10 year anniversary

10 year anniversary

Styling by the Pacific Ocean, pigtails by Mary, photo by Grammy, Tom’s sunscreen-face by himself, entire week of adventures  (including three meals a day for 14 people) planned and executed by my sister and her generous family. A few years ago, Tom mentioned that we should take a big trip to celebrate our tenth anniversary.

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How to start vacation with a bang

How to start vacation with a bang

Whenever I pack for a trip, there’s always a period of time when I believe that it would be easier to cancel vacation than to continue packing. This vacation! That we have been looking forward to for MONTHS! It’s the peak of stress, the mid-way point of packing when you’ve been working for hours and there’s

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The pottery anniversary

The pottery anniversary

During wedding planning: Me, “We’ll get married on July 3 and we can call it Co-dependence Day!” Tom, hesitates then says, “Do you mean…Interdependence?” Tom Krieger, helping me with vocabulary and basic arithmetic since 2009. Our anniversary is July 3, and Tom gave me the only gift I ever want — he took a few

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The bronze anniversary

The bronze anniversary

Eight years ago today Tom and I got married in the Blue Ridge Mountains. To celebrate, instead of following suggested tradition with a bronze gift, my mom and dad took our kids for a few days. We’ve never done this ever, never ever. Not even close. Everyone keeps asking what we plan to do with our

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Holding hands above the chaos

What did you do on Valentine’s Day? I know, it’s practically March and it feels like May outside. I’m a little late on the Valentine’s Day thing. In the Krieger household, the stomach bug that seemed to be hitting everyone around us finally got around to us the weekend before Valentine’s Day. One by one

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A daddy and his daughter

A daddy and his daughter

Last weekend Tom took Mary Virginia to a Father Daughter Dance. As he was getting ready, I encouraged him to put on a suit instead of a sport coat. “Some of the dads will be wearing tuxes, Tom. And come here, look. Elizabeth Phillips has already posted photos. Come look at what Sloan’s wearing.” Tom didn’t even

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Each day is Valentine’s Day

Each day is Valentine’s Day

Recently in the afternoons, while my younger two nap, I’ve been listening to the most popular TED talks of 2015. TED talks are so great, they’re relatively brief but pack in so much new information and perspectives that challenge you to think in new ways. Since I started this new habit, when Tom comes home from

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Namesake

Namesake

It was my idea to name our third baby after his daddy. And, ugh, that sentence is an example of how confusing it can be to have two people in your family with the same name. Saying “…to name Thomas after Tom” sounds convoluted. So far we’re calling the baby “Thomas” or more often “baby Thomas.”

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The arrival – Thomas’s birth story, part 2

The arrival – Thomas’s birth story, part 2

This isn’t the craziest birth story you’ll ever read. It isn’t the most dramatic or fastest or the closest call. But it is my craziest birth story. I’ve already told this story several times, and each time I feel a bit like I’m lying, or at least exaggerating because the timeline just doesn’t feel real. Whenever I tell it, I

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Blackberry pie

Blackberry pie

I’ve mentioned before that Tom doesn’t really love dessert. That’s just one way he keeps such a trim frame of mostly sinew and muscle. He does love my homemade blackberry pie, though. I made it for Easter and figured I should share the recipe here since it’s probably the most complicated recipe I use that’s really “mine.” Here’s the

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On naming our third child

On naming our third child

These blankets I knit for my babies take a long time. 130 stitches per row, 238 rows, all on 4.5mm needles. I’ve knitted 93 rows so far, and I just have eight more rows before I’ll need to start purling the initial. That means we need to finalize the name for this baby. I love

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On having a third child

On having a third child

My mom once told me that after she had my brother — her third child — she started wearing sneakers every day. Her days started early and ended late, and she spent them gardening, hanging laundry on the clothesline, making pickles, sewing, leading Girl Scouts — oh, and taking care of three kids. To make it through the day she needed support.

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Scenes of fall

Scenes of fall

My mom mentioned the other day that the leaves were beautiful at home — one of the prettiest falls she can remember. It occurred to me that now that I live in Richmond, a relatively flat city, I miss out on the fall colors in the mountains. When I was growing up I took the

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An unexpected fade

An unexpected fade

Before I begin this story, I think it’s important to note that it happened on my birthday. There are a lot of other qualifiers I wanted to include, but I decided that was the most important one, because if I’d been at a spa getting a facial and a massage this would have never happened.

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My amazing wife: 5 years in

My amazing wife: 5 years in

Guest post from Tom: When we were dating I used to write Amanda letters all the time. On our five-year anniversary, I wrote her a letter. She always writes blog posts encourage friends and family and tell them how much she appreciates them, so instead of just writing her a letter, I decided to write

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Five years

Five years

Right after Tom and I got married, we went to Costco and stocked up on some things. We bought a big thing of paper towels and a box of Ziploc bags that had several individual boxes of three different sizes of Ziploc bags. Five years, one cat, and two kids later we’ve finally run out

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On Father’s Day

On Father’s Day

It’s 8:57 p.m. on Saturday night and Tom is trying to rock Mary Virginia to sleep. My best efforts weren’t working, so he’s taking a turn. “I’m done,” I said when I walked out of her room. When I’m tired and I’m frustrated, he takes over, and that’s when I’m most thankful that I’m part

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Sweethearts

Sweethearts

I think Valentine’s Day is awesome. What a FUN day. A celebration of those you love with chocolate and flowers. Are you kidding me? Does it get any better? Are you the kind of person who labels Valentine’s Day as a “fake” or “Hallmark” holiday? If so, then I sincerely hope someone gives you a big pink box

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Compound band name

Compound band name

This is a picture of the blonde curl on David’s forehead. It is also a picture of a radio head. Get it? Radiohead. This makes me laugh, mostly because it wasn’t Tom’s idea. Tom, who tries to explain the  time signatures in Radiohead songs on every car trip we’ve ever taken. Tom, who thinks the song

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372 months

372 months

Last week I celebrated my 31st birthday. 31, for some reason, seems remarkably older than 30. Like I said last year, 30 seems like a fake age. The number is too round, it carries too many implications. 31 is more normal, more settled. Less, “WOW! The big three-oh!” On David’s birthday, we wanted to continue

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The glamorous life

The glamorous life

I was really looking forward to Easter Sunday. Really, really looking forward to it. But then my son and the rest of my extended family came down with Flu-nami 2013. It hit everyone differently, but it leveled David for six days. It started with vomiting, clinginess and a fever, and ended with diarrhea and grumpiness.

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Announcement

Announcement

For months now David’s been working on his memoirs. The working title is, “My life with the most boring Mom ever.” Like most toddlers, David is nothing but energy. He loves playing with other kids, especially older kids. He desperately wants an older sibling, four older siblings would be even better. Unfortunately for David, that’s

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Happy birthday, babe

Happy birthday, babe

Today is Tom’s birthday. Tom would probably appreciate it if, instead of using David’s naptime to write this post, I cleaned my house and prepped dinner. Instead of a clean house and dinner simmering on the stove, Tom will come home to Cheerios all over the living room floor and his wife frantically cooking with

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Three years today

Three years today

Tom and I met in 2001, started dating the last week of 2007, and got married three years ago today. If, the day before Tom asked me out on a date, someone had told me that I was about to go on a date with Tom Krieger I would have laughed in their face. In

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Happy Father’s Day

Happy Father’s Day

When my grandma (my dad’s mom) met David for the first time, she asked if Tom helped change diapers. She told me that her husband, my grandfather, never changed diapers. Are you kidding me? Tom is a diaper-changing specialist. He changed almost all of David’s diapers for the first two weeks of his life, and

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First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in the baby carriage

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in the baby carriage

Last weekend Tom and I embarked on what people fear even before they have babies. That this scares people before their lives implode into a newborn means it should be taken seriously. Before the baby is when people are sure they’ll be laid-back, unencumbered by baby gear and will stay out past their child’s dorkishly

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How I know I married an honest man

We started giving David some solids. Over the past few days he’s had avocado, potato and banana. He LOVES it. It’s wigged out his digestive system, though. He went from pooping three or so times a day to…zero. I’ve heard this is normal, and that when his system decides to move it will MOVE. I

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Love.

Love.

Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one’s life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to one’s side like an old friend through quiet ways; perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose, until some sudden shaft of illumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and the

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Refuel

Unless you count my daily bowl of cereal, this is the first thing I’ve cooked since David was born. Fried potatoes, yummmm… My dad always ate these for breakfast. It’s a good thing, too, because otherwise I wouldn’t know how to make them, and my husband LOVES fried potatoes for breakfast. So Saturday morning I

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