Seeing as I also like to talk about what I cook on this blog, seems I can’t let it go without mentioning our Thanksgiving food. We started the day off with a high calorie bang as I made some cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting. I had made them the previous week and frozen them. I think they came out well that morning, and promptly ate too many of them. I did manage to give at least one pan away to our neighbors Christina, Zach, Ethan and Chanh, but that was all I could bear to separate from. We had another two pans for Christmas but they didn’t come out as well, don’t know if I gave them enough time to rise that time.

We spent the morning cooking a few more things and then Pipita made us arepas for lunch. She let Josie help which was very gracious of her considering Josie just tries to eat the raw dough (ick).

Then we went home and got Josie and the rest of us a nap before coming back to eat the feast!

We had green beans with almonds, rolls, sweet potato casserole, carrot souffle, stuffing (meat and not), salad, turkey and veggie and turkey gravy. Plus I had made spinach dip for snacking on before dinner, not that we needed it. Yes that cranberry sauce is directly out of the can, I think it’s hilarious that it is can-shaped and insist that we leave it that way on the plate, sue me. I tried making my own one year and it was just terrible and there was TONS of it, so I haven’t bothered again. The new recipes this year were the sweet potato casserole and spinach dip. The spinach dip was pretty basic ho-hum recipe, cheese, artichokes, cream spinach and more cheese. The sweet potato we left the rather gratuitous cup of sugar in the potatoes out, leaving only the one on top plus the marshmallows and it was fantastic. This will be a definite addition to our table moving forward.

We ended the night with pumpkin and pecan pie with whipped cream, but didn’t make much progress on either, see above list of food for the entire day to explain why. With me nursing the girls I generally find I can’t ever eat enough to get stuffed, that was not true on this day with the whole day of rich options! There was wine and pina-coladas (?) for those who wanted to imbibe and it was a mighty feast indeed.

Just to back pedal a bit, this Thanksgiving we were lucky enough to be visited by Jordi’s mom, dad, sister and paternal grandmother since well we uh just had a baby and weren’t up for making the trip to Florida just yet. We did a big thanksgiving dinner and had fun Fall outdoor playtime (froze the southerners in the process).

Josie made special Thanksgiving place setting decorations. We saved a bunch of paper towel and toilet paper rolls and she painted each one. Then we glued ‘feathers’ onto them to make it look like native american headdresses. I don’t think Josie caught what they were supposed to be, but she enjoyed the process. Jordi enjoyed collecting the paper recyclables as it always seems like we should be able to do something crafty with them.

Happy (very) belated Thanksgiving!

We had one nice (last) warm day the other day and took some fun photos outside. Couldn’t decide which one I liked better so you get them both. It’ll be nice when Celia can hold her head up for pictures!

This year Josie was very excited about carving the pumpkin. At least before we started she was. She first wanted a ghost on it, then a cat. So we went with both. I let Jordi get in with the messy work while I held the camera and Celia. Josie also decided the messy pumpkin work wasn’t really for her either. Unfortunately I missed her later refusals on the camera, but they were pretty funny. Here’s a tiny bit of her work scooping out the guts. I had hoped to do some pumpkin painting too, but since it’s already Friday, maybe not.

The second is bumpy, sorry, I was holding the bag and had to hand it over.

Sunday we went out apple picking at honey pot hill orchard in Stowe. It was a quintessential fall day, although a bit hot by the time we were done. We parked in a field, bought our bags, rode on a hay ride pulled by a tractor, saw some animals (chickens, goats, pigs, sheep, and bunnies), ate cider donuts and rode on the hay ride again before actually picking some apples. In the end, the actual picking was a very small amount of  time. Josie got right into it and was super speedy at ripping the apples off the tree (video to come later). She picked our whole bag for us except maybe one apple. She was also unfortunately a bit under the weather as well and so Jordi carried her most of the time to help her conserve energy. We got home and dismantled most of the apples into crisp, pie and applesauce form. With one crisp nicely stashed away in my freezer for after the baby is here. Here’s a couple of photos of the beautiful weather and friendly people.

You see a lot of photos from the zoo because we’re members and we’re cheap. So once membership has been bought, we use it frequently! Jordi doesn’t get to go that often though because it’s often a weekday trip for me and another mom. This time we went on the weekend to stone zoo. Josie was on the hunt for Flamingo’s the entire time, yet kept picking the slowest path through the zoo to find them. It’s always a fun place to take pictures, Jordi had the camera most of the time so these are his shots. It was the first time Josie walked the whole zoo too pretty much. Not too big a place, but tiring enough.

It’s almost the end of August and my last blog post covers stuff from July still. Somehow this month has not inspired me to pick up my camera too much. We’ve been in a full blown baby-prep mode each weekend trying to accomplish a number of tasks to get ready, but it’s not tons of fun or super memorable.

Step 1: Make room for another bed.

