank goodness). That's it.

I will not be adding one of those photos to my sidebar of a growing fetus that changes each week, or anything like that.

If you haven't already seen it, check out the blog Seriously So Blessed. It's a funny spoof on our mommy blogs. FYI - it is ALL a joke. My hip little bro sent me the link a month ago (he's bummed that all his friends get married and stop updating their Facebook pages in favor of blogs).

Apparently, Seriously So Blessed posted a Breaking Dawn spoiler. I've got 200 pages left, so I don't know if it was a real spoiler or not, but Read Blog at Your Own Risk :)

July in review

I've been on hiatus this past month. I have only one excuse - pregnancy sickness. The last thing I've wanted to do in the evenings is blog. But, I've got many posts to catch up on and my mom told me she would really like to see some recent pics :)

4th of July:

6 of the 7 kids in D's family were together on the 4th. A good BBQ, water relays for the kids, slip-and-slide, bingo, and a prize box made the day memorable for all 13 grandkids! D did the Q-ing and I made Barefoot Contessa's flag cake - a great recipe but definitely not heart-healthy.

Little S with her cousins who were in town from the DC area.


This is not a great professional looking photo, but I wanted to post it because it could be from any number of the family gatherings we've had in the past couple of years. After the meal we all sit around discussing random topics from "why are those vampire books so popular?" to "do you watch TMZ?" to more pressing topics like "the global economies of India and China." There is usually a new baby in the mix and at least one pregnant woman (in the pic above there are 3 pregnant mamas). Ahh, the fam.

Baby Blessing

Last weekend Little S's newest cousin was blessed. As the fellas were approaching the stand for the blessing, Little S announced to me that she had to go to the bathroom. I asked her if she REALLY had to go, she assured me she did, and to avoid an accident in the church pews we left. And missed every word of the blessing.

Triple digit heat made the post-blessing photo shoot difficult, but we got a few decent shots of the fam.

D and three of his four brothers. The joke of the day was the numerous times people approached D thinking they were talking to his brother Todd (the new father). They look a lot alike these days :)


Killing time during the photo shoot...


Cooling off with cousins after the blessing. Little S will read to anyone who will sit and listen. Aislinn was a captive audience.

New York recap

Tonight, D and I are sipping frozen hot chocolate I brought back from Serendipity (mmm) and I decided I should post a few highlights from the trip.

But I noticed that my friends Becca and Whitney have done that already. So, I direct you to their blogs until I get around to downloading my pics (sorry, Mom). Becca's recap of our awesome day wandering the streets of Soho exploring our fave fabric and design shops is right on - don't mind the wet dog photo of the three of us after getting caught in a NYC rainstorm.

Ryan and Whitney were awesome hosts - lots of laughs all weekend. Thanks guys, you are the best. Can't wait for you to be closer this fall!!

NYC

I'm headed to New York City on Thursday - a solo trip. On the itinerary: art history research and museum-going (I'm also hoping to run into Blair or Serena)!

I wanted D and Little S to come along, but the thought of chasing her around the city while I sit thumbing through old books in libraries was not so appealing to my good-natured husband.
Wednesday will be spent packing and picking a good book to take along!

Malibu

We set out on an adventure yesterday. While watching Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on the Food Network, D saw a BBQ place in Gardena/Compton he wanted to try. So yesterday we headed to Jay Bee's BBQ (I believe it would fall into the DIVE category) - we were not disappointed with the Q and Little S loved the mac and cheese.

Next stop: Malibu. My sister-in-law's sister and her family live in Malibu and we all ended up there in the afternoon. Tom and Ann have a lovely home overlooking the ocean AND they are a blast to hang out with - they were on Oprah last year during their family's 1 year around-the-world trip! (After helping clean up Katrina victims, they decided to go carpe diem and take their 4 kids ages 4-14 around the world for a year performing service and volunteer work in all the countries they visited.) Ann documented their journey here.

This is the view from their patio.

The group of us (six adults and eight kids) went to Zuma Beach for an afternoon of fun in the sun. It was a great day!

Little S was excited to hold baby Kai again and again.

Birthday cakes

Little S has been obsessed with birthday cakes this week. She saw Elmo make one on Sesame Street and wouldn't stop talking about it. Hoping she would forget about it, I told her to wait until Daddy got home and ask him. Since he's such a good daddy, he baked a cake with her as soon as we walked in the door and the two of them went to the store together to pick out frosting. The very next day she wanted to make another one but luckily we were headed to a birthday party anyway!

Enjoying the slide at the birthday party.

Being shy...