The Baby Turns One

My little baby turned one, which means that he's well on his way to not being my little baby anymore. It's exciting and sad at the same time. I have to say "hello" to walking and talking and mischief and "goodbye" to tiny baby clothes and bottles. Time for another baby, I guess. (um, no!)

My talented sister, Heidi, took some adorable pictures of Crew that totally capture his sweet personality. I love the pictures and I love this baby.

One thing about Crew, is his ability to capture anyone's heart with his "flirty eyes" as some say. He has these dreamy blue eyes and long eyelashes that any girl would kill for. He is good tempered and really easy going. He loves food and can already tackle a whole banana. I don't even cut it up--he just goes to town! He loves baths and splashing, which is hilarious to watch. He gets a serious look on his face when he's about to splash and then he splashes like his life depended on it. I laugh every time.

If I make eye contact with him ever, he HAS to crawl or get to me somehow. Sometimes when he's playing by himself, I have to sneak in to check on him so that he won't see me because he'll immediately stop what he's doing and come over to me to play. (Which, I love, of course!) He sleeps 13 hours at night, with a 6:30pm bedtime, he wakes up happy and snuggly. He gives kisses (sometimes) and he loves to watch me blow bubbles with my gum. Do you see why I want him to stay this way? Forever?

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For his birthday cake, I did a baby animal cake that I found in Family Fun's March issue. It was really easy and cute. (Just time consuming) I love the way it turned out!

Here's little Crew looking at me like, "What am I supposed to do? We didn't practice this!"
He ended up loving the cake!

And so did everyone else apparently, because my brother, Ryan, ate the whole barn and my brother in law, Matt, ate the whole silo! How's that for flattery?

Happy birthday my little sweet baby, Crew.
I love you.

Muffin Tin Meals

A couple of years ago, I found this blog post about fixing your children's meals in muffin tins. I tried it a couple of times, but had forgotten about it until last week.

Lunch time is always the hardest meal of the day for me. I am eating healthy things that my kids don't like (veggie burgers, usually) and I need to fix something for them and something for the baby. Three completely different meals at one meal time. When the kids started arguing that they wanted different meals, I remembered this trick and put it to the test. This time with older kids who actually had opinions.

The verdict: They LOVED it! Ate everything. Even the carrots! The next time lunch gets overwhelming for me, I will pull out our lovely muffin tin and go to work. It doesn't get easier (or more fun to eat!) than this!

It's Time To Play:

MYSTERY DIAGNOSIS!

Here are your clues:
-Stuffy nose in only one nostril
-Foul smelling breath

Here are your choices:
A) Sinus infection
B) Halitosis
C) Common Cold or

D) Play Dough up the nose

I'm sure you can guess the answer now!

D.

Are you as shocked as we were?! Here's the story:

For over a month, Maya has had this horrible rank breath. Like, really bad, can't stand being around her, what on earth is that smell, kind of bad. I thought it was many things at first: Not washing her hands after using the bathroom, halitosis, something wrong with her digestion, disease in her mouth, sinus drainage, on and on. Just when I would think I knew for sure what it was, I would rule it out for different reasons. And sometimes the smell would go away for a day or two, so it was really hard to know what was the matter.

Yesterday I decided I could not take the smell any more and I made an appointment for her to see the doctor today. I did feel kind of stupid making the appointment.
Me: "Um, hi. I'd like to make an appointment for my three year old."
Nurse:"What are her symptoms?"
Me:"Uh, really bad breath."
Nurse (chuckling out loud) "O.K. see you at 10" ...still chuckling.

When the doctor looked up her nose, she decided to see if the "green snot" was something else. We held poor Maya down (and she was so brave!) and the doctor pulled out this (hopefully you are done eating as you read this!) huge green blob the size of a grape.

Play dough.

The green play dough I made for her in early December.

She's been going around with rotting play dough in her nose for 5 weeks.

Gross.

But, she's all better now and the smell is gone.

But, yeah, I know.

Gross.