Professional Pics???? :-)

Ben and I went to the Plymouth Lifetime Fitness together to workout Saturday morning.  Chelsea was scheduled in their daycare from 12-2 so we showed up about a half hour early to take some pictures in the park right next to the club.  Ben did SUCH a great job taking the pictures!  It's the first time we've actually brought Chelsea to a random destination and tried posing her and taking the pictures ourselves.  We ALMOST felt like professionals :)  I guess you could call these her 8 1/2 month pictures!  If you didn't know this already, you can click on a picture to make it bigger.  In doing this you'll see her big beautiful blue eyes!  ENJOY!

Babies or Puppies?!

So, I had to "steal" these pictures off of my friend Andi's (andihays.net)  blog.  They are just too darn cute!  I brought Chelsea over to her house for a play date with Maddie and during the playdate I grabbed the puff snacks out of my diaper bag.  Both girls noticed and crawled as fast as possible over to me.  Before I could even get the puffs open they were crawling all over me trying to get at the puffs and begging me (do I dare say???) pretty much the same way my dogs do!  It was pretty funny :)

Dogs & Apples!

Last blog of the day!  I'm on a roll today :)  I seem to go a week without getting on the computer and then during Chelsea's daycare days I try and play a little catch up!

As I was playing catch up on my computer this morning the dogs wandered down to my office to hang out with me.  My office is also Chelsea's playroom.  In her playroom is the wonderful red chair that my parents bought for her.  She absolutely loves and it and crawls all over it.  Well... The dogs decided that they LOVE it as well!  This may prove interesting when Chelsea and the dogs are in the playroom at the same time!  Below are pictures snapped a couple minutes apart for about 15 minutes.  It's pretty cute.

Last Sunday I met up with a couple girlfriends and went to AppleJacks Orchard  ( http://www.applejackorchards.com/) in Delano.  It is such a cute orchard!  I usually only buy HoneyCrisp Apples for eating but this year was convinced to buy some Harlason apples as well.  I haven't ever baked with apples so I thought I would give it a shot.  Today I made some homemade applesauce and my first ever applecrisp! 

The Applesauce is to die for!  It's so incredibly easy and I will NEVER buy jarred applesauce again.  I'm going to test it out on Chelsea tonight and see if I get her approval! The Applecrisp is good as well.  I think next time I will add a little cinammon to the apples to add some more flavor.  I was so proud of  myself in my baking that I took pictures during the cooking process!  What else is a stay at home mom supposed to do when the baby is gone and the house is clean?! :)

Applesauce

Applecrisp

family photo shoot weekend!

The weekend of September 23rd we decided to go visit my parents and schedule a family photo shoot for that Saturday.  We drove to Alexandria Friday after Ben got home from work and my brother's family came over to visit for awhile as well.  I absolutely love getting all the cousins together to play.  Chelsea really has a great time with all of them and is such a social little girl.  I think she thrives off of interaction with other children / babies.  She was having such a great time that we finally drug her to bed at about 10PM!  Usually she is out like a light by 8:30 :)

Then Janae ( http://www.janaehertelphotography.com/  )  came to my parents house on Saturday at 2pm.  We took the photo's outside in their yard and by the lake. Chelsea was a little more difficult this time around now that she is mobile and likes to explore so much.  She would NOT stop eating the grass and leaves.... which was pretty frustrating.  Of course Janae was not frazzled at all, just mom and dad :-) We haven't received our proofs back yet, but I am so excited to see them all.  I am sure we will have a tough time picking he pictures we like best and which ones to use for our Christmas card this year!  I will make sure to post some of the pictures once we receive them. 

Below are some pictures from Friday night with all the kiddos hanging out and a couple of grandma and grandpa giving Chelsea a bath in their big fancy tub!

First Twins Game!

Ben's work hosted a family outing to a Twins game a week or so ago.  They rented out two adjoining suites and had lots of food, beverage and fun planned for us.  It was so much fun to bring Chelsea to the stadium and to show her off to Ben's coworkers.  He was such a proud daddy that night!!  Like usual, Chelsea behaved perfectly :-) 

I can honestly say that I was a fair weather twins fan this year and did NOT watch a minute of the actual game.  That is the nice thing about being in a suite.  It's easy to mingle around, talk to people, eat some food and not actually pay attention to the game :-)  Ben took Chelsea out to the seats and watched some of the game and gave her the full baseball experience!

A Love / Hate relationship!

Below I will post a couple pictures and a video of Chelsea with a lemon slice.  The faces she makes are so funny and it seems a if she does NOT like the taste.  BUT - she keeps going back to it and 'complains' when I take the lemon slices away from her! 

You'll notice peas and carrots on her highchair table in the pictures / videos.  She is starting to really enjoy her solid foods.  So far she has had (besides her formula and normal baby food jars) peas, diced carrots, diced pears, mashed up mac n cheese, bits of broccoli, cheerios, baby puffs, yogurt and mum mums.  She has loved all of it!  The only food we have found that she is NOT a fan of is jarred baby food peaches.  She will not eat (and will usually start crying) peaches.  I may try scrambled egg whites soon... I am VERY curious to see if she likes eggs. I really hope so since her mamma can't eat an egg to save her life.  Hopefully those tastebuds didn't transfer down to the baby :)

VIDEO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9Jl9pa16Q4