Tough Week, But Lookin' Up Now

Ugh. This last week with Jackson was haaaaaaaard. He was one seriously unhappy boy, to the point that I took him to see both his doctor and to the ER in one day (he was fine, it was probably just some really painful gas and intestinal cramps). Not much was impressing our poor little man. Chris and Mel were over, which cheered him up some (and of course Shawn and I were very happy to visit with them), but I think I was the worst hostess ever because I was just frazzled beyond my limit with my poor fussy baby. So I didn't get one picture of them while they were here. Oops. Oh well.

But the good news is that, not only is Jackson feeling better now, he is happier and more rambunctious than I've ever seen him. Yay! He is just a-bouncin' and a-squealin' away, and he gets that mischievous little munchkin look in his eye. He hasn't started trying to crawl or walk yet, but he's getting more opinionated about things, so I have a feeling that independent travel won't be too far away.

I dug out his playpen (excuse, me, play yard, that's what they're called now, although we usually call it baby jail) since now he's sitting up so well and he needs more changes of pace in the day to stay entertained. He likes it:

 Yay, happy lil' man!

 Oh hey Mom, just playin' with my new toy

 Now that babe can sit up so well, I can put him on my back in the pocket sling and wear him if he's fussy but I've got to get some stuff done. Sometimes it's the only thing that cheers him up:

 Pic from his miserable week. I think I'm making lunch.

 Trust me, this was cheerful for him that week

And, on a non-baby-related note, I've been saying to a couple of people that I was going to take pictures of me cutting my own hair, so here's a couple. You can see, I just comb it into a ponytail at the very top of my head, then snip across the top:

 Snipped-off ponytail end. What is with my Jack Nicholson eyebrow??

(almost) instant haircut

I love it. It takes less than five minutes, I don't have to drive to the mall, make awkward small talk with a hair stylist and fork over a bunch of money. And it's not a bad haircut. Admittedly, the hair near the bottom of my head isn't getting trimmed yet because it's not long enough, but if it starts to bug me I can just snip along the bottom to clean it up. Ha ha, I think I have the cheapest hair in the Okanagan. No, wait, I think Shawn's got me beat :D (he doesn't need to use vinegar on his head)

I'm pretty excited for the rest of the week. It's suppose to get above freezing during the day for most of the week (holy crap!), and the sidewalks around Armstrong are getting more clear, so it looks like babe, dog and I will be going on lots of adventures. Finally!

(Is it spring yet? Seriously, we just got snowed on again this weekend. It's knee-deep in our yard. Enough already.)

Not Really Baby Related . . .

Just . . . yeah.

I turn down the monitor when Shawn falls asleep every night.

Luv you hunny :D

More Food Craziness

Time for a happy post.

So, sometimes when Shawn and I see something in the store that is totally ridiculous, we kind of HAVE to try it, just to see. Like those Pillsbury cookies in a tube that you slice and they have pictures on? That kind of thing. Anyway, so we were food shopping in walmart, minding our own business, when we look in the dairy case and see this:

What is it, you ask? Why, it's pancake batter. In a can. Yep. For real. You know the really funny part? It's organic. Why, why, why????

Anyhoo, so one Saturday we decide to try the thing, because how can you NOT try pancakes in a can? So here's some shots from when we did that:

Blastin' the Batter

This is when I started to get a little scared . . .

So how did they turn out? Well, this is what they looked like:

Pancake . . . ish . . . type entities


Real pancake for comparison

But I'm sure what you're all wondering is, how did they taste? Well:

At first I was like

But then I was all

They were GROSS! Like really really gross! (big surprise) You have no idea how hard it was to smile for the camera for that first shot. Ew ew ew! They didn't even taste like pancakes at all. I don't even know what they tasted like, other than a skunk beat to death by a salmon. Nasty evil can-cakes! Shawn tried them too, but I didn't think to take pictures. I was in shock.

We made normal pancakes after that. And strong coffee.

Oh, btw, how was Jackson while we were goofing around with cans of "food"? He was being a super happy baby in his sproingy chair. What a guy!

So, a good time was had by all. Jackson had fun toys and funny parents to entertain him, and now we can say that we tried can-cakes.

Not Green Eggs And Ham, But . . .

What goes with a cold? Chicken soup of course! And what do you get when you put purple carrots in the soup?

Purple Chicken Soup

Ha ha, surprise! Didn't see that coming. And in case you're wondering, though we seem to have a reputation for having weird food, no we don't usually have purple carrots in the house, but I bought a bag of carrots from the farmer's market, and the assorted coloured carrots were the same price as the regular orange ones, so what the heck.

That soup was delicious by the way. Shawn made it for us.

Car Cookies

These are pictures from last year, but I never did get around to showing anybody the photographic evidence.

So for those of you that don't know, the Okanagan gets HOT in the summer. Like 37 degrees in the shade hot. So one day last year, shortly after we moved into the house we rent now, as Ben and I were coming back from our morning walk, I noticed this funny mark on the sidewalk. It looked a lot like the remnants of a fried egg that someone cooked on the sidewalk but it stuck (I guess they forgot to use Pam). So it got me thinking, the car gets really really hot in the sun, like an oven. I wonder if you could bake cookies in there?

Well . . .

TA-DA!

Were they actually cooked? Yep. Were they crispy and yummy? Well . . . not so much. They were more dry on the outside and done on the inside, but we DID cook them in the car. Probably shouldn't have eaten them after, but hey, cookies.

Recipe for Car Cookies

1 tube Pilsbury cookie dough

Directions: Drop from spoon onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 8 hours in very hot car. You might want to plan not to go anywhere - you could drive in some shade and your cookies won't be done, or go around a corner too fast and wear your cookies.

BTW - the car smelled awesome for weeks after this :D