Worst Blogger Ever...

I'm not sure if the problem is too many blogs, too much going on, or just plain laziness. Perhaps a bit of all three. It's seriously been almost two months since my last post and I can guarantee that this one will be neither riveting nor lengthy. You'd think that in that time period, I'd have all kinds of things to report and therefore I'd have at least a short novel, but no.

The summer so far has been low key. Not much change from our normal routine. So, what then, have I been doing? Well, here's the abbreviated version:

Female watermelon bud.

I've been keeping up with my container gardening. I've harvested about 8 or 10 cucumbers, 7 or 8 tomatoes, several beans (black-eyed peas, lima beans, and pintos), and some of my basil, oregano, and sage. I also have some peppers growing, I've sampled a few jalapenos and I'm just starting to see some bells show up. I have a watermelon plant that just got it's first female flower bud and a sweet potato plant that is doing who knows what under the dirt.

The boys have been doing their thing, making messes, getting into trouble. August has been working on teeth lately. I recently got him a teething necklace and no, that doesn't mean a necklace he chews on. It's an amber necklace that is supposed to help with pain due to natural acids that are in the amber beads. It's a super cool concept though I don't know that I can say I can tell a difference in his disposition as a result. At least it's one more thing I can do to try to avoid drugging him. Noah is still being Noah. Wild man. He is constantly surprising me with new phrases that come right out of my mouth. It's wildly amusing.

One of the gifts I made recently

I've been keeping crazy busy with diaper cakes. The orders are coming in regularly, along with some I've done as gifts. I also recently had a mama blogger review a pair of my shoes which was super exciting. I opted to do a giveaway too, so I'll have another pair of shoes to make up soon.

Aside from that I'm keeping up with my regular mommy meet-ups, mall trips, play dates, and meetings. Same ol', same ol'.

Hey look, I managed to type up quite a bit. I guess life isn't as hum-drum as it seems sometimes. =)

My little one is a year old today...

I can not believe it's been a year since my precious wee baby joined our family breathing on his own. 8 lbs 5oz of cuteness was born a year ago today at 6:31 PM. He was precious and started life as a champion nurser, knowing exactly what to do. He has turned into an adorable curious toddler who loves to explore and play with dirt. Of course he still loves his mama and checks back in for frequent nursing sessions, but he is incredibly independent.

This weekend we celebrated his birthday with a party. We had family and friends celebrating with us at a train themed party. It was a lot of work, but I think it was totally worth it. He won't remember, but he'll have plenty of pictures.

I had a lot of help to prep with my in-laws, some college friends, and my friend Laura. The food was the normal party fare - veggie tray, fruit tray, ham & cheese tray, deviled eggs, etc. I also made a cake, cupcakes, ice cream and cookies which was a bit overboard for dessert, but I wanted to make sure there was enough cake for everyone and I had ordered the train cookie cutters and wanted to make sure they got used. 

Decorations were a bit minimal, but hopefully, they were effective. I had railroad crossing signs in the front yard which my friends helped make and I drew a train track on the front walk in chalk. We had railroad signs sticky-tacked to the walls. The mantle was displayed with a banner of pictures of August throughout his first year as well as a slightly larger picture of him from a few days ago. I also set up a toy train and some play train engineer gear that we'd received as party favors. Thanks to the boy's great-grandma, we have several train blankets that were draped on the back of the living room couches and chair.

I didn't plan for much in the way of activities. I hoped that people would entertain themselves/each other. After sharing my musings about having a smaller house, a friend recommended using backyard space for small activities like chalk and bubbles and this sounded like a good idea. I picked up some no-spill bubble containers which were fantastic, and I offered a box of chalk. I also made a train out of large boxes. The engine had a door the kiddos could climb into and one of the cars with holes cut in the side was complemented with homemade hacky-sacs to create a bean bag toss game. For his birthday, August got a slide climbing toy from his grandparents so that was also set up in the yard. Noah's toddler slide was also set up. The final kicker was a toddler-sized mini bounce house that a neighbor generously leant us. It was amazing and I think the kids really had fun.

I made party favors as well, which I feel probably could have been better, but oh well. I included a train matching/memory game that I found online and printed up. I also printed my own sticker sheets with train stickers. For a little treat, I added chocolate train candies that I made up with some train candy molds I ordered. The favors were placed in paper bags decorated with train stickers. I would have liked to add more things to the bags or offer a cuter favor package, but there was only so much time. I also had more ideas for the party in general, but again, time was not on my side. Well, that and I didn't get started nearly soon enough.

