Moving to our house

Welp, we bought a house!  We thought we'd buy in Tracy and tried to a few years ago, but as soon as we started trying the prices and competition went way up, so after a good effort of overbidding like 20+ other people on each house for a few months we were exhausted.  We were not willing to bid sight-unseen like many of them, and were often too slow even when we made an effort to see an offer within a couple days.  Our associated experiences were part of what helped us know that we were not to stay in Tracy long-term.  We happened across a small house for rent near the end of our (relatively short) ride on the California real estate roller coaster, so at least we were out of the apartment for the next couple of years.  We weren't sure how long we were supposed to be there, but knew that that was temporary, too.  When we knew it was time to move away from Tracy and come to the East, we were also ready to try buying a house again.

We found the house on a short trip in September before we moved.  Will flew back out to be present for the inspection just about two weeks after that.  He flew out of San Diego where we'd been partying once more with cousins and going to Disneyland.  The very next day Andrew and I drove home together, I fed him and put him to bed, then had a friend come rest on our couch (so Andrew could sleep in his bed) while I drove out to San Francisco to pick Will up at the airport at midnight coming back from the inspection trip.  Whew!

As we started on the offer paperwork, etc, the sellers agreed to close about as fast as we could with all the legal requirements.  That was going to be awesome because we would close just about the time that we would have to move out of our short-term housing covered by relocation.  Before too long, though, they requested that we actually close two weeks later because they didn't expect the house to sell so fast and they wanted to have a place to move into themselves.  We said our side - coming from across the country and not having any family or friends to go to short term and basically they met us in the middle, closing just one week after originally planned.  We had another tender mercy as we were able to extend our short-term housing one week but absolutely had to be out just two days after closing.

We closed on our first house on November 12!  Some new friends in the ward who have a daughter pretty close to Andrew's age kept him happy at their house while we signed paper after paper.  When we were done it was approaching evening time and getting dark.  We had brought a few things in the car to drop off at the house so we made the stop.  Even though we'd done the final walk through that morning, of course it had a different feel then since it was officially ours (and the bank's... : )  So Andrew crawled around some and climbed the stairs, then we were on our way again.  Because we'd have to drive back down to Jersey City and it was getting later (and we had dwindling food choices at the apartment) we decided to just stop somewhere.  And where else would you celebrate buying your first house other than Boston Market??? : )  Probably the most extravagant part was that we actually, for the first time ever, bought Andrew his own kid's meal.  We decided that was a mistake... at that particular place, at least.  (I'd never been to a Boston Market before, btw (ha).)

The next day was Friday and Will was able to stay home from work to work on moving our stuff from the apartment to the house.  I know it seems like it shouldn't have taken that long.  But our car is only so big.  We had clothes, suitcases, toys, books, toiletries, food, diapers and wipes, Andrew's old car seat, booster chair, etc to take over.  We ended up taking two trips on Friday.  The traffic was moderate Friday morning and the first trip didn't take too too long (but still a few hours total at least).  The next trip took a lot longer because it was late afternoon on a Friday, so lots of traffic.  I can't remember what took so long, if anything besides the traffic, but it was late when we were headed back.  Like 8 pm?  Late for Andrew.  So we stopped off at Wendy's on the way to get a highly nutritious dinner.  Andrew didn't care for his chicken nuggets, but was interested in my hamburger.  Noted.  When we got back there was still a bunch of random things that needed loaded into the car.  We needed to be out by noon the next day, but at the time we thought it was 10 am.  On top of that, the Elders were coming with an investigator in the morning to help us move the old fridge to the basement so that our own fridge could go into the spot when the movers came Monday.  They said they could come at 9, so that meant leaving the apartment by about 8.  So we didn't want to leave much loading for Saturday morning.  Will had gotten a bad headache so while he rested on the couch I made a couple trips down to the car.  That entails: down the elevator, through the lobby (borrow the cart and go back to the apt to load it), up the other elevator to the parking garage, then drag the cart to the car, pile things onto the seats.  (We weren't sure how much space we needed to save in the trunk for an appliance dolly the next morning.)

