Happy Valentine's Day!

We are sending lots of love to everyone we can't personally hug & kiss today!

Saturdays are pancake day in our house. It's a tradition that I had growing up and soon after Larson was old enough to eat pancakes (and I wasn't working almost every Saturday!) I started making them in my own house. We make them from scratch, with buttermilk and real maple syrup and they are so good. Larson likes to help, too, and almost has the recipe memorized. He can measure and whisk like nobody's business! Today, I decided to try being a little crafty and make heart-shaped pancakes for Valentine's Day. I'd say I did a pretty good job without one of those fancy pancake molds:

Here's the end result (note to self: there's a reason why food magazines put garnishes on the plates - looks a little bland with just the food, huh?):

The activity for the afternoon is making Red Velvet cake with cream cheese frosting and lots of sprinkles! Here's hoping that I don't spill the powdered sugar all over the place like I did the last time I made cake frosting...

++ 6 months ++

So here we are. 6 months already - that's 0.5 of the first year! It's gone by so fast, yet at the same time none of us can really remember our family without Cora. Larson still has a few moments here and there when he probably wishes he had mom and dad to himself again, but overall he's been doing fabulous and dotes on her with hugs and kisses just like the rest of us.

Over the past 2 months, since I last updated, Cora has been joining us at the dinner table almost every night, sitting up like a big girl in the high chair. We've only just started solids and that's going pretty slowly at the moment, but she still likes being part of the action. Right around the 5 1/2 month mark she started rolling both ways, reminding both mom and dad that we can no longer just set her down anywhere!

Still very vocal and lots of smiles for everyone. No teeth yet, which is just fine (Larson had 2 by now!) and beginning to reach her maximum chubby quotient. Stripped down, she pretty much looks like a lady right out of a Rubens painting - I love it!

She has also graduated from the car seat for stoller riding and has been out a few times in BOB, enjoying looking at more than just the cloudy sky. She'll have to start duking it out with Larson for the next Street Scramble! (or, better yet, maybe we could just get L to starting pedaling his trike on a consistent basis...)

So, as I said: loves being at the table, not so sure about the food being eaten there. We mixed up the ol' rice cereal this past weekend and it did not get rave reviews. (after seeing it again, though, I'm not sure I blame her - the dry stuff looks like soap flakes!) No big rush, though, we'll just keep trying every few days or so."Hmmmm...maybe I'll just chew on the bib today..."

True to the fact that things usually just work themselves out, she's been sleeping great for a while now. She reliably takes one morning and one afternoon nap, sometimes a quick second one, then sleeps at night from 7pm to 7am with one night feeding, which is just fine with me. Hope you enjoy the photos!

Swaddle weaning

Both of our kids were swaddled as newborns and happy to sleep that way for several months. We were running into difficulties recently with Cora, though, because as she grew, it became more and more of a challenge to keep her in there. We initially thought that maybe she was just ready to be done and to sleep unfettered but a trial of that soon proved us wrong: lots of crying, flailing arms and frustration because she could remove the pacifier, but didn't yet know how to get it back in. But using our commercial swaddle blanket was just getting to be too ridiculous (we were actually using safety pins because the velcro wouldn't stay put - not exactly the best choice, n'est-ce pas?). So...with the help of my sewing machine, I made the little contraption you see below (Brett refers to it as her straight-jacket):

I just took one of those long-sleeve sleep sack things and basically sewed the arms closed, then cut them off. It worked like a charm! She's able to move her arms around inside, but can't get them up and out of the top. Not to mention it takes about 1/10 the time to put her in it.

So for anyone else out there transitioning out of the swaddle, here's a pretty easy solution to make things a little easier!

All by myself

How precious is this? This is what I found playing diligently in the sandbox when I picked him up from school yesterday. You might not be able to tell, but the shoes are on the wrong feet, the hat and the pants are backwards and the jacket is upside down. 3 year old self-sufficiency. Love it.

Happy 2009!

