JUST BECAUSE IT'S TUESDAY!

you know it might be time to write a blog post when your husband texts you in the middle of the day out of nowhere and asks, "gonna write a post any time soon?!?!?!"

well then, baby. this one's for you.

so the first thing you should know is, i am possibly dying of allergies. lest you think i am exaggerating . . . well, i am always exaggerating. 

in other news. i've started to keep a list of some of my favorite words. just for hells bells and things. very near the top of the list is the word "ache." don't say your throat hurts, say it aches! it's much more poetic. not to mention terribly melodramatic and somewhat lovely. isn't it lovely? four little letters, such a big meaning. it's practically an onomatopoeia, if you take the time to consider it. (also on my list: onomatopoeia).

and now for some random photos! right? 

▲▲▲ a few weeks ago our holbs the intrepid bought huck a kite. five dollars, it was a penguin, brandon had that look in his eye like some major father-son bonding type stuff was about to go down, i swear it was the most beautiful thing. after a successful first run one windy saturday we decided to invite a few friends to join us for a sunday evening reprise. huck brought his favorite toys of the moment and a few of us met up at pier 1 on the hudson, which is the windiest spot in the city, seriously it will blow your clothes off down there.

we had a great time and huck was in heaven. i taught him to sing "let's go fly a kite," which, WELL. ovaries were spontaneously combusting all over the place, let's put it that way. the kite performed majestically and then i got the idea like i wanted a try at it and so of course the wind blew extra hard and snatched that kite right out of my hands, and off it went into the breeze, flying off toward the city, before crashing into the hudson. its fate in a watery grave. 

as we watched it sink we paid our respects. we told huck the penguin kite was swimming back to his family at the south pole . . . really the kite is just swimming with the fishes, down at the bottom of the stinky hudson river, just like who even knows how many other dead bodies . . . wait--is it the hudson or the east river where you dump people wearing concrete shoes? brandon has epic plans of replacing it with a kite that costs at least ten dollars this time. also i've probably lost kite privileges for a little while. ;)

rest in peace, penguin kite. rest in peace.

▲▲▲ i do a lot of atrocious things in the name of rice krispy treats but this might have been my most brilliant. from left to right we have: peanut butter chips, some melted, some preserved in their virgin state; nutella (not my favorite combo, why don't i love nutella like i'm supposed to?); white chocolate with sprinkles; and then naked, which is how i usually like my RKTs. spoiler alert! peanut butter chips are beyond amazing on a krispy. and here's a pro tip from me to you: keep them in the fridge and you're like, *mind blown.* 

and now, here is my deep dark secret: i stuff a plate worth of rice krispy treats into my face like a cave woman every sunday afternoon. it's the only thing that gets me through three hours of church. i have a system. are you ready for it? it goes: 2 handfuls of mini marshmallows in a bowl, for 30 seconds in the microwave, you stir in juuuust enough rice krispies to make it mostly marshmallowy but still somewhat rice-y (coat yer spoon in pam spray, genius!), then yo smush it out on a plate and let it sit in the fridge for about 5 minutes. it makes enough for two people if you're not me (i do sometimes share), but the deal of it is, butter is for the unenlightened. a good rice krispy treat should be chewy, not pillowy! i mean, but have it your way.

▲▲▲ i want to french kiss whomever invented korean tacos and korean hot dogs. i mean, really. get over here and let me make out with you. the dogs above are from the asia dog stand over at madison square eats, which is going on through the end of the may at the base of the flat iron and is totally worth a visit, though that kimchi hot dog is not for the faint of heart. props to me for only maybe successfully using the word "whomever" up there. i mean . . . i have no idea.

▲▲▲ hen plucked a twenty dollar bill out of brandon's cash stash the other day like the masterful pickpocket he is and decided on the spot that it was a treasure map and that he was a pirate. he carried it around for days, rolling it up and clutching it in his chubby little fist, then unrolling it and pointing at various spots here and there, all while shouting, "arrrrr!" and, "mama, i a pirate!" and, "buwwy tweasure!" he finally got bored with it after about two days. that's some stamina! it was really cute while it lasted but heavens, twenty bucks! that's a lot of street pretzels!

