got gilt?!

this is just a quick post to let you know about an amazing website that i am in love with. some of you are already members, but for those of you who have not joined yet, you totally should. gilt group offers some really great products for a fraction of the retail price. it is free to join, all you have to do is sign up. there are seriously no catches, and no strings attached. just wait for their email notifications, and then pounce on the great deals. i have ordered from them twice, and have been more than delighted with both purchases. this is what i received yesterday!

i love plan toys, and was really excited when i saw that they were being featured on gilt.com. this airport set retails for a hundred dollars, and i got it for less than a quarter of that price! score! i am going to stash it away for malcolm until christmas. i hope he loves it as much as i do, haha.

last month i got a paul frank diaper bag for a great price too, but i'm gonna hold onto it until we (hopefully) have another baby. i am really only interested in their children's sales but they also offers steals on high end mens & womens clothing and also things for the home (way out of my price range, yikes!) so anyway, check it out if you are interested.

sorry for my lack of posts, it has been really busy around here. we are still getting settled in our new house, but we are working hard on getting everything organized and in its proper place. we have purged sooo much stuff too. it is insane the amount of "stuff" we have accumulated in the past 5 years. and more importantly little malcolm in his short two and a half years on this planet. he had way too much stuff, it was starting to consume our house, haha.

i've been collecting things since the move, cleaning out the kids closets of unwanted and outgrown items, and getting them tagged for the local kids exchange that happens twice a year in raleigh. we dropped off all of our stuff last night, and tomorrow we will be shopping the sale for new things at bargain prices. but don't worry, there is no way that we could ever bring home close to the amount of stuff that we are selling. and here's hoping that most of our items do sell, so that we won't have to bring them back home again. i'm mostly interested in clothes and a few things for malcolm (a bed rail). i will post about what we scored after the weekend.

i will also do my best to post a friday favorites book this week. i meant to do one last friday, but all of my books are still packed away in boxes. oh moving, how you have exhausted me ;)

perfect

this has been circulating around facebook. i stole it from someones page. what a perfect answer. this pretty much sums up my entire life :)

(click the image to enlarge)

summer fun, micmacs, & the fourth

vicky brought alanna home from camp on saturday afternoon. she had a lot of fun, like we had expected. she got to ride horses, swim, hike, and hang out with kids her age for the week. we still need to drop off her disposable cameras to be developed, but if any of the photos turn out, i will post them here. it's nice to have her home.

on friday evening we stopped at kmart to get a few things for malcolm. he needed new shoes terribly, and we found him some really cute toy story sneakers there. we also picked up a plastic kiddie pool, and a garden hose. he is in heaven in his new little pool :)

i waited until alanna came home, to pick these two giant cucumbers! they are the only things to have grown so far in our little "pot garden", and we were pretty excited to have our first ever homegrown organic veggies! we sliced them up and ate them the other day, and they were crisp and delicious!

sadly, while alanna was away at camp, a guy came and pressure washed our new house (at the request of the owner) and killed almost all of our plants. vicky and i were over at the old house cleaning when it happened, and since no one was home he just sprayed everything without moving any of the plants. what an asshole! how lazy and inconsiderate. we came home to a bleached house/sidewalk/driveway, and dead shriveled up plants. luckily a few were spared, including these cucumbers (which were away from the house), the spider plants, and one squash. but all of the tomatoes were toast.

vicky is so sweet, and was kind enough to bring us a bunch of new plants when she brought alanna home. so we are starting over again. wish us luck with this second batch of plants. i will take a photo of them soon, since we just cleaned out the planter where they are now living.

vicky stayed with the kids, and danny and i went on a date. i guess this was our official anniversary date, since we were only able to grab lunch last week. we drove to durham, had lunch at the cosmic cantina (we love that place), and then went to a movie at the local independent theater. we saw a french film called micmacs, and it was wonderful! seriously, it was such a fun movie. i loved watching every single second of it. if you have the opportunity, go see it.

the outside of the carolina theater

after the movie, we stopped at whole foods for a treat. danny got a cookie, and i was hoping that they would have a vegan cupcake, but they didn't, so instead i enjoyed a tiny non-dairy sorbet. i chose pineapple basil, and it was amazing! sounds like a strange flavor combo, but it was surprisingly good.

