Monkeyin' around

Saturday after we had our family Thanksgiving dinner, we stayed in Rockford. Dave, Jeni's fiance, was having a poker night and Doug was playing. Since us girls didn't want to hang with the boys, we found other fun activities! Thanks to Aunt Jeni for suggesting Monkey Joe's!

I didn't know how Allie would react to being presented with a big inflatable cage to jump in. Turns out she loved it. They had a mini zone for kids under 3 and it was perfect for Allie. She even crawled right in on her own.
 
Mama and Aunt Jeni loved it too! I think the best part was that we got to go in with her (parents can accompany kids up to age 4). This is just the beginning of all the fun things I can do with my baby. I've already found a place like this here in Madison (that just happens to be practically next to our house! Who knew?), which we will visit soon.

The Durso Family feast

This year the Durso family had two Thanksgiving dinners. One was with my entire family on Saturday (everyone was there, that hardly ever happens!) and the other took place on Friday, with just the three of us.

I love baking pies. I just wish it didn't take so long. The dinner preparation started with baking the pumpkin pie. Above, the crust. I think I did a pretty good job with this one.

And pouring the filling into the crust. Then... we bake. The recipe said an hour, and I think mine took an hour and a half.

After the pie was done, then it was time for the turkey to go in the oven. Last year I just cooked a turkey breast. Two years ago, I did a whole turkey. But that one didn't get thawed all the way, so it didn't get cooked all the way. It was gross. This bird, however, turned out great!

The finished pie on the stove, and now its the bird's turn in the oven! Set the timer for three hours and then we eat!

Three hours after I put it in, I took the turkey out. Not only was the turkey done, it was a little overdone. I got temps of 175 in the breast and off the thermometer on the thigh. It only had to be 165.

And here's Dada carving. Since the turkey was done all the way, the carving was way easier.

I prepared a little plate for Allie. She had everything we had, except for the gravy.

Thanksgiving dinner was a big hit. She loved turkey, corn, stuffing, the bread, everything.

And then look at all those leftovers! There's plenty of turkey in our future! That's the remnants of a 10-pound bird! We've already started working on it, but there's still a lot left. I need to look for some leftover turkey recipes...

We kinda fell asleep and/or got too full to have pie after dinner on Friday. So we had the next best thing... pie for breakfast on Saturday! Allie loooooved the pie. She's had a lot of sweets over the last few days, her first ever. We need to keep that under wraps for awhile now so she doesn't think thats normal.

So in conclusion, the Durso Family feast was a smashing success!

First "real" holidays

Allie's first holiday was Halloween, but she was only a few hours old at the time. Last Thanksgiving she was a month old and still sleeping all the time. Same with Christmas. I'm really excited to start this year's holiday season with a baby who, while she still sleeps a lot, is awake too!

So this year we consider her first "real" holidays. Unfortunately she missed out on Halloween because she was sick. But we've taken full advantage of Thanksgiving! Allie had her first Thanksgiving dinner last night, and it was a hit. She'll have another today at my parents' house. There will be up to 25 people there! I'm almost done baking 72 dinner rolls to take along. Thats a big dinner.

We'll be taking plenty of pictures! I'm so excited to share these holidays with our baby and also with the blog!

Christmas 2010

Picture Joy Christmas

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I wanted to do this last year, but I couldn't get things together in time. This year, however, I can! I am finally joining the ranks of not only those who send Christmas cards, but who send PHOTO Christmas cards!

Giving thanks

On this Thanksgiving, I am so thankful for my amazing and beautiful little girl, who is growing up WAY too fast!

I am thankful for her great dad, my wonderful husband, who does everything he can to make me and Allie happy.

I am even thankful for our only slightly mellow Monk.

I am thankful to be EMPLOYED and looking forward to a real Christmas. I am thankful we can spend time this holiday season with all our family.

I am thankful for the ability to run. Even though my body isn't in the composition I'd like it to be, I am thankful my body allowed me to give birth and that it allows me to run. I would never have met some of my best friends (real life or virtual) if I didn't run.

We didn't have turkey today. I ran the Berbee Derby this morning (check out my race report here!) and my family came because my brother ran it too. We just had chili and sandwiches at our house after. Doug, Allie and I will have a little Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. I'm braving a whole turkey and also baking a pumpkin pie. One of these years I'll tackle real stuffing, but this year its just from a box. No Black Friday shopping though. Saturday is Thanksgiving with my family. We could have 25 people there!

Its a glorious long weekend here, something else I am thankful for!

Fun new foods

Recently Allie has been having a lot of new food experiences. The biggest change has been the leap from drinking formula from the bottle to drinking whole milk from the sippy cup!

But as you can see here, she sometimes still gets a little confused about which way is up!

I'd say her most favorite new food is cheese. For awhile I broke the cheese up into pieces, but on Saturday I just gave her the whole slice and she knew what to do. You should see how quickly she scarfs down a slice of cheese.

Another favorite is toast. The transition away from the bottle has changed the way we get Allie ready for work in the morning. We used to get her up and give her a bottle and then she'd have breakfast at daycare. But now that she doesn't have a bottle first thing when she gets up, we need to give her breakfast. Doug and I were both surprised with how easy that transition was and that it is, in some ways, much easier than giving a bottle.

Most breakfast consists of a bowl of oatmeal, a cup of yogurt and a piece of toast. Look how proud she looks here feeding herself!

Some new foods that have been utter failures have been tofu and carrot soup. I've never had tofu and I tried it and I think its gross. So when Allie didn't like it, I decided thats one food we don't need to try again. I'm not going to feed her something we wouldn't feed Monk! The carrot soup is a recipe I actually found on a baby and children focused food blog, but I think it was too spicy for Allie. Mama and Dada liked the soup, though it needs to be a side item and not the main dish.

We have varying success with veggie burgers, chicken, bananas and gerber graduates entrees.

Along with cheese and toast, Allie really loves mixed vegetables, cottage cheese, graham crackers and applesauce. And don't forget the milk. She absolutely loves milk. It took a little longer than I thought it would, but we've stopped feeding the purees. We're doing a lot of finger foods and she enjoys feeding herself, though I'm not sure when to start giving her the spoon. She has a pretty balanced diet but isn't wild about meat. I'm happy that right now at least she doesn't seem to be terribly picky, though sometimes she'll refuse food she likes for no apparent reason.

She's old enough that she can eat whatever foods we're eating, but I'm still a little slow on giving her our food. Part of that reason is that a lot of the time she eats right when we get home and goes to bed really early before we eat. I have a hard time getting meals coordinated for all three of us. Its something I'll figure out though.

Chilly trip to the park

Since Allie has real shoes now and the weather seemed reasonably nice on Saturday, Dada took Allie to the park while Mama was at work. It was chilly but Dada bundled Allie up really well, at least we thought really well.

Allie wasn't too sure what this grass stuff was all about.

Doug said since she wasn't sure of her surroundings, Allie would only walk toward him.

She enjoyed picking up sticks and leaves. Dada had brought her ball to throw but those leaves were much more interesting

Unfortunately it was a little too cold for Allie. Dada took a lot of cute pictures in the five minutes they were at the park. Then Allie got cold and cranky fast. Dada sprinted home from the park (recovering from bronchitis and pushing the stroller!) and spent the rest of the day inside. Its too bad today was rainy and wet because the temperature was much better than yesterday.