We Done Got Us an Above Ground Covered Pool!!

It is a hot and humid Memorial Day weekend here in the 'ville. This afternoon, Bryan decided we would do nakey bath phase two, this time planning ahead enough to fill the pool with water two hours in advance, thus making for a nice and toasty cleansing experience for Jonathan. The only problem was, however, that we have zero shade in our backyard and, as Jonathan was going to bathe at 2:30 p.m., shade was a must. After much discussion, Bryan came up with the ingenious idea to put the card table over the pool, not only creating a lot of shade, but also inventing a whole new play experience for Jonathan. As you can see, he had no trouble making himself at home:



Bryan, who was a precious lamb and did the yard work, enjoyed some relaxing time while Jonathan splashed in the pool:



Apparently, bathing is a tiring experience so he had to lay down:



And with that naked baby butt, I wish all of you a great Memorial Day weekend!!

When Pizza and Yogurt Attack!

Tonight, right as I was getting Jonathan's dinner out of the microwave, my sister called. Bryan was home already so he graciously let me retire to the living room to talk to her and said he could take care of dinner. Imagine my surprise when I saw what occurred:





Obviously they had a great time and Bryan tells me he actually ate a decent amount. Add to that the fact that tonight was a bath night and it was pretty much perfect timing on Bryan's part!

A Woman with a Plan

For those of you who know me in "real life," I LOVE to plan and organize things. Which is one of the numerous reasons why it's great to be a mother--birthday parties! Although Jonathan's second birthday is not until July 2, I have, sadly, been thinking about it since February. I LOVE that Jonathan has a summer birthday because, as a Capricorn, I always had the indoor winter birthday where the whim of the weather could completely ruin a birthday party. So last year, even though it was a billion degrees outside, I was thrilled when July 1 rolled around and we got to grill out with family and godparents for Jonathan's birthday.

This year's party should be substantially similar. Same guest list essentially--I don't see any reason to invite his school friends until he actually KNOWS what a birthday is, which will be sometime the next year or two from what I'm told. Pretty much same food, too, but for BBQ rather than grilling out. I recently, however, developed a theme. I had some free time last week and decided to go shopping for Jonathan's birthday outfit. There is a really great local children's clothing boutique called JB & Me. They have the most ADORABLE things, even for boys, which is definitely a rarity. As soon as I saw this, I knew it was perfect:



You can't tell from the picture, but it actually reverses to solid green with a yellow embroidered chick applique. This outfit inspired me to to go with a fish theme, and, to that end, I found these invitations. I adore stationary, so this was truly a happy moment for me. I am truly a nerd, I know. Now I just have to take my cake decorating class where I am sure I will learn enough to put some sort of fish on a cake. At least I hope so...

As you can probably tell from the commentary above, not a whole lot has been going on around here, which is actually OK with me. We had a great weekend with Jonathan--we went to the zoo again and had a lot of time outside, particularly in the boo-box (aka--sandbox. I have no idea where he got this word!). As I agree with Heather that blogs are naked without pictures, I leave you with one from this evening taken while we "payed" outside before bed:

A New Hobby...Maybe

I was supposed to take the beginner's Wilton's cake decorating class this month, but the day before the first class, the teacher called and said she had to have some procedure done and so had to postpone the class until June. Not a huge deal, but I was pretty bummed about it since it's something I've wanted to do for a while now and I FINALLY got signed up (thanks, hubby!) and now it's not for a few weeks. It will, however, still be in time for me to (hopefully) do a cake for Jonathan's birthday, so all is not lost.

This postponement left me with a misdirected creative spirit. A few months ago, my wonderful mother in law bought us a sewing machine. I am honestly pretty intimidated by it (so happy you feel me here, Kara), but, during a sale at a local fabric store a while back, I decided to buy a simple pattern so I could try to make Jonathan some pyjamas. I thought pyjamas would be good because he'll just wear them around the house and to bed, so if they aren't perfect, they will at least still be wearable. I bought the pattern as well as enough fabric to make two pairs.

Tonight, I finally got the pattern out and read over everything. I believe the folks at Simplicity define "easy" differently than I do as this whole thing seems pretty complicated to me. As you will see from the picture below, however, it very clearly says that it's "easy to sew."



Not that I've gotten to sewing yet. First, I have to cut out a gazillion pieces in order to make what I thought would be a simple set of shorts pajamas. This next picture is the carnage I created with the pattern and scissors. It's actually only five pieces that I had to cut out, but it seemed like A LOT more.



And this last one is me trying to concentrate on cutting everything out properly. Hubby, knowing that I would blog about this (because I'm a big ol' dork), thought it would be fun to snap my picture.



I only got as far as cutting out the pieces, ironing them and determining which layout diagram I needed. That took me an hour and then I was starving for dinner. I'm not sure how well this is going to go, but I hope to be able to post a picture in the next two months (that's not too ambitious, is it?) of Jonathan wearing my homemade pyjamas. Even if they are hideous and the shorts only have one leg hole, I promise to post the results. Wish me luck...

The Great Outdoors

Jonathan has an endearing thing that he does recently. He likes to say "night, night" and lay down, rather stiffly, wherever he happens to be at the time and "go to sleep." Sometimes it's while he's sitting on the couch, sometimes it's while he's in the bathtub and sometimes, shockingly, it's while he's in his crib (where he actually DOES go to sleep).

Most recently, however, it's been while he is playing in the sandbox. He has the Step 2 sandbox, courtesy of my oh-so-generous sister, Laura, that is shaped like a frog. For the uninitiated, this picture should give you an idea (of course, the top with the actual frog face has been removed for play purposes):



Today was a beautiful day in the 'ville and Jonathan desperately wanted to play outdoors. After fairly extended shopping trips to Target and Costco, he'd definitely earned outdoor privileges and straight to the sandbox he went. He played in it for a LONG time and there were several "night, nights" to be had, the end result being the he desperately needed a bath as his hair and half of his face was caked with sand. He was too saturated in sand to actually cross the threshold into the house so Bryan and I had the ingenious idea to give him a bath in the back yard in the kiddie pool. It is something we'd joked about before but never actually put into practice. Tonight, however, we decided to go for it and Jonathan LOVED it, to say the least. We brought out the soap, the rubber duckie, the hooded towel, etc. According to Bryan, J-Man fulfilled a secret desire every man has of bathing in the great outdoors. As you can see, he was quite pleased, so much so that we may not be able to bathe him indoors until November. I have saved the full monty shots for when he brings home his first girlfriend...







As I am typing this, it has become Mother's Day, so Happy Mother's Day to all of you great mothers out there!! You deserve it and I hope you all have the best day ever!!

A Sad Sight

There is this little girl who goes to Jonathan's school. They've been in the same class off and on (she turned 2 in February so is already in the Twos). She is a really sweet little girl and her mother is also very nice.

I heard a while back that her mother and father were having marital problems and then, more recently, I learned they got a divorce. I'd forgotten all this until I saw the mother pull up today and park where you go in to drop your kids off. I noticed that she had an empty car, which was, for obvious reasons, strange since we were, after all, at a child care facility. I noted this and started to pull out of my parking spot when I saw the dad walk down the sidewalk with the little girl and her five-ish year old brother. The mom literally burst out of the car and went over to pick up the little girl, who was crying.

I realized pretty quickly that the dad had the kids over the weekend for visitation and that mom was just reuniting with them briefly before she had to go to work and they had to go to school. I am admittedly very sensitive, but this whole scene made me tear up. I cannot imagine spending the whole weekend separated from Jonathan, just to see him long enough Monday morning to kiss him and take him into school. The whole thing completely broke my heart. It also reminded me that I am really lucky to have such a great hubby and that I need to be thankful for my the wonderful family I have. I know divorce happens and that it's often for good reason. I just plan to do everything in my power to make sure that I never have to see the look on Jonathan's face (or my own) that I saw on the little girl and her mother this morning.

Oaks!!

We had the best time at Oaks!! The weather was definitely NOT wonderful--rain off and on throughout the day. However, our box was under cover, so we did not get rained on. We were also close to bathrooms, food and (most importantly) liquor, and the day was pretty much perfect! The picture above is us with one of our best "couple friends," Joe and Cindy. Aren't they cute?

The picture below is Bryan's uncle, John, and his girlfriend Catherine. John definitely deserves a shout-out here because he treated us to this fabulous day at the track and dinner, too. Thanks, John--you rock!!



I wanted to be sure that we took a nice picture before we started participating in the drinking, betting and general debauchery that goes on at the track. The first one is a "classic" pose and the second is our traditional self-portrait:





We actually won some money at the track, too, which is definitely not the norm for us. We're not now millionaires or anything, but we were able to offset our food and drink and subsequent gambling expenses, so we were pretty happy. I always look at the birthdays of the horses as an indicator of whether I should bet on them (I find it's just as good an indicator as any). With this methodology, I won $$ on the horse that placed second in the Oaks--he had Heather's birthday. Given, I only made $1.60, but I'm generally happy if I win at all. Thanks, Heather!

The rain luckily held off most of the day, at least not becoming a torrential downpour until after the Oaks ran. Unfortunately, we were almost out of Churchill Downs when I realized that, in his mad dash to gather all of our belongings and get back to the car, my hubby had left my purse in the box. So he and I had to go against the 100,000 people trying to leave the track to retrieve it. It was, happily, still there, but it was POURING when we came out. John was ever so kind enough to meet us outside with ponchos so our clothing remained, overall, intact.

However, the rain did not help with the already-destined to be bad traffic situation getting on the interstate and out to Z's Oyster Bar and Steakhouse for dinner. Since it was Oaks' night, the restaurant had a policy where your credit card would be charged $50.00 per person if you were not in the restaurant within 15 minutes of your reservation. This did not make my hubby very happy as it was our credit card that secured the reservation. This picture is in fact what he looked like pretty much until we arrived at the restaurant--that smile is completely fake:



Not to fear, however, because we arrived at the restaurant EXACTLY 15 minutes late, so they did not give up our table. Which is a good thing because the dinner was DELICIOUS. We had Caesar salad, filet, au gratin potatoes and (this was the best part) Godiva chocolate creme brulee. We also enjoyed a couple of bottles of delectable Northstar Merlot. We were more than full when we left but it was completely worth gastrointestinal discomfort!!

We turned in at a modest 10:45 pm and slept soundly until almost 10:30 am Saturday morning. Jonathan had a great time at Nana's, so it could not have been more perfect! It was SO nice to have a whole day of adult-fun, but I was really happy to get my little man back yesterday morning!!