on sunday the kids and i went to a bbq at our friend lia's house. we aren't very patriotic, and we don't really celebrate the 4th of july much, but it was nice to hang out with friends, spend the day outside, and eat delicious vegan food. danny has severe social anxiety... so he opted to stay home. what a party pooper.

the kids had a lot of fun swinging in their hammock

after the cookout we went home to cool off, napped a little, and then headed back outside to do a little yard work. we decided to skip going to see fireworks this year, because the traffic and crowds are too much of a headache. plus we didn't want to keep malcolm out that late. but by the time the sun had set, our neighborhood was full of it's own little fireworks show. so we sat on the front lawn and enjoyed watching others set off their store bought explosives. we are really loving this new location. it was a really good day.

malcolm had a long tiring day, running around in the heat. just before bed, i found him like this, totally passed out on the couch, haha! not much different from last year :)

danny took monday off of work, since the post office and shipping services were all closed. we spent the day working on the house, running errands, and then we got takeout for dinner and ate it as his new shop. this is the view from the back of his business complex. when he takes out the trash, he has this beautiful view of a marsh full of deer, and cranes, and railroad tracks. pretty awesome.

alanna is growing up so fast. she gets more and more beautiful every day.

when we got home, malcolm ran through the sprinkler in the nude!

danny ran through it too! it was hilarious. our new neighbors probably think we are insane. naked wet babies running around in our yard in the dark, haha! last night we also gave malcolm his bath in the pool on the front lawn. he was out there swimming already, and it just seemed easier to wash him there, rather than take him in and put him in the tub. yep, that's how we roll. summertime around here is grand!

if you need us...

i don't think i have ever mentioned here before, that there is a park in our neighborhood. we hardly ever visited it, because the playground was so old and boring. i took malcolm to the baby swings a few times, but mostly we would just stroll or ride our bikes past it and not stop.

we've lived in the same area for five years. our first little house (that we loved, but had to leave because we needed a third bedroom for malcolm) was about five minutes from this park. so alanna and i would ride our bikes through it. then we moved to our last house which was also about five minutes away, but on the other side of the neighborhood. now our current house is right in the middle of the two, and it is only two blocks from the park. like a two minute walk.

the weather has been perfect this week, so on wednesday malcolm and i went for a quick stroll up to the park to see the new playground that has just been installed. wow, were we blown away! this new equipment is amazing! malcolm had a blast on it. we will be spending much of our time here, i'm sure. so if you need to find us, we're at the park! :)

the toddler playground

a seesaw! haven't seen one of these at a park in years!

and over at the big playground
(this thing spins)

it really is so much larger than these photos show

and the trees surrounding it are giant and beautiful

what a wonderful addition to our lovely neighborhood. we are pretty stoked, to say the least.

sunday

alanna headed off to 4H camp on sunday morning. the house is so quiet without her here. malcolm keeps asking where she is. we are starting to miss her... but i'm sure she is delighted to be away, haha. it's been raining a bit in raleigh this week, so i wonder if she has been rained on as well? her camp is a couple hours from us, towards the mountains. they are supposed to camp out under the stars one night, so i hope that didn't get rained out. anyway, here are a couple photos that dan took when they dropped her off at the bus.

on sunday afternoon, malcolm and i went to a birthday party at my friend lana's house, for her daughter addison who is turning two. you can compare photos from last year here. it's crazy how much they have grown up in a year. funny that malcolm still fits in those swim trunks. last summer they were a little big, this summer they are a little snug. we had a lot of fun, and the kids had a blast playing in the water.

addison is so cute, and so sweet. makes me want a little girl again (sorry danny).

it was a busy party, there were lots of adults there, and most of them i did not know. so i kind of just sat on the sideline and watched the kids play etc. but it was nice to see lana in a good mood, and enjoying herself. a week and a half ago her father was killed in a motorcycle accident. which is so sad and so tragic. i know it has been really hard on her, and that she has had a terrible couple of weeks. so i am glad that she was able to celebrate her daughters special day with lots of her friends, and have a good time.

fathers day, wet 'n wild, anniversary

okay, so here is a recap of the past week. i'm gonna try and do my best to post more regularly and more often, so that each post isn't so long. sorry for the photo overload.

