Merry Christmas To All...

And to all a good night!

happy birthday dear Henry...

happy birthday to you!

and then there were two

Teeth I mean...
And numbers 3 and 4 will be arriving shortly.

struggles of a 10 month old

Hank has been sick and teething for the last week and a half. Fun combination. Progress has been made though. As you can see (maybe) in the photo below... That tiny little white spot in his mouth is a tooth! We were a little worried that he might not get teeth ever(?)... And I'd be pureeing foods for him the rest of his life. But here's the photographic evidence...

Mr. Independent

Before...

After...

Sir is no longer happy being fed. Sir would prefer to feed himself, thank you very much!

my poor, neglected house

This is what my living room window and ceiling fan used to look like.
Yes, a 90's white speckled (!) fan and dirty vertical blind.
They are no more!

New window treatments!

And a gorgeous new fan... With a light!

I need to thank my husband for breaking the old fan... Without him busting it, trying unsuccessfully to fix it, and then installing the new one we would still be stuck in the 90's.

The window treatments are my (early) birthday gift to myself. I'm turning 30 in a little more than a month, and I have the urge to have a more grown-up, finished looking home. I was also guided by this at Young House Love. Their whole house is very well done. My window was done with stuff from Target, rather than Ikea, but the blinds are from Wal-Mart as well.

Unfortunately I can't show a picture of the living room as a whole, because it looks like Fisher-Price threw up in here, but just imagine calm, tranquil, "adult." That's what I try to do as I trip over 9,000 colorful blocks and noise-making toys. Love ya Hank!

more shameless adorable baby promotion!

beautiful day

looking back

kind of creepy, no?

8 months old

Too tired for pictures :)

the evidence

the one where I talk about hair

I have never been one to care a whole lot about my hair. That's probably been pretty obvious to most people who know me. I have fine, thin-ish hair. It never does what I want it to do. So when I was pregnant it got a little thicker, and that seemed great. And then about 3 months after I had this adorable child it started to fall out. And I don't just mean shedding, it fell OUT. In clumps. And ropes, and piles, and plugged the drain. And then it stopped. But I was left with an Itty-Bitty pony-tail, and little baby hairs growing in all over the place. Great story, huh? You can see that here.
So the moral of this post is that now it is gone. I got it all evened up tonight. So my hair is CRAZY short. Shorter than I've ever had. I'm a little shell-shocked about it. I was going to try to post a picture, but I don't even think I can take one tonight... But I wanted to mention it, because some day I will look back on this and think boy, was I brave. And here's the evidence.
(I will put up a picture here at some point.)

good light

In our hotel in Steven's Point. We're all here for Eric's sister's wedding.

7 months old

I just have to point out here, that my son seems to have lost his wrists. If you've seen them, let us know. I think his forearms may have gobbled them up...


Doesn't really seem to mind though, does he?

we're in trouble

This is The Little sitting up. He is also rolling to and fro across the floor, and roll/scooting back and forth to reach things. Cute? Yes. Frightening? Totally.

cooking for three

I've been making a bunch of food for the little one lately. He's a pretty adventurous eater. The only thing he has flat-out refused so far is banana. I've made carrots, peas, green beans, acorn and butternut squash, sweet potatoes and pears. Hank has also had rice cereal, oatmeal, peaches, prunes and apples. And of course bananas! It's been pretty fun making things for him, but I've been neglecting the adults in the house. I realized last night when I was making dinner that the only vegetables I had in the house were pureed! Oh well, at least one of us is getting his veggies...

adventures in baby food

Apples here. Obviously not a fan. Trying carrots tomorrow. Perhaps he'll be more of a veggie kind of guy...
I on the other hand made these today. Delish. I put in dried sour cherries, chocolate chips (!) and rice krispies. Not exactly the healthiest granola bar, but yum nonetheless.

happy half birthday dear Henry...

happy half birthday to you!

green grass, bare feet

napping and a to-do list

They're even cuter when they are sleeping. And quiet. Yes, both of them :)

So what's to-do?

