Cooking mishap

It's a life goal of mine to become home cook extraordinare. Seeing how I'm no where close to being able to call myself an extraordinary home cook, I like to practice. This weekend, I attempted to make homemade, restaurant style salsa. I was following a recipe posted at www.thePioneerWoman.com and couldn't have been more excited to try it.

Everything was going well until I was about halfway done pulsing the mixture in the food processor. Suddenly there was a loud, terrible noise. It was as if I was grinding metal. Kris noticed that I had more liquid in the processor than the machine could handle. I was happy for the reminder since we'll soon be using the processor a great deal as we start to make baby food. We went on with our merry way. Kris tasted the salsa and liked it; feeling quite proud, I began to pour the salsa into the container. Unfortunately, I found this a second later:

When something sounds like it is metal grinding, it probably is.

Tucker's 5 Months

Happy 5th Month Birthday Tucker!

Tucker is growing so fast. Even though we're not experiencing it for the first time, we're constantly in awe and amazed how quickly he develops.

He is very interested in his toys - especially those that he can stuff into his mouth or ones that make noise. One of his favorite things to do now is sit in his little exercise play toy, pushing all of the buttons to hear the different noises they make. He isn't showing any signs of teeth yet, but he does drools like a fool.

Like his big brother, he loves to fall asleep to rock n roll. His favorite music is Death Cab for Cutie, but really just about anything will do if he's tired. He is usually out within one to two songs, but he still has a hard time staying asleep if we try to lay him down. Maybe it's our crib mattress! Recently, he started to sing himself to sleep and the sounds are just precious.

In the last month, he's rolled over a few more times, but for now he seems to enjoy on his belly and spin himself around. He's done full 360 turns a few times- usually when Owen's moving all around him. He is always touching and grabbing whatever we have near us - so we have to be careful to watch him if he's in our lap while we're eating.

Tucker started baby cereal last week and has spent the last few days working on adjusting to his new schedule and routine. He also enjoyed taking a bath in the big tub with his big brother and taking a dip in the kiddie pool.

We constantly feel incredibly lucky and blessed.

Mini-vacation to Calistoga

Before returning to work, Kris and I overlapped our bonding leave for a few days so we could take advantage of the time together on a mini-vacation. We decided to opt for a close getaway in Calistoga, which is a small town on the north side of Napa. We just went for a couple of nights, but had the chance to stay in a nice B&B and enjoy scrumptious breakfasts and tasty food from many of the local restaurants. We visited a few different parks, tasted olive oil, explored the grounds of the incredible Castello di Amorosa, made a stop at the Culinary Institute, stopped at California's Old Faithful geyser, hiked through the Petrified Forest, and took a beautiful drive to the coast. It was fantastic.

on the castle grounds

hiking among the petrified forest

beautiful geyser in Calistoga

Back to Work

On Tuesday, I went back to work. I was quite anxious during the weeks leading up to Memorial Day because I knew it would be really hard to leave Tucker. Even though he's a chunky monkey, he is really still so teeny tiny. It wasn't perfectly smooth, but the week was much better than I had anticipated. I'm optimistic that next week will be even easier. Here are few thoughts and updates from the week:

• I justify my time away by reminding myself that he still sleeps the majority of the time I'm away.
• Tucker's still struggling with a bottle, but every new day he seems to get a bit closer to being comfortable with it.
• Having Kris home (for a few weeks) during this transition is WONDERFUL.
• The mornings have been relatively smooth. Morning feeding at 6ish, cereal w/breastmilk around 10ish, nursing with mom at lunch.
• The afternoons have been less smooth. We still need to work on the 2-3pm snack session. I get home around 4 (will generally arrive at work at 7 most mornings) and am able to nurse him right away. It's great.
• I did come home early Tuesday because Kris couldn't get him calm after a really long time of trying cereal and a bottle. Every day since has been okay, though he's ready for his mommy at 4.
• I really miss my boys and I'm practically ready to run to the car at noon and four.
• I've successfully built up a nice stock pile of breastmilk and continue to pump multiple times a day.
• The dedicated breastfeeding room at work is wonderful.
• We plan to introduce veggies to Tucker this weekend - fun! It's a little earlier than I would prefer, but I think he's ready. Now comes the big question of the week, sweet potatoes or butternut squash?
• Owen is at home full-time right now and has been a huge help to his Daddy. Kris actually noticed that Tucker is much more willingly to try a bottle if Owen's in his line of sight.

Here are few photos of our goodbye taken the morning just before I left for the office: