Harlem Lovebirds: (Pre) Spring Brain Dump

I'm writing this with this view giving me inspiration while ~~half my~~ both kids are napping. Despite the time change I'm feeling renewed today especially with the sunshine (it's 43 degrees here, 50 degrees warmer than it was a few weeks ago!), and the ability to have squeezed in a Monday workout which is a rarity especially given Mr. Lovebird's early a.m. car emergency that I had to bundle up the kids for today.

I just wish I could brain dump out everything I have to blog about!

Anyway, here's what's on my mind with spring just around the corner ...

First, it is NOT spring! It drives me nuts when we spring forward and everyone declares it's spring (same as when people say it's fall on September 1 when it's actually not until September 22, which happens to be my birthday). I'm Type A I know!

Grayson still can't crawl, but he's proudly pulling himself up to a standing position at last (annnnd he's started using his big sister's cloth diaper stash after exhausting our gifted disposables - more on that to come):

We are hurtling towards our first family cruise and did a bit of shopping over the weekend; I had an awesome haul for Nia at the Kittery Outlet:

Speaking of cruise, we booked not knowing that our ship just had a 2.0 update which I saw haphazardly on this cruise forum; now we're even more excited (speaking of which Nia is now obsessed with watching cruise water slide videos, which I prefer to those annoying toy unboxing videos she was previously obsessed with)

More on the cruise . . . I'm 10lbs away from my pre-pregnancy weight and I'm hoping I can close in on it before we depart in 34 days

I was back in Boston Friday night for a welcome night out, and it was FREEZING! I find it colder there than here maybe due to how it's positioned on the water perhaps? Anyway, can you believe the last time I stood at this spot there was no such thing as Instagram?

I bought my first blogging conference ticket of the year: Blog Beautiful

I have a slew of sponsored content (and giveaways!) coming up and while this blog is definitely changing shape, please know that I'm very sensitive to maintaining a delicate balance and this post by Brani Riley, aka Mama Knows It All, helps explain the role that sponsored content plays for bloggers

We've somehow entered birthday season to the max (we have 4 parties to attend in under 7 days #jesusbea4hourenergy), and this is my go-to 5 year old gift (thanks Lisa O.!) and this cake is just too, too adorable (and super simple)

As much as I love living here in Portsmouth (I feel like we're on vacation!), I forever have NYC on the brain and am obsessed as ever with Harlem real estate; check out this listing - here's a teaser pic: