Happy Thankgiving! (Sorry… I’m late)

Happy belated Thanksgiving! I hope you all had a terrific day. Usually, I’m not really excited for Thanksgiving, but this year I actually liked it. What was different? Well, let’s compare it with last year (which was a pretty typical year).

Last year, we:

• Drove 45 mins from our house to my parents’ house
• Ate quickly (5 people in attendance)
• Drove 2 hours from my parents’ house to my boyfriend’s grandmother’s house
• Ate a second meal (14 people in attendance – that includes the 5 kids)
• Drove 2 hours home
  • I’m a vegetarian (not that it’s a big deal, but I feel pretty “meh” about a holiday centered around eating turkey)
  • Also in the “meh” category: I have a small family so Thanksgiving has never been a big “to do.”

This year, we:

• Drove 12 minutes from our house to my parents’ house (we moved)
• Ate… somewhat leisurely
• Drove 25 minutes to T’s um… 2nd cousin (?)’s house and then had the most awesome Thanksgiving ever!
• Drove 20 minutes home

T’s mother’s first cousin, Mary, decided to host a giant Thanksgiving this year and invited the entire, extended family. Why? This is why:

“Everyone wants to snuggle me!”

 

Mary owns a hostel/wedding venue so there was plenty of room for all sorts of extended family – and all sorts of relatives flew in from all over the country. In total, this Thanksgiving dinner included 43 other people! (including 3 other vegetarians!)

After dinner, we all partook in some square dancing! (Thanks to the baby for taking a nap so both T and I could participate, even though we weren’t planning on it – it was actually a lot more fun than I was expecting). There was contra dancing after the baby woke up. I’ve never done this much cardio AFTER the meal before!

Friday had more events! The baby and I drove back (T had to work… boo!) for an arts and crafts project of creating a topiary!

Me and T’s family, working on our topiaries!

And Friday night, after dinner (T arrived for dinner) there was a talent show! And the family was all really talented! There were lots of musicians, some dancers, one cousin did some crazy push ups (including clapping and spinning 360° from a push up position!), and even some comedy/magic!

It was awesome!

It even motivated T to play the guitar again, which he hasn’t done in a few years. He has to get ready for the next time the family does this sort of event. I hope that’s really soon because it was so much fun!

Happy belated Thanksgiving from my little family:

Oh… and here are some of the Thanksgivings images I thought about posting, but clearly didn’t get to on time:

How We’re Adapting to the Baby

It sure is interesting to have a brand new human being in the house. T’s gone back to work and I’m still on maternity leave (because my company rocks). And we’re getting used to the middle of the night feedings and the entire afternoon sway fests, but how are the cats dealing with the change? After all, they never asked for this little whiner who takes all of the attention from their people and created chaos in their formerly quiet and mellow house.

Well, our male cat, Chewie is completely unphased, he’s still getting in his cuddles:

2 days after coming home from the hospital (T’s actually awake here… I don’t know why he pretends to sleep in photos)

Waking up with T

Also, he enjoys smelling her and has occasionally licked the top of her head or her feet (he’s named Chewie for a reason! He tastes EVERYTHING!)

But our female cat, Prissy Pants, took a little longer to warm up to the baby. She hid under the dining room table for 2 weeks after we came home from the hospital. But she has warmed up to the baby and will lay next to her and has resumed her typical napping places of next to me on the couch or next to me in bed:

Don’t let that face fool you, she was loving those snuggles

Also, she’s claimed all of the baby’s things (except the toys, oddly enough):

Sitting in an old style pram

Testing out the bouncy seat

 

Laying on the activity mat (I had a feeling she might like it so I put down burp cloths just in case…)

I think we’re all starting to get along with the baby!

Peeping Tom Cat…?

I only talk about baby stuff lately… how monotonous! So I’m going to tell you a silly story about my cat instead (I’m not sure if that’s much better though…)

This is my little girl cat:

(Pictured here in a cape she made for herself out of a brown paper bag)

One of her nicknames is Prissy Pants, but she’s gotten much bolder since we moved. At our rental house, she usually wouldn’t go more than 50 feet from the back door. It was really rare to look for her out a window and not be able to see her in the yard. 

I recently found out from our new neighbor, Ann, that Prissy Pants has been breaking onto Ann’s 3 season porch through a doggy door. Prissy Pants will prance around Ann’s porch just smelling all of Ann’s furniture and plants – paying no attention to Ann watching her through a glass door. Nor does Prissy Pants seem to care that Ann’s dachshund is barking at her as long as the glass is between them!

Granted, my little girl is still less than 50 feet away from our back door but jeez! (Because our back door faces sideways – right towards Ann’s back porch.)

