California, Here We Come

It's just 3 days until we leave for our trip to California. We'll be there for a week and I have been trying to plan it all out so we can see as many people as possible and eat at all the places we really miss. It is amazing how fast a week goes though, especially when you lose 2 days to traveling and are in a wedding during that time. I'm happy to report that my sister (the bride) is feeling much better now after getting the H1N1 flu. I'm getting really excited for the wedding and the trip. I think I have everything we need for the trip but I haven't started packing yet.

After a very cold October, November has started off kind of warm. It's in the 60s for the next few days and so Rob is going to play some golf this weekend. Golf in November- seems a little crazy for Iowa. I'm sure by the time we get back from our trip, all good weather will be over and winter will start settling in. Snow is good through Christmas but then it is just a pain during January and February.

So, not too much going on around here- we've just been getting ready for our trip and getting the house ready for winter. Rob spent about 5 hours last Saturday in the yard, raking leaves and cleaning stuff up. Then on Sunday he put up some of the storm windows. I'm still trying to keep Rex out of circulation until he gets his second H1N1 shot so he and I don't get out much. He is the best kid in the whole world (at least in my opinion) and I just don't want him to get sick. So don't be surprised if I ask you to wash your hands or use antibacterial gel before you hold or touch him next week. If I let you touch him. Rob calls me "mama bear" for a reason!

Just Dance

It seems no one can resist a catchy Lady Gaga tune.



Actually, Rex will dance to anything- any time he hears some music, he stops what he is doing so he can shake it. You may notice some abandoned flash cards and George in the background of the video. That is because as soon as he heard me start up the music, he dropped what he was doing and came over to the gate at the end of the hall (the closest he could get to me and the music) and started dancing.

In other news, Rex got his first H1N1 flu shot on Monday. I wish he was able to get both before our trip to California but since they have to be 28 days apart, there is no way. We got it for him the first day our county had the clinics so there isn't anything else we could have done. Oh well. He is such a tough guy- no tears or anything when he got it. And in a related story, my poor sister has gotten sick with the stupid swine flu. Not great for anyone but really not great when you are getting married in 3 weeks and trying to get everything ready for the wedding. Here's hoping she gets well very, very soon!

Not much planned for us this weekend. We need to work on getting some yard stuff and house stuff done before winter gets here. So much more to do to get ready for winter when you live where it snows! Last weekend I had Bunco and Rob played golf so that was a fun weekend. Now we have to have a work weekend- yuck. I made cheesecake pops for my snack for Bunco and they were a big hit. I forgot to take a picture but they looked really cute and tasted pretty good too.

Boring. Cold and Boring.

That's us right now- cold and boring. I haven't blogged in a while because there is absolutely nothing to blog about. Don't believe me? Here is what we did Tuesday night.

Rob used the newspaper to make Rex a hat.



But he didn't really want to wear it.



Then Rob put it on.



So that's us. It's really cold here. Our highs have been in the 40s and lows in the 20s and 30s. It has even snowed some around us. We've had snow in our weather forecast but we have been lucky and managed to avoid it so far. Average high for now is 65 so this really stinks. And that is all I've got.

Pie Pops, Dahlias and a Trip to the Twin Cities

It was Bunco night two Fridays ago and I decided I was going to try making some pie pops. They were first on Luxirare but thankfully Bakerella did a batch too that she blogged about with instructions. Not that I couldn't have figured it out but it is still nice to have some directions to follow. Both have far better pictures than I do but here are how mine turned out.




I didn't even try any because they were cherry and I don't like cherry pie. I was going to make more with apple pie filling but I ran out of energy. Though easy to make, they are time consuming and I was over it by the time I was finished with the cherry pie pops. I was told they were good so that was a relief- I was a little nervous about giving them out to eat when I hadn't even tried them first. It was a good night at Bunco with the fun snacks and I even won. Yay for that!

