Nail Polish Snob

I'm not a big makeup/hair product/cosmetics person. In fact, most of the makeup I wear comes from the free giveaways at Clinique. (I will never have to buy eyeshadow again, thanks Clinique!) But one area that I do splurge on is nail polish and I can finally admit, I have recently become a complete nail polish snob.

Part of my snobbery is due to sheer laziness; who wants to spend a bunch of time taking polish off & having to repaint? Splurging on quality polish saves me a lot of time! (and it comes in fun colors with fun names, so it's fun to shop for. Who doesn't love fun?)

I tend to go neutral-pink on my fingernails; I'm really pale so I'm always worried that dark polish will either accent my translucent-like skin OR make it seem like I'm going for the goth look. My favorites for fingernails come from Essie (Ballet Slippers, Mademoiselle and LimoScene)


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I get a bit more adventurous with my toenails, though I tend to stick to reds & pinks. Some OPI favorites (I Don't Know Beets Me, Japanese Rose Garden and Dusk Over Cairo):


I took a leap this week & went a bit crazy on my polish selection, going with the lavender-gray color scale. This is Parlez Vous OPI? and I love it!


Have a favorite color? List it in the comments section, I love hunting for new colors! :)

A Buggy Friend

Jake found a small bug crawling on the floor the other day (I'm not sure what it was...it wasn't a spider or centipede, so I didn't scoop Jake off the floor & run away, screaming in horror) He decided the bug was his new friend. How do I know this? Because he kept saying "Mama, look! A bug! My fwiend!" Then he picked the bug up & was carrying him around. Until he accidentally smooshed him and ended his life. Oops.

However, Jake had no idea that the bug was no longer a living creature, so he continued to carry him around. At one point, he put the (dead) bug very gently on the kitchen floor, went over to his sit & spin and said "Watch me, bug! I spin!" then went back over, picked up Mr. Dead Bug and said "You see that? I spin!"

Fortunately, we had to eat dinner after the spinning show and I convinced Jake that Mr. Dead Bug needed to go eat with his family, so we "released" him onto the front lawn.

It was a beautiful friendship while it lasted.

Memorial Day Weekend

We headed out to the other end of the state for Memorial Day; a close friend of Brian's was getting married (congrats Dylan & Jamie!) and we were able to spend a few days with Nana & PopPop.



On Friday, we visited Nana at the preschool where she teaches...Jake was happy to have a lot of toys to play with and he fit right in with the class. At one point, Joy (the other teacher) told all of the kids that they needed to clean up and find a square on the floor to sit on. Jake was just visiting & didn't have to do that, of course, but he said "Ok" and put the toy away that he was playing with, marched right over to the floor and found a seat, then waited for his turn to be called into line.



Friday night brought the rehearsal dinner and a crisis. I was completely ready for the rehearsal, I just needed to put my clothes on; I go to retrieve my outfit from the closet and start to panic when I don't see it in there. After interrogating Brian about the outfit's whereabouts, I discovered with horror that he had left it behind. Hanging on the door. Where all of the other clothes to bring along had been hanging as well. :-/ GAH! Fortunately, he did redeem himself a bit by thinking to call Joy (Sally's coworker, mentioned above); Joy lives just up the road and was nice enough to drive down a huge stash of clothes for me to choose from. Phew, crisis averted! In case you were wondering, Brian did remember to bring both of his suits, his shoes AND his golf clubs. He's lucky that he's such a good husband and I can find the humor in these sorts of situations to be able to forgive him :)

The wedding on Saturday was a blast, and Nana & PopPop had a great time hanging out with Jake both Friday & Saturday night. (He did give Nana "the lip" when it was bedtime on Friday, but other than that, I think everything was fine)



On Sunday, we met up with some friends at a playground in the morning (see previous post re: mud puddles) and that afternoon, we went to a party at Brian's BFF's parents house. The Easterlys had a ton of fun activities for the kids, including finger painting and a pool. We literally had to drag Jake out of the pool after a few hours, the little fish would have stayed in there all night if we had let him.



As always, the weekend went by too quickly and the next thing we knew, it was Monday already, time to pack up & leave. Oh but wait...what's this? It was ridiculously hot by 9am and Brian decided to hop in the pool to cool down before our drive and Jake wanted to join in the fun. We made a slightly later departure, but that's ok. Here he is enjoying himself, with Gracie keeping a close eye on all of the activities:

Learning to let go.

