We had a BEAUTIFUL week of gorgeous weather and fun…right up until Friday. When I woke up at 5 am to snow – SNOW! – everywhere, I declared I was taking a day off from life. We stayed home. I wore my jammies all day. We had popcorn for dinner. It was lovely. I predict today will be very similar.

Sunday:

How adorable is this cupcake buffet at the tea party birthday we attended?

Sunshine

E secretly loves tea. Don't tell him I told you.

Obviously a tea party calls for pearls

Monday:

Monday was a holiday, so I worked twice as hard as I usually do organizing this room.

Multi-tasking!

I added fun colors to the tub! Evan disapproved.

Tuesday:

GOOD MORNING WORLD.

The girl loves hats

He thinks this is the best trick EVER

Wednesday:

Apparently those aren't camo pants, they're grumpy pants

If you look veeeery carefully, you can see one sad toddler in time-out during gymnastics

25 favor boxes for Evan's 3rd birthday, DONE.

Thursday:

My children refuse to wear clothes correctly.

No Mommy! No go inside! Stay outside!

Dear God, someday she will drive an ACTUAL car ::heart attack::

Friday:

NO.

He's obsessed with these shoes. He can actually walk in them better than I can.

Headband obsessed - obviously she's mine

Saturday:

See mommy, giraffes don't wear shirts so I shouldn't either!

Oh, what you got there? Trains? I like trains!

IKEA trains FTW! We trippled our track for less than $25.

Today I am working on an epic blog post – epic in my head, obviously, just long and rambling in real life – and finishing all the laundry. Why did I make Sunday laundry day?! It always ruins my sleeping-in day knowing I’ve got a mountain of dirty clothes to get through. The good news is 2 weeks from right now I’ll be getting on my CRUISE. If I mention it 300 times between now and then try to forgive me, OK?

Did you take any camera phone photos this week? Link up with one or lots using the linky below and grab the code (so it shows on your blog too!) over at Amy’s . It’s really fun!

It was a good week! We had a lot of adventures, made some progress in the sleep department (going to bed at 9 pm helps), and it’s ending with cake and a date for E’s birthday.

Sunday:

I bought some Jason Wu at Target - one of these days I might even WEAR it

Lazy toddler is lazy

I brought my knitting to a Super Bowl party. I'm so cool.

Monday:

15 Weight Watcher's points. Totally worth it.

I am amazed at how quickly she fell in love with this seahorse

I'd call her a genius artist, but she keeps trying to draw with the wrong end.

Birthday crafting has begun! I got all 45 flags made this week.

Tuesday:

Beeyotch, don't be lookin' at my grapes.

Car naps FTW

Nice healthy dinner, until I ate like FIVE portions.

Wednesday:

Still having mixed feelings about gymnastics

Oh hey, whatcha got? Can I see it? Can I can I?

Adorable toddler photo opp ruined by my lazy housekeeping

Thursday:

Library turtle! Meaning a turtle at the library, not some sort of special species

The entire top floor of our town library is for kids. I feel like a total idiot for not going sooner.

Library train table. I'm surprised I EVER got Evan to leave.

I'd actually been in bed for at least half an hour when I took this. My life is so exciting.

Friday:

Evan and T sharing a hiding spot

Smug elevator face

This look is called "The Lazy Mother's Smock"

Sometimes, everyone gets along

Saturday:

I'd like to speak to a manager about this restaurant - there's a weird guy lurking in the corner

Someone was a little confused about whose birthday it actually is

Do I LOOK like I'm enjoying this, Mother?

I am a wee bit overexcited about tonight, because E and I are going OUT with NO KIDS because I found a baby sitter. We’re actually paying her an obscene amount of money to just be in the house – we’re not leaving until we put the kids to bed so they won’t even know we’re gone. It’s too bad we don’t live in the 1950’s when we could have just locked the door and told the neighbor to call the fire department if it looked like the house was burning down. Then we could afford to play a few more hands of blackjack tonight. Child endangerment what?

Did you take any camera phone photos this week? Link up with one or lots using the linky below and grab the code (so it shows on your blog too!) over at Amy’s . It’s really fun!

So long, 2011. You were cool and all, but I have PLANS in 2012 and they cannot get here fast enough.

In January I adjusted to being a mother of 2 by almost falling apart and dispensing tons of helpful advice, but I also discovered how much I LOVED having another kid. I shared pictures of Caroline’s nursery, posted my tutu tutorial (one of my top posts ever!) and failed at cloth diapers.

In February I made some muffins, which might have contributed to my slightly ranty post about my feelings on dieting.  I had a huge realization about why doing the dishes wasn’t such a chore after all – although honestly, I should reread that once a week, since I’ve pretty much forgotten it again. Because I like embarrassing myself, I shared my high school poetry anthology and I talked about headbands. A lot.

In March I failed at parenting not once, but twice. I tried to decide if the kids looked alike or not. And I bemoaned how even good advice isn’t always good.

In April, Evan turned 2 and we gave him a room makeover and an awesome birthday party. I embraced my inner hippie and joined a CSA (which turned out to be a GREAT decision). I knit some cute stuff while avoiding knitting the sweaters I’ve had started for more than a year. I had totally forgotten I made these scones until just now but I’m definitely making some this weekend.

