Monthly Snapshot: April 2012

Well, here we are again!  For anyone not familiar with what's going on here, I'm posting monthly snapshots of my day to day life on my blog.  Stories, photos, and the inevitable craziness that tends to crop up.  Since we're all here, let's just dive right in, shall we?

Incidents & Events

Our first major event for the month of April was, of course, Easter - or as we affectionately call it (erm, at least around Sarah's bonfire), Zombie Jesus Day. 

We celebrated Easter twice this year.  First, we had the opportunity to go out to my Aunt Julie and Uncle Jim's for a very nice dinner.  I was very relieved to see that Jim was doing really well because he had not seemed well when we last saw him at Christmas.  Yay for better health!  Norah thoroughly enjoyed their 2 boxers, Rosie and Wilson, and she got to go on a golf cart ride!  All through the ride she snuggled in to me and would say, "Mommy, look!  Look how far we've ridden!" over and over.  I think it's safe to say she had fun.

When we returned from the golf cart ride, I saw that Erica had texted me, asking if I was at Julie's house.  Turns out her brother lives across the field from them and she was over there and had seen my car in the driveway.  So I texted her back and told her we were there.  At that point, she decided to ride her dirtbike across the field to visit.



Whoa, go back.  Read that again.



She rode her dirtbike across a field to visit me.



I didn't even know I had friends who were capable of that.

This is a whole new epiphany for me.  I have friends who can ride dirtbikes.  Across fields.  How badass is that?  We know who I'm adding to my Zombie Apocalypse Preparedness team, don't we?

Norah: "Miles, look, the Easter Bunny bringed you spoons!   
Spoons!  Spoons!  The Easter Bunny comed in our house and
bringed you spoons!  Look, here they are, Miles!"                  
Miles: Blink, blink                                                                   

On Easter Sunday we celebrated at mom and dad's house with the Mills side of the family.  As it turns out, our Easter Bunny was one of those colored-egg-hiding, brings-small-gifts kinds of Easter Bunnies, while their Easter Bunny has apparently been moonlighting as a diabetes drug rep on the side.  Shame on you, Bunny, for what you've done to our blood sugar.  But it was nice that Norah could have some Easter treats without there having to be candy in our house to deal with over the next few weeks, so I'm not entirely upset with that bunny, though I do think next year he should read the conflict of interest clause on his contract.

Sugar aside, the kids were super cute.  Look at these happy little faces:

Easter was a lot easier for me this year than it has been in the past.  I think I really have come to a good place with my feelings about the Jesus story vs. the Christian religion, and it was nice to be able to think of the story fondly without brooding over all the yuckiness of the religion.  I will say that it was difficult to know what to tell Norah when she asked why we were celebrating.  How do you explain to a toddler that many, many people believe something, but you don't, but that you're going to celebrate anyways because it's still a story worth celebrating even if you don't totally believe it?  And then how do you further explain the actual story without scaring the living crap out of said toddler?  Uh, so there was this guy, and, uh, he was murdered, and, uh, then he came back from the dead.  No, that's not creepy at all.

And so we muddle through.

Oh, but it's so worth it.

My children also attended their first protest/rally this month.  One of Indiana's Certified Professional Midwives was arrested for practicing midwifery without a license.  The thing is, there is no licensing available for CPMs in our state.  26 other states offer licensing, but not Indiana.  Because there are only a handful of CNMs (Certified Nurse Midwives, who do have licensing in Indiana) who attend home births in our state, the lack of licensing essentially makes homebirth illegal.  Ok, maybe not exactly.  But it sure sounds dramatic, doesn't it?  At any rate, the lack of licensing definitely restricts women's rights in regards to their healthcare and reproductive choices.  The rally took place at the LaGrange County courthouse, where said midwife was scheduled for a hearing, and ralliers (is that a word?) gathered to demonstrate our desire for legislation to legalize CPMs in Indiana.

This is not me or one of my kids.  But I did take this picture, so I'm claiming it.

It's possible I'm raising my children to be hippies.  I'm not really sure how D feels about this.

Building in action!  Go D!

