Birthday Season is Upon Us.

And it couldn't have come at a better time. A lot of our friends' children have birthdays this time of year. We had two this past weekend, and we have two more next weekend. This may sound like sheer torture for some folks, but for us it's great.  Jon is so busy getting ready for the Water Safari this time of year that Amery and I need to find ways to keep busy without him.  Enter birthday parties - or what I like to call "Operation Energy Burn-Off."

First we hit Connor's birthday party on Saturday at an awesome, shady little park with a cool playscape and a trackless train for all the kids:

Jon joined us later that day and we cruised up to Grammy and Grampy's pool in Lago Vista.  I don't know if he was more excited about the pool or that fact that he got a whole bag of Cheetos to himself and didn't have to share:



On Sunday we had an awesome time at Jack's party at a "jumpy place" but I didn't get any pictures because Amery wouldn't stop moving long enough for me to snap one.  On Monday we cruised around town for a bit, then headed down to San Marcos for some Water Safari necessities and a little time swimming and throwing rocks into the San Marcos River:

 Amery and I broke in the pool for the season on Monday night - a perfect end to the busy weekend.

Hooper Hero

I'm kind of in love with this video.  It's short and very sweet.

Wordless Wednesday

Big Boy Room Progress

We will eventually be moving Amery into the current guest room, and while grandma was in town we she made some progress on the decor.  This room has needed some curtains since we moved in six years ago.  None of our guests complained so it just got put off.  A couple of weeks go we picked up a pair of these Lightcatcher Curtains at Tuesday Morning for $19.99 per panel (it may have even been $14.99, I can't remember).  Off-white wasn't my first choice, but they didn't have a ton of solid colors to choose from.  In the end I really liked them, and they block out a TON of light when closed.

Next we searched and searched for some Hawaiian fabric to make a valance to match his PBK Island Surf Bedding (he has this quilt with this navy/red reversible comforter):

I don't plan on changing the wall color in the room which is currently that green color you see in the quilt.  So in the end, we decided a plain navy valance was the best we could do.  A quick search on the Hancock Fabrics website lead me to this awesome ribbon.  A little bit of Witch Stitchery, a hot iron, and a towel over top of the ribbon (turns out those white flowers are plastic!) and we had a valance:

A couple of tiebacks tied the valance and the off-white curtains together:

It was tough to get a good photo in low light, and the canopy bed in the way doesn't help things much, but I think it looks pretty darn good:



Adding the hibiscus ribbon allowed us to tie it in with flowers/leaves in the surf bedding while still keeping it masculine.  When we move him into this room I plan on taking off the door to the walk-in closet and replacing it with a curtain.  Right now the door swings into the room and takes up precious wall space on the only wall that can really "hold" the bed.  Since I have a bunch of hibiscus ribbon leftover, I'm thinking a navy blue curtain with red ribbon accents at the top and bottom or maybe along the long edge.

Siblings

Amery's first photo with his new little brother or sister:

First Trimester? Done and Done.

That part's so boring anyway.  We thought we'd just let you straight in on the second. 

Baby #2 is 12w1d and will be here around November 6th, so get your oooohs and aaaahs ready.

Haircut!

What a difference a few snips makes:

Wordless Wednesday

Creamy Pesto Pasta Salad

I've been making this salad since college when it was first discovered on the back of a Knorr Creamy Pesto Pasta Sauce Mix packet. My college roommate, Christine, who follows this blog but despite my pathetic pleading refuses to acknowledge any other social media, will most definitely remember this recipe with fondness. Being able to make something in college that tastes halfway decent is an easy way to impress just about anyone else in college.

Every time I make this salad I am immediately asked for the recipe. It's so simple and easy, I'm almost ashamed to post it because now everyone will know I spent exactly 10 minutes putting it together for their book club/picnic/BBQ/party. After making it for the book club ladies last week, I promised I would blog about it the next time I made it so it would be pin-able on Pinterest.

If you want to skip right to the recipe, scroll down to the bottom of this post.


Here's the stuff you're gonna need.


While your noodles are boiling, wash and cut the tomatoes in half. The original recipe calls for 1 pint of cherry tomatoes, but I always use grape tomatoes because I like the smaller size. I also use half the amount of tomatoes than the original recipe called for, so if you like a lot of tomatoes, use twice as many as I tell you below in my version.


In a big bowl, mix up sauce mix, vinegar, mayo, and milk. One thing about the pasta sauce mix - it has to be the Knorr Creamy Pesto Sauce Mix. The non-creamy Knorr pesto sauce mix will not taste the same. I found this out the hard way.


When the pasta is done, rinse it with cool water until it's at least room temperature.


Mix the pasta, tomatoes, and mozzarella together with the sauce. The original recipe says you can either use shredded mozzarella or cubed. I like shredded myself, and I always buy the larger shreds rather than the "fancy" shreds.


Get it alllll mixed up, but don't go crazy or the tomato seeds will spew out all over the rest of it.


Serve and enjoy.

Creamy Pesto Pasta Salad

1 (1.2 oz) pkg Knorr Creamy Pesto Pasta Sauce Mix
3/4 cup regular or light mayonnaise
1/3 cup milk
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/2 pint grape tomatoes -- halved
8 ounces pasta twists or rotelle (about 4 c), cooked and rinsed and drained
1 cup (4 oz) shredded mozzarella

In large bowl, stir pasta sauce mix, mayo, milk, and vinegar until blended. Add tomatoes, pasta and cheese; toss to coat. Cover; chill to blend flavors.

