How You Know You Live in The Country

Today will be a picture-less entry.  I have some to edit before the are Blog-Ready.  So...we took Carson to the park today to play and honest to goodness some girl had her pet lamb there.  For serious.  I mean at first it just looked like a Standard Poodle until it started "baa-ing".  I mean Really?!  REALLY? Is Otsego that far out there that people bring their lambs to the park?  Weird stuff.

So, the weather is starting to get so nice!  We did some outside stuff both Saturday and today.  Carson loves to be outside and gets all angry when we try and bring him in.  We just hung out in the yard on Saturday and went down to the park today for a bit.  Carson really just likes to walk around he for sure doesn't get the climbing quite yet.  He was totally indifferent to going down the slide.  It meant nothing to him.

We watched the Wild lose and get eliminated on Saturday night.  Quite depressing post-season I must say.  I think Dave will need at least the week to get over it.  

We don't have a ton of plans for the week.  Just the norm but we are having dinner at Northland with my parents on Friday. Good stuff.  I just love the seafood buffet and am totally excited to go again.  

Carson's new big thing is saying "yeah" to pretty much everything.  He will shake his head for "no" if he means it but most things get a very excited "YEAH" and hand claps.  It's pretty cute.  He also says "Hiiiiiiiiii" just like that usually.  Too cute.  Ok well I hope everyone has a great week!

Just Kidding

Welcome April! I've lost track of all Blog Time...it seems like we went out with our friends and I've been trying to catch up ever since! We actually went out and had a great time, stayed up way too late and then have spent the last month (?!?!) making up for it! Haha!

We had a pretty laid back weekend...My parents came over for the Wild game on Friday night, my sister came over on Saturday and Dave's birthday was on Sunday. The Wild won on Friday!!!! We stayed up WAY too late on Saturday with Jess playing 'Sorry' and 'Phase 10' I lost miserably at EVERY game we played too...suck. Then on Sunday we just hung around...taking naps here and there.

Carson has been doing great. He's still teething so he's still been kind of...well we can call it *spunky* haha. He's been just a little crabbier than usual. He's sleeping at night just fine though which is good, I don't know what I would do if he wasn't sleeping. But he's been hitting and screaming just to hear himself scream. I'm so ready for all the teething to be done!

The Wild have been doing awesome in the playoffs...Game 4 tonight!! Too bad it doesn't start until 9:00. I had a hard enough time watching last night's game which also started late and I've been paying for it today. I'm not sure I'll make it through tonight's game at all.

Well, I'll leave you with a clip of SNL that we watched when Jess was over on Saturday. I don't know if it's just that it was like 1:30 when we were watching this (DVRd) or what but I was laughing so hard I was pretty much crying. Random I know...but please enjoy! :)

It is TOO COLD

My car wanted nothing to do with starting after work today. We all ordered in so that nobody had to go out in the -1million degree weather. But that means my car sat outside in the -1million degree weather from 6:45AM-3:30PM. Ouch. She did not make a pleasant noise the first time I tried starting her up. Carson has been wearing his Babylegs under his pants so his little legs don't let any cold air in when we carry him in from the car or out to the car from daycare. They just started selling them at Target, so that's like the most awesome thing ever! They cost the same as if you buy them online, but you don't have to pay shipping which is always a bonus!

The piles on my desk are slowly dwindling. I can't believe how busy I've been...the days are just flying by. I guess that's good because it's not like my days are dragging and I'm dreading work. I'm just ready to have a little down period. Hopefully by the end of this week I'll be all caught up.

Carson now says "thank you" well actually he says "do-dooooo" with the same vocal inflections as "thank you". Haha! He says it when you hand him something. It's so flipping cute!

We're going over to my parent's house for the Superbowl. I don't even know what time the game is on but it's all about just getting together and eating too much food...well at least that's what I think! We're about to watch the Wild play the Ducks YAY! They've been off for almost a week for the All-Star game so we're excited to get back into the hockey swing of things.

