Cape Cod Makeover

Moving On

2011-09-27T07:56:00.006-05:00

We have gotten to the point in the move where we are eating off of paper plates and drinking out of red solo cups. We have started getting silly (er...continued being silly?!).

Amy: "UGH. Packing up kitchens is neverending. You think you are almost done and the bam. You discover a whole drawer of knives."

Nate: "Kitchens are like lentil soup in that way."

It was a much needed laugh. Backstory: When we were living in Atlanta, I made a whole pot of lentil soup. And every day, we swore it just kept multiplying. We were eating lentil soup FOREVER. To this day, when I say "lentil", Nate gives me a scared look.

So the end is upon us. Tonight is our last night sleeping in our house. The movers arrive tomorrow.

I was just paging through the 2007 posts. Hilarious. I can't even remember our house looking like that.

I am not going to lie - I have already shed a few tears over leaving this house. It is SUCH a great house and I loved every minute of living here. Onto the next chapter!

Speaking of the next chapter....

I have decided to continue blogging BUT I have started a new blog. I felt that since this blog was named (and started) to chronicle the adventures of fixing up our cape cod, that the blog should end with the move. I also wanted a fresh start since this blog sort of morphed into a chronicle of randomness that is not accurately reflected by the title. Also, our new house is a colonial so the name of this blog REALLY doesn't apply :)

Please MOVE with me to my new blog, Anthologie. The content that you are used to here on Cape Cod Makeover will be very much the same, but presented in a more organized fashion. It will also help (I think) strike a balances of posts about the personal side of my life (family updates, etc) as well as other things that I enjoy blogging about/am interested in.

Thanks for tuning in to Cape Cod Makeover for the past 4 years, 2 months and 3 weeks. See you over at Anthologie!

She's WALKING!

2011-09-26T20:40:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, Maggie was ALL about walking...with assistance. Where previously she would just turn into a jellyfish if you tried to walk with her hands in your hands, she loved it yesterday. A few giggles even escaped while she was walking with either one of us. So I brought out the Radio Flyer push wagon and we spent all afternoon redirecting the wagon and she ran into boxes. We both predicted she would be walking in the new house.

Then, today I came home from work and she walked about 6 steps, unassisted, from my sister to me!!! She was giggling the whole time. She did it a few more times and then we waited for Nate to come home. Unfortunately, she was crabby and hungry by the time he got home so she turned into a jellyfish again. He has yet to see the unassisted steps.

Now the fun REALLY begins...so I'm told.

Fall TV: Sucked Right In

2011-09-26T08:10:00.002-05:00

The current book I am reading has been taking me forever and not from lack of interest. I was wondering why I haven't finished it yet and I think it is because I have watched SO MUCH TV in the past week. I don't recall the whole Fall TV thing being such an issue in years past. Maybe this is another packing avoidant behavior? I feel like TV may finally be ramping up the sitcoms and dramas (my preference) rather than focusing on reality tv - am I making this up?? Anyways, these are the shows we tuned into:

Up All Night: Ah, yes. The show about becoming new parents. We thought the previews to this show looked hilarious, however, the show has only been ok. I think I am sticking with it for now, if only because the baby is named Amy. (ha ha ha)

Modern Family: Ok. Duh. This show won a ton of Emmys for a reason. It's hilarious. There is no way we were missing this one!

The New Girl: Zooey Deschanel's Emmy Dress aside, I like her and so I wanted to tune into this show. The first episode was cute and we'll probably come back.

Two and a Half Men: This is a show that we are always watching in syndication. Back when we had DVR, we DVRed it only to find that it is ALWAYS on some channel. Then there was that whole Charlie Sheen debacle. We tuned in only to see how they were going to replace Charlie with Ashton Kutcher. I don't know that we will religiously follow this one.

The Office: {tear} RIP Michael Scott. Part of me did not even want to watch this because Michael, in my opinion, made this show. However, curiousity killed the cat and so we tuned in. And then James Spader joined the cast. (My love for James Spader started with Pretty in Pink.) I was surprised at how much I still laughed - I mean, Dwight IS still there!

Whitney: This show benefitted from being on right after The Office. We thought it was funny enough that if we watch The Office, we will probably stick with it and watch this too.

Prime Suspect: This show benefitted from being on right after Whitney. (YES! NBC sucked us in for two whole hours last Thursday night!). I was still on a Maria Bello high after seeing her at The Emmys and I really liked this show. (Nate was a little annoyed at the hat that Maria Bello's character kept wearing.) This is a show that I will probably try not to miss (as oppossed to catching it if it's on).

The Good Wife: My new favorite show. A few weeks ago, Nate was at a Brewers game and there was nothing on TV so I tuned in to the On Demand shows and watched probably 4 episodes of this. And then I just kept watching them and tuned into the season premiere last night. I love this show and it probably will be the second show that I won't want to miss weekly!

The Amazing Race: Nate and I have been watching this show since the beginning - of our relationship that is. This and So You Think You Can Dance are the only reality tv show that I like. While sometimes it does get boring to me, I feel like it would be blasphemous not to watch it.

2 Broke Girls: I think this show was on and we were bored. I sort of forgot that we watched it until I was at the CBS website trying to find links for this post. I am now ashamed at how long this list is!

In other news, we are almost fully packed. I cannot even tell you how many times I have stubbed a toe on boxes. Nate actually forced me to sit down last night for fear he was going to have to take me to the emergency room. The movers are coming in 48 hours!

Official 4th Anniversary Celebration

2011-09-24T14:30:00.003-05:00

Last night we celebrated our anniversary with a night out on the town. Maggie was on an overnight trip with Grandma & Grandpa (Nate's parents) and we had a hotel downtown Milwaukee for the night. Last May, we bought the Groupon for Aloft, which is basically a junior varsity W hotel. It was a great location - walking distance to lots of places and the room was very modern. Like the W, you get Bliss products. However, because the hotel is in an area with a lot of ongoing construction, it was pretty loud. Nate and I gave it 3-3.5 stars (out of 5).

After checking into the hotel, we headed to get a snack at AJ Bombers. AJ Bombers' Milwaukee Burger supposedly beat Sobelman's on Food Network's Food Wars. We split the burger and enjoyed some of Milwaukee's finest: I had a Schlitz tall boy and Nate had a PBR. The burger was good. We both thought Sobelman's was still better.

We got all gussied up (or at least I did) and made our way to Sanford. It was a nice night so we walked to the restaurant and on the way saw a fox! Crazy. We also discovered that we are a bit on trend with our anniversary celebrations - We celebrated our 1st and 3rd anniversary at Delafield Hotel (where our reception was) and our 2nd and 4th at Sanford. My recap of our first trip to Sanford is here if you want to read it. Our second trip was a bit more disappointing. The food was outsanding and kicked off with the amuse bouche- kolarabi puree with sliced grapes. Then, we ordered the cheese plate (of course). The cheese plate had some almond crisps on it and Nate mentioned to the waitress that I was allergic to almonds. We did not think this was a big deal, but she sort of flipped out and seemed irritated that we did not tell her this right away. I had the elk and Nate had the tenderloin. Last time, both of us were too chicken to get the elk, and I sort of regretted it so I went with it this time. It was amazing. We were VERY excited for the end of the meal because we remembered the yummy plate of cookies that we got last time. WELL, Nate got the cookies but I did not - the waitress said she was not allowed to serve me the cookies because of nut cross-contamination. I said I had no problem with that and that I was fine getting the cookies and she would not give me the cookies. Instead, I had two raspberries with brandy sauce. They were fine but they were not the cookies. Overall (excluding the cookie incident) we were not happy with our service this time. It sort of killed the meal for us.

After Sanford, we went to Blu, where my sister is a cocktail waitress and reserved us a corner table with a view. She was cute - she even brought us chocolate covered strawberries, which Nate enjoyed because I am allergic. After enjoying a cocktail, and watching the Brewers win the pennant on TV, we realized we were exhausted. It was 10:15! Mom & Dad gone wild! ha ha ha

We walked around the corner to get a cab back to the hotel when the Hotel Metro valet said he would take us in the cool old-school Hotel Metro car! We were so excited!

It was nice to sleep in this morning and lay around watching TV for a few hours. We checked out and headed to Sil's for the hot donuts. Why we have never been to Sil's before is beyond me. AMAZING donuts. AMAZING. We actually ordered a second bag because our first bag was inhaled so fast.

Overall, a great getaway, especially nice to have a break from packing. We both were really excited to pick up Mags too :) We thought it was also fun to have a Milwaukee staycation right before we head to the 'burbs.

Week's Worth of Emmy Fashion!

2011-09-23T09:31:00.000-05:00

In case you missed it, you can check out our week's worth of Emmy recaps over on Owlet. It was fun co-posting this week - I am glad my friend, M, had the idea! We still have to figure out how we can get paid to watch red carpets and get paid to write about them!

Emmy Recap #1: Best/Worst

Emmy Recap #2: Boobs!

Emmy 2011 Recap #3: Fashion Politics

Emmy 2001 Recap 4: Back to Black

Emmy 2001 Recap 5: Trend Report

Emmy 2011 Recap 6: Surprises and Honorable Mentions

You can now spend that $3.95 that you would have spent on US Weekly on something else. You're welcome! (ha ha ha)

Eating Up Food

2011-09-22T08:51:00.002-05:00

With a week to go, our food situation is getting to be...dire. I mentioned that I created a list of all possible recipes/food that we could make/eat so that we would use up as much food as possible in our fridge, freezer and pantry. This has led to a "culinary trip around the world", as I like to announce at the dinner table every night.

Two nights ago, I had planned on making Vietnamese Noodles. I had not ever made these before but they were going to use up carrots, rice noodles, fish sauce and peanuts. Bonus that Maggie went with Nate to work that day so I could just concentrate on having dinner ready by the time they got home and not make dinner with a child on my hip.

While making the sauce for the noodles, I realized it smelled...fishy. I have only ever made something with fish sauce one time before and I didn't recall this occurring. Oh well. Proceed.

The smell was so potent that I could not even think of eating these noodles. I checked the bottle. The fish sauce was expired. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Why I didn't check this before the dish was made, I do not know.

So...consulting the master list, I decided to go with the "polenta bake". We had about a 1/4 bag of polenta left and on the bag it had a "easy recipe" to combine the polenta with tomato sauce and parmesan cheese and bake it. Well, quickly reading that, I dumped the uncooked polenta into a casserole dish, poured on the tomato sauce and then sprinkled the cheese. Phew! Dinner was going to be saved.

Nate and Mags arrived home and I said, "We are having quite a international dinner tonight! BUT...you may not want to eat half of it." I asked him to try the noodles. He thought they were good but had a "fishy aftertaste". Puke. I tried eating them. I did. But the "fishy aftertaste" was too much for me.

Back to the polenta. After about 20 minutes in the oven, I thought the polenta was probably done. I pulled it out of the oven and literally it was still dry polenta. with tomato sauce. We consulted the polenta bag again and decided that they probably meant to put COOKED polenta in the dish. So we just added water to the mess and put it back in the oven. It ended up being ok.

I had to laugh when Nate told Maggie, "Mags: Mom is usually a good cook. I am not sure what happened tonight but don't worry."

I redeemed myself last night when we made Jess's Couscous Salad (and used up dates! more carrots! couscous! pinenuts! a can of chickpeas!) with Falafel wraps (using tortillas instead of pitas and Trader Joe's frozen falafels).

Tonight - it's Pasta Potpourri!

One week to go!

2011-09-21T20:23:00.004-05:00

This week has been such a whirlwind. But we keep checking things off the list!

1) Basement: Packed! This was by far the biggest pit of the house. It is now cleaned out and packed up! The last Craigslist pick up was earlier this week.

2) Closings: Scheduled! We close on our current house at 9 AM one week from tomorrow and close on the new house at 11 AM the same day. The movers come one week from today and are scheduled to deliver the goods at 1 PM one week from tomorrow!

3) Refrigerator: Purchased! Our new kitchen has a custom cabinet for the refrigerator, but no refrigerator! the larger refrigerator. We bought a Maytag Monochromatic Stainless Steel:

It is getting delivered one week from tomorrow! We are gaining five cubic feet of refrigerator space!

4) One year photos: Taken! Originally these were scheduled for two weeks ago, but our photographer was ill. We wanted to get this taken care of before the move so we did it this evening. I am SO EXCITED to get the photos back - there were some great shots and Mags was much more cooperative than she was during her newborn photos with the same photographer.

5) Bills and Mail: FORWARDED! The cable and internet guy is scheduled to come next week to transfer service, the mail is forwarded, and gas/electric transferred!

6) Radon: Mitigated! They came today to install the system. We now are beginning another testing period. If we pass this test (aka our radon is below 4), we are good to go!

7) Carbon Monoxide Detectors: Purchased! Besides the radon, we were asked to install CO monitors on every floor of our house. Check!

8) # of Goodwill Drop Offs so far: 2. (We also had 2 Craigslist pickups).

One Week left!

Emmys Recap: GO!

2011-09-19T12:28:00.006-05:00

Did you watch The Emmys? As I mentioned in the previous post, I did. I even managed to watch a lot of the red carpet in between sharing pancakes with Mags.

If you are sick of me talking about packing, head on over to Owlet this week to read fashion recaps from the Emmys. Our first post went live a few minutes ago! Agree? Disagree? Don't forget to comment!

And stay tuned to Owlet (as a matter of fact, just add it to your Reader)...there's more magic where that came from...

Emmy Recap Post #2

Emmy Recap Post #3: FASHION POLITICS!

Emmy Recap Post #4: Back to Black

The movers are coming, The movers are coming!

2011-09-19T08:35:00.004-05:00

The movers are coming in 10 days.

Our house FINALLY looks like we are moving. Meaning, it is a huge mess.

Over the weekend, we took care of business. When we moved in, the previous owners had left us a lot of old furniture. Four and 1/4 years later, we finally did something about it. Some of it went on the "free" section of Craigslist and whatever didn't go for free on Craiglist was taken to Goodwill. Three-quarters of our basement (i.e. our storage facility) is now weeded through and packed up. I went through 10 shoe boxes of stuff that I had saved from high school. WOW was that hilarious. Most of it did not make the cut - I whittled it down to one box of stuff. Nate finally let me get rid of my grade school cheerleading plaque with the full-busted cheerleader on it. (Last week, he convinced me to keep it.) And all those Long Lake Midget Girls softball trophies are in the Goodwill box too.

I think we are on the downhill slope with packing. I still have my clothes and shoes to edit (of course I am saving that until ABSOLUTELY necessary) and we have our 'heavy-use' kitchen items to pack yet. In a state of delirium, I asked Nate if we should even hire movers. Literally five seconds later, I stubbed my toe trying to move a dresser. "THIS is why we are hiring movers honey", was his response to that.

And then there is the food...
Last weekend, to avoid packing (I could give you a whole LIST of avoidant behaviors I have been participating in the last weeks), I put a lot of energy into going through what food we had left in our pantry and freezer and then finding recipes to use it all up. The master list is posted on the fridge and we cross things off as we make them. I was amazed at how many recipes we could make with having "no food" in the house. I am excited to whittle this down and start fresh in the new house. Although, I am sure it won't be long until we are in the same mode we were in, having a freezer and pantry stash of random bits.

We were not cooped up the whole weekend - we made it out Saturday night to join my in-laws in watching my BIL perform in "Bits of Broadway" musical dinner theater (an annual tradition) and yesterday afternoon to see our friends who currently temporarily live in Singapore and were back for a visit.

And then...The EMMYS! I don't care how much I have to do, I never miss a good red carpet. This week, I will be guest blogging on my friend's blog, Owlet, recapping Emmy fashion. We always do this via email after a red carpet event and now we are taking it to the world wide web. Fun!

Yikes

2011-09-16T12:52:00.002-05:00

Recently, Nate and I each had our "scariest moment in parenting".

Mine occurred on Labor Day weekend when I put Maggie down for a nap in her pack and play at Nate's family's lake house. The pack and play was right next to a dresser and while I had removed items from the top of the dresser for her previous naps that weekend, I did not do it this one time. Luckily, a couple minutes later I attempted to sneak back into the room to get a change of clothes when I saw Maggie, sitting up in her pack and play, with everything that was on the dresser in her pack and play. She was just sitting there playing with a fake flower decoration. As I looked in the pack and play, I saw pills scatterred everywhere. Nate's grandpa's pillbox happened to be on the dresser that day. PANIC. We could not be sure she ate any of the pills, but on that same token, we could not be sure she did NOT eat any pills. We got the list of medications from Nate's grandpa and I called poison control and totally broke down crying. Mother of the Year for sure. Luckily, IF Maggie had eaten any of the pills, she could be monitored at home. We did not need to take her to the Emergency Department. We were instructed to keep her awake (no afternoon nap that day), feed her a snack and make sure she had plenty of fluids. We saw no strange behavior that they told us to look for so we assume that she never consumed any of the pills. I still want to throw up whenever I think of that day.

Last night, Nate had his scariest moment. It was his turn to put Maggie to bed, so after I kissed her goodnight the requisite 100 times, I went off for a run. I had a great run - I was all over the cool crisp fall air and the six (6!) deer I saw on my route. I got back in the house and my runner's high was about to get squashed. I saw Nate and Maggie, cuddled under a quilt, watching Mickey Mouse Club. Nate saw me and said, "Um, we just had a bit of a scary moment." Apparently shortly after Nate put Maggie in her crib, he heard a weird noise. He went upstairs to check on her and she was sitting in a bunch of vomit and crying so hard she wasn't even making noise - looking like she was choking. It took a LONG time to get her calmed down after that, but we changed all of the linens, put her in clean pajamas and rocked her until she fell back asleep. Nate was so scared that she could have been choking on vomit that he googled it. Apparently it is very unlikely that babies can choke to death on their vomit. (If this is untrue, please keep it to yourself. He does not need to know otherwise right now!) This morning she was bouncing all around so what happened? We have no idea. We do know that she will need another bath tonight!

So I guess we are "real" parents now that we both have had the sh** scared out of us!

Swoon

2011-09-16T09:18:00.008-05:00

Whenever I get a little sad about moving out of our current house, Nate reminds me of things that I will be able to do in our new house that we can't in our current house. Last night, he said, "Oh it's too bad we aren't in our new house yet - it's a perfect night to build a fire." This made me very happy that we are moving into a fireplace house in fall - we can use it right away!

One of the other things that I am excited about is furniture. I would love to get more into re-upholstering cool old furniture that I find at Goodwill, rummage sales, my in-laws basement (!), etc but we do not currently have any space for these types of things. My exclamations of "Isn't that a cool chair?!" used to be met with, "Yes, but where are we going to put it?" Now, I will have a space to name!

By far my #1 furniture item on the dream list is a fainting couch/chaise lounge.
SWOON! Always ALWAYS wanted one of these. Remember when Betty Draper impulsively bought one for her living room so she could think naughty thoughts of Henry?
Here is an apartment therapy round up of chaise lounges and here is a design sponge roundup.

Here are some pics I pulled from Pinterest:

Personally, I would love a tufted one. I love the look of them! I can't decide if I would want the fainting couch variety (with the asymmtrical look) or the type that is more of a backless bench. I will be on the hunt soon!

12 Month Checkup and Weaning

2011-09-13T09:50:00.004-05:00

Maggie had her 12 month well child visit this morning. Everything looks great.

Weight: 23.5 lbs - 87th percentile (This is a jump - she used to be around 75th)
Height: 31.25" - 97th percentile

She had to get 3 shots - they moved to her arm this time. She was NOT happy. Then, after the shots, we got to visit the lab where they did a blood draw for lead testing. DOUBLE FUN!

I was a little sad because we are going to switch clinics when we move, which means a new doctor. Thankfully, Maggie's current doctor had a recommendation in our new clinic.

In other news, we are well on our way to weaning. The last seven nights involved no nursing and two of those nights I gave the sippy cup. (Previously, if I was even in the room, there would be none of the sippy cup!). So now, Nate and I are alternating who does the bed time routine each night.

AND, the past two mornings involved no nursing!

Weaning has not been too difficult. We have employed several techniques. First, we gradually cut out nursings to get to where we were - nursing at night and at morning only. When I went to Atlanta, it became apparent that these remaining sessions were not really being used as a food source, but more for comfort. At night, I did not go in her room at all for about 4 nights when Nate put her down. I would kiss her good night downstairs and he would take her upstairs, change her into pajamas, read to her and offer the sippy cup. She doesn't really drink much of the sippy cup. Then he put her in bed. Over the weekend, he went to a Brewers game and I was going to do the first night routine and try the sippy. It was a smooth transition - she did not even bat an eye or tug at my shirt.

For the morning, we have done a couple things. Usually, we bring her into bed with us. I started using the "don't offer, don't refuse" approach (not to be confused with don't ask, don't tell). Basically, you do not outright offer the goods to the baby but if it is obvious that they want to nurse, you do not refuse either. However, I was getting to work about 45 minutes late every morning because Maggie started waking up closer to 7 AM (when I was supposed to be at the office). So, I was not about to wake her up earlier to nurse so this week I started getting up early, showering and getting ready and then when she naturally would wake up, I would change her right away and play a bit. We also started feeding her breakfast right away. This transition has been seamless so far.

I think a big part of this seamless transition has been the fact that Maggie eats a lot of food - she hasn't really relied on nursing as a food source for a long time. This also has made weaning a piece of cake for me - no engorgement, soreness, etc. Weaning can be emotional - but I feel at this point I am ready for it. When I first read about weaning a few months ago, I burst into tears. Obviously, not ready at that point! But I am looking forward to having Nate share responsibility in the morning and evening routines. He obviously was very helpful with everything else besides the nursing aspect.

I realize every child is different, but I really liked the process we used for nursing with Maggie. I never really felt bothered by the nursing and really enjoyed the experience with the exception of pumping - I hated pumping with a passion.

Goal #1: Accomplished

2011-09-12T10:42:00.003-05:00

Wowsa! I logged into Goodreads today and discovered I have met my goal for number of books read in 2011! Guess I set the bar a little too low on that one.

My initial goal was 18 books. Check it off the list:

1. Crow Lake by Mary Lawson
2. Mockingjay (Hunger Games #3) by Suzanne Collins
3. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
4. March by Geraldine Brooks
5. Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
6. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
7. A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
8. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua
9. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
10. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
11. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
12. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
13. Bossypants by Tina Fey
14. Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link
15. The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson
16. The Weight of Silence by Heather Gudenkauf
17. Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson
18. Flux: Women on Sex, Work, Love, Kids and Life in a Half Changed World by Peggy Orenstein

I am therefore revising my goal to 25 books in 2011.

The magic number 5

2011-09-12T08:01:00.002-05:00

I am happy to post that I have been regularly running at least 3 days a week for almost 6 weeks. This has been a long time coming - and certainly took longer to get into a regularly routine post-baby than I had anticipated. I had several motivating factors to finally get me off the couch:

1)Runners World. While visiting my BIL in early July, he asked how running was coming along. Thumbs down was my report. I asked him how he was liking the Runner's World subscription we got for him and we got to talking about how the magazine gets to be cyclical, but that it is always good for motivation. He gave me a few old issues to take home and one of the articles I read was getting back into running after injury. NOW, I am not saying that having a baby = injury (although there are some injured parts in the process!), but the idea was the same: It can be hard getting back into it after taking a long break. One of the things the article mentioned is that you have to let go of your past accomplishments. This sounds very "duh" but after reading that, I started NOT keeping track of how far I had run. I deliberately avoided routes where I knew the mileage. I tried to run 30 minutes each time I went out and that was it. It was a good strategy for me - It made me less competitive with myself.

2) Ironman P. A former colleague of mine requested a lunch date over the summer. We met for lunch and I was eager to find out how her training for the Ironman Triathlon was going. After she finished explaining her training routine to me, she asked how running was going for me. "Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. It's not." However, after talking shop with her and then watching her finish an IRONMAN, I was motivated to get back out there on a regular basis. (Not that I am doing an Ironman...ever.)

3) As mentioned in (1), just reading about running is very motivating to me. I already mentioned my reaction to reading a post by imrunnerchica. I also enjoy reading a vignette out of Mile Markers every so often.

4) New gear! New clothes are always a motivator! I bought two new sports bras and a pair of socks at the Lululemon outlet in Orlando and won a High Miles Running technical shirt.

That was the motivation I used to get out there on a regular basis starting in July. Of course, as any runner will tell you, once you start getting into a groove and getting your legs back, you start to crave running and it becomes motivation in and of itself. Last night, I finally broke the 5 mile mark.

Five miles is a big deal in my mind, starting from way back when I got into running freshman year of high school. Throughout my high school cross country career, we never ran more than 5 miles, and when we did run 5 miles, it was a big deal, often rewarded with Gillys custard. For the longest time, 5 miles was my "long run". It wasn't until I took the Marathon/Distance Training 231 class in college that I ran past 5 miles. I've since run many runs over 5 miles, but starting back up again post-baby, the 5 mile mark seemed very out of reach...until last night. I was running for a while and was pretty excited thinking that I maybe hit the 5 mile mark. I got home and gmapped it and the route ended up being 5.02 miles. YES!

Then I started with the big talk and told Nate I was running the NY Marathon in 2012. (We had been watching 9/11 documentaries on and off throughout the day). Oh boy. 26.2 is a long way from 5, but it's all downhill from here!

Packing Packing Packing

2011-09-11T19:52:00.003-05:00

We spent some time this weekend packing.

Maggie lasted like this for 20 minutes.

She might be too long for the Moby Wrap.

I went through some of the hand-me-downs from the neighbor girls and had to try the poncho on:

"Mom...I don't have any pants on!"

We were supossed to have Maggie's one-year photos this evening, but we received a call from the photographer this afternoon canceling. So, we returned to packing.

12 Months: Looks Like We Made IT!

2011-09-09T14:35:00.003-05:00

Maggie is now a year old!

Anyone who works with mortality data can tell you that the mortality curve for kids goes way down after one year. SUCCESS!

FOOD
Since Maggie has been eating table food for a while now, there is nothing too new to report here. She is a very good eater, which I am thankful for. We have given her peanut butter a couple times, although we are being cautious with that since we have noticed a minor rash develop twice. It's a good thing she likes Sunflower Butter so much!

We have hit the one year mark, which is the recommended guideline for kids receiving breastmilk by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Most of Maggie's breastmilk is consumed via sippy cup from my frozen freezer stash, which we have been relying on solely since mid-July. We still have A LOT left so we will continue to give her this until it is out and then make the switch to whole milk.

Maggie still nurses right before bed and right away in the morning, although we have been working on weaning, starting with the right before bed. I would estimate that 50-75% of the time, she is fine getting some milk in a sippy cup right before bed. Since she has been off bottles for several months now, we didn't really want to reintroduce bottles so we are trying the sippy cup. We saved the morning weaning for the last since that is the one we feel she is most tied to. She did do well when I was away for two nights on a work trip - though she seems to do better if she knows that I am not in the house. My friend BLK and I were joking that babies have a homing device for boobs. ha ha ha

Although our breastfeeding experience had a rough start, after those first four days it was smooth sailing. I am very grateful that it worked out so well for us!

GROWING
Mags goes to the doctor for her one year well child visit next week. We weighed her on the Wii last week and she was 22.5 lbs. I just found this picture of one of our first Wii Weigh-ins:

She is almost completely in 18 month sized clothes - definitely in pants which we need all the length we can get! We still have a few size 3 disposable diapers left and then it is on to size 4s. In her Bum Genius cloth diapers, she is still in the mid-size range. We have tried unsnapping them to the biggest size but we had a few leaks so still staying in the medium size (middle-snap).

We took her shoe shopping to the Stride Rite outlet - she is currently a 4 1/2 W. Girl needs that wide width! Now that the weather is getting a bit cooler (and we are close to walking!), she probably will be wearing shoes more often.

LANGUAGE
She talks in her own language still, although she can understand a lot. We think she
tries to say "duck" when picking up one of her various duck toys. It really is amazing to watch this develop because it seems she understands new words each day. We routinely ask her where certain toys are and she will go get them! She will always say "da" when you ask "who is that" and point to Nate. But she will also day "da" when you ask "who is that" and point to me. "Mama" only seems to come in times of high stress!

MOVEMENT
She gets more and more brave with unassisted standing but still uses furniture to pull up and walk around rooms. She will also not go up stairs anymore. It is almost like she forgot how. Crawling has moved to turbo boost speed.

TOYS/BOOKS
Maggie looks like she is well on her way to becoming a book nerd like her mom (aka my evil plan is working!). She knows which direction to turn pages in books and recently she is more interested in turning the pages herself than listening to stories. She really likes this Soft Shape book. I was excited to see that there are many different books in the "soft shape" series so we bought her an animal one for her birthday. The shapes come out of the book like puzzle pieces.

Speaking of puzzles, we recently gave her a few puzzles and she really likes them. More for carrying the pieces around than for putting them together, ha ha ha.

She is really attached to her two lovies - duck and owl. (They are the angel dear ones). And her blanket. It is not a specific blanket - just any blanket that she sleeps with. In the morning, we lift her out of the crib and she will try to dive from our arms to pick up duck (or owl) and the blanket.

Although we try not to expose her to too much TV, we have let her watch the hot dog song from Mickey Mouse Club while we trim her nails because it will put her in a trance so she does not pay attention to the nail trimming. We will also You Tube the video so she can listen to the song. She really loves anything to do with music, which has always been the case, but has been very noticeable in the past month.

KIDDOS
Over the holiday weekend, we went to a cookout at a friend's house. Their baby had a pacifier and Maggie would crawl up to him and yank out the pacifier every single time. She did not try to eat it, but just did not want the baby to have it. Nate said that another baby at her daycare also has a pacifier and she does the same thing. I find this funny since she never was really too into pacifiers when she was younger.

TEETH
We had some teething action in the past month. She has her middle two bottom teeth, the middle two top teeth and the i-teeth seem to be showing just a bit. It is hard to monitor the teeth situation since she is not a fan of anyone looking in her mouth.
She does like brushing her teeth. We still do not use toothpaste - just give her a wet toothbrush.

SLEEP
She goes to bed around 7 PM and is up anywhere between 6 and 7 in the morning, which is now tending towards the 7 AM end of that time range! YAHOO! (Last month it was closer to the 6 side of that range). We have been experimenting with the nap situation lately and it seems that a short (20-30 minute) nap in the morning and a longer nap (1-2 hours) right after lunch produce the happiest baby. For a while we were just trying to hold out on no morning nap, but it was not working too well.

ANIMALS
Her love affair with animals continues. I have taken her to Pet Smart on more than one occasion to look at animals. I am sure they have caught on to the fact that I am using their store for a free zoo for my child.

And that about sums up the last month!

Fantastic 4

2011-09-08T21:49:00.004-05:00

Today was also our anniversary. We decided that our gift this year was going to be new appliances for the house (a refrigerator at least). Normally I would be very anti-this idea, but the modern gift for #4 is appliances so that is ok. We gave each other cards. Later this month, my in-laws are taking Mags and we are staying at the new hotel downtown, Aloft, (thank you Groupon) and going to Sanford (unfortunately I do not think Sanford participates in Groupon) for dinner.

I could not resist playing a little joke on Nate, with the assistance of my Father-in-law. My FIL's jewelry store regularly collects "old gold" from people. Going through the old gold is very fun - you never know what you will come across and when it will come in handy.

Like this Gold "#1 HUSBAND" charm.

HA HA HA HA. My FIL even polished it all up for me. I gave nate the small wrapped box - the box that my wedding necklace came in so it looked legit - and he was feeling SO BAD. "I thought we weren't getting each other gifts".

BOOYAH!! Number 1 Husband:

BAHH HA HA HA HA. He says he is going to wear it at least once. I CANNOT WAIT.

And that folks, is how you keep the romance alive at Year 4. HA HA HA

A 1-derful Birthday

2011-09-08T21:21:00.011-05:00

Maggie woke up on the early side today and we brought her into our bed to snuggle. We exclaimed "Happy Birthday" and then realized that she technically had not been born yet. Nate asked, "I wonder if Saved By the Bell is On?" which made me laugh because I watched about four episodes of Saved By The Bell in a row while under the magical powers of my epidural and then had a full-on 90s fashion discussion with my L&D nurse afterwards. But I digress....

I made Maggie blueberry pancakes so that she could start the day with cake. :) She was very excited:

(I noticed today that she has started smiling for the camera! I guess the thousands of pictures that we have taken of her taught her something!)

We then took the Mickey picture. This is Maggie's new thing when you ask her where something is - she holds out her hands like "Where is it?" It is pretty cute.

We then put the birthday girl shirt on. I got this shirt on a clearance rack at Target. Of course the 1 year old birthday shirts only come in a 12 month size. So it was a little small. It says "I'm the Birthday Girl".

It was then ball popper and boombox time. I think I have mentioned how obsessed Maggie is with the ball popper before. Recently, she is also obsessed with this Munchkin Music Cube that my in-laws got her for Christmas. I am not sure what made her discover it but we call it her boombox because it always has to be going. I even make up Irish dances to go with the song. I think they are pretty fun, but she is not amused.

It was a beautiful day so I loaded her up in the Baby Jogger and went for a run. She fell asleep and woke up just as I was pushing her up the driveway.

The next hours were spent with me holding her because if I got more than two feet away from her, she wailed. Our in-home childcare person said she was pretty clingy yesterday too. It seems Mags is not immune to separation anxiety - a common trait of this age group (according to Baby Center, anyways). I took her to Barnes and Noble to get her free Kids Club cupcake and to buy her birthday presents. (How many more birthdays can I get away with buying the present right in front of the child?! ha ha) She took terrible naps but did get a good lunch in. I made her favorite butternut squash raviolis.

The afternoon was spent reading a lot of books and watching some music videos on You Tube. Her favorite song is this Hot Dog song from the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. She also is a fan of some of these vintage Sesame Street songs from a CD AH made for her.

When Nate got home, we opened the presents that people sent in the mail. She needed a lot of help and was pretty disinterested except for when we actually revelaed the presents. We bought her two books, The H crew sent a pink car, some books, and a children's CD, the D clan sent a cool puzzle and some crayons and my nana sent her shoes. We also received lots of emails, Facebook messages, text messages, phone calls and a Skype call throughout the day.

Then it was time for dinner. We took her to Il Mito in Wauwatosa for some yummy Italian. Il Mito is very kid friendly, but still nice. It also helps that we were there before 6 PM. She LOVED IT. We could not believe how much food she ate. We started with rosemary foccacia dipped in garlic olive oil (yes, she gobbled this up) and rissotto cakes. I had pumpkin ravioli in a creamy sage sauce - most of it ended up in Maggie's tummy. Nate had a fire roasted tomato and chicken rissotto. Everything was delish!

We came home for the piece de resistance - the cupcake! She ate quite a bit of it - shoving huge chunks in her mouth. We were surprised at how cleanly she ate it! After the cupcake it was time for bed. Nate included "On the Day You Were Born" in the book repertoire tonight.

My Baby is 1!

Sept 8 = A BIG DAY!

2011-09-08T05:00:00.001-05:00

My poor dad. September 8 used to be remembered as his day - his birthday that is.

Then, 4 years ago, Nate & I decided to get married on that day.
Here is my dad spending his birthday walking me down the aisle:

Nate and I as newlyweds:

Then last year, Maggie decided to make her arrival on that day.
Here is my dad sharing his birthday last year with Mags:

And some other photos from that day last year:

Happy Birthday Dad! Happy Anniversary Nate! Happy Birthday Mags!!

Our last family photos - from June 2011:

The Birthday Girl!!

House Update: Failures

2011-09-07T15:16:00.004-05:00

I do not like to fail. However, our house failed the radon test. While we haven't received official paperwork from the buyer, it is highly likely that she will request the installation of a radon mitigation system (which I fully support and wished we would have done!). I sort of freaked out considering the fact that we potentially have lived with high levels of radon for the past 4 years but am thankful to our state region's radon information guru for talking me off the ledge. What's done is done.

However, consider this a CCM-endorsed message to you to get your home tested for radon! I am thankful that the new house already has a radon mitigation system in place.

On a more uplifting note, our current house is scheduled to be appraised next week and our lender is in process of scheduling an appraisal of the new house. I just spoke with the woman from the title company who requested our SSN for the new house title so things are moving forward!!!

22 days until closing...

Packing & Purging

2011-09-07T09:17:00.004-05:00

I broke down and started packing last night. Our (98% mine) books are packed and the DVD and Wii games are packed. I was not anxious about packing until I started doing it and realized how long it really is going to take! I am excited to do some purging with packing. (Is that an eating disorder?) I have two big bags of books to donate to the library already and have some DVDs as well.

Another aspect of purging that DOES have to do with eating is with our food. We are trying NOT to buy groceries (except for the basics) and concentrate on eating up as much food in our pantry/freezer that we can. I am excited about this mainly because I feel like we easily let our freezer and pantry get out of control. (e.g. Yesterday I found butterscotch chips in there where the use by date was in 2009!) Last night we ate the last bag of Jamie Oliver's Spaghetti Sauce from the freezer, along with some toddler meatballs and two differenct kinds of pasta (penne & rotini) from half-full boxes and some frozen rolls from trader joes. What are toddler meatballs you ask? Some recipe I ripped out of a parents magazine. They were not that great (our almost-toddler didn't like them, and her parents ate them solely to not waste food) and did not hold their "ball" shape. I think I'll stick to my aunt's meatball recipe in the future.

I think I am going to use the allrecipes.com App on my Ipad to figure out what to do with the remaining random ingredients. You can type in whatever ingredients you have and the search results will give you recipes to try. Otherwise, it looks like we mainly will be eating artichokes, chicken breasts and sweet potato fries for the next month!

Still waiting...

2011-09-06T15:43:00.004-05:00

I noticed that I never put the half bathroom on the main floor of my faux-floorplan so I corrected that:

Our current house underwent a house inspection yesterday morning. We received the report about an hour ago, however, the we are still waiting for the radon test to be complete. (The radon test takes 48 hours). After the radon test is complete, we will find out if the buyer wants us to address anything they found in the report. We were not happy with the inspector who basically did not put anything that he took apart back together. Provided the buyer has no issues and that the radon test comes back ok, we are still on track for the 9/29 closing.

September Craft of the Month

2011-09-03T14:53:00.003-05:00

You may recall the skirt kits I made for 3 friends with summer birthdays. I finished one of the skirts today. The fabric is from Jo-Ann fabrics and I used the same fabric to make the interior of the birdie sling I made in August for Slunz's Mom. Voila:

The recipient of this skirt is much shorter than I - thus the length will not be as scandalous on her! I was a little nervous about keeping everything lined up, but am happy with how it turned out! I hope JN likes it!

New House Floorplan

2011-09-02T09:02:00.003-05:00

Here is my feeble attempt (via Microsoft Publisher) to give you an idea of the floor plan of the new house. The solid lines are walls.

Main Floor

Upstairs

Home Inspection

2011-09-01T11:04:00.008-05:00

The offer on our current house and the offer on our future house both contained crazy amounts of contingencies. I'm not sure I fully even understand all of the contingencies, or days we have to fulfill the contingencies, but that is why we have a realtor - to keep track of all of this.

The buyer of our current home gave us 10 days to figure out everything with our future home. Since the bank that currently owns our future home took their sweet time responding to our offers, that left us 3 days to get a home inspection done. Thankfully, we were able to schedule the home inspection for yesterday afternoon. We first had to contact the bank to get a plumber in the house since they had shut off all water in the foreclosure process.

Did I mention that we were buying a foreclosure? I can't remember. When we initially looked at the house, some people warned us that foreclosures are a pain. There were some slight headaches, but I have to say, I think our process went fairly smooth.

In response to some of the comments, yes, we are gaining space...a lot of it. It is sort of weird thinking about the future in purchasing a house. When we bought our current house, we thought of it as "our first house", and always knew we would be moving someday. Neither of us feel that way about this house (meaning we feel like we will die in this house), which is a little scary! I'm not sure we were really in the market for this house, but we seized an opportunity to get our "dream house" a little sooner than we expected. It's not often you find your dream house in your price range!

