this and that + a growing babe

jam diagonals, yummmm

Is it wrong that I'm already thinking about Christmas baking? I mean, I've only made a list, and just one batch of baked goods... when I asked Steve the question I just asked you, he laughed and said, "What, you think these are going to last until Christmas?" Oh, hm. Right. Probably not. Anyways, yes - I may be jumping the gun a bit, but in my books it's never too early to start thinking about making (and eating) nanaimo bars.



And I can NOT believe that Hendrik is approaching his first birthday. Everyone says it goes by quickly and it really, truly does. And I know that it's not going to slow down at all.... sigh. Here are a few pics that I could have posted sooner, but have somehow found themselves lost in time:










What's new with him? He's getting closer to walking - he cruises around on the furniture at a pretty good clip now, and if the stairs aren't blocked off, he's halfway up in the blink of an eye. He's a vacuum at the dinner table, and his favourite foods as of late are salmon, bread and figs and hm, he's back and forth on broccoli and avocado, which confuses me. Either you like it or you don't, no? He was gobbling the green stuff when we were at Gretchen's, and the broccoli here doesn't taste any different to me... so ?? Who knows. He knows (and waves) hi and bye-bye (and ciao - so cute!), says fffffff for giraffe, and can point to fridge, window, door, broom (he LOVES saying broom - "boom!"). A spoon is also a broom (sweep it in!) and he uses the same word for apple - "bapa" - for tomato. Hm... what other Hendrik updates are there.... He's still biting me, and I'm not sure if he really gets it when I say NO. Well wait - I know he doesn't get it when I say no because he keeps going in for the kill, and the more I say no the more ravenous he gets - mrrrrr. So that game usually ends with him crying in his crib while I inspect the little teeth marks on my shoulders. Maybe it's just his way of showing me how much he loves me? I'll take kisses instead - he gave us his first real kisses yesterday and it was melt-your-heart adorable.

It's been a while since I've read back-in-time posts on my blog, but I just checked out this one, written three years ago tomorrow, and it reminded me that I have to write a blog about our city, our area. Three years have passed since we were in Romania! Ouf. And where will we be in three more years? Who knows.... but for now, I'll enjoy Italy. Back to it!