Bon Appetit!

After an inital rocky start, Liam has fully made the transition to the wonderful world of solid foods. While his main source of nutrition continues to come via "ba-ba" (bottle), he is developing quite the palate during his breakfast and dinner feedings. Maybe it is the result of being exposed to endless episodes of Top Chef and Iron Chef America while in utero, but our Liam is turning into quite the food connoisseur.

Therefore, in the spirit of such programs we present a multi-course spectacular, with Liam as head judge:

Allez cuisine!

(all scores out of a possible 5)

*RICE CEREAL*

*Taste: Bland, with a strange texture unlike any I have experienced before

*Plating: Um, it was off-white mush in a bowl. Although the choice of spoon was pretty cool.

*Originality: Hey, Mom.....you could have branched out a bit from the typical standard rice cereal to try multigrain cereal

*Score: 2

*APPLES*

*Taste: WOW! Apples are yummy...waaayyy better than that slop you served to me earlier!
*Plating: In my eagerness to gulp this down, I forgot to look at how it was plated....though it looks lovely dripping off my monkey bib.

*Originality: Maybe not so creative...but me likey!

*Score: 5

*SWEET POTATOES*

*Taste: Mmmmm....these spuds are sweet, yet savory. Props to Mommy for making them from scratch for me!

*Plating: Good call on the no-skid bowl....I got so excited that I nearly sent it flying.
*Originality: Creative use of both rice cereal and sweet potato to create a well-balanced meal

*Score: 4

*CARROTS*
*Taste: These were pretty good, but not as sweet as I would like
*Plating: Since the doc recommended Mommy not make my carrot mush from scratch (due to high nitrate levels), this was straight from a Gerber container.

*Originality: It was carrots. Woo-hoo.

*Score: 3

*PEAS*

*Taste: BLECH!! Peas are chalky, stinky....just plain disgusting! Why, Mommy....WHY???

*Plating: Who can pay attention to PLATING while eating something so...so...PUTRID????

*Originality: While I hope to NEVER eat another pea (Mommy: Ha..guess again!), at least Mommy & Daddy went easy on me the second time around by adding a delightful swirl of sweet potato to the mix.

Score: 1

*PEARS*
(see "APPLES")

*BUTTERNUT SQUASH*
*Taste: Not bad....though surprisingly, not my favorite either

*Plating: My first bites of this came out of one of Grandma Wiberg's fancy ramekins during Christmas dinner.....nice choice!
*Originality: I thought a touch of butter and nutmeg would have really made this dish sing!
*Score: 3

That's the spectrum of flavors so far. We've adopted the "2 parts sweet potatoes to 1 part peas" recipe for all pea endeavors, which seems to be working pretty well....or at least, Liam hasn't caught on yet. : ) Obviously, he enjoys his fruits.....but we'll need to start getting him used to foods that aren't so sweet, otherwise we're in trouble! Next up- avocado and banana. Anyone want to wager a guess as to the outcome? : )

Love,

Farrah, Jeff & Chef Liam

Santa Baby

I have been horrible about posting all month long....my only excuse is that it is the holiday season, and who has time for ANYTHING these days?? Anyway, I have many photos stockpiling that I still plan to post, as well as MUCH updating that needs to be done on our Photobucket account. I have grand hopes of doing both in the next several days (perhaps while we are blizzard-bound in our home during the worst Christmas storm in 30 years??), but please forgive me if neither happens before the new year. You'll still love me, right?

Until then, let me appease you with a tasty little morsel. We took Liam to see Santa this past Friday, mainly (let's be honest) for our own benefit of fawning over our little guy. We pretty much had our minds made up that this outing would NOT go well; Liam, you see, is not exactly fond of strangers. There have been a number of incidents in the past where perfectly normal/harmless people have gently approached him with a smile, soft voice and gentle demeanor, and even that was enough to inspire Liam's trademark "sad lip", wails and crocodile tears. So the thought of a larger-than-life man in a red suit and bushy beard inciting anything but the same (or worse) reaction was highly unlikely.

Our game plan was simple: we fed Liam immediately before heading into the lineup of families waiting for their turn with the Big Guy, in hopes that he would be content to wait. As we stood in line, Liam was all smiles, cooing and watching the flurry of activity around him without a trace of grumbling. So far, so good. As we reached the head of the line, we decided to implement tactic #2 of the official game plan: We would not allow Liam to actually see Santa, in hopes of maintaining the aura of calm. This basically involved us backing Liam into Santa's lap, all the while cooing and making goofy faces at him as we slowly retreated in order to keep his attention on us. This worked for all of 15 seconds, until Santa (who apparently was completely oblivious to our ingenious plan) decided to start talking to Liam. We held our breath, waiting for the inevitable sobs....

Which never came.

Seriously......? YES!!!! : ) Liam appeared to be very curious about Santa, perhaps a mite concerned....but he simply adopted his usual "Stone Face" expression for the camera, and we got our photo. Considering all the children that preceded him with either panicked cries or complete refusal to stand for a photo, we were quite impressed with our little Liam.

