Hot Diggety Dog

We have a walker! He is so cute and walks around with his hands up in the air. He can make probably 20 steps without falling right now. Great Job Patrick!

Sean suggested hot dogs this weekend so we made it to two great joints. First was the southeast parking lot of Mountain View and 19th Ave, where we got some Nogales Hot Dogs, here's a link to another family's spot in Phoenix. It was our first and will definitely not be our last. They bake bacon around a hot dog and fill it with pinto beans, sour cream, guacamole, tomatoes, mushrooms, cheese and hot sauce. I know, can you imagine? It was great...

Patrick is watching the crazy mexican tv where people dress up in costumes. They set a tv with rabbit ears along with some plastic tables and chairs as part of their set up.

Then today we went out to Tempe to Ted's Hot Dogs. Here they charbroil their dogs so they are nice and blistery and black. Also very yum. Patrick liked his with relish.

I got to have fun with a girls night out (or in as we did) on Saturday. We spent hours chatting and gabbing and it was great.

We are continuing to have fun at music class. Patrick really gets into it and dances and sings and just loves it.

More posts to come...

The Birthday Boy

Swimming lessons came to an end on Friday. They gave us a certificate of completion and a popscicle.

Here's a picture of the pool that we've been at for the last 2 weeks. If you can see in the shadow, Patrick is leaning in for another lick.

Then Saturday was all about the big luau Patrick 1st/Jennifer 30th Birthday Party!
I think we had about 30 - 35 people in total at the party. The house was full of food and fun and shave ice.

The fishy take home boxes filled with aloha buttermints, shells and a beach monkey beach ball.

My mom's pinapple pupu platter from back in the day, good thing she's kept it! :)

I finally put up these cute curtains that I'd been hanging on to. I hemmed them any everything. Like our very own cabana!

Sean's surprise for me was to fly my friend Jenny in to town. When she arrived Friday night I was totally confused at first but so happy! Patrick was happy too!

Here's a picture of one of the cupcakes that Jenny and I decorated for the party. You might be able to see but we attempted to make a wave design with frosting and a toothpick at the bottom. Here's a link to the recipe.


We had a great day and I'm still washing dishes and doing laundry from the busy weekend. Boy was it worth it!

Fun with Grandma and Grandpa

This week Sean was in Ohio for work so Patrick and the dogs and I packed up and headed down to Tucson for a few days. We had a lot of fun watching Patrick guffaw at Patch and Peaches and eat lots of food - I think he's going through a growth spurt. Speaking of growing, I thought I would take a moment to document electronically what I have listed on a scrap piece of paper on our kitchen table. I have a list of what words Patrick has said and approximate dates.

Up, Mom or Mama, Dad or Da Da - 7 or 8 months
Book - April 16
Wawa (I think he said wawa anyway) - April 17th
Dog - April 18th
Elmo - April 25th
All Done -May 3rd (tonight) - he said it a few weeks ago in his crib before falling asleep but he didn't really say it to me and I forgot to write down the date.

These are words he's said unassisted. He decided to say them all on his own and he wasn't repeating what we'd just said or anything. Pretty exciting stuff.

Here are some pictures of our week in Tucson.

He fell asleep by tipping over and onto Grandpa's arm while sitting on his lap. So cute!
Kisses from Patch. Did you notice that Patch's head is twice the size of Patrick's?
The new San Diego vacation home - on wheels. We'll be quasi-camping in it later this month. Can't wait for all the yummy seafood from Point Loma Seafoods.
Lunch at Midway Molina's with Uncle Keenan.

He did it!

9 mo check up notes

We went to the doctor Monday for Patrick's 9 month check up. All is well with him. He cried a little bit more than usual when Dr. Padrez (nicely) pokes and shines lights places. I think it has to do with separation anxiety. He was a champ though. Here are his newest measurements:

Weight: 17lb 8oz - (8% - Dr. says this is normal around this age, to dip a bit lower than his usual 25-50%)
Height: 28" long (40%)
Head circumference: 18.25" (80% - WOW! He's gonna be smart)

He's eating more yummy foods. He's into broccoli (well, it needs a tiny bit of cheese and breadcrumbs) and still loves his apples. We've been making this apple omelet with shredded apple, cinnamon and egg yolks in butter (sounds weird but it's actually very good).

He's started bouncing up and down while in the sitting position to show he's happy or just to have fun. He's still teething too and will get new teeth (again!) pretty soon probably. Crawling might not happen. I have been doing research and as long as the baby can get places (either by scooting on their behinds, pulling with their arms or rolling - that's what Patrick does - then they should be fine). He's trying a little bit to pull himself up - mainly when he's in the bathtub ducky. So, we'll probably have a walker in a few months. Yikes! :)

The flowers are sooo pretty right now. Here is another picture. This is from our front porch area.

More teeth and lotsa flaps

It's been a week - I think - since I last wrote. So much has happened in such a short amount of time. He has even more teeth now. The top two poked through on Friday. He had had a horrible day on Wednesday with the worst tooth pain yet. He cried/fussed pretty much all day. It's the worst thing in the world to hear him cry. But now he has some more cute teeth for to crunch his little crackers.

Oh, that's the other update. I tried giving him some finger food right after my last post and within a week, he's successfully managed to learn how to put things into his mouth - which is a little scary at the same time. I just need to make sure we have proper food in front of him and not a piece of chewed up dog toy or something.

I'm still having fun making all of Patrick's food. His list of foods he can eat is huge. I had initially kept track and now the list is just so big that I stopped official count. I can think of these foods off the top of my head, he's had:

rice cereal, oatmeal cereal, bananas, apples, pears, butternut squash, yellow summer squash, potatoes, parsnips, green beans, apricots, raspberries, blueberries, kiwi, avocado, carrots, corn, prunes, yogurt, sweet potatoes and Cheerios...hmm, is that all? I think that might be all I can think of right now. That's a lot!

