Hannah wanted to sit in the high chair seat for snack because she was pretending to be a baby. Then she proceeded to proudly create an “H” with her pretzel sticks on the tray. I tried to explain this was proof she is beyond the baby seat.
We were unexpectedly blessed with some last-minute tickets to the KU/Texas basketball game today. The easiest option seemed to be to find some friends to go with Brett. But some friends already had tickets and another friend was still doped up on pain meds from minor surgery. Even after posting on Facebook, we didn’t have any takers for the extra seats.
So we decided to make it a family outing. Taking a 3-month-old who will only breastfeed and 3-year-old with a penchant for bolting to a 16,500 person arena requires some planning. We gave ourselves plenty of time and were able to park in a garage with a very short walk. Then we got a lunch of exciting concession food: hot dogs, nachos, Coke (which we even let Hannah drink) and cotton candy.
(this is Hannah’s current smile at the camera face)
Unlike Allen Fieldhouse, the Erwin Center has comfy padded seats. But they are the kind that springs up which scared Hannah a little since she is not quite heavy enough to keep them down. So she spent the game either standing in front of her chair or sitting on Brett’s lap.
Violet snuggled in the Ergo carrier for most of the time and woke up for some action partway through the first half. Both she and Hannah thought it was pretty loud, though Hannah enjoyed the permission to yell whenever she wanted. She was a little confused because she thought that she was going to get to play basketball, and she apparently didn’t find it very entertaining to watch other people play. She did make a game of “Where’s Bevo” and was always looking for the Texas mascot.
Turns out there are a lot of KU fans in Austin! Hannah said, “There are a lot of Rock Chalkers!” We left at halftime per our plan since big girl was getting fidgety and baby was getting hungry. But the Jayhawks pulled off the win in a close game, and we had a lot of fun being part of it!
If you have a little unallocated Christmas money burning a hole in your pocket, here are a few things I bought this year that I can recommend.
Nursing cover
I nurse in public relatively frequently, so this has been wonderful. I don’t have an actual picture of mine, so here’s Hannah pretending to nurse her baby. When she saw mine, she said she wanted one, too, so I easily sewed this one in a similar fabric to mine. I ordered mine from Deborah & Co. They have many fabrics to choose from, and I have been very happy with it. They are handmade and are good quality. I think they’re a good size because they cover what needs to be covered but don’t have so much material that you feel attacked by a tent. $25 plus shipping
iPad
No picture for this one, but I’m typing this post on it. :) A long time ago, when we’d go to the Kansas History Museum about once a year, my favorite thing was the touch-screen TV in the “diner” that ran clips about Kansas agriculture products. Now I do almost everything on my very own touch screen, and it is wonderful. $450
Initial necklace
These are very popular right now, and I was pleased to find this company The Vintage Pearl because they had a lot of options and high-quality chains. I ordered H and V initials as well as a heart for the baby we miscarried last year. There are a lot of really cute designs, and they’re very customizable. I also ordered a necklace inscribed with “b+d” with an engraved heart. Start around $30
Vanity plate
At preschool drop-off, it seems like 30% of the parking lot is comprised of silver Honda Odyssey minivans. And now we have one as well. But we’ve got something to make us stand out a little bit and help this fuzzy-brained momma remember where we parked. The fee goes to organizations that promote adoption, and if adoption isn’t your particular passion, there are a lot of other neat organizations you can support i.e. Big Brothers Big Sisters, CASA, reading, special olympics, and parks and wildlife conservation. And bonus – the specialty tags only have 5 characters for you to memorize instead of 15 or whatever is on the regular plates now. So look into it (out-of-staters, too)! $30
Flexi clips
Stylish hair accessories – no pic of this either since they literally just arrived in the mail today, so I’m still messing around with them. But I can tell already they’re going to be great! Flexi clips are from Lilla Rose and can be used with all hair types, but I think they will work especially well with long curly hair like mine. I got two different sizes; it was hard to pick with so many cute styles. $11+
Sewing class/Personal enrichment
This was my mom’s idea – for Christmas last year they got me a gift certificate for classes at a sewing specialty store. There were a ton to choose from, but I picked an appliqué class and an embroidery class. Above is the sampler we made in the embroidery class with 10 different stitches! This idea could be broadened to whatever you feel like – cooking classes, Spanish, pole-dancing lessons, art classes… Spend a little for a few hours to learn something you can use for a long time.