Saturday morning we got up and ready and double checked all the nooks and crannies for stuff we'd forgotten.  We did our final arm loads and took out the garbage.  Once in the car we drove out of the building, then Will had to run back inside and up to the apartment to leave the keys and parking pass inside then lock it on his way out.  Then we were on our way to Home Depot to pick up an appliance dolly, then to the house.  We made it in plenty of time before our help came.  I cover my eyes and only peek a little when something is happening like the Elders' free moving service is helping us move an extremely heavy item across floors and through doorways that we just bought a couple days before.  Luckily with only a couple minor incidents they successfully got it out, around the back, and into the basement.  We did have to remove the basement door with the tools that our very friendly new neighbors let us borrow.  They had to get it at just the perfect angle to get it in.  I was about ready to say forget it, but they did it!  All the while Andrew was restless in his monkey footie pajamas and getting dirty as I let him crawl around the deck.  We didn't have a ton to do the rest of the day - made sure we had some food and a way to eat it the next day (Sunday), let Andrew play around the empty house (that I desperately wished I had my vacuum to use before any stuff came in, oh well...and you can only bug your brand new neighbors so many times on day 1), went on a neighborhood walk and checked out the library, and then went out to dinner again.  This time we went to.... Chili's (I think) to use a gift card we've had.  No kids meal for Andrew this time : )  He's happy to share, though.  And boy does he love drinking the water through the straw! Andrew could still sleep in the pack and play and Will and I slept on the floor that night.

We went to church the next day as usual and spent another day sitting on the floor.  And eating dinner on the floor : )  Monday morning the movers came with our stuff!

Well, I don't know what happened to my latest work - so we're missing the entire chunk that I know you're all dying to know about.  The part that due to a packing snafu (or two or three? : ) I ended up wearing only one sock for the moving fun Friday.  I accidentally ended up in Jersey City with a small amount of socks in the first place.  Then somehow for Friday I only had one sock... I kept forgetting to get another whenever we were at the house.  How could you forget something like that???  Weird, I know.  Finally Saturday when we were done running back and forth I was finally able to coddle both feet at once rather than picking one at a time.  Aren't you glad I retyped a new version of that fascinating detail????  I also ended up without flip flops in Jersey City, but that really only mattered the first few days before it got colder.   I forgot shoes for a family camping trip once as a teenager, but luckily that was a short overnighter in a not very primitive place (by the Clark County fair grounds?).

So here we are now!  We've been making progress on unpacking and organizing things, but Andrew makes sure that we don't go too fast.  Things are functional, but we still have a lot of work to do to get it how we want it (our stuff).  After having our old couches moved across the country we were a little disappointed to discover that they wouldn't fit where we had planned to put them (through doorways and around corners), but we're really not that sad because they were nothing special.  We gave them away to a nice guy who lives "up the street" who came to pick them up with his dad between his busy work and finals schedules.  Now we're back to limited seating options as the couch we bought online several weeks ago has yet to arrive... because of some mess-ups on their end.  Hopefully it will come this week!

 

Once the old couches were out we had room for a Christmas tree!  Also plenty of room to drive our dump truck and all other vehicles.

I said yes!

So, you were probably expecting this next post to be about moving to our new house.  Well, sorry, it's not.  You'll just have to wait a little longer!

Instead I'm making record of a dream I had yesterday morning not too long before I woke up for the morning.  I'd write it down in this one particular journal, but I don't know where it's packed...

Anyway, part of the dream was a ward campout (love those!) with people from Cascade Park ward and Hidden Lake ward.  (Hidden Lake ward doesn't do those though... at least not while we lived there.)  I thought it was awesome!  Then the setting was a little different (so maybe separate dream?), but there was a childhood friend who recently got engaged (in real life), Will, and me sitting at a table (maybe someone else?).  After a weird exchange in which I fed my friend a bite of eggs Will said he needed to pull me aside.  Then we were on this staircase thing (made of stone?) and he said he had wanted to ask me something before I said anything to my friend...  Then he asked me to marry him!!!  We were both so happy and excited!!

I woke up ecstatic and told Will : )

I know and love Will more at this point than I did when he really asked me to marry him 7 and a half years ago, so of course I was super happy! What an excellent dream! :  )

Halloween 2015

H-A-double L-O-W-double E-N!  I can't remember any more of the song than that... But it didn't stop me from singing that much to Andrew over and over again!

