Happy Birthday Dad

Today is my dad's birthday. I'll spare him by not revealing his age. We celebrated with a family dinner on Sunday. When it was time for cake, Xavier was all about sittin with grandpa to get in on the action. Well, when grandpa wasn't giving out the cake quick enough, X decided to just reach over to grandpa's plate and grab his entire piece.

Cake time with Grandpa and Uncle Brett

Happy Birthday Dad -- Love You!

School Bus

My boy loves school buses. We were recently given this Little People bus from a friend and it's been a hit.

X is quick to point out any and all school buses that he sees on the road by yelling out "BUS BUS BUS". The other day he even saw a yellow Hummer and yelled out "BUS".

This is where you can find X on (most) days at about 8:30am and 4:00pm. (Sorry, it's a little dark and muffled)

A Little Overkill, Don't Ya Think?

Does one really need to have a Binker, Blankie, Skipit, Puppy, and Rub-a-Doggy all at once? Apparently yes. This is how X walked around for a good 20 minutes after nap the other day.

And if you're still feeling tired, I guess you just lay down on the kitchen floor with it all.

Corn Chowder

Corn has been on my mind lately. I don't know why, but it has. Anyway, I recently looked online for a recipe for corn chowder. I've never had it, and it sounded good. I found one. It's says it's the Mimi's Cafe recipe, but I didn't get it on their website so I'm not sure. Today it's raining and X and I are staying in so I decided to try it out. It's FABULOUS! 

Ingredients
1/4 cup butter (1/2 a stick)
6 tablespoons chopped onions
3/4 cup diced celery
2 1/2 cups hot water
2 cups cubed potatoes
3 cups frozen corn kernels, thawed
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1 dash pepper
3 tablespoons flour (I used more, 4-5 tablespoons)
1 quart half and half cream (I used fat free half-and-half)

Directions

• Melt butter in large saucepan. Once melted add celery and onion and saute for 5 minutes (not til brown, just til soft).
• Add water, potatoes, corn, sugar, salt and pepper, making sure water covers everything, adding more if not covered completely. Cover and simmer until potatoes are tender, usually about 30 minutes.
• Whisk flour into 1 cup of the half and half and then stir into soup.
• Add remaining half and half and simmer until soup is thickened to a creamy consistency (usually about 15 minutes).
• Season to taste with additional salt and pepper if wanted. If the chowder is too thick, add some milk, if it is too thin, simmer for 5-10 minutes more.

My chowder took longer to thicken. I'm not sure if it's because I used the fat free half-and-half or what, but that's why I ended up adding the extra flour. This makes a good sized pot of chowder, so you'll have some to freeze.


I'm planning to serve this with Turkey Smoked Sausage and fruit for tonight's dinner. What do you think the odds are that X will actually eat the chowder? We'll see.....

PS - I was going to take a picture, but I'm terrible with food photography so I'd rather you just imagine its goodness!

21 Months

Xavier turned 21 months old on the 17th. When I asked him if he knew he was 21 months old he just mumbled something back at me with a weird look on his face. Hmmm...

The biggest thing I've noticed in the past few weeks is his language development. X has added a bunch of new words and is starting to say more 2 word phrases. He can also repeat something quicker than before. It used to take several days and now you can say something 2 or 3 times and he'll often try to say it. Some of his favorite words this week are shampoo, floss, bus (coincidently floss and bus both sound like bus!) and cool.

X is becoming great with a fork. He doesn't always choose to use it, but he definitely can use it when he wants. He doesn't stab things randomly anymore, but carefully goes after the piece he wants. The spoon is another issue. He doesn't seem to understand that using a spoon requires a different motion. He tries to use it like a fork, then when he doesn't get anything he just gives up and digs his other hand into the food. I try to place the spoon in his hand and help him with the motion, but more often than not he makes it clear that he doesn't want my help and would rather use his hand. Guess we'll keep working on that.

Playing outside is one of Xavier's favorite things. He still loves his different push carts and will happily run around the cul-de-sac at lightening speed. He likes to go on walks with his shopping carts. He can actually walk pretty far and we make a loop around a few streets. We recently got a small climbing toy with a slide and X is delighted to have that in the backyard.

