Merry Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas this year, and wish that we could have spent it with both sides of the family! Here's a quick recap of the week.

Thomas fell asleep on the way to Columbia amidst all the presents and luggage.


We had a really good time visiting Gammie and Pop at their house. Thomas found a seat in front of the fireplace and held court there nightly.


He and his cousin Drew had fun in the yard playing with the wagon that's only supposed to hold flowers and plants :-)


Gammie read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas before bedtime on Christmas Eve.


Santa was good to everyone and Thomas was shocked to see that toys were left on his favorite seat in the house.


We ate too much and enjoyed every minute of it.


Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

14 Months Old!

It's hard to believe that he's 14 months old! He continues to keep us on our toes...and on our knees picking up the food he's thrown on the floor. He's definitely headstrong and quite persuasive at times. We laugh a lot and feel very lucky for our happy little family.

SANTA

Thomas was not sitting on that stranger's lap...even if he was the real Santa Claus!

Chips!

Tom was eating Salt and Vinegar Potato Chips and Thomas really wanted some. We tried to tell him....


We laughed and he thought that was good.


Then he wanted more.


This could go on for a while.

This is from a couple of weeks ago, but is a pretty good picture of what he's like most of the time these days!

Is it Tricky if it's a Toddler?

In order to try and trick our child into eating vegetables, I got a cookbook by Jessica Seinfield called Deceptively Delicious that has great recipes for how to add vegetables to dishes so your kid doesn't know they are there.  The other night I made chicken fingers....it has sweet potatoes in the breading.  We knew Thomas would eat them because he ALWAYS eats the meat.  Well, Thomas is apparently a mind reader because he wouldn't eat the chicken.  All of a sudden, he started eating the breading - no chicken, just the breading.  We had to laugh since that's the part with the vegetables and we have no worries at all about the protein. He ended up eating all of the breading on his tray and I gave him all that was left on the serving plate as well.  

Tonight I made burgers - they have cauliflower in them that you can't taste at all.  He ate it like a champ.  On his plate his had his burger, some fruit, some cheese and I also put a few butterbeans on his plate. We made sure not to make a big deal out of anything, just let him choose what to eat when. He ate a few things then he picked up a butterbean, squeezed it a bit and put it down.  He wouldn't eat any of them.  How does he know? Apparently when you are a toddler, there is a big "DO NOT EAT THE VEGETABLES" sign that the adults can't see. We've given up the fight - there's always a small portion of vegetables on his plate, and eventually he'll eat 'em.

Brrrrr

I don't know about you, but I'm cold :-) We're looking forward to a little warm up today so that we can get outside some. We might be coming to the end of how much we can do inside without tearing the place to pieces.

In other fun news, Lila is close by for work so we got to spend some time with her yesterday. Thomas was in full performance mode all afternoon. He went about his business playing and then would turn around and flash a grin to make sure we laughed and told him how cute he was. Of course we obliged!

Lasagna

Thomas has been fully exploring the joys of toddlerhood. Right now, he is big time into feeding himself and is absolutely refusing to eat vegetables. Well, last night he had 1 green bean, 1 lima bean and a pea. All without a tantrum....certainly a joy for us.

We couldn't figure out why dinner was becoming such a nightmare. We had lasagna one night - he loves it, but wouldn't eat it. Finally we just put his plate on his tray and decided he could sit there and whine and we would eat. He dug right in. He wouldn't keep his bib on and he and the chair needed to be hosed down when it was all over with, but we all learned that Thomas enjoys meals much more when he can do it himself. I see a lot of chicken nuggets in his future :-)