One of the best inventions EVER...

So if you are anything like me, you depend on coffee to survive. I never thought I would be this way, but I literally feel nonfunctional until I have some. There will be mornings that I don't know why I am so out of it and crazed, and then I realize I haven't had any coffee. Now in the winter, there is nothing like a hot cup of coffee when you are freezing. BUT in the summer, hot coffee to me is just unappetizing. I am super obsessed in general with iced coffee. Whenever I get iced anything from Starbucks I have to get light ice (even though I love a ton of ice) because I slurp it down in about four seconds. I've tried making hot coffee and putting it in the fridge. I've tried using day-old coffee put in the fridge. I have tried another method where you soak coffee grinds overnight in a giant bucket and have to somehow strain it out. The last method worked fine, it was just beyond tedious so I never did it. 

Enter the Toddy: 

My sister introduced me to this little baby last year. After she made me a glass of iced coffee when it was super hot a few weeks ago, I went straight to Amazon and bought it. Around $30. Worth every penny. So what you do is get a bag of coffee beans at the store. I got: 

It was on sale and I had a coupon. Obvi :o). So I ground the beans at the store (first time I have ever done that. Sort of exciting in a totally dorky way) at the coarsest that it would do. That evening after dinner (it needs to sit for 12 hours), I began the process (it isn't really a process. It takes like seven minutes, and five of those don't count because it is sitting there). All of these instructions are in the Toddy, but just so you know how easy it is... you put the little plug and filter in the bottom of the brewing container which looks like this: 

You add one cup of water and half of the bag of coffee (6oz). Then you add three more cups of water, then add the last half of the bag of coffee. Wait five minutes, then add three more cups of water.

After 12 hours (I have done 10 and it has still been perfect), you take the plug out of the bottom and let it flow into the glass decanter provided. Voila!! AMAZEBALLS!!

Warning... this is a coffee CONCENTRATE. NOT STRAIGHT COFFEE. DO NOT POUR AN ENTIRE GLASS OF THIS STUFF!! YOU WILL BE SHAKY, NAUSEOUS, AND BOUNCING OFF THE WALLS. I know this from personal experience, so seriously don't do it. They recommend doing one part concentrate to three parts water, milk, soy milk, whatever. Sidenote... it makes more than what shows in the picture (this is after several glasses were already guzzled). But one batch really will last you a while (depending on how much you slurp down everyday). It really is super delicious, it takes a lot of the acidity out, and it is just straight awesome. I need to guzzle an extra glass today... Olivia decided to strip her pajama pants and diaper off at some in the night. Pee everywhere (it could have been WAY worse. I know this).

Happy Tuesday!! 

Sisters, Moving and the DERBY...

So I had an utterly FABULOUS weekend. Matt decided that I was way too tense, stressed, and exhausted with life so he sent me to good old OC for the weekend with my sister (have I mentioned how awesome he is (despite the alarm clock issue)?) If anyone is fortunate enough to have a similar sister relationship like I have, you are a lucky, lucky person. Both of my sisters are pretty much the only people in this world that are as insanely similar/drastically different as I am in a way that just works. We can be doing nothing, be psycho busy, annoyed, happy, hungry, whatever... But somehow we always understand each other, can laugh about absolutely everything, and not be mad five minutes later despite whatever is said. My sisters can tell me I look like a train wreck (and one did... last week). We can talk about serious stuff like parenting, marriage, the future. We can also talk about the Real Housewives of wherever. There is nothing quite like a sister relationship and it is something I really really REALLY hope will be a positive thing in my girls' relationships. Unfortunately my oldest sister lives in Georgia, so it was just me and Stacey (the one I live in the same neighborhood with). So essentially all we did was shop, eat, and watch movies. We were so excited to go to the outlets to get some clothes for ourselves, but we both ended up buying a bunch for our kids and like two things for ourselves. You know times have changed when you walk into a store and go to the kids section before you look for yourself. 

