pink.

so, usually, i love pink. it's my favorite color... but not when it comes to my eyes!

i was lucky enough to get pink eye this week. and not in just one eye - but both!

fortunately, i don't think jason or emma are going to develop the infection. i was so glad jason had some eye drops left over from when he had it several months ago. they were still good, so i started using them right away, tuesday night, when i figured out i probably had pink eye. i think i would have been m.i.s.e.r.a.b.l.e. had i waited until wednesday to go to the doctor and get some medicine.

i will say that i'm a bit of a whiny baby when i'm sick, so jason was really sweet to give me some much-needed sympathy. ;) but who enjoys enduring eyes that are swollen, achey, gooey, runny, burning, feel like there's sand under the eye-lids, scratchy, and a whole plethora of other gross, descriptive words??

i'm still wearing my glasses (which i hate), and had to throw away a brand new pair of contacts and a brand new tube of mascara, but i'm glad my eyes are "on the mend." hopefully they'll be back to normal, soon.

because you get a lot of stares when both your eyes look like this:

obviously, this is not a picture of my eye, but it is very close to what my eyes looked like this week. mine were, sadly, a little more puffy and goopy than these baby-blues. (p.s. i'm glad this isn't my eye, because i'd be suffering from more than just pink eye, if they were - i'd have some serious eyebrow issues!)

super cute giveaway.

so, i was taking a quick homework break, and stumbled upon this cutesy blog called "a heart for home."

and, i was super excited that "a heart for home" is doing a giveaway from an etsy shop called "mom's blankies." (if you don't know what etsy is, prepare to spend a good part of the next hour browsing all the chic wares being sold by these creative, small-business owners!) i am loving etsy.com right now - very inspiring, and makes me want to figure out what i can sell!

"mom's blankies" is a super cute, online baby boutique with oodles of fun, cutey, chic, handmade blankies, lovies, headbands, burp cloths, hairbows, and (my favorite) "shoopers!" shoopers are these precious little handmade shoes/slippers. get it? shoes + slippers = shoopers!

so, i was really excited to find that "a heart for home" is giving away a free pair of shoopers. i definitely entered... and if you have a cute little one who might enjoy something fabulous to keep his/her little piggies warm, you should too!

click here to find the giveaway.

i personally am hoping for a pair of these pink, brown & green paisley shoopers. i think emma would love dancing around the house in these. :)

heart wrenching.

i can't watch the news anymore. it's too heart-wrenching.

i feel like every other story is of some poor child (always almost exactly emma's age) who's been lost, stolen, abused, or worse... and i can't separate myself from their stories. i always personalize it, and my heart wanders to a place where it imagines life without emma.

tonight i saw the story of a sweet little girl, also exactly emma's age, who was playing in her backyard (in a house her family just moved into) and fell into the 10-inch opening of a septic tank whose cover was missing. her brother and daddy were playing football in the backyard, right there, while she was playing, and then she just disappeared... they reported her missing around 6:30 last night, and authorities found her, lifeless, in the tank early this morning. i don't know why it affected me so much, but i couldn't stop crying.

that poor family is spending tonight without their sweet girl. i can't imagine. i don't think i could breathe.

and although what happened to this precious girl last night was a horrible, tragic accident and not the act of an evil person, i can't help but think: what is it about all our sad news lately? has the world gotten that much worse, that it's now filled with evil people who do horrific things to sweet babies? is our media just buzz-crazy, completely callous to the way that details of these awful stories can affect people? or, because i'm a mother, have i just become much more aware and sensitive to anything that makes me fear the fact that i can't 100% protect my daughter forever, and that life is not promised to us?

i just feel sad now. sorry for such a depressing post...

my heart and prayers go out to the family of alisandra galvan.

sara needs.

my sister-in-law, lindsey, posted this on her facebook, and i thought it was interesting, so i gave it a gander:

the directions:
type in your name and the word "needs" in quotes ("tim needs”) into your favorite search engine (i guess this is the p.c. way of saying "google"?) and see what comes up. list the first 10 and then tag 10 or more of your friends.

