Our Weekend

We had a really good, long weekend :)  Mostly just played with Cooper.  This post is really just an excuse for a weekend picture dump!

I had taken Friday off, since we were keeping Cooper home from daycare because of his sickies (I should note that he was fully recovered by Wednesday last week!  We still kept him home to be sure though)

Lee was unexpectedly home, also.  He came home on Wednesday from a work trip that was supposed to have been all week long.  He had flu-like symptoms, and drove home and straight to urgent care, which we know well by now :) Luckily, it was not the flu, just  a bad sinus infection.  But bad enough that he stayed home Thursday and Friday.

So.  Since Cooper was all better, I finally took him to get a MUCH needed haircut on Friday!  His appointment had been postponed since the beginning of September.

Fresh from the salon!

I know, he is not a baby anymore.  Sads :(

The rest of Friday we just hung around the house and played.  He had been carrying around an empty water bottle (This child does not need store bought toys.  He won’t play with them, and chooses water bottles and wooden spoons instead), and I was in the pantry and spotted a box of rice we never use.  I poured some rice in his water bottle, and viola!  A new favorite toy!

 

Saturday, we hung around the house and I finished a couple of projects I have been working on.  Nothing too exciting.  We did break out bubbles for the first time.  Cooper liked them :)

And I took Cooper on a walk around the neighborhood.  He loves “stroller rides”.  He talks the whole time :)

Sunday we did laundry and cleaned.  Because this is what the whole house looked like. Yikes.

Oh, I have to tell this story.  Because I was annoyed and felt stupid.  It will be kind of long.

I attempted to take the dogs to the groomer over the weekend.  Since we have moved, our regular groomers, who we LOVE, are not really convenient anymore.  So, someone had recommended to my dad a groomer that is only a few miles from our house.  On Friday morning, I loaded the dogs in the car and set off.  Well.  The highway right by our house, that would have led right to the groomer, is confusing.  I can’t explain it.  Basically there was no way to get to the part of the highway I needed from the direction I was going.  Which I didn’t know until I had already gotten on to the highway.  Which doesn’t have any exits after ours for a loooong time.  So once I realize I am an idiot, I’m basically cursing under my breath for a good 20 minutes until I can turn around and get to the exit I need.  Which should have taken 3 minutes, tops.  Shockingly the girls were being so good in the car.  Until they noticed that I was turning around on the highway, and maybe sensed my attitude.  Then the panting started.  Ugh.  I finally get to the exit I need, and am driving down the only street in the area.  Online, it said they are north of a grocery store.  Well, there is nothing north of the grocery store.  A wooded lot.  That’s it.  Finally I am able to put the address in my phone (the address was difficult to find, of course).  My phone keeps leading me into the middle of a trailer park?  I mean, more than once.  I swear to you that I drove up and down every single possible street.  It’s not a big area.  I could NOT find it.  They weren’t answering their phones either.  After 40 minutes of searching with panting/whining dogs in the car, I was like “This place canNOT be in a trailer, right?”  So I call my dad and after some explaining, he says, “Well, maybe it’s in a trailer…..”, to which I reply “We are probably not taking our dogs to a trailer park dog groomer”.  But this place came recommended, so surely they are not in a trailer, right?  I get home and we google the address.  The dot that shows you the location?  It was in the middle of nowhere!!  There were streets forming a triangle around it, but nothing leading to it!  I was dumbfounded.  Where in the hell is this place?!  Finally, the owner calls me back.  She acted like she was shocked I couldn’t find it.  Then she tells me they are next to a store.  One that I had plainly seen.  But they don’t have a sign!!  She said it is on the windows.  But, the street is ABOVE the the shopping strip, the land around the street is sunken, there is no way to see the windows from the street!  The store that I had seen, it had a huge sign on top  of the building.  And by “shopping strip”, I mean a little building that apparently has 2 stores in it, not one like I thought when I saw one sign.  I suggested that they invest in a sign.  And to tell google where they are located.  And then I made an appointment with our old groomer.  Haha.

