Embarassing moment #463

OK, so I'm not actually keeping count of all the embarassing moments, but those of you with children get the idea. Can we really keep count of all those moments. I've already lost track of mine and I only have one child :). As for the specifics of the day....of all places, it was at the OB/GYN office. I love my doctor and he is the best ob/gyn I have ever had. Thankfully today was just a "talk in the office/no exam" day, so I took Av with me. Dr. P was born and raised in the south, but his heritage is Indian. In the middle of our discussion Av blurts out "Mommy, what color is he?" Can you say mortified!!! Av then followed up with a question about one of the pictures on the wall. Since I was dumbfounded I did not address the first question. I don't know if he noticed it or not, and I don't think he would have been offended by it anyway, but OH MY! I can't understand why she said that! She has never made a comment about skin color before today. Oh well, I'm sure this won't be the most embarassing moment by my children, but it was the worst one in a while.

Sorry for the bloggin infrequency lately, I'll give an update on the details soon. I have been so thankful for wonderful and considerate friends this week that have watched Av for me, pitched in with all that I have to get done, and brought me dinner (homemade chicken soup from Darby)! It was wonderful to not have to think about what I would cook tonight, spend time cooking, or clean my kitchen. Thanks so much to my great friends--I love you!

Pumpkin Patch

We got to spend a wonderful Saturday at the Pumpkin Patch. It was a gorgeous, sunny, but crisp, Fall day.

Posing on the pumpkins

"This stem isn't too comfortable!"

Washing hands after the petting zoo

A good squeeze before the hayride

All morning Av asked to ride the "horse" (that was actually a donkey). I thought she would get to her turn in line and not want to ride. There were 2 donkeys and she firmly expressed that she wanted to ride "the red one"-the bigger one had a red saddle. J set her in the saddle and she was all smiles the entire time. She loved every second of it.

I was so proud of my adventurous 2 year old!!!!

My favorite pic of the day. J and Av checking out the corn maze.

BOO!

I love Fall. I love the cool, crisp air and no humidity. I love Fall decorations. I love pumpkin bread and pumpkin lattes. Lately I have been loving all the great blog posts about fall. It makes me want to put on a sweater and sit by the outdoor firepit being warmed by the fire as the sun sets and the night gets cooler. I have been trying to find some fall projects for Av and I to do. I found these pumpkin carving and decorating ideas. All you have to do is print off the stencil design.

This one is my favorite. I think it would be easy enough for Av to do with me and this one we would get to carve and paint. But the following are some others I also thought were cute.

Do you think I could find a pumpkin big enough for a 2 year old :)?

Evidence

So here are the pictures that I promised yesterday in my tired stupor.

This was the view from our patio after earlier yard projects this year. Not so attractive to look straight into our neighbor's house/yard. We didn't plan on clearing out our yard to put in a new fence, only to have our neighbor's do the same to their yard and voila-it's howdy neighbor 24-7.J was at Home Depot by 7 am on Saturday to rent this mean machine for $75. We had to plant 6 trees and 10 shrubs. J's shoulders and this auger had the holes dug in 45 minutes!! If we had to to handle that on our own with just shovels we would still be digging. If you are planning on planting any trees or need multiple holes dug, this is definitely the way to go. Well worth the $.

The lovely holes ready for the new greenery.

The finished product! As for the trees-3 Dwarf Magnolias in the center bordered with a Japanese Cryptomeria at each end. There 3 Lorapetalum (sp?) in a triangle formation of 2 in back and one in front b/t each magnolia (6 total) and there are Pitsporum b/t the magnolias and the cryptomeria. It doesn't completely block the view yet, but they will as they grow. What an improvement!

I'll share some pointers that our local nursery gave us. Plant in odd numbers, as in 5 trees, so that way there is a center that the eye is drawn to in the grouping. Same theory in planting the shrubs in groups of 3-the one in front draws the eye to it. Our biggest DUH moment was that we had already somewhat traced out the beds and placed pine straw months ago....somewhat good planning. We didn't even think to rake back all the pine straw before using the auger to dig-so all that pine straw was buried in dirt and we had to completely redo it. Thankfully we have a good pine straw connection. Not too terrible, but a lesson learned.

I have found that I shy away from gardening b/c I feel I don't know enough about it, but I really enjoyed this weekend. The more I make myself get out there and do it, the more comfortable I am with it. I also helped that Saturday actually felt like fall. It was overcast and cool most of the day-I started out with a t-shirt and quickly changed into long sleeves for the rest of the day!! Bring on outdoor fires and pumpkin lattes!

Happy Anniversary

J and I got married 6 years ago on October 12th. I am very blessed to be married to my husband. To tell him I was pregnant with Av I gave him a little book I made with my "Top 100" best things about J-my #100 was that he would be a great dad. He loved it and I thought I would share some of his best traits. I don't know anyone that works harder than he does, in all areas of his life. He is very loyal, generous, fun, funny, passionate, intelligent, and wise. He makes me laugh {even at myself sometimes :)}. He is almost always the first one to apologize and ask for forgiveness. He is a great dad and Av adores him. J is a fantastic handyman, in fact, we have only paid to have something fixed on our house twice, J has done all the rest of it (which is a lot since our house is almost 60 years old). He is a man of integrity and loves God. He is more thoughtful than I am. He is very intuitive and picks up on the nuances of people and life in general that I don't even notice. He's a great husband and father, and I am a better person because of him.

We celebrated our anniversary this weekend by working ALL weekend on house projects!! We are both sore and exhausted (more on the project on another post). Thankfully my mom kept Av all weekend for us, so even though we worked the whole time, it was just the 2 of us. We headed to Mom's house 2 hours late today. We were supposed to eat dinner with my fam, but we missed out on that. Our anniversary dinner was 2 quarter pounder's from McDonald's on the way to Mom's.......and I have to say, it was great.

I would add a pic, but it's 1 am, and as mentioned earlier, I'm exhausted, so it will have to wait for another day. Sorry about the infrequent blogging, I'll give you the why soon.

Tumble Dry Low

Laundry didn't bother me so much when I was single, but now that I have a husband and child it's a different story. I used to wait and only do laundry once a week or (gasp) every other week. I would wait until a had a full load of each category-whites, colors, delicates, towels, darks, etc. I dreaded when laundry day arrived because it would take ALL day! This picture epitomizes the feeling-buried in laundry. Notice the hand reaching for freedom-too funny (or is it too real to be fuuny?).

This summer I had an epiphany after spending time with my MIL. I realized that I don't have to be so uptight about washing clothes. I can just have a delicates and towels load, and then wash everything else together on cold! I also don't have to have a full load since I have a front loading washer. What a relief! Now only I do a few loads once or twice a week and it hardly takes any time. It is so much better taking it a little bit at a time instead of letting it get to the point that every basket I have is overflowing with dirty clothes and I spend my entire Saturday washing, ironing, folding, and putting away clothes.

I do have one other new trick that has saved time and effort. Instead of unloading the clean clothes into a basket to sit and wrinkle, I now take the clothes out the dryer and immediately fold/hang them and put them away-which only takes about 20 minutes. This way I don't feel surrounded by piles of laundry and it significantly cuts down on ironing. To tell the truth I have always done minimal ironing, but J likes this method much more! Another way to "lighten the load " of ironing (are you groaning at that pun) is to use fabric softener. J actually taught me that one. This is more like what my laundry room looks like now. Definitely not as stylish, but it is clean, organized, and free of piles of clothes! Happy washing and share any tricks of the trade you might have!

Pictures courtesy of Flickr