We're all still here!

You might not think so based on total absence of blog posts for the first quarter of the year (I think in quarters now at my new job...and I didn't work last weekend for quite possibly the first time EVER, save for my "break" in DC, whaaaat?), but we're all still here kicking it! Here, watch Holden grow up kinda fast...

And I just saw that the poor kid had on long-sleeve stripes for pictures three months in a row...sorry, baby, those Carter's onesies are a wardrobe staple for you. I'll try to mix it up a little bit.

Already ten months old!! He's allllll over the place right now and is SO much fun. Less fun? Constant ear infections that refuse to be solved by every antibiotic known to man, so on Thursday my poor baby has to have a teeny bit of surgery and get ear tubes. As an excessive worrier, I plan on being a little bit of a hot mess come surgery time, but hopefully this will get us on the road to a healthier little guy who doesn't have fluidy goop clogging up his ears.

Lack of blog posts due to general life craziness, but we also added streaming to our Netflix subscription, which caused me to lose hours of my life to things like House of Cards and An Idiot Abroad over the last couple months. Oops. Resolve to not binge-watch everything just because I can.

Happy spring!

And a very merry Christmas to all...

...and to all an incredibly short Christmas summary in the form of very few phone pictures. We're pretty tired around here. But for all of the best reasons. Except for a lingering cough for our poor sick baby; that is not one of the best reasons. Sigh. Almost there. I'm extremely grateful for all of my helpers over the last week and really miss them. Love you, family.

Presents are pretty cool, Dad

We bought chocolate chips with the intent to bake goodies...but so far they've only served as a toy for the baby.

Story time with Auntie Manda!! Please also observe the proximity of the cat to this situation and chalk it up to a Christmas miracle.

Christmas is exhausting, y'all. Also, I'm totally about to outgrow my space egg swing. Yeeps.

Dad, Dad, what did you bring me??

So Craig isn't traveling for work nearly the way he used to (thank goodness!!), but he's spent two of the last four weeks in Florida - which means single parenting on this end, yeeps! Fortunately Holden's a pretty cool kid and tries to keep things pretty easy breeze for his mom...except for this congestion/crud that I think is basically going to take over our lives FOREVER and keeps him (and in turn me) from having a good night's sleep...but we survive. We're both glad when Dad gets home, but I think he may have set a new precedent on this last trip that Holden will come to expect..."Dad, Dad, what did you bring me??"

Holden + new Mickey Mouse doll (thanks, Dad!) = grins and giggles

Do you know how excited I am about this?!?

Baby's first Christmas!! It's going to be the utmost of adorableness, even though Holden will probably just be really confused. And while I'm late to the game on getting personalized Etsy awesomeness I was planning on for Christmas gifts ("no longer accepting holiday orders"...oops, I should have started these projects before Thanksgiving), I was totally on the ball with ordering Holden a really cute first Christmas ornament. Now it just needs the perfect spot on the tree.

Thankful

Come Thanksgiving you used to find me taking pictures of pies. Now I pretty much just take pictures of my baby (it can't be helped, his adorableness attracts the camera!), so I really don't have any Thanksgiving shots to share with you that don't feature Holden in some form or fashion. Oh, but rest assured there were pies. This time only three for the six (and a half) of us, an extremely reasonable ratio.

As we scarfed down turkey and cornbread dressing and allll the other good stuff last Thursday, I paused for a moment and felt especially thankful for my amazing parents this year. I'm also really thankful for pie, but having a baby is kinda a big deal...and while coconut cream pie would have helped, I don't really know if I would have survived those first couple of weeks without my mom and dad by my side. Maybe more details on the survival of the early days will be provided a little later, and maybe not - I got a little teary just thinking about it now, so apparently six months later the waves of exhaustion and newborn terror are still palpable. So for now I'll continue to pause briefly and say thank to my parents. For everything. Absolutely everything.

Holden enjoying some naptime with Grandpa over Thanksgiving weekend...

...and doing the same thing six months ago when he was almost a week old.

