Caleb - 18 months

Cheesehead
(photo by J. Cox on his iPhone at church
the Sunday after the Packers beat the Bears)

This post is about a week late but I wanted to wait until after Caleb's 18 month doctor's appointment before I posted.  His check-up went well and he weighed 27 pounds 8 ounces.  He was around 32 inches tall but I don't have a super accurate measurement because he was NOT happy about being laid down on the measuring table.  I'm not even positive his weight is super accurate either because he kept standing up in the scale and screaming.  He handled his shots much better!

Some things that Caleb has been up to since the last post at 16 months...

• Continues to mature in speech.  Click here to see a list of all the words he knows that I can remember.
• Has put together 2 words at time a few times.  I remember him saying, "light on," "more apple," and a few other things.
• Loves climbing.  The two things that impresses me the most are he climbs some of the big slides at the park and he climbs into his highchair for every meal (or whenever he's hungry and thinks he needs food).  He is also fairly cautious so I appreciate that.
• Still not a picky eater and still eats anything and everything I give him!
• Figured out how to open doors with knobs (TODAY!).  I guess closing the doors to the rooms I don't want him in is not going to work anymore.
• Still really into balls and playing catch, dribble, shot, etc... with them.  He was sleeping with a football for a while and has picked it up again. 
• Loves going for walks and playing at the park.  He really just likes going out and will run to the closet to get out his shoes the second the car, stroller or even the word shoes is mentioned.
• He loves to wear hats and asks to wear them all the time. (See the cheesehead hat in the picture above: the other day he was wearing it and proceeded to "eat" large chucks of it.  I think most of it got spit back out but I'm not positive).
• Caleb would play in the backyard all day if I let him.  All I have to do is look at the door and he bolts for it.  So we try to spend as much time out there as possible since we know the cold months of being trapped inside are coming.
• Loves to dance especially with Grace.  They turn on music and dance all over the place.
• Also loves playing ring around the rosie.  He'll say "ring around" and then "hand" and stand there until Grace and I play with him.  He gets really upset if Grace doesn't want to play.
• Transitioned to one afternoon nap right around 17 months.  It took me a couple of weeks to get used to having Caleb awake all morning but I really like it now.
• Doing better with being dropped off at church.  He still clings to me when we go to new places just to make sure I'm staying and would prefer to be with people he knows.

I can't believe our little buddy is 1 1/2 now.  I know we have to get through the winter first but I still feel like he's going to be 2 before we know it.  Happy half birthday Caleb! We love you to pieces!

Packers (23) vs. Bears (10)

After spending the weekend in Chicago I had a three day turnaround before leaving for Green Bay, WI for the Packers-Bears game. It kind of felt like a little vacation in September.

Matt's parents offered to watch all 5 of their grandkids so that Matt and I and Jared and Yvonne could enjoy the Packers-Bears game his parents had 4 tickets to.  We were very grateful for the chance to spend time with Jared and Yvonne and even take in a good football game.

I think Jared almost killed me when I said I was mostly rooting for the Packers.  I don't think he understands that even though I have become a true Packers fan because of their family I was raised by a Bears fan.  And I was like 99% rooting for the Packers.  I just can't completely turn my back on the Bears.

We spent lots of time in the car but were able to enjoy a few meals out and sleep in at the hotel we stayed at.  So, it was a fun 24-hour getaway.  Although after my 48-hour getaway the weekend before it was more of a bonus and less of a much needed.

Matt and me 

Yvonne and me

Something is Missing

See this picture of Grace peacefully sleeping...

Let's look a little closer...

Wait you didn't notice?  A little closer still...

NO MORE PACIFIER!

As I recently posted Grace still sleeps (now slept) with her pacifier.  We weren't convinced that it was time for it to go but I was getting a little annoyed that I had to pack it for trips.  So on a whim last Saturday I took a long shot and told Grace if she gave up her pacifier she could have anything she wanted.

She said she wanted an animal!  We laughed because if you know us we don't do animals.  Then she clarified and said she wanted a stuffed giraffe.  I was sold.  The one other time we tried to give up the paci she gave it to her friend Mason who is a baby and needs pacifiers.  Needless to say Mason gave them back right away.  This time though I felt she was in a better place so she gave Mason her pacifiers again.  And I promptly took her to the store to buy a stuffed giraffe.

Grace did not sleep during naptime she just sang sad songs about her pacifier.  When I went to get her up she told me that she was sad that she didn't have her paci any more and that singing made her feel better.  That night she sang for 10-15 minutes to put herself to sleep.  The next day she didn't nap again but went to sleep fine at night.  Today she napped without it (as pictured above)!

I'm so happy to be pacifier free.

Weekend at Jenna's

 My friend Liza and I went to visit her sister and my friend Jenna in Chicago a week and a half ago.  It was so fun and a refreshing 48 hour getaway.  We enjoyed leisurely meals without kids' faces to wipe, sleeping in and only wiping our own bottoms:)  I'm lazy and don't fell like typing out the details so I'm actually cutting and pasting from Jenna's blog.  Sorry for those of you who know us both and have already read it.  But here is a summary of our weekend in the words of my gracious host Jenna...

