Write 'em or Print 'em?

I saw a segment on the Today Show and it got me thinking. They were discussing if Christmas Card Emails were appropriate or not. It made me quickly think that sending an email as your Christmas card, in my opinion, is not good Christmas etiquette. I don't think I will ever do that. However, I quickly thought about what we do for our Christmas cards. I go online and set up the photo thing and send them to get printed. All I do is lick the envelope, put the stamp sticker on, write the address, and maybe throw in a cute Christmas stamp on the back. Really, it only takes me 30 minutes to do all of that for all our Christmas Cards. So am I really doing anything better than sending a Christmas Card Email? Well, I guess I am doing a little better.....but not by much. Could I write them all out?

First things first - I am in NO WAY judging people who send the cute printed pictures from Shutterfly or any other company. I have done it for 4 years now. In fact, I really look forward to everyones pictures, so PLEASE keep doing those. I was just thinking that I would like to put an extra touch to our Christmas Cards in the future.

My Mom always hand writes all of her Christmas Cards. I can even visually see my Mom's handwriting on the cards she sends. This makes me think I should hand write them. However I also know it takes my Mom a very long time to get her cards done. I remember as a kid she would always try to get them done early so she wasn't worrying about rushing to get them done.

With this said, I also realize that individual notes on every card takes a great deal of time....which I could use to do other things such as, scrub my kitchen floors, Comet the toilets, or FaceBook! Ha haa! So then my next thought goes to--- Get the pictures Printed and write a Christmas Letter!

This also brings me back to my childhood. I loved, and still love to this day, going to my Mom's house during Christmas and going though all of her Christmas Cards and seeing the pictures of old family friends we haven't seen in 10 years and reading Christmas Letters from them. I learn who went to college where and who is married and all the fun stuff. My parents have always had a lot of great family friends and so catching up with what everyone is up to is so much fun.

Back to my new idea - Write a Christmas Letter and do a picture as well. There is one problem, Lance thinks Christmas Letters are dumb. He thinks they are just for bragging and exaggerating and telling people of silly things they would rather not care to know. In fact, as we discussed the topic for this year he said something like, "What are you going to put in the letter? Grant learned to poop in his diaper and it stinks. Oh, he also learned how to eat Cheerios". We both laughed at each other and decided not to do it.

However, I put myself on the receiving end for one second. I would LOVE to get a picture and a letter from our friends every Christmas. Especially from those we may not talk to on a monthly basis. I would love to hear of vacations, children, adventures, milestones, school, and everything else that goes on in their lives over the past year.

So, I am making an executive decision(I think) !! I will send a Christmas Letter and a Christmas Picture from here on out!

As for this year, Please enjoy our family Christmas Card!

Brown Yogurt?

Grant went from being a very good eater to a slightly picky eater it recent months. He still is pretty good, but he sure lets me know when he doesn't want something. He seems to be stuck in a routine of the foods he likes and does not want to try anything new at the moment, so we are fine with sticking to what he knows he likes. However, I have always struggled to get him a good amount of vegetables. I always put them in his noodles and tried to hide them in eggs. Well, he has caught on and is making things more difficult. I have since resorted to adding vegetables to his yogurt! Grant loves yogurt and would eat it for every meal and snack if I let him. When I am putting groceries away I have to be sure that he does not see the yogurt if it is not snack time or lunch. So I decided to add baby food vegetables to his yogurt.....and it worked! I added sweet potatoes to his berry yogurt twice now and he ate it no problem! Thank goodness! The only weird thing is the combination turns the yogurt a funky brown color - yuck! Good thing he doesn't care! Now I feel I can give him more vegetables!

Grant's Pictures

Alrighty, so our baby turned one. Here are the pictures I am really thankful for. These are by our Friend Melissa Heinemann. I am so proud of her work and so thankful for her time. These pictures are timeless and so special to us. Just wanted to share them with everyone because I love these pictures so much. Enjoy

Family Pictures

Our good friend Melissa Heinemann is an amazing photographer. We are so blessed to have her in our life. She just loves taking pictures, especially of children, and so she took some time to take some great pictures of our family and of Grant. Just wanted to share these two of our family.

1st Birthday Cakes

Grant's 1st birthday cakes were so awesome that they deserved their own post! I am so happy with the way all the turned out. They were both totally Grant! Sporty and Monkey - that's all him! Just wanted to share with everyone how darn cute his cakes were! He did eat the Monkey cake - but the sports cake got in the way of Grant's bedtime! Special thanks to both of Grant's Grandma's for getting such special and cute cakes!