For those of you who aren't aware, I have a bit of an OCD streak in me. I'm not a germaphobe or anything, but it's really things like big messes, dirty dishes, clutter, etc....that really bothers me. But, as is the case with many things after having a child, I'm slowly learning to let go of my OCD ways a little bit at a time. We spent Memorial Day weekend with Brian's family (post on that to follow) and while at a playground, Jake found this huge mud puddle:



The OCD Emmy inside of me was screaming "NOOOOOOOOO! Not the mud!!!!!!!! He's in a nice outfit!!!" But, the mommy part of me was on my other shoulder saying "Eh...who cares? He'll just get a bath later and you can wash the clothes". I let the mommy part of me win that argument & it was worth it. He had so much fun splashing around, just look at him! He was absolutely filthy afterward & we had to strip him down to put him back in the carseat, but I realized that it didn't really matter; hearing him giggle for 30 minutes while splashing around was all I needed to reassure myself and bat away that annoying OCD voice.



Other things still make me shudder a bit...like PlayDoh under his nails or sand stuck in every crevice of his body, or pouring out of his shoes when I take them off. Baby steps, right? :)

The other thing that I'm learning to let go of is a perfect house. I have a kid, there are going to be toys & sometimes, they won't all be where they're supposed to be at the end of the night. (maybe some of that is less about letting go of OCD, more about lacking the energy at the end of the night to care, but whatever) There will always be things around the house to do, but Jake is growing up too fast for me to miss out on things because I'm too busy cleaning the house or obsessing over keeping things organized.

Fortunately for me, Jake loves to run his play vacuum and always asks me to run the real vacuum at the same time, so I can sneak in some vacuuming and play with him, all at the same time ;)

Jake & I get home in the evening around 5:30. Brian gets home at 6:15 and we usually eat dinner shortly after that. That leaves us with approximately one hour between the end of dinner and the start of the bedtime routine to play and hang out with Jake after being gone all day....so I let the dishes sit in the sink. I let the laundry sit in baskets folded, but not put away. I look past the crumbs on the counter, or the streaks on the windows that should be wiped off. And instead, I play with my kid. Yes, it sucks that at 8:15 after he's in bed, we're rushing around trying to clean everything & get stuff ready for the next day, but I'm ok with that.

I guess this is just another example of having to find balance as a mother; I know I can't get rid of all of my OCD ways, but OCD-Emmy & I will continue to find compromises and that works for me :)

The Magic Word

You know you might need to change up your kid's TV rotation to include something besides Sesame Street & Mickey Mouse Clubhouse when this conversation takes place:

Jake: I want milk.
Me: How do we ask? I didn't hear the magic word.
Jake: Meeska-Mooska-Mickey MOUSE!
Me: I meant the magic word to get milk, not the words to make the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse appear.
Jake: Oh. Milk, PLEASE.

Book Review: Heart of the Matter (Emily Giffin)

Heart of the Matter (Emily Giffin)

I've read all of Emily Giffin's books and I'm a big fan, though I was a bit disappointed by her last book, Love the One You're With. Her more recent book, Heart of the Matter, was more enjoyable for me. My only complaint is that I felt she really developed the two female characters (Valerie and Tessa), but gives the reader no insight into the male character (Nick) and he plays a huge role in the book (as you'll see if you read it) I was frustrated that we don't know his side of the story or his feelings, as the story is told through the eyes of the two women.

If you've never read any of Emily Giffin's books, I highly recommend Something Borrowed and Something Blue.

Up next: Friday Night Lights, by H.G. Bissinger

Fellow blogger giveaway!

My friend, DrDrama is giving away a beautiful scarf from her friend's online store, CoCoMae. Head on over to DrDrama's blog for a chance to win!!

Here's the link to the giveaway post...be sure to check out the rest of her blog, too! She has some great fashion posts and tips.

http://www.drbabymamadrama.com/2010/05/cocomae-giveaway.html

Social butterfly

Jake has a really busy social calendar...you know, school, playground, zoo, etc... It's a good thing he's learning to be punctual. The other night at dinner, he paused mid-bite and this is the conversation we had:

Jake: Mama, time is it?
Me: You need to know the time?
Jake: Yeah.
Me: um...it's 6:45.
Jake: Ok. (returned to shoveling food in his mouth)

I'm not sure what his plans were for later, but it made me laugh since he asked it such a way that my answer would have mattered to him!!

