Weekly Update 08.01.10

We are going to come full circle today, begin and end with a picture of the kid eating vegetables. Random, I know. He's got a weird thing for insisting on eating them whole these days, so there are pictures galore on the hard drive.


Speaking of the little guy, he is starting to look so much bigger. When he was a baby and I dressed him like a little man, he looked funny and cute and still like a baby. Now when I dress him that way, with all the walking and getting leaner stuff, the baby has entirely disappeared.

We had a nice cheese tray to welcome Mad Men back from their hiatus. I also made these delish tomato-and-eggplant stacks. Ah, Sunday nights are so much nicer again.

Peter has discovered our bed as a whole new playground, he likes to burrow under the blankets and make tunnels, toss pillows around, flop around and jump with glee. Oh, hurray. Just waiting for the day we take him to UrgentCare for stitches.

Because that time is not too far, I predict. Already he is fearless, climbing and jumping on the couch and on the club chair and on his own little chair. He gets lots of shiners to prove it. Here's the latest one, AN HOUR after he bumped his head he still kind looked like sloth in the forehead region:

Friday work was dead, I was in between deadlines, so my boss told me just to head home. Woohoo! Scott has off work on Fridays so we had a "date afternoon", had a long lunch and saw a movie. Inception. It was (1) well written, (2) well acted, and most of all (3) whoa, but the men were well dressed. Good tailoring goes a long way, I was almost distracted by the sharp suits.
Not in a bad way.

Scott also hit a major milestone while we were at lunch, hold on to your hats - he finished his World Beer Tour, that's 110 beers for the uninformed. It took many years and many many trips (I mean, come on - we've been here since 1999) but he finally did it. He gets his name engraved on the Hall of Fame plaque on the wall. Fist pump! And I must say, we've had many fond memories at this particular restaurant as Scott worked to his new title, it's our go-to spot when we head to the movies on that side of town. I think we'll probably be back, even though the prize has been won.

Saturday was devoted to my friend Julie's baby shower. Jules and I co-hosted at her house, and it was a blast. Just a few pictures from the day - first off the cake, Jules ordered it and it was adorable. The baker matched it to Julie's nursery bedding. We did all the colors for the shower around her nursery.

We made onesies for part of the decoration - I had trouble making these the first time and had to buy all new supplies to give it a second shot. Luckily, second time was the charm for me...

Our Baby Shower Bingo was a little more tongue-in-cheek than the usual ;)

Our other tongue-in-cheek, the favors - everybody got our own version of those girl baby flower-headband thingies.

Yeah I don't know why Stacey is throwing gang-signs here, either.

The mother-to-be is a dip-lover, so we made several different dips, lots of dippers, and also made 10 homemade pizzas. We got pizzas as we figured everybody needed to carb-load, because...

We had a nice citrus-y cocktail (and sodas for the non-drinkers).

Got home a little late from that one, yep. Good times!


The next morning Peter was up nice and early, we made a special breakfast of real cinnamon toast and fruit salsa. Fruit salsa leftover from the baby shower. I have a lot of onion dip too. Just sayin'. Anyway, from our breakfast baking, Peter liked licking the cinnamon-sugar-vanilla butter the best.

We spent Sunday cleaning and catching up on chores and laundry, but found some time to head to campus for our regular Chi O fountain dip (which we missed on Friday). Unfortunately: they are doing a lot of work over there, on the drainage system on Jayhawk Boulevard, so the fountain is off. Drained. Kaput. That didn't stop Peter from running at it at full tilt, arms out ready for an embrace, his beloved fountain. Unfortunately he had to comfort himself with just a campus walk instead.

I don't think he really minded. He ran around all over the place, and made us walk all the way down (and then Scott had to carry him back up, hiking those bajillion stairs the entire way up) the Hill.

Okay, so he has gone up a shoe size officially. It is kind of a bummer but, also means that (1) he finally fits those cute Reefs well and walks confidently in them, and (2) I can go shoe shopping. So far there are three pairs on their way via UPS.

And so we are back to the veggies, so you know it is the end. Hope that everyone had as lovely a weekend as we did - see you again soon :)

Weekly Update 06.06.10

Hi. Busy week, so let's bullet-point that update. I am in a bullet-pointy mood. Mostly party pics this week, too, because I was really bad about breaking out the camera (and all Sunday pics are still on said camera, which I accidentally left in Pete's room).



- Hi, I have another sinus infection. This one is strange and only on one side, making it especially nice. They gave me the super-strong antibiotics this time, and a Rx nasal spray, so that should knock it right out.

- Peter was also pretty sick at the beginning of the week, high fever: it hit 105F a few times so we were a bit worried, and Motrin/Tylenol didn't seem to do anything for it. Monday afternoon I went to get him from one of his (many) naps and his fever had broken - his sheets, clothes, and hair were soaked in sweat, but the fever was completely gone. Hurrah!

