Thanksgiving

 

We had a great thanksgiving this year.  We hosted it at our house, and Lee’s parents, sister, brother-in-law, and their daughter stayed with us.  My family lives here :)

Everyone helped with the side dishes, but we were in charge of the turkey, stuffing, and a couple of other things.  It didn’t dawn on me until less than a week before thanksgiving day that I’ve never actually made a turkey.  And I don’t have recipes for anything that goes with it!  Cue panic.  Luckily my friend Jenny saved the day and gave me some great recipes!  I followed her recipe for the turkey, and after watching hours of Food Network decided to brine it first.  I got SO many compliments on the turkey.  I think it was a combination of the brine, and they recipe that said to roast it breast side down for the first half of the cooking time.  Either way, I was so happy I didn’t screw it up!

It really was such a great day of getting to know family and just hanging out and relaxing.  Everyone said that they had a great time, and I’m glad.  I know I did.  It was so great to have so much family in one place.  And everyone got along :)

Okay, now for come pictures.

I’ve mentioned that we offered to host so that we would finally make a decision on a new table.  And here she is.  This is with 2 leaves (leafs? no.), so much longer than usual.  I know the rug is way too small.

Cooper and his cousin Cailee.  She is a year older than him.  Have I mentioned this is the first time Cooper and I have met my sister in law and her family?  Yep!  They lived in Alaska up until about a year ago, and then they lived a few states away.  They live in Lee’s hometown right now, which is about 3 hours from where we live.  They are a military family, and I don’t think they plan on staying close by for very long  :( 

Our little family :)

Cooper with my brother.  Cooper LOVES his uncle Tyler.  Seriously.  It’s so funny!  Cooper sat still in Tyler’s lap while he read the paper.  Cooper never sits still!

Cheese!!  This makes me laugh, I was following him around with the camera trying to get a good picture.

Lee’s side of the family

My side of the family

That evening, we decided to go walk around a local church/bible school that puts on a huge Christmas light display.  You can drive through it or walk.  I have lived here my whole life and never walked through it!  And only driven through once.  This was Cooper’s first time to really see Christmas lights, and he LOVED them!  He was so excited and kept pointing at them.

His arm is out because he was pointing :)

Such a great day!

Mish Mash

I feel like all I’m doing lately is playing catch up.  In life and on this blog!

Since I last posted, Cooper had another ear infection (shocking!), I had a mild stomach bug, Lee got the flu, then I got the flu.  Whew.

Somehow, Cooper managed to escape the flu.  I have no idea how, but I am SO SO grateful.  We all 3 got the flu shot also.  This was the first time I’d gotten it, and the first time since 8th grade (when I had to miss the Valentine’s Day dance) that I have had the flu.  Does that tell you anything about my decision to get the shot next year? 

Work is incredibly busy.  Between a typically busy year end, and a huge change my company is making, I have not been this busy since I started working here 3 years ago.  I don’t mind it though.  Makes the days go by faster.

I am sad that, because we are SO busy with work, (oh and that little thing called vacation days that no longer exist because of all the sickness since September) we aren’t going to get to start the annual tradition of having a little family Christmas getaway that I have been wanting to kickoff.  Maybe next year.

The good news about being sick so much lately?  I have lost as much as 10 lbs in the past 6 weeks.  I have managed to keep a steady 7 of it from coming back.  Yippee!  Haha.  My clothes don’t really fit any differently, but I’ll take anything :)

We have had 3 earthquakes in the past 3 days.  We live in Oklahoma.  Not normal for us!  What is normal is tornadoes, but not in November.  And yesterday?  Tornadoes AND an earthquake!  StopitrightnowMotherNature.

I am already in the holiday spirit and I am honestly fighting the urge to bring down the Christmas decorations!  Ridiculous!

Speaking of the holidays, we are hosting Thanksgiving at our house this year, as I have mentioned.  I guess this means that I have to cook the turkey?  How?!  Advice?!  I don’t even like to eat turkey.  I wish we had a turkey fryer, I actually will eat fried turkey.  Hmmm…Oh, Husband!!