I'm not always one to be into dressing up for Halloween.  Largely because I have such a hard time committing to a costume idea.  Also because I'm cheap and don't want to shell out much money for something that potentially could just be worn once.  So I look at ideas and think about how I could do something relatively simply and cheap.  After so many days of this it's suddenly almost Halloween.  When it was just Will and I, we more often than not didn't dress up at all.  Now with Andrew I feel like it's somewhere in the parental contract to dress your kid up.  Really, though, what kind of parent would I be if we didn't??!  Will feels like we're totally off the hook for ourselves now, but I'm not against dressing up if I have a good plan : )  Anyway, this year I was also having to keep in mind our temporary status -  no sewing machine, limited other resources (like a glue gun), etc.  I spent way too much time looking at ideas.  I was fairly determined to not just pick a 100% premade something to buy either.  If I was ok with that it would have been pretty easy.  We went from lion to shark to firefighter and that's where we settled.  While I was still determining this more than a week before Halloween, it became evident that I was going to need to order some things online, so suddenly it felt very last minute because we didn't have much wiggle room.  I was going to buy Andrew a hooded zip up sweatshirt and pants that he could re-wear (that way it didn't feel like just a one time costume wear).  Not readily available in the brick and mortar stores, I finally found a black hooded zip up to order through Target.  I would have thought it would be easier to find one, but I really was lucky to find one among a number of sites.  Even then I settled for one with "ears."  I figured if something went wrong he could go as a bear.  (It's actually really cute!)  I was able to go buy the black pants in the store.  I also ordered a plastic firefighter hat online to be sent to Walmart for pickup.  I could have paid more for a "nicer" one, but remember I was trying to not spend a whole lot.  I could have also gotten a better deal per hat if I wanted lots from Oriental Trading, but I only really wanted one, so Walmart it was.  I also got yellow tape at Target.  I taped on "reflective" lines onto the jacket and pants and we paired it with the hat, that of course he wasn't really interested in wearing.  I thought it turned out pretty cute!  People could tell what he was, he felt like he was just in regular clothes (hat aside), and I felt satisfied that I "put it together."

Our main Halloween festivities started with the ward party/trunk-or-treat on October 30.   Unless you count us shopping at Target (again) that morning!  That's when we got the tape, the candy, and some things for our Halloween dinner.  I applied the tape while he napped that afternoon.  He napped for a looong time, and we really should have left sooner to make our other stops and then get to the church on time for the trunk or treat.  It all worked out....

Still bent on trying to save a buck (a curse??!) I was going to check at a dollar store for a cheap plastic firefighter hat on our way north to the church.  I found that there was one right by Walmart where we needed to stop for the hat anyway.  Well, Dollar Magic was an interesting store.  Tons of inventory, yes - everywhere... We looked around for a couple minutes and that was enough.  With my 20/20 hindsight we wouldn't have taken the time.  Oh well.  I also forgot to be totally honest with myself regarding how long it would take for them to get our site to store order (the hat).... We quickly got a couple Halloween dinner items that I figured would be cheaper there than Target that also wouldn't require refrigeration and could just sit in the car while we were at the church.  I also wasted some time looking for plastic spiders (rings or not) that I hoped to have for our dinner.  Not that important, but I was hoping to find them.  Well, it was October 30, so clearly it's time to be packing up all things Halloween and starting to set out Christmas.  So that was an easy way to waste some time, too.  At the time, though, I saw that customer service was right next to the seasonal section.  We went to the counter and they said we'd have to go out to the garden center.  For my site to store order?  Yes.... So we hurried down there to the wintertime layaway center.  We didn't have to wait too long for our turn, but there seemed to be complication left and right with finding our order.  Now, in general, I get annoyed with people badmouthing Walmart and their patrons.  It's not ok to pick on people unless it's Walmart?  Drives me crazy.  I'm not saying they don't have their weaknesses, like the rest of us... that being said, I may still be hypocritical here... sorry.....  So on this evening as I'm looking at the time and it's taking forever and a day and seeing that not only will we not be able to arrive a little early like they requested, but we'll be late.  The guy working on the order mentioned some issue and said with a grin, "That's Walmart for you!"  Internally I raised my eyebrows.  Then I shouted at him (in my head), "YOU are Walmart!"  He regained some approval when he told me he would ring up my other purchases there (though he wasn't supposed to) because it would be faster for me.  We're talking 4-5 items.  It took forever..... and then the last thing was the bananas.  Andrew loves them and we'd been out for a few days.  He said the scale suddenly wasn't working.  Maybe he didn't know the code?  He walked around the area looking for someone to ask for help.  Finally after a phone call he said that someone was going to come.  When???  I didn't mean to be rude but I asked if they were coming right then.  He said they always say that but usually don't.  I ask if I should take the stuff back inside to buy, but really not wanting to.  He said I could pay for everything else then buy the bananas inside.....  So then I tell him we'll leave the bananas and just buy everything else.  Then we rush out and Andrew thinks it's hilarious and awesome that his mom is running across the front of Walmart from one far side to the other pushing the cart telling him we're going "so fast!" ("wooohoooo!!" : )  It was dark... Though I probably would have still run and delighted him in the light : )  By this time it's a little after 6:30, when the activity was set to start.  It took nearly 20 minutes to get to the church from there with the traffic, but of course there were others arriving with us and after us and we really hadn't missed much of anything.

