The Big Reveal

The party went very well all things considered. I look terrible in these photos but I guess I'll get over it. Good thing Turtle looks good enough for the both of us right now. So as this is not a big surprise thanks to some if you would like to take 3 minutes of your life to watch....go ahead. Obvi I took this cute video idea from MODG whom we follow in our reading list so I hope she's flattered and not offended. I have no creative genius and literally made this video in an hour and a half with limited knowledge of iMovie and actually uploading it to youtube.

VIDEO


I hope you enjoy.

The Housewife

Friday and Mild Anxiety Attacks

#1 has been left with P and Big J (better known as Grammie and Grandpa) for the last 24 hours which has allowed me to accomplish some major party details. By that I mean I've been running between Joann's and Michael's like a mad woman re-thinking and searching for hidden treasures that are supposed to jump out at you and say, "Look at me, I'm perfect.....and I'm on clearance too!"  Not so much. I saw one thing at Michael's yesterday and came home and actually found a cool idea online (crazy, right?) so I went back out to get it and more supplies today. Well, apparently someone else needed the only one they had there. GREAT.....as I'm screaming obscenities in my head on the way out to my car. But I'm continuing on with my plan in hopes that the Michael's near my meeting ground for pick up/drop off with P has it. They have to. Otherwise Turtle will be getting a detailed email and stopping at the other one across town from me to pick it up, because it will surely be there if it's not at the one I'm going to. I'm glad everyone is on board.


I'm a big fan of Tori Spelling and she throws such amazing parties. Now, I know that she has more money than I do but she is completely behind all of the ideas and in her reality show is usually seen doing a lot herself because she really enjoys it. Plus, she simply a genius because she has come up with tons of plays on her name- like she should freaking copyright "tori." It's clear she is a perfectionist which probably helps. Me? Not so much.

Not that anyone is following this with baited breath about the genders of my babies but I will do my best to get a post up on Monday or Tuesday with the news. With this also comes a gag order on the Single Gal for tweeting any information to y'all.  Isn't this yellow dessert table super sweet?? She has a calling for sure with entertaining. I wish she would do a home decorating book........wonder what that could be called?

Have a great weekend! Little A is coming to visit the Single Gal so I will be taking a break from all party planning for a some girl time on Saturday. Sunday is the big reveal day.

The Housewife

Housewife Craft Wars

I was tweeting with a friend a week or so ago and we were debating whether Pinterest was actually inspiring or just deflating? I think any of us with young kids can agree that a simple birthday party for our kids has been raised to a completely different level. While I do think some people just pay a good amount of money for certain things there are a lot of talented moms out there who can simply do it all themselves- the McGuyvers of DIY. However, I feel like if you don't have a sewing machine, Circut, Silhouett and Photoshop you are up a big creek. The odds are stacked against you....and let's not even talk about the learning curve that comes with these machines or computer programs. I enjoy the ideas and trying new things from Pinterest but am I the only one who just gets disappointed with the outcome of what I attempt to do? I feel like #1's birthday party was a little bit of a let down but sometimes you have to do things for "you" and Mom had to run 20 miles before the party. So talk to me after you get that done before your kids birthday party.

This is just to come full circle to the Gender Reveal party we are having Sunday. I am not trying to go overboard but it would be nice if I could pull off some small, fun and creative details as intimidating as googling images of "gender reveal party" turns out to be. My main project is a fabric bunting banner and I am using the tutorial from craftaholics anonymous.

Fabric Bunting Banner

I had some old fabric that I used for my "test" flags. I never said I was the brightest crayon in the box and anytime I am sewing something new I just take my time to think things through and then make my cuts/sew the seams, etc. #1 was not super cooperative with the nap schedule yesterday so I was only able to figure out the test product. I was able to make all my cuts and sew all the bunting flags last night. I just got some fat quarters from Joann's to go with my yellow/gray/black color scheme.

finished bunting flags

I'll be sure to post the finished product but I have to finish it first. I have a standing play-date with a friend and her daughter who is 13 weeks older than #1 and then we met the Single Gal at Chick-fil-a for a ladies lunch. The Single Gal was sweet enough to put little drops of ketchup on all of #1's shredded chicken nugget bites while I ate my meal. Then I had to run to Buy Buy Baby for a new diaper pail because I bought the cheapest one they make and it broke the other day. Of course that's not all we ended up coming home with but more on that another day. I have plenty of little details to try to figure out for this party (oh the pressure we put on ourselves) on Sunday.

Picked these up today!!

