Pictures have really been piling up in my iPhone, so I thought I’d spill them out in a blog.
Here goes.
Life has been pretty nice around here. Every morning starts out the same. Poppyseed and I are up early, snuggle in bed for a while, eat breakfast, go to the gym (well, that only happens twice a week or so I guess), and then head to the ranch. We have really enjoyed checking on Rainy each morning. It’s our job to show up after she is given her morning feed and let her out to pasture. It’s also our job to clean out her stall, which only sometimes happens. (Sometimes I let Oatmeal do the honors!) I pretty much just let Poppyseed explore and take it all in when we are there.
She enjoys crawling around in her pajamas and looking at all of the horses. It’s fun to pick her up and let her pet each horse’s nose.
Also, we are definitely not “cat people” in our family, but she does get to play with the barn cat! So far it looks like she doesn’t have a cat allergy, so that’s a plus.
Clearly I am FAR from a germaphobe, which you can probably tell by the fact that I let my child crawl on the ground in a barn. Sorry I’m not sorry. Ha.
Here is a lovely one of us at about 7am one morning. Hi Rainy!
Hey look, here’s one where we are actually dressed…
I still work once or twice a week, but most of our days are spent just doing random things. I try to schedule a play date occasionally, or we just go to our neighborhood park where there are always other moms and kids. Last week I met a friend at Research Park, where we walked for about an hour and then let the babies stretch out and hug each other. Poppyseed gave Max a pretty good little kiss, a first for both of them! I laugh and laugh at her kisses because she pretty much just opens her mouth really wide and licks you. But she is so sincere!
When it’s just the two of us, I try to take her on little adventures here and there. I’m always looking for something fun to do with her that will enable us to get out of the house and talk to new people or see new things. A few weeks ago we drove all the way to Fayatteville to pick up some meat from a farm that love. I really regret that I didn’t take more pictures while I was there, but I did get this great shot of her with one of the mama hogs.
I really do need to get better about taking good pictures! This trip was great, and we came home with a LOT of meat. That makes 1/3 of a hog, 1/3 of a cow, an entire deer, and a lot of breastmilk in our deep freezer for now!
Another food adventure we took recently was to Brenham. I noticed on Facebook that a farmers market opened up, so of course we went to check that out. All of the produce was completely locally grown.
Our fridge is pretty much always packed with produce, but this week is a record!
I try to take her on a little Mommy/Daughter date once a week. Usually we just got to Panera Bread and share a fruit cup and I have a cup of coffee. Or, sometimes we’ll go to Chipotle for lunch. I just like taking her into restaurants and letting her sit in a high chair and act like a big girl. She is getting more and more fun to take places like this!
Oh, and we try to spend a little bit of time on the potty every day. I will change her diaper and then take note of what time it is. It’s pretty easy to predict when she will need to go next based on what she is eating and drinking, so I’ll try to get her on the potty at the right time. We read, sing, etc for about 10 minutes, and occasionally we get lucky. I definitely don’t think she really “gets it” yet, but I figure one day she will and we will be ahead of the curve.
I love our weekdays together, but our weekends are always great! That’s probably because we get to spend time much more time with this guy.
Last weekend we went to an Aggie baseball game! I definitely want to go to more of those. For any old Ags reading this post, can you BELIEVE the baseball stadium now?!
On Friday as we were waiting on Oatmeal to get home from work, I decided to plan an impromptu picnic. I hurried up and made a bunch of kabobs on our new grill, and they were actually ready just as Oatmeal walked in the door. The ones on the left are chicken, mushroom and zucchini that I marinated in lime juice and olive oil. Somehow they turned out delicious! The ones on the right are made of ground lamb, lemon zest, cilantro and a few other things I am forgetting. They were AWESOME! It was one of those few last minute dinners that just worked out really well, and this is soooooooooo the type of thing that my husband loves to come home to!
I gave him a quick kiss, told him to put the baby in the car, and we went to the ranch. We threw a blanket on the grass and ate our kabobs, and then I watched my baby daddy and baby ride Rainy.
Another picture to prove that I should probably invest in some hand sanitizer. And remember to pack shoes for my child. Hey, remember… it was an impromptu picnic!
On Saturday we spent all day in our yard. I’ll have to take some pictures tomorrow morning because it is actually coming along. We bought several plants and put some new mulch in our flower beds. It’s definitely not going to make the cover of a landscaping magazine, but it looks a lot better than it did when we bought the new house! I am actually sort of enjoying the ongoing project of having a yard. We keep searching for patio furniture, but everything we have found is either not our style or too pricey. We really wanted something rustic and heavy, so Oatmeal decided he would just make it himself! So… he pretty much spent all Saturday night on this little project. Our neighbor came over to help, which was pretty nice of him. (Might I add that this was the neighbor who had issues with Tough Puppy a few months ago… but guess who kept getting Tough Puppy to jump up on his lab all night??? I told you I’d remedy that little issue….)
On Sunday after church, he stained the table while our munchkin rode around naked on her new tricycle. I braved the flea market last weekend and picked up that bad boy for only $20…. brand new and still in the box!
Tada! Our new table! Now to find some chairs….
That’s pretty much it for my iPhone pictures right now, but I just must leave you with this last picture. My sister-in-law Kelley emailed this to me last week. She and my sister are both still living in Japan (they are each married to Marines) and they seriously see the most bizarre things over there! Naturally she said that this odd statue reminded her of my early breastfeeding days (which you are welcome to read about in my posts Learning to Breastfeed Kind of Sucked and Lola on Nursing. Nice, Kelley, nice. But quite accurate.
Well folks, I’ll leave you with that.