Dinner Winners

I thought I’d share a recipe or two, since I’ve been cooking more lately.  Thanks, in part, to the freezer meals I’ve posted about before.

The first one is Pesto Chicken Stuffed Shells from What’s Cookin Chicago?  I found Joelen’s site via what else?  Pinterest!  Check it out, because she has tons of freezer-friendly recipes, this one included!  At first, I was a little skeptical of the recipe, given that it has cream cheese in it.  I mean, I love cream cheese, don’t get me wrong (I may or may not be known to eat it with a spoon on occasion), but it seemed like it might be a little heavy for the shells.  I considered substituting ricotta cheese, but I decided to give it a try with the cream cheese.  And I’m so glad I did.  Y’all.  These are SO good!!  Seriously, Lee and I both loved them!  Here is the recipe if you don’t want to click through to her website:

Pesto Stuffed Chicken Shells

12-16 jumbo pasta shells
4oz cream cheese, softened
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese + 1/4 cup for topping
3 tablespoons prepared pesto (homemade or store bought)
2 cups shredded cooked chicken
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot over high heat, boil water and prepare pasta shells as directed on package. Cook pasta shells only until al dente. The pasta will finish cooking when the dish is baked. Drain the pasta shells and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the rest of the ingredients, except the 1/4 cup of cheese for the topping. Fill the pasta shells with the filling and place in a baking dish.  Sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup of cheese over filled shells.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and bake shells uncovered for 30 minutes or until shells are bubbling hot and cheese melts.

To Freeze - Prepare as directed but place filled shells in an oven- and freezer-proof baking dish. Top with remaining 1/4 cup of cheese over filled shells, cover and freeze. When ready to prepare, defrost. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and bake shells uncovered for 35-40 minutes or until shells are bubbling hot and cheese melts.

I doubled this recipe, and baked half that same night, and froze the other half.  They were just as good from frozen as they were freshly made!  We did add tomato sauce to ours, and they were a little dry without it.  Overall, this is something that is now on regular rotation at our house!

This next recipe isn’t dinner, but it is definitely a winner.  Another Pinterest lovely.  Although fall is just around the corner, and you might not really have use for a frozen drink recipe, you should still go ahead and bookmark this just in case we get one of those “surprise it’s not fall yet!” days that we usually have around here.

Frozen Strawberry Mojito

1 can frozen limeade

1/2 of the limeade can of rum

2 cups frozen strawberries

a muddled mixture of a few leaves of fresh mint and the pulp of two limes

Throw everything in the blender and give it a whirl.

This was amazingly delicious!  It could have used a touch of sugar, but I didn’t add any and still consumed most (okay, basically all) of this on my own, over 2 nights.

Enjoy!

Our Weekend

Was spent doing this:

Cooper is still sick.  For 4 weeks now :(

It started out as a runny nose the Monday of the week he started daycare.  We thought it was allergies and gave him benadryl, which really did nothing.

One weekend, he refused to sleep unless we were holding him, so we rook him to urgent care, where we saw seriously the best doctor ever.  I loved her.  She said it was an ear infection.  A “bad” one.  Yikes.  They gave him amoxicillin.

A week later, he was not any better, so we went to see our pediatrician.  That was the day he started getting the rash from the amoxicillin.  The ped said his ear infections was not gone, so he gave us a different antibiotic.  We have since learned that the rash may NOT be because he was/is allergic.  That rash apparently happens in 5-10% of those who take amoxicillin, and it’s just a reaction, and not allergic.  Weird.  So maybe he is not allergic.  We will probably steer clear of it in the future though, because it got pretty bad.

5 days after that, which was this Saturday, Cooper was so lethargic, and all he wanted was for me to hold him.  He even slept on me.  As you can probably imagine, that never happens these days!  And although I did enjoy cuddles, it was so sad :(  And his fever was 103-104.  His terrible runny nose was back again, and he was acting like he had been when we went to urgent care.  He wasn’t sleeping at night, and he wasn’t eating at all.  Mini club crackers is all we could get him to occasionally eat.

