Hotdogs and Love Languages

Yesterday was tiring, but with the help of some coffee, I managed just fine.  I was productive at work, ate the rest of my chocolate caramel popcorn, went into a sugar coma, and got home refreshed and not starving (due to the amount of popcorn I consumed).  Mondays are good commute days - the traffic is lighter and so I get home about 20 minutes earlier than usual.  It makes for a good feeling.

I quickly made some pasta for dinner - with sauteed hotdogs and spinach.  I know - dinner of champions.  The pasta and spinach weren't too horrible but the hotdogs were a weird addition.  I wanted some added protein and that was the only option I had.  They were Applegate Organic Turkey Hotdogs so at least they were nitrate-free.  I sauteed them in a little coconut oil and they turned out quite flavorful.  Evan didn't like them, but oh well.  He seems to be opposed to anything with skin these days - including blueberries and grapes.  He puts them in his mouth, realizes they have skin, and spits them back out.  It's annoying because he's loved blueberries from day one and now refuses to eat them.

I have found a new way to entertain him while I'm cooking.

I let him stand at the sink and play in the water.  The water just dribbles out so it's hardly anything, but then he fills his cups and plays around.  This particular face is because he just dumped some on the floor.  That's his guilty look.

After we ate dinner we took a nice walk around the circle.  It was awesome!  I haven't been running in about three weeks due to my cold/bronchitis/sickness I've had for weeks.  I've also been having some weird leg problem - super tight hamstrings that won't go away.  Now that has morphed into a weird pain on the outside of my leg which can't be good.  All my left leg muscles have just been super tight - I can't even touch my toes, or close to my toes.  I can barely bend over because my leg muscles are so tight.  Not sure what's going on, but running hasn't happened.  So, I was very excited about going out for a walk.

I thought this would help Evan sleep, but nope.  I tried to put him down around 9pm but he didn't fall asleep until 10:20pm or so.  Very annoying.  At times like this I wish we had just let him cry it out and fall asleep on his own.  Over an hour to put him to bed is kind of like a nightmare.  Usually it is just two minutes or so, so I'm not sure what is going on.  He has really been fighting bed time - he rubs his little eyes and twirls his hair so I know he's tired, but then he refuses to close his eyes.  I hope this phase ends soon!!!

At least Ivan did the dishes while I was putting Evan to bed so I didn't have to worry about that when I finished.  I've never really done those love language things, but I think Acts of Service might be my love language!  I always feel extra loved when Ivan does something for me.

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What did you eat for dinner last night?

Have you ever thought about what love language you are?

Pumpkins, Parenthood, etc.

It's dark when I leave for work now.  Pretty soon it's gonna be dark when I get home too.  Yesterday I went to walk the dog at 7pm and it was dark.  How sad.  It's not that I haven't experienced the days getting shorter for my entire life, but it still surprises me.  And it really surprises hubs because the days don't change in Honduras.  The closer to the equator you are the less the days change, so there it was pretty much light out from 6am-6pm and during the winter it might differ by half an hour.

What feels extra weird is that we've been having a hot spell so it was in the upper 80s all week and weekend.  And our air conditioner broke and the landlord doesn't want to fix it very quickly.  So we were pretty much roasting all weekend, in October...while the days get shorter.  Feels strange.  I think cooler temps are on the way though, and day light savings time is going to end in a few weeks too, so it will be lighter in the morning at least.

This weekend we went to the pumpkin patch!  Last year I skipped a lot of the holiday festivities because Evan was so young, but this year we are trying to enjoy them all.  It was lots of fun, but hot.

Yes, I'm holding a teddy bear.  It was teddy bear party day so if you brought a bear you got a free hay ride.  I'm all for free hay rides so I carried the bear around all day.  The hayride was itchy but fun.  They also had a petting zoo, fun slides, pony rides, face painting, and mining for gems.  We didn't do too many of those because they cost extra, but we did do the petting zoo.  Evan loved the goats and wasn't afraid to pet them or feed them.  I think it's because we have such a big, fluffy dog.