▲▲▲ a few unnecessary photos from our stop at the playground on the promenade this weekend to take us out. (this same playground this time last year, oh my baby's so grown up!). this boy plays hard and negotiates hard and can charm the pants off any person he sees. it's funny when your kid becomes people, and not just that, but people you like. i'm just really into the way his little brain works. two and a half is so. so. good. i'll keep him, by golly!

xo and happy tuesday!

OUR SATURDAY ACROSS THE EAST

every now and then our old borough will call to us from across the east river. "come to meeeeee! come to meeee," she calls. it's really rather poetic of her. but no, mostly i just get a real good craving for sushi every now and then and since we're too lazy to find a decent place on the uws, a sushi date necessitates a brooklyn bound express train. you know what i mean?

but we do love any excuse to barrel under the east river. it's just so quiet and comfortable in our old hood. and sometimes i feel so nostalgic for the old days, for that old brandon and that old me (and that old stinker peter pan), and since a trek to idaho is out of the question right now (oh what i wouldn't give for a session with some giant lilac bushes in my face), brooklyn is the next best thing. and it really is. sometimes i think i'll bump into 23-year-old natalie while we're out wandering around those old fruit streets. i think i'd like that. i'd like to give her a hug.

▲▲▲ the matching toenails, i'll have you know, were totally huck's idea. the matching saltwaters . . . okay, that was mine.

▲▲▲ while poking around those old familiar brownstones and narrow streets we happened to walk right next to lena dunham. theeee lena duhman! my heart skipped a beat. my heart skipped five beats! i lo-oove lena dunham. we were, like, three feet from her, waiting with her for the light to change, and oh my goodness i was thiiiiis close to walking up to her and touching her shoulder and being that person, that completely silly person falling all over myself to tell her what a huge fan i am, and how lovely i think she is, and how much her obituary for nora ephron meant to me. oh i was totally going to lead with the nora ephron angle, you better believe it. obviously we would have become best friends on the spot, i mean us nora fans are a tribe, man. i even gave myself a pep talk first. but then the light changed i completely chickened out. like, frozen on the spot like a statue completely chickened out. and ahhhh regret! the only other time i've felt that star struck was when i bumped into ben affleck and his family on central park west while hugely pregnant because in case you guys didn't know, that man is GARGEOUS.

▲▲▲ one monkey roll for these two monkey rolls, please.

▲▲▲ so, okay. this is cheesy. BUT. so we've been coming to this little sushi place in brooklyn heights since we lived there in 2005, and this same lovely lady is always there waiting tables, every time. (she may even own the joint for all i know!) before our move to idaho we came here for our last meal, and when we told her we were moving it was sort of an emotional experience for me? i can't explain it but she'd somehow become like a mom to me. like my sushi mom. anyway, i've always wondered if she remembered us from those old days way back when, and then today out of nowhere she mentioned that i look exactly the same as i looked 8 years ago when we first started coming in and it was like a moment of triumph for us. oh hey! she loves us too! (and oh hey, thanks for those great genes, real-mom!) oh it was a good moment. so obviously we forced her to stop for a photo with us out front because she's officially part of the family now. totally wild. (ps THANK YOU to the heavens above that they finally have an A for sanitation! crap. it was always a crisis of conscience for me every time we'd walk in there and i'd have to pass that big old blue B in the window. but now, an A! dreams do come true!)

▲▲▲ next comes a slow stroll down the promenade, as per official holbrook brooklyn tour rules. and i may be ovulating right now but dang, that husband of mine is dead sexy. ;)

▲▲▲ we also stopped at the playground but that is a post for another day.

▲▲▲ spotting boats and helicopters and lady liberty out on the harbor.

brooklyn heights this time last year

and not for nothing but i happened to have instagrammed the very best instagram of my life today, right HERE.

(it's almost as good as THIS ONE from last week, huh!)

p.s. thank you sonnet james for the play dress! 

SUMMER FACES AND HAPPY WEEKEND!