Background on the whole same neighborhood thing... Stacey and her husband Ronnie (their kids are Tyler (he is three, EXACTLY one year older than Layla to the day) and Madelyn (less than three months older than Olivia) moved 3 1/2 years ago to the most amazing neighborhood in the world. When I first drove through it, it truly looked like it was from TV, as in Desperate Housewives-esque (perfect trees, green grass, kids outside playing, etc). We weren't ready to move but I knew I would die to live here. We already knew that we wanted to be in this general area (because of school systems, etc... which sidenote, there is nothing that has made me feel more adult-like than discussing quality of school systems when moving. I mean seriously. Yikes). My major need was a grocery store within three minutes (Okay five is fine, but I have three small children... I can't be driving to Africa every time I need milk or diapers. And I ALWAYS forget something). Long story short, we found several houses that we didn't get (the devastation... for real), and then we ended up getting an absolutely AMAZEBALLS house for a ridiculous price, in the same neighborhood as my sister. Not only is it the same neighborhood, but we both back to the same strip of woods AND we have a bike path connecting my street with hers that also goes to the tennis courts, park, and pool. In the winter when there are no leaves on the trees, I can make out the back of her house. It is literally our dream come true (in this sentence, the "our" is me and Stace. Our husbands were fab enough to oblige). So many people have been like, "Wow, you really want to live that close to each other?" Yes, yes, and YES. Besides the amazingness that is living so close to my sister, our new neighbors are pretty great as well. It is a "pop in, what is everyone doing tonight, let's do happy hour and let the kids play, huge party for every random holiday" kind of street. We were welcomed with open arms into the group (even though most of the people here are original owners) and I couldn't be happier. Life is good. 

Soooooo Derby update (we leave a week from Thursday. OMG!!!!) We got another package!!! It is making me so so SO excited to go away with the hubs. I opened it and... 

A hat box, of course!! 

I feel like I have it in my head what people wear, how it is, etc... but this is just awesome and super helpful. Inside was even better: 

Mint Julip glasses!! I have never had one, but clearly I will be indulging. I think it would be a sin not to. 

This little booklet had facts, attire suggestions, etc. It even had the recipe for these beloved Mint Juleps if anyone is curious (and doesn't know how to google): 

Underneath the booklet was our itinerary, which looks pretty fab. It even included this: 

I mean, that is pretty great. 

One thing I learned from this lovely little booklet is I needed ANOTHER dress. And it HAS to be pink. Apparently the day before the actual Derby is Oaks day, which is the "little sister" race. It is a Pink Out, so everyone has to wear pink in some way. I was hoping to find something at the outlets this weekend and I did! (It was one of the two items I bought for myself). I found the most perfect nearly neon pink dress at J. Crew. The only problem is that it is a size too big, but I'm calling this lady who did my alterations for a wedding I was in at almost 8 months pregnant (if she recreated that dress to fit me when I was that large and in charge, I'm pretty sure she is a miracle-worker). 

So Matt survived all weekend without me (I wasn't really concerned. He can handle it better than I can). He told me one story that was pretty comical.. He was putting pajamas on Olivia and I recently got her these silky/soft Disney princess top and bottom set (sidenote... I bought Livi about five pairs of top/bottom pj's at the outlets because if she does not have some sort of pants on, her diaper is off in about 0.384 seconds and it is just a bad, bad situation). Anyway, he put the princess top on her and just another random pair of sweatpants. Apparently she had a conniption, went back in her drawer, found the matching bottoms and insisted (in the form of cries and grunts) that she match. She is 16 months. This doesn't bode well for the future that she is this particular, but it is just crazy to me that she is becoming a toddler and not just a baby. I will tell her some random task to do without showing her anything, and she will do it. She understands me! You'd think with my 3rd that I would get used to this but I really don't think you ever do. Realizing when your child actually understands you and is becoming a little person of their own is a scary/crazy/sad/exciting time (Sad because they are growing up so fast. And no, I don't want another one). 

I'm pretty sure this was a rambling mess... but that is my life these days. 
Happy Tuesday! 