Well here are some pictures of everyone's favorite kiddo! Talk to you all soon.

Wii-Tater

Dave doesn't like my hair. I kind of knew he wouldn't but it's short-lived. It will fade quickly. I'm also up-in-the-air on what I'm going to do with it from now on. I don't like my natural dirty dish-water color but I'm faced with the reality that I may not be able to afford to maintain it like I'm accustomed to. We'll see what I decide.

We visited my parents yesterday! All tan and everything. We ordered enough Chinese food for an army, gorged ourselves, watched the Wild win again and argued about why I have such a celeb-crush on PMB . I know he has kind of an egg-head *but* if you take examples here and here, I think he looks better without the hair. Hahaha. We'll just say that I think he's cuter with his hockey helmet on...and leave it at that.

I forgot to mention that we visited our new puppy last weekend! We're getting him from a girl that I work with, but she lives in Farmington, so it was a bit of a haul. He actually shares a birthday with Carson (how cool is that?!) so he's just 5 weeks old and we'll be getting him once he's 8 weeks old. So around the beginning of February. We're pretty excited. We've been slowly building up our puppy supplies. I had gotten rid of so much stuff when we lost the pugs that it's almost like starting over fresh. I do still have some of the basics though so that is nice. Oh, and I *think* I've gotten Dave to agree with me on the name Tater. I can't say for sure yet though.

I still haven't had any time to pull new pictures off my camera. Dave and I have been too busy reaching "Pro" status bowling on the Wii *NERDS*. Actually it's been pretty fun. My mom even said she'd like to have one. I'm totally not a video game person but it's so fun to be able to actually play with someone. I think once Carson is a bit older, he'll get a kick out of it too!

Well, gotta get back to work. Busy, Busy, Busy!!!

Welcome to my Cube

Tee hee! A candid look at me at work! Haha, I found this on our "intranet". It was the day we had a carnival in our conference room...I was working instead of carnivaling it up. So here is a tour of half my desk. Yes, I have two computer monitors. It is wonderful and if they ever try and take the second one away it will be a sad, sad day. The black binders on the shelf are files for each of my doctors, basically their whole professional life is in the binder. There are 6 in the picture but I have since been handed one more. And yes, my desk is always this clean...I'm soooo not a fan of clutter!

This will probably be a short update...sorry I don't have a ton to say today! I have a camera class tonight at National Camera Exchange. I'm excited! It's an introduction to DSLRs (Digital SLR camera is what I have the SLR stands for single lens relfex(I think hahahah!)) Anyways, I'm taking a class tonight and then one next week, next week is supposed to be a little more advanced and into the technical settings I can make use of on the camera. I'm excited about that.

Dave and I were supposed to go to the Wild game last night. I haven't been feeling well all week so Dave took my sister instead. I haven't talked to her yet today but I think she had a good time...well I mean, how could you NOT enjoy it? It's a blast watching hockey at the Xcel. I went to bed early and today I'm finally feeling better. I have my voice back for the most part which is good...it's no fun when people can't understand you!

Carson has his one year check up tomorrow at the doctor. I know there will be shots on the agenda :( poor baby! I hate having him get shots. Hopefully it won't be bad. I'll have to ask the doctor about turning the car-seat around to face forward. I know you're supposed to wait a year but *should* you wait longer? Like just to be safe? I feel like I'll have such a big kid when he faces forward in the car. *tears*

Ok, I gotta get Carson fed before Dave comes home because I have to get going to the class right after that! Talk to you all soon and hopefully I will have some more updated photos soon!

Happy Birthday Carson!