Bluebonnets 2012

Finally, we got a picture in the bluebonnets this year. For the non-Texans, it is a tradition down here to take your kid, plop him or her down in a field of bluebonnets, hope they don't sit on a fire ant mound, and snap a picture before they run away. We slacked off last year (see two-and-a-half-year photo to the left), and I really haven't had the time to drive around and find some, so I was very happy to see a great patch of bluebonnets at the farm where our church holds its annual Easter sunrise service.

I have only one problem with this picture - he looks so old! There is no way I would think this kid is only three-and-a-half if you showed me this picture and I didn't know him. ::sniff::

School Pictures - Spring 2012

The hard part is picking just one!

A Couple of Firsts

First Time Bowling. He loved it. We'll definitely be doing more of this together.


First Time Ice Skating (this is the only picture we've got, sorry). Jon took him while I was at another event, and apparently he was a little scared. He told Jon he wanted to come back when he had a helmet.

Wordless Wednesday

Santa win. Times three.

Well I thought we had an awesome Santa picture this year with this one from Minnesota:

Then his school had to go and take these, which are pretty much perfect and awesome, and even the Santa is fatter and jolly-er:

And now I must pay seventy bazillion dollars to have them.

Over the river and through the woods

Y'all, we're about to take a road trip. A very long road trip. One thousand, one hundred, seventy-nine and two-tenths of a mile miles to be exact. The cost of three airline tickets ($1000+ for the three of us) was just too expensive for our journey to the Land of 10,000 Lakes this year for Thanksgiving. So we're driving...with a three-year-old. Are we insane? Possibly. On drugs? We may wish we were by the time we get there.

I'm going to try and be a good blogger on this trip since I've been a bad one this year. Perhaps entering the age of the iPhone will take away any excuses I have for not updating the blog on the road. Perhaps I shouldn't make promises. For now, bags are (almost) packed, lists have been made, pet care has been established (the pets are staying - we're not that nuts, people), and snacks/drinks/movies/toys have been purchased.

By the time we get back, we'll be drinking pop instead of soda, eating hot dish instead of casserole, and substituting words like "spendy" for expensive.


See? Long.

Halloween Flashbacks

All right then, see ya Halloween 2011. It was nice knowing ya. How about a look at Halloweens past since our little man first made his appearance:


If we both look a little tired, it probably had something to do with never sleeping ever.


Giraffe and Giraffe Wrangler.


Amery had a little obsession with checking the mailbox this year. I was a love letter from Miss Avah B. in Colorado.

You already know the story of the Different Kind of Robot. I was a nerdy science fair winner.

I took a couple of little videos last night too, but no time to mess with them at the moment. Check back in a couple of days.

Not What I Expected

That is, our first pumpkin-carving experience. I thought this was the first year he would truly appreciate this tradition. For weeks I've been oohing and aahing over my friends' adorable photos taken on family trips to the pumpkin patch.

The actual pumpking-picking-out event looked a little something like this in my head:

Unfortunately, life is busy. There are birthday parties and swimming lessons to attend, houses to clean, errands to run. So instead the pumpkin patch looked a little more like this:

Whatever, in the end, it's the gourd that counts.

He started off pretty excited about the idea of carving the pumpkin:



Then he got a look and a smell of what was inside the pumpkin:

Then guess who finished carving the pumpkin:

If no hookie-playing teenagers smash it today, I'll snap a picture of my creation this evening. Of course Amery takes credit for "his" jack-o-lantern.

Wordless Wednesday

Superman vs Spiderman vs A Different Kind of Robot

We've been asking Amery what he wanted to be for Halloween since about mid-September. He's in a superhero (he calls them "superzeros") phase right now, so naturally his internal debate has been between Superman and Spiderman. I was secretly hoping he'd choose the former, because then I could order this to match him. Superman was clearly the favorite, so I had high hopes. Finally, about two weeks ago, I asked him when he woke up if he wanted to be Superman or Spiderman. His answer was, "I want to be a robot." This was followed by his declaration to be a certain complicated Transformers-like robot he'd been carrying around for a few days. I told him I didn't think I could make that costume, so he would have to be a different kind of robot. Now if you ask him what he is for Halloween he will clearly tell you, "I'm a different kind of robot."

Armed with about 10 different homemade robot tutorials found on Pinterest, I settled on this version that uses a couple of aluminum roasting pans vs the traditional "cut a few holes in a cardboard box and hope your kid never needs to sit down or pee" version. I also knew he would never keep a helmet on his head for any length of time, so I cut apart a double-disco-ball headband from the costume store and made it into a single antenna headband using a regular old kid's headband from Target and some aluminum tape.

The small designs along the sides were some pre-colored printables from this site, but they have versions you can color yourself as well. I forgot to take a picture of the back side, but it's lined with reflectors I bought for about a dollar at Harbor Freight Tools. They function both as decorations for the costume and as safety items for trick-or-treating in the dark. I also plan to tape some glow sticks to the costume that night, but obviously they would lose their glow after a few hours, so I skipped that step thus far.

The final result, as recorded by my talented friend with her kick-butt camera skillz:


...an adorably sweet...


...different kind of robot.

He's Three!

We can't believe it either, buddy.