Amelia's First Halloween

Happy Halloween!

Amelia was a mouse this year. We originally got the mouse outfit to try and take a picture of her in it with her three cats. We decided to just make that her costume this year instead of spending even more money on another one. Plus, given that Halloween fell on a Saturday this year we don't even get any family time. Jason left for work this morning just before 6:00 a.m. and will get home by 3:30 p.m. to drive me to work. I start at 4:15 p.m. and will get off around 1:00 a.m. I am just thankful I do not have to close tonight! Halloween Rocky Horror Picture Show (RHPS) is insane and the closers will be there until around 4:00 a.m.

Amelia wore her costume to the laundromat yesterday:


She had some fun in her hamper too:



We seem to have misplaced her mouse tail (it velcroes) :( I KNOW it is around here somewhere because I am almost positive that I saw it this morning but now it is nowhere to be found...hhmmm.

Today I tried to get some more pictures of her in her costume (and bib) but she wasn't too interested. This is what I got:






As for the cats...their costumes are still in the basement, so no dressing up for them this year. I'm sure they are crushed. Here they are in their costumes last year though (they would have been these same things this year b/c we buy their costumes on 75% off clearance after Halloween)

Lucky the Mermaid:


Ludo the Pumpkin:


Poopy with Spikes (dino-poopy maybe? punk poopy?):


Jason is somewhat excited to pick me up from work tonight and see some of the RHPS crazies. The Halloween show really is far more ridiculous than the monthly ones (every second Saturday).

Oh yeah, one more thing, since it is Halloween and all. A few friends ask me about ghost stories from the Oriental Theatre (my work). I guess a "paranormal investigator" came to the theatre this month and she did whatever it is she does and her conclusions are...the place IS haunted. She says that the upstairs bathroom and the stairs in the balcony are haunted.

She said she heard a noise that sounded like someone dragging their gimp leg as they walked, banging (which you hear in most old builings anyways), a voice saying "get out" etc.

Now, she was there with only the manager, who was in the office. She heard noises from the upstairs bathroom and went to check it out and when she got in there the entire room smelled very heavily of perfume/deoderant.

As for the "voice"...we were in the process of remodeling (again) and she thinks that it was upseting the ghosts? I guess it fits. It's not the first time they've remodeled though so I wonder if anyone heard that "voice" when they remodeled in the past?

Lastly, someone did die in the balcony ages ago. He was a projectionist and he had a heart attack up there. Did the "investigator" know of this death and that is why she came to her conclusion? Hard to say...

Either way, I was a little freaked out cleaning the theatres alone yesterday evening. When I was in the main house a woman was the last to leave and she came aroudn the corner and scared the crap out of me. I jumped and dropped my broom, seriously. The main house freaks me out sometimes. Actually the whole place freaks me out sometimes, especially after hearing ghost stories. She and I had a nice talk though. She kept me company while I swept. I appreciated it because I am a scaredy cat sometimes :)

Adventures in Baby Food: Pumpkin & Squash

Last weekend Jason and I made baby food together for once. Friday night we cleaned out 2 pie pumpkins:


and an acorn squash and a butternut squash:


We baked them in the oven for about an hour and a half (until they were soft):


(I just liked this picture because you can see how hot they were)

When they were finished baking we were really tired. We put the baked pumpkins and squash into the refridgerator but first we had to get them to cool down...so we put them in front of the fan:


The next morning I pureed the pumpkin before work:


Sunday Jason pureed the acorn squash and Monday he pureed the butternut squash. All in all we got about eight trays of baby food cubes. Not bad considering Jason used some of the butternut squash to make a soup (which we have yet to eat...).

This adventure was spread over 4 days but it finally got done! It is hard to do anything when your baby is sick! Amelia tried some pumpkin for the first time yesterday and according to Jason, "it went right down". It'll be fun for Amelia to have a festive food for the season! On Thanksgiving she can have her own pumpkin food!

Our Pumpkin

This afternoon we carved our pumpkin finally! It has been sitting in the stairwell since Dawn and I went to the pumpkin farm last week. Here is Amelia with her first Halloween pumpkin:



Once the pumpkin was hollowed out it was time for another picture...this one she was less than thrilled about:


She wouldn't even sit down! At first that is...


She finally sat down and was so upset to be sitting in a cold, wet and sticky pumpkin!

Amelia was happier to "help" draw on the pumpkin:


Here is our jack'o'lantern:


It is basic, simple and our own design. Our pumpkin carving kit came with patterns but our pumpkins was so large that the patterns weren't fitting on it well and our printer is out of ink, so we were unable to enlarge the patterns to fit our pumpkin. It may be a bit "boring" and not very intricate but that is ok. I think it works.

