Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving was absolutely wonderful around here.  The weather was glorious, the food was fattening, the dogs were cute, the couch was comfortable.  I had the whole week off (!), and enjoyed every single minute of it.  This past weekend, Chloe and I trekked down to Orlando to visit with our family down there where we ate and were spoiled rotten.

The week was happy and full and fun and relaxing and exactly what I needed.  Miss Chloe was an absolute delight, and I was very sad to see her go today.  Our human child will be very luck to have such a fun, cool aunt.

Here's what our holiday looked like, in way, way too many pictures.

 Well, hello there, 75 degrees!

Pumpkin crunch at Back in the Day.  I want to go to there.  For serious.

Torturing Reilly.

 Bought this table at a thrift store for $10.  Definitely thought it was smaller than it was.  The guys at the store didn't have any rope to tie it in my car, so they tied ties together.  So for $10, I got a table and four ties.  Score!

 Mmmmmmm, Vinnie's.  

 Chloe hearts crumbly pie crust ice cream topping.  She tried to take it with us to see Breaking Dawn.  Yes, we went to see Breaking Dawn.  In other news, I hate Bella.  And Edward and Jacob are both gross.

 Thanksgiving morning pumpkin pancakes with cranberries.

Angry Birds break.

 I'm obsessed with this cranberry apple casserole.

 Totes slept in that shirt and wore it all Thanksgiving day.  

 Dog plates.

Chloe became obsessed with making sweater skirts using old sweaters and this tutorial.

 Watching skydivers in Florida.

 Grandma and Darcey.

 "This is how the queen waves."

Chloe also became obsessed with marshmallowing.  After we made a batch of peppermint at Grandma's, I talked her through making another batch of vanilla once we got back home.  You know what I always say: "Give a girl a marshmallow, and you feed her for a day.  Teach a girl to marshmallow and you feed her for a lifetime."

So it's back to real life now.  Fortunately, I really like my real life (even if I do have to be at work at 7:00).  Also, fortunately, Christmas vacation starts on the 16th.  Fourteen school days and counting. . .

Love and Marriage: Grandpa B and Grandma Carol Edition

Well, our Thanksgiving has been absolutely wonderful, and I'm trying to soak up the last couple of hours of sister time (Chloe and Matt are currently discussing zombies and predicting who will bite it on tonight's episode of The Walking Dead).

I'll fill you in on more later (food galore! shopping! adventure!), but I just couldn't wait to show you the greatest thing that has ever been: Grandpa B on his new three-wheeled bicycle.

I can't wait to retire.

And I needed to share this gem.

[After dinner, with the kitchen full of dishes, Grandpa B walks to the dishwasher and opens it.]

Grandpa B: Um, Grandma, are these dishes clean or dirty?

Grandma Carol: Clean.

Grandpa B: Oh, shit.

[Closes dishwasher and walks away.]

Happy Happy, Joy Joy!

Here's what I love right now.

1.  I love that I will be picking up my baby sister in like eleven hours.  You remember her, right?  Here's what she looks like.

2.  I love that Thanksgiving is fast approaching, and that we have a low-stress-high-gluttony holiday planned.  I also love that I have like 22 pounds of cranberries (oh, Sam's club. . .) and I get to have fun thinking of ways to use them (sorbet? pancakes? so many ideas!).

3.  I love the little lizards who have been hanging out on my screens all day.

4.  I love that my husband will lovingly nudge me in the direction of ellipting without calling me a cow--even when I try to avoid ellipting by pretending to have fainting spells.  I also love that he will bring me mini snickers bars to eat while I am on the elliptical.

5.  I love using the handicapped bathroom.  I especially love it when it means I get my very own sink.

6.  I love these happy dogs.

7.  I love pot roast.

8.  I love that I took my car into the shop this morning, and then got a coupon for $50 from our mechanic in the mail before I went to pick up the car.  I also love our mechanic.

9.  I LOVE having a whole week off of work.

10.  I love that I spent hours cleaning the house today, and that my house is cleaner than it's been in months, and that I had the windows open all day because we had a high of 80 degrees today--and the highs all week are supposed to be in the 70's and 80's.

