Weekend in Des Moines

My husband and I had compiled a list of stuff we wanted to accomplish in Los Angeles. We were sad that one thing we didn't get to do was see The Book of Mormon. So my awesome sister-in-law bought us TBoM tickets for Christmas and free babysitting to go with it!

We left Kansas City on Friday after refinancing our house to a 15-year mortgage (woo!) and got to my SIL's house for dinner. J loved seeing his auntie and uncle, and he had fun exploring a new house. Not to mention the new truck auntie got him. This kid cannot have enough trucks. Obsessed is an understatement.

ANYWHO Saturday was the big day! We started out with a sushi restaurant called Miyabi 9 (yes, I'm pregnant and I ate sushi, get over it). We ordered fried Japanese pork dumplings, three fried rolls, and wanted to order fried cheesecake, but we didn't have time.

Captain Crunch: crab, shrimp, tobiko, tempura crunch, special sauce

Miyabi 9: who knows, it was off the menu

Miami Heat: salmon, tuna, yellowtail, cream cheese, special sauce

After that amazing dinner, we had to literally run to the car, drive 80 miles an hour through the parking garage to find a spot, run to the civic center, run to the bathroom, and run to our seats. The show was amazing! If you've seen it, my favorite part was when the Ugandans put on the play for the church elders- "Joseph Smith American Moses."

We went to The Cheesecake Factory afterwards and gorged on chocolate raspberry truffle cheesecake and Kahlua cocoa coffee cheesecake.

Definitely ranks in the top 5 of best dates we've had.

Going back to school!

I've been trying to find a balance to my life since I had J. I've always wanted to be a SAHM, but did not anticipate the mental drag of being home all day with a baby. I've worked on and off at JCP since the summer after I got married, but I think I want to work one or two days a week from now on, even when we move to job sites. It's nice to get out of the house and engage in adult conversation for a change. And of course the paycheck is small, but still nice. It feels nice to be a SAHM but still contribute to our finances, even if it is just a few hundred dollars a month.

Another thing I wanted to start was a new degree. All of my friends who are getting degrees are going on to get their master's, but I wasn't too sure about my commitment level. Not to mention how expensive it is. So I looked at the programs at the community college near my house and was pleasantly surprised to find they had a distance learning program for an Associate of Science in Early Childhood Education. That sounded perfect to me because I want to be a better mother and I know next to nothing about kids. Plus moving around wouldn't cramp my style because I can take classes online if we leave town.

I got everything in order in the fall for me to start classes this semester. I didn't really tell anyone except my husband about this because I wasn't sure I was going to actually go through with this until I went to the first week of classes.  I started this week, and I'm only taking two classes: Early Childhood Curriculum I and Foundations of ECE. I go to one on Monday night from 6-9 and one Wednesday night from 6-9. I have the same teacher for both classes, and she is so nice and seems like a wonderful teacher. I'm so glad I'm doing this because I'll be honest, I know nothing about kids. I don't know anything about their mental or physical development. I don't know what activities are good to do with kids at what ages. I don't know what I'm supposed to be teaching J. All I've been doing is Googling random bits of information to try to figure this whole motherhood thing out. So hopefully this will really boost my know-how and my confidence and help be a great mom instead of a mediocre mom. I'm also interested in being a pre-K or Kindergarten teacher when all my kids go to school. Eventually I would like to get a Master of Education and teach high school, but not until my kids are a lot older.

Christmas

Christmas at our house was great. I wanted to be all Martha Stewart and put up nice decorations, but the only thing we did was the tree. I've been feeling so sluggish with this pregnancy, so I didn't feel bad about it. We're trying to figure our traditions we want to do. I bought us all new pajamas that we opened Christmas Eve. I thought about doing that "Elf on the Shelf" thing, but I don't want to start that until J understands it.

I want to make "Santa pancakes" a tradition on Christmas morning. I think J only ate the whipped cream.

Opening presents!

Church on Christmas

the carnage

J loves wearing his bear coat around the house. He's sitting there eating candy that we put in his stocking.

TRUCKS!!!

