Mary's 2nd Birthday

Can't believe it's been two years since I first held this special little girl.  i just love her so much.  Her first year of life was a bit of a doozy for us, but she's developed into the most deep, tender, and still a little concerned little children on the planet.  She's just got these old-soul eyes and these beautiful long eyelashes and the gurgly voice which she used to ask very serious questions- oh so many questions.  She's a little OCD and it's kinda funny.  She loves her sisters a LOT.  She's also pretty independent and likes to do her own thing and doesn't seem to need a lot of approval from us thank you very much.  She's just got her own thing going on.  

This morning I told her it was her birthday and her first response was "cake?!" and I was like, YEAH, special birthday cake! And we made gluten free pumpkin pancakes.  Dyed pink with sprinkles on top.  She thought it was pretty special and knew just what to do with the candles:)  We also refreshed our pink sparkle nail polish and made birthday crowns.  We will be celebrating more this weekend, but I think she felt special today:)

I love my kids

Ugh I just do.  They just charm my socks off without even trying.  Mary was so sweet today with Lucy and kept asking to hug her or hold her.  She went down for her naps like a little angle.  Aking to get "comfy-cozy" under her blanket and smiling off into her little cocoon excitedly as I kissed her cheek goodnight.  What a doll.  She can read "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" all by herself.  She puts up with a lot from Holland who for the first time today declared that she would be Minnie while Mary would be Mickey- and so a childhood of playing the prince to Hollands princess begins:)  Oh my goodness those girls.  Lucy is just a sweetheart.  She's very tender and just has a sort of deeper way about her.  You can tell she's taking everything in.  She's just a darling.  She's also getting so big!  She's 7 months now and eating and sitting up and she broke two teeth (Mary didn't break any until she was a year old) and she's just pretty pleasant.  The older girls love her so much.  Mary will ask to have baby Lucy Rock-a-bye her before she goes down for a nap, and then we have to rock-a-bye Mary on the floor near lucy.  It's so funny.  Holland is my darling passionate child.  She is so. excited. about. everything.  Waking up, eating, playing, getting dressed, seeing friends, babysitters, daddy, and on and on.  She loves coloring and loves peanut butter like nothing else.  She's my cuddlebug and I never want her to grow up.  I would love to freeze her right as she is and cuddle with her forever.  I love dancing with them.  I love singing with them.  I love reading to them while they nonchalantly lean into me. They are just a fun bunch.  We are stuck inside for a lot of the winter here and part of me doesn't really mind because I just get to be in their little world all day.  There is something great in living in that little world scheduled around naps and story time and filled with little blocks and pretend food and just cozying up on each other and listening to music all day without a care in the wold beyond doing little people laundry.  Even their laundry is cute.  It's just true.

3 homes and 3 kids later...

Hi Blog,


It's been a long time.  I am sitting in bed while on vacation right now and Evan is sleeping, so I thought I should get back to you.  I had a tumble account for a while, but I mainly used it to collect inspiring quotes and I haven't really used it for a long time now.  I have been told by a few people that I should blog.  Who knows why exactly, but at the very least I am motivated to have a space where our family journal can be recorded and will never get lost and where I can keep all of my favorite memories of my kids in one place.  Instagram was useful for a while for recording memories until I started to have too many things I wanted to post and became self conscious of flooding everyone's feed and also realized I wanted more written content to go along with the images.  And so back to the blog.  Mini update- we have three kids now, moved from dc to Boston to Belmont to our first House in Belmont.  Also, an update on my goals at 25 which I just re-read- I don't bake pastries- in fact I very rarely even eat gluten.  darn.  Big fail on the pastries.  I have NO drapes in my home right now - pottery barn or otherwise! We are STILL trying to get our grownup house moved into and drapes have not happened yet.  I have kind of gotten around voice mil on my phone by having a message that suggests a text instead of a voicemail.  I have painted like one thing in the last year.  I do not play the guitar.  I have three kids and have not cut my hair off (which is helped by the fact that I am too busy with my three kids to get more than two haircuts in a year which rare times have not seemed to have fallen on days after I had an impulse to cut all my hair off. yet.)  All of my close girlfriends who I knew back then are now married, which is fun for us all- 4 wed that summer.  I think I am a good sister because one of mine has been willing to live with me for the past 4 months- yay! And I think I am a good wife because right now I am letting Evan sleep while I am wanting to chat.

