halloween socks

In a tradition started i can't remember how many years ago, my mom gave me a pair of Halloween socks this past week. I am wearing them today in order to bring a smile while working on a Saturday.

Happy early Halloween!

Winnie cat socks

apple crisp

Yesterday I made apple crisp.  I was going to take pictures but then I ate it too fast. All I got was this one when bragging on Instagram, and that was before the vanilla ice cream. Yum!

So here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
4 cups sliced apples
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup butter or margarine cut into pieces
3/4 teaspoon nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
dash of ginger

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350*
Spray an 8x8 pan with nonstick cooking spray.
Slice apples and add to prepared pan.
Mix brown sugar, flour, oats, and spices in medium bowl.
Add butter and mix with fork (or clean hands) until crumbly.
Pour over apples, covering evenly.
Bake for 30 minutes or until top is golden brown and apples are soft (no resistance when poked with knife).

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream and ENJOY!

monster update (not in size)

*After 5 days of coughing, sneezing, stuffiness, runny nose, not eating well, or sleeping, I finally gave in and took monster to the doctor. what does she have? an upper respiratory tract infection, or in other words a fancy name for a cold. Plus, I got yelled at for her not being big enough. Have you ever tried to make a baby eat who doesn't want to eat? I don't know what more I can do. I guess 16 pounds isn't enough. Too bad. She's just going to be a small girl.

*Missed out on going to our class field trip tonight because of said cold and need for monster to sleep. Sad, we missed out on the petting zoo but monster's not really ready for that yet. Maybe in a few months...

*We started switching monster over to whole milk today. So far, same reaction as to formula. Will drink a little and then stop. Need to get this kid to drink better... maybe a straw?

epic 3 hour nap

On a completely different topic... I sometimes wonder if I would like the bloggers that I follow in real life? Some of them yes for sure, but others, I'm not really sure if I would or not. And, would they like me?

blogging break, etc

I unintentionally took a break from blogging last week. I didn't have anything to post about and I was lazy. :)

I still don't have anything to say today but need to get my presence back on the interwebs, yes? LOL.

Working a long week this week and then going to the Twins game on Sunday. Hope the weather is nice. The monster will stay with her grandparents on Saturday night. A nice little break for all of us.

We went to check out the apple place around our house. Not too exciting. I didn't have high hopes so I wasn't disappointed. We took home some really good cider, gone in a day, and an awesome caramel apple pecan pie, also gone in a day. Whoops. Monster slept the entire time we were there, so that's good. She needed the nap.

We had an impromptu date night on Friday. that was fun. Had dinner and rented a movie. Man, we're old. I had thoughts of going downtown for a few drinks and then thought about how much it would hurt the next day when monster was being all monstery... yeah. Needless to say, drinking did not happen much. I had a peach margarita with dinner. Very exciting.

Monster was sick/is sick with a cold and teething at the same time. Poor kid can't breathe. Feel bad for her.

so much for that...

My plan to do the mud run has been foiled. Apparently, they got a lot of people signed up for it and closed registration. I feel pretty stupid for not signing up early enough. I guess I just didn't think they would get as many people as they did. that. sucks.

How monster got her nickname

When I was pregnant, I didn't even notice monster's kicks and movements at first. I thought it was just gas. However, over time, as she got bigger and I got bigger, her movements got more and more noticeable. By the end of that summer, you could really tell when she was moving around or kicking. It was like she was trying to get out through my skin! Totally freaked me out, like a monster inside me or something. after she was born, there were days (and still are days to be honest) where she is crabby and nothing can help to calm her down. She acts like a monster, hence the nickname.

GranPat (my mom) always said to me, "don't call her a monster, she's not" but then one day she said, "I can see why you call her that." Ha! ha! Vindication. I guess monster isn't always on her best behavior when she's with her grandparents.

progress

**Meant to post this yesterday! Oops.**

Last night was our first ECFE (Early Childhood Family Education) class for the school year. We meet once a week on Tuesday evenings for an hour. The ages in the class range from 9 months to 18 months. All of the kids are pretty mobile, except for Monster. It was pretty hard to sit there and watch all the little kids, especially the ones younger than Monster, climbing around all over the place, crawling, and sitting/standing like it's no big deal. I almost teared up. It gets to me that she can't do these things yet. Will I ever get it through my head that she has developmental delays? She'll do things in her own time, not when the other babies do things? She works so hard doing what she is doing that I should just enjoy the fact that she can do things. She can roll around and scoot sort of. She can sit if placed in a sitting position but not yet get to one by herself. She almost did last night though! She can get up on her hands and knees and rock back and forth, just not quite crawling yet. Its hard to see her progress since I'm in the thick of it every day but the teachers we have been working with can definitely see her growth.

Our house...

is a very, very, very fine house...with 2 cats in the yard...

