Out of this world (and out of whack)

I hope you all got a chance to check out the biggest full moon of the year on Saturday night--it was a pretty spectacular sight here in El Paso, although my photo doesn't really do it justice as I'm awful at night photography and couldn't be bothered to take the time to set up the tripod to do things properly.

My brother, sister-in-law, and nephew are arriving in here this morning; it's the first time we've seen them since Thanksgiving last year, so you can imagine just how excited I am about their visit.  As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing worse than traveling half-way across the country only to spend your first day there tracking down the brand of diapers that you like, or scavenging for age-appropriate snacks for your nearly eight-month-old, so to that end I spent most of the weekend running to various stores and getting things set up for them.  Well, between that and attempting to clean up the house a bit (we're going to have a crawler in the house, eek!), I managed to mess up my lower back something awful.  Throw in a thirty-pound toddler that still needs to be picked up and put in his car seat several times a day and now I'm hobbling around like a pregnant octogenarian.  If anyone has some tried and true remedies for alleviating some of the discomfort, I'm all ears!

Couch potatoes

The other night one of my friends jokingly asked me if I ever rest and I totally see where she's coming from.  I've been pulling a lot of late nights between working on various sewing projects and testing out yummy recipes in the kitchen (I think on a subconscious level I'm taking advantage of being able to stay up until midnight while I still can).  But rest assured that there are days when Sammy and I don't get out of our pajamas until shortly before Captain Husband comes home from work in the evening--those sorts of days appear to be on the increase the further along I get in this pregnancy.  On those days, Sammy and I turn into full-fledged couch potatoes and watch entirely too much television.  Yesterday was one of those days--I was in recovery mode from hosting the trunk show the night before and Sammy was just in one of those moods where he preferred to be glued to my side rather than off playing and I was totally okay with that; I know it won't be long before he gets older and would rather be caught dead than caught spending a day with his mom watching HGTV.

Texture Thursday: On the rack

My shot for Texture Thursday is a bit of a stretch, but  this is what happens when I stay up too late having a blast with some of my girlfriends.  My good friend, Suzy, came in from California to host an in-home fashion trunk show so I invited some of my friends over for an evening of cute clothes, good food and fun conversation last night.  It's a little hard shopping for clothing when you're entering the third trimester, but even I was pleasantly surprised to find a few things that could double as maternity and post-maternity wear.  If I keep this up, I may just find myself turning into a stylish mama one of these days.

Wordless{ish} Wednesday: A piece of cake

{We had a very special guest over to our house for dinner this past weekend--Captain Husband's friend from his year abroad in South Korea, Colonel Glass.  Col. Glass flew all the way in from Kansas so he could attend CH's change of command ceremony so we though the least we could do was invite him over for a nice home-cooked meal before he had to head back.  I made baked rigatoni and meatballs and for desert I decided to try something new and different--strawberry cream cake:}

{I can attest to the fact that it tasted as good as it looked and it was relatively easy to make, too.  It was a hit with the dinner crowd, especially Sammy.  And in what is probably an entirely unrelated coincidence, Sammy's most recent new word is "cake."}

Getting ready for baby is sew much fun!

I am so excited to finally get to show all of you what I was so busy working on the last week and a half!  My friend, Mariana, is expecting a girl this June so I wanted to make a few things for the new addition to her family.  Initially, I planned on only making a car seat canopy (a must have when one lives under the blistering sun of El Paso), but I kind of got carried away a bit and wound up making a car seat canopy, a onesie dress, two bibs, three burp cloths, a minkee blanket and a little draw-string bag to store it all in.

Of course, it helps that I had found the adorable vintage printed fabric at my local thrift store about a month ago that Mariana loved; plus it's hard to beat two yards of fabric for only $2.99!

I decided to just jump on in and go for it, even though I honestly had no clue of what I was doing most of the time; most of the tutorials that I followed promised projects that could be completed in 15 minutes or less, but those assurances were obviously aimed at people who knew how to sew.  I spent many minutes sitting in front of the computer, re-reading the steps over and over again, convinced that they had somehow turned into a different language since beginning the project at hand.

