Where Rubber Meets the Road

This is going to be a quicky post.  Oliver and I are on the road again this week. This kid is going to be the most well traveled baby ever.  My Grandma Zylstra, Oliver's only great-grandparent, turned 90 yesterday and we are having a party for her in Iowa on Saturday. Corey has to work so we are making the trip by ourselves, yikes!!  To make it a little easier on me we are going to go a bit out of our way to Chicago and stay with my sister Edie for a couple of days and then all of us will drive to Iowa together. Four hours driving alone with baby is much better than eight! We'll be gone until Tuesday but we'll try and keep you posted of our travels and adventures along the way.

Until then, Happy Wednesday!

This book is hilarious!

Who me?

Calm down Hawkeye fans, the only reason he's wearing cream and crimson is because Iowa didn't have a game that day.

He's holding this football completely unassisted!

Practicing his senior picture poses

Me Time

Among the hundreds of things that change when you have a baby one of the biggest changes is "me time".  In my previous life running to the grocery store, reading a magazine, watching my favorite TV show or sitting down to watch a movie were all easy tasks.  I've wanted to be a mom for as long as I can remember so I am in no way complaining about not having as much me time.  However, me time is so important for my well being and let's face it, my sanity.  Nowadays even an hour to myself can bring on a whole new sense of being refreshed. You have to choose your activities wisely though. Some days the grocery store is enough to do the trick.  Some days require a good run on the treadmill.  But the past few days I've been feeling less than inspired so Sunday for my hour I needed some inspiration. I needed to get my craft on.  So I set out for the fabric store.

First I made a slight detour. A trip to the fabric store is always enhanced by this:

It's funny the way your interests and activities change the older you get.  I can remember being a little girl and being so annoyed by being dragged through the baby section at Wal-Mart or some other department store while shopping with my mom.  Instead of looking through onesies and tiny little shoes I would have rather been shopping for Lip Smackers, Debbie Gibson tapes, and tapered ankles jeans.  Fast forward 20 years and I find myself right back there in the baby section but by my own choice. Who knew?!  Another place I was always taken against my will was the fabric store with my aunt.  I didn't really mind it in small doses but there was no such thing as a short trip to the fabric store.  I would drag my feet up and down those aisles while she would pick out zippers, buttons and bolts of fabric.  Once again fast forward a couple decades and where do I find myself?  In the freaking fabric store!!  Now I get it, it's a place of creativity and inspiration.  I don't consider myself the most creative person in the world.  I see people knitting, crocheting, painting, sculpting and sewing and it makes me so jealous. There are so many projects and things I wish I could do but there is just not enough time in the day, month and year.  If I choose semi-easy projects I get my creativity fix.  We have some friends that are having a baby in November so I thought I'd try my hand at these bibs and burp cloths.  I found this super cute fabric and can't wait to see how they turn out.

I know it will take me awhile to make the bibs and burp cloths since I am so new to sewing but my craft craving needed to be fulfilled.  For a quick crafty fix, I decided to make my little guy a cozy blanket. I went with the old-school, no sew fleece blanket. He loves the fringes. 

Our house has been a bit nuttier than usual these past few days.  We had to finally bite the bullet and work on getting the babe to sleep on his own in his own crib.  I always said that I would never be the mom that lets her kids sleep in bed with her.  I've got nothing against those that decide to co-sleep, it is a personal preference and there are more studies coming out recently that promote the family bed. As a result of lack of sleep we've found ourselves with a bed buddy and a baby that refuses to sleep in his crib.  I have to admit though, I don't really mind it all the time.  I love waking up in the morning next to my baby.  He rolls towards me and  looks at me with those big blue eyes and smiles at me every morning.

