God I love that child.

A few things I’m thinking about right now:

Annalee’s recipe for chicken skewers is to die for.  I’ve been making it something ridiculous like once a week.  It’s super easy and quick and utterly delicious.  It makes me happy.  MAKE IT.

Also making me happy is this last minute-made from leftover stuff in the fridge-sandwich.  It was really good, but don’t just take my opinion.  The fact that I got my child, a picky two year old food connoisseur to devour it should tell you that it was pretty good.

1. Heat some olive oil in a skillet.
2. Throw some diced chicken breast/tenders, chopped bell pepper and chopped onion in there, sprinkle with seasoning (I used Zatarain’s creole season) and cook through. Remove from heat and throw in some chunks of Monterrey Jack cheese until it’s all melted.
3. Throw delicious looking mixture on some kind of fresh roll from the grocer (I loathe regular sandwich bread) and enjoy.  MAKE IT.

We went to New Orleans in the middle of June  and claimed it as a vacation but really it was used as a launch pad for Kevin to abandon us again to work in Chicago all summer… not that I’m a little bitter that he’s there and I’m stuck in Texas or anything.

NO was hot, the food was (mostly) delicious, the zoo was fun and the French Quarter is pretty cool to walk around.  We never rode the trolley, and I left Bourbon Street after dark to Kevin and the rest of the gang but we had a fantastic time.  If you ever visit and need some food recommendations, I highly suggest the following, in no particular order. Muriel’s Jackson Square, Gumbo Shop, Mr. B’s Bistro.  Also, in a pinch, the Audobon Zoo had really impressive red beans and rice and crawfish étouffée.  Best zoo food I’ve ever had.

See the whole trip here.

I didn’t anticipate the bulk of this post being about food but I guess I’ve got food on the brain.  You see… 

It’s still super-duper early, I just found out a few days ago, and I know I really shouldn’t be telling anybody yet but I just could not wait.  It was finally something to write about and I know you guys will send out lots of good thoughts for me (pretty please).  I have no real reason to be but I am feeling very anxious this time around.  Maybe now that we *sort of* planned on this pregnancy I recognize how precious this opportunity is.

Plus now I can start telling you all the uber adorable things Avelyn has been saying like, “I can’t see the baby. It’s in your belly!” and “Come out Baby! Wake up!” and “I wuv you, Baby. Shh, Mommy, Baby is sleeeeeping.”  She (and I) have known for a total of 4 days now and it seems she grasps the broad concept quite nicely.  Me thinks she has the making for an awesome big sister.

So now that the news is out there, can you please keep this info between me and your little blog reading self?  We may or may not know a lot of the same people and I’m not really planning to make an announcement to the real world for several weeks.  See how special being a blogger can be sometimes?

Of utmost importance is always attending your last day of anything with sweet new kicks.

Friday

Friday morning we woke up, packed up and left San Antonio in the dust as we headed for 4 days in Oklahoma City with my best friend, Katie.

It only took us TWELVE hours to get there, what with the toddler traveling with us and the 3 or 4 horrible, no good, very bad boughts of parking lot traffic we encountered.

Saturday

We started Dance Party OKC in Katie’s living room and rocked out in the A.M.

Afterwards Avelyn got acquainted with JFK.

and continued to blow me away with her awesomeness.

Saturday afternoon we took Avelyn to the zoo for the FIRST time.  The Oklahoma City Zoo is amazing and I highly recommend it.  She had a hey day in the Children’s Zoo.

We stared at monkeys

and birds

and even touched some!  She was way more excited about this than I was, as evidenced by my perpetual sharp intake of breath whenever any of the birds flew toward me.  Have I told you about my NOT CRAZY fear of a bird flying at my face and getting it’s sharp little beak stuck in my cheek?  It’s almost happened too many times for this to be an irrational fear.

I am not making this up when I say we walked for hundreds of miles. Maybe thousands.

So we made sure to take breaks and be cute as often as possible.

But while the grown ups thought these guys were pretty neat

my daughter went freaking apeshit over this little guy:

I wish you could have seen it. I hope my memory doesn’t ever fail me and erase the image of her running all around the aquairium screaming “Nemo! Nemo! Fishy! Fishy! Oh! Oh! Oh!!!!!” It was pure joy. The kind only an innocent can muster, something that comes from deep within. It was amazing to see.

