party prep

Birthday party prep is in full swing around here! My mom came up last night, so I took full advantage of her crafting abilities. She had planned on going home today, but due to road conditions she decided to spend another night. I had her threading needles, wielding glue guns, the whole nine yards.

I have 80-90% of the decor completed (barring any fabulous Pinterest finds). Now my main task is finalizing the menu... I have a rough idea of what I want to make, however I think I probably need to pare down the desserts a bit... (Although if you are attending the party feel free to advise... perhaps there is no such thing as too many desserts?).

Here is the only party preview I'm sharing... It actually gives away numerous clues:

I'm getting so excited for their birthday! I plan on making the girls' cakes, as well as cupcakes for party goers- I am hoping that they turn out great!

relax, dinner is in the freezer

I am obsessed with freezer meals! Justin and I just finished up making our second big batch. We tried our first round a little over a month ago, and it was a smashing success so we went for round two.

I found most of the recipes on Pinterest- we made about 20 meals the first time and 25 this time. I had purchased ingredients for 30 meals, but ended up running out of chicken.

We ended up spending about $200 on ingredients. I had the majority of herbs and seasonings on hand, so if you had to start from scratch and invest in all that, your investment would be higher... But the seasonings were basics of a well stocked pantry like oregano and taco seasoning.

If you've never tried freezer meals you should definitely give them a shot- you end up with over a months of meals with minimal effort. It is a huge timesaver- it cuts down on both prep time and time spent at the grocery store. It also encourages us to eat healthier- most meals contain lean protein and veggies. Pantry staples like rice, tortillas, and pasta that is prepared the day of cooking give you a complete meal. Having a freezer full of meals helps us make better choices- we are much less likely to grab fast food or cook a frozen pizza.

The most labor intensive part is the chopping- Justin handled that:

Here is my grocery list- having it organized by meats, produce, etc makes navigating the grocery store so much easier:

I may eventually make a master grocery list and laminate it... 

getting mom in the picture

Justin and I are great about taking pictures of the girls, but not so great about getting pics with us in them. The 6 month photo shoot was the last time we got any good family pics. I'll have to schedule something soon for their one year pics... Maybe I'll wait until they start walking.

Anyways, in order to get pics with me actually in them, I resorted to taking a few selfies. Audrey is obsessed with selfies- she loves seeing herself in the camera!

Sidebar: I found the holy grail sippy cup- the zoli bot. It is pricey, but if it will get our girls off the bottle by their first birthday I am all in. Justin is kind of skeeved out by drinking milk through a straw, but hopefully he'll get over it. True story, this is the 7th sippy cup we have tried. I'm not ready to call it a smashing success just yet, but I think I may have to invest in a few more of them.

weekend randoms

We ordered a play kitchen for the girls' birthday. We put it together this evening with the help of uncle Andrew. It is so adorable- I can't wait to fill it up with play food!

I didn't take a picture after we got the fridge assembled, but it is so cute! And yes, those are cookies baking in the oven. We put this together after the girls went to bed, so hopefully they enjoy it tomorrow!

I also played around with my hair. Aside from a few regrettable choices over the years, my hair has been the same since 8th grade. I received a curling wand for Christmas and gave it a go:

Here was a few hours (okay a trip to the mall) later after it had a chance to settle down:

Just ignore the horrible lighting... I prefer the look in the second picture (probably because that is closest to how I've been doing my hair for the past 15 years) but I'm going to keep practicing. It took a bit longer than the 5 seconds I usually spend on my hair, so it's not something I'll do every day, but it is nice to have options. Also, I went out to dinner with friends yesterday and had the chance to try a hot tools curling iron prior to going out- I definitely need to get my hands on one of those! Maybe for valentines day? 

And because no blog post is complete without Claire and Audrey:

11 months

It is hard to believe that the munchkins are almost a year old! Our posed monthly photo shoot is nearly impossible these days...

Now that Claire is a proficient crawler she makes a break for it and heads upstairs when she is ready to be done with pictures.

Sleeping: the girls go to bed between 6:00-6:30 (although we aren't super strict about bedtime and if we are out of town sometimes it is 8 or later). They still get up during night- a habit we can hopefully break them of soon. They are better sleepers on nights when Justin is working- he claims I probably just sleep through their crying, but I think he ends up waking them up when he is up for his 1 am meal (working nights does crazy things to your appetite). The girls are typically up for the day at 6:30 in the morning, but today they let me sleep in until nearly 8.

Size: they haven't been weighed since their 9 months appointment, but I would suspect Audrey weighs at least 25 lbs and Claire is probably around 17. They are all over the place with clothes sizes- I moved Claire out of her 9 month jammies because she is such a wiggle worm it was nearly impossible to get her in those suckers (at a childhood birthday party we played a game that involved passing a watermelon slathered with crisco. Now imagine said watermelon had flailing appendages and you have an idea what it is like to dress her). Anyways, I'm not sure why none of her nine month pjs had zippers, but I was sick of the daily battle so I moved her up to the 12 month size. Audrey wears 18 month jammies. As far as regular clothes, they are mostly in 12 months, but Audrey has a few things in 18-24 mo and 2t- baby gap seems to run a bit small (which is a bit weird, as their women's clothing is definitely victim to vanity sizing). 

Developmental: the girls both chatter up a storm. They haven't officially said their first word, but I've heard mama in the babble. They can both stand unassisted, and I predict that Claire will be walking by her first birthday. She can really cruise when she had something to push! Audrey isn't as interested in walking. But she certainly can crawl fast. I've packed up a lot of their baby toys *sniffle*. Currently their favorites are their piano, shopping cart, activity walker, drum set, and baby dolls. Although they would really just prefer it if they could have about 10 minutes unsupervised in the baking cabinet...