Happy Birthday, Andrea!

Today I turn 25. One quarter of a century down, two to three more to go.

Mark took the day off of work and Nancy and Ann are in town today, so we are celebrating in style. We had a homemade waffle breakfast, went to the zoo, ate burgers at Seamus McDaniels, and have just eaten a Cookies & Creamery ice cream cake from Cold Stone - sooo good.

We arrived home to a beautiful bouquet of flowers, courtesy of Mom & Dad. Thank you and Happy 34th Anniversary to you two!

Here are other pictures from this morning:

Aunt Ann and Taylor (in her new dress and shoes)

At the zoo with Grandma

Doggie emergency and mystery solved

As if receiving three shots today wasn't enough, Phoebe had an allergic reaction to the Nasal Bordetella. This is what she looked like 6 hours after her appointment:

Mark took Phoebe back into the vet and they gave her a shot to deal with the swelling. They said it was a "mild reaction." We just fear what might have happened if we had gone to the Y for the night like usual. She is also supposed to have Benadryl every 8hrs for the next day.

And, mystery solved. After an entire evening of searching the house for Mark's keys, we found them...in the kitchen trash can. They were sitting among raw meat and veggie peelings and other foul smelling things.

Here's the culprit - a guilty face if I ever saw one:

P.S. While sifting through the bathroom trash, I discovered some makeup I'd been missing as well. Nothing is safe from this baby anymore!

Egg thief, hidden keys, and stinky diapers

Taylor is often curious about the different kinds of food we eat, but doesn't always like what she tastes. This morning I offered her some hardboiled egg, but she declined by running the opposite direction. Then later when I sat down to eat the egg with my breakfast she toddled over, stole my egg, and started making a break for it. Then she started eating my egg!

She had several good bites of it before deciding she was done and throwing it on the floor.

Mark called a few minutes later wondering if I'd seen his keys. He had given them to Taylor to play with last night and couldn't find them this morning. I spent a good 30 minutes looking in all the usual places, but alas, no keys. The mystery of the missing keys continues...

Our diapers are finally clean and ready for use today. I spent all yesterday evening stripping all of Taylor's diapers of an awful smell which likely developed from detergent build-up. The stripping process involves washing the diapers with Dawn detergent for several washes, then washing them with some bleach, rinsing a couple of times and then drying. It took so long we barely had dry diapers for her to wear before bed time. Meanwhile, Taylor ran around in undies and didn't want to use her potty. It was a...wet evening, but now all of our diapers smell nice and fresh.

We took Phoebe in for her annual check-up this morning and everything went smoothly. However, it seems we haven't been good enough about clipping her nails. When the vet went to trim them, the quick had grown out so long in the nail the vet couldn't get them very short without making her bleed. Poor Phoebe. We were told the best thing to do is walk her more often and make sure to have her walk on the cement so her nails wear down. Then we are to bring her back in about 6 wks to have them trimmed again.

It's a beautiful day out - mid 60's! We've already taken a walk, but will be out again running errands. We're still planning on working out a the Y tonight, but Taylor's separation anxiety is getting a lot worse. Yesterday at the children's ministry, she didn't like me to be more than a few feet away from her. We'll see how it goes!

Eating adventures and outdoor fun

Here are some of the best photos from this last week:

Trying whole milk for the first time

Attempting the fork and plate (and crown) with dinner

Finding new places to hide her food

Walking around the block

Leaving us far behind

New things

A quick post before too much time passes and I forget to record these things. I'll have to add photos later.

Taylor now LOVES the outdoors. She most enjoys walking on the sidewalk, going down the street several houses. I usually stop her before we get too far, but someday I'll let her keep going and see how far she goes. She is also drawn to the street, but I haven't let her cross that line yet. She loves looking out our windows at home and insists on peering out whenever she passes one with the blinds pulled up. She gets upset when I don't let her look outside or go outside.

Whenever we get home, Taylor's first thought is for Phoebe. "Bah, bah, bah, bah" is what she says as soon as we enter the door.

We introduced Taylor to whole milk this last Saturday, which she seemed to like okay. However, when I attempted to give her a glass of it on Sunday, she promptly threw the sippy cup to the floor, walked over to me, and started to lift up my shirt. I guess she senses a quality difference...hehe.

Salmon patties and quinoa - mmm!

We're always interested in trying out new foods (even if just once) and our latest dinner experiment involved salmon patties and quinoa from Trader Joe's.

I first read about quinoa in a NYTimes article and thought it would make a nice, healthy alternative to rice for an evening. After our first successful run of it, we're thinking of completely replacing our stash of rice with it! And we've been trying to incorporate more fish in our diet, so the patties happened to be a fairly inexpensive boneless and skinless version of salmon that both of us enjoyed.

We cooked the salmon patties in a non-stick skillet on medium heat for a couple of minutes on each side. I seasoned with black pepper and salt (and a little ginger, but I think it tastes better without). The quinoa went in the rice cooker just like any other type of rice, with a ratio of 1:2 of quinoa and water. I basted our onion hamburger buns with olive oil and broiled them in the convection oven for a few minutes to get them a little toasty. Then we just threw some frozen TJ's veggies in the microwave - a mix of carrots, cauliflower, green beans, and peas. We topped the salmon burgers with tomato and lettuce (and Mark added ketchup before even trying it).

Here was the fabulous result:

Even Taylor like it!

It also made great leftovers (the quinoa that is; I made fresh salmon burgers the next day with two patties with had left). This is definitely a dinner we will repeat!

On the pot

For the last couple of weeks Taylor has been practicing sitting on her potties (a green one in the living room and a pink one in the bathroom). She usually doesn't do anything when she's sitting on them (besides maybe pretending to pee while signaling "toilet" to me), but I've been thrilled just to see her make the association with the object and part of its function.

This morning Taylor and I woke up and headed in the bathroom to do our business. When I sat down on the toilet, she situated herself on her new pink potty.

Then, Taylor pooped on her potty all by herself! Wooohoooo!

She was having so much fun on the potty, she didn't want me to take her off to wipe her bum. As soon as I finished cleaning her off, she went right back to sitting on the potty and was upset when I tried to leave the bathroom before she was done playing.

I hope this is a sign of great things to come.