Missed the deadline for Navigating the Mothership's tour of homes but still wanted to show my house. I'm a bit too lazy to take pictures of what we have done at this point, but I promise I will.

Here's our house on our final walk through the night before we bought it, over 2 years ago.

View from the street (low angle)

We bought this house for 3 main reasons, the neighborhood, the backyard, and the garage. It is in a quiet neighborhood with good schools, even though this didn't weigh into our decision at the time, and lots of kids and families. The yard is huge, the biggest lot on the block, lots of room to play and grass to mow for the husband.

view of the back yard

This used to be an alley, now it's grass

Here's the garage and yes that's a screen door.

I liked that the house had a front porch. For some reason I always wanted a front porch. We even acted like we were on House Hunters and said we could sit out and drink our coffee on the porch in the mornings. Ha. Probably have spent a total of 2 hours total on the porch in the last 2 years. Anyway, Lets go inside shall we?

Welcome, welcome. Living room to right of front door

fireplace area to left of front door

Stairs going up to the right of the dining room

Dining room straight ahead from door

Sliding doors to backyard, in kitchen

View of kitchen, with blue carpet, from dining room

Bathroom, same blue carpet included!

So there's the main floor. Going upstairs we have 3 bedrooms and a hallway.

hallway

"office"

"guest room"

The master bedroom is humongous! Even though it feels rather small now with all our crap in it. It could easily be 2 rooms. I would love love love to add a bathroom up here and it easily could be done with the amount of space we have. We also have a large walk-in closet.

It doesn't look that wide but I can easily lay down with space on either side of me, granted I'm pretty short but it is a big closet!

To finish up, back downstairs and through the kitchen to the side door and icky stone basement. I hate this basement and would like to figure out a way to fix it, but there's a huge cistern taking up most of the room down there... what to do?

side door going into basement

from side door down to icky basement

And there you have it. Our house, in the middle of our street. Thanks for stopping by.

I wish...

Sometimes I wish...

that I could have a do-over. I would go back in time, before I was a mom, before I was a wife, heck even before I was a college student. I would go back to a time when things were more simple for me. When I didn't have a care/bill/worry or anything more pressing than losing a tennis match or avoiding the boys in the hallways at lunchtime. Back to when I had actual girl friends who had time for me/for us/to be more than just parents. To be kids. I miss waking up in the morning and going to high school, even though I didn't care for high school, at least I knew what was in store for me... class and then tennis practice or cheer practice, joking with the 'popular girls,' talking with my best friends, always knowing that when I got home supper would be ready or being made, my parents would be there, and I was free to do nothing or do something.

The beginning of fall/school year always makes me long for a different time in my life, a time when new things were beginning, new clothes and supplies were gotten, and friendships were renewed after a long summer. In this day and age, my fall is no fun. I don't even notice mostly. The weather a little but other than that, nothing new in store, nothing fun. Just the same old, every day, boring life...

You know it's labor day in MN...

when your MN bloggers are all about the state fair rundowns. :-) Seriously, I read the blogs of 4 gals from MN and 3 of them had a state fair post in the last few days. Funny to me.

We don't make it a point to go to the state fair every year, after all how many times can you see the crowds and the miracles of birth (yugh)? but, we did go this year and it was so exciting that Monster fell asleep minutes after arriving in the parking lot. We ate lots of great food, walked around, and got manhandled in the crowds. We went looking for the FSN girls, only to see Crunch (TWolves mascot) instead. It was a pretty fun day spent with monster's godparents and capped off with a late dinner at Granite City.

oh the state fair crowds!

Highlight of the day, I got to try out a BOB Revolution stroller (because my smart little self didn't think to check if the umbrella stroller I borrowed actually had an umbrella on it, it didn't) that we borrowed from a neighbor at the last minute. I LOVED this stroller. Smooth ride, shocks, and comfy to handle, even in the crowds. When we got home, I started looking around to buy one and damn, $300 on sale. Too rich for my blood. I even looked at the BOB Dualie, thinking maybe someday we would need one... Like $600. so sad.

goals

On July 30th, I said my goal for August was to blog 2-3 times a week... So, how’d I do in August? 14 total posts. What did I post about? Random nothing... a little bit of something... and I made a new friend, Court3ney.

Aug 1

Aug 3

Aug 4

Aug 5

Aug 8

Aug 12

Aug 15

Aug 17

Aug 21

Aug 23

Aug 24

Aug 27

Aug 30

Aug 31

Goal for September – do something nice for me every day (i.e. dress pretty, wear make up, do Pilates, eat a treat, relax, watch a crappy TV show, etc) Will do a round up at the end of the month.  Also, continue to blog 2-3 times a week.

Oh yeah, I joined twitter finally. I just couldn't resist any longer. Next will probably be pinterest though I am holding out because I know I'll get addicted!