cardigan - uo, tee - j.crew, jeans - a&f, boots - dr. martens, hair pins - ban.do

Hello friends. It's been terribly cold out and then on top of everything we got a dusting the other day. So outfit photos have been relegated indoors. Actually everyone, myself included, is quite happy about this development - no more freezing our bums off outside! 

By the way I ordered a new pair of jeans and there are two things that are exciting about this pair in particular - a) they're light jeans which I haven't worn in years and it turns out I quite like the look! b) they're a whole size down from what I wore right after having Birdie! It feels so huge!! There's something incredible about a pair of jeans that actually fit right? It's funny I've been wearing jeans that are too big for me for months and I didn't realize that that was the reason I never liked how I looked in any of them! 

Did I mention they were $25?? I kind of refuse to pay more for jeans. I'm very strange. I'll pay any amount of money for a cute sweater or even a blouse but jeans and shoes?? I can't seem to ever pay more than $40. Oh and if you're like me and like your shoes on the cheap but would appreciate some good quality and trendy styles you have to try Shoemint! I have three pairs at this point and I adore them all!*

*this is a referral link and as always I would be incredibly grateful to you for using it!

We first clued into the fact that Birdie loves music more than the average baby when Passion Pit was the only thing that could ever calm her down when she was a newborn. The moment we would start playing the album she would instantly relax and kind of zone out. That album was a lifesaver. As she grew her musical tastes grew as well. She's very clear about what she likes these days by breaking into a dance, swaying back and forth or waving her hands around, a look of sheer bliss coming over her face. This is of course endlessly fascinating and endearing to us. 

I suppose this isn't terribly surprising as papa bear and I are pretty passionate about music ourselves. In fact, music was something we bonded over when we were first dating. We would talk music for hours and hours parked behind the college we were both attending, often missing classes on this account. The only time I doubted our relationship was when he let me borrow his Godspeed You! Black Emperor cd. I'll never forget listening to it in my room alone one night and thinking "I've made a huge mistake" [insert Gob voice]. Fun fact: one time when we got in a fight I threw away the cd in anger. He has yet to forgive me for that one. Apparently the cds are very hard to come by these days... Can I be real though??? It was so bad. I love music as much as the next guy but come on [Gob voice again]!!

And now as we continue to discover and try new music Birdie accompanies us on this journey. It's always fun to see exactly what she reacts to versus the tracks that don't even remotely register with her. All of this got me thinking that it might be rather fun to put together a little playlist of songs that Birdie is enjoying at the moment once a month or so. Something to look back on one day.

Don't Cry - Britney Spears

Goodbye, Goodbye - Tegan & Sara

Forever - HAIM

Taking In Water - Jessie Ware

Lazuli - Beach House

XO - Beyonce

Burn - Ellie Goulding

Shake It Out - Florence + the Machine

Science/Visions - Chvrches

For A Fool - The Shins

Tennis Court - Lorde

Midnight City - M83

Born to Die - Lana Del Rey

Enjoy!

Happy friday my friends!! It feels good to be doing my first "week's worth of odds & ends" of this new year. And it's been a good week too. A lot got done and I feel like as a family we've already managed to ever so slightly shift ourselves into a better rhythm. First of all we have cooked three meals a day practically every day which is a huge feat for us. Papa bear made us a lovely soup on monday and I made pasta on tuesday. Speaking of pasta I used to be obsessed with the Food Network back in my college days. I would gobble up show after show but Ina and Giada were always my favorites. In fact, I own all of their cookbooks. There was one episode in particular that always stuck with me, as has the recipe. In the episode Ina gets some help from the chef at Nick & Toni's restaurant. He teaches her how to make their famous "Penne Alla Vecchia Bettola" pasta sauce. By the end of the episode my mouth was watering and I knew I had to make it. And so I did and I've been making it for years now. I know all of the ingredients and the recipe itself by heart and since it takes so long to make it forces me to slow down and take my time and really enjoy the process. It's always a treat to make and it's papa bear's favorite so it's a total win win. 

Our days have been busy but instead of zooming by they have lingered and it's been nice to soak them up. We have work time and play time and down time and family time and we're somehow balancing it all. It's taken time for me to get accustomed to this sort of "piece meal" life as I'm a naturally obsessive creature thriving on uninterrupted time of whatever it is that I'm doing at the moment. However, as anyone knows, once you have a baby there's rarely a moment when you are not interrupted and you simply have to learn to work around it. So I work a little bit, I play a little bit, I cook a little bit and I clean a little bit and somehow in the end it looks more or less finished and that's something I'm rather happy about these days. 

We also tried out a new neapolitan pizza place in town that gives 2Amys in DC a run for their money. I'm a total thin crust pizza girl and this place has quickly registered itself super high on my "happy place" scale. We also replaced christmas decorations with fresh flowers and I've rearranged a few things around the house. It's a habit of mine to change things up at the beginning of the new year because if I don't, all I see is a gaping hole where the tree used to be and it makes me want to crawl in a corner and cry so instead I take the lamp from the living room to the nursery and freshen up the kitchen shelves. It's no christmas tree but it works. There's been a lot more books being cracked open around these parts as well and that is always a welcome change. We have a stack of new books as tall as the dining room table demanding to be read so I'm reading two at once! 

Oh my gosh and before I forget!! Drumroll please... We signed up for a gym membership! I've never, ever done this so it's all very exciting/scary/exciting to me! I figured I tried the "I'll do it myself" route last year with little success so it's time to make a real commitment. I'll be taking spin and yoga classes and papa bear will be doing whatever it is that people do with those weird looking torture devices. I swear walking out of that gym I felt as if I had bought a car or something. I felt so... adult?? So wish me luck my friends!! I'm really hoping to get in better shape by - worst case scenario: summer and best case scenario: next week? Remember? Perpetual optimist! But seriously any advice would be much appreciated!

Wishing you a lovely, hopefully less cold, weekend!!

xo