Can you believe how much he's grown and changed?!? Me either.

Mustaches and bowties

A month ago (a whole month ago!) my dear, wonderful, amazing friends threw an adorable "mustaches and bowties" baby shower to celebrate Baby Holden, yay!!  In the midst of the tax crazy, it was so nice to just take 48 hours away from my desk (ok, really more like 44.5 hours...a whirlwind from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon when I was back at my desk around 4:00, blech) and spend some quality time with family and friends getting ready for the little guy's arrival.

I'm such a lucky gal to have such wonderful friends - love you girls!!  A few pictures from the festivities...

Me and the mommies...well, the grandmommies-to-be!

little man onesies

My cravings!  Clementines and...sugary little kid cereals. :) Transformed by Kami into delicious Lucky Charms and Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal bar treats.  SO GOOD.

The wonderful hostesses and party-throwers extraordinaire

Everything's more delicious through a mustache straw!

Piles and piles o' wonderful presents and the great start to Holden's library

My wonderful mom made Holden the most adorable rocking horse quilt - I love it!!

Demonstrates improvement in social skills, although expect decline in coming week

Harrison is somewhat notorious for being...well...less than welcoming to visitors in our home. Or even to those who live in said home, although he and Zach have come light years from that initial meeting and the infamous Death Yodel.  However, he actually didn't cause physical harm or mental trauma to anyone during the last two social occasions at our house - huzzah!!

Event #1 - our annual Super Bowl party, which I'm also referring to as Dipapalooza 2014.  We seriously could have just made a meal out of chips and dips, although the giant piles of delicious smoked meat would have been sad and lonely.

Quite the spread...and yes, there was a Manning jersey and Denver Broncos supporter in our house for the Super Bowl party.  I'm surprised Craig let him in the door.

Harry mostly stayed in hiding and didn't scream at anyone.  After he and Grace literally had a run-in at a prior Super Bowl party, this was pretty epic progress.  I was really proud of him for basically just staying out of the way.  Maybe he was feeding off of Craig's happy vibes about the slightly lopsided victory for his Sea Birds.

Event #2 - Momma Dale came to visit last weekend, and he didn't yell at her ONCE, even when he got shocked on the nose due to excessive amounts of static electricity rippling through our air.  Just some minor nighttime stalking, but there was no screaming or death yodeling attached, and they even shared a chair (although this was really just Harry more standing his ground than willingly sharing).

While Dale was here we also did fun things like eat our body weight in fried chicken at Babe's (now THAT is how you celebrate Valentine's Day with a pregnant lady - it was amazeballs) and get Dale her Texas steak fix at The Keg and do some cutesy shopping for Baby P (I'll let you guess which two out of three activities Craig participated in out of that list).  Since it all flew by too quickly, can't weekend time move at half the speed of weekday time?  Or even if weekend time stays the same, then weekday time speeds up? Something feels a little off about this whole split.

And look, we progressed to utilizing a lesser degree of caution when in close proximity to the cat!  They played Candy Crush together by the end of the weekend!

However, I think all of this "progress" (which probably isn't even actual progress, just strange coincidences or possibly Harrison's decreased lack of giving a shizz as he ages) may go to crap when Uncle Wes comes to stay this weekend.  No love lost between those two, so any ground gained may go right out the window. Literally, if Harry traps Wes in a corner and he has to escape through a window.  It's possible.

I realize this entire post is sad.  The social antics of my cat.  Craig has requested that we get him a Prozac prescription before the baby comes...it's probably a good idea.  Sigh.

A glimpse into the future

Last weekend we had some of my favorite visitors in town - Carrie, Jason, and Alan made the drive up from Houston to hang out with us for the weekend, which was a nice break from the painting extravaganza the weekend before.  I've always loved spending time with little Alan - he's just a sweet, fun kid and I love him to bits. And as a mommy-to-be of a little boy (boys! I need to brush up on dinosaur/Lego/truck/bug knowledge, I think), I think I got a glimpse into my future.  Let's just say if our little guy is anything like Alan, I probably need to learn more about trains.  Because trains are the most awesome thing ever.  So Craig did some strategic Googling and discovered that the Frisco Heritage Museum (who knew??) is the temporary home to interim exhibits for the Museum of the American Railroad (again, who knew?), and there's our Sunday afternoon.  Train time!!