Josie still sleeps next to us on her mattress, but with another one coming we need to add more bed space and more separate options to help everyone get more sleep. We’ve rearranged our second ‘bed’room to now have room for an actual bed by removing Jordi’s work-at-home desk, putting more shelves in our closet, moving Jordi’s off-season clothes to the basement, putting Jordi’s clothes into our closet, and putting Josie and new baby clothes into what was Jordi’s dresser. Ezzy was very sad to see the dresser, pictured below, leave.

Step 2: Baby diapers

With Josie we used a cloth diaper service for her first year and then washed our own. This time around, we’ve got the hang of the laundry and it will be much cheaper to do it ourselves. I also took some quilting pieces and an old fleece nightgown that flattered no one and made a big pile of cloth wipes (some are on top of the dresser in the picture above). For those interested in the details, we just picked up some organic infant sized prefolds for the new one. We’ve already got the covers since we had that with the service and we’ve got Josie wearing mostly BumGenius 3.0’s right now and those will fit the baby once it gets bigger too and Josie hopefully stops needing them. Plus I’ve got Josie’s old Thirsties AIO size mediums too. The next diapers we’ll need to buy will actually be Josie’s, but I’m crossing my fingers she’ll finish figuring out the toilet before she gains much more weight.

Step 3: Food

I do most of the cooking in the house and while we wouldn’t starve in the first weeks post-baby thanks to takeout and Jordi’s couple of good meals, we’d probably spend a lot more money eating out once the baby comes. So a few weeks ago we bought a chest freezer and I’ve been cooking on the weekends (and once or twice during the week) to start packing it for post-baby easy eating. So far it’s got chili, waffles, chocolate waffles, black bean soup, brown rice, lasagna roll ups, BBQ/sloppy joes, oatmeal chocolate chip cookie dough, a few things from costco and meals that some of my mom friends we’re so kind to give to me at my baby shower. This weekend I plan to make lentil soup, black beans, more lasagna roll-ups. Making soup in August has been odd, but we’ll appreciate it come November.

The box the freezer came in has been in our living room for the last three weeks. Josie and the cats have been having a blast with it. I’m sick of looking at it. It’s got one more week before the trashman comes for it. This picture was early on, now it has been well covered in marker, stickers, crayons and the cats have made some ‘improvements’ to the roof like a skylight and textured ceiling.

Step 4: Random house fixes and babyproofing

Now that Josie will likely be able to get a few more steps ahead of me at home and be a bit less supervised while I’m dealing with #2, we’ve stepped up some babyproofing of the big heavy things she has never shown any interested in climbing. We’ve strapped the huge bookcases to the wall and will do the dresser this weekend too. We’ve also been doing other small fixes like cleaning in high places I can’t reach, hammering the nails back into our front porch as they eek their way out in the summer, and tomorrow we need to put a vent cover on our bathroom fan vent to prevent the birds that nest in it each spring from moving back in next year.

All in all if the baby came today we’d be ok, the clothes are washed and the diapers are ready. The kid might not have a name though for a while if it’s a boy, we’re uninspired currently. If you’ve got good ideas, let us know.

The driver for our trip to PA was attending Chad and Angie’s wedding and visiting everyone while we still only had one kid to cart along with us. It was Josie’s first wedding and she had a blast. She didn’t actually attend the ceremony as it was in the middle of the afternoon during nap time, which was definitely for the best as it was held in a hot room with major echoes. They had a moving and short ceremony in a beautiful building while perched precariously in the middle of a big huge set of stairs.

Afterwords, Josie woke up from her nap and we drove over to start to party! Everyone had a good time dancing, the little girls at the wedding mostly kicked it off. Josie was in the middle of the pack with a little girl who was almost 3 and a 1 year old also mixing it up. Chad and Angie had a lovely first dance.

Josie and Sammy also had a nice dance. Josie holds on tight. Josie got to try on Sammy’s hat and they showed each other their dance moves.

Oops, things got a little out of control

They had a traditional ‘who’s been married the longest’ dance. Jordi and I held out in good form for a while but my parents held out for second place!

And finally, got Abby in one nice picture.

Towards the end of July we went to Harrisburg, PA where my dad grew up and his side of the family still lives. We stay at my aunt Diane’s house with her family. Ever since they moved into their new house we’ve only been down to visit at Christmas time, usually they are charged with enjoying the long car ride to visit us in the summer. A number of years back they put in an inground pool, which we stare at longingly, in the snow at Christmas. This year, prompted by Chad and Angie’s wedding, we got to visit while the pool was open! We were in it every day and even got Diane into the pool with us, getting her hair wet once.

Josie really liked to pull other people around the pool on the boogie board. Eventually even I got a ride.

Josie got to be fast friends with Phoebe who took advantage of the available petting. The other cats, not permitted downstairs by Phoebe during the day, were not as interested in us.

We also made good use of a neighbors fire pit and made smores one night at the end of the driveway. Todd used a big axe to split the wood and everything. They were yummy, although somehow the chocolate and graham crackers seemed gratuitous, the marshmallows were good enough on their own.

All in all Abby did a good job avoiding my camera as she had a date night when we made smores, rarely joined us in the pool, and then left early for camp before we left town for the final goodbye.

I got some photos of Abby from the wedding… those next post!