So those are a few suggestions for spending some of your Christmas cash. What are some of the favorite products you’ve come across this year to recommend?
My goal is to not go more than a month without blogging. I realized I’m getting close to my deadline, but I have other things on my to-do list. So here is a gratuitous cute baby picture. :)
Halloween is not one of my favorite holidays. I like the costume aspect, but the whole scary aspect plus greedy candy hoarding puts it low on my holiday list. With Hannah getting older, Brett and I had to decide if we even wanted to “do” Halloween, and if we did what it would look like. We tried to think of how we could make it as positive as possible and use the opportunity to encourage others.
This may look different for use every year, but I wanted to share what we did this year (and cute pics of course). The day before Halloween, my friend Meghan and I decided to create “matching” costumes for Hannah and Cody. Many ideas were thrown around, but most involved trips to the craft store and too much time (in my opinion). We settled on Mary and Joseph. It might come across as us having our holidays confused or trying to over-Christianize Halloween, but really it was because Meghan was able to raid her fabric scrap stash and with a few swipes of the scissors and some yarn – voila, costumes!
On Halloween, Meghan and I loaded the kids up (four total now, wow!) and went to a nursing home that said they were offering trick-or-treating in the afternoon. This sounded great because afternoon is much better than evening for preschoolers. We also thought this would be a good way to encourage others.
Our time at the nursing home was brief because it was set up a little awkwardly, and some of the residents were a little confused and got mad when the kids asked for their candy. Another little girl had a meltdown because she wanted to take baby Jesus away from Hannah. But Cody and Hannah were very cute and came away very excited about their few little Tootsie Rolls. Whatever ended up in the classic plastic pumpkin was dubbed “trickertreats” which makes sense at this stage.
Halloween evening, Joseph was not available, so Hannah dressed in a cute nurse outfit she recently received. (sorry about the weird pics, I’m still figuring out the WordPress app)
Our street did not have a lot of lights on, so Brett took her to four houses and she came home happy with a very appropriate amount of candy. She was also happy that several kids came by our house before she went to bed and she was able to generously pass out our candy at the door. She even insisted that the parents take candy.
Violet slept through the whole thing, but we woke her up to take some pictures with the good camera. I’ll try to post those soon.
So that was our Halloween – the first one Hannah will really remember, and we hopefully we were able to fill it with fun, encouragement, sharing and, of course, trickertreats.
If I had more energy, I’d make these into separate posts with fun pics. But you get bullet points instead.
– Bye to Bingley – In an attempt to simplify our life in preparation for family growth, we have decided to re-home the dogs. My parents graciously offered to welcome Bingley as a friend for their dog Rocky, so we took him up with us on our Kansas trip. We are getting good reports about the adventures of Bingley and Rocky. It was sad to say goodbye, but we know he is happy with a huge yard and a friend. We are still looking for a new home for Leia; let us know if you are interested.
– New wheels – We loved our Honda Pilot, but the automatic sliding doors of the minivan lured us to the official family vehicle. It is a 2007 Honda Odyssey, and we are in love! Good thing since I’ll probably be driving a minivan for the next 20 years or so.
– Baby update – I’m now 26 weeks along, finishing up the second trimester. The pregnancy tracker iPhone app says that my baby this week is the size of a cucumber, 15 inches long and 2.2 lbs. My mom has pulled some mammoth produce from her garden, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a 15 inch, 2 pound cucumber. Anyway, baby girl remains quite active, and I’m feeling pretty good, just tired.
– Big girl bed – The crib has been moved into the guest room which is the new nursery, and Hannah has a big girl bed. We got a set of bunk beds from Ikea but only assembled the frame and bottom bed. She is very proud of her new bed, but bedtimes have been rough as she does not enjoy actually staying in her bed.
– Ballet class – I am still taking the adult ballet class I joined in January. The classes continue through the summer, and I am doing as much as I can with my growing baby bump. My teacher says my grand battements are still just as high as the 20-year-olds in my class, woohoo! We’ll see how the third trimester goes.
– Weekend away – Brett and I will be attending a “Food and Family” conference in San Antonio in a couple weeks. We are excited about the topics (nutrition, meal planning on a budget, sustainable farming, hospitality, Biblical feasting, etc) and the chance to hang out on the Riverwalk for a few days. I’ll definitely be doing a big recap when we return.
– Down with diapers – I would now consider Hannah to be potty-trained, yay! I’m not one of those moms to include all the details, but everyone in the house is very excited to only deal with diapers for sleeping. What a big girl! Now I’m going to enjoy a 3-month break from regular diaper changes.
And to answer any possible questions: No, we don’t have a name for the baby yet, and even if we did we wouldn’t tell. Yes, it is ridiculously hot. Yes, I will post pictures of the new bedroom arrangements when they are finished. No, we haven’t watched “Downton Abbey” yet, but it’s on our to-do list.
We are nearing the midpoint of the pregnancy, and we are planning to finding out the sex of the baby. To share the fun, let’s make this interesting.
Gender guessing contest!
To enter, leave a comment on this blog post with your guess. Don’t put it off – just now through Sunday to keep it quick. After we find out, we’ll pick a name from those who guessed correctly. And the winner gets … a prize that is as yet a mystery, just like the baby’s anatomy.
It’s easy to leave a comment – do it!
In the heart of Austin is Camp Mabry, the headquarters of the Texas Military Forces (the Texas Army National Guard, Texas Air National Guard and Texas State Guard). Every April they host a helicopter show, and this year we put it on the calendar.
Hannah loves all flying things, so we were pretty sure this would be a hit. Parking was busy, but we were able to take a little train from the lot to the main event area. Then we popped Hannah in the Bob (really glad we brought it since there was so much walking) and checked out the booths and displays. There were firetrucks and water rescue boats to explore.
We brought a picnic lunch and ate it while waiting for the main attraction – the helicopter rescue demo. It was a supposed hostage recovery simulation. First, a helicopter dropped guys to engage in the hostage rescue (about halfway through you can hear Hannah yelling, “yay! yay!” through the end, and turn your computer volume down a little before playing). Password is helicopter
Then a medic helicopter came to pick up the “wounded” soldier. This involved a guy hanging in the air then strapping the wounded soldier to him and then continuing on with both guys. I was referring to this as the “helicopter dangly rope thing” but then learned from my friend Vanessa (who has a lot of knowledge specifically about army helicopter medics) this is actually called a “hoist.”
And this was so incredibly cool that my pregnancy hormones took over and I started crying in the middle of the demo. Sheesh. Anyway, then another helicopter came and picked up the remaining soldiers on the ground. I didn’t get a picture of that because I was too busy crying or something.
After the helicopter demo was a K9 Search and Rescue unit presentation. This was all the stuff you see on TV – take-downs, drug sniffing, every command expertly obeyed. These dogs cost $7,000-$15,000 as puppies! That’s just for their genetics and personality, not any training. The handlers do all the training personally. I didn’t get any pictures of the awesome dogs because Hannah was demonstrating her lack of nap time, and we were just trying to keep her from stealing the Diet Coke from the lady behind us.
Anyway, it was a really fun day (though would have been miserable without the nice 80 degrees and slight breeze). Skipping nap time was a little rough as demonstrated by our attempt at a daddy-daughter shot in front of a medical chopper.
But everyone had a good time, and Hannah summed it up when we got home, “I want to buy a helicopter and Daddy will ride in it.”
Some of our recent conversations were just too funny not to share.
I showed Hannah a picture of the baby’s development this week. A few weeks ago, she pronounced it a fish, she had a different take this week:
~
We were reading the Easter story, and when we got to the picture of Jesus on the cross, Hannah interjected, “He needs a new shirt.” Good thing we’ve got some time to get the real point of the story across.
~
When Brett came home from work, Hannah took his travel coffee cup:
Our church’s MOPS (Moms-of-Pre-Schoolers) group has its own website, and I’m on the roster as a contributing writer. There’s a book review I did about a pregnancy book by a local Austin writer. Check it out!
And this author is so local that her kids go to preschool with Hannah, and she says “hi” to me at drop-off. So cool!
Here are a couple videos to make the grandmas smile. Password to both: family.
Driving
Bike Ride
grit & grace 