Nearly Wordless Wednesday

I think i mentioned in a previous post that we're scheduling days where we take Connor out by himself to do things he loves. It won't happen as often down the road but for right now, when he's stuck in the house during the week for the most part, instead of playing with friends at school...it's a necessary reward. He loves bowling so Jeff and I dropped Noah off with Grammy & Papa Barnes and hit the lanes. This is Connor's 2nd time bowling and he did really well. Oddly, he calls this "real bowling" and the stuff he plays on the wii is simply "bowling".

this one went down the lane so slow that the pins actually stopped it. Sad day.

Connor, Jeff & I played some wii bowling this week too...he schooled us. And we were trying...trust me.

Since we signed him up for teeball in the fall, we had to go out and get a teeball bat. Jeff was thrilled. I was frightened. Here's a practice swing :)

while Jeff was off this past week, we took Connor and Noah to Bounce Jungle to meet up with Aidan and Gabi Calabretti. I've mentioned how it's impossible to get good pics of the kids here. I meant it. I have no clue who the kid in the photo above it but the one flailing down the slide just above him is one of mine!

Noah loves this mat toy thingy. He can swat at the hanging toys for hours and manages to move all over the mat.

Here is Connor showing off his new high score in bowling...211. holy crap.

Noah loves his big brother. Connor is a huge help...here he's helping me with Noah's bath.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday - According to Connor

When I uploaded the pics from my camera this morning I thought I was just going to have some pics of Connor helping me give Noah a bath yesterday. Wrong. I saw all these horrible, random photos appear and immediately thought something was up with my camera or that i'd been carrying it and didn't realize I was taking photos. That is...until the final two photos appeared and I realized I must have left my camera unattended. Busted.

Photo of the Day

Just want to point out that when I finally have a good pic of myself taken, this is how the rest of my family steps up. Thanks boys. :)

Crockpot Tuesday...on Sunday

There's no way I'm able to bring back Crockpot Tuesday right now...though I really should. Our eating has been hit or miss since Noah arrived, so having a bit more structure would be amazing. But...it's just not going to happen at this time so why lay on the pressure, right? :)

So even though I don't know when I'll be able to have weekly crockpot posts happening, I have a new one today. We did a pot roast last week and bought one of those 5lb bags of red potatoes. We do this every time...I buy the bag because it's cheap and we need the potatoes for the roast and then we don't use the rest of the bag and a couple weeks later I remember but it's too late...they look like this. gross.

so i decided that this time around, we'd use the potatoes. since i'm home during the day right now i can start the crock pot at a convenient time and that helps. here's a super simple recipe we came up with tonight.

Chicken & Potatoes

4 chicken breasts
6 red potatoes, sliced thick
equal parts of the following spices:
basil
thyme
oregano
rosemary
1 Tbsp italian dressing

After I sliced up the potatoes, I put them in a plastic bag with some of the spices and the dressing. Close it up and shake it up so that the mixture saturates the potatoes. Dump them in the bottom of the crockpot. You can use as much or as little of the spices as you want to. Then use the rest of the spice mixture to season both sides of the chicken. Drop that in the crock and cook on hi for 4 hours. No liquid is needed for this one. If there are other spices you like, use those...I just use what I have on hand.

This turned out great and the chicken was so tender. Next time the only thing I'll change is that I'll puncture the chicken so that the spices soak in a bit more. The potatoes were fully cooked and had good flavor from the spices too. This was stupid easy and could be changed up easily with different seasonings. Maybe I'll use a bit of an italian seasoning packet next time. yum.

Anyway, no pics of this one because I didn't even think about posting it until after we ate it.

Let me know if you try this and if you changed it up at all. I'll try to keep it up with the recipes!

Father's Day 2010

Jeffrey sent me an email way back in January from the Cubs website and the subject of the email was "Father's Day Gift". Subtle Jeff. I took the hint and kept the email saved in my calendar so that once it was getting close, I'd be reminded that I have a gift all set. Score. I knew I'd be just a couple weeks post-partum at that point so I'd surely appreciate the reminder.

