A few funny things from this week...

Lucas is such a funny boy. Here are a few happenings from this week:
We scored a watermelon at the Pioneer/Patriots festival last Saturday, which was great since it's No Buy July! Lucas found it to be quite useful - not only could he roll it around, he could use it to get into stuff. Then he got to eat it - watermelon is one of his favorites foods.
On Monday I made cinnamon rolls for the very first time by myself, without my mom. I actually did a good job. I used a recipe from a cookbook, so they weren't as good as my moms, and I didn't put enough sugar and cinnamon in the middle, which is a pretty common mistake in the cinnamon roll world, but they were good none the less.

Ben was reading books to Lucas the other day. This was the view from upstairs:

And finally Lucas saw me drinking my noni juice the other morning and wanted some also. So, I gave him about a teaspoon in a glass (I only drink an ounce) and he made the funniest face when he drank it. But, he kept wanting more. He did this every time I remembered to get the noni out this week. Here's a video of him on his second glass.

Thanks, Lisa!

Aunt Lisa sent Lucas some new wooden toys. Back in April we went to Lisa's office to distract her from her charts and Lucas found a wooden stacking toy in the waiting room. He really liked it, so ever since then, Lisa has been on the search for cool wooden toys. Yesterday, a box containing two wooden toys appeared at the door - one just like Lisa's and the other just like Kate's. Lucas has been really happy playing with them - so much so, that nap time was delayed a whole hour today due to magical wooden stacking fun!
Thanks for being so generous, kind and thoughtful, Lisa! We love you.

The Pill

Lucas has been a little bit of a pill the past few days: not sleeping... going crazy... not sleeping... climbing things... not sleeping... being destructive. Before I think too many negative thoughts about the kid, I need to think about how sweet, smart, and funny he is before I go to bed exhausted and alone. (now you really feel sorry for me, huh?)

We broke out the bubbles the other night to celebrate having Daddy home for once. Lucas had a good time trying to eat them. He really eats a lot of soap - every time we play with bubbles, the wand goes right into his mouth. He also licks soap off his hands when I wash his hands, and he eats it in the bath tub if he can. Gross. Anyhow, here's Bubble Boy:
Lucas has been getting into everything lately. It's driving me a little crazy. He says, "mine, mine, mine..." and dives into the silverware drawer, junk drawer, utensil drawer, or pantry. He has managed to come away unscathed even after reaching for the Cutco knives.
Today I came down the stairs to find him happily playing with the bag of rubberbands from the junk drawer. He likes to sort things, so they were all over the floor. Then he chewed on a couple, but I don't think he ate any.

I'm going to have to start toddler proofing now. He's outgrowing all the babyproofed things because he's so tall! I really don't want to have to put latches on my drawers, but I might have to before I go nuts.
He still loves the fridge of course, and this is our current method of babyproofing there:
I guess the last naughty thing he does is climb. He loves to climb and will climb anything remotely climbable. It's a miracle we haven't had a trip to the emergency room. Yesterday I realized things in the pantry weren't quite right, then I discovered Lucas climbing half-way up "organizing" things for me. Tonight I went into the toy room while I was cooking dinner and discovered him half-way up the book shelf with a bottle of cold medicine in his hands. I had hidden it up there so it would be safe. I think he was after a piggy bank we got for our wedding. I just mentioned to Ben how dangerous the book shelf was a couple months ago... we need to anchor it to the wall OR buy something better in Buy Lots Of Stuff August.

Lastly, here's a video of Lucas practicing his colors with his spoons. He loves these stupid spoons, so I finally gave up keeping them in the drawer. Happy Friday!

Helpful Hands

I love this kid.

This morning we came downstairs for breakfast and Lucas's alphabet magnets were on the table. He picked up the H and said, "H." I was very impressed... and a little doubtful, so I asked him again which one was the H and he pointed it out. I asked Ben if they worked on that last night while I was out and they didn't, so I guess he learned it from the singing magnet toy.

Another funny Lucasism: at night when he's all ready for bed we say prayers (quickly) and Lucas always listens for the "amen" and says it right along with us. Recently he will listen for a second, but run away really quickly to his room in the middle of the prayer. We find him in there waiting for us to put him in his crib. I guess he must be really tired!

Lucas has become very helpful at times. He loves to put things in the trash can. At the pool he spends a lot of time cleaning up the litter... I've only had to go fish someone's goggles out of the trash once. Here's a little video of Lucas helping me with the trash at home.

Town Lake Park

Today we went to Town Lake Park with the Petersons. TWP is one of the coolest parks ever. It's right downtown by Town Lake and it has one of those cool fountain things for the kids to play in. Lucas isn't so much a fan of the fountains, but we like them. Lucas prefers looking into the nasty pond that is full of algae. You can see he was a little afraid for me to put him down:

We left Ben at work and on the way home I gave Lucas a big box of raisins to curb his hunger. He munched on them almost all the way home. Then suddenly I looked back and found him asleep. I tried to wake him up and he barely opened his eyes to look at me, then promptly fell back asleep. If you click on the picture, you can see the some raisins perched ontop of his car seat buckle.

I carried him in the house, changed him into his PJ's and put him in his crib all while he was asleep. Poor little guy was exhausted!

No Buy July, Day 2

Today was officially day two of NBJ. And, I'm glad to report that I haven't spent a cent. Last night for dinner Jeana and I decided it would be fun to have a baked potato bar, so together we created quite the delicious feast. Jeana made great chili and I made the cheese/broccoli sauce. We rolled the potatoes in kosher salt before baking and they were really yummy. We were stuffed by the end of our meal. We finished it off with the worlds best reduced-fat mint brownies and we were all quite happy.
Tonight I decided I should try something with beans and rice since that's what we've been joking about. So, I found this recipe and altered it a bit. I used two cans of beans, threw in some garlic, a cup of tomato/chicken bouillon, and more cumin than it called for, and topped it with a dollop of sour cream. It would have been good with a squeeze of lime juice, too. And if you're feeling totally wild, you could grill a chicken breast or something to go in it, too.

I liked it, Lucas liked it - especially after he dipped the beans in his blueberry yogurt, and Ben liked it also. It was a success and a totally cheap meal. it probably cost $3 total and it's enough for two meals. It would have been $3.75, but I grew my own onions on the back patio this spring!

I used my leftover rice and some leftover canned milk from last week and made some rice pudding, which I love. I basically just made a stirred custard and added the rice to it (as opposed to baked rice pudding).

FYI - if you eat dinner at our house and you throw your food on the floor, you have to pick it up. If you're Lucas, you can even eat it off the floor, just as long as it gets picked up.

Then you can go out to play.

**If you have any fun, cheap recipe ideas let me know. We can all share on the blog! And let me know if you want to participate in NBJ - we can all share our results in August!**

No Buy July

Well, it's officially time to start the second annual "No Buy July." Ben came up with this idea last year to see exactly what we could live on in a dire situation... and to try to save up some cash. If I remember correctly last year, it was only a couple hundred dollars that we saved which means that we don't really waste a lot of money... Ben thinks I could have done better, but I wasn't going to not buy food for crying out loud! This year I'll try to do more with beans and rice... we'll see how we do. Anyone want to join in on NBJ?

Thanks to my sister Lisa for Lucas's new threads. She figured she better fill his closet for the summer now, since I can't fill it in July. She's such a nice aunt!


On another note, Ben just found a freakin' scorpion in our bathroom and that makes me really aggravated. Ahhhhh!

And on another 'nother note, doesn't Lucas look hot when he puts his food in his hair? If only I could achieve the same look with hair gel...