Saturday!

We had a pretty busy Saturday and I'm still shocked at how smoothly our day went. There was soccer practice in the morning then we changed and went to Pat's work picnic. We drove home and Paige and Owen were asleep in the car so I ran inside to grab a few things while Pat stayed in the car and napped with them for 10 or 15 minutes. Then we drove straight to a friend's party and got him later that night for bed! These pictures are all from the work picnic. There was so much to do that we didn't even get a chance to try everything!

Owen wanted to do the inflatable obstacle course first!

Paddleboats. Pat and I both took a turn with Owen while the other person fed Paige.

Action shot of us running back from the paddleboats! I didn't realize until I saw this picture that Owen and were dressed alike...

They had 3 or 4 different types of swingsets to play on among other playground equipment.

Paige stayed awake the whole time we were there and got to show off her party outfit.

Apple Oatmeal

I liked the apricot oatmeal so much that I decided to find another recipe for the slow cooker and came across this one. It was alright but I'm hoping the leftovers will be even better and the flavors will have time to meld. You couldn't really taste the apple. It came out a nice caramely color since I accidentally dumped a whole lot of cinnamon into it! Also, I changed the recipe a bit-no butter, steelcut oats instead of regular, and 3 1/2 cups of water + 1 cup of soymilk instead of 2 cups of milk.
Recipe Here

Paige

Paige has been 5 months for about a week now so I thought it was time for a post just for her:)


Staring down her doll or maybe challenging her to some tummy time?

Mastering the sippy cup! She can't really get anything out of it but she still gets upset if you take it away.

Apricot Oatmeal

This oatmeal was made in the slowcooker overnight and it was really yummy. It was actually really nice to wake up and have a warm breakfast ready to eat. Owen is a little wary of my oatmeal concoctions after trying the first two but I convinced him to take a bite and he admitted to liking it too.


Recipe Here

Strawberry Almond Oatmeal

I figured out how to make oatmeal look pretty! Hide it under lots of toppings! This oatmeal was not very exciting or enjoyable. Water+oats+cinnamon+strawberries+almonds=blah. I ended up throwing in some raisins to up the sweetness. I've only done two different kinds so far but I think using milk instead of water makes a huge difference.

Preschool!

Owen had his first day of preschool today! We walked him to his room, put his backpack and snack away and then hugged him goodbye and that was it! He handled it extremely well and I had to rush out before he saw me crying! When we picked him up he was excited to see us but didn't seem to miss us too much:)

Backpack on! Ready to go!

Maybe the backpack was a little too heavy...

Owen showing off his work on the walk home.

Labor Day!

There is a small lake/beach thingie near our house and we stopped there at Owen's request to do some digging. It was getting close to his bedtime and we thought if we didn't put him in his swimsuit we wouldn't have to worry about him getting wet. Turns out he didn't let that stop him from wading into the water...lesson learned. We'll just bring the swimsuit and lots of towels next time.

Paige put her feet in the sand for the first time and loved it!

I thought we were both posing for this picture. Turns out it was just me. Paige was more interested in what Pat and Owen were doing.

Oatmeal!

So I've done 30 days of different breakfasts (twice!) and it's a whole lot of work so I decided to do something that requires a little less planning. I'm going to have a different oatmeal every morning (except for the mornings where I have oatmeal leftover from the day before which happened to me the first day...) until I get sick of eating oatmeal. One thing I didn't consider was that oatmeal doesn't photograph particularly well, I'll have to work on that.

This was an overnight oatmeal made with steel-cut oats. I can't figure out where I got the recipe from but it was 1 cup of steel-cut oats, 2 cups milk, dollop of honey, cinnamon and raisins. Mix it all together and let it sit in the fridge overnight. Then you just pull it out of the fridge and eat it! It was very chewy but I still liked it.

Water, Water, Everywhere

This was probably not one of my smarter ideas but luckily it worked out...Owen was very excited about getting to hold Paige in the pool, even if it was only long enough for me to take a picture. I actually expected her to cry right when her toes hit the cold water but she would have sat in there longer if I had let her!

Little Baby

I started work on Paige's scrapbook and as I was looking back I came across this picture that I absolutely love. All smooshed into my shoulder with her arms straight out, she still loves being held like this:)

Soccer!

It's soccer time again! Hooray! Owen's team this season is called the Hawks

(last time he was the Stingers) and he's still number 7 since they use the same shirts every season. Owen scored a couple goals during the scrimmage and afterward we had another brief chat about how there isn't any tackling in soccer...

