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Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Hiiiiii!!!!!

We've become the super creepy parents that film every little milestone and speak in high pitched voices 24/7. 

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Part 2?

Part 2 of Whidbey adventure may never happen.  Apparently Rick and I are jack holes and cant figure out how to get the pictures from his phone to my email.  Technology really is grand isn't it?  We really need a good camera...sigh....

So part 2 will consist of something completely different...kind of. 

Island living. 

I always said to Rick that I would never in a million billion trillion years live on one.  When I first went to Friday Harbor with him I was in a state of culture shock.  To say my skin was crawling is an understatement.  How could these people be ok with being surrounded by water!?  Where are the skyscrapers and the people!?  Where's the traffic!? 

Rick would always tell me that I just didn't understand.  And I didn't.  But that was coming from the guy who spent a good chunk of his childhood sailing down to Mexico and then back up to San Juan Island...how could I understand!?

Then came the Joe.  And he has managed to totally transformed every single thought in my head.  My mom calls it "becoming a hippie," but I call it slowing down and breathing.  Taking a fresh look at life for what it actually is and evaluating it based on a whole new set of priorities.  For the first time in my entire life I want to escape the city and move to a tiny house with a lot of land, and have animals and a garden and live a slower kind of life.  I want to eat food that I grow myself, I want to be surrounded by nature and water and everything that comes along with that.  I want Joe to appreciate little things and love nature and adventure just like his daddy. 

After going to Whidbey for just 3 days, Rick and I were so full of life and excitement.  We got to sit on the couch and watch the bunnies hop across the field.  And there was this little brown mouse that kept popping its head up out of the bushes and eating the droppings from the bird feeder.  You could smell the sea and all the life living there. 

It was nothing short of amazing. 

I don't know what the future brings for me and my family.  But I can tell you a fire has been lit inside of me.  I am no good with blind leaps of faith, but that Rickster seems A-OK with them, so who knows what's in store for us. 



Monday, August 15, 2011

Whidbey Island Part 1

Joey's first hand picked apple 

 Fresh oysters!  These were SO good.



 Saturday morning Farmers Market.

Joey loves the Farmers Market!!




 Island life is tiring.



 Ty ty do do.

 This is the best salsa ever.  Super spicy, local and delicious.

 Always gotta have mimosas.






He carved R + S = Love






Nakie baby 



 Treasure!

Agates!!

Part 2 will have all the pictures from Rick's phone.  

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Foody things

Zuchinni!  With onions and tomatoes and super yummy!



Brussells!!  With garlic and lemon juice and a sprinkle of parmesan.


Portobello mushrooms stuffed with spinach, onions, tomatoes and hummus.
I have to admit I only ate one of these.  There was a consistency issue.

My first attempt at guacamole.  It was tasty!



These were supposed to be skinny jalapeno poppers.  They weren't that good.  But A for effort!

While this is not something we cooked, this is what Joe has been
eating lately!!  Yay for breastmilk!!

Learning

Our house has been in a constant state of learning lately.  Each new day brings a new discovery, some good, some bad.

Here's the skinny....

1.  Joe LOVES hummus.  Loves it.  Screams for it.  We have to eat it in secret so he doesn't see that we have it.  It makes me happy that the little guy loves something that is so so good for him, but it gets a little ridiculous when we don't want to share with him!  He gets everything, can't we just enjoy a little hummus in private?


2.  Joe can climb stairs.  This is always a shitty thing to learn because you only learn the hard way.  You never place your kid at the bottom of the stairs and wait to see if he climbs up them.  You find out by your kid actually falling down the stairs.  On his head most likely.  And shocker of the month, that's exactly what happened to us.  Right. On. His. Head.  Luckily Joe's head is pretty large and his skinny little body is fairly bendy and hard to hurt.  He was fine, I was not, gates are on order. 

3.  Rick is an ass.  This is not something new, but it was definitely reaffirmed after the stair incident.  I give him a play by play of the horrific situation and he goes on to tell me "Oh yeah, I didn't tell you, he totally did that last Saturday."  WTF!  First, HELLO don't you think its important to tell me our kid fell on his head?  AND don't you think its also important to tell me our kid can climb stairs!!?  Douche wagon. 