The onesie dress is one of those things that looks cute until you start to look at it closely; my skirt was so messed up that I had to make a little faux belt to hide the sewing carnage that had taken place.  And then the fabric that I used to make the belt wasn't long enough by 1/4" of an inch to encircle the dress, so I had to make a patch to hide the gap.  What was supposed to be a ten-minute project quickly turned into an hour-and-a-half project.  I think I'll have to practice this one a bit more before I can actually turn one out that looks half-way decent.

So here's everything all wrapped up and ready to be presented to my friend at her shower on Saturday; I had remembered my camera but forgot to put the memory card in before I left the house, so I was left without any way to take photos of Mariana opening her gift, but rest assured, she was pretty excited when she saw the whole kit and caboodle.

For those of you who'd like to try some of these out at home, here are the links to the tutorials I followed:
Onesie dress
Car seat canopy
Minkee blanket
Basic bibs
Burp cloths
Draw-string bag

Happy sewing!

In command

Friday was a big day for Captain Husband; he assumed command of a battery of just over a hundred soldiers.  He's been waiting a long time for this and I couldn't be more proud of him--I just know he's going to do a wonderful job.

This was my first time attending a military ceremony (and Sammy's too), so I wasn't quite sure what to expect; fortunately it was held outdoors, so Sammy plopped himself down in the dirt and spent the entire time quietly playing with some of his matchbox cars.  The ceremony itself was short, sweet and to the point, with the outgoing commander passing the unit guidon (or flag for those of you new to military speak) to CH in a symbolic transfer of power.

CH then led the battery in formation and then it was time to break for some refreshments.  It was one of those situations where I didn't know a single person, but everyone seemed to know who I was and kept coming up to introduce themselves to me--it's going to take me a while to learn all of these new faces and names!  Sammy had a blast running around and many of the soldiers were more than happy to indulge him in little games of chase and tickle monster; I was worried that he might get confused by all of the people in uniform and start calling random dudes daddy, but fortunately, that never happened.

Part of the ceremony included a presentation of roses to the outgoing commander's wife and to me; they're really quite lovely although Sandy seems to be under the impression that they're meant for her...to eat.

Twenty-two month update (a few days late)

Sammy turned twenty-two months old on Monday and I totally let that slip by without an update of any kind somehow.  Sammy has grown so much both physically and mentally since the last update that it's kind of crazy.  I honestly think he's shot up about an inch in the last month (which may explain his need to sleep from 4 pm until 6 am the next morning earlier this week and him waking up from his naps saying, "Ow!" over and over again) and his vocabulary has been expanding by at least two words a day.   Sammy's wearing 3T tops and bottoms and size 8 shoes; I'm not quite sure of the whole molar situation, but if you'd like to stick your finger in his mouth to find out, be my guest--I'm once bitten, twice shy.

  

He's gotten really good at following instructions and will put his toys away with only a little prompting and at our last play date he actually willingly SHARED a toy with one of his friends; of course, Sammy's far from perfect and can throw a tantrum with the best of them.  However, he has picked up this somewhat adorable habit of saying, "I'm sorry," after he's finished wailing and flailing, which makes my resulting desire to punt him through the window diminish by at least half.

New tricks: Going up and down the stairs all by himself with alarming speed, making up songs and singing to himself, identifying numbers and letters wherever we go (this comes in handy when we're waiting in line at the store and I'll ask him to find me a particular letter--it buys me at least another 5 minutes of good/distracted behavior), saying "Hi" and "Bye" to nearly everyone we meet, "reading" to himself, and identifying several of his friends by name.

New words/sentences: "I see it/you", "Where did it/he go?", "What's that sound?", house, home, space, sun, rocket, car, chair, cycle (for motorcycle/bicycle), big, down, "Oh my!", star, water, cookie, cracker...and a whole bunch of other words that I just can't think of at the moment.  Sammy's recall is nothing short of amazing--when he hears someone say a new word, he'll repeat it a few times and will use it accurately a few days later, usually to my surprise.