For the most part X is still a good eater and consumes a mix of veggies, fruit, grains, and proteins. Recently he's started to not care too much about eating dinner. I think overall his favorite food would be a bowl of Cinnamon Life Cereal. He never turns that down. Oh, and he thinks burping is hilarious.

More and more we are seeing X exert his own will in situations. Tantrums, while not every day, are occurring. He likes to spin in circles when he's mad or run back and forth between 2 spots. (It's kinda funny!) Diaper changes can sometimes be a struggle so we're trying to incorporate his help more ("can you go get mommy a diaper from the drawer"). X can become very stubborn with giving up an object. Most often it's not that he actually WANTS the object, but he wants to be the one to say when he'll give it up. Often if you just walk away he'll come up to you within a minute or 2 and give you the object. We pick our battles as we try to keep in mind that it's got to be hard when you know what you want but are still too young to be able to fully communicate it.

Books are still one of X's favorite things and I love that! In addition to reading a lot at home we've been hitting the library quite often. When we get in the door at the library he knows right where to go to "his section" of books. Since we read SO MUCH during the day, a book has never been part of his bedtime routine. Recently we added this at night and he seems to enjoy this "bonus" story. Puzzles are another new favorite. He's mastered a farm puzzle we have and now plays with it multiple times every day. He's warming up to a few others, but the pieces don't fit quite as flush so he doesn't like those as much. X's love of the bottles is amazingly still just as strong as ever although he's pretty much settled on Green Bottle and Grey Bottle as his BFFs (best friends forever).

X's other BFFs are his sleeping trifecta: Skipit, Binker, and Blankie. I've started calling them "his guys" and I heard him repeat that the other day. I love it that he finds so much comfort in these things and it really helps him understand that when he has these, it's time to go to sleep. Unfortunately he is having some occasional sleep regression and has been up a few nights. Since he doesn't wake up very often, when he does, it's hard to get him back to sleep. It's not that he's unhappy, he just can't get settled again easily. X is still in the crib and I have no plans to move him. He's not really showing any signs of being ready for that. He still moves around a ton during the night and sleeps in all sorts of positions. So far he has not ever tried to climb out.

My favorite thing about X is that he is a love. He will gladly give mommy and daddy kisses and hugs and loves to sit right up next to you (practically on top of you). He loves to be held and snuggled with his head on your shoulder. If Walter and I are sitting next to each other on the couch X will climb up and nestle himself right in between us. I know in the blink of an eye he'll be telling us to drop him off a block away from school as if to appear he has no parents, so I'm trying to enjoy every minute of it now.

On the baby front, X still has no idea that we are having a new baby in a few months. He just stares at you blankly when you try to tell him there is a baby in mommy's tummy. He's started to take an interest in other little babies (sometimes), but makes no connection at all. Maybe (maybe not) things will click more once we set up the room and start getting out the baby paraphernalia.

Wow, this has gotten to be a long post. Better wrap it up. There are so many things that X is doing lately I might have to do a 21 1/2 month post to record a few more.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Friday night we took X to his first baseball game. We were invited by Walter's mom and her boyfriend. Since it was a night game my immediate thought was how X would fare staying up late. But, he did GREAT! I gave him a late nap that day and he was in a good mood the entire evening.



X was fascinated with the flip seats. It's the simple things in life, ya know!

X and his cheering partner, Woody, were making sure there were no bad calls.

We knew there was no way that X would sit in the seats the whole time, but there was plenty of space to let him run around behind our section when he got too squirmy.

He figured out he could climb on this and jump off. Again, it's the simple things in life!

I love his little outfit too. It was a hand me down from a good friend and was the perfect thing to wear to his first game!

Daddy and X cruisin around checkin out the scene.

I guess some people need sunglasses even when it's dark outside.

The stairs were also a highlight of the evening for X.

Photographic proof, that yes, I was at the game too! Here we took a break from baseball to read a book.

After the game we put X in his jammies for the car ride home and to our surprise he stayed awake almost the entire time. He finally fell asleep as we turned into our neighborhood at around 11:15pm. I feel old seeing that I can't remember the last time I was out that late!

We had a fabulous time and felt like real people being out after dark! Thanks Tina and Tom for inviting us!

Mmmmm....Frosting!

Sprucing Up The Yard - Part 3

The front yard project is now (finally) complete!! I'm officially sick of yard work.


A little reminder of the "before":



So here's how it all happened. We worked off and on for about a week on this project.

Step 1 -- Dig out all dead plants, weeds, and existing rock.

Step 2: Have the hubs dig a trench for gutter drainage (thanks babe!!)

Yes, he even had to bore UNDER the sidewalk!

Not until I looked at this picture did I realize how similar the color of my legs and the color of the siding are -- yikes!! And this is a far away shot too!

Step 3: Fill in trench and smooth out all dirt.

Step 4: Spend your Friday night picking out new plants at Lowes (with coupons!!). But first, make a stop at Outback for dinner and some coloring.

Step 5: Watch your entire work area turn to a mud pit while it rains. Lose a day or 2 waiting for it to dry up some. Once dry enough, lay down landscape fabric (go back to Lowes when you run out of landscape fabric) then lay out all your plants. Return to Lowes AGAIN when you realize that after laying out your plants you still have a big hole in the middle and need more shrubs.

Step 6: Start planting only to be sidetracked by your toddler talking on the baby monitor who has decided today is the day he's going to take his shortest nap of the week.

Step 7: Occupy said toddler with a snack while you continue planting.

Step 8: Find yourself 2 handsome gentlemen to get you some rock in their pick up truck.

Step 9: After shoveling in all the old and new rock, admire your front landscaping. Wow, looks great!!

Step 10: Clean all the shoes that got muddy during this project and set them on the deck to dry.

So there you have it. I'm officially declaring this the end of Landscape Redo 2009. Cause you know, I'm 6 months pregnant now so I can't dig holes with the same energy and finesse as usual - haha!

Hi Ho Hi Ho, It's Off To Paint We (went)

The other night I was granted a rare "get out of jail free" card and had an evening with my good friend Lynn and her daughter Tess. We went to the Painted Pot and made some fabulous pieces. I don't think I've painted pottery since I was in college and have forgotten how much fun it is. We sat, talked, laughed, and well, painted. Thank goodness for stencils though, because I think I speak for the group when I say we're not super creative when it comes to the artsy part of painting.

Here are our masterpieces all painted and ready to be fired in the kiln. Lynn made some coasters, Tess made a mug, and I did a plate. Oddly enough we all chose versions of blue for our backgrounds. Once fired the colors will be much darker.

When we finished I was worried that X might not be in bed yet so I decided to detour on my way home and get some chips and queso at Qdoba. Delish! I strolled in the house about 8:30pm (yes, I know, I stay out VERY late!) and Walter just laughed at me with my Qdoba bag because he knew exactly what I'd done (detoured to skip out on bedtime).

While I was out Walter and X had some father son bonding time. They went to a Parents as Teachers event at the park. X made me a cute little craft, he played with a parachute, climbed through some tunnels, and put in some time on the swings (so I was told).

It's Like Our Very Own Chuck E Cheese

Remember when I mentioned that I was going to do a ball pit in our basement? Well, guess what Xavier woke up from his nap the other day to find?? I clearly underestimated the size of the pool and will need to get more balls, but my neighbor gave us this first set because they had so many. X didn't seem to notice that the ball-to-space ratio wasn't exactly up to Chuck E Cheese standards. He was super excited to get in and try it out.

His favorite part was trying to see how many balls he could hold at one time. I think he was up to 4 but I only managed to get pictures of him holding 3.

I guess he decided some eye protection might be needed and grabbed Walter's sunglasses.

And, apparently the ball pit is a great spot to read a book??!!

I am so thankful for our finished basement. This monstrosity of primary colors never would have worked in our old house. It is great that we can have a few "larger" toys and I can still maintain some sense of decor in the main living areas. Don't get me wrong, there are toys in pretty much every room of the house, but swimming pools filled with plastic balls are banned to the basement. Hopefully this will provide lots of entertainment this winter when we won't be getting outside much!

ATL Trip

X and I recently took at trip to Atlanta for a few days to see my aunt, uncle, and cousin. My mom and brother went with us. Walter stayed home since he's saving his vacation time for when the baby comes.

We had a great time relaxing by the pool. There was an amazing children's museum that X loved! We went to Centennial Park and played in the fountains too. Thanks for all the hospitality Kunz's!

This is my first attempt at a slideshow -- hope it works! (turn your speakers on -- there's music too!)

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