We stretch together and ease into the day by snuggling just a little longer.  I love catching an unexpected whiff of his sweet baby smell in the middle of the night.  I love hearing his little sigh right before he falls fully asleep.  But with the good comes the bad.  We have a vicious cycle of the three of us (sometimes four if the dog is part of the slumber party) waking each other up.  Corey will snore and wake up the baby, I'll wake up and get the baby back to sleep and then because Corey is snoring I can't get back to sleep so I'm nudging Corey telling him he's snoring. I don't think we've had a good night's sleep as a couple since January.  In addition to the constant waking, when I do finally get to sleep I'm still aware of his tiny little body next to mine and I will sleep perfectly still and wake up stiff and sore from laying immobile for six hours.  Over the past couple of months I've said so many times, "this is it, I can't do it anymore, we've got to get him to sleep in his own bed".  So I'd go into it a little half-assed and fail every time, overwhelmed with his crying and too tired to fight it.  This weekend I said it again but this time I followed through.  The first night I eased into it and gave up at 11 pm.  Night number two was nothing short of brutal.  For four hours I tried to fight through the gut wrenching soul beating cry.  I'd give him five minutes and then go to him and soothe him for two to three minutes.  We did this for FOUR HOURS.  Worst. Night. Ever.  Finally at 1 am I gave in and brought him to bed with us where he fell fast asleep the second he put his sweet little head on my mattress.  But I considered it a bit of a success, I made it two hours longer than I did the night before.  At this rate maybe we'll be sleep trained by December, bleck!!!!  But Saturday night we did it!  I decided to let him cry for 10 minutes before I went in to soothe him and it worked!  I only had to go in and soothe him twice and he slept for 9 hours!!! NINE! I, of course, couldn't sleep.  I was wide awake at 2 am twiddling my thumbs and not knowing what to do with myself.  Not to mention the fact that I had to pump.  So I did, and checked my email, cruised Facebook, checked the weather forecast and caught up on my celebrity gossip on my US Weekly app.  I didn't want to jinx it though. We did spend most of the day outside so I figured the fresh air got him all tuckered out.  I didn't want to count my chickens, but last night it was 12:30 and he'd been sleeping since 7 and I had barely heard a peep out of him.  Don't kid yourselves though, I went into his room no less than ten times to make sure he was still breathing.  And so there I sat, wide awake, feeling a bit lost without my bedtime snuggle buddy.  I really shouldn't have drank that Dr. Pepper at six o'clock.  I'm still not counting my chickens before they hatch.  I know that it takes two weeks to form a habit and I'm sure that our sleepless nights are not completely over but I'm going to take what extra "me time" I can get.

P.S. Did you know that Friends is on Nick at Night? What the what?! Nothing like making you feel older than dirt.

Fall in Love with Fall

It's been a busy couple of months around here and the next couple look to be even busier.  There have been a lot of overnight travel days for Corey and we really needed a couple of days to focus on our new family.  Plus Oliver is getting to that age where he is much more aware of his surroundings and so outings are becoming more enjoyable (usually).  So we planned a trip to a pumpkin farm and apple orchard.  This tradition isn't one that has ever required children, Corey and I have enjoyed going to pumpkin farms and apple orchards about every year since we've been married but I know that bringing along our baby and making it a family tradition is only going to sweeten the deal.

Our neighbors referred us to this little gem of an apple orchard.

We are kicking ourselves that we didn't know about it sooner.  It was kind of a drizzly day but we didn't let that ruin it for us.  The 45 minute drive to get there was like discovering a side of Indiana that we didn't know existed.  I have to be honest with you, Indiana is not always the most beautiful place in the world (shocking news, I know!) but the drive from Bloomington to the orchard just south of a tiny town called Trafalgar, was downright idyllic.  We passed a llama farm, a charming barn that was actually a country farm stand, horse stables, and lovely fences that went on and on.  I have to make another confession, the trip didn't start off in the most pleasant of ways.  Ollie was cranky, mom and dad were both exhausted and cranky and some not so nice arguments conversations happened on more than one occasion. As we drove, giving each other the silent treatment and one beautiful scene after another unfolded in front of us our crankiness faded and we realized that we needed to embrace the day that we had together and enjoy every minute.  The charm of this place made me anxious for the day when Oliver could actually enjoy the activities the orchard has to offer.   For now we were just spectators.

There was a lovely little train.

Rows of sunflowers bowing their heads and submitting to another year come and gone.

And this one little guy hanging on a bit longer.

Squash blossoms that look like fingers clenched in a fist.

Pumpkins waiting to be picked off the vine.

A charming covered bridge.

A petting zoo.

Baskets of gourds and squash.

Apples ripe for the picking.

These cool crisp mornings and mild sunny days make me want to read cookbooks, drink cider, eat soup that has been working away all day in a crock pot, and hunker down in my kitchen and bake.  But baking and cooking have brought on a whole new meaning with a little one in the mix.  The days of being able to spend hours in the kitchen are long gone.  Now I have to plan a lot more carefully, you can't really master an intense recipe that calls for "stir constantly" when there is a solid chance that at some point during the process there will be crying that needs to be attended to (the baby's crying, not mine...usually). I've had my eye on several recipes on Pinterest but most of them just wouldn't be the same if I was making them in the middle of summer, they practically require temperatures in the 60's, rainy day optional. Cue, this weekend. The forecast showed a 60 percent chance of rain both Saturday and Sunday so I decided this was to be a weekend of baking and cooking. I tried new recipes and also made some good ol' comfort food.

This chicken enchilada soup was super easy.  You pretty much just toss everything in the crockpot and 8 hours later you have a warm bowl of soup with a perfect balance of spiciness and a little bit of sweetness from the corn. This will definitely be in our fall/winter crockpot rotation from now on.