I finally finished a photo book of Cooper’s first year!!  The one I made is actually for our parents, but I am still so happy about it!  I want to do a separate one for us.  The grandparents’ one only has pictures, but I want to include milestones, fun memories, etc. in ours.  I had to start with the easier one because I put so much pressure on myself and then stress so much I just don’t even start it.  Ridiculous.

Eggnog latte is back at Starbucks!!  I wait for it to come out like a lot of people wait for the pumpkin spice latte :)

16 Months

Cooper, you are 16 months old as of a few weeks ago, oops!!

You’re getting so big!  Here’s what you’ve been up to over the past couple of months.

You have been sick, sick, sick!  No fun at all!  You had your first ear infection, which you just couldn’t get rid of.  Along with that, you’ve had a myriad of other unknown bugs, not to mention cutting four molars at once!

You have become quite the picky eater, and you think it is hilarious to throw food behind your chair and ON your head!  You are just so, so funny :) You can eat A LOT.  Sometimes I wonder how we will afford to feed you when you’re a teenager.  You often eat even more than I could, and that’s saying something!  You love beans, pesto pasta, cheese, most fruits and vegetables, yogurt, and all carbs.  Your hands down favorites are bananas, club crackers, and sliced cheese.

You have a vocabulary of about 7 words: Dada, Dog, and Woof, which you have been saying for a while.  New ones over the past month are: Mama(!), Uh Oh, Up, and Truck.  Your favorite word is Uh Oh, and you say it all the time.  You love to do something you shouldn’t on purpose and say Uh Oh.  You are talking SO much gibberish over the past week.  It is non-stop and so funny!  Makes me think you might be on the verge of really beginning to talk.

You love to point at everything, and you love to clap!  You only started clapping a few months ago, and now you do it very often.  Particularly when you think you deserve praise.  Like, when you throw food on your head.  Stinker :)

You recently started blowing kisses.  I have no idea where this came from, as we never tried to teach you, but I am so glad you figured it out, because it is the cutest thing ever!

You are always up to give a kiss on the cheek.  But, you give big, wet, open mouth kisses.  Often with tongue, hahaha!

You started daycare this month!  You go 3 days a week.  I think you were a little shy the first several weeks, but now you seem to be more comfortable.  I can tell because we get reports saying that you have been grabbing faces and pulling hair.  Nice, buddy.

You have a new favorite toy.  The vacuum cleaner.  You are obsessed with the vacuum!  You even take us to the closet every day and make us take it out.  You would prefer that we run the vacuum each time also, but we don’t.  You like to play with the attachments and take the handheld part off.  You also love to drag the cord all over.  The other day you even took the plug-in part over to the electrical outlet and tried to plug it in!  Very smart boy :)  I will say that thanks to this newfound love of yours, the house is vacuumed way more than it would be normally!

You play rough.  I have always disliked it when people say “he’s all boy”, because, well, yes, you are all boy.  Um, because you are a boy.  Anyway, as much as I dislike the term, it’s appropriate.  You are all boy.  You can roughhouse and wrestle with the best of the middle school boys, I have no doubt.  You’re so rough that I often hesitate before laying down on the floor because I know that you will immediately run over and jump on me.  Quite literally.  I close my eyes and hold my breath, seriously!

You now refuse to drink milk before bed.  You used to down a full sippy, but now you shake your head no and push it away.    For some reason, this, to me, meant the end of babyhood L

We took you to the chiropractor for the first time this month.  You were having major issues with being sick all the time and you did not sleep more than 3 hours at a time for a month.  After endless trips to the doctor, we decided to try another route.  And I will tell you that your ear infections are gone and you have slept 11 hours straight since we went.  I’m not saying it was for sure the chiropractor, but SIX weeks of illness, and then it stopped after that adjustment.  We’re going back on a regular basis!