We decided to call the pediatrician, who prescribed a third antibiotic!  A baby Z-Pak, for those of you familiar with the amazingness of a Z-Pak.  They always kick whatever you’ve got, for me at least.  It’s only a 3 day dose, so he should have been feeling better today.  Which, his runny nose was WAY better, non-existent really.  But, his fever!  I don’t understand why he would have a constant 103-104 fever.  It was sooo hard to get it down, too.  We have to give him Motrin every 4 hours, instead of 6 like it says (on the doctor’s advice) and even then, we really never could get it all the way down. 

In addition to this constant sickness, he is getting 4-5 teeth.  We think 5 but aren’t sure.  Poor guy!  So when his fever wasn’t better today, I called and they said to bring him in just to check.  Because I wasn’t sure if maybe it’s just his teeth?  That is such a high fever for teething though.  And his sleeping is still horrible.  And he still wouldn’t eat.

After a really sad appointment where they took blood and swabbed his throat, everything came back normal.  And the doctor said his ears look great.  So.  He doesn’t have anything.  Good news.  Hopefully he is at the end of this business.  I feel so so badly for him being sick for a month!  He did eat some lunch and dinner today, though.  And he played for a little bit, so that is promising.  I just feel so bad when I can’t help, you know?

I wonder if, since he started getting sick before he started daycare, if maybe his little immune system couldn’t shake the ear infection with all the little germies from all the kids at school.  Just to be safe, we are keeping him at home for the week to see if that helps.  I hope so, because I miss my happy, playful buddy!

Some thoughts this Tuesday

A plague has taken over my house.  Lee is sick.  Cooper is sick.  I am sick.  We have all been sick for over 2 weeks now.  Lee and I have some kind of upper respiratory horribleness.  Cooper has an ear infection.  His first one.  The ONLY symptom of which was a runny nose.  How am I supposed to know that means an ear infection?!  Mom fail.  And to top it off, on day 9 of amoxicillin (yesterday), he broke out in a head to toe rash.  So I guess he is allergic.  Luckily we were already back at the dr office when I noticed it.

My phone is dying.   I have an iPhone, not the 4 but whatever was before that.  The battery barely lasts until 9pm.  If I use it a lot during the day, to do important things like check twitter 3203573 times, then it will barely last until 5pm.  This morning, I unplugged it at 6:15am, did not use it, and when I looked at it when I got to work, at 7:30, it was already down to 88%.  And I hadn’t even looked at it!  The screen freezes for a few seconds before it will do anything.  I’ve had it for 2 years, and I don’t feel like it should be dying already.  I guess I’m just going to have to get the 5 whenever that comes out :)

Today, it will be 98 outside, and Thursday, it will be 66.  No wonder everyone is sick. 

I can’t decide what Cooper should be for Halloween.  I feel like nothing will ever be as cute as his scarecrow costume last year.  He was freaking adorable.  Also, are we supposed to take him trick-or-treating this year?  He’s only 15 months, so probably not, but how fun would that be?  Not for him, but for me because I would get so much candy ;)  Ohhh, that makes me think, we will actually HAVE trick-or-treaters this year because of our new neighborhood!  Yay fun!

I have pinned SO many things on Pinterest for fall/Halloween décor.  I really want to do some of them (most are DIY) but I don’t have the time to do many, if any at all. I have a bunch of DIY craft stuff I’m already doing for various things!  This is a giant dilemma in my life right now.  Seriously, I think about it daily.  Specifically a wreath, and milk carton ghosts.  I need to get a life.

I can’t believe I just wrote a paragraph on my Pinterest dilemma. 

I am super excited for fall tv.  I just started listing my DVR list of definites and maybes.  Then it got long and I got embarrassed and though about reconsidering the amount of tv I watch.  So I will just say that the one new show I’m hoping is good is Up All Night with Christina Applegate about being new parents.  It looks really finny!   What is YOUR favorite fall show?