"Last weekend, I had my first overnight visitors in Chicago!  Liza and Anne took the train up Friday night and Katherine and I met them to walk back to our apartment.  They were hungry and Liza was craving pizza and, luckily, I had pizza supplies so I made us some pizzas and we stayed up chatting, eating, and drinking wine.

On Saturday we had a leisurely morning with breakfast and getting ready for the day.  We headed out and decided on Wells on Wells for lunch and drinks.  It was so great to sit outside on a beautiful day and enjoy delicious food.

Next up was the Renegade Craft Fair in Wicker Park.  We grabbed a cab to head that direction.  We browsed the goods of many vendors but most items were out of our price range.  Liza and I bought shirts and I got a necklace.  Shopping needs were satisfied.

We took the el back towards my place to get ready for dinner.  We got dressed up and took a quick cab ride to Geja's for a yummy fondue dinner and wine.  Every time I go there it is SO good!  We ended up walking back to the apartment and put on a movie before going to bed.

Sunday morning we had Texas waffles and got ready to go.  We took a long walk through Lincoln Park before getting on the el to meet Katherine in Lakeview at Tango Sur.  We enjoyed another yummy meal outside.  We stopped at a few shops before taking the el back so the girls could grab their stuff and get back to Union Station to head home."

Dressed up and ready to go
out for dinner Saturday night

Walking through Lincoln Park

Another great photo op in Lincoln Park

Summer Foods

I wanted to post a couple of pictures of Grace and Caleb enjoying some yummy summer foods.  Most of the pictures are of Caleb because he's at the stage where I think it's adorable to watch him eat like a big kid.  Although he does make quite a mess.

This was the first corn on the cob of the
summer that our neighbor's dad farms nearby

At this point Caleb ate from the end

Watermelon mess

Another piece

Late in the summer Caleb finally got the
 hang of how to eat corn on the cob

Red Sauce

In my freezer cooking ventures with my friend Amy one of the books we've used a few times (Fix, Freeze, Feast) has a recipe for red sauce that I decided to give a try.  One month we were making several meals that needed red sauce and I didn't really want to buy the pre-made stuff so I just gave this recipe a whirl and loved it (I did change the amount of spices because I always like more and added my own special ingredient).  This is all I ever use now!  You can use it anywhere that you'd use a red sauce.

Matt loves a good old fashioned spaghetti with meat sauce so that's where I use it the most.  This recipe is plenty for our family for two meals plus leftovers so I usually make a batch to eat half and freeze half.

For spaghetti I brown a pound of ground sausage (you could use ground beef but sausage is so yummy!) and then add the sauce.  Today I actually browned the meat at lunch time and put the meat and all of the sauce ingredients into the crockpot to simmer for the afternoon.  That worked really well.

Red Sauce - makes about 10 cups

Ingredients:
1 (12 ounce) can tomato paste
2 c hot water
1 (28 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 (28 ounce) can diced tomatoes 
2 T dried parsley
2 T minced onion
1 T minced garlic (about 9 cloves)
1 T sugar
2 t salt
1/2 T dried basil
1 t dried oregano
1 t dried thyme
Special ingredient - 1-2 T Pure Maple syrup (you don't need this but if you're used to a sweet sauce it really makes a difference. I read this tip somewhere and think it really works. I bet you could even leave out the sugar from the original recipe and just add extra syrup)


Directions:
Mix tomato paste and hot water in a large bowl until smooth.  Stir in everything else and stir well.  DO NOT need to cook.  Use in your recipe, and/or divide into containers to freeze for later use.

Chinese Visitors

This is the only picture I took of the whole dinner.
Doesn't that bread look beautiful and yummy?

Tonight we had the privilege of hosting two of Matt's co-workers who live in Beijing, China for supper.  When Matt told me they were coming to town I immediately jumped on the idea of having them over and started menu planning.  I wanted to give them something special, yummy but also a normal meal for us.

So the menu was...

Romaine salad with red, yellow, and orange peppers, tomatoes, carrots (some of the veggies were from the farmer's market) and a balsamic vinaigrette dressing.  The dressing is what I always make and use and consists of olive oil (1 cup) mixed with balsamic vinegar (1/4 cup) and a little oregano and thyme.

Corn on the cob from the farmer's market.  They'd never had sweet corn before so it was fun to teach them how to fix it up with butter and salt and pepper.

Spaghetti and homemade meat sauce.  I will post that recipe soon if not tonight because it's that good and easy.

French bread.  I started making my own french bread a while ago and as long as I plan ahead because of the rising process it is so good.  I've even made a mostly whole wheat version that is delicious too.  But sometimes like today I dug out the white flour because it is so good all white.

Instant chocolate pudding.  Neither of the guys ever had pudding before and looked a little disturbed by the texture.  I thought it would be fun for them to try it and we had some sitting around.

I had fun talking to the guys Matt has phone meetings with at 9:00pm on many Wednesday nights. Now I know who he's talking to.  And it was interesting hearing about their culture, children, and life as a working professional in China.  The only disappointing part was they couldn't stay long because that had to go back to work and fix some kind of computer code issue.