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Isn't this little guy a cutie?

Athen and I finally have a good daily routine down. We wake up, eat and then have play time. He usually plays on the floor with his jungle gym floor mat. He then starts putting his hand over his nose and rubbing his eyes which is my sign to put him down for his nap. His naps last any where from 1-3 hours (when I'm lucky). He wakes up, eats and then we take our daily stroll. We walk two miles down Park street to the beach, run two miles along the beach and then walk two miles back home. Once we get home we shower up for the day (yeah this is usually about 2:00 in the afternoon but who wants to shower before they going running and then again a few hours later - not me. Then we put Athen down for a second nap which usually isn't as long but still pretty good. After he wakes up we eat and have play time. This play time we rotate through all the toys, he goes in the walker and cruises around the house until he gets bored then we have tummy time until he can't stand it any more, then he gets to play with his hands and talk while in his bouncer chair. This is my time for making dinner. Right before bed time he starts getting a little fussy, he is usually tired and hungry and ready for his papa to come home, feed him and put him to sleep. He is still a pretty good little baby. However, if he doesn't get his nap he can be a bear like his papa.



This weekend Rick did a service project (Rebuilding Oakland) all day and I went to Santa Cruz with Athen and my mom for my cousins baby shower. Friday night we went to a Cambodian restaurant in a really bad part of Oakland. The restaurant had great reviews so Rick really wanted to try it out. It was good. We had Singapore noodles with curry and boneless stuffed chicken wings which were good but interesting. Maybe we will go back and maybe not.

On Sunday the girls came over to cook with us. They wanted to make french toast and homemade orange syrup so we did. We then taught them how to play a new game. I then left for a meeting. Rick didn't have any after church meeting today if you can believe that, however, I did. I got home to this:



Sunday afternoon Rick and I took our usual family walk down to the beach. It was hot outside even at 6:00 at night. We then came home and made some chicken fried rice for dinner.

Athen got this little Mickey head attached to a small blanket for Christmas from his auntie Loo. He LOVES it. It is a love/hate relationship for me. Love because if you put it over his head he is instantly silent. He WILL NOT go to sleep with out it. He just discovered his love for it a few weeks ago. He puts it over his head and then puts his hand over his nose. That is where the hate part comes in. I am paranoid that he can't breathe with it over his head like that and that he is going to stop breathing while he is sleeping. During nap time it isn't as bad because I can see him and as soon as he falls asleep I take it away or move it away from his nose, but the middle of the night its a little more difficult. He wakes up crying and wouldn't stop until the Mickey goes over his head. Once that Mickey hits his head he is silent. But then I have to wait around in the middle of the night for him to fall asleep so I can take the Mickey out of his crib so he doesn't suffocate.


Before the Mickey has been moved.

After Mickey has been moved.

Food

We took Athen to his 4 month appointment last week and he is average (except for his cuteness, he is way above). He is 25" and 15 pounds. All his stats were in the 50th percentile, which means he has slimmed down a bit. The doctor told us we could start feeding him solids. She said forget the rice cereal there is no nutrition in it, go straight to the fruits and veggies. I wanted to start him off with some carrots, peas or squash, but Rick wanted to give him a delicious treat - bananas. I thought if we started him off with fruit he may never want to eat the veggies. Rick won but I guess it didn't matter much because he didn't seem to like the bananas. I think he is a little too young still, so we will try again in a few months.






Over the weekend we went to Santa Cruz to our friend's birthday party. It was fun to see them and show off our little man. Sorry no pictures.


Last night for dinner I tried something new. I decided to make some homemade potstickers. I got the idea from one of my favorite cookbooks from Raleigh. The filling had shrimp, coconut, orange zest, garlic, green onions, red pepper flakes and cilantro. It was much easier to do then I was expecting and didn't take as much time as I thought. I made some rice with cilantro and shallots to go along with it. It turned out great. Rick loved it. He said it was the best meal I have made. He loved the sweet and spice of it. He was bummed out that I had already packed his lunch for the next day. He was hoping for the left overs. I told him he could have left overs for dinner the next night.

Tagged by my friend Anupa. For answers visit my new blog: My List Blog (link is on the right under our friends).

