Yeah, but it is so beautiful down there...

That is typically what people say when you tell them that you live in the LC. Right after they say, “Woah! You are in the middle of nowhere!” Typically, this doesn’t bother me. It is actually part of the charm of living there. However, when you have errands to run? Or, when you just want to get out of the house for a bit? It is rather obnoxious. I have found that, recently, I have very little energy on the weekends to get motivated to do anything. And, unfortunately, given Avery’s nap schedule, we have to get motivated in the morning if we are going to do anything because she goes down at 1230. And, she wakes up around 230, so by the time we get motivated after the nap, it is easily 3/330 and there isn’t enough time to do much of anything. So, all of this coupled with the fact that anywhere we would want to go is EASILY 30 mins from our house makes it very difficult to get motivated to do anything. Then, add to that the weather (20 degrees lately) and you’re screwed.

However, this all being said, I had reached my limit by Sunday morning this weekend and decided that Avery and I needed to get out of the house. So, we had a little girl’s morning (oh – forgot to mention, Alex goes down at around 9 am, which makes it impossible to bring both of them with you).
So, it was just us. We had a really nice time – we went to Petco, which, to Avery was like going to a zoo/aquarium. She loved looking at all of the animals . And, yes – we went to Petco to get litter for the cat who has returned. Surprisingly, he has been great ever since he got home. But, I think that he is still a bit freaked out, so it may not last for too long. Anyway – we went to Petco and then it was time for lunch, so we went out to lunch at Ruby Tuesdays. Turns out, Avery would have been just as happy with the salad bar and didn’t need the pasta that I ordered for her. Lesson Learned. Although, I have to say, I wasn’t all that impressed with Ruby Tuesdays (I’m not sure what I really expected – clearly it wasn’t going to be a gourmet meal, but my turkey burger was LESS than impressive), so I doubt we will be returning any time soon anyway. After lunch, we went to Target to get her a new puzzle. She has really gotten into puzzles and is really very good at them. Opa taught her to match the colors and I’ve taught her that the straight edge needs to line up with the edges of the puzzle. She’s really catching on! After our adventure, Avery napped and then we baked a cake with my new Kitchen Aid mixer that my parents got me for Christmas (we're still working on keeping our eyes open for pictures). Apparently, owning a kitchen aid mixer doesn’t immediately make you a good baker. The cake was a bit dry, to say the least. This may have had something to do with the fact that I added the flour in the wrong order or that the chocolate wasn’t quite melted when I added it to the batter, but I swear the real reason that it was dry is because the directions told me to bake it for way too long.

On the Alex front – he must have overheard us say that we were going to let him cry it out this weekend if he woke up too early, because he slept great! Granted, it was relatively short lived, as we have had a few early mornings this week, but I think that we are slowly getting there. I have determined that his internal clock is a bit messed up. And, I know this because, even if he doesn’t wake at 3 AM? I do. Because, that is when I’m used to waking up. So, clearly this has to be his issue as well. So, that is our focus from here on out – we need to try to figure out a way to break him of this habit.

He is doing really well with sitting up on his own. Although, I have to be honest – about 2 seconds after I took this picture, he fell backwards and totally slammed his head on the floor. He wasn’t thrilled, to say the least.
We have also started to give him cereal. He was also less than thrilled about that at first, but has started to get used to it. We gave him a stick of cucumber and a bean this weekend to let him play around with them , which is exactly what he did. Lexi is using this “Baby-Led Weaning” theory to feed Annabel, so I thought that we would give it a try. Basically, it says that you shouldn’t feed them anything with a spoon and that you should allow for them to experiment with real food on their own. Apparently all of this will lead to a less picky eater and fewer food allergies. Considering the fact that we cut blueberries in half up until Avery was 2 years old, I’m clearly not mentally prepared to give Alex a chicken leg to let him gnaw on it at the age of 6 months (yes, this book says that you can do that). So, I’m kind of doing something in between. He will still get pureed food, but I will also give him things to experiment with. I think that we will try some pureed carrots this weekend - fun times in the Holland household! Is it sad when pureed carrots are the most interesting thing in your lives on the weekends? I know that you will probably all lose sleep wondering how he likes them. I’ll try to post soon to let you know…