When You Can Crawl . . .

You can make a mess:

Eat a computer cord:

Use the bouncy seat on your terms:

Use a heating pad:

Read the Puppy Book as many times as you'd like:

Discover new and exciting toys:

 Blog about it:

8 months

You know how some ages just sound older than others?!? Like how 26 seems so much older and scarier than 25? Confession: 8 months is one of those big, scary sounding ages for me. I mean, 8 months, that's closing in on a year. That's old. Anyway, Clare was 8 sweet months old yesterday. For her birthday, she got a paper towel tube, some empty boxes, and a handful of Cheerios. Life is good.

She is now crawling allllllllll over the place. I love watching her explore her little world. I love watching her notice something new (that's been there the whole time), crawl (or "limp-a-scott") her way over to it, and observe it -- with all 5 sense, of course! I love seeing how quickly she learns! Of course, she knows the exact sound to make to get us to come rescue her from whatever predicament she has trapped herself in.

Our little daredevil has finally decided to show a little fear -- of loud noises. She's not a fan of the coffee grinder or the vacuum or Daddy's drill.

She loves books, especially her touch and feel puppy board book, known around these parts as, "The Puppy Book" aka the first baby book I will have memorized. She loves to touch the faces in the pictures while I read.

She jabbers more or less all the time. Lots of "mamamamama" and "dadadadadadadadadad" and "bagadabamanama" and stuff like that. Frequently, when she gets frustrated, she will spit out some short, staccato syllables like "bah!" or "gah!" that I'm pretty sure are the baby version of "Oh drat!" and "By golly!" Or something like that.

More than anything, she continues to light up our lives. We love seeing her little personality develop, but are preeeeeety sure we're going to be investing in some growth suppressing chemicals or something.

And, of course, I marked the day by taking a photo or two:

7 Quick Takes, Vol. 15

Linking again today. What else is new lately? This time, I'm predictably linking up with Jen and the rest of the 7 Quick Takes regs (after 15 rounds, I've decided to count myself in that group). Content of my very own coming soon, I promise.

1. *10 day old Top Chef spoilers if anyone still cares or is unspoiled*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Sorry, sometimes it takes me awhile to get around to watching things, so do unto others and stuff. Anyway, this seems like an appropriate reasonable good enough place to vent about something as trivial as the Top Chef finale. Even though I preferred Brooke, Kristen was clearly a talented chef and worthy winner. Whatever. What annoyed me was the head to head "rounds" format of the finale. When the time was ticking away and they were still on the fourth course, it became increasingly clear that there wasn't time for a fifth course, so Kristen, with her 2 courses to 1 lead, was going to win. That's just not the way I want my TV ruined. HARUIMPH! Moving on . . .

2. Oh, Anonymous, I subsequent you, too. I know you're not a robot or anything. We'll live and love together forever scamming selling iPhone cases. It will be beautiful. I know it.

3. Speaking of comments, I feel like it's been said a million times, by other people whose blogs are read by looooots more people than my little blog, but please, please, please (with sprinkles and a cherry) make sure your email address is connected to your comment so that I can respond to you instead of my not-bff "noreply-comment." K? Thanks. (And thanks to Grace for the stolen tutorial. And thanks to the persons from whom she stole it.)

Mmmm....sprinkles...

And if you prefer not being replied to, know that I really, truly appreciate your comments all the same.


4. I expected a lot of things from Clare learning how to crawl. Clumsiness was not one of them. It seems like she is constantly hitting her head on something. I guess I always thought it was more of a fall down and hit your head thing than a lift your head up and hit your head thing.

That blurry little head is just looking to get bonked...

5. I've been referring to Clare as a diva-in-training since she held her hand in front of her face throughout her entire ultrasound (to the point they struggled getting some of her head/face measurements),

Please, no pictures! I'm not wearing any lipstick!

but this pretty much seals the deal.

Tongue? Nail file? Not 16? Oh my.

6. In an effort to not waste three ugly overripe bananas, I made banana bread the other day. Given the whole Lent thing, I went with this recipe, instead of the numerous, yummy chocolate-including things I found alllllllllllllll over the internet. I'm not a huge banana bread person (thus the chocolate temptation), but this came out well with just the right amount of banana.

7. Yesterday morning, I made sure to snap a sweet picture of Clare with her Piglet lovey that we I've re-named Piglotta to capture this sweet phase of her life. And to remind myself that she does sleep sometimes when I need that bolster.

All Instagrammed and stuff, 'cause I'm that mom.

Hap-hap-happy to the Friday!

So Not a Vegetarian

Linking up today with Beth Anne's Best and Tales from Astoria to blather on and on, and without much claim at originality, about cooking sin carne for Lent. I just can't resist a good Link Up Fiesta.

A leeeetle, teeny part of me wants to be just say, "Go to your parish fish fry. Support your Knights of Columbus (or whomever)!" and leave it at that. Part of that would be good and right and true. And it is what we've mostly been doing this Lent. But I also know that that's not a solution for everyone for a variety of reasons.

So . . . away I blather!

I am so not a vegetarian. I enjoy meat. I do. Even so, we try to avoid meat once a week, even when it's not Lent. This is particularly challenging in our house for a couple of reasons besides liking meat. First, I am seriously (and I do mean seriously, but thankfully not anaphylactically seriously) allergic to eggs. That means no quiche or omelets or simple scrambled eggs (unless Charles makes them for himself, which only happens on rare occasion). It also means saying no to lots of baked-by-others goods. Second, Charles isn't a big fan of creamy, cheesey, gooey (what I would consider yummy) things. No mac & cheese or risotto or cheese enchiladas in this house.

To top it all off, I'm just starting to toy around with cooking fish. If you want seafood recipes I'm not your go-to girl.

That means we rely on three things: pizza (need I really explain more?), pasta (I plant to post my favorite, if not particularly original, recipe next week), and soup.

Last year and the year we were engaged, we enjoyed simple soup suppers for Lent. Just soup and bread/rolls/whatever. The soups were homemade*, the bread was not. Were it not for our fish fry attendance, it would be our plan again this year. so I present to you (if you've actually made it this far), my Lenten soup schedule:

Ash Wednesday: Vegetable soup in the Crock Pot
1st Friday: Butternut Squash soup
2nd Friday: Vegetarian Tortilla soup
3rd Friday: Tomato soup
4th Friday: Vegetarian minestrone soup
**5th Friday: Veggie chowder (Recipe found via Pinterest...all others from my head/reading several recipes/throwing stuff together.)
6th Friday: Potato soup
Good Friday: Veg soup in the Crock Pot again (It just hits the spot and is ready to go when we get home from Mass/Liturgy and such without being a huge "large meal.")

I hope to incorporate soups in my meal plans the next few weeks of Lent anyway, as I've slacked off this week and last. I also plan to incorporate some new bread recipes to go with them, so that's always fun!

*I generally use water/vegetable broth/tomato products instead of chicken stock during Lent.

**No, I couldn't make this for Charles, but I have made it for lunches and it is yummy, so you should make some, too.

"I'm so hungry, I could eat my shoe." 'Cause every post needs a picture, and I can't find any of my soup pics.

Five Favorites

 


Today, I'm linking up with Hallie at MoxieWife.com to share some of my favorite things. Today's things are Pinterest pins that I could/should/will actually do.

Drum roll . . .

1. Wreaths

These are ideas for Christmas wreaths, but I'm going to turn one of them into an Easter wreath. The ribbon wreath pictured, or another one further down the link would both be very cute and doable.

2. Peeps on a Stick

Such a cute, inexpensive idea for an Easter treat!

3. Egg Substitutions

I will definitely be trying these out next time I need to make a cake (and since some husband of mine has a birthday coming up, that won't be too far down the road), since I haven't had the same success with flax in cake-like products that I have had in cookies.

4. Cute birth statistics cards

Cute for your own kids or to give as a gift.

5. Orange Zested Cookies with Sweet Orange Glaze

These look super-yummy and I think my dad would really like them.

Thanks for hosting, Hallie! It was actually really fun to comb through my boards and find all of these pins that I had already forgotten about! And if you end up being the recipient of any of my giftable ideas, I apologize in advance for the spoilers!