Category Archives: Announcements

Announcements / Baby / Motherhood / Personal

Party of Five

May 1, 2019

If you follow me on social media or know me in real life, then you probably already know that I’m pregnant. Sorry, I guess that should say, I’m pregnant! Exclamation point!

And yes, we’re very excited (especially Prim). But also I’m very tired and just starting to emerge from the all-the-time barf-fest that is the first trimester (and beyond…) so summoning up the appropriate amount of hutzpah is sometimes a little challenging. But we’re excited! It’s happening!

The realness of the first trimester (i.e. wanting to fall down and die of tiredness and debilitating nausea most of the time) is the reason that my “announcement” photo is so far beyond planned, staged, or anything remotely professional. I mean, I’m wearing zero makeup, the room is a mess, the mirror is dirty… I guess the reality is I’m just not that committed to being that sort of “blogger” or “instagrammer” or whatever. That’s my real life right there — a phone selfie in a dirty mirror because “I guess I should just tell people since it’s so damn hard to hide this bump now.”

I mean, the third baby thing — wow. I started showing basically immediately (let’s sing a song about self esteem! And also a requiem for my ab muscles.) and I feel like I look about twice (or 14) times as pregnant as I actually am. (Sidenote: this mostly works in my favor on BART, where I give zero Fs about asking for a seat since I’ve been down this road twice before already.) Ah, the miracle of pregnancy, right? I’m sure I won’t be AT ALL tired of maternity clothes by the third trimester since I’ve been wearing the stuff pretty much since week six (facepalm).

This is all to say though, that really, we’re excited. I’m 99% sure this will be our last kiddo (I really don’t think I can go through a first trimester again), so it’s been a little bit easier to weather the hard parts knowing that this is most likely the last time I’ll be dealing with this. And honestly, the girls’ enthusiasm over having a sibling really makes the tough parts so much more enjoyable. Prim has been running around telling EVERYONE that she’s getting a new baby sister/brother (we already know!) and constantly running up to my belly to talk to and give kiss/hugs to the baby, so really, just give me a couple more weeks and I’ll probably be on board to have like 15 more kids. Ha!

Announcements / Baby / Personal / Pregnancy

Dutch Baby

August 11, 2016

So, as I mentioned the other day, Prim is currently obsessed with babies. Granted, anyone under the age of 11 is considered a “baby” to her, but she seems to have a special affection for little newborns (as is evidenced by how high her voice gets when she yells, “baby!” when she sees one).

She has taken command of our daily FaceTime chats with Alexis, forcing her to pretty much exclusively show the baby on the camera at all times.

Prim’s baby obsession has come at a pretty opportune time for us, as we’ve got a sibling on the way for her, come February… img_9515

In case you’re wondering, yes we did plan to have babies this close together. We wanted Prim to have a sibling close in age to her, although we were a bit surprised by just how fast I got pregnant. I naively thought it would take a few months, given that getting pregnant with Prim was not instantaneous and I was still breastfeeding — but nope, it seems my body was like, “Oh, I know what to do!” this time around, which was both exciting and a little terrifying. img_9463-1

Prim doesn’t quite understand that there’s a baby coming yet, but she does have this recent fascination with my belly which is very sweet. img_9459 img_9456

^^Big sis conversations. Too sweet.^^

More pregnancy posts to come! Planning a birth in another country, the Dutch maternity system — it’s kind of a trip, guys.

Announcements / Personal

Big News!

April 7, 2016

img_7951Some of you already know about this (especially if you follow me on Snapchat → ChelseaC7off if you’re not!), but KC and I have some big news!img_8012

No, I’m not pregnant, so just calm down a second.

The big news is that KC, Prim and I are moving…

img_2692…to Amsterdam!

KC will be working out of his company’s Amsterdam office for the next two years, so we are moving our little life across the pond next month!

As most of you know, we were unceremoniously kicked out of our house when Prim was very little, so we have been living with KC’s parents since late-September. Given our current lack of residence and the fact that Prim won’t be starting school for another few years, we felt like the timing couldn’t be better to start this new adventure. We’re sad to be leaving a lot of our current life behind, but we’re really excited to embark on this new chapter.

If you have any suggestions for things not to miss in Amsterdam or the surrounding areas, please leave a comment! (And come visit!!)

PS: And yes, I’ll be continuing to blog from Europe, so you can hear alllll about how awesome a trans-atlantic flight is with a one-year-old!

Announcements

Welcome!

October 19, 2015

Welcome to my new site, rules of sisterhood! This redesign has been a long time coming (I mean, how long has it been since I’ve actually done a 30 day challenge? Years. YEARS!)

I’m excited about this new platform and I hope you are too!

rules of sisterhood will be about everyday life — celebrating the highs (and probably lows) of motherhood, and the great balancing act of managing a baby, a marriage, a job, and, oh yeah, your own life (ha ha… right?)

In case you’re curious, the name of the blog refers to a set of unwritten rules my sister and I had  as children, and have carried into our adult lives. Here are a few of the rules:

  1. If you laugh, you can’t tell. (This was paramount when we were kids.) Now that we don’t get “in trouble” anymore, it’s been translated to: if you find it funny, you can’t act offended.
  2. If you’re going to copy the other person, ask permission first. Alexis and I share a lot (a lot a lot) — we own the same exact couch, our baby registries were verging on identical, and we both have an intense affinity for good kitchenware. But even though we do share a lot, we still abide by the “if you’re going to copy something, get the ok from the person who owned it first” rule.
  3. When it comes to motherhood and marriage, subscribe to the “good for her, not for me” rule. It’s so easy to look at someone else’s relationship or parenting style and pass judgment on the choices they’ve made. I can’t count the number of times I’ve thought, “I would never put up with that” when hearing about a friend’s relationship woes, or fallen into the trap of comparing an aspect of my motherhood journey with someone else’s (like the person who has the amazing, drug-free birth or the person who has nary an issue breastfeeding). But, thoughts like these are exactly why I’m not in that relationship and, let’s face it — there are 101 different ways to effectively have and raise children. (And thank goodness for that, or we’d probably all be screwed.) So when I catch myself thinking these kinds of thoughts, or wanting to pass judgment, I remember this mantra: “good for her, not for me.”

And because this is rules of sisterhood, hopefully Alexis will join in on the fun at some point and add some posts to the site (and not just because she’s an amazing cook. But she is, so let’s convince her to make us some bucatini and then blog about it.)

In the meantime I’ll be posting regularly, so feel free to follow along. The archived posts from Go for 30 have been migrated onto this site, in case you’re interested in reading up on the past. (And if you were a subscriber to Go for 30 before, your subscription should have migrated onto this site — but be sure to double-check that, as I’m still learning the ins and outs of the back end of this new platform.)

I hope you enjoy the new site. Thanks for following along!