westward, ho!!

you guys. the rumors are true.
this little crew is moving out west. to UTAH. (WHAT?! but, caity! you said you'd never---)
I KNOW WHAT I SAID!
but when your husband gets offered the job of his *dreams* that also happens to be just skip and a hop from your mama's house.... YOU GO!

here's the scoop:
brad works in video games, right? so there's this thing (let me see if i get this right) called "AAA" which is basically the select few big-league video game companies, where if you break into them, your career in video games is made. Ooo i just looked it up on wikipedia ok here is what it means:

"In the video game industry, AAA (pronounced "triple A") is a classification term used for games with the highest development budgets and levels of promotion. A title considered to be AAA is therefore expected to be a high quality game and to be among the year's bestsellers." -- wikipedia 

basically, if you're in games, AAA is where you wanna be! so, we discovered a AAA opportunity that happened to be in the salt lake area that was waaaay too good to pass up. perfect company, perfect position, perfect team. so he went for it and got it! we are beyond thrilled for him, this is such a big step in his career and we couldn't be more excited.

also...did i mention it's only an hour from each of our parents?!?!?!
and did i mention we would be cutting our rent, living expenses, and basically all of our costs almost in half by leaving the east coast?
it's basically a win win. win win win.
will i miss the beauty and culture of the east coast? yes.
will i miss all the people i love dearly out here? very yes.
will i miss the exorbitant cost of living? no, no and no. bye felicia.
will i miss brad's commute and long work hours? no.

oh and i bet you're also thinking "but like aren't you having a baby in like a week?" well no, i'm having a baby in FIVE weeks. which means my time left where i'm actually able to fly is limited, so basically.....bea and i are leaving in 10 days. (WHAT?!) we are going to stay with my parents in midway while we find a place to live and then bradley will join us out there the 2nd week of june, at which point *hopefully* we will have a house leased and the movers can bring us all our stuff to said house. we're hoping to be settled somewhere by brad's june 10th start date. a little ambitious, but we've done it before in less time, with less help. the moving package they're offering us is making this all so wonderfully easy, it seems a bit unreal. we are so, so grateful!

this whole opportunity is such a blessing and the answer to many many prayers. we have been thinking of ways to be closer to our families for a while now and this is above and beyond any solution we could have hoped for. we are truly, truly blessed.

being on the east coast has been a wonderful experience for our family, we love so many things about it, and a part of me will always call it home. it's bittersweet that this season of our lives is over. i've loved introducing the east to bradley and loved sharing east coast experiences with bea that i also had when i was her age. i will miss my proximity to the city...it's been a security blanket for me these last 8 years. even if i don't go as often as i could, i've known that i could and that was always comforting to me. it scares me to be far away from new york for some reason. i always feel like a piece of me is missing when i'm too far away; i felt that the 8 years i lived in texas and i'm sure i'll feel it when we make it out to utah. i'm a little nervous about utah culture and fitting in someplace where we don't really fit the mold, but living close to family in an affordable area with bradley at such a great company with a great work/life balance is going to make it all worth it. i really can't wait to get this new chapter started. it's going to be EPIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

another cummings is coming!! June 2015!

wow you guys. i haven't blogged in 2 months and it is basically because i knew that if i did, i would totally SPILL THE BEANS! so now that i have finally made it through the first {miserable} trimester i can finally tell you that yes,

WE ARE HAVING ANOTHER BABY!!!!!!!!!

baby #2 is due June 25, 2015 and we could not be more thrilled. i've been lying pretty low for the past few months, bea and i spent most of november holed up at home while i wallowed on the couch eating crackers, drinking ginger ale and trying not to barf while letting bea watch entirely too much television when finally brad and my mom said "enough!" and let me come to utah early for the holidays on december 3rd. so bea and i have been hanging out in utah for the entire month of december being spoiled by grandma and grandpa (or as she calls them, mamaw and papa). i haven't had to cook once and i think i have done dishes maybe one time since being in utah. it has been magical, and quite a lifesaver as this pregnancy has been much, much harder than my first. i never felt sick with bea and with this one, the nausea, indigestion, and heartburn are RELENTLESS. i am like a walking, talking Pepto-Bismol ad. like this one:



only without any of the relief (because, no pepto during pregnancy, duh!) and... no diarrhea. like the polar opposite of diarrhea actually. which is equally miserable. #tmi #ishjustgotreal

add a hefty serving of severe fatigue and a toddler to top it all off and you have the past three months at the cummings home! i mean i can't really complain about bea, because i mean look at her, she is perfect. but while she may have an never ending outpouring of energy, i unfortunately do not. im pretty sure she sucks mine out of me. with her cuteness.