I'm not sure if this is normal (I like to think it probably is), but we always concocted these lists of "our next home has to have this" or "ok, we can't have it in this home, but put it on the list for house #2)". Here is some of our list:

1. Yard.
By far the biggest drawback of our current house. We have a front yard and a side yard but no back yard. Our back yard is our neighbor's driveway. There is really no place for kids to play. And since we went ahead and got ourselves one of those (i.e.kids), we decided that we probably will have more of them in the future. However, we do not want an enormous yard because then we (ok, who am I kidding - NATE) would have to spend more time mowing it. The next house does not have an enormous yard, but we do have a nice backyard with a deck:

2. Attached garage.
This is something from Nate's wishlist. I really didn't care - I moved to our house from Chicago where I parked my car on the street. ANY garage was an upgrade. However, when we had Maggie, I began to see what he was talking about. It would be nice to have the garage attached to the house so I'm not carrying bags of groceries, Maggie and an umbrella. And when it snows?! It would be nice not to have to trudge through all the snow to get to my car. Next house has an attached garage, with room for the grill, bikes, lawn mower, shovels, etc so that we don't have to take the cars out of the garage to get all of that stuff out.

3. More living space.
Currently we spend 95% of our awake time in the living room/kitchen/dining room part of our house. This is maybe 1/3 of our current house and not very large or open. Throw an almost-toddler in there with all of her toys, and it REALLY gets a little tight. We have enormous bedrooms though! We have figured out that we would take smaller bedrooms for more family space. Also, our current house has 2 BR upstairs and 2 BR downstairs. We RARELY use the 2 BR downstairs and when we eventually have another baby, I would rather have everyone upstairs on the same level. The next house has 4 BR but they are all upstairs. We also gain a few rooms of living space - the main level of the house has a large open kitchen, with an island and space for a small dining table that opens into a nice-sized living room and a sunroom.

5. Fireplace!
This is so silly but we both really wanted a fireplace. Score x 2. We have a brick fireplace in our living room in the next house AND a fireplace in our bedroom. WHAT?! I know. It seems ridiculous to me too....and fun. Here is the living room shot (taken from standing in the kitchen):

6. Reduced commute for Nate.
Currently, I have a 7-10 minute commute (2.5 miles) depending on traffic and stoplights. Nate's commute out of the city is 30 minutes in the morning but at least 45 minutes coming home due to traffic. One of our goals for moving was to cut down on his commute but still live close to the city. The house is a great location - easy freeway access - but will make his commute a predictable 20 minutes each way and he will never run into traffic. This means that during the hardest hour of my day 5-6PM, he will be home closer to the 5 side of that rather than the 6 side of that. WOO-HOO. My commute, as I timed yesterday, will be 15 minutes.

7. Laundry on main floor:
This was never on my wish list but I am looking forward to having the laundry on the main floor (off the kitchen in the mudroom area that connects to the garage). Currently our laundry is in the basement. Not a huge deal - Maggie gets lots of "rides" in laundry baskets as we move from level to level.

8. DREAMER!
These are things that I filed under my never in a million years wishful thinking category but amazingly the house has!
1) Butler pantry. The next house has one en route from the kitchen to the formal dining room. Now I have a place for all of the dishes I have collected over the years!

2) Powder room. We gain a half-bathroom on the main level in the next house. My mom took my sister and I to California in 2005 and one of her friends had this amazing crazy powder room. I thought, "I have to have one of these someday." Someday has arrived!

3)Wood shank roof. I was proud of my BIL for noticing one of my favorite features of the next house - the roof. I have long wanted a house with a roof like this so that I am one step closer to becoming Barefoot Contessa. ha ha ha

4)Twin Beds One Room. Now here comes the silly part. In home decor magazines/blogs, I always love when they put two (or more) twin beds in a room. This led to the creation of one of my more popular Pinterest boards "Twin Beds. One Room." My friend MS actually asked me when she found out we were potentially buying a new house, "Does it have a twin beds one room?" YESSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! One of the bedrooms is rather large with two dormers. The minute I walked in it the first time, I thought "twin beds one room"! For now it will likely be a toy/craft room.
Here is an example of twin beds one room:

Several people also have asked us if there are projects like our first house. The answer is YES although definitely not as many. We likely will not tackle any of the projects right away, with the exception of purchasing a refrigerator, the only appliance we do not have. The first priority in terms of redecorating is paint. We only like about 10% of the current paint job.

Other people have asked about the blog. This made me laugh. I am not sure what to do about the blog as the name "Cape Cod Makeover" will no longer apply. Also, this blog did start as a chronicle of taking our home from 1964 to present but once that was done, sort of morphed into a chronicle of...what, i'm not exactly sure. I will likely still have a blog but not sure if I will start a new one or just rename this one.

Oh! I don't think I said - our home inspection on the new house PASSED! Of course they don't really "pass" or "fail" you but there were no huge concerns found. Phew! Now our current house just has to pass inspection for the new buyer and we are ready to pack our bags...quickly!

Zucchini Pancakes

2011-09-01T10:11:00.003-05:00

I made these (sans walnuts) for dinner last night as a side dish. They were delish, even to Maggie, who was covered from head to toe in little bits of them by dinner's end.

Turkish Zucchini Pancakes with Sour Cream
Source: Bon Appetit, January 1996 via Keri's Kitchen
1 pound zucchini, trimmed, coarsely grated

2 cups chopped green onions

4 eggs, beated to blend

½ cup all purpose flour

1/3 cup chopped fresh dill or 1 ½ tablespoons dried dill

1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley

2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon or 2 teaspoons dried

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon ground pepper

½ cup crumbled feta cheese (about 3 ounces)

2/3 cup chopped walnuts (about 3 ounces) (optional)

Olive oil

1.Place zucchini in colander. Sprinkle with salt and let stand 30 minutes to drain. Squeeze zucchini between hands to remove liquid, then squeeze dry in several layers of paper towels.
2.Combine zucchini, chopped green onions, 4 eggs, flour, chopped dill, parsley, tarragon, ½ teaspoon salt and pepper in medium bowl. Mix well. Fold in crumbled feta cheese. (Zucchini mixture can be prepared 3 hours ahead. Cover tightly and refrigerate. Stir to blend before continuing.) Fold chopped walnuts into zucchini mixture.
3.Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Place a baking sheet in the oven. Cover bottom of large nonstick skillet with olive oil. Heat skillet over medium-high heat. Working in batches, drop zucchini mixture into skillet by heaping tablespoonfuls. Fry until pancakes are golden brown and cooked through, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer each batch of pancakes to baking sheet in oven to keep warm. Serve pancakes hot with sour cream.

House Update

2011-08-31T09:56:00.003-05:00

Quite the turn of events since my last blog post.

My work trip to Atlanta went well. I was hanging out at the airport last night waiting for boarding time on my flight home. My phone was about to die so I plugged it into a nearby wall. My flight was starting to board so I went to collect my phone and noticed that I had about five missed calls from Nate.

Now, every SINGLE time he has called me in the last week, I have immediately thought about the house. But after MANY false alarms, I did not think "house" when I saw him calling. Last night, I thought something had happened to Maggie.

I called him back as I was boarding the flight.

"THE BANK GAVE US A COUNTEROFFER!!!!!!!"

I was shocked.

Our gut instinct was to take it but we decided to talk about it when I got home.

We discussed, called our realtor and he came over late last night to do the paperwork.

ACCEPTED offer!

We now are trying to schedule a home inspection. Basically we will have a home inspection on the home we purchased and then the buyer of our current home wants one as well. We have a SHORT time frame to get these done - by 9/6 - as stipulated on the offer on our current house.

Provided all goes well with the inspections, we close on the morning of 9/29 on our current house and then immediately close on our next house.

CRAZY.

Here is a sneak peak of our almost-new home:

September promises to be a crazy month for us!

Live fom the ATL

2011-08-28T22:01:00.002-05:00

We do not have any house updates, unfortunately.

Friday, the last day our offer was good for, came and went without so much as a word from the bank. Apparently the foreclosure department was relocating last week. Grrrr. We filed another offer to be submitted first thing tomorrow morning since our first offer technically expired. The waiting continues....We have until Saturday to figure something out as that is the end of the 10-day period that the offer on OUR house is good for. So many pieces to this puzzle. I could never be a realtor without being on anxiety medication!

Meanwhile, I am posting this from Atlanta, GA where I arrived a few hours ago for a reverse site visit at CDC for work. It is my first overnight trip away from Maggie. I am doing okay. During my run earlier today, I felt like it was a good time to go. While i certainly would miss her, I also was not riddled with anxiety about leaving her, or dreading the trip. I cried a little when They dropped me off at the airport and that was it. I read a chunk of my book, enjoyed an in-flight beer, ordered room service and will definitely enjoy having a king-sized bed all to myself for 2 nights! The morning will be the hardest as that is my favorite time of the day with her. Nate is under strict orders to give her a few extra mooches for me! I am looking forward to meeting up with my friends AH, CD, and MAM tomorrow night for dinner!

Boots No. 7 in Cherry

2011-08-25T20:14:00.009-05:00

Last week (or was it the week before), I posted about my red lipstick trials. I fully meant to put pictures of each color in the post but I had opted to do a bunch of posts and scheduled them to post and forgot to update the post before it was scheduled.

So here is the winning red lipstick.

I played with some of the editing features on the camera so hence the weird effects. And because Nate had to be the cameraman, Mags had to be in the picture so we could keep an eye on her. She is QUITE a fast crawler.

This is also one of my favorite outfits of late because it is comfy and easy. The pants have been a longtime favorite. $2.97 off a Gap clearance rack 3-4 years ago. The only issue they have is that the snap will sometimes just unsnap randomly throughout the day. I thought at first I had a defective pair but BCK has the same pair and the same thing happens. Wear a long enough shirt, you're fine. The shirt also has a great neckline to show off my new necklace ;).

I still don't know what I think about the quality of Boots No. 7 in Cherry. It is very easy on - and likely you have to do this with all red lipstick - but you have to be VERY careful when applying lest it gets all over your face. I think it has quite the staying power though b/c shortly after these photos were taken, I put Mags to bed, changed and went for a 31:52 run (every second counts!). I came back in and the red lips were still large and in charge. Yep - I was that woman running with full makeup on.

The Red Shirt

2011-08-25T09:37:00.003-05:00

It's back to school time and the 4th annual Red Shirt was released from our alma mater - The University of Wisconsin.

I love it! Bonus: Proceeds go to The Great Scholarship Fund. As someone who applied for (and luckily received) MANY scholarships back in the day, I always like to support scholarship efforts.

Fashion meets Philanthropy. WIN and WIN.

Yes. This is another house update.

2011-08-24T13:49:00.002-05:00

Well, things are moving quite quickly. And to think this whole thing started as a "Well, we might as well try it". I never in a million years thought things would snowball like this!

The woman who made an offer on our house last night accepted our counteroffer that we submitted this morning. Basically, we got our listing price. I still don't know if the showing scheduled for tonight is still happening.

Step 1 in this crazy process is done.

We now are waiting to hear back on our initial offer for our "family stone" house. We originally gave them until Friday - our realtor is calling them (did call them?) this afternoon to notify them of our accepted offer and that we would also want to move our closing date from end of October to end of September. Two very nice enticing things that beef up our offer.

So we are back to waiting.

CA-RAY-ZEE.

Working on a Dream

2011-08-24T09:59:00.004-05:00

Yesterday was one of those surreal days when I thought I should keep pinching myself to see if I wasn't living in a dream world.

We had two showings yesterday. My sister was at our house with Mags and one of the showings was going to be while she was there. We had asked her if she would be okay with vacating the premesis and she was fine with it. We left a list of things to make sure were done before she left for the hour.

ALL day yesterday I was thinking about the showings. I was trying very hard not to get my hopes up because I knew that it was unlikely we would get an offer and that we might be doing MANY more showings.

I had to rush home, grab some food for Maggie and head out right away as the second showing was early in the evening. I was praising God that the rain held off because we went to a nearby park, did some laps around the pond to watch dogs in action, did some swinging and then ate dinner outside. I came back to the house, which my sis had in FANTASTIC order, dumped Maggie in the tub and got her to bed.

PHEW. IT had been a long day.

I checked our realtor site to see if any of the showings had left any feedback. None.

So I settled in to read my book.

Nate walked in the door, on the phone. He hung up and said, "Honey, we got an offer!"

WHAAAAA?!

We called our realtor back and he said he was on his way over in a bit.

Meanwhile, Nate started telling me about his golf outing. I was only quasi paying attention to him, thinking that I really wanted to get back to my book. (Evil, I know....especially when you hear what happened next.)

After his LOOOOOONG story about the raffle, he announced that he was the grand prize winner. I was excited for him and wondered what he won. "...And the prize had your name on it!"

I suddenly became VERY interested in the rafffle.

He went out into the kitchen and brought in a gold bag, which I IMMEDIATELY recognized as one from my FIL's jewelry store.

I started squealing.

Then I opened the box:

Woohoo!! A diamond necklace.

Then our realtor came over with the offer. We counteroffered and it was submitted this morning. We have not heard anything about the offer on the house that WE made. So now we are just in the waiting game. I am not good at waiting.

I was so excited/overwhelmed that I could NOT sleep. So I read my book for awhile. Finished it. Updated Goodreads. Updated a few Words With Friends games. I think I probably went to bed at 3 AM. YIKES!

The title of this post comes from a, you guessed it, Bruce Springsteen song.

For Sale

2011-08-23T09:53:00.004-05:00

The Beatles did it...and now we're attempting it. House For Sale.

WAIT. WHAT?!

Yes. We are attempting to sell our house. Totally crazy.

We had been casually looking for houses to get a sense of areas to eventually move to/what we want, etc and then we found it. An AMAZING house. With a back yard. (Currently we have no back yard). And while we don't NEED to move anytime soon, eventually we plan on outgrowing our current house.

Things went into fast forward quite quickly.

So, we put in an offer - contingent upon selling our house - and the for sale sign went up yesterday. If we get "the house", then we have to sell our house by October. If we don't get "the house", our house is off the market and we stay put in our great house. All in all, a win-win situation.

We cleaned frantically last night because we have two showings already today! As always, we'll keep you "posted" (pun intended).

And now I have "I'll Follow the Sun" (my favorite song off the album Beatles for Sale) in my head.

P.S. No I am not pregnant again. Not even close.

What a weekend!

2011-08-22T10:05:00.004-05:00

This weekend was luxurious - we had absolutely nothing planned. Because this does not happen very often, I soaked it in.

We started watching the show Burn Notice upon the recommendation of a friend. I'm not that into it. I have nothing against formulaic shows (I do love Law & Order and The Closer after all) but this is just not grabbing me. I like it enough to watch it if I happened upon it on tv and nothing else was on, but not enough to dedicate time to watching all of Season 1 on DVD.

We also watched the movie Cedar Rapids. Because Redbox had nothing else. It procured a few laughs (mainly the jokes about The Wire, one of our faves) but (and I think you know this) I would not recommend it. I do not understand why movies set in Wisconsin always seem to make it like this hokiest place in America to live. It is not like that!

We had some great meals out of the house - we went to Le Reve for lunch on Saturday and Nate ordered the cheese tray!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love cheese trays - we rarely order them. So when he suggested it, I wanted to give him a huge kiss in the middle of the restaurant. Sunday we went deli style and hit up Ninos. Such.An.Amazing.Italian.Sub. Our meals this weekend in the house were only ok. I tried a bunch of new recipes - none were keepers.

Other than that, we spent a lot of time outside soaking up the beautiful weather. We went to an outdoor Art Fair, a park, neighborhood walks, and of course, the swing in our yard. Mags also accompanied me on a run. I had been running sans Mags for a few weeks now and I think she doubled in size in those few weeks. We still finished a four mile hilly course in 30 minutes. I think the running legs might be back!!! Or maybe it was just my amazing Lululemon sports bra from the outlet in Orlando.

Stolen Dinner: A Love Story

2011-08-19T08:36:00.004-05:00

Stolen Dinner
Several of my family and friends own the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. I would say if you are looking to buy a cookbook for someone, buy them this one - it is definitely a classic. It would make a great college/new home/wedding gift. Everything I have made out of this cookbook has been good, and often those of us with it will email back and forth - "We tried this and it was great". I received one of those emails this week from BLK, who recommended the Asian Marinade (page 418) on Chicken and the following simple sesame noodles. This looked like an easy dinner, so I quickly followed suit. She was right.

I marinated the chicken and skewered chunks with red pepper and pineapple for a kabob grillout! How very retro of us, I know. Mags was a big fan of the kabobs - even the red pepper!

Simple Sesame Noodles
Source: The Pioneer Woman
Noodles - I used thin spaghetti because that was what we had on hand.
1/4 cup soy sauce
3-4 cloves garlic
3 TB sugar
2 TB rice vinegar
2-3 TB sesame oil
4-5 TB canola oil
1/2 tsp asian hot chili oil (I omitted this because I didn't have it)
1-2 TB hot water

Mix all above. Chop up a green onion or two and throw it on top.

I made this with a (I'm Guessing) 23-lb baby on my hip in the Moby Wrap. For whatever reason, she wanted to be held - probably to be closer to the action. Thank goodness for that Moby wrap.

We gave Maggie a few of these noodles, expecting her to not like them - they were a little zippy with all of the garlic. She inadvertently sucked the first noodle up and decided she loved it. We spent the dinner laughing at her sucking up spaghetti noodles.

Dinner: A Love Story
If you are looking for a cooking blog to add to your Google Reader, I highly recommend Dinner: A Love Story. I get giddy when a new post pops up! I first heard about DALS from A Cup of Jo's My Balance Motherhood posts. Pop on over and give it a try!

Cheesy Beef-Stuffed Zucchini

2011-08-17T21:26:00.002-05:00

I am providing the full recipe for this, however, we did not make the tomato sauce to serve with these because I didn't read that step until the zucchini were almost done. They were very good sans tomato sauce, but I could see how the tomato sauce option would also be good.

Cheesy Beef-Stuffed Zucchini
Source: America's Test Kitchen 30 Minute Suppers Summer 2011 Issue

4 medium zucchini (6-8 inches each), stem ends removed
Salt & Pepper
4 TB olive oil
1 onion, chopped fine
3/4 pound 85% lean ground beef
4 garlic cloves, minced
3/4 cup panko (Japanese style bread crumbs)
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
1 cup shredded provolone
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 (28-oz) can diced tomatoes

1. Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position, heat oven to 425 degrees and place rimmed baking sheet on rack. Halve zucchini lengthwise. With small spoon, scoop out seeds and most of the flesh so walls of zucchini are 1/4 in thick. Season cut side of zucchini with salt and pepper and brush with 2 TB olive oil. Set zucchini halves cut side down on hot baking sheet and roast until slightly softened and edges are beginning to brown, about 8 minutes. Transfer zucchini, cut side up, to a 9x13 inch baking dish.

2. Heat additional TB oil in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until just shimmering. Add onion and cook until softened, about 3minutes. Add beef and cook until no longer pink, about 4 minutes. Add 3 cloves garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Off heat, stri in 1/2 cup bread crumbs, 2 TB basil, and provolone. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Stuff zucchini halves with beef mixture. Toss remaining bread crumbs with Parmesan cheese. Sprinkle bread-crumb mixture on top. Bake zucchini until topping is golden, about 8 minutes.

4. Meanwhile, heat remaining oil in empty skillet until shimmering. Add remaining garlic and cook until fragrant. Add tomatoes and cook until thickened, about 8 minutes. Stir in remaining basil and season with salt and pepper. Serve with zucchini.

Better-Than-Ever Black Bean Burgers

2011-08-17T21:14:00.002-05:00

This recipe was published in the Food section of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel at the beginning of this month. It is from Sarah Matheny's new book, "Peas and Thank You: Simple Meatless Meals the Whole Family Will Love".

I love black bean burgers and this was one of the better recipes that I have tried for them. Nate even said, "This is one of the better meatless burgers I have had". Mags ate a few bites but much preferred the sweet potato fries we had on the side.

