Carson tried another new food recently: Dinosaur Fruit! It was labeled at the store as "Dinosaur Pluot". I'm not sure where the dinosaur part came from but a pluot is a plum/apricot hybrid! I had never heard of this before and Carson likes plums and apricots so I decided to give it a shot. He liked it a lot and it's a really pretty color, too! I tried it too and it was actually really good - sweet with a tiny bit of tartness!
It even had a cute dino on the sticker!
A pretty red fruit!
Have you tried any new fruits with your babies or toddlers lately?
I'm linking up with Kristin today!
P.S. Yesterday I FINALLY took some time to catch up on my blog emails. I had gotten ridiculously behind and every time I thought about it, it made me anxious. I'm so glad to finally be caught up and I'm sorry if you got responses a month later, ha! Better late than never, right?! :)
I hope everyone had a great weekend! We had a fun-filled weekend full of awesome weather so we were outside a lot! Here's a peek at what we got into...
{Saturday}
We participated in our first official 5k! You may remember back in early May when I ran my first ever 5k. Although that race felt somewhat official since I got a super awesome race shirt, it was a virtual event, so I was only running with Nick. Saturday we participated in the Color Palooza 5k and it was SO much fun. And also about 90 degrees. H-O-T! We ran with a group of friends and even though we got a little split up, it was still a ton of fun.
The color run took place during our city's pride festival. My dad came down to the race with us and hung out with Carson while we ran. Carson wore his rainbow tie in support of pride!
{Sunday}
We went to a friend's house for a super fun playdate. They had not one but THREE pools in their backyard! Carson wasn't so sure about any of them but he made sure to try them all out.
He talks with his hands... :)
Later that afternoon we played outside for a bit. We had Carson's sprinkler on but all he wanted to do was climb the stairs and play with his beach ball!
Anytime he finds a petal on the ground, he picks it up and puts it back in the plant! <3
I've been wanting to try something new on my nails, but I wanted to get away from my standard pinks. I wear various shades of pink all. the. time. In the winter I get a little more adventurous with grays, silvers, reds, etc. but I wanted to do something fun and summery. I found some fun colors in Essie's Neon 2013 collection at Target and I decided to go bold and get the blue. I'm usually more of an OPI/Sally Hansen girl but they didn't have any colors that were comparable. I know some of you swear by Essie but I just can't get into it. Every time I buy a new polish, I'm disappointed! I LOVE the color, but the quality of the polish sucks for the price. (Scroll down to see why I feel this way.)
Here's the final product. Like I said, I LOVE the color, it's so fun and bold! Just not happy with the quality... This is Essie'sBouncer, It's Me!
Here is why I'm not happy with Essie's polish. I feel like this happens every time I buy Essie. The picture below is after one coat. Seriously? It looked like I colored my nails with a crayola marker! So many of my OPI and Sally Hansen polishes only require one coat!
This is another reason I wasn't really satisfied with this brand. The top picture is after about 2+ coats (some nails needed 3). It dried sort of matte and it looked really bad. Luckily, after I added my Sally Hansen top coat, it looked amazing (bottom pic)!
I like anything with s'mores in the name. I've tried so many different recipes for s'mores desserts and they're really hard to hate! When I saw a recipe for S'mores Brownies on Pinterest, I had to try it right away!
What You Need
1 box brownie mix + ingredients to make them "cake like" (usually that requires an extra egg)
12 graham cracker squares
2-2.5 cups semi sweet chocolate chips
2 cups mini marshmallows
How to Make:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Prepare brownies according to ingredients on the box. I added an extra egg to give my brownies a cakier texture. (I just made up that word. Trademark.)
Mix about 1 cup of chocolate chips into your batter before pouring into a greased baking dish.
Stick your brownies in the oven for about 12 minutes.
While your brownies are baking, smash up your graham crackers in a plastic baggie. You can also measure out your mini marshmallows (2 cups) and chocolate chips (1-1.5 cups) at this time.
When the brownies are ready, remove from the oven and sprinkle with crushed graham crackers, chocolate chips, and mini marshmallows.
Return the brownies to the oven for an additional 15 minutes.
*Optional: To give your marshmallows a campfire flavor, stick the brownies under your broiler for about 1 minute. The original recipe said 2 minutes and it was TOO LONG! I took them out about 20 seconds early and my smoke alarm went off. :/ It DID give my dessert a nice "campfire" flavor, but they didn't look so pretty (see below)!
The picture at the beginning of this post was my brownies BEFORE sticking them under the broiler. Here is the after:
Here is a link to the original pin. My Pinterest account FINALLY switched over to the "new" Pinterest and I can't figure out how to embed a pin!
Carson is 13 months today! I think I'm finally (almost) coming to the realization that he's an official toddler. Almost. Obviously he'll always be my baby, but now that he's 13 months I might have to admit I have a toddler. Anyone else in denial like me!?
Feeding ducks in our backyard!
What Carson Loves Right Now:
Carson still loves balls. He says "ball" now and anytime he sees some sort of sphere-ish shape (balloons, watermelon, street lamps, etc.) he goes NUTS pointing and saying "ball! ball!". It's super cute, but it's getting tricky when we go to the park and someone else has a ball. Carson thinks all the balls belong to him. :)
Carson is also loving his "first words" picture books. He loves looking at all of the different photos and finding the things we ask him about. He loves to point to things and turn the pages. Carson's favorite first words book is the First 100 Words by Bright Baby.