The party was fun.  Since we're so new it was hard to know with some of the people who was really in the ward and who was a friend there with a friend.  There was a puppet show for the kids that we couldn't really hear, then lots of activities to go around to.  Andrew found some playground balls and that was all he needed.  We did take him around to some different booths.  He threw a sticky bug at a target and pinned a nose on a jack-o-lantern.  I colored part of a picture on his behalf.  Of course the cupcake decorating table was pretty much always crowded as was the donut on a string, so we let others do those.  Will bobbed for an apple, then Andrew ate the entire thing (and it wasn't small!) over the course of the evening.  He ate the apple and chased the balls while  we sat on the floor and watched people wrap each other up in toilet paper.

Pinning the nose on the jack-o-lantern.

 

Will got it with no hands!  But he did admit that the shallow bowl made it pretty easy. 

Then we went down to the "parking garage" for the trunk or treat.  I bought a pack of white paper lunch sacks and a pack of crayons at Target to make our decorations.  Someone commented that they were pretty good for having limited resources right now.  I didn't tell her that that was probably about what they would have looked like even if I wasn't so limited... : ) ha  I was proud to tell her, though, that my decoration ideas all came from my head, NOT pinterest.  And that, my friends, is what I'd call a success!  Will and I took turns taking Andrew to different cars and collecting candy in his hat.  If he sees it, he's interested and wants you to share.  Otherwise he isn't big enough to ask for candy yet.  Or to ask if we've eaten his stash.... : )

I took a picture of these at home after I'd colored the faces.  Good thing, too, because they spun around in the trunk spending most of their time backwards... ugh.  And I hadn't thought to draw on both sides!  Next time...  And sorry, this is actually my last picture/caption as I'm adding them and going back over things.  At this point I'm going to make you just turn your head to see them right side up because I don't want to fiddle with figuring out how far back in the process I need to go to turn it.... Never mind.  It was going to bother me and the good news is it was easy : )  Now it's easier to see, too, that I accidentally broke my black crayon... so annoying!

Saturday morning (October 31) we drove up to a "pumpkin patch" in Mahwah.  It kind of bothers me when they put a bunch of picked pumpkins in a field, and it's not the actual patch, but oh well.  Is that weird?  BUT, they had sanded down all the stem "handles" for maximum safety and comfort in picking and carrying pumpkins, and that was nice.  From Jersey City it took about an hour to get up there, but we went on new roads so it was all very interesting.  PLUS the trees are all super pretty with all the different colored leaves!  It's so  refreshing to be somewhere where there's more than 1.5 seasons.  The pumpkin patch had lots of neat and cute things.  Interesting squash to see, cut outs for pictures, hay and corn mazes, a corn box with tractors and dump trucks, farm fresh produce to buy, hayride, fun decorations, etc.  Andrew wanted an apple as soon as he saw them so we let him "pick" one out.  We got that and some apple cider donuts to enjoy.  mmmm : )  Once again, with his apple, life was good.

Someone offered to take our picture here - how nice! 

Sharing apple cider donut bites! 

We thought the apple cut out was a good choice for our apple lover. 

That face is making his car/truck/bus/and apparently tractor vehicle noise.

