Little Person, Big Imagination

This post is probably not too interesting to most, as it's mainly for my own memory. I just wanted to remember this week as being a little milestone for Quincy. She has been obsessed with the Disney Princesses for a few weeks now. She finally has an (almost) full collection of the little figurines and she brings them everywhere. They are definitely a life-saver when we go out to eat. The change has been in the last few days when she has begun to actually play with them as though the dolls are playing and talking to each other. It is the cutest thing I've seen so far and it is just amazing as her mother to see her suddenly develop this new imagination. It's also so nice because she is content playing by herself for a while! Yay! I know all kids do this, but seeing her evolve from a helpless baby into the little thinker she is now, truly mystifies me and I just wanted to make note because sadly I can't remember what I wore yesterday, let a lone these kind of things. I wish I could bottle these moments and relive them forever :(

Happy B-day to Grandma Wood

Grandma Wood is in South Dakota taking care of our dear family friend Irene, so she can't be with her two G-daughters. Well, for Grandma's birthday we thought we'd bring them to her...Happy Birthday Grandma !!

(click to watch)

Congratulations to the Coopers!

We were lucky enough to be able to visit the Cooper Family one week after their newest addition was born. She is so TINY and perfect. I forgot what it was like to hold such a fragile little person. Since I haven't taken any photos of a newborn, it was a good chance to test the waters. It's not as easy as it looks! I think the most challenging thing was keeping her asleep. She slept through lunch but was ready to party come picture time. While I thought I still got some cute photos, Alex was able to get some REALLY good shots of her two daughters at the park the next day. Here are some that I took, but like I said, it wasn't easy! Poor thing was eating fluffy blankets all afternoon. Good thing she won't remember her first meeting with me (stuffing her in buckets and on plates!) Congratulations to the Coopers!

Girly Girls

With the economy in such turmoil and jobs being lost left and right, it's a little ironic that Marshal and I actually decided it would be best that I go back to part-time, but that's exactly what happened. As of now, we are able to swing it, so we feel it's more important I spend as much time home with Quincy as possible before she gets too big and we miss out on these precious years.

Today, being my first Thursday off, I decided to get together with some girlfriends. One of which let me do a mini practice photo shoot with her adorable little chubbers. Thanks Shannon! Can't wait for another chance to photograph the little princess. And, of course, I had to throw some of Q in there. We seriously need to have some more kids!

Not too shabby

So, I found some time this weekend (thanks to Grandma Wood!) to actually try some of the "Deceptively Delicious" recipes I've had marked in my cookbook. To my surprise, they are actually edible!

The Blueberry Oatmeal bars actually contain spinach, but you can't really tell. I'm still not able to get Quincy to try them, but once she does, I have a suspicion she'll be a fan.



The other recipe does not look or sound as appealing, but they aren't disgusting and in my mind, that's a plus! I tried one and can't say I was eager to finish the plate, but I think I could stomach a few more. They're actually kinda fun to eat. They are pretty much little balls of a bunch of pureed healthy stuff like chicken, brown rice, cheese, sweet potato, broccoli, and egg. As soon as Q wakes up from her nap, we'll be putting these little balls of healthy joy to the taste test! (BTW, like the glamour shots? I'm brushing up on my photo styling for a work project and this was a good "subject"!)


Other than a little cooking, we laid low this weekend. Grandma Wood came over which was a little slice of heaven for Quincy. Those two have so much fun. Having Grandma here gave Marshal & I some some to run errands and see a movie. Yay! We saw Funny People. I don't claim to have good taste in movies, but we both really liked it. Probably because we don't get out much! So, on to another week....


(Sorry about the blurry photo. None turned out because I was too busy running away from the hose!)

Change is Inevitable

I can't really tell if it's just a really strange time in our world or I'm just finally adult enough to notice, but things are certainly unlike anything I can remember in my lifetime. Times are tough right now and it seems to be hitting closer to home everyday. Change happens and you have to keep on truckin' the best you can I guess. I don' t know if I was feeling in need of change or just simply inspired today, but I felt like giving the blog a face lift as well as sending a message (my design, but not my words), so here are both.

A Little of the Mundane

Since this blog is meant to be our pseudo baby book, this is just my way of recording the little things! As mundane as they are, these are big things in our lives right now...

