Pueblo

With a long weekend on our hands Joe suggested we go to Pueblo for the State Fair! So I'm blogging from my sister Kari's house and uploading photos from her computer - what a moocher, I know!

We came down Friday afternoon since Joe got out of class early and were down in Pueblo by dinner - thank goodness, since Kari has turned into quite the Homemaker and was cooking us yummy Rachel Ray pretzle-covered chicken (sounds weird, tastes delicious). They have a cute little 2-story house that they really only use 1 story of, so we've effectively taken over the basement, creepy small bathroom and all. Patrick is sleeping in the SECOND pack n play that I bought Thursday (yes, I bought two, but I returned the first since the second only cost $10!) and Joe and I are on the futon. It's a good time! But all in all, Friday was pretty uneventful.

Saturday was pretty awesome - the girls (Kari, Kari's friend Aly, and I) spent the afternoon running errands (50% off scrapbooking stuff at Hobby Lobby), then at the house playing Skip-Bo (we're out of control, we know). Meanwhile the boys (Joe, Kari's hubby Jonathan and Jonathan's brother Justin) went to the Fair to watch MONSTER TRUCKS. Whoooooooooo-hoooooooo! Needless to say, they were a LITTLE excited about it, took LOTS of photos, and celebrated with fried snickers and oreos (I tried the oreos - not half bad!) That evening Joe and I stayed home with Patrick while the rest of the group went to a Sugarland concert (sounded fun, but baby bedtimes come around regardless of what YOU'D like to do).

Joe, Justin, and Jonathan

The winner of the wheelie contest. According to all the guys, this is AWESOME!

A feat I hope to never accomplish in our Honda Pilot

The concert-goers: Jonathan, Kari, Aly, and Justin

Sunday (today) has been the BEST so far. Kari had big ideas for breakfast so we had bacon and french toast - yummmmm! We all swore we would NOT be ready for the huge lunch we had planned at noon, but only two hours later we were back in the kitchen making all sorts of goodness for lunch! Jonathan's parents, Melodie and Tom, came over and we cooked T-bone steaks, sweet potatoes, baked beans, french bread, and had homemade peach cobbler (with peaches grown on Kari and Jonathan's backyard peach tree) with homemade ice cream. Does a lunch GET better than that??? I think not. Tonight is the CU/CSU football game so we're heading to a sports bar to watch it on TV and cheer for our respective teams (of which the only RESPECTABLE team is CSU, thank you very much).

So we've been here three days for the Fair and I have NOT managed to actually make it TO the fair yet. Hopefully I can catch some action tomorrow morning before we have to leave because I have never been to a fair, state or otherwise, in my life.

Engorged Freezer

While Patrick was a newborn and I was still in school I pumped milk like MAD. He was being watched (thank you, all you babysitters!) 3 hours a day for 3 days a week, and for newborns that means at LEAST one feeding during that time, maybe 2. He ate more from a bottle than he did when he nursed - I know because he would drink 5 ounces of milk from a bottle, but I had to pump twice to get that much. So you can see why I was terrified that I would run out of milk! If he got hungry, I'd be pumping day and night AND nursing! At first he hated taking bottles, but I figured one of those days he would just say "what the heck, might as well, mom's not here!" and grub down all that milk I'd been storing.

School came and school went, I graduated, and still he refused the bottle. We went on a few trips with him so I would pump some milk before we left - in case he got hungry, he could have some fresh milk. But he never did, so the milk kept piling up. Now he is 7 months old and a HUGE fan of solids, drinking out of a sippy cup, and we're working on paring down the number of times he nurses in favor of times that he eats real foods (though no meals have been replaced as of yet). Quite frankly, I'd like to be DONE with this nursing thing by Christmas. He's had his day in the sun, I gave him LOTS of great bonding and straight-from-the-source goodness, and now it's time to eat with the big boys.

So my question is: What do I do with the NINETY-FIVE OUNCES of breastmilk in my freezer?????? That's not even including the 10 oz I defrosted today for our trip down to Pueblo. 8 oz = 1 cup, 16 cups = 1 gallon. I had 13 cups, darn near an entire gallon! I would never pour a gallon of cow's milk down the drain, and I didn't even milk the cow! Perhaps I should count my blessings that he nursed instead of taking a bottle (much easier to cart around THAT milk) and turn the rest insto homemade ice cream for unsuspecting visitors - mwahahaha! ;)

Doesn't look like I'll be needing that log-in number

Although I managed to memorize Patrick's daycare log-in number at the gym it looks like that is a lost cause (at least for the time being) thanks to an awesome case of Wuss-itis on Patrick's part. He has developped a serious case of separation anxiety. No "stranger danger," he's fine with ANYONE, just as long as mommy is in sight. Preferably holding him in her arms, thank you very much. Any tips on how to help with separation anxiety? Anything? Anything?