- With Memorial Day, Pete's sickness, my sickness, and taking a vacation day on Friday - I didn't exactly get much office-time in this week. Next week should be nice and hectic...

- Beah sent Doots a Cozy Coupe for his birthday. I assembled it all by myself, took over 2 hours: those things look deceptively easy to put together, but dudes there are a LOT of small parts involved.

- Friday morning we had family pictures with the Solars! Fun as always, and I was able to pull together some last-minute outfits (I bought Pete this awesome hipster button-up shirt, to wear with dark-wash jeans and his fedora and Vans. Only, I didn't try the shirt on him until 7pm Thursday night, and it turns out the shirt landed below his knees. Oops. And another outfit's shorts were too big. So we had some last minute wardrobe changes...). Anyhoo, can't wait to see the pics, should be up soon :)

- Nikki came and stayed with us late in the week; she had school + work stuff to take care of, and then helped out with party planning/prepping/decorating. She. Was. A. Godsend.

- Party went really well! It was insanely hot (KS summers SUCK, it was 100F with the heat index and humid humid humid) but everybody still seemed to have a good time! All the kiddos helped Peter with his smash cake, which was perfect: he's quiet and I think being alone with the thing would have been a disaster of hiding his face and crying. Instead it was a good time had by all the babies/toddlers.

- Oh my gosh, but the party, it is over! It's really over! I love party planning and setting up and all of that, but I must admit that I always feel like an awkward, sweaty hostess; I love my family/friends and yet I still get a case of the nerves just hoping everyone has a good time. Which it seems like they all did, so now I am a little sad it is all over, I must admit. And now I'll turn my attention to planning a baby shower that I'm co-hosting later this summer...

- One of Peter's gifts was a gift certificate to one of our favorite shops downtown, The Toy Store. We decided that since we really won't have another chance to head up there for a long time, that we would just go ahead and spend it on Sunday. Peter was super-happy to pick out his own little toys, and finally settled on a pretend-food set, a little basketball, and the best thing of all: a broom and dustpan set. I mean, he freaked. He grabbed it and held it until we went to drop it off at the car, he was so pumped. He has spent a good chunk of time happily sweeping the floors ever since our return home.

- Pete loves Juice Stop. In a way that he has never shown affection for anything before. It was blazing hot on Sunday, so at the end of a leisurely walk of Mass St. we decided to grab a smoothie. From the first sip he had a death grip on the cup, screaming it when I took it away and "hid" it (and ladies and gents, he screamed for SEVERAL BLOCKS down Mass St., until I caved and gave it back to him in the car). He drank more than half of a 20-oz. cup, shrieking anytime I even moved my hand, as if I was going to snatch it away again at any second. I have a friend whose daughter who is also obsessed with their smoothies, so I can only determine that it is Toddler Crack.

- While we were downtown (thankfully before the Juice Stop Fiasco) I bought myself these awesome sparkly Reefs at Shark's. I also almost bought a dashboard hula lady, but was able to restrain myself.

- The rest of Sunday included us just chilling, relaxing after a busy few weeks, gearing up for the next week ahead. I leave for a business trip mid-week and am gone for 7 days, I'm trying not to think too much about it... At least this meeting is full of fun, interesting folks and has a lot of evening functions, so I should be so busy and entertained that time goes by quickly.

- A year ago today I was just getting home from a long walk with a friend, pretty much hit the sack immediately afterwards (to wake up to contractions). My goodness, how time flies.

Motherhood: Just Like Your Normal Life, Only Ten Times More Complicated

Tonight I had my Book Club from 5:30p to 7:30p. As mentioned earlier, I forgot to get a sitter and was a host so I couldn’t exactly stay home. Besides, Free State Brewery is a favorite of mine…

Now, a year ago this is how things would have gone:

1. I would have probably worked until 5:15p-ish, then headed downtown to find parking and walk over to the brewery.

However, now I have a child to include in my plans. So things went a little like this:

1. Left work a little early to drive over the bridge and through a detour/construction, to pick up baby from daycare.


2. Talk to daycare provider probably much too long about the state of my son’s dirty diapers, then wrestle the car-hating child into his car seat. While he howls in protest.


3. Drive back through detour and construction and over bridge, then waaaaaaaay over to our house on the south side of town. Through “Lawrence rush hour”, A.K.A. this town is too big for its own britches, therefore way too many drivers are forced to share a small side street as if it were a main thoroughfare, resulting in it taking 15 minutes to drive a mile and a half. Insert: the sounds of an angry, spiteful child yelping from the back seat the entire time.


4. Wrestle child back out of the car seat, and attempt to carry the squirming child into the house, while also carrying (1) diaper bag, (2) purse, (3) daycare bag, (4) office lunch bag, and (5) breast pump.


5. Get caught by super nice next-door neighbors, so spend the next 10 minutes anxiously glancing at watch and trying to cajole a pouty baby to FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY JUST SQUEEZE OUT A TEENY SMILE ALREADY for the nice little old people. Instead he buries his face into my chest and moans “ah-buuuuuuuuu” the entire time.