New element of practice this season...stretching!

Paige looking bored/tired/confused.

Just Because

Pasta Sauce!

We love pasta but normally it involves opening a box of dried pasta and a jar of sauce (except for that recent pasta dinner we had...). Since we have a lot of tomatoes around the house, I decided to make some homemade sauce. It was actually better than I thought it would be but not good enough to go through all that extra effort.

Diaper Rainbow

Owen was halfway to completing his self-titled "diaper rainbow" before I noticed. He had asked to see the pictures on the diapers and I told him he could take out two...

Heart Walk

We got up early and walked 3 miles on Saturday morning in support of the Heart Walk. It was actually great weather and a nice tour of most of the "landmarks" of Cleveland. Owen spent 95% of the walk in the stroller but he made up for it after we finished by going on the inflatable slide a billion times.

Tomatoes Taste Like...

Applesauce Cake

It's not much to look at but this Applesauce Cake was really great. I saw it on a blog and since it was dairy-free and I wanted to use up these Cherry Pie Cherries I decided to make it. I had bought the cherries because they had a free rebate on them (It ended up being expired! What!? I'm outraged!). The cherries were coated in sugar so they weren't very good to snack on but they were perfect in this cake! I was able to put in half the sugar too since the cherries were so sweet.

Tomatoes!

We've already gotten 2 tomatoes off of our plants which is one more than last year! Hooray! Our neighbor also gave us a big bowlful so we're set for awhile but I can't believe how much tastier our tomatoes are than the ones I get from the grocery store (or maybe it just seems that way...)! Owen wanted to try one and then pretty much devoured the whole thing after I had cut it into pieces. I was impressed that he ate a tomato plain but it did taste pretty incredible.

Feast!

We made it to the Feast another year and ate lots of great food!

2009 pictures

2008 pictures

Paige enjoying her first Feast. Smiling despite the heat!

The guys enjoying some peach-mango gelato.

The girls (minus Paige). We weren't intentionally posing in front of the Italian Sausage sign...

Fun benches. Sort of reminded me of this guy.

Opening wide for some cassata cake. We also got cavatelli with meatball.

Owen was completely exhausted by the time he got on this ride so it was funny to see him trying to smile while he was riding it. There was also some confusion regarding a joystick he could move up and down. If he held it up or down the car would move correspondingly but he kept jostling it up and down instead and it made for a very jolting ride.

Stuff

I think I finally convinced Owen that his bat costume is too small by letting him try it on. Check out those sleeves! Owen has been a bat for 2 of his 3 Halloweens!

Year 1

Year 2

Paige is big enough for her jumper!

Blogworthy?

Owen: I want to go to ToysRUs with the train table.
Me: Ok, we'll have to pick a day to do that sometime.

Owen: Ok, but I want to put it on the blog.

What?! Should I be impressed that he sounds like he knows what a blog is? I think we also need to have a discussion about what is blogworthy. You can bet that if we go to ToysRUs anytime soon, it's totally going to be documented and put on the blog:)

Solid!

Paige had her first taste of rice cereal over the weekend!

First bite...


Yum!

Pasta Dinner

We went to a farmer's market over the weekend and, among other things, bought some fresh flavored pasta! I was ridiculously excited about making it yesterday and it was fantastic! We tried tomato/basil, mixed herb and garlic/chive (our favorite). I wasn't quite sure what sort of sauce to pair it with so we tried a few different things. We did some regular marinara and some pesto (homemade from our basil plant that actually grew!) but my favorite was a little olive oil with sun-dried tomatoes.

Rain?

In case you can't understand Owen's fantastic narrative, he's talking about who said it was going to rain...this already doesn't make sense...just watch the video. I think it's funny.

We Win!

I forgot about discovering this fantastic form of entertainment while on our trip. After awhile in the car Owen always says he wants to get out and tries to bust through his seatbelt. I was joking around and decided to start "racing" cars by pumping my arms really fast . Owen thought this was a fantastic idea and he used up a lot of energy beating the cars we passed. Not sure how Pat felt having his seat kicked...

Michigan

We went to Michigan over the weekend and got to see some of Pat's family.


This picture was from the ride home. Owen fell asleep and Paige was making noises. I held up The Monster at the End of this Book for her to look at and every time she whined a little I turned the page. It actually kept her entertained for a long time!

4 Months Old!

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