After the height of fish city excitement died down we moved onto another FIRST – the carousel. Here we are clearly being stalked by the papprazzo.

We lucked out to find a crowd favorite animal to ride on, the peacock.

We were having a great time before my inner ear issues started to migrate south to my stomach (as evidenced by the facial grimace starting here) and before Katie decided to forego all warning by the carousel driver man and hop out of our peacock ride and onto the ostrich in front of us (as evidenced by Avelyn’s frantic cries of “NO, Ka-dee! NO KA-DEE!”.

It did nothing to quell my stomach churning but Katie came back for Avelyn and all was right with her world.

On a side note, don’t we totally look like royalty here?

We finally got a good shot of the family before calling it day. Although not before Hobo ran off all her extra energy at the playground.

That was just Saturday. A day which will henceforth be known as The Day Avelyn Did Not Take a Nap. She promptly passed out in the car for all of one hour before being woken up to go to dinner with Katie’s family at a great restaurant. The food and the company were fabulous, Hobo’s mood was not. I had a great time at dinner amid trying to console the whining and cajole a friendly smile all the while interpret to Kevin via facial tics and head nods that this wasmynightoutwithmypeoplesocanyoupleasetakecareofthisbabynoIdon’tcarewhatittakes soIcanenjoythisdinnerwithmypeople.  He didn’t totally catch on folks. I know you’re reading this honey. You didn’t totally catch on.

Sunday

Sunday was the main reason I made the decision to take us to OKC in the first place becaaaaaaws Sesame Street Live was in town!! We prepped before the show with mall walking and Icee drinking. This child of mine is an Icee nazi. Don’t give her yours unless you want your fingers chewed off trying to get it back.

I’m serious and Katie can vouch. Her steely fingers were clamped around that cup and she was not letting go. As a matter of fact, this was the trip that Avelyn became aware of her independence. Everything this week has been “I do it!” This phrase is repeated to infinity with increasing volume unless you do in fact let her do it. She has specifically perfected this phrase when crawling into her carseat. She wants to crawl into the car and up into her carseat and she knows where the latch goes and SHE CAN DO IT! “Okay, I KNOW you can DO IT!” we cry, “So DO IT!”

Sunday night was Sesame Street Live AKA The Elmo Show. Elmo wasn’t even central to the show but we could get her excited talking about going to see him.

The show got started.

Umm, she was really excited.

And she danced her little heart out. I am not exaggerating nor am I biased in any way when I say my child enjoyed the show more than any other child there. There is no one that clapped louder, danced harder or squealed with more glee than my little Hobo.

For example, here is an image of me holding onto the back of shirt so she would not take flight and shuttle toward the stage.

I think she had a really great time. She was enjoying it so much that I didn’t bat an eye at the price tag on the Zoe doll she picked out. Or the Elmo balloon we had to get at intermission because EVERY WORD OUT OF HER MOUTH WAS “ELMO BALLOON! ELMO BALLOON!” This Elmo Balloon which we left at Katie’s apartment when we left. Wah wah wah. Hope you’re lovin’ you some Elmo, Katie.

After the show Kevin headed to see a basketball game by himself and I headed home for an evening with Katie and strainer head, also known as Baby High on Elmo Show.

She was cracked out, I’m telling you. It was another incredibly long day that ended in another embarrassingly early bedtime. Some of us may have gone to bed before 10 pm every night. What can I say? Kids are exhausting.

Monday

See that mirror in the next photo? The one reflecting the image of the adorable toddler who looks radiant in yellow? That mirror tried to kill me the night before. I have a huge bruise on my right hand to prove it. Just thought someone should know should this ever happen again.

I think we spent Monday morning walking around another mall on the never ending (fruitless) search for Kevin’s new hoodie. After lunch we headed for cupcakes. The Cupcake Lady made sure we knew NO nuts were used in ANY of their products. Thank you for the attitude served with that statement.