The next morning (last Saturday 9/19) we left to go to Minneapolis. We have never made it downtown since I have major fears of going across bridges, particularly ones that have previously collapsed and resulted in death. I tried to talk myself into it this time but I still couldn't do it so we stayed around the southerly end of the Twin Cities area. We went to the Mall of America, the Minnesota Zoo and IKEA. It's hard to get out and do much when you have to go back to the hotel twice a day for naps but we had a nice time being on vacation and away from home for a few days. We ate out at a few restaurants and Rex did great and especially enjoyed the Rainforest Cafe. Here are some pictures but there are more on my Flickr page.




Since we've been home, Rob has been helping Rex put together some of our IKEA purchases.



Yesterday was super windy and I think today is even worse. I had a hard time pushing the cart into the store today just going from the car to the front door! Sadly though, my dahlias have had the worst luck with all the wind. I noticed today that the wind had knocked nearly all of them down.



I tried to save as many as I could and brought them inside to make a little bouquet of them. I doubt anyone would think a florist put this together but, for me, I think I did good. And everything is out of our yard too which I think makes it pretty cool.



So that's what we've been up to for the last two weeks. Oh, and I've been reading a bunch lately too and we finished the John Adams miniseries on dvd finally. I read Janet Evanovich's Finger Lickin' Fifteen (love all the Stephanie Plum novels) and I read Twilight (not the last person on Earth to read it but probably pretty close). I enjoyed Twilight much more than I thought I would. Now I'm on to New Moon and soon will need to go the video store to get the movie to watch...

I was going to end it there but I just remembered a funny story about going to the video store on Friday. Rex and I were running a few errands and I decided to stop at the video store and get Wolverine since I didn't get to see it in the theater. Boohoo. Anyhow, while waiting in line, Rex starts smiling and keeps telling the cashier "hi" and waving even though she was helping someone else and we were waiting behind them. It was very cute and he had been quite a charmer with the lady at the bank (who wanted to give him a sticker) and quite a few ladies at the grocery store. So when we got up there, I gave the lady my card and the movie and she tells me, "Oh, you have a free movie on your account. There's no charge today." Hmm. I have never gotten a free movie there and as far as I know, they don't have any kind of reward programs. All I can figure is that my very cute and charming son got us a free movie. Awesome. Rex, now go on down to the video store and rent Twilight for mommy!

The Things He Does

We haven't been doing much lately. Seriously. I have been scrapbooking like crazy since my work space got all set up and Rob fixed a window on the side of the garage. Nothing exciting to write about there. We are planning a trip this weekend to Minneapolis and I have Bunco on Friday so things are looking a little more lively in the near future. I thought I'd take the opportunity to share what Rex is up to these days.

Where's Rex?



Peekaboo- There he is!



Obviously, peekaboo is still a big hit. (By the way, I did trim up his hair a little since these pictures were taken a few days ago.) He tells Elmo and Vanna "bye" when they say bye at the end of their shows which cracks me up! I have been trying to get a video of it but have not yet been successful. When Rex is finished eating, he says "done" and he uses hi and bye appropriately and waves when he says either. He can make monkey sounds when you say "Monkey" and he also makes the noises to his favorite stuffed animal, Curious George, without any prompting. He stacks all the rings up on the Fisher Price ring stacker thing and can even get them in the right order sometimes. I'm sure there are plenty more fun things he is doing but I can't think of them all right now and Mr. Sleepyhead finally decided to wake up this morning so I better go get him. We just have the best time with him and he is an outstanding little boy.

And on a completely random side note, I just saw Dennis Quaid on tv and man, did he look bad! I have always thought he was a pretty handsome guy but he's had some work done that didn't seem to go too well. Sometimes it is best to just try and age gracefully instead of fighting it. If you don't believe me, just ask Kenny Rogers.

Take A Picture, It'll Last Longer

I think I have owned most of the scrapbooking supplies shown below for at least four years. There are more too that are not even shown here. I took a lot of pictures on a trip to Europe in 2005 and I came home thinking I would make a beautiful scrapbook of my trip so I bought all the supplies. I knew I would get around to it someday so I have moved all the supplies from my old house to apartment to another apartment and to my house now. And now, I am finally getting around to doing something with them.



