Sunny California

We arrived in Irvine yesterday and I can confirm that the sun is nice. We spent the last two weeks in Nebraska with my family. While it could of been much colder, it was still cold. 

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving celebrating with family. Enzo was a bit overwhelmed at first but soon adjusted to the craziness of a full house. For his first Thanksgiving day meal, he enjoyed turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, and green beans. Day 2, he tried ham and sweet potatoes and I think those were a bigger hit. We started the day off by doing the Fremont YMCA Turkey Trot. That was probably one of the coldest days and I felt like I was running through an ice bucket. I finished my 5 miles in just over 42 minutes and felt good with that. I think Felipe finished in 35 minutes. I was happy to participate. 

While in Nebraska, Enzo started walking with a baby walker. His legs are getting stronger by the day. He is also talking so much more, now I just need to figure out what is being said. 

He loved playing with his cousins, chasing the dog that wasn't a fan of him, and exploring some local parks. 

He also had his first official haircut. Chris did an amazing job but Enzo was still a bit hesitant. Hopefully, haircut #2 will go a bit smoother now that he knows the drill. 

We arrived in Irvine on Tuesday and are having fun with the other side of the family. Today, we went to a really fun park and loved feeling the sun on our faces. More updates to come.

Sweet potato curry experiment

Tonight, I was getting ready to make a simple beef vegetable soup for dinner and when I took the beef out of the fridge it didn't look the best. I needed a backup plan and veggies were what I had to work with. I was missing some ingredients in every Sweet Potato curry recipe that I looked up, so I decided to make up my own. The recipe that I came up with turned out pretty good so I decided to post it here for future reference. And if any of you would like to try it, go for it. I served it with white rice but it would also be good with quinoa, I think. There is also this rage out there for cauliflower rice. We didn't have any cauliflower in our medley of veggies but maybe next time. Oh ya, we've almost been home for a week from our big American holiday and visit with family and friends. It was a really nice trip with Enzo getting all sorts of lovin'. Things are slowly getting back to normal. Without further ado, here is the recipe. 

Sweet Potato Curry

1 small onion (chopped)

3 cloves garlic (chopped)

2 small carrots (sliced 1/4" thick)

1 stalk celery (diced small)

1 sweet potato

2 small tomatoes (chopped)

1/2 cup red lentils (soak and rinse in warm water before use)

1 2" knob of fresh ginger grated 

1-2 tbsp mild curry spice mix ( http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/curry-powder-blend-recipe.html)

12 kafir lime leaves

1 pinch of red chilli pepper flakes

2 cups vegetable stalk

Heat a tablespoon or so of coconut oil in medium to large sauté pan. Next add the onion, garlic, carrot, celery, red pepper and ginger. Cook until soft, 3-4 minutes. Next add sweet potato and lentils. Add curry powder. Give a stir and let cook 1 minute. Lastly, add the chopped tomato, vegetable broth, and kafir lime leaves. Cook covered for 20 minutes, then uncover and cook for another 12. Enjoy!!

                 Enzo was also a fan.

Home for the holidays

Tomorrow we fly back to the US to see a big handful of our family and friends for the holidays. We are excited and have still got a lot of packing to do. However, I wanted to leave you with a few snippets of "life with Enzo" before we take off. He is growing, and babbling, and crawling all over the place. I have a feeling by the time we return to Amsterdam, we may have a walker. Not yet though. So let's get on to the cuteness.

Did I mention we have a ONE year old. We had an excellent day celebrating his birthday with all of his friends at Flinders Cafe in Amsterdam. Brunch, brownies, and loads of sunshine. We couldn't of asked for a better day.

Loving this opening presents thing. He isn't going to know what hit him come Christmas!

Another celebration on the actual night of his birthday.

That cake was amazing!!

Hold up. There is no way you are getting a photo of me with that silly hat on.

This was a year ago. Crazy how much he has changed.

Sweet smiles since I'm not trying to get the hat on his head.

My attempt to get a cute holiday photo did not go as planned. As is life with a child.

Love this smile.

The discovery that he may be able to get out of this chair after all.

Success.

Mugging for the camera after his first feijoada experience. Excited to go to vovo's and try the real stuff. :-)

Morning fun with mom's empty coffee mug.

Stacking is a favorite activity these days.

There may be a little left. Let's check.

Snaggle tooth grin.

High concentration while building the perfect mug and coaster tower.

Hello

This is just a quick post to say hello and post a few pics from Enzo's 11 month-day. After wondering if he was ever going to crawl, he is now not only crawling but crawling everywhere fast! He's also climbing and scaling walls and furniture. He is still super curious and spends so much time inspecting how things work. He also loves shoes and I'm constantly redirecting him. Why do shoes taste so good to babies? As I posted previously, he is starting to feed himself and loves the messy one. We are back in swimming lessons which he seems to be enjoying. Now it's time to build up his confidence and eliminate the fear that he has from not being in the water for awhile. We also started a music class called Luistergoed. It is a very small class size with about six other babies and moms/caretakers and the instructor. There is no talking and the teacher plays music while singing and brings out different instruments from around the world for the children to play. Enzo loves it!! My quiet boy that likes to stay close to mom in group settings changes into the chattery boy crawling around, playing instruments, and interacting with the other babies. It's so much fun to see this other side to him so I'm really happy we found this class. Okay, here some of the latest photos.