Although Patrick is quite a good crawler he doesn't seem to revel in this new-found freedom - he cries as he crawls (very funny!) over to wherever I am, like "why don't you just knock off what you're doing and GET ME??!? This is AWFUL!" What a silly, silly man.

So old! ....until I do the math

Patrick turned 7 months on Monday - he's SO OLD! That's, like, ALMOST a year! ...until I remember that a year has 12 months in it, not 10. 5 months left, not 3. Then, while going to the gym I had to remember Patrick's log-in number for their daycare - nothing huge, just a 4-digit number, but it got me thinking HOW MANY NUMBERS we're supposed to have memorized! I am completely boggled!

Here are numbers I have memorized:
my phone
Joe's phone
my parents phone
my social Security
Patrick's log-in for daycare
how many months in a year (sometimes)
the combination to my bike lock

Here are numbers I SHOULD have memorized:
Joe's and Patrick's social security numbers
my driver's license
my license plate
Joe's license plate
Joe's parents home phone
ANY of my siblings phone numbers
how many letters are in the alphabet (seriously, I can never remember this one. 24? 26?)
How many feet in a mile (5280, right? but my questioning means it's not memorized)
How old my parents are, or at least what year they were born in so I can attempt the math
any of our bank account numbers (I don't know a single one!)
What year I got married (this is just pitiful....)

As you can see, I have quite a ways to go when it comes to numbers and memorization. For the time being, I am staying organized so I can at least quickly look up the info, though I have to dash out to the parking lot if I ever need to know our license plate number. Saaaaaaaaad.

Just Married! June 3, 200....6? Yes, I think that's right.

Patrick, the legless "almost" 1-year old, enjoying a tomato.

...and here is the toy car that moves

While Joe's parents were here 2 weeks ago they brought Patrick his very first car! We were all excited about it, especially the cool "roll bar" that it had on the back, behind the wheels. The bar seemed pretty poor design, though, since it actually did NOT prevent the little car from rolling up on its back. Also, it was too short to be used for the baby to pull itself up on. Hmmm....maybe the bar was just for an adult to carry the car around. Who knows. Here is a picture of the car:

Today, while browsings Craigslist, a smarty-pants parent who was selling such a car had figured out the car converts to a WALKER and the "roll bar" is the HANDLE! Of course I didn't need to buy the car, already owning one and all, but that just shows that it pays to browse craigslist now and then! Here is said walker:


At any rate, Patrick has been enjoying sitting on the car - he still needs to figure out how to make it move, Flinstones-style. Tomorrow we will try it as a walker, and I will be browsing craiglist to see what other multiple functions his toys have that we haven't figured out yet.

The Life-Sucking Camera

I really have a love/hate relationship with cameras. I LOVE cameras because:

1. You will never look as young and beautiful as you do now. As of tomorrow, you will be older.

2. Patrick will never be as young as he is now. Man, the days fly by! (as do the milestones!)

3. I love to scrapbook. You can't very well scrapbook without any photos.

4. It's digital! If you take the pictures you can always delete them, but you can't recapture what you don't take.

5. Preserving the present for when it becomes history is sort of an obsession for me (28 journals and counting...)

I HATE cameras because:

1. I always look back and think "look how young and silly I was! Thank goodness I'm grown up now," but I know in the back of my mind that 5 years from now.....

2. You want to take pictures to capture the moment as it happened, but instead of letting the moment happen, you're interrupting it by yelling "say CHEEEEESE!!"

3. If I DON'T interrupt to tell "CHEEEESE!!" all my "natural" photos turn out like crap. People chewing with their mouth open, half-blinks, that kind of thing.

4. When visiting some place beautiful I feel compelled to stick people in front of it, completely obliterating the scenery. Like #2, all my nature photos turn out like crap. What is, in real life, the MOST GORGEOUS view of the mountains you've ever seen, on my camera it looks like a silly green hill. And why aren't there any people in this picture of the silly green hill?

5. I almost NEVER delete photos. The exception is if people are chewing with their mouths open of half-blinking, when I think "why did I bother taking this photo anyway? I should have just yelled "say CHEEESE!!!" So now I have 5,000 photos of the same people in front of obliterated backgrounds, NOT living in the moment because they were focusing on hamming it up for my stupid photo. Garrrrrrr!

That being said, it's time to post some more photos, not living in the moment at the park. We spent one evening at Spring Canyon park, the MOST AWESOME park I've ever been to (besides Disneyland, but this is a FREE park). Joe and I went there for Patrick but really played on the toys more ourselves!