My Little Layla...

How do I even begin to describe the perfect little peanut that you are? Right before I had you, I was actually nervous. I didn't know how it would be possible to love another child just as much. Well, you made that a silly, distant memory as soon as I saw you. My heart didn't split between you and Summer, it just doubled in size. I love how you made me feel like a totally new parent when you came along. 

Summer was who I was used to, and I'm pretty sure you did and still do everything different just to keep me on my toes. I love your constant nakedness. 

My friend Liz said it best: Summer melts your heart. Layla steals it. 

You are the original destroyer. You freely tell everyone that they are your best friend... But you say it in a way that everyone actually believes it. I love when you smile so big that your eyes are totally scrunched up. 

I love your unadulterated zest for life. Although you never used to be, you are now becoming a total cuddle bug. And your hair. I LOVE your hair. 

I love your outie belly button that is actually a hernia. I love how much you love your Summer and "Wivia." I love that you end up in the most bizarre locations and are so beyond cute when I find you. 

I love how excited you are to do anything and everything. I have a love/hate relationship with your light-up princess cowgirl boots that you wear with literally everything. 

Life with you is a constant adventure. You are my Lala, and mommy loves you. 

Easter...

This last weekend was a big one. Between Easter with both families (including a extended family photo shoot with one) and then my birthday yesterday, we have been go-go-go. BUT how amazing is this weather??? May I remind everyone that this was last Monday?!?! 

Anyway, we had a fabulous Easter and had our family pictures taken by none-other than the amazing Liz Cayne Photography. It is pretty awesome to have a best friend who is so talented :o). She sent a few outtakes which I think are almost as amazing as the final product. This first one makes me laugh because Olivia flailed like a total spazz, I am trying to just get my face out of the way, and Summer just scoots a little closer to Matt and Layla (who are utterly unaffected). It just shows what really happens in between all of those "perfect" smiles. 

Next comes one that is during our ENTIRE family shot and Olivia is just over it. Layla is looking at her with pity/"get it together" look. 

If you know Summer personally, you know she can be both shy and a total ham. Today was the total ham day. She was Liz's lighting helper, and did about a million poses. Love this one. 

 And now, the final product (of our family). Love Liz and love the pic. 

After the family pics, we changed gears to brunch and then an Easter egg hunt. We had one casualty (en epic nose dive straight into dirt)... 

But recovered quickly... 

 The other two had a great time as well...

If you notice I am wearing white pants (yes, three young kids and a dog. I'm aware that I'm an idiot), but I was psychotically running away from all FIVE dogs that were there because I was going to wear those white pants to church the next day and I didn't want to do laundry. Welp, I had to do laundry. 

We dyed Easter eggs that evening, and attempted to go to bed super early...

Sidenote... so all/99% of adults look pretty rough when they wake up, but for some reason the way little kids look just makes me laugh/want to hug them. This is Easter morning, bright and early! Olivia looks pretty pissed to have been woken up. 

We went to church, and had an AMAZING dinner with my side of the family. It really works in everyone's favor having a trained chef as a brother :o) We also set up a little Easter egg hunt for the cousins, and it totally melted my heart when Summer was helping the younger ones find eggs. (Several members of my family mentioned that clearly this was not a trait she got from me considering I am slightly infamous for my psycho competitive Easter egg hunt attitude). This was after dinner when we got into candy: 

Since this is already so long, I will post about my birthday later this week. 29! Eek!

Happy Tuesday!!! 

Flat tires, cracked iPads and stained floors...

So, Happy (aka I'm grumpy about this snow and I want spring) Monday! I have faith that it can be 65 and sunny in like three days. 

So we had a super nutty week last week (shocking, I know). When Matt came home on Saturday afternoon, I pretty much hadn't seen him for more than a few minutes since last Sunday. He was at work until after 9pm on Monday, I worked my 17 hour day on Tuesday, and he left to go out of town Wednesday morning. So, if you saw my Facebook status on Friday morning, I will expand...

