The Best Part of the Day

Every morning Andrew and I head off on our run around 8:45/9:00am. He falls asleep for his morning nap the second the stroller gets out of our parking lot. Lately it's been chilly in the morning, so it's been fun to get him all bundled up. He falls asleep even faster now because he is so cozy and warm. Look at those sleep eyes!


On Tuesday and Thursday we run with one of the young women from church. On our way to pick her up this morning, we bumped into one of the boys from my old seminary class. He rode his bike along with me while I ran and we chatted about his fun day at early morning seminary (Ashley- you are so creative! Whatever game you played today sounded like so much fun. Wish you'd been my seminary teacher!). When we arrived to pick up my running buddy, her little sister decided to come running with us too... so our little running/biking entourage headed off around the neighborhood. We spread out across the entire road blocking traffic. It was so fun!

As we ran further, we lost our biking friend and our little running buddy tired out, so we circled back and dropped her off at home and then finished our 5 mile loop. It was a great way to spend the morning! On our way back home, I pulled off Andrew's Google hat and he had the most awesome crazy hat hair. It had kinda gone down by the time I took this picture, but I think it looks funny anyway.

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And... I just loved this facial expression.


My cool down walk home with him after our jog is the best part of the day. He is so well-rested and happy and just looks up lovingly at me and coos or giggles. I love it!

On a different note, the worst part of the day these days is anytime I try talking or eating (both unavoidable things since I like to do both A LOT). I have these awful canker sores all over my tongue and mouth (gross, I know!). Anyone know any good remedies? I think they are stress related, but I haven't had them this bad since I was doing my National Boards and planning my wedding. I desperately need some ideas... I can't survive much longer if it is this painful when I eat my chocolate :) I've tried putting alum on them and gargling salt water, but mostly I just take Tylenol constantly. Any other suggestions?

Something Different

I've been trying out a variety of different Indian simmer sauces since Kev & I LOVE Indian food. My friend Alie had recommended a particular brand and I finally found it (I think), so yesterday I attempted to make one of Kevin's favorite Indian dishes, Butter Chicken. It was something a little different than our typical Sunday frozen pizza and tasted delicious!.

We made some rice (unfortunately we didn't have Basmati, so we used Jasmine, which tasted just as good to me... although typically we use Jasmine rice when making Thai food- not Indian... but oh well!) and then we made the chicken w/ sauce and bought some Naan to go with it too- mmm! Next time I'll actually attempt to add some vegetables for me, but this week we literally had 45 minutes when we were home between meetings to eat and I didn't have time to dig through the freezer to find all my veggies, so this worked perfectly. I think you can get it at some of the Indian grocery stores, but they also started carrying it at Safeway. It is so good! Definitely try it.

Weekend Fun w/ Dad

Kevin was able to get home early from work on Friday (6pm is early around here these days :)) so he managed to get home before Andrew went to bed. Andrew loved having some fun playing with his dad. I just love the way that Andrew looks at Kev and smiles in the video. So darling!






On Saturday during the day, I went up to Palo Alto to do some work for a bit, so Kev & Andrew had some hang out time. They played, ate, and even went shopping at the mall. Here are a few pictures from their time together.

Delicious Butt Paste, MMM!

So good at feeding himself!

Rolling around the house- One minute he's in our bedroom, the next minute he's in the bathroom. The kid is CRAZY!! Once he's eaten his peas and sweet potatoes he's even crazier... Kev compares him to Popeye.


Here's Popeye eating his sweet potatoes to make himself strong. He likes to try and help. Since he's not a huge fan of peas and green beans (he makes the most awesome faces when he's eating them)), I coat them with sweet potatoes (gross, I know) and then he eats them like candy.

Chocolatey Goodness

Kevin and I LOVE trying out new chocolate molten cake recipes. One of our all-time favorite molten cake mixes is from Williams Sonoma.


The newest one we tried out tonight is from the Eagle Brand people. It is also delicious- it has 3 different types of chocolate in it (Eagle Brand Triple Chocolate Treasures). Mmm!

