if i were rich: jeffrey campbell edition

i haven't done an "if i were rich" post in a while, so i thought it would be appropriate to do one with my current obsession: jeffrey campbell. his shoes are to die for, and i would love to wear any of them. here are some of my favorites:

link

link. i think they're sold out of this color now, which is a huge shame!

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there are also tons of other awesome ones like this, but i couldn't get the pictures to save. anyways, aren't they glorious? i'm seriously in love. if anyone wants to buy me every single pair of these, my shoe size is an 8 ;)

first week back (boo)

this past week was my first week back at work... it was kind of tough, but went alright. monday was the worst, and when we dropped henry off i was BAWLING. i may have even been hyperventilating a little bit in the car, and i definitely got so worked up that somehow i got a bloody nose too. basically, i was a hot mess.

thankfully we have henry in the BEST of hands during the day, which is a huge peace of mind. plus Sarah is totally cool with me texting her all the time and asking how henry is [hopefully she won't get tired of that....haha]. apparently all the cousins love on henry all the time, which is super sweet too. when we drop him off in the morning (at 6:15am!), griffin is always there with sarah to greet us, and sometimes lila is too. and when i pick him up at the end of the day they always say "byeeee henwyyyy!" at least 5 times before i leave. so adorable :)

another thing that is helping is that i'm actually good at my job, so everyone missed me. and now that i'm back they all tell me how much they missed me and how awesome i am and stuff, which is a big self-confidence booster ;) haha. of course, i also have a picture of henry as my desktop background, and i look at it all the time and smile. and i show everyone who comes into my office his picture, because he's so cute i just can't help it!

it's definitely a big adjustment, and i've had a meltdown or two, but i'm pretty sure i'm going to survive. plus it will be nice to see those bills keep going down, down, down! [imagine rant about student loans and how college is basically a sham, etc, because now is not the time or place to get into that. maybe another day... ;)]. if you're getting a hankering to see little henry and all his dazzling accomplishments, check out his blog.

also, thank you to everyone who has sent me sweet messages and emails and encouragement this week about going back to work. i really appreciate it ♥

success!

ok, so it took me until saturday to make these, BUT i had a reason for that. it was my friend sarah's bridal shower that night, so i was waiting for that to make them. so it may not have been accomplished in exactly a week from my post, but close enough. i was pleasantly surprised how easy baking was with a kitchenaid. you just dump stuff in and it turns all beautiful and perfect looking. it was amazing!

so...my cupcakes weren't as beautiful as the ones i found on pinterest, but i'm not a magician! plus i don't have special frosting tools. and i skipped making the ganache, because i figured they'd be delicious enough as they were. and no worries, they were scrumptious. the only problem with these was that the rolo's that were inside the batter melted down to the bottom of the cupcake liner, and were stuck on there. i even froze them and everything like the recipe said, so who knows what i did wrong. i baked a few in my silicone cupcake liners, and those were fine because the rolo's peeled right off. moral of the story? just bake everything in silicone cups (i would have if i hadn't been bringing them to a party...wah wahhhhh).

now, what should i make next in my kitchenaid!?

work

i go back to work on monday. i'm not exactly looking forward to it...

growing up i always said i wanted to be a career woman. i'm not sure if it's been some sort of twisted feminism thing where i want to be some sort of power woman, or if i didn't ever fully see the value in stay-at-home moms, or if i thought i wouldn't be a good mom or would have a hard time, or if i wanted to do it as a statement of my independence. i think it was some sort of messed up cocktail of all those things...

well, i've learned some things over time, and some interesting things recently:
-feminism is the right to choose to work or stay at home, not some need to become wonder woman
-being a stay-at-home mom is hard work and incredibly valuable
-i love being a mom. i never knew i could love a tiny human being so much
-i'm allowed to rely on other people if i want to (like my husband, and vice versa)

overall, i've definitely surprised myself by realizing i would love to stay at home with henry. and someday i probably will. but we've decided that right now the best thing we can do for our future is to have me work right now. we have really good jobs, we have built-in childcare only 10 minutes away, and we have a lot of bills. add these all up together, and working makes perfect sense. we're taking advantage of our current situations while we have them, and being really aggressive about paying back student loans and medical bills (remember that kidney stone from a couple years back? yeah...thanks). then we can reevaluate our situation in a year or two.

and with all these realizations i've been having over time, i have one more to add to the list: it doesn't make me any less of a person or a mother to go back to work. i still love this adorable face just as much:

fail.

i got a kitchenaid mixer for christmas, and it's still in the box. FAIL. sometimes i feel like baking, but these times usually come when a baby is crying or theres laundry to do... i really feel like making cupcakes, so my goal is that i WILL make cupcakes using my kitchenaid within this next week... here are some yummy recipes i've found on pinterest that i am considering:

chocolate chip cookie dough cupcake

andes mint cupcake

rolo cupcakes

opinions? suggestions? i cant wait to eat some cupcaaaaaakes!!!

recent events

on saturday we left henry with a babysitter for the first time. thankfully we have sarah and ryan who are baby pros, and they were nice enough to watch him. we went out with emily and dave to dinner at costa vida, and then to the movies. we saw "the grey", which i personally thought was just ok. i can see how people like it, but it was too emotional for me. i lasted about an hour and a half until i texted sarah to see how henry was doing. thankfully he was fine and had a good night over there (here's the proof):


sarah watched henry again yesterday while i went to the dentist. you know that one filling that i have? as in, the only filling that i have? that tooth has been hurting, and of course i got all paranoid-y and was worried i might need a root canal. it ended up being another cavity (that tooth just doesn't like me i guess!), so i got a filling. it was a nice little valentines day present.

speaking of valentines day, it's not a huge holiday around these parts. but like i said on facebook yesterday, "I love my husband every day of the year. But I'll just throw it out there that I'll never say no to candy..." lets face it, if theres a holiday that involves me getting candy, i'm down.

also, henry is 2 months old today (whaaat?). i did a blog post about it here. let's just say it, he's getting kind of old... ;)

baby blessing

this past weekend we had henry's baby blessing (in the LDS church we don't baptize babies, we give babies blessings. then they can get baptized at age 8 or older). my family came up from arizona and spent the weekend with us, which was fun. my dad and sister hadn't met henry before, so it was their first time to see him in real life! here are some pics from sunday, and i'll post more over on oh henry.

their first grandchild!

mimi and bear

my family, with the little munchkin :)

it was a really good day ♥

we were so glad to have all our families and friends together, and to be able to bless Henry. it was a lovely experience and we had a fabulous weekend.

dear sarah,

here you go. wish granted, minus the long hair:


sincerely, josh