Going garage sale-ing (sp?) tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow. Crazy people in this town start their sales on Wednesday. Crazy.
Debating whether to put new carpet in our living room. The stuff we have is pretty nasty. Stained and not super soft. Would be nice to have new stuff for H to crawl on.
Dreaming about organization. I cleaned out my closet this past weekend and took 3 gigundo garbage bags of clothes to goodwill today. Yikes. I need to go through the rest of the house and do some more de-cluttering. Little fingers will soon be grabbing everything. And putting said things in mouth.
Figuring out how to/where to put baby gates in our crazy little tri-level. Not easy. Or cheap.
Trying to talk my husband into painting our common areas this color. And having him do the painting. Ha! I'll keep working on that one...

flashes of a child

I think I can sometimes see what this baby is going to look like as he grows... So serious, a little more adult here. Nose is a little less baby-like. Gah. Crazy to think that soon he will eat. And move. And walk. And run. And talk.
A little man. My little man.

Plan To Eat

I enjoy cooking. Don't get me wrong. But I so easily get stuck in a rut, cooking the same 4 or 5 things over and over. And yet I read food blogs, and watch tons of cooking shows, and own many cookbooks, and get cooking magazines (you get the picture)... And I still cook the same 4 or 5 things. The shame!

So I went looking for a tool to help me break out of the rut. And found Plan To Eat. It's a cool service that lets you upload or import recipes from your computer or straight from many websites. So now, instead of cluttering up my bookmarks with a zillion recipes that I never get around to trying I can put them all in one spot. And then plan a menu for a week, or month, or however long I want, complete with an ingredient/grocery list! Fantastic. It's really a pretty cool service, and the online support is really good too. Love when I find something that makes life a little easier!

chai concentrate

Yum.

via angry chicken

what we've been up to

Eric

All motorcycles. All the time...

Hank

Rolling over, finding his feet, tons of drool...

Me

Taking the pictures...

and loving my boys ♥

I just can't get over these blue eyes!

4 months old

Jesus Christ.
At least it's not 4 years, I guess.

not low fat.

Meatloaf wrapped in bacon. From the kitchn. Delicious.

I've been trying to make dinner more often. Now I just need to make some healthier ones. I've done a bunch of recipes from The Pioneer Woman lately... And they are terribly bad for you. But terribly delicious. Terrible conundrum!

new wheels/is it spring yet??

Debating whether to bundle up this boy and try out the new wheels. It's a Chicco Liteway stroller, and it's going to live in my trunk when the weather improves. We're dreaming about outings to oh, anywhere!

for valentine's day!

my loves...

the nursery

I finally took a few pictures. You can find them here.

3 months old

ever get the feeling there's someone looking over your shoulder?

finalist!

check this out...
Recognize anyone?

I fully expect to get the least amount of votes, but *wink* I'm just happy to be nominated!

just saying hi

There's a contest going on over here, so I decided to try to snap a couple shots of the two of us. This is actually kind of a big deal for me...

These are the first pictures of me with the baby. I guess I've been feeling pretty blah about everything (myself included). Kind of post-partumish I imagine. But that is not an excuse to hide away in the background... I am soon going to be forced out of this little bubble I've put myself in. Going back to work on Friday. But I think it will be OK. I need to get out and breathe some fresh air. And I imagine Hank does too.

Just wish it didn't have to break my heart in the process...

enamored

more blue eyes

with dad

new camera

Inspired by all those taking excellent pictures on the interweb (including my sister-in-law), I finally got a "real" camera. It's used, from Craigslist, but it's new to me! Now I just need to figure out how to take some of those excellent pictures myself...


(and I should try to remember to wipe the milk off his face before I take well-focused pictures!)

rough week

Sheesh.
First day of daycare. Check.
First shots. Check.
And one baby that Will. Not. Stop. Crying. Check!

Can I get a break, please?

another one bites the dust...

Month 2 has come and gone. Sigh.
I don't know whether to be relieved or sad.
Maybe that's parenthood in a nutshell?

Seems like all I ever do is post pictures of a certain baby...



Sorry, I just can't resist!