we love us some beckett pennebaker.  here is one of the many reasons why!

he brought quinn a LOVELY little valentine at the CRACK of dawn.  I know it was at the crack of dawn because when matt was leaving at 6:30 ish, he almost ran over becketts mama! 
quinn carried it around all day long.  he fed beckett (the picture of beckett) snacks, lunch, and milk, all sorts of things.  which is good because normally, beckett has a bit of a love/hate with food. thank you beckett for the cookies and card!  we love you too!

so for family valentines, quinn and I...or just I...made daddy an I LOVE DADDY shirt.  I spent most of the day making sure the shirt didn't get food or dirt on it till daddy got home and after a close call with an apricot thumbprint, the shirt stayed nice and clean. quinn helped me make roasted cauliflower macaroni and cheese, one of his favorites, for special dinner and a chocolate cheese cake for dessert.  I recently found a spring pan at an estate sale and I've been dying to use it but I've been too intimidated by the idea of actually making cheesecake.  good news.  this recipe is VERY easy! um, yes...it went over VERY well.  the recipe can be found here.  i did add another 1/2 cup of chocolate chips because my mouth demands more chocolate than necessary pretty much always. 
                                        

we spent our valentine evening visiting a precious girl and her precious family.  matt hadn't met little ava yet and basically couldn't wait another minute.  

he clearly hated it.  as did quinn. 

love

 

lindsey threw a valentines day card making night 

lindsey greene made this extra special 'hung up on you' card for an extra special someone.  

tutorial can be found here

 

 she has more crafting goods than martha stewart

 doilies NEVER went out of style for valentines

how fun is she?  so fun!!! 

ava emerson friske

quinner and i trekked over the very expensive 520 bridge to see a special small person today.  i told q ONE time what we were doing.  "we're going to go see baby ava! are you excited to see a tiny pretty baby!?".  this resulted in quinn saying "ava", "baby", and "pretty" about 100,000 times on the way there.  we had to wait in the family waiting room for a while before we got to see her which made him just really confused. it was worth the wait.  and i held it together!  barely.  she's so so beautiful.

the kreitlows love her.

hello little stranger!

my good friend elisa just gave birth to a teeny daughter.  the amount of crying i've done over the birth of this little person (that i haven't even met yet) is getting completely RIDICULOUS.  i break down when people, particularly good friends, have babies.  i just can't help but relive all of those moments that changed my life so profoundly, i am just overflowing with joy that another person, let alone someone that i love, is feeling right now those exact, spectacular emotions that i felt and it is only the beginning!  sweet holy goodness i can't even put into words how excited i am for her. 


i recently read an article about a mom who put it perfectly.  she said that when she first met her baby, her first emotion felt something more like, "well hello little stranger!", rather than an immediate, intimate bond or even acceptance that the baby was actually hers. that's exactly what i felt. quinn was just a precious little tiny stranger that i knew was my son but it took a while to grasp.  what i wasn't expecting was how quickly and completely that little stranger would make my heart so full, once i did grasp it, i thought it would literally explode. i of course knew i would love him immediately.  he was matt, and God, and me, wrapped up in a perfect little package but how fast my heart would go from just meeting this refreshing little stranger to feeling a love so deep, so intense, so fierce and completely debilitating, shocked me like nothing i could have prepared myself for. my little stranger. i had no idea how much i would love you. 


as i look at pictures of elisa holding her sweet ava emerson, i go back to those first precious hours of falling in love with my quinn and i just cry and cry. just like i did with cortney and beckett, lonnie and harper willow, and how i will feel x4 for misty and her four sweet babies. 


elisa, i am so ecstatic for you.  i will try my very hardest to keep it together when i do meet this new little lady but i'm not making any promises.

