Hazel's First Foods

 

I've got a few blog posts to catch up on here before the end of the year and printing my annual book! We recently started feeding Hazel her first baby food...and let me tell ya, she loves it!  Except for the peas, those, not so much.  We started slow with baby oatmeal but it didn't take us long to move through all of the stage 1 foods.  The above picture is one of her very first bites of food...those eyebrows, they slay me! 

At first there was a lot of spitting and very little swallowing, but it didn't take her long to catch on at all!  Now, about 2 weeks after starting she's gulping down baby food like it's her job!  This kid goes through three jars a day.  It seems like a lot to me but I honestly can't remember how much Abby ate at this stage.  

 

After the oatmeal we tried Apples (above), mostly because it was the only jar of baby food I had in the house.  I hadn't technically planned on starting her that week but one night I forgot to leave some milk unfrozen to mix with the oatmeal so I grabbed a jar of apples and figured we'd give it a shot.  She thought it was super sour but she loved that too.

After the experiment with apples I went out and stocked up so we had some choices.  We went for the veggies first since it's hard to get them to eat veggies after they've had that taste of sweet fruit.  We did peas first, which she gaged on but finished...then did sweet potatoes and carrots next followed by the remaining veggies and onto fruit.  We've had them all now (even prunes) and she's loving it!

It's big moments like these that remind me how fast time flies and how quickly these babies change.  I mean, just a month ago she wouldn't have been able to sit up in this chair and now she's hanging out with us at dinner like she's always been there.  After this holiday weekend and having her around for 4 whole days (instead of at daycare and just home in the evenings) I'm realizing how much she's changing.  She's now intentionally grabbing for things, like her paci and toys and can actually manipulate them into her mouth or switch them from hand to hand.

I was just telling Ryan last night how each time we go to the doctor they list off all of the things she should be doing by our next visit (in two months) and it always seems impossible that she'd be able to change so much, so quickly...but yet, two months pass quickly and we're there, answering "yes" to all of the "does she does this now?" questions and getting a whole new list of things she'll conquer before our next visit.  Stop growing little girl!  Stop it right now!

Halloween 2015

If you saw the sort of crappy Halloween pictures I posted on Saturday know that the above picture was my vision for these.  I attempted to use a "green screen" so that I could create these cute little pictures highlighting the cute little costumes the kids were dressed in.  In reality though, the green I had wasn't quite right which made photoshopping hard...but the above picture came out nice right!?!

Abby said quite early on that she wanted to be Pinocchio for Halloween.  She saw the play this summer when Hazel was born and has been pretty much obsessed since then.  She then said that she wanted Hazel to be Jiminy Cricket, Daddy could be Gepetto, Mommy as the Blue Fairy and Erin could be the donkey!  Poor Erin!  Erin was actually in Colorado so she wasn't a part of the family costume.  And, I had a pretty poor showing this year as well, so poor in fact that we actually didn't even get a family photo this year. We'll do better next year!

Stella made one pretty cute little mouse! I'm so disappointed that my green screen didn't work out.  This would have been so cute without the wrinkled sheet in the background....wah wah.

We definitely should have gotten Abby used to that nose earlier in the week.  She was pretty anti but has since decided it's pretty funny and it's now a staple around the house.  She mostly didn't like it because it was "stinky".  It smelled a little like plastic at first but has aired out and is ready for use!

Here's Hazel's Jiminy Cricket outfit.  I did have a little headband for her with antennas but that didn't last long either.  Sigh!  Pictures are hard with a peanut that doesn't sit up yet...next year we'll be back to our normal selves and be dressed to the nines!  At least the girls will be.  Halloween IS about the kids.

This year's party was not the traditional all out drink-fest that Ryan used to host.  We had a much smaller crowd and many more little people running around.  We did pumpkin carving and trick-or-treating and had an all around great time.  The boys still drank plenty....all of the girls except Jamie were either pregnant or nursing (see...not the usual party Ryan's used to).

The pumpkins turned out great and I even made pumpkin seeds that night out of the insides.  Somehow we forgot, for the second year in a row, to grab candles for the insides but Zach saved the day and ran home to grab some for us.

By far the best part of the whole evening was Trick-or-Treating with the kids.  The weather was "eh" but we were able to visit a few houses when the rain finally stopped.  The kids LOVED the Barbie car and Bradley and Abby took turns driving.  They were terrible at driving and it took all 5 adults to keep them out of the ditch and on the road.  But it was a ton of fun to watch.

At one point Ryan took the child safety off the engine regulator and the kids were running that Jeep at maximum speed.  Probably the funniest part of the whole night was when I looked up to see Pat one-handed stop the car as it nearly ran him off the road and into the ditch.  It's a good thing the adults out numbered the kids on this adventure otherwise their may have been causalities!

The little parade got even better when we decided to hook up the wagon to the car and let the kids do all the work.  Stella nearly got dumped more than once and we finally started buckling her in to keep her safe but the kids LOVED this little situation...it'll be a staple for next year for sure.  Complete with a beer carrier on the back of the wagon for adult Trick-or-Drinking.

The kidsdid not need much prompting to understand how trick or treating worked.  Abby was super pumped to get out and run up to the door saying Trick or Treat in her little cartoon sounding voice.  I know I'm biased, but she's super cute!

Bradley and Abby are awesome at playing together.  They are like two little peas in a pod and we love having them over!  We really need to spend more time with the Cunningham's...we've been hinting around that maybe they should move close to us...doubtful, but we'll see!