Roy's Video Post

We've taken a few videos of Roy (mostly from Shenli's much superior phone!), but I have been too lazy to upload them thus far. I was going to post most of them, because I figured we took good videos. But holy cow, I went back and watched them all, and they are boring!! I guess that's because at the beginning, even just seeing Roy smile or move his head was exciting. But now that he moves and makes all sorts of noises, the early stuff is so dull. So these are just some of the more exciting movies lately.

Roy giggling. He used to do this so rarely. But now he does it constantly, even when we're not tickling him!

This is Roy's 'dinosaur face' (no reason why I call it that). He wrinkles up his nose and sniffles.

Roy eating cheerios. This wasn't his first time eating (that was boring), but now that he has eating relatively down, it's so fun.

He LOVES the kitchen for whatever reason. He screams and laughs while scooting around it all the time.

Birthday Cheesecake

I love love love that my birthday comes in March. It's almost always the beginning of spring, and so I feel rejuvenated, excited, and motivated to really celebrate! Lately we haven't been celebrating much of holidays (like Christmas, V-day) since Roy makes things just a bit different around these parts. But I really wanted a fun birthday "extravaganza" this year (Is that selfish? Probably...) and so I made every effort to really do the things I/we wanted to. This post should be about cheesecake, but I just want to break down my birthday anyway!

Step 1. Go to Tucanos. I wasn't super sure I wanted this to be my birthday meal, since it isn't exactly my favorite (I don't love buffets since my ideal meal involves having leftovers). But Shenli and I both have March birthdays so we get two of the buy1get1 birthday coupons. So we take our friends, and split the check between boys & girls, and we both get a sweet deal of a meal! This time was particularly good for some reason. The meat was super hot and flavorful, we were practically the only people in the restaurant (4:30 is a great time to go!) and Roy was happy the whole time (except when they sang Happy Birthday super loudly to the neighbor table...).

Family picture for March - check!

Step 2. Then right after, go to Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. Shenli had never been to a chocolate store before, and I had some birthday money, so we stopped in! I got a truffle and Shenli got a pecan caramel cluster. His was SO amazing, we'll probably go back for more of those!

Step 3. Take advantage of every free birthday gift. I've apparently signed up for WAY too many store emails, because I got so many of these this year. I didn't use any of the "must buy to get your free gift" ones, but there were plenty of straight-up free ones! I got a free Krispy Kreme (and then bought a dozen more...), a free jamba juice, free makeup at Ulta, and a free Redbox! That made for a fantastic birthday.

Step 4. Watch a kid movie and eat delicious cheesecake and popcorn. We watched Big Hero 6 (LOVED it) with friends and ate this triple chocolate cheesecake. Oh man, so good. Definitely rich, but a great dessert to share with friends! I used this amazing recipe from Easy Baked. I actually bought ingredients for 3 desserts: key lime pie, lemon bundt cake, and this cheesecake because I wasn't sure what I wanted. And while super chocolate desserts aren't usually my favorite (I LOVE fruit desserts, and my birthday is usually the only time I get to make them), this was a winner for sure. I do think I prefer regular white cheesecakes, but this was too fun to pass up!

I have to say, I think it photographed quite well too, at least before I cut into it

Our House in Pictures

I really love seeing other peoples' houses, and dreaming they were mine. Unfortunately (for me, and anyone else who loves dreaming about other peoples' houses), my own apartment is...not that great. When we moved here (last July, so it's not really that new anyway), we took a major upgrade in the way of two bedrooms, ground floor with no one above us, a washer/dryer, and location. But we took a MAJOR downgrade in the form of 1993 (old apt) vs. 1887??? (new apt). Actually I think it's more like 1970, but still! The color scheme of our new apartment is olive green. The carpet is green, the countertops in both kitchen and bathroom are green, and the oven used to be green! But the oven actually broke around Christmastime, so now we have a nice new white oven!

