BIG Secret

I've tried hiding it, covering it up, pretending like everything's normal.  But I can't hide it anymore.  I think the time has come to let the proverbial cat out of the bag.
Maybe you've noticed some strange things going on with me lately...If you've seen me at the grocery store, you may have seen me wandering up and down the aisles, grabbing whatever suits my fancy - ice cream, chips, frozen pizzas, bean dip, donuts - certainly not my normal food choices.  Perhaps you've seen me in the car leaving said grocery store, voraciously tearing into a box of popsicles.  Or you could have seen me leaving the gym with half a pop-tart hanging from my mouth (all the studies indicate they are the best post-workout snack, after all, right?).  Maybe you called me at 9:00 a.m. and learned that I was eating a heaping plate of spaghetti for my second (or maybe third) meal of the day.  Perhaps you saw me at a restaurant scarfing down cheese dip, chicken tenders, and fries.  Or maybe you've just seen me lately in my baggy attire and thought to yourself, "She's really let herself go."
So, yes, I am now here to confirm all of the rumors...It's true, I have decided to quit being a lawyer and a group fitness instructor, and I am taking up the new profession of competitive eating!  Can't you see it:  me sitting on a stage on the 4th of July cramming as many hot dogs as possible into my mouth.  The glory of it all is almost too overwhelming!
What?  "You don't even like hot dogs," you say.  Well, it is true that, generally speaking, hot dogs are about the last thing I would be caught eating...Although, they are starting to seem more appetizing the more we talk about them...
But I digress.  OK.  You've got me.  I'm not ever going to be a competitive eater.  But I still have great reason for eating so much.  Or perhaps I should say reasons.  You see, my waste line is not the only thing growing.

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Party of 5!

We're excited to announce that our family is growing by twenty fingers and twenty toes!
Did you catch that?  We're having not one but two babies!  They're due in October, and we can't wait to meet them!
In the meantime, I will continue to eat as much as I can (maybe even hot dogs...) so that I won't feel as sick and so that they can be as big and healthy as possible when they're born.
And there's our big secret!
And if you see me eating some unusual things, now you know why.  Please don't judge. 

A Baby No More

If you've seen Caleb in the past few months, you may have noticed that his hair has become a bit, shall we say, disheveled...unkempt...wild. 

 While I knew a haircut was inevitable, I couldn't bring myself to cut away those sweet baby curls quite yet.  Tony, on the other hand, had no qualms about it, and he took it upon himself to make a few choice cuts here and there.  I found this on the bathroom counter:

And here's Caleb with his new do:

Now he looks more like a boy than a baby.  We still need to figure out what to do about that cowlick...

Mama Mia!

I've been craving my mom's spaghetti lately, and, to my sheer delight, she brought by a large tupperware container full of the delicious pasta earlier this week.  I wasn't the only happy one...

Caleb, who had never before expressed much interest in my spaghetti, took a big bite (from his fork, no less!) and exclaimed, "Yum!"
So I guess it's unanimous.  Ra ra makes the best spaghetti...or "sghetti" as Caleb says. 

Ready for Some Sun

Spring is in the air, and while Caleb tries to play the cool cat...

...he can usually hardly contain himself...

"Is it time to go outside yet?!"

Snow 2015

 I know...it was a warm and sunny spring day today, but just a few weeks ago we were the recipients of several inches of snow.  We weren't quite properly prepared with thick, water-proof coats, and snow boots, so we made do:  layers, thick boots, and a pair of socks for mittens.  It worked fine for our purposes.  We didn't stay out in it long, but we had fun.
Last year when it snowed, this is how Caleb looked when we first went out in it:

 This year:

 He loved catching the fat snowflakes on his tongue!  His little cheeks weren't as red as last year, but the snowflakes still got caught in those luscious lashes of his.  We couldn't get him to make a snow angel like last year, though...maybe next year.

Neat Freak or Soup Nazi?

So this happened tonight after dinner:

I was trying to pour the extra minestrone soup I had made for dinner into a freezer bag for future enjoyment.  Not realizing that the soup was still really hot, I accidentally touched some of it, causing me to jump...and the soup to spill onto the counter...and inside the drawer...and down the cabinet...and inside the cabinet...and into the floor...and all over my pants and shoes.  I'm sure I made some sort of ecstatic utterance to mark the occasion.  While I was of course angry over the mess, Caleb took it to a whole other level. 
He started shouting, "Oh, no! Oh, no!" over and over again for nearly a minute.  The kid was literally on the verge of tears and a melt down.  He was only consoled by Mommy holding him and reassuring him that it was going to be OK. 
He was either flipping out over the colossal mess on his clean(ish) floor.  Or he was devastated over the waste of perfectly good soup.  Seeing as he never seems to mind a mess on the floor and he didn't even eat any of said soup, I'm going with a different theory.  I think my little sweetheart could tell that Mommy was upset (for the aforementioned reasons), and he just wanted to mourn with those who mourn (over spilled soup).  I must admit, it made a frustrating and messy situation much more bearable - to see him so upset probably for no other reason than it made me upset.  It took me a while to clean up the soup, but I had a smile on my face the whole time thinking of how precious our sweet boy is.

Numbers Everywhere

Have you ever noticed that there are numbers literally everywhere you turn?  I never did until Caleb learned to say and identify them.  Now, we'll be walking through a parking lot, and he will shout "2!" or "9!" when he sees them on a license plate.  Or we'll be in the store and he'll shout "8!" or "3!" as we pass the check-out lanes or a sale sign.  Maybe we have a mathematician-in-the-making on our hands!

 Mathematicians wear overalls, right?