Wow, can you believe it? Carson is a year old today. In one year from this:To this:It's crazy! Carson's party went better than I thought it would. We only had about 1/2 the turn out because of the weather but what can you do? Carson still had a great time. The stupid grocery store made us the wrong cake. It was supposed to be Baby Einstein but ended up being a generic birthday cake. I got it for 1/2 off but I still cried the whole way home. Then, once I got home and was unloading the car...I accidentally spilled the cake onto the garage floor. Luckily there was very minor damage otherwise I probably would've cancelled the whole day! :) I realize now that the cake wasn't as big of a deal as I made it out to be originally but I still think it was important. I will be speaking with the manager at the grocery store some time this week. The nice thing was, we got a free mini-cake for Carson to dig into. He had a extremely messy blast!

On Sunday, we had our family Christmas party. Carson was so tired from the night before...so he was kind of antsy and irritable and we didn't end up staying too long. Carson got to see Santa for the first time. It was funny because there was an 11 month old that sat on Santa's lap before Carson and he cried and cried so I thought Carson would have a similar reaction...but no! I guess my kid just has no fear of strangers at this point. I guess that's a good thing for now. He was smiling while sitting there! Super cute. We didn't get too many good pictures because I didn't set the camera right for Dave to take pictures...dang. Oh well, I might just have to take him to see a mall Santa to get a good picture.

After the family party, we went to my parents house for another MN sports day. We watched both the Vikings and the Wild win again! Yay! It was a good time. As the day went on though, I started losing my voice. I've been feeling under the weather and my throat has been sore but now my voice is completely gone. I took the afternoon off from work and came home and slept for a few hours before I had to pick Carson up from daycare. He got sent home with some great new toys from the daycare lady and then the mom of the little girl that goes there. I love that it's such a small daycare, I really feel like Carson is loved by everyone there.

Dave and I are supposed to go to the Wild game on Wednesday night. I hope that I'm feeling better by then. Otherwise I might have to send him onto the game with my sister or something. I can't imagine going with no voice. It would be the most frustrating thing EVER. It would be like getting to order any dessert you'd ever want but not being able to eat them. Haha.

We got some good video from Carson's party of him devouring his cake. I'll post that as soon as I get it uploaded to the computer. Probably sometime tomorrow night. I'm sooo tired and we're totally going to bed early tonight. Dave has got the sore throat too but he's still got his voice. Carson is the one that got us sickly but he seems to be feeling better for the most part.

See ya later! Can you believe how big he looks?!

DANG!

DANG! I was really hoping that November would be my month to break out of the "8 entries-per-month" funk. I was so on the right track too! I haven't had much extra time lately. We've all been a bit under the weather at the Walgrave home. Carson is finally pulling out of it, I don't have to wipe his nose every 30 seconds anymore. Thank Goodness too! He sure hates that. I've been falling asleep on the couch after Carson goes to bed until Dave gets home when we eat, clean up and then go straight back to sleep. Haha, no time to get on an update. I actually have about 50 pictures on my camera that I haven't taken off yet either. I shot them in RAW so I can only pull them off with a certain program. I downloaded a free 30 day trial to see if I want to buy it...not sure yet. I haven't had any time really to play with it.

Our Thanksgiving was wonderful! Nice and low-key. We swang by the Walgrave's on the way to the Theisen's and even got in a few naps during the day! We had gone to the Wild/Canucks game the night before so we were exhausted. We had a great time at the game, even though we lost. We have another game coming up on 12/5 and hopefully we'll win that one! We can't go to 2 losing games...that's just depressing!

As most of you know, we're having Carson's 1st Birthday Party this weekend. I can't believe I just typed that out! I ordered him a cake yesterday. It just blows my mind how fast the time has gone. It's ridiculous! We're keeping the celebrations low-key...there's no need at his age to go over the top. We'll just do a small family get together and leave it at that.

Work has been swamped beyond belief. Everything is a *RUSH* right now. Serious, just like that. 3 out of every 5 emails I get during the day the last 2 weeks have *RUSH* in the subject line. I'm getting very sick of the word! I guess it's a good thing, job security. My friend Kate's co-worker asked if I would take their family pictures. It makes me so nervous I want to throw up, but at the same time I'm super excited.