I love it when he tries to peek around to see me.

Still peaking.

A small smile.

 The block has been dropped. He's getting ready to come see what I'm doing.

I always have a helper these days.

Inspecting before mom takes it all away.

May I help you?

 

This is so not child-friendly. My favorite kind!!

The forbidden favorite shelf.

Trying to get a peak out the window. He's keeping track of all the neighbors. His grand aunt would be proud.

I can feed myself.

This week was supposed to be all about getting extra snuggles and time in with the grandparents but Felipe's mom had a horrible accident on our stairs and they had to fly back home on Monday. We've said it before and this is a reminder-we have some crazy Dutch stairs in our place. I have gotten used to them now but I always follow 2 simple rules: 1. Always have at least one hand on the handrail; 2. My butt is always touching the handrail closest to the wall. Every time I have slipped down the stairs has been because I've lost contact with the handrail. So, we are so sad that Sue got injured and we hope that the doctors in the US have some good news and that she will be on her way to a speedy recovery soon. We miss her already and hope that she is 100% when we see her at Christmas!!
The weather has been super rainy this week and this morning I was reading about various activities I could do to keep Enzo entertained. One activity mentioned serving his food "bento box" style so that he could sort the different types of food whilst feeding himself. So, today I chopped his steamed carrots and cucumber into nice little bite size pieces and made 2 little lamb meatballs perfectly sized for his mini hands. I then put each food in its own little container. I had everything neatly lined up and was ready for him to sort and explore....the first thing he did upon sitting in his chair was pick up the container with the cucumber and empty the contents onto the floor. He then dumped the carrots on the table. At this point I had to laugh-really what 10 month old baby sits down and sorts their food and then neatly places it in their mouth? Not mine for sure! Anyways, despite what I thought was a failed lunch activity actually was a success. Enzo fed himself his entire lunch today. Yes, it was extremely messy and at times there were containers, carrots, and meatballs flying but he had fun and finished most of it. Below are a few photos from our Super Sorter lunch.

The Zo-li cups are the best!!

Tiny hands at work.

I'm ignoring you. Nobody likes to be photographed while they are eating.

What shall I go for next? As you can see the meatballs went quickly.

Okay, just a quick smile for you.

I was prepared. Not too bad for the first time with no help.

 

I'm the strongest boy in the world.

Time flies when you are having fun they say. We must be having so much fun because I have no idea where the last 4 months have went. We had a super busy spring with a trip back to the US to visit family. It was a great time and Enzo got to catch up with both of his aunties, Grandma, Great-Grandpa, and cousins. As soon as we got back to Amsterdam, we had some good friends from San Francisco come visit and then we were off to Spain for some fun in the sun, so we thought. The temperature ended up being a little cooler than anticipated so I rocked the same cardigan and scarf almost everyday.

Lost luggage, that was also part of our trip, and unexpected weather conditions teach you how little you really do need to pack when on vacation. After Spain, we headed to Turkey for some warm weather, pool time, and quality time with our friends from Amsterdam. Enzo was teething the majority of the trip so I got extra cuddles in place of pool time. Ha.

We rented a boat for the day while in Turkey and this was our view at lunch. I'm ready to go back!

And now we have been back in Amsterdam for a little over a month now. We started going to a Baby Sensory class that Enzo is really starting to enjoy. The first two classes were spent in my lap on the verge of tears. It's been fun to watch Enzo gain confidence in a new environment and become a bit more social with the other babies. At the end of August, we will start another music class and I'm looking forward to see how Enzo reacts to that as well. I'm sure he is going to love it! He's eating all sorts of food now and it's even better if it comes straight off of mom or dad's plate. We've taken to enjoying lunch and breakfast together and it's fun watching him explore new tastes and textures. Like his papa, he is already showing a preference towards a little spice.

I love eating with a fork like mom and dad!

Enzo has also started crawling and pulling up on anything he can grab. Like all other babies, he loves cords, remote controls, phones, and laptop computers. I keep the majority of his toys in 2 gray felt boxes and his favorite activity in the morning is to empty both of the boxes. I can't wait until he has a preference to put things back into the box. He also loves bubbles so we take lots of breaks when we are out and about to stop and I blow bubbles while he giggles and tries to grab them. It's an activity that always leads to my giggling as well and people that see us probably wonder if I am actually having more fun blowing the bubbles than him.

This morning was a beautiful sunny morning and after breakfast we walked over to Museumplein to snap some photos. Since I just needed to get myself posting again, here are some unedited photos from this morning.

 What am I sitting on?

So happy.

Waiting for another bike to pass by.

What can I find next to try and put in my mouth?

Don't mess with me. Na, I'm just kidding. No really, if you touch my food you will pay.

Goodmorning.

Hmmmm...what's on the other side?