So, one insanely expensive portrait fee later, here are the results:

Ok, Mom & Dad...this guy's kind of weird, but I'll put up with it....as long as you promise to pick me up in exactly ten seconds.

(Can you tell that I was off-camera, making funny faces and noises the entire time?)

What a rock star our boy is....he never fails to amaze us. : )

Happy Holidays to all of you......we are so blessed to have you in our lives! Enjoy the time with your families and loved ones!

Love,

Farrah, Jeff & Liam

Jump!

Below are just a few of the moments we've captured of Liam in his jumperoo....

Love,

Farrah, Jeff & Liam

Six Months, and a Farewell to Fall

Our little Liam is officially 6 months old, or will be as of this Thursday (he is actually 26 weeks old tomorrow). I know I say this every month, but where does the time go??!!?? Anyway, we have his 6-month doctor's appointment scheduled for Thursday, which will hopefully go well. We also tentatively scheduled him for a regular flu shot, but are on the fence as to whether or not we will actually go through with it. On the one hand, we obviously want to protect him from getting sick. On the other hand, he will already be getting a slew of immunizations at this appointment....plus, it's not as though he is going to a daycare right now where we'd have to be extra-worried about germs and bugs. Any votes?

We were also able to take the time to enjoy one of the last few decent fall days recently. Most of the leaves had long since fallen from the trees, but we managed to get a few decent photos with our little nature boy:

Liam, barely able to contain his excitement

"What ARE these things?"

"Oh, fiiiine......just take my photo."

Playing airplane

Mommy and Liam

Anyone else not ready for winter? Ugh.

-Farrah, Jeff & Liam

A Giraffe and a Half

For Liam's first Halloween, I totally outvoted Jeff in the costume department. While he would have loved to see Liam dressed as a little devil, or as Yoda from Star Wars, I was determined to select something that qualified more as "adorable" rather than "awesome". And during these few precious years of veto power, I plan to take full advantage of it whenever possible. : )

Thus, Liam was transformed into the cutest little giraffe EVER:

"Really? I get to go trick-or-treating?"

"Yeah....I know I'm adorable."

It was quite the busy day. We started off by attending our nephews' (Jacob and Ryan) birthday party, which was a lot of fun....and Liam got a kick out of watching his active cousins play around him. I can't wait for the day when Liam is able to keep up with them!

Ryan and Jacob, in awe of their new tool set

Then, Liam and I headed off to meet our Mom & Baby group friends (from our class this summer), so that we could catch up and take some photos. I love those ladies and their babies!

Pictured: Benji, Claire, Simon, (a very sad) Liam, Vivian, and Elise (not pictured: Kai)

Amy and Simon, Jannie and Kai

Jessie and Elise, Kristin and Benji

Liam and I met up with Jeff for pizza, then we headed to my sister Laura and brother-in-law Jeff's house to say hi and to see our nephews, Gabe and Alex, in their costumes.

Gabe (aka. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle)

Firefighter Alex

Uncle Jeff, and an angelic Daisy

Liam the Giraffe, munching on nearby foliage

The evening ended without much candy (thankfully), as we put our tired little giraffe to bed and passed out rather early ourselves. Maybe a little sugar would have done us some good. : )

Love,

Farrah, Jeff & Liam

Autumn Pickings

Since Mother Nature decided to shape up and FINALLY give us lovely fall weather this past weekend, we decided to take advantage of it and headed to Aamodt's Apple Orchard in Stillwater on Sunday. Jeff and I ate our weight in apple-related treats (apple cider donuts, apple cookies, apple brats, hot apple cider, caramel apples, etc.), and Liam scoped out the sights from his Baby Bjorn-vantage point:

Family shot outside of the orchard

Liam, looking less than thrilled about our excursion

Relaxing during our apple-themed lunch (Liam got stuck with a boring bottle)

If I sweet-talk her, maybe the lady behind the counter will give me an apple donut.

Liam loves to chew on fingers these days....and really, ANY finger will do:

After apple-picking commenced (ok, we didn't actually PICK our own apples....unless grabbing them out of a bin in the orchard store counts as "picking"), we headed over to Axedahl's Farm down the road to choose our pumpkins...

Axedahl's Farm, a pumpkin/gourd mecca

Pumpkin Mountain

Liam, attempting to "scale" Pumpkin Mountain

Hello, pumpkin....I am going to eat you now.

Chillaxin' on his pumpkin throne

Oops! (Though in our defense, we found this sign laying on the ground, in a mud puddle.)

Random pumpkin/gourd photos:

One last attempt at a photo shoot with Liam, inside the barn:

What a trooper. : )

We headed home late afternoon, bellies and bags full of appley-goodness (and with two pumpkins for our front stoop). In short, it was a great day.

I hope I can remember this when we are knee-deep in snow this winter.

Love,
Farrah, Jeff & Liam