Better-Than-Ever Black Bean Burgers (Makes 4)
1 can (14 oz) black beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup chopped mushrooms (we used baby portabellas)
1/3 cup minced onion
1 1/2 tsp minced garlic (we used 2 cloves)
1 1/2 tsp lemon juice
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp salt
1 TB nutritional yeast (also called brewers' yeast - we got ours at the bulk bins at Outpost)
1 TB tahini

Place black beans in a large bowl and mash with a fork to a chunky consistency. Grind oats into a coarse flour using a blender or food processor. Add to bowl with beans along with remaining ingredients. Combine until a thick batter is formed.

Place bean mixture in refrigerator to chill and allow flavors to meld for at least 20-30 minutes.
Place a large skillet coated with vegetable oil spray over medium-high heat. Divide bean mixture into four portions and form into patties. Place patties in skillet and cook 6-7 minutes per side until patties are crisp and lightly browned. As an alternative, bake burgers in preheated 350 degree oven 15-20 minutes per side.

Going Wack-a-doo at One Year

2011-08-16T09:15:00.005-05:00

The face that lauched a 1000 tears:

Maggie's first birthday is quickly approaching and I have been a wreck! Nate might ban me from looking at all pictures of her from her newborn days.

Yesterday I almost had a panic attack. I had to go get a form from one of the Emergency Department doctors I work with for a grant application. The ED serves as the triage location for pregnant women - so I started thinking about the last time I went to the ED - shortly after my water broke. I did not burst into tears there, but I was about to.

This morning I was looking through her newborn photo shoot photos - we just booked our one-year session with the same photographer. Thank goodness I have an office door to close - I started balling.

I don't really feel like I was that emotional after she was born (although that could be selective memory!) - maybe I am experiencing a one-year delay?! Someone please tell me this is normal!

Making Mom, MPH Proud

2011-08-16T08:48:00.003-05:00

Mags remembered her sunblock for her first trip to the beach with her aunt!

Faux Indian Goulash (FIG)

2011-08-15T13:42:00.006-05:00

We have been cooking up a storm lately mostly because we came to the realization that we must start cooking for THREE versus two. Wonder Child can POUND the food.

It started with chicken sausage. I made two chicken sausage for dinner last week - one for Nate and one for myself and figured we would just share with Mags. The girl ate more chicken sausage than either of us combined - lesson learned. I now will make THREE chicken sausages.

She also can polish off at least half of a large grilled chicken breast, so I have started making 3 of those as well.

The food report has become a sort of joke between Nate and me - one of us will typically call the other with the Mags Report mid-day, after we have heard from the Babysitter du Jour. Today I found out that Maggie had her normal amount of oatmeal (1/2 cup mixed with 3-4 oz breastmilk), a good 2/3 of a banana and a leftover banana pancake...for breakfast. When I pack her food bag, she gets the biggest soft-sided cooler that we have - and it is FULL.

So - I have lots of recipes to share this week. First up - Faux Indian Goulash. For those of you who text, FIG for short. (BLK - is this in the text dictionary?!)

This is a meal that is one of those "we really need to go grocery shopping, what can we make for dinner" meals! It started with a recommendation by my colleague for Patak's jarred Indian curries. (Please note: Neither Nate nor myself has a very distinguished palate when it comes to Indian food. We're novices - so Patak's may very well be faux-Indian, hence the name of this dish.)

For this dish you will need the following pantry staples:
Basmati Rice (We get the bag from Trader Joes)
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 can of chickpeas, rinsed
1 box of frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed to remove water
1 onion
Patak's Curry - Flavor of your choosing. We currently are using the mild curry paste.

Prepare Basmati rice as directed. Meanwhile, cut up an onion and saute in olive oil in a pan until softened. Spoon 1-2 spoonfuls of the Patak paste into the onion along with the spinach, the chickpeas, and tomatoes. Heat through until warm. Serve over rice and with Naan. We also get the frozen Naan from Trader Joes although we have gotten fresh stuff from our grocery store as well.

Voila. Faux-Indian-Goulash. Ready in about 15-20 minutes.

Maggie was not a fan of FIG. Although I used a mild curry paste, I think it was still too spicy for her. She ate a few of the chickpeas, spit a few more out and moved on to her chicken sausage. :)

Yays and Nays from the Weekend

2011-08-15T09:40:00.005-05:00

First, the Longer YAY list (in no particular order)...

1. Riding Time Warp with my brother, sister and niece having to look for the dinosaur that scared my niece last year at Noah's Ark.

2a. Nate's homemade pancakes with real buttermilk. (9 times out of 10 when we decide to make pancakes, we have to use the replacement buttermilk - add lemon juice to regular milk. Having real buttermilk makes a HUGE fluffy difference!) Maggie LOVED the special banana pancakes made just for her.

2b. BLT sandwiches with fresh tomatoes from our garden (well, ok...it really is a big pot of tomatoe plants outside - not a garden).

3. Taking Maggie to PetSmart aka the cheap zoo. The girl's infatuation with dogs grows by the day. She was in heaven watching the grooming area at PetSmart.

4. Watching Hall Pass with Nate. We both did not expect much from this movie, but it was all that Redbox had left. We were pleasantly surprised at the laughs it procured.

5. Maggie's dance moves at YoMama, complete with booty shaking and Stevie Wonder.

6. Belly laughs while swinging

7. Books from the Friends of the Brookfield Library book sale. I found a vintage (1968) McCalls Sewing book and the Julia Child & Company cookbook for $2 each and I found the PERFECT book for Maggie - it has animals, playing peek-a-boo and it is a lift-the-flap book. She cuddled up and had me read it no less than 10 times in a row. I don't think you could spend fifty cents any better!

8. Running two of the three days this weekend!

9. Watching Maggie stand unassisted for 2 seconds before she fell onto her bottom.

10. Leaving the windows open all weekend - our house smells great!

11. CAP & SG are {finally} engaged!!! WOOHOO!

12. Tooth #3 is in sight!

...and the NAY list

1. Having a $10 giftcard to spend (last week only) at Jo-Ann fabrics - finding some great fabric in the remnant bin, standing in line with a hungry baby, getting to the register only to find out I cannot use the $10 on the remnant bin. Get a pack of replacement machine needles instead and get back in the long line...FRUSTRATING!

2. Rain at Noah's Ark. We had almost an entire month of 90+ degree temps and the one day we plan to go to the waterpark it is 70 degrees and rainy. In the words of my niece, "We still had fun!".

3. Running out of Cheerios at the aforementioned library book sale BEFORE we got to the entire room of Fiction. Thank goodness the sale is still on next week!

4. No Law & Order episodes on last night? This is pretty much our standard Sunday night - folding laundry while watching L&O. What was up last night?!

5. No Athleta returns to Gap stores. UGH. Guess I have to pay the $6 to return all of the items I bought. This is why I hate online shopping.

6. Packing up burp rags and size 2 shoes from Mags and having to buy size 4 diapers. My baby is growing too fast!

Style for Style: Red Lips

2011-08-12T08:00:00.000-05:00

"Beauty, to me, is about being comfortable in your own skin. That, or a kick-ass red lipstick." ~Your favorite and mine, GP

"It's true, lip colors come and go, a bold red lip is forever." ~Refinery 29

This week's Style for Style post comes straight at you from my cherry red mouth: I HAVE FOUND THE PERFECT RED LIPSTICK!

I love makeup and remember my first "lesson" came during Catholic Schools week parent classes in 8th grade. One of the parents was an Amway representative and always taught the makeup class. However, you could only take the makeup class if you were in 8th grade. Imagine my excitement 8th grade year! The first thing the mom/teacher did was hold a magenta fabric and an orange fabric up to our skin to determine if we were "cool" or "warm" (Yes...this really did happen and I remember it like it was yesterday). When it came to me, I stumped her because I could go either way. I have had MANY makeovers in many department and makeup stores over the years and this is something that usually comes up. Makeup people usually go towards the "warm" side of things with me, which is not my cup of tea. However, I don't want to be too "cool" for school either.

Lipstick is my favorite makeup item to try and buy. I love the pretty tubes and I love how a different shade of lipstick can change the rest of your makeup. My quest for red lipstick started several years ago - I wanted RED lips. Not too "warm" and not too "cool" - RED. I started with a trip to Sephora. I was too chicken to go for the real thing and thus purchased Stila Lip Glaze in Cranberry. I "lost" this for a couple of months (only to find it in the pocket of a rarely used purse). It is ok. It is quite sticky, and often looks pink.

I dove into "real" red lipstick during my inaugural trip to NYC two years ago and a trip to Bloomingdales (which I blogged about here). The Estee Lauder guy recommended Pure Color Gloss Stick in Pomegranate Kiss (color no longer available). I rocked this for a while, although sometimes felt it was a bit too orange-red. The tube was/is beautiful, however.

Last year, I purchased Rimmel Moisture Renew Lipstick Berry Queen on impulse. I liked the purple tube. As the name might imply, this was a bit too berry/pink.

My next purchase was a bit softer - the Burts Bees Tinted Lip Balm in Red Dahlia. If you are nervous about red lips - this is a good introduction and feels great on your lips.

I was pretty comfortable switching between all of the above options, although I would admit that none of them were the PERFECT red.

Then my xoJane newsletter arrived in my email last week with a story about a Pin-Up Makeover. The makeup artist recommended Boots No.7 Lip color in Cherry - available at Target. This was a "true red" - not too orange and not too pink.

Could it be? I threw a tube in my cart the next time I was in Target.

AHHHHH!

She was right - it's the perfect "true" red and so far, I love it!

Anyone else have any red lipstick recommendations? More red recommendations, and tips for wearing red lipstick, can be found in the August issue of Matchbook Magazine page 40.

Next week's Style for Style: The perfect neutral lipstick

The Help - Good Book, Good Movie

2011-08-11T08:16:00.005-05:00

Last night I went with some book club ladies to see The Help.

I lugged this hardcover book with me to NYC two years ago because I had waited MONTHS in the library queue to get it and of course it arrived the day before we left. I was glued to it every night in the hotel room. I enjoyed the book and recommend it if you have not read it.

As always, I was a little doubtful about the movie - I never feel the movies live up to the books. However, I thought they did a great job with the movie. From what I remembered of the book, they stayed very true to it, and my fellow book clubbers agreed. Hilly's character is just pure evil!

Skirt Kits

2011-08-10T09:36:00.004-05:00

Here are some photos of the skirt kits I alluded to last post, thanks to BLK.

Those outer velum folders and cream ribbons may look familiar to some of you - they were used in our wedding programs. My friend BLK recognized them immediately. When I showed them to Nate and asked if he remembered them, he gave me a blank stare. ha ha ha

August Craft of the Month

2011-08-09T22:02:00.005-05:00

Wait..What happened to June & July?

Nothing. Sewing hiatus.

I have several projects in the works but just could not bring myself to finish one in the past two months.

I was excited to get an email from Slunz commissioning me to make a purse for her Mom's birthday. I was a little nervous picking out fabric to match the black/white/cream request. Thank goodness for camera phones and text messaging! I knew we were on to something when the middle-aged woman working at Jo-Ann's complemented me on the fabrics.

The finished product:

All packaged up and ready to ship:

I also will have a few more skirts in the upcoming months due to my skirt kits I gave to three of my besties for their summer birthdays. I wish I would have taken a photo of them, but I basically made cute booklets out of velum and ribbon announcing the swingy skirt kit - containing a brief questionnaire card and a pink measuring tape. The recipients have to take their waist and waist to knee measurements, indicate whether they want a bright or neutral color, and choosing floral or geometric pattern. They also have the "surprise me" option. I packaged everything up in plain brown craft bags with sticker labels for each.

Try Suave Dry Shampoo - Free!

2011-08-09T12:42:00.003-05:00

During my last hair post, I raved about Suave Dry Shampoo.

If you are interested in trying this, you can get a sample of it here as part of the Suave Sample Box.

PEEK A BOO!

2011-08-09T09:33:00.003-05:00

Baby's First Eden Parade

2011-08-08T10:48:00.005-05:00

Every year we would go to the Eden Parade the first sunday in August when I was a kid. I LOVED it. The day before I would decorate my candy bag and make my sibilings do the same. I would always use my ride tokens to go on the craziest, dizziest rides.

I try to go to the parade every year and this year I was excited to take Mags. She enjoyed the dancers, the bands, and the horses.

We took the opportunity to take a five generation picture featuring Maggie's great-great grandfather:

We joked that they shared the same hairstyle.

Maggie (with my mom in the photo below) also met the Italian sausage of the famous Klements Racing Sausages:

If you have been reading this blog long enough, you may recall that Nate took a turn as the Italian Sausage about three years ago:

Now I am just hoping that I won the cow or pig in the Fireman's Raffle. (My bro is a volunteer fireman and always hits us up for raffle tix.)

11 Months!

2011-08-08T07:47:00.004-05:00

Maggie is 11 months old today!

FOOD
This month we used our last tub of baby food (I may have gone a little crazy with stockpiling!) and our last container of puffs! She has completely made the transition to table food (with the exception of the "baby" oatmeal, which she still has for breakfast for the iron) and eats dinner with us every night. This has been fantastic and way easier! It can be difficult to have her wait for dinner, so she sometimes will start her dinner a little earlier with cheerios and fruit/veggies to avoid a meltdown. We do not use her tray much anymore and pull the high chair right up to the table. She also eats from a plate or bowl. She has done very well with this - however, you know she is done when she starts to pick the plate/bowl up and dump the food. We have gotten good at anticipating this maneuver! I have been working with her to self-feed from a spoon. I either will say "Help mama" and she will put her hand on the spoon and we will both guide the spoon into her mouth or I will pre-load the spoon and put it in front of her for her to pick up and feed herself. While this is messy, she is getting pretty good!

She had her first food reaction last night. The doctor thinks that the cherries were to blame, even though yesterday was not the first day she has had cherries (that was earlier this week). After dinner, her trunk and chin were covered in hives. They didn't seem to bother her too much so we just plopped her in an oatmeal bath and that was it. I did call the doctor just to make sure we weren't suppossed to do anything else. She still had them, albeit very faintly, this morning. They didn't appear to bother her too much!

We have made the crossover and have given her scrambled eggs a couple of times. She seems to like them and hasn't had any reactions. Since eggs were in some of the food she eats (bread, pasta), we then just made her yolks to try and then worked our way up to the full egg. Nate always makes some form of eggs for breakfast on Saturday and this past Saturday, she joined in her first traditional breakfast with us.

Her food schedule has not changed at all in the last month. The bottles are all packed up. She no longer uses them, although I'm not sure what we will do when she weans from the night nursing. I think we will just give her milk in a sippy cup during books and try that rather than go to a bottle. She still nurses right when she gets up and right before bed. During the day she gets breastmilk from my frozen stash in a sippy cup.

GROWING
I do not have any stats on Maggie because she does not go to the doctor until the one year mark. Regardless, she feels heavier. She basically is in 12 or 18 month clothes. We are huge fans of those rompers since it is really hard to crawl in a dress! Still doing cloth diapers except for days when Maggie is in Hartford. We will likely make the switch to size 4 disposable diapers when our remaining supply of size 3s run out. The size 3s are a little snug but fine.

Her hair continues to (slowly) come in!

LANGUAGE
She talks in her own language still, although she can understand a lot. For example, this morning she was playing in the living room and I was making my lunch in the kitchen and said, "Maggie come by mama in the kitchen please" and she crawled into the kitchen. She really understands the word "puppy"!!

MOVEMENT
She started crawling and pulling up last month! There was no real transition between these two things - she was pulling up before she actually crawled and now will use the furniture as a guide. She still will prefer to crawl though, most of the time. For example, our coffee table is right in front of one of our couches. She used to sit down to go between the two but in the last week has figured out how to go between the two and remain standing. She still has not figured out how to crawl stairs.

For awhile she would stay in the same room but she quickly figured out there is a whole house to explore and will go between rooms quite easily. Our house works well for crawlers because we can shut doors to our bathrooms and basement and any rooms that we don't want her in. We use a baby gate to keep her out of the entryway where all the plants are. Our house is pretty much completely baby proofed. We have a gate installed at the top of the stairs and got the magnet cabinet locks for cabinets in the kitchen and bathroom that we want to keep her out of. These things are amazing but I never remember that we have them and it takes me a few pulls on the cabinet doors before I remember to get the unlocking magnet on the fridge. We kept the tupperware cabinet open for her to play with.

All of this movement has led to some injuries. We always seem to find scrapes and bruises on her, the most recent one is on the middle of her forehead from the bathtub. She was standing outside the bathtub (as in she was not taking a bath) and I didn't catch her when she went down and she hit her head. She does always seem to want to stand while taking a bath too. There is a lot of "Maggie, No. We sit in the bathtub" during bathtime!

TOYS/BOOKS
She has figured out how to turn her ball popper toy on by herself. She will sit and just hit the on button a hundred times in a row and then start shaking her head and body (dancing) when the music comes on. Each morning when we set her in the living room, she makes a beeline to that, turns it on and then plays. When the music stops, she goes over to it and turns it back on.

She really likes this toy truck that I got her from the Target clearance sand toy section. She might be getting a few more cars/trucks for her birthday. She just figured out how to push them and "drive" them around.

She does not like when toys are cleaned up. She has this turtle where you can put shapes through the shell and if the shapes are inside the turtle, she will make it a point to throw the turtle shell in one direction and dump the shapes out. I like cleaning it up right after she does it just to watch if she will empty it again. Every time! Another toy that she likes to have a certain way is the 5 pop up animal toy. If we open all the doors and have them in the popped up position, she will beeline over and close them all. This too, she will keep doing as long as you keep popping up the animals.

Now for the non-toys...As I am sure everyone knows, kids like "non-toys" more than toys. Maggie's most favorite thing is the remote control. We let her play with it but I wouldn't be surprised if she ordered a pay per view movie one of these days! She also likes the laptop computer cord - most likely because it has a little light on it. We do not let her play with that! She still loves oatmeal canisters and has amassed quite a collection to build towers with and roll back and forth with you. I don't know if I have mentioned this on one of these yet, but she also loves our Sonicare toothbrushes, and has for a LONG time. Every morning once she hears one of us turn our toothbrush on, she will want to hold the toothbrush and "help" you brush your teeth. She will laugh EVERY time. I am not sure what is so cool about those, but oh well! She does not have a sonicare - but does enjoy brushing her teeth.

In the last month she has become a book magnet. (Yes!!! My plan is working!!!) She has a few favorites that she "reads" like the Baby Book (it has pictures of real babies in it) and she will go over to her bookshelf and pull all of the books off it every morning. Because of this, I try to read to her whenever she has a book. Nate continues to do all of the before bed reading and rotates out books. We used to be able to read some more story type books but she really prefers books that have bright colors and pictures - those boring one word type books. One of her other favorite books is this Shutterfly photo book that I made her containing pictures of her family.

KIDDOS
Maggie LOVES other little kids. She made a seamless transition to the in-home daycare place that she now goes to once a week. Nate does the drop-off and pick-up for this since it is near his work and always has funny stories. Last week, when he walked in the door, a 5 yo boy name Trevor screamed "MAAAAGGGGIE" when he saw her and let her wear his hat. Trevor's 2 yo brother asked to wear the hat and Trevor said "No". Her first boyfriend, ha ha ha. Every time she has just crawled from Nate over to the kids without even looking back!

PLAY PLAY PLAY
She still loves outdoor swings. The swing works wonders if she is in a bad mood or you need to distract her! We (and Nate's parents and my mom) all have a version of the little tikes swing. It is a great swing and reasonably priced, if you buy a new one. We all got them from yard sales!

Maggie is also a shark. She LOVES swimming. I took her to Hoyt Park Pool last Friday for the first time during tot time. She kept wanting to crawl into water that would be over her head and would NOT be happy when I picked her up to take her back to the shallow part. Unfortunately tot time is right around the time she takes a morning nap. I tried to have her sleep a little earlier, which did not work. Thankfully I was able to get her to sleep in the stroller after a little swimming. Next summer, we will take Hoyt Park Pool by storm!