Lastly, whenever we're craving molten cakes and don't want to have to run to the store, we can always make these ones. Elise and my mom got this recipe from a great chocolate cooking class they went to at Sur La Table. The good/bad thing about them is that we ALWAYS have these basic ingredient in stock. Enjoy!

Molten Cakes

Ingredients:
5 ounces semi sweet chocolate
1/4 cup unsalted butter
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
5 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
Pinch of salt
1 tablespoon flour
1/2 cup whipped cream

Stir chocolate and butter over low heat til smooth. Remove from heat and cool 10 minutes stirring occasionally.

Mix eggs, yolks, sugar, vanilla, salt in medium bowl about six minutes, thick ribbon should fall when beaters are lifted.

Fold in flour, fold in chocolate mixture. Grease ramikins. Put in ramikins and let stand at room temperature 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400. Bake about 15 minutes until tops are puffed and dry. Cool cakes 5 minutes. Serve with whipped cream or ice cream.

Sprinkles & the Super Seven!

Today we started off Andrew's 7 month birthday celebration with a trip to the new Sprinkles Cupcakes store at the Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto. Liz and I arrived at 10:30am and joined the short little line of people waiting outside the store. We were glad we arrived early. By the time we left the mall, the line was much longer and filled with a lot of moms w/ strollers who had the same breakfast idea that we'd had. Delicious!


Kevin and I had done our research online earlier in the day to figure out which flavors they'd be selling today, so I had my mental cupcake list all ready. We ordered a box of 6 yummy cupcakes. I ordered some normal ones: chocolate marshmallow, black & white, vanilla milk chocolate... Kev decided to be a little different: lemon, vanilla, cinnamon sugar. His choices made it difficult for me to share... since I don't really eat cupcakes unless they have some sort of chocolate on them/in them. We neglected to order their signature red velvet cupcake, but after hearing how good it was from Liz (and that it had cream cheese frosting), I may have to go back again next week.

Andrew was more interested in eating his shoe than eating the cupcakes

Although I am not really a cupcake person, this trip was definitely a great way to start off the day! The bag also kept Andrew entertained for quite some time. Mmm, yummy!


* Kev swears that Sibby's Cupcakes are better than Sprinkles, so Andrew & I might have to venture up to San Mateo to do some taste-testing sometime soon. The downside is that Sibby's only sells cupcakes by the dozen... Might be a tough trip for us :) If anyone wants to tag along, let me know.

Happy 7 Months Andrew!!

The Perfect Day

One of my students used to have an occasional "princess day" with her mom. They'd sleep in, relax, and just enjoy time together. Today Andrew and I enjoyed our own special day. I'll call it his "Little Prince Day." It was nice to just devote an entire day to cuddling and hanging out with my little guy without any meetings or other things on our schedule. We just played and played, ate yummy treats (Chocolate Chex for me and Sweet Peas for Andrew :)), and lounged around in our p.j.s and occasionally attempted to do some laundry, running, and cleaning. When he took his long 2hr afternoon nap, I even managed to snag my own short nap. It was fabulous! That never happens- usually I force myself to do work. We're going to have to start scheduling "little prince" days more often. The day just flew by (as most do) and it left me feeling sad that I couldn't have even more time today with my precious little buddy. I already can't wait to see his smiling little face tomorrow morning!

Here are a few pictures from our fun week so far. We visited a different park in Palo Alto each day since we were up there for work meetings.


Andrew loved the M&Ms stickers that we played with the other afternoon. Don't worry, he isn't sad in this picture, he's just staring intently at the M&Ms stickers :) Definitely my little boy!

Cat & Scott Celebrations continued...

On Saturday, my parents threw a beautiful wedding reception for Cat & Scott in Utah. Andrew and I flew up on Thursday to help get things ready and Kevin joined us on Friday night. Before the reception, we did a fun family photo shoot with Dave and Kim, the Busath Photographers who took pictures at my Manhattan wedding and Elise's SLC wedding.