6. With trembling arms from the weight of baby and all the bags, finally make it into the house. Baby is squealing “aaaaaaaah-buuuuuuuuuu!” at a pitch that could break glass, so drop all bags and scramble baby and self out of coat to get him something to drink.
   
   
7. Baby zonks out after approximately 5 minutes of drinking. Great. Because we probably should have left to go back downtown about 5 minutes ago, as parking is hard to find on a KU game night.


8. Wrestle child back into car seat. Baby is now SUPREME HULK ANGRY after being awoken from sleep. Proof that sometimes God does look down upon me happily: I find Rockstar Parking right in front of the brewery. Sweeeeeet. Only: we're about 25 minutes too early for the room reservation...


9. Wrestle baby out of car. Spend 5 minutes fiddling with Bjorn to get it right and get baby in it properly. Bundle blanket over baby (it was FREEZING! Cold. And I forgot my own hat, great). Grab enormous diaper bag and start hitting the stores.
   
   
10. Get so involved in looking at the clearanced scarves in The Gap that I have to sprint to Free State to be there for our reservation time.

Aaaaand: fin. Actually the rest was a piece of cake: Peter was a dream all night, smiling and cooing at the ladies, sitting nicely on my lap the entire time.

I do earn Mommy of the Year points for what happened at the end: we were all getting ready to leave. I plopped Peter in the high chair and was chatting happily while getting our things together and pulling on my coat. After a few minutes I hear the quietest little squawks, and look down to locate where the weird noise is coming from . . . Oh boy.

I thought I had the high chair divider between his legs? But no, I put both legs into one leg opening. So he had somehow squirmed all the way through, with only his head keeping him from sliding to the floor. It was a sight to see actually, and after letting out a few motherly "PETER!!!" shouts, I was able to pull him back through the top. Crisis averted.

Yeah. Dramatic re-creation of the moment can be seen below (I am too lazy to cut out an entire baby body, TOO MANY ANGLES PEOPLE, so I drew the body with the handy paintbrush feature):

Weekend Update 08.09.09

Our pretty, scenic drive to Halstead!

OH MY GOSH.

Okay, I've dropped the ball. This is obviously on the blog back-dated about, oh, say, 3 weeks too late... But I have a great excuse! Work, it's been nutso! And evenings are just too short! And we've been super busy I swear! So anyway, I'm sorry. This is way late. I'll try to type quickly and get it posted for ya.

So, three weeks ago. Hum. Well, work started up again. I went back to the office and was greeted by hundreds upon hundreds of emails (seriously). Deadlines. Found out a client was flying in from the east coast for training the next week... It was lovely. But! Kept me nice and busy, and besides our assistant did an AMAZING job of keeping up while I was away, so I can't complain much :)

Also our boy turned 2 months old officially. TWO MONTHS OLD. How did this happen already, I just had him?!? He wore his Robot romper for the last time, sadly, it was quite tight. He wore that in the hospital and it was swimming on him...

The weekend (8th/9th) was spent in Halstead to visit family, friends, and check out the Halstead annual festival (Old Settlers). We had lots of fun! Peter, however, is not fond of car rides. Now, he usually howls the entire time when we're toodling around town here and there. So it's not a new thing. However we hoped he would maybe kick back and enjoy road trips a bit better.

Not so much.

Anyhoo: once in Halstead we first hit up the parade, watched with family. Then we went to visit Scott's buddy Tim. Saw the Hortons quickly, then back up to the park to visit Grandpa Mueller at the Scouts hamburger stand. It was insanely hot out, and we figured that was not so good for baby, so we headed back to Kris and Alfie's to cool off and relax a bit.

Scott and I had a quick date that evening, Peter stayed with his grandparents and had a lovely time :) We had dinner and then headed back to the park to see who we could see. Got to watch the fireworks with Cody and Kirsten, us girls caught up a bit which was nice :)

Sunday we lounged around and enjoyed time with grandma and grandpa. Dawdled over a late lunch, then back to Lawrence for us. The trip seemed to go by too fast!

That was about it for the week/weekend. Lots of stuff going on, keeping us busy! :)

Halstead, September 2008

We took a quick trip to Halstead in early September, which I'm finally posting about. A nice trip! Stayed with Tim as usual, and did some fun things: watched a Halstead football game, had dinner with the family to celebrate birthdays, and went to the State Fair with friends. Lots of fun!

Tim's dog Sasha!

Off to the Fair! We tagged along with Kirsten, Cody, Madi, and Cason. It was my very first time ever going to the State Fair. It was awesome!

Checking out the record-setting pumpkin.

Record-setting pumpkin, in the flesh:

Butter sculpture:

Madi trying out farming equipment.

Tim enjoying some State Fair grub.

Madi is a giant bunch of wine grapes!