In May I discovered Pinterest and my life was never the same. I tried to explain how hard it is to get things done when you ALSO have two kids to watch. I dressed Caroline up for a baby fashion show. To battle the evils months I reorganized my pantry and made it prettier. And then my toddler drove me to drink by asking WHY a zillion times.

In June I made a list of ways I might be crazy, but it turns out a lot of you are crazy too. We took on the hugest house project to date and built ourselves a gorgeous patio. Caroline had her half birthday – and it’s so crazy to look back at my just-barely-sitting-up and not-yet-crawling baby compared to the second half of the year! I wrote about the evils of Pull-Ups  and the joys of my amazing stroller.  And I complained for the zillionth time how parenting feels unequal.

In July I joined Weight Watchers (something I see to have forgotten recently) and  shared some of the amazing handmade shops I’ve found. I took a lot of adorable pictures at Lake Compounce and the Sunflower Festival.

In August I went to BlogHer, posted my 1000th post, and celebrated my 7th wedding anniversary. I dorked out with my kid’s dinosaurs and Caroline took her first step. I also baked a galette and redecorated my living room. And we all survived Hurricane Irene with minimal fuss.

In September I made a lot of stuff, like sriracha and cupcakes and shit with pinecones, which is one of my top visited posts ever. We went to the beach, which was epic. I decided having two kids wasn’t so bad after all.

In October we went to the fair and I met one of my long time interwebs friends IRL. We had a Halloween party where Caroline was her sunshiney self. Evan turned two and a half. I did that stupid accent meme vlog and I told the story about how I was once almost in a movie.

In November I posted every frickin day, which is too exhausting to recap.

In December I tried and failed at twinkle pics of the kids. I declared potty training a success but not necessarily a happy one but having a two year old is still kinda awesome.  I made super delicious cookies and the internet agreed. Caroline turned one and I threw her a pretty nice party. Then we tortured the kids with the all important Santa picture and had a very nice Christmas.

Whoa, I sort of can’t believe all the stuff happened – and that I wrote about all of it. I think I liked 2011 better than 2010, mostly because I was less sick, not pregnant and really let myself blog for the love of blogging (mostly). I am going to KEEP enjoying myself in 2012 and I’d be honored if you decided to keep reading.

We had a super busy day planned for Sunday so of course both of my children went completely insane. Caroline woke at 3 am all HAI GUISE I’M HERE LET’S PARTY. We took turns trying to get her back to sleep for two hours, until I gave up and brought her downstairs so I could at least watch TV while she boogied. We were on our second Law & Order rerun when I watched her nod off to sleep sitting on the floor and fall right over onto her head. I’m not gonna lie, I laughed pretty hard. I blame the exhaustion and also the hilarious look on her face.

Luckily, she forgave me and we took a little couch nap before we had to head out to our friend Thomas’s 3rd birthday party.

Unluckily, Little Evan took one look at the karate studio where the party was being held and ran away shouting “NO THANK YOU MAMA NO THANK YOU”. I eventually coaxed him into the room where he stood in a corner fake sobbing (he is TERRIBLE at fake sobbing, which is how I know it is fake) until the instructors got out a giant box of balls and encouraged the kids to throw them at each other. Apparently that’s just too much fun to pass up.

In the mean time, I gave up on trying to keep Caroline in my lap and let her enjoy the party in her own 10 month old way.

I LOVE YOU BABY IN THE MIRROR

Probably not what this guy signed up for when he agreed to work at the party

I can't stop laughing at this face

Pizza makes all his nervousness disappear

Oh! And! Because our attendance was sort of a last minute decision I was scrambling for a 3rd birthday gift. After having awesome success with the glow stick bath tub thing on Saturday night (here’s the whole scoop: turn down the lights and give your kid glow sticks to play with in the tub) I came up with this:

All found at Target in the $1 section or in the baby shampoo aisle. No risk of giving the birthday boy a toy he already has or a piece of junk that breaks after 5 minutes, and hey, every kid takes baths!

After the party we ran home for a quick nap, threw my gnocchi casserole in the oven and headed over to our CSA for an end-of-season potluck.

Evan was obsessed with the apple cider.

Caroline was obsessed with our cups of wine.

Trying to blow out the fire

It was a super fun, super busy, super exhausting, super long day but I can’t really complain. Having too many friends is the kind of problem everyone ought to have.

When I was 17 and trying to decide where to go to college, my mom and I visited half a dozen schools up and down the southeast coast (I was going to be a marine biologist, so was focused on schools near the water)(Also, BEACH. Duh.) But when we got to Charleston, South Carolina I was done. The Spanish moss hanging from the old bent trees, the houses squished sideways, the low-tide-pluff-mud smell. It’s fantastic, all of it.

We’re back in South Carolina for a few days, to serve as margarita and cake makers for one of my oldest friend’s 30th birthday celebrations. We’ve crashed a relative of a friend’s beach house that is only a “beach house” in the sense that it is on the beach – it’s like an HGTV Dream Home except I AM IN IT.

So please excuse the bloggy silence for a few days, while we’re busy doing lots of this: