december, part 2! (without littles)

A Sunday with CJ at his new downtown apartment!

On the rooftop of his new place... I wanted to get a selfie with Pegasas in the background... and you can barely see it, haha.

It's been so chilly which is JUST SO DARN LOVELY.

Existenial Puppy is very important to me (and requires video since a photo just doesn't capture the turtleneck well, haha)

R stumbled upon a mashed potato recipe with BLUE CHEESE AND BALSAMIC VINEGAR AND HOW DID I MARRY THIS GUY?! 

Me, a professional wine drinker. ;)

The picture I used for my gift, haha (I'm sure I posted this before but worth repeating, obvs.)

HILARY VISIT, EEEE! We picked her and Zach up from the airport and 10pm on Friday and they spent the night. It was... just the best. :)

Some of my recent make-up acquisitions thanks to my bonus gift card and HILARY BEING AN ANGEL. 

Making dinner for Hilary, Zach + Betsy and James who came to pick them up!

Very artistic, obvs.

Why document buttered bread? WHY NOT.

Our gingerbread hoose! I had a wild hair to pick one up on the way to the airport, considering the last time we made a gingerbread train was 10 freaking years ago, what the heck. :)

Lobster mac n' cheese, cauliflower and toasty breads!

I like this one because James looks annoyed at me taking all the pictures, haha.

The honestly reminds me of a Renaissance painting, hahaha.

Getting ready for Debbie and Aaron's party after the Collins Crew left... whew!

ASHLEE WAS HERE.

Not pictured:

- Shopping for my own Christmas gifts this year (jammie upgrades and gorgeous green coat, thanks to Hilary's suggestion, all from J. Crew) because some Christmases you just have to make things easy and exciting and that's ok. 

- Going to see The Shape of Water on a TUESDAY, WHAT IS (kid-free) LIFE

- Watching Broad City, Tiffany Haddish and Michelle Wolfe with Hilary while we lounge and make our gingie-bread hoose :)

- In a true 2017 role-refersal... all the boys (Zach, Richard and James) in the kitchen with R cooking while the ladies (me, Hilary and Betsy) watch "I Will Never Be Your Woman" in the living room, teehee

- Learning I need to plan ahead on what I would like to do when the kids aren't here for more than a weekend because changes like that are weird!

And after the cut is a million more pictures of Hilary and I because I never get to see her or be in pictures with her and we looked adorable in all of them so I WANNA KEEP THEM FOREVER. :) 

december: round 1! (with littles)

Sadie getting her turn with the big rocket! (Actually happened Thanksgiving weekend but WHATEVER)

Me getting into the TimeHop app, haha.

3 car hit-and-run after getting Sadie to the eye doctor one Monday. :( No one was hurt, thanks goodness, but Sadie and I waited TWO HOURS for the police to NOT SHOW UP. UGH.

Emily's school project, which is legit AMAZING.

I MEAN, REALLY.

Our own Santa picture at the yearly Hesse Party! :)

Donut sweatshirt and cookie scarf!!!

I told R to get the train up and running this year, which was met with gusto. He and R3 had a blast getting it together!!! (There's a bigger video on my harddrive with the full set-up but here's a clip below!)

Sadie's first band concert! We got pants specially tailored and e'erything!

Not impressed we had to sit on the floor of the junior high gym, haha.

Emily, fingering along/reliving her youth. ;P

and Mema was came!

(Pic to prove I was actually there too, haha)

A final goodbye to my amazing hair/outfit that day, RIP.

Snuggling with Sadie on the last morning before they went to their mom's for 13 days!!!

Not pictured:

- Sadie loosing her bike lock, ughhhh.

- R and I going to see Ladybird and LOVING IT!!!

- Getting all the kids new clothes... me with Sadie, R with R3, and Meghan with Emily. WHAT A JOURNEY. (I needed R and R3 to go with me to give me the patience to deal with Sadie's particular brand of shopping, haha)

- A million work parties (pictures on my big hard-drive, who wants to remember work parties in the long run, lolz)

2017 family santa picture!

Easily our greatest Santa picture yet!!! The kids were bickering and griping the entire way up there, but after all these years they know when to shut up and smile for DAD'S FAVORITE PICTURE, hahaha. 

thanksgiving weekend :)

The upside to me being sick all weekend is forcing myself to be in bed/on couch all day (with a few loads of laundry to keep my legs from going numb! 🙃)... meaning I can throw up some pictures and video fairly quickly!

We've had a lovely little family weekend. Despite my ER visit early Friday morning, Richard still managed to clock in a half-shift at work and started working on rockets with R3 & Sadie right when he came home. That guy! 😍 So in between lots of movies and Great British Baking Show: Master Class, we took the littles out to the park to shoot rockets. And then Meggie came over for dinner unexpectedly!

Rockin' the park bench (before we moved elsewhere for rocket launching).

Ready to go! (Sadie and Richard's rockets were too small for this big launch pad - unfortunately! - so they moved their launches to another day) There's a big video of the launch on my hard-drive. :)

And then after a successful launch... we spent 30 minutes knocking on doors asking people if we could look in their backyards for our rocket, hahaha. (The wind pushed it so far over! And it was a $50 rocket!) But... it didn't land in the creek, fortunately! R just had to scale a wall behind a neighbor's house to get that sucker, haha. Thank goodness for friendly neighbors!

We got it! And did one more shoot before heading home. :)

Meggie stopped by for dinner! And all my littles in green shirts... :)

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Meghan also showed me all these pictures from June that I had never seen of the girls before... sisters and their photo shoots! More after the jump.