No dice

So it was a depressing Friday to find out there is no bun in the oven even though I swore the oven was on preheat for the last two weeks.  We are going to consult with a IVF Dr on Wednesday because I worry about using up the last 4 vials of 2623 and not conceiving.  I looked a bit on their site and I know I heavier than the women they usually work with but I am at the same weight I was when I conceived Baylor so I am hoping that will help sway them.  Since I am in constant struggle with food and my weight I know how hard it will be for me to loose weight for them to work with me but I would do my best if that is the only way to get a sibling for Baylor. I also have to wait for insurance to deem me infertile in order for them to cover it.   After Wednesday at 1:00, we will know where we stand.

My soup chef and assistant pastry chef in training

Baylor and I made chicken corn soup this weekend.  I brought the step ladder over to where he could watch and of course that lead to helping.  I had the shaker only slightly opened for this but he managed to drop it in the pot after this was taken.  Don't worry, the stock was cool and the stove was not on.  No babies were harmed.  He enjoyed it and it worked for us.  He is not much into self entertaining so it has been a struggle for me to get cooking done sometimes.  I think we have found a solution and he was very good with directions, albeit with a lot of enthusiasm at times. 

Buddy and YaYa came over for soup.  Baylor likes to ask for Buddy but then not want anything to do with him once he is around.  Baylor showed off his tractor books with they both enjoyed.  Dad is a farmer's son and loves John Deere's also.  They both agreed the soup was delicious.

 

We also made brownies, from a mix, to make Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownie Balls for lunch at work on Tuesday. 

 

He exprienced the joys of batter tasting. Yum.  Again, don't worry, we get our eggs from a farm in Juniata County and they are not recalled.  Still a bit of a risk but it is part of life and I cannot protect him forever. 

Later we made The Mother Load Lay.ered Cookie Bars from Pic.ky Palette.  I don't know how to link to another site yet, I just don't want my blog to come up on a search engine for her site. The base is store bought sugar cookie tube.  That is the first time I bought that!  The second layer is a chocolate chocolate chip cookie dough.  This is the butter and sugars mixed together and Baylor kept asking to taste it.  Nothing bad in there!  He liked the hand mixer and called it the noisy and would ask when we were going to use it again.  Not in that full sentence format of course but I knew what he was asking.  He held his hands to his chest when I asked him to keep his hands away when the noisy was on. 

 

Ok so I let him taste it too.

      

Two layers down.

The next layer was a peanut butter, sugar, and egg mixture.

He learned how to work the sifter. 

The last layer was a chocolate chip cookie batter. Bake and wait for yummy goodness.  Baylor likes saying yummy when he is eating and he does not know how much it means to me when he says it.  Toddlers have very discrimminating palettes so if he likes it I know I did a good job.

The finished product is very dense and very good.  She suggests drizzling the bars with chocolate but even I could not bring myself to do that.  Next time, if there is one, I will bake them a bit longer.  But yummy all the same. 

August 23 is Lori's birthday and we took Baylor to a playground.  Ever since I had him, I have begun to change my focus of birthdays and Christmas.  They are a big deal for little ones and I am fine with a phone call and a birthday wish for me. I even stopped giving cards to close family members.  Though I do have a very good friend who I love to find cards for and she always sends the best cards.  For Christmas, I am grateful when I am able to spend time with my family.  So we did not plan a big event for Lori's 40th but had a wonderful family morning at the playground. 

 

Baylor did the slides and the swings but what he really liked was just running.  The entire floor is padded somehow and the construction is with trex boards.  We were there for over an hour.  It was a really beautiful morning for August.  We did a little shopping at K.mart and Baylor fell asleep after that.  I ran into Weis for a few things for dinner.  I picked up Neato Burrito and a Dairy Queen ice cream cake and we headed home.  Lori started passing a kidney stone while in the car. She can feel them moving down her tubes and they are very painful.  No one can tell her why she gets so many but she has them so often they are nearly routine for her.  She went to bed when we got home and Baylor slept a bit longer.  When he woke up he was asking for his bean soup so we made that too.  He loves black beans so he had them and some chicken for a late lunch.  We played outside after the soup was made.  He had a good amount of raspberries from the garden.  I love that he is eating them again this year.  Last year when he was new to food we would go out and eat black, red and yellow raspberries until he could not hold any more.  Like mother, like son. 

