Car Activities for a One-Year Old

(Alternately titled: How to Not Go Completely Insane on a Twelve Hour Roadtrip with a Baby)

My first piece of advice would be to leave close to bedtime and drive through the night.

That wasn't an option with this trip, and even though my baby took several good naps (more than she would at home), being in the car alllll day was (surprise!) not all that fun.

A few days before we left I decided I'd get started on the busy box I picked for the Pinterest challenge, but then I quickly realized that I didn't have the time or materials to make most of the things on that particular list before our trip... I did have pipe cleaners and a puffs container though, so I put them together for "Pipe Cleaners in a Bottle."

If Elle could give an award for best roadtrip "toy" I'm sure she'd pick the pipe cleaners, hands down. She liked pulling them out, putting them back in, and bending them. She loved handing them to me so that I could hang them off of my glasses/nose/ears and would giggle up a storm while grabbing them back.

So I give an A+ to "Pipe Cleaners in a Bottle." Cheap, very low effort, virtually indestructible, and my brother's cats thoroughly enjoyed batting them around. The only cons I can think of are the sharp ends (I twisted those over and didn't have any problems), and once we took them out of the car, our pipe cleaners seemed to spread to every corner of the house.

I also made a texture book to bring along in the car. This requires considerably more effort than "Pipe Cleaners in a Bottle," but if you have some supplies on hand it's not difficult to throw together.


Step 1. Gather up materials with different textures.

I already had all of these things at home, but the possibilities are endless as far as what you put on the pages.


Step 2. Cut pages out of old cereal/snack boxes.

I used my Cricut machine to get the scalloped edges and then glued scrapbook paper on the fronts.

Step 3. Glue your objects on to the pages. Use the strongest glue possible if you have a destructo baby like mine.

Step 4. Hole punch the top of the pages.

Step 5. Tie together with string. Voila!

You may have guessed from the note in Step 3 that my baby girl set out to destroy this texture book. She made quick work of ripping off the fuzzy pompoms, the bubble wrap, and even a couple of the shiny hearts. I hot glued everything except for the foam stickers, and the only page that is still completely intact is the one with the fabric flowers. Maybe superglue would've been better. At the time, I was just happy that it held her interest for more than 5 minutes. 

Other tried and true activities:

*Stuffed animals

*Blocks

*Books

*Food, glorious food
*My wallet
*And when things got a little ugly that last hour and she couldn't be consoled, I gave her my glasses...even though I can't see without them. She went from screaming to asleep within a few minute's time. Worth it. ;)

Spring Break '11: Austin

all of these photos were taken with my iPhone. not bad, eh?

It's Friday. That means my Spring Break is officially coming to an end. Here are some highlights from this week:

• Finished February Medicaid billing and all that can be done for March!
• Got my eyes examined (new contacts!)
• Read Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
• Made progress on These Is My Words (savoring it)
• Went to an Etsy Austin SXSW party
• Took some ridiculous, unflattering photobooth pics
• Had dinner at Maggiano's, including marshmallow creme chocolate torte (so good!), with a Christmas gift card
• Lunched with Henry at Jax Cafe
• Free lunched at a med spa where I won a free mini-facial and some anti-aging lotion samples
• Slept a lot
• Blogged three four times
• Made three new digiscrapped pages
• Went to the temple
• Played games and had dinner with friends
• Went grocery shopping by myself
• Met Henry's coworkers and saw his cubicle for the first time 

• Saw a free Neon Trees show
• Kind of saw the free Strokes show, but really ended up talking to Cristy on the phone instead
• Made skillet chicken vesuvio (a new recipe)
• Watched The A-Team with my hubby

In the midst of these activities, I realized that concerts (even if they are free) are really not my thing anymore. Too much smoke. I hate it. I was reminded over and over though that I really love my city. I'm glad we get to stick around for a while.

Snow Day 2011

There was a lot of hype this week about the possibility of snow in central Texas. It was supposed to arrive late Thursday night. One to two inches, the weatherman said. I know that is nothing to people in other parts of the country, and we realize that's not a lot of snow here too, BUT Texas is totally unprepared for any snowy/icy weather. It's okay if you make fun of us; we like to poke fun at ourselves too. 

