19 November 2011

Football Clothes

Eric has been playing flag football with the guys in the ward. (And by "has been" I mean that he played once early in the season and didn't play again until last week.) Today they have a game, and depending on the results of that game, they may play in the championships. (These guys mean business, apparently.)

As Eric busied himself getting ready this morning, he couldn't find a pair of matching gloves. We have countless gloves in the house, but they seemed to be spread among several places, and I haven't gotten our winter wear organized yet this year. I managed to find him a matching set, then I went off to do my own thing. (Make a Christmas, gift, actually. One day I'll post about it.)

A few minutes later I saw Eric all decked out his in warm active wear with a hat. He doesn't wear winter hats too often. I think it's because his head is kind of big, but I'm not sure really. I commented to him that his hat looked kind of silly, and maybe it was because his head is so large. (This is something I tease him about fairly often. And teasing is just part and and parcel to being married to me.) He was looking for his gloves - the ones I had handed to him only a few minutes prior. He kept muttering, "Where are those gloves?" I told him I didn't know where they were and maybe he should replace his hat because it seriously was looking really odd and pointy at the top.

He meandered into the hallway still looking around for those gloves, took his hat off, and said, "Oh, they were in my hat. That's why my hat looked funny."

09 November 2011

Sleep Sack

I made Ike a sleep sack this past weekend. We keep our house pretty cold at night, and we were frequently finding him not under the covers and fairly cold. In New Zealand, my friend, Makereta, made her boy a sleep sack, and I watched part of the construction of it, so I felt confident about putting this one together.

It is not fancy by any stretch of imagination. I took some fleece, cut it into two squares and sewed it together. I did cut a little neck hole, so that's the only part of the thing that isn't just straight. I did hem the arm holes and neck hole. And there is a zipper down the side. I did it by hand because I don't have a sewing machine, and the project was simple enough that I felt like doing it by hand would be a little tedious, but not overly cumbersome. I worked on it while listneing to some audiobooks, and it only took a few hours, spaced out over a couple of days.

Ike seems to like it well enough. Eventually he'll recognize it as a bedtime object, and it's possible he won't like it as much by then.

07 November 2011

On Pinterest

I know I'm a little late on the Pinterest bandwagon. I resisted for a while. Then I realized that my goals to be a better meal-planner and a more frequent cook would be aided if I just sucked it up and joined Pinterest.

You can follow me, if you like: Follow Me on Pinterest

The great thing is that I've already found so many great meals I want to try! I'm really excited. I'll be heading to yonder grocery store tomorrow, and I've got a great week of meals on the docket:
Avocado sandwiches
Citrus black beans with rice
Carrot ginger coconut soup
Sweet potato quesadillas

Feel free to stop by any time you'd like. I can't guarantee any of this will be good - besides the avocado sandwiches, which are tried and true for us - but I can at least guarantee . . . Okay, there's nothing I can guarantee that is really appealing. Free food. That's about all I've got. Anyone coming?

(To those who have already checked out my boards. Yes, I realize they are mostly blank. I'm working on it. And yes, I realize that almost all of my re-pins, particularly for recipes, have come from Janssen. I haven't had time to peruse other recipe boards yet. If you think your recipe boards are totally amazing, let me know, and I'll mosey on over.)

06 November 2011

Eleven Months

Last month, I thought Ike would be walking by this month, but I was wrong. He's still acting like he's going to start walking any day. But then again, he may wait a month or two. He's very effecient at crawling.

He finally started waving this month! Usually he does it with his palm facing himself, and it's funny. He also waves when he's generally happy, like when he's eating. I don't know what that's all about. He also does a sign for "all done" when he's done eating. He occasionally says "uh-oh" after purposely dropping something on the floor. The other big thing this month - he got two teeth. They are cute.

Ike loves to go play at the babysitter's house. He's crazy about her kid. He also loves it when I come pick him up. Lately he's really taken on to jabbering as if he's really trying to tell us something. It's adorable, and I can't get enough of it. He also squeals a lot when he's happy, and that's adorable too. It's not a screechy-squeal, just a pleasant squeal of delight. It amuses me greatly when I put him down for a nap and then hear him squealing 10 minutes later. I don't know what it is that makes him so happy, but it must be pretty awesome.

Speaking of squeals of delight - usually when Eric gets home from work Ike is sitting in his high chair having dinner. He is always happy to see his dad, but then his attention gets turned to scarfing down his food. One night this past week Eric got home late and was out of his high chair when Eric got home. Ike was so excited he practically leaped out of my arms as he wriggled and squealed with happiness. Eric beamed all evening.

Ike loves to try to put things on his head. There are a few toys that we have placed on his head, just as a means of playing with him, he now will attempt to put those on his head on his own. Since they aren't really meant to go on his head, they don't stay there long. He also takes my glasses off my face and tries to put those on his head. These things, to me, are just so interesting! When did his little brain start to figure these things out?

He now can actually play his xylophone without throwing the mallet. No melodies yet. (I mean, my child is a prodigy who can play Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto on the xylophone!)

One of the greatest developments this month is his ability and willingness to laugh more readily. We do not have to coerce him to laugh through tickling anymore. It's great fun to strike up a game of peek-a-boo and listen to his giggles. He also still enjoys being tickled and thrown in the air. In the picture below, in order to get a smile out of him, I was prepping to throw him.

He's a perfect baby. I can't get enough of him.



01 November 2011

November

Aren't you glad it's November? I am.

Sure, October almost always can beat November when it comes to weather. This year's October was especially delightful, despite the bizarre bout of snow we experienced in the second week that totally disrupted our Indian Summer. Besides that odd phenomenon, it was a delightful October with beautiful leaves and perfect weather. And I want to give credit where credit is due, so good job October 2011.

But I do not care one iota about Halloween. It's a holiday I could totally do without. I know that makes me the least fun person on the planet, and I do not care.

Thanksgiving, on the other hand. That's a holiday I can get behind. First of all, it merits at least one day - but usually two days - off of work. October only has Columbus Day to offer, and that holiday only seems to matter to government employees, and nobody cares about them. (Unless we are expecting some great mail from Oklahoma Vital Records, and then we suddenly care a lot about the postal workers and their infinite supply of holidays - but that's neither here nor there.)

Back to Thanksgiving - it's a holiday with treats and goodies like Halloween - but it's also a holiday about real food. It's also a holiday with real meaning and significance, or at least it can be. If we have very little to be grateful for, we can at least be grateful we don't have to work on Thanksgiving, or the day after (for most people).

When Thanksgiving is over, we can officially begin the Christmas season complete with Christmas music, Christmas shopping (mostly online, of course) and Christmas decorating.

November is a month with consistently cooler temperatures but not necessarily a great deal of snow. While I don't love the cold, I can tolerate it. I try to focus on the good aspects of cold weather - hot chocolate, soups for dinner, sweaters, hats, scarves, switching on the fireplace. (We have a gas fireplace that turns on when we flip a switch. It doesn't provide the great smells of a traditional wood-burning fireplace with chimney, but it's still warm and pleasant to look at,and infinitely tidier than a traditional fireplace.) I don't get to enjoy those things much in October, and generally they really kick into full gear in November.

Not to mention the fact that November is my birthday month, so that's always a perk for me too - assuming I do not spend my entire birthday in the car, like I did in 2007 and 2008. (This year my birthday falls a day before we leave on a road trip to the Midwest, so I think I've avoided the Birthday Car Celebration. I also avoided the Birthday Car Celebration in 2009 when we went to Washington for Thanksgiving because Thanksgiving was late that year.)

All in all, November's looking like a good month.