It is a bit over grown and neglected but we get enough to eat every night to make us all happy.

I had a great weekend, and I am really glad I was able to take the time of to spend with my family and was able to visit with friends. 

S.piral Path Farm

My friend Steph and I share a share of S.piral Path Farm CSA and they have several open farm days in the summer.  We went today to get tomatoes and other items for sauce and salsa. Baylor wet through his shorts on the drive up and had to wear the 'spare' clothes in the diaper bag.  Not a very manly choice but he pulled it off with style. 

He wanted to help and did a great job carrying his basket with basil and we did not lose too many to the gravel. 

His current obsession is tractors and there were many on the farm and some were working.  He can hear an engine miles away and would spot the tractors and trucks before I could point them out.  He does that at home too.  He is an excellent airplane spotter and will call out the motorcycles and trucks as the go by the house.  And since we live on a major road and along the path to the airport, we see lots of planes and hear lots of vehicle traffic.  The fair had a tractor parade and he sat still for the entire parade.  That is a long time for him! 

We went to the tomato greenhouse, or tomato garage as Baylor called it and they were abundant!  The plants were taller than me and just loaded with red tomatoes.  Not that I needed any but I bet we have 15 lbs of them to figure out what to do with tomorrow.  Baylor really loved scratching in the dirt.  He is all boy after all. 

 

After the farm we visited at Steph's for awhile and went shopping.  We  both love Wegman's.  Baylor loves it because there are snack samples everywhere and a train in the dairy department.  I love it because it is the best grocery store ever!  When I go on vacation my highlight is going to grocery stores.  I  usually have to go by myself because very few people can appreciate a grocery store with me. I may be crazy but I am ok with that.  We went to Karn's to for the stuff we did not get at Wegman's.  Thankfully he fell asleep on the way home and I unpacked the car while he slept and slept a bit in bed afterward.  We played outside the rest of the afternoon visiting with the neighbors and had a surprise visit from friends attending a wedding reception over at the fire hall pavilion.  It was great seeing them again as we saw them last week for the fair.  They have lots of pictures of Baylor and I have none of their four kids but I hope to remedy that by having them over again soon.  It was a good day.

Baylor and his Meme

This is Baylor's MeMe, Gloria's mother. He named her that a few months ago when he could not say Mamaw because it sounded too much like Mama.  She likes it and she loves to hear him say it.  Next to me, I think he loves his Meme best.  She is the one and only person he will choose over me, unless he is tired or needs comforting.  He will even choose her to put him to bed over me.  He will do pretty much anything with her and she will do pretty much anything for him.  Right now they spend a lot of time outside.  She sits in the chair in the shade or pushes him in the car or follows him around as he pushes his mower. 

                                                

                                     

He is very lucky to have her because she is what I think a grandma should be: just there for you and to love you.  Parents get to do the hard part, grandparents are for fun and for him she is just that. 

Wishing and hoping and thinking and praying

Today is the first day of my two week wait.  Keeping our fingers crossed it takes and come May....

The Appl.e Cart

This is Gloria at 3 years old, she will be 40 this month.  She is Baylor's appl.e cart he was lucky to fall into when he was born. 

                                                   

Here she is when she was 10 and starting to express her fashion sense.  She did love the leisure suit. She did grow up to embrace the 80's and held on to it for almost 20 years!  She still had a mullet when we met but she is a lesbian after all.  There were not that many proper hair choices for her. 

                                                 

This is by far my favorite photo of her and makes me laugh every time I see it.  She is the girl with the angry eyes glaring from behind the great hand me down glasses.  The story behind the glare is her middle sister Carolynn got car sick on the way to the photo shoot and threw up on Gloria.  Her oldest sister Brenda had the flannel shirt in her car and put it on Gloria and she was not happy with it all.  Nothing was making her smile for this photo.  She was very lucky to have grown up with her wonderful sisters but unfortunately, she is the only one alive now.  Brenda died the March before we got together and Carolynn died when Gloria was 15.  It still surprises her how much she misses them and I know she wishes they could meet Baylor.