Not-So City Mouse: April 2017

Noah has become an expert in making up songs. Check it out. I think his new album is going to drop in late 2017. It'll be called Hey Yo Yo, Kay Kay Kay.

So, last time I checked in I was at the end of my spring break. Besides getting caught up on school stuff and grading, I only had one goal for week: make my first carrot cake. I don't know why I got this idea into my head but I found a recipe online and decided I wanted to give it a shot, making the whole thing from scratch down to shredding the carrots myself. It was pretty much amazing. We also got some time together as a family outside in the sunshine and spent a morning taking a tour of the UW Veterinary school with some friends from daycare. Noah talked about the 'animal hospital' for a week afterward so I'm pretty sure he was into it.

Maybe my next career will be in a bakery.

Fun with friends!

Learning all about red and white blood cells!

Hey there, cow.

After spring break, it was back into our routine. Jordan had a go-live in Michigan in the first week of April so Noah and I had a weekend with just the two of us It's not easy to wrangle a toddler 24/7 all by yourself! Since becoming a mom, I have such a newfound respect for single parents. I can't imagine how much more difficult parenting is when it's all by yourself, all the time. I was lucky to have some reinforcements come over to hang out with us a few times though!

Bedtime stories with Carrie are the best!

Uncle Keith, coaching the future basketball star.

Solo slide ride - check out that concentration!

Keith also has the best hats.

Another thing that happened early in April is that Noah and I finally stopped nursing. Considering how difficult it was to start nursing in his first four months, I never ever ever thought we'd still be doing it at nearly two and a half years! I will say that I'm really proud of all the work that we did, and it was the best choice for us.

Soon after Jordan was back from his work trip, it was time for Easter! Noah had been talking about it for a week before hand and knew all about the easter bunny bringing eggs to the house. We didn't tell him any of this so I'm guessing there was a buzz going around daycare. We made a small easter basket for Noah and Jordan made a treasure hunt for him to find it. Then we went outside to find all those eggs that that silly bunny left all over our yard.

Carefully considering the next clue... where do we look next?!

Ah ha! Is my basket in here?

Found it! Lucky boy!

Ah, that rabbit. Leaving these eggs all over.

Carefully... good thing they're hard-boiled.

Blowing bubbles with Keith!

These dudes.

Happy easter!

Grandma sent a Paw Patrol lunchbox! YAY!

The weather this month has been lovely, for the most part. We've been getting lots of vitamin D with walks, trips to the park, and picnics in the yard. I'm looking forward to finding some more places around Madison this summer to explore. We're lucky that we live in a city that has so many parks, lakes, trails, and splashpads!

Scavenger hunt fun!

All our hard work.

My favorite guys.

Lunch picnic!

Best afternoon with my guy

Wow. Those legs are white.

One more picnic in a tent!

A few others things this month:

1. TV shows. There is a lot of good TV going on right now! We don't have cable so pretty much everything I watch is through Netflix or Hulu. I watched all of OJ vs. the People in just a week. I was surprised at how riveting it was, and apparently it was pretty accurate too. I was in 8th grade when the trial happened so it was interesting to see the whole ordeal now as an adult. A lot of my students are watching 13 Reasons Why so I watched all of that too to understand what they're talking about. I have really mixed feelings about the show, more thoughts than I would write out here, but I'm glad I know what they're talking about now. I just started watching the Handmaid's Tale yesterday and I can already tell I'm going to love it, even if it completely freaks me out.

2. Books. I finished the 3rd and 4th Harry Potter books (the Prisoner of Azkaban and the Goblet of Fire) and am about halfway through the 5th book (the Order of the Phoenix). I guess I'm kind of focusing on getting through the series before I start anything new, though I have a couple holds at the library that I'm excited about coming in.

3. New stuff. I feel like Jordan and I ended up buying a lot of new stuff this month. It's pretty out of character for us because I think we're pretty conservative with our money and don't often splurge on big things. But this month we've ended up buying a new fridge (nothing fancy, but our old one was something like 23 years old and running questionably), a new couch (we're still using a futon in the living room from Jordan's first year at OSU. It's ugly and uncomfortable and ready for a new home), a new iPhone for Jordan (his old one- a 5C- wasn't charging anymore so he upgraded to the 6s), and a Riccar vacuum cleaner (our old one was nearly six years old and has worked very hard cleaning up the cat hair from two cats. Jordan did a bunch of learning about vacuums and got this fancy one that is going to last forever and he loves it, and he generally does all the vacuuming, so we're happy.)

4. And some random photos...

We had an exciting morning at school a couple weeks ago when there was a 'suspicious smell' so the fire department and hazardous materials crew came and all staff and students had to stay out of the main building for a couple hours. Wheee! They never did find the cause of the smell.