I baked this almond cake on Friday.  It was pretty delicious, how couldn't it be with 3 sticks of butter between the cake and the frosting?  However, you definitely need to add some tart fruit to the top to cut through the sweetness of it.

I wanted to make these caramel apple cider cookies but I couldn't find the instant apple cider mix anywhere in the two stores I visited.  Irritating!!  I have a 5 month old, I don't have the luxury of visiting 5 stores to find a simple box of instant apple cider.  Soooo, I'll keep you posted.  As soon as I run across a box (I know they have it in the stores in Iowa and I'll be back there in a couple weeks) I'll make them.  Stay tuned!

I used these beautiful apples from the orchard to make a big batch of applesauce for Oliver.  I never knew making your own applesauce could be so easy! Following the advice of a helpful worker at the orchard I chose Jonagolds.  They have so much sweetness on their own, I didn't need to add any sugar.  I peeled, chopped and boiled them for about 25 minutes. Then threw them in the food processor and added a bit of the cooking liquid to thin them out a bit.  That's it! My grandma used to make applesauce for us when we were kids and I guess I envisioned a much more involved process.  In reality it probably was for her, I'm pretty sure she did it all by hand and thinking of this gave me a whole new appreciation for her and for my food processor.

The weather man is predicting another full day of rain tomorrow so I'm off to enjoy what's left of this sunny day.  A comfy chair outside, this cup of cider,

and this little punkin' are calling my name.

Happy Monday!

Thankful

It's not Thanksgiving yet but the past couple of weeks I have been given some pretty good opportunities to reflect on my life and be very thankful. We had the anniversary of when my husband I met, the anniversary of 9/11 and this past weekend we watched our friends walk down the aisle which like every wedding does, made me think of my own wedding almost 5 years ago.

August 31st was the 10 year anniversary of when Corey and I met.  Wowza, 10 years, a decade, one third of my lifetime! I'm very thankful for the night that wonderful man walked into my life.  Then 11 days later the airplanes hit the twin towers in New York City. I remember sitting in my living room with my roommate thinking how thankful I was that I didn't know anyone that was there.  But even though I didn't know anyone that was there the sadness was palpable. Whether or not you knew someone didn't matter, life as we knew it in the United States would never be the same. I took that opportunity to call all of my family and tell them how much I loved them because if anything this was a reminder to tell the ones that we love that we do. On the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 I think all of us took the time to think about where we were 10 years ago.  In a coffee shop, at work, at school, driving in the car. Regardless of where we each were, life was different 10 years ago. As I reflect on how different my life has become since those two anniversaries I think of the big and small moments that have gotten me here.

Big moments:

• What 14 hours of labor felt like, punctuated by a moment of silence and my baby's throaty cry
• Hearing my grandpa read the Christmas story from the Bible on Christmas Eve and my cousin Matt reading the same story 9 days after my grandpa passed away
• What my mom's laugh sounds like, what she smells like and how it felt to lay next to her on the couch
• What it felt like when my husband and I said "I do"

and little moments:

• Snuggling Oliver just a few minutes longer when I know I really just need to lay him in his bed to sleep
• How 10 years later I still get excited to see my husband pull in the driveway after a long day of work
• Laughing with my sister Edie, so hard we could hardly breathe
• Watching my sister Desi with her new nephew, changing his diaper and holding him like she'd been doing it for years
• Cooking for my sister Kiley, her freshman year of college when we were lucky enough to live in the same town

On the anniversary of 9/11 I didn't watch every single bit of coverage but I did watch an hour on NBC with Tom Brokaw and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. As I sat and listened to them sing Amazing Grace and watched clips of the beautiful scenery that our country has to offer I sat next to my son and couldn't help but hope that he always knows what a wonderful world we live in.  Sometimes it takes a tragedy to understand and be truly thankful for what we have.

Everyday life can sometimes bog us down with minuscule annoyances...the dog rolled in the dirt again, your husband came home late, the baby has been crying for an hour.  But what we really need to be thankful for is the life that we are allowed.  I have a husband who loves his family, my son won't be persecuted for his religious beliefs and will be able to go to a great school. Let us not ever forget how lucky we are to live in a country where all of this is possible.

When I met my husband 10 years ago little did we know what we had ahead of us. We fell in love, we bought our first house, we've moved three times to 3 different communities, we've met lifelong friends, we've lost grandparents and lost my mom, I gave birth to our first son and throughout the joys and sadness I know that regardless I live a very blessed life.

I hope that we continue to accept our joys and challenges with grace. So I have to admit that although I'm not thankful for what happened 10 years ago on 9/11 that changed us all, I am thankful for the reminder to reflect on our lives each year.

