Maybe 1 of 2

We got back home today.  I think Ainsley was the happiest of all of us about this.  This is the first night in a week that she's slept for a stretch longer than 3 hours.  She's back in her bouncy chair, and extremely content.

This week had demonstrated to me how absolutely difficult it will be to move her out of her bouncy chair and into the crib.  We were gone a week, and every night only got minutely better.  It's going to be a long journey.  If you notice, we have moved to one arm out of her swaddle.  Baby steps....

I'm really hoping to get a lot of stuff done this weekend, but I don't think that's going to happen.  I need to get all my pictures transferred off my phone and onto my computer, upload pics to facebook, read the directions to my camera, apply for some jobs, and I'm hoping to write a little about cloth diapers.  We just got back today from Denver and will out and about again tomorrow for a Christmas party.  I'm petered out man.  I'm not really looking forward to it at this point.

I will write one little thing about cloth diapering... I love getting fluff in the mail.  I order all my stuff offline.  I have found recently, that etsy is a REALLY good source.  I came home to find some wool longies in my mailbox from Grateful Buns.  They come lanolized smelling like lavender.  My whole mailbox smelled like lavender.  I'm sure my postman appreciated it.  Wool covers are the only thing I will use over fitteds.  I mainly use pockets, but for overnight, wool has become my go to.  Ainsley is wearing her new PJ pants tonight...

I love the buttons.  It makes me want to buy some more fitted diapers so she can wear these longies during the day as an outfit.  I know at night, she is at least warm wearing these pants.

Another thing I can home to was a follow up call on a job.  I'm excited and reluctant at the same time.  I'm ready to start getting a paycheck again =), but I'm not ready to leave Miss A with a sitter.  The best care she can receive is being at home with me.  And I'm afraid that this position won't pay all that well, but the spousal unit is going to push me to take it.  I kinda want to at least stay home with her until my unemployment runs out in April, but I guess we can't always get what we want.

Oh, and I also weighed myself as soon as I got home.  I gained 5 lbs.  Just fucking great....



Pictures are pretty revealing... in not a pretty way

We spent most our day today taking family pictures all over the mountain.  I've sat here all night critiquing them.  Well, this was after going out to dinner and eating too much... of course.  There are three things I've determined. 

1.  My teeth are really yellow. What can I say.... I love coffee! I was going to get them whitened.  I bought a groupon for it, but couldn't use it because you apparently can't get it professionally done while your pregnant or nursing.  So, after July, I can hopefully get this taken care of...

See... my teeth look yellow

2.  I need to loose weight.  Baby weight.... from when I was a baby.  Now... this picture isn't completely fair, because the t-shirt I had on was bunched up around my waist from carrying Ainsley, but I still freakin hate it.

I'm not digging the chunky thighs either... but I'm not sure there is a lot I can do about that..

3.  I don't particularly like my haircut.  She made my bangs too heavy, and they are too short on one side of my part.  I have to part my hair really deep on one side the get all my bangs in.  It's kinda stupid.

I suppose it is what it is.  It's going to be interesting to step on the scale when I get back home.  I had a goal of losing 6 more pounds before Christmas.  I hope that figure doesn't go up at all.  I hate baby weight....

I am very fortunate to have a beautiful baby to show for it though.  For that, I am blessed.

Did you know that one of the Victoria's Secret Angels delivered a baby 6 weeks before doing one of their shows?????  Bitch....

I'm baaaack...

Things have been the utmost hectic the last month.  It seems the holidays have put everything into overdrive.  We put up our Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving (which is typically a big no no in our house) because we realized that was going to be the only opportunity we had until January. 

A short run down of the craziness... I took Ainsley to Oklahoma for a week while the spousal unit went hunting.  I was hoping for some relief from my mom in taking care of Baby A, but she was sick and unable to even hold her.  We went to Kansas for a day, went back to OKC, then back to Austin, to turn around and go to outside of Houston the following weekend.  This week, we are in Steamboat on vacation.  It was Baby A's first time on a plane.  Quite honestly, I was super nervous.  She did awesome though.  We even woke her up at 5:45 am to leave to the airport.  I know I would be pissed off if someone woke me up that early...