Well, I do actually have to finish working today. I'm gonna do my best to get my pictures off my camera and break the 8 per month streak!! :) Talk to you all soon

Monday Funday

So far so good peeps! My car has been running, I'm feeling better...things seem to be looking up for the time being! *knocks on wood*

We didn't have a terribly eventful weekend. Saturday Dave had to work so it was a Carson/Momma bonding day. We hung out pretty much all day and just took it easy. Sunday we went to my parents house for pretty much the whole day. The Vikings played at 12:00 and the Wild played at 5:00 so it was a sports marathon and we saw 2 wins for Minnesota so it was an extraordinary day! Carson was well behaved and Steve cooked us an awesome dinner. It was a good day!

Carson let me rock him to sleep today. He doesn't let that happen too often these days. I soaked up the cuddling and put him down after about 20 minutes of just hanging out. I can't believe how quickly he's growing. I mailed out his 1st birthday invitations today. We're keeping the gathering small and simple because what's the point of getting all ridiculous with it at this point? You only have to get bigger and better right?! Haha, might as well start as simple as possible. Plus, it's not like he'll remember this one. I'm still trying to figure out what to have for a meal...I can't decide.

I bought some lights for the outside of the house today. We didn't decorate big last year since I was huge pregnant when we started decorating and then had a newborn for the end of decorating. It didn't go so well last year. We kept it simple but I'm just DYING to put lights up outside this year! Hopefully it turns out as good as what I have in my mind!

Dave and I are going to the Wild game on Wednesday night! WOOT! I can't wait. We're playing Vancouver, we played them on Friday at Vancouver and there were quite a few fights...it will be a fun game to watch for sure! I'm excited to go. It's been quite a while since we've been to a game.

We'll be at my parents for Thanksgiving or at least for some of it. I'm sure we'll bounce around a bit as well. At least most of the fam is all in the same neighborhood! Talk to everyone soon! Enjoy the short week!

Snow Way!

I saw flurries outside today....GRRRRR! I'm so very not ready for winter. I've been in denial that it's coming up but that's not doing me much good. I now have less than a month until Carson's 1st birthday. Can anyone actually believe it? I sure can't. The year has flown by so quick. My little baby is growing up into a little boy. How scary!

Dave and I had a great weekend. We were in Iowa for an awards conference for the Navy recruiters in his District. It was a good time. I didn't work on Friday and we got on the road around 1:00ish after dropping Carson off with my parents. We got to the hotel at around 3:30-4:00ish. After we had checked in and had a quick gathering with all who were there, we were off for the night. I had a blast. I met a ton of people that Dave works with and all of their wives. Most were in the same boat we were, leaving their baby for the weekend for the first time. It was nice that everyone was kind of in the same situation.

We had a lot to do on Saturday. Dave had some trainings to attend and there were things for the wives to attend. So we didn't see much of each other until the awards and banquet on Saturday night. It was pretty low-key since most people were partied-out from the night before. After the dinner, we just went back to our room and watched some hockey and then a movie...we ordered pizza kind of late and then went to bed. We peeked out at the bar to make sure we weren't being un-social but nobody was out and about either. Everyone was laying low. Sunday morning we left around 8:00 and got back to pick Carson up from my parents around 11:30. We missed him!

Carson got two more teeth this weekend while we were gone. He only had one night of bad sleep so that was good for my parents. I would've felt terrible if he were a crabby baby all weekend. But only Friday night. He has 6 teeth now, 4 on top and 2 on the bottom. The two front teeth on top have such a big gap between them right now, it's super cute!

I think I'm coming down with a cold, I'm hoping that it's just from the long weekend. I slept so much yesterday and ended up going to bed at like 9:00PM. I had a terrible time getting up this morning and felt like I could've slept all day long. Today at work has been tough. It's hard to concentrate when I'm feeling so sleepy and icky. I don't feel as bad as I did yesterday but I sure don't feel good. Here's to hoping that tomorrow I feel better. I don't mind terribly being sick, but I just don't want Carson to get sick. And it's not like we can really avoid contact at all! If only, right!?

