feed me
This little dude is going to eat us out of a house before we even own another one! He's moving right along trying new foods; so far we've tried sweet potatoes, acorn squash, bananas, green beans, apples, pears, and butternut squash. He's also randomly tried white potatoes and bread. He normally eats 3-4 cubes of food in a sitting, sometimes more, sometimes less but rarely. We're at an impass with milk. I think 6 months might be my internal limit or something; I can't be sure but I think he's not getting enough from nursing any more. So today I'm giving him bottles of pumped milk trying to see if he sleeps better at night because currently he's waking up three times to eat. Three. Mama is tired. We'll see!
splish splash
We had our own little staycation this weekend up in Rockford at CoCo Key Water Park with Grandma and Grandpa Bolt. After Samantha had been saying water non stop all morning once we actually got into our suits and walked into the pool, she got stage fright. We tried the zero entry pool, the lazy river, and the normal pool and all the while she just wanted to be held and and one point she even started saying mall. She relaxed a little bit once G&G brought Dylan in with them and then she really let loose once we went to play around the water features (slides, water shoots, tunnels, etc). She even made a friend and started going down slides by herself. After a few hours she decided she wanted to take a nap so up to the room we went where for the next three hours we all took naps at different times while she snoozed the afternoon away, ha! After a late dinner we put the kids to bed and Sue babysat the monitor while we went to have some drinks and watch the fight. I nearly passed out at the bar being so tired and luckily the kids slept to a reasonable hour : ) After a yummy breakfast we headed down to the arcade and while she seemed intimated she eventually got into it, especially liking when her and B took a spin at dance dance revolution! Dylan was, as usual, very go with the flow all weekend. Chilling by the pool, in the pool, watching kids, watching us eat, falling asleep in the arcade...he's a mellow kid.
Another fun weekend and it leads into my favorite time of year, the holidays! Besides Thanksgiving, we are prepping this week to get the house decorated for Christmas. We think Samantha will be really into it this year and want to make it as fun and festive as possible. My parents are going to think Christmas threw up in their house, but it's going to be fantastic : )
take two
Dylan did amazing with his sweet potatoes tonight! He gobbled them all up in record time. I'm already trying to decide what to make him next, green beans or acorn squash, before moving onto bananas! Yes I know, boring to most but it's so crazy that we're already in the food making portion of Dylan's life. It feels like only yesterday I was whipping up batches of food for Samantha to eat. Speaking of, we found a good way to get some meat into our girl...disguise it! She's normally pretty touch and go with the meat section of dinner, but tonight she had three helpings of the stuffing for stuffed peppers - rice, ground beef, tomatoes.
Things are the usual around here. Play and eat, eat and play.
it’s all coming back to me
Dylan loved the sweet potatoes! Things were a little hectic around here last night at dinner time but I was trying to accommodate both my husband and my son...Adam wanted to be around the first time Dylan tried real food and I wanted Dylan to have it be fresh the first time, ie just out of the oven and pureed moments before. I'd say it was a success all around! I may have left it a little too thick, but he did just great. What a big boy we have : )
go go go
What a weekend. Friday night we took the kids to Lalo's for dinner. Dylan tried to eat my soup, Sammie ate all her rice and quesadilla and then we helped her with the ice cream that came with her meal. And then we remembered why we always say no to ice cream. She was crazy. Saturday we spent an Adam and Kathy day at the Northwestern homecoming game and night with the girls and hubbies while Sammie and D spent the day with their grandparents. Today we took our little giraffe and monkey to Boo! at the zoo w/ the grandmas and Ashley and then dinner at Ash&Vinnie's. My eyes are crossing as I sit here.
table food
For the first time tonight Samantha had the same dinner we did, grilled chicken and cheese quesadilla. She loved the cheese quesadilla and would have finished the whole thing if we let her. She was unsure of the chicken but tried a few bits after a while. It amazes me how old she is and what big girl things she is doing. Table foods, walking while only holding onto with one hand, throwing tantrums...the list could go on. It is so fun to spend time with her and watch her discover the things she can do.
happy mothers day!
Mom, Mom, Grandma, Gungi, aunts...Happy Mothers Day to you all!!! We love you, thank you for loving us : )
We spent my first mothers day alone together. We didn't do anything big. Mostly because I'm cheap, however looking back packing a lunch and bringing it to Morton Arb would have only been a few bucks more than eating Pot Belly's for lunch like we did, but oh well. That's not to say I didn't have a wonderful day. I spent it with my family and loved every minute. The whole weekend was actually fabulous and it was just what I wanted. Adam's been working like crazy lately so it was great to just have three full days to spend together. Samantha did try to make the day a little more interesting by taking only one solid nap and fighting her bedtime but if that's all I have to 'complain' about I'll take it!