▲▲▲

△△△

hello and happy friday! it's a stay-in-my-pajamas-and-write-while-huck-watches-sesame-street friday! babble babble babble, etc etc etc.

we had our first sunny-day-over-75-degrees of the year yesterday, and oh boy was it wonderful! we stayed out all day, we got our first mister softee of the season, and somehow i already have a tan line on my arm from my watch. (sunscreen time!) summer! yesssss!

it got me to thinking about the upcoming summer. summer in the city is this blessed event, we all look forward to it, it's this epic payoff for our long NYC winters . . . but it's also kind of disgusting. it always makes me laugh how quickly i forget how yucky it can get here in the summer. the humidity of the east coast is something to be reckoned with, especially for this dry-bones arizona native. there always comes this inevitable moment for me late in august when the oppressively swampy heat and my own awful sweatiness have reached their apex of nastiness and i am forced to just really embrace it. revel in it! it's a very zen-like moment, actually. it's gross. it's also sort of life affirming.

all of this to say! i wrote a post over at babble featuring my favorite summer make up and their drugstore counterparts. but i'll tell you up front, budget or no, the only eyeliner that stays on through the worst of summer for me is THIS stila eye liner. other sources and links and a more in-depth review of each product are over at my babble beauty blog RIGHT HERE.

OTHER BABBLE STUFF AREN'T YOU THRILLED:

what would huck wear?

forever 21 etc etc etc

now that that's done, i'm off to take my cute kid to the playground. i miiiiight put on some clothes first.

happy weekend and enjoy the last of these spring temps! 

LITTLE BOYS IN NYC + THE BUSINESS OF MAKING DREAMS COME TRUE

this is my theory in the making: it's gotta be pretty dang rad to be a two-year-old boy. talk about a decent way to live! you get to wake up when you feel like it, watch any mickey mouse cartoon your fingers can find on the ipad while you eat your morning yogurt, you receive excessive praise for using the potty effectively, and once you're dressed and strapped into your stroller (carrying whatever assortment of toy cars and planes and space rangers you deem acceptable for that day), you get to go outside where the world is positively filled with all of your favorite things: trucks, airplanes, helicopters, taxi cabs, subway trains . . . all the street pretzels and hotdogs you could ever eat at two dollars a pop . . . playgrounds positively filled with all these disgusting germs you can roll around in . . . paradise! this world is a little boy's paradise!  

we took the kids to one of the local fire departments this morning for a play school field trip and huck's little boy mind was blown. open.  his eyes nearly bugged out of his head in excitement. "wow, cool!" he kept shouting as he ran from one end of the engine to the other, touching every shiny red inch of the thing and only stopping to peer intently into the deep black of all the firefighter's boots. "cool, mom! wow!!" 

tangential aside: whoever thought to teach huck to say "wow, cool!" was clearly thinking straight. the level of cuteness in there today was straight up fatal.

the firemen up in our neck of the upper west side are so great. they always smile and wave at huck as they ride past us on the street, even with sirens blaring. we're always careful to move out of their way as quickly as we can and i always tell huck what important work they're doing, putting out fires, saving lives, rescuing little kitty cats from tall tree branches . . . the other day we were walking home from the grocery store when a fire truck pulled up onto the curb in front of us. five firemen hopped out wielding axes and raced into the building next to us, but first, one stopped in his tracks to give huck a little salute. and i swear to you. huck must have grown three inches right there, on the spot. three inches of little boy pride. 

new york city is like a giant theme park for little boys. dreams coming true around every corner! just ask my husband. there's this new building under construction in the area, and every time we walk past it he likes to tell me just how many floors they've gotten up to that day. and the excitement in his face, i tell you. 

"fifty one floors today! do you think they'll make it to fifty-two?!"

oh, boys.

a few fuzzy photos from our morning below, and a giant thank you to FDNY engine 40 for being so full of rad every stinking day. it's my job as the mama of this army of silly boys to make as many of these little boy dreams come true while i'm in charge of them, so thanks for helping me check off "ride in a fire truck" today. (and especially thank you to my friend marisa for making it happen!)