In other news, WE GOT A SWINGSET!  I'm a little excited.  We gathered up bits of our tax return to purchase a nice swingset for the kids.  It arrived earlier this month and D has it mostly put together.  There is still a canopy that goes on the top, but we received an incorrect piece with our set and are waiting for a new, correct, piece to arrive.  This thing is awesome!  There are spots for 2 swings, a trapeze bar on the side, a slide, a rock wall.... everything a 3 year old could want. 

Missing the canopy and a few toys up top yet.  The trapeze bar is on the side
behind the slide area, and the rock wall is on the side by the neighbor's fence.

Norah absolutely loves it.

Miles doesn't think it's too shabby either.

My Lovelies

Looking through my hard drive, it turns out I've taken a lot of photos of my kids this month.  Prolly because they're frickin' adorable.  Consider yourself warned: you're about to see some photo-whoring.

Good morning, Sunshine!

Norah had her orientation at Bunche this month.  She is going to be going to preschool there in the fall - how exciting!  We found out that she will be in Teresa's classroom, which is just wonderful.  Her playmate from across the street will also be in the same classroom with her, and I'm so happy that she will have someone she knows to start the year with.  Very, very rarely, everything falls into place, and this was one of those times.  Everything I could have hoped for happened - she got into the school, she got into the class I was hoping for, and she knows someone in her class.  Woot!

Completely unrelated to the text of the blog, but absolutely adorable.  *swoon*

Norah's favorite books this month have been Corduroy (the one about the Corduroy bear), and Harold and the Purple Crayon. She's started getting better at putting puzzles together and has been spending a lot of time on them lately.


Norah has been working very hard at growing her very own flowers!  She chose 5 kinds of flowers, planted them in pots, and has been checking on them every day and watering them.  I think she's going to have success with them - they're looking good so far.  She's really excited about having her very own plants and is looking forward to planting them in the ground when they get bigger.

Miles has been growing by leaps and bounds!  I can't believe it, but he's getting close to 6 months old.  Where has the time gone?  Miles is doing really well sitting up unassisted, though I do keep a pillow or a boppy close by in the event that he tumbles over.  Usually he falls over because he has reached too far forward for a toy, but he occasionally still topples over backwards or to the side for no apparent reason other than unsteady balance.

He has also been eating like crazy.  I feel sad watching him eat so much big-people food because that means he's not such a baby anymore.  *sigh*  But he seems to really like and want food and is doing really well with it.  He's recently discovered sweet potatoes, which he likes quite a bit.

Nom nom nom.... sweet potato!!

Norah and Miles are getting along very well.  Miles is now big enough to interact with Norah more, and she absolutely loves it!

Here, let me cover you up, baby brother.   Uh, ok sis.

Food & Health

This month has been difficult for me as far as trying to keep things healthy.  We ate a lot of sugar at  Easter time, and it was surprisingly hard to recover from that.  I also haven't done any regular working out at all because I'm checking out fitness places in hopes that I'll find a good fit.  More on that now:

In April, I visited both CrossFit facilities.  There is one on the north side of town, www.fortwaynestrengthandconditioning.com, and one on the southwest - www.crossfitfortwayne.com.  I was very impressed with both places and I think that the CrossFit philosophy will be a good fit for me.  It seems that there will be a lot of strength training, and that there's surprisingly little equipment because you learn to use your own body to train your own body, if that makes sense.  So far the southwest CrossFit has my vote, mostly because childcare is available for some class sessions.  With Daniel's work schedule not always being consistent, and with him traveling for up to a week and a half at a time, I need to be able to have somewhere my kids can go while I work out.  The biggest downside is that it is pretty pricey, and I don't know that I will be able to go forever.  If I go I will likely make a 4 or 6 month commitment, which I can pay for now, but I don't know how I will come up with the cash to keep going after that.

My goal was to decide on a fitness plan by the end of April, but that didn't quite happen.  I still have one more place to visit - Studio Seva.  Sarah has been going to a circuit class there that I would like to check out.  On the up side, it's substancially less expensive, however the circuit class meets only once a week (though they do have yoga and zumba on other nights) and there is no childcare.  I'm going to check it out next week, and then D is gone for the week following that, and then I hope to actually start going somewhere regularly.  So hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, I will figure out what I want to do and actually start doing it by the end of May.


