Womp#2

As I predicted, we were out bid on that house. So now we're faced with the decision of a great deal on a victorian home that needs super renovations, or a good deal on a brand new house. Risk with possible amazing (ah-maazing) outcomes? Or the safety? We think we know. But, gah! Why must we be faced with such decisions!*

*to be really honest, I am completely grateful that Miles and I are even in the position to be able to buy a house while we're still so young. We feel honored and blessed to have this amazing opportunity, whatever the outcome. So all negativity is just my terrible sarcastic humor coming through.**

** why did I even asterisk that last paragraph?


(Womp#1 is when we had to cancel our first contract on the very first house)
(wow, this post....)

Weekend, Beautiful Weekend

I choose to spend this Monday morning daydreaming about the wonderful weekend that we just had. Miles only had to go into work for an hour or so on Saturday, and other than that, he was all mine! One of the benefits of us both having jobs that require early rising during the week, is that while our bodies get to sleep in on the weekends, they still tend to automatically wake up around 7:30/8:00 anyways and we still have the whole day to have fun! (I'm also choosing to view that as a benefit)(And to also ignore that we can't seem to stay awake past 10:30 no matter how hard we try).

So we rose, still somewhat early, went to a wonderful breakfast at West End Cafe, I grocery shopped while he dropped by work for a hot second, we finished errand running and then went for a walk around Radnor Lake until we realized it was 4 and we hadn't eaten since breakfast. We wound up eating delicious TexMex with Miles' mom and then heading over to her house to help install a new washing machine, where we promptly tested her new machine with our dirty laundry. Ah, Saturday. 

The next day, we went to the early service at our church, met our friend Matty, and went house hunting with our Realtor! We ended up making an offer on a house that I would live in forever if our offer went through. But I'm highly doubtful that our bid will be picked, since a million people looked at it over the weekend and probably could afford a higher bid. But we at least put ours out there! And that alone is exciting. I'm not ashamed (but kind of am) to say that we went back to our new favorite burger restaurant, seven days after we first ate there. I mean, The Pharmacy is ridic. And Matt was visiting! We also found at least four other houses that we liked enough to have to choose between if this offer doesn't pan out. Which is amazing! And also stressful. Ah, Sunday decision making.

(aaand by this point in the weekend I was pooped. Just looking at my face here makes me feel tired all over again)

Baby Lovin'

I love watching this nanny baby. Good thing her parents recently asked me to work through next summer. I can't wait to see her walk and begin to talk. I can't believe how much of a personality she already has. And since I'm not her mommy, I think I'm a little less biased when I say she is sooo adorably beautiful. I think her eyelashes are honestly longer than mine. Most of all, this baby girl cracks me up. She is so goofy and mischievous. I swear she's smarter than she lets on. As soon as she learned how to crawl, it was game on. She is all over the place and pulls up on everything possible (and then some). If I'm sitting on the floor, I am her personal step stool/jungle gym. She's getting into everything, and obviously scaring/hurting herself a lot more when she bonks into something or topples over unexpectedly. 95% of the time she's totally fine, but she has to look over at me a little stunned and have me tell her that before she is sure and moves on to something else. Or the exact same thing. 

She now knows how to cry like she's hurt when she really just doesn't want to take a nap. It took me a while to figure that trick out. She only gives her mirrored reflection kisses. Working on that one. She laughs hysterically when I kiss her chin. She loves inspecting the bottom of her bottle and then playing with the resultant milk puddle. She hugs anything small enough to wrap her arms around, especially  baby dolls, she hold those to her chest so tight I could die from cuteness. She never sits straight in highchairs. She hates having her nose wiped. She loves music and dances on her knees whenever she hears a song. She has stood up on her own twice in the past two days, but only for a second or so. It still makes my heart skip a beat. My phone is 90% filled with pictures and videos of her. Just the other morning, she was playing around with all her toys across the room from me when she looked at me, smiled, b-lined over and plopped her head down on my lap. I know I'll love our babies so much more than I could ever love anyone else's...but, wow. This girl has all my baby lovin' until then. 