We had a pretty good turn out, not too few, not too many. The house wasn't crazy crowded or empty and it appears I had just the right number of favors. I was so happy with how it all turned out. Now, I get to sit and be reminded that I no longer have a baby. =(

Time just keeps on going...

Walking around

Well, it apparently has been over a month since I last wrote anything up. I feel like things are status quo, but I suppose there has been quite a bit of change. The biggest thing is that August is walking now.


Let's see, what else...

Homemade tortillas

Homemade ravioli

I've been going a little crazy. My friend Laura tells me I'm becoming a sheep because I'm adopting more habits similar to the moms in our mom support group. In this case it's related to food and dietary habits. I've starting watching what we eat a lot closer. I'm trying to get away from processed foods. It's just that so many things can just be made by hand and though it takes time, often the fresher version is better. On my list of things I've opted to make instead of buy are ravioli (although to be fair, I think I've bought the canned kind once and never any other kind), tortellini, tortillas, tomato sauce, loft house sugar cookies, enchilada sauce, and sandwich bread. I've also made fruit snacks and fruit roll-ups for the boys, but I'd never purchased those for the kiddos; and I've been harvesting my own chicken stock, though that was something I rarely had in the house as well. I have many other things I want to try to make as well. For now, I'm trying to use up the items I have in my pantry before making their substitutes. It is a little hard though. Now that I've decided I want to be smarter about the way we eat, it's hard to eat those items, but that's ok. Otherwise, I'd feel like I wasted the money on them. My biggest thing is that for the packaged items we currently use, I want to find good substitutes for them rather than remove them from our diet. I feel that if I do that, I'm more likely to keep from purchasing them than if I try to remove them entirely. So far, it's been good.

My container garden

I've also started up a pretty decent garden this year. I've purchased a few seeds, gotten seedlings from friends, and used some beans I had and sprouted them. It's been about a month since I started. I tossed some of the peppers I tried to sprout which never came up, but I've had decent luck with most of the other plants. Good growth on a bunch of them, though no flowers yet. The only thing I've been able to harvest is some Swiss chard given to me by a mom in our mommy group. I really can't wait to see how everything does.

So, yeah. That's us lately. Add in an Easter egg hunt and crawfish boil last weekend and aside from that, it's been just about normal. Here's to more normalcy. =)

Busy, busy...

The holiday season hit me like a Mack truck. Before I realized it, I was going crazy trying to get things done. I had gifts to purchase, boutique orders to fill, travel plans to make, and things to look forward to and plan after the holidays. So, yeah, it was like I got caught up in a tornado with one kid in each arm and no clue how to hold on to anything else.

My sibs and I with my mom and her sister.

I did manage to get through my list of Christmas gifts. Of course, since this year we took our first ever family pictures, those became the gifts for many of our family members. I also had a few gifts that I made by hand like a scarf for a friend, slippers for a friend's kiddo, and earrings for my sister. We actually were able to go up to Dallas and have Christmas with my family which was awesome and my mom was crazy giddy about it since all my brothers and sisters were there and all my mom's grandkids. The weekend after Christmas, Taran's parents came to visit so we had a second Christmas celebration, complete with turkey dinner. I was giddy to have a real Christmas celebration at our home. Since the past couple of years we haven't been able to go anywhere, we didn't do a whole lot and it felt just like any other day to me. Not this year! It was fantastic!

Just before Christmas, I had a diaper cake I was working on. It was a huge challenge since I had to hand make many of the items on it. The gamer/geek/StarCraft theme doesn't lend itself easily to diaper cake making due to the sheer lack of available baby items of that theme so my only choice was to not fill the request for the theme, do a shabby job incorporating random stuff, or make it myself for a clean cohesive theme related cake. I picked the last option since I'm not all about putting forth half efforts on these. In the end it turned out great, but it was crazy time consuming at a very busy time of year. I managed though and I couldn't be more proud of the end result.

Nursery set for one of the mamas.
My first rag quilt. It came out awesome!
I was so proud of myself!

Just after Christmas some of the moms in my mommy group threw a baby shower for two moms that were expecting babies. I had to hurry to get gifts together for these mamas. Since both were cloth diapering mamas, I couldn't very well do a traditional diaper cake which is my stand-by gift, so I opted to make each mama a set of nursery items including a blanket, blocks, hat, and burp cloth. I put them together in cakes for them. They turned out adorable. The extra kicker was that I was able to use a lot of materials I already had (with a few new ones) so I cleared out some of my craft purchases which have been taking up space on our dining room table. Yay!

