A Mobile Baby and A Beef Pasta Dish

Carter is officially on the move!  It isn't a pretty crawl, but he scoots, rolls, and pushes himself until he gets where he wants to go.

And where does he want to go?

To Jacob's toys, of course!

To say Jacob hates this would be an understatement.  I can't even think of a word to describe how Jacob feels about Carter touching his things.  Livid, maybe? Enraged?

Sharing is not going well.

I've kept the windows closed most afternoons, even though the temps have been warm, just because it is so LOUD at our house!  Jacob screams because Carter is touching his toys; Carter screams because Jacob screams; then Carter bumps into something (see yoga pose below) and screams again.  Seriously.  The neighbors don't even know they are being spared our drama.

In between all the yelling, I've made a few good, easy dishes recently. This one is adapted from the April/May issue of Taste of Home.  It's a cardinal sin in the blogging world to post about food without posting a picture, but we ate it before I thought to get my camera!  You'll just have to trust me that this one is good.

Beef and Tomatoes with Pasta.

1 lb ground beef
16 oz pkg of bow tie pasta
(2) 14.5 oz cans of diced tomatoes with roasted garlic (undrained)
15 oz can white kidney beans (rinsed and drained)
10 oz pkg of frozen chopped spinach (thawed and squeezed dry)
salt to taste

Heat ground beef, drain and return to pan
Stir in undrained tomatoes, beans, and spinach.
Season with salt to taste
Serve over cooked pasta

Super easy!

Call Her Mommy

Happy Mother's Day

Ready for Summer

Let's hear it for warm weather!  Finally!  This last week has been our first shorts-and-a-t-shirt kind of week, and it has been wonderful!

We had a little t-ball practice.

and watched a little t-ball practice.

(Best surprised face EVER!)

Jacob did some mowing.

and Carter ate some grass.

Bring on Summer!!

Burlap and Blue Baby Shower

My cousin Heather and her husband will be welcoming their first little boy at the end of June, and last weekend, we held a family baby shower for her at my mom's house.

Of course, our favorite part of hosting was planning the decorations!  We finally decided to go with burlap and blue, sort of a "shabby chic" feel.

I made the pennant garland out of burlap, hot glued chipboard letters from Hobby Lobby, and then hot glued  them to a wide blue ribbon.  (I already had the ribbon-- the advantages of having two boys!).  Mom made the bows on either side and then made little burlap rosettes inside the bows.

We are pom pom freaks.  I love them.  Nothing says "Party" like fluffy tissue papers pom poms!  Mom put these together from a Hobby Lobby kit.  They were meant to be hung so each of them had a little string, and she hot glued the string to a branch to get the look of flowers.

This little wreath was my pride and joy.  :)  The top pennants spell out, "Baby," and the bottom pennants spell that baby's last name, which is edited out in this picture for privacy.

For lunch, we served chicken salad sandwiches and everyone brought a dish.  My other cousin Chelise sewed the burlap runner on the table, and I used a printable for the picture by the silverware.

My sister-in-law Sarah made the cupcakes.  If the teaching thing doesn't work out, she could always open a bakery!

As favors, we gave little Pocket Bac hand sanitizers with a tag attached that read, "Thank you for coming today and touching Heather's life.  Now you can touch her baby!"  I like favors that people actually use, and who doesn't need hand sanitizer?!

Most of my family is oddly freaky about having their pictures taken, so I'm purposely not posting any of the "people" pictures.  We did have a great time at the shower, though.  Getting all the aunts and cousins together is always a recipe for a fun time!

We are so excited for Heather and looking forward to welcoming her new little guy into the world in just a few short weeks!

Who Needs Baby Food?

Not Carter, that's for sure.

After cutting his first tooth and then having a cold, I could understand why he wasn't particularly excited to eat, but when he finally got well and still wouldn't eat from a spoon, I got a little nervous.  I know that babies this age get their calories from milk, and that food is still just "play," but he was he was completely refusing to play!

I had been thinking about baby led weaning for a while, so this just gave me a reason to abandon the spoon and baby food.  At first, I squished up some bananas and set them on his tray.  He loved it!

As he got (a little) better at getting the food in his mouth, we tried peaches, pears, peas, green beans, avocado (the messiest!), apples, mango, and carrots.  Now, he is eating cheerios, which I soak for a few minutes in his milk so they're soggy, and pasta.  (Oh, and pizza crust.  He loves to gnaw on pizza crust, and I feel like such a responsible mom giving my 8 month old pizza crust, haha!)

Last week, we had a dish that had pasta, cannellini beans, and spinach, so I diced that really finely, and he thought it was great.  The boy loooves his pasta!

One of the tenants of baby-led weaning is that baby eats what you eat.  With one tooth, it's hard to truly eat what we're eating, but I've been trying to make meals where he can eat the veggie or the fruit.  I think he feels like he's doing what we're doing, and I can appreciate his independent streak.

We should, however, consider a dog, because this is a really, really messy endeavor!

Spring Evening

Last night was a gorgeous spring evening.  We all went outside as soon as dinner was finished, and Frank and Jacob went "off-roading."  Off-roading is when Jacob rides his tryke to the end of the sidewalk and then they run into the field behind the house.  Jacob loves to walk through the grassy area and to the edge of where the plowed field starts.  Of course, he picks up every little rock, stick, and interesting-looking weed along the way.  He was an absolute dirt-ball when he came inside!

The view was so pretty, I grabbed the camera and caught some really memorable shots of the two of them.  So... (unedited) picture overload!

Celebrate!

It has been a week of celebrations, both big and small, beginning with....

Easter!

We went to Christopher for the weekend and had a blast!  On Saturday, the kids had an Easter egg hunt at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  Each of the three kids had a designated egg design so we knew whose eggs were whose.

Jacob has egg-hunting down to a science.  Hopefully, he will give Carter some pointers next year!

And we opened some Easter gifts  (Yes, more phones.)

We also celebrated Brett's birthday and my birthday, which are less than two weeks apart.  My niece Jenna has become quite the baker, and she and Grandma Anna made cupcakes for us!

Later in the week we celebrated the Cardinal's opening day.   (Well, I probably would have been celebrating even more if I could have gotten both kids to look at the camera.)

Then, on April 4, I noticed... my baby has a tooth!!

Have you ever seen anything cuter?!