all is (sometimes) calm, all is (usually) bright.

i set very low expectations for christmas time this year. you know, with a new baby and all.

besides the morning when sage snuck downstairs while we were sleeping and emptied every pocket of the beautiful advent calendar my mom put up, there were lots of magical christmasy moments. sage's little dance recital was my first outing without pajamas on. progress!

our shy sagie was so brave to go sit on santa's lap, and then he handed her a coloring page as she walked away. wah wahhhh. no candy canes anymore? whatever.

S doesn't quite grasp the whole what-do-you-want-for-christmas idea and replied, "an orange" when santa asked her. my mama heart swelled with pride. i don't care that she doesn't understand the commercialism of christmas yet, and i love the way she explains what the wise men brought baby jesus..."go-owd, fwankincense, and moww." she's way more interested in the fact that baby jesus slept on hay and that there was a cow watching him from across the stable.

nate talked me into a real live tree this year. the nostalgic evergreen smell has been wafting through our little house, plus we finally put our ornament collection to use. we pick up a new ornament in every country we visit. 

i love remembering the cold and vibrant frankfurt christmas market we waded through to find this one.

and the crazy crowds we pushed through in a shopping complex to find this filipino angel.

nate's siblings arrived in time for christmas eve, and this girl became the center of attention. the night was filled with bowls of tortilla soup, carols, scriptures, and too many hours spent building something wonderful for a lucky little girl. also, who invented the manuals for these play kitchens? we could have used an interpreter, or 100 less screws.

christmas jammies, as per tradition (thanks grandma!)

sage whipped up breakfast for all in her snazzy new kitchen.

sneaky sage ducked under the tape i put up at the top of the stairs and played with her kitchen early in the morning. it wasn't until she asked madi, who was sleeping on the couch, if she wanted some soup that sage was brought back upstairs. trickster!

nate whipped up a gorgeous prime rib dinner for everyone. annnnnnd it was the inauguration of our christmas china.  

 merry christmas!

s + n

before my mom left, belize snapped some photos of the girls. 

i love having little girls...

at the very end, we tried to get a shot of their christmas dresses, but both girls were over it. oh well!

two kids

two kids.
i still freeze up a little when both girls wail at the same time. tricky.
i can also confirm that the most effective torture method on me would be sleep deprivation.
but i looooove having a little baby around here again.

a few photos from my iphone...

we're floundering without grandma around.

sage's real smile is becoming a thing of the past.

nora has to compete with bitty baby. 

sage slides bitty baby into the swing right when i'm about to set N down.
"mom, bitty baby needs to swing," sage explains.

we think this girl is pretty beautiful.

and i got all weepy when packages arrived at our doorstep this week from friends all across the world. this blanket is from nora's singapore "aunties"

nora jane

sweet nora jane was born two weeks ago.

8 pounds, 10 ounces, 20 inches long

she arrived peacefully at 11:42 am on a monday morning.

i was super nervous for this c-section since there were serious complications last time. it felt odd to wake up, shower, do my hair and makeup, and march (waddle) into the hospital to be cut open. but you know what? everything went so well. the doctors were fabulous and took many precautions so that my body wouldn't hemorrhage. my recovery so far has been better too.

of course we're biased, but we think nora is so beautiful. dark, dark hair and chubby cheeks. 

she is mostly sleepy, but likes to be awake in the painfully early hours of the morning too often (!). we love her.

sage loves her too, but is definitely adjusting (that's putting it nicely) to not having my complete attention. 

having my mom here for two weeks was a dream. in the blink of an eye, all my projects were complete, our house was decked out for christmas, some delicious homemade something was always baking in the oven, the girls' room is organized and darling, sage was constantly entertained with crafts and games, and nora was held to her heart's content. she even made a complete thanksgiving spread since we brought nora home that day. we spent our nights watching british dramas and sipping hot chocolate...perfect.

i'm feeling so thankful for these little girls and for our family of four. 

i'll keep reminding myself of that gratitude next week when nate is taking finals and i'm learning the ropes of two kids by myself. here we go!

most of the photos by belize meri photography

cameron crazies

for my college basketball-loving husband, a major draw of coming to duke was jabari parker. i have to admit that i was even stoked to watch this kid play ball at cameron indoor. we took advantage of the "family game" (a.k.a. you're allowed to sit down on the crazy uncomfortable wood benches instead of standing the entire game, which is like a religion for duke fans) before baby N came and dressed up S in her cheer costume. we're breeding her to be a cameron crazy!

we got on the jumbotron twice...once when i danced with sage, and once when all the MBA kids were on their parents' shoulders together.

on our way out, a security guard asked when i was having a baby (in two days) and quickly said, "girrrrrrl, whatch you doin here? go HOME!"

nate's got a ticket for the duke vs. unc game,
but now i'm thinking i need to fenagle a way in there too.

falling in NC

a little bit of fall here...

nate had a fall break, but really that meant it was girls week while he went on duke networking trips to seattle and new york city. a box of see's candy made up for the fact that he got to hang out with my parents while i was a single parent. my dark chocolate-loving father raised me right.  

 pumpkin patching -- an excuse to wear BOOTS of course. S lives in these pink boots

i took sagie to the north carolina state fair, where the food is all fried (minus our fave roasted corn) and rides are ridiculously pricey. we tasted fried red velvet oreos and pumpkin spice funnel cake. delicious, but i did feel like my arteries were slowly being clogged.

 sage shrieked, "tooooo scary!" down the giant slide, so we followed the traumatic experience up with a nice carousel ride.

 nate returned just in time to join us at the fuqua families pumpkin farm day. duke has a great network and puts on lots of fun events for families, including feeding us dinner every friday.

 pumpkins were small and scarce this year, but we didn't mind at all.

 a tractor ride through the corn fields

and these gorgeous sunsets have been gracing our street most evenings. 

here's to hoping this beautiful fall stretches out just a liiiiittle bit longer before the grass dies and everything turns brown.

suburban diaries: blue ridge parkway

we rented a sleek, black suburban for another adventure with matt and belize. right after nate's final exam on a saturday morning, we packed up the kids and snacks galore and headed west to asheville, north carolina. more specifically, we headed to the blue ridge parkway. besides being a national parkway that runs through virginia and north carolina, this scenic road is famous for its stunning fall foliage. so we went on a drive to go on a drive.

and it lived up to the hype. 

the kids were pretty good about all that driving though. they ran around the little viewpoints we stopped at and crunched leaves to their hearts' content.

i really can't find my camera battery charger, so we're sticking with the iphone these days.

while i often think of all the festivals and events that i love going on in singapore, i quickly forgot it all as we wound our way up the mountains through tunnels and forests of yellow and copper-colored leaves.
fall is so beautiful!
i couldn't even capture all the reds and deep orange forests we drove through.

north carolina scored major points on this road trip.

matt carefully planned out our driving loop, dropping us into asheville at the end. we ate dinner at asheville brewery & pizza company, and i decided i really need to come back here and explore some more.

halloween in the burbs

halloween isn't my thing. i'm not creative when it comes to costumes (although i was a cardboard, gold-painted sun once upon a time), the feel of pumpkin guts makes me shudder, and i'd rather invest my time in christmas. but, i'll admit that this halloween was pretty perfect: mild autumn weather, a big dinner with friends beforehand, then running around our little street with a crew of kids under 5.

we borrowed a darling lady bug costume, and sage's life was complete when i put some "nake-up" on her. at the end of the night, she kept exclaiming, "i yike trick or treats, mama!" she loved tasting her loot, but quickly forgot about it the next day.

two years old is just the best sometimes. i love this little bug!

bright lights, big city

as a last hurrah before baby and a little break from the daily grind, i spent a weekend in new york city with some of my favorite chicago girlfriends. only one of us still lives in chitown (!) so it was fun to all meet up and eat our way through the city, with some walking waddling (in my case), a few shows, and lots of late night chats thrown in too. i left nyc feeling beyond grateful for these friends. i love that we can always pick up right where we left off, and that they will all gladly hunt down a food truck at midnight any day.

we brunched at sarabeth's (where viola davis sat behind us), noshed at westville, tasted at sockerbit, pit stopped at the waffles and dingues truck, pizza'ed at bleeker street, tested out the meatball shop, ice creamed at big gay, food trucked at the halal guys, cookied at levain, dined at luke's for lobster rolls, and grabbed cheesecake at junior's too. also, a trip to shake shack was a given. when in new york...

my favorite thing we did was getting blowouts at the dry bar. having good hair, if only for a few minutes before we stepped out into the wind, made my hugely pregnant self feel pretty good. i'd take a shampoo head massage any day.

ky and hannah were our food experts.

we spent a gorgeous afternoon walking the high line, and witnessed a pop-up wedding.

and then, we had to go home and like, take care of our families or something. this trip was so good for the soul! i am definitely past the "cute" stage of pregnancy and well into the swollen, large, and in charge part, but i want to remember this perfect weekend break.