Halloween!

We went to Mimi's work to show off the Sweet Pea! I failed to try the suit on even though we've had it for almost a month because it says up to 20 pounds. It does not list a height and Reese's toes were practically ripping through the bottom. So we just left the top button undone and I don't think you could really tell. Reese screamed when we put it on, but once we started walking around he settled into it.

Although, he does not look super enthused in the photo he did laugh and smile for the ladies. Here Mimi is holding him up for her coworkers to admire! At the end of the grueling trick or treating Reese was happy to get out of his suit and receive a fabulously cold can of Apple Juice from the ladies at Mimi's work. He also tasted KitKat which he grabbed and crammed into his mouth. Previously he only stuck out his tongue to lick things, but he is no longer so dainty. We did not take a photo of that though.

A Day of Firsts

Reese received his first Halloween card from Mimi and Poppop in the mail today. He spent a good bit of time tasting it after he was through checking it out.
Then he sat in the seat of the shopping cart for the first time ever!!! He has blankets under each arm to serve as an arm rest and keep him from slumping over since he is not yet an independent sitter. He seemed pretty happy to be able to see and not be strapped into his car seat. Wow look at all the stuff Wal-mart has! Actually I think he's really checking out his Dad.

He's very interested in Daddy's pumpkin spice latte! As long as he can put his mouth on the drink spout he is happy. I don't think he realizes that something actually comes out when Mommy and Daddy drink from a cup or a straw.
He's a cute shopping sensation! he flirted with all the worker ladies in the baby department!

Tasty Treats

Kyle called out from work today so we could deal with the ant problem, so we went to the Big Apple Diner after we bought our ant killing potions. Kyle ordered a chocolate milk shake which Reese was super interested in getting. Kyle finally gave him a taste and he acted like it was the best thing he ever tasted. Of course, then he wanted more and more and started demanding it loudly. So I thought I'd try to put a stop to the begging for grown up food by giving him a pickle. He licked it then grabbed it from me and shoved it in his mouth! Of course I did not have my camera, so when we got home I gave him a baby dill pickle to see if it was a fluke:

He thinks it's pretty yummy, so there!

The ants go marching on

I should have snapped a photo so you could see the craziness of it, but I freaked and sprayed and vacuumed before I thought about it. About 5 pm Kyle vacuumed the living room while Reese and I watched. He even moved the coffee table to vacuum between the coffee table and couch. Later I am sitting on the couch with the lights up reading my text book (Boo!Hiss!) drinking from a drink on the coffee table..all is well. Then 9:45 I reach for my drink and it is a horror movie amount of ants! On the coffee table! On the top, on the sides, on my notebook, on Kyle's laptop, on the mouse, on the remote control, down the side of the table to the carpet between it and the couch...not just a trail the whole carpet area is over run with them. The trail, rather a highway of ants, leads to the wood foot of the couch back to the lamp control (it's on the floor). They just came out of no where. Literally a few hours before there were NONE. Of course Reese woke up as soon as I finished spraying Raid and Kyle is at work. I hope the stench didn't warp his brain. I scrubbed my hands and fed him in our bedroom away from the raid smell, but apparently no where is safe so who is to say they aren't in the bedrooms too. FYI Pledge furniture polish spray killed the ants well. I was leery of raiding the wood so I tried that first and it killed them. If they return I will take a photo so you can really appreciate the invasion. No I can't possibly go to sleep because the ants might crawl on me...and I can't really watch tv because that's where they were laying in wait.....and it's stinks like raid. I wish there was a way to fumigate the house without any poisons getting on the surfaces we touch or lingering in the air we breathe. I want a magical poison that kills everything except the cats and the humans and that has no smell.

