Baby C standing on the sofa

Cecilia loves to stand, I recently discovered that she like to stand on the couch and look out the window. Enjoy.

The Swing War- Day 4-update

The baby fell asleep for her afternoon nap!!! I was totally shocked and amazed. I left her in there for about 20 minutes and she talked and then fell asleep for an hour. This is the first time she has taken two naps all week. Could this possibly be the turning point? Do I dare hope?

Swiss Family Robinson

I once read that it is really good to sing to your baby. So I sing to her as we are getting ready for bed and most naps. It is part of the calming down routine. Most times I just make up a song, but I'm not very creative so they usually end up to be about the same. But the other day I was humming along and stumbled across the "Oh Christmas Tree" song that is sung in Swiss Family Robinson. I'm sure it is a typical English song, but my only association with it is the movie. That really made me want to see it again. I decided it would be a good one to add to our children's video library so I bought it. When it came in the mail I was so excited to rewatch it. What a classic. There are a few scary parts so we may save it for when our kids are older. I'm sure PETA hates it for some of the scenes as there are a lot of animals stressed, not hurt I'm sure, but stressed. But I digress. There was one part of the movie that I laughed so hard my stomach hurt and I wanted to share it with all of you. I can't figure out how to take a clip from YouTube and modify it. So you'll just have to fast forward this one to 6:33 to get to the scene I'm talking about. If anyone knows how to modify this clip let me know. Enjoy!

The Swing War- Day 4

Cecilia took over a two hour nap in her crib this morning!!!! I was so excited! I finally won a battle! Maybe this is the turning point of the war. We had one interruption where I went in and soothed her back to a drowsy state and put her down and she fell asleep. I was so surprised! Afternoon nap... not so great. But it is partially my fault because I was running errands and messed up her timing. At that point it is kinda like attacking a city that has huge walls, sometimes it will work but it takes a lot longer. At this point I think I will retreat and try again tomorrow. One more day to try to get two naps back. Tomorrow decides the outcome of the war, only two last great battles left!!! I can't wait for peace one way or the other.

The Swing War- Day 3

I had to call in reinforcements. Cecilia woke up early, and took a one hour nap in the morning. I was about to loose the war so I needed some fresh troops. If I knew history well I could make some analogy about the US coming to the rescue of France in WWII or something. But history has never been my strong suit. So Shaun took a turn for what was supposed to be the afternoon nap. Early to bed again. Two more days and then she has killed too many of my citizens (nerves) and I wave my white flag and try again when she is 2 years old :) There has to be a better way...

Why do we love food?

In the midst of Katie's battles at home with her worthy, non-sleeping opponent, I've decided to jump in with a slightly more colorful fare: some recent foods we've been more than pleased with. We've decided to start taking close up pictures of our food, which makes it way more pleasant to look at. But for now, our amateur photography skills will have to suffice.

First, we have our bowl of peeled tomatoes. My mouth starts watering just by looking at these amazing beauties. We crushed most of them up to make a modified version of this eggplant parmesan recipe.

This is the eggplant parmesan. It tasted fantastic but the picture is really lacking...

The other thing we did with our tomatoes is throw them down with some fresh mozzarella, basil and some olive oil. Dash some sea salt and cracked pepper on there and you have one of the greatest things on earth: caprese.

We had a few friends over last week for a limon-roasted chicken Mexican dinner.

Finally, we needed to document some of our favorite things to do with summer's fresh peaches. Katie likes to snack with peanut butter on toast topped with sliced peaches.

Shaun, however, prefers to go straight peaches and cream. (The crappy Quaker oatmeal packet is definitely not what I'm talking about here). I'm talking about peaches so ripe the skin peels off in one tug. I'm talking about peaches so juicy you don't even realize it's already dripping from your elbow when you finish peeling them. I'm talking about peaches so sweet the only way to make them better is to pour a little half and half (you're just asking for trouble if you start actually eating them with real cream) in a bowl and eat them a slice at a time.

The Swing War- Day 2

Where has my sweet happy baby gone who didn't cry and would put herself back to sleep when she woke up in the middle of a nap? I left her behind in the swing with her sane mom.

The Swing

Cecilia has always taken better naps in her swing. Which is why we have so many pictures and videos of her in it. It has gotten to the point where she will only sleep in it or in her car seat. We think it is something about the incline that she likes. We hardly ever have to turn it on to get her asleep. The odd thing is she will go down in her crib for bedtime no problem. I have been trying to wean her off it and get her to take a nap in her crib for a while now. She has won every battle so far. I have tried to do the morning nap in the crib, since that is the more stable one, but it didn't work, Cecilia -1, Mommy-0. Then I tried to do it if she was slightly awake after I finished nursing her, so she wouldn't wake up surprised and upset, Cecilia-2, Mommy-0. Then I tried to strap her in the bather (which is slightly inclined) and put it in her crib, Cecilia-3, Mommy-0. One day I made a concerted effort and put her in the crib and let her cry for a while. After 10 minutes I went in to soothe her, I know it doesn't sound like long, but when your baby is crying it is an eternity. I picked her up and she burped a huge one and I said that must have been the problem. But I caved and put her in the swing, not a peep. Then said, no I'm stronger than this and put her back in the crib. SCREAM!!! Caved again, put her back in the swing, quiet, head turned, and eyes closed before I could leave the room, Cecilia-4, Mommy-0. I kinda gave up after that for a while. Until this weekend. She decided she didn't want to sleep in her swing either. Every nap we had to turn it on to get her to sleep. That was the turning point. No more. I am emboldened from talking to a neighbor yesterday who had a similar problem and said she just went cold turkey, put her son in the crib and after a week he was over it. Cecilia may have won the battles, but I am going to win the war!
So how is it going today? This morning she took an hour nap in the crib, not her usual 2 to 2.5 hour nap, but pretty good I felt. But I was sure she was just strategizing for her next battle. Afternoon nap? Well let's just say blogging is helping me keep my mind off my worthy opponent who is putting forth a serious fight.

