Cooking Again

One good thing about me being off work these last weeks is I've been more willing to cook again. Unfortunately I'm afraid I've just spoiled Monkey and X cause when I'm back at work I hardly think it will continue. At least during the week unless I can find even more easy, quick recipes. What I've found though is I'm actually starting to prefer making things from scratch. Bisquick pancakes??? Not us! This morning is was homemade pancakes with fresh strawberries. Pre-packaged muffins?? Not when I can whip together some banana chocolate chip ones. How about easy stroganoff for dinner??? So yummy! I find myself browsing recipes online looking for things that look good and a little different than our norm. Even adding additional basics to our grocery item instead of buying the usual ready made stuff. Over all it's cheaper anyways and it's kinda fun to experiment. And my favorite recipe site has user reviews and suggests that help as well. Even better is it's coming up on the holidays. Best time of the year for baking and making the house all warm and good smelling. Better than any candle you can buy!

And if you didnt notice I've changed my recipe blog over as well. You can find all the things we've tried lately and some old favorites HERE. Well almost all the old ones, I'm still transfering things over.

**Sigh**

Almost 6 weeks now.

Isn't he getting so big? Those are 3month clothes!

Half smirk, not quite a grin. We're getting there


Her face cracks me up. I think even he was wondering what her issue is.

Your Kidding Right?

I'm sure anyone who has kids has deal with the "Is IT a boy or girl?". First, you gotta love how baby is now an IT. Like he/she is no longer human when someone doesn't know their gender. Course, I shouldn't be too judgemental. I've probably done the same thing with our realizing it.

Here is the thing though....there are certain people like me who will dress their children so that it is apparent what gender they are. If I see a baby dressed in pink and purple them I'm pretty much going to assume that they are a girl. If the baby is in blue then most likely they are a boy. Course, there are some exceptions to the rule. I'm sure their are some parents who don't care what color their child is wearing. yes, I've seen boys in pink and purple. Not my boy of course...LOL

Today one of our neighbors had a party for her son's birthday so we went down for awhile. They had one of those big blow up bounce house things which Monkey loved and I'm hoping will now result in her sleeping very well tonight. Anyways, I dressed Toots in a blue onsie, blue jeans, and blue/white socks, and had a blue blanket with little puppies on it. And still every single person that came up to us asked "Is it a boy or girl". Grrr.....seriously people! Do I need to table a post it to his forhead??

Sweet Sleep

I'm probably jinxing myself but Toots actually slept in his crib last night! Totally unintentional on my part. During the day I've been trying to put him to sleep in there and at night in the pack n play next to our bed. Last night I laid him down about 8pm in teh crib thinking he would wake up about 10pm to eat like normal. I laid down on the couch with X and promptly passed out. At some point X went to bed but Toots didn't get me up till around 2:30am to eat. After I fed him I put him back to sleep in the crib where he slept until almost 7:30am. I would absolutely love it if we could get into that routine every night. Course I would need to make a point of getting to bed earlier but on that schedule i could get much needed sleep. In addition I'd have time to get up and get ready for work in the morning before having to get the two of them up and ready as well. One can hope right??? I have to say it was nice not having him right next to the bed where we could hear every sound he made. In the crib I could hear him actually cry on the monitor bu tnot every single grunt and groan. I'm sure X is now going to insist he sleep in the crib EVERY night. We'll see though.

Farewell

It's always sad when family or friends move away. Monkey is experiencing it for the first time. Granted we have had people leave the area over the years but it was either when she was too little to understand or we really were not that close. Last night we went to visit with her Aunt, Uncle, and 3 cousins as they are leaving today. Her Uncle is in the Navy and they have been transfered to Guam for three years. Monkey knows that they are moving away and that we will not see them again for a long time. We spent a couple hours there and she had so much fun playing with her cousins and eating pizza. When it was time to leave though it was so hard on her. All I kept hearing was "but I don't want them to move!". On the drive home we talked of nothing more than sending letters and emails and lots of pictures. She doesn't understand why they have to move only that they are. Since they are the only link to her fathers side of the family at the moment I think she is taking it even harder. She knows who her dad is, meaning his name, she doesn't know him as a person. I've always explained his being absent was because he lived so far away. Now I think she is assocating that distance that she will no longer know her cousins. Hopefully that won't be the case.

It's a Conspiracy

Babies must be born with the ability to just sense when you want to get something done. It never fails. On days when I'm feeling pretty lazy, just not wanting to do anything Toots is more than willing to sleep all day long. So much so that I find myself making sure he's still breathing because he's so quiet. Then on days where I have a lot to do he won't sleep and pretty much cries non stop. Of course these also are the days it's just him and I so I have nobody to take over to give me a bit of a break too.

Take today for instance. It started off well enough. He was actually agreeable with letting me get monkey ready for school even though she was determined to be really slow. Got her off on the bus and came home. Took some time to check my email and a few message boards. Changed and fed Toots thinking that surely this would put him to sleep so i can tackle monkey's room and getting rid of toys she doesn't play with. He drifted off to sleep and then 20 mins later was screaming. Just as I had gotten everything dragged out to the living room to sort through. Tried everything and the only thing he wanted was to eat so did that again. He dropped off to sleep, layed him down with some lullabye music, 20 minutes later he was screaming agian. The was teh case all morning. I did manage to get a little bit done but it was like a race of how much I could get to before he woke up again.

So this afternoon got lunch and then ran up to Walmart to pick up some photo's I had printed. Toots fussed as I put him in the carseat, picked it up and he was passed out before i got the front door locked behind me. Slept the whole 20 minutes it took to get back home and then was screaming as we walked into the house.

So what gives?? How the heck do you get a baby to sleep for longer than 20 minutes at a time??? I think part of his problem is just that he isn't sleeping right. So it's making him crankier than normal and in turn keeping him up more. I seriously can't sit on the couch all day with him attached to me. And I can't listen to him scream so much. For my own sanity if nothing more!

So appropriate

Toots nickname is definitely appropriate. In the last 5 minutes as I'm sitting here editing some things on the blog site he has "tooted" like 10 times. I guess I should be greatful though, at least they don't stink. YET!!