What is someone's trash is our treasure!

Grant has been getting a bit bored with his toys lately. He really enjoys playing with his friends' toys and anything in the kitchen, but just is not as interested in his own toys anymore. Whenever we go to Target we sometimes will walk down the toy aisle.....but have you seen the prices on the toys? Holy cow, if you want to get 3 toys you can easily spend $100. They are so expensive. Anyhow, I went over to Bye Bye Baby the other day, which is a gently used children's store. They sell clothes, toys, strollers, and anything else you can think of that you might need or want for a baby. Grant and I scored! We got mini piano that makes noises and sings song, we got a school bus filled with large duplos(legos), we got a fish that you put these little blocks in, and we got a mini BBQ!!!..... and guess how much I paid for all of it? $34 bucks! The mini BBQ alone I guarantee was about $50 brand new. It comes with ketchup, mustard, spatula, hamburger and is so cute. Long story short, I am so happy that I spent my money wisely. I Cloroxed all of the toys and feel as they are new!

You Can Call Me Betty!

Apple Crisp baking

Waiting to be baked

Delicious Applesauce

After our recent apple picking, we came home with about 30 apples! If you don't know me too well, I am no Betty Crocker....in fact, I am far from that! So I was very proud of myself for making homemade applesauce. It is so very good, even Grant loved it! 1 point Jamie, 0 points Baking Disaster! I then got a recipe from a friend and just made 2, yes 2, Apple Crisps! I actually had a lot of fun baking, and believe it or not, did not mind the clean up! The only problem is, I still have about 15 apples left! What the heck am I going to do with them? Any suggestions? As for now, I will not let go of the tally......Jamie has 3 points and The Baking disaster has 0 !!! (Please note that I am famous for Cookie baking disasters!)

Apple Picking

We decided a good way to kick off Fall, besides football and chili, is to go to an Apple Farm! Our friends, the Larson's, joined us as we drove out to Honey Hill Farm. We had such a good time. To begin the day we had some of their homemade doughnuts......delicious! We then got to see the goats, horses, geese, chickens, baby chicks, and ducklings all before we started picking our apples. Grant just loved the live animals. Westarted off our journey by walking all through the apple trees. Lance enjoyed finding just the right apples, Grant enjoyed seeing all of the apples on the trees, (which he thought were just millions of balls) and I enjoyed snapping pictures and being outside. It really was a lot of fun. We walked further back on the farm and found the pumpkin patch. This was also fun because we grabbed a pumpkin and let Grant and his friend Jay play all around it. We all enjoyed watching the two boys play with their apples and the pumpkin. They were being adorable! We later jumped on the hay ride which was pulled by a tractor. Grant thought this was just amazing. He watched the tractor the whole time. He totally loved being on the hay ride. It took us to the Empire Apples, where we filled the rest of our apple bags. While over in the Empire area, we all ate an apple. They were pretty darn good. It felt pretty neat to just grab an apple of the tree and eat it! Talk about ORGANIC! Anyhow, the day was so much fun and really enjoyed the outing. We already decided it will surely be an annual event! Enjoy the pictures!

Are You Ready For Some Football?

Um, YES! We are definitely ready for football. We kicked off football season with some homemade chili and lots of football. We are very excited about this football season! Lance can be a little louder this year, which he is thrilled about. Last year Grant was a brand new baby and so Lance was super quiet and I think he missed his cheering. We are also looking forward to watching football with our friends and BBQ'ing all season long! Please note: if you are wondering why we never invite you over to watch the Raider game with us it is because we never invite people over for the Raider game. Lance needs to be focused and prefers to not be entertaining while watching the Raiders. If you think you are a football fan, I am sure you are and I am sure you are dedicated to your team, but there is no one like Lance! Thats why I love him so much though. He is very dedicated, will never leave his team, and will fight with them until the end!
We are also excited for the Raiders to play on Thanksgiving, however they play at 3 and we are wondering what they means for Thanksgiving dinner, because God knows Lance will choose the couch over the dinner table. And lastly, we are also excited about being in California on January 3rd. That is the day of a Raiders home game and we will hopefully have tickets to the game!!

Anyhow, we hope every enjoys football season as much as we do, and if you dont, then we hope you at least enjoy some beer and good food on a Sunday!

