- "Mom, hey mom, you can tell that one's a boy!!!" -

...exclaimed one excited/inquisitive preschooler-aged onlooker.  Standing by her was a clump of older kids on their school field trip attempting to sketch some very detailed pencil handiwork of the elephant; and next to them, I caught a glimpse over the shoulders of three teenagers who were furiously editing Snapchats to enhance the more obvious characteristics of Mr. Elephant's masculinity. 

MEANWHILE, Harper barely noticed the ten-ton tusker because she couldn't remove her gaze from the ginormous piles of dung in the habitat. "El-fent! POOOOOP! Stiiiiinks! Poooooo, mama! Stinks!"

The St. Louis Zoo: providing entertainment for all ages since 1904.

...Which is why we NEVER decline Grammy's offer to hit up the zoo on a random Tuesday morning!

It was all fun and games until we hopped aboard the choo-choo:

But once the terror train unloaded, all was swell again. 

We finished scaling the perimeter of the zoo, oohed and ahhed over every single "aminal" [even the prairie dogs and alligators] and then headed back to the car.  Of course, we couldn't leave the city without driving through SLU and seeing all the tulips [AKA SLUlips!]...

Oh St. Louis, we love you so!!! 

- Another year wiser... -

...and fatter and wrinklier and wittier and the list could go on and on and on but I know most of y'all know how it feels to get old and be so damn close to the top of the hill that you can start to see the grass on the other side ...........annnnd the mood of this post is already getting sour so I'll just go ahead and cut myself off right there. 

Phew.

When I peed on a stick in 2014, my finicky little type-A self did some super quick mental math and realized Baby F's due date was four days before my birthday.  I [sort of happily] succumbed to the fact that mid-March 2015 and every March going forward for forever would be a time to celebrate our newest addition; it would never be about me ever ever ever again..........

^^ Wrong.  Pink balloons and a plastic tiara all for the pretty pretty princess.  #attentionbemine

But fo' real, I must admit that I'm kind of embarrassingly pleased that my family has never gotten burnt out after Harper's blowout fiestas and there is always still plenty of birthday energy to go around [even just a week later!].  My cousin and her girls so very luckily happened to be home from Nebraska, so my mom hosted a girls' brunch for the bunch and fun was had by all!

Thanks to my favorites for coming to celebrate! Grammy, Harper, and the spoiled bert-day b*tch had a nice, long afternoon nap together after brunch^^, then back home to our house where Brian was waiting with flowers and presents and cake [oh my!]!  We couldn't figure out what happened to the cake until we saw a blue-lipped bandit running around the house.....

I know I'm a spoiled little smart@$$, but really totally truly, THANK YOU so much to the wonderful family and friends who made my day so special!  I hate getting old, but every year just keeps getting better and better; I know this year will be no exception!!! 

Cheers to 28! 

xoxo

- #kishme - I'M IRISH! -

...But even if we weren't Irish [which I guess we sort of aren't], we'd still be kickin' it at the party of all parties; because when another March 17 rolls around, DOGTOWN is the place to BE!  We were suckered into this parade/celebration mostly by default when my bachelorette pad [so very conveniently!!] happened to be on the corner of the two main streets of the festival.  Not gonna lie: I/we threw down some kick@$$ St. Pat's Day parties back in the day, and the rest? Welp, it's history.  ;) :)

We decided to let our littlest leprechaun in on the fun, too... Matching hats with Grammy!

Oh March 2018....... You're already so anxiously awaited! :)))

- Cheers to the birthday girl!!! -

**********

Tear tear tearrrrr and more tears; this momma just plowed through an entire box of Kleenex like it ain't no thang! It absolutely goes without saying [but I'll say it anyway] that the past two years have been the BEST two years of our lives! Time has never ever ever flown by so quickly! ...I remember snuggling our 8lb, 4oz bundle of joy and cleaning up liquid/projectile infant poop like it was juuuust a few months ago... Watching this sweet baby grow into a beautiful, well-mannered little lady has been the biggest privilege, and I'm so so sooo happy and honored and humbled that God chose Harper for us!!! 

So...[without further rambling]...

Birthday party pics! Cheers to the birthday girl! It's fun to be two!

"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to youuuu, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR HARPER, happy birthday to you!" :-* :-*

Presents, presents, and presents galore! [Just when I thought a tornado hit our house at Christmas time...]

Harper LOVES her newest cousin, Van!

When the birthday girl squeals for a nightcap, the good mom easily obliges.... :) ...and yes, that bumps the cookie count for the day up to three!

