First Day of Fall

... and its warm and humid today. :)

We had a lot of fun this past weekend. Daddy was out of town with a friend so it was just Pickle and Mommy. I relaxed my standards a little bit (okay a lot!!) and we ordered out for dinner Friday night. We had chicken fingers! Of course she liked it and also the cheese stick she shared with me. "Nyom, nyom, nyon" is the new sound she makes when she eats. So cute!

After dinner, we went to the park. Here are a few pictures...

Lets do it AGAIN!

Peek!

After the park it was time for a bath and then bedtime. Katen's favorit book right now is a book about Thumper the rabbit and how he hops though the woods chasing a butterfly. Each page has something texturized to touch. I used to have to point out where the patch was but now she finds it on her own. She's fascinated with the fur and the spongy grass. She also likes her 10 Ladybugs book. She likes rubbing the smooth ladybugs on the page. It's nice that she's finally at the age where she'll sit for a short book or two.

She's been sleeping better at night since about 8 mos so she was only up once and slept until 7:30am. Based on her cues we moved bedtime from 7pm to 8pm and it's really working well. She's eliminated her evening nap and now takes a snooze around 10am and 2 or 3pm. Then she's up until bedtime. Miss Pickle is way to adventurous to sleep much during the day so the night time sleep is especially important.

On Saturday Katen and I ran errands. She helped me shop for groceries and we picked up a massive baby gate to block the kitchen entry from the living room. Right now the living room and nursery are babyproofed so that's where the gates will hopefully keep her. If you've been to our house, you know that this area includes the stairs. Right now I'm not blocking them. She's great at climbing up and we're working on climbing back down. She does great climbing down if she's only up a few steps, but she has to think really hard and sometimes panics if she's up much higher. She's afraid to put her foot back down to the next step sometimes. I've let her climb and fall (into my arms) just so that she learns that stairs can be dangerous. I think that's gone a long way toward teaching her to be cautious. As a result I don't think the stairs are going to be a problem. She's fairly respectful of her current capabilities for the time being.

After running errands and a nap, Katen and I went outside to take some pictures. I don't know how many beautiful fall days there will be and I noticed there were some leaves on the ground that Katen might like. We don't go outside much because of her allergies, so leaves are totally new to her.

Here are some of the pictures I took...

And OOPS! She fell over and giggled!

Daddy came home after Katen was in bed Saturday night. On Sunday we cleaned and Katen laughed huge belly laughs and she and I mopped together. Every time I pushed the mop forward she'd laugh like it was the funniest thing in the world. Let me tell you, that makes mopping way more fun for both of us! She also "helped" me install the baby gate. I think it took twice as long as it should have with her "help" but hopefully she'll grow up knowing her way around a tool box. :)

...and now it's Monday again. Back to work and back to daycare. I'm going to pick her up early though because I miss her already. shhhhh...

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Biter Biscuit Recipe

I've had a lot of requests lately for my "Biter Biscuit" recipe so here it is. Yes, they look like turds but they taste like wholesome goodness.









Mix:
1C whole wheat flour
1C 100% Juice (I use cherry juicy juice)
1C Baby Cereal (I use oatmeal)
1/4C Chopped fruit or veggies (optional)

Roll them into sticks and make ridges with a fork for teething
OR use a cookie cutter to make shapes.

Bake at 350* for 30 minutes or more. You want them to be very dry and fairly hard.

You can also use your favorite fruit bread recipe and just bake it until it's hard. I just prefer not to introduce eggs, sugar, and salt until she's older.



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Daddy's Biggest Fans

Last night was a beautiful fall evening and excellent football weather. (Well, technically it's still summer but who's counting?) Temps were in the low 70's and there was just a hint of chill in the air. Katen and I packed up the diaper bag, complete with snacks, toys, extra socks, and a jacket and headed down to the local stadium to watch Daddy play football.





Pickle was content to sit for the first half of the first game. Then it was off to the races. I hesitated to let her play on the bleachers but clearly the kid had an itch to cheer for our team and who can deny her that? She even practiced playing center. Hut, hut, HIKE!

