london resolutions

we're back from a tremendous week in london. it was a good thing we left the baby behind with my parents, because otherwise i would have been tempted to chuck my plane ticket and stay. for.e.ver.

i get so energized and inspired by city life (ok, city vacation life + perfect weather + no responsibilities), and on the plane ride home, i wrote down a couple of "london resolutions" that i hope to share here as they unfold, just to keep me a little accountable.

one of my first resolutions sounds super silly and vain,  but here it is: wear more real outfits, less yoga pants. 

the whole trip i felt so confident and pulled together, somewhat the opposite of how i feel at home. i'd like to keep that feeling. i was so excited that i started writing this post as an all-outfit post... which turned out, in fact, to be super silly and vain of me. so... outfits with pictures and narration of our trip! take it away!

if flying with a toddler can be hell, flying without a toddler is heaven. never have ten hours on a plane flown by with such bliss. we watched episodes of parks and rec, movies, someone brought us food and then cleared it away. i recommend international travel highly. 

for the first few days of our trip, we stayed at a little boutique hotel called no. ten manchester. here we are about to hit the town, about two hours after landing. not a moment to waste!

we wandered and discovered st christopher's place a few blocks from where we were staying. st cp (as i'm going to call it) is a gorgeous couple of blocks of restaurants spilling over onto sidewalks and alleyways. it was a packed friday night, and i just sat at our table thinking, "yesss. we are here."

the next morning we found a branch of our favorite cafe from our last trip within a few blocks of the hotel. one giant plate of eggs benedict and one latte later, we were ready for a walk through regent's park. we seriously could not have asked for better weather-- sunny and warm. 

after our walk, it was time to go to craven cottage for the highlight of tovi's year-- fulham!!

the lads won three-nil (oooo, i am sooooooo english). celebrations all around! meat pies for everyone! over breakfast, tovi had drawn the starting lineup for me, so i felt impressed with myself for knowing all their names. we had a seriously good time. 

another delight of traveling without a toddler is that we could linger and walk and explore the city without a care for anyone's bedtime. after the game, tovi said, "let's go to covent garden for dinner!" so we did.

After dinner we had ice cream at the icecreamist, and i can't believe we didn't take a picture of this-- they serve a flavor made from breastmilk. "human breastmilk," the man specified in answer to my question. i will just leave it at that. 

the next morning was hyde park:

lovely.

and harrods:

larger than life. 

and harry:

straight up dream come true.

on monday we packed our bags, and headed across town to stay with tovi's aunt and uncle. lucky for us, they work at salvation army international headquarters, right between st. paul's cathedral and the tate modern. 

but after a second round of eggs benedict, naturally.

all were amazing and inspiring. more resolutions: walk more. visit more museums. get around inspiring things. learn how to cook eggs benedict. 

we started the next morning with a walk through crystal palace park which hosts one of the world's first "purpose-built dinosaur exhibits." (crap! we've accidentally built another dinosaur exhibit!) this next picture is evidence that our aunt and uncle have a prestigious address and that i definitely still wore my yoga pants. old habits die hard.

we took the train back into london to visit borough market, the churchill war cabinets, walk about one million extra blocks by accident, and then see wicked!

on our last day, we went to the london eye (so touristy and yet so amazing), saw parliament, big ben, shopped at topshop (we'll all be wearing burgundy this fall, apparently), ate cookies on the street, and then saw the leonardo da vinci "anatomist" exhibit at the queen's gallery in buckingham palace. 

but first, one of my favorite outfits of the trip:

we ended the trip with such a highlight-- a long, lingering, and delicious dinner with tio popi and tia deise. it was such a fun blessing to stay with them. 

sniff, sniff. back to the airport in my best olsen twin travel chic.

i miss that grand old city. here's to london 2015!

what he wore on wednesday

sweet mercy, it was cloudy, and even rainy today. 

i cannot express how much i've been longing for this kind of weather. 

tovi and i leave for london next week, and today i gleefully reported to him that the weather will be cloudy and in the mid-60s. yesssssss. 

we start the morning (usually) with baby Bible time. cruz's favorite part is looking through the Bible for the rainbow, and drumming with his prayer sticks. 

oh, waking up from a nap is hard. especially when mama is trying to take your picture and won't let you hold the phone (i mean, i usually don't ever let him hold the phone, but he still believes in the dream).

 this afternoon our "abenture" took us downtown to old navy where the nice gal in the checkout line gave cruz a balloon and made his day.

(i adore this sweatshirt, and i will cry when he outgrows it)

cruz has been very sensitive about loud noises lately. barking dogs. the animatronic dinosaurs at the museum. honking geese. so i realize that i'm taking a risk by bringing a balloon into our home. if it pops in his presence, i think it would scar him for life. whew, being a mama is tough!

brushin' teeth.

my almost two-year-old loves loves loves reading through his dictionary. and he can say dictionary. seriously, i cannot get enough of this kid. every night we read through a couple of letters (tonight was E and F), and something about the dictionary just cracks him up! we read "face. george has ice cream on his face," and cruz had a full giggle meltdown. an hour after i laid him down, he was still giggling to himself. love. it. 

happy wednesday, friends!

go go go

we're coming off a tough week, and i needed a change. 

it's september, and i'm ready for a new season and a new start and a fresh perspective. 

today when cruz woke up from his nap, i told him we were going on an adventure. 