I know some of you know Bethany, she got a job at my company. They offered it to her on Friday. She starts on the 19th. She's super excited. It's a long, LONG back-story but her and I have quite a bit of history. Some of it is not-so-great. I've really moved past it all and I just hope that things remain good while she's working here. Bonus for me, I get a $1,500.00 referral bonus if she's here for 90 days. Dang, I could use that for sure! Well, I should get back to work, after having Friday off I'm plenty busy but just can't focus today. Hopefully I'll be feeling better by tomorrow.

Before I go, here's a picture from 10/28 at my parents. I just like the way it turned out.

Have a Great Weekend!

We're getting ready to leave for the weekend. I'm not working today and we're dropping Carson off with my mom around 12:00. Carson wouldn't sleep for anything for some reason last night. I couldn't figure out what was up. He woke up this morning at 7:30 right about usual time and it's not even 9:00 and he's down for a nap. Poor kid. I hope that he sleeps really well this weekend. I'd hate to leave him with other people and have him be naughty. I think maybe he had a tummy ache or something. I don't think it was his teeth but it could've been I guess.

We only had about 20 or so trick-or-treaters on Wednesday night. They didn't start until after 6:30 and only came by until 8:00. We turned our outside lights off around 8:30 after a group of high-school age kids came by. It was getting a little late and those punks didn't even have costumes. Just pillow cases. My awesome pumpkin that I carved on Sunday wilted away by Wednesday. I went outside to light it and noticed that the carved part had kind of imploded on itself. It was pretty sad. I lit the candle anyways and I had about 6 smart-ass kids ask me "what is that supposed to be?" I was pretty sad. Haha At least I know that at one time it looked pretty dang awesome.

We watched the Wild lose again last night...rawr.

Well, I do have to get going. I have to finish getting my stuff together. I put all of Carson's together last night. It's hard packing up a baby for the weekend. They need like 7 times the amount of stuff as a normal person. Hope everyone has a great weekend, Dave and I send our love from Iowa! :)

Happy Halloween, Love Carson

I've been neglectful my dear readers and I apologize. It seems that the days go quicker and quicker and all of the sudden I haven't updated anything in like a week. Oops. Work has been tough this week. I've left most days with a headache, on Tuesday I was telling Dave what had happened during the day and as I was telling him, my head started throbbing stronger and stronger. Ugh, that's when you know you're stressed! It's a good stress though, I love my job most days!

Dave and I watched the Wild lose their 4th in a row last night. I have to keep reminding myself that hockey seasons are soooo much longer than football and that losing 4 in a row isn't terrible at the beginning of the season. It's gonna happen. Let's just hope that they get back into the game soon. I want to try and get out to a game as well, we only got to go to 2 games last year and one of them I was terribly pregnant and super uncomfortable. Let me tell you, those seats are not made for pregnant women or large people! Haha.

Dave and I will be out of town all weekend in Iowa for his awards conference thing. I skipped it last year since I was 9 months preggo and didn't feel up to a 3 hour car ride. I guess I didn't miss too much. This year I'm glad I'm going. I am sad to leave Carson for 2 nights...we've only ever left him for one night. So I'm a little sad but I know it's good for us to be away and good for Carson as well. Plus we have the best family watching him so I know I don't have to worry about anything.

Carson went to daycare dressed as a fire-fighter. Super cute. It's a hand-me-down from Austin. Everyone keeps asking if I'm taking him out for trick-or-treating but no, we're staying home and passing out candy. He's too little to understand it and plus I'd have to lug him around. I do wish that family was closer so I could take him around to you guys but for a Wednesday night it's too much running. I hope nobody is offended. Next year, you better believe we'll be hitting up all the family for candy! But tonight we'll be at home passing candy out. It will be fun.

