pie with little claire/i love old things

i watched my niece, claire, for a few hours wed. afternoon. while she was here, we made a strawberry rhubarb pie. it was the best pie i ever made. it was one of the best pies i ever ate! once again, betty crocker cookbook... i love you! the crust was so soft and tender. the filling was the cutest, perfectly jelled pink.

i set this photo up. i didn't realize until just now how much it gives away my personality. i like old. i like color. i love heirloom. the tablecloth was a wedding gift from dan's aunt brenda. the plate is fiestaware. (i have cobalt blue, red, turquiose, sunflower and pale yellow.), the silver fork was my great grandma elerene's. the pie server was my great great aunt alfreda's.

pregnancy update

my cat, puma, is pregnant... again. we still have 4 kittens from her last batch (3 wild, but cute. one tame who i call "toulouse".). and a lovely two year male cat i call "scaredy kitty" who has jade green eyes.

barb had her baby boy a few months back. melanie had her baby boy a while back. after that, deissy had a little girl. ina had her baby boy just this week. next is michelle, then my sis, jenny, melissa, nora, sarah, and lisa.

you know how it is when you are a young adult?... you get married and your friends are all getting married and that's cool... and then you have a kid and your friends all have kids and are having more kids... and that's AMAZING AND WONDERFUL.

this is my grandpa walking back from his chicken coop with jack. jack can say "chicken" now. jack adores "papa" and had to go visit him saturday night. he threw a fit in the driveway and ran down the hill calling for papa, that's how i could tell what he wanted.

jack's first carousel

saturday i took a road trip with jack and my mom. we went to maplewood, mn to get lovely portraits taken of jackers. he was a super star. he is very photogenic. the photos turned out gorgeous. i can't wait to get them.

the maplewood mall where the photo studio was is nice. there was a charming little play area that jack really tore around in after being cooped up in his stroller. the best thing there was a beautiful 2-story carousel for jack to take his first ride on. poor me, i did not enjoy it much. i almost had to yell to the carnie to stop the ride. jack loved it and made lots of soft "weeee" noises. i could tell he thought it was amazing.

berry delicious

my gramps and mum went berry picking one morn and didn't invite me!!!! but, mom gave me a bucket of berries. we have been enjoying them. some had whipped cream dabbed on them, some were washed and popped in our mouths, some of them were made into jam, and some of them joined some rhubarb friends in a lovely pie. i will post a photo of my pie later. it was beautiful.

i could have called him "chip"

andy had a little accident 4th of july week. he was jumping his bike at the SKATE PARK and he fell and chipped his front teeth. the hole was shaped like a triangle. alas, chip is no more. this morn i took him to the dentist and after only 3o minutes... no more chip. alas, fair chip, i knew thee well...
this is a horrible photo of andy. he is really quite handsome. this photo kind of makes him look like a gorilla. we all think it is funny.

coffee date

we took andy to the dentist this morn. after we dropped him off at his mom's, jack and i had a coffee date. i made him a little oatmeal cereal (augmented with some free coffee bar cinnamon and sugar-in-the-raw) and i had a mocha and a slice of coffee cake. it was a fun date. after that we went to the library for jack's very first time. after that we dropped in on the grandparents. and that was all just before noon!

note: dan gave jack this lovely haircut last night. i will post a better photo soon. it really is a lovely haircut.

a moment of clarity

i had a breakthrough this morning. i was reading a bit of my friend lauren's blog. she was talking about love and babies. this is the comment i left on her blog. this is maybe the most clarity i have ever had on the subject.

"i think one of the best things about the love you have for your new baby is the unexpected connection with the old love you have for family members. there is this new person who has bits and pieces of your loved ones. sometimes you see your cousin in an expression, then your great uncle, then your second cousin, in just seconds. most of the time my baby looks like my dad. it is like i can go back in time and hug my father as a baby. if that makes any sense. when jack laughs he sounds like my great aunt. and to me, that is like magic. or the best kind of ghost."

vaccination

vaccinations scare me. shooting dead or living virus cocktails into tiny little babies is scary. the rate of autism in baby boys terrifies me. i have heard that in mn it is one in one hundred. that is too much!!!!!!!!!! i would just want to die if jack suddenly didn't know me anymore. it would be like child-alzheimers. so, i had opted to NOT vaccinate. but, you know, that is kind of like playing russian roulet. and i hate gambling, especially with my child's life. also, who trusts the fda? tainted pet food and tomatoes? we can't even trust our pet food? so how can i trust vaccines? ever eaten those "wow" doritoes? the ones back in the day with olestra? the fat wasn't supposed to stay in your system. great! down side? anal leakage! my point, i am paranoid.

well, i do believe that there are some vaccines that are worth it. so, yesterday, at a whopping 24 1/2 lbs., and 13 months, jack received the polio vaccine and the tdap (tetnus, diptheria, pertussis (whooping cough)). one in each thigh. i had to hold his upper body down and look in his precious little face as he cried in pain. it was really hard. it is hard to be a mommy. it is worth it.