Avelyn liked the cupcake and has subsequently shouted “Cupcakes! Cupcakes!” every time she has seen these photos now.  Also, she said her FIRST sentence ever during cupcake time.  She needed paper towels and Kevin thought he would be so polite as to bring her milk too, and told her so.  “No!” she said “No milk, just paper towel.”  WHAAAAT?  Where the poop did that come from?

Somebody got a better nap that afternoon, followed by some really cold playtime at the park. Mostly I took away from this set of iPhone images that a tapered peacoat makes me look like I have a shape, and maybe I ought to go clothes shopping. (Thanks again for the loaner coat, Kate)

We had dinner that night at a local establishment (actually everywhere we ate was a local establishment I think, so again, thank you Katie for coming up with interesting places to take us) where we ran into Cupcake Lady! What a small world! I hate this photo of me because I look fat and like my face is receding into my neck like my mothers side of the family but oh well, Hobo is too cute not to share.

We ended the day with yoga and hugs.

Oh, and more of  this.  (Note that the mirror is no longer sitting precariously above us on the couch.)

And that was our trip. We came home on Tuesday, forgot it was St. Patrick’s day until Wednesday around lunch, dressed Avelyn up as THE CUTEST IRISHBABY EVER and have been enjoying our wonderful spring weather back home.

The End.

is this little BABY from last year??

NEITHER CAN I.  GAH!

●          ●          ●          ●          ●          ●          ●

The Peacock was the last idea I had for a costume, after a few superheros, a fairy or two and a spork.  Okay, maybe the spork was never actually thought of until just now but how awesome would a spork costume be?  I’ll have to file that one away.

So, it started with an idea.  An idea that went a little something like this:

I should start by saying that I have a lot of grand ideas.  Lots.  However, I tend to get caught up in the details and obsess about getting everything just right so many of my ideas never come to fruition.  Also hindering my creative outlet is the fact that a) I had no children until 18 months ago and b) I was in school during most of the last 18 months and had no time to do anything artistic.  I should also say that I have waited my whole life to have kids to do art projects with and make costumes for like my mom did for my siblings and I.  I get my creative gene from her.  (Thanks Mom).  It’s one of the few genes I will claim out loud she gave me.  (Ha ha. Sorry Mom).  I’m not sure if I ever wore a store bought costume in all my years of trick or treating; she made them all.

Foil Head (kidding), Can of Paint, Shaggy Dog, Snowman

Granted, I was not appreciative of all of them.  After all, as Annalee wrote just today, there is something so wonderful to a child about that awful vinyl store bought costume all your friends are wearing.  And when you’re the only kid wearing a city trash clean up bag the size of Rhode Island you might feel a little jipped no matter how long it took your mother to shred that bag into a Shaggy Dog.

So anyway, I love making things with Avelyn, and I LOVE coming up with her costume ideas.  In fact, two weeks ago we took a cue from the brilliant SAJ and recycled a few giant diaper boxes and cut out cardboard Halloween shapes and painted them.  We had a black bat swinging in our kitchen window, a friendly ghost with rosy cheeks, a cackling witch with bright green skin and my favorite, the spooky house.  I really wanted to take pictures of the whole process and the final product and share them with you but that would have taken time away from the fun we were having, which seems a whole lot more important.  I only have three photos to show for it.  It is a super easy, super cheap and really fun project to do with kids and it’s recyclable when the holiday is over.  You do the cutting and let them do the painting.  (And yes, as you can see I did most of the painting this time around, but I swear to you that Avelyn painted the whole pumpkin all by herself, you just can’t tell from this distance.)

(First round of painting, Our giraffe playing in front of the spooky house, Breakfast with the ghost)

Back to the real Halloween.  I planned to have the costume finished two weeks ago so we could have her pictures taken.  That didn’t happen.  I wanted it to be perfect and I figured if I had two weeks until Halloween then why rush just for some crappy portraits?  We take better photos anyway.

My biggest problem when it comes to making anything is 1) I don’t have a sewing machine and 2) I don’t know how to sew.  Although I’m pretty sure the latter problem could be easily rectified if I just BOUGHT A SEWING MACHINE.  KEVIN.  HINT HINT.  (I say that but I will probably buy one before Christmas because I still need to make Avelyn a stocking and I have big ideas.  SURPRISE!)