We loaded up on homemade cinnamon rolls, spent some lazy time binging on HGTV and iPad time, and then made sure we loaded up on even more food at Platia so we had plenty of energy for the TRAINS.  After pretty much spending the morning eating, it was off to the trains.  And we had one excited little boy on our hands for the rest of the afternoon.

Trains are so awesome I love trains guys check me out on this train it's so cool!!  I love the enthusiasm.

Apparently I'm fascinated by trains, too, or at least when rivets and welding on the train combine to look with a face with a BACON SMILE.  Don't you think?!?

Tiny Alan. Ginormous train.  Happiness for a four year old.

Sweet, we even get to ring a train bell!

Now, I wouldn't exactly call the Frisco Heritage Museum the most spectacular museum I've ever been to. It's kinda tiny and adorable and doesn't have a whole lot going on, but it was perfect for some chill explorations on a beautiful weekend afternoon.  We spent a lot of time outside exploring the trains, but then inside we found a great treasure in one of the living rooms (styled for each decade!)...say hello to Duck Hunt.  The boys were thrilled.

Awww, father-son video game bonding time!

 Back out for one last train stop...

...and then our always-too-short weekend neared its end.  We also did plenty more eating and got in some quality playground time in the gorgeous weather (you're faking me out, Mother Nature - I know it's not spring yet) and played a round of Smash Up (thanks for the weirdly cool new game, sistah friend!) and just generally enjoyed friend time.  Yay for friend weekends!!

Expecting the arrival...

...of some teeny feet to fill these shoes!  Baby Pendarvis is on his or her way (and yes, we're finding out boy or girl- dying to know!!), ready for a May 2014 arrival.  Eeeeekkkk!!  And if you're actually reading this, you probably already knew the news. =) But here are some tiny baby shoes to really drive the point home.

We couldn't be more excited.  And a little freaked out.  But mostly...excited, blessed, and ready to embark on this great parenthood adventure.  Can't wait to meet you, Baby Pendarvis - I think you're really going to rock our world.

Family fried fall weekend o' fun

A few weekends ago we had alllll the parents in town, pretty much just to go to the epicness that is the State Fair of Texas and eat delicious fried things.  Seriously.  This was the plan.  Momma Dale mentioned this summer that she'd really like to come to town for the fair, so we booked it for post-10/15 (you know, crazy tax deadlines and such) and had the whole gang in town for some Texas-sized adventures.

Ready for fair adventures!

And then we went and had a generally fabulous time and we ate allllll of this (LOTS of sharing on the food - otherwise you would have had to roll me out of there):

