Picture Thursday - Portraits Galore (including gratuitous belly)

For my husband's last photography assignment, he needed a model and a prop in the studio.

This is the picture he turned in for a grade. SchmoopyBoy is the model and my belly is the prop.

In this picture I am the model and my belly is the prop.

These are all just sweet portraits of me with my SchmoopyBoy.




Cute pictures of SchmoopyBoy solo. He is so photogenic!

We joined a CSA and it is awesome

Last week was the first week of our participation with a local CSA. For anyone who doesn't know, CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Basically, you sign up with a local farm, and for a specified amount of money or hours of work at the farm you get a huge basket of fresh, seasonal, locally grown produce. It's a great way to support local family farms and get a variety of fresh foods for your family. You can read more about what a CSA is here.

Last Saturday the JMan drove an hour to the farm and spent 4 hours pulling weeds from a garlic field (no chemical herbicides!) and he brought back a humongous bag full of veggies. In this bag we got:

spinach (large bag)
mixed salad greens (large bag)
kale (1 bunch)
beets (tons)
beet greens (OMG so much!)
broccoli (small bag of florets plus a head complete with the large leaves)
carrots (1 bunch)
radishes (1 bunch)

In other words - more leafy greens than 2 adults and a toddler can possibly eat in a week! We've been eating salad plus sautéed or otherwise cooked veggies every day this week, which is just what my pregnant self needs to stay healthy and grow a baby. So, Yay for green leafy veggies! Added bonus, I've never had beet greens and the large leaves that grow around a head of broccoli before, so my horizons are getting expanded in the process too.

Last night when I got home from work, JMan and SchmoopyBoy had just left to meet my mother-in-law and nephews at the local park. I made a quick stir fry from beet greens, broccoli leaves, broccoli florets, and added some non-csa white beans and tomatoes. I packed it into a container, added a container of non-csa watermelon and a box of crackers, and met them at the park for a lovely picnic.

I'm very excited about the CSA and can't wait to see what else we'll be getting in our bags! So far, I think it's pretty awesome.

Picture Thursday - I have a tail!

OK, this may be the most ridiculous thing you'll see all day, but I couldn't resist sharing. He'll hate me for this when he's a teenager, I'm sure. He immediately pulled this gem out of the latest bag of hand-me-downs from my sister-in-law and hasn't gotten sick of it yet.




BTW, in case you're interested, the little cow face on the tummy of the costume - it "moo"s when you press it. For real, people.

Date night with Schmoopy

On Monday nights, the JMan takes a photography class at the local community college. So I have the evening alone with SchmoopyBoy. Usually I scramble to make a quick and easy dinner and just play at home with him. Last night, the moment I came home he wanted to just sit and watch fishies on the computer. (Thanks, YouTube). Given that he skipped his afternoon nap, I was pretty sure he had plenty of screen time already during the day. So, thinking quickly, I suggested we go to see real live fishies. He found that idea agreeable so I took SchmoopyBoy out for a date night with Mommy.

Destination, PetSmart. Just a few miles away and free admission. Perfect. We started in the fish section. Rows upon rows of real live fishies. Then he spotted one of the employees working with a bin and had to find out what she was doing. In the bin were crickets. Hundreds, if not thousands of crickets. OMG! Bugs! More bugs in one place than he had ever seen before! We ventured around the store and saw some birds and mice. Then he wanted to see more bugs. So, we returned to our kindly bug lady and asked if she had any more bugs to see. Sadly, she did not. She did, however, have worms. OMG! Worms! Live worms! She took one out and placed it in her hand so SchmoopyBoy could watch its squirm around.

We walked around a little more. SchmoopyBoy enjoyed the lizards and snakes. He to to see some cats up for adoption that were sleeping in their crates. Then back around the birds and mice before returning for more worms.

Oh, how I wish I had a camera with me. I had no idea the smile a slithering worm could bring to his face.

We then thanked the kind bug lady and departed for dinner. Good heavens, where to go for dinner with no plan, little time, and a 2.75 year old who had skipped his nap. Across the parking lot was some fast food Chinese. Not great, but it would do. We loaded up our tray with noodles and veggies, and as we paid the cashier placed a couple of fortune cookies on the tray. Oh dear. Oh course SchmoopyBoy fastened his eyes on those cookies and wanted nothing else.

I must say, I've never seen him gobble up broccoli so quickly as when I told him he could have a cookie if he first ate 4 pieces of vegetable. In nothing flat, 2 pieces of broccoli and 2 slices of carrot were gone, as were a few noodles. Having his cookie craving satisfied, he then settled down to slowly consume the rest of his noodles as he watched the other people come and go.

We got home a few minutes later than I had hoped. So I just gave him a few minutes to play before heading upstairs for his bath. At bedtime, he uncharacteristically wanted to go straight to bed and turn the lights off, without any bedtime stories or lullabies. Of course, as soon as the lights were off and he was tucked in, he then asked for a story. So, I made a story up. I told him a story about a little boy that made friends with a frog at the park. It was quite a success, which amazed me since I had absolutely no idea where the story was going from start to finish. Nonetheless, he liked it so much he request it again. So, I tried to remember what I had just pulled from the air and repeated the story. After a few minutes of rolling around, he settled down to sleep.

I think he had a great time last night. Honestly, despite the creepy crawlies and greasy food, I had a great time with him too. I have to highly recommend an occasional date night with your toddler. It might surprise you.

This is the desert in April

Ah, spring. The grass is finally starting to sprout and turn green. The storm clouds are forming and hail is starting to fall...

Um, wait a minute. Did you just say hail? Hail? As in ice, falling from the sky.




Yes. That would be hail. On my newly green patch of grass. In the desert southwest. In April. (Don't ask why we have a patch of grass in our yard when we live in the desert. It blows my mind too.)

Of course, it is expected to be back in the 90s before the weekend.

Wow. Some kind of weather we're having, isn't it?

I can't believe I just wrote a whole post about the weather.

But, dude, seriously, hail in April in Las Vegas. How often does that happen?

SchmoopyBoy is finally going to be a big brother!

Nope, this is not an April Fools joke. I am, in fact, 14 weeks pregnant.

There have been so many times I was just about to post, and then I would chicken out. I'll just wait until my next 2 week appointment... I'll just wait until my 11 week ultrasound that tests for down syndrome... well, maybe I'll just wait one more week until I pass the 12 week mark so I don't jinx myself...

The telling is so easy. The untelling is so very hard.

So, I've put off posting about pregnancy, I've put off other posts I wanted to write because they referred to my pregnancy. Finally though, here is my official coming out party post. I'm excited. I'm hopeful. And, largely, I'm terrified. Par for the course, huh?

So what made this 3rd time the charm? Truthfully, I have no idea. Luck, perhaps? There are a few things I did differently this time around.

1. As I mentioned in a previous post several months ago, I got rolfed. My uterus and other internal organs have no structural excuses for not being able to hold a baby.

2. My doctor put me on progesterone supplements. From what the nurse told me, my progesterone numbers were "ok" but given my history of losses the doctor went ahead and prescribed the supplement to be safe.

3. Jedi mind tricks. I bet you didn't know I am a Jedi master in training. I still can't call miscellaneous objects to my hands from across the room (darn it that one's hard!) but apparently I can wave my hand over my belly and say "You shall live. You shall thrive. You shall be born healthy full term." I have yet to see if all that works. So far I'm pretty hopeful.