9 Months

Time for another marathon post! I know I say this every time, but I CAN'T believe how fast little Owen's first year has gone. It's probably because we've had so much adventure and change lately. We found a neat little family practice out here that I'm going to take the boys to, and Owen had a checkup on Monday. Owen, aka "Chunka" and "Owenewskie" is almost 25 pounds and 30" tall! He's getting to that phase that we hit with Eli when people look at him and wonder why in the heck I'm still carrying him around - not realizing he is as young as he is.

One major difference though is that Owen is trying hard to WALK. Eli didn't bother until 15 months, but Owen has been at it for nearly two months. He DEMANDS to be walked ALL DAY. Owen honey, I love you, but this activity is wearisome for your mama! At least he is starting to be able to hold just one hand instead of two, but in all truth we spend HOURS a day just walking laps around the house. He bawls when I don't let him try the stairs. My back will be thankful when he can finally do it on his own! As for crawling? FORGET IT! Owen HATES being on his belly and throws a royal tantrum if he ends up in that position. His mode of movement is to sit on his bum and use his feet to spin himself around and around in circles. We joke that he is going to wear holes in the carpet! Oh and his feet - he uses them like little feelers. Anything new that he comes across he has to touch it with his feet, it's so funny! He's actually quite the soccer player already!!!

He got his two bottom teeth at 7 months, his two top at 8 months, and is working on the next two top ones. He loves to BITE with his teeth (he has attacked Eli on more than one occasion) and he loves to EAT! This kid will eat ANYTHING you put in front of him, and he gets extremely offended if you have food and don't share. He'll eat oatmeal, avocado, squash, pasta, lunchmeat, beans, salmon, broccoli, lettuce, chips, bread YOU NAME IT! The kid can EAT! Hopefully he keeps it up. As of now, he out eats his big brother.

Owen also loves BIG BOY toys. Forget the basket of baby toys we have - that stuff is junk. He wants anything that Eli has - especially big trucks and things that make noise. He also loves books - especially ripping pages out of them. He has a good time looking at himself in the mirror, and he gets a kick out of bathtime... in fact that's the ONLY time I can put him down without a scene. That's right, for all of his adventurousness the child is a CLING-ON. If I even twitch a muscle or look like I might be THINKING about setting him down and walking away, he pitches a full on fit. Now, I love baby holding etc but remember he's 25 POUNDS?!?! Oh man! I have a lot of neck/headaches from lugging him around, and I'm totally worn by the end of the day from all the shrieking and crying he does (because I DO have to put him down once in a while - a girl has got to use the bathroom and get lunch now and then). I have been using my wraps more lately just to give my arms a break - it has become the ONLY way Owen will go to sleep for a nap unless we are in the car. He just wants to be up and involved all the time.

Eli and Owen are still developing their relationship - sometimes they play together and it's adorable - oftentimes they push each others' buttons (already!) and it's maddening! I do think Eli gets the raw end of the deal because Owen is pretty demanding of my time lately. So he does tend to torture Owen as an attention getter, which gets him in trouble. I try to say proactive and positive (Eli responds well to praise) but sometimes a mama's brain can get too fried to think of anything better than "everyone knock it off!" But I do love my little "Chunka!" I love his silky blonde hair, his funny faces, his giggle, his determination, and getting to cuddle him next to me all night when he's actually still and quiet. He is a pretty good sleeper - goes to bed around 9pm and nurses once before midnight, then usually not again until around 6am. I also love that he can say "MamaMOM!" when he wants me, and he can say "Dada" and "Uh Oh!" Even though he is DE-MANDING, he is also ADORABLE and part of what makes our family unique!

Pesto

Thank you, friends for the Pesto recipes! I spent the better part of an entire day last week harvesting and plucking the basil, and whipping up a TON of pesto! Our freezer is FULL! I even left a bit to keep growing so I can use it in other dishes. For some reason I thought that I didn't like pesto, but I must not have ever really tried it, because it's yummy, and it sure makes the house smell good while you're making it! We've had it on pasta, so now I've got to try it as a pizza sauce and a dip for bread... any other ideas?

The Harvest

Plucking Leaves

Garbage Bouquet
The Dish: Whole Wheat Penne, Red Potatoes, Fresh Green Beans and Pesto!

Recipe I used:

Makes 1 1/4 cups; Prep time: 15 minutes; Total time: 20 minutes

½ cup pine nuts or walnuts

4 cups loosely packed fresh basil or parsley leaves

½ cup finely grated Parmesan cheese

1 garlic clove

Salt and pepper

½ cup extra-virgin olive oil

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Spread nuts on a rimmed baking sheet; toast in oven until golden and fragrant, tossing occasionally, 5 to 8 minutes. Let cool completely.

2. In a food processor, combine toasted nuts, basil, Parmesan, and garlic; season with salt and pepper. Process until finely chopped. With machine running, pour olive oil in a steady stream through the feed tube; process until smooth.

Note: If not using immediately, the sauce should be refrigerated; cover with plastic wrap, pressing it directly on the sauce to preserve the bright color. This sauce will keep for up to three days.

Precious

Eli still creeps into our bed sometimes in the middle of the night. This morning I got up to use the bathroom, and when I came back, this is what I found:

Eli saw this picture and said "E-I, Owen 'nuggle da bed!"

Cantaloupe

A freshly picked, perfectly ripe and sweet melon from the Garden. I've never been a huge fan of cantaloupe, but now I know someone who is!

Yum

I'm really not much of a cook. In fact, it's downright laughable that I am even attempting to post about food I have created, but then again you can't grow unless you stretch yourself, right? I have never really enjoyed cooking, but I DO enjoy eating tasty, healthy food. AND we've had access to some fresh garden goodness this summer, so I've been experimenting. I should post each of these separately, but that would take forever, so here you go.

Veggie Pasta

While boiling up the whole wheat pasta, I cooked up some garlic and onion in a skillet with olive oil, then added a cucumber (would also be great with zuchinni) and grape tomatoes until they were just warm and tender - not soggy. Then I tossed in some fresh basil. Added sea salt and fresh cracked pepper. Ate it with Pumpernickle bread and hummus. Brad asked me to make it again!

Bella-Burgers

Marinated a couple of GIANT portobella mushrooms in some soy sauce, fresh minced garlic, and cracked black pepper (would have been good with some EVOO as well but I forgot to add it). Grilled on my little foreman. Topped with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, spicy mustard. Thick and hearty - nice alternative to ground beef!

Zuchinni Bread

I forgot to take pictures of the bread. The squash pictured were given to me by my neighbor - they're HUGE! I had ONE like that from my garden before the bugs killed it - and that one alone yielded 8 CUPS of shredded zuchinni. I made 3 dozen muffins and a loaf (from just the one zuchinni!) with a recipe from this blog . I adapted it by using half whole wheat flour and a little less sugar. It was great!

Cheerios

Eli is learning to do more and more things "by the self." Just today he got brave enough to go down the slide without holding my hand. And this past Sunday (the same day he prayed for the first time) he figured out how to get his own snack while Daddy and Owen were sleeping and Mommy was checking email. What a resourceful little guy....

PS - don't you love our classy dining set? We are borrowing it until I finish working on the one I got off craigslist... which might be never with these two handfuls around! =)

Prayer

Eli said his very first prayer at dinner today.

"Heavy Fader.... have a good day .... play with friends .... Amen."

I love that boy!

Toad

We're all feeling a bit better around here, and spent some time enjoying our backyard this week. I even found a sandbox for FREE that someone was throwing away - one of those cute turtle shaped ones with a lid. We had a bag of sand sitting around that the homeowners left, so the whole awesome sand set up was FREE. Did I mention FREE??? I LOVE free! Lol. Also free this week - an adjustable height basketball hoop by Little Tikes. People throw the craziest things away around here - Fridays are trash days and yardsale days around here, so if you go driving around to the sales you'll inevitably find free stuff along the way....