School!

I think we all know that Cooper started school last week.  Thank you all for your words of encouragement!  I was a nervous wreck, and of course I woke up late.  Cooper also had  a cold complete with runny nose.  But he did GREAT!!  I was so surprised, and so was his teacher, since I had warned her that he had never been to daycare before! 

Since we were running late, I was in a hurry, but we rushed around and hurriedly took a few pictures before heading out the door.

Dragging his backpack around:

A quick pic with mama, not the best (Oh, p.s. he also had a busted lip from running around in his crib one naptime the weekend before, poor kid):

We got to school, found his room, and met his teacher.  His regular teachers were not there this week for various reasons, which made me even more nervous, but the girl taking their place was super nice and I really like her.

The kids are able to eat breakfast when the arrive if you bring something, which we did, so we got him all situated in those freaking adorable tables that have all those bucket-like seats in them.

Mr Cutie Patootie in his seat with his waffle.  This is his WTF face.  He had this face pretty much the entire time I was with him.  He didn’t freak out, just kept looking around like “what is going on here?”  You can tell he was tired and didn’t feel 100% in the pictures, which added even more concern for me.  Yes, I am always this neurotic.  My poor husband and child.

The teacher offered to take our picture :) I told you I liked her.  Look at his cute little feet dangling :)

I didn’t want to linger and/or get upset in front of Cooper, so I talked to the teacher for about a minute after this, warned her that I would probably call a million times to check on him, and I left.  But, then I had to go back in because I had forgotten his enrollment form that was in his backpack.  Crap.  I ran in real fast and grabbed it.  Cooper was crying a little.  More whining, but the teacher was taking care of him and I ran out.  He did see me but barely.

After I got everything settled with the office, I left and was on my way to work when I realized that in all of my nervousness I had taken his waffle with me!  Oh no.  I had to take it back because he needed to eat.  So I turned around, not a big deal because I hadn’t made it far at all.  But by the time I got back to his room, there were lots more babies and mamas there, so I was able to run in and out without him even seeing me.  And he wasn’t crying or anything.  Probably just had his WTF face on :)

I did not cry.  I teared up a lot of times, but I did not cry.  Until everyone at work asked me how it went.  After the 3rd person, I did start crying. I was grateful though, that everyone cared.  And understood and I got hugs and felt better.  I called several times during the day, and I was surprised to hear that he was doing great!  They said that he cried for a minute when they went on the playground (weird, he loves outside) and also for a minute when they went to the gym.  But other than that, he was having a “great” day :) I was soooooo relieved to hear that!  He even ate most of his lunch AND napped on a cot! 

Lee had something after work that day and I could have picked him up, but it would have been pretty late, so my dad insisted on picking him up.  He missed him and had been texting me all day about how Cooper was doing :)  My dad said when he went to the room, Cooper was playing at a table, heard my dad’s voice, and went running to him, haha.  So cute.

Cooper’s little report card thing for the day said “Cooper had a GREAT day! :)”

On Friday when I dropped him off, he did cry a lot, but his teacher had him and I left pretty quickly.  I ran into a girl I went to college with in the hall. Turns out her son and Cooper are in the same class.  She has really helped me to feel even more at ease with everything.  They love the daycare.  And she told me that as soon as they walked into the classroom on Friday, Cooper stopped crying and was fine.  I called only ONE time to check on him that day.  He was doing great again :)

Oh, funny story, Lee got off work early on Friday, and was going to pick up Cooper, but it was during their nap time, so I called to see if he was napping.  All I said was “My husband was going to pick up our son early, but I wanted to make sure he wasn’t napping”, and the girl on the phone said “Okay, is this Cooper’s mom?”  I was a little embarrassed, laughed and said yes.  I really don’t think I’m the crazy mom that calls all the time, but it was funny.

Now, the question is…am I still allowed to call every day to check on him?!  Do people just not call during the day?  This will take some getting used to!