The item was called "Newborn Fan Club" with the Cubs and it included a super cute baby beanie-the hat, not the lame stuffed toy, a rookie of the year onesie, a fun birth certificate and the best, most adorable thing...you give them your newborn's birth stats and they put them up on the famous Cubs sign thingy at Wrigley and they take a photo and send it to you. This thing is totally Jeffrey, totally. So a few days after Noah was born I ordered it for him...from the hospital bed. Who's an amazing wife? Oh, that would be me. How cool are these?

When Connor was brand new, for Jeffrey's first Father's Day he'd told me that he'd love cubs stuff for Connor to have. I decided I'd go the same route and got Noah three adorable Cubs onesies that he can wear when he's a bit bigger. Go me.

Also, every year for Father's Day I give Jeffrey a photo book. The book has about 50 pages of photos from the going-ons of Connor (& Noah this year) in the past year. It takes forever and I tend to work on it throughout the year to get it completed, but Jeff looks forward to it every year and I love having them to look back on. We're all so horrible about actually printing photos since they are all digital that I figure this is a great way to have some of our most important photos in hard copy. If you want to see a digital version of the finished product, CLICK HERE. (hope the link works...it's been iffy...) I hope to continue doing this forever because he loves it and for selfish reasons I love it too.

Also, because I love gifts that the kids make we did a cute project for Jeffrey. He had mentioned that he was kinda bummed that Connor wouldn't be in school this summer so he wouldn't be coming home with a cute art project for Father's Day...I figured I could come up with something for him instead. We spent some time the week before Father's Day and the result was pretty great. I dipped Connor's hands and Noah's feet in paint and cut the prints out to make a little wreath. I put a pic of the boys in the center of the wreath and a sappy poem on the back. He loved it and it's already hanging up in his office.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

If you've read this blog at all, or if you've met my son Connor you know that the kid loves sports. All sports, but mainly baseball. He's actually pretty good at it. He's small, but he can throw - hard and accurate. That's what she said. I apologize.

Anyway, we've wanted to get him into baseball for quite some time but he was in swim for the past two years, then we didn't want to get anything started because I was about to have Noah, etc. etc. etc. Now, it's time. We wanted to do something special for Connor so we decided to go for it. We found a league that starts teeball at 3 years old and we're all set! Signups were Monday at a nearby Peter Piper so we went to get him all set up and have some yummy pizza. The season doesn't actually start until October, which is good news because it will be about a million degrees cooler then. The bad news is obvious if you've ever tried to explain something involving delayed gratification to a 3 year old. omg. I swear he thought he'd be playing in a game that night. I still think that a few days later he thinks we're screwing with him. I cannot wait to see him playing baseball for real!! And don't worry...there will be pictures :)

Here are a few from the fun times afterwards

the teeniest merry go round ever i'm sure

cheating at basketball cheating at skeeball

Connor's friend Kaci had her 3rd birthday party at BounceU this weekend and I think both Connor and Aidan had a good time.

i'm pretty sure i haven't worn makeup in 4 weeks. no bueno. lol.

with Gabi playing baseball

One Month Old

Noah turned one month old this Monday and amazingly I remembered to take the photo I'd decided to do every month on his 'birthday'. Yup, the 28th rolled around and I remembered...and by remembered I mean that the calendar reminder on my phone went off to tell me to take the photo and I did as instructed. Lindsay-1, Mommy brain-0.

I think I wrote in a past entry that we were going to take a photo of Noah in the same chair, next to the same adorable owl each month on the 28th so we can track his growth that way. When you're with a kiddo every day you don't easily notice the subtle changes that take place like someone would who only see them occasionally so this seemed like a fun idea. Every month I'll post the pics here.

We had Noah's 1 month appointment Tuesday and it was great that Jeffrey was off this week to come along. Actually, it was really nice that Jeffrey was off because that meant that he didn't need to leave work early or go in late so that he could be there. Jeff is amazing in that he rarely EVER misses a doctor appointment for the boys...or even for me when I was pregnant with either of them. I don't know a lot of husbands who do that so I'm incredibly lucky for this :) Ok, my gushing moment is over.