My in-laws replaced their pool liner this summer so she has gotten some swim time in there as well. My MIL also bought one of those kiddie pools for her to splash in. I think we will probably resume the swimming "lessons" in late fall at the Y.

TEETH
She still only has the 2 middle bottom teeth. None appear to be making their way in anytime soon.

SLEEP
She goes to bed around 7 PM and is up anywhere between 6 and 7 in the morning, USUALLY closer to the 6:00 end of that time frame. (God bless the rare instances where she gets up at 7:00 AND it's a Saturday!) She takes a morning nap and an afternoon nap, which are usually an hour each.

ANIMALS
She LOVES animals, especially dogs. Every morning we look out the window to see if there are any puppies walking by. Nate's aunt sometimes babysits her during the week and has a yellow lab, Ike, whom Maggie loves. We took her to the Madison Children's Zoo a couple of weeks ago and she liked the goats and the meerkat - basically the only two animals that were moving around in the heat! She really loved the horses at the state fair.

Baby's First Wisconsin State Fair

2011-08-05T13:04:00.002-05:00

Last night we decided last minute to go to opening night of State Fair. If we arrived there before 6:00 PM, we could get in for $2 a person with 2 canned goods. I had a bag of free formula canisters to donate to the food pantry so we took that and managed to get in at 5:59!

We toured the pig and goat barn as well as the "discovery barn" for little kids. Maggie LOVED all of the animals. Her head was spinning from left to right almost the entire night!

Of course we tried the "new" foods - the chocolate covered cranberries on a stick and the deep fried butter. The deep fried butter was basically small donuts with a pool of melted butter inside. I thought they were good, but after eating 4 of the 5 in the serving, I was sick of them for sure. I got my usual grilled cheese from the Wisconsin products pavilion and shared some with Maggie. "MMMMMMMMMMMMM" she said after every bite. We then went to the Herb Kohl Milk barn where you can get cups of flavored milk for 25 cents. Nate bought cherry vanilla and root beer. We let Maggie have a few sips of the cherry vanilla. She was a fan!

I also got a corn on the cob, which Maggie thoroghly enjoyed sharing, even if I think she was doing it just for the butter!

A gyro rounded out our food experience. We sampled some sausage, mello yello and sparkling cranberry juice as well.

I think the crowning moment was watching the Clydesdale horse judging. It was very interesting and Maggie was mesmerized by the horses. She even got into clapping when the audience clapped.

For the first time in my experience of State Fair, I rode on the Giant Slide. HOW FUN! Totally worth the $2.

We finished the evening with watching the pig races. As much as jumped and screamed with Maggie, we never were selected to be the "pig rooter'. However, the woman ahead of us was and gave Maggie her sticker (photo above). I was bummed because I didn't realize the camera battery was dead until we arrived so I wasn't able to take any pictures. (The photo above was taken this morning).

The State Fair is always a fun time and we were glad Maggie seemed to be as enthused about it as us!

Pool Shark

2011-08-03T09:03:00.000-05:00

Over the weekend, we hung out at my in-law's pool. The water was so refreshing!
Of course, our bathing beauty loved it:

She didn't have quite enough grasp on balance to be entirely independent in her floaty suit, but she liked that she could get a drink whenever she felt like it:

She only thinks she can swim in it:

Children's Music Contest

2011-08-03T07:48:00.003-05:00

BABYMAMAS: You should head on over to AH's blog to comment to enter a 3-pack of In the Nick of Time Children's Music CDs....

...because GaGa's Government Hooker is so NOT kiddo appropriate.

*If you are not a babymama, comment anyway. Children's music makes a great baby/shower/birthday gift!

Month By Month: 10 Months (...and 3 weeks)

2011-08-02T20:46:00.005-05:00

In less than one week, Maggie will be 11 months old.

Good thing we took her 10 month old pictures with Mickey and on the Quilt tonight. Yikes!

Maggie with Mickey: 10 Months (...and 3 weeks)

Maggie on her Quilt: 10 Months (...and 3 weeks) Such a long girl!

And one with Mom for good measure:

So much as changed since Jan 15:

Pasta...Peas...Prosciutto...Popsicles!

2011-08-02T15:17:00.004-05:00

I made this for dinner last night. I made the popsicles Sunday evening and we all shared one for dessert.

The dinner: Maggie approved
The popsicles: Jury's still out. At first she was not a fan, but by the end she was grabbing it and trying to eat it by herself.

Creamy shells with Peas and Prosciutto
Source: America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook.

1 cup whole milk ricotta cheese
1/2 cup Parmesean cheese, grated
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
salt and pepper, to your taste
4 ounces thinly sliced prosciutto, cut into 1/4 inch strips
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 white onion, minced
2 garlic cloves, minced (I used 3 because we Schlottys are garlic FANS)
1 pound small pasta shells
2 cups frozen peas
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

1.Bring water to a boil in a large pot for shells. While that is starting, begin to combine the ricotta, Parmesan, butter, and around 1/4 tsp salt and ½ tsp pepper in bowl large enough to hold the pasta. Mix together until the salt and pepper are distributed evenly and the butter has mostly been broken up.

2.Cook the prosciutto and oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat until it is well browned and crisp, about 5 minutes. Saving the drippings in the skillet, transfer the prosciutto to a paper towel plate with a slotted spoon.

3.Add onion to oil in skillet and cook over medium heat until the onion is softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook until its just beginning to turn golden. Stir the onion and garlic into the ricotta mix.

4.When the water is boiling, stir in salt for flavor and then add the shells. Cook, stirring often, until the shells are al dente; almost tender but still a little firm to the bite. Add the peas during the final 30 seconds of cooking.

5.Reserve around a cup of the pasta cooking water and then drain the shells and peas. Whisk the lemon juice into the ricotta mix until smooth. All the shells and peas and toss to coat. Season with salt and pepper to taste. If needed, add small amounts of the reserved pasta water to loosen the sauce Sprinkle the crisp prosciutto over the pasta and enjoy.

Banana Pineapple Popsicles
Source: Craft Magazine Blog

6 oz (3/4 cup) fresh squeezed orange juice
8 oz chopped fresh pineapple or frozen fresh pineapple
6 oz peeled and sliced banana; about 1 medium banana
4-6 oz plain or Greek-style yogurt

Puree all of the above and pour into popsicle molds. If you do not have popsicle molds, the recipe features instructions for using dixie cups.
NOTE: This recipe makes a LOT of popsicles - my estimate is 3 popsicle molds worth. My popsicle mold makes 4 popsicles - when I make these again, I will probably make 1/3 of this recipe.

Style for Style: Animal print ballet flats

2011-08-02T08:03:00.010-05:00

I love lists of wardrobe classics. You know, "staples" that every one should have in their closet. (One of my favorites starts on page 38 of Issue 2 of Matchbook Magazine.) Although I like the idea of having items forever, I can't say I subscribe to this approach at all times. Particularly when faced with an 80% off clearance rack...ANYWAYS...

One of my wardrobe staples is leopard/cheetah print ballet flats. (Animal print is #2 of Nina Garcia's Top 100 list, BTW.) You might be amazed at how versatile this shoe is. I originally bought my first pair at Target (on clearance) thinking they would be a fun shoe. Little did I know how often I could wear them! I burned through that Target pair and am now on my second pair, from Old Navy.

I was wearing them at my work conference in Iowa a few months back when our center director asked where I got them because his wife would love them. I responded that they were from Old Navy. We moved on.

Then yesterday, I was wearing the shoes again, and he again asked me where I got them because he had forgotten and I responded, "Old Navy...but if you are going to get these for {wife's name}, you should get higher quality ones. Coach used to have a cute pair." He asked if I could send him a link to them.

WELL....

I was then on the hunt for leopard/animal print ballet flats. I personally like the pony-hair (or faux pony-hair) types, rather than the shiny types. Here is what I came up with:

Stuart Weitzman $235

Elizabeth and James $147.50 (SALE)

Ivanka Trump $129.95

Halogen Ellis $99.95

Kelsi Dagger $71.20 (SALE)

Aldo $70

Anne Klein $59.01 (SALE)

Calvin Klein Jeans $59

BP $59

Unfortunately, I could not find a current pair (aka non-ebay) version from Target, Gap or Old Navy, although one of these three usually has an offering. After my Target pair bit the dust, I was on the hunt for months to find a replacement that actually fit (Does anyone else have a hard time with flats that fit? I often find that they are too wide for my foot), I found my current pair at Old Navy. You would think I would have bought two pairs, but I did not. Thankfully, I think I have a while before these go!

This was a fun post for me to put together so I might have more "Style for Style" posts in the future. Indulge me...

Hair products/appliances

2011-07-29T08:15:00.002-05:00

It cracks me up that by far the posts that I get the most comments/emails on are posts about hair.

Here is a follow-up to yesterday's hair post:

1. The gel I purchased on Wednesday night was the Grund Prodesign Shape Gel. I have not had to replicate the salon results yet so I am not sure if I can successfully use this product.

2. My BIL's GF uses the Garnier Fructis Scrunch Curl Gel (a tiny amount else cruch factor sets in) or the Aveda Flax Seed Aloe gel. I have seen her hair - it does not look crunchy curly.

3. Brazilian! My friend EL commented that she treated her long thick locks to a Brazilian Blowout. I thought it was funny because my stylist recommended one to me after I was complaining about frizz. I don't know if I will take the plunge. They do sound uber fantastic.

I will now review a product I asked my MIL for for Christmas - The Garnier Fructis Sleek and Shine Blow Dry Protector. I would give this product a thumbs down. I was hoping it was going to be my cheap-o version of a Brazilian blowout but I guess you totally get what you pay for in this instance. The goop you have to put on your hair for 20-25 minutes smells awful. I would compare it to a home hair coloring kit - you have to wear gloves, put a shower cap on your head, etc. I didn't think it reduced my blow drying time or affected frizz or straightness at all. Oh well - glad I tried it! (I just noticed this product only received 2 stars in Amazon).

4. Dry Shampoo. I noticed that Tressemme has expanded their line of dry shampoos from 2 versions to 4. I currently have this version, although I think I like the Suave Professionals Dry Shampoo better. My sister definitely likes the Suave better - she has full access to the hair closet whilst babysitting my child. The scent is better and there is not as much white residue to get rid of with the Suave. And, it's cheaper, although more expensive that the "regular" Suave products. I love that I get annoyed at paying $3 for a can of Suave.

5. I am still on the lookout for a good hairspray, although I found a half bottle of this Aveda Brilliant Medium Hold Hairspray in my closet that I am quite impressed with. I wonder why I stopped using it?? Let me know if you have any recommendations!

6. Reading the above, you may get the impression that I am a hair product whore.

You would be right.

I do get rid of things that I really do not like. I have been known to come to book club with a bag full of hair products (and other products) to give away. (I am still trying to find a home for the got2b Smoothing Lustre Lotion - and yes, the charms are still attached to the bottle.) Otherwise, family members are the lucky recipients of my closet purging. This might be weird but I really do not like throwing things away!

My old roommate in CHI used to have TUBS of products in rubbermaids. (She also had bi-polar hair.) That was the hookup - you could try anything to see if it worked!

7. Curling irons/Flat irons. I am in need of an upgrade for both. I do not want to spend a lot of money. Thus, do not email me and tell me that the CHI flat iron is awesome. I realize it is, but given that I do not use this appliance that often, I do not want to invest $100+ on it.

I currently have a Wigo flat iron that I bought in ATL from Ulta. The plate is uneven where it meets the "arm" of the flat iron and it always rips a bunch of hair out. So you can see why I no longer use it. I also do not like the design of it - instead of just being two arms that you clamp together (looking like a "V"), it looks like an "X". I am not coordinated enough to work this.

I currently have a Revlon 1" curling iron. It may be from high school. It has no heat adjuster - just plug in and go. It really does not get very hot.

My friend Slunz and I were talking about just going to Target and throwing a dart at the curling iron wall - so please. Save us from carnival games - send me your recommendations!

Band Aid Maggie

2011-07-28T10:40:00.002-05:00

I was bummed that we didn't have a picture with the band aid on Maggie's eyebrow. Then I found out that my sister took one. This should have been posted with the More Firsts post.

Catch a WAVE!

2011-07-28T09:21:00.004-05:00

Hold onto your hats...it's another Hair post!

My hair has a natural wave to it. Unfortunately, it is the type of wave that requires some work to sport - I can't just wash my hair and go, lest I have a pouf-ball of half-assed wavy frizz.

Lately, I have felt like the natural waviness has been amplified. I don't know if it is the heat or the humidity but I have been trying to stop fighting the wave and embrace it. This IS what French women do, of course. (AKA...I am too lazy to blow dry my hair every 4th day). Thus, I have been obsessed with long beachy waves. Proof is in my Pinterest "Hair DO" board. You may also recall the bad curling iron incident from a few weeks back.
Clearly, I need some hair help.

I consulted thebeautydepartment. Make fun of LC all you want, but this blog has some really helpful tips/tutorials. (I stopped being high and mighty on LC when I realized I was wearing a lot of her Kohls clothes and reading this blog obsessively.)

The mornings have been getting later and later for me (that darn snooze button!). Thus, I started experimenting with wearing my hair wavy. I was making this potion of Aveda Confixor + Aveda Be Curly Style Prep and letting my hair air dry. This was actually working pretty well, but results were not consistent. And I would sometimes have the crunch factor.

Last night, I had a hair cut. NORMALLY, I let them straighten the sh** out of my hair and then try not to wash it for as long as possible. I can never replicate how straight salons are able to get my hair! There have been a few instances where I let them experiment with my wave. These are all HUGE failures. Example: Once I asked the stylist, "I really want to try to wear my hair wavy. Do you have any tips?" She squeezed half a bottle of Bumble and Bumble Curl Creme onto my head. My hair was so disgusting. The worst part? I totally did not wash it the next day and went to work. A colleague was like, "What the hell happened to your hair?!" (Sort of like the time I did a coconut oil treatment the morning I went to work...I'll save that one for another hair post).

Back to last night...My current stylist is also a friend. I should say, one of my friends from college is also a stylist. She saw my hair last night, post shampooing, and exclaimed "HOLY WAVES". I guess my hair IS getting wavier! I took this as an invitation to lament about my recent hair woes (including the curling iron disaster). I told her I wanted natural waves but I did not want them to be crunchy or "wet" looking. And if she could give me a curling iron tutorial, I would be most grateful.

HOLY SHAZZAM.

I did not take a picture of my hair last night because I had to get straight home and make macaroni and cheese for a friend that recently had a baby. BUT trust me when I tell you that my hair was AMAZING. I am still rocking the waves today but they are not quite as awesome as they were last night. (I really tried sleeping on my back with my hair spread out so as not to damage the waves!)

How did she do it? "Curly hair is a science that requires some trial and error" was her quote. Ok, I have been trying for about 15 years and she nailed in in one try.

Here are some pointers in case any of the five readers I have (not including the family members that probably make up 95% of my readership):

1) KEEP YOUR HAIR AS WET AS POSSIBLE. I always towel dried my hair. Apparently I should step straight from the shower and product-ize my hair with no/minimal drying. Last night, she drenched my hair with a spray bottle of water after trimming it and commented that this was the next best thing as straight from the shower wet.

2) FINDING THE RIGHT PRODUCT FOR YOUR HAIR TEXTURE IS KEY. (I feel like this is an obvious statement, but the "right product" is not so obvious). She recommended this creme gel that was fairly lightweight so that it would not weigh my hair down, but would provide enough hold for the wave. I have found that most "curl cremes" on the market are too heavy for my hair - and I feel like I have tried both high end (Bumble & Bumble, Aveda, Kerastase) and low end (Garnier Fructis, Pantene, John Frieda) curl cremes. I was a little nervous at mention of the word "GEL". Even though I knew my BIL's GF uses gel to rock her curly hair (with fantastic results), to me, "gel", brings to mind the crunchy 80s.

3) DIFFUSE. My stylist recommended diffusing the hair about 50-75% dry. (This is also what LC recommends, BTW). She diffused my hair for a while though because she was also giving me a curling iron tutorial and needed it to be dry. Apparently I had been diffusing my hair wrong too. She recommneded only diffusing about mid-way up my hair. IT will be extra poufy if you diffuse up to the top of the head (which is what I was doing).

4) DO NOT TOUCH YOUR HAIR. Try not to play with it or touch it, particularly while it is diffusing/drying. The more you play with it, the less wavy it will be. I was twisting parts of my hair around my finger and scrunching it often!

5) WAVE SPRAY. She also used this beach wave spray. I did not buy this because I was already buying two products and had to limit myself. I did find this DIY beach wave spray recipe that I might try. She thought that the wave spray might not be a necessity.

Ok. So now for the curling iron tutorial.

She used a curling iron to touch up some pieces around my head and to show me how to use one since I was lacking in this department. I was happy that she just used a 1" curling iron because that is what I had at home. It turns out I was trying to put WAY TOO MUCH hair into the curling iron. She put the TINIEST pieces in there. And since I wouldn't be curling my entire head, it wouldn't take that long. She maybe curled 6-7 pieces, particularly around the front of my head since the back is SUPER naturally wavy and the front is only partially naturally wavy.

My next concern was that I was going to have to wash my hair more frequently. In my original hair post, I had commented that if I wear my hair curly, I have to wash it more often. And we all know I am not a fan of frequent hair washing. She said that I should be able to have Day 2 hair and do some quick touchups with the curling iron. So that is what I did this morning. While my hair is not as banging as it was last night, it is still way better than any of my previous attempts to wear my hair wavy. The real test is when I start with sopping wet hair and have to do all of the above myself.

I really wish I could just have a personal hairstylist that would do my hair everyday. I wonder what Nate would say....

(Please note: I now have a HAIR label for all of these wack-a-doo hair posts)

Kitchen Fan

2011-07-27T11:48:00.004-05:00

Maggie's favorite place in our house might be the kitchen. She discovered how to open cabinets today;

She also thinks it is hilarious to check out her reflection in the oven door.

More "Firsts"

2011-07-26T08:19:00.004-05:00

It's funny but for a couple months I felt like Maggie didn't really do anything "new". Now, she does ten new things a day, it seems!

She has been pulling up a lot and has finally figured out that she doesn't need to be on her tip-toes all the time while standing. I would say she has definitely started the cruising stage - using furniture to walk around. Thus...

Yesterday, she had her first trying-to-walk-related injury. She was walking along the coffee table, fell when she got to the end, and hit her head on the corner. So when I saw her, she had a big band-aid on her head. Then she did it again - the Band-Aid provided some cushion the second time.

We installed a gate at the top of our stairs over the weekend. We had two of the tension gates and after my experience with those, we thought we better get something that was "staircase approved". A trip to BRU later, Nate installed our new gate. Maggie has already used it to stand and it contained her. It is nice that she can just cruise between her room and our room while we get ready in the morning.

She has already modified her crawl. For the first few days, it was pretty textbook. Now, she sort of keeps one of her knees up and plants her foot - so she "crawls" going knee..hand...foot...hand...knee. It looks ridiculous.

Finally, today is her first day at a non-family babysitter. I was not as nervous as I thought I would be, but still a little nervous. We had lined up this in-home place back when I was pregnant and haven't had to use it. We felt that it would probably be a good idea to give Maggie some interaction with other kids since she seems to be at the age where she is obsessed with them so we are going to use the place one day a week to start. Nate dropped her off this morning and she was immediately swarmed by the other kids and hamming it up for them. I was all worried she was going to cry and freak out because she didn't know anyone. Uh - yeah. Turns out I had NOTHING to worry about. I wish I could be a fly on the wall in that house today!

Tesla

2011-07-25T12:26:00.003-05:00

We celebrated my friend CP's 30th birthday at the FDL County Fair at the Tesla concert.

The next day - this picture was in my hometown paper:

Good times.

And yes, I did belt out all of the words to Love Song.

DIY Fruit Leather

2011-07-21T08:21:00.005-05:00

I have been known to take down an entire box of Fruit Roll-Ups in one sitting...driving the 2 mile stretch home from Target, where I just purchased said box of Fruit Roll Ups.