During that time period, I also had an order for two pairs of shoes, my first shipped order for my baby boutique! Super exciting! Shortly after the baby shower, I had an order for another diaper cake which I had to get to my friend in less than a week. Fortunately, this theme was much easier, but so incredibly cute and I was super excited to make this cake too!

Speaking of all that with my boutique, I reached over 100 fans on Facebook. I decided to hold a drawing for a discount on a next order as well as an auction. I put several items from my inventory in the auction and added a few more new things that I made up recently like burp cloths, crocheted hair clips, and a baby beanie. I wanted a good variety in the auction which turned out great. Several items sold which is also super exciting. Next time I run and auction, because I'm sure I will, I'm going to do some more publicity so that hopefully I get a few more bids and sales.

You'd think that after all that, things were slowing down for me, but no. Last week alone, we had appointments for August, Simon (the cat), and Noah. August is 9 mo old! I can't believe it. His appointment went well and we got a good report, so to speak. Simon had his appointment Thursday and he also is doing well. Noah went to the ENT for a recheck on his tubes on Friday. One tube is out, the other is in place; everything looks good.

In my spare time (really? That exists?), I've been working on shortening my stack of "to read" magazines. I've also been working on a few crochet projects like some plush veggies and other ideas for hair clips for the boutique.

As if I didn't have enough to do, I've taken on this need to clean obsessively. I think it's a mix of having family come into town and an urge to watch the show "Hoarders" that is putting me into clean-up overdrive. My house is cleaner than it's been in a long time. And even after the in-laws left, I've lost a bit of momentum, but I've still done some of that nitty gritty detail cleaning that we all like to put off like wiping down the cabinets and cleaning the appliances and baseboards.

Ok, well, this blog post is WAY too long. It actually was written over a couple of days and now I need to go bake cookies!

Merry Christmas and political correctness

This year I've received a stream of emails and seen a number of Facebook posts about how people are annoyed at the phrase "Happy Holidays." Over the years, it seems that the issue of using the phrase is reaching a volatile state. I think using phrases like "Season's Greetings" and "Happy Holidays" probably started out as a way to combine the end of year holiday season from Thanksgiving to Christmas and New Year's and just wish happiness to people and their families throughout this time of year. Then, I suppose, people perhaps were becoming offended by the phrase Merry Christmas and therefore other people in an effort to show respect to those who perhaps don't celebrate Christmas switched to using these generic well wishing phrases in hopes to keep peace. This is all, of course, merely my own speculation. In any case, it seems that now using a phrase such as "happy holidays" is now considered politically correct. And of course, as a result, devout Christians are in an uproar. That begins the stream of emails and Facebook posts about how you should always wish somebody "Merry Christmas" otherwise you're not a real Christian.

It's all ridiculous really, Christian or not. The fact of the matter is that Christmas in and of itself is, in fact, a national holiday. It doesn't matter how you celebrate it or if you celebrate it, it still doesn't change the fact that it's a national holiday. Being that it's a national holiday wishing somebody "Merry Christmas" should be as mundane as wishing them "Happy Thanksgiving." I'm not sure what genius it was that decided that it's more politically correct to say "Happy Holidays" but honestly – it's ridiculous. Christmas is sanctioned by the government therefore "Christmas" it is, and whether or not somebody chooses to celebrate the national holiday it's still just as politically correct to say "Merry Christmas" to them. Yes I'm Christian. Yes, I celebrate Christmas. Yes, I recognize it for the origin as a celebration of Christ's birth. I can always wish someone a Merry Christmas keeping in mind my personal views and celebration of it; however, given the fact that country recognizes this holiday I never feel any hesitation to wish somebody a Merry Christmas, even if they're not Christian, even if they don't celebrate the holiday. I'm still well within my right and just as respectful and certainly just as politically correct for wishing them a Merry Christmas.

My birthday "vacation"

Not sure when the last time I posted was. I could look it up. But that would take effort.

It's been a lot of the same ol' play dates, boring days, and whatnot. Certainly some days are more interesting than others. The point is, that recently our day to day activity is pretty routine and nothing out of the ordinary.

