Baby Food?

Audrey's palate is developing fast and she is starting to acquire a taste for spicy food. We have a recipe for spaghetti squash with grilled onions and peppers, marinara sauce, and spicy Italian sausage. As expected, she gobbled up the spaghetti squash (hey...it does look like spaghetti, thus far her favorite food), but somewhat unexpectedly, she also loved the sausage.

With Italian sausage under her belt, we've been spicing up other food she has been losing interest in. She has been turning her nose up at steamed broccoli recently so I tried sprinkling lemon pepper on it. She loves it.

Tonight, Kelly and I decided to get a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store for a quick meal. Audrey has had plenty of chicken, but only pureed in baby food until now. We decided to pick off a few pieces of meat for her to try and the result? Spaghetti might have a new competitor. I couldn't cut the meat off the bones fast enough for her.

I thought it would be funny to stage a picture and pretend she was eating the chicken straight off a leg bone. By the time I could grab my camera, she was picking the bone clean. We didn't think she would attack the leg with such vigor, and decided to take it away before she choked on a piece of cartilage or bone or who-knows what.

Next came the corn on the cob. We had cut some off the cob and put it on her tray but she didn't show much interest. She did, however, take a liking to my corn, covered with butter, salt, and pepper. I helped her for a while, showing her how to take bites, but she soon showed us that she could handle it on her own.

We finished with drinking water out of a cup. We've done this a number of times and she does o.k. with it but for some reason tonight turned into a giggle-fest. I caught the tail end on the video camera.

Laundry Walker

Who needs fancy walker toys? Not this girl. She makes due with whatever.

St. Mary's County Fair

We're trying to take advantage of every event that comes along to get a feel for our new home and I think we showed up at just the right time for events. I'm guessing this "still warm, but not too warm" time of year is popular for outdoor happenings. Last weekend was the Taste of St. Mary's, where all of about 6 restaurants set up booths and served samples of the local fare. There was a band playing and we had a good time.

This weekend was the St. Mary's County Fair. Even after many years of being away, I am still partial to the Puyallup Fair (if Wikipedia is to be believed, the Puyallup fair consistently ranks as one of the 10 largest fairs). While I didn't expect anything near the Puyallup, the lack of hot tubs, the sham-wow guy, and elephant ears left me wanting a little more. Audrey, however, was fully entertained by the parade (even though it was dominated by candidates for local elections), fire trucks, and animals--the horses, sheep, and chickens were her favorite.

Later today we are going to go to St. Mary's Riverfest. Next weekend is the Blessing of the Fleet and the Riverside Winefest at Sotterly Plantation.

Eleven Months Old

We haven't shared birthday pictures in a while, so here are a few from Audrey's elven-month-old big-girl-tub birthday bath tonight:

Made it to Maryland

Well, we did it. We got everything packed up and picked up and we are now in our cozy new home in Maryland. The garden and piano were two of the more difficult parts of the process. The garden was sad because we were leaving it in the most prolific time of the summer. The piano was difficult because, well, I'm guessing it weighs somewhere around 500 pounds.

Everything and everyone made it safely and luckily we found the box Audrey was packed in as soon as our stuff arrived. If you are ever planning on moving across country, make sure to label the box your kid is in - and be sure to cut lots of air holes!*

*We do not actually recommend packing a child in a box - we thought about it, but our contract specifically stated that we could not transport people or animals in the moving trailer.