pictured, not pictured.

I stole this lovely post idea from one of my favorite blogs, Longest Acres.  Her photographs and writing about life on a farm in Vermont are just beautiful.  Check it out!

Pictured:

1.  Ingredients for my dad's famous oatmeal.  Seriously, I was never an oatmeal fan (the texture is just...so...vomitty, right?) until my father forced me to eat this concoction.  The secret is an ample (AMPLE) amount of cinnamon and a bit of maple syrup.  Put these two things in first, to taste.  After that, the sky's the limit!  I, personally, always have bananas, apples, walnuts and craisins on hand, but have been known to add peaches, dried pears, blueberries and almonds as well.

2.  This happy chickadee.  She is so into books lately, which is great, but she has this new found love for baby books...like...colors, sounds, touch n feel....which I guess is okay, right?

3.  Our redone serial killer bathroom.  It's hard to get a decent picture of the whole thing, but it looks SO MUCH BETTER.

4.  Me and babyKO2.  I am so excited to meet her and can't believe I'm soon to be entering trimester THREE.  Whoa.

Not Pictured:

1.  The terrible weather we've been having.  It's gone from 20 degrees and blowing to 50 degrees and raining all day.  Last night, I took Lua to the park at 7pm, because the rain had stopped for just a second and we were both so stir crazy.

2.  The now-infamous orange tutu (size 6-12months) that Lua insists on wearing all day, every day.

3.  Poor old Tank, who needs a good spring brushing, but keeps being put off because...well...he's an asshole.

4.  The pile of baby things on the dresser, just begging to be set up into a little babyKO2 corner.  I've promised Andrew that I won't buy any more clothes until I've gone through what we already have in storage (I pretty much saved everything) and I am feverishly itching to get to that 0-3months box!  Something about those tiny tiny clothes, you know?

Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!!!

First Trimester, Back Home.

The months of November, December and January have come and gone by like nothing I have ever experienced.  I will try to be brief, as this was a 'trimester' packed full of ups and downs and in betweens and if I tried to elaborate on each and every happening, we would surely be here all day;)

- In late October, we found out we were pregnant with baby Cao #2! (YAY!!!!).  What then proceeded was 8 weeks of puking every day and generally feeling like I could smell EVERYTHING and EVERYTHING made me want to vomit.  This feeling was so much worse than I had with Lua.  So much worse, in fact, that I'm debating ever getting pregnant again.  It sucked.  Especially with a two year old that just wants to play :( Andrew was really the captain of the ship and took over everything,  from cooking to cleaning to taking Lu to play.  I dare anyone to show me a better husband and father ;)

- Canada got cold.  Fast.  Thank goodness for good neighbors, playrooms and indoor swimming.

- Tragically, we did not get to make a Holiday video this year.  We promise to do something before next year, though!

- Andrew had all of 3 days off the entire time we were in Toronto.  Between that and my grossness, we pretty much abandoned all "exploring".

...and that, my friends, sums up our Canadian experience.  Pretty fun, no?...

- Now that we're back, we have been furiously looking for a new apartment.  And while staying with uncle Buster is pretty fun, we're totally ready to have our own space.  It's proven to be much more difficult finding a two bedroom in our budget, in a good neighborhood than we'd previously thought.  We're actually supposed to hear today about an offer we put in on a place.  So, cross your fingers and toes that our search can be over!

- It's COLD here, too!  Uncle Buster had a broken boiler and we were out of heat and hot water for a few days, which was actually kinda fun?.....but - I'm not a huge fan of the winter months and am really looking forward to the spring.  I know it could be a long while yet, but a girl can dream...

- I'm feeling 200% better.  Whew.  Still don't know if I want to go through that again, but man, does it feel good to be hungry again!

- Andrew starts rehearsals again on MONDAY.  Where did January go?

I think that's a recap!  Hopefully, as we get settled back into our NYC lives,  I'll be back here more often, too ;)

snapshots.

We have been flying over here.  Summer has come to NYC and this little family finds itself outside all day, every day.  

Lu and I welcomed the warmth with a relaxing trip to North Topsail Island in North Carolina.  Except for the 10 hour drive, everything about this trip was amazing.  We were invited by our good friend Becca and her wonderful mama and spent the entire time on the ocean, napping, playing and swimming.  It was heavenly and I cannot wait to return someday soon!

Andrew has been busy as ever at the show, which is now closing on June 15th.  He and I decided that for the two months he will have off, I will go back to work part-time at the animal shelter.  I'm excited for Andrew to be able to spend more time with Lu and to have some more "adult" time for me ;)  I can't tell you how great the thought of a solitary subway ride sounds right now!  Just 45 minutes to read, sit, listen to music...whatever.

We have so many fun adventures planned this summer and I hope to post more (short posts/picture posts) to keep everyone up to date!

Here are just a few snapshots from life lately.  Enjoy!

-on our way!-

-first look at our beach-

-this girl loves her some sand-

-and shells!-

-our view-

-wearing the first baby "thing" I bought when I found out I was pregnant (the suit)-

-lounging in front of our house-

-happy happy with Becca-

-every morning, we'd get up and go for a walk near the beach.  stopping to smell the flowers, of course-

-lu was given this minnie mouse before we left and she (minnie) accompanied us everywhere-

-goofing in our room-

-these little suckers were alive and moving!  so cool-

-she is officially not a baby anymore-

-last sunset of our trip-

-we had SO MUCH FUN!-

-memorial day in the park with friends-

-uncle monster helping out-

-kisses on the A train-

-ok, so we were waiting for the A train home again and what pulls up? an old subway train from 1936!  i'm way too excited-

-pretty fun ride.  every commuter had a smile on his/her face-

-this is just a fun photo from today.  taken right after lua scaled the ramp up and was all, "i did iiiiit!"-

snapshots.

 

Sorry for the silence the past couple of weeks...We (Lu and I) took off for my little brother's wedding in Nebraska (so fun!) and managed to both catch the nastiest, most awful cold on the way back to NYC.  I'm pretty sure we caught it from one of the 600 guests at the reception (no joke) who were all petting and hugging my cute little flower girl ;)

But we're back now - slowly recovering - and have spent more than a couple days cuddling on the couch.  Lua has been very mommy-clingy the whole time that she's been sick, so I could tell today she was feeling better by the amount of daddy-fun-time she had.  What a relief.  I know there are new, fancy methods these days, but I had to whip out the blue-bulb-nose-sucker-thingy once or twice and, man, that was NOT fun for either of us.

I got the camera out for awhile today, mostly to get my mind off of my sore throat, but managed to get pictures of:

-the Radio Flyer scooter that our neighbors gifted us!-

-the piles (and piles) of stuff from the great purge that we still need to haul away-

-the fact that I STILL HAVE TO UNPACK-

 -the investigation of said Radio Flyer-

-the end of the day covered in snot and clementines-

-yes I'm cooking a frozen pizza...not pictured: farm fresh kale, spinach, arugula and parsley salad with apples and walnuts-

Happy Spring!  Here's to wellness and weddings!

snapshots. it's been awhile!

life has been busier than busy lately.  it's been filled with doctor's appointments (trying to get everything checked out before my insurance expires), family trips (pictures soon!), auditions (even Lua's getting in on it) and, just yesterday, andrew started rehearsals for a show called NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT on broadway :)  that's b-way show number 2! yay!

as you can see, Lua has been a trooper through it all.  she turned 10 months old (i know, i have to do a 10 month post) and has been teething through much of this month.  she also discovered that she is funny.  watch out, world.