here comes the weekend!

September 30th 2011
thanks to my girl anna on twitter for sharing this video with me! i know it’s to celebrate the evolving fashion but i can’t get past the dancing and music. so great.
what are you up to this weekend? we have big plans for a little family brunch date, baking more cinnamon rolls (because i somehow only had one cinnamon roll from josh’s batch last weekend, not enough!) watching and listening to general conference, and checking out the solar decathlon on the national mall… plus, maybe a nap for mama? please please let’s hope there is a nap!
have a lovely weekend! and if you’re in dc, don’t forget to stop by truckeroo tonight and say hello! we’ll be ‘stuffing the bus’ from 7-8pm!
xo

a baby shower for julie.

September 28th 2011
our friends mark and julie are about to have a baby! hooray for friends having babies around the same time as us! don’t think we haven’t been campaigning to all our married friends over the past year… “babies are the best!” “she never cries…. ;)” “here, hold her, oh my gosh you look SO GOOD holding a baby!” it hasn’t really been working.
so you can imagine our excitement last spring when mark and julie came over and were all, “so looks like eleanor is going to have a little friend soon…” i mean, seriously! it doesn’t get any better then friends having babies around the same time as you. we are pretty stoked to meet that baby boy or girl soon. (and yay for friends who aren’t finding out the sex of baby until birth! we highly endorse that method!)
anyway, i got to throw julie a baby shower brunch last saturday and here are a few photos…
p.s. i feel like it was just the other day when our roles were reversed in this photo and julie threw me my baby shower last january. i guess it’s true what they say, time does fly when you’re having fun. ;) also, how cute is her baby bump?
the morning was a lot of fun! i don’t know how people coordinate so many hot plates at once for a party though. the cinnamon rolls didn’t make it to the table until 15 minutes after everyone started eating because they were still in the oven and of course julie arrived promptly on time (am i allowed to say that our friends are never really on time to stuff? well, neither are we, but…) so of course josh and i were still running around trying to get set up because we assumed by saying ten, no one would show up until after ten thirty. we did survive however, and i think everyone had a good time.
josh made the cinnamon rolls (this recipe) and quiche (he made up both the pastry crust and quiche recipe). i made pumpkin cookies (recipe here) and caramel apples and a vegetable and fruit salad. i made the fabric garlands based off this pretty photo i found on pinterest and bought the invitations here on etsy. i decorated the table with gnomes because i never even noticed them until i met julie, who kind of loves those little guys a lot.
hooray for babies!

come ‘stuff the bus’ with our family on friday!

September 28th 2011

josh and i will be hosting the stuff the bus truck down at truckeroo this friday, september 30th from 7-8pm! we’d love to have you come down and say hello while you visit one of the 20 food trucks parked next to the national’s baseball stadium.
the mobile app venga and dc central kitchen are the ones behind stuff the bus and want to fill an old school bus with 5,000 pounds of healthy food for donation.
dc central kitchen uses leftover restaurant food to offer millions of meals to thousands of at-risk individuals and job training to once-homeless adults at their kitchen.
it’s for a great cause so we hope you’ll come out and bring something from home to donate (you can also buy food at the virtual market set up next to the bus to donate, too!) here’s a complete list of what you could bring from home.
if you aren’t able to make it friday evening, here’s a schedule of when the bus will be out over the next few days. you can also make a donation directly right here.
hope to see you friday!

here’s to happiness.

September 27th 2011

in light of president’s uchtdorf’s message on saturday evening about turning the mundane into the majestic, i’d like to bring back the happy lists which we used to have on this little blog. writing them always made me happy. and i love hearing about the little things that make you happy, too.
so here are
10 things that are making me terribly happy
as of late:
  1. hearing the tiny clinking of eleanor’s two bottom teeth against my glass cup as she takes a sip of mama’s water
  2. skyping with family and friends and having eleanor give them kisses via the computer screen
  3. when kingsley bathes eleanor in puppy-lick-kisses
  4. bike rides around the district with my little family in this new warm autumn breeze
  5. frozen snickers bars (thanks to that large case we bought in anticipation of hurricane irene the other month)
  6. josh’s hand on my waist
  7. making it inside with the car seat and 2 large loads of groceries just before the rain begins to pour
  8. the end of mosquito season (we’re so close!)
  9. preschool gems twitter feed (so sweet!)
  10. that blessed and fast carpool lane on the highway when bumper to bumper traffic begins
find more happy lists here.
what makes you terribly happy this week?
if you’d like, email me your happy list and i’ll try to feature it here.
naomi.megan{at}gmail.com

eleanor gives a kiss!

September 26th 2011

over the past couple of weeks, eleanor has been giving mama and papa kisses on cue! they are full on open mouthed, slobbery little messes but absolutely completely adorable to us. her dolly isn’t quite as lucky as mama in this video but eh, you know, we’ll try again later.