Shortbread Cookies

Baking Tutorial: By Drew

When baking with mommy, I get to.....

...wear my apron that I look super cute in,

watch the dough mixing and make sure everything goes smoothly,

leave my mark in the cookie I want,
sit and have a snack while mommy washes dishes,
after eating dinner I play with my cookie as if it were a real choo-choo,
finally....enjoy!

Sorry, Black Rock Cafe

We had a long night and an even longer morning. Nothing seemed to be going right. With all of the wind, the power went out sometime in the middle of the night. Andy and I woke up to "beep, beep, beep". Andy had a little more clarity than I and informed me that it was because the baby monitor lost power. I turned it off and Andy stumbled to open Drew's door and our door so we could hear if he woke up. Once back in bed...."BEEP, BEEP, BEEP..." Andy stumbles out to the hall to rip down the fire alarm. On his way he says "this will be easy with the light off", I say, "I will turn on my lamp"...he just sighed...oh yeah, no power. Once the fire alarm was ripped off the ceiling...."BEEP, BEEP, BEEP" continues. He struggles to find a match and a candle. "Carbon monoxide", I remember. Drew starts rustling hearing the commotion and Andy can't open the back of the alarm to take out the battery. Finally, all the beeping stops and we all go back to sleep (who knows what time it is). 3:30Am I wake up and realize the power is back on, so I go to get the monitor and turn it back on. Climbing back into bed I stubbed my toes (3 of them) and squealed in pain waking Andy. All of this, with intermittent shoving Andy because he was snoring (sorry honey, but you were), led for a looong night.
Now for the good part. Once we all woke up, and Drew had his milk and yogurt, we decided to go out to breakfast. One of our usual joints was closed due to power outage, so I said why don't we try the new place...Black Rock Cafe. I guess it was good that we hadn't been there before, because we won't be going back. We walked into the very small restaurant where several people were enjoying their Sunday morning pancakes. We stood at the front and waited to be seated when Drew had a little cough...followed by a little burp. Just when I was in the midst of asking "what was that?".....BLAH....he puked all over me, Andy, the floor. I turned and ran him out of there while Andy stayed behind and apologized. I felt so badly for the people who had to clean it up, because I am his mom and I was almost throwing up myself. HORRID...that is all I can say. You'd think that after all of the spit-up associated with the acid reflux he had as a baby would make me immune to the grossness. Nope, this is different! Way, way different. I guess it was only a matter of time that we had to deal with this, I just thought it would be in the privacy of our own home.
On the plus side, we are pretty sure that he is fine. No temp and acting completely normal. He was even copying us while covered in vomit saying "poor kid, poor kid". I think the cough just made him gag a little and then up everything came.
I think the Black Rock Cafe people need a sorry card and a tip in the mail. Do you think Hallmark makes an "I'm sorry I puked all over your restaurant" card?

Touch-a-Truck

One of our neighboring towns hosted an event where kids could come and climb all over different types of vehicles. There was also a Halloween parade. Drew wore his costume, but we didn't make it all the way to the parade. The event was a big hit, especially the "me-ment mixer" (cement). A bonus was the playground that was right there...most of the kids wound up there. It was cute to see a bunch of kids in costume climbing all over the playground. Drew's costume was very popular, we overheard lots of people commenting on how cute, realistic, etc. it was. One woman ran across the playground and asked me where I got it. Store bought, yes, but I am still quite proud of how darn cute it is...and how cute he is in it!

Drew's jaw dropping reaction to seeing the "me-ment mixer"

We ran into Jack...they had fun in the big digger

back of the ambulance

back of the cruiser..hopefully he won't ever be in the back of either of the last 2 vehicles again!

Officially Potty Training?

Too bad I can't drink the wine

Drew has had a potty for a long time. It has sat on the bathroom floor un-used since he turned 1. This was so he would get used to it being a fixture in the bathroom. He has been sitting on it before getting into the tub for quite a while.

A few months ago, he did his first pee on the potty. At the beginning of the month (10/2 to be exact), Drew did his first poop on the potty! I had a photo, but I decided it was a little to personal to blog about. Since then he has been on and off about going on the potty. I will usually ask him when it is obvious that he is trying to go and sometimes he says yes and others he says no. I am all about no pressure, so if he is up to it we go.

He has gone a few more times, but he is starting to tell me before he goes which is a huge step. I have found myself unprepared when we go out in public, because I didn't think I was officially potty training. A few times he has said "Mommy, poo poo" and my response had to be "ok...go ahead" because I had no potty seat at my disposal. So, I decided it was time and have armed myself with all of the necessary gear. I will still have a no pressure attitude, but we are going to give it a go.

Showing off his candy corn treat for doing a pee-pee!

Playtown Express!

Today, my friend Lindsey and I took the boys to an indoor playground since it is very cold and raining out. I think this may be our winter hangout. I told Andy that I want to open a place like this. I could do it so much better (so I think).

