Tuesday, September 30, 2008

registry

Last night I sorted through all the bins of Ava's clothes.  I am glad that it is done, since I have wanted to get to this for a long time.  All my bins are actually labeled now.  I took out the new baby clothes, neutral stuff at least.  I have a whole bin of girl new baby clothes, so if we have a girl we are set.  If we have a boy, it will be fun because I will get to go shopping for new baby stuff all over again!   I went pretend shopping online.  What I mean is, I added stuff to a baby registry on www.babiesrus.com.  The perk of that is, we get a discount on anything we buy off of our own registry, which is why I added stuff for Ava on there too. 



The baby is a wiggly monster in my belly.  Ava says she saw it move.  I don't doubt it, because it is moving all the time and pretty visible from the outside.   10 more weeks and then this baby is out.  We have a lot of stuff going on this fall, so 10 weeks will go by quickly I am sure.   

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Thursday night TV party

Ok, so there is no party.  All my regular tv buddies are occupied.  If I were more serious about getting together with people to watch tonights shows, I would seek others out, but I do actually have other things to do tonight so it will be good that I am flying solo.  So I think my plan of attack will be Ugly Betty, Grey's Anatomy, and then ER.  Survivor will probably be tomorrow afternoon.  It used to be it.  I would watch Friends, Survivor, CSI and ER on Thursdays, but now I don't.  Survivor has drastically dropped in priority.  Sorry to all of those who love Hello My Name is Earl and The Office.  I do find the Office funny.  Just not enough to bump some of my other shows.  They lose.  I have heard that the new AT&T tv service thing has a dvr that lets you record 4 shows at once.  What would I do with myself?  How many Thursdays would that have come in handy?  Anyway, I am having a little party myself and hoping Justin watches something with me, but he won't because he hates all things good.  (how do you like it???)  Ava and I just made a caramel apple pie.  It was super easy.  If it turns out well I will post the recipe.  I think I need to go get some ice cream to go with it. 



Tomorrow morning is our 2nd MOPS meeting, which should be somewhat interesting based on some recent events.  I need to make sure I get there super early to get myself organized and set up.  I still haven't gotten some questions answered about who I need to pay money to which annoys me.  I am the finance person, so I am actually paying some people for their services tomorrow.  I just write the checks, I don't arrange the people.  We are on snacks for tomorrow night's group.  I am going to make a cobbler.  Mmmmm good foods.  I love fall.  I love fall/winter baking.  I wish it weren't actually 85 so my house didn't get hot with the oven on and I could turn my air off.  Oh well. 

Sunday, September 21, 2008

ahhhh haaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!

Can you hear the joyous singing from my house?  I just realized that the majority of the shows I like are starting up again this week.  I am so excited, you have no idea.  Justin doesn't even have to worry about it because I will be at work two of the nights so he can just play video games or whatnot, he just can't watch anything on tv because the dvr will be busy. 



Dori has a new dog cage thingy.  It kind of looks like a pop up hamper that has mesh windows and it closes.  Ava always says Dori is in her bag.  She is acting better since in it actually, which is somewhat surprising.



Ava dropped her bobo in the car today.  She wanted it back.  She went through all the different colored bobos that she owns to see if we could give those to her.  Then she asked Justin to stop driving the car to get her bobo.  She wanted to know why  he had to keep driving.  Sometimes she is too smart.   I have to remind myself that she is only 2. 

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

27 weeks

I had my doctor's appointment this morning.  I have now entered the 3rd trimester and crossed the critical time line.  woohoo!  I passed my one hour glucose test which is good.  I am anemic now which explains a few things.  Blood pressure still good at 104/68.  Weight gain completely on track and steady so that is good.  Baby's heart rate was 148. 

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

premiers

The new fall season of TV is starting!!!!  Right now for adult shows it is only Bones.  Last week's episode wasn't that good at all, but I have hope that it will get better.  Also, did you know that Crossing Jordon was canceled in 2007?  I have been watching re-runs on A&E to catch up on the story line to be ready for the new season...Justin said he knew that it was canceled but thought I did too.  Oh well.



What I am actually excited about right now...Imagination Movers on playhouse Disney.  Ava has a few shows that she watches every morning while I check my email, do dishes, etc.  I get tired of the same shows all the time.  Imagination Movers just started and we are watching it for the first time right now.  Ava is very into the show, talking to the TV and everything. Some shows will ask questions, expecting the kids to answer at home, and she just sits there.  She is actually answering them on this show.  The music is so much better than in other shows!!!!  That is a very good thing since the songs will be stuck in your head for days.  Hopefully it stays this way and doesn't get lame.   What is funny to me is Ava says she has her  "shows".  She reminds me of an old lady who has to watch her soaps.  Sometimes when it isn't her TV time, she will say, "I want to watch my shows!  Ava's shows, not Mommy's shows."  I am glad playhouse Disney isn't on all the time.  It cuts out the temptation of giving in.



Swimming lesson update:  We are still going this morning.  I am guessing we will find out there when we have been moved to.