on fathers day we were going to work on moving and go grocery shopping... but i talked danny into playing hookie from chores and errands, and we went and saw toy story 3 instead. much better! we loved the movie. it made me cry and cry. danny thought it was a little too sentimental, but he still enjoyed it. malcolm sat well for most of it, and he got pretty scared a couple times. we kept him preoccupied during the slower parts with a giant tub of popcorn, way too much soda (tisk, tisk) and dum dums, haha.

on monday vicky came over to help me pack and move stuff over to the new house. she was very helpful, and we got tons of stuff done. after we got the first load of boxes packed into my car, i went to slowly shut the tailgate, and i heard a loud pop and then a fizzing noise, and smoke and powder filled the air. it was crazy, and it scared the crap out of me. i was super confused for a minute until the dust finally settled, then i realized that the boxes had pushed up against a fire extinguisher that was back there, and it emptied it's entire contents all over the car. it was awful. what a mess! i have never had to clean up anything like that before. this picture doesn't quite show how much powder was back there. it blanketed every inch of the interior, and took forever to vacuum out. there is still some of it that i missed, and i don't think that my dyson will ever be the same.

the kids on monday night

on tuesday we decided to take a day off from cleaning and packing, and we went to the water park. we still had rain checks from last year that were due to expire on the 30th, and since alanna would be heading off to camp this weekend, we needed to use them before she was gone.

danny went with us this time in place of vicky. he was not a happy camper, and he described it as "his worst nightmare". haha. he had never been to a water park before. ever. (which i didn't know until we got there) so it was a shock to his system. he was not prepared, and he was totally bummed out. but by the end of the day, he was in a better mood. he enjoyed watching malcolm play in the kids pools, while i had fun with alanna on the water slides.

you might not be able to tell... but this is a massive bruise on my knee. a battle wound from moving, i suppose?!

it was really, really hot out

this little water slide totally traumatized malcolm. he cried the whole way down it. it was so sad.

but he really enjoyed walking around the wading pools

and the pretty lifeguard enjoyed watching him :)

this is face was me being pissed about some older kid who splashed malcolm right in the face, while his mother sat there and watched. it was shitty. some kids/parents suck so much.

we went down a kid-friendly water slide a few times

this lifeguard liked malcolm too!

and we ended the day with a slow trip down the lazy river. malcolm started to drift off, but was wide awake again when it was time to get out.

it was a fun trip, but i don't know if we will go back again. danny says he would much rather take us on a trip to the beach, than ever go back there again. and i agree, i'd rather go to the beach where there are less people surrounding us. and less chlorine. and more nature.

yesterday vicky came to the house to pick up alanna for her trip to camp. she always stays the night at their house, and then boards the bus to camp in the morning. she was really excited for camp this year. i hope she has a good week. since vicky was already coming out here, she was sweet enough to watch the kids for us so we could go out to eat lunch for our anniversary. we ate some tasty thai food. thanks again vicky!

i gave danny the new htc evo phone for fathers day. since it was a bit pricey, i didn't really get him an anniversary gift, which he didn't mind. not very romantic, be he absolutely loves this new phone, so i know he is happy.

this is the very thoughtful gift that danny gave me

remember my post about "i am a bunny"?! he made me my very own framed prints! how totally sweet, i love, love, love it! he just used one of the board books, and then found a frame that fit the images well. he tried to get one that would hold all four seasons, but he could only find ones with three spaces. but it's okay, i don't mind leaving summer out, it is my least favorite season since i don't like the heat and humidity, haha (although i do love the rain in the illustration). he says i can switch them out too. i cannot wait to find the perfect place to hang it in this new house. thank you so much danny.

and this may seem silly, but i got myself an anniversary gift too. i ordered this necklace awhile back, and it came in the mail last week. i LOVE it! it turned out perfect. i got it from lisa leonard designs and i chose the sweetheart tree because the 5th anniversary gift is wood. perfect indeed. there are a few other items on her site that i would love to order too. she makes very lovely pieces.


my parents sent us this, this week. we stayed at the new york, new york casino when we were married in las vegas. what a thoughtful postcard. thanks mom and dad! we love you guys.



after malcolm was in bed, danny and i ended the night with a little "bubbly" (italian soda) in our fancy glasses that we were given at the graceland wedding chapel. they were a gift from dannys parents, since they could not attend the ceremony. we joked about watching our vhs tape of the wedding... but opted to start season 6 of entourage instead, haha. it was a nice day :)