Spring's first food

Well, I was going to wait until she was six months old to introduce foods to Spring, but it just so happens, that she got her first taste of solid food today. Was it mashed bananas as I had planned? No. Was it what I gave Reed when he first had solid food, rice cereal? No. It was a sunbutter and raspberry jam sandwich on whole wheat bread... It was supposed to be for Reed!

We went to a playdate today and I had packed a sandwich for Reed. It was a VERY busy playdate. I had Spring in my lap, the sandwich in my hand, and Reed was in Grandma's lap right next to me. Spring started to wiggle and leaned to try to bite the sandwich and without thinking, I put it in her mouth!! My mom pointed out what I was doing and I immediately took it away, but as long as she could see the sandwich, she had her eyes locked on it. I just lost track of which child I had in my lap for a moment and thought I was feeding Reed a bite. Oops! Thank goodness she hasn't had any allergy issues so far!! In a couple more weeks, we'll give the mashed bananas a try! :-)

Reed has really been getting into is role as a big brother lately. He plays with Spring as he's doing here, he gives toys to her and even helps with her evening massage. Spring absolutely LOVES watching him and laughs at him all the time!

Firsts

We've had a lot of firsts these last few weeks! It's hard to know which one to post about first!

Tonight, Spring got up on her hands and knees for the first time. Initially I put her on her hands and knees and she rocked back and forth for a few seconds. Then, she decided that she liked hands and knees so much, she worked hard to get off her belly and do it herself!

Spring has been sitting up on her own for the last few weeks. She can't do it for very long and often supports herself with one hand, but it seems like everyday, she can sit for a little longer.

Spring had her four month check up a few weeks ago. She was right around the 75th percentile for height and weight and somewhere between the 75th to 90th for head circumference. It's quite a change for me to have a baby who is not on the bottom of the growth curve!

Reed had a big first over this past weekend. Gerry took him to Lake Chelan for two nights. This was his first overnight trip without Mommy!! It was a little lonely around the house without Gerry and Reed, though it was also nice to have some one on one time with Spring. Reed had a good time at Lake Chelan. We talked to him about it for a few weeks before he left so he was really excited to go!

And it only took one of our snowiest winters ever, but Reed finally played in the snow for the first time!

Cutting a rug

I took this picture to send ot Gerry's aunt Nancy to say thank you for the lovely rug that Reed and Spring are sitting on, but the picture turned out so good, that I thought I'd post it here too!

In other news, Reed has refused to nap for the last three days.I lay him down, then he just babbles for the next few hours. I fear he's going to stop napping and I'm not ready for that!!

I can't believe

I forgot to share about my two favorite plane moments from our trip to Florida!

We flew down there on Valentine's Day. We were well into our second flight, Spring asleep in my lap, and Reed asleep in Gerry's lap, when I nudged Gerry and said quietly, "Happy Valentine's Day". Gerry started laughing! In all the stress of traveling with the kiddos, Valentine's Day had been the last thing on our minds! I lamented that we had not left our mp3 players out since neither Gerry nor I could get into our bags to get them. So Gerry began to sing to me :-) I joined in and it was way better than listening to mp3s. Honestly, I think it has to be one of my sweetest Valentine's Day memories ever!!

My other favorite moment occured on our trip home. We were about to begin the second flight of our journey. I had just changed Spring's diaper and returned to our seats to find Reed at the plane window yelling something with a lot of excitement. I couldn't quite understand what Reed was saying so I gave Gerry a questioning look. Gerry said, "holy crab." As we had been landing in Dallas, Gerry had spotted a huge mega-church with a seven story parking garage out the plane window and had exclaimed "holy crap!" Now, Reed was giving us his best imitation of Gerry, only Reed, fortunately, saying the more polite, "holy crab!" LOL!

West Sound Sailing race #1

This was a picture I had to share (Gerry Here). It's from last saturday's WSSA sailling race. The course took us about 16 miles from the North end of Bainbridge island, up to Jefferson Head, then across to Magnolia, back over to Eagle Harbor at the south end of bainbridge, and back to the start. It's a pretty fun course, because it takes us into an area that we normally don't sail much. It also passes though a major shipping lane.

The sailboat is "Carpe Diem", who I've had the pleasure of crewing on a couple of times over the past year. It's a pretty nice IOR 32', and Rob has done some awesome interior work on it. I can't imagine what the view was like, from where they were. There were well clear of it, but... 'yikes'...

BTW, photo credit goes to Jason, our other crew, who was smart enough to have a camera.

We've done this race twice in the past, and both times it was pretty miserable. Being the first race of the season, there are always plenty of bugs to shake out. This year turned out to be a great race. Winds were good, the tide was slack, and the sun even came out for a bit.

Also different this year, is Cody has a new boat, "Aldebaran" a Catalina 30 that he bought from another guy, Ole, who I also sail with when I can. In case you were wondering, 'Aldebaran' is the star that makes up the eye of the constellation Taurus.

The Bull. (insert sailing joke here)

We've taken her out a couple of times over the winter to check her out, but this was her first race, as well as our first time trying to flying the spinnaker on this boat. Luckly, there were no major disasters, and we had a great race.

Literally?

I love how literal kids are. Reed had the hiccups yesterday. Grandpa, joking around, asked Reed, "Where did you get the hiccups?" Without skipping a beat, Reed replied, "In my mouth!" LOL!!

More Feb pics

I've got to figure out how to turn off the red eye reduction on my camera. All the flashing lights leave Spring looking startled in most pictures, even when just moments before, she was smiling. This is about the least startled I can get!

Cutie pie!

Spring's at the age where, if she can get ahold of something, she puts it in her mouth. It's fun to watch how hard she works at playing with toys!

Would you like some cheesy grilled bear? I don't know how this game got started, but for several days, Reed ran around with his stuffed bear and a spatula saying, "Reed makes cheesy grilled bear!"

Dueling ukuleles!

Shoot, somebody might see me drinking Starbucks! Okay, you might know I'm a coffee snob. I have long boycotted Starbucks, not only because they are a giant corporation, but also because their coffee wasn't good. They intentionally burned their beans to give them a "distinct flavor", then in order to compensate for having nasty beans, their baristas would put enough syrup in your latte to put you in a diabetic coma. But a few years ago, Starbuck's changed owners, and they made some changes. They shut down all the braches for a few days and retrained all their baristas and their beans are better now too. It's taken me this long to give them another try, and I'm not saying I've become a faithful Starbuck's drinker, I'd rather support a local business if I can, but I will say that it's nice to be able to get a consistently good drink if I do go there.