Dailies posts are our personal update posts. Photos in this category are our casual snapshots from our cell phone and are marked by rounded corners.
This is going to be a mega catch-up of a Dailies post. So, let's get into a time machine and rewind to about 3 weeks ago! Phew! Jasper is still making progress with eating more solids, but out of all of the things we've introduced sweet potatoes remain his absolute favorite. On top of nursing, I've been successful in getting him to eat two substantial solid meals per day with little bits and bites that I try to sneak in at other times in an attempt to increase his intake. He just loves to fill up on milk and is still a frequent nurser.
A new skill that he has recently learned is crinkling up his little nose. And now that he's learned to do it, he does it alllll the time. It charms the pants off of us every single time.
We've started experimenting with some puffs and he has the thumb and forefinger pinch grip down pat! He won't feed himself yet, but he manages to gum the puffs when I break them in half and pop them into his mouth. He's been pretty resistant to trying new textures so we are still stuck on purees, but I try to introduce new things as often as I can. He did eat a few small, mushed up bites of green beans (from our plate, not baby food) so that was progress!
This photo makes me laugh because it totally looks like he's trying to read the Nutrition Facts and ingredients list, just like mommy would do.
His 5th Imagination Library book arrived! The doggy in this story kind of looks like Dexter and Dewey, so we've been reading this one a lot!
The last weekend Matt's parents were in town we decided to have a pool day with all of our parents and our friends to celebrate Matt's mom's birthday and enjoy the summer weather!
We set up a pretty classic "summer cookout" spread and brought everything along in coolers and tupperware. We ate our lunch once again using Repurpose plates, cups, and utensils. Repurpose creates products using 100% plant-based materials that are completely compostable, which helps me feel a little better about using disposable picnic ware. Because seriously, who wants to lug along a bunch of reusable dishes that you have to wash? I've used Repurpose products a couple of times now and I'm a fan. They're sturdy and leak resistant, even when eating greasy food!
We had burgers with all the fixin's, chicken dogs, beef dogs, chili, roasted potato salad, chips, and fresh fruit!
For dessert, I made some mini birthday cupcakes! There was strawberry lemonade - lemon cupcake with fresh curd filling and strawberry buttercream, and Valrhona chocolate cupcakes with either vanilla bean or strawberry buttercream.
Yummy. Don't you love the slightly beige, speckled appearance of a TRUE vanilla bean buttercream? It's just the best.
After eating we hopped into the pool to cool off. I can't promise that we waited the recommended 30 minutes to avoid a cramp. What a bad example I set for my child, tsk. To our surprise, Jasper took to the water REALLY well and he loved his float! Since he is a very fussy/unhappy baby much of the time, anything that gets him to babble and smile happily for more than oh, 3 minutes, is something special.
The float is recommended for 9 months+ and Jasper is a teeny tiny 8-month old (seriously - 3rd percentile! And he eats a ton!) so we had to hold onto his waist to make sure he didn't sink too far into the water. He'll grow into it by the end of the summer though, I'm sure!
The next morning I drizzled some of the leftover lemon curd cupcake filling over a tall stack of pancakes. Oh baby. I also had some frozen strawberries that I forgot to defrost the night before, sooo I had to do a turbo defrost. As you can see from the picture, the texture was a little strange, but they were still delicious, just not so photogenic!
We just got back from a trip to island of Oahu. It was a week chock full of blogging adventures, learning about traveling with an infant, experiencing some new adventures and seeing some very good friends of ours get married! I have so many great posts planned (with non cell phone photos, ha!) and I can't wait to get started! For now, here's a glimpse of our long travel day to The Aloha State.
We were on the first morning flight, so we got to the airport at a ridiculously early hour. Jasper was surprisingly cheerful for being woken up so early. We found those cotton airplane PJ's the week prior to our trip and just had to buy them. They are very lightweight and comfortable and come on, he just looks so darn cute in them.
I may be all smiles in this photo, but behind the scenes I was trying to choke back some serious anxiety. I have a crushing fear of flying that has plagued me for years following a bad flight. Ironically, that flight was also in Hawaii - our little puddle jump from Kauai back over to Oahu before heading back to the mainland way back in 2005. Worst. Flight. Ever. And though I consider myself a person capable of rational and logical thought, I have been seized by panic during every flight since then! Since I am still breastfeeding Jasper, my usual flight-anxiety-killing cocktail of Xanax and wine was off the menu, so I had to go into this one totally raw. I was also pretty nervous about not letting Jasper cry and bother the other passengers, so.... yeah, I was not looking forward to the long day of travel ahead for all of us.