"go go go!" he yelled, running over to the front door. "on a' abenture!"

it was everything an adventure could want. 

bridges.

pine "noodles." 

running into some other sweet MOPS mamas. 

questions about the color of the sky.

so thankful for the reminder that despite the occasional doubt and discouragement, i know i was made for a time such as this. 

angels in disguise

last week, we had the great honor of hosting our niece julia while her parents were off on a much-deserved babymoon in hawaii.  her mom,  thais, and i were pregnant at the same time (julia and cruz are one month apart), and really grew close during that experience. it's so fun to see these babies growing into toddlers. julia and cruz got along pretty well, considering that they'd only met each other twice before. as soon as they each woke up from a nap, they started asking for the other. but one afternoon, that sweet moment came much, much earlier than i had planned on.

new rule: when babies wake up too early from a nap, you fill the extra time by going shopping. 

once we got downtown, however, i wished we had stayed at home.

the paseo nuevo parking lot has access to four elevators from the ground floor. like a smart mama, i parked as close to the main (and largest) elevator as i could get. 

a note: we were borrowing a double stroller. if folding-a-double-stroller-and-then-putting-it-into-a-crv were an olympic event.... i would be very, very terrible at it. a sweaty ten minutes after we parked, i had both kids in the stroller, ready to rock. 

the elevator was out of order.

move on down to the next elevator.

out of order.

y'all... it was a really hot day. i was pushing sixty pounds of wiggles and cheerios around.

the third elevator works. it arrives. we don't fit in it.

everyone else gets off, and after a group effort, we get the stroller in. i rode alone.

so this was a little bit out of character for me, but we went to abercrombie. well, we tried at least. the girl working the front of the store wearing what this old mama would consider to be sexy pajamas told me straight up, "you're not going to fit in here with that thing. sorry."

it was always my fear as a teenager that i would not be cool enough for abercrombie, and it turns out that i'm not. ugh. mama needed an iced coffee. i huffed across the street to starbucks. oh, the moves i made to get us through the door! lunges! splits! flying leaps! gabby douglas would be impressed (makayla? not impressed). we made our way through the line, but got stuck at the cash register between some confused ladies to the back and large signage to our front. "would you mind backing up so i can get the stroller out?" i asked, over the sounds of my child alternately yelling, "muuuffffffiiiiiiin!!!" and singing ("twinklicious crazy star...").

"not yet," she replied.

at that point, we had to get the muffin before they kicked us out.

we wound our way to the fountains in the middle of the mall so that the kids could run around and splash.

closed.

closed!

i sat, utterly defeated.

sweaty, frizzy, crumb-y.

i decided to chuck the shopping trip and head home. we went to the last untried elevator, which is inside nordstroms. we could not fit through the door. disaster!

we walked back slowly. i was feeling so low. and then suddenly... an angel!

"oh miss... you are so beautiful!"

(i was not)

"please, sit down. take a moment for yourself. please... check out our hair straighteners."

so. bless you, joe of the hair straightener kiosk in the center of the mall. you saw this tired mama and treated me like a fancy lady. you made my hair look amazing. you flattered me up and down, and made me feel like a princess. i did not walk away with samples, i walked away with prizes. jewels! typically i run from you and your heavily accented kiosk brethren. never again. i asked you where you were from, and you said heaven. i believe it. a crowd formed while you transformed my hair and my day. you called me your model, and i don't even care that it wasn't sincere. 

reader, i bought that hair straightener.

what he wore on wednesday

i never used to throw up a lot.

(my english teacher always taught me to start writing with a good hook. hey, thanks for stopping by!)

but then i got pregnant, threw up an estimated 350 times (i did, in fact, estimate this), and at some point my immune system must have gotten very used to combating every illness or bug in the same way.

so that's what i was doing tuesday morning, for no apparent reason.

my saint-of-a-husband took cruz all morning while i whithered away in bed and watched reruns of tabitha's salon take-over. at around 4pm, i finally perked up, and got cruz into an outfit. however, i didn't have the energy to put him into pajamas three hours later, so that's why he woke up on wednesday wearing this.

two hours later, we were headed out to rancho la patera to pick up some items for work and also to enjoy a quick adventure at this gorgeous historic estate.

oh look, same outfit.

wow, i picked a really good day to do an outfit blog!

don't despair. things got better later on.

tovi and i head to london in a few weeks! i couldn't be more excited. i have every single outfit planned out already, thanks to pinterest and some inspiration from the bachelorette.

if cruz were coming, he could wear this shirt.

wait, you're not taking me?

no, you're going to play with your grandparents all week. 

yeah, we thought you'd like that better too.

happy wednesday!