1. Omg, we started with Twinkies - they were handing them out FOR FREE as we walked into the fair, presumably to celebrate the fact that Twinkies still exist.  What a way to start and prep our palates.
2. Fried Thanksgiving dinner - this was one of our favorites!  It's impressive when an early contender can hang in the competition for so long.  Basically a giant fried ball of turkey and dressing goodness with gravy and cranberry sauce for dipping.  It was really, really good.
3. I think they were called...pig's toes?  Essentially a deep fried jalapeño bacon-wrapped situation with chili and nacho cheese for dipping.  Disgustingly delicious.
4. Fried spaghetti & meatballs - also one of our favorites.* Spaghetti and meatball bits with plenty of melty, gooey cheese and marinara.  Yum.
5. Fried shrimp & grits, also delicious but a little greasy.  Imagine that, the piles of deep fried are getting a little greasy.
6. The classic, Fletcher's corny dogs - both original and jalapeño
7. Free baby cones of soft serve ice cream!!  One of my favorite reasons to visit the Food & Fiber Pavilion.
8. Fresh, delicious, life-giving fruit.  Yes, a giant cup of fresh fruit.  Mom's decision, and a really, really good one.
9. Fireballs - this fried pimiento cheese situation, which sounds delicious in theory but just wasn't very good.  Too spicy and kinda blech.
10. Deep fried biscuits and gravy.  Pretty much gravy inside a biscuit inside fried.  Also greasy along the lines of the shrimp & grits situation, but pretty good.  Didn't blow my socks off.
11. Bratwurst...yeah, on a stick!  One of the few non-deep fried items, just delicious meat on a stick.
12. Fried King Ranch casserole IN THE SHAPE OF TEXAS.  Pretty dang good.
13. Fried Cuban roll.  Also a bit of a grease bomb, but really delicious.
14. Red beans and rice - one of the best bang for your buck items at the fair, and it may actually qualify as "real food" instead of a just an artery-clogging fair specialty item.  Props to Mom for being the voice of reason.
15. Fried grilled cheese.  This was AMAZING.  It came with those little crunchy potato sticks on the side AND had tomato soup (which tasted very, very, very much like Campbell's out of a can) for dipping.  I loved this.
16. Fried jambalaya - spicy and delicious.  Our last of the savory items.
17. Fried Nutella - time for dessert deliciousness, and this was delightful.  It even came with fresh fruit on top, which made it totally healthy.
18. Fried peanut butter & jelly sandwich - I'm counting this as dessert, and it was really delicious.  You know how fantastic peanut butter is when it gets all melty and warm?  Throw some jelly and powdered sugar into that situation and you're doing ok.

* with this and the Thanksgiving dinner, maybe we just liked the fried food when served in softball-sized form?  hmmm....

This list does not account for beverages...none of which were fried, thank goodness.  That fried beer incident was truly awful.  Check out all the shades of brown below.

Shrimp & grits on the left, giant spaghetti & meatball situation on the right

You can't go wrong with a corny dog, as long as you have plenty o' mustard

Dad, double-fisting the corn dogs - nice work!

Omg - King Ranch casserole, Cuban roll, red beans & rice, and fried grilled cheese.  Holy moly spread of food stuff.

A healthy heaping of Nutella - oh yum

Deep fried PB&J in all of its 100%-bad-for-you glory

Ok, putting it in a list is kinda scaring me.  We all made it out alive, though.

Yeah, it was mostly about the food, but I mean, it wasn't allllll food.  There was also plenty of car show time for the boys...

...and breaks in the ridiculous massage chairs (twice! they were amazing) and making new puppy friends...

...and more animal time (horses and rabbits and tiny adorable baby kittens, oh my! and checking out new Big Tex (I thought he looked a little scary).

Happy fair weekend, y'all!

Happy anniversary eve!

Holy jeez, where have the last two years gone??  And yes, it's only anniversary EVE, not actual anniversary, but I needed something to write about tonight and was feeling a little mushy.  To celebrate two whooooole years of marriage, we took off to Seattle for a few days to celebrate (which I'll tell you all about in this month o' blogging), a little before our actual anniversary to make time for important things like University of Washington football games.  Last year at this time we were having red rocks adventures and relaxing in Sedona, celebrating one whooooole year of marriage...

...and then two years ago I'm certain I was having trouble trying to wind down and go to sleep because I was just a little excited about the whole "I'm getting married tomorrow!!" thing.  But it was all worth it for this.

Happy almost anniversary, husband!  And just when Craig is FINALLY HOME from the Great Houston Adventure, he's out of town again this week for work training in Orlando.  But I have some really wonderful friends who are going to celebrate birthaversary with me tomorrow (birthday dinner on the anniversary, of course), so I think I'll be ok.  Two down and many, many more to go.

Woooooah, we're halfway there! Woooah-OH!

A couple of weeks ago, as I was preparing to enjoy a well-deserved freebie day off after the busy season ridiculousness, I woke up to a cryptic note from the husband telling me to be at Meddlesome Moth at 5:45 (ummm, ok, we had talked about going to dinner, but why are we dining at early bird special hour?), feed the dog before I left (so we're going to be gone for a little while...), and wear comfortable shoes.  I followed up the shoe guidance with a "could my shoes get dirty?" question, which was answered with a maybe...so I really had no idea what I was in for.

