Birthday Fun

Erg. It's been forever. So much for keeping up with my blog. Consider it a new year's resolution that I will also ignor.

Here are just a few photos that I intended to post earlier this month.

Ivy turned 1 year old last month.  On the actual day over her birthday she decided she would start walking without any assistance.  She's moving like crazy.  We celebrated Thanksgiving at Jason's aunt's house and then had a quaint birthday bash for Jason and Ivy that weekend.  I prepared some sheep cupcakes, which Ivy seemed to enjoy.
"I love this weather!"

 "Grandpa, smell my sock."

 "Mmmm, pancakes."

 "Like my Thanksgiving outfit?"

 "You want me to do what?"

 "These cupcakes are like heaven."

 "I can't believe I ate the whole thing."

(I will have to get to the many Christmas moments that we captured at a later time.)

Halloween Weekend

(This has been drafted for almost 3 weeks, but I originally had problems uploading the pictures, so here goes.

I know that I've already revealed the costume I made Ivy, but I also wanted to share some of the photos from the actual Halloween weekend.  In standard celebration of the scariest of holidays, we carved some pumpkins, roasted some seeds, and gifted large quantities of chocolate out to our neighborhood children.

Popcorn!

I got an early birthday present from my parents which is a perfect addition to our recently constructed theater. We got it put together yesterday and made a ceremonious first batch of popcorn. It tasted great and it makes plenty!

You will note that this is my first post to the blog. Bess gave me permission to add to the blog. Hopefully I won't screw it up...

Ivy's First Halloween

Ivy can't quite walk yet (very close, though) and has very few teeth, so trick or treating is next to pointless this year, but Jason and I figured at the very worst, it may be an excuse for us to re-introduce ourselves to the neighbors.  That...and I really wanted an excuse to sew together a costume.

I am still looking for a little cow bell to attach to the body suit to finish the costume, but I couldn't keep myself from putting her in the outfit to take a picture.

Baby Dal

Ivy's been eating solids for awhile now and has started to become a more discriminating eater.  Where she used to eat anything that we put in front of her, she now will not eat without some form of cereal, crispy snack, or cracker in her hand.  This is true with one exception, baby dal. 

In my early research on feeding baby and making homemade baby food, I found a great book with some good guidance and some great recipes for infants and toddlers.  For those of you who have young ones (Monica, hopefully you can use this one), I highly recommend this recipe - if you like it, check out the referenced book from which I copied it.

Baby Dal
From Cooking for Baby by Lisa Barnes. It seemed like Ivy could sit and eat gallons of this at a sitting. Because we're always trying to use our CSA produce, we often used our carrots, any potato type, any onion type, and our Costco bought chicken broth [though, not low-sodium]. We froze it in a silicon brownie tray of 1-ounce squares and then vacuum-sealed them in 6-8 ounce portions for reheating later.
1/3 cup red lentils
12 baby carrots
3 small red potatoes
2 Tbsp green onions, chopped
2 cups low-sodium broth
¼ tsp curry powder
¼ tsp ground coriander
¼ tsp ground tumeric
¼ tsp ground cumin
Pick over lentils, discarding misshapen ones. Rinse and drain.
Finely chop carrots and potatoes.
In a saucepan over medium-high heat, combine all ingredients. Cover, reduce heat to medium, and simmer until vegetables are tender, about 20 minutes. Stir every 5 minutes and check to make sure stock is not all absorbed. Add more if necessary.
Depending on your baby's age and chewing ability, serve whole, mash with potato masher, or puree in a food processor, adding water as needed to make a coarse puree.

Philps Cinema

We were busy in early October constructing Jason's dream home theater.  Thanks in great part to the help from Jason's parents, the project, for all intents and purposes, is complete.  I keep urging my husband to create a blog post to show the improvements, as I am certain I cannot do it justice, but nothing so far.

Here is a picture of Ivy enjoying the new set up.  She looks a little distraught, but that's because she had been having a little trouble with reoccurant ear injections, new teeth, and, on this particular day, a severely high temperature due to a virus and bad sore throat.

Look for a future post and very likely an invitation to enjoy our new theater.

Uh-Oh

The payoff is at the end of the video...wait for it.


Below is also the first attempt to get her to say Uh-Oh, though she quickly became distracted by the picture of the little baby on the cell phone in front of her.

First Word?

Does 'uh-oh' count as a first word?  Yesterday Ivy copied me after she dropped one of her toys unexpectedly, saying 'uh-oh', very clearly mocking me.

She also has mastered putting her shapes into her shape toy.

Time Flies

Nine months in the womb and nine months outside and we're already at this stage.  Wow!  They (everyone) said it would go fast, but, man!, time sure does fly.

Please note (1) the nearly dead batteries with demonic Elmo singing 'Twinkle Twinkle' (2) the indiscernable phrase is 'hit a bit of a snag' and (3) the very Midwestern accent in parts ('Ok').

Aal Izz Well

Not sure if you've heard the newest fad - a new form of baby 'wearing.'  I figure people carry their dogs around in their purses, why not their babies?