4 Months

My little man turned 4 months old today. My my how the time flies. Here are some pictures at four months. We go to the doctor on Thursday so we don't know his stats yet.











PS - I started a new blog of lists. I love them and thought it would be fun to hear everyone else's lists. Check it out and add your list. The blog link is under my friends list as My List Blog.

Happy Easter!

This Easter we celebrated at our own home with some family. My dad came along with his cousin Eldene and her husband Rudy. They don't have any children and not much family around so we invited them for Easter brunch. It is always fun to see them. 

They brought Easter baskets for us, gifts for Athen and a lovely hostess gift for me - some lemon verbena soaps that smell delcious. 

I decided to do an Easter brunch rather than a traditional ham and potato meal. I did french toast, an egg and hashbrown dish and a spinach and chicken ring, fruit salad and then of course some snacks - peach mango salasa and chips, swiss and rosemary olive oil triskets, honey mustard pretzels, jelly beans, and some homemade chocolate macaroons. 

I must say my french toast is delicious. I use thick text toast bread and the egg mixture has heavy cream, Madagascar bourbon vanilla, and lots of warm spices - cinnamon, cloves, fresh ground nutmeg, mace and all spice. Then I made (actually Rick made it for me) a homemade orange zest syrup with butter, sugar, fresh squeezed juice from an orange and orange rind. I boil it down until it is thick and syrupy. I then top the french toast off with a little powdered sugar, berries, and toasted coconut. It is pretty good. 

For my eggs and hashbrown dish I put a layer of hashbrowns an egg and salt and pepper down in a baking dish and baked it for about 10 minutes. I then added a layer of runny scrambled eggs, red peppers, green onions, mushrooms, ham, cheddar and swiss cheese and then baked it again for another 10 minutes. It was bright colored and tasty. This picture is before it went in the oven to bake.

For my spinach ring I used a pampered chef recipe that has spinach, chicken, red peppers, and cheddar cheese. You place in between some cresent rolls and make a pretty ring then bake. 

For dessert we had the chocolate macaroons with a marzipan cake that Eldene brought. It was all delicious. I also got to use my new placemats and napkins. 

Angel Baby...

This week my Angel Baby turned into a Baby Cub! My poor little guy has started teething. He drools all over the place, sucks on everything, has swollen gums and is fussy! Poor little guy. He is too young to be going through this. He can't even roll over yet and he has a hard time grabbing on to his frozen teething rings. I mean he is getting pretty good with his hands and his toys but he hasn't had a lot of practice yet. Every now and then his sweet little happy personality comes back for a few minutes and then he is crying again. 

This week we went to visit Grams house in Livermore. It was raining most of the day so we stayed inside and enjoyed the beautiful green view. My parents live on the top of a hill on 5 acres of land - very rare for the bay area. This is my favorite time of year there.

This week we walked along our cute little down town which is just down the street from us. We saw this:

Rick got home from his business trip to Buffalo, NY and told me that he didn't bring me something home (when he goes on trips he usually brings me home a nice gift, what a good husband) but instead he decided to bring Athen something. I guess I have been replaced by a cute little teething cryer. He brought Athen home a cute little Lion. As soon as we handed it to him he gave it a big slobbery kiss and a nice suck on the nose. 

When Rick got home from work I was pretty excited to show him my new purchase, a plastic cake cover. I have a ton of glass cake platters but I don't have one to use for transporting a cake. It is very hard to drive with a big glass cake platter sitting on the floor of the passenger seat. I wanted it so that I could make Rick delicious birthday cakes and bring them into work on his birthday (in the past I have made cupcakes because I couldn't get the big cake to the office and cupcakes just aren't as delicious as one of my homemade cakes). This was our conversation:

Me: "Rick I got you something today." 

Rick: "Oh, really what is it".

Me: "It's a plastic cake holder".

Rick: "Really, I have been wanting one of those so bad."

Me: "Yeah, me too!"

Later that day we were on our way to Ikea and I was telling Rick that I should stop spending so much money and he said well it's ok, you did score some points for that cake holder I have been wanting. We both started laughing.

Look at this little chunky monk.

My Random Love for the day: Eskimo kisses with Athen.