A good night of sleep and we were up for another jam-packed day of birthday fun! Off to the Science Center to celebrate our biggest accomplishment! ;)

Little Bear made it less than two minutes in the car before she was zonked out for the entire ride home!

But anyway...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, sweet baby girl!!! Mommy and Daddy love you more than you'll ever know! We hope you had the best birthday ever ever ever and are excited for everything that the year ahead will bring! 

xoxoxox

- Chinese meets V-Day -

I never pen posts at nighttime after Harper goes to bed [usually because I fall halfway asleep whilst rocking her and then am just in a zombied-out daze until I eventually coax my groom to bed a couple hours later]...........but tonight for dinner we had the WORST WORST WORST Chinese carryout ever and I'm scared that I'll die in my sleep after ingesting it soooo I'mma just prolong the inevitable and throw down a few final thoughts before I croak.  ...I've been sitting on the Valentine's Day photos for almosttt a month now, and I will never forgive myself if I die before sharing the heart holiday love. <3 <3

...I'll get back to V-Day in a second...but first can we just talk about that carryout food again real quick?

We realized on the way out of Mass that we didn't have any food to cook at home, so I twisted Brian's arm [not too hard] for just ONE small order of sesame chicken and rice + a side order of crab rangoon. We haven't ordered Chinese since before Harper could eat solid foods [soooo it's been a hot minute - AKA like over a year and a half], but tonight seemed like the perfect night to break Paleo and dive back in to sodium/carb/gluten heaven. [We've only been doing Paleo since breakfast time this morning ...but I did have a small cheat at lunch.]  So anyway, I won the rock/paper/scissors contest and Brian traipsed off into the hole-in-the-wall "restaurant" to get the food.  Five minutes later he came out and set the bag on my lap.  Three seconds later we both noticed a very potent burnt rubber-type smell ...and one millisecond later we had all the windows down in the car and were hanging our heads out and gasping for air.

The next mistake was not dropping the grease-soaked bag in the trash dumpster on the way into the house.

But no.

We brought it in because we were starving.  The taste was only slightly better than the smell; Harper took one look at it and pushed her plate across the table while her [not so smart] parents continued to nibble on grizzly chicken soaked in burnt grease.  As soon as "dinner" was finished, we scraped off the leftovers into their original containers, wrapped the containers in three layers of plastic grocery bag, and escorted the grocery bags to the garage dumpster.

...And to top it off, I've been diffusing the strongest "bad-smell-eliminating" essential oils for THREE HOURS now and the house still smells like a car screeching its tires on the Autobahn.

SH*T BE SO NASTYYYY.

Brian called dibs on the master bathroom several hours ago, which usually is a pretty frightening declaration that lets me know it's only safe to breathe in the guest bathroom for the next three days; but I can't say in this circumstance that I'm expecting it to come out smelling that much worse than it went in.

Moral of the story: never ever ever everrrrrr go to Orient Wok Chop Suey!!! 

Now! On to my last plethora of photo-posting before that sesame chicken does me in...

On to Valentine's Day!

We may or may not've gone a little/lot overboard this year with Valentin-ing...

But in the end it was all worth it, because everyone loved their hand-crafted love from sweet Harper!!

We took a pile of Valentines + Minnie Mouse pretzel packs to Harper's daycare classroom; she got to pass them out to all her friends and take part in the Valentine's Day party, too! I loved watching her interact with all her friends and have so much fun in her classroom!  And thennnnn [dun dun dun...] I felt like the worst momma in the history of bad mommas when it was time to leave and she cried....... :/

...Apparently going for long walks in the park and taking selfies witch-o mama is not even a CLOSE second runner-up to being at daycare...

^^When your Valentine just isn't feelin' the love... 

She got over it rull fast when we pulled up to the house and there was a bag of heart cookies and toys waiting on the doorstep! [Thanks, Jill!] Then she marched right down the street to give her friend [future boyfriend?] his homemade gift:

And lastly but very not leastly, Daddy took us on an Orange Leaf date after dinner!  #eatthelove #allthefeels #icecreamisthewaytoawomansheart

[[^^Harper hates selfies. She is not her mother's daughter.]]

It's 10:36 in the pee to the emm ... plus add in that deadly "spring ahead" daylight savings time and THAT makes it 11:36 [which is soooo ridiculously far past my bedtime] so! That's all, folks! I'm signing off for now and probably for forever... #revengeofthesesamechicken

...But for real...Brian just said he's so happy Harper's party is tomorrow afternoon so that if we both die overnight at least someone will be at the house tomorrow afternoon to rescue her from her crib.

Ciao now!