Speaking of sleep.  At night, you go down for bed about 7pm and get up about 6am.  When you are at home, you usually take 2 one-ish hour naps around 10 and 2.  When you’re at daycare, you take one nap at noon.

Oh my gosh, you LOVE to help cook!  Love love!  Every time I am making something, you ask to be picked up so you can watch and “help”.  Sometimes it is difficult, especially when I’m making something on the stove.  But, if I’m mixing something that is not hot, I will often let you help “stir” and you love it!  I think you will become a good little kitchen helper one day :)

love love love

Mama

Let’s catch up

Hi :)

Work is busy.  Life is busy.  I know you can all relate.  Here are some randoms for you.

Last weekend, Lee turned 30!  He is an old man. ;) I’m kidding.  I turn 30 next year.  Anyway, he refused to let me throw a party of any kind.  And I asked him every day for the longest time.  I even came up with “themes” to entice him.  I mean, all men love themed birthday parties, right?!  Anyway, we celebrated by going out to dinner with my parents.  It was very anti-climactic.  I will be having a party for myself!

Cooper turned 16 months over the weekend, also!  Birthday boys :)

Speaking of Cooper, last week, I was at my wit’s end with his illness(es?) and everything that went with them.  He had had an ear infection for a month and a half.  Had not slept in almost that long (meaning WE had not slept in almost that long).  Had taken 4 rounds of antibiotics.  Had woken up multiple times every single night, screaming and thrashing around in what was obviously some sort of pain, but we had no idea what.  He repeatedly banged his head on everything, on purpose.  He was never, ever happy.  He was having big problems at daycare, including biting two of the kids in his class (devastating for all of the parents involved). We went to his pediatrician’s office for the 5th time, where I completely lost it in the room with the doctor, because they were still not listening.  I was seriously almost sobbing.  They said he was fine.  He was having night terrors.  I know what night terrors are, he has had them off and on since he was about 5 months old, they are very, very sad.  This was not that.  Night terrors don’t cause my child to go completely rigid and them immediately limp in my arms and writhe around in pain for hours at a time.  She would.not listen to me.  This is my child.  I’m telling you this is not right, you need to listen to me.  I know that some of his behavior is typical of him just being a toddler, but my gut was telling me it was something more than that.  So, we went to a chiropractor the next day.  One that specializes in children under two.  She listened to every single thing I said.  Wrote every word down.  Sympathized with me.  Why can’t his ped’s office do that?  Anyway, she talked with me for about 20 minutes, all the while watching Cooper play around the room.  She would comment on things she noticed him doing, ask if it was normal or not.  She was very observant.  I felt so good about this.  Then she did a couple of adjustments on Cooper.  And I’m telling you that he slept for 11 hours every night after that.  The child who had not gone more than 3 hours in a row for over a month, has been sleeping 11 hours.  Just like that.  He wake up happy in the morning.  Not screaming.  He laughs, smiles, plays.  This is my child.  Don’t get me wrong, he is far, far from perfect, and still throws kicking and screaming meltdown tantrums, usually at the start of the word “no”.  But his happy disposition is back.  You can just tell that he feels better, whatever it was that was bothering him before.  I can’t tell you how grateful I am.  We’re going to continue to see the chiropractor in the future.  Not as a substitute for his pediatrician, I won’t get started on that road!  But I know that she helped him, and we will go back.

Is there a 12 step program for people who are addicted to collecting crafts projects?  I honestly have supplies for about 6 projects right now.  And I just finished 3 in the past week.  It is out of control.  I blame Pinterest.

We have decided to have Thanksgiving at our house this year.  Usually we go to my parents’ house.  Part of the reason I want to do it at our house is so that we are forced to buy a dining table, haha.  I’m not kidding.  We have the money saved, but we just can’t bite the bullet and go shop for one for some reason.  So I went ahead and confirmed Thanksgiving at our house so we would go get one!

