these apples are delicious

after eating some more peas for dinner, caroline tried apples for the first time tonight. she liked them much more than peas! but she really wanted to eat the baked pasta we were eating :)

peas please

our exploration of solid food continues. today caroline tried peas. i actually made my own baby food - i've made green beans and peas so far. it was so easy - i am mad that i didn't so this for Q. -

caroline shows just how messy one can get while eating peas

-

- and the big boy isn't much cleaner after his pizza

-

-

caroline really seems to like sitting at the table with us. i think quentin is a little jealous that she's in the high chair though. he never got territorial when she moved into his old room or his crib, but he seems somewhat sad that she's in the chair.

save the rainforest

tonight we attended a "meet the rainforest" night at the elementary school. i saw it advertised in the newspaper and they said there would be a monkey. Q has been a big monkey fan lately so we figured it might be worth the $10. for 2 hours, we got to sit on the floor of the gymnasium with a few hundred of our townsfolk which made the place so warm, it felt like we were actually in the rainforest. it ended up being much better than we expected - worth the cash and the sore rumps. -

quentin awaits the start of the show

- -

the scarlet macaw - i know this from go diego go

this one freaked quentin out. it was the first animal to come out and it flew out into the gym and circled the crowd. i don't think he was expecting that!

- -

another macaw named kelly -

- python!

the dude had some kids volunteer to come up on stage and then the crew brought this guy out. the guy then said, "ooh this guy's getting angry" and the little boy holding the head flipped out. too funny. then he explained how pythons suffocate their prey and asked if anyone wanted to volunteer to demonstrate that - most of the kids in attendance raised their hands. -

- quentin's reaction to the enormous snake - - the python being naughty based on the guy's reaction, i don't think the snake's antics were planned -

- gators! -

- as Q said, "big gator" -

- kinkajous - another critter we've seen diego save on nick jr.

they are not monkeys. but they were close enough for Q. -

- a serval - a creepy vicious cat thing -

- and what we came for... the capuchin monkey... drinking from a sippy cup

quentin immediately reached for his cup so he could drink like the monkey -

- and caroline was there! -

movin' on up

quentin has graduated to the booster seat at the dinner table (for the most part) so now caroline gets to sit in the high chair. she seems to dig it.

truck, where are you?

quentin brought a monster truck (his new one from daddy) upstairs a few minutes ago when we went up for a diaper change. he forgot to bring it back down because he got distracted by an empty coke bottle he wanted to put in the garbage. now he is walking in circles around the house saying, "truck, where are you?"

My Day with Boy

Today, the bathroom tile was getting re-glazed. Since Tuesday is not a daycare day and dudes were going to be wreaking havoc in our home we decided it might be a good day to have Quentin out of the house as adding a terror to dudes wreaking havoc is a recipe for not good outcome. So, we signed him up for daycare at Mass General. We didn't need to be there until 830 so with my ticket to HOV lane in tow we took off at about 730, FYI Hanson to Boston during AM rush hour without the HOV lane cannot be done in an hour. We pulled out of the driveway and I started rocking out to some old-school Metallica (For Whom the Bell Tolls for those interested) and to what should I see in the back seat but my 2.5 year old son banging his head to the beat just like his dad. I was so proud. Since we were two dudes rocking out on our way to Boston, we stopped and got some Munchkins from Quentin's favorite establishment, Dunkin Donuts. Another FYI, there are about five to choose from on our route to the highway, more if you are willing to take very minor detours. This of course started to incessant "no-nucks" (aka donuts in the Lexicon of Quentin), "a-more" (more, duh), and "PLEASE." The kid can polish of some donuts. On the radio station I listen to, they are qualifying people for a wing eating contest. Basically they are coming into studio and trying to eat some god-awful amount of food in 90 to seconds to qualify for the wing contest. People were trying to eat a bag of cheesy-poofs, 10 Popeye's chicken legs, 50 pieces of sushi (from the grocery store = high quality). Do you think I could qualify if I said my 2.5 year old could eat 10 Munchkins in 90 seconds, sadly I think he could. Once on the highway he got to point to all the "big trucks" while I got to point and laugh at all the suckers in gridlock while we coasted down the HOV. The rest of the drive was pretty boring. Once we got to daycare they had a water table set up. Within 5 seconds he was up to his elbows in water and his security blanket was sleeping with the fishes. I tried to pick him up to say goodbye but he got hysterical because he had to check out all the new toys so I said goodbye and went off to my morning lectures. After a thrilling three hours, I had to head north to Revere to basically pass out Plan B to a bunch of promiscuous teenage girls who wisely did not want to be on the next season of Teen Mom. After handing out my last box of Plan B to a girl who didn't use condoms because of some issue with latex and just didn't like the feel of non-latex I headed back to the general to pick up the boy. He seemed to have a good day and to my surprise they told me he napped on a mat on the floor. I still cannot comprehend this. He sleeps in a packandplay at daycare and most of the time at home when we put him down for naps he plays in his room for an hour before finally deciding to nap. Even as I write this I can't believe that he napped on a mat. For part of his afternoon snack they gave him water to which he responded, "No want that." I think the ship has sailed on him drinking water. He is a juice drinker, but we dilute the holy hell out of it. However, he recently has become a little more picky and will refuse to drink it if he feels we have over-diluted it simply saying, "No want that." When we got to the car, daddy had a surprise for his little buddy, a Grave Digger monster truck. Needless to say, he loved it. We are not sure how but he is already calling it "Digger." Neither of us really drilled it into his head that the truck was called Grave Digger but somehow he knew. The car ride home was full of more requests for "no-nucks." I had a fun day with my little HOV pass.