And those bags of Trader Joe's odds and ends fruit leather bits? YUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!

So when DIY fruit leather popped up in my Google Reader the other day, I thought I'd give it a try. Intrestingly enough, DIY Fruit Leather was the DIY feature of the week in the Milwaukee Journal Setinel food section.

And in classic Amy fashion, I started with Step 1 of the recipe before reading the entire thing through. I had my fruit puree spread in my parchment-paper lined jelly roll pan when I read the baking instruction "Bake in a 140 degree oven for 8-10 hours".

WHAAA?

I text messaged my friend AH who I knew had made countless batches of the stuff. "Is this bake time for real?"

"Yes. We leave the oven on overnight." she replied.

Ok...here goes. I could just see the headline.

"Family of Three Dies in House Fire. Mom Trying to Make Fruit Leather"

Our oven only went down to 170 degrees. I put it in at 8:00PM. At 10:00PM, we were ready to head to bed.

Nate, of course, noticed the oven was still on. When I informed him it was going to be on all night he commented, "I love that you picked the hottest day of the year to keep the oven on all night."

(Yes. We are in the midst of a 4-day long heat advisory. YIKES!)

AT 3:30AM, I woke up. I wondered about the fruit leather...but not enough to get out of bed.

At 5:30AM, my alarm went off and I got up and went to check it out. It looked right. I pulled it out and shut the oven off and went to take my shower.

When we taste tested it, it was a bit crunchy, albeit tasty (I made peach raspberry - and I just purreed fruit - no sugar/gelatin additions). I think I left it in too long. I will have to experiment with the cook time, given the oven temp of 170. I also would like to try making them in a food dehydrator. Word on the street is that my MIL has one...

Crawl Monster!

2011-07-20T08:02:00.002-05:00

See this sweet face?

Overnight she has become CRAZY!

She has crawled several laps around our downstairs floor already this morning, thinks she can use her toy kitchen to stand up and pulled anything within reach.

I brought up the baby gates to block off our entryway, which is where I have moved all of our plants to.

I couldn't figure out how to lock it down so I thought, "It's fine."

WRONG. She made a bee line for the gate and within 0.2 seconds it had crashed on top of her.

SO...I spent a little more time to get it locked down.

Again, she made a beeline for the gate, pulled up and started shaking it.

I guess there is a reason these gates "are not recommended for the top of stairs"!!

Vacation Recap 3: Orlando and the Trip Home

2011-07-19T20:56:00.001-05:00

Sunday (Day 5) we were back on the road to drive from Atlanta to Orlando. The drive went really well and we arrived in Orlando to be greeted by one of my BILs, N, and the GF of my other BIL, D. (Got that? K, the GF of my BIL, D is living with my other BIL, N - scandalous! ha ha ha).

We planned on checking out the fireworks at the Disney World Polynesian hotel. (I think that the Polynesian would be the hotel I would recommend to people with little kids if they were going to Disney.) We first got a Dole Whip, which may be one of my favorite parts of Disney World.

Maggie was not a fan of the pineapple soft serve:

After Dole Whips, we played in the fountain:

I was expecting Maggie to be afraid of the fireworks. WRONG - she was mesmerized by them. She just reclined back in my lap and ate some puffs while never taking her eyes off the fireworks:

We stayed at my in-laws condo in Celebration for the first part of our Orlando stay. This was ideal as we had a full kitchen and a washer/dryer. We stayed in the master bedroom, had a bathroom to ourselves and we put Maggie's pack-n-play in the walk in closet. Out of the entire vacation, she slept the best in that closet!

Two of the days we went to the Disney World parks. I know you might be thinking that we are crazy taking an almost-10 month old to Disney World In July in Florida - the busiest time of the parks. BUT given that my BIL works there, he gave us some of the free admissions he gets per year and basically took us to the front of every line on the rides we decided to go on. Part of me hopes he never quits that job! :) Since Nate and his family grew up going to Disney, they know the parks so well so they aren't nearly as overwhelming! We went to Hollywood Studios one morning, returned to the condo for Maggie's afternoon nap, and then went back to check out Epcot. On Day 2, we went to the Magic Kingdom for part of the day. My BIL also got Maggie a "First Visit" button and we all wore "I'm Celebrating Marge's First Visit" buttons - you can see them in the picture below.

Maggie also met some characters. While she did not cry at any of the characters, she wasn't exactly sure of what to make of them either!

On our down time, we made sure that KR kept up with the Casey Anthony trial :), went swimming in the Celebration pool and watched the alligators in the pond.

Here are some of our Disney photos:
Our celebrating buttons:

Maggie in her mouse ears and 1st visit button:

Can.not.stop.looking.at.that.mouse:

Why is this mouse dressed like me and doing jazz hands?

Pastries at France (Epcot)!

Ah yes! This position allows for optimal hair grabbing!

Color Coordinated girls at Animal Kingdom Lodge!

Checking out the monorail passengers on the morning of day 2

DUMBO!

Enthralled at It's A Small World

Hmmm...Is this REALLY Belle? Let me just tug on this hair and see..

Classic castle picture with my BIL - the greatest Disney tour guide ever

Cooling down with her new souvenier back at the condo:

Thursday (Day 9) we hung out and laid around the condo until early afternoon when we packed up our stuff and moved to the JW Marriott Grande Lakes resort where Nate had a work conference beginning Thursday afternoon.

Maggie and I basically hit up the lazy river/pool area while Nate was at the conference. It was so humid the camera actually fogged up!

I basically tried to make sure she didn't drink too much pool water:

I actually went to bed at the same time as Mags on Thursday night, basically so I could read my book! Friday night my BIL and KR returned to do some babysitting for us so that I could join Nate for a business dinner at the Ritz Cartlon restaurant, Norman's. Dinner was very yummy!

Saturday morning we were itching to get home so we packed up and checked out - back on the road. The trip home was rather uneventful. We made it to just north of Nashville Saturday night and stayed at a Comfort Suites again. We were home by 5:30 on Sunday night which left some time to unpack, do laundry and get in bed to be ready for work/the real world the next day!

Mags (and Pooh) on the drive:

Hanging Up the Horns

2011-07-19T13:32:00.002-05:00

In seven weeks and two days, Maggie will be a year old.

My goal since before she was born was to have her on breastmilk until she was a year old, which is the point at which you can start giving an infant cow's milk.

I am happy that I will more than meet that goal, given the freezer stash that I accumulated over the past almost-year.

I discussed weaning with Maggie's doctor at her nine-month appointment. At that point, Maggie was nursing three times a day: once right away in the morning, once mid-afternoon and once right before bed. On days that I work, this meant that she had a mid-afternoon bottle. The doctor recommended starting with dropping the afternoon feeding first. As we did with the other transitions, we are dropping the nursing and thus dropping the bottle. Starting this week, Maggie has gotten a "real" snack mid-afternoon with some milk in a sippy cup in the mid-afternoon rather than her usual 4 oz bottle.

Yesterday I still pumped but today as I went to hook up the pump for the daily pump-fest I thought, "Why am I still doing this?" I have more than enough freezer supply to cover the sippy cup milk every day so I am happy to announce that I am "hanging up the horns". In the breastfeeding/pumping world, "hanging up the horns" or "HUTH" is code for - "I'm retiring my pump". ("The horns" are the flanges that you attach to your breasts.)

I feel like throwing a party to celebrate! Pumping was never my favorite activity - I am betting that it probably isn't most women's favorite activity. As much as I HATED pumping, I am grateful to my Medela Pump In Style Advanced for helping me achieve my goal and work full time. I highly recommend this pump to any of you who may be shopping for one! I do wish that I had followed my friend CD's advice to get the backpack rather than the shoulder bag though. Every day I would carry my pump bag, my milk cooler, my lunch and my purse/work bag to and from my car. The backpack would have made it a bit easier to be a pack mule. I think at the time I purchased my pump (at Babies R US while 39 weeks pregnant!), I thought the shoulder bag was more stylish. UM...that is a textbook case of pregnancy brain. Don't let the "PUMP IN STYLE" name fool you: There is NOTHING remotely stylish about a breast pump bag.

Step 1 of the weaning process - Complete!

Maggie and Ike

2011-07-19T07:38:00.001-05:00

When Nate's aunt S watches Maggie, she gets an added bonus of Ike, the dog.

The girl is a huge dog fan!

Weekend Recap

2011-07-18T07:56:00.003-05:00

Friday night we went out for pizza at Pizzeria Piccolo in the village and stopped by Yo Mama for some frozen yogurt deliciousness. Yo Mama is the new frozen yogurt place in our village and it is amazing. We went two times last week and contemplated a third. Maggie and I were big fans of the coconut yogurt. The red velvet yogurt with oreo cookies and raspberries is also a good selection :)

Friday night is usually movie night in our house. I don't know about any of you and your significant other, but there are movies that I like, movies that Nate likes and narry the two shall meet. We resolve this by alternating who picks the movie each week. This week I picked Winter's Bone - a classic "Amy" movie choice. This was a great movie, although not very uplifting! It made me think of the Anthony Bourdain Ozarks episode - and then when I googled that episode I found out why. In that episode, Bourdain meets up with Daniel Woodrell, the author of Winter's Bone, upon which the screenplay was based.

I will say that I had a nightmare that I was addicted to crystal meth after this movie. True Story.

Saturday I attempted to make good on one of my 2011 Goals and went to a yoga class! My sister and I bought the Riverwest Yogashala Iyengar yoga Groupon and went to our first of six classes on Saturday. While this was my first class, I really liked Iyengar yoga - which pays more attention to form. I think we maybe did ten poses the entire 90 minute class! I felt like I had amazing posture for the rest of the day.

We had a pool party for my MIL's birthday on Saturday afternoon. My in-laws just redid their pool liner so we were eager to jump in and check it out. I even went off the diving board for good measure. ha ha ha My FIL & Nate grilled out for dinner and we had a turtle cheesecake from Perc Place and turtle sundae ice cream from Kopps. Hopefully my MIL enjoyed her birthday weekend!

We rented another movie on Saturday night - How Do You Know. After the seriousness of Winter's Bone, we wanted something light. Snore. I could feel myself getting more and more sick as time passed and I fell asleep halfway through. Miraculously Nate stayed awake for it and commented that it was dumb.

As I said, while Sunday was a momentous day for Mags, Nate & I were under the weather with sore throats and head colds. ICK. Getting sick with a cold in July on a weekend STINKS!

10 months, 1 week, 2 days: FIRST CRAWL :)

2011-07-18T07:36:00.003-05:00

Interupting Vacation Recaps (AGAIN) for a Special Alert:

WE HAVE A CRAWLER!

It seems crazy fast how things have developed with Maggie's gross motor skills after vacation. One week and we have an entirely different kiddo!

1. Sunday July 9 - We woke up in the Comfort Suites to find Maggie sitting up in her pack-n-play. Before this, she never went from laying down to sitting up unassisted. We lowered our crib when we got home!

2. Thursday July 14 - She pulled herself up by the window ledge in our living room all by herself.

2. Saturday July 16 - Nate called me into Maggie's room - SHE WAS STANDING in her crib. Good thing we had lowered it! She now can reach her airplane mobile whenever she wants!

3. Sunday July 17 - Maggie was crawling all over the place. She now has two red knees from all of the crawling. Perfect timing - Nate and I were sick as dogs yesterday with the cold Maggie had last week. (I am now convinced that she really was sick and not teething.) We managed to tag team throughout the day so that we each could get naps in. By the end of the day, we were building towers of toys on one end of the room and she was crawling from the other side to knock them down!

Some of her favorite "toys" are oatmeal canisters. The Happy Baby brand oatmeal comes in small canisters and I give them to her to play with when she is done eating all of the oatmeal. Sometimes we put something in them so they rattle, but she loves rolling them across the floor and now that we have a couple of them, she loves to knock over a tower of them. Who needs real toys when you have oatmeal canisters I guess?!

I know I am going to sound like such a mom when I say this, but her crawl is so cute. Nate and I were oohing and ahing over it all day. She hasn't figured out all of the mechanics of it quite yet so she sometimes does a little hop thing.

Vacation Recap 2: ATL

2011-07-15T13:32:00.012-05:00

We spent Thurs night through Sunday morning in Atlanta. We had Friday to do some sightseeing since our friends were all at work so we went to the Georgia Aquarium. I love this aquarium and really think it is so well done. It was Nate's first trip there and he was also very impressed. Here is the standard "greenscreen" photo they take of every visitor:

I wish we would have bought this penguin mask for Maggie - she giggled whenever we put it on her:

There were a series of painted dolphins outside:

After the aquarium we drove around to see how different Atlanta is since we lived there over six years ago! We had lunch at the Flying Biscuit and then drove past our old apartment complex. We debated sneaking into the pool :)

We joined the D clan and the A clan at a Mexican restaurant in their Oakhurst neighborhood for dinner. Saturday was girls day! MB, C and I headed to Ten for pedicures while the men were on kid duty and also volunteered to cook us dinner. Nate took Maggie to her first Your Dekalb Famers Market trip - a must see if you are ever in the ATL area. The pedicure was the best pedicure I have ever gotten. It started with a customized foot sook in these lovely butterfly chairs. After that we headed to these reclining chairs where we had eye masks and warm blankets. I have never had a pedicure while being reclined, but it was amazing. I think I may had drifted off to sleep at some point. I chose OPI "A Good Mandarin is Hard to Find". It was a bright orange/coral shade - not my usual choice but I had admired my toes more than once since. I just might have to purchase this shade!

We spent Saturday afternoon at C&F's neighborhood pool and then the guys wowed us with smoked brisket and a variety of sides for dinner. Sarah was kind of enough to share her olives and cheese with us as well :)

Sunday morning we got packed up and were sent off full of pancakes and sausage. As always, it was fun catching up with friends and spending days lazing around with good food, and good conversation. It really put us in "vacation mode"!

Here are some pics:

Maggie and Sarah take a bath:

Last year during my ATL visit, MB & I were both with child and took this silly photo:

We tried to re-create it with babies - they weren't the biggest fans of the idea:

Unfortunately I did not think to get a big group photo - Just the girls:

Mail + Crafts = Sign me Up for Intervention

2011-07-14T13:34:00.003-05:00

I love coming home from vacation to get the "tub o'mail" that is the accumulation of all of our mail from our time gone. I am obsessed with getting the mail everyday and have been since I can remember. You know all of those 1-800 numbers in the back advertising section of magazines? One summer, armed with my mom's copy of Midwest Living, I called the travel information number and ordered their free travel packet for ALL 50 states. Just so I could get mail. (Just to throw it out there, I was like 10 years old at the time).

OMG I have a sickness.

(I am holding back tears of laughter as I type this.)

Nate consistently makes fun of me for my mail addiction, to which I point out that I could be addicted to a lot of worse things. I was VERY excited to return from vacation to find my Posie Gets Cosy Sampler kit in the mail! (I am linking to Bijou Lovely's post on this since I am too lazy to take my own pictures of it.)

This is what I get for reading too many craft blogs. I see these things and think, "Hey, I should learn to crewel/embroider" and I order a kit that overwhelms me upon receipt.

Have I ever picked up a crewel needle in my life? Uhh...no. Do I even know what crewel means? Uhhh...no.

When I was examining the contents, Nate asked, "What are you doing?"

I responded, "Going through this kit I ordered. Wouldn't this be cute in Maggie's room?!"

Nate: "Oh, is that counted cross-stitch?"

Amy: "Ummm..I don't know. Kind of?"

God bless the man because he could have said a lot of things at that point. After a long pause, I added:

"And yes...this is probably going onto the stack of projects that won't get finished for another ten years. Maybe it will be for Maggie's DORM room".

Nate's response: "How's that scarf for your mom coming?" (Note: Said Scarf was a present started in 2009 that was going to be a Mother's Day present for my mom...then a Christmas present...and then....it has sat in a bag.)

All I could do was laugh. Apparently, in addition to the mail, I am addicted to crafts. Is there an Intervention episode for people like me?

Chicken Paprikash

2011-07-13T13:47:00.004-05:00

I am interrupting Vacation Recap for a recipe post since I haven't had one in a while.

Last night I made this and while Nate and I liked it, I scored bonus points because Maggie also gobbled it up.

You can use Greek yogurt in place of the sour cream if you so choose. Make some noodles (we used Elbows) to serve with at the same time. From start to finish, this meal maybe took 20-25 minutes - perfect for a weeknight!

Chicken Paprikash
Source: The Essential New York Times Cook Book, 2010 via Keri's Kitchen

One 3 pound chicken, cut into serving pieces** (I did not have a whole chicken in the house so I used 3 breasts instead)

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 cup thinly sliced onions

1 tablespoon finely minced garlic

1 tablespoon sweet paprika

½ cut chicken broth

1 cup sour cream

1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

Sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper to taste. Melt the butter in a large heavy skillet. Add the chicken pieces skin side down and cook over moderately high heat until browned, 5 to 10 minutes. Turn the pieces and continue cooking for about 5 minutes, until brown on the second side.
Scatter the onions and garlic around the chicken pieces. Sprinkle with paprika and stir. Add the chicken broth, cover, and let simmer for 10 minutes or longer until chicken is done. Remove the chicken to a warm serving dish. Pour off excess fat.
Blend the sour cream and flour and stir it into the sauce. Simmer, stirring for about 1 minute. Pour the sauce over the chicken.

Serve with/over buttered noodles

**If you click on the Keri's Kitchen link above, we made the Panko-crusted fish sticks for dinner on Monday night and also enjoyed them!

And We're Off! Vacation Days 1-2

2011-07-13T09:38:00.008-05:00

It was the vacation that never seemed to get here! I NEEDED a vacation. Work has been insane, and true to form, despite my one-month heads up to everyone I work with, people seemed in denial that I was not going to be in the office. As seems to happen with every "last day in the office before vacation", sh** hit multiple fans. Thankfully, I was still out of the office by 5 PM...and NO I was not checking (work) email on vacation!

We loaded up the car and took the standard road trip photo:

All of you good Catholics out there will appreciate the St. Christopher medal my mom bought Maggie for her carseat for the trip - you can see in pinned on there in photo below. Hilarious! St. Christopher = patron saint of travelers. The saints are something I miss most about Catholicism!

So 5:50 PM we were out of the driveway!

We were back home at 5:51 PM because despite my best overpacking efforts, I had forgotten the trip journal. (Nevermind that I never actually WROTE in the trip journal!)

OK! Back out of the driveway at 5:52.

Of course we ran in MKE traffic. This however wasn't terrible. Maggie fell asleep around her normal bedtime and we kept cruising. WE made it just south of Indianapolis the first night and stayed in a Comfort Suites. HB recommended the Comfort Suites to us after we told her about the smallness of our hotel room in Iowa. I completely second her recommendation. For one low price you get a huge room, a refrigerator/freezer (helpful for breastmilk!), free breakfast and free wireless internet so you can catch up with your Words With Friends games ;)

The next day, Maggie was excited to be on vacation:

We loaded back into the car and got back on the road. This second day was the worst day of our trip. I grew very tired of trying to entertain Maggie with the toys and books I brought along. She grew very tired of being in her carseat. At Calhoun, GA, Nate promised that we would fly the next vacation. HALLELUJAH. I pondered purchasing flight tickets for Maggie and myself for the way home and Nate could drive the car home.

Despite the subpar travel day, we DID get to eat at Chick-fil-A - always a favorite when we visit the South. Maggie was excited to have the placemat to "play" with, and she even enjoyed some of my chicken sandwich. This is where we found out her love of mandarin oranges - from the fruit cup we bought her.

Finally, we arrived at our friends' C, F, & SD house at 6:30 PM - two hours later than we had anticipated. No matter - the ATL crew was there with a scrumptious dinner.

Five kids age 3 and under = craziness! Maggie loved it!

Here are Rollins School of Public Health: The Next Generation:

Who knew six years after graduation we would have such a cute crew? The kiddos are lined up from oldest to youngest - Miles, Sarah, Felix, Anslea and Maggie.