Here are some other pictures of Amelia from today. She was wearing her princess skeleton pajamas (skull with a crown on) which I think are actually pretty cute (Jason picked them out):


Amelia is ready to tell some scary stories:


This is one of my new favorite pictures of her. She is so happy:


Lastly, I have a paper to write for Monday as well as a thesis to start researching (since it may take weeks for some books I may request to make their way to UWM). I work all weekend, literally, Friday-Monday. Ugh is all I can say to that. It is hard to be at work all weekend, see Amelia, keep up at home AND fit homework in. Wait, did I mention it'd be nice to have a life too?! Less than 2 months left!!! I cannot wait to turn in that darn thesis and be done with college!!! I usually don't work all weekend but I made myself available on Monday, hoping I could be given either Friday or Saturday off to do Halloween things as a family, but that did not happen :(

So, basically, if I am hard to get ahold of this weekend/next week, please understand. I have more stuff to take care of this weekend than I have time to do. I will try and get on here as often as I can so everyone can keep up with Amelia! E-mail is probably the easiest way to get ahold of me because I can write back whenever I get the chance, even if it is 3 a.m. I try not to fall off the face of the earth but it has been happening a lot this semester. Sorry.

I'll leave you with a close-up of my beautiful girl:


(I got out my Canon Rebel, so I am able to get some great close-ups again!)

Amongst Everything Else, I Have a Sick Baby

This post will be long and all over the place, I think, so bear with me.

Last Friday marked the second straight day of non-stop rain here in Milwaukee. My car has a leak in it...I suppose you can figure out where I am going with this:


A lovely tarp on my leaky car :( There is a leak on the passenger side and when the car sits in prolonged and/or heavy rainfall a pool starts to form on the passenger floor. I had this same issue with my other GM car (an Alero). It was fixed with the other car so I am hoping this one can be fixed just as easily. The trick is...when will there be time to bring the car in? Not this week, that is for sure. Next week taking it in is at the top of the to-do list!

Friday I worked which was interesting because we had no concessions to sell! The concession stand construction was in its final stages and we couldn't sell anything to anyone until 7. That made for a long, long day for me. People don't like to hear there is no popcorn at the movies!!!

Jason picked me up from work (he drove me since my car was covered in a tarp) and when we got home we had plans to make baby food. Well, Amelia filled her carseat...completely on the drive home. Can I just say, "EEWWW"? We got her cleaned up, got the squash and pumpkins cooking (for baby food) and started to try and get her carseat clean. We got it done and ended up throwing the cooked squash into the fridge so we could get to bed. The night did not go as planned.

Saturday Amelia continued to have explosive dirty diapers. It was alarming. I fed her some apples and got her ready to walk to Target. We needed a few things so once I thought she was done pooping we left. She looked very cute in her bunny snowsuit:




We made it home from our Target trip with no problems. Once we got home though, the explosive diapers started again. I tried feeding her some rice cereal because it constipates her and I was hoping to counteract some of the explosiveness. Well, whe threw that up instantly and I started to worry. I paged the doctor and she assured me that since Amelia wasn't running a fever and she was in good spirits that I should just keep an eye on her and call back if she got a fever or stopped having wet diapers (dehydration warning). The doctor thought it sounded like she had picked up a virus of some sort.

Once Jason got home he drove me to work again. He told me when he picked me up that there had been no more disgusting diapers. What a relief that was. I thought we had turned a corner...

Sunday morning Amelia still had not soiled herself so I got us all packed up to make the drive to Indiana (my dad and sister were down there, to see Grandpa). We got on the road at around 7:30 and made it there by 10:00. When I got there I had a dirty baby again :( I got her cleaned up, my Grandma took her clothes to get them washed, I changed three dirty diapers in one hour, and then my dad, sister and I headed to lunch with cousins Matt and Liz. Amelia tried a tortilla chip (they were not salted) at lunch:


After lunch we all went to the nursing home to see my Grandpa. We didn't stay too long. I stopped at Meijer with my dad and sister before they headed back to Minnesota and then I headed back to my Grandma's house. We went to dinner at House of Kobe (one of those places where they cook right on your table). Amelia was very interested in the chef. She watched him very intently the entire time:


When my soup came I looked over and saw this:


I thought it was pretty hilarious! It was almost like she was wondering where hers was :)

Doesn't she look like such a big girl sitting up in a restaurant high chair?!


We didn't make it through dinner without an explosion...and there was no changing table at the restaurant! I seriously think it should be required of all public places to have a changing table. I have been so many places without one and it is annoying and hard. I had to change a baby out of her clothes (which were so soiled I just threw them away) and get her cleaned up and in to a new diaper and new clothes on the disgusting bathroom floor. I had a changing pad but that only helps so much.

Anyways, I cancelled plans to meet one last cousin (Tori) after dinner and just got ont he road. I needed to get Amelia home. We made it just after 9:00 and she wasn't too bad. Her carseat was a little dirty again, but it was nothing compared to what I'd been dealing with all weekend. I got her into bed and started to unpack all our stuff.

