Pajama Popcorn Party

We had some friends over last night while their parents went out on a date to celebrate eight years together. The kids were crazy. They were good, just all over the place. I found the perfect way to keep them quiet at the end of the night.

Feeeeeeeed ME!

I felt bad for Blake yesterday as he watched Carolyn enjoy all her birthday treats. He watched all the food move from the table to people's mouths. I tried to wait until his doctor appointment next week to start him on food because of some questions I wanted answered. But last night we just went for it. I'm glad we did. He was totally ready and really enjoyed his rice cereal. He giggled through most of it because he was so happy to finally get some food.

My daughter's weird

My sister passed her RN boards, so we went to dinner last week at PF Chang's. I absolutely love their mongolian beef. Carolyn surprised us by eating well, but her favorite was stealing the green onions off my dish. She chowed down approximately half of them. I thought this was weird, but not really noteworthy. She used to eat raw diced onion while I prepared dinner.

But I was still surprised to see this while trying to get the groceries put away:

Did we really do this in public?

It's vacation, so we are going to all my favorite restaurants where I grew up. One big difference--I have a toddler now. One who even prior to this trip was trying to assert her independence/codependence at meal times. She has to be practically on top of me while she eats, but, aside from that, she will do everything herself--this includes eating ketchup with a spoon and picking up the goblet of water. My goal these days is to make it through the meal. You can see from my face that I was thoroughly enjoying the mess Carolyn was making. I wish we had a close up of her face from this picture. It is thoroughly slimed.




This was a cold turkey sandwich. Apparently, halfway through eating it, Carolyn decided it was too hot. She needed to cool it down.

How do parents get their toddlers to stay seated for meals? I understand it is asking a lot at restaurants because they don't have their boosters and it's something exciting and new. But at home? The first picture could have been taken at our dinner table. If we try to force her to sit in her booster, she cries and refuses to eat. Sometimes, like the days Jeremy works 14 hours, I can't handle listening to the crying and I let her sit on my lap. So do I just have to let her starve if she won't sit in her own seat? What's the deal here?

A New Culinary Sensation

Carolyn is ready to send in her audition tape to Top Chef. She has a very discerning palate, especially when it comes to mingling new flavors. Her latest creation is a delectable combination of sweet applesauce and salty Harvest Cheddar Sunchips. Mmmm, sounds delicious, no?

Suckers! They're all suckers!

Mom has awesome friends...


After giving me a taste, she got me this WHOLE bowl!

OH...I guess I'll share with the old guy.

Families Reunion

It seems people are migrating to Utah. Saturday, members of the Darby, Underhill, and Wilde families got together for a barbecue in the park. It was fun to see friends I hadn't seen for years. It was also fun to meet the first baby ever that eats more than Carolyn. I didn't think it would ever happen. Here's little Ashley Underhill (child of Josh), eating potato salad directly from the bowl. Luckily, this was at the end of the picnic.


Here's Carolyn ready for game day! Now that we got rid of all of our TV channels, except those picked up by free antenna, we have no way to watch our Cougars play. It was a special treat to be in town for the game. We still had to watch it on TV because it was an away game, but Carolyn was able to root for the Cougs wearing her BYU jersey from Aunt Bean. It's a little big. My child chose not to grow since last Christmas.

Delicious Eats

Angel, Carolyn, and I took a day trip to Olympia, Washington to visit my mother's parents. First we stopped to her mom, Grandma Willis. Carolyn quickly felt at home and started roaming all over the place. She find a rocking chair just her size that she loved. Then we all went to lunch with Aunt Lynn to a burger joint, Eagan's. So good. Burgers at fast food joints kinda gross me out. But this was delicious! They also had the best shakes. Angel ordered blackberry and I think I had at least half of it (well, half of what was consumed, she dropped it on the ground at the end). Carolyn happily ate her corndog and begged for fries off her Aunt Bean's plate.



From Eagan's, Angel, Carolyn, and I drove over to Grandma and Grandpa Tolman's. Carolyn found a stuffed dog to give loves to, and she discovered Grandma's snail collection--that kept her interested for awhile. We couldn't get her to sit still for much because she was too busy running laps around the house. Grandma and Grandpa shared some delicious Tillamook Wild Huckleberry Ice Cream. If you live in an area that sells Tillamook ice cream, check it out.

Here's a little picture of Carolyn not giving her mother even a moment's rest. I am just on the other side of that door, and she was stretching to get the handle to get in.

We had to return to Portland to get Carolyn home in time for bed, but we really enjoyed taking the trip up to see family.

Slipping and Sliding!

At church I have a new assignment helping with activities for the 8-9 year old girls in the ward. I went to my first activity yesterday where they had all sorts of fun water games. I didn't get my camera out until the very end, but I still got some fun shots.
Carolyn spent the whole time eating watermelon. I had bought some for the girls, but Carolyn desperately wanted some. I ended up cutting a personal-sized melon for the younger kids to share. Carolyn ended up eating half of it. She had seeds down her suit and in her diaper.

Chandler didn't actually ride a bike, but he was getting ready to in case he was allowed!



After the activity we tried to get Carolyn to do her first on-her-belly slip and slide. She couldn't quite figure out what I was trying to do to her. We did manage to get her down once or twice and she giggled the whole way!

Eating with a Spoon!

My daughter, who eats just about everything, started refusing such basic foods like oatmeal and yogurt. There usually involved lots of yelling when I would try to feed her these typical meals. Finally, she reached for the spoon herself and has been happily eating ever since. It is so darn messy, but she is just so proud of herself every time she gets food in her mouth.

Personal Pan Pizza

I know I blog about Carolyn's food habits a lot. But it's so impressive to me! I take my thrills where I can find them. We made Carolyn her own mini pizza. She ate almost the whole thing.

Pancakes!

Carolyn has the biggest appetite I have ever seen for such a small baby. We have really only established one food that she doesn't like--bananas. All the others are fair game, including lasagna, tomatoes, zucchini, tacos, mango, etc. A few weeks ago, Jeremy decided to make a Mickey Mouse pancake for Carolyn, but apparently he ran out of batter for the ears. This was her first food that we hadn't torn into bites for her. She devoured it. (She has since had Mickey Mouse pancakes with properly sized ears).