{ On a Weekend in February }

It's been a good weekend, y'all.

Started on Friday evening, when we babysat Julia--our friends' daughter and the only other baby/kid in our Bible study group. Julia is two and a half months older than Lainie, and let me tell you: Watching them interact is a hoot.

Julia crawls. Julia crawls fast. Julia explores, licks, tastes, opens, closes, pushes and pulls rapidly and thoroughly. Julia jabbers and growls and eats with gusto.

Lainie sits and watches, shocked, as though there is an invader in her home but that invader might actually be a lot of fun but she's really loud and it's kinda intimidating that this moving-growling-other-baby apparently is more skilled at playing with Lainie's toys than Lainie herself is.

It was so much fun to see what the next stage is--what Lainie will probably be doing in a couple of months! And it made me realize how very un-child-proofed our house is. *sigh* I am not looking forward to childproofing. Though Lainie was a bit intimidated by such an active playmate in "her" space, I think they had fun together.

Saturday I got a haircut, but there are no photos yet so we aren't going to talk about it. At least not photos I'm willing to post on the internet. There are a couple self-portraits Mike and I took on our date {see below} but we both look slightly crazed and incredibly anemic, so just use your imaginations.

Saturday evening Julia's parents, Travis and Krissy, babysat Lainie for us so we could go on a date. Because we are so young and adventurous and full of excitement and don't go on dates as often as we should nowadays, we chose to spend our date night at home...making dinner...followed by a little TV.

I can't believe we are those people!!!

I mean, I can, and it's not all bad, it's mostly really really good, and I think all of our other dates post-baby we've gone out, so it was really nice to just chill at home, just the two of us, but still!

In our defense: Lainie has been so hard to get to sleep at night {usually crying off and on for a couple hours} that the idea of a nice, leisurely, quiet evening at home, relaxing and enjoying a really yummy dinner and uninterrupted conversation without keeping things at a whisper and taking turns getting baby back to sleep, seemed divine. And it was! We made homemade macaroni and cheese--one of my absolute favorite comfort foods--followed by oreo-stuffed chocolate chip cookies. I saw them in Pinterest and knew we had to make them--what could be more decadent than a mashup of our two favorite kinds of cookies?




 Be forewarned: These babies are monsters. I think we were a little generous with the cookie dough, but regardless, each "cookie" is the equivalent of two chocolate chip cookies plus an oreo. They are ridiculously dense and filling.

And the ultimate "eat it with milk" cookie. They were a fun experiment, but I don't think we'll make them again--too huge, and rich, and just too much. As a matter of fact, we gave half our batch of 12 away!

 

Then we headed to a restaurant to meet up with Mike's parents, sister Amaryah, and her fiance Lawrence. Yes, Lawrence finally popped the question on Friday night, and Amaryah said yes! {We had to make a little detour to Travis and Krissy's so I could feed Lainie, since she is refusing all bottles these days, but that is another story for another day.} We had yummy drinks {Mike and I were too full for anything else} and hung out and talked weddings and watched the ferries twinkling across the water. It was fun because it's the same restaurant where we went on our first date, and on the night Mike proposed--we could see the pier where he asked me to marry him from our table. We couldn't be happier for A + L and are excited to see them transition from boyfriend/girlfriend to husband and wife. And I'm excited to see what Amaryah comes up with for their wedding...she works as an event planner, so I'm sure it will be a really lovely affair.

 

And then Sunday: I managed to get Lainie and I to the 9am church service on time {Mike was already there since he helps with setup} and for the first time, Lainie stayed in the nursery for the whole service! Apparently she cried a lot, but not to the point where they had to call us to take her. It wore her out, though, and she fell asleep within five minutes of getting in the car.

 

Now it's just a nice, quiet Sunday evening. Baby Girl is playing with her food. Mike is working {still crazy busy for a week or two}. I am slowly whittling down the monstrous pile of dirty dishes that used to be our kitchen. I'm hoping the kitchen will be visible by tonight. Because somehow, we have to get to the fridge, and that leftover mac and cheese...