Tired

An unexpected afternoon nap by the 3 year old, homemade quacamole and catching Ocean's Thirteen on TV just as it starts. It's been a pretty good Sunday afternoon around here. It was a pretty good morning too, Ted and Katherine spend a couple of hours outside which enabled me to take a nice nap. I didn't realized how much I needed it until I laid down.

I jumped off the blogging bandwagon last week. Yet again work has been crazy so my ability to do lunchtime updates was compromised. And though I am too stubborn to admit it, I am exhausted most nights when I get home from work these days. My parents were visiting this past week and my mom asked me more than one night if I was tired. No, no, I'm fine. But each night I crashed hard at bedtime (with of course plenty of thoughts of what this blog post should include which are long gone from my head now). With a little more than one more month to go, I shouldn't be too surprised. Lucky for me and for Miss K, she was plenty entertained this past week. In fact she was quite teary eyed on Friday morning when she realized that she wouldn't be spending the day with Papa and Gram.

I was telling Ted this weekend that on one hand I can't believe how fast time is going by, we're already in the last week of February! On the other hand I've definitely reached the point where I'm like "only 33 weeks???" This is where being so busy at work during the week is a blessing, it makes time go by that much faster. I just need to start working those lunch breaks back in.

You also may have noticed a new blog on our blog list, twentysix.two. Ted has started his own blog to track his running. Check it out! And I promise, updates to the picture site are coming very soon!

Look Mommy!

First time making her bed all by herself. Not too bad for a first time! She is very proud of herself. The anal retentive person in me is resisting the urge to straighten it out.


-- Post From My iPhone

Winter Wonderland

The pictures don't do it justice, it's gorgeous outside. Someone hasn't asked yet to go outside but I'm sure the request is coming. Looks like good snowman snow.









-- Post From My iPhone

Tasty, tasty

I realized tonight that it has been just over a week since my last post. There's a four letter word that is the primary reason for the space between posts. Work. Things have been crazy, I finished up a major evaluation project on Monday only to find myself buried in catch up work. I swear I could spend every waking moment between now and when the baby is born working on projects and still not be in the place I would like to be before maternity leave. As I've said before, we are pretty much ready for this new addition to our family, work is the only place where I feel not ready. And yes both my co-workers AND my bosses tell me not to be worried about this, what gets done gets done, but you know the anal retentive person in me just can't have it that way. I would feel too personally responsible about dumping my work on someone else. I want as many things in order before the big moment. Not only that, I know that work I put aside before the baby is born will be waiting for me when I return. I'd rather get it done now if I can and make my return as smooth as possible. Everyone at work is fully aware of these anal retentive tendencies so they just say ok and tell me not to stress myself out too much. They know full well their not going to change my mind.

So what's in store for the weekend? Honestly, I keep forgetting that Valentine's Day is this Sunday. Ted asked me a week ago what I wanted to do this weekend and I was like, huh? We discussed going out to dinner. However the more I thought about it I realized what I would really like would be to skip dinner and head straight to dessert. So the plan is to locate a gooey, decadent, chocolate dessert to bring home and enjoy. Heck, I'm eating for two right now so I don't care how many calories are involved, just as long as it's tasty. I'm planning on looking up bakeries and pastry shops in the area tomorrow to see what we can find. Along the way we'll pick up a little cupcake or something for Katherine since she still does not like chocolate.

I am also sure that this weekend will involve some cookie baking. During our recent snowy weekend, I decided a good cabin fever activity would be to make some cookies. I had made this sour cream cookie recipe from McCashew before. Unfortunately we were out of a key ingredient, eggs. So I had to do some improvising. I had read that you could substitute applesauce for eggs, I just needed to look online for the proper amount of applesauce to add to the recipe. I also added cinnamon instead of nutmeg. The result was a soft and tasty apple-cinnamon cookie that was a big hit with everyone in the house, even with the member of the household that isn't too keen on the sweet stuff. We made a second batch a few days later. Katherine has made a few requests to make them again since then, she had a great time helping me.

Sounds like things are shaping up to be quite tasty around here for the next few days!

Strollin' Around

We are finally getting back into the routine around here and it feels great. There's another storm headed our way tonight but it looks like it will just be a nasty, rainy day tomorrow for our area. Phew!!

This week Katherine has become quite attached to the stroller. I brought it in the house on Monday, in the midst of our cabin fever, to wash down with her help. I don't think we'd ever really cleaned the thing and with nothing better to do it was as a good a time as any. As I brought it and the infant car seat in from the garage I explained to her that her baby brother would need to use these things and that we were cleaning them up for him. Her immediate reaction was "That's MY stroller!" I showed her how the infant car seat fit on the stroller. Honestly, she could have cared less, she wanted that car seat off so she could sit in the stroller. Mind you, the kid hasn't paid one bit of attention to that stroller in at least six months, if not longer. In fact, we stopped taking it with us anywhere ages ago because she would insist on walking once we got to our destination.

She was thrilled with helping me clean the stroller (she was a big help too!) and once we finished I put the infant seat back on to show her again. She enjoyed putting her baby and various other stuffed animals in the stroller. BUT let's be clear about something, as far as she is concerned it is still HER stroller. Think of the car commercial where people run around like crazy picking out their car and one person actually licks the car they want to claim it (what, am I the only one that remembers that commercial?) and you have her current mentality about right. Because since Monday, she has kept a close eye on the whereabouts of that stroller. I put it back in the garage Monday night and wouldn't you know it was the first thing she looked for when she hit downstairs on Tuesday morning. She was insistent that it come back into the house. She pushes it right over in front of the TV and sits in it, buckles herself in and everything. Asks for a snack to put in the snack tray. So much for the couch. Oh and don't you touch it and move it on her.

I realized that as far as the "baby stuff" goes the stroller is probably the only thing that she remembers because it is the thing that has been most recently used, even if it was six months ago. She might remember the crib only because it was a toddler bed for a bit but even with that she has said that she's too big for it and it's now for her baby brother to use. She's not quite there with the stroller. There's no "big girl bed" counterpart to a stroller, you just have to walk. And let's face it, walking can be tiring sometimes (haven't we all seen a kid snoozing in a stroller and thought about how nice it would be if someone could push us around like that?). I know this is a passing phase, so we're not overly concerned with it. If watching TV from the comfort of her stroller helps her get used to the upcoming changes in her life, so be it. Santa brought her a stroller for her baby doll this Christmas, so I'm hoping when the new baby arrives she'll want to push her baby in it's stroller along side the big stroller but for now I don't think she's quite ready to say that she doesn't still need to be pushed sometimes too. And let's face it, she may be three, but she'll still our baby girl.

She's been playing upstairs with Daddy all evening so I've stealthily put the stroller back in the garage. Let's see how long it takes her to notice and ask for her "strillrr" to come back inside.

We're at work

Having a blast at Mommy's office today. Seriously, she was excited to come with me and she's very content playing on the floor and checking things out.


-- Post From My iPhone

Snowy Weekend

There's one happy kid in that picture. Katherine went outside to play in the snow not once, but FIVE times this weekend. She was literally chomping at the bit get outside as soon as she woke up Saturday morning. However, it was sleeting quite heavily so we had to hold her off for a bit. When she could wait no more, Ted took her out. I watched from the windows.Of course, I couldn't stand all toasty inside every one of those 5 times. I took her out some too. I've been wanting a picture of her making a snow angel since last year's snow. Finally!

Of course, no snowy weekend is complete without some sliding and the hill in our yard is perfect for a preschooler. We couldn't find the blow up pool float from this summer, I think it got accidentally thrown away a few weeks ago so I had to improvise. Out came the cookie sheet with a touch of cooking spray on the bottom. Right after I brought it out I had images of National Lampoons running through my head, this would either work or be a complete disaster. But it worked beautifully. She only did about 3 to 4 runs each time she was outside, I think it was hitting the bottom and realizing, hey I gotta walk back up there if I want to do that again. Luckily, I got one on camera. This is not the best run that she had but it is the one I caught video of.

But who needs a cookie sheet when you have the cozy coupe! Clearly Ted is more creative than me.

Naturally all that playing tuckered her right out. Both Saturday and Sunday nights she fell sound asleep in the middle of our book reading. I couldn't resist this picture.
We were all home today as well. You've seen what our road looked like, I imagine all neighborhood roads looked like that which means the county closed schools. Our daycare does whatever the county does but truthfully, just about everything was probably closed today. The funny thing is that you could hear the cars buzzing down the highway from our backyard, the problem was getting to the highway. Like I said, secondary roads are not treated, not plowed, nothing. There's not enough equipment and manpower to do it. Therefore everyone just waits until it melts. We're hoping to venture out tomorrow. Schools are still closed but I'm planning on taking Miss K into the office with me even if we only last a few hours. We've got to get out of the house. Even K. seemed a bit bored today, she only lasted 30 minutes outside this morning and after coming inside, she didn't ask to go out again. I think she's had enough of playing in the snow. And while the regular cleaning needs to be done (when doesn't it?) Ted and I have taken care of a lot of the other stuff that was on our lists for around the house. Its time to get back into the routine...