Today is my husband E’s 33rd birthday. To celebrate, he is going to work for 18 hours. Because of the storm I didn’t get to the grocery store for ingredients to make his favorite carrot cake. The kids and I didn’t get any We Love Daddy crafts done. Basically, he’s going to have the worst birthday ever (except for that one he spent in Boot Camp, I hear it was pretty lousy). I don’t think E is too upset with me though – he wasn’t very excited about turning 33. It’s sort of an in-between age – too young to buy a convertible and call it a mid-life crisis and too old to get good and drunk and whine about how old you are.

But it still sucks not to get to do something special on your birthday, so the kids and I are going to work on it. In the mean time, please enjoy photos of  the 6th worst storm in recorded New England history:

Another 3 inches and it would have been over the snowblower

She only lasted 2 minutes before she fell in a drift and told me she was ALL DONE

This is my cat, she’s cute  (and a little gingery) too

Happy Birthday Daddy!

It’s cold in Connecticut. It doesn’t really matter HOW cold, since there isn’t some sort of contest for who-can-complain-about-being-the-coldest and once it gets down to below freezing everyone loses the contest anyway. As long as it’s too cold for outside activities my weeks are going to be especially uninteresting.

Sunday:

Self portrait in the crosswalk button (Evan and I walked to church)

It’s amazing how quickly I am turning into a crazy coupon lady

WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT’S BEDTIME????

Monday:

She insists these boots fit

Most amazing non-Disney animated film of all time

I took some pictures of a baby (not mine)

Tuesday:

She loves him…

…she loves him not…

…she loves him (and will copy ANYTHING he does).

Wednesday:

My kitchen window

I don’t even know.

She totally passed out while drinking my water

Thursday:

She is 1000x more fashionable than I am

2 year well-baby checkup

Pirate Captain Evan will drive his pirate ship into your face while you are trying to nap

Friday:

Stretching at Stroller Strides

Healthy choices are boring.

She electric! (Do do do-do do do, do-do do do do do)

Saturday:

It is hard to sleep in with this on your bed.

Look, Ma, no hands!

The casino might not be the MOST child-friendly place, but it is warm and good for running.

  E had to work today, but the kids and I met up with some old friends at Foxwoods for lunch and games and ice cream. It’s crazy to think when I met them I wasn’t even engaged to E and now between us we have 4 kids 4 and under. They’re moving to Guam in a few days (I am ONLY jealous because I’m so sick of the cold) so we’re trying to squeeze in another visit tomorrow – although Evan is going to be heartbroken when he finds out his new BFF can’t come to his birthday in April.

Did you take iPhone photos of your week? Link up with one or several below! Please consider joining, even if you haven’t done it before – it’s really fun!

Sometimes people accuse bloggers of airbrushing real life out off their posts, focusing only on the beautiful, sparkly, aspirational parts of their day to day.

I think this is true. A lot of bloggers want their spaces to be about beauty, to represent the happiest moments, to share only the best memories with the world. Lovely things get lovely compliments. It’s nice to hear approval and admiration from other people, even if it doesn’t actually mean anything. Who doesn’t want to hear “You have a beautiful home” “Your children are adorable” or “Wow, that looks delicious”. Blogs are today’s magazines, and no one subscribes to an ugly magazine.

The problem is when everything looks TOO effortless and TOO perfect. When I read Martha Stewart Living, I know those homes and recipes and children have been styled and arranged and glossed within an inch of their life. When I read blogs I assume I’m getting a real, un-glossed story – or at least one one that is more true than false. Maybe you really do look like a model, have an all white living room and eat every meal in restaurants by candlelight. In that case I am very jealous of your life and won’t say a word about the authenticity of your blog. Congrats on being awesome.

But for the rest of you? Go ahead and show me your messy house or your yoga pants or your dirty children sometimes. Tell me the story of how you planned an idyllic picnic in a meadow but a dog ran off with your roasted chicken and your kids fell in a creek. By all means be beautiful, but be honest too. I’ve never shared a moment of weakness or truth and had someone walk away disgusted. Whether it’s through photos, words, or funny misspelled kitten pictures, let’s be real friends.

Because real friends tell you they let their kids watch 11 episodes of The Backyardigans yesterday AND eat cookies for dinner. They admit that they prepped all the cookie ingredients  like a sous chef on a cooking show so she could take fifty pictures without worrying about a pound of sugar ending up on the floor. A real friend will admit that she chooses and edits her photos because she wants to show off her kids being adorable but also because she enjoys taking and choosing and editing photos. A real friend will admit she ate five six seven cookies while doing all that editing.

A real friend would also share her cookies with you, but you better hurry over since these are going to be gone really soon.

Besides the prep and a little help spooning out the dough, these cookies were totally ginger-made. I couldn’t be more proud of my tiny bakers.

I really like taking the kids to do Fun But Educational Things, which is why we spend most of our extra time and money on memberships to places like the aquarium and Mystic Seaport. Up until recently it’s usually been much more about me than about them, since they couldn’t care less where we go as long as they can run around in circles while I say “Look! Nature! Science! Historic Crap!” All they’re really interested in is pushing buttons.

Unfortunately, I put a lot of pressure on myself to make all of our visits the kind of amazing memories I have from my own childhood. Nevermind the fact that I’m sure for every beautiful spring day at Old Sturbridge Village churning butter in a bonnet there were probably 14 visits to some dumb museum where I whined the whole time about how booooooring it was can we go hooooome now? I need to pin a note to the inside of my purse that says “They are TWO and THREE, don’t WORRY” so when I’m digging for some granola bars to stop the ear-splitting whining from the double stroller I remember, oh yes, they are TWO and THREE I don’t really need to WORRY if they aren’t interested in the finer points of blacksmith…ery.

All in all, it wasn’t too bad for an outside adventure in January. We’ll definitely be back in the spring to see the sawmill in action and in the summer for the gardens (There’s an antique carriage rally in June! That is EXACTLY the sort of event I will greatly enjoy forcing my family to attend!) I’m tempted to buy a membership but SIX memberships (well, five memberships and a season pass to Sesame Place) seems a little…excessive. Maybe I’ll hold off until the kids are old enough to appreciate all the history a little more.

This weekend was the last of our family time, probably for a long while, and we wasted it on the couch. Or at least, I feel like we wasted it, since I wanted to get out and Do Things. Make Memories. Have Experiences. Enrich The Children’s Lives. Instead we watched Disney movies and played “Runaway Evan” (in which Evan runs away and we chase him) and tossed ALL the toys on the floor and read lots of books and threw some tantrums (mostly the children) and wore comfortable pants.

I felt sort of bad about it but I’ve decided to not feel bad about it. Sometimes wearing comfortable pants is good for the soul. Dragging E out to Do Things with his kids when he will barely even see them for the next few weeks could end in a toddler meltdown that ruins everyone’s day and leaves us all disappointed. I’m not saying my children are terrible monsters or anything, but they are 2 and 3 so…sometimes they’re terrible monsters. And honestly I don’t mind using my solo-parenting days for outings, since staying home means the only adult I talk to is when I shout at the incredibly fit jerk-faces in my workout video. I’m going to forgive the lazy end of our lazy vacation and call it “recharging with my family” instead of “not wearing a bra again”.

Staying home doesn’t mean doing nothing. Family isn’t nothing – it’s everything.

And I can wear my comfortable pants.