I had our sitter (Matt's brother Ben's girlfriend Sofi. Keep up) sleep over on Thursday since I leave so early. I had told her that I would pull her car into the garage to make things easier getting the girls in the car since she had to take Summer to school (and I know how the mornings can go when just one of them is in a slow mood). So, I get up on Friday, get ready, make peanut butter toast for the ride, and go to the garage. I put my peanut butter toast, bag, two things of coffee in the car, then take out all of the carseats, then get in my car. Of course as soon as I sit in the car I had leaned my elbow on the console which is exactly where I had placed my peanut butter toast. It is totally smeared all over my coat sleeve of course, so I wipe myself down, get back in my car, and pull out of the driveway. Now it just feels totally strange driving my car and I just don't know what is bizarre with the feeling. I get out, and look at the tire that has had slightly low pressure (I'm sorry, try my life for a week and let me know when you think I had time to deal with it) and it is flat. Like rim on the ground type of flat. I am just staring at my tire, trying to process and think what I should do, completely aware that I really really really need to get to work (if I have to work past 3pm on a Friday, I should just never try to come home due to traffic reasons). I look in my driveway, and Matt's brother Ben's car is sitting there in front of Sofi's (Ben went with Matt on the work trip). I am like "YESSSS" mentally, because I also remember that he left his keys. So my car is in the middle of the street at this point, so I go back inside to grab Sofi's keys. I pull her car out, pull it in the garage, put in all the carseats. I go back inside to put her keys back on the counter, grab Ben's keys, go out and pull Ben's car out into the street. I then pull my car back into the other spot in the driveway so Sofi can get out of the garage. So I even remembered to grab my parking permit from my car which made me oddly proud of myself because that is something that I would normally forget. I got to work only about 15 minutes later than I wanted to, and when I told my co-worker everything that had happened that morning, she says, "Well you seem to have handled it so well. I'm impressed." Matt wasn't here for me to be flip out to, so I guess I just handled it and moved on. 

Fast forward to Sunday... 

We wake up, Matt makes me a deeeeeelish steak, tomatoes, onion, cheese, etc omelette that is to die for. I'm leisurely eating it, SO happy he is home. Summer comes over, and says, "I want to say I'm sorry and that it was an accident. I don't really know how it happened." Uh oh. She is carrying the iPad, hands it over, and our screen is totally cracked. Okay so this could have happened to any of the girls because they use it a lot and drop it plenty. No, I am not happy, but that is life with small kids. We have extended warranty and insurance but I have no idea if that covers a cracked screen and I haven't had time to deal with that yet. So, four seconds later, Olivia comes running over with an open little thing of paint that is totally dried up. I am literally like "WHERE DID THIS COME FROM" and I run to our office where I have a little art area set up for the girls. Now let me preface this by saying one thing that we have been having issues with is Summer and Layla putting tops back on markers. This may seem like a small thing, but when they leave 77234 markers out with no tops on and then they all dry up and I have to throw them away, that is annoying and a total waste of money. This has been something we have been focusing on for the last several months because of the frequency of topless markers (and stamper things, or broken crayons, etc). So, sitting there, is all of their paint stuff, open and dried out. Now, I am aware that I need to go in the office after they do art stuff. I had let them paint the day before but then Matt got home and we ended up having some family over and we grilled out (we are literally begging for spring). I just didn't process the paint in the office. Not only are all of the paint things open, everywhere, and dried out, but their paint water spilled and had soaked this pink paper. I lift up the pink paper and.... 

It had literally dyed the wood. So let me remind you that I have had a very long week without Matt, I am utterly exhausted, and I just need a mental minute so I can not respond in a bad way as a parent. I go upstairs, shut the bedroom door, and sit on the bed for a solid five minutes. Once I have gotten myself under control, I went back downstairs and we dealt with the girls. After that, I marched directly back upstairs, locked the bedroom door, and took a two hour nap. I needed to get away, I needed a mental break, I needed to sleep. So I did. And I felt better. My floor is still stained, our iPad is cracked, but I felt better. Life goes on... 

Dress-up and a few random things...

So Matt is out of town again. I swear he has not traveled this much in a while. Since I try to look at the bright side of things (you can laugh... I re-read my depressing vent from last week) I decided that the only benefit of him being gone is that I don't feel the need to make legit, manly, filling dinners. Noodles with butter and some veggies work just fine for us girls. This morning I made pancakes (purple, obvi) and it was slightly pathetic that I was the only one to want chocolate chips added (well, I'm sure Olivia would have loved it since she is our bottomless pit. I didn't give her the option). 

Proud mama bear moment: I had Summer's parent-teacher conference this week for Pre-K (we also went to her elementary school to pick up her kindergarten packet. I'm freaking out). Her Pre-K teacher gave her the highest numbers in every category, and said she would have given her higher numbers if possible! My favorite thing was that she said Summer was absolutely the sweetest, always included everyone when playing, and had more empathy than she has ever seen in a five year old. That's my girl. :o)

In honor of last night's fashion show (see facebook video... and sidenote, I swear I own shirts for Olivia. She literally chokes herself whenever I put a bib on her so I always just strip her. And she is eating quite often, hence the nonstop shirtlessness), here are a few of my favorite past dress-up pics of Summer and Layla.  

Happy Thursday!

Mommy Guilt Part 1...

I'm not in a good mental state today. Just gonna put it out there. On Tuesday I was in dire need of going to the store. We had zero food. I'm talking I made a totally bizarre lunch for the girls out of whatever we had in the house. My sister was in a jam so her kids came over for part of the day (and took part in the bizarre lunch) so she could work. I didn't get around to actually making my list and figuring out my coupons (yes, I'm still doing it! Woohoo!) until around 9:15pm. I figured, I'm alone, I can be quick, I'll go now because I don't want to leave my sitter tomorrow with no food and milk. At the store they were in the middle of switching over from one week's specials to the next, so everything that I thought was on sale already had their tags ripped off. It took my absolutely forever to figure out sizes of things, etc. Didn't get home until almost 10:45, put the groceries away, made Summer's lunch, laid out outfits, tried to straighten up, etc. Went to bed after 12. Got up at 4:03 yesterday, left the house by 4:30ish, got to work by 5:15am, worked like a mad woman and clocked out at 10:20pm. Got home by 11:15pm, was utterly famished so I ate something (somehow I go to the store and buy all of this food and then I realize it is all for the kids and it is nothing that I really ever want to eat. I can only have so much yogurt and goldfish), signed Summer up for lacrosse (another psychotic move on my part), caught up with my celebrity gossip, went to bed and didn't fall asleep until probably 1:30ish. Matt had to get up 6:15, so I woke up then and couldn't go back to sleep. Jumped in the shower, attempted to cover the dark circles under my eyes, and got ready for the chaos of the day. I don't know what it is, but my kids can behave like angels for other people... and the minute I walk in they are whiny, crying, clingy, etc. I can't even tell you the number of times I have heard, "They weren't like this at all until now." I know it is a mommy thing, but I am exhausted, my house is a wreck, I discovered about 132098 more stains on my rug, and I am getting really sick of coffee. I always think back to when I was in nursing school and pregnant every single semester, and I'm like... I did that. How can I not do normal life? I had excuses then. It was a short-term period. It wouldn't last forever. I could get through it. Now? There is no end to this. This is life. This is day in, day out, nonstop madness. It is good madness, but it is madness. I always thought working part-time would be perfect. Just enough to get out of the house but not enough to feel super guilty. Welp, I was wrong. I have found that for me, working part-time means I am pulled nonstop in both directions, feeling guilty on both ends. I don't have excuses. More to come on this subject at another time. For now, I need to go pick up the entire load of clean laundry that Olivia threw over the balcony into the family room, take the dog out for the 7th time this morning because she is determined to drive me insane, and go do everything I have to do. I wanted to pull my hair out... and then Layla just called me her best friend... I think today will be okay.