Chalkboard Menu

I have completed my first (non-recipe) Pinterest project as well as my first project using my Silhouette Cameo.

It has solved a huge problem I had; remembering what I planned to make for dinner at the end of the week.  I always plan the menu for the week on Sunday night and then go grocery shopping on Monday.  By the time Thursday or Friday rolls around I have usually lost my list AND forgot what was on the menu.

I didn't have a beautiful armoire like the original one I attempted to mimic but I do have some pretty crafty friends.  One is really good at carpentry so I bought the materials (wood board and an open photo frame) and cut it all down to the size I wanted.

I am extremely satisfied by how it turned out and it is serving it's purpose extremely well!

Peaches

Q has several nicknames that we use interchangeably around here and I'm thinking that we may have to add one to the list - Peaches! 

I'm a fairly predictable person, I have a banana every morning with my breakfast but on this particular morning I was out of bananas so I pulled out 2 peaches instead.  I didn't plan on eating both but took out a second and cleaned it just in case Y decided she wanted one too.  Well sure enough I take one bite into the peach and Y asks for a bite of it and then asks for the whole peach.  It was no big deal, I was prepared for that happening.

As I began to eat the second peach I noticed that Q was staring at me, well actually she was staring at me eating the peach so I decided to put it to her lips so she could have a taste.  She proceeded to suck on it, I assume she was getting some of the juice from the peach.  After several seconds I took it back and began eating again and Q began staring again so I put it to her mouth again.  She again began to suck on it but then she just reached up and pulled it completely out of my hand - she was gumming my peach and would not let me have it back.  She sat in her chair for another half an hour eating my peach and would not give it back to me until she was done.  And at that point there was nothing left for mommy.

When I posted this photo on Facebook a friend pointed out that it looks like she's prepared to punch me if I tried to take the peach.  I hadn't noticed it previously but she might be on to something there.  Not sure if she would have punched me but she definitely would have thrown quite the fit.

First Taste (of Solids)

Yesterday, Q got her very first taste of solids. It was entertaining to say the least! She lapped it up and out of the spoon and then sort of dived towards the spoon to get the rest in. Check out the video below!

Waiting in anticipation for that first taste...

...almost there...

...the evidence that we were successful!

The First Gingerbread House

A few weeks ago Y started asking if she could build a gingerbread house, so finally last week I decided that we would do it...soon!  I just had to decide between buying one of the kits which range from $8-$10 or use graham crackers and make my own icing and buy all the candy.  Finally after considering it I figured that it'd be cheaper to buy the kit than spend the money on buying all different types of candy - especially since we only wanted to make one house.  So we decided that building the gingerbread house would be our FHE (Family Home Evening for my non-LDS readers) activity on Sunday.

Y was excited and so she rushed through dinner and the FHE lesson and was ready to build her house.  I did all the structural work and then we put on all the candy and icing.  As for the icing she told me what she wanted and where she wanted it and I went to work.  For the most part she stuck to the design of the picture which was on the box. 

Here are some pictures, I think it turned out pretty well!

I love that it comes with a tray with indentions for "structural support."  It was 100 times easier than building with graham crackers!

The hardest part of the whole thing was getting the tree and gingerbread boy to stand up straight...don't let the picture fool you, it was quite difficult!

Yep...her face is covered in sugar and icing.  I'm surprised we managed to get her in bed so easily.

The finished product

Aerial view

Peas = Candy

In case you didn't know or you weren't aware, Peas are candy.  Or at least such is the case in our household.  Now I totally realize that this will not always be the case but for right now, at least according to Y, Peas are candy.

I guess a little background is necessary for you to fully appreciate this.  When Y was first introduced to solids, she would eat pretty much anything.  As she transitioned from baby food into table food she became a fairly picky eater.  She still loved most fruit but meat and the majority of vegetables were a no go. 

Now we can get her to eat most forms of meat by calling it chicken.  Beef = Chicken.  Pork = Chicken.  Chicken = Chicken.  The only meat we haven't been able to convince her is chicken is ground beef and hot dogs (no big loss on that one though).

As for vegetables, it was always interesting.  She LOVES broccoli and asparagus, two vegetables that most kids want nothing to do with, she also loves to eat lettuce and tomato.  For the longest time we could not get her to even taste a green bean but in the past several months she has come to exclaim, "Mmmmm, Green Beans" whenever she sees them and will actually eat them.  I've never been successful at getting her to eat corn or peas no matter what and the only time we really eat peas is with the frozen Mixed vegetables.

Well for Thanksgiving dinner I made green beans, she loved them and ate them all up.  Well so did everyone else so the next day when it was time to have the leftovers we had to pull another vegetable from the freezer.  Mixed vegetables were chosen.  I knew Y wouldn't eat them but regardless it is always put on her plate.  So during dinner when Y declared she was all done, Nana B pointed out to her that she hadn't eaten her candy.  Y kinda looked at her plate with a perplexed look and could not figure out what Nana B was talking about.  So Nana B picked up a pea from her own plate and ate it, then went on to tell Y how good the candy was.  I didn't think in a million years that Y would fall for that...but she did!  And she ate about 5 peas before really being done.  I was convinced that she only ate 5 because she had come to her senses and realized that there was no way those green balls were candy.

Fast forward to today's dinner.  I made mixed veggies for the first time since that leftover Thanksgiving meal.  And upon placing Y's plate in front of her shes yells, "Green beans and caaannndyyyyy!"  I could not help myself, I started to laugh but I was still sure that she knew better.  Well after dinner I am not quite sure that she does know better because she picked through those veggies until she had eaten most every pea!  After seeing that I started referring to the corn as candy corn but she wasn't buying that one!  But at least she ate her peas!  So in the Fox household, at least for now, Peas = Candy!!!

Yep...She's Mine!

Y has done certain things throughout her life to assure me that she is definitely my child (look at her as an infant and you'll know why I say that, haha).  Ever since birth she has had this way of scrunching up her forehead and giving people this look like she's asking them, "what in the heck is wrong with you?"  Well ladies and gentlemen, that is the exact same expression I make when I am wondering, "what the heck is wrong with you?"  Now some would think that she just learned this from me, but I assure you this is not the case!  She was doing that her very first day on this earth, and I and everyone who was around me, knew that was my "look."

Now I've always had some fairly odd preferences when it comes to food, I can admit it.  I do not know another person who takes a flour tortilla out of the fridge and just eats it...plain and cold.  And yes, I prefer it that way!  Well last week, Y asks for a "lla" (ya, think tortiLLA) at lunch time.  So I open the fridge and take out the tortillas and cheese to make her a quesadilla.  I take out one tortilla and she immediately grabs it and just starts eating it...plain and cold.  I then realized that when she wants a quesadilla she says "dilla" and not just "lla".

When I was in elementary school...junior high...high school...college (you get the picture) I would come home and want a snack.  Well, my snack of choice was typically bread.  Yet again, plain old bread out of the loaf from the store.  My mom (and the rest of my family) thought it was weird but I didn't care...I LOVED bread.  Now I must say that I haven't done that in some years, so it's not like Y has been alive to see me eat it like that.  Now I typically only eat loaf bread with something like cheese or as part of a sandwich.  So on this particular day she asked for a "sammich" for lunch and I opened the bread to take a piece out and again, she immediately grabs it and just starts eating it like it's a delicious sandwich!  So yeah...she's definitely mine!