I'm going to enjoy the details of getting things done for this party so I'm off to attach the flags to the bias tape. I will permit myself to be pleased with what I accomplish and try not to compare myself to unrealistic ideas.

The Housewife

Bump Update: 21 Weeks

Ignore my huge arm flab. I blame the photographer. The Single Gal. 

We had a very successful 20 week appointment last Friday and both babies were in full cooperation for their respective gender scan. I have no more previa at all and at this time they do not think Baby A's cord insertion is an issue. Yay.  I've gained 15 lbs so far........in my opinion that isn't so bad for pregnancy #2 or a twin pregnancy period. Now, I'm sure it's all downhill from here and I will look like a bus soon. My Grandmother called last night and kindly reminded me of this. She said, "I bet you're getting big, big, big!" In her defense, this is my mom's mother hence prior twin pregnancy witness. However, it felt like she said "fat, fat, fat," and that's is what keeps ringing in my ears. Unfortunately I've basically been on an 9 week gym hiatus due to the previa restrictions I was placed on. I have started going back this week for some easy cardio so hopefully that will help out some.

I guess I will talk about the gender reveal here as well. I decided to go ahead with a super small party instead of my other plan. I still really wanted to do my original plan but due to some other circumstances out of my control and other people's control I have deemed it too complicated. I'll be honest. When things start to get complicated for something special I'm trying to do I just end up getting pissed off and then I don't even enjoy it because I'm so pissed off about every little thing that keeps coming up. I'm not a complicated person and I really try to keep things simple. So, I'm taking pride in knowing myself and doing the very over done gender reveal party. With that said I have two weeks to figure out decorations, and no we are not getting the inside of a cake colored blue/pink for the reveal. My Grandmother also asked if we knew the genders when I spoke to her last night.

Housewife: They were able to see them but I had them sealed on envelopes so we can do a gender reveal on 29th.
Grandmother: Oh well you can just go ahead and tell me now!
Housewife: Grandmother, I don't know the genders. I won't know until the 29th.


My poor husband had the same issue with one of his good friends. He wanted to know the genders, said his wife is dying to know. Turtle explains I wouldn't let us find out yet, explained about the party- yadda yadda yadda. This party also eliminates the big issue any of your parents have with who the hell knew first. Everyone is just like Grandmother, "well you can tell me." So you can tell everyone else but me and then I have no news to tell anyone because it's already been spread before I even had a chance. Fab. If Turtle didn't want to know what these babies were so badly we would be having two delivery day surprises. I had the sealed envelopes in my purse for 4 days and had no desire to look at them. Finding out stresses me out. Psycho-analyze at will. I don't care what they are but this gender thing makes it crazy real or something. I have problems. So, my friend from church (the only one who can be trusted with this information) is helping me out with the big reveal detail of the party.

I'm looking forward to heading to my Aunt's house on the lake this Saturday to spend time with The Single Gal, K-Woww, my Aunt and Uncle, and my cousin's sweet little family.

The Housewife

Tuesday Thoughts

Things on my mind this week: 

“If you expect honesty, be honest. If you expect forgiveness, forgive. If you expect a whole person, you have to be a whole person.”
― Kristen Crockett, The Gift of Past Relationships

Happy Tuesday! I am off to The Spence tonight for Atlanta Supper Club! 

{more on all that to come!}

Love you. Mean it. 

~the single gal~

{Empire State South}

Life's too short not to have 4 hour brunch dates with your best friends.  And life is definitely too short for you to waste any time in stopping by Empire State South {ESS}.  I had dinner there last year and loved this place so I was really excited to drop back in to try brunch.  

I love that you can grab brunch here Saturday OR Sunday and the fact that they also take reservations for brunch gives them like 3 million extra points (side note: almost no restaurants in Atlanta take brunch reservations -- which is incredibly aggravating to me).  ESS is nestled in the downstairs of the huge 999 building at the intersection of 10th and Peachtree.  If you can't find neighborhood parking they will comp your ticket from the deck.  They have a wonderful, quaint courtyard with bocce ball and tables outside for dining.  Did I mention how gorgeous the inside of this place is? I fall over every time I go in there -- whoever {whomever?} decorated that place can come re-do my house anytime.  

{as usual, people don't pay us or give us any kickbacks to endorse anything on this blog unless otherwise noted.} 

**note all images above found online and do not belong to me**

For all you UGA/Athens people these digs are Hugh Acheson's -- we can all thank him now for 5&10 (also amazing) in Athens.  From what I can tell (since we aren't friends and all) he is a really passionate foodie and can put together one hell of a restaurant.  ESS serves breakfast daily, brunch all weekend, and of course -- lunch and dinner.  They also offer little lunch baskets/buckets for carry out which I would be very interested in trying -- they look adorable and are probably incredibly delicious. 

