Lunch Date

We had a lunch date today at Applebees. 2 Mamas and 5 kiddos aged 3 or less. Here's the crew:1 month/ 3 yrs 4 months/ 12 months/ 3 years 5 months/ 25 months

It actually went better than you would think. Only one falling from the chair injury. The people sitting closest to us left pretty quickly after we sat down so we weren't really even drowning out anyone's conversations. One 1 month old baby slept the entire time! We even got to fully (I think) cover two topics of Mama conversation. I am happy to report Reese sat so nicely next to me. Of course his burger was HOT on arrival so he was convinced it was too hot the whole time. He had to wait to eat it once we arrived home--- when it had sufficient time to cool, you know.
Two sweet brothers getting along famously!
It is always nice when the bigger brother puts up with his little brothers face and ear investigations. (Not sure why Gus' finger is in Reese's ear, but Reese doesn't seem to mind.)

Menu Plan Monday

I have a dry erase calendar on my fridge that I write my meal plan on. The dry erase makes it so easy to switch around days if plans change. This also lets me write the whole month if I feel like it. Which I've been doing, so I don't know why I keep forgetting to post. Today Organizing Junkie has a giveaway, so I am definitely linking up! Go on over to check out some other recipe ideas and post your own to get a chance to win.
Last Saturday was Gus' 1st birthday. We are having his party this Saturday, so my dad will be visiting from VA. Kyle got a promotion so he is now on days instead of swing (let me say--this really is a tough transition). For the first time in our marriage this means he is home at normal dinner time so we can go out to dinner at a normal time and not rush home for work. SO...maybe we'll eat this stuff or just maybe we'll go out to eat with my dad! But this is my intentionof what we'll eat while my dad is here.

1. Ham and Asparagus Lasagna (this will be the third time this month--YUM)
2. Stir Fry--I bought a bag of fresh veggie mix to stir fry and I'll use brown rice. I used to just use soy sauce to top but in the Food Network Magazine I found a sauce recipe and we've used it several times now. 3/4 cup chicken broth, 1 Tablespoon corn starch, 2 Tablespoons each of soy sauce, rice vinegar and Chinese rice wine, 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil, 1 Tablespoon sugar, 2 teaspoons+ of Asian chili sauce (I have a sweet chili sauce I use so I use about 2 tablespoons). YUM!!
3. Fajitas-Carne Asada from Costco already marinaded, with onion and peppers and mexi rice.
4. Grilled Pork Chops in Stubbs marinade, broccoli, mashed red potatoes
5. Hamburgers (I use lipton onion soup mix sometimes or cumin and salsa mixed with the ground beef--the smallest fat content I can find so they don't shrink), Quinoa Salad, Baked Beans, cow cake for Gus' party.
6. 2 days for eating out or leftovers.

Don't forget to check out OrgJunkie at the link above for some other ideas and to enter win the giveaway.

Crazy Antics

Reese is doing crazy stuff all the time now. He is very into IronMan and Spiderman. He runs around and "flies" on his belly on the swings. It's quite funny. He also flies like Buzz Lightyear. When the Princess and the Frog is on he dances like crazy. I need to try to get a photo of that!He also swims in the tub now.

His new thing is to smash his face into the bubbles and try to see through them.
This is what I got when I asked for a nice smile.

Angus Robert "Gus" turns ONE!

Gus was born one year ago today. After about a zillion appointments with my regular OB, perinatologist and NST visits we made it to my scheduled c-section at 38 weeks 0 days. They took Gus to the nursery while my surgery was finishing up. Kyle went with him to do the ceremonious cutting of the cord and oversee the first bath and whatever else they did. I told him to make sure we got the right baby back! They brought him almost immediately after I got wheeled back to my roon. I didn't even have time to make up on yet! I am still looking super puffy, but he looks so darn cute with his hand on his cheek.

This photo was taken when he was about 2 hours old, dressed and waiting for the grandparents to arrive. The cow suit never got on, just the hat. This was our joke to help the grandparents get over the name Angus. Gus was 6 pounds 9 ounces, 19 inches long.