My sister Jess gave me her book of pumpkin carving patterns and I did an AWESOME job carving our pumpkin. Much better than the time Dave and I just tried to draw and carve. Total disaster. It turned out super cute and I'll have that on the step with a candle tonight. I also have a little hay bale that it's sitting on with some mini-pumpkins so we're at least attempting to be festive! Well, they're having a costume contest today at work and announcing the winners so I'm gonnna go watch. Have a great night everyone, and I promise I will be better about updating! :)

Something Sweet

Ok, I promise this will be less hate-filled! Haha. Sorry I was just super irritated about that whole Ebay thing. So how about some terribly sad news? My hair lady is moving to Chicago in January. The lady that has been doing my hair for almost 10 years...10 YEARS PEOPLE! I wake up in the middle of the night with anxiety. Who is going to cut and color my hair? How am I going to afford it? No one can replace my "Christmas Carol"....*tears* My mom is having a melt-down as well. We both have been seing Carol for about as long as we can remember and it's been wonderful. I used to work for Carol, so she's not just my "hair lady" she's been a friend for a really long time as well. She came to my baby shower (if anyone can remember that). Gah, I have to stop talking about it, I'll have a panic attack.

How about we talk about Carson? I think that sounds good. That kid is just the most adorable thing, I swear. He was super fun all weekend. He has two teeth coming through though so he's been like a poo machine. I swear I changed 15 dirty diapers this weekend. Poor little hinder. We had to have plenty of diaper-free time this weekend to dry his little tush out. I'm looking forward to his teeth being in...I'm sick of teething! :) We heavily invested in baby gates this weekend. Life Saver! Our living areas are so open that it was hard to get him closed in without spending a small fortune! I like to call it....Baby Prison
There was a Wild game on Saturday night. It wasn't on FSN or 45 like they usually are, so we were checking out all the high number cable channels and found it on some random Sports Indemand chanel. I called the cable company to ask if we could buy the game like you buy movies? They said that you can't buy one game but, if we'd like to buy the entire season for the one-time low price of $150.00 we sure could. I laughed at the guy so hard and was like "are you crazy?" There are only like 5 games a season that aren't on normal cable that we already pay for...so we didn't get to watch the game. Instead we got "Blades of Glory" off of the OnDemand menu. Lol

Well, I should do some work. I'm terribly busy but with less motivation than I should have. Talk to you all soon!

BTW, I feel like Carson looks like Mandie in this picture? Like Mandie as a baby? Is it just me?

Flu Shots and Icky Lunches

We're watching the Wild/Anaheim game right now...I swear, Dave will probably have an aneurysm before this game is over. We've already seen a few really good fights, this game is huge for us so hopefully we can pull off a win!

I took the day off of work on Friday. Carson had to get his flu shot in the morning and our doctor's office is in Golden Valley. By the time I drive from Alberville to Golden Valley and then back to Albertville to drop Carson off at daycare, driving back to Eden Prairie ends up wasting half of my day. So I took a day off instead. **QUICK BREAK Wild are up 1-0!!** Carson was a STUD for his shot, not a whimper, no crying...seriously I had to ask the nurse if she even gave him the shot. He had absolutely NO reaction. That was a nice relief for me though, I swear I stress more about his shots then he probably ever will.

Kate, Austin and Lydia came over on Friday after Carson and I got back from his flu shot. There is an apple orchard about 15 minutes away from our house right in St. Michael so we thought we'd go check it out. We're all about going to an apple orchard in the middle of the week when there aren't a million people around...we also like the smaller more "cutsie" places instead of a place like Ahmedts which is always super busy. Anyways, this place was a little bit too little for us. It honestly was a tiny little building in the middle of some apple trees and all they sold was apples, no honey sticks or pies. They didn't even take cards, only check or cash and this lady had like a calculator and a notepad and that was it. We bought some cookie cutters to be nice but we only stayed for about 3 minutes. Austin was pretty mad. Haha. After our unfortunate apple experience, we just headed back to our house and I took some new pictures of Austin and Lydia, just for fun. Can anyone guess where the picture of Austin was taken? It's in my house...but where?!