Christmas dinner

Our neighbors came over and helped us make sugar cookies (that's my neighbor holding J, not me). I also want to make this a tradition. We ate all the cookies before we got around to icing them. Maybe next year ;)

We didn't get J that much (I spent less than $100) because he had already received a lot of toys from friends and family. And I'm cheap. And he doesn't even know what Christmas is. Soooo it will be Burkenomics Christmases until the kids are old enough to remember. I tried so hard to find a good toy lot like the one I found for his birthday for basically nothing, but I ended up having to buy almost all new stuff. BUT I got most of it on clearance/with store credits/with employee discounts, so I didn't bust our budget.

Here was my Burkenomics Christmas list:

• shopping cart, $8 (Target clearance w/extra 5% off with my Target debit card)
• Vtech Tote & Go laptop, $16 (sale at Target, purchased with store credit)
• toy wagon, $4 (clearance + employee discount at JCP)
• set of 4 cars, $8 ( clearance + employee discount)
• Fisher Price Little People bus, $8 (clearance + employee discount)
• Mega Bloks 80-piece set, $5 (from Craigslist)
• Auburn jacket, $40 (our one splurge. But in true Burke fashion, we purchased it two sizes too big so he can wear it for two more winters lol.)
• Reindeer pajamas (can't remember how much because I bought these after Christmas last year, but I never spend more than $5 on pajamas)

December 2012

We went to Alabama for a week and half before Christmas, then we came back to KC because I had to work. We celebrated Christmas at our house by ourselves. I thought I wouldn't like that and would prefer to be in Alabama, but I liked being by ourselves. It felt nice and cozy and intimate. Here's some of what we did leading up to Christmas:

We went to Bass Pro Shop for a free picture with Santa. J was pretty pissed at us. I used the picture (not this, the photographer's one that I'm too lazy to scan into the computer) for our Christmas card. Classy, eh?

We went to a college friend's wedding. I forgot to get a picture of us at the actual wedding, this was in our hotel room.

 My MIL's family did a family Christmas in Atlanta the day after the wedding. 

We visited my sister when we got back to Alabama. Here is J trying to kiss his cousin.

My husband's 28th birthday. We ate dinner at a German restaurant to celebrate, and J was a pain in the ass the whole time. Happy birthday! Lol.

I mean...there are no words for this cute thing. And my nephew's not bad lookin either ;)

Lunch with some of my friends from high school.

Sisters with babies!

Oregon/Colorado Vacation Part 2

The second part of our vacation was being in Oregon. We went to my grandparents' house from breakfast to lunch, went to the hotel for J's nap, and went back to my grandparents' house for dinner. My grandma had kept my dad's toy box and toys, and I thought it was so cool that J got to play in it. He also ate in my dad's old high chair.

hugging Great-grandma

I kept putting this pink bonnet on his head.

He sat on this tiny doll's chair.

hugging Great-grandpa

playing with his cousin in Grandpa's toy box from 50 years ago

Four generations!

We all had a great time, and I'm so glad I was able to make this trip. I hope that I can do this again when #2 is old enough. I'll definitely have to have my husband come with me because there's no way I can handle two small kids by myself on planes. 

J at 20 Months and Baby Girl at 25 weeks

Weight: 23.5 lbs
Height: 32"

Teeth: all are in except the second molars

Words: Mom, Dad, uh-oh

Favorite game: tag/hide and seek

Favorite book: any of his books about trucks

Favorite toy: Melissa and Doug puzzles

Favorite TV show: anything on the Baby First channel

Favorite activities: anything outside

Favorite food: anything you dip into sauce

Favorite thing ever: trucks/buses

Here are little tidbits about J:

• He stopped nursing :( 
• He figured out how to climb up on chairs when he was 18 months. Now he is obsessed with climbing on chairs and trying to get to stuff on the table.
• J loves arranging like items into groups. He likes to line up his cars and trucks on the stairs. He also likes to go into the bathroom and arrange bottles in groups.

