New Hobby

I think I have found a new hobby! Thanks to my good friends and experienced moms, Marisa and Bianca, I have started making baby food for Karmann from scratch. I tried it the first time with apples, carrots, pears, peas and avocados in my mini Cuisinart chopper. It worked okay, but didn't puree the food completely. I especially had issues with the apples. BUT - Bianca suggested I try the "magic bullet" (which happened to be on sale at Kohls with a senior discount - thanks Dad!) and I got it for half price! It is impressive!! This week I've added sweet potatoes, zucchini, and peaches to the menu. Marisa gave me the resource website www.wholesomebabyfood.com which has great recipes, nutritional info and suggestions. After I puree the food, I freeze it in ice cube trays. Each ice cube is about 1 oz. so you can figure the servings that way. I pull out a few cubes at night and put them in little containers and stick them in the fridge. By the morning they are soft enough to throw into Karmann's bag and then they are ready to eat or put in the fridge at day care. Pretty nifty! Though Karmann still doesn't open her mouth to eat, she's tolerated everything shoved into her mouth except the carrots (maybe that's the one thing she inherited from me). We'll keep trying, though.

Here's a few pictures of her (kind of) eating peas, and then a few pics before her bath tonight - my new favorites!!

Almost no explaination needed!

Okay, if tonight wasn't almost the most adorable moment Kris, Karmann and I have had, then I don't know what is!! Fed up with Karmann not opening her mouth to eat from a spoon, we decided to just put the bowl of apple sauce in front of her and see if she'll stick her hands in it and then eat her hands...well, she stuck her hands in it for sure - and the expression on her face was of sure joy and happiness!! She thought it was the best thing she'd ever experienced and kept smiling and looking at us in amazement!! Luckily the camera was near and I caught a few of her facial expressions! Needless to say, her hands never went in her mouth, and apple sauce was smeared all over the tray and her seat. It was worth the try just seeing her expressions!! Had to share this one asap!!

P.S. Please don't think we are forcing her to eat - from these photos you can see she's certainly not starving!!!

7 month update!

Today was Karmann's 7 month birthday! She is on the cusp of crawling, has been teething but still no teeth, and even went to her first concert this weekend! She also loves to stand up and hold our hands while she wobbles and dances. She still is a little stubborn bugger when it comes to eating solids, though. She still won't open her mouth for the spoon! So far we have attempted cereal and oatmeal, avocado, carrots, pears, and applesauce. This week, peas and more pears are on the menu. I'm making her baby food, organic and all, so I'm not sure if she just doesn't like my cooking, or what!

Her personality is really starting to blossom. She is the sweetest little thing! One thing I won't ever forget happened last week at the daycare...Karmann has her little girl friends Emma and Samantha. One day I brought Karmann into her classroom and sat her down on the play mat. Samantha's dad brought her in just after. Samantha can crawl already, and as soon as she saw Karmann on the mat, she looked over, saw Karmann, and crawled over and touched her gently on her leg and gave her a big smile - as if to say "good morning! I'm so happy to see you!."

Karmann smiled and looked back at me, as if to say "Its my friend!" It was so absolutely adorable, I get teary-eyed thinking about it! One of the ladies at the daycare saw it too and said that sometimes they will both be on the mat playing and they almost hold hands. Too cute!! Like I said, she is the sweetest little thing!!

Also this weekend, Aunt Keri, Uncle Choy and Cousin Amara came to visit. Amara has been at "grandma camp" for a month and hasn't seen Karmann for at least that long. The first thing she said was "wow she got big!" We all agreed. Here's a photo of the two of them. Needless to say, Amara is getting big too - she'll be 7 years old in just a few weeks!

As I mentioned earlier, Karmann went to her first concert this weekend - well, it was a tiny concert in some one's back yard, and including us, there were 15 people in attendance. We went with our good friends Bev and Kirby (Kirby is as fond of bluegrass and folk music as Kris). Unfortunately, where we parked our car on the side of the street, apparently is a good place to get sideswiped, because our car did! I was up closer to the house nursing Karmann, when I heard a sound that sounded like car contact. When I was done, I went to ask Kris to go check the car, and sure enough the mirror was broken off and the whole side of the car was swiped. Actually, it wasn't as bad as I had envisioned when I heard the noise! So, though we had fun with Bev & Kirby, and enjoyed the music very much, we will be taking the car in to see what the repairs will cost in the morning.