Just one lightening fast year later he's about 18 ish pounds (on the home scale). He has gotten one tooth on the bottom. He drinks adequately from a sippy cup. He eats like a champ anything and everything. He loves playing with whatever Reese has, especially Buzz Lightyear who he hold over his head to make him fly. It is so cute.
For his birthday we went out to dinner at Red Robin. Here he is craning his neck to see the singers.

Grabbing at his ice cream sundae with gusto!

The first handful of birthday whipped cream!!

Then we hit Nordstrom to buy some summer sandals that can get wet like keen's but his feet were too little and the stride rites were just ugly. So only Reese got new shoes. The Elmos and the dinosaur Vans have to be retired. He's moving on to his orange addidas--he picked these out himself. However his first choice was a 69.95 pair which we did not buy--my boy likes his shoes!!

Once we got home Gus tried to climb into the tub with Reese, so in he went. (because of his excema he's not supposed to use soap or bubble bath, only cetaphil) He had a grand old time playing in the tub. Here he's sporting his Santa look.

I can not believe my sweet baby is getting so big...ONE YEAR OLD! He is trying to walk already so any day he'll officially stop being our baby and become a toddler...sniff, sniff. We love this little cutie!! He is so sweet and easy going and snuggly!! Happy Birthday sweet boy!!

To Infinity and Beyond!!!!!

Woo Hoo!! We saw Toy Story 3 at the movie theater tonight. It was Reese's first time at an indoor theater. In the summer of 2007 he did attend the Rodeo Drive-In several times, though he slept through most of it. His ticket for a 3 year old was $6.75---doesn't that seem like highway robbery? We did not do 3-D because none of us wanted to wear the glasses for the whole movie.Somehow I cut off the Skittles he is holding up, so excited he got to pick the candy.

Pumping the butter into the middle of our popcorn tub....Reese really did it all by himself.

We got excellent seats right in the center. Reese sat on a booster and could see just fine.
He ate LOTS of popcorn.

He's getting a little over zealous with his "CHEESE" smiles.
Reese was very pleased to have a giant Pepsi.

He was so cute, sitting with his feet crossed.
The first thing he saw upon entering was Iron Man, so we had to get a photo.
On the way out we got a shot with War Machine.

Reese had a fantastic time at his first movie theater movie. Now my only worry is how to convince him we don't own this on blu-ray yet when he asks to watch it again tomorrow.

Gus Got a TOOTH!!!

Gus finally got a tooth! His bottom right tooth popped through on the 15th...11 days before his 1st birthday. Reese got his first tooth 16 days before his 1st birthday. We assumed it was so late because he was premature. If he'd full term he would have been 9 months old. But Gus was only 2 weeks early and still has late blooming teeth, so I guess our kids just are late teeth getters.

Really that is just fine with me. If he'd had teeth way back we may not have made it this long nursing.Another nice thing is that we haven't had to brush until now. Gus was pretty into his first brushing experience.He wouldn't let go of the brush even to pet the cat.
She must be getting old, because Tara never let Reese do this. Gus totally rolled over onto her and just laid there. And she just let him do it.
He is at work on his bottom left tooth as we speak. We'll see if it's there in the morning!

Playground Open for Business

The playground is finally finished!! Woo hoo! Just in time for our not so summer weather.

Reese is pretty excited with big boy swing. He also LOVES the slide but would not demonstrate as long as I had the camera out.

Gus loves his swing too. We took down one of the big boy swings and replaced it with Gus' toddler swing that we had hanging in the basement. I love how his hair flies up and he squeals. Too cute!

Here's the whole thing. Seriously that parking garage in the background is not nearly as overwhelming and offensive in person. I think it's so in your face here because I am standing on the steps to the back door instead of on ground level. Hmm...maybe this is how Kyle always sees it, but I mostly see the fence.

Reese thought it was really fun to give Gus some pushes on the swing. He was a little annoyed that Gus couldn't walk up the slide though.

Hopefully this will provide LOTS of outside fun!

New Skills?