i'm almost 15 weeks along and i am showing quite a bit. i am definitely, unmistakably pregnant, but since i haven't announced it (until now) i've been trying to avoid any and all social situations (or just showing up in a big coat and never removing it) so as to avoid addressing the elephant in the room. i am excited to finally come out of hiding. i am still feeling sick several days a week but it is a huge improvement from the all day err day sickness i was experiencing earlier.

and, if you're wondering, we find out the gender at the end of january. my guess is boy, brad thinks it's another princess. i will honestly be thrilled either way. since our plan is to only have 2, i am hankering a little for a boy just so i can know what it's like to have a son in this lifetime, but then again, is there a sweeter bond in this world than between sisters?! so really, either way, it's a win. i know some great families of 4 that have 2 girls and have long admired their sisterly friendships and would love to experience that in our home. but then again, the boy, the girl, the perfect american family? hard to resist. i just don't even have a preference.

i guess this post will probably double as our holiday card, because amid all the pregnancy sickness, traveling and REALLY not wanting to be photographed (is there anything more flattering than a photo of a woman in early pregnancy? the answer is yes, everything in the universe.) i really have not even thought or cared about getting a proper greeting card together. although i have loved receiving all of yours! i haven't been home to get them out of the mail but brad took pictures of all of them and texted them to me while i've been away and i am always just floored at how we are so blessed to be friends with so many great people.

so as per holiday card requirements i will give a brief update of where we are and what we're doing:

Bradley: accepted a job in new york city at the end of july as a marketing manager at a mobile gaming company called FreshPlanet. they make social gaming apps and such and bradley is loving it. he still runs his iOSboardgames.com blog on the side and it is growing and gaining more and more followers and notoriety each day. it opens up exciting opportunities for him on a regular basis, which included a trip to italy earlier this year! he is a busy guy but his favorite job is being a daddy to the coolest (almost) 2 year old around.

Caity: besides being pregnant, nothing really new has come up for me (besides our move back from philly to connecticut in july). i still am blessed to be able to stay with bea during the day and i love it SO MUCH. we have a lot of fun together. i started a new church calling in cub scouts (webelos assistant den leader) and am learning the ropes of scouting. which will all be useless if this next little nugget is a lady. we love our apartment and love being back in the NYC area and taking advantage of what it has to offer. (i.e. we took bea to the radio city music hall christmas spectacular before we left for utah and she had a blast!! definitely will have to do that again! and maybe next time i will actually take pictures!)

Bea: is allllllmost 2 (will be in january) and is, in a word, a riot. we love having this girl around. she is talking up a storm, and we usually know what she is talking about these days. she has FINALLY gotten over being obsessed with spooky things  and halloween and is all about "baby jesus", "Kissmas cheese!" (christmas trees), "YITES!" (lights) and "OPEN PRESENTS!". but not santa. she really, really does not like santa. maybe next year. she got some great christmas presents this year, her favorite of which is a hello kitty tea set. she was trying to tell us about it in the car today but she forgot what it was called. she kept saying "CUP POTTY! CUP POTTY!" which confused us to no end because, as she is progressing with her potty training, we thought she was trying to tell us about some new kind of potty, but alas, she was saying "cup PARTY" because she forgot it's called a "tea party". we all had a pretty good laugh after that. our days are filled with moments like those. she loves to sing and interpretive dance. she knows the words to lots of songs but her favorites are "the itsy bitsy spider", "are you sleeping?", and of course, the ever popular "let it go". we got her just dance 2015 for christmas for the sole purpose of having her dance to "let it go" which is featured on the playlist. she loves that game and watching her play is a lot of fun, she gets very serious about getting the moves down. she loves puzzles and is actually really really good at them and can complete some that are beyond her age level pretty speedily. she loves the alphabet and knows several letters. she is finally figuring out more colors than just pink and blue. some days she can count to 8 by herself and some days she can't. it's completely arbitrary. she loves her grandparents. she knows to point to my tummy and say "mommy's tummy!" when i ask where the baby is but i'm pretty sure she has zero idea what that means. she loves horses (neigh-neighs). she loves to color. she loves riding in the car. and she is starting to hate going to bed. #toddlersamiright

anyway. we took some impromptu family photos today with brad's family so there may be some family pics on their way soon after all. we shall see....! happy 2015 ya'll!!

