Lately

My friend Rachel taught me how to make Ratatouille today. It was really good. Rachel also inspired me to try making my own marinara sauce since she made some for us for lunch along with her amazing Stromboli. My sauce turned out okay but it's still a work in progress. I made Rachael Ray's stuffed zucchini which was also delicious. I had spaghetti squash for the first time and LOVED it. Josh loved it too. We've also been grilling more yummy stuff on our barbecue that we can't get enough of.

For Christmas I made these finger puppets for Winnie. I got the inspiration from my incredibly talented seamstress crafty designer cousin Rachel Callan. I saw that she'd made them on her blog and I asked her for a little guidance and she responded by saying, "Oh here I whipped up a pattern for you to use!" Yeah she's really talented like that... just whipping up patterns like it's nothin. She also has a sewing blog that is really helpful in teaching basic sewing skills so check it out if you're interested. I was home for Christmas while I was making these so my mom showed me the stitches which was really helpful and I let her blanket stitch a few since she loves hand-stitching while everyone is watching a movie.

Josh and Winnie are back to their regular play dates since not seeing each other for a month over the holidays. It's really fun to see them interact as they get older. They take toys from each other and crawl on each other and talk to each other and eat, sing, and dance together. They love each other.




Josh's 3rd top tooth has come through and the other one should be coming in soon. He had a couple days of being really fussy and having a hard time sleeping but then it came through. Since it came through he's been really goin to town chewing things. He's like a dog. I actually worry he might damage things. He chews hard on everything. I keep him away from my shoes and from the leather furniture. He bit off part of a basket but luckily I caught him in the act so I could get it out of his mouth before he swallowed (that would've hurt going down). And the other day while I was putting on my makeup I looked over at him and I could tell he was chewing something so I did the routine of telling him to open up and I stuck my finger in there and it was this white stuff and I looked all around trying to figure out what he'd gotten a hold of... was it lotion? was it makeup? was it hair product? was it deodorant? I couldn't see anything that it could've been. But I noticed what he'd chewed on since eating the white stuff because there was white residue on all this stuff like the shower door, my hair dryer, and some other things he'd been playing with. Well finally yesterday I happened to be at eye level with this ledge by the shower and realized what the white stuff in his mouth was...

Yeah he's been eating paint/plaster.... Now every time he's in the bathroom he tries to chew on it and I do my best to keep him away but he's obsessed. It must feel good on his teeth or something. I don't know. It makes me gag when I think about having a mouth full of that.