On my husband's most recent time off from the rig we decided to take a trip to Texarkana to visit some family since we haven't been there in about a year. The trip went fairly well but I have to admit Taran was right. We definitely had to separate the boys. Noah decided to start pestering August when he got a little bit bored in the car. August certainly doesn't like extended stays in his car seat so after the early trip nap wore off it was a little more difficult and we had to take a couple of stops. All in all I can't really complain too much. A five hour car trip with two boys and only two stops? It was pretty good all things considered.

The weekend was spent going from place to place visiting various members of Taran's family. Taran, of course, helped with some projects such as helping to chain up his grandfather's truck trailer and working to make his parents Internet easier to access. We also took several opportunities to visit his great aunt who was recently moved to a home.

So in the title I mentioned my birthday. Where does my birthday come in? Well it just so happens that the Saturday of our trip happened to land on my birthday. Luckily it was just another day and just treated as part of our trip for the most part. I am slightly bitter about my birthday. It's not the aging thing. I've decided that I'm going to stay 25 until I'm 55 to get senior citizen discounts before that 25 is the only decent age to be. My birthday angst just comes from years and years of constant disappointments. I look forward to my birthday and something always goes wrong to make it either a basic letdown or something nearing the end of the world. At least for birthday person. In any case, aside from the handful of well wishes, the phone calls from my family, and the slightly embarrassing song and dance routine at a restaurant (which at least resulted in some pie, so I suppose that's acceptable) my birthday went primarily unnoticed. This, in my mind, makes for a good birthday. Taran's grandmother also took me shopping to find a birthday present. I think I slightly disappointed her because I didn't get something fun and exciting. I got something I needed: a new belt and a new pair of jeans. They may be boring and run-of-the-mill; but, I desperately needed them so I'm happy I got them.

The trip back was pretty much as could be expected. We headed out just after lunch so that we could take advantage of naptime in the car. Both boy slept for a decent amount of the trip. We took two stops after they woke up making for a good ride home.

So that's the tale of our most recent adventure. Who knows when I'll get back on to share the next exciting chapter of the Endsley's life. I'll try to make sure to let you know when something cool happens.

Wow, where does the time go?

So, it's been crazy. I can't remember the last time I updated or what all has happened since then. I suppose I could go check, but that would take effort, so I'll just update the latest. That's enough for several blogs in and of itself, but I'll try to be brief. The abridged version if you will.

So, a couple of weekends ago, Taran and I attended a wedding of a college friend and former roommate of Taran's. It was a beautiful wedding and the reception was tons of fun. It's been a while since I had that much fun at a wedding. But then, it's been a while since I've been to a wedding. Of course, hubs looked fantastic in his tux too (he was a groomsman), so I really can't complain. Noah slept through the entire ceremony (he'd had a long day) but was tearing it up on the dance floor. He had a blast!

The weekend of the wedding was also the weekend of an annual craft fair I work with my mom. It was a bit hectic getting everything to coordinate and Taran was so wonderful trying to accommodate my ability to work the show. It put a damper on his plans to help with pre and post wedding stuff but it all worked out in the end. The show went well. Much better than last year, but I still came home with way more inventory than I would have liked. I sold several of my dream catchers with was a huge surprise to me since I usually don't sell many of those at all. I only sold a few baby items, a buggy and a pair of shoes, which was a bit upsetting but I think next year I will need to bring more small items.

On the flip side, the great weekend came with its price. Taran got sick and was under the weather during the latter part of the weekend. August also picked up the bug too so he was sick for a few days but at least he wasn't feeling horrible - he still was alert and had his overall happy attitude. I got sick a couple days ago. Not fun. It took me out. Now I get why Taran felt so horrible. I tried to help him out how I could and let him get rest, but if he felt nearly as bad as I did, I didn't do enough.

In happier news August continues those happy but terrifying baby developments. He's now crawling like a pro and has moved on to working on pulling up. He also now officially has eight teeth. As always he's as happy as can be, but he does get upset if he crawls himself into a corner or wanders off someplace he's unfamiliar with like Noah's room. He gets all fussy, but I think it's adorable.

Noah is doing his thing. His speech is improving and he's putting three words together occasionally. Taran has been working on numbers with him (I have too, but to a lesser extent) and he seems to be picking those up well. He'll randomly start counting but gets the number out of order. He's trying though.

That's it on our front. I'm still working on figuring out Thanksgiving and dreading the impending Christmas craziness as we plan, decorate, and work on gifts. Some of that is in the works, but mostly in our head and in discussions, nothing physical yet. Yikes! Hopefully I can get back on my feet soon (as I'm still kinda recovering from my "illness") and get to work on that soon.