• He is down to one nap a day. He likes to take it around lunch time from about 10:30-1:30.
• Sleep training broke down after Christmas. He was horrible when we got back. He would scream and cry for hours, wake up all the time, and get out of bed and run around upstairs. He JUST started going back to sleep normally last night. We're trying out a longer bedtime routine. We used to give him baths as needed so his skin wouldn't be so dry, but now we're going to do it every night before bed. We also started playing music to help him sleep.

• J loves helping me with chores. He actually helps now. His favorite thing to do is scrub the glass top on our dining room table. It's nice to sit there and have him clean up after himself :)
• He is getting better about dressing and undressing himself. He loves to put on his bear coat, but only managed to get it on correctly once. Usually it's upside down and/or backwards. He also loves trying to put on his socks and shoes. And he loves taking off his shirts.

• J is obsessed with buckles. It didn't take him long to figure out the buckles on his booster seat once he started trying.
• He is now walking up and down stairs for the most part. This makes me really nervous.
• He still tries to knock on doors to get candy when we take walks.

Baby Girl

• We still have no name picked out. 
• She is 13.5 inches and 1.5 pounds according to Baby Center. She is super active and is always kicking and punching me. You can see my belly jiggle when she punches or kicks extra hard.
• Fun "mommy brain" moment- I went to work with my pants on backwards.
• I'm really getting the nesting bug. I'm itching to do her nursery, but my husband wants to wait until it gets warmer to paint. I know what style and color crib I want, but I haven't really thought about the rest of the nursery. Another nesting bug impulse I have is the desire to buy tons of cleaning appliances/supplies and organizational supplies. I also can't stop buying girl clothes. Having an employee discount at one of the cheapest department stores is a huge help.

Oregon/Colorado Vacation Part 1

J has four living great-grandparents, and it is so important to me that he meets every one. He has met my FIL's mom several times, and this month I took him on a trip to meet my dad's parents. Our visit with my mom's mom will have to wait until we have enough money saved up. Once the new baby comes, the cost of plane tickets for me, J, and Baby will be about $5,000. Hard to cough up that kind of money just for plane tickets, but my husband knows it's very important to me.

I broke up this trip into three parts because I was traveling alone with J, and it's a pain in the ass to do planes and airports alone with a toddler. All the airlines had these hideous itineraries involving four airports, three planes, and twelve house of travel to get from Kansas City to Oregon. I figured I might as well take a direct flight from KC to Denver and have my dad pick us up and drive us back to Colorado Springs and do the rest of the flights with him a few days later. J and I flew out to Denver on a Wednesday and stayed in CS until Friday. We flew with my dad on Friday to Oregon and flew back to CS on Monday. Then J and I flew back to KC on Wednesday.

On the flight from KC to Denver, I lucked out with an empty middle seat that J could have. He had a little toy truck to play with, and I looked over and he was running the truck up and down the lady's arm who was sitting next to him. I was so embarrassed and apologized, but she just laughed and said she has a one-year-old boy who does the same thing and she didn't care.

My dad used some vacation time to keep me and J entertained. My favorite was taking J to the zoo and seeing him feed the giraffes. He also enjoyed roaring like the bears and watching the other animals.

My dad also took us to see the Broadmoor Hotel, which is THE hotel to stay at in Colorado Springs. It's really fancy and has its own lake that they dressed up for Christmas.

We also went to Manitou Springs, which is a little Main Street-type of shopping area. I didn't really buy much because I had crammed everything in a carry-on, so I only got some handmade soaps.

Thanksgiving

This year we stayed at our house for Thanksgiving because I couldn't take off work from JCP, with it being Black Friday and all. My in-laws drove up from Alabama, and my sister-in-law came from Iowa with her boyfriend. J had so much fun playing with everyone. My MIL brought this awesome house that he loves to play with.

We also celebrated our family Christmas that weekend since we wouldn't be together for Christmas in December. J became a master present-unwrapper. He got a huge truck from Grandma that he is obsessed with.

We went to the Museum of Art and took family pictures for our Christmas cards. I wanted to get nice pictures of J for 18-month shots, but he was not having it that day. This picture was on the back of our Christmas card.