Another week down and another one started. Hard to believe this is the kids' last full week of school before February break. I'm not entirely sure how we got here already, especially since January felt like it dragged. Seems like we were just getting past Christmas break, but I guess two weather days and two holidays will break things up a bit and make the cold, gray block of January not quite so solid.
Speaking of which, this winter has officially reversed the trend of the last couple mild ones. We barely seemed to have snow the last few years, and this year once it came, it has pretty much stayed. It'll melt lower periodically, but we haven't seen full grass in weeks. It's been mostly very cold aside from a day here or there where 35 seems balmy. We had a bunch of wind and some ice last week, and now we're in line for at least a couple storms this week on the heels of about four inches over the weekend. I barely got to that "desperate for spring" mode last year because I was walking a bunch by February and March, but my target is usually around 40 degrees and we haven't had that or clear sidewalks in ages, nor does it look like we'll get there anytime soon. It's giving me February 2015 vibes (10 years ago already!) when it was above freezing for only an hour in all of February. We haven't been quite that extreme--that included lots of single digits, feet of snow, and just absolute misery--but we've spent a lot of time in the 20s and teens, and the snow has been frequent. Not awful, just an inch or three at a time, maybe four once or twice, but it's starting to pile up and it's getting old. Oddly we're actually right on pace for an average winter, but after recent years it feels like a lot. I think maybe most old winters used to include one storm of 12-18 inches at a crack, whereas we're getting more instances of lesser snow so it feels more relentless. I know we're getting closer to the downslope, as the daylight is feeling longer at both ends of the day, but man, I would love a good snow-free walk!
Jacob is coming along. He still has a symptom or two every day that he brings up as odd, but for my own sanity I am trying to keep those worries at bay as much as possible. He's testing his leg more and more, and actually hopes to play in a game later this week so he can get in the required games before sectionals. He may not be able to play a lot as he's barely been practicing, but they need his offense desperately, however it comes. He's still a bit discouraged about any pain or swelling he gets, but by all accounts he's not really risking damage by pushing it. The holes were still there a couple weeks ago, per his follow-up X-ray, but they don't seem to have concerns about the stability. Otherwise, we have an eye appointment (and his yearly brain study) next week, and his endoscopy is scheduled for early March. I do think the GI cleanout helped some of his symptoms, but it's hard to tell where that stands as he hasn't been complaining much and I don't necessarily want to bring it up. He hasn't been on his reflux meds because of the endoscopy, so hopefully no complaints is a good sign that it has eased.
As for me, I'll get into my situation in another post. Progress...maybe?
I realized the other night that I hadn't transferred any of my phone pics to my computer since the new year. I took so few pictures in January that it's actually a little depressing. Carter's Monopoly money stack, a puzzle, our Christmas card display before I took them down, a couple pictures of a dapper Jacob on the court before a game, a couple pictures from Carter's and my walk to the car after the Knighthawks game, a few snow pics, and a few other random moments, but really nothing of significance at all. When you're trying to push through a tough time and the dreariest time of year, it's not particularly helpful to not have fun things going on. But you also have to have the energy and time for fun things, and that's not always easy either. I keep trying to find a weekend to go to Buffalo, but Jacob's practices tend to muck that up a bit. When Craig is out of town, I feel bad dragging Carter on an outing and leaving Jacob alone. Carter doesn't really want to go to Jacob's games when he's not playing, so we haven't done as much of that as I'd anticipated either. I'm often just lacking motivation to go above and beyond right now, and my body may be craving down time as much as it is fun time. But it doesn't make for an exciting camera roll. It was definitely a weird month, for a lot of reasons.
We did have a little break from the monotony this weekend since it was Craig's first weekend off since his season started in November. That meant we needed to get in Carter's birthday party before the next string of road trips starts (Saskatoon this weekend, where highs are below zero all week!). We invited the grandparents and I tried to whip the house into shape over the course of the week! We figured we'd do the party earlier Saturday so they could drive home in daylight, but then we moved it an hour earlier to noon because snow was coming that evening and we definitely wanted them to avoid that. By some miracle I did get the house mostly together, and thankfully we were doing pizza and wings for food (plus a salad I put together) so really the only major thing I had to do once the house was decent was the cake.
Now, last year we ended up not doing a party for either kid, so I felt very much out of party-shape and cake-shape. I guess that's sort of on me. I mean, for Carter's I think we were dealing with Craig's schedule, Jacob's schedule, my parents traveling, probably some degree of sickness and weather, and--if I'm being honest--just being overwhelmed at the thought of getting the house in any shape for company. This is a busy time of year for me at work, and I have a feeling we were really in the thick of no cooperation on the neatness front at home, and I just don't think I felt confident I could get the house in shape, so it never happened. I think we also ended up seeing each set of grandparents separately right around the birthday anyway, so it felt like there wasn't much reason for a party if they had already wished him happy birthday and there were no more gifts to give. And then for Jacob in June, he hadn't really wanted a party in a couple years because he was let down by quite a few party no-shows in the past. But I think he would have taken one last year, but if you recall, we were in Punta Cana until right before, and then afterward was Pittsburgh into COVID into the aftermath of all of the health craziness we had leading up to that trip. And summer weekends are always a little crazy, let alone adding baseball x2 into the mix last year. So it never happened in either case, and to this day I feel bad about it...and felt even worse when I went into my cake photo album on Facebook and faced down the gap since the last picture I posted. But heading into this year I knew that had to change, and luckily we had a weekend where the stars aligned--Craig was home, the grandparents could make it, no weather or illness ultimately complicated things, and I was able to get it all together. But I was a bit out of practice and that made cake-making a little nervewracking this time around.
