Somebody Is Gonna Like Rollercoasters

. . . and a few other things from this weekend.

OK, here's my weekend update - in bullet point form.

• Friday night was strange night for Graby. He was wide awake at bedtime and decided he didn't want to go to sleep until about 8:30.
• Saturday we went to my aunt and uncle's house. My cousins are in town and they have a 3 year old and a 2 month old. It's hard to believe that Cash was once that small (and smaller). I actually didn't take any pictures - I'm a little disappointed in myself.
  
• Saturday night we relaxed and Graby fell asleep hard around 6:30 (thanks to very short/non-existent naps) and a busy day.
• I went for a run this morning! Eight chilly miles!
• This morning, Cash ate leaves.

• Today (Sunday) we went to Isaac's (one of the little boys in my baby mamas group) baptism reception. Cash dressed up for the occasion.
  

• At Isaac's house we discovered that our little boy will one day enjoy roller coasters.

• Cash almost feel asleep on Candy's (Henry's mom) shoulder.

• This evening Cash ate meat and potatoes (chicken and sweet potato)! He really, really liked it. We also learned about this new thing called - a bib.

• Scratch likes meat and potatoes too (apparently).

• While we were playing before bed, I felt Graby's first tooth! I can feel the top little sharp point. This may explain some of Graby's strange sleeping (or lack of) this past week.
  

I'm still working on his 7 month letter. I hope to have it done tomorrow.

Quick Pic

Baby Free Friday - Cake Balls

Cake Balls are this new, totally cool (but kind of expensive) dessert.

Sadly, I have not tried them and I'll need to take out a loan if I ever want to. They look really pretty, but they're about $27/dozen. They recommend 2 - 3 cake balls per person, which means I would need about 5 -6.

I did some extensive interweb research (googled) and here's how they're described (by wikipedia):

Cake balls are a food item that are small (typically 1/2 to 2 inches in width) and ball-shaped. Cake balls do not have the consistency of the traditional sweetened, baked and leavened cakes, but have a consistency similar to dough which can be attributed to the cake and icing being blended together.

Cake balls can be fully-baked cake crumbles that are blended with icing and shaped to form a ball and then dipped in a coating, such as melted chocolate.

Although the exact origins of Cake Balls are difficult to determine, recent media articles (see external links) credit their surging popularity to the Southern United States, specifically Texas and Louisiana.

They had me at "consistency similar to dough".

Here is my recipe for cake balls, except I call mine Cake Bowling Balls (in a free form shape):

1. Bake (or buy) cake (the kind in a box is fine).
2. Crumble the cake into bits and mash it up with frosting (homemade or stuff in a can).
3. Scoop serving (at least two cups) into a bowl.
4. Sprinkle with chocolate chips (dark chocolate ones - if you're fancy, which I am).
   

I think I'll try it out this weekend. Yum.

Still Swimming

After a messy lunch of squash and cereal, I decided to clean Graby off by throwing him in the pool.

The air was a little more chilly than usual, but I made the water really warm.

He seemed to enjoy himself and got really happy when Buttin stopped by to say hello.

Sweet!

This evening I volunteered for the Austin Lyric Opera Stampede.

Liz and I were put in charge of operating the elevator (why they left such a serious job to the two of us flunkies - I'll never know). They were supposed to have a rooftop party, but because of the weather they just had a hospitality suite. Sweet!

During one of my elevator rides (even though Liz and I didn't help one single person), I noticed a sign. Look carefully:

Do you see it? Look closely:


Damn skippy - that's Flooring Warehouse - right next to freak'in DELL! Sweet!

Liz's friend, Cis, works (read: she's a BTO) for the ALO and last year she asked me if we had any red carpet that could be donated for their opening night. We actually had some red carpet that we weren't currently selling (shocker), so we gave it to them. She asked for our logo and said that she'd put it where she could. It was fairly close to the event, so I thought maybe they put it in some electronic media - I had no idea we were on this cool (to me) sign.

I showed the sign to Liz. She told Cis (Cis was also there tonight) how much I liked the sign and Cis said they had another one so that I could have it. Sweet! I was tickled with delight.

In other fun news. I learned that the ALO operates The Armstrong Community Music School and they have music classes for infants. I think Buttin and Graby are going to take a little introductory series of classes called "Rock the Sandbox".

Here is Graby practicing his opera singing:

Sweet!

Evil Genius Baby

Our evil genius baby has developed so many ways to keep us from sleeping at night. His favorite method - flipping on his back and demanding attention. I know, he's so advanced, right?

What A Week!

Usually this is something that I'd say at the end of a week, but here's a recap of the past seven days. I didn't include "go to work" because that's just a given.

Monday - At the hospital all day and return home from hospital at night.
Tuesday - MorMor arrives in the morning to help and Buttin has to go to a work happy hour at night.
Wednesday - Work tradeshow - Buttin is there all day and night.
Thursday - MorMor leaves in the morning and Buttin and I collapse exhausted that night.
Friday - I go for a run! Gigi arrives, Graby school fall fest & night out with friends.
Saturday - Two movies (one for me, two for Buttin) and night out with friends.
Sunday - I go for a run! Halloween and Graby decides to replay the prior Sunday (that we spent in the hospital) by waking up every hour and a half.
Monday - just tired.

Here are a couple cute pictures from today. The first one is when Daddy walked away, the second is when Daddy came back and picked Graby up.