Sure enough, around 10 PM a little snow began to dust the ground. Henry and I went outside to check things out and witnessed our funny maintenance man doing donuts in the parking lot in his golf cart. We had a good chuckle about that.

We went to bed Thursday night hopeful for a late start for work the next morning, but I didn't think we'd realistically get one. May I mention that many of the area school districts announced that they'd have delayed starts early Thursday evening while mine did not make a decision until 5 am Friday. Boo...but yay because at 5:30 the next morning, Henry woke me up to tell me that we both got a snow day! An entire day off from work. A three-day weekend. So greatly appreciated.

5:30 AM

Early that morning, when the sun was still hidden, we went out for a walk. We were outside for about 45 minutes, and I really couldn't feel my fingers by the end of our adventure (I really hope you clicked that link above).

Henry throwing a snowball at me

It was perfect. The snow was fluffy and blanketed the ground throughout our neighborhood, but it started melting away early in the afternoon. By one o'clock, we were heading out for lunch at Mighty Fine Burgers and running some wedding related shopping errands. Fun. Then yesterday it was 60 degrees and sunny. Today it was 70 degrees and sunny. Can life get better? I submit that it cannot!

dang, it feels good to be a ninja

Yesterday marked three and a half years since Henry and I tied the knot. I don't know why these dates stand out in my mind, but they do, so why not celebrate them, right?

So last night we went on a date at The Domain. The plan was to eat dinner at Maggiano's Little Italy (love) with some Christmas gift cards, but we quickly nixed that idea when we found out there was an hour+ wait for a table. An hour to an hour and a half for a table for two? Yikes. It's good, but we were hungry. We also wanted to make a run by Anthropologie before 9, and it was already 7:30.

Instead of Maggiano's, we stopped to share some yogurt. Ginger lemonade + caramel cheesecake is actually yummy. Then I convinced Henry to let me "window shop" in The Limited where I begged my way into two new shirts. Paid cash per our budget agreement though, so I didn't have to beg too much. Then off we went to Anthropologie.

We easily located the timer I wanted to buy, but since they are currently having a SALE, we had to look at everything in the store. That's the way it works, right? While I was sifting through the SALE racks, I asked Henry to open my wallet and look for my Anthro card. He did, said he found it, and that was that. We continued to look at things in the store. We both like the fabric covered fancy books they sell there and decided we could devote a portion of our home budget to a pretty copy of Robin Hood.

Next something magic and mystical happened. As we turned around to make our way to the cashier, the very SALE rack I'd just browsed minutes before had new items on it. Dresses! (I'm kind of a sucker for dresses.) Wouldn't you know there was a lovely printed dress there in my size? So I tried it on along with another full-priced dress for good measure.

I liked the dress a lot, and I was a little bit puzzled when I told Henry that I wanted to buy it. He seemed so okay with it. I didn't have to beg or plead or pout, even though I was pretty sure I had just spent the entire clothing budget at The Limited. So strange, but when you're getting what you want, you just roll with it.

We got up to the counter with our timer, the pretty book, and my lovely dress, and the cashier asked if we had an Anthro card. I said yes, and then Henry looked confused. Coming to find out, when I'd asked him earlier to find my card, he thought I meant a gift card, a gift card to pay for the purchase of my lovely dress.

.......

And that is how I unknowingly tricked my husband into buying me the lovely dress from Anthro. Completely and unintentionally bamboozled him. That's like the ultimate stealth. I'm so good, I don't even know how good I am. Henry's doomed if we have any daughters.

Possum Kingdom

If you would've asked me what it was a few short months ago, I would've said a Toadies' song. But that's not all, my friends. It's also a lake and a state park. Actually, the lake provides the setting for the song, I'm pretty sure.