About the time the second game started (it was a double header - those poor men) all the fresh air and excitement wore our little cheer leader out and she dozed off in my arms after drinking a huge bottle. It was cozy holding my sleeping baby wrapped in a warm fleece blanket and I thought to myself that I should treasure that moment because she won't be little for very much longer. She's already growing at the speed of light.

That second game was pretty close and became heated at times. Near the end, a loud outburst from the players woke Katen but she made the best of it and charmed everyone with her sweet little smiles. I was worried that she'd give me a hard time once we got home, but she congratulated Daddy for a little while and then requested a little more bottle before she happily slipped back into dreamland for the night.

I feel especially lucky to be Mom on days like this.

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Just some funny pics

As promised...

Go Hawks!
Uh Mom, I'm nakey under here. Do you have to?



It's like the pens at the bank. You have to lock them down. (My solution to "throw it overboard symdrome."

Have your peeps call my peeps...
Wearing "sketti" on your nose is the "in" thing to do.







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Simplify - the grocery list

I've been trying to think of ways to streamline everyday activities to make them go faster. It seems that I have a lot I want to do in very little time and I hate it when the everyday stuff gets in the way of playtime with my pickle. (um... that didn't sound right, but you know what I mean.)

So far, I've come up with using a little electric shark vacuum to do the everyday carpet pickup. That cuts down on the time it takes me haul out the big vacuum and do the whole first floor. I also try to let the Roomba and Scuba do some of the quick and dirty cleaning. (dirty becasue they don't work all that spectacularly but get the job done nonetheless.)

Then when I had to run to the grocery store the other day I decided there had to be a better way to organize my grocery list. I knew I'd have Katen with me so when I wrote the list, I started with everything we needed. Then I went back and organized the list into areas of the grocery store. Otherwise I end up zig zagging all over the store for stuff because I didn't see it on the list farther down when I was in the area. The organization worked well and I had a happy baby shopping with me, but the method wasn't totally ideal. The process of making the list really took too long. I had to think about what was in each aisle and then run through the list to see what I needed from it. After some thinking, the solution I came up with is to create a rough layout of the grocery store with boxes that I can write grocery items in as we need them. I'll just print this out and post it on the fridge. Why didn't I think of that sooner?

Here's what it looks like...


Does anyone else have other good time saving ideas?

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Dinner with the pickle

I have some funny pictures to post when I get a free moment of pickle "experiencing" her spaghetti squash for the first time. I haven't met much of anything that she won't eat (Including a strong craving for cat food apparently) so I keep adding new foods to her plate.

Last Saturday when my mom watched her I think she was surprised that we had a full dinner menu all ready in little Gladware containers. That night it was Zucchini, Cheese crumbles, and fruit salad. I think its fun to make mini dinners and Kate the Great gets a nice variety of proteins and carbs in each meal that way.

Last night I was off the hook for making any dinner because we met a friend at a local restaurant. We hadn't seen her in quite some time and it was swo good to catch up. She doesn't have kids so I was wondering how she'd feel about us bringing a mini whirling dervish to the table, but our friend was a good sport and Katen was in a good mood and very happy to look around and snack on goldfish until our meals arrived. Once my plate was set in front of me though, she eyeballed the carrots, zucchini, and broccoli on my plate and even tried to make a swipe at them. The carrots were a little overcooked, so I shared all three veggies which kept her quiet for most of the dinner. The best part was when I let her taste the garlic mashed potatoes. She took one bite and then made her"I'm really excited about this" sound. Lets see if I can describe it. Imagine big wide eyes and a sound sort of like a dog panting only quicker. They were really good potatoes. That's for sure.

I didn't get to finish them though. Katen was being an excellent sport for not having her evening nap but it caught up with her toward the end of the dinner. She was rubbing her eyes and getting fussy so I took her outside to bounce a bit. She ended up falling asleep on the way home (90 minutes earlier than her regular bedtime) and slept for most of the night except for when I changed her clothes and diaper.

All in all, she's much easier to take out and about now. It's about time. :)

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