He loved the corn box!  The dried kernels had the same coloration as candy corn... must be why those colors?  I had never even considered that that was based on a real thing.  They were really pretty to see so many in one spot.  We found the kernels here and there for almost the rest of the day.  We also had to keep them out of his mouth - he's mostly figured out what's not food, but this looked like food!  There was a nice family next to us there and the grandma kept making a small outcry every time he tried or succeeded.  Her son/daughter/in-law? kept getting after her like they were embarrassed.  It was kind of funny and I know she was just trying to help so I wasn't worried about it.  They were very nice and we talked with them for a bit.  

I thought those long twisty squash were neat.  They had several interesting varieties of squash, pumpkins, etc to see. 

He was so excited to see the pumpkins he was trying to pick them up!  He's loved to see and "pet" pumpkins that we've been seeing around lately.  He calls them something like "bup" and apples are usually close to "bap."  He can see them in pictures (books, grocery store, etc) and he gets excited.  We really love the book Apple Farmer Annie and I'm so glad it's one of the handful we packed along to have with us while in temporary housing! 

Mom!  I'm at a pumpkin patch! 

Family selfie!  of sorts... 

A nice teenage girl offered to take our picture!  We made sure to get their family, too. 

Riding back on the hayride with Dad! 

They had some giant decorations made with hay bales.  This skeleton was cool.  They had painted different sized sticks and logs to make the body.  Not pictured are the minion and Olaf : )  (I just had to draw the line somewhere on what to put on the blog!  I do have them if you really want (need?) to see them. They were two bales stacked and then just painted to look like them.

We thought this skeleton going in for a slam dunk was funny and clever! 

This was my favorite hay bale decoration! 

There was no real reason we had Will's cut out picture in this one.  I do think it's fun/funny, though : )  Probably because of the funny face he's making.  Those are the pumpkins we chose to take home with us.  Probably since it was Halloween and the "end" of the season for them you could take one from the hayride patch home for free - 1 for each person.  So of course we needed three to bring home to be able to play with under the coffee table.

After exploring and enjoying that place we crossed the street to a park by some ball fields.  We played at the park for a little bit and enjoyed the scenery as there was a nice pond and lots of trees right by it.

SO COOL!!!  A car he can drive himself!  vrrrroooom! 

K, but seriously, guys, look at that scenery!  Being there with my little family was like one giant peaceful sigh.  Real life!  I didn't have to pinch myself : )

Fun times on the swings, including underdogs!

Then we went to a new friend's first birthday party!  We played with toys, ate food, and played at a park near their house.  We met some of their medical school friends who also just moved to the area as well as got to know some others in the ward... who also have moved in in the last little while.  In CA it was easy to find people with tech related jobs.  Out here it's a lot harder.  Especially among the "young family" set in our ward.  Most of them are here for residencies, internships, etc - medical things.  So it's interesting to hear them all talk about those sorts of things with each other!

That evening we had our Halloween dinner!  We didn't feel like we needed to take Andrew trick or treating around the building, so it was just family stuff then, which was nice.  I wasn't able to print out a menu this year, but made sure to tell Will what all the stuff was called anyway. : )  We ate it off of those cute partitioned Halloween plates/school lunch trays I found in the Target dollar section.  (And I told myself I wouldn't be buying new Halloween decorations/stuff this year as we're in temporary housing! ha!)

Andrew likes "monster brains" and "monster eyeballs!"

 There was also "mummy toast" and "healthy candy corn"

 I guess we don't have any pictures of the "pumpkin juice," which did have a small amount of pumpkin in it!  (The rest was carrot mango.)

Some of the mummies had mouths!  Honestly, I think they looked a little cooler before going into the oven.  Also, if I weren't so stingy there would have been more/larger cheese pieces to give it a better mummy look.

 Dessert: Spider Eggs - with little spiders... : ) mmmm

Another good Halloween in the books! And in my tummy.... : )

"Real Life" in Jersey City

After typing up the "story" of us moving out to New Jersey + our first week and a half here or so I asked Will what I should title it.  I was just ready to call it "done" so I didn't give it too much effort and just called it "Life in Jersey City."  Borrrringggggg!!!!!  I've also been thinking about how it was more heavy on the events and things we'd filled our days with, but it lacked several details that really tell what life has been like.  I'll think of more things over time, but now let me tell you some things that describe real life right now.  And that's what we like to see on this blog! : )

So, in no particular order....  most of this will probably be about Andrew, by the way...