That means my craft projects will have to find a new home, because they currently live on our existing (falling apart) dining table.  And I have gotten paint all over the place.  Oopsie.

There is a Starbucks drive thru on my way to my dad’s and to daycare.  Which means I pass it every morning.  And by “pass”, I mean, drive thru and buy something.  Not good for my hips or my wallet!

We have a long hallway that we want to turn into a gallery wall.  Maybe.  It’s kind of narrow.  I can’t decide whether we should do some ledges with pics sitting on them, or to hang them directly on the wall.  The narrowness is my concern, either way.  We also have the wall going upstairs that we could use for a gallery wall instead.  I hope to take some pictures and ask for advice on where to put it/what to do.

Enough randoms for now, I think.  Back to work for me!

Aye yi yi

Ummm, what happened to last week?  I was super busy at work and it went by so fast that I don’t even remember it.  I had several posts I wanted to write as well, but I clearly never found the time!  Hopefully I’ll get to them this week!

Guess who has another ear infection?  Yes, Cooper!!  Wtf?  Poor guy can’t catch a break.  3 days back at daycare and BAM!  I honestly have no idea if it is related to school.  I mean, it seems like it is, but I have to remember that the first time around, it had started before he even started daycare.  More likely, it is because of the teeth he is getting.  I read that the saliva that teething produces can get backed up in the ears while they are sleeping (aka, lying down) and can cause ear infections.  So, he’s been getting 4-5 teeth since September 1.  2 have popped through, and the others are still trying, so I think that may be the more likely culprit.  Either way, it sucks.  And the dr mentioned tubes.  Obviously it’s a little early in the game for that.  Not to mention he had never had an ear infection before last month.  But still.  I feel sad for the buddy :(

Both times he’s had the ear infection, we’ve taken him to an urgent care by our house, and I have been SO SO impressed with the doctors there!  Seriously, they are so great with Cooper.  Better than his pediatrician’s office even!  And I like his ped’s office.  They just spend more time with him at urgent care.  They make balloons out of those rubber gloves, and look in mommy and daddy’s ears before Cooper’s because he freaks out.  At the ped’s office, they make us hold him down and restrain him to look in his ears :(  Is that normal, by the way?  I understand that it might have to be done, but it seems like that shouldn’t be the first thing you try.  The looking in mommy and daddy’s ears thing works for Coop.  He doesn’t freak out when they do that first.  Just wondering…

We also almost took Cooper to the ER on Saturday night.  When I was giving him a bath, he started just shaking all over and his eyes got glazed over and he was just staring.  It was really scary.  Something was just not right.  He couldn’t move, or wouldn’t move, I’m not sure.  It wasn’t like he got chilled, it was something else.  I grabbed him out of the tub and called, well, screamed really,  for Lee.  I laid Cooper down to put a diaper on him and he just laid there limp, with glazed over eyes, and just staring.  Usually he freaks out when you change his diaper (these days he HATES it).  He was just acting so weird it was scaring me.  So we decided to go to the ER.  After a few minutes, he seemed to be doing okay.  And then in the car he just snapped out of it.  He was fine, just really tired.  I talked to him and asked him all of the questions I know he can answer.  Like where’s your hair, your nose, etc. And he answered them all for me and even started laughing.  So then we decided no to go to the ER.  I don’t know what was wrong.  He could have just been really  tired.  I mean, he had been tired for the past couple of hours because his naps are weird right now, but still.  It was freaky.  He went to sleep just fine, and even slept in until 7:30, instead of his normal 5am wake up.  Of course, he was also getting the ear infection, so maybe that had something to do with it?  Either way, I would like for that to never happen again.  I’m just glad that Lee hadn’t gone to the OU game.

I’m going to lunch with an old co-worker today that I haven’t seen in forever!  Old as in we worked together a long time ago :)  I’m excited!

Okay, back to work and hopefully I’ll get around to posting more this week!  I know you can’t wait :)

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!