Beautiful weather!

We have been enjoying this wonderfully warm weather all week.  We found a beach near our house and went a couple of times this week. Makena loves it!  She splashes through the water, plays in the sand, and just has an all around good time.  The best part about this beach is that it was a park first, so there is a nice playground area for us to play in.  They have it separated between big kids and toddlers so we don't have to worry about those big 8 year olds running us down!  Of course all she wanted to do in the playground was swing.  Go figure.  She hated swinging for the first 16 months of her life, and now the child is addicted.  I'm pretty sure she would swing all day as long as I brought her food and water.  She already gets water when she's swinging, so now all I need to do is give her the snack cup and we'll be good to go.  Too bad they don't make an automatic outdoor swing, that would be the life.  I could sit back and read next to her all day and not have to do any work!  Oh, to make it even better I could get a tv with elmo on and she would never want to leave.

We are heading up to Grandma and Grandpa's this weekend for some more lake fun!  We were going to wait since it was a holiday weekend, but we are booked up for the following couple of weekends, so we are going to fight the crowds for a weekend of fun.  I know grandma will have all kinds of things for Makena to do, since there are SO many toys up there!!  Makena's favorite toy last weekend was the bubble machine.  "Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles"  I can hear it already.  I hope to get up there early enough today to play outside a bit before Makena's bedtime, but we'll have to wait and see.  Our departure all depends on Jared's "out of work" time.  He was hoping for 2, but he had to re-arrange some meetings in order for that to happen.  We have our fingers crossed.

Oh, we also went to a playdate in St. Paul this past week.  It was almost all babies, so Makena wasn't too impressed,  and it was nap time, so that wasn't the best for us.  We did, however, get to pick up Jared and have lunch downtown with him.  We've never done that before, it was fun.  Perhaps next time we do that we will hit up the children's museum too.  She loves to crawl around there.  I should wrap this up and make sure I have everything ready to go for the weekend!

Crazy for my crockpot!

Yesterday I made a delicious crockpot lasagna and today I made pulled BBQ pork and some "chunky applesauce".  I made the apples for our afternoon snack and they were GREAT!  I haven't had the pulled pork yet.  We have a few hours before that is ready.  It's smelling good though.  I don't know what took me so long to fall in love with my crockpots.  They are truly a lifesaver.  I was having problems because I was sending Jared to get something quick (usually fast food) for us at night because I was to tired/lazy to cook.  I figured I needed to stop spending and eating like that.  These crockpots have saved my sanity.  I've also pulled out my "fix it and forget it lightly" cookbook.  I have a couple of recipes planned and the apples were from the dessert section of this one.  I made the pulled pork because I had a seasoning packet for it and I've never made it before.  I didn't even know what kind of meat to buy.   Talk about naive.

Makena has been a sleep-a-holic the last few days, and I'm loving it.  She must be going through a growth spurt, and I'm pretty sure it's those 2 year molars that are doing the growing.  I haven't seen her fingers in her mouth this much except for when she was a "baby".  Poor thing.  She was eating, well pretending to, the other day and she put in a bite of food and started bawling.  I felt so bad for her since there was nothing I could do.  Yes, I could give her Tylenol or something, but I wasn't certain that was the problem.  She had woken up early that day and had been grumpy the whole morning.

I should get some other things done around here, granted supper is already made, hehe, but there are other chores that need to be done.

Elmo, Elmo, Elmo

I used to like the furry red guy, but I'm getting to the point where I hate him.  Perhaps because Makena likes him more than me.  In reality I'm okay with that, but I wish every other word out of her cute little mouth wasn't "Elmo".  If we're not watching a video of him, we're reading books, which I prefer.  Grandma got Makena a cute little Sesame street book set, she loves them.  They are only 5 pages long and they are small little squares, she brings them everywhere.  They have even trumped the dolly as far as getting stroller rides.  I don't know if it because she can bring more than a couple at a time where she is going or if she feels they deserve a ride more than the dolly.

For those of you that are connected to my facebook account, I posted a cute little "Elmo Dance" that Makena does every time the video starts.  I seriously laugh every time I watch it.  She also does this same dance at the end of "Super Why"(her favorite tv show).

I had a nice mother's day!  I got a Roomba, Jillian's new cookbook, and a day off of Makena duty.  I think I slipped up and did a lot of taking care of her out of habit, but she is just too darn cute to stay away fom sometimes.  It was such a gorgeous day outside too.  We all played with the ball, the house, fed the birds, etc.  It was so nice having my husband back.  He was always around but being able to actually have a conversation with him and go places with him was so nice!

We don't have too much planned for the week, but that's okay with us!

A good weekend

We had a good weekend up in Deerwood with Makena's grandma and grandpa.  We were actually there for four days.  She seemed to love it.  She ate well, played lots, and probably didn't want to come home.  She played with some different toys, played outside with Jared, and went on long walks with me.  It is so fun to walk in new scenery.  We got to see deer, a coyote, and pretty lakes/ponds.  When we walk in the cities the wildest animals we see are squirrels . . .

Jared has his exam tomorrow so he is studying at work today and then is going to come home and set it to the side for a bit. So he says.  I'm just excited because we are going to have him back on Friday night.  I don' know what I'm going to do with myself.  I see a few naps in my weekend plans, hehe.  I am also hoping for a haircut.  I don't think Makena's time with him is going to change much during the week, since he spends supper and after supper time with us anyway.  I do think that it will be good for him since he wants to start running again.  He'll actually have time to do it.  I may even wait to do our daily walks until he gets home in the evenings so he can use them as "warmups".  They're a few miles long, but that's okay it will be good for him.  I like to have someone to talk to on walks too, so I'm being a bit selfish.

Well, I'm going to take a nap since Makena already is.  Have a great day everyone!