Baby Food

I think homemade baby food is beautiful & I love feeding it to Lukas. This particular concoction is pureed peas, butternut squash & plums from the Charleston farmer's market. There will probably be only a few more rounds of food processing/ice cubing/freezing as Luke has started eating finely diced up foods lately. Much easier, really, but I will miss all the rainbow color combinations of the purees!

Cupcakes!

Abi & I made these fun cupcake crayons last week. I keep all her crayons in a jar & there were so many broken up pieces of crayon, I thought this might be better than just throwing them away. I lined a cupcake pan with liners and Abi & I had a fun time filling them up with color combinations. Then I baked it in the oven on 200 degrees for about 15 minutes and viola! new crayons! (For those of you that might give this fun project a try... I recommend lining the pan with foil first, then the cupcake liners...I ended up with some wax that leaked through and am still trying to figure out how to clean it out!)

Last Firsts...

Two days ago Jim & I gave the kids their first haircuts. Very bittersweet! Luke's hair was puffy all over like a downy little bird. Abigail's hair was basically in the shape of a V beforehand and needed some evening out.

Abi during the cut! Literally one snip.

After

Here is Luke before:

During

Here he is all clean cut! (We couldn't touch the mohawk!)

Top Five

Since I've been a little homesick this week, I'm dedicating today's entry to my ::

Top 5 Most Missed Restaurants- Chicagoland

1. Bob Chinns Crabhouse (king crab & garlic rolls, c'mon!)

2. Wildfire (horseradish encrusted fillet with a side of lobster bisque is to die for...)

3. Walker Brother's (apple pancake, anyone?)

4. Julius Meinl (pear & brie sandwich...seriously, why am I doing this to myself??)

5. Lou Malnati's Pizza (alright, I just booked a ticket home)

Patiently waiting...

This is our Meyer lemon tree. Every time I look at it from our kitchen window or while I'm outside watching Abi play, I get a smile just knowing that one day soon these little lemons will be ripe and ready for some refreshing lemonade or possible some chewy lemon bars. Most of the time, though, I'll probably just squeeze a few slices in an ice cold glass of water. If you've never tried a Meyer lemon they're much sweeter than regular ones. It's almost a delightful cross between an orange & lemon. Yum!

Blissful thinking

In an effort to try to keep a somewhat organized compilation of my thinking I've decided to start another blog. I've named our domain 'buchenbliss.' Not at all to assume that we are a family of only sweetness & bliss, almost connotating that we are too sweet for words, although when I look at this photo it makes my heart skip a beat like I just took a bite into the richest, darkest flourless chocolate cake available. Merely I just want to record all the lovely happenings & blessings that I can savor throughout my day. And share them with you.

but I DID eat the peach..

This picture cracks me up. This is the result of Abigail 'eating' a peach. If you look closely, you can see that she nibbled the skin off every single slice and then neatly arranged them around the edges of the plate. Needless to say she wanted another snack half hour later.