3 Months

They say that the first three months of having a baby is like the fourth trimester. If so, we're out of the water. I think Sawyer is officially not a newborn now, and is instead a chunky rolley baby. It makes me sad that he's growing so fast, but honestly he's becoming a lot more fun. I feel like I'm hanging out with a little person now, not just a squishy blob of hunger. Things are good.

Here's the big guy:

The deets:

The progression:

Looks like my photography skills might be improving too, haha.

It looks like Sawyer's chill personality is staying intact. He is such an easy, smiley, relaxed baby. It kind of scares me for the next baby, because I'm not getting that "up all night" crazy experience. He's just so much fun to be around. The only thing we're having a problem with is the reflux. Baby boy will puke up an entire bottle at a moment's notice. It makes public feeding a scary experience. If I'm feeding him at someone else's house, I'll usually bring spare clothes for both of us and will feed him sitting on the floor with a bath towel. The upside? I've become adept at catching puke. This morning I caught projectile vomit in a spare tupperware container.

Also, the once super-quiet baby is now starting to talk to us. Or should I say, howl. I honestly think that he's starting to mimic Wilbur's howls, since he hears them all day long. Look at 40 seconds, proof.

Epic Birthday/Anniversary Weekend

Can i just say, that this summer is shaping up to be completely amazing already. We have been blessed with some truly beautiful weather lately, and it has almost made waiting out winter worth it. This weekend was Frank's 28th birthday (yesss, he's older than me again!) as well as our 3 year anniversary. We took full advantage of the mid 70's and sunny weather.

On Friday (his actual birthday) we started the day out with presents and then a shopping trip to exchange some of said presents because I suck at picking out gifts. I was supposed to by the Adidas marathon shoes but accidentally bought the trail-running version. We came home in the afternoon, packed up some sandwiches, chips, and beer and then headed downtown with the usual suspects for our first Pirates game of the season. The tailgating, as always, was the best part. We realized by the fifth inning that baseball is basically the most boring sport ever.



Frank recently switched his allegiance from the Pirates to the Phillies. I think he's doing it just to get a rise out of Pittsburghers. For the most part, Pittsburgh people hate Philly, and many of them have never even visited the city. My sister lives there and we love Philadelphia. Bonus points if you understand his shirt. It says "Yachts on the reg."



With the birthday boy and a few of my brothers in law.



The Phillies hat totally matched my outfit, I feel like a traitor!



These are the new kicks I got Frank, once we exchanged the wrong ones!

The next morning, we headed out to see our 5 year old nephew, Zack's, tee ball game. It was hilarious to see all these little kids' first foray into the world of team sports. At the beginning, they would be eager to get out there and hit the ball, run the bases. But as the game went on and their patience started to wane, they would start to get whiney and clingy, and mommies had to go out and stand with them in the field. Its funny how they can seem so grown up one minute and then morph back into toddlers when they get tired. I kept thinking about how I used to rock him to sleep and give him his bottles when I babysat. How did he turn into a little boy?







On Saturday, after watching Zach's tee ball game, we decided on an impromptu trip to Lake Erie to get away for our anniversary. It's only a couple hours north of us, but I had never been there.



(Frank couldn't figure out why there was a straw attached to his Rockstar. Then he realized that it probably had something to do with the fact that it was hot pink and obviously marketed to girls . . . )



Lake Erie is so big that we could almost pretend we were at the beach.









My husband :)



3 years strong!

After lounging on the beach for a while, we drove around the town and then headed to dinner. We picked a restaurant that was on the beach, called the Sloppy Duck. The food was delish and the view was incredible. The best part? The duck pond in front of the restaurant that housed their mascot ducks. They even had their own little duck house, complete with a heat lamp and a little black and white TV that showed vintage Donald Duck cartoons!



Even though we were stuffed, we headed to Erie's annual Wild Rib Festival. There was not much to do around town, so we figured we would just walk around and listen to the live music and check out the local scene. It smelled so good, we kind of wished we had come there for dinner!



The trophies people had won were pretty ridiculous. Barbecue chefs from all over the country came to show off their goods.

The next morning, we got up and headed about 30 minutes east to one of my favorite places in the world, Lake Chautauqua. When I was growing up, we came there every summer for a week-long vacation with my family. My mom went there when she was little and my grandparents went there when they were first married. We stayed at the same spot every year until I was 18. Sadly, we stopped going. My grandma was getting too old to take the heat and all the cousins were starting to get jobs, and get married, and we could no longer find a week that worked for everyone. I really hope that one day we get it going again.