Andrew is pretty into shoes right now.  He likes to find my shoes and get them for me.  Sometimes he likes to put his feet into them, but he really just likes to help me untie them and put them onto my feet.  He says something along the lines of "shzzz"

The elevators all have mirrors so you can see yourself every time you head somewhere.  Unfortunately this makes me a little more self conscious, especially with the top lighting in the elevators making my hair look that much more frizzy.... blahhhhh.  BUT, we like the elevator because Andrew likes to press the buttons (with help... : ) AND he loves to throw his head back and see his reflection in the ceiling mirrors and laugh and say "haaaaaahhhhhhhhh!"  And my hair looks better when I throw my head back and see my reflection in the ceiling mirrors, too : )

Andrew loves to throw things.  Balls, socks, toys, food...........  Mealtime used to be so peaceful..... ha! : )

Andrew lately will throw his head back and laugh sometimes.  It's cute and funny.  He wants to be able to play with the blinds cords.  Those are off limits for safety reasons and he gets mad.  That's not cute or funny...  

We figured Andrew would regress in some area or another with all the changes with moving.  It's seemed to be the sleeping.  Last night was the first night that he stayed in his own bed the whole night.  That doesn't mean that he didn't wake up needing help at 2:something, but he did stay in his own bed.  It was exciting.  He's always been an "early" riser, and even when it's still dark he's up at about 6:30 give or take.  The really exciting thing is that we'll get to start over with helping him feel settled and comfortable when we move into our house in a couple weeks.  Woohoo!!  At least he'll have his own real bed then.  He's been in a pack and play....  We all miss the crib.  

Andrew is getting better at climbing onto things.  He's a little too short to be able to get onto the couches himself, thankfully, but he loves to be able to find something to give him a boost to climb up onto the coffee table.  Whoever invented coffee tables anyway???

Monday, October 12  in the evening we saw fireworks being shot off over the Hudson - looked like from Manhattan you'd be able to see them in front of the Statue of Liberty.  Cool!  We figured it was for Columbus Day?

A couple of weeks ago I got stopped twice within 10-15 minutes and asked for money while we were out walking.  Hasn't happened since. 

We drive past the entrance to the Holland Tunnel sometimes (like on the way to/from church and some other times.)  I haven't counted how many lanes across, but it's a ton.  And the sign across the top is huge.  It's fun to see.

The lobby in our building has some fancy looking decorations and 24 hour concierge in their suits so I feel like we're in some nice hotel.  Move here if you're rich (and have to pay yourself, ha!) and like dogs.  They like dogs so much that they have a bowl of doggie treats at the concierge desk that people can get their dog a treat from.  I have yet to see the bowl of people treats.... But I do see a man with a blond man-bun who works in the glass-enclosed leasing office side.

Andrew is into all things "transportation."  He's good at spotting airplanes and helicopters, and does like the boats, but his hands-down favorite is the light rail trains.  He loves to look for them out the window.  We spend time every single morning watching them, and sometimes in the evening.  Sometimes we go park on the sidewalk and watch them come and go.

I'm sure there's more things that I've thought to myself that I should write down, but this is good for now.  Here are some pictures from the last couple weeks.  These are all of Andrew from a project we were working on yesterday.  I'll add a couple more later - like the views out the windows, etc. But I'm sure these will be more fun anyway.

OH!  I trimmed Andrew's hair on Saturday.  It was getting sooo long.  I like it long/combable, but it was in his eyes bad, and over his ears.  When a lady asked me last week "boy or girl" it wasn't really a turning point, but I did wonder if it was the hair... I'd already told Will I was ready to cut it.  I wanted to try to do it myself before taking him somewhere.  I figured it could always get fixed somewhere else : )  We have hair scissors with our trimmer, but obviously not here right now.  We didn't really want to buy another set, so we decided I could try with the kitchen shears...... : )  despite Will's slight reservations....  Ask Andrew to hold his head still for longer than a millisecond.  Yeah... good luck.  He just wanted to see what I was doing.  We had him in his booster seat with food and Will to entertain.  I trimmed what I could for a while with the mediocre scissors and knew that it was at least out of his eyes.  It's certainly not professional, but it is shorter.  We decided it's fine for a 1 year old : )  It really is fine!  We'll have to see if in a  month or two we cut it "short" with the trimmers or if we try to trim it long again...