The first flight from Knoxville to Dallas was fairly smooth and uneventful. It was only 2 hours and some change and Jasper was a total champ. We had to stay attentive to keep him stimulated and happy, but we avoided any meltdowns. After we landed, the man sitting across the aisle from me asked if it was his first flight and when I said it was, he said, "Wow, he did great!!"
One flight down, one LONG flight to go!
Our flight to Honolulu was in First Class. It was an older plane so it didn't have the built-in monitors in the seat backs, but they handed out tablets loaded with movies, TV shows, music, and games, as well as sets of Bose noise-cancelling best studio headphones under $300! The pod seats allowed us to be able to lay them completely flat without bothering the people in the row behind us, which was awesome. I was much less anxious on this flight and much of it had to do with the extra space. Feeling claustrophobic is a bad thing when you're already on edge.
The female flight attendants wore flowers in their hair while the males wore kukui nut leis. Hawaiian music was playing over the intercom as we boarded and I have to admit, despite my trepidation about being on an airplane, I started to really get excited about our trip!
Let me tell you, we were prepared for this 8.5 hour flight with a baby. I had a diaper bag stuffed to bursting with toys and various forms of entertainment to keep Jasper happy. I even bought a set of baby headphones with a splitter so that he could watch movies with me. His attention span isn't long enough to watch an entire show, but it kept him still for 10-15 minutes at a time, which was great!
Once we reached cruising altitude, lunch service began. It started with a dish of warm nuts, the quintessential appetizer on any first class flight. This time there were also candied nuts and dried tropical fruit - a nod to our destination? Soon after we were served a baby spinach and arugula salad with blue cheese crumbles, walnuts, sliced strawberries, and a ginger vinaigrette. The greens were a little limp, but it was a tasty salad overall.
The salads were served with fresh veggie spring rolls with some kind of tangy sauce underneath. They were so freakin' delicious and we wolfed them down in record time.
There were two choices for dinner. I chose the macadamia nut chicken with ginger mashed potatoes, cooked spinach, and a pineapple papaya marmalade. For an airplane meal, I thought this was delicious and filling. The breading was surprisingly crispy and I loved the island theme. The fruity marmalade was delightful and tasted awesome when I mixed them right into the mashed potatoes! An interesting fact to know is the fair amount of differences between jams, learn all about it at mrswages.com.
Matt chose the cheesy artichoke ravioli (which was actually tortellini). The pasta was tender and the sauce surprisingly creamy and flavorful. The best part was that everything came out piping hot! We were both completely satisfied with our meals.
Oh, I forgot to mention the bread choices! We could choose between pretzel rolls, yeast rolls, or Kings Hawaiian rolls... of course.
Dessert was a choice of a fruit and cheese plate or a "do it yourself" sundae. We both went for the ice cream. There was vanilla ice cream with a choice of hot fudge, strawberry, or mango topping with pistachios and whipped cream. Matt went for the hot fudge and I went for the strawberry. After finishing everything we were both completely stuffed and would have settled in for a nice post-meal nap if we didn't have a baby that needed to be entertained!
A couple of hours after lunch I was finally able to get Jasper to fall asleep in my arms. He slept for about an hour and I was able to watch part of a movie. My arm was numb by the time he woke up, but I was so happy that he got a little sleep. A rested baby is a happier baby!
About an hour before we landed, a snack was served - a choice of hummus with soft pita chips or a fruit and cheese plate.
Not long after our snack the plane began to descend and we got our first glimpse of Oahu!
We could clearly see the Diamond Head volcanic tuff cone with the Honolulu skyline off to the right.
We picked up our umbrella stroller at gate check and then started the long process of getting our luggage and picking up our rental car. Even though it was only just after 2pm in Hawaii, it was well past Jasper's bedtime as far as his internal clock was concerned, so after this photo was taken he had an overtired meltdown until we could get him to the hotel and down for some sleep!
Oh, and I just have to say that this picture makes me woozy from the explosion of different patterns - yeeesh!
I have lots to share with you all from our trip, from the cute boutique hotel where we stayed, Shoreline Waikiki, to all of the great food we ate and all of the sights we saw! If you want to make sure you don't miss any of the upcoming Hawaii posts, be sure to subscribe to our email updates!
Dailies post are our personal update posts. Photos in these posts are our casual snapshots from our cell phone and are marked by rounded corners.
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