Kid's bedtimes quickly approached and it was time to go to bed. C&F turned their master bedroom and bathroom into a guest suite for us which was fabulous. Maggie and the pack-n-play went in the bathroom which was connected to the bedroom, but had a door. It worked out so well - Thank you C&F!

WE MADE IT TO OUR FIRST DESTINATION. Tired, but safe and sound. Stay tuned for our ATL Adventures....

She WAS the one-tooth baby

2011-07-12T10:57:00.007-05:00

I still have not uploaded vacation pictures so delaying the recap.

I have to post these pictures of the "one-tooth baby". My niece has a Cabbage Patch Kid doll that has one tooth. When she was really little (as oppossed to the "big" five year old that she is now :) ), she named it the "one-tooth baby".

Last month, we took pictures of Maggie - a then one-tooth baby - with THE one-tooth baby for fun.

They crack me up

Maggie currently has 1.4 teeth - both on her bottom. We have a sneaking suspicion that another one is about to poke through. Unfortunately this tooth has brought a cough, runny nose, a low-grade fever and a loss of appetite with it so Mags hasn't been herself the past two days. I sort of freaked out about all of these symptoms and took her to the doctor yesterday because she has never been sick and did not have any of these with the previous teeth. I felt kind of like an idiot when her ears looked great, her lungs sounded great, her oxygen level was great and they "diagnosed" her with teething. Oh well!

In the last month (10 months)....

2011-07-11T08:36:00.010-05:00

This week will be overloaded with posts as we just got back from a whirlwind 11 day vacation and Maggie turned 10 months old! I focused more on laundry than pictures last night so the vacation recaps will have to wait. Thus, here is the 10 month update on Maggles.

FOOD
She continues to be a great eater. On vacation, she was relegated to a lot of store-bought purees but she also experienced a LOT of new foods as well so I didn't feel as bad! She now likes cheesey grits, black bean cakes, pancakes, guacamole, chicken, honeydew melons, mandarin oranges, and Moe's Black Bean Quesadillas. She also likes lemon - my BIL's GF, KR, gave her a lemon in FL expecting to get a funny face. Instead, Maggie ate the lemon. ha ha ha.

A funny food story from vacation: While staying at Nate's conference hotel in Orlando, Maggie and I were playing in the pool and then ate lunch at the poolside restaurant. I ordered fish tacos with fresh fruit. I gave her the fruit to eat and a small piece of the fish. She seemed to like it so I broke off a hunk of it and gave it to her. All of a sudden she started SCREAMING - apparently I should have tried more of the tacos before giving her the fish, which was quite spicy. Ah well. She quickly recovered and went back to eating her melon.

Her food schedule has not changed in the last month. You can tell that she really prefers "real food" to the "baby food" - duh - wouldn't you? Since we basically wiped out our remaining baby food supply on vacation, we will not be restocking that shelf in our pantry. Girl's growing up!

The only foods we are still avoiding are eggs, peanut butter and honey. These foods are highly allergenic and you are recommended to wait until 1 year to introduce those. However, since she obviously has gotten eggs in pasta, breads and some of the foods she has eaten, I am going to start giving her scrambled egg yolks to see what happens. Something I never knew pre-baby is that the white part of the egg is actually the most allergenic. We did give her part of a hard-cooked egg yolk on vacation and she seemed to like it.

GROWING GROWING!
I really feel like Maggie grew so much in the last 11 days but maybe that is because I was with her every day. She definitely got taller and heavier but I don't have any measurements since 10 months is not a well child visit time. She is starting to outgrow 12 month sized clothes and has started wearing 18 month sized things already. Our neighbors have a little girl, S, who is exactly one year older than Magggie and they just gave us another two big bags of hand-me-downs. YAY! However, I think Maggie will soon be bigger than S and no longer able to wear her hand-me-downs!

She also is growing out of her size 3 shoes and size 3 diapers.

Also, the girl is finally getting some hair! We are curious to find out what color it will be. Sometimes it looks very dark (similar to mine) and other times, when it catches the light, it looks lighter, and almost blond (similar to Nate). Time will tell!

LANGUAGE
She says "ba-ba" "ma-ma" and "da-da" indiscriminantly, but definitely says "da-da" most of all to refer to anything. I have no idea if she knows what she is saying, but I constantly reinforce things! ha ha ha She has done more gobbly-gook talk too to which I (I think Nate does this too) just pretend I understand what she is saying and keep talking to her.

On vacation, she gave us our first un-prompted kisses! It was too cute. Now if you say, "Maggie, can Mama have a kissy" she will come over to you and give you a (very wet) kiss. She also will grab her belly when you ask her, "Maggie, where is your belly?" and grab her toes when you ask her where her toes are.

MOVEMENT
This has been very exciting. We are SO CLOSE to crawling. She now gets up on all fours and does the rocking and two nights ago, we found her sitting up in her pack and play waiting for us - which was a first. Now she can control if she is laying on her back, stomach or sitting up which is so much easier. I think hanging with all of the "big kids" in the ATL rubbed off on her a little. Either that or she didn't want A (or any other kids) to crawl over her anymore, as captured in this photo from vacation:

She also is starting to do some pulling up on things. This is easier if the thing she is trying to pull up on is lower. In the pool by my in-laws condo in Celebration, FL, there was little ledge that was perfect for her to continually go up and down, up and down.
TOYS/BOOKS
In the last month, I think she has gotten really sick of her toys. Or maybe I am just sick of them. During our stay in ATL, the 2-year old daughter of our friends C&F was great about sharing all of her toys with Maggie and Maggie definitely seemed way more interested in them than her own toys. S had some pretty cool toys! We did stop at Ikea in FL to get her some "bigger kid" toys including some wood blocks and one of those bead maze things.

At Disney World, we got her a stuffed animal and let her "pick". We basically took her to the walls of stuffed animals everyday and tried to see which ones she liked. She definitely seemed to have a preference for Winnie-the-Pooh so she now has a small Winnie-the-Pooh that she loves chewing on. She also is not without her Angel Dear duck at naptime and bedtime (Thanks HB).

I am excited to find some new toys for her.

TEETH
She has 1.4 teeth, both on the bottom. The second one really seems to have pushed up in the last month. Nothing on the top yet!

SLEEP
Sleep got majorly messed up on vacation. She woke up in the middle of the night/morning about half of the nights we were away, which she hasn't done in a while. Changing time zones and sleeping in a pack in play in five different places probably did not help things! I am sure she will get back on track in a couple of days. Generally, she is still on the same sleep schedule as last month, with two naps being the norm. Last month we started waking her up on her morning nap so that she would sleep longer in her afternoon nap. We started doing this because her morning nap was always a lot longer than the afternoon nap and she would often be really crabby in the evening and be on the verge of falling asleep at 6 PM. Once we started shortening her morning nap, her afternoon nap got longer and she was able to make it until bedtime.

All photos courtesy of our friends, A&EH, from the ATL portion of our trip. THANK YOU!

Happy Home-i-versary!

2011-07-06T09:00:00.000-05:00

Four years ago we purchased this place we call home. We now are are over the halfway point of our mortgage too! It's all downhill from here...

Read the first post of this blog, from four years ago, here.

RIP Lawn Boy

2011-06-29T06:00:00.000-05:00

Almost four years ago, I had a post with Nate showing off our new/used lawnmower that my in-laws gave to us so we can mow our then-new yard!

I thought that Lawn Boy was on his last leg, but he gave us four good years.

Nate not so sadly had to buy a new lawnmower last week. He claims he can mow the lawn in half the time. These pics are a bit fuzzy because he was moving so fast!

I wouldn't know and I don't plan on finding out :) Lawn care is one job I am more than happy to leave to him!

It seems crazy that we in a week we will have been homeowners for FOUR years!

Nose Job

2011-06-28T07:43:00.005-05:00

My mom gave us a swing that she had hanging in her yard from the days when my niece was little. We finally hung it up and Maggie loves it.

I was a little too in-your-face with the camera and she ended up swinging right into the camera/my nose. The camera was fine - my nose, not so much. I have a small bump on it but it really has hurt now for 2 days! It's really too bad someone didn't catch the moment of impact on camera - I'm sure it was hilarious.

Birch Box

2011-06-28T06:00:00.000-05:00

I love free samples, particularly of beauty products. After book club on Saturday, one of my friends told me I should sign up for Birch Box. I think these look fun - has anyone ever bought one?

Crimp N Curl disaster

2011-06-27T11:35:00.003-05:00

I started a Pinterest account a few weeks ago...as if I needed another Internet-based distraction.

For a while, I was safe at work because Pinterest didn't always work on my work computer. Then I got a BRAND NEW computer at work on Friday. PINTEREST WORKS!!! ha ha ha. Suckers.

I started a board to collect photos of hair dos that I like. (Yes, this is another post about hair).

One of the photos on this board, features your favorite and mine, GWYNETH:

How fantastic is this hair?!

I decided to attempt this over the weekend. I have a really old curling iron, but it doesn't really seem to work whenever I try it. I thought (probably incorrectly) that the curling iron was just old and that I needed a new one.

So I went to Target. I bought this curling iron.

I was really excited. I got home, heated it up and even read the instructions.

OH MY LORD.

I should have taken a picture of the result, which was NOT even remotely close to Gwenyth's. Basically, the spiral portions of the iron were burned into my hair. It was like the evil spawn of a curling iron and a crimper. Thank goodness a ponytail was able to hide the evidence of my little experiment before I went to book club.

I think I need hair curling lessons.

11 for 11: Q2 Progress

2011-06-27T11:08:00.005-05:00

In a few days, June will be over, taking 50% of 2011 with it.

Here is my quarter 2 update because the next few days will have me busy finishing up some work stuff and packing for vacation!!

1. Read 18 books.
Goodreads has a tracking tool that allows you to enter your book goal for the year and it tracks your progress. According to the tracker, I am 3 books ahead of schedule! Here are my 2011 reads so far
Crow Lake by Mary Lawson
Mockingjay (Hunger Games #3) by Suzanne Collins
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
March by Geraldine Brooks
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

I am still an active participant in three book clubs. I have gotten pretty lucky in that often a book is picked that I have already read which then I can still join in the discussion but can read books for the others.

2. Run a half marathon.
This is not looking likely. I cannot get my act together with running. It still is hit or miss for me. The thought of running a half marathon right now seems basically impossible.

3. Make one thing a month.
I have made 7 things since the first of the year.
January, February, March, April, May 1, May 2, May 3. Three crafts in May makes up for zero crafts in June, right? ACTUALLY...I may still pull through for June. I started something at the beginning of the month for a certain little man's third birthday and I have dreams of finishing it so I can deliver it in person on the last day of June. We shall see...

4. Work on my posture.
I actually have been working on this. I think this is one of those things that will be a continual work in progress for me - not something that has cross-off-the-list-ability.

5. Drink more water.
I have not been drinking that much water in lieu of the copious amounts of hot tea I drink during my work days because my office is FREEZING.

6. Paint our hallway.
DONE in Q1!

7. Remove the overgrown, hideous bushes from our front yard.
This is on the post-vacation agenda.

8. REALLY clean out my closet.
This could stand to happen again even though I technically crossed it off the list in Q1. I should adopt a one in, one out policy but I do not. And consignment sales and rummages sales have been good to me lately...

9. Go through the GIANT scrapbooking tubs in our closet.
DONE! Delivered a whole bag of supplies to my goddaughter, LM, earlier this month.

10. Call my sister by her real name.
I still continue to do well with this.

11. Get back into doing Yoga.
To borrow from Q1's update: Could be doing a lot better with this. I bought some classes at a local studio (thanks Groupon!) and bought a DVD. I did the DVD one time. My Groupon is about to expire! AHHH!

Adventures in Canning

2011-06-24T07:39:00.001-05:00

Strawberries are all over the place right now so I bought a whole ton of them thinking Maggie would enjoy them since she liked strawberry puree. I was wrong. She spits them out if she even puts one in her mouth anymore. Maybe the texture bothers her? Since we leave for vacation soon, it was looking like my strawberries would go to waste.

I cannot stand wasting anything so I decided to invest in canning supplies to save my $2 quart of strawberries. Yes. I know this makes zero financial sense. Really, I have wanted to try canning for a while and used this as my excuse.

The jam-sized jars plus lids and metal rings were on sale at the grocery store. A box of 12 4-oz jars with lids and rings was $6.49. (If you coupon, there was a coupon in last Sunday's paper for Ball jars, which would make that even lower!). My aunt J recommended the instructions and recipe in the package of Certo pectin so that is what I went with. A box containing 2 pouches cost $5. (In my experience, one pouch made 9 4-oz jars of strawberry jam using the recipe inside the box.)

I thought I needed to have one of those big canning kettles with the wire racks so I called HB to see if she had one. Thankfully she informed me that I only need to have a pot big enough to hold the jars and that the wire rack mechanism only serves to assist in lowering the jars in to the hot water. I took HB's suggestion to use tongs.

After Nate made fun of me, he offered his assistance. We started the process after Mags was in bed. Making strawberry jam is actually pretty easy! It was a little hot in our small kitchen during the whole process from the gas stove and boiling water steam. It didn't help that I sloshed boiling jam onto Nate's bare foot. It worked well - Nate filled jars while I wiped the rims off and capped them. He then screwed on the metal rings and I used our huge grill tons to put them into the boiling water.

The curing time ended last night and all 9 jars seemed to have worked (photo above)! I am excited to have some fresh jam for winter!

Next up - using some rhubarb from my MIL for rhubarb jam, courtesy of Martha's Recipe via Tara's blog.

National Pink Day

2011-06-23T19:28:00.004-05:00

I found out that today is National Pink Day.

I don't know what this means, I just thought it was funny that I happened to wear a pink dress on National Pink Day.

Maggie had pink in her dress so we decided to take a pic in front of our VERY bloom-tastic pink rose bush. Our windy, stormy weather has littered our yard and driveway with rose petals. A pretty side effect of crummy weather.

Here is high/low styling, Amy Style
Dress: JCrew via a rummage sale
Belt: Kohls via Sale + 30% coupon
Bracelet: Banana Republic Clearance Bin
Scarf: Banana Republic Clearance Bin
Shoes: Circa Joan & David via DSW Clearance
Earrings: Bridesmaid Gift Courtesy of AH

Grapefruit Popsicle "Recipe"

2011-06-23T09:24:00.004-05:00

(This ones for you, Slunz.)

I have been collecting popsicle pictures and recipes for a while (such as these, pictured above). I did not have a popsicle mold so imagine my surprise when I found these at Target on Clearance for $1.98.

Before I made any recipes, I wanted to make sure the mold worked. For some reason, I remember trying to make popsicles when I was younger and they didn't really turn out.

We had some grapefruit juice (Florida's Natural Ruby Red Grapefruit) in the fridge.

I poured it into the molds.

Voila. Grapefruit Popsicles. And Might I just say - they were fantastic. The handle part of the mold has a little cup that catches any drips while you eat it - awesome!

Referring to that as a recipe in my previous post might have been a bit of an oversell.

When I do make some "real" recipes, I will for sure share!

SWINGS!

2011-06-23T07:53:00.004-05:00

Yesterday was my day off. We were invited to go check out Hoyt Pool with HB & AS, however, the "tot time" coincides with Maggie's morning nap time. And of course yesterday she took a stellar nap so no pool for us.

At the risk of getting poured on (SO MUCH RAIN lately!), we set out on a walk after lunch and found swings at Elm Grove park. YAY! You would not know it by these crappy cell phone pictures but Maggie was giggling out loud while swinging. She didn't quite learn to pump her legs but I was happy to push.

After swinging, we headed to Bigsby's sewing to get some thread for the Sorbetto tank top I'm working on. We ran into a bunch of construction on the way home so Maggie fell asleep while I trekked on.

I parked in her in the yard, grabbed a chair, my book and a homemade grapefruit popsicle and sat in the shade and joined her. Until the downpour started! I managed to haul her into the house without getting too wet and she stayed asleep! SCORE!

We rounded out the day with grocery shopping and canning! More on that to come...

Inside = Outside

2011-06-21T07:43:00.004-05:00

Today Maggie is 41 weeks old - the exact amount of time that I was pregnant.

The outside 41 weeks went by MUCH quicker than the inside 41 weeks!

2011-06-19T07:54:00.000-05:00

Happy Father's Day!

Nate is one of those guys who was pretty much born to be a dad. I think he was counting down the days for me to say "yes please" to parenthood since we got married. So I pretty much knew he would be amazing.

I am happy to report he has lived up to my expectations. While his top fear of becoming a parent was poop, he has never shied away from a poopy diaper, he reads stories to Maggie in silly voices and comes up with these hilarious songs featuring her name. My favorite nickname he has bestowed on her is "Margaret Marmot" because the Marmot is the animal featured on the letter "M" card hanging in her room.

I developed his father's day gift with some help from the blogosphere. I have been giving people coupon books since I can remember. My mom has a few of them that I have made her over the years. So I was VERY excited to see the Daddyland coupon book on the Disney Family site. I thought this was perfect a) because it was a coupon book b) it is styled after the "Disneyland" font and logo and Nate loves Disney and c) we are going to Disney(World) in a few weeks.

Then, for each coupon in the book, I came up with a present:

A) He had asked me for a new pruner at one point so I got him a new pruner and a hose sprayer for the yard work coupon.

B) For the Nap coupon, I bought him some new loungewear since most of his t-shirts are pretty ratty.

C) For the TV remote coupon, I bought him his favorite snack (pistachios) and two of his favorite ice cream flavors (cookie dough and reese's peanut butter cup) and I affixed these Martha Stewart labels onto them.

D) I will wait to see what his favorite meal is that he wants me to make for him.

E) For the fill in the blank coupon, I filled it in with "storytime with Maggie" and bought him "Hop on Pop". Last year for Father's Day I bought him two books about Dads that he frequently reads to Maggie. I thought it was a nice "TRADITIIOOOOON" to continue (We went to see Fiddler on the Roof Friday night. Pardon my slipping into song....)

Here is the most recent pic of Nate with Maggie. He was perching her on his shoulder the other night and twirling her around like a figure skater. She, obviously, loved it:

I have to thank the Mon Petit Amour blog for providing me with the links to the Daddyland Coupon book and the MS Labels.

Tired Legs

2011-06-17T07:50:00.003-05:00

I ran three days this week!

Don't be too impressed. The devil is in the details.

Sunday Nate said, "Do you want to go for a run?" I thought he was asking me as in "Do YOU want to go for a run and I will stay here with Mags". Turns out he wanted all of us to go for a run. Since this is maybe an annual occurrence, I jumped at the chance even though I may not have been in the best condition to run due to some shananigans with my BFFs the previous night.

We went 1.1 miles. He pushed the running stroller. FUN!

Tuesday night I took Maggie for a run after dinner before her bedtime. I was on a mission to find out if a nearby school had swings on their playground since our neighborhood park does not. We went 3.5 miles. I posted on FB that it felt like 6 and I thought the running stroller was to blame.

Last night I was feeding Maggie before bed, reading blogs via Flipboard on my Ipad. I read the latest post by iamarunnerchica who is the daughter of Nate's family friend. The post rang so true with my memories of running marathons I was so excited. I put Maggie in bed, put my shoes on and hit the road.

Well I don't know if I thought I was going to run a marathon right then and there but I headed out on one of my 5-mile routes full of energy and motivation. WHEEE! I love running!

I turned the corner and realized the pipe dream that was my 5 mile run. Thankfully the route I chose has a escape button. Clearly my delusional pace was not going to continue - the small inclines felt bigger than Heartbreak Hill. I crossed over into our neighborhood and the angel on my right shoulder motivated me with the mantra "You gave birth, You can do this!". (The devil on my left shoulder retorted, "BUT YOU HAD AN EPIDURAL!") I came panting home after another 3.5 miles. It wasn't the running stroller. I'm just woefully out of shape!

The definition of "MOM"

2011-06-14T08:42:00.002-05:00

I woke up this morning and thought "TODAY IS A WORK DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Ok, 9.9 times out of 10 I would rather be at home with Mags than at work. I look forward to my weekday off while slogging through the four ten hour days that I do work.

