A Post From a Slacker Blogger

Yikes... Talk about slacking off on the blogging. I swear I will get my rear end in gear and keep up with my posts a bit better. Soon. Very soon. Maybe after the baby comes...

Well, here we go:

93. Complete the 52 week home organization challenge/57. Give a gift a month

Are you ready to see something completely awesome??? As you all are aware, we are expecting our new bundle of joy at the end of January. Therefore, some big changes need to be made to our home to give us some more space. I figured this was the perfect opportunity to knock down a section of C's wall to fully open up his closet. As soon as that project was done, it was time to re-do C's room! Another fact you all should know by now is that my son is a bit of a Disney/Pixar junky. He loves all Pixar movies (and is getting into the Disney classics now) and regularly watches all of them. He obviously needed a Disney/Pixar room, right?! Welcome to C's new room!

The walls are painted a turquoise blue on the bottom to match the shelves we got at IKEA. We also got his giant big boy bed from IKEA and Monsters University bedding from BRU.

His walls are decorated with small posters from his favorite Pixar movies. My favorite is the poster of Mr. Fredrickson from Up. I made some yarn balloons to hang above the poster so it looks like he is hanging from the balloons. I am super happy with how they turned out. I am also super happy with the Wall-E curtains that I found on Amazon. I was a little worried that they wouldn't be thick enough to block out the light but the dark color does a great job of keeping the sunshine out. Plus, C loves his Wall-E and "Eva" curtains.

And, of course, the inspiration for his Pixar room: the canvas painting C's Grammy made for him for his second birthday! **We do not actually leave an electric screwdriver in C's room. I just took the picture right after E hung the painting up. :)

83. Try a new recipe every month

I have been having an awful, terrible, horrible time when it comes to food this pregnancy. More often than not, literally nothing sounds good to eat. I can spend hours and hours browsing pins on Pinterest and not find a single thing that I would even want to consider eating. That is truly heartbreaking because I really do typically love food. On that note, I hope you all appreciate these new recipes as they took a lot of good luck or motivation to try out!

The first recipe from October (I tried two new recipes in October since I missed one at the beginning of this pregnancy) was Beef Taco Pasta that I found on www.budgetbytes.com. It looked simple enough, edible, and I knew E would love this dish. I was correct on all counts. It was super easy and you can easily add different options to the dish like corn or add some sour cream to it.

The other October recipe that we tried was from Candice Kumai's Pretty Delicious cookbook. I'm sure you all missed me mentioning her in every single blog post... It is fall, and, therefore, it is Pumpkin season! So what better recipe to start fall off on the right note than Pumpkin Pie Pancakes with Apple Butter??? These were super delicious and nice and thick pancakes. The apple butter is a definite must have since the pancakes on their own are a bit dry. I highly recommend this recipe to all you pumpkin lovers out there.

And now, my favorite of the the three recipes: Caprese Garlic Bread from Two Peas and Their Pod. I was looking for something simple, light, but still full of flavor. Margherita pizza is one of my favorites and this is a pretty similar take on it. As a bonus, it was super easy to make. I failed to specify to E that I wanted him to pick up Mozzarella that I could slice so I actually used shredded Mozzarella. This recipe was a fantastic opportunity to use some of my fresh basil from my window herb garden, too! There's just something so exciting about using your home grown products in a meal. Of course, E could not enjoy the Caprese Garlic Bread with me being that he would have to leave off the cheese and he would pick off the tomatoes, so I just sliced the ciabatta bread in quarters and added pizza sauce and pepperoni, his toppings of choice (adventurous, isn't he?), and easily made a meal for him to enjoy as well.

64 . Go swimming once a month

Okay... So we are months behind with this whole monthly swimming goal. We tend to wait until the very last weekend of the month to take him and that is pretty much screwing us because he keeps getting sick... HOWEVER, I don't feel as terribly bad about it as I could since he goes swimming once a week at daycare so he is at least getting his swimming time with someone. We did manage to make it to the pool in October though and he had a lot of fun (of course he did!). He's a little fishy, going under water on his own and holding his breath.

67 . Take C to the circus

E and I took C to the Ringling Brothers Circus a few weeks ago at the Pepsi Center. C is all about animals lately and elephants are one of his favorites so we thought for sure he would love it. We were right! He had a lot of fun and it actually held his attention for pretty much the whole time. Things got a little boring for him when the acts did not involve animals, but overall he did a great job. His favorite act was the poodles jumping around and walking on their hind legs in a poodle train.

After the circus we pulled Dumbo off the movie shelf and showed it to him and we have literally watched it at least once a day every day since the circus.

61. Dinner/lunch date with friends once a month

D and I FINALLY made it up to see J's new house and to have lunch with her for her birthday! It took us entirely too long and we really need to do it WAY more often. C also had a very good time playing with his friend and all of his super cool toys. His favorite was the little ATV with a button to honk the horn that he pressed repeatedly the entire time we were there.

65. Go to the zoo once a month

~Hanging head in shame~ We are also a month behind on our zoo visits... We somehow managed to miss September so we will need to make up that trip with an extra trip one month. We also waited until the last weekend in October to make it to the zoo which just so happened to coincide with Boo at the Zoo. Bad. Idea. It was crazy busy first thing in the morning and we all know how much I love going to the zoo when it's crowded. It even started off on the right note before we even left the house. It was Boo at the Zoo so naturally we were hoping C was going to wear his Halloween costume for trick-or-treating.

Wrong. So very wrong. He wanted absolutely nothing to do with his costume. Luckily he has an entire closet of clothes that can double as costume pieces. He ended up wearing his Super Man jacket with a cape. Good enough for me. After we finally made it into the zoo after a ten minute wait at the elevator of the parking garage, we did end up having a pretty decent zoo trip. C got to see the zebras that he kept mentioning since finding out we were going to the zoo. And check out the hair on this little guy. LOVE IT.

We also got a good show at the tiger exhibit. C kept insisting that the tiger that was pacing along the edge was going to jump.

46 . Try 10 new and interesting foods

My company recently moved offices and we are now located downtown. Our very first downtown lunchtime dining experience was at Biker Jim's restaurant. Biker Jim's has an assortment of crazy flavored gourmet hot dogs. I chose this opportunity to try their Rattlesnake and Pheasant Hot Dog. The verdict? It was pretty good. It didn't really taste all that extreme, but now I can say that I've eaten rattlesnake. Plus, it really did photograph quite beautifully!

94. Buy flowers once a month for the house

Please do not fail to acknowledge my rock-star husband posing in the background for this picture.