Bye Bye Baby Mullet

Over the past few weeks, the baby mullet has officially returned.. I knew that it was back in full force when I was able to put it in a "back pony" at HG's request, leaving her looking like a true quintessential redneck as the front would look the exact same and then from the back there was a small tail coming straight out. Suffice to say, not a good look.  The last time I trimmed the back, I committed to it being my last solo foray into cutting anything on her- she is entirely too squirmy and I am completely crappy with anything related to straight lines or scissors. I mentioned to her that I got my hair cut this week, and that seemed to generate some discussion on her part ala "I get my hair cut too" and so, I sort of decided that this was the weekend to tackle the first real haircut. Now knowing my little HG and how she gets pretty freaked in new situations, I basically spent several days talking up how fun it was going to be, what was going to happen, etc and then proceeded to load up the bag with the ipad, stickers and her new care bear in hopes of distractions. Fortunately, Hunt was able to come with us which definitely helped keep us on track.  She was good until they sprayed the water on the back of her hair to wet it down, and then there were some serious tears. Pulling out the ipad and polar bear videos (one of her recent obsessions is the polar bear videos posted by the Toronto Zoo on utube) saved the experience, and we left with an adorable new bob and an excited toddler pronouncing "I got my hair cut!!".  Now onto surviving the dentist appointment later this week!

Hot Fudge Sundae Cupcakes

I needed to make some birthday cupcakes to bring into work this weekend, and decided it was time to try out a new idea that was cute and not too cumbersome to put together.  These turned out perfect for what I had in mind!  

For the cake, I did my usual GF boxed recipe with the almond syrup substitution, and I have started cooking them at 325 which seems to keep them a little more moist.  I cheated and used store bought icing to save some aggravation and time, and then topped with rest.  A few modifications for next time.. I was trying to find a chocolate that wouldn't be runny, so I got Magic Shell.. As Hunt pointed out, the magic shell stays hard on the frozen ice cream so while I put these in the freezer to harden the shell- once at room temp, no longer hard.  Fortunately, the chocolate didn't get massively runny.  I will also get a thing of Ready Whip next time to save steps in piping on cool whip.  All in all, super cute and very sweet!

Cautiously  making her first approach

Contrary to the face, she did like them!

Living in a Snow Globe

This week I learned what it is like to live on either the North Pole or in Minnesota, and I can say confidently neither are for me.. Somehow we managed to have Polar type weather systems make their way all the way down to us which resulted in a foot of snow and temps that apparently felt like -40 degrees.  When people used to ask me about the cold winters here, I would tell them that for me, once the temps are below say 25 degrees or so it's just really f'ing cold and I'm not sure you can tell a difference.  Now that I have had the experience of negative wind chills, I can honestly say that there is no good explanation of that besides feeling unnatural and painful.  Even just a few seconds of opening to door to let Winnie out were excruciating.  The snow storm started on a Sunday and we were prepared to stay indoors so it was actually quite relaxing and peaceful to watch it come down.  But then it just kept going and my pretty snow globe world turned into snow mountains and multiple shovel attempts and ultimately a few more days of not being able to leave the house or get to work. Ugh. I did get some pretty pics, though!

Miles lending some assistance

Harper's "shivering" face.. Totally laughed out loud

"Is cold!"

Peeking out to watch daddy shovel

Warm and snuggly inside watching GiggleBellies on the iPad

Such concentrated focus

And a foot later... Some day, one day, maybe all of this will melt???

It was too cold ever for her

Frosty Puppy

Bundling up for a play date with Lori and Mia to get us out of the house!!

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Gosh, I'm just not sure where to even begin.. It is officially the start of a new year, and the completion of an absolutely wonderful holiday season at our house. We spent a ton of time in our jammies at home which was fantastic and relaxing, and it was so nice to have Hunt around for such an extended period of time without having school work to do.  HG got to be home from daycare with him for almost three weeks, and they had a great trip back to NoVa to see his parents which sounded like a really special visit for all of them.  We decorated some cookies, and enjoyed playing with Harper's new playroom toys and really just laid low.  I feel like we all came away from the last few weeks with some good family bonding time and nice memories to go into the new year with.


Christmas Cookie Decorating (and sampling..)

Christmas Eve dinner with the Ross's

Harper participating in the "cheers" with her sippy

Christmas Eve playroom preparation.. we decided to just bring everything upstairs and leave it all unwrapped for her to see at once.  I was really happy to see it all come together after so many weeks of picking things out and wondering how it would all work together.  Daddy had the pleasure of the 3+ hours of kitchen construction (Mommy warned him it was going to be a bear!).

Christmas Day.. the kitchen, as expected, was the clear winner for excitement and time spent with playing but she seemed really excited by all and keeps asking "to go to the playroom" so I know she is into playing there now which is really fun.

I just adore this pic.. The matching shirts and bejewels just sort of happened naturally

Happy happy little HG

Taking a breather from all the fun

The aftermath of a few hours up there

Christmas at the Zoo.. we had a rare highly tolerable day of almost 50 degrees and sun, so we decided that it was a good one to get all of us out of the house. Harper is obsessed with "Let's Go To the Zoo" and we read it multiple times per day, so Hunt really wanted to get her to the zoo.  We headed down there, only to find that we were an hour before it actually opened- grrrrr- but rather than bail, we ran over to the Children's museum for a few carousel rides to kill time and then actually drove back to the zoo.  I was a little skeptical about how long we would make it, but since HG had spent several nap times recently without ever sleeping in her crib, we figured it was worth a shot.  As it turned out, she was awesome and we made it late enough to explore several new areas and to ride the train which was super fun!

New Years Eve... Hunt's mom came up for a little visit and was kind enough to babysit so that we could go out to dinner.  We had a nice, low key dinner at Trader's Point restaurant and great wrap-up to what was quite a year!  I'm so glad that I have started the blog this year to keep up with all of our happenings.. I couldn't even begin to summarize it all, except that I know we were super busy and HG grew and changed SO much!  It's looking like 2014 is going to be even busier with more work travel (aka schedule stress), but a lot of fun family activities and getting ready for Carson's wedding, so here we go!

Neither of us have a full smile here, although we were actually both happy and in a good mood! I like that you can see one of my fur vests.. part of my burgeoning collection of them for winter staples, as well as some of my new Jcrew statement pieces.  And the red lips.. my new MAC "Red" which is quite popular with the fashion bloggers this winter :-)