3 Years

Happy Anniversary Reid!

Sausage Lentil Soup

The soup mentioned in the last post is soup that a freshman roomie at BYU made for us occasionally. I had lost the recipe over the course of the 10 years and I had never even put it to use. I have never forgotten about her soup and so last week I did an internet hunt. I actually found a recipe very quickly. And while I can't guarantee that the recipe is the same one that she used, it tasted like what I remembered from 10 years ago. I've attached the recipe for anyone's that curious. It comes highly recommended by me--and Kai!

**Recipe taken from the Taste of Home website**
(I don't have a dutch oven, but rather used a pot on the stove and it turned out perfect. I also omitted the bay leaf--just personal preference on that.)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 pound bulk Italian sausage
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 1 small green pepper, finely chopped
• 1 small carrots, finely chopped
• 1 large garlic clove, finely minced
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 cans (14-1/2 ounces each) chicken broth
• 1 can (14-1/2 to 16 ounces) diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1 cup water
• 3/4 cup dried lentils, rinsed
• 1/4 cup country-style or regular Dijon mustard

Directions:

In a Dutch oven, cook sausage over medium heat until no longer pink. Drain fat and crumble sausage; return to Dutch oven along with remaining ingredients except mustard. Simmer, covered, 1 hour or until lentils and vegetables are tender. Stir in mustard. Remove and discard bay leaf before serving. Yield: 6 servings.

The Finger Bone's connected to the Taste Buds!

The reality that in just 3 short weeks Kai will be a year-old is starting to descend on me. And the fact that he should be off of baby food soon is quite scary! I have really tried to work on introducing him to more table food lately. For us that means that I have to prepare dinner earlier so that Kai will have something before he goes to bed. And Reid's starting to come home from work a little early every once in a while so that we can eat together. I have also started creating a weekly menu at the beginning of the week so that will eliminate a lot of the stalling on dinner.

So, dinner last night was sausage lentil soup--which has a story of its own. (I'll do that in another post.) Unfortunately, dinner wasn't ready before Kai's bedtime--it took too long to prepare with an 11-month old strapped to my legs making moving relatively impossible. (Kai is suffering a bit from separation anxiety.) Luckily, though, we had some left over and so I decided that Kai and I would have soup for lunch. Kai took one bite and wouldn't have anything to with it. Honestly, I was disappointed. It's great soup and I really need him to learn to eat something else. So, I left the bowl of soup out and started feeding him his sweet potatoes. A few minutes later, Kai reached for the soup bowl. I brought it closer to him and let his fingers explore a bit in the bowl. And then while he wasn't looking, I snuck in a spoonful of soup. And then another, and another, and before he knew it there was no soup left to dip his fingers in! He ate his whole bowl of soup--including the vegetables!

Maybe I'm the last mother to figure out that the finger bone is connected to the taste buds--but at least I figured it out! He made a MESS at his high chair which I'm not looking forward to. And I had to change all of his clothes. But he ate the soup, and that is a victory in my book!

Too Many Choices

Kai often seems overwhelmed by choices. He has lately taken to enjoying a cracker/goldfish/any finger food for about 10 seconds before spitting it out and reaching for another. This behavior has also been repeated with binkys--suck on one for 10 seconds, and then switch, and on and on. I was wondering where this behavior came from...........until today.

This morning Kai and I went to Wal-Mart to shop for his birthday present. We lingered in the one toy aisle with age-appropriate toys for almost 40 minutes, and I still came home empty-handed! Well, almost empty-handed. I did manage to pick up some Tadoodles for Kai, the crayon kind. He was so excited just playing with them in their package, that I feel fairly confident about that choice. Now I just need to find a real toy for his birthday. Reid has agreed to accompany me on my next attempt. He's fairly decisive and so hopefully Kai will have a birthday present!

Extra Wide

The threat of snow today and tomorrow made our trip to Stride Rite a must for this morning. So after the morning nap we hurried out the door, determined to make it back in before the snow began. Yes, you read that right--SNOW. Yesterday it was 75 degrees and perfect for a stroll around the block and today I'm racing a snow storm. Ugghhh! Anyway, I was anxious to get to Stride Rite so that a "professional" could measure Kai's foot and help me figure out which shoe would be the best beginning shoe for Kai. The girl at the store had to measure Kai's foot twice, mainly because he was curling his toes, but also because the kid is just so small. Well, I should say that he's short and his foot was short. He came in at a 2 1/2! He's 11 months old and only wears a 2 1/2! However, the reason I couldn't seem to find any other shoes that seemed to really fit is because his foot is wide--extra wide. So, we purchased Kai a pair of size 3 Extra Wide white training shoes. Crazy! Poor kid, not only is he little, he has fat feet.

As for the snow, it started around 3pm and has not let up. We had an inch within the first hour or so and it's still a winter wonderland outside. The storm should continue through tomorrow and then clear up for Friday which they say will be in the mid-60's. Just in time for Reid's scout camp-out on Friday night!

Tax Day

For those who haven't looked at the calendar yet, today's tax day!! Reid will be finding a post office on his lunch break later today. :) This is the first year that we've procrastinated and I can say it's been a little stressful. I did end up getting to do our taxes and I loved it, but admittedly I was nervous with everything that happened in 2007. But we're done.....minus a postmark. Wish Reid luck at the post office!

Other than that, today has a high of 75!! Actually, I may need to append about 4 more !!!! to that. I'm so excited. If only Kai and I could just sit outside all day. It would help if Kai had a pair of shoes and then we could really enjoy the weather. That's on my immediate to do list. There's a Stride Rite Outlet next to the Gymboree outlet in Castle Rock and I hope to make it there sometime this week.

Hope you all have a beautiful day!

Band-Aids and Kisses

The best $2.00 I ever spent was on a box of Band-Aids two months ago. To be honest, the purchase was an impulse buy, one of those moments where I thought it'd be nice to have some cute Band-Aids in case Kai ever needed one. So, in the bandage aisle at Wal-Mart Kai and I examined all of the fun kids' Band-Aids. Kai was almost immediately attracted to a yellow box of Curious George Band-Aids and so I handed them to him and carried on with the trip. He rode in the shopping cart clutching his precious box of Band-Aids between both chubby hands for the entire shopping excursion.
At home, it was a couple of weeks before the box was opened for one of Reid's boo-boos. Once opened we tentatively allowed Kai to examine the contents and once again hold the box. Over the months, we have become more and more lax and slowly the Band-Aids have become one of Kai's favorite "toys". He loves emptying the box, crinkling the Band-Aids and then refilling the box so that he can shake it. I don't know if he'll ever actually use the Band-Aids for their true purpose, but I don't care. He's definitely gotten more than $2.00 worth of enjoyment out of the box and what more can I ask.

One other cute side story....one of Kai's bedtime books--Sleep Tight--begins with "Good night Mommy, Good night Daddy". Last week, on of his own accord, Kai began kissing the cartoon representations of Mommy and Daddy. Whenever we read the book Kai will lean over and press his mouth to "mommy" and "daddy" and look up with a smile on his face. It melts my heart. What a sweetie!

Catching Up

With the onset of all of the colds, March has completely blown by me and I'm sitting here wondering how we got so far into April without me even noticing! For the most part the past two weeks have been relatively uneventful. We've been holed up in the house trying to recover from the worst cold ever. Poor Kai was so completely miserable--and as a result, so was I. But we're pretty much over the hump now and things are slowly starting to return to normal.

Kai playing patty cake

The trick of the week for Kai seems to be learning the ending to patty cake. He's always loved doing the clapping and if the whole rhyme were all clapping he would have been more than content. But Sunday night, Kai learned that there was an ending to the rhyme.....one where he could throw both arms out to the side and get mom to laugh and say "throw it in the oven!". Once he realized that, it was all over! Everytime I turn around, he's throwing his arms out to the side with a large and expectant grin. The throwing of the arms has resulted in numerous hits to the face for daddy and many a mess at the high chair as his arms hit the spoon and splash food everywhere. He's so cute!! This morning I tried to turn the arm throwing into a response for "How big is Kai?" or "How much does mommy love Kai?". While he thought it was fun, it wasn't the same as "Throw it in the oven!" So fair warning, if you try to play with Kai you'll be "throwing" a lot of things in the "oven".

Our New Neighbors

A friend in the ward here said that everyone in Colorado hibernates during the winter. She is definitely right as we haven't met any of our neighbors. That is, until a few weeks ago. It was a very nice, sunny Saturday and we noticed that the neighbors were out playing. Our first thought was "They look so nice", and "How fun!". And then we started to get to know them a bit better. Now, I'm researching extermination methods and learning so much more than I wanted to know. See, the neighbors that I'm referring to are the prairie dogs that inhabit the field behind our house. At least we thought it was confined to the field behind our yard, but we have recently discovered that our yard has not been spared in the prairie dog tunnel network.

Growing up, the prairie dog exhibit at the zoo was always a family favorite and I was always led to believe that prairie dogs were endangered. Turns out that in Colorado not only is the opposite true, there is a serious population control problem. So much so that Colorado approved a new extermination method a year and a half ago--the use of gas and explosives in their tunnels! While I don't know what we are going to do just yet, I do know that we've met our nearest neighbors and we've been less than impressed. So watch out little prairie dogs--you've overstayed your welcome!