As for food stuff, April was the month of frozen things.  First we tried a cherimoya fruit, which we froze and then scooped out of the skin.  I read on the internet that if we did this, it would taste like ice cream.  The internet clearly does not know what ice cream tastes like.  The reason we bought the cherimoya fruit in the first place was because it was sitting beneath a sign at Meijer that read: 'Cherimoya:  Tastes like candy'.  Uh, candy?  In a fruit?  Yes, please.  However, as with the internet and ice cream, Meijer clearly does not know what candy tastes like.  As Nicole so helpfully pointed out to me, there is a list of things that taste like candy:

1) candy



As you can see, the Cherimoya fruit is not on the list.  It does taste pretty good, though.  I think that had it not been frozen it would have been kind of banana-y in texture.  It was sweet and yummy, though definitely not ice cream or candy.

Srsly, mom?  How am I supposed to
 scoop out this giant frozen watermelon?

Next we froze some chunks of watermelon.  I read on the internet that if you freeze chunks of watermelon, your kids will be more inclined to eat it.  In what can only be described as a moment of redemption, this time the internet turned out to know its shit.  I have never, ever, ever gotten Norah to eat more than a taste of watermelon before spitting it out.  Freeze it, though, and it's frickin' toddler caviar.  I did make the mistake of quartering a mini-watermelon and thinking that would be good enough.  Obviously, this is a bad idea, as it was nearly impossible to eat.  The next time I cut it into manageable strips, which I then cut into little cone shaped treats.  This was much easier to eat.  Even Miles loved it!

Which leads me to my parenting tip of the month:  Things taste better when frozen.  At least at my house.  So far this year we've had huge success freezing bananas, yogurt, blueberries, strawberries, watermelon, and the ill-described cherimoya fruit.  Not only does freezing somehow make fruits more appealing to my kids, but it also preserves them so that I'm not silently cursing while I throw them into the compost at the end of the week because I couldn't get anyone to eat them.  (Side note, I received a compliment on my compost bins this month.  You know you're running with a crunchy  crowd when.......)


Keeping with our frozen theme, we also made sorbet this month.  This particular sorbet is strawberry orange lemon.  It was supposed to be strawberry orange, but I ran out of oranges while I was making it, and the next closest thing I had around was a lemon.  *shrug*  It was still really good.

Mmmmmmm..... sorbet.

Other treats we made include a grain free faux thin mint (heavenly!), and some super delicious lemon-coconut balls.  I'm experimenting a bit with grain-free baking, and these were both successes!

Reading back over that, it sounds like all we eat is fruit and grain-free baked goods.  Uh.  Oops.  Rest assured, that is not the case.  The baked goods I try to limit to one a week or every other week, because even though they are grain-free, they probably shouldn't be the staples of my diet.  Other than the frozen things and new baking, things have pretty much been our same old recipes.  However, I'm really looking forward to getting my garden moving so that I have some new vegetables to try new recipes with.  I got plants of spaghetti squash, zucchini, broccolli, cabbage, peppers, tomatoes, and cucumbers, which I think sounds pretty amazing!  I'm waiting until after Mother's Day to get them into the ground, but I'm hoping for a good vegetable garden this year, and subsequently, some good new recipes.  In particular, Pinterest has provided me with about a zillion spaghetti squash recipes, and that's something I've only tried to cook a handful of times.


Aaaaaaaand, I think that's about all for the Puff family for the month of April.  Tune in next month for more of our adventures!

Monthly Snapshot: March 2012

First things first, I learned a valuable lesson this month, namely that one should begin one's monthly snapshot at the beginning of the month and add to it as one goes - NOT begin it the last week of the month and assume one will find the time to write a lengthy blog post some time that week inbetween caring for the small people, keeping up the house, doing all the laundry, and getting medical care for the dog.  So, yea, anyway.  I realize it is nearly mid-April, but here is the much anticipated (!!) March snapshot!  Whoo!  Here we go!