Tomorrow is the official start of autumn but around here it's been feeling like fall for a couple weeks. A couple of weeks ago we had what I hope is our last shot at above 80 degree temperatures. But it wasn't middle of the summer 85 degrees that you know has settled in and decided to stay for a while, no this was a pleasant visit from 85, just stopping by for one last visit to make sure you don't forget it while it's gone. So I was happy to oblige this one last visit but I was happy to see it go.  So in anticipation of tomorrow's arrival of fall, my mums have been purchased and the first of many batches of pumpkin bars have been made.

It's been a busy couple weeks. We watched our first Iowa game of the season, the first for Oliver to watch in his life. We got all decked out in our Iowa gear.

 He's not quite as into as we had hoped.

So I thought he needed a napping buddy.

We had a weekend full of wedding events. Rehearsal dinners, ceremonies and rehearsals. It was a gorgeous weekend where glasses of wine were enjoyed with old friends. I was planning on bringing the baby to all of the events but one call after another rolled in of offers to babysit so we were happy to let grandparents and aunties get in their baby time.

Grandpa and Grandma Rekers took Ollie for the night so momma and poppa got a good nights sleep. Thank you Grandpa and Grandma!!!

Grandpa Clyde got his baby time in during the wedding and boy does he love himself some Ollie.

And the aunties got their time in too.  I am so thankful for my sisters and how much they love my baby. (Not pictured: Auntie Edie, but she got her blog shout out last week).

With the onset of fall the groceries are filled with fall fruits and vegetables.  This prompted me to start making Oliver's baby food.  He won't be eating solids for another month or so but I figured while the fruits and veggies are fresh is as good as time as any.

I made a big batch of sweet potatoes, butternut squash, carrots and peas.  This weekend we are going to our first apple orchard of the season so next week the house will be filled with the smell of cinnamon and baking apples and for that I am very thankful.

A Random Smattering...

Last week was a crazy week filled with a fussy baby clingy from his second round of immunizations and a dog that chose to roll in the garden three times which means three baths in two days and to top it all off, aforementioned dog threw up twice. Oh, and did I mention my husband was gone all week on business so I got to balance this crazy household on my own?  So, I have to admit I was on the precipice of absolutely losing my mind so I had to take a brief blogging hiatus.

I'm lonely for my sister today.  Well all my sisters really but specifically my sister Edie.  But I'm lonely for her because I got a good dose of sister time a couple of weekends ago which I guess is worth being lonely for her today.  There really is nothing like seeing the ones you love love on your baby. 

And when she said "how about I take the baby tonight so you can sleep all night?" I gave the question a resounding "yes, please!".  But there is something about being a mother that even when you have the opportunity to sleep through the night uninterrupted you still wake multiple times to sneak into the room to watch your baby sleep. I do have to say though, it was a beautiful thing to have my bed back to myself.

Edie and I wanted to make these together but sunshine and picnics at wineries called to us with their siren song so I promised I'd make them for her this week.  They were inspired by this pin I found on how to make homemade coasters with scrapbook paper and tiles from your local DIY store.

I found this great Etsy artist via Pinterest a couple of weeks ago.  I finally ordered a nursery print and it arrived in the mail this week.  I love, love, love it!  She's got some great nursery prints and artwork and it's super affordable.  You can find her at her Bunch of Bees Etsy shop.  Here is the print I ordered. Did I mention I love it?

Each year I try really hard to make it to September before pulling out my fall decor and I anxiously await the day when I can find beautiful baskets full of mums at the local nursery. Fall doesn't officially start for another 15 days but I consider Labor Day the unofficial start of fall.  Labor Day has become a new tradition for us.  We get together each year with friends we met when we lived in Minnesota.  We only see each other once or twice a year but when we see each other it's as if no time has passed and we fall right back into place.  Afterall isn't that the true sign of a friend? Weeks, months or even years can pass and when you see each other you don't miss a beat.  Last Labor Day I was sick out of my gourd with "morning" sickness that lasted all day and this year my little boy got to meet their little boys. They made the long trip to visit us in Indiana this year and the week was filled to the gills with laughter and late nights spent drinking wine and catching up on life.

It's starting off to be one of those really great summer weeks.  I love fall so much that I'm always so anxious for it to arrive that I often forget how great the last few weeks in summer can be. Great summer days where the sun shines all day, the humidity is low and the swing in temperature provides great warmth during the day but nice cool evenings perfect for walking dogs and babies.

Hopefully this week will be a little less eventful than last week.  So far we've made it to Tuesday without any dogs throwing up or rolling in the dirt and Oliver is back to his old self.  Here's to the rest of the week going as smoothly!