Josh, Jude, and I have been spending a decent amount of time at the beach lately. Yesterday, after having read an interesting article on the ingredients in conventional sun screen, I picked up two different containers of safe sunscreen: California Baby Sunblock Stick and  Badger All Natural Sunscreen. Both have been giving a “1″ rating (Low hazard) by the Environmental Working Group. Additionally, we purchased two new, long-sleeved rash guards (SPF 50 rating) for Jude and a short-sleeved one for Josh. I rarely go in the water past my waist, so I’ll simply wear a light weight tee-shirt and our safe sunblock for the time being.

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I love days like today. Days when we go from activity to activity, from play date to play date, from yummy meal to yummy meal.

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Even though it’s the middle of the week, I’d thought I’d type up our menu plan to share with anyone who might be reading this.

We’ve been playing around with our budget lately. We took a month to just kind of buy whatever groceries we wanted to buy. I still made a menu each week, but we didn’t hesitate to keep our pantry stocked with nuts and dried fruit  and peanut butter or our freezer stocked with frozen fruit for smoothies. For a few weeks we were having fresh, organic produce delivered (for free!) to our door on Tuesdays. The food we got in our box was fantastic, but we just couldn’t keep up with the cost.

Now, I’m back to trying to scrimp and save and stretch. We upped our grocery budget a little, but even so, I’ve had to resign myself to not buying many organic items in order to stay within the allotted weekly amount.

So! Without further adieu, here’s what cooking this week in the Frank Family household:

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Lately I’ve been wondering whether or not I should start blogging again. I haven’t stopped writing, or menu planning, or taking pictures of my sweet boy; I just haven’t felt the need to type it all up for publishing. Recently I’ve felt that pull to engage with others again-to write posts that encourage dialogue (even if that dialogue is limited to “OMG! Jude is SO CUTE!” Because, well, he is.)

Maybe the key is to just take it one day at a time.

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Wooo! That was quite the weekend.

This is the first year Jude has gone trick-or-treating. Last year marked his first time dressing us (Remy from Ratatouille), but this year we went all out.

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After Monday’s pumpkin patch fail and a failed attempt to procure a pumpkin from a local market yesterday afternoon, we finally brought home a pumpkin to carve yesterday evening. Jude was ready to dive right in; he desperately wanted to see what was inside the pumpkin, but alas, Josh had a meeting last night, so the carving had to wait another day.

On the table tonight were three very fun (if not hurried) events:

1. Dinner-homemade quesadillas (5-6pm)
2. Pumpkin carving/pumpkin seed roasting/popcorn popping (6-7pm)
3. It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (7-7:30pm)

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Dear Jude,

Well, Mama fell off the monthly letter writing wagon. I’m really and truly sorry for that. The letter I write you, the posts I publish… they’re my journal of your life. When I forget to write or put writing of because I’m tired, I do both of us a real disservice. In other words: I’ll try to do better.

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There’s a place on Sheridan Road that sells pumpkins during the Halloween season and Christmas trees during… uhm, the Christmas season. Since Monday’s attempt to go to the pumpkin patch at a semi-local farm was such an epic FAIL, Josh and I took Jude over to the neighborhood make-shift patch this evening.

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I’m really not sure what to write about. There a about six different ideas for blog posts swirling around in my brain right now, but I can’t figure out where to start.

The simplest of the ideas is just to update you all (?) on life in general. So… life= pretty good. Jude came down with a fever yesterday afternoon, so we’ve been hanging around the house, putting puzzles together and watching movies, since then. Josh’s business is up and running, and I encourage you to drop him a line (info@blackframemedia.com) if you’re in need of any web/graphic design work.

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In return for a really wonderful day with Jude yesterday, today the universe gifted me melt down after melt down from an overtired young man.

One might say that Jude woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. The truth is that after a super long and busy day yesterday, the boy woke up much too early for his (and my) own good. I’m talking 6:15am, folks. And that was after an 8 o’clock bedtime. And barely a nap the day before. *sigh* Josh and I were super beat and were planning on capitalizing on Jude’s nap time today (read: family nap), but instead, Jude decided to crash while we drove (in a borrowed car) to JC Penny to exchange some gifts Josh’s mom recently sent. Family Nap = FAIL.

After we got home and ate lunch, we headed out with some friends to Lazarus Playlot. There, Jude suffered a handful of bumps and bruises; each resulted in much dramatic crying and whining. During dinner, Jude zoned out watching a couple of episodes of the Fantastic Four, but that didn’t stop him from resisting bedtime.

Whaddya say we just call this day done?