The trouble with jogging is that the ice falls out of your glass.

Yay the internet works today-hooray! Now we are waiting for our weekly Nurse Carol appointment. I'm hoping my awesome milk, as Carol calls it, helps Evie break 10 pounds today. Fingers crossed everyone!

My Mom made it to Ireland, finally, she was stuck in Chicago for two days. Don't feel too sorry for her though, the airline put her up in a Hilton and she got massages and mani-pedi's. She said that if they had to wait one more day they were scraping their European vacation and going to Jamaica. At first I was like, um, you didn't even pack shorts, but then I realized in Jamaica you probably just need a swimsuit. If I were her I would have went to Brazil or something. If I was on my dream vacation that someone else was paying for.

Seth and I have tentatively started looking at real estate. Seth finally accepted that we have already outgrown this house and by the time Evie is walking we will be in hella trouble. He used to say we could put two kids in the spare room, but both he and I are starting to feel the weight of Evie's baby stuff crushing us these days. I haven't even seen the basement since before she was born because that is where everything went that baby stuff replaced. In theory we were supposed to store it in the storage room or the shed but that is a monster in itself at the moment. So anyway we started looking. I forgot how lamesauce looking for real estate is. And I remembered what a horrible agent we had last time and how I had to do all the work. We want about 1800 or more square feet this time, three or more bedroom, and two or more baths, and we want to be in Sarpy County, close as possible to Seth's work. And we'd like that all for 150,000 or under, which is a pipe dream at best. What I really want is to live in my Mom's neighborhood because that would help me out, the houses are gorgeous, and it's a closed street so I know Evie would be safe to play around there, plus you get a lot of land with the houses. But we don't have THAT much money for a house! Selling this house is going to be such a bitch though because we have a ton of projects in limbo that need to be finished or started to up the value of the house enough to get what we want out of it. So anyway, hopefully by the time Seth finds out if we are staying in Omaha for a long time (next January) we can be prepared to look at houses, for now we are just looking to make sure we don't miss the deal of a lifetime. Another nice thing about looking this early-if their are bank owned homes or short sales, those usually take forever to close, and we have that time. Plus we have a bonus of being able to live with my parents for a short time (they are like across the street from Seth's work) if we sale the house before we buy.

I secretly think I would be an awesome real estate agent. Maybe when my kids get older that will be a profession I look into. I know a lot about houses, I've lived in over 10 of them, and thanks to my Dad I know what work would need to be done in a house. But I know that those tests are hellish and you have to do a lot of studying and it's a lot of off hours.

It looks like it's going to start to get hot and sticky around here and not in a fun sexy way. I bleeping hate summer. So bad. I hate being hot and sweaty and sticky. Blech. At least now I have an excuse to get Seth to turn the air on. The baby and all.

Looks like a weekend with the in-laws coming up. Which kind of makes me sad because we had nothing on the schedule and the fly by the seat of your pants thing was so relaxing last weekend. Seth's parents want to come up Saturday afternoon and Seth's brother wants to come up Saturday night. Hopefully Evelynn has enough patience in her for both of them. She usually doesn't. She usually only does well with one set of visitors in a day. But we will see, maybe she will have enough time in between them to get a good nap.

Seth is still obsessed with having a garden this year even though we are grossly behind the planting schedule. He wants to go get tomato plants after he gets off work. Ugh. I might be more into it if he would let me get that upside down tomato planter thing. And then I wouldn't have to deal with weeds and bug gross and rotten tomatoes and climbing over his non effective rabbit fence.

My Dad bought Evelynn a new mobile that is supposed to make her more engaged. I'm hoping he brings it over tomorrow and assembles it for her because man-oh-man baby stuff is hard to assemble. I'm secretly hoping she loves it so much that she will want to lay on her back in her crib and then eventually feel comfortable enough to fall asleep there. I don't think she will last the summer sleeping with us because she will wake up complaining if she is hot and it will be super hot this summer and her father is a butane heater in bed. Co-sleeping is going well though. She will sleep as long as we let her. As long as around 7 she gets a diaper change and some food. She usually falls back asleep for a good while after that. We really lucked out, she is such a good sleeper. I credit co-sleeping. My touchpoints book says that is because when she sleeps with us she syncs herself to our breathing patterns and our heartbeats and our temperature, so she sleeps like an adult and not like a baby. Plus if she wakes up she is instantly comforted that we are there. My touchpoints book also says that this will create MAJOR problems later on with her never wanting to sleep by herself. I think I'll just get a bigger bed. Apparently co-sleeping is common in most cultures, just not the US. So if every other kid in the world can handle it, we can. I've always thought of myself as more worldly anyway. The book does say that most other cultures kick the kid out when a new kid comes along, but not until then.