Typically my day off is Wednesday which is lovely. Previously, I would have thought that having a Monday or a Friday off would be great (3-day weekend!) but after some experimentation with my schedule, Wednesday turned out to be THE day. Why? It breaks up the work week. Four 10-hour days in a row gets LONG. By the fourth day I was feeling so frazzled. Wednesday lets me re-group and keep up with stuff on the homefront.

HOWEVER, there is at least one week a month where I cannot take Wednesday off due to scheduled meetings. This week is one of those weeks so yesterday I was home.

By about 8:30 AM I wanted to be at work. Mags was driving me CA-RAY-ZEEEEEEE.

I have no idea what her deal was. I thought maybe she was sick of being in the house so we went outside. No improvement. Then we went to Target. Holy breakdown - I only got halfway through the shopping. This was capped off by an all-out SCREAMFEST lasting from 4:00 - 4:40 PM.

After she was in bed for the night, I grabbed the keys and headed back to Target to finish the shopping.

LUXURIOUS! I wandered the clearance aisles. I was not wrestling with a nosy 9 month old who wanted to be in the cart, then held, then in the cart. I TRIED CLOTHES ON. I got a new bikini for $3.96 (thanks to a $5 online Target coupon), a three-pack of Magnum ice cream bars and a People magazine.

And then at 5 AM this morning, I got up to go to work.

By 7:30 AM, I was wishing I was back home.

Sigh. Those must have been some powerful ice cream bars.

Pesto!

2011-06-13T19:24:00.002-05:00

One of my favorite tastes of summer is fresh basil. Today I made the first batch of fresh pesto for the summer and used it for the following:

Chicken, Chickpea and Pesto Salad
Source: Everyday Food June 2010

2 shredded cooked chicken breast halves
1/2 large English cucumber
2 celery stalks, thinly sliced
1 can (15 oz) chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1/3 cup pesto
Lemon
salt and pepper

Mix ingredients. Serve with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and salt & pepper.

BOOMBOX!

2011-06-09T12:09:00.003-05:00

Speaking of boomboxes and CDs (and mixed tapes!)...

The comments to my previous post made me think of these pictures:

Check out that boombox on my friend BLK's shoulder!

These were taken almost 2 years ago at my friend JN's bachelorette party. We spent the day at the beach and I wanted to play some Mix CDs that JN had made for me back in the day (because let's face it...mix CDs and tapes are AWESOME) so I dug out that boombox and the "D" batteries. My friend B, always one to make me laugh, put it on her shoulder and walked back to the car like that. Horns were honked.

Crack me up!

The boombox now resides in Maggie's room. I like to call it "vintage".

10 Things that Make Me Feel Old

2011-06-09T10:49:00.003-05:00

{Sang to the tune of "Things that make you go MMM" ~C&C Music Factory circa 1994 (SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO!!).}

I am not one to "feel old". I genuinely was so excited to turn thirty this year, mostly so the number of condescending "you're in your 20s" comments would go down and I would be taken more seriously at work. But this week, I have had a number of of moments that made me "feel old"...

1) I did not renew my Vogue subscription...or Elle or Harper's Bazaar...I actually do not think I get any fashion magazines anymore!

2) I spent Sunday morning organizing my coupons and paper clipped like items together and then proceeded to snail mail my friends coupons. Diapers for BLK! Formula for KL & EL!...the list goes on. {anyone who needs Huggies diapers and/or wipes coupons, let me know!}. Furthermore, my day is made when our admin assistant (who is in her late 40s/early 50s) brings me the Target Baby coupon books that I mysteriously do not receive yet she does.

3) The last few blogs that I have added to my Google Reader have been couponing/deal-seeking blogs.

4) BLK and I just had an email conversation trying to decipher texting/FB language. Neither of us are really sure about a few things!

5)I fell asleep on the couch at 8:30 the other night. My husband had to wake me up to go to bed.

6) I put my pajamas on when I get home from work. At 5:15.

7) I am obsessed with online Scrabble.

8) Everything I bought yesterday at Target I had a coupon for: diapers, baby cereal, mustache wax. My daughter was having a breakdown while I was in the waxing/shaving aisle while I frantically was trying to find the $1 off Sally Hansen coupon I had. AHHH. Someday little girl you will have to wax your mustache and I will tell you this story about how you almost made me abandon ship and become the mom with a mustache.

9) I actually said, outloud, to the woman at Fleet Feet Sports who recognized me right away as the woman who has bought and returned several sports bras over the past 9 months "Having children totally messes with your boobs".

10) Every year my HS friends and I venture back to our hometown for the Walleye Weekend. A reunion of sorts. This year, we have to take into account babies and plan around nap times, feeding schedules, and when to pump. One husband actually wondered aloud if his wife could breastfeed in a porta potty. (He kids! I think)

9 Months!

2011-06-08T15:06:00.003-05:00

9 Months old today!!!

Maggie with Mickey: 9 months

Side note: there were only 2 photos that were not blurry - a 9 month old moves a LOT. And, note the hair clip - slowly but surely we are getting some hair!

Pure Glee on the Quilt:

See previous months here.

Incidentally, I got the idea for these month-by-month photos from Nicole at Making It Lovely. This week she featured some tips to doing the month-by-month on her blog.

In the last month (9 Months)....

2011-06-07T13:06:00.012-05:00

Maggie is 9 months old today. CA-RAAA-ZY.

And now it's time for the breakdown of the last month.

FOOD
We have been transitioning more and more to finger foods and less on purees mainly because Mags prefers to run the show with food. If you do not want her to eat something, then do not put it on her tray! We give her finger foods and then try to give her pureed foods in between. Gone are the days when we could just spoon food into her mouth and let that be it. She absolutely LOVES bananas and watermelon. The kid ate 1/4 of a huge watermelon entirely on her own. She also was a fan of trader joe's spinach tortellini. Basically, we have been letting her taste pretty much anything. When she gets bucky about having to be fed, we have found that giving her an extra spoon helps. Sometimes I will even put a little food on the spoon to see if she can get it into her mouth. Yes, this is messy but I feel like that is how she is going to learn!

She has become better with a sippy cup as well. We give her a cup of breastmilk with every meal and every day it seems she drinks a bit more. It was all about finding the right cup. We were gifted a variety of sippy cups which she didn't seem to be a fan of. I went to BRU and bought one that did not look like any we currently had and voila. That was her favorite. (It is this one in case you are interested). By and large she really likes drinking out of a regular glass, which we let her do frequently. We took her to Cafe Calatrava over the weekend and girl liked the cucumber water:

The sippy cup lets her get liquid when she wants it though which is nice. The sippy cups do not have a valve but they also don't leak liquid out when she drops them - I'm not sure how this works but I like it.

We are down to only one bottle a day when I work! I actually packed up all of the big (8 oz) bottles this week to make room for the sippy cups in her cupboard. I confess, it made me a little sad.

Here is our current food schedule:

6 AM wake up and nurse
Sometime between 8 & 9 AM: breakfast
Noonish: Lunch
Sometime in the Afternoon: 4 oz bottle (work days) Nurse (home days)
5-5:30ish: Dinner
6:30-7: Nurse before bed.

We basically feed her until she isn't hungry. The girl eats a TON of food. For example, yesterday for breakfast she had 1/3 cup of oatmeal cereal mixed with a couple of ounces of breastmilk, two slices of watermelon and half of a banana with milk in a sippy cup. I am trying to use up jarred baby food so she will regularly eat 2 (4 oz) jars of food along with a hefty amount of finger foods for a meal.

GROWING GROWING!
During the last month, we also moved Maggie to a convertible carseat and out of her infant carseat. We were planning on keeping her in the infant seat as our second/backup carseat but when I went to get the convertible carseat installed, the carseat technician pointed out that she is almost too tall for the infant seat! Thus we packed up the Chicco Key Fit 30 and loaned the Snap N Go stroller to another friend.

Maggie had her 9 month doctor visit today. She had not been to the doctor since she was 6 months old so I was excited to see how much she weighed and how tall she was:
Weight: 20 lbs 3.4 oz - still in the 75th percentile

Length: 29 inches! around the 95th percentile

She is entirely in 12 month sized clothes, with a few things (pajamas, swimsuit) in the 18 month size.

LANGUAGE
She says "ba-ba" "ma-ma" and "da-da" indiscriminantly. I have no idea if she knows what she is saying, but I constantly reinforce things! ha ha ha She has done more gobbly-gook talk too to which I (I think Nate does this too) just pretend I understand what she is saying and keep talking to her.

Mimicking has begun! She will raise her hands over her head if you ask her, "How big is Maggie?", she will wave "bye-bye" and she will clap her hands if you say "yay" or start singing "patty cake". Sometimes she will smack her lips if you say kissy kissy but we have some work to go on that one.

MOVEMENT
Well, we roll all over the place. No crawling. Sometimes she will scoot backwards and sometimes she will sort of hop on her bottom while sitting. Just in the last few days it seems like she WANTS to move. Where previously if a toy was out of reach she would just continue playing with her hand or foot, she now will WANT to get the toy. So maybe crawling is just around the corner? It doesn't really seem like it. At her appointment today we were given an ASQ "ages and stages" questionnaire to fill out. As we suspected, she killed the fine motor, language and problem solving sections. Gross motor skills = FAIL. The doctor mentioned that she may be a candidate for some gross motor therapy if there is not improvement by 12 months.

TOYS/BOOKS
Still loves the stacking rings and stacking cups, particularly if you build a tower out of the cups for her to knock over and "crash". With her kitchen, she has developed preferences for some of the songs - and will sort of sway back and forth to them! It is ADORABLE! She loves riding on her dinosaur too. She really loves hearing the ABCs. She has this giraffe that sings them but she will still crack up even if you just sing them to her.

She has developed a strong preference for "lift the flap" books. Books with real babies in them make her smile as well. We continue to read SEVERAL books to her every night before bed.

AND...the blanket. She LOVES blankets, particularly the soft furry kind. She will suck on the tags. She actually likes going in her crib because then she gets a blanket. We make this huge production over covering her with the blanket and she will kick and squeal with excitement. So funny. I joke that my sister is teaching Maggie to be a blanket baby since my sister was a blanket baby.

As I noted she "graduated" from swim lessons last weekend. I totally make fun of the swim lessons, but have to admit that she did make progress on things from lesson 1 to the end. This is the type of stuff that BLOWS MY MIND about babies. You can actually see their brains start to work and process things. We are not going to continue with the lessons through the summer since we can actually swim OUTSIDE but come fall, I think we'll do them again.

TEETH
She still only has one tooth. We went through two rough nights very recently which makes me think another might be on the way. Teething is terrible since there is really very little you can do for them. We give her baby ibuprofen but I don't think it makes much difference.

SLEEP
Bedtime is still sometime in the 6:30-7:00 window and she will be up by 6 the next morning. Yes this is early but for the days I work, it works perfectly. On the days I don't work, it's early. :) The thing about her is if we put her to bed later, she still wakes up at 6 so we would rather have her continue with the early bed time. Last night she was in bed by 6:40 and she didn't wake up until 6:45 this morning!!! Love these days :)

Naps continue to be whenever she needs them. GENERALLY, she takes a morning and an afternoon nap. But some days she takes two morning naps. We have tried to put her more on a nap schedule a couple of times, but it hasn't worked very well. We were just talking about it and there really doesn't seem to be a good reason to have a regimented nap time with our lifestyle so we continue to go with it. I feel very lucky in the whole sleep department so I try not to mess with it too much!

THEY'RE BAAAAACK!

2011-06-07T09:31:00.004-05:00

Dude.

Am I too old to rock a friendship bracelet again?

Lately the blogosphere has been all over the re-appearance of the friendship bracelet making trend. Holy bring me back to middle school. I was shopping at Target last week and perusing the jewelry and lo and behold. THEY HAD A FRIENDSHIP BRACELET FOR SALE. As my friend AH pointed out, we could have been millionaires back in the 5th grade! Granted the price of DMC embroidery floss has gone up (used to be 4 for a $1), but still.

Today, my friend MS sent me a link to a tutorial to make a friendship bracelet. We agreed that if you need a tutorial to make a friendship bracelet, you are so not authentic - those skills should be buried in your childhood memories.

I still have my yellow floss organizer with the little cardboard floss holders in my closet. I can remember staying up late to make the coveted "rainbow" friendship bracelet - the thicker the bracelet, the more coveted. You pre-teens out there (Liz M, I'm talking to you - your mom nailed the friendship bracelets back in the day!) need to GET ON THIS.

Which leads me back to my original question...at age 30, can I still rock a friendship bracelet?

Photo Source: This blog.

One Year Ago Today

2011-06-06T11:40:00.002-05:00

26w 6d pregnant at Myrtle Beach! WOW.

Thanks to BLK for making this discovery on Facebook.

Countdown to Vacation!

2011-06-06T10:00:00.002-05:00

"It has been a year since we went on a vacation" ~Nate

WOW! A whole year! I know - a lot of people go a lot longer and/or don't go on vacation, but we have maintained a nice 2x a year vacation schedule for the past several years.

It was time to get planning.

We depart at the end of the month for ATL/FL!

We are excited to see our ATL friends and introduce them to the Magster in person since she isn't a big Skype fan. We are also excited to meet A, our friends' baby, who is about 6 weeks older than Mags.

After a few days in the ATL, we will head to FL to visit my BIL. Since my BIL conveniently works at Disney, we will also be introducing Maggie to the real Mickey Mouse after making her pose month after month with a stuffed one. Plus, I really want a Dole Whip, which can only be found at the Magic Kingdom. A few days at my in-laws condo/BIL's residence and then we will head to the JW Marriot Grande Lakes where Nate has a work conference and Maggie and I have a daily reservation at the pool.

You may have guessed this already but our plan is to road trip. St. Christopher, patron saint of travelers, pray for us.

Saturday: Bringin' back High School

2011-06-06T09:04:00.002-05:00

I had not one but two high school throwbacks on Saturday. First, it was Maggie's last swim class on Saturday morning and we were not going to have our usual teacher. The substitute was Courtney. Courtney looked so familar to me, and I think I must have looked familar to her because we caught each other looking at one another like, "Where do I know her from?" a couple of times. Finally while we were getting Maggie's completion certificate (!), I asked her, "Are you from {my hometown}?" After she said, "Yes", I asked if she went to my high school. "Yes, Are you {name of classmate of mine}?" I said, "No, I'm Amy" but at least we figured out the connection. She was a few years younger than me but definitely one of those small world moments since my hometown is an hour away.

A few hours later, a former cross country teammate of mine facebooked me to tell me that one of his track runners (he is now the coach of our old team) broke my school record in the 3200 m run. That had a nice thirteen year run, pardon the pun.

Both of these just made me feel old, which doesn't happen very often.

Maggie's Favorite New Book: The Target Ad

2011-06-03T13:53:00.004-05:00

I typically use my mid-week day off to do errands as the stores are much less crowded during the weekday. One key step that I have started doing is going through the ads and my coupons BEFORE going to the store to speed along the process. (Thank you extreme couponing.) Today I even made a diaper chart in Excel...and we don't even primarily use disposable diapers. OMG. Yes. I just publicly admitted that.

Maggie thought she would help me with the Target ad:

I had to laugh as this brought back a funny memory from growing up. My mom had propped my little sister (who was probably about the same age as Maggie) with some pillows. The TV Guide was nearby and when we came back into the room she had DESTROYED it. My mom snapped a picture, which i am hoping to get and scan since many people say that Maggie resembles my sister.

Maggie Had a Little Lamb

2011-06-02T07:57:00.001-05:00

I was pleased to find the Summer issue of America's Test Kitchen 30 Minute Suppers at the grocery store a few weeks ago. I had planned on the Greek Burgers for last night's dinner.

I was also excited that Stauss Veal supplies the ground lamb at our grocery store. Why? Anthony Bourdain visited them on his trip to MKE.

I had planned on reserving some of the lamb for Maggie to try. Lamb was recommended in the Baby & Toddler Cookbook my BIL gave me for Christmas as a meat high in iron, B vitamins and zinc. Apparently the cookbook states that lamb is an ideal first meat as it is less likely to cause an allergic reaction than chicken or beef. This was not our first foray into meat, however. Maggie has tried turkey and chicken, with less than stellar results. I am now going to admit that I have given her jarred meat, sparingly. EW. I know. I gave her some of the Earth's Best Organic meat/veggie combos which made me feel slightly better but still. She loved the meat veggie jarred combos but when it came to "real" versions, results were mixed. For example, we brought home a rotisserie chicken once and she gobbled it up. A few weeks later, I poached her some chicken and she literally started ~~crying~~ screaming when I put it in her mouth.

So let's just say I wasn't expecting much from the lamb.

As usual, Maggie was my sous chef. While we were picking mint from our mint bush, she grabbed a leaf and started chewing on it...LOVED it. (This also is no surprise - while we were at Stein's Garden Center last weekend, we discovered her chewing on a couple of leaves that she must have yanked from the flowers while standing in the checkout line!)

We had everything ready to go so when Nate got home, he grilled the burgers for us and I poached some ground lamb for the Mags.

What do you know - she loved it! I guess she prefers expensive meats, "like her mother" according to Nate. I did not puree it - I just broke the lamb into bite sized pieces, let it cool down and let her feed it to herself.

The burgers were also stellar. Here's the recipe:

Greek Burgers
Source: America's Test Kitchen 30 Minute Suppers Summer 2011

1/3 cup Greek yogurt
1/4 cup chopped kalamata olives
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup chopped fresh mint
1 1/2 pounds ground lamb (i didn't use this much because I only made 2 burgers, not 4)
2/3 cup crumbled feta cheese
salt & pepper
4 hamburger buns, halved
1 small tomato, cut into slices
1 small red onion, peeled and cut into 1/4 in rings

1. Mix yogurt, olives, 1 clove garlic, and 2 TB mint in small bowl and set aside. Break lamb into small pieces in medium bowl. Add cheese, remaining garlic, remaining mint, salt, and pepper. Using fork, toss until ingredients are evenly distributed. Divide mixture into 4 equal portions and lightly pack into 1 inch thick patties.

2. Grill patties until browned on both side and cooked to desired doneness, 4-6 minutes per side. Grill cut sides of buns until toasted, about 2 minutes.

3. Arrange burgers on top of buns. Top burgers with dollop of yogurt sauce, tomato and onion slices.

We had our burgers with corn on the cob and watermelon slices!

Ipad: Bringing back the Radio

2011-06-01T11:14:00.003-05:00

One of my daily uses of the Ipad (besides WWF) is a streaming device at work. We do not have very many Internet restrictions at work (obvious point to those of you that personally know how me and my online habits) but the one thing we ARE restricted from doing is online streaming of music or radio programs.

Since having Maggie and beginning ten-hour work days, I am in the office a good 1.5-2 hours before my other colleagues. And even when my colleagues are here, I'm pretty much in front of a computer all day. It gets a little boring. Enter the NPR App. For whatever reason, I can stream live NPR through the NPR app using my Ipad and office wireless. I still can't stream live NPR through npr.org on my ipad but the App allows for it.

SUHWEET! Bring on Fresh Air! Bring on the entymology guy on Wisconsin Public Radio! (Yes. I love this program. GEEK!)

The NPR App is tied with Words with Friends as my MOST USED APP. LOVE IT!

For those of you that say "Why don't you just bring in a radio to your office". Tried that. For realz. Boombox style. Our building is an old concrete bunker and thus, radio signals do not travel well.

Since my Ipad is used daily and travels with me wherever I go, I have thought about upgrading the case beyond the standard one that comes with it. Unfortunately, they are pricey. I have thought about making one, however I generally just do not get excited about this idea.

Then the universe collided in three ways:
1) I got an email about the new 1154 Lill Ipad cover, "Taylor"

I was less than excited about the $69 pricetag, however. Onto number 2:
2) I won the annual career development award at work (proof that I do, in fact, do some work) that had a payout of $100. YES! Now I could just order this online but it isn't as fun as attending a party where you get to oogle all the fabrics so an email to my Lill Cohort here in WI was in order and then...
3) HB is having a Lill party! woot!

I love when the stars align, he he he.