So it goes...

Lists, lists are fun, right?
-Jude's walking! Like, all over the place and not just a few steps here and there! He does still crawl a lot.
-I'm putting my blog under construction until I can make it look snazzy.
-I'm oddly excited for the hectic holiday season. I won't be shopping for any Christmas presents at the mall and I'm hoping to make a decent chunk of them, especially Jude's stocking/stuffers. I need to figure out what to stuff his stocking with. I already have most of his other presents. Amazon & Ikea are my favorite for that.
-Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's that whole recent boycott against Amazon because of "pedophile handbooks" but all the books referred to in anything about that are not a how to diddle little boys, so I choose to continue to use their awesome services. That's enough on that topic.
-Still no check. :| Seriously, State of Michigan, you suck.
-I have no school until next Monday! I'm so excited for this little break. Hopefully I'll be able to actually get stuff done. I should write myself a list so I don't forget things, or I'll just wing it.
-I saw some of my favorite people on Sunday. I went to Kelsey's potluck in BG and it was amazing! Everyone made excellent food (I slaved over pumpkin soup all day), and it was just an all around good time. I miss it down there, but then I remember how much I wouldn't have (Jude and my awesome new perspective on life that is credited to Jude) if I were still there.
-I don't have much else to say, really. not that I can think of at least. If I don't come back before Thanksgiving, have fun, be safe, and may the force be with you!

I feel like this blog isn't exciting enough...

Maybe that means my life isn't all that exciting?

I started working last weekend! I'm working at Laurel Manor, it's a banquet hall. I worked there in high school but had to quit when I left for college in Ohio. In high school I was a busser, now I'm wait staff, woot. It's really not all that more exciting, I get paid more than I used to, and I might get more hours, but it's mostly a weekend/night job, because that's when the majority of people have weddings/parties/excitingfuntimes.

I took Jude to story time at our local library for the first time today. He wasn't a complete punk like I half expected him to be. He was more interested at looking at all the other babies than he was in the stories/songs/dancing. It made me realize that he really does need more exposure to kids or else he's going to end up all socially awkward like me. On that note, I didn't have a huge panic attack like I usually do in most social situations. Hooray!

2 days ago was the 9th, which means 5 months post-op from the CVR!
2 days from now is the 13th, which means 1 year post-op from the skin tag removal!
So much happiness and excitement, and I know I say it like every time some sort of milestone and time passes from those surgeries, but he looks like a completely different baby now. Plus, his eye color changed dramatically, which I didn't really notice until I was making a sweet comparison scrapblog thing and had two pictures side by side. I then went through a lot of my pictures to try to pin point when it changed and the determination was some time around April.

I almost made a whole calendar of things like this. I still might, after I finished this one I made another one, for fun (and my computer desktop) because I have a cool kid who has a skeleton sweater for every year! He already has one for next year too.

Halloween 5k for Craniosynostosis

Over the weekend my parents, Jude, and I roadtripped from our humble abode in Metro-Detroit to Long Island for a 5k walk/run for craniosynostosis. We took off Friday night (I forgot to take epic roadtripping pictures to commemorate Jude's first roadtrip though :() and stopped in the middle of Pennsylvania the wee hours to get some rest in a motel room. Saturday morning, we wasted no time in getting out of there and back on the road and got to New York in the early afternoon. Before checking into the hotel we made a stop at Coney Island for lunch (coney's, naturally) and to go to the aquarium.

Jude was a shark!

He wanted to eat the penguins, because that's what sharks do. 

With his sharky brethren.

On the Coney Island boardwalk.

After we got to the hotel that night, Jude crawled and played around the room until eleven o'clock because he was so restless from being stuck in the car seat for so long, but he was so happy to be free.

Stretching before the race. My mum was a trooper and ran the 5K while the rest of us walked. She ran it in 33 minutes!

At the starting line!

Mile 2! Jude wanted a little break to stretch his legs.

He walked a little bit of it, with help from his Pop-Pop and I of course.

He crossed the finish line and got a medal for being so awesome.

We made a slight detour to have Halloween lunch in Sleepy Hollow... because we're that awesome nerdy. 

We all had matching capes that said Jude's Mama, PopPop, and Gran and also shirts that said "Going the distance for Jude Man" buttttt we didn't take pictures. I think we should take pictures sometime soon so we can have some. There were tons of people at the race, it was great to see all the people supporting the cause and we got to talk to a few. Jude played with a few kids afterwards too. 

