Amaya's New Food Love--Ella's!

Amaya is slowly becoming obsessed with a new baby food--Ella's Kitchen Organic! This stuff is really great. It an organic baby food (yes, we are still dealing with baby food since Miss Amaya still has no teeth) that combines fruits and vegetables together and tastes great! She lights up when she sees the cute little pouch being squeezed into her bowl! They have some really awesome and rare combos that other baby foods don't touch and they surprisingly taste great. What's even better is Amaya will eat things like Spinach and parsnips and pumpkin without even turning up her nose. They also make Toddler foods that I am hoping to try with the pickiest boy in America, a.ka. Alex. The toddler stuff isn't really in the stores yet, but when it gets here (The company is based out of the UK) I will be sure to see if I can sneek some veggies into his belly as well! Here's a link to check out their porduct line.

http://www.ellaskitchen.co.uk/

Honeygo Park with Mommy!

Due to daycare being closed today, I took a day off from teaching 7th graders to stay home with the kids. I am very fortunate to be able to spend the entire summer with them, but it's still nice to have a day off in the Fall and enjoy time with them outside in the nice weather. The summer weather is so unbearably hot, that most of the time, we take a walk as soon as we wake up then spend the rest of the day in the A/C! But now that it's Fall, I took the kids up to Honeygo Run Park in White Marsh for some fun at the playground and a nice stroll around the track there. Alex loved the slide, as he always does, and although it took him a minute to warm up to the other kids and go off to play on his own, he eventually ran around with the rest of the kids and had so much fun chasing and playing cars with some of the other boys at the park. Miss Maya got her first ride on the swings, and loved it! I was surprised, because Alex tried it at around 15 months and cried bloody murder. But Amaya is a little more daring, a little more confident about such things and she had a ball! In fact, she almost fell asleep in the swing. After playing for about an hour, I put the kids in the double stroller and we took a 1.5 mile walk around the park. Alex was very interested in the caterpillar we saw crossing the path and asked me if he was "going to the woods to sleep." LOL. All in all we had a great time spending the day together and both kids were very good for Mommy! I can't wait to do it again!

About to go down the slide, but he saw a helicopter! Can't believe little Amaya stands so well now! Beautiful little girl waiting for her brother to come down the slide Having so much fun on the slide! Swinging Away!

10 Months..Seriously?

Okay, so I am slightly sad that my little girl is 10 months old already. 9 Months sounded much better to me for some reason. 10 Months is so close to 1 year, and at 1 year she'll be walking and talkign and turning into a toddler instead of an infant! Amaya is growing everyday and just hit the 10 Month mark yesterday. We feel extremely blessed to have such a beautiful, happy, healthy little girl, and we have nothing but high hopes for her as she grows up. She is super sweet and so girly, and just too much fun! She loves to bounce to music and bounces when she's excited (i.e when I pick her up from daycare). She smiles constantly and loves to be snuggled when she's falling sleep. She's probably the most curious child I've ever seen--and I've seen plenty! She will crawl and scoot and attempt to walk all over the place and in a span of 15 seconds, she's usually canvassed the entire room. She also picks up every blessed object and explores it in as many ways as possible before discarding it and moving onto the next thing. She also enjoys tormenting her big brother by "stealing" his toys and chewing on them. She is just a stone's throw away from walking--letting go now and standing completely on her on for several seconds and walking from furniture to furniture. I know those first steps are just around the corner, and I can defintely say 10 months is an awesome milestone, but slightly sad for Mommy. Check out some pics of our little mover! 10 Months today and rocking the side pony tail!

I hope Alex is always her armed body guard!

This picture captures best the wild little hurricane that is tiny, but incredibly destructive Amaya!

Standing completely on her own at her Daddy's feet

"Hi, My name is Alex and I am Calvin Klein model. Bet you didn't know they make onesies in my size." LOL

Only 3 hours later I fell and did this to my nose, so my modeling career might have to be put on hold!

Backsplash, Oh Backsplash

So after a discussion with Abe's Sister and Brother-in-Law revived our interest in putting up a backsplash in our kitchen, we decided to undertake this home project over the weekend. We took a trip Sunday afternoon with Mary and Dave to the Dundalk Home Depot to learn more about the project, then headed back to our local Home Depot in White Marsh to collect the supplies Sunday night. Knowing that we would be off of work Monday, due to Labor Day, we started Sunday night so as to have time to let it dry. It was actually so much easier than we had envisioned, and we are very glad we went ahead with it. Altogether, the project only cost us about $80 and really spruced up our kitchen stove area. Here are some before and afters for your perusal!

The regular old painted dry wall before

The start of the project

Before putting on the grout

Beautiful, shiny new backsplash--finished product!

Kind of a close-up of the finished product--we love it!

Maryland State Fair

On Saturday, August 28th, we decided to pack our two kids up and head over to Timonium to attend the annual Maryland State Fair. This has become a tradition for us over the years, so of course we didn't want ot miss out on this year's festivties. With Alex being another year older and really starting to take interest in animals and bascially everything around him, it was a great learning opportunity for him and great fun for us watching him take everything in. He absolutely loved going around to see the different farm animals. In fact, on the way out to the car, he requested that we go to the cow barn just one more time! We visited the petting zoo several times, and he loved petting the goat and the cow and watching the ducklings run around. We also walked around and watched the rides and displays while we were there. Amaya just chilled in her stroller and watched all of the people and animals as she strolled by them. All in all we had a great morning out and after a stop at Baja Fresh for lunch were home by 12:30 for naps! :)

Alex showing off his free Maryland Lottery hat that Daddy won!

He loved petting the goat!

Me and Alex watching the ducklings

Petting the cow--he is still talking about this!