Good bye Garden!

As some of you know, I planted a small garden this year. Chris built me a garden bed for my mother's day present and I grew lots of cherry tomatoes. 

The tomato plants finally died this weekend, so Chris dismantled the fencing and pulled out the plants. 

I will miss gazpacho this winter!

Brunch at Niche

As many of you already know, Niche is one of me and Chris's favorite restaurants. After all, we had our wedding dinner there, baby shower, date nights, you name it. We couldn't wait to be able to share it with Ethan. 

Here are some pictures from a brunch we had there this past weekend. Ethan ate a little bit of everything. He even broke his very first dish! He did try making up for it by flirting with the waitress...what can I say, the boy uses his good looks to get out of trouble!

patiently waiting for food

chipmunk cheeking crackers

egg in hair

big mess - crumbs + broken creme brulee dish

Look out world - Ethan can drive!

This will be a short post, but it is a cute picture, so had to share :)


We went to Geneva Commons today with Aunt Jen, Uncle Michael and baby Cam. While we were waiting for Cam to finish his lunch, Ethan lost patience and decided to drive home. Well, he tried. Driving privileges were revoked when he tried to start honking!

Don't you just love how the 12m pants are so saggy that his diaper is hanging out?

3 Posts in 1 - Milk, Ice Cream and Ponies

This post is probably going to be long, but I tell myself I'm too lazy to do 3 separate blog posts in one day :)


Post #1
We decided today to give Ethan some whole milk for the very first time. At first he was quite excited to get a bottle, but confused because he never gets a bottle at home, especially from me!

He took maybe one or two tentative sips, but quickly lost interest as he realized it was not mommy milk in there! He proceeded to fling the bottle around, spraying drops of milk everywhere, at which point I took over and tried to get him to take the bottle. There was crying, struggling, covering his mouth, batting the bottle away, hitting the bottle - after 10 looooooonnnnnnngggggg minutes of this, I gave up and breastfed him. He was okay with mixing the whole milk into his cereal, but when it's milk for the sake of milk time, only mommy's best will do ;)


Side note - we did give him a little bit of soymilk in a sippy cup and he was a little more interested in that, but only by a few sips.


Post #2
Generally we try to feed Ethan healthy, mostly homemade foods - none of the crappy toddler meals that they sell. Ethan is a very good eater - lots of fruit, veggies, nothing has to be dumbed down for him - he'll even happily eat things with large amounts of hot sauce! 


Anyways, one of Chris and I's favorite places in Geneva is Graham's - known for great chocolates and great ice cream. We got one big scoop to share, and as you can see below, Ethan was quite happy when it was his turn to have a bite!

Today's flavor was chocolate! Can't wait until he's a little bit older and can share mommy's personal favorite - chocolate peanut butter cookie dough :)


Post #3
So continuing the downtown Geneva adventure...


Today was the Festival of the Vine - not really sure why  Geneva has this festival since last I checked, Geneva really isn't located in wine country...but it was an excuse to go and look around, etc, etc.


While we were eating our ice cream outside Graham's, I happened to look across the street and noticed there were pony rides. I told Chris that I wanted to go see how much the rides were, and if they weren't too expensive (we only had about $4 in cash between the 2 of us), get Ethan a pony ride :) Happily the pony ride was free, so we waited our turn in line, and plopped Ethan's adorable little butt on a pony.

He mostly liked it, except the end, where he started whining a little and the pony ride guy kept saying "one more round", but we kept walking and walking...


He really did like it after I took him off the pony and he got to pet it :) 


And that concludes our very exciting day!

Ethan is a BFDMB (big fat damn mama's boy)

So yes I know Ethan is not really big. Or fat. But as his parents, Chris and I reserve the right to call our child fat whenever we want :)

He is very spoiled, well-loved (overloved as we like to call it), but yet manages to remain very sweet natured and sharing. He will very happily share cheerios, blueberries, strawberries and even puzzles pieces with you! He loves going to Chris with his animal books (daddies are just better at making fun sound effects than mommies!) and comes to me because he knows who he can manipulate. And how can I resist when he very wisely chose to say "mama" as his first word.

There are some things that Ethan goes to Chris for, but there are just certain things that only I can do for my precious sunshine boy - namely breastfeeding. It's good for him (convinced the full time nursing/getting breastmilk in bottles has kept him healthy) and for me (it really does keep the pounds off). And it's free! 

Anyways...Ethan has been associating the boppy (nursing pillow) with milk now, so when it's not time for milk, it's hidden in the dryer (gotta be out of sight!). If it's not, he will pick it up and take it to wherever I am...

You can all guess what happened next...what Ethan wants, Ethan usually gets :)

Ethan + Spaghetti = MESSY BABY!

Anyone who knows me knows that I love to cook. I'm always on the lookout for new recipes, interesting ideas, anything to make food interesting. I've been going through a comfort/old-fashioned food kind of craving lately, so I thought of my friend Erica who always spoke fondly of her mom's spaghetti. She kindly shared the recipe, which turned out to be her Grandma's recipe. I made it a little bit early in the day so that I could share some with Ethan for his evening solid.

Usually when I give Ethan solids, somebody feeds him as his mastery of utensils is quite lacking or finger foods are dry items, like cheerios, crackers or something easy for a baby with big fat fingers (well no, not really fat, but that's another topic for another time).

Being a proper parent, I wanted a messy baby, so plopped some spaghetti on the tray and he went at it.

He largely just played with the spaghetti - I think the shape just confused him. I ended up having to feed him the spaghetti, but in the end, most of it ended up in his tummy :)

Poor sunshine knows he's getting a bath!

Thank you Erica - we loved the spaghetti :)