Final note... remember how a week ago it got really cold and I went and bought Andrew fleece footie pajamas and Will and I each some sweatpants?  Well... we all three went to a grocery store together Saturday morning each of us in our sweat pants (at least Andrew wasn't in his pjs!).  I told Will something like, "the family who sweatpants together, ........ " : )  

Ok.  the pictures.  Andrew gets up early!

On the playground at Liberty State Park

In the building's "Kids' Play Room"  He loved to bang that mallet on anything that would be loud.  I noticed a day or two ago an adult had put it up on a ledge... hahaha  Usually when we're in there hardly anyone else is, so who knows what some other kid did with it.

He likes to eat his bagels, and lots of other things, "vertical."  That seems to be the fastest way to get to the cream cheese.  Also the fastest way to get it all over his face.

He likes help putting them on.  Then he takes them off and hands them to me.  He wants me to put them on him again.  Every 5 steps or so... : )  He's really only needed them once on a walk lately.

He's been doing this move for several weeks now.  He also thinks it's super cool to have race car pajamas.  vroom vroom!

This is from walking along the marina right by where we're living, looking back toward lower Manhattan.  The tallest one is the new World Trade Center.  The same marina that we watch boats come in and out of.  The same marina that separates us from Liberty State Park and makes it so we have to walk half an hour or so around it to get there.  You have to walk through city to get up to the foot bridge connecting downtown Jersey City to the park.  We've done the walk several times and it's got plenty to see along the way.  The walk along the marina edge only goes so far, then you'd have to cut back into the city.  But that walk is fun, too, of course.  I don't really have walking through the city pictures yet because I feel like a weirdo taking them.  I tell myself right before we're going to move out of Jersey City I guess I'll feel a little more bold...

  

Those monster socks!!  My grandparents gave them to Andrew when we saw them for our sealing in May.  It was  too warm to need them until we moved here.  I told Andrew the monsters say "aaaaahhhhh" in a high pitched voice.  He can tell you what they say : )  And it was a multi pack, so we have several sets of monsters socks!  Perfect for Halloween!  

And that, my friends, is another snapshot into our "real" lives here in Jersey City.

A day in the life!

I struggle to write regularly in a journal, so I do a few different things to make an effort to record my thoughts and memories.  One way I "journal" is by taking lots of pictures of what we do.  Will has come to accept this (mostly) and I've also learned, generally, what things will embarrass Will, so I try to make it snappy (ha, nice pun, huh? : )  One of the things that would make me the saddest would be losing my pictures.  Really sad.  Mega sad.  Don't mess with me and my pictures!

Here are some picture highlights from this last week with a little extra commentary so that you can enjoy them too!

Andrew loves to hug stuffed animals right now.  It started with hugging his Curious George - he saw it modeled some.  Then the other morning (note the PJs) as he was pulling toys out to play with he pulled out a small teddy bear (that I won spinning a wheel at the Tracy PD's booth at the Tracy Dry Bean Festival (sounds like a blast, huh? : ) in 2011 - an extremely hot day in early September).  He made the connection that it was also a soft, hugable thing, and I was lucky enough to catch several shots.  Here are some of the cutest. 

Seriously, though, does it get any cuter??!

Andrew still likes the washer and dryer, but he's much more interested now in the fridge and the dishwasher.  Of course I won't let him play in it with dirty dishes, but I do let him "help" me unload the clean ones.  I know that seems counter productive as he handles and even licks things, but I'm ok with it for now - pick your battles, you know?  I open it while he's across the way and hurry and take out any sharp knives. Then while he hustles his little self over I take out the forks, table knives, and anything else I might not want him to get.  Could he potentially get hurt still on a spoon?  Yes, but I guess I feel better about it.  Anyway, he loves it!