Fun days ahead!  Don't be mad if you don't hear from us.  There should be lots to share upon our return.  Eat turkey until it hurts and drink a glass of wine (or five) for me!

Movie Star

If you're interested, check out the little video of Blast from this week's appointment.  He starts opening his mouth around 1:40, which is my favorite.  Oh, and he's still a boy.  No Rachel situation here.



And if you're so inclined, check out his rabies-afflicted big brother barking at his bone on the bed.



Are you totally judging me for being the person who just put a video of her ultrasound on the internet?  Yeah, I kind of am, too.  In my defense, though. . .oh shoot, I've got nothing.  If I can't get drunk or ride roller coasters, though, I've got to do something to entertain myself.

Does This Mean I Have to Eat a Lamppost?

He's singin' in the. . .

. . .amniotic fluid.  

Weekend Fun

This was one of those weekends where I did very little, which was exactly as planned.  As promised days ago, there was some ellipting, there were many episodes of Parenthood, and there was lots of eating. There were two lunch dates, and there was some shopping (almost finished Christmas shopping!)--until I remembered that I was avoiding teenagers for the weekend and that, perhaps, the mall wasn't the best place to go on a Saturday night.  One student sighting was enough to send me on my merry way, back home to the warm embrace of Netflix instant, fresh sheets, and a dog who acts like he may have rabies.

Right now I'm happy and motivated because I've only got five more days of school until Thanksgiving (I'll give thanks for a whole week off!), and my favorite sister is going to be here visiting.  Five days.  Piece of cake.  Or, as it should be said, bowl of pumpkin cheesecake ice cream (which will be making an appearance at our Thanksgiving feast).  And tomorrow we have a doctor's appointment and get to have an ultrasound.  It'll be nice to see little Blast.  We haven't seen him in like two months.

Oh, and I'm happy, too, because my favorite old couple team on The Amazing Race is kicking ass and taking names.  And because I just ate four tacos.  

Here's what our weekend looked like.  It's all food, which is about right.

 Make this chicken.  Make this chicken tonight.  For serious!

 Bacon jam sandwich from Back in the Day!  

Scurvy prevention.

Hope you have a lovely week.  What have you been eating?  Are you finished Christmas shopping?  Does your dog have rabies?  

This and That

Here's what's been awesome around here lately.

1.  Last Friday a friend loaned us her passes to the Savannah Film Festival where we went to see the Director's Choice film, where the movie isn't announced beforehand.  So we were super pleasantly surprised when the movie turned out to be The Muppets!  We were the first audience in the world to see the movie (see: we are important and influential).  Not surprisingly, the movie was fantastic, and I smiled the entire time.  My face hurt afterward.  Go see it when it comes out.  (It's way better than this trailer might suggest.)

2.  Also, when we were at the film festival on Friday, I saw this handsome man walk past, and I kind of recognized him.  I told Matt that I thought that had been a famous actor man, because he was handsome and because he was dressed like a famous actor man and because there were all of these people who seemed to be treating him like he was really important.  Old Roommate Cris had mentioned that James Marsden was in town, and I told Matt that maybe that had been him.  Matt then proceeded to list off everything that James Marsden had done that he knew (X-Men, Modern Family, etc.) and I couldn't place him.  I couldn't place him until, right before The Muppets, they gave some award to James Marsden and showed a montage of all of his very important and influential work.  Then I realized where I knew him from: 27 Dresses.  Oh yes, my Saturday night HBO guilty pleasure movie.  Matt shook his head in shame and likely contemplated divorce.  Hell, at least I didn't recognize him from Bride Wars, right?  Right?

3.  During a conversation with my coteacher yesterday about cord blood storage, one of my best students walked into our conversation and asked, "Whore's blood?  Like a harlot?"  Love that kid.

4.  Really, really pleased with myself because last week I found a BOB Revolution stroller on Craigslist for $100.  And it's awesome, and smooth and beautiful and I'm really obsessed with it.  Mitch, however, seems to think that this is just another form of a bicycle (and Mitch HATES bicycles), so he pretty much just barks at it and is less than thrilled when Matt and I chase him around the house with it.  I think that once he begins to associate the stroller with walks, though, he'll warm up to it.  Hell, the stroller has a weight limit of 70 pounds, so if I could get him strapped in correctly, I could put Mitch in it!  Should've gotten a double stroller. . .