Alright Carol is here! Hope you all are having a great week!

Love (sleeping babies),
Carrie

As promised a age or two ago!

Darling Friend jenifriend's etsy sight:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/jenifriend

And a video of Evelynn and her daddy:


Love (watching Evie and her Daddy),
Carrie

Oh of course

So I get a chance to sit down and write you a lovely diatribe on life and the stupid internet and cable go out. Lame. I hope they come back before TV tonite.
Anywho we had a lovely weekend and I hope to tell you about it of Cox gets it shit together.
Here are some super cute baby pictures for you.
Love (for the cable to work),
Carrie
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Weekend post

I finally got a minute to myself...okay that's a lie. I may be feeding a child while I do this, but anyway it's kind of to myself and I wrestled the new laptop away from Seth. Also a lie, my father distracted him with fixing my parent's laptop, which apparently has the virus from hell on it. My husband is over in the corner muttering "what the hell is this thing?" under his breath over and over. So it's safe to assume I have the new laptop for as long as the battery will hold out.

My mom left for Europe today. I'm insanely jealous, but Seth says we are taking a family vacation to Europe next summer. I wonder who he thinks is going to plan that, probably the lady that stays at home with the kiddos. If I'm lucky my Mom will help. Seth really wants to see Europe and I really want a vacation. I also want my honeymoon but he just laughs and changes the subject.

I'm proud to announce that as of tomorrow, I did one week of meal planning and keeping my Mother's Day resolution. It was relatively easy, but I did spend a lot of money in groceries it seems this week, plus a trip to Sam's Club to get the cheese for Lasagna. It really helps that two nights a week I can give Seth leftovers and plan for myself. We will see how next week goes though, and in two weeks he doesn't have class for the rest of the summer. He has a lot of deadlines at work though so who knows when he will get home. I'll keep you posted on my progress. This week I had leftovers on Monday, Tuesday we had my Mom's election party, Wednesday I had leftovers, Thursday we had nachos, Friday we had Chicken and ricotta gnocchi with homemade ricotta and gnocchi thanks to Holly who came over and held the baby while I cooked the ricotta and went shopping with me (thanks Holly!). I made the food at my Mom's house while random people there held Evie and we gave my Mom a send off. Tonite we are having hamburgers and fries and broccoli. And tomorrow I'm going make lasagna with the rest of the ricotta and hopefully a yellow cake with buttercream frosting from a recipe in the paper. And by me I mean Seth. He's really the baker in this family.

When my grandpa died the church had a luncheon after the church service for all of the mourners. I was sitting there and noticed all the old church ladies were the ones who prepared and served the food. I wondered, is this a dying art? I don't know anyone my age who does this. This week I'm pleased as punch to say that I signed up for my Mom's "Member Care" program at her church. They send out an email requesting meal help for members and you email back if you can make something. Then you deliver it to the church and they take care of the rest. My Mom's church even delivers meals for people who got out of the hospital or are sick. When my Mom had her surgery they brought by meals, it was nice. So anyway I'm excited to cook for that when I get a chance. I figure how hard is it to make a pasta salad or some rolls or a main course? We shall see.

Speaking of my Mom, and I can't believe I didn't lead with this-but she won the primary! How exciting! Now it's kinda of a lull until August and they kick up for the general election. She is the leading democrat and she is running against a republican named Jim Smith. It's all very cool. I really wanted to take a picture of her name on the screen but Evie was pitching a fit of epic proportions so we had to take her home. But anyway its really cool and I'm very proud of her. I however, do not skate by in helping this next round, I got put in charge of her facebook page and in charge of finding old photos of her serving and getting those scanned and up.

Alright food is almost ready! Hope you all are having a relaxing wonderful weekend!!

Love (weekends of planned relaxation),
Carrie

A video of the birdie

Because you deserve it, internets...

Hooray for Ma!

Hi! I've been a little busy, my Ma won her first round of the campaign! Its getting exciting now. I am going to try and be more involved, maybe I will be her stylist. Ha.
Evelynn is doing really good. She had two nights of crying fits, last night and the night before. But she is sleeping thru the night like a champ, as long as it is with me.
Holly came over yesterday and went to the grocery store with us and played with Evie while I made ricotta. I'm going to make lasagna this weekend. Tomorrow I'm making ricotta gnocci and four cheese chicken for my family. My mom flies out to Europe Saturday for about two weeks. I'm totally jealous.
Okay well I'd better get back to the Birdie!
Love (to have more time to blog),
Carrie
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Time is that quality of nature which keeps events from happening all at once. Lately it doesn't seem to be working.

Hello Blog World!
Happy belated Mother's Day to all the Mothers out there. I had the best first Mother's Day ever. First we were up late watching Avatar, so at 12:01 Seth gave me a pendant shaped like a child with Evelynn's birthstone, aquamarine. Then the next morning he made me white chocolate chip pancakes and brought them to me in bed. Yum. After that we laid around and wallowed in bed together as a family. Around four we ran to Target and then dropped the baby off at Mom and Dad's and went to eat dinner at the new German restaurant in Bellevue called Zum Biergarten. It seriously had a little old lady in the back cooking and it was AMAZING. It was hilarious, Seth and I were such goofballs feeding each other from our plates and exclaiming over all the food. Everyone around us must have thought we were nuts. But it was so nice. Then we picked up the baby and came home and watched the season premiere of Friday Night Lights. Seth did such a good job. What a great husband I have. He even changed diapers all day without me nagging!

Evelynn's portion of the show
I don't have to tell the Mom's out there how amazing it is that this little baby I made because a person more and more everyday. My new favorite things about her is how grumpy she is when you try to wake her up when she is sleeping. She grumbles and grunts and cries and buries her head, and sometimes she farts, it's hilarious. She has been sleeping more on her own in the bed with us, but not on top of me. So I can leave her in the bed and get up and do everything I need to and come back and wake her up to change her and feed her. She's getting more and more independent. It's too fast already! I tried to leave her in her crib while we went downstairs to watch Avatar and I lasted about forty minutes. I'm so going to be one of those Mom's that she has to say "Cut the cord Mom..." My other new favorite thing she does is her big smile and giggling. It's too cute. She is thisclose to starting babbling and talking. I can't wait.

Mother's Day resolution
So I've decided to do a Mother's Day resolution. It's like a resolution of what I want to do better. So what I'm going to try is to plan meals at the beginning of the week. We've been eating out a lot because I can't seem to do dinner on the fly. Sometimes if Seth gets home super late I just give up and tel him to pick something up. If I know in advance what I need to prepare, then shopping might be quicker and easier. And I can start cooking it earlier in the day and preparing the meat (which always takes the longest) then dinner can be ready when he gets home. And we will save money too, I think, by not eating out so much and not overbuying at the store. See sometimes I just buy lots of stuff and most of it goes to waste because I can't decide when I want to eat it or cook it. I'm hoping that if I plan it more, then I can cook more, which will make me happy. Evelynn has been able to sit by herself more and more and entertain herself a little more than she has in the past, as long as we are in the same room, she doesn't mind not clinging to me like a monkey baby. Plus two nights a week I don't have to make anything because Seth has class!

Auction
This weekend was my grandfather's estate auction. It was pretty much the most depressing thing I've been at. Basically everything in his house, his spices, vitamins, blankets, all that stuff was packed into boxes and sold for like a dollar or higher of bidding. When they got to his tools I totally lost it and started crying because that was like his life blood. So yeah, not a fan of estate auctions of people I know.

Product review
I came across these "Lilypads" silicone nursing covers. They basically look like giant sticky pads that cover your breast and form a airtight seal to keep your breast from leaking, like giant stickers for your nips. I was pretty excited about it, because they were reusable and I wouldn't have to cut up and stuff period pads in my bra. And this summer I could go strapless. Oh and swimming too according to the package. I wore them last night, and apparently they could not contain my copious flow. Ah well, it would have been nice...maybe I need industrial strength ones, with like industrial adhesive.

Well I'd better get to it, while the getting is good!

Love (rainy days),
Carrie

The trouble with jogging is that, by the time you realize you're not in shape for it, it's too far to walk back.

The new laptop is up and working! And boy is it super fancy. It's an HP and the mouse pad is flush with the keyboard and I keep hitting it and it's kind of annoying.
This weekend we have a couple of things going on. Tonite Dan and Kathy are coming over for pizza and salad. They haven't seen the baby since Easter, so I'm pretty excited for them to see how different she is. Or maybe it was Grandpa's funeral...now I can't remember which was first. Anywhoo, that should be fun. Tomorrow we have Grandpa's auction which we have to go down to Syracuse for, then we are going to spend some time with my mom for mother's day. Sunday is my first Mother's Day ever and I'm super excited, I hope Seth has at least something planned, I've dropped enough hints so he can't forget it. His Mom came up yesterday so we got to see her then and then we had flowers delivered to her at work, something that we did last year that she really liked.
Seth is home today from work, he worked enough hours traveling that he was able to stay home today. We have some errands to run and he is enjoying spending time with Evie. He missed her a lot while he was gone and boy did we miss him!
I have to mail in my badge today to work which officially means I'm done. I'm kind of sad. If work wasn't forty five minutes away I would go back, but that is just to far a distance to be away from Evie if there is a problem at a daycare. Plus the shaken baby video and all the your kid is going to die from diseases and bad caretakers at daycare warnings that I get from the websites or doctors or hospital are enough to make you just stay in bed all day.
I can't wait to play around with the new laptop. Last night Seth said "don't break it" and I told him I wasn't the person who breaks laptops around here. He didn't think I was nearly as funny as I was.
Hopefully Seth will get our external drive shared and I can put up some more older pictures because those are fun.
My allergies are killing me today.
Okay we have to run to the store and our house is a pit, but I fixed the pictures for you so you don't have to break your neck to see how cute my kid is.
Hopefully I can get a chance to blog again this weekend since I owe you all, but no promises, Monday for sure, I've got to tell you all about my great Mother's Day (hopefully!)
Love (the new laptop),
Carrie

God answers all prayers...sometimes you just have to admit the answer is no.

Hi all!
So bad news, not only did my husband leave town without setting up the laptop, he also broke my desktop before he left. I will forward all your hate mail to him.
Good news, he comes back Wednesday afternoon. So maybe by Friday I can post some cute baby videos and fix the pictures.
Although I don't have a very happy baby right now. Yesterday she got shots. She is pretty much miserable. When she is awake she lays there and whimpers and cries. I give her Tylenol and it puts her to sleep. Yesterday she was just breaking my heart so I called my Dad and he came over and rocked her for almost two hours while I hid in the bathroom and cried a little. I have such a great Dad and Evie has such a great Grandpa. She doesn't even know yet how great.
I couldn't watch her get the shots. Seth had to hold her. She did the holding breath scream so long it worried the nurse and Seth had to calm her down in between shots. She got three and something she had to swallow. She weighed nine pounds two ounces and promptly peed everywhere while we were taking her off the scale. She is super long, Dr. Vann called her amazon baby. 24 inches I think. She checked out perfect!
Then we dropped Seth off at the airport and I got her home, she was sleeping, but as soon as she woke up...the beast came out.
It was super hard sleeping without Seth last night. I decided since we had the whole bed to try and put her down next to me and give some space between us, but within five minutes she had found my warmth with her feet and scooted across the bed and up against me. I'm in so much trouble, we are going to have to get a bigger bed!
Alright have to get ready for Nurse Carol!

Love (my pops),
Carrie
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Only in Nebraska...and maybe Florida

BEST. ARTICLE. EVER.
You must click to giggle at the picture.
http://omahanewsstand.com/articles/2010/05/02/papillion_times/news/doc4bd86ca89a492782883477.txt

Love (old lady strippers),
Carrie