Boo at the Zoo

Since Aunt Katie volunteers at the zoo, we took a family adventure last night to visit her at her post. Last night, Kitties was dressed as a Halloween witch named Bitsy. Wyatt couldn't figure out the nose...he just knew that the nose didn't belong on Kitties' face.

What's this? Can I eat it?

Family photo!

Aunt Kitties dressed as Bitsy

W riding an elephant...with Dad's help

The Dominican Republic

This weekend Jas and I took a trip to the Dominican Republic - our first weekend without Wyatt.

Jason and I had a wonderful time on the beach celebrating Nick and Jen's wedding. Around Sunday evening I started missing our baby boy. However, we had such a fantastic time together. I can't imagine a better weekend! Congratulations and blessings to our friends.

What We're Reading Now

Just found one of my favorite all time books! W is too young to "get it", but I think it is brilliant and I can't wait to share it with him.

Alphabeasties by Sharon Werner and Sarah Forss is absolutely precious.
Using different fonts, the authors create animal shapes using all of the letter being represented.
Take a look at this version of letter A.


This book is fascinating and will provide hours of perusal for little eyes. A great take on traditional alphabet books, your reader won't be disappointed.

Love it!
Note: I also saw that the authors created flash cards to make this text more mobile. Great, great idea and I'm sure they will be in the mail to little Wyatt Dodd soon.


Also in our shipment today - Snowbots written by Aaron Reynolds, illustrated by David Barneda.
Little snowbots celebrate a snow day - school is canceled and everyone goes outside to play. When things get too cold, though, mama and papa robot must come to the rescue. It's darling to see the little snowbots doing things that children would do. Only instead of enjoying a bubble bath after a day in the cold, these kiddos have hot oil baths. Very creative. Perfect for boys. Who doesn't like robots paired with rhymes?

Week in Review - October 11th

Gabby and Gramps finally came home from Montreal, and we are SO happy about it!
We spent the week doing all kinds of fun things.

I finished my pregnancy/Wyatt's birthday scrapbook this week...only six months after the fact. I can't believe how much he's grown. He really looks nothing like his baby photos. :(

Gabby and I took little man to the State Fair on Wednesday - quite an adventure. We had fried s'mores and fried Frito Pie and walked through tons of buildings to try and "work it off" (yeah, right). I'm going to go ahead and say that the Fried Frito Pie, gross as it sounds, is delicious. I would probably eat it again.

Gabby, quit kissing me. I'm a big boy!

Taking a break by the fountains

Y'all just ate WHAT???


Today, Saturday, we went to the Arboretum and took pictures in the pumpkin patch. I put Wyatt in his Halloween pumpkin outfit and Jason said I was forcing Wyatt to suffer awful indignities. Haha!



We're ready for the UT vs. Nebraska game, set to start in a little over half an hour. I have a pot of homemade chili warming on the stove. Shiners are already being consumed...
We have a little bet with Wyatt's birthday twin (whose parents are Nebraska fans). Loser has to wear winner's onesies. Yikes. Hook 'Em Horns!

Dad promised I'd do WHAT if the Horns lost? That's crazy.

Acrobatics

Today while I was making little man some homemade applesauce, I put him in the play pen and rolled that into the kitchen so we could talk.
Apparently, I wasn't keeping up my end of the convo, because Wyatt started performing some acrobatics. Watch the progression...

Talking with mom while she makes me some applesauce. Love that mama!

Roll over - probably something interesting out there to look at...

Nope, there wasn't. Guess I'll try and bust out of here.

Whoa! Look at me. Hang in there legs. Don't let me down.

Still going. My leg is starting to collapse, though.

Can't keep up...

Very careful landing.

Back to start, where I will wait for about five seconds before starting this process again.

I can only imagine that the next step is crawling. I hope he doesn't skip that and go straight to walking. I have no idea how I'm going to keep up, as it is.
Guess it's about time to babyproof this house. :)

Pumpkin Patch - A Word From Dub

Today Mom and Dad took me to a giant field of pumpkins. They kept calling it a pumpkin patch, I think they liked the alliteration, who knows?
This place had all kinds of pumpkins in every shade and size. I tried to put a few in my mouth which freaked mom out. Dad didn't seem to mind.

Mom and Dad were like the paparazzi in this joint.
They made me take all kinds of pictures - with pumpkins, with mom, with dad, on the wagon, off the wagon, in a pile of pumpkins. Whew! It got exhausting.


I should probably try to put this whole thing in my mouth...why are you yelling, mama?

Me and my mom

Sitting in the wagon with my dad
Look at these Baby Jason Eyebrows....too funny!

October One

The weather change has been so nice that Wyatt & I have started every day with a walk. This morning, we got dressed and met the day.
This is the first picture where Wyatt has ever looked like me as a kid. Love it!



Once we got home, we ate some oatmeal and fresh bananas and that inspired us to make our own graham crackers from scratch. Using a recipe from Babycenter, we re-created these childhood faves. One thing I like about this recipe: all of the hard work takes place in your food processor. You basically just have to roll it out and cut it. Target has some darling tiny Halloween shaped cookie cutters, but we opted for the big pumpkin. After 15 minutes, these babies were done and the whole house smelled like cinnamon. Would I make them again? Probably not. The boxed version is pretty tasty...but it's nice to know that I could if I wanted to.

Put dough from food processor on wax paper
Roll out your dough

Cut it into precious holiday shapes

Try to limit yourself to three - at least leave room on the plate for a cut up apple to complete the fall look. I used my apple for something else...wait and see.

We also tried out Real Simple's Halloween Candy suggestion and made their white chocolate-candy corn-pretzel-cranberry bark. Whew! What a mouthful. Sounds like an odd combo, but the salty and the sweet were Halloween Magic together. You just melt 8oz of white chocolate bark and put it in the bottom of a parchment paper lined 8x8 pan. Then you throw the other ingredients on top and put in the fridge until the white chocolate hardens. Break into pieces and enjoy.


And after all of those sweets, we wanted something more substantial. We didn't want to run to the grocery store, so we just used what we had on hand - a box of Kraft and a granny smith apple. What a perfectly delicious lunch!


We love the fall!

What? Free candy goes in there???