Our New Addition

Do you see how fabulously lovely it is? It's our new Dyson DC17 Animal...and we are in love! We've been married 19 months and this is the third vacuum we've purchased. It's ridiculous how crappy vacuums are these days. It's not like we bought the 29.99 special. We purchased 2 seemingly decent vacuums from wal-mart that went kaput very quickly. No suction. Sort of defeats the purpose of a vacuum. So we decided the next one we'd buy would be the Dyson since he says right on the commercial it was his life's mission to build a vacuum that did not lose suction. We were walking through Sears on the way to the car and on a whim I said let's follow a different path than we normally do...usually I like to walk by Land's End on our way to tools where we always park because you can ALWAYS get close to the door and no one else parks over there so our car is safe. Also parking by Sears puts you very near the food court, but no teenagers park near your vehicle like they do by the food court doors. Anyway we went past the vacuums and there it was in all it's glory on sale and we got a $100 gift card as a bonus....woo hoo!!!!!!!

And here is the latest photo of our cutie boy. He was playing on mommy's quilt with his toys. He seems to roll his way around or he pulls the blanket towards him bringing the toy with it. No attempt to crawl yet. Which really is fine because I don't want him going after the cat food or worse the litter box (yuck!) and we'll have to start closing the basement door again and the cats will be mad. They just LOVE the basement. I think because we kept it off limits until we got the floor done, about 8 months that they wanted desperately to check it out but we didn't let them. It's like a forbidden splendor to them. I guess I should get some photos of the cats.

So I'm having 11 people for Thanksgiving and I have enough silverware for 8. Any suggestions for finding cool silverware for cheap around here?

Visiting College!

Reese visited college for the first time. We went to parent's weekend at Travis' school, Whitworth University in Spokane, WA. We planned to be at Mimi's by 10am to leave for our drive to Spokane, but we had a big windstorm and Mimi and Poppop had no electricity since 2pm the day before. So, we decided noon would be better so Mimi had time to get her stuff together since the power returned overnight. As we were loading the car we suddenly had a huge hailstorm! This delayed us. So we finally got on the road at 1:30pm.....arrived at 8pm. We checked into the hotel. Set up Reese's playyard/portacrib and headed over to the college. We registered and picked up our free coffee mugs. Then we visited Travis' dorm. Here is Reese about 9:30pm...he's pooped.
It's way past his bedtime. The next photo is Travis sitting on his bed in his dorm. You can't quite see how messy it is, but I assure you it is.


Then we headed back to the hotel. The next morning we were not up in time to make the continental breakfast from the hotel or the school but Reese did have some playtime on the bed before we got going. We headed over to attend "class" but we couldn't find it. So after we hoofed around campus for about 30 minutes we decided to head to Starbucks and we visited a quilt store. I bought 2 patterns and some fabric. There are 3 other quilt stores in town. We'll check them out next time. Then we had lunch at the school dining hall. We headed back to the hotel so Reese could nap before the soccer game. he fell asleep about 20 minutes before we had to leave.

But I figured I didn't want to drive 6 1/2 hours and then miss Travis play so we packed up and went to the game. As we walked from the car to the field the DOWNPOUR started. And I mean a super downpour. And Travis didn't play. So then we had to go back to the hotel to change into dry clothes and we headed to Moon's Mongolian Grill. Very yummy and Reese sat in a highchair for the first time ever! No photo...oops. We hit the baby's r us and the sports authority and then back to the hotel.
The next morning we checked out at 11 am. Reese wanted to be held but the playyard gave me trouble and we were still trying to dry out all our blankets from yesterday's game . So we were a little frazzled. Then off to the school for brunch and shopping in the book store.

We headed to Target to fill the gap until the Sunday soccer game.
Then we went to the game with no rain! woo hoo! and Travis got to play. Reese was pretty well behaved though he slept through Travis' play time. We won both Sat and Sun games. Then after the game we went to quizno's for a quick bite before we got on the road. Reese slept most of the way home so we made much better time. Daddy met us at Mimi's about midnight to go home. Monday Reese slept most of the day, staying awake no more than about an hour at a time. Then he went to bed at 9pm and slept straight through until 7am!!!! Again he napped a lot today but about 7pm he got real cranky. He's fussing again so I better go.