Monday, September 8, 2008

catching up

Today I woke up with a ton of motivation to get things done.  I actually got out of bed, cleaned toilets, folded laundry and showered before Ava got up.  I usually stay in bed until she gets up, which is why this is out of the ordinary for me.  I had a ton of errands to run today and I did all but one (the rain was just too much so I decided to put it off until tomorrow) and still kept going on things when I got home.  A lot of what I needed to do was related to MOPS and kick off on Friday.  Other people needed me to finish things so they could work on their parts, so I didn't really have time to put it off.  One of our errands was signing Ava up for kid/parent swimming lessons.   They are supposed to start tomorrow, so I did kind of wait until the last minute.  She could see the pool from the front desk and got super excited.  She thought she was going swimming right then.  She told every person who walked by that she was going swimming.  She was kind of disappointed when she figured out that we were leaving instead of swimming.  She knows that we are supposed to go tomorrow though.  The place called today and Ava is one of 2 who signed up for the Tuesday class, so we are probably going to have to change dates and times.  The guy was supposed to call me back tonight to let me know the plan but I haven't heard from him yet.  I will call in the morning.  He said that if they can't figure it out yet, we will still go tomorrow and then switch for future dates.  I asked Ava what we are doing tomorrow.  She said, "We are going swimming.  With my goggles!  I want Nemo goggles."  She doesn't need or have goggles.  She just thinks they are like glasses.  I bet she wouldn't like them if they were actually on.  She did go straight to the source though since her follow up statement was, "Daddy!  I want Nemo goggles. You get them for me?"



This past weekend was Justin's work family outing to the zoo.  It was awesome.  They rent out the whole zoo and pretty much everything was open at least for a while and we got tons of food.  All the places you normally have to pay for were open too.  Ava had fun in the children's zoo.  She got to pet the goats and a baby chick.  She loved Tropic World with the gorillas.  She still talks about how the monkeys were silly and one got in trouble.  She meowed at the meercats.  She said all the animals "were looking at me."  The best parts were no lines, no crowds, perfect weather, and all the free food you could ask for.



The weekend before last, Justin planned a night out for my birthday.  We got a hotel room at the Lodge, McDonald's affiliate hotel thingy.  I got a prenatal massage in their spa.  I highly recommend it.  It was so good.  I want another one.  I think I should get one every month until the baby comes out....After my massage, we got all dressed up and went to dinner at Capitol Grill.  Excellent food and service.  The one side dish, lobster macaroni was possibly one of the best things I have ever eaten.  I didn't even have to eat lobster.  It was in chunks that Justin could eat.  So really, their macaroni was one of the best things I have ever eaten.  We then went on to see a musical at Drury Lane.  Then back to the hotel for the super comfy king size bed.  Room to flop around while sleeping is very important to me at the present time.  The next morning we went out for brunch and did some shopping and went to go get Ava.  I had gotten new shoes while shopping because the ones I had on were hurting my feet.  They were super cheap and had stars on them.  Ava sees me and doesn't say anything, she just stares at my feet.  Then she says, "Your shoes have stars."  Apparently this was very odd to her.   Monday, we went to go see Hamlet 2 and Ava stayed at her other grandma's while we went to do that.  Pretty much she had full on family time from Saturday night until Monday afternoon.  She has just now switched back to being the child I dropped off.  I think she liked getting to do whatever she wanted and people who still listen to her commands because it is cute.  She wasn't happy having to go back to her normal life.  It is hard being 2.



The needing room to flop while sleeping reminds me of something that I was planning to write about but didn't.  I always come up with things to say while I am about to go to sleep.  Like while mentally recapping my day, I am like man, that is what I should say...but then I go to sleep and don't write it.  Anyway, I have reached the point in the pregnancy where I remember why towards the end of being pregnant with Ava, I couldn't wait for her to be out so I could just sleep again(which contributed to the cry fest the first night home with her when I thought about the fact that it still wasn't going to happen possibly ever again in my life).   It is hard to find a comfortable way to fall asleep.  Then you do fall asleep, but your arm does too at some point and you have to roll over, but you just can't roll over anymore.  You actually have to wake up and coordinate other parts of your body to shove yourself over to your other side and move all your pillows around and the blankets are moving with the pillows, if you were actually not too hot to sleep with blankets on, so you have to move those, and then all the sloshing around causes stomach acid to go all the way up your throat, so then you are coughing because your throat is now burned, and then you are ready to go to sleep and you have to catch your breath from all the activity.  Repeat 5 times a night, getting up to pee 1-2x in addition.  I no longer like going to bed.  I put it off as much as possible.  I just dread all the comfortableness.  It is like eating after you have had a stomach bug.  You do it because you have to, not because you want to.

Good banana bread

Our family activity tonight was making banana bread.  It turned out so good.  It is a slightly healthier recipe than normal, but you can't tell.


1 3/4 c. whole wheat flour
approx. 1/2 c. sugar
2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1/4 t. salt
3 ripe bananas, mashed (about 1 1/4 cups)
1/3 c. butter
2 T. milk
2 eggs
1/4 c. plus a little extra chopped walnuts



Preheat oven to 350 degrees.



In a large mixer bowl combine 1 cup
of the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add mashed
banana, butter, and milk. Beat in an electric mixer on low speed until
blended, then on high speed for 2 minutes. Add eggs and remaining
flour, beat until blended. Stir in walnuts.



Pour batter into a
greased 8x4x2-inch loaf pan. (the person I took this recipe from's baking tip of the day: if you
want the rounded loaf top shape, only grease the bottom and part way up
the sides of the pan instead of all the way to the top. This goes for
rounded cake, cupcake, and muffin tops as well.)



Bake at 350
degrees for 55 to 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the
center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.