No, but in all seriousness, the diaper bag we had was beginning to disintegrate - zippers broken, filled beyond capacity, etc.  We bought a new bag on recommendation from some friends.  I was, however, amazed at how comfortable she seemed to be while we were taking pictures though.

Oh, and Ivy is pulling herself up on everything now.  Pulling herself up, yes.  Capable of stable stance, no.  This picture was taken just before she took a header into the side of the crib.  Aal izz well (can anyone name that movie reference?).  Just a little bump, no bruises this time around, but I am completely aware that I will not be able to save her from bonking her head every time she tries.  Jason and I have already discussed how this is just the beginning of emotionally preparing for the bike falls, athletic injuries, driving lessons, etc.

And, mothers and fathers out there who noticed, yes we removed the mobile from her crib just after this picture was taken.  We also lowered her crib mattress to the next lower level.

All Smiles

As some of you know, Ivy is most often 'all smiles'.  Here she is during dinner while Jason attempts to entertain her - apparently, successfully. [Quality's not great and sun is shining in the background, but I think you get the idea.]

Homecoming

He's on his way home!

Ivy and I couldn't be more excited to have him back, and I'm sure he'll be happy to be able to see is 'Boogerface', as we like to call her.

Of course, we call her that only because it is fun to adapt a very recent popular song for our own uses - for those of you who don't know of which popular song to which I am referring, think Lady Gaga and 'Ba-ba-ba-boogerface, ba-ba-boogerface' - Mom, Dad, you can google it.

After my one week as a single parent, I have once again had insight into how blessed I am.

My husband, my daughter, my family, my friends, my job, my circumstances - What a beautiful chaos life is!

Or, as Ivy would put it, 'Pfffffooooooooot!'

My Little Princess

I thought today was going to be just another day, but Ivy has surprised me once again.

First, I walked into her room after her first nap of the day after listening to her talk to herself and play with her music maker.  I peaked into the room and found her in the following state.

I know what you're thinking - 'so what'.  But considering she has never been able to sit herself up from a laying down position, I found this to be photograph worthy.  This is a huge sign that we are in TROUBLE.  She was calmly sitting, facing the music maker (turned on by herself, of course), and screeching at the top of her lungs.

I had already planned to run to the store after her nap to buy baby proofing tools before this happened, but the timing could not have been better.  When we returned home and I place her in her walking exersaucer, she managed to pull down the trash can by the trash bag, chase the dog into a corner, try to pull my laptop power cord out of the wall, tear through the recycling box, yank a vertical blind out of the track, and pull out a pen from the catch-all drawer in the kitchen. Oh, and she managed to pull herself up to a standing position at the end of the couch without assistance.  Yikes, she's growing up fast.

By this time I was a little worried that she wouldn't survive until Jason's return, as I was obviously being a horrible parent.  Not really - I'm usually only a split second away once she gets into something, and I never let her get into any near danger.  But, seriously, Jason, I MISS YOU!!!

On another note, I knitted my niece a purple princess crown for her fourth birthday, which is coming up shortly.  I knitted it out of crepe paper - yes!  I said crepe paper.  I then embelished it with ribbon and buttons.  I really hope she likes it.

I even managed to get Ivy to model it for all of two seconds while I struggled to hold it on her head and flash the picture at the same time.

Bean Harvest

This year we planted three types of beans to be dried - Coco Rubico, Great Northern, and Jacob's Cattle.  Since Jason was out of town and I had a lot of lonely time after Ivy went to bed, I started harvesting the beans and emptying the shells. 

Here I've started emptying some of the shells.  shown here are only the Jacob's Cattle bean harvest.  I've only now started the Great Northern, and I'm letting the Coco Rubico continue to dry, as we recenlty had some rain.

 

Here is the harvest after all the pods have been emptied. 

And, finally, here is the harvest ready to use in a canister.

Six Year Anniversary

Today is Jason and my six year wedding anniversary, and we have so much to celebrate. I am, however, concurrently mourning his absence, as he had to travel to India for work today. I'm super bummed, but I know all will be well, and, when he returns, our family will only be stronger.

Our biggest reason to celebrate this year is obviously our beloved Ivy. Shown below helping Grandma with the camping dishes during our second camping trip this year.

 Not shown here - me.  I was sleeping inside the camper with a case of Hand, Foot and Mouth, which Ivy was so kind to share with me.  Such a generous, sweet babe.

Today, before Jason headed out, he insisted that we continue our yearly trip to the State Fair.  As some of you may know, the Wisconsin State Fair was included in our first date nine years ago.  We got to the fair first thing in the morning when it opened (which is the best time to go), and Ivy had the opportunity to taste her first cream puff.

Ivy must have been exhausted by the end of the morning.  She fell asleep in the car shortly after leaving the fair.  She was so tired, she fell asleep with her hand still attached to the car seat visor with which she was playing.

I am truly grateful for everything I am blessed enough to have.  I am the luckiest - in marriage, in motherhood, in family and friends, and in my health and well being.