First, we have the potty treats. Quincy has been doing so good with her potty chair thanks to these handy little treats. It's evident that the whole potty thing has finally clicked with her (for the most part). Basically, she decides when she wants a piece of candy and she goes potty. If she doesn't feel like a treat, she just goes in her diaper. Now, I'm just trying to figure out how to get her to consistently go in her toilet AND when I can stop rewarding her with treats... at this rate, she'll be asking for candy every time she uses the pot even when she's 18. She's even started to congratulate me when I go to the bathroom. She says "Good job mama. You did potty!" :)



Let's see, next is our latest effort to eat healthier. With life being so crazy busy, we've fallen into the "let's just eat whatever is quickest, easiest and most likely to be approved by the princess even if it's corn dogs and chicken nuggets EVERYDAY" routine. I began to look at my own diet as well and realize that she is pretty much following my lead. Thanks to a friend, I've had this book called "Deceptively Delicious" by Jessica Seinfeld that I decided to dust off and give a spin.

So, I spent this weekend pureeing broccoli, spinach, cauliflower and sweet potatoes in an effort to follow some of the more edible-looking recipes and sneak some veggies into Q's diet. Our first item on the list was this very happy breakfast sandwich. The ingredients sounded so yummy! Sweet potatoes, brown sugar, egg whites, and cottage cheese (yuck, but mixed in, I didn't think we'd taste it). But, as it figures, it tasted about as terrible as it looks! I tried to put syrup on Quincy's but she wouldn't give in. One taste and she was done. I, on the other hand, choked down my sandwich trying to lead by example. If the remaining recipes turn out this flavorless we're going to have to find a recipe book that covers a hundred variations of corn dogs.





Next, I just wanted to remember some of Quincy's favorite books right now. Her all-time favorite bedtime book so far is Richard Scarry's Giant Storybook Treasury. I remember buying it for her a long time ago because it reminded me of my childhood. I used to try to get her interested in it but she wanted nothing to do with it for a long time. I couldn't wait for the day she wanted to read it instead of just tearing the pages...

All I have to say is be careful what you wish for. She wants to read it every night. Over and over and over and over and over. People told me this would happen. One night when I was really tired, I even tried to hide the book one night behind our chair. Guess what. She found it. It was like she could just smell it. She never ceases to amaze me.

Her other favorite thing now is Cinderella. She wants to watch it, read it, play with the doll, wear the slippers and spin around. We call her our little Spinderella. She's definitely suddenly into the Princess thing already.

And, lastly, here's the princess herself is in her Cinderella shoes. Big surprise!

The Girl's Got Spunk

It's been a long week and I'm t-i-r-e-d, but I had some fun pictures from this week I wanted to share before I call it a day. It's strange how much a child can change right before your eyes. It seems this week in particular has been pretty monumental. Well, as monumental as it can be through the eyes of her adoring parents. To everyone else, it's small beans I'm sure. Quincy has successfully went potty for about four days straight. She still doesn't get the whole undie thing. She, for some odd reason, thinks when you have panties on you're supposed to pull them up to your neck or wear them around your knees and hobble around so we're working on that one still. It's a pretty humorous occurrence and you better believe we video taped it all for blackmail later! Let's see, what else? I'm not sure I can even recall anything in particular. It's just amazing that her vocabulary is just expanding exponentially, which reminds me... we also had her first (well, I swear her first was with her daddy, but that's up for debate) curse word experience this week. Let's just say I had a small freak out while driving and something may have slipped. Almost immediately, she let it slip, oh, about three more times within one mile. Oops. It had me busting up though. The delivery was priceless! And, well, other than that, she is just loving all her new birthday toys including her vacuum, princess shoes, play dough and of course, her fairy princesses. She even knows their names which shocked me. She's a very busy girl who's definitely got some spunk. So much, I have trouble keeping up! Here's some proof! 'Nite!

Two Years Too Old

I simply can't believe it's been two years already since little Q-tee was born. Time is going way too fast for me. The birthday party was chaotic as expected, but it was so much fun. I was completely stressing while icing the cake, hanging streamers, organizing activities to keep the little ones busy and preparing party favors but it was all worth it to watch Quincy's excitement as she discovered the presents and as all her favorite people began to arrive. She was overwhelmed with joy which made it ALL worthwhile. She's definitely a lucky kiddo to have such a great network of family and friends. Thank you to everyone for coming and sharing the day with us. She loved it!

Here are some of the photos I managed to sneak in between hostessing. I seemed to have left out almost everyone in attendance! Oops... I guess I was just too focused on the birthday girl herself! Didn't mean to exclude anyone! I can't wait to see the photos everyone else got so I can see what actually happened that day from another perspective :)