▲▲▲ "get a bra" and "do nothing." haha.

p.s. another thank you to eddie bauer for my springy yellow trench coat. too many thank yous, what is this, the oscars? 

but it's been in constant rotation this week and i lurve it.

MY M-DAY WEEKEND AND AN ODE TO MY BOYS

do you ever feel like you just want to pinch yourself? like you're smack in the middle of all of the good things you'd ever had the presence of mind to wish for? 

i have the best boys. with these boys, especially that boy that i married, i am one blessed little lady. sometimes i feel so brutally aware that these are the best days, that all these moments i'm breathing in are the moments i'll spend the rest of my life remembering with fondness, wishing to revisit. sometimes i catch myself wishing i could just open my eyes wider--like, really pull them open--so i could take it in all at once, and not miss a single drop of it. i am just so grateful for the chance i have to do this, to be this boy's mama, to be this man's wife, to do what i do and to live where i live and to love these boys that i love. i wonder what i must have done in a past life to deserve all this. like maybe i was abraham lincoln or something once, i don't know. that's possible, right? i don't know, that's all i can figure. ;)

on saturday morning we set out in the misty air for an early mother's day brunch at bubby's. we love bubby's, it's one of our favorite spots in the city. while we were there we got to try ramps, and oh ramps ramps ramps, the "it" vegetable of the season . . . they're actually pretty amazing. i hate to say it, what are you gonna do. we even remembered to hit the photo booth in the basement. i tell you the morning could not have been more divine.

with a few slices of pie for the road, we started walking to basically nowhere. i love a good walk to nowhere. even if it's through soho, which . . . as beautiful as soho is, both brandon and i came to the conclusion on our own but at the exact same moment on saturday that soho just isn't for us (too much of a certain inauthentic feeling, if you know what i mean). after a bit we found ourselves at washington square park, which happens to be my favorite of all the parks, and while we were there, stealing bites of each others' peanut butter and banoffee pies and taking turns pushing huck on the swings, the skies began to blacken and deepen, the leaves on the concrete started swirling and scattering, and the hairs on my arms started to stand up in just that certain way . . . 

the skies finally opened up on us while we were walking up fifth avenue and i tell you, it was cosmic. the rains felt enormous. it felt like the whole being of the earth was about to swallow us up in its fury. it was electrifying and thrilling and the blinding lightning and the huge echoing thunder, bouncing in my chest and out through my arms as we ran screaming and laughing to find cover . . . we were drenched by the first three seconds and laughing so hard we could barely breathe. it was the most wonderful moment of the day. 

we finally found refuge in a taco bell--maybe the only taco bell in all of manhattan--to wait out the last of the storm. (true story: when we lived in brooklyn we used to walk down to the hospital on atlantic avenue just because it had a taco bell in the food court, and because sometimes you just really need yourself some dang nachos bell grande.)  as we stood there literally dripping from head to toe, brandon started wiggling his eyebrows at me in that certain way, you know, all . . . "you know what this means, right?!" obviously it means acid colored mountain dew and some tacos locos doritos, because we've only wanted to try those for FOREVER. and there we were! what were the odds? it was like it was fate. and hey, thumbs up cool ranch. thumbs. up. (brandon prefers the nacho cheese. gross.) (and it turns out my post-baby hair regrowth has gone curly--the things you learn?)

and then we headed home for some warm baths and footie pajimjams and that enormous bunch of fresh peonies with mama's name on 'em. 

do you ever feel like you could just pinch yourself?

i did. all weekend.

i hope you all had a lovely weekend. especially you mamas-of-furbabies and even most especially you mamas-in-waiting. i feel so strongly that this holiday really belongs to you who yearn, because you are doing the hardest work. your hearts are loving the biggest love, are fighting the hardest fights, are taking the biggest, scariest leaps of faith. my thoughts and my prayers and all of my love have been with each of you this weekend. i hope you took the good chocolate from the deacons and had the longest and most satisfying of afternoon naps on sunday. fist bumps. and hang in there. 

hang. in. there. 

xoxoxo

update: my dress is made by ace & jig, for those who've asked!
it's sold out now, but i found it at shop pretty mommy.com