I saw a spread on it in one of my dad's issues of Texas Parks and Wildlife toward the end of summer, and I decided it'd be the perfect getaway for Labor Day weekend.  Traveling all around Colorado this summer inspired me to visit more of my home state.

The park wasn't exactly what I was expecting. One of the main draws for me was seeing Hell's Gate, but once we got there we were told that we wouldn't be able to access it without a motorboat. I was pretty disappointed.

So we didn't see any of the really big cliffs, but we had fun anyway. We went canoeing and we swam a little bit too. There were bees everywhere, so Henry got to see me freak out when they'd fly ever so close to my face.

After several hours at the lake, we decided to head on to our hotel in a small town called Mineral Wells. We took a scenic route, and on the way we came across this really picturesque spot near a pretty bridge.

Sayonara 2009: July through December

July

In July we discovered Mayfield Park in Austin. It's an old homestead that was donated to the city, and peacocks are allowed to freely roam the grounds. 

Henry and I celebrated our second anniversary on July 7th by going to lunch at Fogo de Chao. We still love being married!

 

We also went on another popular Austin adventure:  a bat cruise! During the summer months a colony of 1.5 million Mexican free-tail bats take up residence under the Congress Bridge. It's the largest urban bat colony in North America. At dusk you can see them fly out to look for food. When Henry and I were dating we canoed down the river to see the bats. That was one of my favorite dates. This was a similar thing except we were on a bigger riverboat with a bunch of tourists and we had a tour guide.

 

I turned 24 in July too.

 

August

We moved out of our first newlywed apartment at the first of August. It was bittersweet. We really liked living there, but our new place is much closer to my new job, and the rent is $125 cheaper!

In August we also said farewell to some grad school friends who moved out of state for work.

 

My best friend Alifia came to visit from Kuwait.

 

 

I started my first grown-up job! This is me at the end of the first day of school, August 24th.

September

When you have a grown-up job you get real paid!

Sumi came to Austin for a Geology reunion. We got to do some shopping together, got our makeup done at Sephora, and ate at Madam Mam's. Yay for girl time!

 

Henry and I visited Amanda and Joseph in San Antonio. We had some of the worst Mexican food ever on The Riverwalk. Hopefully we'll choose more wisely next time. =)

 

October

My parents, nephew, and great-nephew came to visit us in October. We went to the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center. I recall it being a pretty chilly day for fall in Texas, but we did see some pretty flowers.

Over the summer I was diagnosed with psoriasis. It wasn't a big deal then (just dry patches on my forehead), but in October it spread to my eyelids and elbows. I spared you the pictures of my actual skin since Henry said it looked gross. Instead I am sharing a photo of the creams I acquired with my most recent visit to the dermatologist.

 

Henry and I won our ward Halloween costume contest by dressing as Mary Poppins and Bert. Putting the costumes together was one of the most fun projects for me this year. I'm amazed that we were able to find 90% of our costumes at Goodwill.

 

 

November

My brother-in-law David moved to China in December for a post-doc position. Yes, you read that correctly, China. I think Henry is still in shock that he actually moved there. We had a farewell dinner for him in Austin. Hopefully we'll be able to visit him sometime in the next three years.

I went to the Regina Spektor concert with my old friend Larissa and my new friend Meghan. I loved it. I think it was the best concert I've ever been to.

 

 For the second year in a row we hosted Thanksgiving dinner at our apartment. Unlike last year, however, my parents and sister Randy came (in addition to Henry's parents, Lara, William, April and Helen and her boyfriend Tripp). I really enjoyed cooking with my mom and Henry.

 

December

As is tradition, we visited the Trail of Lights in Zilker Park and spun under the big light tree. Guaranteed to make you dizzy!

This year we went with three other young married couples from our ward. We've been very blessed to meet so many cool people this year, and many of them have been in our new ward.

 

I tried my hand at paintball and got shot in the left arm three times! It doesn't feel good, I'll tell you that, but I did have fun.

We celebrated Christmas at my parents' house in Houston. I was very excited to get a dSLR!

 Henry and I are very thankful to have had such a great year. We look forward to seeing what 2010 brings!