And Part Deux

I count this whole weekend as our Valentine's 2.0. Miles was off work and so we were able to spend so much time together. After doing tons of laundry, washing what felt like all of our pots, pans, glasses, dishes and silverware, vacuuming up a storm, finally doing some legit grocery shopping, and making our bed for the first time in weeks, we dated it up. 

For late giftings, Miles bought me a blender, and I bought him the second season of Bored to Death. Honestly, we each kind of picked out something we wanted for life in general, not thinking about v-day, and much later on decided that they were actually gifts. No guilt, best kind. We watched the first disc of the aforementioned series and then went to our favorite little Italian restaurant. Where we would've spent wayy too much money if it weren't for our lovely Groupon. I'm talking appetizers, pizzas, and desserts. Not just any dessert. Warm Nutella bread pudding. I died. Miles did not. Apparently he doesn't like Nutella? I only learned that after I had ordered it. 

Miles made delicious waffles and we enjoyed a leisurely morning before church. The giant snowflakes proved to be distracting during church. But who would complain of such a distraction? We ate lunch at Sloco, where we had the most delicious sandwiches of our lives. Then we ate Sushi at PM with Miles' mom right after Sloco because he forgot to tell me we were actually supposed to have lunch with her.

Then we all went to see Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close..Where do I even begin with that movie? It was honestly one of the most wonderful movies I've ever seen. Ever! I loved reading the book years ago, and I really want to read it again now. But I feel like I'm telling everyone that they need to go see it ASAP. Because I am. Because you should. Yes, as always, there are things in the book that of course aren't in the movie, but I don't even know how they would include all the little Oscar-isms in the movie. I still think they did an amazing job with the movie. I sat with tears of pure joy clouding my eyes, or tears of complete sadness streaming down my cheeks the entire movie. It's such a beautiful story of self discovery, grief, loss, growth, love...everything. Watch it. 

I fell in love all over again with "the renter" (Max Von Sydow was perfect) 

and the oxymoron wars

Please can I watch it again, right now? Like...right now? What's that? I have to work? Bummer.

pictures found here, and here

Valentine's Pt. 1

I don't think/can't remember if Miles and I have ever made a big deal on Valentine's day. We surely acknowledge it, he's been sweet and I'm sure I've tried something nice... So of course we kept that tradition up this year. I began the day with a plan to make a wonderful dinner for us that evening (we've never try to brave the Valentine's restaurant crowd) but by lunchtime I was too tired from watching three kiddos under the age of three (if you're not good at math, thats two more than usual). Keeping up with two two-year old boys who wander off (around the house) and don't answer when you call for them, and a baby girl who will get into/pull up on anything and everything did not help me get into the dinner making mood. I reasoned with Miles that, despite spending so much money in Chicago, we could surely order Thai take-out and cuddle on the couch whilst watching a lovey-dovey movie.

When I got home, 30 minutes later than I was supposed to, Miles was still trying to call our favorite Thai restaurant a to place and order. They never picked up! Still trying to save the evening, we hopped in the car, still in our guitar building, baby snotted work clothes to place an order in person. When we finally parked and tried to order, they said it'd be 45 minutes. Wompwomp. And of course we had no plan b for dinner. We commiserated, tried not to get too annoyed at our evening, and ended up at at our favorite cheapo Mexican restaurant where every other group of single ladies in their 60s, families with little kids, and loud college friends (not generalizing, I recognized them from past classes. The kind where I was a senior and they were freshmen. Electives!) were dining during happy hour. But you know what? It was actually perfect. We sat in our guitar building, baby snotted work clothes, ate our chips and queso and talked about when we first started dating, future baby names, and everything in between.

We also promised ourselves a fancy date night in the near future (Valentine's pt. 2)