The boys had so much fun riding in the car together and playing and then at lunch. I am exhausted, but hopefully Drew will have a long nap today.

In almost all of the pictures Drews face was just a blur because all he did was jump and run.

blur face...next time I will have to bring the better camera

A Dog's Life

Who knew dogs liked Thomas the Tank Engine?

A Good Day

We wound up having such a nice day. After the fair and a nap, Drew woke up so happy so we decided to go and pick out pumpkins. Same as last year, we went to Tangerinis Farm. If I haven't mentioned it before, I love love love this farm! It is just so pretty. We were there at the perfect time of day. They also have goats and a big sand pit with tons of trucks, so Drew was in heaven!

I brought the good camera and practiced some more with my new lens. I am no pro yet, but I am really liking the lens. I am also trying to teach myself Photoshop. I have been getting frustrated with it, so if anyone has any good resources for me I would love to hear them.

Same spot last year.

The following shots have been edited with Photoshop. It helped a lot where they were too bright.

We ended the day with dinner out and Drew was such a good boy. He now loves to talk to people at the tables next to us and is quite the entertainer. He ate most of his dinner and even had dessert! Andy and I can't stop saying what a good day it was. I am not sure if it was because everyone was in a good mood, or we did fun things, or that the weather was so beautiful; but we really enjoyed our family day together.

The Fair

Today we went to the Topsfield Fair. We have never been before, but Andy had heard that it would be packed! It was definetly true, traffic was backed up about 2 miles from the fairgrounds and it took us an extra 45 mins or so waiting to get in. We planned to get there when they opened, but after needing gas, Starbucks, oops mom forgot diapers, it was 10 minutes before opening when we got on the highway.

It was definetly worth the wait. We weren't able to go on many rides because Drew isn't 36" tall yet, but we all went on the merry-go-round and then I gave the rest of my tickets to a nice family who offered us their cup of chicken feed. (Definetly a fair trade; $8 worth of tickets for $.25 worth of pellets) Drew LOVED all of the animals. On the way there all he talked about seeing were the goats. I figured he would love the other animals too...which he did, but the goats definetly won by far! I am trying to convince daddy to buy us 2 goats. I promised I would milk them and make soap with it...hey maybe I could even make some money off of it.

Drew got an Elmo balloon which was to make up for not being able to go on the rides...$6 for a mylar balloon! And they didn't post the prices. We didn't bring the stroller with us, which was a big deal not to have it there as a back-up. But, sans stroller, I got to tie the balloon to my bag. I must have wacked a dozen people with it.

We were very impressed with the fair. I thought it would be more of a carnival, but I was wrong, it was definetly more of an agricultural fair. There were still plenty of concessions and rides, but that was fun too! We are excited to go back next year....with a 6 month old in tow!

Nothing Special

Drew is developing such a little personality. I guess this is a good thing, but after days like today it is hard to remember that. After a week of Drew having a cold, we were finally ready to head back to the gym and I had an appointment with a trainer. I told Drew where we were headed and instead of his usual "ok", I got "all done...gym!" this repeated over and over on our way there and got more emphatic as we got closer. When I pulled him out of the car he started screaming and I decided that we would skip. I still had to go inside and cancel the trainer, so the screaming got much much worse. Throughout the entire lobby you could hear Drew bellowing "HOME". Everyone looked at me like I was a monster for dragging my screaming child to the gym. Then, as we were walking out and passed the child care center he started asking to go and play with the cars inside! The audacity! The day didn't get much better after that with a handful of tantrums and a nap before lunch that only lasted 1 hour.

Eventhough I am exhausted and crabby, watching him do silly things like dance around the living room or laugh at his own "toots" (yes, he does that), makes it all worth while!

Here are some photos of Mr. Personality from last week:

Baby #2

The quality of this picture isn't so great, mainly because it is just a photo of the photo. I could have scanned it, but that would have been too easy!
The baby was bouncing and moving around quite a bit during the ultrasound. It was actually making it difficult for them to get a shot, but eventually cooperated.

Andy really wants to figure out a "belly name" for this one. He doesn't like calling it "baby #2". I say that a name will just present itself. Andy named Drew "meatball" while I was pregnant because of an incident one day at work. I was in the cafeteria getting a dish of pasta for lunch when I went over to the counter where they make subs and asked if I could have a meatball...he said no, they were only for subs. When I stepped away from the counter and he saw I was pregnant, he said "oh...come back you can have one". Like I was going to go and eat a small child or something because he wouldn't give the fat pregnant lady a meatball. I snapped back at him "forget it"! Apparently by the end of the day I wasn't over it, because I ranted the story back to Andy and that is where he came up with meatball. If we ask Drew what to call it, he says "hot dog", which is pretty much his response to anything, but I think we will get off of the meat names this time around.

Answer!

....that he is going to be a big brother! (We're sure he really is excited about it). We are expecting somewhere around April 15th! I will post some u/s photos of baby #2 shortly.

Question...

What is the news that Drew is reacting to in this photo?