5.  Three-day weekend, three-day weekend, three-day weekend!  I've got grand plans of doing very little and of eating much.  There will be naps.  There will be Parenthood marathons.  There will be some ellipting.  There will be nary a teenager.  Shoot yeah!

Happy days to you!

Birthday Gift Idea!

I need this.

Um, yeah, The Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook will be available in March, and if I don't get it I will kick and scream.

If that's not enough to persuade you, check out their awesome little trailer for the book.  Then get thee to the Back in the Day Bakery and bring me back a bacon jam sandwich.  And maybe a cupcake.  And some 'nana puddin'.  Let's get on that.

Get here already, March!

Patents Pending

So, I know my blog performance of late has been, well, lamesville at best.*  Sorry about that.  Honestly, I'm conflicted because I've spent so many years now being annoyed by annoying pregnant women who only ever talk about being pregnant and the miracle of life and blah blah blah vomit, and I'm probably now overcompensating now by just saying nothing at all since so many of my thoughts are consumed by this current endeavor and what will happen when we actually have a baby to take care of.  It's a tough job making sure you don't become the thing you hate.

What I'm going to try to work on is balance.  I want to share what's going on here (lame, boring-to-everyone-but-me pregnancy stories included), but to find a way to care about other stuff, too.  Important stuff like baked goods and ice cream and television and politics and stuff that doesn't have to do with fetuses or expanding body parts.

Let's start with this.

The Baggy Winecoat, a.k.a., "Someone has stolen one of my great idas."  I knew I should have gotten a patent when, like six years ago on St. Patrick's Day, Old Roommate Cris and I developed an idea to make a purse that would hold the bag from a box of wine.  My idea was less fancy than this one, granted, since it basically involved getting some ice packs and cutting the corner out of a messenger bag, but still.**

Now, before someone goes and steals another one of my amazing idea inventions, I want to tell you about a couple more.  You know, for proof.  I've already shared ash packets (still don't know why so many of you found that disturbing), so don't go trying to snag that one.  It's been documented.  ON THE INTERNET.

Here's my next awesomepants idea.  This one was developed with Tanya after we go lost in some pretty scary neighborhoods in Baltimore during high school.  We decided that we should develop maps that are color-colded according to crime rates so that people would know which spots to avoid.  Way back when, these would have been paper maps, but now this idea will take the form of an app.  And with GPS and stuff, you could even sort your data by type of crime!  Wouldn't that be awesome?  The GPS lady could be all, "Danger, danger!  Get on outta here!" and then you'd know to avoid that neighborhood.

Okay, and here's the idea that is really just incredible.  Caitie and I came up with this senior year of college when we were discussing our favorite flavors of popular candies.  Let's take Skittles, for example.  What's your favorite color?  Mine is red.  But Matt's is green.  Caitie and I decided initially that the candy companies should make bags of all one flavor, like all red or all green (but not all purple, because, seriously, who loves purple the most?  That's like loving the purple freeze-e-pop the most, which is basically like being a dirty communist.).  But then we thought that too much of a good thing could be bad, so we decided that they should make bags that are like 75% the favorite flavor and 25% everything else.  We'd call them Mostlies.  Mostly red, or mostly green.  But not mostly purple, because we are a righteous people.

So, those are my ideas, the best that I've been able to come up with in my thirty and a half years on this planet.  Don't even think about stealing them.  I already lost this game once to the developers of the ol' Baggy Winecoat (which I totally want come April, by the way).


*Would totes love to be all, "Oh man, I've been so busy at work and ellipting that I haven't had time to blog!"  But you're all smart internet readers and you know that the translation of that would be "Oh man, I've been so busy eating Halloween candy that I got for 50% off that I've been in a sugar coma and then having to ellipt to keep from getting gestational diabetes."  Shoot.


**And, no, it's not possible at all that two people could come up with the same amazing idea.

My favorite type of person is a cranky old curmudgeon.  (My other favorite type of person is a dog.  My other favorite type of person is George Clooney.)

You can imagine, then, how bummed I am that Andy Rooney has died.  

So watch this, and don't trim your eyebrows, and grow to be old and cranky if you're not already.