New Puppy Welcome Basket

I'm an aunt! To a pug :) Nate bought a pug puppy, so as part of his graduation gift, I assembled a new puppy welcome basket, with some doggy essentials. Here's a picture of the contents of the basket:



Basket included: toys (of course!), 2 bandanas made by me (which is about as crafty as I get), 2 bags of treats, 1 box of training treats, pet stain remover, a Pug Christmas ornament AND the piece de resistance, a Doggy Snuggie!!! :) (Side note-how do I get those accent marks to appear in words in other languages??)

And the basket fully assembled...ta-da!

Congratulations, Nate!!

My baby brother graduated law school over the weekend and we are so proud of him!



Here are some shots of Nate & his girlfriend, Katie. Not only is Katie a sweetheart, but she holds her own in a family that shows love by teasing each other and sometimes being obnoxiously sarcastic. Bonus points for Katie!



After the ceremony, we went to a reception held by the school where Jake promptly started shoving cookies into his mouth. After we left there, we went to Katie's townhouse to celebrate for a bit and Jake crawled back into the car, put the seatbelt on and told me he was going to drive. I asked him where he was going to go and he replied "To the cookie party". Yep, that's my kid.



My mom threw a fabulous graduation party for Nate the next day at a local park...the weather cooperated and everyone had a great time!



Look, surprise surprise! Jake found the cookies at this party, too! Here he is wearing the evidence all over his face.




Congratulations, Nate!!

Some words for your Wednesday...

I saw this on another blog and I'm stealing it to put here because I liked it so much :)

“A hundred years from now it will not matter
what my bank account was,
the sort of house I lived in,
or the kind of clothes I wore . . .

. . . but the world may be much different
because I was important in the life of a child.”

Happy (belated) Mother's Day!

Jake & I spent Mother's Day weekend in Washpa with GG & Pappy since I'm the nicest wife in the whole wide world and told Brian that he could head out to his end of PA to attend a bachelor party (plus, I could always use some type of bribery to fall back on...."The laundry really needs to be done....remember when I let you off the hook for Mother's Day & you got to go to a bachelor party instead??") So, he spent Sunday with his mom, I spent it with mine and it worked out perfectly.

As always, I LOVE the homemade gifts that school sends home from Jake:



On Saturday, it was super windy, but we did get a chance to play outside for a bit. Pappy & Jake began spring training for baseball season:



That night, I met up with my friend Cortney for a drink and some girl time, which is always nice. I made it out until 10pm....I'm not sure what's more impressive, the fact that I was out that "late" or the fact that I was still in real clothes and not PJ's at that hour.

On Sunday, we went to a local restaurant/farm, The Springhouse, for their Mother's Day lunch...it was delicious! If you're ever in need of something to do in Washington (especially if you have kids) head over there...you can get delicious ice cream and desserts (other stuff too, but really....everyone enjoys the sweet stuff the most!) AND they have some animals that you can pet and a huge slide to go down (I'm pretty sure it's some type of lawsuit waiting to happen, but whatever).

In this picture, the goat was trying to eat his shirt & Jake has not stopped talking about this incident since.



I hope all of the mommies/mommies-to-be/furmamas/and hopeful mamas had a fantastic day!

Pittsburgh sports could use some help right now...

...and Jake might be the man to do it. Just a gentle reminder to certain members of my family (*cough* MOM *cough*): these are videos. You hit "play" to make them work. :-)

He could help revive morale for the Steelers and bring some new plays to the team:




And he could help the Pirates....well, he could help them win a game.

Favorite Foto Friday: Mom

Head over to Annie's blog to participate in Favorite Foto Friday! Today's theme was MOM!

Here's my mom, living it up at our wedding:



And one of my favorite pictures of my mother-in-law, Sally, dancing with Brian....this one was actually on our photographer's website for a long time :) Followed by a pic of her showing off her moves on the dance floor!



Happy Mother's Day!!!