Woof, last week! Between watching pure insanity (but somehow also expected insanity) play out on the news, starting back at work (half days feel even shorter when you spend most of it trying to get your baby to stop using his newfound hand control to pull his pacifier out over and over) and a baby who won’t nap, I feel semi-deranged today, but we still had a good weekend. We actually left the house?? I sort of forgot what that felt like, but we managed to make it places on time with a baby, so it felt like a real win. Plus being together with family feels extra sweet during these COVID times. Let’s take a look!

We went to Zoo Lights on Friday! We’d spent basically the entire day trying to get Dempsey to nap and unsuccessfully so, so by the time we got to the Denver Zoo he’d been awake for what already felt like hours and then stayed awake THE ENTIRE TIME WE WERE THERE. How??? He did fall asleep for ten minutes in the car on the way there and again right toward the end of our visit (just in time for that picture, ha!), otherwise he was EYES WIDE OPEN. Very cute but please get the rest you need, buddy! Maybe I wasn’t paying attention last year or maybe the zoo did it up this year, but I thought the lights were pretty amazing!

Saturday, a day that we also spent the entirety of trying to get Dempsey to nap. WHY??? He’s pretty much been fighting sleep since Christmas but it’s been extra bad lately. Didn’t help that we didn’t really have anything to do that day, so we were hyperfocusing on it maybe. Poor little guy. I hate seeing him so visibly tired but unable to just close those eyes and sleep. We did find time to make peanut butter banana waffles, give ourselves (okay just myself) an at-home mani, watch Inside Out (which I’d never seen!) and finally cook black-eyed peas for dinner. I hope they bring us all good luck in 2021! Oh and we watched North by Northwest which I’d place above To Catch a Thief and Marnie but below Vertigo, Rear Window, Rope and Psycho.

Sunday started with a lame 40 minute late breakfast delivery from Snooze. Everything was cold! But still, as Joey pointed out, we had a cute baby at the table and we didn’t have to cook a thing! Dempsey was SUCH a better napper all day too, THANK GOD! After watching Inside Out, we figured we should continue correcting our Pixar oversights and watched Ratatouille. I loved it! As for Inside Out, I thought it was very very good but because we watched Soul first, I liked it a bit less. I still cried over that imaginary pink cotton candy-cat-elephant-dolphin thing though!

We had Sunday evening plans! Scheduling both our first and second ever real outings with the baby for the same weekend probably wasn’t our best idea but it all went just fine. We met my parents, sister and Wayne at the Denver Botanic Gardens and little Demps slept through basically the entire thing. Guess he’d seen enough lights for one weekend, ha. We got there at 4:30 and it wasn’t quite dark enough, but we stalled at the outdoor café, drinking hot chocolate until it was perfectly dusky. Mostly it was good to all be together for the first time since Thanksgiving. I miss seeing my sis and wish I could see her more but she got her second vaccine dose today and I’ll take that as a sign that things will be better for all of us soon.

Last night we had our roughest night since Dempsey was born and I was up every hour from midnight onward!!! I hope it was just a random restless night and we all get some sleep tonight.

Hi! I hope you all had a good end to 2020 (as good as 2020 can give at least) and celebrated the beginning of 2021 as best you could. I hope you did not, like me, end 2020 by deleting years worth of pictures from your blog on accident?! HOW. I literally cannot think about it at this time. We bridged the gap from 2020 to 2021 with a puzzle, lots of movie watching, a homecooked New Year’s Day dinner, an especially crazy Sunday because we waited until the last day of a three day weekend to get all the things we needed to get done done and extra baby snuggles because my maternity leave is OVER. Waaa! But 2021 is feeling okay so far. I’m feeling cautiously hopeful and I hope you are too 🙂

Joey wrapped up work around 4 on Thursday and we pulled out a puzzle! We’d been wanting to do one for a while but the dining room table is also his desk so we had to find the right time, aka when we’d have time to start and finish a puzzle before the work week started again. Around 6, Joey left to pick up our NYE dinner at Cart-Driver. Seems like we’ve celebrated most ends of the year in that shipping container, so while we contemplated going elsewhere, it just didn’t feel right. They had “Nashville Hot Brussels Sprouts” on the menu, so of course we had to order them. SO GOOD. And the pizza is always the best.

Queued up Tenet for our viewing entertainment and there’s a line toward the beginning of the movie that felt like a directive. “Don’t try to understand it, just feel it.” I feel like I got the gist of the plot, but as with all things, I’m not content with the gist. I need to fully understand the details of stuff, okay?? But my brain is tired from 2020, so I mostly just enjoyed the way the movie looks and damn, it looks good. Christopher Nolan sure knows how to create/direct an action set piece. Guys, most nights we head up to bed around 8:30 so I was fully prepared to not make it to midnight but then it was somehow 11:30 and even though I tried to do a fake countdown half an hour early, Joey wouldn’t celebrate it with me so I just stayed up another half an hour and then we whispered “Happy New Year!” to each other and Dempsey, who was already asleep in his bassinet. So different from most years, but it felt perfect 🙂

New Year’s Day! Woke up and cuddled the baby then decided we couldn’t bring ourselves to make breakfast and ordered sandwiches from The Wooden Spoon. If that’s not the best start to 2021, I don’t know what is! It’s been our tradition for the past few years to watch a musical on New Year’s Day so we picked Singin’ in the Rain for this year. We’d never seen it, can you believe it?! I was DELIGHTED!!! Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds can sing, act and dance. What talent! They just don’t make stars like that anymore do they? Also, for as good as the two leads were, how about Donald O’Connor?! His “Make Em Laugh” number blew me away!!! Spent the rest of the day puzzling, going on a short run/walk (my legs are feeling much better!) and busting out the cloth diapers finally. They’re still bulky-looking but they fit at least.

We’ve been cooking New Year’s Day dinner for my family for the past five or so years, so it was sad not having them over this year, but we made short ribs, twice-baked sweet potatoes with bacon-sesame brittle and roasted broccolini and it all tasted so good! Ended the night with Luce, which we’d seen trailers for last year and totally forgot about until we saw it available for free. Still sorting through my thoughts on this one but I do think Kelvin Harrison Jr. is a really exciting actor. His performance was so unnerving in the best possible way. Really hope to see more of him in the future! I was EXHAUSTED from staying up till midnight and was so excited to go to bed that night, ha!

Told Joey I could do with a day off from ordering take out, so we made Saturday morning pancakes. Afterward, I texted my mom telling her I REALLY needed a massage and, what luck, she had a 2:00 appointment available! The idea of leaving the house sans baby sort of caught me off guard but the timing was going to work out, so I couldn’t turn it down. Since I’m basically home all the time, I haven’t even really thought about pumping but I couldn’t leave Joey and Dempsey hanging, so I did it. I’m glad I had that early introduction in the hospital, so doing it once in a while doesn’t feel like any big deal. MY MASSAGE WAS SO NICE!!!! My mom asked me if anything hurt and I listed my wrists, my neck, my back, my ankles and my knees so I guess I’m falling apart. Felt so so good to have some of those kinks ironed out and of course, to spend a solid chunk of time with my mom. Even if I was laying in a face cradle with a mask on. Dempsey was all out of sorts that evening (I’m telling myself it’s because he missed me :P) so we spent most of the night trying to calm him down. He finally PASSED OUT (what a relief when they get good sleep) and re-watched Waves because we hate ourselves and like being sad. Instead of actually crying 15 times, I only almost cried 15 times. What an improvement!

Sunday was so busy! But at least it started leisurely. I hung with Dempsey while Joey picked up our Sunday breakfast. I put him in his bassinet to brush my teeth and get dressed and he was CHATTING IT UP in there. It’s absolutely my favorite! Finally ordered the skillet from Sunny’s and it was cheesy, carby, meaty bliss! And look, we finished our puzzle afterward! Then a million things occurred. We cleaned up our Christmas decorations (apart from when we literally chucked our Christmas tree over the front porch railing on Friday, ha!), cleaned all four bathrooms, took the boys on a walk, gave Dempsey a bath, ordered groceries, watched the Cowboys game, made slow cooker apple pie oats and cooked dinner. Felt hectic as it was going on, but then it felt so good to have it all done come 6 PM. Sat down to eat then watch Better Call Saul to end the long weekend.

I’m back to work today, but it’ll be half days for the next couple of weeks so I can still snuggle that little baby lots 🙂