Unlike at The Optimist, I was able to take many instagrams of our trip! Yay! 

peach & beet salad

selection of three pastries:
 cherry cake, blueberry pie thing (can't remember what it actually was called),
& coconut chocolate chip cake

peach bellini - perfect summer brunch drink. it was almost like a
champagne slushy.  i also enjoyed a flight of 3 different Rieslings as seen in the background. 

adorable koozie for your iced coffee in jar. not gonna lie, i wanted to steal it. 

The food was exceptional.  It wasn't crazy crowded.  They didn't try to kick us out even though we stayed past 3.  The pastries were to die for.  I think Elise and I thought we were just going to sample them but we ate every single bite.  We split a breakfast sandwich entree with eggs, bacon,  & ham {had to have room for those pastries}.

But...

{Are you preparing yourself for my one complaint? I know you knew it was coming.}

I did have a few small issues with our server.  It was not crowded and at one point I had to search for him because I was trying to order one more glass of wine before 3 (don't judge).  Also, when we asked for recommendations of which 3 pastries to choose all he initially said was "They are all good" and then we had some empty air between us.  Almost like he was offended that we would are try to discriminate between any of the said pastries.  So, I asked him again, nicely to try to pick 3 out for us anyway as we obviously couldn't try all of them.   

For some odd reason I just got the feeling that he really didn't care for us -- and I am not sure why.  I'm willing to give bro the benefit of the doubt.  Maybe Sundays aren't packed and he was tired. Maybe he had a raging hangover and wanted to be anywhere else but there and it wasn't personal.  I do want it known that in giving the benefit of the doubt and in light of the delicious food, I went ahead and tipped him just over 20% even though the level of service wasn't there because I have waited tables before and I get that it's not always rainbows and butterflies.  But that being said -- I am not hard to please. I don't send dishes back or anything like that.  Keep the wine coming and be decently cordial and we won't have any problems.
  

Love you. Mean it. 

~the single gal~

Friday Things

Something beautiful I've been listening to: 

Sailor & I - Tough Love

Thinking of: 

Navy Walls for the half bath with a lighter ceiling color.

west elm white pintuck bedding 

Because I can't live with dog hair showing on everything I currently own. 

Something I am happy about: 

Curtains are finally up in the kitchen.  I bought 3 panels of what I wanted from Target and had The Housewife sew part of the third to two of them so that I could make them much longer and hang them super high like you are supposed to if you want it to look fancy.  3 panels only cost me a total of $60! Many thanks to The Housewife. Without her sewing skills I'd be purchasing something much more expensive instead.  

Wishing you all a lovely Friday and a very fun weekend! I'm sure we have all earned one.

 I promise there are some good posts coming -- a review of brunch at Empire State South, my misadventures at a pub crawl coming up this weekend, and I am attending my first Atlanta Supper Club event at The Spence next Tuesday (seriously excited about this one).

Love you. Mean it.
~the single gal~

Living Room: Before and After Progress

I can't believe my furniture was actually delivered today. It is in my living room and I'm super stoked about how everything has turned out so far. The sectional does not appear to be too large, it is comfortable and the grey herringbone fabric I picked out looks fantastic. I was soooo worried. Custom is great and all but if you fuck it up you have to keep it. It is a non-returnable deal. I will start you off with a few "before" pictures. Keep in mind this was before I turned the bonus room into a playroom for #1 so toys are rampant.

Big ass old TV/Carpet

Before

Here is some info on what is in the new living room so far.
Sectional- LazyBoy Collins Sectional/ Fabric Gray Herringbone
Ottoman- LazyBoy
Rug- Shimmering from Home Decorators Collection
Walls- Sherwin Williams Toasted Pine Nut

From Fireplace

Sectional fabric close up

Ottoman

and big blank wall I still have to deal with

Overall I'd say it's a large improvement. We are picking up a TV console we ordered from Home Decorators Collection tonight and Turtle still has to order the new TV so I'll be sure to post once we have those updates done. Is anyone else doing a large overhaul in their house? I still have to start work on the nursery but it's cleaned out for the most part. I also have to say that the TV console was something we conceded on price wise once we found out we were expecting twins. I found two other options from Restoration Hardware and Pottery Barn that I loved but what we picked will do for now. I feel like I'm doing the best I can with this living room layout. I swear builders figure out everything else in the house and they just throw up a living room randomly in the middle and with much less functional thought.

