Milestones: 8 months old

Once again, the 24th of the month comes around and I cannot believe my baby girl is another month older!...

And she's learned so many things already!
Let's run through the list:

• turns towards sounds and voices
• recognized her own name
• uses voice to express joy and displeasure
• babbles, laughs and squeals with delight
• plays with her hands and feet
• rolls over in both directions
• sits without support with good balance when sitting, can shift positions without falling
• crawls well with belly off the ground (started out by going backwards first)
• goes from crawling to sitting position without help
• pulls herself to standing 
• stands while holding onto something (this is her new favourite thing!)
• drags objects toward herself, reaches for toys that are out of reach
• passes objects from hand to hand
• uses raking grasp, starting to develop pincer grasp
• explores new objects by poking with one finger 
• interested in mirror images, smiles at herself in a mirror
• shows preference for certain people and toys
• exhibits a definite reluctance toward strangers, clings to a parent, resists separating from familiar adult (stranger anxiety)
• starting to clap her hands (still not well, but trying)
• drinks from a sippy cup, but prefers a real glass

Believe it or not, this girl hasn't cut a tooth yet. That's right, there are NO TEETH in that mouth!!! All we have is her crankiness associated with teething and buckets of drool.

What she loves to do more than anything is her silly faces! :))) Such a cutie!

Veggies Garden: Year 2

Some of you might remember our first attempt at gardening last year: Veggie Garden: Year 1

This year is no different! Of course, we decided to change things up a bit - a bit less tomatoes, different types of cucumbers rather than all "English", no cabbage (it got eaten by slugs last season!).

First, the customary BEFORE photo:

And here's the collage of the AFTER shots:

What did we plant?

• tomatoes (red and yellow, big and small)
• sweet peppers (various colours) 
• hot peppers (lots! and a variety)
• cucumbers 
• eggplant
• green zucchini
• lettuce
• sweet peas
• celery
• apple mint, and
• sweet basil 

~ Sweet basil: looks so yummy, I want to eat it now! ~

Some of the herbs I planted last year came back, yay! - parsley, dill, mint, cat nip, caraway, tarragon, asparagus, and chives (the latter actually didn't grow last year, but popped up now!).

Finally, we planted one carton of watermelon (those little black squares of plants). It's so tiny right now that all the space we alloted for it seems wasted. Here it is as of yesterday:

~ Watermelon space ~

 And up close :)

 

Will we be eating home-grown watermelons this summer? Technically, we could; it's hot enough here and if we don't get a flood of rain this summer, maybe we would...

Stay tuned for our progress!

I do make supper :)

Some of my friends that do not see me often ask whether I make suppers or if we just order delivery all the time. Although we do like an occasional Chinese or a pizza, I do make things at home as well! After all, I am an Eastern European woman that grew up in the Soviet and early post-Soviet era.

So, here are some examples of what I recently made - feel free to ask for a recipe :)

Chicken w/ roasted vegetables

Veggie salad

Soup w/ spinach & Italian sausage

Chili (very successful, might I add)

Herb-stuffed potatoes

Roll Call

My girlie is 7.5 months now, so I thought it would be good to look back at how many new things my baby has tried, food-wise.

FRUITS

• Apples
• Pears
• Avocado (hates it, see: the "eating avocado" video)
• Banana (liked it after the 2nd try)
• Mango
• Banana + Grape + Prune mix

VEGGIES

• Carrots
• Sweet Potatoes
• Butternut Squash
• Peas
• Cauliflower

CEREALS

• Rice
• Oatmeal
• Barley
• Mixed cereal w/ fruit

PROTEINS

• Chicken
• Egg Yolk

What's next for my little munchkin? Maybe some cabbage, green beans, peaches and plums...
What are your baby's favourites?

Baby books

A while back my Miss V and I went for one of our walk to the mall. We went to check out what deals they had at out local Chapters. I found a beautiful board book (large format) with colourful jungle animal in it and lots and lots of fun stuff to look at.

Cost of the book? Only $7.99 + tax, which IS cheap! Believe it or not, books for babies cost an outrageous amount without containing much information (although, I guess looking at shapes, bright colours, letters and numbers would be considered NEW information for babies, he-he).

When I originally bought the book I didn't pay much attention to its back cover. Well, yesterday I did look at it... Like most other books, it listed the price of the book in US and Canadian dollars.

Okay, so $9.99 in the US. But what does "slightly higher" mean for Canadian consumers? I thought it was pretty funny! Maybe the price of this particular book is negotiable, eh? Bring on the good ol' haggling!!!
:)