We have fun shopping for food at the local farmers markets and Trader Joe's. I just found the darn cutest shopping list template ever - to help us plan for our shopping trips. It's free too: http://www.futuregirl.com/craft_blog/2007/12/meal-planner.html

And the flaps (from the blog title). He loves loves loves his books with flaps. Right now that includes "Where is Baby's Belly Button," a Dr. Seuss book and a few others. It's really cute to watch him get so excited to lift open the flaps.

Oh, he's up from his nap. Slept for 1.5 hrs - yay! I'll write more later!

Peas Peas Peas

So, I finally got this video up. This is from a few weeks ago and it was so cute.

Patrick has a little cold and wasn't feeling so well Saturday but he's a bit better now but he's still pretty phlegmy and hasn't been able to cough or sneeze much up and out. Hopefully soon.

We sold our brown couch on craigslist after finding a new couch and chair on craigslist.

Bye Bye!

Hello! Thanks Mr. Model Baby Patrick!

Love that site. We've been trying to move furniture around and get rid of the extra "stuff" around the house. It's slow going but we'll get there.

We are thinking that sometime later this year we might get some chickens. I know you're thinking that we're crazy but I think it'd be so cool to have some pet chickens to get some backyard farm fresh eggs. Sean found this rad site that makes it almost too easy to not make happen. You should all check it out and get your own backyard chickens. Omelet is the company name. You will flip at what they've created for us cityfolk.

What else has been going on...we went to the Hissyfits Children's Resale Shop Craft fair and got a neat jingle ball called zadyball that a local mom made, she's working on getting a patent and trademark...you go craft fair mom!

I was excited to go to the craft fair since I've been preparing myself to try my hand at sewing. I know, I normally don't really consider myself a crafter (and I haven't even started yet) but I have this great sewing machine that I got a few Christmases ago and I want to put it to use. Plus, I need a hobby that will keep me at home and not tempted to shop or spend gobs of money. So, I thought sewing would be a new challenge and something that I could do. Little did I know that there is this whole new world of cool kid crafters that are 20-30something. Amy Butler is one of those who are helping the movement. I will be posing pictures once I make something. I have all my supplies and most of the notions (that's what they're called, notions), I just need to clean up a bit around the house, build my workspace and figure out all the library books I picked up. Right now I plan to start on a baby bib from the book "Bending the Rules."

Wow this was a long blog. Well, Patrick is taking longer naps now that he's sick. However, he's only wanting to take his morning nap...and...that's....it. So, afternoons are a bit long. :) I will write more later. Toodles.

Christmas/New Year's/6 mo check up Update

Here are some cute photos from Christmas Eve dinner at Grandma Jo's house. We had some yummy ham and sweet potatoes and good family times. Patrick wore his Santa hat to be festive. As you can see, he loves to grab daddy's hair.

I need to take more pictures so that we can post more pictures. What you've all missed lately is the hit and run that Patrick and I had Dec. 21st, we're okay but the driver door of my trailblazer was bashed in. So, we've been crusing North Central Phoenix in a silvery-greeny Chrysler something or other. It's a nice rental car. My car should be ready by Jan 11th (fingers crossed). Oh and New Years came and went while we were visiting the sandman. I did tivo Dick Clark's Rockin' Eve so that I could celebrate the New Year with my sparkling cider and morning waffles the next day.

What else, oh, we went to Tucson this last weekend to visit my family some more and see Nana and the Manley's (where we got married). Nana is good and the Eegee flavor this month is Blueberry (not my fave...sorta tastes like blue dirt). Can't wait for the Peach 'n' berry each year. I should check to see when that is and plan a trip. You can check too: www.eegees.com.

Patrick also had his 6 month check up Jan 2nd. and he's in the 75th percentile for height, 70th for head and 25th for weight. He's still eating all the time so maybe he'll fatten up later. :) Oh, and my moles I had dug out of each arm came back from the pathologist with a clean bill. Yay! Guess that's it for now. Time to take today's shower. And what time is it....? 9:36 pm. Ha! I'm definitely a mommy now. Showers are sometimes hard to come by. :)

He's rolling the other way now

He's just rolling all over the place. Just when he's figured out rolling from front to back, he just up and goes the other way. I bet he'll be crawling and running here any day. It's amazing how one day they didn't do something and then all of the sudden it's in their lives and they want to do it all the time. He's reaching out for everything and learning about cause and effect. For example, if baby throws something on the floor, mommy will pick it up for him :). He's just so cute and making lots of new noises and is all around having fun.

We're getting ready for Christmas and have put up a wreath and will probably be picking up our tree on Sunday. Has anyone else put up their holiday decor?

4 month check up

I'm happy to report that Patrick is completely and totally normal and average. Really, he is in the 50th percentile for height, weight and head measurement. The numbers are as follows:

Weight: 14lb 4 oz
Length: 24 3/4"
Head Circumference: 16 1/2"


We're still waiting for him to turn over from his front to back but I'm sure that'll happen any day now. He was a champ with the shots but he always cries right after it happens to the point where his whole head turns red and he's blown all the air out of his belly. But he calmed down quickly and was in a good mood for the rest of the day, yay!

The doc said that he's able to start other foods sometime in the next 2 months (like rice cereal and whirred peas). I think he's not quite ready yet but maybe for xmas dinner!

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Check out this video I did on my camera that I posted on youtube:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=4fDIyE6WO-g

It's of Patrick blowing his tongue at me while we were waiting for the doctor.