Then we walked to the pumpkin patch and snagged a mini-pumpkin.

Yesterday was filled with grocery shopping and cooking and some laundry.  First we went for a walk  though...my favorite thing.  The colors here are a little bland these days for autumn.  I'm hoping they perk up a bit.  

We took a different path and it was so pretty.

We stumbled upon this canoe and it made me think of Anne of Green Gables. 

I actually managed to cook three things yesterday: chili, tomatoe sauce, and meatballs.  All those things cooking didn't help my kitchen from exploding from heat though. Then I was determined to fold all these clothes and put them away before going to bed.  They'd been around for two weeks.

I succeeded, although it was 11:30pm when I crawled into bed.  And I have to get my run in today.  I think it's a half-caf coffee day.

And I can't put into words how excited I am that Season 4 of Parenthood is on Amazon Prime now!!!

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Do you go to a pumpkin patch or do you just buy your pumpkin at the store?

How often do you do laundry?  And do you fold your clothes right away?

Baking cakes and dancing in the rain

Ok, so I didn't actually dance in the rain.  Or even come close to it.  But it did rain, a lot, on Saturday.  That was just what came to me when I was writing the title, so I went with it.  

This weekend was jam-packed!  I know I say that every weekend, but this one was extra busy.  Maybe because I signed up to make my co-workers baby shower cake.  I don't know why I did that.  I have NO TIME to bake and decorate cakes these days.  I just haven't done a cake in years (since my other co-workers shower cake) so I wanted to do one for the shower.  Not the smartest idea though because it was a bit hard to squeeze in...and I still haven't decorated it.  I made all the frosting though.  And dyed it.  And I don't have a present for her yet.  Boo.  I will soon though.

On Satuday I feel compelled to mention that my golf girls were so well-behaved.  I was so impressed.  Both classes were hitting really well and paying attention.  It was great.  It made the class so much more fun to coach.  Ivan had a golf tournement in the morning too.  He'd been looking forward to it for months.  I think he had a good time, even though he was hoping to win and didn't.  Thursday night golf league is finally over!!  I am so relieved.  It wasn't that I minded Ivan golfing, it was that we had no one to watch Evan.  It was so hard to find someone and eventually Melissa started watching him but she watched him all day too so I felt badly asking her to do it again at night.  So, we are now done that chapter of our life, until next year.

We were going to head to the aquarium or zoo Saturday afternoon but ended up running errands instead.  We had a bday party in the evening and we needed a present and Ivan wanted to buy a new phone.  And then, while at the mall I bought new glasses and picked up my contacts.  It rained all afternoon too so not the best weather to drive into the city in.  Maybe another weekend.

Sunday was beautiful and I took Dolce and Evan for a long walk.  It was perfect.  I've been going running with my sister in the mornings on Sundays and have really missed my walks (although I love running too).  Being pregnant really helped me enjoy the simplicity and relaxation of a good walk.

Is that not the prettiest thing ever?  The mist was rising off the lake as the day was heating up.  The temperature was perfect.  Evan and I hung out on the benches taking in the beautiful site.

This is my Instagram photo - follow me at mapleandmud

It was a lot of fun.  I love walks with my baby and doggie.  We had to make sure Evan was warm so we finally found socks to put on him.  And you can't tell from this photo, but I put his outfit on backwards.  Whoops!  It had snaps and usually the snaps go down the front...but then when I got home Ivan said it was on backwards and when I looked...sure enough, the tag was in the front.

And notice his snack container hanging off the belt (that belt is really to make sure the car seat doesn't fall out when you have the adapter in, but I think it works well to attach things too), he was munching on snacks and sharing with Dolce the entire time.