Thursday evening Will and I got to go to San Francisco to see The Phantom of the Opera (totally awesome!).  It was our fun outing for our anniversary and we'd been looking forward to it for a while.  That afternoon while I was cleaning up a few things before the babysitter came, I knew Andrew had gotten into the bathroom.  Since I knew he was in one place and wasn't worried about him slapping his hands on the edge of the tub as he stood there, I decided to let him be for a bit.  I realized after a couple minutes I wasn't hearing him play with the bath toys anymore or hitting the tub.  Well, he was happy so I still took care of a couple other things.  Then I decided I better go get him out and tell him he'd had enough time to play in there.  I rounded the corner of the little hallway and audibly gasped - startled him and made him jump!  Then I just giggled and took some pictures.  I asked him if he had at least had a good time.  Then I carefully re-wrapped the roll the best I could and replaced it for the babysitter.

Whatever shenanigans he got into later were between him and the babysitter because we were busy here having a great time!

And since then Will's gotten a haircut.  Andrew and I still need a trim!  Forgive my excess dry shampoo in this picture - I'm not THAT grey yet!  (but close...wah!)

And there you have it!  Andrew's birthday pictures coming soon!

Mother knows best

I remember one time as a kid I had the idea (or wondered aloud?) and suggested buttering toast before you put it into the toaster.  Maybe I was thinking that it'd be fun to watch it melt as the bread crisped up.  Maybe for some reason I thought this would be more efficient?  My mom made sure to tell me that you should never ever butter bread before putting it into the toaster because it could start a fire, or something like that.  She reiterated: always butter it after.

I think about that pretty much every time I butter toast and have for as long as I can remember.  I did again the other night when buttering some toast to go with our omlets for dinner.

Thanks to my mom I'm also extra cautious if I'm reaching to grab another piece out with the same hand that's holding the knife that already has some butter on it.  What if the heat from the toaster causes the butter to melt and drip off into the toaster causing some potentially unknown harm???

These are the things I think about : )

Sunday Dinner

I LOVE Chinese food!  Well, I love American Chinese food, at least.  I know that for sure : )

Two birthdays ago we got Chinese take-out because I had been craving it, and, well, it was my birthday!  This last birthday I wanted Chinese again, but I decided to make a few things at home, from scratch.  I made orange chicken, vegetable lo mein, and pot stickers.  Yummo, right?!  Well, that and rice and broccoli, of course.  Anyway, it took many hours to make it all myself at once - three new-to-me recipes.  (Will and I love to cook together, but he was taking care of Andrew.)  So more hours than I would have liked, and a deep-fried house smell later, we sat down to a delicious meal!

There were leftovers of everything.  Some of the things got eaten up in the following days, but the pot stickers filling got put in the freezer along with the extra wrappers.  I'm pretty sure there was a time since then that we made another batch of pot stickers to go with something else.

Yesterday when we were meal planning for the week we decided we wanted something like orange chicken again - or something else "Chinese"... : )  We settled on orange chicken, and also decided this time we'd just get a bag from the frozen section.  So that's what we had tonight for dinner.  After fasting all day, it was a tasty meal to look forward to!  We had the orange chicken, rice, broccoli (which Andrew loves!), and the rest of the pot stickers.

Now, we didn't know for sure if we still had some or if we'd eaten it up before.  I checked each level of the freezer door, then each shelf (working from the bottom up) and finally found it on the top shelf!  (My wallet is always in the last diaper bag pocket I check, so why wouldn't the rest of the pot sticker filling be on the last freezer shelf I check??)  Luckily, I had seen the wrappers  yesterday, so those were easy (top freezer shelf).

I was able to get 17 little delectable pot stickers formed and on the pan.  Oh, after frying them in February, we decided it was way easier to bake them - and healthier? : )  We still spray them with cooking spray.  Baked 6 minutes on each side to a golden brown.  There they sat on the pan on the stove top next to the broccoli during dinner and we just got up to get them - part lazy, part table space.  Since there were 17 we knew we could each have 4 today, and 4 on the leftovers day.  With one more to arm wrestle over, I guess!

When I got up to get some more broccoli and my second two pot stickers I didn't really count or anything, just saw that there seemed to be lots on the pan still.  I went back around the counter to the table and asked Will, "Did you forget about the pot stickers?"  He answered, "Did I forget about the pot stickers???  Did YOU forget about DISNEYLAND???!!" : )

Hahahahahaha!  I guess I make pretty good pot stickers! : )

just before the end of the month...

This guy wants to wish everyone a happy July!