Hampered

Someone was quite proud of her impromptu headpiece.

I have no idea how the hamper got so dirty

Dress Up

My friend Janette gave us the most amazing dress up that her daughter outgrew. J knew it was meant for dancing.

And since I thought she looked like the most beautiful thing in the world, I convinced to dance outside so I could take some magical pictures of her twirling.

This next one has me worried that she is going to naturally take to dance and I'm going to have to pony up hundreds for all the costumes. I suppose there are worse things.

All the dancing tuckered her out and she refused to take off the costume for her nap.

4th Festivities

Normally we spend the 4th at the Maidenames BBQing but since they are currently in Spain we had to make other arrangements. Fortunately my dear auntie was throwing a mega BBQ at her shiny new house. It happened to be in the flight path of some biplanes flying in formation.

 They had an expansive Italian soda bar with this handsome barristo.

We met up with my sister and her progeny, Benji has become quite the smiler.

I took pictures of everyone who was sitting at the table with us, but they didn't all turn out well and I try not to post awkward looking photos. Matt's looked good though.

 And this dessert face was priceless.

Speaking of dessert, what is the 4th without a pinterest inspired dessert?

The kids had a great time in this giant water park for the backyard.

There was the most amazing array of meat, expertly grilled by my extraordinary uncle.

They even provided glow necklaces and cemented a place in my daughter's heart forever.

We stayed for the after party too where Benji showed off his crawling skills and the ability to replace his own pacifier. These skills are game changers.

I was hoping M was not taking notes.

Meanwhile, the girls explored the impressive collection of toys currently being saved for future grandbabies.

Tongue-tied

M was born tongue-tied. That means his frenulum, or that stringing part under your tongue keeping you from swallowing it, was attached closer to the tip of his tongue than normal. It made it so he couldn't stick his tongue out as far as typical babies do. He had a little procedure three days after he was born where they essentially just snipped it. You can see a little of it in these fabulous pictures of him crying. I kind of love crying baby pictures. Weird, I know.

Here's another view

And here's the sweetness he was before I tried to get pictures of his tongue. He is so much bigger since May when I took these. It's crazy how fast they grow.

Then I tried to take some one handed after I picked him up and called him down.

It only worked for a minute.

Now even the fleshy lump is gone. All the nurses and doctors said is was genetic and assumed my first had had it too. Nope. Then me or my husband must have been. Nope. We are apparently genetic anomaly.

2 months

There was part of me that planned on taking those cute monthly pictures with the signs and the same backdrop for baby #2

That part of me ran away a few weeks ago when I decided a daily shower was an accomplishment. Keeping track of the date just seems like too much work.

Yet when I was uploading pictures I realized I did happen to take some photos of M on his 2 month milestone.

He was born 20th percentile for weight and 80th for length. A few days later when they took care of his tongue and checked the circumcision he had made his way up to 25th percentile for weight. At 8 weeks he is now 60th percentile for weight and 90th for height.

Since J had to have so many tests and weekly weight checks because of her weight, that 60th percentile has me doing a fist pump or two. Not that I really have anything to do with it but I'm proud all the same. It's a bit of pain not being able to predict his clothing size though.

Olive Oil Smack Down

So my beloved bzzagent sent me some Filippio Berio olive oil to try out for free. They were mostly touting how it is much better for you than butter and how to substitute it. I'm already an olive oil convert and use it a bunch when it is cost effective (my occasional deep frying of tortillas doesn't warrant a whole bottle of olive oil and gets the vegetable. I also don't care for it in cake and brownie mix as much either). It's my go to for sauteing though. My favorite way to consume it is with bread along with balsamic vinegar.

Which brings us to Thursday's event. I wanted to know if this brand really held any distinction compared to other brands so we did every scientist would do, a single blind study.

Really I just bought a bunch of fancy bread from Kneaders (which divine confections deserve a post all their own) and invited some friends over. I was having so much fun that I forgot to snap pictures until the party was breaking up. My apologies to those friends not shown. But here is my cousin next to our exciting bread. Rosemary focaccia,  paesano, and fresh baguettes are enough to make everyone excited.

Even my nephew, and he doesn't even have teeth.

The proscuttio and salami in the bottom corner were an important part of the experience

Here were some of our ingredients. We also had some costco brand (not shown)

I also made some bruschetta with basil from my garden (the tomatoes were store bought and part of me died inside. My tomato plants have pretty much stopped producing by now). 

I put the olive oils in small trays with the vinegar and had people vote. It was about half for the Bertolli's and half for the Filippio Berio. Costco lost. To me they just tasted different, not better or worse. If I had a less busy day, we would have voted on specific variables like taste, texture, and overall experience. Then we all had at it and mixed in sauteed garlic and the different salts and pepper.

That little cherry tomato is from my garden. A friend gave me a transplant that I completely forgot about until I saw a mini on it last week. The garden surprises keep coming.

We also had some Italian sodas to complete the experience. Of course I didn't snag a picture of them and their whipped cream glory, but here is Justin and the club soda.

It was a great time and I can recommend Filippio Berio as delicious.

Jammas

Husband went to San Francisco for a week for a big programming conference called Microsoft Build. He came home with three new tablets. All free. Just in case the number of computing devices in our house wasn't ridiculous already. However, I will say Freshpaint on the Surface Pro is really fun. J and I spent quite a bit of time messing with it.

Anyways, he visited Chinatown and brought home special pajamas for J and a bag of kettlecorn. It's hard to figure out which she liked more, but I'm going to go with the pjs because she refers to them as her "special jammas" and prefers to wear them all day long.

Happy 4th!

"Look! A Rock!"