Cute as a button

Tell me this isn't the cutest baby you have ever seen? Summer is almost over, but not before I got this shot! I love the shoes! As you can tell, she loves to stand. I think she is going to be able to stand by herself before she can sit up by herself :)

Stolen Peaches Continued...

I know you have all been waiting, dying to find out what happened with the peaches in our neighbors yard. But if for some reason you have amnesia refresh your memory here, and then come back to find out the rest of the story.
A few days after my last post we saw the owner in his yard again. Shaun drove by and noticed all the peaches were gone. I ran over to be neighborly and say Hi. Ok really I went to check out the trees. They were stripped. I was so sad, but talked to him anyway. He said his friends had come and taken most of them and he had a bucket with the rest. There really weren't that many in the bucket so I told myself the trees were deceiving and didn't have as many as we thought. He said I could have the nectarines and the peaches hanging over from his neighbors yard. They weren't ripe yet (which is why they hadn't take them). I was so depressed. We waited too long. Why didn't we go over the night before after the baby went to bed. So what if we had company over. We still should have gone at 10 o'clock and picked in the dark! Shaun said at least we were beaten out this year by the owner. But it doesn't console me much.
We went over and got a bunch of nectarines later. Honestly they were really good. I'm not just saying that to sooth my soul. I made jam (turned out to be syrup even though I followed the directions). And we ate a bunch. They tasted a lot like peaches. Just as good in cereal. Once those were about done we started checking the peach tree again. The last tree, our only hope. The peaches on the top were ripe, and they were really big. But you need a ladder to get to them and we kinda had to reach over the fence. We hadn't really looked at this tree very closely before because we had our sights on the vacent lots trees. But there were a ton of peaches on it, which is why it took longer to ripen. So every few days we would go over and get a few that were ripe and wait for the rest. It was taller so we had to be more sneaky with the ladder and all. No one is out at 7 am or right at dusk. We found ways to go at those times.
Then one day after we had taken most off of the few branches that were hanging into the vacent yard, and we noticed a lot had fallen on the ground in the yard that owned the tree. It occured to us she wasn't using them and probably didn't want them. Novel idea to us which is why it took so long to come to the conclusion. We wanted the peaches in her yard. But we couldn't sneak in and get them. It is one thing to do it where nobody lives, it is another to do it where people do. We aren't that bad! So we devised a plan... bribery. We picked a bunch of things from our garden, put them in a cute box and took them over to ask her if we could have some of her peaches.


She said yes we could have all we wanted! Next day, bright and early with our ladder in our hands, empty grocery bags, and heads held high we went over and picked them all. Based on the amount on the ground we figured she had taken what she wanted. Dogs barked, we don't care. Neighbors saw, we don't care. This time we have permission! We were daring anybody to come up to us and ask what we were doing. lessons learned: always trust your instincts, and it is always better to ask, who knows what will happen.

Spoons

We recently went to dinner at my parents house. While there we handed Ceci a plastic spoon to see what she would do. She immediately stuck it in her mouth and played and played and played. She held it and hit my arm with it until it was sore. We were amazed at how long she gripped it. My mom says the grand kids always do new things when they come to visit and I'm sure this is the first of many things that she will do for the first time there. Spoons are now definitely her favorite toy. Good thing too because I got a ton of them at a baby shower so we have multi colored spoons all over the house. We usually stick her in the bumbo in the morning, hand her a spoon, and make breakfast. These are a couple of morning shots. Notice which hand is holding the spoon. I think we have a righty on our hands.

The Beast

Shaun and I have an Armenian cucumber plant in our garden this year. It grew and grew and grew, and no cucumbers. Flower after flower after flower and no cucumbers. I was getting frustrated, but if only I had known what was coming. All of the sudden one day it decided it had grown enough and wanted to grow cucumbers and watch out! I went out once and it had tons of cucs about two inches long at the tips of each of the runners. I thought wow that is going to be a lot of cucs! Next day Shaun goes out and finds all of these big cucumbers hiding. If the cucs on the ends were two inches long you can only imagine hw big the ones on the inside were. I keep wondering how they hide so well. It isn't that big of a plant and doesn't have that big of leaves. I'm convinced they grow a foot overnight. They say "hey they just came and checked me which means I have 24 hours to become A Beast. Let's do it!" Then they grow so much they stand on end by the next day and we go "Where did that come from?!" The biggest beast below measures a whopping 16 inches long. We had another bigger one that was at least 18 inches if not 20. Maybe we should just start going for the biggest cucumber ribbon at the State Fair. Anyone know what to do with Beastly cucumbers?

Island Park

We went to Island Park in Idaho over Labor Day with Shaun's parents and brother. We had a great time, despite the person sawing logs all night who shall remain anonymous but knows who he is :) Shaun's grandparents have a cabin up there and we enjoy spending some time up there every summer. This year was a new adventure with a baby that needs to sleep a lot. We were nervous because the baby can't sleep if it isn't quiet and the cabin doesn't have doors between the living space and the sleeping space upstairs. But we took a fan and told everybody, no slamming the screen door. They were all so kind to be quiet and the baby slept pretty well.

While there we took several walks between naps. This one was along Big Springs. The baby was more interested in my water bottle than the pretty scenery, but what can you do.
It was still nice to get out and she loves to be carried. Isn't she just so cute in that hat?

Cecilia had a great time with the grandparents. She loved to smile and talk to them. As you can see from this picture.
We had a great time, thanks Ritchie's for inviting us! Sorry again we didn't help clean up. But the baby took a really long nap in the car, which was really nice.