But this post is about the TOAD. We have a little visitor in our backyard. He's dug a little hole right by our garden box and is hiding out down there. It's been 3 days and he's still there! I was playing soccer with Eli and just caught a little movement out of the corner in my eye. At first I was scared to look in there - what with giant wolf spiders around here and all - but it's just a little toad. He doesn't scare me... though I won't be reaching in there to dig him out anytime soon =). Eli's had a blast going out to check on him everyday. We could have used his presence a few weeks ago to help out with thos darn squash bugs in the garden! Oh well.

Hand, Foot, Mouth

Yep, I'm talking about the DISEASE! What, never heard of it? Consider yourself LUCKY! HFM disease is really just a virus - causes a fever and congestion and a lovely rash on the hands and feet and sores in the mouth.... and apparently also in the diaper area. Seriously, it should be "hand, foot, mouth, bum disease," but I guess that sounds too yucky, even for a disease lol =). That's what we're in the process of recovering from over here. We think Eli picked it up from nursery (of course) only he never really seemed sick. I noticed the rash in his diaper area, but took it for heat rash - afterall it's pretty steamy out here! A few days later I noticed some bumps on his feet and knees and thought he'd gotten chiggers. Then I noticed one or two on his fingers, then a giant sore on the tip of his tongue. We still don't have a doctor, so Brad checked him out and said, "It's a virus!" I was like, what? Oh no, we'd been at a playgroup all day (I hate when people knowingly spread disease - I didn't realize he was sick but still felt bad - hopefully no one else gets it)! He never got a fever or anything, but that night woke up screaming in pain 3x because his tongue/mouth hurt. Brad went to the store at 3am to get anbesol... that same night Owen got a fever, and that's where the drama really begins. The next day was Friday so I just accepted that the boys were both sick and we laid around and watched a lot of TV. Owen suffered the most from this nastiness - he had a fever for 4 days straight. Sunday was the scariest - the mouth sores appeared and his fever wouldn't respond to tylenol anymore. He refused to nurse and we were getting ready to take him to the hospital! But, I was able to pump some milk and get him to take it from a dropper... and we switched to baby Motrin which helped with the fever and pain. That night his fever got to nearly 103 so I was up rocking him and giving more motrin at 2am. So scary and awful to have a sick baby! And strangely enough he only ever got a few spots on his feet - his diaper/thigh area was another story though. Brad stayed home Monday because we were thinking again that we might have to take Owen in if his fever persisted, and I was starting to feel pretty sick myself - not to mention exhausted from several sleepless nights in a row (but he took some flack the next day at work - grrr!).

Thankfully both boys are doing better. Unfortunately when you have been the caregiver for two sick kids, you tend to get it! I only ended up with two little bumps on my toe, but I feel like I've been hit by a bus! It's just congestion/sinus pain/runny nose but I must say it's the worst of it's kind that I've had in a long time! So, we're still laying around in our PJ's watching a lot of TV, lol. I'm going to have to put Eli though TV Detox when all is said and done - thankfully we have two PBS channels here.

A New Leaf

The family who owns the home we are renting planted a garden for us before they left - how's that for the pioneer spirit?! I've never gardened before (other than herbs) so having one will be a learning experience for me. I have been really excited about it - up until I had a few run-ins with some NASTY bugs out there. For some reason I hadn't realized that gardening=BUGS, so I guess I'll have to get over that if I'm actually going to enjoy this as a hobby =). I think if we ever actually get it weeded, that might cut down on the bugginess - right now it's a bit of a weed forest as we've been busy with other things!

We were able to get a couple of zuchinni before the bugs ate it (there's a nasty type out here that eats the stalk from the inside out), are still getting tomatoes and cucumbers, and are awaiting one little cantaloupe. Feel free to pass along any general gardening tips, FAVORITE things to grow (I hope to expand it next year), etc! Oh, and anything fabulous to do with BASIL! I love the way it smells by my front door, but I'm sure it can be put to much better use... so far I've used it here and there in my cooking, but it's getting HUGE!

A Sampling:

Cucumber, Tomato, Basil Salad - YUM!