we talk about dying

my husband and i contemplate dying. we both know where we are bound, so it doesn't bother us much. i have it really good, too. if i go first... well dan will be fine because he has a good job, money in the bank, and i think i am a very expensive pet sometimes.:) now, if dan goes first i will be alright because there is money in the bank... and i can sell off all of dan's toys. ha ha! i would be very curious to know what other couples think about death. do they have wills? we really need to do one, but haven't. well, i have one on the computer that doles out my costume jewelry and star wars glasses collection, but not a legal will.

last night i told dan that i was going to put some phrase on his tombstone. it wasn't that clever. i don't even recall what i said. then i asked dan what he would put on my stone. he said, in a terrific imitation of my sister's freaky voice, "molly-ween". and that is why i fell in love with him. he is too funny sometimes.

saturday at grandma brenda's

saturday it was just jack and i. we went with my mom to a funeral of a dear lady that was from our church. i brought my famous chicken wild rice salad. yum. afterwards, we went back to my mom's house and just hung out on the deck. it was a beautiful day with a delicious breeze. jack loves the deck because he can roam to his heart's content because of the gates. hooray!

i love this picture. jack looks like such a big boy. very "christopher robin" from the winnie-the-pooh books.

at the park

monday my niece, claire, came over for the day. claire, jack, andy and i went to the park. i packed us a picnic lunch and a thing of kool-aid.:) we met my cousin's pregnant wife, melissa, and her two girls, stephie and rose. i realized later that jack had not gone on the swings, or the slide... he was just having a blast wandering free and throwing wood chips!

after awhile we went over to the beach. i was going to put swim trunks on jack... but he looked so adorable in his swim diaper. he loved playing in the sand. he was very interested in the water, but did not want to be in it. too scary.

happy 4th of july! the hoochies were out!

happy america's birthday! we went to a parade in crosby, mn. woo! the hoochies were out! crosby has a high hoochie population. and they even imported some hoochies, i believe, for the occasion. oh, note of interest, i saw a group of 4 guys and 3 of them had super duper tall mohawks. the kind you have to use egg white or cement or something to get them to stand up. i have no idea what they were doing in rural mn... i really have digressed. ok, the point of this entry is that this is a photo of jackers meeting smokey the bear. kind of fun. i don't know if jack thought so.

jack did love the firetrucks. good thing because there were about 3 dozen of them blowing the heck out of their horns. sounded like this, "BMURCK BMURCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!WOOOOO!!!!!!!". something like that. jack waved at all the firetrucks. adorable.

i was the hostess of the parade. it was dan, jack, me, mom, dan's sis carrie, and her little girl claire. i brought pop, doritos, ritz crackers, graham crackers for jack, swiss, cheddar, summer sausage and cheddar. and red-blue-oops purple rice crispie bars. i was disappointed when the parade ended because i wasn't finished with my picnic lunch.:)

now jack is taking a nap. i have a little bit of time before we go to my parent's house for a big bbq bash. i am bringing homemade chicken wild rice salad and a key lime pie. i have to go now and make the salad. hope everyone had a flag wavin'-hoochie watchin'-firetruck blarin' 4th of july. God bless America!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

jack's first car show

last night dan, jack and i went to a small car show at "the bodyworks" in baxter, mn. it was a nice little night show. my favorite car was a '71 beetle. the paint was two-tone, blue and silver. sweet! i always bug dan about getting me a bug. ha ha. he says never ever. jerk face.

i also liked the dark orange buick riviera like the one my great-grandma elerene gave us. alas, that one was busted up in a car wreck. alas and alack. NOTE: jack is wearing green cordoroy overalls and a camo henley. so cute.

one year later...

this was dan and i just a little over one year ago. we were so happy. don't i look calm? i think this shot was taken just after jack was born. i don't mind that i look
a little rough. don't i look blissfully happy? and puffy?:)

magnet

just wanted to say that jack can say "magnet". he is so smart.

prince caspian

prince caspian was lovely. not as great as i had built it up to be, but great. i love a movie where (spoiler alert) the trees kick butt. yes! lord of the rings didn't even quite go there. they should have. they must have run out of time or they would have i suppose.

hey, i read a critque where the critic didn't get why the telemarines had spanish accents. if you PAY ATTENTION to the end of the film you will understand perfectly why. it is so simple i wonder he didn't get it. c.s. lewis was no dummy. he was brilliant in fact. i may have to go and read the chronicles again. i have them all in one giant book with a huge picture of "aslan"'s head on the cover. soooooo good. the book, not the cover.

wall-e

i had my doubts. i almost didn't go. i am glad i went. believe the hype. wall-e is great. wall-e was so endearing he reminded me of my baby boy! that my be a stretch for you, but for me, not so much. jack and wall-e are so similar. they both are small and unsteady. they both emit little burbles and squeaks. they are both sweet. end of arguement. my son is a robot.

by the by. the premise in wall-e that the earth could be covered in garbage is, i believe, false. no way would the land lovin' liberals ever let that happen. in a world where we have to protect the forests so that a little owl is not killed, but human babies can be aborted every day... well, the land is safe. never gonna happen. not that i believe it should. i am just saying it won't.