Cooking with Purees

While I hope Reese does not become a picky eater I still thought Deceptively Delicious seemed like a good idea. So I bought Jessica Seinfeld's cookbook about hiding vegetables in your food and a cool new food processor. Kyle and I like veggies but we still don't eat enough so I figure it could be a good thing. Her book is all about hiding pureed fruits and veggies in your food. She, of course, offers recipes to help you on your way. I have also just recently subscribed to Taste of Home magazine and the latest issue had these cute "trick or treat turnovers" that I wanted to make so I combined the 2 and doctored up the magazines recipe. I used ground turkey instead of the recommended beef and added Worcestershire sauce to "beef" it up, diced onion, 1/4 cup plus a big squirt of mustard (i mixed regular yellow and spicy brown), couple handfuls of shredded mozzarella cheese and CARROT PUREE!! Then you roll out a jumbo pillsbury flaky biscuit, add the meat mixture, then cover with another rolled out biscuit with a jack-o-lantern face cut out. Cook at 350 for about 12 minutes. This is what they looked like. You can just pick them up and eat with your hands like an enclosed sandwich and I served a veggie on the side. Super cute and yummy. And the carrot was not detectable except for the bit of color it added to the turkey...I bet you wouldn't notice with beef.

8 month old Birthday!

Reese's birthday started with peaches and rice cereal for breakfast followed by a good gum brushing...preparing for teeth.

Then on to the bath - he totally loves it now and he even cooperates during the dry off process.

We tried out the sippy cup for the first time and he successfully drank about an ounce from it before he grew weary of it and demanded his bottle.



We also tried a baby snack mums that all the mommies group babies love. Reese grabs at our food and licks it so I thought he'd appreciate a snack he can hold in his hand and actually get to keep. It broke off a big chunk which stuck to his gums and immediately after the photo he screamed horribly. So it either scared him or it tasted bad, I guess. We'll try again another day.


Reesie played with Daddy while Mommy cooked and then snuggled with Mommy.

book club

Sunday was book club day. This was my second month. Unfortunately I did not finish yet. Reese's teething has sucked up a lot of time I would normally use to do my stuff (clean, read, watch tv.......okay mostly watch tv). But it was a good book: A Long Way Gone. We met at a fabulous bakery in Port Orchard. I over dosed on sugar, but I did decide on cake for Reese's first birthday! Here we are raiding the donut case at the close of business...Wendy, Anya, me, Keri.
And here we all are: me, Matthew and Amy in front. Xena, Wendy, Anya, Tess, Keri, Rachel (standing) and Bridgett (on arm rest).

On October 4 Reese had on such a cute outfit we had to take some photos. He loves to practice standing up. He was also pretty excited about the cool truck patch on his knee that he was enthralled with.

PIZZA

We are now in the swing of Kyle working 12 hour shifts. It's quite annoying that he has to drive to Bangor instead of walking to PSNS. Not only does it deprive Reese and I of a vehicle but it really adds a lot of time to the day. AND since they have a meeting today the night guys have to go in early so the day people can leave on time. I think they should split the difference. So that leaves time to eat, shower and leave essentially. SO in my wonderful wifeyness I decided to make homemade pizza for my honey. Homemade with yeast! It's actually pretty simple. You just have to plan ahead so your dough has time to rise. Unfortunately Reese got a bit cranky during the kneading process so he got dough in his hair. But they turned out great! I made one with fresh baby portabella mushrooms and one with pepperoni.

Reesie is grabbing Daddy's cheese and shoving it in! But we didn't let him eat it because of the no dairy rule. I think he's ready to move on from his baby foods. We have had 2 days of carrots. I'm wondering how strict is the 4 days of a food to check for allergies. He hasn't had any problems yet and he really likes eating. I want to try something new every 2 days. We have green beans and bananas and pears to get to!