Our goal was for Noah to be back up to his birth weight of 8lbs 4oz at his appointment and he blew way past it! He was 9lbs 11oz and 22.5 inches long. That put him in the 50th percentile for weight and the 75th percentile for height...and 50th for head if anyone tracks that. We don't. At this point, Connor was 8lbs 6oz and 20 inches at 1 month so Noah is still...um, winning? :) lol.

Everything else at the appointment went great. We got the instructions to do tummy time with Noah which is good because at least for now, he enjoys being on his tummy. The doctor said that at this point babies are typically eating 2-3oz every 2-3 hours. Noah eats every 3 hours and is never under 4oz. He's still sleeping most of the day and will sometimes go 4 or even 5 hours in between feedings at night which is good for getting a bit of sleep for mom and dad.

He got one shot today which was sad, but he stopped crying relatively quickly once it was done. We made his two month appointment which we're dreading because he gets four shots. Four. Poor baby.

Noah showing off his bandaid from his one month shot :(

Connor is still being a great big brother. We've been trying to get out of the house to help out with Connor's cabin fever and it's been helpful. He just gets so bored being stuck in the house all day...even though I'm constantly letting him play wii to keep him occupied while I take care of Noah or take a nap here and there. He can thank me later for helping him become an amazing wii bowler and golfer. Seriously, he's pretty great. His potty training is still holding firm. We had about a week a couple weeks ago where all hell broke loose. Not only was he peeing his pants a couple times a day but he also apparently forgot how to "point it down" and covered his bathroom in pee at least once a day. Holy crap. Fortunately, it stopped as quickly as it started and he's back on track now. I panicked though I'll be honest. He never had accidents once he was in underpants and went 4 weeks without a single mess...then all of a sudden we were back to square one. I was so happy once that week passed and he was back in action. :) He's awesome.

It's been a good first month, which of course flew by way too fast. Even though this newborn time is exhausting and extremely difficult typically, it's our last time doing it so we are trying to enjoy it all. :)

Thanks for checking in on us...check back tomorrow for Nearly Wordless Wednesday :)

Mother's Day 2010

this is a better late than never Mother's Day post since I forgot about posting Mother's Day pics until I went to post Father's Day ones and realized I was missing something. It's funny to think that Mother's Day was pre-Noah and Father's Day was post-Noah. Father's Day pics are next...stay tuned!

I hope all the mom's out there had a great Mother's Day. Ours was good, but odd. Kinda anti-climactic I guess...we were just been waiting for the unexpected with Noah I guess. I kept seeing myself in the hospital on Mother's Day. Glad that didn't happen!

Sunday for Mother's Day my mom and dad came over for lunch. I planned a little craft project for Connor to do with my mom and I so that he could make us little gifts for Mom's day. It turned out great and was super cheap and easy. I just bought some wood frames at Michaels and my dad spray painted them white. On Mother's Day, Connor stuck these little pre-cut foam pieces to the frames however he wanted for each of us. I had a few different pics printed out to choose from and that was all. Here's the finished products--I love mine, it's already displayed in my office!

I let Connor pick out his outfit and he choose his “baby Noah shirt” which made me happy because I found it fitting for the day and I also realized that I never got a photo of the three of us with him wearing his shirt. None of the pics of the three of us were really good, but this was the least horrible one.

Connor-Noah Comparrison Pics - more

Here are a couple more comparrison pics of the boys. I love looking at these!

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

we decided that at 3 weeks of age it was time for Noah's first Dbacks game! Crazy? perhaps. He did amazing though...probably because he was wrapped up all tight in the sling. It was a Yankees series so it was really, really noisy (and equally obnoxious!) but Noah hardly noticed. I'm pretty sure we lost. I hate baseball.

connor loves playing in the Sandlot area. he was pretty upset because finally after a ton of games, he realized there is a little batting cage nearby but he's just too young to participate...maybe next season!

rockin the baby sling. thanks keiko!

Lucas and Noah napping-one of my bffs ashley had their 2nd kiddo Lucas a few weeks before Noah arrived so she brought him over to visit last week. it's nice having other "unemployed" friends during this time!!

is this blurry? my eyes are honestly too tired to tell :)