25

I am the worst blogger. mainly because I don't think anyone would be interested in reading it and face book is easier to post pictures on. But, I am a big enjoy-er of my friends and family's blogs so I am going to try and change my ways and post more regularly.

Last month, I turned 25. Let's see what I thought life would be like when I first entered college at 17:

By now I was supposed to "have 5 children, married to my High School Crush,  and have a masters in PoliSci."

That was the life plan that did not go as planned. Oh well:)

Instead I am newly married to Evan Fitzpatrick and have friends who have fancy graduate degrees and actually none of my friends have five kids. So I guess it's a mixed bag.

I can say that at 25 I do get to travel and do fun things with a cool guy and that is fun. And here in DC, i get to ride my bike and play tennis and go sailing and stuff like that. And I got 3 skirts on final clearance from Anne Taylor the other day which made me very happy.

So far 25 is great. I still like making plans for the future that may or may not some true. Drives Evan crazy sometimes cause he is in the habit of actually achieving any goal he makes and thinks i will be disappointed. I just like to plan and then get surprised. But I will try to be more realistic:)

So, by 30:

I hope to have some kids
Make a mean chocolate pastry
Have drapes from Pottery Barn (or similar)
Be good at painting
Play at least 5 cool songs on the guitar
Convince Evan to let me paint my walls my favorite color of army green.
Help with/ Attend many weddings (you know who you are!)
Resist all impulses to cut my hair short
Figure out a way to not have a voicemail option on my phone
Be a good sister and friend and wife


We shall see! I am going to work on the Pastries this week, so i will update with details of that adventure!

Since my last post:

Things we have done:

I started a new job at Onsite Health. I am in the finance department at the corporate headquarters. Who knew one day I'd be doing accountant stuff? It's just three blocks away from our apartment which I love.

Evan started his job at BCG. Only two business trips so far, so it's been nice having him around most of the time.

Lots of double dating with Torrey and Justin. Annapolis, Kind street, backyard BBQs etc. Love them.

Trip to Philly with David Trichler to watch the US soccer team play Turkey in their last game before the world cup. They won 2-1. We sat in the crazy fan section with the drums and horns and beer splashing. Very interesting experience.

Trip to PA with BCG for three days. Very fancy hotel, good food. 70's dance party with 200 of Evan's coworkers. Very cool costumes. And bunch of bigwigs in green polyester. Nice.

Lot's of walks in Arlington cemetery. It's nearby so on Sundays we bike over and walk for an hour or two. Beautiful, nice, peaceful place to be.

I started reading Eat, Pray, Love and Evan has read a lot more than me but the last one he finished was Romney's "No Apology"

Evan surprised me with a subscription to "O" magazine. I love him and I love Oprah.

Bike rides into the district. Last one was to the American History Museum. I love DC.

Our pool opened on our rooftop. Lots of laying out and reading up there. I love the sun and have my Thailand tan back.

Lots of great restaurants. My fave dinner place was on U street. I forgot the name but it's right across from Ben's Chili Bowl. Another fav is biking to the corner bakery for breakfast and having the cinnamon rolls. Yummy.

Went to Eastern Market for the first time with Nikki.

Spent a Saturday with my cousin Steph who recently moved out here at the Library of Congress.

We got called to be nursery leaders. Gives church a whole new meaning.

I (recently) started running every day. Have usually hated running and avoided it at all costs, but running on a treadmill in an air conditioned room while listening to Jack Johnson makes it a lot more bearable.

Started a little garden with David in Torrey's backyard.

Got a wonderful assistant at work. He is a BYU sophomore working here for the summer. Nice kid.

We purchased a Gliding Bench (or whatever it's called) for our balcony. Enjoy spending a lot of time on that reading, eating, and watching sunsets.

We are in the last season of West Wing. Life as we know it will soon be over. What will happen next?




Five things I want to do in June:

Go to a Bikram Yoga class together (right now Evan does yoga with me every Sunday, but I think Bikram would be more intense)

Learn to cook one more kind of meal to add to our regular menu.

Get some more plants for our house.

Have Torrey and Justin over.

Play more tennis.

us in San Fransisco

we are really lucky to have a tennis court right by our apartment.