Incidents & Events

Let's start off the month talking a bit about my husband.  Anyone who knows Dan knows that a lot of times when he tries to fix things, he first breaks them.  What they may not know is that he also inadvertently seems to break things *without* having had the intention of fixing them.  They just break, for inexplicable reasons.  Like, for example, my bathroom window.

Yes, my bathroom window.

Full story:  I'm lying in bed, nursing the baby when Dan walks in and informs me that our bathroom window is broken.  We only have one window in the bathroom, which happens to be in a door.  I look at him and asked what happened to it and he says.... wait for it.......





.......




"I was standing there looking out the window when I had to cough.  So I coughed and hit my head on the window and it broke"


For realz.

My husband broke the bathroom window with an innocent little cough.  In order to keep the glass in the window until it can be fixed (which, incidentally, it has not been yet), we taped it up with duct tape.  We're classy like that.

My bathroom window.  Note how the turquoise duct tape complements the brown curtains.  Classy.

When I told the story to Curt, I said, "You're not going to believe how Daniel broke the bathroom window," and he said, "Heather, I would believe anything.  This is the guy that fell asleep while he was peeing."  Touche'.  I guess this is just another day in the life for the Puff family.


Other unfortunate events include a random dog attack.  Fortunately, everyone is ok, but it was really scary.  I took the kids out for the first time in a new (to us) double stroller we had been gifted, and also took the dog along on a walk.  This was the first time I had ever put Miles in a stroller - he has always taken his walks perched on my back - and we were happily walking around the block when all of the sudden, a dog sitting on a porch darted off the porch and ran straight at us, barking and growling and snarling.  This did not go over well with me.  Two small children in the stroller, and a dog is coming at us like a (rabid) bat out of hell, and I didn't know what to do.

Luckily the random dog went for Dingo, who is equipped with sharp teeth and some wicked nails, rather than for the 4 month old in the stroller.  But poor Dingo got a nasty bite on her muzzle before the dog's owner came out and took it back in.  She is alright now, but did have to take antibiotics for awhile.  I also did call animal care and control, and they said the nasty mean dog would be quarantined for awhile, although I'm not exactly sure what that entails. 


We had a few exciting nights out as well.  We chose St. Patty's day to celebrate Sarah's 30th and my first drag show since having the babe.  What can I say?  I just really like drag queens.

It's a little depressing that this drag queen is way hotter than me,
although I know for sure she didn't just have a baby 4 months ago.
You know, that whole 'I'm a dude under this costume'  thing. 

The elusive Green Dragon comes out to play for St. Patty's day

After Dark: Gay Bubble Headquarters

Sarah and I discussed it, and it turns out that she and I only have 2 kinds of going out.  Version #1 of going out means getting dinner and possibly drinks at a resturaunt.  Version #2 of going out means going to After Dark.  If we're feeling really dangerous, we'll go out for dinner/drinks and then go to After Dark, which is what happened on St. Patty's day.  Look out, world.

We also discussed the gay bubble we live in.  Incidentally, the term 'gay bubble' is pretty gay.  But what I mean is that sometimes I forget there are bigots and crazy people who hate gay people because I've surrounded myself with people who aren't crazy bigots and who don't really care a whole lot what sex/gender/sexual orientation anybody else is.  That just isn't part of the equation in regard to whether someone is liked or not.  I like my bubble, but it makes me sad that there's a whole world outside of it that makes the bubble necessary.  Other bubbles I live in include the natural birth/midwife bubble, the crunchy bubble, and the sewing bubble. 

My Littles

The kiddos are still doing really well.  Miles is a crazy good sleeper, and he usually doesn't wake up during the night at all until Dan gets up in the morning.  I can't believe how great he is at sleeping.  He is starting to really have a personality and likes to pick things up and shake them around.  He also really likes book time at bedtime.  We always read 2 books at bedtime and he has started paying attention to them and really appearing to enjoy them.

I'm totally cute.... and I know it.

Nom nom nom... I eats apple

Miles is also starting to try some solid food now, which is code for, "he totally sucked on an apple slice and licked my pizza crust".  The Norah mommy would never have let this happen.  The Norah mommy would have said, "OMG, get that away from my baby before you give her an allergy and make her not want my milk anymore!! Agggghhh!".  The Miles mommy says, "Whoa, check that out - he's so busy sucking on that chunk of apple I actually got to eat hot food.  Whooo!".  And that, dear readers, is birth order personality theory explained.

