A fleeting milestone

Kate put herself to sleep for her nap today. She does this from time to time at night, but never ever for nap time.

Yay!!

A tragedy

Of dachshund proportions.

Today we went to watch the Weiner Dog Races in Buda. It was amazing. More than 600 dogs were registered to race and there were little dogs everywhere. It was a sight to see.

We watched about 10 or 12 heats, each one with seven dogs. When they opened the gates, a few dogs would come charging out, leading the others to chase, but often one dog would get distracted by all the noise and just mill around near the start line, requiring an official to pick him up and take him close enough to the finish line to see his owner. Usually from there he could have a glorious finish.

As great as watching those little legs run was watching the antics of the owners trying to convince their dogs to run run run. They had squeaky toys, treats, the whole deal.

The tragedy? I forgot the camera.

Woohoo!

Karen is coming to visit with Emily and Hope in three weeks. Yay!!!

I have a huge list of things we're going to do. Go to the playground, the farmer's market, ride the Zilker Park train, go swimming, run through the sprinkler on the front lawn, eat tacos and bbq. It's going to be great.

And the children's museum! How could I forget. And we're going to ride the bus to get around! (Because I don't think we can fit three car seats in our little car.)

Our first parenting award

We got our first bad parent award today. We've been having Kate nap on our bed even though in the last few weeks she's been getting more mobile. I knew that at some point we wouldn't be able to have her napping there. Today was the day. I heard her stirring after only an hour, so I was quite sure she would fall back to sleep. Instead, a few minutes later a thump followed by a scream. She's fine, and landed on her feet/bum, but it was scary for all of us. Now we have to adjust to her going down for her naps in her crib. It's going to suck for a few days.

And I'll miss snuggling with her on the bed before she falls asleep. I wonder if I can fit in her crib.

Phriday Photo

(I know, I've been a slacker. But we had a flea issue to deal with around here and it totally threw off my week. Apparently, it doesn't take much.)

Phriday Photo

Tea cozies make very good hats.

What's Cooking Wednesday

I was going to do a food theme today, but I feel like you need three things to establish a theme, and I didn't quite make it to the third. So, it's not a theme. The theme was going to be purple food, but the missing thing was the raw beet salad I was going to make. I'll make it later in the week.

Our purple food is Blueberry Lemon Loaf, from a recipe I found on All Recipes. It's pretty tasty, although I put in extra juice and zest, and I would reduce the zest to the amount called for the in recipe.


The second purple food are mulberries. There are mulberry trees all over our neighbourhood, and the one closest to us has some ripe berries. There are others that aren't quite ripe yet, so we'll have mulberries for a few weeks. Of course, we sang 'Here we go round the mulberry bush' multiple times while picking them. We might even have a mulberry pie in the next week or so. It's very fun to forage in the city. If only rhubarb grew here, I bet Rhubarb-Mulberry pie would be delicious.

In Solidarity and Thrift

Karen, the best sister ever (ok, it's actually a tie between me and her), declared on her blog today that she wasn't going to make any unnecessary purchases for the rest of April and all of May. She says that she fritters money away on lattes, snacks for the kids and eating out a bit too frequently. I don't fritter money as much as I buy bigger items a bit less frequently. Yarn. Clothes. A toy or two for Kate. Books. A lunch out now and then.

I'm joining Karen in her thrift and declare no unnecessary spending until June. Let's see what happens. I think it will be an interesting exercise.

Newsy update

This is going to be a very newsy post, since there are a bunch of things I haven't blogged about yet. So, let's just jump in.

- Kate has been sleeping a bit better for the past four days. Only waking up once to nurse around 2 or 3 and sleeping until 7:30-ish. Much better. It's not totally consistent yet, but at least we aren't up every 2 or 3 hours and she's spending the whole night in her crib. Definite improvement. She is still working on those top teeth and has a persistent runny nose because of it.

- We started swim lessons (ok, it's more water familiarity lesson) on Friday. I was a bit worried about how it would go since she hated the attempt at swimming in Hawaii. But the water was very warm, and she actually loved it. There was joyous squealing. (Which, in a swimming pool is very echoey and loud. Certainly got everyone's attention.) Her favourite part was singing The Hokey Pokey. That's when the squealing started.

- I've started working for a few hours a week at the bike shop again. Kate comes with me, and we stay until she gets cranky. Tomorrow we're going to ride to work. I hope that goes well. I'm definitely ready to start getting back in shape. And I know my definition of 'in shape' is totally skewed.

- We're having a good weekend at home. We are doing just a few small projects (and one large one - Graeme is doing a temporary fix on the rotting portion of the deck). Last night we went to Sheryl and Jonathan's to celebrate his birthday with an evening of Dance Dance Revolution.

I'm sure there were other things to report, but I can't think of them. And no photos because I left the camera at the shop last week. Oops.

A reminder

There is a sign outside a local bookstore that currently says:

"At the end of a spring day, you should smell like dirt."

It's not spring everywhere yet, but it is in Texas. I think our goal for the day will be to smell like dirt at the end.

What's Cooking Wednesday

It's kale season! We got some in our local organic veggie delivery. I've made creamed kale (which was really yummy) and I've wilted it with onions. It was time for something new.

Pasta with Kale and Tomatoes
Heat olive oil in pan then add chopped shallots. Wash kale very well and slice as thinly as possible. Add to shallots and cook until wilted. Add broth (whatever kind you've got on hand) and turn down heat. Cook for about 20 minutes until kale is soft. Meanwhile, cook whole wheat pasta. Add cooked pasta to kale, add grape tomatoes and goat cheese. Cook until heated through. Add whatever fresh herbs you have available.

Yum.