She fell asleep once we boarded and didn't wake up until about an hour into the flight.  Once she did, she was super enthralled with the peanuts.  That provided entertainment for a while.

But once we got here... it's been a totally different story.  I really hope it's not the altitude.  I've been trying to nurse her as much as possible to make sure she's not getting dehydrated.  But she's kinda fussy all day and is up once an hour ALL NIGHT LONG.  I finally got her to sleep for a couple of hours today in the swing that we rented and had delivered to our condo.  I must say... that is a must have for all parents traveling with infants.  We had a bouncy chair, swing, and bath tub here when we showed up.  It was awesome.

 Hopefully, she will be in a better mood and we can go visit daddy on the slopes tomorrow and take some good pictures on the mountain.

Her being cranky and us hanging out at the house did allow for us to enter a bunch of online contest today.  I don't think I've blogged about this before... but I'm really into cloth diapering.  It's actually become an obsession of mine.  I love it.  I'm mainly into pockets, but I do have a couple of fitteds with wool covers.  Anyways...  I'll blog all about this later.  But the give aways that Autumn is doing is awesome.  I absolutely love her blog.  Beginning cloth diapering can be overwhelming.  People don't realize how complicated it can be with all the different choices you have and all the different washing routines there are.  Her blog really helped me begin to figure out what was right for me.

Anyways... hopefully things will be better tonight here in the mountains.  Greetings from Steamboat!

So.... Tired....

Ainsley slept really well at the beginning of the week... which is when I should have written, but by the end of the week... she's been up every 2-3 hours.  She didn't completely go down til about 11 pm tonight.  Her usual bedtime is 8:30.  So this might be a little brief tonight.

I've spent the last two nights up late looking through etsy for a hat for Ainsley.  We are going snowboarding (well, only Chad actually.  Me have no insurance =( ......) and she needs a suitable hat, since we live in Texas and have had no need for one yet.  So I've narrowed it down.  There are seriously thousands to choose from on etsy...

1.  Cute... and very functional too.  Looks super warm
     

2.  Kinda same thing... just much brighter.


3.  I honestly question how warm this might be, but it is cute


4.  This is cute in the picture, but I'm a little worried it might be a little too pointy in real life



5.  And finally...



The spousal unit votes for 3 and 5.  I'm kinda leaning towards 1 or 2.  Either way, we need to get her head measured and sent in to one of the makers ASAP, because our trip is going to be here before you know it.

We are having the usual suspects over for football watching tomorrow.  Thinking about making Oreo cheesecake cookies while they are here, so I don't make them and eat them all.

Quiet weekend

So my spousal unit went out "hunting" this weekend, so Ainsley and I were left to our own vices.  I say "hunting", because I've never seen him bring anything home, and he goes "hunting" several times a year.  I get pictures of deer....  I think it's just an excuse to get out of town and drink.  Whateva....  I like the house to myself occasionally, honestly.

His family does a big dinner while they are out hunting.  So, because I wasn't going, I decided to send along muffins instead.  I figured they could eat them for breakfast or a snack... or when they're drunk.  ha ha.  So I made Nutella cheesecake pumpkin muffins.  He did come back with a couple, which I'm secretly happy about, so I can eat them.  The were pretty damn delicious...

Nutella Cheesecake Pumpkin Muffins via Tasty Kitchen

Ingredients

• FOR THE PUMPKIN MUFFINS:
• 4 whole Large Eggs
• 1-½ cup Sugar
• 1 can (15 Oz. Size) Pumpkin Puree
• 1-½ cup Vegetable Oil
• 3 cups All-purpose Flour
• 2 teaspoons Cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon Nutmeg
• 2 teaspoons Baking Soda
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• FOR THE NUTELLA CHEECAKE FILLING:
• 8 ounces, weight Cream Cheese, softened
• ½ cups Nutella
• 1 whole Large Egg

Preparation Instructions

Preheat oven to 375°F. In a large bowl, beat eggs slightly. Add in sugar, pumpkin and oil and beat thoroughly. Add in remaining dry ingredients and mix until smooth.
In a small bowl, beat together cream cheese, Nutella and egg until smooth.
Place paper liners in a muffin tin. Place about 2 tablespoons of pumpkin batter into each liner, then 1 tablespoon of Nutella batter, then top with 2 more tablespoons of pumpkin batter. Bake for 18-22 minutes.
These are best served completely cooled. Makes 20 muffins.

So yeah... we basically stayed in our pj's all weekend.  I did clean and watch football.  On Thursday, we bought Ainsley an exersaucer off of craigslist.  So while she napped Saturday morning, I got it all disinfected and cleaned up.  She's still a little too young for it yet.  She'll sit in it a couple of minutes before getting overwhelmed, but while she's enjoying it... it's so cute.

We were so lazy that we didn't even go out for dogfood on Friday like we were suppose to.  So the dogs had a terrific weekend.  They got green beans, bread, and cream of chicken soup.  Sounds like a pretty balanced meal to me...  They have a super hard life, as you can see.

So, that pretty much sums up how busy we were.   I have symphony rehearsal tomorrow night, so I'll be busy pretty much all day.  Just going to throw some stuff in the crockpot and call it good.  I do love this time of year.  It's starting to cool off enough in Texas to actually be able to cook on a regular basis.



ok, not so awesome

I wrote last night's post half asleep.  I forgot to put the oven temp at 250 and letting the seeds roast for at least an hour, stirring occasionally.  A mistake I made was also putting the seeds in a ziploc bag last night.  I tried some this morning and they were incredibly chewy...  not even edible.  So I threw them into the oven again tonight, and they are much better.  I'm hoping that leaving them out will keep them non-chewy.

Ainsley is incredibly out tonight.  She was up kinda early for her... 8:30 am, and only took a two short naps (30-45 minute) today.  I'm convinced I'm never going to get sleep ever again.  I'm either up with her, or freaked that she's sleeping so soundly.  I stop and stare at her to make sure her chest is moving.  It's really hard to tell sometimes!  I don't want to wish her infancy away, but I'm kinda anxious about her turning 4 months.  90 % of SIDS occurs during 2-4 months.  I can't wait to get out of this timeframe.  And we haven't gotten her to sleep on her back yet.  It's totally my fault.  She's sleeping so well right now, I just want to enjoy it for a little while before the next battle.  She's still in the room with me.  Here she is tonight...

Yup, that's a bouncy chair in a pack n play.

I'm not overly excited about moving her to her crib either, but we agreed we'd start trying to get her to sleep there at 4 months.  

She's been such a good baby lately.  Maybe the transition to her crib won't be that difficult.  Her she is while I was putting on make-up today.



Damn I'm good...

This morning started off pretty shitty.  The only job I have interviewed for so far got re posted with a temp agency last night for $22,000 less than I was making at my old job, and I wasn't making THAT much at my last job...  So I was bummed.  As soon as I opened my mouth to complain about it to the spousal unit, I got an email wanting me to call about another job I REALLY wanted.  I had put my salary requirements in the range of my last job, up to a little more.  I was ecstatic. So I called while the baby was asleep.  As soon as she asked what my PCR experience was, I knew it was game over.  When I said I didn't have much, she got off the phone fairly quickly.  My last job did me a great disservice by not providing any professional growth.  As soon as we got lab work and PCR work in, they didn't train their existing staff.  We got laid off and they hired new.  Thanks Signature Science!  I'm afraid this is a sign of things to come.

So on to better news...  I finally gutted my pumpkin and roasted pumpkin seeds. I may be a day late and dollar short, but I got it done.  They were awesome.  Here's how I do it....

Roasted pumpkin seeds
Seeds from 1 pumpkin
olive oil
Whatever season you'd like

Clean your seeds really well.  I got all the fibers off the seeds, then rinsed them in a colander.  Bring a pot of water to a boil, add seeds.  Slow boil for 10 minutes.  Strain seeds and pat dry on paper towels.  Place in bowl with approximately 1 tablespoon of olive oil.  Mix to cover seeds.  Spread on baking sheet and season.  I used Chris' steak seasoning on one half and 1/2 teaspoon each of cumin, garlic salt, and coriander on the other half.

I ate some of them right out of the oven.  And I thought to myself.... that is some damn good stuff!