Show up for dinner and Carolyn and Allen are there, too - hooray, friends, I like this surprise!  And they're totally dressed normally with their comfortable shoes, so I'm not too worried about things.  Sit down, order drinks, and then Craig somewhat unceremoniously presents me with four pieces of paper.  Ooohh, are these tickets?!?  Lion King is going on tonight at Fair Park!  What, it's not Lion King?  I'm sorry that was my first reaction...as Craig just sighs and shakes his head.  Actually, I had mentioned months ago "oh, Bon Jovi's coming to the AAC!  That could be kinda fun..." and then didn't think twice about it.  Guess who was paying attention?  That's right, kids, all four of us are going to go rock out to Bon Jovi tonight!  Happy birthday to me!  Enjoy some semi-pathetic phone pics of Bon Jovi dashing by and the band doing what it does.  It was awesome.

Because he's ridiculous, Husband also surprised me with a cool new computer as an additional birthaversary present (birthday 10/31 + anniversary 11/5 = birthaversary awesomeness!) - it took a million years to transfer all my files from the old computer, mostly because I have eleventy bajillion pictures.

Also, this whole Windows 8 and touch screen situation?  It's SO confusing and frustrating and I think I'm actually going to have to sit down and read about it so I can actually figure out how to close things.  But give me a week or so and I bet I think it's really cool.

You rock, husband.

Let's stay at the beach. Forever.

** Public service announcement...please pretend this post happened EXACTLY EIGHT MONTHS AGO as originally intended.  Thinking about where the gals and I should journey this summer, so I went back to read about last year's trip, and I thought my posts felt very unfinished...and I'd forgotten I had this one almost ready to go before life happened and I just forgot about it.  So let's just pretend, ok?  Thanks so much, and let's go back to Edisto... **

You know what's wonderful?  Easy beach lunches, all courtesy of King's Market, an adorable roadside establishment filled with loads of fresh flowers...

...and beautiful heirloom maters...

...and all kinds of crazy birdhouses...

...and Cheerwine, which has absolutely nothing to do with wine but is very much like Cherry Coke and is just darn tasty on a toasty afternoon...

...and a plethora of salads and dips and delightful homemade casseroles (granted, mayo was a key ingredient in many of these, but we weren't really complaining - that's what vacation is for!), and we made lunches out of fresh melons and crab dip and pimento cheese and chicken salad and it was just so good.  Best eaten on a porch overlooking the ocean.  Really, you can't beat it.

There's a lot to be said for relaxing beach afternoons.  We had quality time on our floats out in the ocean AND explored the reach of the beach in both directions AND enjoyed a delicious cooler full of sangria (and water - we hydrate!) AND just sat. And listened to the waves and were just there.  So wonderful. For two afternoons in a row. For hours. More, please.

We come prepared.

Sweet, blessed provider of shade for pale, pale me.

One night for dinner we headed to Dockside, where the service was a little questionable, the food was darn good, and we had a great view of the sunset over the water.

And where did I spend just a whole lot of time?  Oh, hello, fantastic rocking chair on wonderful screened-in deck. Come home with me. I love you.

Our other post-beach dinner was at The Old Post Office, which was just awesome - I mean, this is about as fancy as you can get down in Edisto.

Dessert Triumvirate #2 - so much deliciousness...and it's even by candlelight, awwww.

Oh, hi, Edisto sunset, you're pretty

We did some exploring and found crazy old churches...

...and dolphins!!!  Ok, so the sleeper in me kinda missed the early morning dolphin activity while Kami and Carolyn actually woke up and did things that are good for you, but on our last morning we made an Erin trip to see the dolphins...and it started to rain.  And we only kinda saw the dolphins.  But I know they're there.

Back to Charleston we go, with one more walk along the water, and then time to fly away home.  Why can't vacations just last forever?