Another Round

Lance and his parents relaxing in the lake

Grantman swimming in the lake with Mimi

"Mom, this is serious business driving the boat - don't take my picture"-Grant

With Great Grandma Mare and Great Papa G

I even took my naps on the boat

Floating in my starfish

Aw, with my Dada

This post is way overdue. Back in July we went home to California for a vacation. We spent most of our time at my parents house in the mountains at Pine Mountain Lake. There, we enjoyed boating, golfing, and family. This trip was so fun and special because it was with both of our parents! Lance's parents came up from San Diego, which was so awesome. My parents were also there as well as my two sisters and my grandparents that live up there. We absolutely love spending time on the boat. It is one of our favorite things to do. My parents also truly love the boat. They enjoy boating with their friends, having cocktail cruises, and taking the boat down to Don Pedro, which is the bigger lake. Down at Don Pedro we can go faster and tube behind the boat. There really are not words to describe the fun we have while on the lake. It is a family party and we all love it. We were so proud of Grant for doing so well. We would spend all day on the boat and in the water and he just loved it. Grant would take his naps on the boat and wake up nice and happy and ready to swim. There are so many funny stories and great memories - but that would make this post even longer! It was such a fun trip and we cannot wait to spend another week at the lake next year!

PS- The name of my parent's boat is Another Round (Golf, Cocktails, and Boating)

Into Everything

Grant is officially into everything! I have to be completely honest and say that it is not driving me entirely crazy yet. However, it does drive me nuts at times - specifically when I am doing anything in the kitchen! He knows how to open cupboards now, but this is the only one he will open in the kitchen, which is so weird. He opened some in the bathroom this morning, but that is about it. He has only shut his fingers in the door once, so we will see if he learns from it. As for now, he loves the fact that he can get into everything!

Straws

Grant loves to get into things that he shouldn't be in. He really likes to play in the kitchen a lot. He enjoys playing with the lazy susan because that is where I keep all of my tupperware - I am fine with that. He tries to crawl fast towards the fridge when I have it open, but I quickly close it because I am not OK with that. His new thing is to pull up on the window ledge and look outside, which I am perfectly fine with. He also likes to get into the pantry. I don't like him to play in there because there are probably a million things he should not touch, but the stuff at his reach is actually, for the most part, fine for him to play with. They consist of water bottles, soda liters, paper plates, and other such things. There is also a paper bag with a 200 count of straws. Grant got into them and I let him play with them. I know they could be dangerous if he put them in his mouth and crawled around, so I made sure to watch him. He was really just playing with them and having a good time. It was something new that was not one of his toys - which clearly makes for a super cool new toy! As he was playing Missy, our girl kitty, comes wondering over. She thought he was trying to play with her. So for a couple of minutes Grant would wave the straws around and Missy would try to catch them and eat them. It was so cute because Grant was loving the attention from Missy. He obviously rarely gets up close and personal with them because they still run from him. However, Missy was loving the attention too and did not care if he would get loud or touch! I was happy to have caught the moment! Cute huh?

Avocados vs Strawberries

These are two of my very favorite foods. I love avocados and I also love strawberries. If there is a choice of flavor for something, whether it is ice cream, cheese cake, or cream cheese, I always prefer strawberry. I also absolutely love avocados. I love chips and guac and actually really like to make guacamole. ( I also have a secret ingredient I like to add to my guac!) Grant also loves both of these foods. They are super good for him and require basically no preparation other than being cut up. So far it sounds like we just love strawberries and avocados, right? Well we do, but I have a bone to pick with avocados!

You would think that strawberries, being red and juicy, will stain everything. Well, I actually have a great carpet cleaner that gets the stains out and strawberries actually come out of my clothes in the wash! So I feel pretty good about feeding them to Grant. Back to the bone have to pick with avocados - They stain everything. What the heck? They stain my clothes, they stain Grant's clothes, and MOST annoying of all they stain my dishes and silverware! This is super annoying. I have to scrub, I mean scrub, the spoons, knives, and bowls that touch avocados. It drives me crazy!

We will continue to eat avocados in our household. However, I simply wanted to point out this interesting fact: strawberries do not stain(usually) and avocados do! Weird!

He struck again!