So, I knew exactly how to make the tutu but I thought long and hard about how to make the shirt.  I came up with several ideas

and in the end settled on the last one.  But the Top/Right image is just so darn cute I may have to make her that shirt to wear in her regular wardrobe.  How adorable would that be?

It really was not difficult, just a little time consuming, but that could be because if you haven’t picked up on it by now, I tend to pay attention to detail.  Like, a lot.

“Hello, my name is Jennifer, and I am a detailaholic.”

I’m not kidding when I say that.  I believe it’s all in the details.  I feel most happy when my floors are vaccummed clean, my child is always color coordinated (when I dress her), my kitchen countertops are always crumb free and wiped clean, and I’m not ashamed to admit my gift wrapping skills are superior to most.  That doesn’t mean I judge you by my standards, I just have a nervous NEED to have it this way at my house.  I also organize my Skittles into piles by color so I can make sure I have the same number of each and eat them in order ending with red, of course.

Just so you know, I’ve always been this crazy.

Back to before I told you I was crazy, I glued two colors of large sequins together to make the multidimensional green feathers at the base of the peacock body and glued them all individually to a white long sleeve shirt.  Then I glued green beads between all the sequins and cut out and backstitched three layers of felt by hand to make the “peacock eye” feathers and glued them to the shirt.

I put some peacock feathers and some blue feathers in her hair and that was it!  I am really proud of the final product.  For one she looked adorable (no more than usual of course since she is always stunning) but she also won first place for best costume at the party we went to!  Double proud!

Costume test run: nothing fell off the shirt.  SCORE!

Five minutes at the party and she’s already hitting the bottle. My Little Lady indeed.

This is definitely being printed and framed.

I would love to post all my favorites but I already uploaded them all in the Fallness folder on Flickr, and there are only about 30 of them so you really have no reason not to click over and view them here.

I hope your holiday was as fantastic as ours!

I might get around to writing an actual post one of these days but I work tonight and sleep half the day tomorrow.  Somehow I just can’t bring myself to spend time on the computer blogging when I have such a beautiful girl running around filling my house with laughter.  Hope you’re all having a great day.

11 daus until Kevin comes home!

The last two nights I have spent exclusively working on this. Hours were wasted on this feat because if you know me at all you would know this was a pointless endeavor, sure to end with hair pulling, nail biting and OCD perfectionism that could not be met. Which is exactly how it ended. So instead I will give you the only piece I really enjoyed and you can find the rest of my favorite photos on Flickr… once they finally upload sometime in the middle of the night (it’s at 10% right now). I’ll post the link as soon as they’re up!

Happy Birthday to my great big beautiful baby girl! You fill up my heart!

She hadn’t been in the baby swings by our old place since before Christmas.  Kevin strapped her into the stroller and took her today, possibly for the first and last time because it’s “way too far to walk with a stroller”.  To be fair, there is a massively gigantic hill involved in this walk and I’m not sure I’d be interested in doing it when it gets much hotter either.  But it’s just a little too close to strap her in the car seat and make your way down there.  Hmm, guess we’ll have to find better parks further away from his parents place.  Which won’t be too hard since we have no plans to live anywhere near there come May 15th.  Yes people, we have a goal.  An end date.  A day of reckoning.  Independence Day if you will.  And I CAN. NOT. WAIT.

(Yes, there may have been non blown-out angel-esque pictures of my baby from the park but unfortunately they were hijacked by the evil snot nosed booger faced baby, and are in a secret hiding place never to be seen in the light of a computer screen.)

25 days to Hobo’s FIRST birthday!

46 days to Momma’s graduation!

I’M ON SPRING BREAK!!

WOOOOOO HOO!