The rest of Sunday was a blur of cake baking, frosting making (I accidentally flavored the frosting with almond extract instead of vanilla extract...), dinner making, lunch-for-Ivan-for-the-week making, a bit of Chemistry studying, laundry doing, brunching, grocery shopping, and a small attempt to stop time (which didn't work).  And I must mentioned that our dryer squeaks so much when we dry clothes it's almost deafening.  Something must be done before I dry any more clothes.  Oh, and on Friday the heat shield fell off our car.  At the gas station.  We drove around with an extremely loud rattling for a while until my husband just took the heat shield off.  Hopefully our car doesn't blow up.

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What was your weekend like?

What did you have for dinner last night?

Do you make cakes or buy them?

Even walking is difficult!

Sorry I haven't been posting so regularly.  My mom was in town for a week and I was enjoying her company - so blogging was back-seated.  Her visit was amazing and I was so thankful she came.  We had lots of time to hang out, chat, catch up, and she got lots of Evan time.  It was perfect.  I was so sad when she left.  It was back to TV and long days alone.  I am trying to get into some kind of routine though - to make the days more structured and less lazy (i.e. me sitting in front of the TV not moving for hours).  Even with a semi-routine it has been tough to find time to blog.  I am really trying to get things together so hopefully I'll be blogging more regularly, but no promises.  We'll see what happens.  This baby stuff sure is time-consuming!

Although I haven't been cleared for actual exercise yet (have to wait until my six week appointment), I have been cleared to walk. {Note - I wrote this a bit ago and today was my 6 week appointment - so I'm cleared to run - yay!!}  And I am trying to walk as much as possible.  I love taking walks and the weather is so nice these days that it's a crime to not get out.  Plus, since we can't open the windows in our house for fear of a stink-bug invasion, it's nice to get some fresh air.

Evan is not always a fan of walking though.  Sometimes I put him in the car seat (we have a BOB stroller with the car seat adaptor) and he falls right asleep.  Other days (like today), I put him in and he starts crying.  And doesn't stop.

This is him on a good day:

 

 

 I didn't take photos of him on a bad day.  Like today.

On Wednesdays I try to walk to my sister's house and visit with her for a few hours.  She lives about a mile and a half away and it's perfectly easy to walk to her place.  Today I left thinking I'd take a detour and make the walk a bit longer.  It was so beautiful out and I wanted to spend as much time outside as possible.  I turned the corner out of our development and crossed the street.

Evan started crying.

I thought maybe I could lull him to sleep so I stuck the pacifier in his mouth and we continued on our way - making the turn down the detour street.  Evan continued to cry.  And cry.  And cry.  I tried to bump him to sleep by putting one wheel in the grass.  This worked for a total of ten seconds.

A few feet away was a cut-through to the faster way to my sister's house.  I thought about it for about a minute and decided that we were going to have to abort the mission.  A long walk was not going to happen.  A short walk was becoming impossible too.  I needed to get to my sister's as quick as possible (and hopefully pass as few people as possible since people give me looks when I am walking with a screaming infant).

Since I hate to hear him cry, I took him out of the car seat and carried him until he fell asleep.  Yup, I had him in my left arm and I pushed the stroller with my right.  I did this for at least half a mile.  I tried putting him back in after he fell asleep but he wasn't in a deep enough sleep so he woke up and started crying again.  So I took him out and walked with him some more.  About ten mintues later he was completely out and I could put him back in the stroller.

My arm was about to fall off.

But we made it to my sister's house.  What a relief!

So, even walking can be difficult.  I really though babies loved the lulling of cars and strollers but Evan seems to defy the odds.  He is not a fan of either - although he cries less on walks than he does on car rides.  I'm hoping that the more he goes in his car seat the more comfortable he'll get.  I bought this overly expensive BOB running stroller with dreams of going on long runs with him.  Just my luck that he hates the car seat and will probably hate the stroller too.  I guess we'll see!

And maybe I'll get that long walk in tomorrow...

But he's so darn cute I can't be mad!