Halloween Comes Early

A certain someone's Halloween costume came already and he is super excited about it.


I have a feeling we will have a lot of "emergencies" around our house soon so that that certain little boy will have a lot of excuses
to put on his gear, use his megaphone and go fight some fires!

My favorite place on earth

I got an email from my mom recently that said they were going to Door County and that I would have to find another babysitter for Tripp that week. My reaction was not to find another babysitter but to call my dad and make sure we got invited. and of course that tactic worked. In fact, I am pretty sure my dad even thanked me after we got home for being willing to take time off of work and come with them. Yep, I had him tricked :). Anyway, because Nelson needed to save his vacation days for when the baby comes, he stayed at home and held down the fort while Tripp and I headed up north. Flying by yourself with all the gear that comes along with a toddler and being eight months pregnant is not the easiest thing, but I was willing to take the chance. We had such great time. I think there nothing like the joy that comes with seeing your kid ridiculously happy and enjoying the same things that you enjoyed as a kid yourself. Tripp absolutely loved the beach. He loved the sand, the water and most especially loved playing with his Papa. My dad introduced him to "surfing" which when done on a lake is the perfect thing for a two year old to do. In fact, Tripp commented "I really love this water" as he was riding the raft through the waves.

We spent a morning at The Farm where we got to see all kinds of animals. Even though there were lots of cows, chickens, goats, sheep, etc, Tripp's favorite part was the tractor. He probably could have spent the whole morning climbing and playing on it but we made him go check out some animals.

This year we made it to a restaurant that Tripp loved- PC Junction. Your food gets delivered to you on a miniature train! He was mesmerized by it and was pretty quiet the whole dinner cause he was just taking everything all in. We got to play outside on their wooden trains and then also took a "roller coaster ride" as Tripp called it- I am sure it felt that way to him. It was really just this tractor type thing where two people pedal in the back and two people can sit up front and ride. Tripp rode up front and thankfully he held on tight, cause with me and the wheel and my dad in charge of the speed, it was more like a roller coaster ride than a tractor ride.

We had a great time and are so glad it worked out to go. This is definitely the best place ever!

Playmobil

We have entered into the world of Playmobil. Already, many hours have been spent with "my guys" or "my friends" (as Tripp calls them) and I have a feeling there will be many more to come (if only I could find some good deals on them...)!

Big Boy Bed!

Well, it is rather crazy, but at least it seems to be working. I am referring to Tripp's new bed, in case you were wondering. Why crazy? Well, I decided to relinquish some of my "control" over Tripp's life and let him pick out his own bedding for his new bed in an attempt to get him excited about it. It worked, but the bedding is a little less than desirable. I have nothing against Thomas, the number one blue engine, but these new sheets are a tad on the crazy side. But, I also was not about to pay somewhere around $60 for a set of much more tasteful sheets from Pottery Barn Kids. So we stuck with Thomas. Tripp loves them, loves his bed and we love that he loves his bed. The process actually went pretty smoothly. I had fully planned on letting him stay in his crib even after the baby was born (hey, I'll buy another crib if it means my toddler is confined to his bed still) but after walking into his room one morning and seeing him attempt to climb out of his crib, we decided that maybe moving him out was the safest thing to do. Besides, when thinking through all the transitions he will go through in the next year (new sibling, potty training, etc) we figured better do it now at this relatively calm time in his life. So we bit the bullet and went for it. We got my brother's old twin frame from my parents, bought a new mattress, and Tripp and Nelson set to work taking down the old crib and putting up the new bed.

Everything went smoothly until I realized that his lovies could fall out of his bed. This is a major problem at 4 in the morning when he woke up screaming (he made it sound like he had fallen out of his bed). So we ended up getting a longer guard rail and thankfully, the lovie situation has pretty much been resolved. He definitely talked about his crib for a couple of days after we took it down, but has since seemingly forgotten about it. We left all his blankets the same and even use the same "system" we did in his crib- one blanket for under his head, one for on top of him (not sure how that system got started but oh well, he likes it). As much as I would love to get a big comforter to cover up those sheets, I don't see that happening for a while for one big reason: 1. It is something else for me to have to wash and considering there are practically dirt piles on the end of our bed from my infrequent washing of our own sheets, adding something big (like a comforter) to my washing list is a very terrible idea. So for now, we will just "enjoy" those Thomas sheets (although I might have to buy an extra set for those days when I find a little wet spot on them from a leaky diaper) and be thankful that he loves his new bed!

Reed's First Birthday

Last weekend we decided to make a somewhat spontaneous trip to Dallas to celebrate our nephew's first birthday! It was also the perfect excuse for us to go- it had been all too long since we had been there last. But now that Tripp is two and we would have to buy him a plane ticket, it makes it a little more difficult to get there (seeing as it is a 10 hour drive and you basically "waste" two days driving there and back). But I have to say, despite me ignoring the GPS and taking us on at least an hour detour, the time in the car really wasn't bad. I even had a moment of thinking that it was nice to be together as a family. This was one of them (a really awesome rest stop with a nice picnic dinner):

And that is big for me, I really used to despise long car rides. But maybe the price of an extra plane ticket is enough to have changed my mind. But anyway, we had a great time in Dallas- we celebrated Reed's birthday,

watched Tripp and Weston (and Reed too) play together for hours,

and just had some good quality time together. It was just what we needed!

Baking Again

Tripp and I have been busy in the kitchen again. First, we made some bread. Honey whole wheat bread to be exact. The first loaf we made was a little too dense for our liking so after reading some reviews, I decided to add a little more yeast and then also did 1 cup bread flour and 2 cups whole wheat (instead of all 3 wheat). It was excellent. I might even go as far as making it on a regular basis for our sandwich bread. But that is taking a step towards being Pioneer Woman or something and I am not sure ready for that. Cause then I would have to start growing vegetables in my back yard, give up refined sugar and only buy meat that is from grass fed, free range, daily manicured and pedicured cows. And not that I have anything against that (I really do not, I promise), I just am not there yet. But it does seem like a slippery slope, and making your own bread might just be the beginning of that slope. So in order to take a step back, I decided to make a recipe that I have been thinking about for a while. Oreo stuffed chocolate chip cookies. I now understand why the recipe calls for more flour than normal. But after using the typical amount, we were all out and I did not feel back to the store again.


So I think I will just do some dividing up, get a cold glass of milk, and enjoy a cookie inside a cookie.

Strawberry Pizza

Although I am not the biggest fan of fruity desserts, when Aldi has a sale on strawberries for $0.89 for a quart, it is hard to pass up making something fruity (and it was also about time for me to make something with some fruit in it for Nelson cause he loves fruity dessert). So I decided upon a Strawberry Pizza, inspired by one of the desserts my co-worker brought to our dessert potluck a little while back. I couldn't find the exact recipe I was looking for, so I used This one as a starting point and did a little modifying along the way.
Here is the crust:


Then the cream cheese and cool whip layer with strawberries on top:


And finally, the final product, topped with a strawberry glaze:





It's in our fridge cooling, and I'm sure that after an episode of The Good Wife, we will make our way upstairs and enjoy a slice (or two)!