1 year

it's a little late but this past sunday was my blogs one year birthday!  go blog!  let's be honest.  i blogged like three times.  meh, i don't care.  i of course wish i had documented more, but i'm glad i at least did the few that i did.  this year i'll do better.    ???   will i?   we'll see. 

 i had a magical birthday AGAIN!  i'm so blessed all the time. the fam came up, trav came over, we ate dinner at Graces 5 in redmond which was a REAL winner and i'm not being sarcastic,(sometimes when i say 'a real winner' people think i'm being sarcastic so i decided i should start clarifying). it was really delicious and really healthy and really expensive but worth it i would say.  well, sigh, i would say that since i am not my dad who footed 75% of the bill...and i'm not matt who was not thrilled with his order but i tell you what, my macaroni and cheese with 4 different types of goat cheese blew my brain.  the entire place is dairy free, gluten free, soy free, low sugar, local, and organic.  for people like me, it was heaven. for people like matt, and probably travis, it was torture.  sorry guys, my birthday only happens once a year. 

quinn loves chais more than he loves most people

you know how last year i got pheobe?  my specTACULAR sewing machine.  i love her.  the year before was my vita mix.  i love her too.  so this year for my big christmas/birthday/valentines gift, i asked for a camera.  matt blew me away, above and beyond, he's my most favorite person. the folks went in on it too.  i got a nikon d5100.  it's so complicated and there are so so so so many buttons and options but it's really fun and i've been having a blast photo documenting my adorable son with something other than the dang phone!  thank you family, thank you matt! 

okay last but not not not NOT least.  my actual birthday was sunday and fancy dinner happened saturday night.  so sunday morning i was planning on going to the tacoma home and garden show with some of my most favorite people, lindsey greene and melissa soon-to-be knox.  so i wake up looking beautiful, like usual,(no makeup, crazy hair, jammies). i loaf around the house, open some prezzies from the parents, and SURPRISE!  melissa, linds, and kyle knox come marching into the house with a happy birthday sash, (homemade by miss lindsey), presents, and fancy birthday breakfast!!  katie(travs girl), trav, the folks, melissa, linds, and kyle, all squished into my tiny house, cooked breaky, complete with heart shaped butter, and drank coffee.  i just can't think of a better birthday morning than that.  

we don't do any meals without ironed cloth napkins if linds is involved

trader joes best kept secret...instant coffee.  it's SO GOOD

heart shaped quinoa breakfast bars that linds made...they ruined me...so tasty!

matt is still working on focusing...notice the blurry group of friends that love each other, and the clear, perfect flowies?

THEN! we went to the tacoma home and garden show!  they had a great vintage section for the first time this year, which was the real reason we went.  we got tons of wedding inspiration for someone specials wedding...like we needed more??!!  apparently we did!  thank you friends for such a fun day.  

it continues?  YES!  i got home and matt was baking me a cake because he loves me and is happy i was born.  he doesn't actually say things like that, but he knows when he should, so he does nice things for me instead.  i do love it...but it sure is unfortunate that my love language is WORDS of affirmation, and his is ACTS of service.  sigh.  marriage.  anyway, i finished it up for him...he baked the cake part of ooey gooey butter cake, (which i've renamed almond perfection because i add about 12 gallons of almond extract to the batter and frosting), i made the frosting, and we invented a new filling....raspberry buttercream, then we put one candle in it.  kendra and matt sang to me, and we ate cake while i opened my last presents.  kendra and travis got me some vintage pyrex to add my growing collection.  i love love it. best. birthday. ever. and i said that last year. 

it is important to note that katie day (travs girl) made me this for my birthday out of a cabinet door, vintage knobs, and wine corks.  yep.  i love it.  someday this will be one of those things that i pin from my own blog so that she can make them for people and get paid millions of dollars. 

downton abbey

this is my favorite show right now.  i'm so obsessed it isn't even healthy.  i like it so much that i turn it on just to have the beautiful background music fill up my house when it's feeling too quiet. i want to wear all of their clothes and have all of their furniture ESPECIALLY the lamps and couches, and i want to ride their horses...SIDESADDLE...in a fancy dress with fancy hair under a fancy top hat.  i've watched it now at least 6 times all the way through.  i am LOVING watching season 2 every sunday night although my heart is sometimes torn between that and pan am which i also love to watch for the clothes, hair, makeup, apartments...you get the gist, but downton always wins of course.  every time i watch this show i catch something new, tucked nicely into the plot that i'd never caught before.  it's so clever and so beautiful and i can't get enough.  that's all. 
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/downtonabbey/