On a higher note, we also got to see our good friends Kimmi & Abre and their two boys, Oskar and Ben! We had a great time hanging out with the kids (thank you Ben for showing Kris what needs to be baby-proofed in our house real soon!) and we had a fun dinner at Tijuana Flats! Yumm! Here's a shout out to Kimmi - only 10 weeks to go till you are finished with school! You can do it!!

Well, sorry I don't have more pictures, we've been slacking lately, and I hope to make it up soon! Have a good week!

Playing catch up

Since we had to cancel all of our plans 4th of July weekend due to the flu, we played catch-up this weekend. We had a great visit with Monica, Chris and Daniel on Friday night, since we missed Daniel's 1st birthday. Saturday, Bianca and I had a "girls day out" while the guys watched the kids, and today we watched the Cardinals play the Cubs over at Curt and Andrea's. This is where Karmann met her first kitty cats!

She was very fond of them, and they were very interested in her as well!

I forgot to mention that last weekend our great family friend Jerry (aka Jerry and Sherry, sans Sherry) was in town. Uncle Jerry and Grandpa Hare and I took Karmann to the Mall at Millenia (our favorite hang out) and here's a photo of them showing Karmann the water fountain near Cheesecake Factory.

So, Karmann has had a pretty busy weekend, and she was such a good baby the whole time. She's still teething and has had her moments, but overall she is really pleasant to be around. We are wishing the weekend could last forever!!!

Welcome to the world - Oren Douglas Boyer

Welcome to the world! Todd & Sara became first time parents Monday, July 6th to a very handsome baby boy! Oren Douglas Boyer (a.k.a. AZ9) was born - 8 lbs. 5 oz., 20 1/2" long! Apparently he has lots of hair, though this is the only photo we've seen so far! Congratulations T+S! We are so excited Karmann will have a new buddy to hang out with at Spring Training! Can't wait to meet the little guy!

More photos at this link: http://www.growingfamily.com/webnursery/hospitals/5774/frame_test.asp?URLID=9477749927

Flu bug - not such a holiday!

The plan was: dinner with friends; a 1-year old birthday party; a 50-year old birthday party; 4th of July afternoon cook-out; and evening holiday cook-out. All plans were cancelled, but not all was lost...Since last Wednesday, Karmann's little immune system has been fighting a bug I am sure she caught at the day care. Unfortunately, Kris and I also caught it at the same time! Karmann was vomiting and had a stuffy nose on Wednesday, however did not have a fever. Kris caught it on Thursday morning and left work early, and while I was called to pick up Karmann for loose b.m., I head to the grocery store to get medicine for both of them, and I end up getting sick in the store - luckily I found a garbage can - but was mortified!! Anyway, by the time I got Karmann and headed home, we were all feeling like crap. I won't get into more specific details, but for the next 12 hours, Kris and I had to gather up enough energy to trade off taking care of Karmann and each other. I can say we have never experienced anything more miserable than that!! Thank goodness our good friends Kirby & Bev dropped off soup and popsicles so we could get some sort of nutrients in our system. We even called Kris' sister in Tampa to see if she could come over the next day to take care of Karmann while we recovered ourselves. Luckily by 3 am, our fevers broke and we were starting to recover. Needless to say, all of our 4th of July plans were cancelled! We spent Friday recovering, Saturday sanitizing and washing everything, and finally returned to the planet on Sunday. Back to work on Monday, and Karmann had a relapse of loose b.m. at the daycare. Come to find out, all the care givers had the same thing over the weekend. So Kris ended up taking Karmann to the doctor, but not much else could be done. She was better on Tuesday, but got the call again around 11 am that she had a a temp of 101.8! So again, Kris took off and went to get her. Kris also stayed home today to take care of her and when I got home, she was much much better. She's been sick now for over a week!! My poor little baby!!

Though there's always a silver lining...what we did gain was three full days at home together with nothing to do (nothing we could do) but hang out together and sleep! Sounds good to me! It actually was fun, as it seemed Karmann was recovering quicker than us, and she was a real character! She has such a personality and has us wrapped around her little finger! She loves to stand up and bounce and smile, talk and laugh! So, though we were all miserable, we actually had fun staying home!! No commitments, no visitors, no errands to run - who wouldn't love that? Thinking of it that way, it made it extremely hard for me to drop her off at daycare and go back to work this week. If only we didn't have to work....