My little spaghetti monster

We've been trying to get E switched over to table foods, so she eats dinner with us at the table now. She eats her baby food first (because if she's hungry, she's too cranky to try anything new), and then she gets whatever we're eating. On Sunday night, that happened to be spaghetti. Usually she will give the food a suspicious side-eye, bang on the tray for a bit, and eventually take a taste. Not so with spaghetti. She dove right in.

I've also been giving her banana in the morning with her breakfast, but she was having a lot of trouble picking it up. I decided to skip the teeny-tiny pieces and just give her a whole banana and see what she did with it.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, despite the giant mess, it only took about 2 minutes to get her cleaned up after spaghetti night!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Nans had a great first Thanksgiving. She wasn't a big fan of the food- I still can't get her to eat any table food except for cheese- but she certainly enjoyed reading the Black Friday ads with me!

"Mama"

She said it! My baby called me "mama". Not once. Not twice. FIVE times!!!! I wasn't really sure she had said it the first time, but then she just kept going! (Yes, I cried.)

This means that I win. I wanted her first word to be "mama". Matt wanted it to be "kitty" (that was my first word).

Speaking of kitties, Nannies met some 10 week old kittens at Petco today when we were picking up cat food. They were in the little adoption center in the back corner, tearing around their cage and just generally being adorable. Nans stared at them with intense fascination for a few minutes, then she slowly lifted her little hand and started waving at them. She is the absolute cutest thing on earth! She pretty much only waves at kitties. She has done it to people on a few occasions, but whenever she sees one of the cats, she waves. Maybe she just likes them better. I have a feeling that she's going to be one of those kids who brings every living creature she can get her hands on back to our house, because when I finally tore her away from the kittens she sobbed like her little heart was breaking. It was so, so sad, yet so adorable at the same time.

I made a deal with the devil tonight.

OK, maybe it wasn't the devil. Maybe her name was Katie. But she brought up the fact that I haven't updated my blog in a shamefully long time, and people all over the room began echoing that sentiment.

So I did what anyone would do. I told her that if she documented the nights festivities on film (or digital memory card) for me, I would make not one, but TWO new blog posts for her.

Last weekend we took the kiddo to Lawrence for the day. Here she is enjoying some delicious mushed up green bean sludge at Free State. Try to contain your jealousy. I assure you, if you come over to our house, she will be happy to share.

She finally did it. She caught a kitty.

The Nans was a little upset the other night because she bonked her head on a table. Although I felt bad that she got hurt, I was secretly glad that it happened on her dad's watch so that I could stop feeling like neglectful parent, since all the bumps and bruises generally occur when I am watching her. I attempted to ice the bump with a bag of frozen peas, but E decided that the bag of peas was her eternal soul mate and insisted on crawling around and snuggling with it for the remainder of the evening. Any attempts to reclaim the bag of peas were met with the side-eye.

We attempted to smooth things over by administering her happy pills, aka tiny bits of cheddar cheese. The mission was successful. E loves cheese, but refuses to touch it herself. It must be carefully placed in her mouth by a parent. Cheese is serious business, people.

There's no real purpose to this pic, other than the fact that my kid is insanely, unspeakably cute.

"I'm going to give my mommy big hugs. Awwwwww."

Now I'm going to attack her whilst smiling angelically at the camera."
Now for tonight's festivities. You may be slightly disappointed, as there are no cute babies in this picture. But my friends are quite cute, so maybe that will appease you. We went to our friends Jess and Del's house tonight for dinner with some other friends, and some super-special unexpected out of town guests!

Chae, Danny, and Del

Danny approves!

I told you my friends are cute!

So is my hubby!

More cute friends!
Group photo!

Nannies:1, DST:0

An event which all mothers dread, daylight savings time, has come and gone. I was dreading it for weeks. I used to love the extra hour of sleep but since babies can't tell time, and, for some strange reason, don't enjoy sleeping in, I figured we were in for a not-so-great time this week. We started pushing E's bedtime back a bit at a time to try to ease her into the time change slowly. We rationalized that if we slowly kept her up later, she would slowly start sleeping in a little later, and by Sunday she would hopefully be back on her regular schedule when the time changed.

Fast forward to Friday night. We put E to bed around 7:30, which is her normal time (keeping her up late wasn't working so well). Matt got up and gave her a bottle sometime in the middle of the night and then came back to bed. And then we woke up and looked at the clock. It was 8:30!!! E is usually up by 6:45, or 7:00 at the latest! Once I got over my initial horror of staying in bed until 8:30 (I detest sleeping in), I realized how fabulous this was. She adjusted her schedule all by herself! She did it a day early, but who cares!?! We kept her an hour behind on her schedule for the day, and from Sunday on she's been back on her regular time frame. I love this kid!!!

Many of you know that I've been planning E's first birthday party since before she was born. I've been wondering for a while what to do for favors. The theme is cupcakes, so I knew I could just make some for everyone to take home, but since we're doing cupcakes instead of a cake, I really wanted to do something a little different. I recently came across Bakerella's blog where I found this adorable idea for party favors. I did a trial run tonight and I think they turned out okay. I've got about 4 months to perfect them, so I should have it down by party time. Behold, my mini cupcake bites!
What do you think?

Happy Halloween!

Nannies had a very busy first Halloween. We had lots of places to go and lots of people to see! First we stopped by Brynnie's to show off our adorable little stinker.

Then we went to see Aunt Joan.

Then we headed back home, and after lunch and a nap, we were off again, this time to my parents house. E was very excited about her first Halloween treats- yogurt melts!!!

And our final stop of the night was Matt's mom's house. She got more yummy Halloween treats there.

Scary ghostie floatie things.
Plus a new toy! Wheeee!

We didn't go to Matt's dad's house since he was out of town, and they had already seen her in her costume at the pumpkin patch, but when we got home we found a surprise from Grandma Jenny on the porch- monster jammies!
Elliot hopes that everyone had a Happy Halloween too!

Story Time!

Today I took Elliot to her very first story time at the library. I expected her to be all over the place and hard to control, but no! My wiggly, squirmy, crazy baby sat quietly on my lap for 20 minutes and listened intently. It was amazing! I think she was too interested in the older kids (baby story time is for 0-2 year olds) to realize that she wasn't able to go explore. I'm so excited that she liked it. When I was little, my mom would take me to the library 2-3 times a week, and I had so much fun there. To this day, I still love books, and it's very important to me to pass that on to E.

Speaking of books, it looks like I'm going to have to give in to Twilight-mania. I had absolutely no interest in these books until all the teenage hysteria started, and at that point it increased only to mild curiosity. However, I have an online mama friend who needs a girl date to the New Moon premiere, so I'm taking one for the team and jumping on the bandwagon. I have 23 days to read both Twilight and New Moon and to watch the first movie. I am now on a mission to find the first book at the library, but it's looking grim. According to the online catalogue, there is only one copy currently available in the entire metro area! I'm going to attempt to get it tomorrow, but only if I don't have to fight a 12 year old for it.