Nine Years

Today Jason and I celebrated our ninth anniversary. Peg and Ron babysat for us and we were able to go see a matinee and go to a dinner. We saw "Hope Springs" and it was reasonably enjoyable, which is definitely considered a success for me since I am not a movie person. Jason chose our dinner location. I don't handle surprise well, but I managed to let him not tell me until we were going there that we were going to try Piropos, an Argentine restaurant up north in Briarcliff Village. I was excited because I had heard it was good and we don't often go that far north so I was really curious about the area too. I also wasn't sure what to expect from Argentine food. I wasn't sure if it would be more European inspired, which is how it was in Colombia, or if it would be more what you would think of as typical Latino cuisine, more like a less spicy Mexican restaurant. It was definitely more like Colombian fare and was really delicious. The beef I had was especially perfect and Jason's roasted red pepper risotto was also incredible. They gave us a free dessert as well, which was a banana cake. Normally I don't like banana breads or cakes or bars or anything like that, but this was really excellent. It wasn't too banana-y and not too moist or dense, which together are my main issues with banana bread. It was a really great meal that also had a great view of downtown Kansas City and a fun afternoon and evening to spend together and be alone without kids. Although it doesn't feel like we are newly married anymore, I am not sure it really seems like nine years. I can't believe how fast it has gone.

Spider Girl

Joshua is known for his desire and ability to climb everything in sight.  Clara doesn't have quite the same propensity, but today she surprised me by not only attempting to climb up the slide, but succeeding.  I was happy to see her set a goal for herself and then accomplish it.

The Return of John

My guys group doesn't get to meet all that often anymore due to our schedules, but four of the five of us have at least been able to meet most times.  One of the guys, John, hasn't been able to join us for over a year, so we were all excited tonight when he said he could make it.  We went to our traditional Buffalo Wild Wings location and had great food as always, but it was good to have John back.

Pouring

Today I gave Joshua some cups with water in them so he could practice pouring. I also tried a small pitcher, but that ended up being too big for him and he couldn't get it at a good angle, so we stuck with the cups. He really enjoyed this activity, though it was not exactly no-mess. By the end he was doing a really good job keeping the water in the cups, though, so I think he made good progress and had a lot of fun too. Once he ran out of water a couple times, I told him we were done for today and he was definitely disappointed. This will be another good thing to have him work on while I start dinner before Jason gets home. That is always a challenging time because he prefers to stand right next to me, where I am most likely to be chopping something with a very large and sharp knife. I am not a mom who has a lot of rules in my house, but "No standing where you can easily get hurt by a knife" is definitely one of them, so it can be a hard time of day and activities he can do in his booster at the table and be happy with are great.

Manual Labor Day

With the baby's birth rapidly approaching, I have a huge list of things I'm trying to get done soon, as I know my free time will go down even more once the baby arrives.  Today is Labor Day, so I have the day off.  I'm taking advantage of the extra time to get a lot of my tasks done.  Most of the ones today are outdoor tasks.  In addition to mowing the whole yard, I needed to trim the trees and bushes that border the sidewalk leading up to our house.  Having a full afternoon allowed me to get a lot of things done.  By the way, apparently I have more muscular arms than I thought, or maybe the shadows are creating an optical illusion, because those don't look like my arms.

Bags Instead of Babies

Today, since my Bible study was cancelled because of the holiday, we decided to go out to the Legends to do some shopping. The kids need some fall clothes and Carter's, which is probably my favorite place to shop for the first year, was having a big sale. We found a lot of clothes for Clara, some for Joshua, and also got Joshua some fall shoes (he hasn't worn socks all summer and neither have I, but at some point we'll have to start wearing close-toed shoes again and he didn't have a pair that fit). This worked out well because Joshua can still wear some of his fall clothes from last year so he doesn't need as much and I prefer other stores for him anyhow.

Side rant - I don't know what it is with Carter's and onesies. I don't even like onesies for Clara or any baby, though I can deal with a few in an infant's wardrobe. Maybe under a dress or jumper, but even then I prefer shirts. But certainly once you turn one, those shouldn't be a thing. I am not buying Joshua any outfit with a onesie and, since he is still in baby sizes, a lot of Carter's stuff has onesies still. It mystifies me. Who are these people who like onesies for babies? What do they like about them? And do they still buy them when their kids are two? I just think they are a huge pain to get on and off and they even make Clara look fat (and not in a cute baby way either) and she is super thin, so I think they are universally unflattering. Ugh - make more shirts, Carter's! And their clothing is very roomy so without an unprecedented growth spurt, it could be a year or more before Joshua hits 2T in that brand and that's when I think the onesies finally go away. And for Clara it may be soon that we don't shop there anymore too, though at least they have cute dresses for the summer for girls (they have them for the winter too, but I didn't see matching leggings so not sure how a dress would work for the winter) -rant over

Anyway, the trip went very well and the kids did great. At the end they got a little restless, so Joshua ran a bit with Jason and I carried Clara, but they did well in the stroller most of the time. And by the end it was easier to carry Clara than the bags anyhow, so it worked out well. We went out to dinner afterwards. We need a lot of room at the table and can't do booths since we need two high chairs and it was getting late so we didn't want to wait, so we decided to drive a bit to avoid Legends crowds. We ended up eating at a new-to-us Mexican restaurant in Shawnee called Ixtapa that didn't have a wait and the salsa was excellent and the food was quite good, so a very good afternoon/evening overall.

Holiday Weekend BBQ

To take advantage of the long weekend, we decided to grill tonight and Christine was able to join us. The steaks turned out very well (Joshua even ate some and he is usually a big meat avoider) and we had a good time hearing about Christine's recent trip and other updates. It was also K-State's first game, which they won. Everyone was wearing K-State purple except me, even though Christine's outfit was a complete coincidence.