The biggest issue for me was getting all my photos printed. And by now, it wasn't just pictures from one trip. It's wedding pictures, Rex pictures, vacation pictures and everything else from the last 4 1/2 years of my life. I didn't want to deal with getting 500+ photos printed because that meant a LOT of uploading to Walgreens website. I had the good sense last week to check on the prices Apple has for printing services (no uploading- just order straight from iPhoto) and they were so cheap! Shipping was only $2.99 and the pictures were delivered two days after I ordered them. The next issue was photo albums. I had a couple but needed more. The local arts/crafts/hobby store had all their scrapbooking supplies on sale for 50% off so I picked up the rest of needed. Final problem- a place to work. Rob solved that one by making a huge work table in our office for me.



As you can see by the plan sets on the table, Rob was the first to use the new desk. But after all his hard work, I'd say he deserved it. I still have to move in and get all my stuff set up but I can't wait to finally get my photo albums put together!

Ticket for One

I had a nice weekend. It was Bunco with the girls on Friday night and then I went to the movies to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on Sunday. Rob was going to go with me but I did not feel comfortable leaving Rex with a babysitter so Rob stayed with Rex while I went to watch the movie. Yes, I was a total nerd and went to see a Harry Potter movie by myself. Laugh all you want because I don't really care. Sometimes you just do what you have to do.

This week is not too exciting though. We have nothing going on which is fine. Lots of time for reading books. For me, it's Hard Eight by Janet Evanovich and for Rex, it's everything on the shelf.

Back to Normal

Rex is all better now. His fever was gone by Wednesday morning and he was about 90% that day. He still had a little less energy than usual but Thursday he was running at a full 100%. Here is some video from yesterday when he was back at it again. In the first one, he was playing with my cup and thought the sound the straw made was so funny. In the second one, he crawls like a baby instead of his usual belly-on-the-ground crawl. At the end, he tries to stand up but gets a little stuck.

Milestones

We've had some big milestones recently. First of all, a happy belated birthday to my husband who turned 40 yesterday! We had a party for him last Friday night and spent most of last week and even the previous weekend prepping for that. We have a room that we call the "Bike Shop" because it's where we keep our 4 bikes but really it is a 3-season room just off the garage. Besides the bikes, it has Rex's strollers and some crap. Last Sunday we decided to clean it all out and paint it and make it the party room it was destined to be.

Before:



After:




Unfortunately, I was so busy playing with Rex and keeping an eye on all the food to keep that table full and yummy-looking that I forgot to take even one picture. I also had set the oven on fire about 45 minutes before the party was supposed to start so my mind was pretty well fried by party time. Rob had to spray the oven down with the extinguisher but we got it all cleaned before everyone arrived. Nobody got any bacon-wrapped lil' smokies (the cause of the fire) or spinach dip (which was supposed to go in after the cholesterol-on-a-stick snacks) but there was still plenty of food. We had a good time and I think everyone else did too. His actual birthday last night was pretty mellow- we had pizza at home. Our families chipped in to get him a new driver and fairway wood for his birthday which he received last weekend so he didn't even have any presents to unwrap. Again, I forgot to take any photos but I did get this one this morning- this is all that was left of the birthday festivities.



Our next big milestone started Sunday morning when we woke to find that Rex was one sick little guy. He's been running a fever since then and had some tummy troubles Saturday and Sunday night. This is the main reason why Rob's birthday yesterday was so lame (sorry honey). We took him to the doctor yesterday and got him all checked out which included a very unpleasant blood sample. See bandaged arm below.



We were there for a while and he has a virus that just has to do its thing and get out of his system. He's a little crabby but I think he is doing pretty well considering what all he is dealing with. I miss this guy who gets into everything and can't wait for his return!

Coolin' at the Playground

I took Rex to try out the swings at the park a few months ago and he wasn't really into it. I tried again yesterday and he loved it. We went again today and he loved it even more! He does not, however, love wearing the hat but mommy makes him because she is afraid that his giant head will get a giant sunburn.