Yep, that is Dodger. He is at it again, being the naughtiest cat ever! I would first like to mention that his new playground area is in fact in the soy bean field - Yes, the place where he went missing for about 6 hours. I found him playing in there again. And guess what? He doesn't get to go outside much anymore!
Now to the picture. Dodger is a very protective cat. Whenever Lance travels he stands guard at the top of the stairs until I go to bed. Once I go to bed then he comes in the bedroom and either sleeps on Lance's pillow or he sleeps in my doorway. He is very funny. His latest spot is laying in the doorway of Grant's room. This is where he prefers to take his naps. I was in Grant's room the other day putting away some clothes, and what little surprise do I find? Dodger was taking a nap in Grant's crib. Now, I know that many cats do this, especially when you first bring a baby home from the hospital. It is the cat's way of showing its jealousy. Nope, my cats aren't jealous anymore. He was just being naughty. I have NEVER caught them in the crib before.

This cat is driving me crazy! You don't even want to know all of the bad things he does, so I will will just tell of the funny and unusual!

(Excuse the creepy big eyes - flash on phone is not very good)

Where's Spot?

We read Grant 1 or 2 books before he goes to sleep at both nap time and bed time. I have a great passion for children's books and we have hundreds of them. However, we only have about 20 board books. Board books are the books for younger children that are made out of thick cardboard pages, so kids can be more rough with them. Anyhow, Grant definitely has a favorite. Where's Spot (Why doesn't my blog offer underline?) is his favorite book, and ours as well. It is a lift-the-flap book, which Grant just loves. He loves lifting the flap to see the animals that are hiding. Spot's mom, Sally, is looking all over the house for Spot because it is dinner time. In each place she looks there is a different animal. When Grant lifts the flap, every time he smiles so big. It is like a game of peek-a-boo for him. I love the book because of its large print and short sentences. It really exposes children to the symbols of our alphabet and each individual letter. Even at Grant's age, it is very important to see print. I also like how the flaps are different shapes and sizes and lift in different directions. It helps with his fine motor and challenges him a bit. The truth is we have read it so many times that he knows which way each flap goes! Every time I read it to him I get excited to see him smile!

1st Tooth

Grant popped his first tooth.....finally! Lance got his teeth late when he was a baby and teeth are genetic. So our Doctor told us that Grant would probably get them late as well! So, at 10.5 months Grant got his first tooth! Hooray!!

Confession

Ok, since I love to laugh at people and their funny stories, I might as well share the wealth. Here is a good one. While I am absolutely, definitely not Betty Crocker or Paula Dean, or anything even remotely close, my cooking is.....well alright, my cooking is probably a little below average. I can cook a mean lasagna and everything else is just average-ish. Fortunately Lance and I are not too picky and so dinners are easy, quick to make, and good.

Well, the other night we were ready to make dinner and neither of us felt like anything in particular, but we didn't want the same old dinners that we usually make. So I decided that we would have pasta, no sauce, Parmesan cheese, and artichoke hearts! Yum. So I cook the pasta and chop up the artichoke hearts. I drain the pasta and go to get the olive oil. Problem, we don't have olive oil. Now this is rare for our household. We always have olive oil. So I tell Lance the problem and he suggests a little butter. Genius, why didn't I think of that. I go to the fridge and we have no butter. Now, this is not rare. We never use butter. Maybe we use it if I make grilled cheese for lunches, but that is not very regular. Other than that, we never use butter. So I decide that I will just make do with what we have. I had some vegetable oil so I just used a smidge of that and then put in some artichoke marinade, thinking it would be like a salad dressing or something.

After all that we sit down for dinner. Fortunately I prepped Lance in saying, " I really don't know if this is going to be good at all". Well thankfully I did, because Lance took one bite and said, "Jame, I'm sorry, this is disgusting." So I took a bite just to confirm and sure enough it was gross.
I was not up for making another meal and neither was Lance.

So we ended up going down the street to Buffalo Wild Wings. Now, for all of you Californians reading this.....Chicago has had BWW for a very long time and that is one of our favorite places to eat out here. I know they opened one up in Dublin, so I hope you all enjoy it!

Anyhow, we are thankful that BWW saved us the other night. It sure was nothing to be proud of.....but go ahead and laugh - I cooked something that was not edible and according to Lance, "disgusting"!

We Built A Fort

Playing with my fun Daddy!

We were bored the other day and wanted to do something fun and out of the ordinary, so we built a fort. The architecture was very simplistic - four dinning room chairs and a big old blanket! Grant thought it was the coolest thing ever. When he decided to come and play with some toys his face was priceless. It was something new and different and he liked it. Some days go by and I feel like we are always just playing and sitting in the front room. It gets old after some time. So, we spiced it up and did something different! Glad we did because it sure was fun!

Playing in my fort!