As far as food goes, Carson is loving fruit and cheese. He obviously takes after his Mommy! His favorite fruits are probably strawberries and blueberries, but he's not too picky. He does okay with veggies, but it's hit and miss and depends on his mood. He also really seems to like veggie burgers and still loves peanut butter on toast! Some random things that Carson loves:
-When I unbuckle him from anything - carseat, highchair, stroller, etc. He gets a HUGE smile and starts to giggle and launch himself toward me. So fun!
-His blankie! He's been sleeping with his blankie for months now but he's starting to show more interest in having it outside of the crib, too. Since it was a homemade gift, I'm starting to get nervous and thinking maybe I should request another one for Christmas that we can use as a backup!
-Playing with our dogs. He loves to watch them play fetch. Carson is learning how to throw their toy to play fetch with them, but he only throws it about half the time. The other time he just hands it to Chip. Always Chip. Poor Dixie! He also loves chasing them around and he cracks up the whole time! He also loves giving them treats before bed and before we leave the house.
-Waving to ANYONE and getting a reaction. Carson has been waving for a while but now his favorite part is the reaction he gets from people. He'll wave and wait. If he doesn't get a reaction, he waves again. And again. And again. Until he gets a reaction. He doesn't always understand that people have to be looking at him to wave back (ha)! Sometimes he'll wave at someone who is facing away from us. Once someone waves back, he gets SUPER excited and waves very frantically, haha!
-Music class! I signed Carson up for a music class with one of my friends and her daughter and he has so much fun! They sing cute songs, dance, and let the kids use instruments! He loves to socialize with the other friends and he really enjoys hearing a nice singing voice for a change, haha!
What I Love Right Now: I'm loving this stage! I say that every month but I think I love every stage when it's the current stage. Does that make sense? I love that Carson is so independent. It's so cute to watch him walk (run!) around, find his sippy and take a swig of water, and continue to run around from toy to toy. I love watching him play independently and try to problem solve and figure things out. It's adorable to see him running toward me with a book or toy so that we can read/play together. He's figuring out SO much right now and it's so fun to watch. I really am having fun with working on his speech and comprehension with him. I also love that it's summer time and we've been staying busy going to tons of parks, the pool, the zoo, and walks outside!
Some of our Biggest Struggles: I wouldn't say we have any actual struggles, but a few minor bumps in the road. When we first started Carson on whole milk, he didn't seem to like it at all. That only took a few days of offering it frequently and now he seems to enjoy it! He's been quite the wild man lately which has led to a lot of (very minor) injuries. He has a few bruises on his legs from running into toys, a scrape on his head from falling when running down the driveway, and a cut on his finger from my Dad's cat who BIT HIM! Poor Carson. All he did was point at her and she's old and grumpy and snapped. Luckily it was just a surface wound (I hate to even call it a wound) but it was still traumatic for both of us!
Getting stuck under chairs = every day occurrence.
Exciting Milestones: Saying his first official words! He now says quite a few words! At 12 months we didn't really have any consistent words. Now Carson says "Da!" for Daddy/Dada, "dog", "Ma"/"Mama", "ball", and "duh" for duck. He also understands SO MUCH! His comprehension is awesome and he follows so many simple directions. He is also able to point out SO MANY things in his 100 first words book. He also has started to do his own version of the sign for "more". (He claps once.) It's pretty funny and even though it's not the true sign for "more", I go with it. He also has learned to shake his head "no". We have started giving Carson a fork with his meals. Usually we stab the food and he brings it to his mouth, but sometimes he'll stab it himself!
Physical Changes: Carson is about due for another haircut. It's not in his eyes yet but it's going over his ears and getting long in the back. Carson's 5th tooth broke through just a few days ago! It's one of his upper lateral incisors.
Things We're Looking Forward To: I'm looking forward to Carson learning more words and talking more. I know there is so much he wants to say right now and sometimes he gets frustrated so I'm really excited for him to be able to communicate his wants and needs! I'm also looking forward to some more of his teeth popping through! I feel like he's been teething for a while and I just feel so bad for him! I'm also looking forward to LOTS of fun summer activities. Yesterday we signed up for the summer reading club (his sheet is for 0-4 year olds, haha) and we're planning on going to tons of story times at the library! We also have a lot of zoo, pool, and park days in our future!
Carson also went on his first bike ride this past week! We had him all strapped in safely and looking snazzy in his new helmet. (If anyone is wondering, we got a Schwinn infant helmet from Target.)
Remember that spray painting tip I posted last week? I painted a 'D' and an 'A'. Last year I did a little photo shoot for Father's Day. I bought some wooden letters and snapped away until I got some cute pictures of my squishy little newborn. I stuck them in a 3-slot frame and Nick loved it! Here are the pictures from last year:
Now that everyone might have baby fever, let's talk about how INSANE it was to get the photos this year! I'm sure my neighbors were pretty entertained as I ran around (literally) trying to get some good shots! Here are some of the adorable outtakes:
And finally, here is the final product. I love it and Nick loves it too! He said it's so fun to see his personality coming through in the pictures!
**I bet you're wondering why I had to paint the letters this year if I already had them from last year, right? Well, I returned the letters last year after only using them for the pictures thinking to myself, "WHAT will I ever do with a 'D' and 'A'?!" Silly me. I went back this year (to multiple stores) and they were sold out of the white wooden D's! I had to buy unfinished wooden letters and paint them white. Mistake noted, I'm keeping the letters this year!
