Wednesday, February 2, 2011

10 Months

LE is now a little past the 10 month mark and this is what we've been doing:

She's a huge fan of the activity table that we're borrowing from friends. She spends about 60% or more of her playing time at that table. There's a little hole on the side where she sticks her hand and just about anything that will fit in there. Here she is playing by herself, completely unprovoked by us. The bottom middle photo is where she's shrieking.


Just now I was putting away her toys and realized there were a lot of missing puzzle pieces. I lifted the lid to the table, and I found at the base of that hole:
  • the lens cap to the camera,
  • two toy frog people that belong in the Phonics Bus, 
  • two rings from the stacking rings, 
  • two pacifiers, 
  • a stacking cup,
  • all of the missing puzzle pieces.
She can entertain herself for about 20 minutes at a time now. I usually play with her and then she'll go back to playing by herself again.

She now pulls the stacking rings from Nana (her Nanny's mom) off one at a time, and on rare occasion she'll get them back on the stick.

She is starting to stack the cups inside of each other and looks confused when a big cup doesn't go in a smaller cup. 

She plays chase with Dad and me, and she squeals or shrieks when she's close to getting caught.

She cautiously cruises the furniture and walks a few steps at a time with the push walker.

She still loves peek-a-boo, and her shrieks make us all laugh.

She loves being at our feet when we're in the kitchen, and apparently the warming drawer of the oven is really fun to open and close.

She's very expressive.



She is cutting more teeth. Her third tooth is now in and large. Her second big tooth is really visible but still hasn't poked through.



She weighs just 18 pounds (24th percentile) and is 28 inches (50th percentile).  It's surprising that she's such a lightweight because she eats breakfast, lunch, and dinner the same types of food that we eat (except for cow's milk, nuts, honey, caffeine, and sweets). She snacks during the day between meals, and she has breastmilk or formula every 2-3 hours.  She wakes up 2-3 times a night to nurse.

She loves vegetables except for corn (she'll eat around the kernels) and especially loves sweet potatoes.  She drinks water from a sippy cup if you hold it for her. She hasn't had a lot of exposure to fruit since John and I don't eat much of it.

Like I didn't notice that she dropped the plate off of the side.
That plate is supposed to prevent small hands from picking it up but that obviously isn't the case.

Her hair is Crazy with a capital C. Some is straight. Some is curly. Some is just frizzy.


She loves to get l.o.u.d.

She loves dancing and giggling when Mom and Dad act silly.

She thinks the bathroom at the top of our staircase is her reward for climbing all of the way up {with us behind her, of course}.

She's getting used to the idea of a bath, and it's not frightening to her anymore.

She's starting to notice when her dad is gone, and she gets so excited to see him when he returns.


Monday, January 24, 2011

Adventures in Food

I've written before about LE's adventures in eating. This month, it's been my turn to experiment with food. Most people this time of year vow to eat better, healthier, and perhaps less. The start of the new year for me has, for some reason, spurred a desire to cook things I haven't cooked before, and it's been fun.

Going strictly by memory here's the stuff since January 1 that has come out of our kitchen that has not come out of our kitchen before {all from scratch}: chicken pot pie; latin chicken and rice; Oreos; chocolate lava cakes; spicy ginger & shrimp stir-fry; skillet tamale pie; hearty chicken noodle soup; toffee; and today's adventure... marshmallows.



If you look straight and see boiling sugar and if you look down and find yourself looking into the big dark grey eyes of your 10 month old climbing up the cold oven towards the boiling sugar...


something needs to change.  Solution? 


Goldfish in the living room. Carry along with the recipe as you were before.


Yum.

More yum.


Pour the marshmallow fluff into the pan, let it chill, and then get your neglected 10 month old her lunch. 
And take a picture of her because she's adorable and her huge top tooth has not been documented. 


Try not to lick the mixer bowl in front of her since she isn't allowed to have sugar yet. 

Three hours of waiting later, you can chop up your marshmallows and enjoy them with some hot cocoa. Look at them melting in there. 


After I chopped mine all up into rectangles like the recipe showed, I read a comment about cutting them out with a cookie cutter and dipping them into chocolate and nuts. I'm definitely doing that next time. This time around I need to figure out what to do with 96 marshmallows that need to get consumed in one week. Rocky road ice cream in my new ice cream maker from my parents? Brownies? Yes, please. 

Life with LE

If you stand still for more than 2 minutes in the kitchen, this may happen to you.






Our Christmas Card 2010

I wrote before Christmas about how I am conflicted between going the cool design route or the route that we ended up taking, which is focusing on Christ.

We've gotten a good amount of compliments with the photos from this year's card. I guess it helps when you have a cute subject!


Rejoice Lord King Religious Christmas 5x7 folded card
Personalize the christmas season with Christmas photo cards.
View the entire collection of cards.





Shutterfly kindly is offering a $25 gift card in exchange for this blog post.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

One reason I love Madison

Photo is from the Graze website
For some reason, on Saturday, I got a craving for a good hamburger. Maybe it was because we were having chicken again. For the fourth day in a row. Maybe.

So, Sunday we went after church to a place we hadn't been to before but was sure to be good: Graze. It's the pub owned by the same people that own the fancy schmancy restaurant that John and I went to on our first date in Madison years ago. Its concept is hands down one of the top reasons I like Madison.

And I quote from their website:
We chose the name Graze because grass-fed animals and rotational grazing are important to us... The food we serve is literally inspired. It is inspired by the people who grew it and this land where it was grown. It is inspired by the wonderful meals that we have eaten in locales near and far, quaint and exotic. It is inspired by our love of people gathering over food and drink to spend some time together.
Graze is one of the many Madison restaurants that buys their food from local farmers. You will see the executive chef on Sundays at the farmers' market hand-picking his produce from the tables and filling his wagon with food for the week. He can tell you which farm each and every item in the kitchen came from. {You may or may not have seen him and his wife in your birthing class one weekend in 2010 like we did.}

You really can't beat that.

Like I said, there are a good number of Madison restaurants that follow the "eat local" mantra, but what made John and me leave Graze on Sunday and say to each other, "That was good," is what happened not only on our plate and in our bellies but rather what happened outside of it.

The atmosphere was casual. Open. Airy. Welcoming. Un-snooty. We felt like the staff was happy we were there and not just because LE was cute as a button.

We were seated next to another table with young kids. As LE munched on her goldfish at our table, I overheard the little girl at the table next to us place her order to the waiter. Not able to hear her squeak voice, the waiter squatted down and asked her to repeat. She wanted to order goldfish like LE had.

I leaned over and poured about 15 of LE's goldfish on their table, and they all thanked us for them. It wasn't just goldfish that I was sharing-- it was toddler meltdown prevention.

When our check arrived, our waiter let us know that our beignets were comped due to our kind deed of sharing a few goldfish. The $4 they picked up didn't set Graze back much, but it did give them a big boost in the now-that's-how-you-show-customer-appreciation category.

Even before they did that, we were planning on going back. We liked the atmosphere, that there were families there, and that John had a hard time picking out what to eat. All of those are good signs in our book.