Gus has a new favorite pastime: computer tinkering!

And Reese is able to use his favorite thing at speech therapy: practicing saying "Tony Stark is Ironman!" He is working on the ST combo and pronouncing the consonant in the middle (like the N in Tony). He likes it and the speech therapist thinks it's too funny.

Class of 2010

Congratulations to my brother, Dylan, the high school graduate!

It takes about 30-ish minutes from my mom's house to get to the Tacoma Dome, so we left at 5:30 to get to the 7pm ceremony. Gotta have good seats you know!
At approximately 6pm we were in the exit lane. At about 6:30 we were about 5 feet further. A few minutes later we saw a boy running down the I-5 exit with cap and gown in hand (turns out we knew him), a few minutes later another boy with cap and gown in hand rand down the exit ramp. Our exit curves to the right and then exits again (where we need to go) or continues on into the surface streets of the city. About 7:15pm-ish we finally reach our final area of the exit that should lead us to the Dome parking---BLOCKED! By not very pleasant policemen, shouting and wildly gesturing at anyone who hesitated....which is all of us since we have no idea where to go except, you know where we are supposed to be. We are country bumpkins heading in to the big city for graduation after all. SO we navigate through the throng of cars, every single green light blocked by all the cars waiting at the next red light up ahead so we barely move. So we finally make it inside and sit down at 7:45pm! 2 hours and 15 minutes for a 30ish minute! UGH!
Luckily the started late at about 8pm.
After braving the traffic on the way to a restaurant for dinner (another hour to go about 1.5 miles) we ate dinner and headed home, diploma in hand. I got home at 1:30am! Both boys were asleep, of course. That was the longest I've been away from Gus even including my ER visits and surgery for kidney stones.

Potty Woes

I figured it would be best to wait until school was over to potty train. Every day when we were getting dressed for school I'd remind Reese when school is over we'll start peeing in the potty. Some days he'd agree and some he would not. So Monday we decided to start.
We have prizes all ready to go and a lovely assortment of fun underwear to choose from.
After changing out of the sleep diaper Reese sat on the potty and then chose the first underwear of the day! He was very excited to wear Ramone from Cars underwear. He ran around laughing and pointing at his butt (no pants to facilitate the pulling up and down of the underwear). About every 20-30 minutes he sat on the potty, but no pee. He hid under Gus' crib and then came running out yelling "pee"....not sure if he hid under there specifically to pee or if it just turned out that way. SO I moved the crib, cleaned the pee, Resolved the carpet, vacuumed. Then we chose Woody underwear. After several more attempts at the potty there was more "PEE!" shrieking and a line of pee on the floor, but definitely not hiding this time. On to the Elmo underwear:

Another time he leaped from the couch, I said very excitedly "OH Do you have to pee?" "No pee!" he answered and then hid behind his bean bag...I thought he was hiding from Iron Man's nemesis, Mandarin, in the Iron Man cartoon. Then I realized he peed on the bean bag!!! I was very displeased that he specifically said no pee while he was prepping to pee! GRRRR
So no successful pees in the potty on day one. No poop at all.
Day 2: We had speech and I am not cleaning pee from the car seat. While he sat on the potty many times before heading out--no pee! He wore a diaper to speech. Back at home many more attempts but no pee. Then we went to Mimi's in a diaper. So all day, no pee in the potty and no accidents. He saved it for the diaper. Also no poop again---very abnormal for him.
Day 3: NO PEE AT ALL even though he sat on the potty about every 15 minutes. I was hoping to catch him so he could have one success to get all excited about and win prizes for. No such luck. About 2:30pm he was crying on the potty. Sobbing "NO stickers! No stickers!" he decided he'd rather forgo the sticker prize than have to keep sitting on the potty. At this point he hasn't peed all day long. (He woke me in the middle of the night because he finally pooped.) So we decided to give it a rest and return to the potty routine on Sunday.
I was exhausted and had a headache every day and he was a heaping pile of tears. My friend Julie reminded me her hubby always told her he's known a whole lot of really dumb guys and yet they can all use the bathroom. SOOO we'll get there eventually, but not this week!

