Coming Soon to a Baby Announcement Near You

Baby announcement shipment was delayed a bit - apparently UPS doesn't deliver through hurricanes.  Slackers...  But I do now have them in hand, and maybe they will get addressed and sent some time in the next week.  Look for a compilation of photos kind of similar to these:

Behind Erin - very cool quilt made by close family friend Kathy Suarez.  Under Erin - soft and snuggly alphabet blanket made by my Aunt Pat.

This is definitely one on the baby announcement.  I think the one above is, as well, but a lot of the photos look pretty similar, so I can't quite remember...

What We've Been Doing

Mostly we've been doing a whole lot of nothing.  Playing with trains.  Hanging out at home.  We got all kinds of crazy and went for a walk once.  Daddy has been entertaining Dexter, which basically means Dex has been doing whatever he has wanted to do for the past 2.5 weeks.  :-)  John is back at work now, so daily reality of life with Mama is about to sink in.  Not yet, though.  Nonna and Grandpa are here this weekend, which means Dex gets a few more days of being spoiled rotten before he has to go back to the real world.  And the real world might be rough, cuz Mama isn't taking much shit these days...

Actually, Mama has been feeling pretty good.  Erin nurses at 11 or so before I go to bed, and then usually only wakes up once during the night to eat, and then I often have to wake her up at 7:30 or 8AM to start our day.  So I can usually get at least one 4 hour stretch of sleep, and one 2 or 3 hour stretch.  Not too bad.

Going to the way way way back files - playing soccer with our friendly horses on a nice warm fall day

Our corn pool at Fair Hill was such a hit last year that a volunteer built a new, bigger corn box, and got some dump trucks and cement mixers at garage sales.  It was a huge hit with all small children on Saturday at Fair Hill.

Dex played in this box for a couple days, decided he wanted Buddy to join him.

Baby Erin's first bath.  She is mildly unimpressed with bathing.  Dexter used to LOVE it.  I think Erin gets cold.

Our first family walk

Erin slept through it, which was fine with me

Dexter took a turn pushing.  It was only slightly disastrous.  The stroller never fell over, but it did a little off roading.

Putting a candle in our Happy Pumpkin

Proud pumpkin owner

I got to make the shape pumpkin.  Hammers are not my specialty, but I am much safer with hammers than I am with knives.  So, shape pumpkin for me!

Dexter took a turn, too.  Mostly he would swing the hammer a couple times, and then say "Mama, do you want to do it now?"

Check out our awesome lit pumpkins!

Nonna meets Baby Erin

Dexter didn't want to kiss Erin, but she felt like eating his face off a little bit.

Baby!

Nonna reads Dexter his personalized version of "The Super Incredible Big Brother DEXTER."  This was the first of about 7 times reading it.

Painting a thank you note for our fantastically awesome neighbors across the street, who took care of Dexter while we were having Erin.

Family picture minus one sleeping baby

We are comparing Dexter's First Year picture frame to the new one that Nonna got for Erin

Erin says hi to Grandpa

Chillin with Nonna this morning

Baby yawns

Dexter convinced Grandpa to get down on the floor to play with his super huge train track.  Our front door is currently out of commission - too much trains...

Sunset last night, shortly before I escaped the house completely kid-free to go to the grocery store.  Ahhhhh, peace and quiet. 

Happy Halloween!

1)  We survived Hurricane Sandy with no damage, no power outage, no excitement.  Boring hurricane.  Probably better that way, as no power with a 2 week old would not have been fun.  So we spent 2 days on the couch, watching the Weather Channel and doing this:

2)  Grandma is here, helping with Halloween and taking Dexter to his swimming lesson this morning.  Good timing, as today was John's first day back at work, so it wasn't quite the shock to my little system.

3)  It's Halloween!  Grandma got Dex a super cool Superman shirt WITH A CAPE, which he was happy to wear after he got home from school.  He was also delighted to wear the orange pants from his chicken costume.  But, not so much psyched about wearing the chicken jacket.  He was convinced to wear it briefly for pictures, so long as he did not have to do up the velcro.  I can't even begin to figure out the nuances of this child's little mind.  Suffice it to say - he's weird.  He did, however, go trick or treating at 8 houses.  Which is a full 7 houses more than last year.  And he got some pretty sweet treats from the neighbors.  He was happy to trick or treat at our house and eat our candy, as well, and loved answering the door when people rang the door bell.  We had very few visitors this year.  Kids in this neighborhood are getting too old...

Super Dexter

Complete with cape

Super Chicken!

With Baby Erin

The kids, checking each other out.  They both look psyched, right?

Her shirt says "This IS my costume"

Dex didn't wear his chicken jacket out.  Just the orange pants and his Superman shirt.

Trick or Treating at our house

I had a baby for a vast majority of the night, but I managed to get her in bed for a second to take a picture with Dex

Our cool pumpkins

The Fierce Yellow Pumpkin

Margaret Wise Brown, of Goodnight Moon fame, wrote a book we've been reading a lot called "The Fierce Yellow Pumpkin."  I really quite enjoy reading it - it's maybe a little bit old for Dexter, but the things he remembers from the book are really quite impressive.

Anyway, Dexter decided when we carved pumpkins this year that he wanted his pumpkin to be a fierce yellow pumpkin.  So we went to the Amish farm yesterday, shelled out 6 bucks, and came home with 2 pumpkins.  One, Dex proclaimed, would be fierce.  And one would be happy.

We got as far as the fierce pumpkin yesterday.  We didn't have time to carve the happy one.  That might be a task for Thursday morning before school, when we have nothing else going on.  Dexter is very excited about his fierce pumpkin already - he ate dinner with it last night, and he and Daddy played with the pumpkin this morning.

Daddy, self-proclaimed non-artist that he is, did quite the admirable job drawing and carving a fierce pumpkin.

And apparently we need to go back for one more pumpkin, so we can cut shapes in to it like we did with our pumpkin last year.  I do believe, Aunt Jeanne, that I even have some Halloween cookie cutters this time around.

Oh.  I am actually pretty excited to get one more pumpkin, because I roasted some seeds this morning from Mr. Fierce and holy hell, are they ever the best pumpkin seeds I have ever had.  They are already almost gone.  I am not a fan of pumpkin seeds because I always feel like I am eating a tree.  But these?  YUM.  Boil them in salted water for 20 min.  Strain them, spread on a cookie sheet and let dry overnight.  Toss them in 1T butter, 1T olive oil, 1T salt.  Roast them in the oven at 300 degrees for 30 min.  Gobble them up because they are amazing.

And now presenting... The Fierce Yellow Pumpkin:

Cutting the top off.  Daddy, are you using a little saw knife?  Just like in the book?

Dex took one stab at scooping out guts and decided that Daddy could do it.  He was also not a big fan of sticking his hands in the guts to separate the seeds.

Here's what we're aiming for

Dex holds it up to make sure Daddy can see the book while he carves.

Dexter has excellent supervisory skills

And I am sure that hanging on Daddy's arm is incredibly helpful.

Comparing the picture to the pumpkin.  How did Daddy do?

Everyone tries out their fierce face.  Dexter's needs a little work.

Now with candles in.  This is Dexter's fierce face.  Scary, eh?

Ooooh.  NOW he's looking fierce.

The Fierce Yellow Pumpkin in the dark.  I think he turned out pretty cool.

Click on video below to hear Dexter tell you about his pumpkin's face: