Heeeeeeere's Johnny!

It's been quite a while since my last post.  For all of you that have been waiting, desperate to read something from me, well here it is.  Since my last post, some big things have happened. I celebrated my husband turning 30, I had a baby, I celebrated my older daughter turning two (the day after I had baby numero deux), and I turned 30.  That is the last few months of my life, in a very brief nutshell.

Now, anyone that has had a baby knows that life can get pretty hectic for a while.  And by "while", of course I mean forever.  But once the initial hormones come crashing back to normal and a routine gets underway, life moves forward.  In our household, that means taking care of a toddler (when she's not at "school"), a newborn, the dog, cat and chickens, and still trying to take a shower everyday.  I also try really hard to do the dishes, the laundry and to cook "whole food" meals.  I've even started letting my cat outside during the day, the therapy cat without claws, with the hopes that he will crap in the dirt somewhere.  Instead, I think he forages and eats animals or rodents or whatever and holds it in until he inevitably takes a big stinking poo the moment he returns inside.  I might potty train my cat while we're trying to potty train our two-year old.  But that might be too ambitious.  Even for someone as crazy as me.

So as things return to normal here, I find myself looking to spice things up a bit.  I mean, with the new baby sleeping like "insert random number here" hour stretches at night and the toddler telling me that her shoes, regardless of which pair I want her to wear, "don't fit" or that the shirt I want her to wear is "too hot, mommy", how could I not need more spice??

My husband and I are going to try to do a date night, at least once a month.  I know that's not that abnormal, but we're going to try to do "surprise" date nights, where we each plan an activity/dinner/two-hour stretch of uninterrupted time together, on a bi-monthly basis.  Since I'm bewbie-feeding my newborn, it is hard to get away for more than a few hours without needing to pump (which I don't particularly like doing) so our dates are going to be limited to about 2 hours or so.  My husband did take me to the Fox Theater to see the Addams Family musical for my 30th birthday and that was a four-hour trip away from the baby (and she was only 2 weeks old at that point!) and we all survived, so I know it can be done.  I already have some fun ideas for our dates! I can't post them here because my other half might actually read this post and then the surprise would be ruined.

In addition to the date nights, Eugene and I were discussing some other ways to have fun.  We often get together with a group of our awesome friends, most of whom have little kids, so going out usually is limited to  rotating meals between houses.  We have a lot of fun doing this and our daughter is usually exhausted after our gatherings.  But I think I'm ready to take these get togethers to a new level.  After watching a sci-fi show called "Face Off" I proudly declared that I could make costumes and do sculpting.  I even proved it to Eugene by forcing him to remember that time I sculpted a meatloaf into a devil goat thing.

So I think I will invite my friends over for the first annual Meatloaf Sculpt-Off.  Then we can all eat the meatloafs.  Or meatloaves.  This event will happen and it will be fun.  There will be meat-related prizes too.  Look for the evite, friends.  Look for it.

This is the first of my ideas to "spice" things up.  Get our creative juices flowing.  I'm thinking there will be other fun things.  Maybe as the weather cools, we can do pumpkin carving (a Pumpkin Carve-Off) and maybe backyard games (a Faux-Olympic Game-Off).  Thoughts??