Saturday, August 27, 2011
Daddy's Little Training Partner
Taylor is in training to upgrade to captain, which pretty much means every waking moment he has is devoted to studying. And this occasionally involves me and Graham too, although I get the fun job of testing him on his memory items while Graham just gets to play with everything while we do so. I think Graham definitely got the best end of that deal.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
My New Favorite Picture
I go through a new favorite picture pretty much every time I take a new one of Graham, but this one has stayed in first place over the last week. It's after an afternoon at the pool and a walk home in the wagon, both of which Graham loves so much that he couldn't help but to show off his dimples.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Breakfast of Champions (Or at least Breakfast of Graham)
Graham ate fruit and baby oatmeal for nearly every breakfast after he decided one day that rice cereal wasn't for him. (And he so ever sweetly told us that he was over rice cereal by spitting it back at us.) So upon turning one and being given the pediatrician's clearance to abandon baby oatmeal, I was suddenly at a loss for what to give Graham in the mornings. Fruit obviously stayed, but so many breakfast foods are full of sugar or require spoons to eat, and let's just say Graham's favorite way to use a spoon is to bang it on the ground, not to feed himself.
I came across this recipe and it was a huge hit...not only with Graham, but with Taylor too. The original recipe is here, but I adapted it in the below recipe to include all wheat flour and no chocolate chips. Hey, he's going to learn soon enough the greatness of sweets, I don't have to prod him along any. (But the chocolate chips would be a great addition!)
Banana Applesauce Oat Muffins
Makes 12 muffins or 24 Graham-sized servings
1 egg
3 mashed ripe bananas
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup natural applesauce
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup quick cooking oats
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 12 cup muffin pan with paper liners.
In a large bowl, combine egg, bananas, brown sugar, applesauce and vanilla. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Stir the oatmeal into the flour mixture. Gently stir flour mixture into the banana mixture. Pour batter into the prepared muffin cups.
Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes. Remove muffins from pan and place on a wire rack to let cool before serving.
I came across this recipe and it was a huge hit...not only with Graham, but with Taylor too. The original recipe is here, but I adapted it in the below recipe to include all wheat flour and no chocolate chips. Hey, he's going to learn soon enough the greatness of sweets, I don't have to prod him along any. (But the chocolate chips would be a great addition!)
Banana Applesauce Oat Muffins
Makes 12 muffins or 24 Graham-sized servings
1 egg
3 mashed ripe bananas
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup natural applesauce
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup quick cooking oats
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 12 cup muffin pan with paper liners.
In a large bowl, combine egg, bananas, brown sugar, applesauce and vanilla. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Stir the oatmeal into the flour mixture. Gently stir flour mixture into the banana mixture. Pour batter into the prepared muffin cups.
Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes. Remove muffins from pan and place on a wire rack to let cool before serving.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
A Bubble Birthday Bash
Graham has loved bubbles since he was just a few months old, so it was an easy choice to celebrate his first birthday with a bubble theme. I may or may not have become a bit obsessed with all things bubble-related in the months leading up to Graham's birthday...but it was so much fun to plan his first birthday party. Here's a few photos of the big day.
DIY cupcake tower (Directions from Annie's Eats.)
To showcase Graham's weekly pictures, I hung ribbon and clipped each one up with a clothespin. It was fun to see how he grew weekly in one spot.
Graham woke up from his nap right before the party and he was a little overwhelmed by everything going on. He eventually woke up enough to enjoy the bubbles and his company.
Taylor and I had bets on if Graham would like his cake. I guessed he wouldn't, just due to the fact that he's sensitive about different textures. Not only did I win the bet, Graham decided to one-up me and even gag on the frosting. We even later tried just giving him some cake without icing and he didn't want that either. His expressions were priceless.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Dear Graham, Week 52
Dear Graham,
I've been thinking for some time about this letter that will mark your first year of life. I've tried to consider ways I could refrain from being sappy, cliche and overly nostalgic. That was an epic fail. Just consider this a warning to stop reading now if you don't want to hear the thoughts of your super sentimental mommy.
Let's just start with the biggest cliche of all: where has time gone? It literally seems like yesterday that your daddy and I were on our way to be admitted to the hospital to start the induction process. It seems so strange now to think back to the things we were worried about. How would labor go? Would we know what to do with you once you were here? How would we survive little sleep? What was your personality going to be like? Thinking about these things now seems so simple and routine, like wondering how we'd get dressed each day.
While I can easily remember (fondly!) our pre-Graham sleep, it's so hard to think back to our pre-Graham lives. Although we didn't know it at the time, now it seems like there must have been a little part of us that was incomplete. Like a puzzle with the center piece missing or a football team without its safety. (Did I lure you back in with a sports reference?) Once you were in our lives, we wondered how it could have ever been any other way. Even signing cards "Leigh, Taylor and Graham" seems like the most natural thing to do.
Watching you evolve through each week of your first year has been such a fun process. I've tried hard to live in the present and to take in every little new babble, development or little quirk of yours. Just in the last two weeks alone, you've changed to be so much more interested in interacting. You now point at your books, play games such as "Biggie Boy How Big" and operate your toys when we show you how. Every time you do something new the pride I feel is enormous...it overpowers any feeling of pride I've felt for something I've accomplished on my own.
Your giggles (and resulting adorable dimples), sweet hugs and adorable expressions brighten our days and bring so much joy and laughter to our lives.
Happy birthday, Graham!
Love,
Mommy
PS...Over the last year I've written you 37 letters to chronicle your weekly or biweekly (or occasionally monthly!) progress. I'm going to change now to writing you monthly and updating the blog with posts in between to keep up with your various activities. Because as I started to do the math, if I continued on this rate, by the time you graduated high school you would have more than 650 letters from your mom. Which would be a little creepy. :)
I've been thinking for some time about this letter that will mark your first year of life. I've tried to consider ways I could refrain from being sappy, cliche and overly nostalgic. That was an epic fail. Just consider this a warning to stop reading now if you don't want to hear the thoughts of your super sentimental mommy.
Let's just start with the biggest cliche of all: where has time gone? It literally seems like yesterday that your daddy and I were on our way to be admitted to the hospital to start the induction process. It seems so strange now to think back to the things we were worried about. How would labor go? Would we know what to do with you once you were here? How would we survive little sleep? What was your personality going to be like? Thinking about these things now seems so simple and routine, like wondering how we'd get dressed each day.
While I can easily remember (fondly!) our pre-Graham sleep, it's so hard to think back to our pre-Graham lives. Although we didn't know it at the time, now it seems like there must have been a little part of us that was incomplete. Like a puzzle with the center piece missing or a football team without its safety. (Did I lure you back in with a sports reference?) Once you were in our lives, we wondered how it could have ever been any other way. Even signing cards "Leigh, Taylor and Graham" seems like the most natural thing to do.
Watching you evolve through each week of your first year has been such a fun process. I've tried hard to live in the present and to take in every little new babble, development or little quirk of yours. Just in the last two weeks alone, you've changed to be so much more interested in interacting. You now point at your books, play games such as "Biggie Boy How Big" and operate your toys when we show you how. Every time you do something new the pride I feel is enormous...it overpowers any feeling of pride I've felt for something I've accomplished on my own.
Your giggles (and resulting adorable dimples), sweet hugs and adorable expressions brighten our days and bring so much joy and laughter to our lives.
Happy birthday, Graham!
Love,
Mommy
PS...Over the last year I've written you 37 letters to chronicle your weekly or biweekly (or occasionally monthly!) progress. I'm going to change now to writing you monthly and updating the blog with posts in between to keep up with your various activities. Because as I started to do the math, if I continued on this rate, by the time you graduated high school you would have more than 650 letters from your mom. Which would be a little creepy. :)
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