Like Mother, Like Daughter

Yesterday for dinner we had cheeseburgers and french fries. Well Y's mouth isn't exactly big enough to open and eat a cheeseburger so we made her a little hamburger and cut it up into small pieces with some french fries. She, for whatever reason, does not like to pick up her food, so I was feeding her the pieces of hamburger. Now I should say that french fries are my FAVORITE food, but I do not like them cold so I usually eat them first before the rest of the meal. Well after giving Y a few pieces of hamburger I decided to give her a french fry and after eating the fry I went to give her more hamburger, but she refused to eat it. So I gave her 2 more fries and then tried again with the hamburger, still no cigar. So I just figured she was tired of the hamburger and continued to feed her fries to her. Well once ALL the fries were gone she started to eat the hamburger again. I also thought it pretty funny that she wouldn't touch the hamburger again until both her fries AND my fries were gone. I guess she might look like her daddy but her taste buds are all mommy, haha! I guess what really matters is that she ate all of her food.

Peas Please

It's really late and I should be in bed but I've been meaning to write this post for a couple days now and have just never gotten around to it, so here I am! On Thursday, in an effort to get Y to sleep through the night again, I started feeding her 3 times a day - cereal twice and vegetables once. Upon her first taste of peas I got this really scary face:

I was not really convinced that she liked them at all but she kept opening her mouth for them and eventually ate about half of what I thought she would eat. The next day I tried again and she gobbled them up really fast! I've started to make my own baby food and I'm excited that I just got my new baby food cookbook in the mail. My other one is okay but extremely basic and didn't give as much info as I wanted so I bought "Super Baby Food" and although it's a lot more organic and natural than we tend to be I like a lot of the other stuff that's in the book so I'll just pick and choose what I want to do. I also just ordered the complete starter kit for Baby Signs and I'm excited to learn some of the sings so that I can begin to incorporate them when talking to Y. I'm certainly not going to use every single sign that they teach but will again pick and choose the ones that I want to use. This way Y and I can communicate before she can talk and will hopefully be a lot less stressful when figuring out what she is trying to tell me. Y is doing much better in her sitting up with and without the help of the boppy. On Sunday I took a few pictures (okay, I took a ton of pictures but I'll only share a few here) of her sitting up with her boppy. She is also doing much better with rolling over but is still struggling at times. She'll get there and I'm not really in a huge rush for it to happen. She goes back to the dermatologist on Thursday when we will find out what infection she had and then maybe can narrow down what caused it. For now though, here are some pictures!

Milestone

Yesterday Y had her 4 month Well Baby Visit and aside from a little head cold, all is well. She is 14 lbs, 3oz and is currently 26 inches long with a head circumference of 16 inches. She is strong, healthy and an amazingly happy baby. We love her more and more every day! Today she ate her first meal that wasn't from a breast or from a bottle! She actually had her first serving of rice cereal. I wasn't expecting her to take to it so quickly but she really surprised me. After the 3rd or 4th spoon she had it down and would even lean forward and open her mouth when she wanted more. She didn't eat much, but then again I didn't expect her to, and she topped it all off with some yummy breast milk. She also played with her exersaucer for the first time today and she really enjoyed it. She was mesmerized by all the toys and lights and sounds. I am sure she will be spending many, many hours playing in it. Maybe that will allow me to get some cleaning done. It really is her own personal amusement park. Anyway, here are some pictures from today.

A Relaxing Weekend with Family.

We had a very enjoyable weekend. B's family came on Friday and stayed with us until tonight (sunday). It was really nice to see them, especially since we haven't really seen them since Christmas. We were all able to relax and enjoy each others company and now my living room is so much cleaner! We are the PO Box for P (B's dad) and C (B's sister) and after a month and a half of not seeing them we had piles and piles of boxes. So it's nice to see my floor again! Other than that we spent Saturday laying around the house and doing a little shopping. We had a great dinner, a mixture of Chinese food, Mexican Food, and of course Pizza. We then went over to our friend's to borrow Transformers and we watched that the remainder of the night. We woke up to an ice storm and I'm actually grateful that we're back to going to church at 9am because they cancelled it due to the ice. However, a few hours later it warmed up and the ice turned to rain, so things are back to normal now. It was a nice change and we invited a family over to have some of the chicken noodle soup that I made, which was delicious I might add. So that was our weekend, hope yours was just as enjoyable!