Half an hour later there was a panicked cry and I found her sitting there, filthy. I felt awful. We got a bath ready, some clean clothes, changed the sheets and it was back to bed for her. It didn't last. I eventually got her up and she watched Beetlejuice on TV while I put some stuff away. Eventually she went to bed and by the time Jason got home I was in tears. I felt like all I had done all weekend was clean up poop. I tried 3 diaper types, different brands even. I am convinced that there is no diaper on this planet, disposable or cloth, that could have contained what was coming out that little girl this weekend.

**Jason thought it might have been the apples causing the diarreah so we stopped them but the diarreah continued. I did some research Sunday night and whole apples, like in applesauce, are actually ok to feed someone with diarreah problems. The whole fruit contains pectin which helps firm stools, therefore, it can be good for someone with diarreah. I started the apples back up Monday!

Monday I stayed home from school in the morning (which turned out ok since one of my morning classes was cancelled). We went to the laundromat Monday to get all the poopy things we had sitting around washed. I just couldn't stand to think of it all sitting around here another 2 or 3 weeks. Monday night I went to work.

Tuesday (yesterday) nothing got done around here. I had a headache so Amelia and I just layed low. Last night though, before bed, she began throwing up uncontrollably. Once we thought she was finished she went back into bed. She woke up, covered in puke, so she got up and got cleaned up, some new clothes and went back to bed. She did watch a little of Hocus Pocus first though...we were watching it while eating a pizza... I know...the girl watched a lot of TV sometimes...she'll be ok.

Today I went to my morning class and then came home. Amelia has been so much better! She even had a dirty diaper that was not diarreah for the first time since Friday :) I think we are finally turning that corner I thought we had turned Saturday. Here are some pictures of her from this afternoon:

Amelia L-O-V-E-S this cat toy:


She always crawls to it and then plays with it!

Amelia has been somewhat pulling up since the weekend! She pulled up on my dad at my grandma's house because she wanted something in his pocket! She doesn't get fully upright yet, but she gets up on her feet while holding onto something. Here she is right before she pushed up on her feet:


I was laying down, so I couldn't ever seem to get a good picture of her once she had gotten up because I was so busy telling her what a big girl she was :)

I assisted her into the standing position here:


She did all the hard work though! I just held her hands and helped her get upright to hold onto the walker :)

She does this all the time too:


She moves her paci to the corner of her mouth and chews on it. It is really bizarre...

Lastly, here is a silly face from Amelia:


Does that look like the face of a sick little girl? She is a trooper. I really hope we are past all the dirty diaper explosions. It has been a long and busy 5 or 6 days around here...

Now Amelia and I are headed to work to have a bar meeting...that is right, now that the new concession stand is in place, we are serving alcohol sometime next month. I really think it is unnecessary but I don't make the rules...

Change in Plans Today

This morning the weather was not suitable (see above picture) for us to do outdoors activities. We woke up at 7, heard the rain and the cars driving on wet roads, and we went back to bed for an hour. We got up a little after 8 and tended to Amelia's needs and got everything ready for the laundromat. We had the place to ourselves today for once! Amelia had her morning nap in her carseat and Jason and I played around with the camera. This one picture pretty much sums us, and our relationship, up:


Once Amelia woke up she went flying around the laundromat with her daddy:


Amelia even joined in the laundry fun once the clothes were dry:



After we finished our laundry we went to Whole Foods to get some produce. The produce we were going to get at the farm to be precise. On our drive along the lakefront we noticed the Villa Terrace (decorative art museum) was looking pretty, so we took a picture:


Amelia has been all smiles this afternoon:



Lastly, here is a picture of tomorrow night's project:


I asked Jason if we could make baby food together tomorrow night when I get home from work so hopefully it works out!

Wednesday

This afternoon I had lunch, between classes, with friends Sarah, Bob and Ryan Franke. The four of us used to get together Thursday nights and watch movies together after CRU. We usually ended up watching things like Beauty and the Beast and Enchanted...it was a good time. One time we went to Kopps and got a 64-ounce Sprecher root beer to enjoy while watching a movie. Anyways, it was nice to spend some time, the four of us, together.

This afternoon Amelia and I lost track of time and didn't really do much. We took a few pictures though:


I think this is her getting ready to do her "camera smile":


Cat toys are not just for cats anymore:


It's nice to know that she enjoys their toys just as much as they enjoy her things (ie- bouncer, carseat, "donut" etc)

Tomorrow Jason and I have an ambitious day together planned. We realized last night that we don't ever get to do things with each other because Thursdays are basically our only consistent morning together. Sooo...

We are going to try and get up early and go do our 3 weeks worth of laundry (because neither of us have clean work clothes...those are always what we run out of). After laundry, if all goes to plan, we are going to try and go to another (or perhaps the same) pumpkin farm...this time as a family! I also forgot to pick up squash while I was at Basse's Farm with Dawn and I intended to get some to make baby food, so we can get that tomorrow (if we make it!). I also am wanting to make pumpkin baby food so we will pick up some "eating" pumpkins as well!