Blueberry Chutney and Brie

Made a blueberry chutney tonight. It's...weird. It's good, but it's also very strange.

Here's the recipe.

1.5 pints fresh blueberries
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup brown sugar
pinch salt
1 tbsp cornstarch

Cook over medium heat until it boils. Let boil one minute. Cool. Serve over warm brie.

Pretty simple. Can also serve with meats and crackers.

More Pictures. Just Because

What color are his eyes now? Hazel? Brown?


Bedhead!


Gotta chase that ball!


Lost the ball. Still have the bedhead.


WHEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Just because.

He Stood Up By Himself!!

Daniel called me at work this morning and said that when he went to get Declan out of the crib from his morning nap, he found the little guy standing up and holding on to the edge of the crib. He stood up all by himself!

Here he is practicing holding on to the coffee table.

Pictures from his grandparents' visit

We had a great time while they were here. I, for one, didn't work! And we went out to a movie and for lunch and did some shopping, and we had some one else to help take care of Declan! :)

Here's Mom mom and Pop pop (still haven't figured out how to spell that).


Pop pop helping Declan make his toys make noise. He's really good at it now.


Meanwhile, what did Mom mom do? Made funny faces.


And let him play on the table.


Later, Declan managed to de-sock himself. Again. Babies and socks...there's some sort of universal repelling force between the two.


Warning....


Incoming Grandma Kisses!!!


Here they are before they left in the morning. It was time for little guy's nap, so he was more interested in bed than in saying goodbye or practicing waving.


Heard from Mom mom this morning. She said she's already saving her pennies to fly back for another visit.

Declan's First Significant Boo Boo

I'm not entirely sure how he did it, but last night, he managed to put a huge scratch down his chin. It's at least 2-3 inches long, but fortunately, it's shallow, and it didn't bleed much.

Poor kid. He'd never had a scratch in his life, and he acted like it. It was painful and scary, and he didn't like it one bit.

I think it must have still bothered him this morning at breakfast. Maybe he got some yogurt or something in it, because suddenly, he started crying and didn't want to eat any more. Hopefully it heals up quickly.

Here's his scratch.

Realy Cool Site - Shoebox kids

Shoebox

Neat site in the UK. Gave kids a shoebox and asked them to recreate a room in their home.

In Laws Visit

They came, they coo'ed, they had fun, and they left. I had a good time too, and I think Declan enjoyed all the extra attention. It was nice to have an extra set of eyes and hands to watch him and keep him occupied.

We even got a date night! We saw Avatar and went out to eat. Works for us.

Speaking of eating out...We wanted to go to La Tapa Tapa, a nice, quiet Spanish restaurant that we'd been to once, and it seemed very kid-unfriendly. So we wanted to go back after the movie. We walk in, and there's a guy playing 70s lounge songs on a synthesizer as loud as he can. And he's not very good.

We asked to be seated at the back of the restaurant to get as far away from him as possible, but it wasn't far enough. We had to shout at the top of our voices to be heard over him, and neither of us could concentrate on the menu to see what we wanted to order. We ended up walking out after about 3 minutes. Oh, it was terrible. And I'd wanted to go there so badly.

We didn't have a backup plan, so we just drove until we saw something else to try. Ended up at the South Shore GRill. It was okay, but honestly, the thing I'm going to remember about this date is the horrible lounge singer, not the crab cake. :)

Daniel's mother gave me some pictures of Daniel when he was a wee baby. I think I can see a lot of Daniel in Declan as he gets closer to 1 year old. What do you think?

Here's Daniel at 1 year and some months.


And Declan at 9 months.


For comparison, here's me at 1 year old.


Maybe I'll have to try it again when Declan's a few months older. But sometimes when I'm looking at him, I can see it.

Random Picture

I took this picture the other day as I was driving home. It was a point and shoot, so don't give me grief about driving and taking pictures.

It had been raining for days, and as I came over the rise, the sun broke through in just one section and there was this almost eerie effect of a watery sunshine with the heavy gray clouds all around. It only lasted for a few seconds before the clouds swallowed up the sun again.

Cold Snap Update

Looks worse than I thought.

In the back yard, in my fancy new landscaping, looks like I might have lost almost everything: the ginger (some of my favorites), the mini something-or-others, the ones with the blue flowers that were just starting to really go, and the asparagus fern. Oh, and the water plant, but it's still green, so maybe there's hope for it. I'll post a picture a bit later.

I hope these things come back. I'd hate to have to replace them all.

Of course, my native Texas roses look to have pulled through just fine. Maybe I should replace some of the dead plants (if they do die) with a rose or two.

My New Home Job Hazard: Baby Under Desk

Our Cold Snap

We had a frigid weekend here in south Texas. Our normal high is 62, but last weekend, our high was 34 and the low was 18. I actually had to run the faucets outside to keep the pipes from freezing. Our furnace was running constantly, and it was cold!

My landscaping took a pretty good hit. My hibiscuses were already looking a little bare from the earlier snow, and now they've pretty much lost all their leaves. We'll see how well they recover this spring. One of my palms was drooping badly. Don't know if it will recover. And it looks like my ginger plants are very sickly and sorta brown. I hope they recover. They're some of my favorite plants.

At the least, I hope this killed off the mosquito population, because it was horrible last year.

Daniel and Declan's Disastrous Day

My poor husband. He had a terrible day with the baby today.

It started with a diaper explosion before lunch. Declan was in his bouncer, and Daniel didn't realize that the bouncer had basically pushed all the poop up the back of his shirt, all over his neck and arms. Ugh. Then Daniel picked him up and got poo all over his shirt, hands and neck.

It was bad enough that apparently the only way to get Declan clean was to put him under the faucet before even trying to take his clothes off. Of course, he didn't like that and cried the whole time.

Fast forward a couple hours. Declan managed to pull the torchiere over and it shattered into a million pieces all around Daniel and the baby. Of course, it scares Declan to death, so he's crying. Daniel's barefoot and trying to figure out how to get out from all the glass.

He finally gets the baby out to the family room, then comes back to assess the damage. He goes back to get the broom, and finds Declan chewing on a dead, desiccated lizard! That's when he called me and said, Come home now.

Poor, poor Daniel. I bought him ice cream to make up for all that.

Mmm. Blueberry Oat Bran Muffins

I made the most amazing blueberry muffins last night. The recipe came from Chocolate and Zucchini. The recipe was super simple to make. I could even do it while working on dinner and feeding the baby.

I'd been avoiding doing stuff in the evening while the baby was still up, but by the time he goes to bed, I'm usually too tired to motivate myself to do anything. So I think I'm going to have to try and do more stuff when he's awake, and balance it against playing with him. He's happy playing by himself quite a bit. Last night, he played with his bead track and spent several minutes banging various objects together. I'm sure we'll balance things out as we go forward.

Little Guy is 9 Months Old

To celebrate, here are his 9 month pictures.

Daddy Ride!!


I think this is a cute one.


But then there's this....


And the serious one...


And I tried an experiment in black and white.

Declan's Doctor Update

He saw the doctor yesterday for his 9 month well-baby check up. She was well pleased with his progress and said he was right on track. His growth continues to be consistent along the same percentiles. He weighs a shade under 24 pounds and is 28.5 inches long. That keeps him on the same 90th percentile for weight and 50th percentile for height.

She was very happy with his ability to feed himself, babble, clap, imitate his parents, get on his hands and knees and stand by himself. She said he'd probably be crawling within 1-2 weeks. He can already crawl backwards, and frequently backs himself into a corner, then cries about it.

She also told us that he's starting to comprehend "no" and we need to start being firm with him about eating and bedtimes. We are already pretty firm about his bedtime ritual, and he only eats at the table. She said it was time to stop catering to his picky eating all the time, but he's not too terribly picky very often. I'm undecided about how strict I'll be about him eating his green beans or going hungry until the next mealtime. I guess I'm fortunate in that respect that it's Daniel who will make most of those decisions. :)

Declan's Progress

Last week, he learned how to sit up! Daniel went in to get him from his nap, and he was sitting in his crib. Over the next few days, he did it over and over.

He can also stand on his own without any help. We just make sure he doesn't fall, or at least, has a soft landing. He's trying to pull himself up, usually using one of us.

I just put him down for the night, and he kept getting on his hands and knees and crawling backward into the corner of the crib. Then he'd sit on his knees and cry and cry. I guess he was stuck, or he didn't know how to lay down again. I tried putting him on his back, but he cried some more. Daniel came in and said he wanted his blankie. We gave him his crocheted blanket, and sure enough, within 5 minutes he was asleep.

Want some more pictures?

I didn't realize cottage cheese was a finger food, but he's very determined to feed himself.


This is when Daddy feeds him yogurt in a hurry.


Here's pictures of him getting presents from his Meme.
A laughing monkey ball. He really likes this. The laughing will get old before too long though.


A bead track. It's cool too. But not as cool as the cardboard box it came in!


This is from last week. You can see he's trying to figure out how to get on his hands and knees. He can't quite get that second leg figured out yet.

So Christmas Vacation Is Over

I actually managed to get a fair bit done. I saw Avatar in 3D, installed a raised bed garden, sorted through Declan's old clothes and put out some new ones, got some stuff organized and disposed of in the garage, and cleaned out the pantry. Probably more stuff, but I forget. I can't even make a coherent sentence some days.

Now it's back to work and trying to get the house cleaned up enough for visitors in a couple of weeks. And trying to figure out how to do a garden this year. I'm inspired. I'm going to try the square foot garden method. Looks easy and like something I might be able to manage.