Norah is her crazy 3 year old self.  This month her favorite books to read have been 1 Fish, 2 Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish and her Thomas the Tank Engine books.  She has been putting her baby doll in her sling and carrying it around a lot lately, and it is super cute.  I particularly enjoy when we go somewhere and I have Miles in my sling and she has her baby doll in hers.   So sweet!


Norah is all about the question, "Why?" as of late.  It makes me slightly crazy.  I almost think she just automatically says 'why?' without even knowing why she is doing it.  And if you answer her, she asks 'why?' about your answer.

Norah does not realize this, but deep within her she has the power to make me feel like an idiot.  Why, you ask? (much like Norah) - because half the time I have no idea what the answer is to what she's asking me.  "Why is the sky blue?", "Why do birds eat worms?" "Why aren't there zombies in the moon?" (Srsly, she *has* to be my kid).  How do you even answer those?

In addition to her pursuit for knowledge, Norah got to spend quite a lot of time playing outside since this month was so warm.  She's been riding her bike, playing with sidewalk chalk, and even spent some time in the pool!

This month was the lottery for Fort Wayne Community Schools, and we found out that Norah got into Bunche.  Bunche is the early childhood Montessori school run by FWCS and we were hoping to get her in so that she would have a shot at Montessori school through 8th grade (there's no way we can afford private Montessori school).  I feel a bit nervous about sending her since she's so young, but we very likely would not have gotten in if we had waited another year.  It's a few hours each morning, so it isn't very long, but it should be a good start to preparing her for school.

Norah and Miles are still getting along fabulously, and just lately Miles has started reacting and laughing at things she does.  Melts my heart.

Food & Health

This month we tried some new things!



Norah and the Ugli fruit - for best
taste, eat while wearing pajamas

First, we tried an ugli fruit.  I was all excited about my ugli fruit, first because it was very ugly, and second, because it sounded very exotic and adventurous.  I thought to myself, "How awesome is this that I'm going to try an ugli fruit!?!"  I felt so proud for having such an adventurous nature.


And then I googled ugli fruit.


Thanks, Google, thanks a lot.  Now I feel lame again.


Google ever so helpfully informed me that an ugli fruit is simply a hybrid orange/tangerine/grapefruit.  Not terribly adventurous, but it did taste good!

We also made some delicious yogurt bites, which have been the hit of the month.  "But what about banana pops?" you ask.  Oh, come now, banana pops are soooo last month.

To make the yogurt bites, we get those giant tubs of plain whole milk yogurt from Meijer, and then mix them up with some fruit - I have been using preserves I made 2 years ago, actually, because we have a ridiculously massive stockpile.  Put the yogurt in a ziploc bag, cut a hole in the corner, and then squeeze little bites of yogurt out onto a pan.  Freeze, and Wha la!  Yogurt bites!

We started out with strawberry....

And because I do everything in moderation, we moved along to blueberry, then to honey vanilla, then honey vanilla with blueberries and strawberries stuck in them, then to plain with granola stuck in them.  We went through 6 tubs of yogurt this month - that's 12 pounds of yogurt.  I don't really even know what to say about that, except I'm just thankful it wasn't 12 pounds of lemonheads.

I do not have OCD, I do not have OCD, I do not have OCD......

Norah with her yogurt bites.  I suppose this explains why all her pants are too short as of late.

There have been a lot of salads in our lives this month, which is nice with the weather getting warmer.  I used to think I didn't like salad, but it turns out that what I don't like is iceberg lettuce - make me a salad with some spinach and I'm completely happy.  However, I think I'm the only one in my house that likes spinach.  One day I was making salads and Dan said, "I don't want that spinach".  Then Norah tried a piece of the spinach, but all she did was lick it and make an awful face.  Miles picked  up a piece and looked at me like, "What's this crap you're trying to pull? I may have just started eating solid food yesterday, but I know a tree leaf when I see one," then threw it down on the floor where the dog proceeded to eat every. single. crumb. in sight - except for that piece of spinach.  True story.