1. sara needs...a loving, playful home.
2. sara needs...a lawyer.
3. sara needs...your opinion on parents sleeping in your bed. (seriously - what???)
4. sara needs...twice as nice.
5. sara needs...Rabbis for human rights. (haha!)
6. sara needs...to discover experts in the area. (um, what area?)
7. sara needs...you. (you bet i do!)
8. sara needs...access to files and email stored on local machine under Jamies account. (why?)
9. sara needs...sara time. (haha! how did they know???)
10. sara needs...to drop a few lbs. (haha! again - how did they know?)

and, just for good measure:
11. sara needs...a MeMe. (cute, but jason's meme will do!)

hehe... pretty funny. :)

so, friends, what do YOU need?

correction.

oops!

i totally posted the reyes' baby boy's name wrong...

it's not jacob andrew, as i previously posted - that's the name that our friends, the olsons, chose for their future-baby-boy (due in april).

naomi and matthew's little one is:

jacob david reyes

sorry guys! :)

baby beanbag is here.

we are rejoicing with some of our best friends, the reyes family, today, as they welcomed their little boy, jacob andrew into the world this afternoon!

big sister abby (3) so desperately wanted to name him "baby beanbag," but for some reason matthew & naomi weren't in love with the name. ;)

i don't have pictures of the littel guy, yet, but here are some pics of the reyes family when they were "three." (or at least before #4 was outside of the womb, yet!)

our sweet friends - matthew, naomi & abby at abby's 3rd birthday party. if you look closely, you can see naomi's "baby beanbag" belly! :)

here's a more obvious picture of "baby beanbag" in all his glory before he entered our world. abby, of course, is holding her "baby patti."

we are so excited for matthew, naomi and abby, and can't wait to meet baby jacob! hopefully we'll have pictures soon. :)


jacob, you're one lucky little guy - you have one of the greatest families ever! you're going to have SO MUCH FUN growing up with them! we love you already!

- sara, jason & emma kate

happy valentine's day.

emma is having her first valentine's day party at "school" this year, so she needed valentines to give to all of her little friends tomorrow.

and, of course, i went way overboard.

but this is one of the 10 cute little cards i came up with tonight. jason said i'm trying to make up for something i must have missed out on in my childhood. haha. i say i just like making cute things!

all 10 of them are different. i put magnets on the back of the cards for her teachers, so they can go on their refrigerator. :) too fun.

anyway, just wanted to share.

happy valentine's day!

goodnight, batman.

another emma story for you, but before i tell it, there's a bit of a back story:

thanks to her daddy and nonna, emma is obsessed with batman. that's right, my 2-year-old, sweet little girl who loves big "kate bows" in her hair and the color pink is currently in love with all disney princesses... and batman. she talks about the cars blowing up and the helicopter crashing. she talks in this really funny low, deep voice, and says to her daddy things, like, "i'm batman. you're joker," and "you have to trust me." (on a side note, she also told jason, today while he was tickling her, "no, daddy, don't kill me!" there will be no more watching of "batman.") so, we've established that she's obsessed with batman.

now, onto the story:

in our home, at bedtime, we have this sweet little routine where we brush teeth, get emma's jammies on, sometimes read a story in the rocker, turn on her music, and then cuddle in the rocker until it's "sleepy time."

we also have this bedtime rhetoric (or anytime, really) that goes like this:

mommy (or daddy): i love you, emma.
emma: i yuv you.
mommy (or daddy): you're my best girl.
emma: you my best grill.

it's so precious, and so sweet, and usually i say it over and over again just to hear her say she loves me! :)

so, this is how it went a few nights ago, as we were rocking, before i laid her in her bed:

emma: seet deems, mommy.
mommy: sweet dreams, emma.
:::kiss:::
mommy: i love you, emma.
emma: i yuv you, mommy.
mommy: you're my best girl, emma.
emma: you my best batman.
:::smile:::
emma: goodnight, batman.

what an honor... i'm her BEST BATMAN! does that mean i'm better than batman? or does that mean she loves batman more than mommy?

i don't know... but either way... it made me chuckle a little as i tucked her in bed and kissed my little batman-lovin' princess goodnight.