three things

one

MARS ONE. I cannot believe I didn't read about this before last night. Humans will establish a permanent settlement on Mars starting in 2024. Meaning, people are signing up for a ONE-WAY ticket to another planet to dedicate their lives to space exploration. They will say good-bye to their loved ones and lives they once knew, hop in a space ship and take the seven or eight month trip (with no running water) to Mars, where they'll spend the rest of their lives exploring their environment and reporting back to earth. Some of the American finalists to take the trip are married, and at least one man has children. Can you imagine seeing your dad for the last time as he boards a ship to live on Mars, never to return? This whole concept is blowing my mind. I stayed up waaaaay too late last night reading all about it.

two

PIECE BY PIECE comes out on Tuesday! I get so excited about new Kelly C. albums and love that you can buy 6 songs right now and then pre-order the rest for just $5.20 ;) LOVE the John Legend duet and also the title track. The whole thing will be on repeat in my car for a while - sorry Kyle!

three

THIS SMILE. I had the best morning with Kyle yesterday. We stopped at the local bagel shop, which has a kiddy corner made for my boy: a TV with Mickey playing and a little car to ride around while I enjoy my bagel and coffee. Oh, and he got a donut hole and apple juice, so he was on cloud 9. Then we headed to the library for story time, where he was such a good boy and so cute. He usually doesn't like to sit and listen to stories - he'd rather run around the room and explore what's under the table in the corner - but yesterday he sat on my lap and listened to Brown Bear and then participated in the songs and dances. It may have had something to do with the fact that I told him if he was a good boy we could stop at the park after to play with his new sand toys, but either way it made me a proud mama. This picture was taken after he didn't want to say "cheese" for me, so he stood up to get down and it started wobbling, forcing him to laugh and give me the cutest, biggest REAL smile. Even better :)

"snow" trip 2015

A few weeks ago we took our 2nd annual trip to Lake Arrowhead with a group of close friends. We look forward to this trip every year, getting all of the kids together and enjoying some time away. Kyle is the youngest kiddo of the bunch and probably the most work since he really, really loves walking up and down stairs all day long (and there were plenty of stairs in our three-story HUGE cabin), but we had fun nonetheless. It was fun comparing to how it was last year, when he was juuuuust about to take his first step and was crawling all around the cabin pulling himself up on everything.

The weather was gorgeous and we were able to play some outdoor games, and on Saturday we drove to Snow Valley for some sledding fun. Kyle loved going down the hill but was not a fan of his gloves or the ski lift (which freaked me out, too, thinking of him squirming out of my arms and falling out), so after his second run he got so worked up that he ended up falling asleep on me for a nice afternoon nap outside.

Instead of bringing the pack n play we just brought along his mattress to sleep on, but the first night he ended up rolling off and sleeping directly on the cabin carpet - which really irritated his poor face. That, combined with the sun/snow day and lack of good naps, really did a number on him and it took him a few days to recover from our vacation.

Next year Kyle will be almost 3 for this trip and I think it will be the most fun yet. Can't wait to go back to the beautiful cabin on the lake and watch him play baseball/soccer outside with all of his friends! Maybe next year he'll actually have fun in the snow, too :)

(You can read about our last year's trip here.)