So then I go off about needing to get gates immediately and he's like "we don't need gates, we'll just teach Joey not to climb stairs."  Ohhhhhh, why didn't I think of that!?  He'll totally listen and never climb up another stair ever just because we told him not to.  ! 

4.  Phoebe and Joey are really good at sharing.  This good.....


I had no idea it had gone to this level.  Straight from doggy mouth to baby mouth.  Gross.  Its too cute to stop though.  I'm not too worried about it.  Germs for everyone. 

So there it is. 

I was also sitting in our recliner last night totally ignoring everything around me (its funny how you learn to tune things out when you have a kid) and I look down at something poking my butt and there is Joe standing trying to get the remote on my lap.  First thought was how the hell did you get here, second thought was kill me you are now standing and I didn't help you do it. 

Fun times!

Monday, August 8, 2011

9 month check

Joe is officially 9 months old!!  Woo hooo.  We celebrated this accomplishment with a trip to the pediatrician.  Lucky guy huh!?

I used to love Well Child exams.  It was a place where we could vent our concerns and where we would work together with a doctor, who I presumed to be pretty smart, to find a cure for Joey's issues.  But, now that we've figured out every doctor is a complete moron and nobody knows our child better than we do, these appointments are nothing more than a pain in the ass. 

During the course of our appointment we begrudgingly told Dr. Richter that we were weening Joe off formula all together and exploring other options like goat's milk and now donated breast milk because we know Joe has a dairy allergy.  He looked at us with this concerned expression like he still didn't believe it.  He was like "did you notice a difference right away?"  YES you ass.  "Was he better in a matter of hours or did it take longer?"  What!?  I didn't calculate how long it took for the squeak to get better, but you can hear him right?  He sounds better right?!  "Yeah"  Ok then!  We win, now shut up and leave us alone.  We agreed to disagree basically and he said he would do some research over the weekend on some other viable formula options that don't include dairy or soy.  What. Ever.

Besides that we learned that Joe is in the 97th percentile for height and 60th percentile for weight.  Dr. Richter exclaimed that Joe was picture perfect growth wise and was following a very lovely upward curve.  Good job Joe. 

When Dr. Richter was checking Joe's ears Joey started reaching in his pocket and ripping stuff out and then he tried to rip the buttons off his lab coat and eat them.  Dr. Richter said Joey was going to be an extremely active young man and that we need to start preparing ourselves now for constant interaction and distractions.  He said he rarely sees 9 month olds as alert and into everything as Joe is.  Again, I already knew that, thank you doctor.

I have a feeling we will not be following the Well Child exam schedule for much longer.  It is clear to me that my intuition about my child is way more advanced than what any doctor can spout off to me.  And, to be quite honest, Dr. Richter is losing his charm.  We get in the car and Rick says to me "Dr. Richter didn't look as handsome today did he," I said "no! he totally looked like he had a rough day!"  So if you're going to argue with me about what I already know about my baby AND not look handsome doing it, you're fired.

I will leave you with this....a gem of an outfit picked out by the one and only Rickapotomus. 

Friday, August 5, 2011

I'm a horrible videographer

These videos are dark.  But you get the idea. 

Enjoy.

This is how we scare the crap out of mom....



And this is Joey's version of the high five....

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Kitchen fun round 2

Our kitchen is still on a roll.

Here are our latest adventures....or I should say, MY latest adventures....


I made my first ever chicken in a Crock Pot.  There are potatoes on the bottom just to soak up all the fatty crap (I really threw them out after the chicken was done) and there are parsnips, carrots, onions and
garlic and obviously a little lemon.


 
I skinned the chicken and put it breast side down in the Crock Pot.  At first I thought that was a crazy suggestion, but NOT.  It made the breasts so much juicier.  And, as it would turn out, skinning a chicken is not that hard!




The chicken was delicious, but I fear it might be one of the last meat dishes I will make for a long long time.  I just purchased this book and it has some AMAZING recipes in it.  And most don't require the usual food dehydrator and Vitamix kabillion dollar blender.  I do still need a food processor though.


