Stuff Jo Knows ...: (Just Pics)

Saturday, August 27, 2016

(Just Pics) - K + E

The May, Hoagland, Close, and Menne Families, all together in one photo!

After vacation, and a couple days of work at RIO, we spent the next week at home, preparing for and celebrating Erika and Karl. Again, I feel all nostalgic and warm and gooey inside because I just love my BFFs SO.MUCH. Seriously, they/we are the best. As I wrote in an IG post:

If I were the kind of person who were inclined to speak publicly and give wedding toasts, I would talk about how there is the family we are born into, and the family we choose. This is the beautiful, caring, loyal, fun and HILARIOUS family that I've chosen. And I have amazing taste. Everyone says it, but we really have been through ups and downs, births and deaths, and everything in between, and I couldn't be more proud to call these ladies (and their families) my best friends. So welcome to the fam, Karl, we are so psyched to have you (and your extra years of wisdom 😉)! @awwthatssoerika @hookmay @rachelmenne

Without further adieu, let me introduce, Mr and Mrs Hoagland! But not without a bunch of pictures of my and my girlfriends and our adorable kids, amiright?!?

E and her makeup trial.

Francie and Erika get some QT en route to Kohl's. That's right, we went there.

Pizza party at our place, this is the kids table.

The grownups get real chairs.

The evening certainly devolved into nudity and chaos, and it wasn't even Alex (here's looking at you, Max ;)

How lucky am I to have a daughter so excited to make a penis cake with me?!?

She was very nearly devastated that she wasn't allowed to have any of this cake. We actually had to make another (in the age-appropriate shape of a rectangle.) Alex was very nearly devastated when, the next morning, Francie said to him at breakfast, "Daddy, can't I have just the tip?" (of the penis cake. Yup, that's right. Just.The.Tip)

The ladies: Francine, Finley Menne, and Hannah May

Such sweet girls we got.

Time to bach it up, ladies.

I wore a onsie, folks. And I liked it. Althouhg the BFFs insisted I stop calling it a onesie and start calling it a romper. Because "grownups wear rompers not onesies." I beg to differ; I'm not convinced any grown-ass individual should wear a one-piece of any kind of clothing. All that said, I LOVE to rock the long-legged-long-sleeved onesie at Christmastime, and I'm sold on this whole romper deal. Thanks to Katie and her great taste in clothing!

On top of the world! It's windy there.

Okay, so it's just The Nines aka Departures, but it felt like we were on top of the world.

Lovely view.

Uber virgins to the back.

Pretty new mama out on the town.

Katie is mean. But hilarious. And I have rarely liked a photo more of myself. It makes me laugh almost as much as the one from me in Costa Rica on the toilet with diarrhea, or the one of my bloodied butt in my post-partum net undies. Ah, memories. That said, I don't actually recall this very moment. Because as you can imagine, this was not consensual.