Since I was feeling blue about making a rotten decision not going to the arb, we took some pics in the backyard before dinner.
happy Easter
for the record I L.O.V.E holiday weekends. I am just so incredibly tired afterwards it's hard to seem like it. I was super cranky by the end of the day today but it happens I suppose. Or it's the fact that I didn't get into bed until after 1 am Saturday night and had my usual 5 am nursing session with Samantha only to have her wake up for good at 7. But I digress...
Friday was a typical night here at the bolt house...dinner and talks of a movie but the night ends with Adam passing out on the couch and me taking Brody out and going to bed without waking him to come upstairs. But Saturday all the fun started! First I met up with Rachel and Michelle for sushi to catch up. So much fun. After sushi I stopped quickly at caputos to get the ingredients for my dishes today. It was beyond a madhouse and I'm so glad I didn't need anything from the deli. Disaster with a capital D. After the errands and few hours of getting things together here we took off for Riverside for the rest of the weekend.
Samantha went down for a nap like a champ when we got there so we hung out with all the parents/babysitters while they ate pizza. She woke, I fed her and we snuck out for Will's surprise dinner. We went out for tapas at a restaurant in their building. It was delicious and it was soooooo nice to see everyone. We got back to my parents super late (for me) and luckily Samantha went down for Grandma Sue no problems and had been sleeping ever since. Success!!
Today was a nice day relaxing with the family. Samantha was her usual lovely self and totally adapted to napping in her pack n play. The below wasn't taken today, but it's pretty much how she is every day. Playing with her toys and giggling at something silly mama is doing.
It may not be thanksgiving but I am extra thankful for my husband, our daughter, and our families today. They all make my days brighter 
I call it like I see it
Samantha crawls. She moves her hands and her knees together to move in one direction. 95% of the time it's backwards. On a rare occasion she'll go forward. She's not zooming around me in circles yet. I don't think I have too much more time until then however. Over the past few days she'll get much further from her starting point in shorter spans of time. From the time I got up to walk to the fridge and back to the floor to play she had gone from the coffee table to Brody's toys (o joy of joys). This week I'm going to analyze the situation here so we can move some things, ground some things - namely the shelf in the corner, remove and/or bundle all electric cords, and come up with a decent looking way to block the way to the back of the TV. Oh, and the main thing, find a magical way to help Samantha not be afraid of the vacuum. With her scooting off her blanket it's really important to begone of all the Brody hairs. I guess I or Adam can just do it every night before/after dinner so one of us is around to hold her. We'll see.
We made a family trip to the library this weekend. I'm not overly impressed with the kids section. I keep comparing it to the Riverside Library and while if I remember correctly it's not like it was perfect it was nicer than this. But she's still to young to care anyways and they're voting this week to expand the library anyhoo. Adam got a number of books and I checked out two total chick books. This was late morning Saturday. Sunday evening at 12:15 am I finished the first book. Apparently I have more me time than I thought.
The weather is crazy...why is it snowing in April!?!? But we made it out before it all started and went to lunch today with BT and Brie to finally have that celebratory. We put Samantha in the high chair at Texas Roadhouse. She did good for about 20 minutes then wanted to be held. I'll take it, you have to start somewhere!!
chef Kathleen = dancing fool
I'm on a total cooking kick lately. I love to meal plan, prepare everything, when it comes out fantastic it puts me in the best mood! And lately I've been putting Samantha in her high chair to watch me. I tell her what I'm doing and let her smell most of it. She will get antsy...unless I'm singing and dancing around for her. She joins in, screeching and moving her legs. While Adam and I were finishing up dinner last night a song came on and we both busted out dancing at the same time. Samantha just looked back and forth at us grooving along in her chair. Sometimes I wonder if I'm messing her up playing so much real music (Britney, Coldplay, Daryl and John, Justin, Elton, anything but rap) and not baby music or classical music. We do mix it up with her Disney Princess album, but not all day long. I'm holding out that music is music, it's all good. Ha, before I started with dinner I needed to move so I put on Britney, grabbed that baby and started dancing. She loves that. Smiles from ear to ear, giggles, seems so happy.
My favorite thing to make...Samantha's food.