Tomato Sauce & Chocolate

New Year's Eve and New Years has never been a huge celebration for D and I. We've never put on fancy clothes to go to dinner or dancing. I guess it's just not our style. We tend to be the stay-home type. (In all honesty the thought of driving on holidays that focus on drinking keeps me indoors.) This year was no different.

Lately I've been waning food with tomato sauce. A couple days ago, on a shopping trip to Costco, I quietly concocted a plan to take as many free pizza samples as possible. I even walked around the entire store again to get a second scoop had seconds. At the end of the trip D ended up with healthy items such as greek yogurt, almonds, and vitamins. Me? A 12-pack of mini pizzas and a giant vat of ketchup. A GIANT vat.

So, when D came home from a bike ride this afternoon and asked me on a little date, "to a place with tomato-y stuff," I was thrilled. We dragged along our friend, E, with us to our favorite, local pizza place. (Top 50 pizza place in the country? Yes AND please!) D and E split a pizza while I stuck to an order of breadsticks with a salad... and might have used the marinara sauce as salad dressing.

We topped the night, and dinner, off with some fancy-pants desserts from a beautiful, ocean front restaurant.

Yeah- we're really good at being low key. There's no place else I'd rather be than where I currently am: sitting on the couch with a sleeping husband, cuddly dogs at my feet, too lazy to stop watching a movie that I hated the first time around, the smell of my favorite Anthropologie candle burning and pouring myself a bowl of cereal after publishing this post.

Happy 2012.

Yep... two posts in a row again. Scroll yourself on down to the previous one.

Christmas

This was our first Christmas sans family. Despite that we had a really great time with two of our best friends. Just like Christmas Eve, Christmas was more cooking, eating, and Settlers of Catan. We were blessed with a lot of great gifts this year but it was hard to top the wee little gift I've been carrying.

D and I couldn't stop thinking about how this was our final Christmas as a duo. It's hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that there will be a little person bossing us around, stealing our hearts next year... but, oh man, we can't wait. 

It's also hard for me to think of how we'll get another person to pose in our Christmas picture since we have a hard enough time taking one ourselves. 

Hope your holiday was merry and bright. 

The Eve

 Emma

 Our tree. I'm pretty sure it hated us. It fell over twice and shattered a few special ornaments, including our star. 

 Prepping some basil

 A classy, young gentleman

 A crazy fart head

 AH-MAZ-ING Greek spaghetti prepared by Chris.

 Lovin' the Christmas cards we received. Between sleeping and baby excitement I didn't have time to get our out this year. 

 Lots o' gifts!

 Cookin' a sweet potato

 My famous Brie En Croute. So famous that a certain dog got up in the middle of the night and ate the remaining half. HE will not be named. 

 Chris and D. 

 Boys are creative wrappers- especially when a poop bag is involved. 

 My favorite bag from my favorite half-Jewish gal. 

 Inside joke

 Another creative wrapping example. (And, might I add, that it contains only ONE shoe. Not a pair. Just one.) 

 Mmm mmm!

 The dapper cook.

Full tummies all around. 

...

Two posts in a row?! Yes it's true. The first one is here. 

There Are No Real Words...(Especially)

...to describe seeing the following image:

Especially on a Saturday afternoon after unpacking your entire house. Especially on a whim. Especially when I had an extremely special dream about this type of thing two days before I tested. Especially since there was a reason why D got hurt and had to come home. Especially after three long, painful years of trying. Especially after being diagnosed with a progressive disease- one that I can never get rid of, was surprised to learn I had, and one that is one of the main causes of infertility. Especially since I had become used to saying the word "infertility"... a word that I despise. Especially since I went through six months of hell in the form of a shot, seven rounds of Clomid, two rounds of Femara, had surgery, and went through nine months of terrible depression/ therapy/ anti-depressants.

The whole previous paragraph was worth it after thirty seconds of the taking the test. All the stress, fear, anxiety, anger and sadness disappeared as D and I stared at each other, with disbelief, and said, "What do we do now!?" I would do it again. In a heartbeat.

I am a daughter by birth, a sister by blood, a wife by marriage and, now, a mother by God's grace.

Six weeks