On a more pleasant note, Gus mastered drinking from a straw and continually swiped Reese's supposedly pee inducing drink I kept pushing.

and I discovered a CURL!!!

Can you see it?

Menu Plan Monday

Wow what a blog slacker I've been! We have actually done some stuff since last meal plan day! Ha ha. I guess I've been remiss in loading my photos to the computer. We overslept and missed school on Tuesday (they were off Mon/Wed) so Reese only attended his last day, which was Thursday. I am so happy school is over. I don't think I deal with it every year until Gus graduates in 2027. (Wow that is a little freaky...class of '27).

We spent the only good day slaving away on the playground building. Kyle's dad helped us from 10am-7pm with a short lunch break. I got totally sun burned. We went to an outside birthday party dressed for winter. But they had a great park so Reese had fun.

Today marked the first day of Daddy's new job (promotion!). He found out not only is training on day shift, but they really don't have swing except on the rarest occasions. So for now his raise will make up for the swing shift differential loss and keep us the same, but no OT until he's trained and ready to work alone. So we have to buckle down on the spending!
Today is also Day One of Potty Training!!!

We will now be having normal breakfast/lunch/dinner times. I'm used to having dinner at 1:30pm before Kyle goes to work. Now we'll start eating when he comes home about 4:30pm. Even though we ate normal breakfast and lunch Reese couldn't wait and had a "snack" at 4pm--the other half of his veggie burger (from lunch) and clementines.

MONDAY: chicken enchiladas with green sauce and mexican rice
TUESDAY: potato soup and green salad
WEDNESDAY: stubbs Pork Chops on the grill, curry cauliflower, rice
THURSDAY: Ham, macaroni and cheese, broccoli
FRIDAY: Stir Fry with brown rice
SATURDAY: leftovers
SUNDAY: Pork Loin Roast, roasted potatoes, carrots, celery

Get more menu ideas at OrgJunkie!

Menu Plan Monday

Monday: Chili---I tried a new recipe of my own concoction. Awhile ago I asked the meat dept. guy what kind of meat was "stew meat." He told me it could be anything they had small pieces of--so basically any kind of roast or cheaper cut steak. So instead of paying $3.50 a pound for them to cut it I bought $1.99 a pound round steak on sale and cut it myself. I used some of this for my chili!

1/2 pound stew meat
1/2 cup black beans
1/2 cup red beans
1/2 cup white beans
1 green bell pepper diced
1 onion diced
1 cup frozen corn
1 tablespoon garlic
2 tablespoon chili powder
3 teaspoons cumin
1 can diced green chilies
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can tomato sauce
a few dashes of Arizona Gunslinger

Soak all the beans (I soak the whites separately from the darker beans) overnight in water and cumin. Boil the beans (all 3 together) with cumin (extra from the 3 teaspoons). Turn down heat and simmer for 1 1/2 hours. Saute onion, peppers, garlic, corn in some olive oil with a little salt and pepper. I dumped these into a bowl so I could use the same skillet to brown the steak meat, add beans, add chili powder and cumin, stir well. Add back in the veggies. Add the canned ingredients and gunslinger. Stir to combine. Simmer at least 30 minutes.
I forgot to take a photo, but it was very attractive and oh so yummy!!

Tuesday: Spaghetti and meatballs
Wednesday: French Dip with sweet potato fries and brussells sprouts. To make the sandwiches we prefer italian roast beef, but most of our grocery deli's don't have it so if I get regular I just season it with salt and pepper. Place open rolls on cookie sheet. Spread the roast beef on half and Havarti cheese on the other half. Warm in the oven until cheese is melted. Dip in Au Jus.
Thursday: Beef Roast with potatoes, carrots, celery and onions...I'm going to follow the Pioneer Woman's cookbook recipe for Pot Roast.
Friday: Pasta Fagioli -- the Olive Garden kind
Saturday: tacos
Sunday: Chicken Fajita Potatos

You can check out what everyone else is having and get some new ideas at Organizing Junkie.