The downfalls to the trip:

- No trick-or-treating for us.

- Jude became addicted to the tube because we had car DVD players and it was the only way to keep him calm. I didn't think that I would need more than 4 full movie and 1 Baby Einstein DVD's so we ended up watching "Alice In Wonderland" 4 times. I knew I should have followed my gut and grabbed more. 

Top 2 Tuesday!

I'm getting an early start on this. Tomorrow (or somewhere else in the near future) you'll get goodies about our weekend.



Top 2 gifts I have received. (Aside from Jude, of course)
1) My tea press. I love tea. Especially loose leaf tea. My parents got me this for Christmas a few years ago and it's the greatest thing in the world. It makes two cups of tea, which is great for the times when I want lots of tea, which is usually all the time. The only downfall is that loose leaf tea isn't as easy to find in stores, but I did discover Teavana recently because one of my friends works there, I just haven't had the money to go and spend on tea. :(

Image from Google.

2) The surprise trip to NYC my parents took my sister and I on for Christmas a couple years ago. We were opening our presents and we got to the last box. It had socks in it and underneath them were tickets to plays and airplane tickets to NYC. We were still half-asleep and it took us awhile to catch on, but we pretty much packed our bags and got on a plane Christmas day and went to NYC for 3 days to see "Evil Dead The Musical" and "The Producers" on Broadway. It was great!

Pumpkin Painting

Jude finger-painted for the first time on Sunday. Onto a pumpkin! I made up some flour paint and let him go to town. He had a blast, and of course made a mess. It looked like Jackson Pollock had visited our house because Jude threw the paint around a lot.

Zoo Boo!

This past Friday night we went the Zoo Boo at the Detroit Zoo with my mum, her coworkers, and their daughters. It was a trick-or-treat through the zoo at night. They had lots of cool pumpkin displays, the reptile house was open, and there was a Zoo Boo Revue. We even saw the vultures sleeping on a log and a camel. Jude was a trooper and stayed awake through the whole thing, and of course loved the music and dancing in the Revue. He even had some candy and loved to play with the wrapped candy in his treat basket. On to the pictures!

I just had to include the polar bear pumpkins, for obvious reasons.

Ch-ch-changes

This is one of those posts that I've been thinking about making for, like, a week. No joke. 
I've been busy making some changes to better myself and the world.
Change 1: I've stopped using shampoo and my hair looks/feels fabulous. If not better than before. I use baking soda & water. Plus a few drops of tea tree oil for a little extra cleansing boost. I haven't added the recommended vinegar "conditioner" because a) I haven't really needed it and b) I couldn't find the apple cider vinegar in our cupboards.
Change 2: Teaching Jude how to walk. He's getting better at it everyday, he'll take a step or two on his own here and there. I think the most he has taken on his own so far is around 4 or 5. He's getting there slowly, but surely. Soon he'll be running and driving me even more crazy.
Change 3: I made my own soap. It smells of patchouli and is shaped like a T-Rex.
Change 4: Since I'm running in the 5k for Craniosynostosis on Halloween, I decided the other day that maybe I should start actually training. I tried training before, but I always felt like crap (I'm out of shape and my legs weren't cooperating by either my knees or ankles failing on me) after running, so I gave up after a week. I was doing the Couch to 5k plan before, but this time I decided to just go for a barefoot run. Well, I wore my fancy Paper-Feet. I jogged .91 miles (which I know thanks to http://www.mapmyrun.com/) without stopping. The only reason I stopped and chose to do a 2 block cool-down walk as opposed to 1 is because I was thirsty and forgot to bring a water bottle with me. But, after running barefoot, my legs felt great and I didn't twist my ankle once(which I'm normally very prone to doing), no shin splints, no awkward cramps. I did forget to stretch, but I still felt great. I need to keep that up and work up to 3 miles for the run.
Speaking of the run. I'm trying to collect money. A $500 donation, going towards The Jorge Posada Foundation & CAPPS (the hosts of the race), also gets a spot on the t-shirt and in the official race journal for Jude's name. So far I have collected $155, mostly through Paypal. If you're interested in making a donation to sponsor Jude in the race, please let me know and I can send you the Paypal link.

Changes I still need to make include but aren't limited to: cloth pads and/or cup, sewing more, knitting more, crafting things to sell, rearranging my bedroom, and finding an attention span.