Anyway, I got kind of emotional when I saw the lake for the first time in almost ten years. So many childhood memories came back and I kind of wished for that simplicity again. But I was so excited to show all my favorite spots to Frank!










I miss this place.

What comes after 26?

This happened over the weekend:

I don't want to talk about it. But I'll write about it. This was my first "scary" birthday. When I turned 26, somehow I knew that it would be my last birthday before I felt old. 26 seemed fine to me, but 27 was a whole different story. I have no idea why. Regardless of the fact that I'm feeling kind of geriatric, it was still a fun day. (Or, fun extended weekend, because I have the tendency to drag my birthday celebrations on for as long as possible.)

My birthday fell on a Saturday (April 16) but Frank had Friday off and it was gorgeous outside so we just pretended that Friday was my birthday. I came downstairs in the morning and saw this sitting out on my back deck:

I love spring flowers and these tulips were perfect for me. Plus they're potted, so I can plant them in the ground and I will be a lot less likely to kill them.

I also noticed that this was in the oven:

MY husband, baking a cake? Yes. And it was funfetti. Are you jealous yet? Because you should be.

Then I got my presents, where were wrapped in Christmas paper. He tries.

But I forgave him for the wrap job, because what was inside totally made up for it:

A leather Michael Kors bag and a wad of cash. He knows me so well. He also got me a book, which was really cute because he knows how much I love to read.

After that, I took my wad of cash, stuffed it in my new purse and we went out shopping to spend it. I bought some new dresses for our trip to Italy, among other things. 

Frank said, "Where do you want to go to eat? I'll take you anywhere you want." And, being the classy lady that I am, I chose Red Lobster. I just really wanted crab legs, don't judge. 

We also got some extra delicious birthday Starbucks.

And Frank took an incredibly unflattering picture of me blowing out my birthday candles.

That night we went over to a friend's house to watch the hockey game (YAWN) and then we went to a bar afterward. I stayed just long enough to make it until midnight and then booked it out of there to go to bed. See, I told you I'm old.

Saturday was my real birthday, even though unfortunately, it was rainy and miserable outside. I celebrated by going to the gym and then taking a long nap. That night, Frank threw a "surprise" party for me. He pretty much throws me a surprise party every year, except that I know about the whole thing. We went to the local bar and 40 friends showed up! Frank said he counted, but I think he may have counted a few people twice. I even stayed awake until 1:30 am, so I consider the night a great success. 

Quarter Century Year Recap

Today is April 15th, the last day of my 25th year on this earth. Tomorrow I will be 26, and officially heading out of my twenties. This year has been relatively calm and sweet, compared to the previous year which included getting married, moving in with my husband, quitting my job, etc. Here is a recap of my accomplishments at the age of 25:

1. Bought a house - We managed to save up enough money to put a good down payment on our townhouse. Our timing and good credit afforded us an incredible mortgage rate and our hard bargaining skills got us a great deal on the house. I L-O-V-E being a homeowner and have spent this year flexing my design and decorating muscles.


2. Adopted a puppy - We got Wilbur when we moved into our new house at the end of May. Neither of us had ever owned a dog before, so it was totally new to us. Somehow, we didn't screw him up. He is a great, smart dog who does his business in the yard and doesn't eat our furniture. Success!


3. My big career accomplishment last year was that I got published. This year, I got published and paid for it. In a real, print magazine. And I got paid at a pretty decent rate. I now have a somewhat regular contributing writer relationship with a magazine. Now if I could just get ten more similar jobs, I could actually make more money in a year than someone who makes license plates in jail . . .

4. Two new babies were born into our family. This is actually a slow year for my husband's family, who multiply like guppies. However, they make the most gorgeous children, so some pictures are mandatory:

Eva was born with nearly shoulder-length hair that is streaked with golden highlights. And her blue eyes decided to stick around. Lucas lives in GA so we don't get to see him much, but we are so excited to see him next weekend for him mom and dad's wedding! Why are 1/4 asian babies so so gorgeous? Can't wait to have a few of my own!

5. Went on an amazing week-long trip to the Outer Banks with twenty of our bestest friends. I arranged the whole vacation, finding an amazing HUGE house just steps from the beach. I know that pretty soon we'll have to grow up and have babies and stop binge drinking, but for one week we were able to be young, go through 30 cases of beer, have dance-offs, skinny dip, get sunburns, do shotguns at 11 am and stay up laughing until 6 am. I love these kids!






So yeah, it was a good year.