This month I also got the chance to read an awesome book titled, "Why We Get Fat and What To Do About It," which did a wonderful job of explaining how our bodies metabolize fat and showed some crazy research supporting the reduction of carbs (specifically easily metabolized carbs like sugar/white flour) for optimal health.  I've been making some changes to my diet lately to reflect this, though I'm not ready (nor do I think I probably ever will be) to give up carbs or grains altogether.  We've tried some baking with both almond and coconut flours, and have also just worked on eating fewer grains and carbs and more protein, fat, and fruits/veggies. 

Believe it or not, with very little effort I've finally reached my mini-weight-loss-goal #2 of getting under 155 lbs.  Yes, I just posted my weight on my blog.  I have clearly lost my mind.  Most of what I have done is to reduce my sugar and grain consumption, but I haven't reduced anything else and have probably eaten much more fat.  I figure I've been trying to cut sugar anyway, and if I try this for a couple months and it doesn't work out for me, I can always tweak/change/work on something else.  There are 4 more mini-weight-loss-goals out there and I would love to achieve them by the end of 2012, but we'll just see how it goes.

I have also been going to zumba, though I'm thinking of stopping.  I am hoping to try out CrossFit in the near future and I think that may be a better fit for me than zumba.  I'm very interested in a good strength training routine, moreso than cardio.  Someone who is a member has a guest pass and is going to hook me up to try it out in the next week or so here.  I'm pretty excited!  The only downside is that it is quite cost prohibitive, and I'm really not sure we can afford it for more than maybe 1 quarter.  We'll see.


I think that may be everything I had to report.  Once I log off here, I should clearly get started on April's snapshot, though I think it may have to wait a day or so.  Hopefully I get it written some time before June......

Here are more pictures of my kiddos, in case you didn't get enough.

 

This Month's Snapshot: February 2012

Hello there!

I've been trying very hard to keep up with my blog, and I think I have an idea.,

You see, my sister got married last week and moved halfway around the world.  Or, erm, to Denver.  Which is halfway around the world to me, so long as my sister is there.

At any rate, I've thought of a way to keep my sister updated on life here in The Fort, *and* keep up with this blog.  Whoo!!

My plan (oh please, ADD, try not to interfere), is to post these monthly snapshots, showing the highlights and everyday goodness of the month in words and...... wait for it...... snapshots!  Bah!  I crack myself up.

Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and get started with our February snapshot.

February 2012

The obvious highlight of this month was my sister's wedding!  On February 18th, Michelle got married to the perfect man for her.  She and Chris packed their bags and moved all her things to Denver this past week, where they're setting up their new household.  I'm so happy for my baby sis!

Oddly enough, I don't have any of my own photos of the wedding.  "Why?" you ask.  Because I was in the wedding, plus I had a toddler who was in the wedding to wrangle, plus I had a 3 month old nursling to tend to.  Those extra moments when I would have grabbed my camera and taken a few shots were taken up with fixing toddler hair, feeding the baby, and trying to wriggle myself into shapewear.  But I'm confident our photographers did an awesome job, and I can't wait to see the proofs!

In addition to the wedding, we had all the wedding festivities, which included me getting to hang out with some awesome bridesmaids, and some of Michelle's friends who I don't usualy get to see because they live in Texas.  You know what was really cool about this?  All of Michelle's bridesmaids knew and like each other.  How often does that happen?  I had a lovely time with all the girls.


Let's see, what else has happened lately?

We had an awesome piercing time just the other night!  Erica is now rocking a new nose-ring, and Sarah got pierced as well.  I'm not telling where.  AND I TOOK SNAPSHOTS!! (must contain my enthusiasm, must contain my enthusiasm.....)

Here's Erica getting her nose pierced.  It looks awesome!

 Sarah has the super secret piercing.  See the fancy curtains?  They demand my silence.

All in all it was a good trip.  I declined to do any body modifications on account of thinking it might not be wise to intentionally make my body heal from anything given that a) I had a baby not all that long ago, and b) said baby relies on my body for ALL of his nutrition at present.  Maybe this year my Christmas present to myself will be something fun!