Amidst a HUGE list of school related things to do over the next week, I plan to do a lot of relaxing and playing around with Kevin and Avelyn.  Hopefully the weather will cooperate a few afternoons and we can hit the park, take some walks, have a picnic and who knows what else.  Autumn, Raena and I might even take the kids to the zoo for Avelyn’s FIRST zoo visit!  Heck maybe the three of us will feel like a real family, stranger things have happened.  Oh yeah, I also have that pesky job interview Monday morning, have I mentioned that yet?  Well, I have a job interview Monday morning in the Pediatric Emergency Room at a hospital here in San Antonio.  I’m excited and nervous and have no idea what to wear or say.  Please say a quick prayer for me Monday morning at 11am that I will be calm, confident and show them exactly how bad-ass a nurse I will be.  Or at least not look like a total idiot, that would do too.

Speaking of Autumn, tonight we celebrated her big little man’s 4th birthday!  I am so glad we were able to make it.  I had the best burger I’ve ever had at Big’z and had a great time hanging out with friends.  I think it may be the first time Kevin and I have been out in a big group of people (our age) since Avelyn was born.  And the best part about it was that all those people have kid(s) too so nobody thought it was weird when I forgot Avelyn’s bib (again) and tied a paper towel around her neck (again).  And no one batted an eyelash when she dropped a bit of her teething biscuit down her dress and I fished it out and ate it.  Hey, those biscuits are pretty good, low in calories and the baby slobber only adds to it’s exotic flavor.  Plus I’ve eaten way more disgusting things.

It was great to see Autumn’s new little man too.  He is getting so big and looks just like his Mama.  After our burgers Kevin and I split a chocolate shake for dessert.  I tried to explain the deliciousness of chocolate shakes to the baby in the Hobo Bib but she didn’t buy it.  It worked out in the end since I just made sure to drink her share too.  Avelyn hung with Raena’s sweet little girl while the rowdy boys played nearby.  She was so sweet with her and played “This Little Piggy” on her toes and patted her head.  Of course the head patting led to other little girls, whom we did not know, coming up and patting her head and her legs and saying “baby, baby”.  One little girl even asked “She’s a girl right?” to which I replied yes and she started shouting “I was right, I was right! She’s a girl!”  I’m glad the pink headband and pink gingham jumper weren’t too much of a giveaway.  It’s good to know that in today’s paparazzi driven world my little angel can go out in public incognito as an androgynous baby.

The rest of the evening seemed to go too quickly and before I knew it there was a lot of eye rubbing going on.  We said goodbye to Avelyn’s new best friend, Miss Piggy Toes, and packed up but not before snapping a quick photo of Avelyn learning to stand.  All by herself!  She did it earlier in the day but we didn’t have the camera.  It’s hard to tell from the photo but I promise I’m not just showing off my fantastic jazz hands, she really is standing on her own.  (Also, I do not have a giant freaky forehead, it’s a lens flare.  And my hand is really not that large, it’s perspective.  Just for the record.)  Avelyn sang to herself all the way home, a perfect ending to another great reunion. 

Here’s to a great week for us all!

61 days to Momma’s graduation!

Luckily for all involved she has recently discovered the joys of the teething ring. That and cold baby food fruit. She must be my child after all.

After some screeching, talking and general complaints she assisted me in making pancakes and bacon for Daddy while he slept like a baby upstairs (ha). Pretty soon she showed the usual signs of needing a nap and went down for an hour and a half (!). Her (not new) thing is to awake from naps wailing the usual Cry of the [now Scared] and Abused Baby so that was a lovely treat. I was dressed and ready to go, got her dressed while Kevin showered and we were out the door.

I was excited for her to see my dad’s family. She sees my grandparents weekly and she had met a few of them over the summer but a few were new and she is not great at meeting strangers, especially when they’re in a big group. I can’t remember the last time I went to a Thanksgiving at my grandparents and we had so much fun. The first few pass arounds went okay, then she got a little testy. I don’t know, maybe it was the altitude up there or something.

After lunch we sat around and visited. And laughed. A few of us slept. One of us might have tried to eat some foliage. One of us might have been kidnapped in a stroller and pushed around until we screamed to come home.

(are you totally sick of my pictures yet?)

Before Avelyn decided it was finally time for a nap we rounded everyone up and took the customary family picture on the fifty year old swing. Keep in mind we’re missing eight more people. There is no telling how many pictures have been taken on this swing over the years.

Oh yeah, last but certainly not least… self portraiture of the original Michelin Man baby.