shiny happy bathroom

today we had some wonderful people come and reglaze the tile and tub in our downstairs bathroom. like the kitchen update we did, this was all about improvement at a bare minimum cost. we know that this isn't going to make any potential buyer say, "i want to buy that house because of that bathroom" but we are hoping it will prevent a potential buyer from saying. "i don't want to buy that house because of that bathroom." - some before shots of the lovely marbley patterned tan tile and disgusting tan tub. interestingly, we learned today that our tub has been reglazed in the past (1982, we think, based on markings on the old sink) and that someone CHOSE that tan color that doesn't match the other bazillion shades of tan in the room. (seriously, when we bought this house, the walls were tan, the tile was tan, the border tile was tan, the toilet was tan, the tub was tan, the sink was tan, the towel rack was tan, and the toilet paper holder was tan. and none of them were even remotely the same tan.) -

and after. it takes 24 hours to cure, so there is still some tape up and we can't put any of the accessories (like a toilet!) back in the room yet but you get the idea. the shiny new white on the tile sure makes the floor look gross. that's next! and painting the heat register thing. no more tan!

it's bananas!

caroline moved beyond cereals and ventured into the world of fruits today. we had a couple of bananas that were getting mushy so jeremy squished one up for her. she seemed to like it. but really she just likes the spoon most of all.

7 months old!

caroline is 7 months old today! it's really hard to believe she's closer to 1 than to 0! though not pictured above, she's getting quite good at sitting on her own, though she is still prone to toppling over. she's also really close to crawling. she can get up on all fours and tries to make forward progress. she is quite adept at barrel rolling across the room to get to where she's headed. this week, she started taking classes at the same gym quentin goes to. it's a little absurd at her age, but she really did seem to like it. there was another baby in the class only a few weeks older than her and she really liked him.

if quentin were on facebook...

Quentin is watching All About... Garbage and Recycling 2 minutes ago ..... Caroline Seriously. enough with this. ....... 1 minute ago - Quentin became a fan of Finding Nemo 5 minutes ago - Quentin is watching All About... Monster Trucks 37 minutes ago - Quentin is watching All About... Garbage and Recycling about an hour ago - Quentin became a fan of Monster Trucks, Big Trucks, Wheels, and Tires about an hour ago - Quentin is hungry. Anyone have any cookies, or donuts, or lettuce? 2 hours ago - Quentin is running laps around the house because a train is on TV 2 hours ago - Quentin is watching All About... Trains 2 hours ago - Quentin became a fan of I hate when my parents try to watch Law & Order, Getting up at dawn, and Boogers 3 hours ago - Quentin is watching All About... Monster Trucks 3 hours ago - Quentin took the How boy are you? quiz and got the result: 100% boy 3 hours ago - Quentin is trying to see how many hotwheels he can fit in his pockets 4 hours ago - Quentin is watching All About... Trains 4 hours ago - Quentin just got up from a long winter's nap 4 hours ago - Quentin is hitting the hay 8 hours ago - Quentin is putting all of his toys and his lunch in his toy shopping cart 8 hours ago - Quentin became a fan of Dunkin Donuts, McDonald's, and Chili's 10 hours ago - Quentin says be quiet - Sesame Street is on 10 hours ago - Quentin is watching All About... Monster Trucks 11 hours ago - Quentin is eating an apple he found under the couch... score! 11 hours ago - Quentin is watching All About... Monster Trucks 12 hours ago

6 month and christening photos

we had to try a new photo studio since the one we used to use (kiddie kandids inside babies r us went out of business as of sunday.) we had a coupon for sears portrait studio so we gave them a try. i didn't have high hopes upon seeing the place and witnessing quentin's general lack of cooperation and listening. but somehow they managed to get some really good ones. (Q only had to participate for a little bit - this visit was mainly about caroline.) and i really like how many poses they showed us - kiddie kandids would always cut it down to 5 and they would do the cutting and not even show you the ones they deleted, not something a control-freak like me appreciates. plus we got a CD with all the images, even the funny ones. so sears portrait studio = pleasant surprise! -

and look at my baby girl sitting all by herself! that's a new skill as of the past couple of days!