I did make one major change to my appearance this month.... I got bangs!  I haven't had bangs since I was 12 years old, but man!  They look goooooood! (well, I think so)

And now for the small child update portion of our report.  Heeeeere's the kiddos!


Miles is super cute, as per usual.  Here's the little dude, taking a ride on my back, where he prefers to be carried.



Little guy is full of smiles and generally still a chill, happy baby.  He can roll over now from his tummy to his back, but otherwise most of what he can do consists of sitting there, eating, and creating diaper laundry for me.  Poor guy.  But he's doing really well.

I'm telling you, he's an old soul.  Loooooook into his eeeeeyyyyeees.

                                        

Norah is her typical 3 year old self.  Her new favorite thing to say to me is, "Why are you being so mean to me?!?!?" when I've done something awful such as instruct her to finish her yogurt before getting a different snack or demanding that she wear pants (or a skirt) in public.  Horrible, I tell you.  Horrible.  Here she is, wearing pants in public.  Aren't I awful?

She is also starting to learn her letters and numbers, which I think is pretty cool.  Her favorite books right now are the Olivia books, particularly "Olivia and the Missing Toy", which we got from the library.  She constantly wants to watch TV (I think she gets that from her dad), so we have been battling on that.  I will let her watch a show or two a day (depending on if it is a long show or a short one), and her favorite right now is Dinosaur Train.

Norah is on a mad banana pop kick right now.  You probably don't know what a banana pop is, but I'm going to tell you!  Banana pops are bananas, cut up and put on sticks, rolled in yogurt (greek vanilla honey this week!), and then rolled in other goodies - this would be whatever I have around the house - and then put in the freezer.  At present we have abandoned granola that D apparently forgot about, graham cracker crumbs, and tiny chocolate chips.  Mmmmm.  Norah wants to eat about 20 of them a day, so around noon I once again transform into the horrible mom who is being so mean to her.  And so it goes.








Yes, this is the life I chose.  Srsly.  I'm not kidding.  Aside from apparently being the meanest mom on the planet, it's actually pretty good.

Feel the power of the banana pop. You know you want one!

                                     

And, some other stuff happened.  Let's see, what else....

*Grandma turned 80 and had a party!  I don't have any pics, but it was a nice party.  Norah and I split a steak.  How cool is that?

*Curt and Mallory moved in together.  Mike kind of lives there, but also stays part of the time with his uncle, who he is a caregiver for. 

Hangin' with my bestie.....

*Mallory had a birthday party!  Nicole and I were accosted by strange men wanting to know what we looked for in a bar.  We didn't have the heart to tell them we generally look for gay bars.  When we reported to them that we preferred rock music, they proceeded to tell us about this awesome country bar we should go to with them.  Hrm?  Also, that awesome thing happened where the two drunkest people in the room always find each other.  Once they did, Mike and Meghan put on quite the dance show.  Rock on!  Oh, and I did take pictures of that party.

......and my other bestie.

Bex and Meghan, ravishing as usual.

Happy Birthday, Mals!

Well hello there, ladies!

All the shoes in this photo are mine, but not all of the legs.  Freaky!

Lastly, I'm trying to make some changes in our health here at home.  I threw out all the sugary candy and now all we have is dark chocolate.  I'm not entirely sure dark chocolate is better for me than a tootsie pop, although it probably is, but I can stop after one piece of dark chocolate, so that's what we're going with.  We're also trying to cut back on grains, and right now the goal is to replace one grain-y snack/side per day with a fruit, vegetable, or dairy product.  Currently popular are cottage cheese and apple slices, and this week we took a chance and tried a blood orange.  Pretty good!  .  I also took my very first Zumba class this week with Carissa.  It more or less kicked my ass, but I'm excited to go back. I am now the proud owner of yoga pants, so I think I'm ready for more.

That's all I can think of for now.  It seems like quite a bit, but it has been a busy month.  Michelle, if you're reading, I miss you already.  Sending you my love.  And in case you didn't see enough cuteness already up above, here are a few more pics of the kiddos.

Nom nom nom.... must eat muffin before the crazy woman takes away my grains!