bubbles.

i've always wondered what goes on during fashion week in the city. it always sounded very interesting and great people watching at the very least. i'm so close to the city, it's a wonder i haven't gone to check it out before this year. luckily i have a friend who's observed it before, so she took a couple of us to go people-watching at lincoln center today during some fashion shows. fashion shows are invite only so you can't watch the runways but you can watch all the people waiting to be noticed outside. i should have taken more pictures of some of the people and fashion we saw, there were some interesting characters. i just didn't want to be a creeper!

bea playing outside the theatre

after some playing and people watching, we grabbed some lunch and headed towards the park to eat, but when we walked by columbus circle, the kiddos were so taken with some bubble guys, we decided to just eat there and let them play with the big bubbles. bea had so much fun! bradley saw these pictures and thought that bubble guy looked a bit creepy but i thought he was cool!

that is a stance of pure unadulterated joy

i love the city so much i can't even say, and now that bea is older she is falling in love with it too. but when i live close i often take it for granted and don't soak it in as often as i should. so i'm making a conscious effort now to go enjoy the city that i love more often. i hope to have a lunch date with bradley and bea each week from now on, so we'll see how that goes...i want bea to have early childhood memories of manhattan like i have. they are some of my most precious memories and part of why new york is so engrained in my heart and soul. i'm not going to live close forever, i need to take advantage of it while i can! 

New York Bound! (Again.)

The rumors are true. Our little family is moving back to the NYC metro area. This was a most unexpected twist in our plans and has happened rather fast. It happened like this:

One day {the second week of June} we were minding our own business when Bradley got an e-mail from a game company called "Fresh Planet" asking if he'd ever consider a job in New York. As everyone already knows, the answer to this question is always "Yes!" So he had a phone interview the next day, and was asked to come into the city to meet the team and CEO that Friday. Remember my birthday weekend in New York? It was also {mostly} a job interview weekend. {but it was still a blast!} He was given a third and final interview 5 days later and offered the job the next day! They actually wanted him to start June 30th but we were like "ahem. give us a sec." So he starts his job as their marketing director July 21st! I'll hang around here tying up loose ends until July 31st and then we are headed back to Connecticut!

Bradley is going to commute to the city again. This was a huge internal struggle for us. We finally were faced with the very real opportunity to live in the city that we've always dreamed of living in. But we were also painfully aware of the fact that it would require a HUGE lifestyle change. We would have more or less the same amount of space we have here in Philly but without our extra storage space {meaning we'd have to get rid of a lot of stuff}, without our washer and dryer, likely without a dishwasher, annnnnd we'd have to sell our car. Which I just wasn't sure I was ready to do. Just the thought of hauling all of my laundry down a 3 floor walkup to the laundromat, pregnant {no surprises here just always a possibility!} with a toddler in tow was enough to make me consider the suburbs again. Choosing the suburbs has been a small blow to my ego {am I not tough enough for the city?! why am I such a lightweight?!} but we really do believe it is the best choice for our family.

I know I haven't exactly been subtle about how I feel about Philly but I was surprised at how sad I've felt at the notion of leaving. I have made such amazing friends in this strange, strange city and leaving them here is hands down the WORST part of this whole thing. If I could wrap them all up and move them with me I would. I'm gonna miss the crap out of em. They will all just have to come visit us every single free second they have. It's only a 2 and a half hour drive! You know who you are.

I know it's only been a year but we've learned a lot living here. I truly think, with all of its quirks, Philly has changed us for the better. We've learned all kinds of stuff, primarily = that we can do hard things. It's not easy to live here, but we DID it! We made it through the worst winter ever, served in a ward with many needs and lots of diversity, learned to survive in a city, and learned that you don't have to love where you live to love your life. I can't tell you how many times I've sat rocking Bea to sleep at night just thinking of how blessed our lives are. I could go on and on about that but I have a toddler that is having a temper tantrum right now because she can't have fruit snacks for breakfast. So I'll leave it at that. Peace out, Philly. You're one of a kind.