We also spent Saturday praying for good weather... since the reception was outside and it was supposed to rain. About an hour and a half before the reception, we discovered that we'd left Andrew's tuxedo pants at home in Cali. Fortunately, Kevin is persuasive and convinced Mens Wearhouse to loan us another baby tux for the evening. It arrived just in time for the start of the reception. I spent the majority of the reception moving people through the receiving line and monitoring the wedding video, so I didn't get too many pictures... but here are a few of the ones I took.




The candy station was awesome. There were little bags that said "C&S" on them and guests could put together their own favor bag. There were also "His" and "Hers" cookie jars filled with my Mom's signature chocolate chip cookies and yummy oatmeal butterscotch cookies (Liz, thanks for the recipe!).

Andrew loved looking at the flowers too much... so we didn't get any pictures of him smiling at the camera

Cat & Scott cutting the cake

Jessie and some of her buddies at the reception.

It was another great night of celebrating!
Congrats again to the happy couple!

Life is Beautiful

Andrew is so much more content these days now that he can sit and play with his toys without help (and only occasionally fall backwards). It's been a beautiful few weeks! This was the stage I have been anxiously awaiting! He really seems to like being independent. He also just loves rolling all around the condo. We've learned all too quickly that NOW is the time to start moving things out of his way... especially things like laptop power cords and paper products that like to find their way into his little mouth.

His current favorite things are...

1) My Google water bottle- the second I grab it from the fridge he starts reaching for it and saying "mmmm." It can keep him entertained for thirty minutes and can immediately turn his bad mood into a good one.


2) Sweet Potatoes! He is so excited to eat them that he dives for the spoon and usually misses... landing sweet potatoes all over his face.


3) Google Bear- I'll post the video footage of him with his bear later. It sounds like the bear is being attacked and is screaming bloody murder, when in fact, Andrew just screeched every time he grabs and starts eating his bear. I am VERY glad I waited in line for so long at the Google Summer Party to get him. It has definitely been worth it!

The Crack of Dawn

One of the early morning seminary students recommended that we document Andrew's first visit to seminary... so that when he complains about going when he is older, we have these pictures as evidence that he survived when he went at age 6 months, so he should definitely be able to survive when he's 14. (For those of you wondering, early morning seminary is a 6am church Bible/Book of Mormon study class that high school-age kids ages attend for 4 years)

Little guy was not about to fall asleep when there were teenagers to watch

Always fun to watch Kev goof around with the seminary kids

Andrew kept himself entertained by eating his blanket...
we must've been pretty boring teachers!

We were reminded how much we admire the kids (and teachers) who wake up every morning to go to seminary!

Wedding Weekend

Here are a few more photos from Scott & Cat's Wedding Weekend. Cat's parents hosted a beautiful reception in their backyard at their home in Lafayette.

Here's Andrew w/ the happy couple- as you can see, it was about bedtime for him

After the reception, we stayed up in Walnut Creek for the night at the Embassy Suites (Thanks Mom & Dad). Kevin said the bed was the most comfortable one he has ever slept in at a hotel- it was a Cal King just like our bed at home and he loved it. Andrew didn't like his bed as much... and spent maybe an hour sleeping in it. Fortunately the suite had two rooms, so Andrew played in his room, Kev slept in his comfy bed, and I had a little shut-eye on the rock solid couch.


The next morning we went to Cat's Uncle's house for some incredible food. He is an amazing chef. I am sad I didn't get pictures of the food because it looked almost as good as it tasted. The best part of the brunch (which I started with), was A LOT of chocolate! It was so fun to spend the weekend getting to know the Peers family a bit better. We are so excited about Scott & Cat's marriage and the adventures that lie ahead of them. Congrats Cat & Scott!

Little Man Photo Shoot

Here are some fun pictures of Andrew in his tux at the reception before he rebelled and had to be put to bed for the evening. We couldn't help ourselves... we took A LOT of pictures. He loved chewing on his white collared shirt sleeves and his stylin Kenneth Cole shoes. I can't wait to put him back in the tux for the Utah Reception next weekend!









Thanks Mom & Dad for such a cute little outfit! He looked so handsome!