And (excuses excuses...) we haven't purchased that much furniture/decor, mostly because I'm terrible at decorating, but also because I think it's hard to purchase decor until we live in a nice/real/normal house and have color schemes the way we want and know we'll be settled for a while! So until then...here is our semi-decent apartment!

*p.s. these are unedited, unstyled, normal pictures of our house. It is clean, but I made no extra effort to hide things we normally keep out, and as you can see, Roy gets to be in every picture. Haha!

I had plans to make curtains at one point... and yes, no pantry

We did get a new oven, but the green olive hood is still going strong

Oh hi marbled olive green counters

Roy's room and storage room. Lucky boy.

I made those little sea creature pictures! Out of paper and cardboard, classy

This would be the "storage" part of the room :D

The "banister wall" as I call it. Or "jail" as Shenli calls it

Oh hi darling boy!

Our room is my favorite for its cleanliness and my least favorite for its lack of interest

Family room/office/Roy's play room. I am standing at our front door taking this picture

Those out of control cords aren't normally there, promise!

6 Months for Roy

Wow has time flown! Roy actually turns 7 months in about a week, so I better get his 6-month post up! I didn't keep great notes for what Roy has been up to at 6 months, but here are some highlights:

• Roy can crawl!!!! Technically, when he turned 6 months, he was only just beginning. It started a few days before his 6-month birthday. I looked over and he reached out with one arm, kept the other tucked by his chest, and pulled himself forward. He continued that way for a few days - just using one arm to pull himself around. Now, at almost 7 months, he uses both arms and one leg. We're just waiting on the last leg to get the full crawling effect. I say crawling...but really it has just been scooting thus far. His whole body is still on the ground, so until he gets those knees up under him, I can't actually call it crawling I suppose. He loves to crawl to all the forbidden things, just like all babies. The front door with the hard tile and sharp metal, the floor vents, the curtains, and the TV/electronics. But it is just so fun to watch him go, I don't even mind him getting into trouble!

• Solid foods. We were SO excited for this one. But (as with all things I get over-excited about?) it was a bit of a letdown at the beginning. We tried rice cereal mixed with formula, applesauce, sweet potatoes, carrots, and pears, and he just wasn't really into any of them. He did make some adorable faces (especially for the 'sour' applesauce!) but he would mostly spit everything back out, which of course was a joy to clean up....not. So after two weeks of not really wanting to feed him (I am now convinced that if I had kept up the feeding of baby food, he would eventually have grown to love it), I decided to switch to 'baby-led weaning'. Aka eating adult food. So now Roy just eats whatever we eat, or some veggies/fruit/cereal if we're not having something he can have. He's had cafe rio (the rice was spicy but he liked it that way!), spaghetti, potato chowder, potatoes, many other things I can't remember. Most days I give him cheerios + peaches for breakfast, and green beans (although today we did peas and he much prefers peas) for dinner along with some of our food. It's been great! He doesn't eat a ton, but he likes the various flavors. And he LOVES making faces and smiling while eating. It is so adorable!

• There isn't much else to report. But eating solids and crawling are both pretty big and exciting. I really feel like we're in the golden age of Roy right now. He is just a joy all the time. Sometimes he will skip entire naps, sitting in his crib in his room for 1.5 hours just giggling to himself uncontrollably! He loves scooting to the kitchen and banging his fist on the kitchen floor, turning his darling little head around to see if we're watching him. He is almost always happy when awake and I love cuddling him forever. We're working on reading longer stories to him (and trying to keep him from eating the paper pages!) and helping him hold his own bottle while eating. We sure love baby Roy!

He was really sad when they replaced our oven - it was so loud!

Going for a walk - and man, that kid is heavy now!

Somebody loves his new highchair

Staring at his best friend - himself, in the green flower mirror!

Official 6 months pictures - this boy never stops moving

Mom's attempt at props failed miserably

I didn't realize his hair was so long in these pictures. We cut it again shortly after!!