I’m Emily, a rockin’, fan-freakin-tastic mom, wife, music teacher (currently substitute teaching), piano teacher, grammar stickler, Starbucks addict, sometime-photographer and baker, Disney lover, and all-around sarcastic crazy lady.

In 1993, my husband and I met as freshmen at Connecticut College while (geek alert) singing in two of our college’s a cappella groups.

Or maybe we just fell for one another’s bangs…

Twenty-one years later, damn if he doesn’t still make me laugh (despite occasionally “forgetting” to run the dishwasher)… And the rest, as they say, is history – nutty, wild, eye-opening, exhausting, fun, hard-work, hilarious history, but history nevertheless. After living in Denver, Colorado for four years, Nick and I moved back east and were married in New York in 2001, just 30 miles from NYC and three weeks after September 11th. I’ll tell you that story sometime. It’s a good one.

After first “expanding” our family by way of furry mutts,

That’s Joey in the hat and Madison in the scarf. Duh.

we welcomed our daughter, Eleanor (Ella), in December 2004

and our daughter, Annabelle (Annie), in December 2006.

They were supposed to be three years apart and certainly not both born within two weeks of Christmas, but I’ve always been bad with The Math. Turns out they’re awesome anyway, despite my faulty addition.

In 2007, we escaped the hustle and bustle of the NYC metro area and moved outside of Rochester, NY, which we adore, despite the endless gray winters. We raise puppies for a service dog organization, which makes our house part-kennel, part-playground, and all-around bonkers. If you spied on us (but, um, please don’t), you’d see that our little foursome loves to sing and make music, cook, travel, play games, tell fart jokes, watch shows on The Food Network, and dream of winning a vacation on Trip Flip.

Typical dinner in our backyard.
Or perhaps it was a Jamaican beach for our 10th wedding anniversary. Semantics.

As a self-taught baker and photographer, I can make a mean, tiered, fondant-covered cake and can take some excellent almost-professional photographs (although usually not at the same time). Spilling on myself, losing my keys, and embarrassing myself in public are also my specialities, although I can whoop your butt in a trivia contest and am a dishwasher-loading ninja. Broadway musicals, being in the classroom, laughing, good cheese, Modern Family, caramel macchiatos, spending time with friends (especially where dessert is involved), Disney movies with my girls, Homeland with my husband, chocolate, books with happy endings, playing “The Lake Game” with my family, So You Think You Can Dance, the Three Tenors singing “Nessun Dorma,” and white wine make this mama very happy.

Oh, and I have classic adult ADHD, so — hey, look! A kitty!

Life sure as hell isn’t easy, and I make about a bazillion mistakes each day, but focusing on the bad stuff sucks. There’s (almost) always a silver lining, something funny, in every situation, and it’s my mission to find it. Or at least to find cheesy 80s song lyrics about it.
That’s what this blog is for. Stick around for a bit. Crazy is fun.

“Tell me, are we gonna let the elevator bring us down?
Oh, no! Let’s go!
Let’s go crazy!”

Thank you, Prince. And thanks, also, for changing your name back to Prince, because that whole TAFKAP thing was really hard to type.

Easter 2015. 
Don’t worry – we don’t normally dress up like this unless we’re pretending to be the Von Trapps, and then we attempt to find more matchy-matchy duds.

You can contact me at alltogetherscattered@gmail.com.