We spent some time up at the cabin on Saturday with my mom and Steve watching the Vikings. We had this awesome feast of tacos, enchiladas, rice and re fried beans. We were all stuffed and enjoyed the game. We were pleasantly surprised that the Vikings actually won...next week is the Patriots though so that should be fun to watch...Haha, massacre. Carson refused to nap at all during the day, at least he wasn't crabby. He showed off all his mad crawling skillz. His 2nd top tooth also FINALLY came in!! Yay! He won't be "Hillbilly Deluxe" much longer. **QUICK BREAK Wild are up 2-0!!** SA-WEET

I think we officially have to have naked baby meal times now. Carson is pretty much eating anything he can get his hands on and most of that stuff is just gross. He absolutely ruined everything he was wearing on Friday...I mean, check this out: EEEEWWWWWW! So we're doing stripped down meals and I think that will work much better. At least I can just hose him down in the bath if needed, rather than having to change all of his nasty clothes. He's not much for wanting to be changed lately, he's too independent for that these days.

Well I better get back to watching the game, still a period and a half left!! Woot!

Suzie Homemaker

Dave and I have been watching that documentary by Ken Burns The War OMG is it awesome!? It's 7 "episodes" each lasting 2 to 2 1/2 hours long. It's so hard to start watching one and not finish. It's just been fascinating. We DVRd them so we can watch when we want since most have been on during prime time and we can't skip The Office! But I've really enjoyed watching and it really gives me a greater appreciation for history in general. It's very well done and highly recommended.

We had a great time at Jack's birthday party on Sunday!! Hopefully Jack enjoyed it too. Neil made an awesome cake...it was a big hit. Angie, I have more pictures for you and will email them. The pictures of the cake turned out great!I used my awesome food processor this weekend. That thing rocks so hard it’s not even funny. I sliced a cucumber and seriously it made the thinnest awesomest slices ever. It was almost ridiculous because the one cucumber made like 1,000 slices but they still tasted fantastic and the cucumber lasted a little longer than it normally does. Usually Dave and I can whip through a cucumber in about 10 minutes. Haha!

I also used the processor for mashing bananas to make some banana bread. I haven’t made bread in YEARS and I was a little nervous but it turned out really good. I had 4 bananas and only used 2 for the one loaf so I made another to send home with my mom. I hope that one turned out as good as ours. Funny story, the “best if used by” date on my baking powder was 3/2001 hahahahahahaha. I can’t believe I still have that. I guess I’m going to have to buy some more. I think I noticed only a little issue using it, the 2nd loaf of bread didn’t rise as much but the first did just fine so I’m not sure if the baking powder is to blame or not. I also made Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies this weekend (wow I sound like a Suzie Homemaker!) the last batch I made I decided that using Country Crock instead of butter or shortening wouldn’t make *that* much of a difference. OMG it makes a difference. Haha. The first batch tasted just fine but the cookies were really like flimsy almost and then the batch I made this weekend were perfection! Yeah Baby…no more Country Crock! Well, except for on a slice of banana bread…Heavenly!

My friend Kate used one of the pictures that I took of Lydia for her Thank-you cards! How awesome is that!? Totally exciting. I’m a little bummed with the fall colors so far this year…I was hoping to get out and take some pictures but I haven’t seen anything worth taking. The dull brown/yellow just doesn’t do it for me. We’re going up to the cabin this weekend to watch the Vikings game with my parents so maybe there will be some good picture opportunities there.

And just thought I should mention that HELLS YEAH the Wild are 2-0. I'll leave you you with a few pics of Carson!