 

Anyway, I then boiled the carcass of the chicken and made my own chicken broth!!  I'm getting really good at this whole being awesome thing right!?  To make good use of the chicken broth I used it to cook my first round of baby bok choy!

Boiled in the broth with garlic and ginger and then simmered with a little bit of soy sauce, sesame oil (just a tad!) and sugar.  I also added in sliced almonds for a little bit more texture.  AMAZING.  Simply amazing.



 
Next I cooked some more quinoa.

I love how versatile quinoa is.  It can literally go in everything.  So I sauteed up some cherry tomatoes with onions and cilantro.  Added in some garbanzo beans (also very versatile and my new favorite bean), and we have a delicious meal.
 
Next up, I still want to make gazpacho and low cal jalapeno poppers.  Rick is pretty much in heaven with all this cooking and it is proving to be a really nice outlet for me.  I never in a million years would have imagined I would be cooking like this or this often.  But its fun and using these healthy and natural ingredients has me feeling a thousand times better than the last couple months.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Summer please stay forever

Another lovely summer weekend has come and gone.  And another weekend full of activities and progress for momma and baby. 

This weekend happened to be Rick's 25th birthday, yay for Rick.  It's starting to be a tradition in our house that if it's your special day, you are free from any and all baby duties.  Kinda sad that that's what brings us joy these days, but having an infant is rough and having a day or two where you can do some things for yourself and not lug a diaper bag around with you everywhere, is worth its weight in gold.  There is also that super awesome thing called sleeping in that occurs on your special weekend...ahhhhh can't wait for my birthday!

So, I packed up the kiddo and went and visited my grandma and grandpa.  It was a lovely visit.  A couple of my cousins just recently had babies as well so its always fun to get the low down from my grams on how the other babies are progressing and what they've been up to.  From what grandma said Joey is the largest (also one of the oldest) and the baldest. 

I then spent Saturday night with Kells and my momma.  My mom has been gone for what seems like 10 years, so it was good to finally see her in the flesh.  Only one more summer of softball mom and then I get her back for good!

Joey was a good boy for all of Saturday's activities.  I think I've told you before that he is always on his best behavior when we visit people.  He just saves the dickyness for us.  Sweet kid.

SO, progress has been made!  Joey's first tooth is finally all the way out.  Woooo Hooooo for progress and it looks like 2 more are not too far behind that first one. 

puffs! and green beans!

Also, Auntie Kells forced me to face my fear of Joey choking.  Joe is now an official Puff eater.  Big tear.  He loves them and did great, we had zero choking incidents!  It was time to do this, but I really did need that extra push from Kells to make it happen.  Now he is a super official solid food eater and we can put these things on his high chair and let him feed himself. 

half downward dog action
 Rick said he is growing up too fast.  I agree.

Walking is looming very close over our heads.  I couldn't quite capture the standing thing he is now doing, but you can see that one leg up and lifting himself.  He also puts his other one up and sorta does this downward dog/push up thing.  Then he just falls to the ground.  How is my baby old enough to be doing these things!?  Where did the time go!?  He was very recently a little blob that needed me to get everything for him and now he does all sorts of things for himself and gets into everything. 

Pretty much the best feeling on Earth
So in my hold on to every precious moment, cry myself to sleep about it, mommy craziness, I let the kid take a nap on me.  I am going to miss everything about this when he is too big and too old to fit in my arms.  I hope he loves me and lets me be a cuddly freak when he's older.  If he's anything like his dad, I might not have too much objection from him.  Fingers crossed.

Sunday was pretty much lounge around the house and be lazy day.  Rick was hungover so he got to sleep in for a while and I decided I would cook some things to take for lunch during the week.  I made stuffed zucchini and chicken stock from a chicken I roasted earlier in the week.  So our house smelled lovely. 

 
Hungover dance session

I am going to miss this summer.  Even though the weather hasn't been that great, its been lovely for me and my family.  Joe has come so far and we have done so many fun things.  Next summer should be just as fun, if not better. 


Just some dudes dancing away

Mmmmm stuffed zucchini!  So tasty!
I didn't hear Joe for a while and then looked down to see what he was doing and he had fallen asleep like this.  So cute.