The Housewife

Something's Gotta Give

Disaster is at my doorstep again.  Literally.  Figuratively.  Take your pick.   I seriously feel like a can't catch a break this year.  It's like I keep jumping over every square on the Monopoly board and I keep landing in jail where I have to pay money to get out.  Or something like that.  I am pretty mentally and emotionally exhausted so I'll just hit some high points. 

-After defeating the Aphids I now have what appears to be a nest of yellow jackets under my azalea bush.  

-Came home Sunday to a broken AC unit.  Finally got someone out to fix it today to the tune of $254. 

-I have leftover blues from the final fight with 3 Putt a couple weeks ago.  A lot of them.  Is it too much to ask that I date someone with the following criteria? Because I think it probably is --  

1) someone who can acknowledge and be responsible for their actions in a relationship

2) someone with a realistic view of dating/relationships/ marriage

3) someone who can deal with conflict.  sweet jesus it's like one fight and they all throw in the towel. game over. 

[OK...getting down from the soap box]

In an effort to finish on a positive note I am giving serious consideration to this next list. 

-I sat down last night to watch re-runs of "Duck Dynasty" and laughed with pure joy for about 2 hours. 

-I called the AC man this morning and he was out here today at 5. And he fixed my problem for me. And he didn't mind that Hogan followed him around continually placing his stuffed toy at his feet. 

-I get to come home to a really silent house which is completely wonderful after talking on the phone at work all day. 

-Big summer storm tonight.  Probably one of my most favorite things ever. 

-That feeling you get when you start a new book. 

Ignore my grammar that more terrible than normal. Bear with the fact that I couldn't work up something funny or grab any online pictures to jazz this post up.  I'm just a girl mending my insides.  It seems to take a bit longer every time.  

Love you. Mean it. 

~the (perpetually) single gal~

There's No Place Like Home

Well.........we're baaaack. As I get older my tolerance for vacation-y things is less and less and I get homesick. Homesick for my own car, my own stocked refrigerator and the freedom of being alone in my own space. We did have a wonderful time and #1 traveled well. The Single Gal's company always makes me feel better on a family trip as well but sadly she was back here...thankfully reachable by phone/email/text/twitter when we needed to communicate. Turtle didn't join me until later in the week and #1 was making me a little weary by that time. #1 loved the water and made leaps and bounds in her swimming confidence.

Happy 4th of July (and I guess her name is not so secret anymore)

So while part of me was wishing I had some ruby slippers to get home quicker than I did (had some weather delays) #1 was completely exhausted by 10:30 and I had had Turtle take her crib down and put up a twin bed while we were gone. Turtle and I were tired ourselves and really kicking ourselves on the way home that we decided it would be a "good idea" to start this bed transition last night. But it worked out because she didn't even move an inch after I tucked her in and got done cuddling her. And I hope I'm not jinxing myself here but so far today's nap was pretty uneventful. She didn't get out of bed once. I'm sure tonight will be a different story but for now I will pull a Charlie Sheen and declare this #winning.

This is not the best but as I'm hardly ever photographed with her, here you go.

I hope y'all enjoyed your Holiday! We are glad to be back to our regularly scheduled programming around here and have plenty more baby prep to get done....on top of unpacking.

The Housewife

All The Women Who Independent, Throw Yo Hands Up At Me

{Thanks for that intro Beyonce} 

The Housewife will be ashamed of my lack of posts while she has been on vacation. But, I don't really have a lot to say about life this week (more on this later, I'm sure).  The 4th was a very quiet holiday for me.  I figured I may as well work since I have no PTO so even though I wanted to go to the beach with the fam it wasn't possible.  But, here are some shots from my 4th of July party of 1 + a fur ball. 

OOTD -- Peachtree Road Race shirt from '83 {thanks dad}

Out of work early = festive FroYo, calories be damned.

Just because it's a party of one doesn't mean you don't get dressed up and get out your pink koozie.  It does however, allow one to party barefoot.

Sparklers are the best, are they not? 

Hogan is straight exhausted from being so independent. Note - he is NOT a fan of sparklers.
 

And that's how the Single Gal parties on Wednesday.  

Not gonna lie it's been a rough last couple of weeks for me.  I'm trying to be positive and upbeat, but I just don't have it in me right now.   Not even a little.  It's not lost on me that this past holiday was a celebration of independence from England.  {sigh}

What did y'all do on the 4th? Beach? Family traditions? Fireworks?

Love you. Mean it. 

~the single gal~