Patrick practices driving. Next stop: a tay car that MOVES

Kirsta helps out Patrick on the teeter-totter. The park is beautiful and the teeter-totter is fun, but can you see any of that? No, not really. Just us :)

An intrepid explorer!

To clot or not to clot...

You know how when you think about something physical you begin to fixate on it - like having hairy legs? The rest of the day you can't concentrate because your legs are SO hairy! Or you're SO hungry! Or your lips are SO chapped! Well, I had the same type of fixation, only it was about my calf, which hurt. Just one calf, the most common place for a blood clot. Just the same leg that had a blood clot last time. Just a few weeks after taking many multiple airplane rides. No biggie, it's probably just another blood clot clot...!!!!

I called the doctor, who said "call urgent care!" I called urgent care, who said "go to the ER!" I called back and said "really??? really, really??" And urgent care sent me there anyway. Why does nobody but the ER do ultrasounds at a minute's notice? I may never know. But Patrick and I spent a wonderful Wednesday morning in the ER at Poudre Valley Hospital, riding around on the hospital bed and getting my leg gooped up and my blood drawn.

THANK GOODNESS, I do NOT have a blood clot. Now I can fixate on something else, like how my left eye feels dry...

Mother + Nature

Three pots, 3 cherry pits, and a whole lot of crossing my fingers that one will grow.

Joe and I (ok, I) decided to plant a tree for each of our children when they're born. So far we only have one child and, until today, no trees planted. Since the church we go to has 8 (!!!) beautiful cherry trees that we made some delicious cherry pies from this summer, we (ok, I) decided that would be fun and meaningful type of tree to plant. Outside we went to dig up some dirt for the little pots. The dirt around our apartment is pure clay so I ended up reallocating some of the dirt from our potted houseplant, but Patrick enjoyed the grass and pinecones despite our lack of success in the dirt department.

Patrick is now officially crawling!

Maybe if the cherries don't work out I'll plant a pine tree.

Off we go into the wild blue yonder!

We took our first-ever camping trip as a family of 3! It had rained all week prior but we took our chances, and totally lucked out! It DID rain...well, sprinkle... but it was when we were already cozy in our tent for the night. In spite of sprinkles, it was the warmest I've ever been while camping! We had the foresight to plan for the rain we hoped wouldn't come, so all our firewood was covered and we had a nice toasty fire and hot chocolate and (I'm not too proud to admit) s'mores for breakfast.

Patrick prepares for cold weather with a warm hat (which we didn't need!) and a lighter (niiice).

Joe managed to wrestle away the lighter from Patrick and make the fire himself.

Joe and Patrick explored a little and chilled a lot.

Patrick enjoyed his first taste of s'mores!

Lunch time!

Patrick has gotten quite good at eating, which makes mealtimes that much more exciting! His neverending disdain for plain ol' rice mush led us to more exciting foods, like spaghetti, chicken casserole, and the ever-popular graham crackers. He LOVES 'em. See for yourself how he wields (and chokes on) that little square of childhood.

Currently: working on the sippy cup. The trouble seems to be keeping his hands away from the spoon when we feed him then getting his hands on the cup to drink. He must think we're nuts.

Just telling us how much he likes sweet potatoes. He REALLY likes them.

Speaking of mad faces...

Here's a little video of Patrick's new mad face - he gets a little huffy, as you can see.

I'm ba-ack!

Comcast came early to transfer our internet (we just moved and they weren't supposed to be here for another week) so I find myself in the happy position of blogging 2 days in a row! Now, what to blog about....

For today: Photos. I've heard complaints that I don't update photos enough. What, doesn't scrapbooking count? Enjoy, you whiners.

Like father, like son: Colorado Ram fans

My two favorite mad photos of Patrick.

Instead of feeling sorry for him, we bust out the camera!
Family photo in Hawaii, on our reunion. Patrick was doing his best to sleep through it.
I obviously need to dye my hair so we can be the "red, white, and blue"

Patrick works SO hard on crawling! no success yetJoe got tickets to "The GUN Show" - He and Eric enjoyed WWII memorials

and the associated artillary.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Ahhhhh, Kalena relaxing in the carseat on one of our various Hawaiian excursions

Welcome, Welcome

This is a big day. I'm leaving a long-term relationships with Facebook in favor of a blog. Call it peer pressure, call it a smart move, but here I am. I haven't broken up with Myspace yet, though, so maybe I still have one foot out the door.... we'll just see how this works out.



The photo is in honor of Elsha, who convinced me blogging was a good thing.