I originally thought about tackling a full sphere baseball with my ball mold (which I have mostly only ever used half of, a few times). But then Carter sat with me looking at Pinterest, where I had previously pinned a viola (well, violin) cake and some baseball stuff. I had done a field cake for Jacob when he was five, which felt tough to top, so I didn't want this one to be too close to that. But Carter really liked the field idea, so we eventually decided on a field on top and baseball stitches on the sides. I didn't have a ton of time to get the cake baked on a crazy Friday, but crammed it in later that evening and started in on decorating right away in the morning. Since we like having half chocolate, half vanilla, I ended up making one extra thick round layer of each and nine cupcakes of each flavor with the rest of the batter.
I have to be honest, this one probably went as smooth as any I've ever done. I started taking magnesium the day before and couldn't help but wonder if it was keeping me more chill than usual. I usually have a few panic moments but stayed pretty calm for any I started to have. I layered the cakes, did the white sides and brown top, decided to do stars to finish the messy top and bottom edges. The cake was a little crumby so the white sides were rough, but that was probably my biggest issue. The baseball laces were almost bad because the tip the red icing came with was too wide, and then it almost got messy as a result. Some almost landed on the white stars a couple times, but thankfully toothpicks saved me and fortunately I started on the back so messy mattered less. I mostly got it right on the front. The field wasn't perfect but it was good enough, and the grass is usually very forgiving--and this one was quick enough to not let the frosting get too soft, which has happened with grass cakes in the past and makes the grass sort of melty and not as defined. In the end, I was really happy with it. Simple, straightforward, and pretty darn cute.
It was nice having all of the grandparents here. It had been a while, both since they'd been here and since we'd seen them at all (going all the way back to Christmas) so it was much needed family time. Everyone got along well and we were all thrilled to celebrate the birthday boy...a week early.
A couple weeks ago, for some unknown reason, this head came home with Craig from the office. I think it was probably a prototype for some mascot--maybe going back to when the old Knighthawks needed a new mascot? It's been hanging around ever since and making some weird appearances, including this one.
Carter got cash from my parents and would have had a gift to open but a snowstorm in the midwest held it up so just a couple envelopes to open this time! But his Lego Donut Food Truck will be coming soon to his food fest on the living room floor!
As I was putting candles on I sort of couldn't believe how many needed to go on his cake. How did we get here?! Wasn't I just figuring out his first birthday giant cupcake a few years ago?
I have to say, the cake was delicious. In particular the white cake turned out amazing this time. Thank goodness we have plenty left! Overall, it was a really nice afternoon, and everyone made it home safely before the snow came through again.
Sunday was a pretty quiet day, all things considered. We went to church as a family for the first time in months, shoveled a bit once we got home, had our usual Sunday lunch, sat around for a bit, ordered Livingston County for Craig and Jacob (Carter and I could eat party leftovers), and I ran out for some errands while Craig and Jacob went to pick up the food. I ran to Michael's to see if there was anything compelling to spend my $5 voucher on (nope), Aldi to see if I could find the whole lobsters (or any other fun finds) (also nope), Wegmans to pick up a handful of needed groceries, another Aldi (again no on the lobster), and then finally off to Kohl's. I had to order a shirt for Jacob and wanted to order from the store for free shipping, but decided to look at the clearance racks since I had a 30% coupon and they had a ton of stuff. I actually haven't bought many clothes lately--not that I need to but sometimes it just makes me happy. But lately I think my physical and mental blahs have just left me with little motivation and worries that no cute top can fix. But first I found an amazing sale on a really cute sweater-hoodie-tunic that will work well with leggings, and then I found the cutest, softest hot pink sweater that fit perfectly. I got both for $27 total and felt like my lack of buying other things made that purchase okay. The hoodie is different and the sweater just screamed cheery and bright, which I need right now. Considering I made it all the way through Kohl's with $5 Kohl's cash a couple weeks ago and found nothing, leading me to wonder what that meant about my mental state, this felt like a weird sort of victory to find things that made me happy. After that it was home to watch the Super Bowl, which was still sort of depressing to not have the Bills there, but gladly featured an embarrassing performance by the Chiefs in a dominating Eagles win. The Bills likely wouldn't have beat the Eagles with them playing like that, so maybe it's for the best. But Josh Allen won the league MVP award, which was really amazing (mostly because his speech and a viewing of a video from the Children's Hospital showed what an amazing human he is), and all we can do is hope the Bills get the last piece or two to finally make it happen.
At the end of this week, we will hopefully have some good excitement--Valentine's Day, maybe a brief return to the court for Jacob (at his old school, no less--eek), Carter's actual birthday (let's hope his rogue Amazon gifts arrive), and our annual Strong Museum visit, complete with a Scooby-Doo exhibit! So, perhaps my camera roll will come back to life after all...
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