Happy New Year, everyone! We are looking forward to a 2009 as full of laughter, joy, and good times with friends and family as our 2008. I'm not typically one for resolutions, but here are a few, just for fun:

Cora: I will learn to sleep through the night and put my pacifier back in all by myself. Oh! and get mobile so that I can get into my brother's toys as much as possible.

Larson: I will happily use the potty at every opportunity and I will learn to pedal my trike all by myself.

Brett: I will put in a stone patio for my wife in our front yard (wait...did I just say that out loud? ;) and pass my FAA ground school class (then commence persuading my wife to send me to pilot school -- a trade for the patio maybe???)...plus probably complete a few half-marathons and street scrambles here and there.

Susan: hmmm...I will become proficient at baking my own bread, learn how to sew something that can actually be worn in public by someone in my family (probably a someone under 4 feet tall) and enjoy all the precious time I have with our two little ones as I watch them grow up (sorry for that last sentimental one, but motherhood does tend to do that to a person). Which reminds me that I will also blog regularly with oodles of cute pictures for your viewing pleasure!

Christmas Festivities, Part 2

A visit from Nana & Bompa just after Christmas! Larson was very excited to unwrap a green tractor (which he has termed a "dumper" because the container part tips up like a dump truck) and everyone else's gifts as well. Remember when the act of tearing off the paper just to see what could be inside was the highlight? We were a little housebound for a few days, but still had fun and managed not to completely go crazy. My dad and Brett made the requisite trips to various home improvement stores and my mom and I actually purchased fabric and sewed curtains for the kid's room all in one day! They are pretty simple, but the only other sewing project I've successfully done is hem pants, so I was excited. I will post a photo when they have been hung (we didn't quite get that far...).

Here is Cora modeling a hat my sister knit for her. She says, "I love it! Thanks very much and now will you please take me outside?"

By the time the visit was over, the snow was all melted and already a memory. Thanks for making the long trip out!

Christmas Festivities, Part 1

For the first time in 4 years, I had the luxury of a real vacation at Christmas this year and it was so nice! After entertaining some thoughts of attempting to travel across the country for the holidays, we chose in favor of staying home and, after dealing with the weather we received as an early Christmas present and hearing about all the travel nightmares, are we sure glad we did! Things were relatively quiet around our house, and the table was only set for 3, but it was a peaceful and happy holiday.

Santa did arrive at our house, but all the other presents under the tree also made their appearance on Christmas Eve (definitely some good advice I received from my friend, Melissa!), so I think it was all a little overwhelming for Larson when he first came down the stairs in the morning. We had to put the Santa gifts practically in front of his nose before he realized there were more presents.

I had a lot of fun cooking for the holiday and managed, for Christmas dinner, to successfully bake, roll and frost (ganache, actually :) a yule log. It was made with a lot of chocolate and oh! so delicious...

Also on the menu was a ham with an orange/cinnamon/maple syrup glaze (never baked a ham before either...), mashed potatoes with some properly stored spuds from our CSA, and a salad just the way I like it: greens with plenty of cheese, fruit and nuts. Not too fancy, but with only two adults eating the food, I didn't want to be eating leftovers for a month.

Here is Larson showing off two of his favorite presents: a digger and Diesel 10 from Grandma and Grandpa. And a demonstration of how the turntable works. Check out all the snow outside!

We did actually make it to church on Christmas Eve for a very lovely service that was more crowded than I expected, given the weather. Larson was very impressed by the presence of a harp in the sanctuary and proudly named off all the instruments he could identify. Then he spent a good part of the hour happily stuffing Christmas greenery into the barrel of his cement mixer truck. I was happy that he at least chose a quiet activity.

Santa brought a Playmobil farm for Larson, who had fun watching me put it together and seeing how all the little parts worked. He got a tractor and extra farm "stuff" from Nana & Bompa and has declared that he now wants his own saw so the he can cut things. We'll see about that one...

Cora in her candy-cane stripes enjoying the day and having more stuff available for chewing and grabbing: