Second Anniversary

Last year, Dan and I treated ourselves to massages, rode bikes along the Oak Leaf Trail and toasted to our first year at Roots. 

I got a kick out of reading my post about last year's celebration. At that time, I craved normalcy, stability and wanted to relax. A year ago, that meant getting out of our house for a few hours. 

Our second year anniversary we celebrated normalcy with a relaxed evening at home. 

We kept it simple with Italian treats from Glorioso's:

So, those two little tomatoy-looking things next to the olives? Those are amazing. Sweet-spicy peppers stuffed with cheese and wrapped in prosciutto.   

That's about as fancy as we got. Stuffed peppers, spaghetti, bread, red wine and olives. 

You know those anniversary gifts by year? First year is for paper, the second, cotton. 

For us, First Year = An Expensive Day of Celebrating, Second = Carb-overload. 

Even if we had the time, I would not have wanted to spend our anniversary with a day-long schedule of massages, meals and bike rides. This year, I feel like our time is somehow more valuable, our obligations are more real and time with Ingrid is an exhausting joy. 

Normally, I don't like to gush about Dan because...well, I'm not really a "gush about how amazing my husband is" kind of girl. 

But, I will say that it's been a real pleasure being married to him. He works everyday without complaint - on his business, at school, on his art, home with Ingrid and at our marriage. He's patient, thoughtful and listens. He's a wonderful father and a loving husband. 

In this celebratory moment in our marriage I'm happy to call him my best friend.  

Thanks for letting me gush! 

Happy Halloween

Last year, Ingrid was a bee for Halloween. I had a great time creating her outfit and making buzzing noises we flew her around the living room. We handed out candy with Grandma and snuggled up in legwarmers.

Today, Ingrid was a cupcake this year for Halloween. I had a great time creating her outfit and she had a great time twirling around the living room as a "Pupcake!" (Her word for cupcake. Can it get any cuter than that?). 

We had grand plans to go trick-or-treating. I envisioned her toddling up to houses while grasping my finger and then had big dreams of stopping off for hot chocolate (to go along with our sugar). 

Like many days with an 18 month-old, today did not go as planned. 

After we arrived home, made dinner and packed up to leave, Ingrid started to yawn and ask for books. 

Then, I noticed she had a significant amount of jelly in her hair. Harper noticed it too. 

Instead of braving the cold, Ingrid took a bath, put on her little Halloween jammies and I made these yummy pumpkin seeds while she read books at my feet. 

They'll be plenty of years to trick-or-treat, this year we just got jelly in our hair, twirled around the living room as a "pupcake" and made pumpkin seeds. A Happy Halloween in my book! 

Fourth of July Favorites

Happy Monday! Highlights included: running around Madison to celebrate my friend's birthday, snuggling with Ingrid as she ate ice cream with her cousin, spending time with the in-laws and meeting my friend's little son for the first time. As Ingrid would say, this weekend was "go, go, go." 

Dan and I came home with the goal of creating a meal plan, grocery shopping and getting ourselves ready for the week. I have yet to leave the couch and "grocery shopping" has been replaced by "watching old episodes of The Hills...while sort-of making a grocery list." 

While procrastinating Sunday to-dos, I stumbled upon these little photos from Fourth of July.  

The Fourth of July has always a favorite of mine - Dan and I have always spent the weekend (or day...) doing our own thing in Milwaukee, and then in the evening, we crash my best friend's family party and watch the Bay View fireworks. Very simple, very chill, very opposite of this weekend.  

Even though this weekend was a blast, lets be honest, the older we get, the harder it is to recover from a crazy, hazy weekend. Even if "crazy" means "driving in the car with a 15 month-old for four hours." Because driving in the car with a tired baby for four hours is equivalent to going on a hungover bike ride. Everyone on the road is annoying and you can stop wondering why anyone ever chooses to do this. Seriously, bike riding is the worst. 

 With that, here are my favorite memories from The Fourth: 

Harper and a patriotic Ingrid patiently wait for the parade to begin. 

Later, Ingrid was in a "westerny" mood and Dan was in the mood to build a four-foot-tall block tower. 

While Ingrid napped, we learned how to play Backgammon.
I hung my head in shame as I thought it was called Batgammon

Parade swag included: candy, instant coffee, political brochures and bubbles.
Ingrid's favorite item of the bunch was...

BUBBLES.

That's right, bubbles won over Double Bubble. Weird right? Because doubles normally win. 

I know, I know, not funny. 

I'm taking my tired, unfunny face to bed. 

I hope you all had an enjoyable weekend and have an abundance of coffee (I'll be tapping into this instant coffee stash!) to tackle your Monday morning. 

If not, I have a solution for you. Come on over, blow bubbles at Ingrid and her squeaky screams will wake you up.  

One.

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind. My favorite kind of whirlwind that involved multiple parties to plan, friends and family to visit and cocktails to be sipped.

All of the whirlwinding took a toll on me yesterday in the form of an annoying head cold/sore throat so I parked it on the couch and watched Gossip Girl between trips to and from the kitchen for juice, medicine and Kleenex.

In a medicated haze, I thought about the cold-hard truth that tomorrow - as in today - Ingrid will be turning one. 

Today, Ingrid is one. Today, I have a one-year-old daughter. 

And I couldn't help reflecting on our lives one year ago - and how different everything is one year later. 

New baby, new role as a mother, new routine, new lack-of-routine, new priorities, new job, new grocery list (seriously, now staples include bananas and whole milk). 

And I'm pleasantly surprised how much is the same. I'm at home in our lovely little apartment, Harper is still bouncy little Harper, Dan is still Dan and my friends and family are wonderfully supportive. I still love all of my loves including brunch, online shopping, vodka grapefruits and yoga. I now just do yoga in my living room. 

The newness has been constant this past year and - as cliche as it is - I can't believe it's already been a year since we welcomed her on April 10. 

Today, we celebrated with Tofu Rice Bowls for dinner, gave Ingrid a bath and read about 14 books.

We did host a birthday party with friends and family last weekend and my favorite part of the day was the cake. When we placed the cupcake in front of her, she just studied the cupcake and started to pick off the sprinkles one by one. She grinned a scrunch-face grin at everyone surrounding her and slowly ate her frosting. 

No one was too impressed by this method as they were all anticipating the face-in-cake routine. But not little Ingrid. As I recounted this to my aunt on the phone later that night, she smartly replied "Well, that's how she wanted to eat her cake." 

And that's one of my favorite things about Ingrid - she's funny, intense, has a sense of humor and a really, really, really long attention span.

I know there will be years of her smashing cake in her face, years of her requesting a certain cake flavor, years where she'd rather not see me or any cake - but for her first birthday, she wanted to pick off her colored sprinkles one by one. And then, when I intervened and smashed that corner of her treat in an effort to "help" - she looked at me as if to say "This is how I want to eat my cake." Then, I slowed down, listened and let her eat it because she's wonderfully sweet that's how she wants to eat her cake.