Luckily, Ann seems to be a cat person and is finding the breaking and entering funny. I told her that Prissy Pants is so friendly that Ann could literally pick her up and throw her out of the house, but I get the impression that Ann would be happier to pick my little criminal up and cuddle her (which would also be totally fine with Prissy Pants!). Thank goodness she’s friendly!

Everyone else in the neighborhood owns a dog. I wonder how many other doggy doors Prissy Pants is planning to break into!

Moving Day!

Today is our moving day! We’ve packed our boxes. We’re loading the U-Haul today and we’ll be off to the new place!

Wish us luck!

I’m Not That Lady – Counting in Weeks

I started thinking about the “I’m not that lady” series (or at least it will be a series when/if I post a second one of these) early on in my pregnancy and hadn’t announced it yet. These ideas have clearly been baking for awhile!

And let me say, there is nothing wrong with being “that lady.” In fact, I think in all of the situations where I think about “that lady,” “she” is the standard and I’m the odd duck. And feeling like an odd duck, I thought I would take to the blogging world to hopefully find other odd ducks with me. I’m not trying to bash “that lady,” I think the world wants me to be “that lady” and I’m just not good at it. If you are that lady, rock out and go you!

First things first, pregnant ladies apparently count in weeks. Before I got pregnant, I thought it was crazy annoying and would force me to do math in my head (basically dividing any number by 4). “Ok… so you’re 25 weeks… which is… basically 6 months, right? Great.” Thinking: Why couldn’t you just say that?

Then I became pregnant and kept my same mentality. When people ask me how pregnant I am, I just tell them in months. That’s really all people care about, right?

Except for women who recently had kids… they care! When I was first confronted with that, I didn’t know what to do with it!

Me: I’m like 3 months pregnant.
Her: Yeah, but how many weeks?

Seriously?! I’m back to having to do math in my head!? Ummm… if I have an appointment with my doctor for an 18 week check up and that’s in about 4 weeks… 4 weeks? Um, yeah… I think that’s in 4 weeks, that would make me 14 weeks pregnant.

I still think it’s a little silly, it’s not like any of us remember what happens in each week… Although according to the Enfamil “Expecting Baby” app on my phone, at 14 weeks a fetus develops taste buds. I only know that because I had to check my phone to make sure I actually was 14 weeks pregnant! Ask me for a fun fact about week 15 and I’ve got nothing!

If it weren’t for prenatal yoga, I would have no idea how many weeks I am. At the beginning of each yoga class, we all go around the room and say how many weeks we are… so at least I can remember week to week! (full admission – I still have to consult the app on my phone sometimes).

However, I’ve slightly gained a perpective on why women count in weeks. Because no one can agree on what really counts as a month! What to Expect When You’re Expecting breaks them out one way, the 2 websites that I like to check break months out in another 2 ways, and when I count (September, October, Novermber, etc) I get another number. It’s bananas. I basically just divide by 4 (although some months do have 5 weeks) and go with it. I’m 27 weeks pregnant right now… so let’s say I’m a bit over 6 months pregnant, that sounds roughly right, doesn’t it?

Even knowing I’m a little off, I’d still rather communicate it in “real-people” time. Who really cares about weeks? You know, unless you’re a 13 week old fetus and you’re anxious to develop some taste buds…

Thanksgiving – Vegie Humor

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

This is the little centerpiece at my parents house (my father is also a vegetarian). I warn them every year: someday, I shall kidnap it… if I ever do my own Thanksgiving meal. However, whether on their table or mine, it always cheers me up!

Give thanks!

(and yes, I was super upset the year I noticed his little broken toe!)

Vegie Humor – Zombies

One more post before Thanksgiving to make fun of vegetarians and cheer myself up!

Enjoy!

Vegie Humor – Barbeque

In honor of Thanksgiving and to cheer myself up about it, as mentioned here, I’m posting silly humor about vegetarians! I hope it also makes you laugh.

How I often feel at barbeques:

Vibrams New… Shoes?

One of my friends brought this to my attention from the Vibrams Facebook page and I immediately thought of Jill at JoggingJeans.com. Now of course, this doesn’t count as jogging in jeans at all and probably has no place on her blog, but these are made by a running shoe company so I at least had to share!

These are so ridiculous that I can’t even think of anything funny to say about them! So I invite you to!

Can you come up with any silly one-liners about this… uh… footwear?

Election Day – Snark

Obviously, this is not a political blog, but I found some non-partisan election humor that I’d like to share:

 

 

I hope you vote today (or if your state’s voting opened early, I hope you’ve voted by today). One of the great things about our country is that we can vote, so I hope you do!