Household Happenings...

This past weekend, I finally accomplished a task that I have been meaning to get done since January (or so)...I got the Christmas tree taken down!  I know, I know...it's May and the tree was still up...but no more!  Also, we figured out why part of the tree wouldn't light up at Christmas...I missed a plug!  There was an outlet plug dangling between sections when I took the center portion of the tree apart, oops!  At least that means it should all light up next year (you know, in about 5 months), assuming I remember there are four plugs to plug in.

Taken while Garrick was searching the garage for the bag the tree goes in.

Also, a little update on my last post (this one)...I got a miniature hydroponic system set up over the weekend (it was a productive weekend).  It's an $11 grow light from Walmart (the whole fixture is cheaper to replace than just the bulb), an "upcycled" water container (empty coffee can), a planter I paid $1 for and got four of them (Dollar Tree), a handful of decorative rocks (another Dollar Tree purchase, I can probably do eight of these planters with one bag of the rocks), a plant (in this case, a Celery regrow from the base of a stock of Celery I purchased from the grocery store and put in water to see if it would grow...it did), and an air "system" (teeny air stone {2-pack at Walmart for $1.38}, 8' line of 1/4" hose {Walmart in the fish section, $1.88}, and a small air pump {also in the fish section, $6.33 for the 5-15 gallon air pump}).  I have the whole thing sitting on the back of the toilet in the Master bathroom because it gave me easy access to two outlets (one for the light and one for the air pump), but when I get the larger system done, I'll have to run a cord out to power the system.  I turn the grow light off from 11pm to 7am (or rather 6:30am when I get in the shower), giving the plant about 16 hours of "light" if my math is right...

We are also loving Baby Led Weaning (or rather, Baby Led Feeding since he is not being weaned at all)!  Photographic evidence to follow...

"Baby food"! Bananas, Apples, and Sweet Potatoes.

"Dinner" one night was steamed Apples and Sweet Potatoes with a fried Egg (yolk).

So serious about his food...

Whole Wheat Toast with Avocado smeared on...

He loves egg yolks...especially runny, but hard/medium is okay too.

Another hit!

Tomatoes are yummy too (but plug him up because he can swallow whole chunks without chewing well enough).

Gabriel's preferred method of eating a Banana, he doesn't like holding on to them!

Pre-dinner happiness out at IHOP!  He had egg yolk (runny because they couldn't figure out how to hard cook an egg without scrambling it).

I love having a video monitor and really don't know why we didn't get one sooner (other than the fact that they cost an arm and a leg...)!  I'm so glad Garrick noticed this one on clearance ($50, can you believe it?)!  Now that we have it mounted on the wall, we don't end up with "creepy baby pictures" like this one because the infrared lights are out of Gabriel's line of sight, he does occasionally still look for it though.

Since Picture Me Studios went under (and took advantage of so many people...the parent company, CPI, owned all of the Sears and Walmart portrait studios), we've gone to JC Penney's portrait studio (run by Lifetouch...they do all school photos as well).  They are expensive though!  The paper quality is better, but I hate the studio itself...it's tiny and hot, and for the most part, if you want props that don't look like they've been run over by a truck, you have to bring them yourself.  They also won't airbrush the photos like Walmart did...and since my child is prone to causing himself bodily harm (scratches while he sleeps), both his 6 and 7 month portraits have "head wounds" in them.  I asked on the 7 month ones if she could "touch it up" to get rid of the big scratch down his forehead and got told they "couldn't do that"...it's all done digitally and the computer program should do it without issue....it irks me.  Also, the camera stopped working halfway through his session, she didn't notice (other than that the camera wasn't reacting as fast as it normally does), and we lost some really great pictures of him!  We ended up spending over 2 hours there trying to get portraits and order them.  I'm on the hunt for somewhere else to go...what I'd really love to find is someone who can do them and give us a CD (or other means of digital storage) with the whole thing on it for less than what Penney's wants ($150 for a CD that doesn't include any of the photos they deem "unworthy", which are usually my favorites)!  I like having them print 8x10s and stuff...but if I have to go have them printed somewhere, I'm all good with that too.

6 month portrait session!

7 month portrait session!

Other randomness...

In our "too small for Mom or Dad" baby carrier...it shouldn't be up on my neck like that, but that's where it goes...I'd love an ErgoBaby Sport carrier (in black)!

Tired baby passed out in the car...we get so many compliments for him in his shades!  They have little red flames on the sides.  Macular Degeneration runs in my family, so it's shades on when we go outside!

Rosie willingly lays down with Gabriel these days (this time he rolled to her though).  He is very gentle...until he can reach her fur that he can sink his fingers into, then he pulls out handfuls!

 One last "recent" project...from a few weeks ago actually.  We finally got around to replacing the awful chandelier that hung in our Dining Room (which is now more of a Family Room that happens to be off the Kitchen and has a table in it)!  It's darker overall than the old light, but with a few lamps we should be able to regain more light if we really need it, so far this has been plenty.  A second one of these in the Kitchen would be great, but that's pushing my luck a bit since we replaced that fixture a few years ago (with an extremely cheap round light with three bulbs).  As we slowly replace fixtures in the house, we are changing them all to Brushed Nickel...the old ones are all Brass.

Our new light fixture in our Dining room!

The best part about the new fixture though is that it is very close to the ceiling, so Garrick can easily move around the Dining Room without smacking his head on the lights!  Even I had to be careful of where I walked or moved in there because I'd hit it and I'm an entire foot shorter!