biltong.

Today was a ponytail and gumboots kind of day.

It has rained and poured all through the day, finally letting up around dinner time.

We waded through the parking lot and luckily didn't have to swim!

If you have seen the latest episode of Duck Dynasty, you would have seen Willie receive a package of jerky called 'Biltong' from  Africa.

Well looky looky what I found today...

Should have just come to New Zealand!

Off to watch the premiere episode of the Walking Dead...and never sleep soundly again.

gutz.

In New Zealand, the term 'guts' refers to someone who eats a lot. I don't know this from personally experiencing the name calling by the way. :)

Seeing as how a lot of pictures that I post of Brennan look like this...

(loving the thinking hand)

...he could be considered quite the guts. I have received a lot of questions about how he eats so much and such a variety for a 10 month old. Some of you may have no interest, but if you do: read on.

We waited on solids until after we came back from America seeing that it would be easier to travel without baby food plus formula. He didn't need any more nutritionally than what he was getting from that, so it was a good decision for us.

I had heard a lot about 'baby led weaning'. Usually, I write these things off and try my own thing. Which is kind of what I did.

I am not typically going to sit down and read a book about a strategy to feed my kid. I wanted him to be able to experiment with food (within safe limits) and decide when he was full. He raises both arms above his head when he is finished. He may have eaten everything or very little, but I personally think that he is learning to know what full feels like and stop eating. (wish I knew that!)

I did start him on purees but we both quickly tired of spoon feeding. It was a power struggle.

We both wanted the power and we both got the struggle.

I gave him a spoon full of food in his hand and he promptly put it in his mouth. I knew that he was way ahead of this puree thing.

I liked how the fact that he did eat them for a while, let me know things that he would react to and that he would get full.

He was showing all of the signs of wanting to be an independent eater and I was cool with that.

My first divergence from purees was puree spread over toast. May not seem like a big deal but to him, it was independence gold! I still serve this as a snack. I consider it a 'vegetable spread'!

From there, we tried anything that he seemed interested in. We still spaced it out to watch for reactions but within a month, he was eating what we were eating.

Using this way of feeding, I was able to hand him a slice of steak and he would gnaw it to death. He learned to chew instead of just swallowing. It was this fact that enables him to not choke on the more complex foods.

It's extremely important to never leave a child alone that is eating. If they are fatally choking, you WILL NOT hear them.

If Brennan does have trouble, I am right there. I watch him closely and give him a second to figure it out. He has only had one time when he didn't. He was eating ground beef mince and started laughing. It went down the wrong way, but after some assistance he was fine. 

Sometimes,it totally freaks guests out that he is eating everything we are eating but it makes life SO much easier. We can begin our routine of a family dinner table instead of eat when you can dinner table.

A typical food day would be:

Breakfast:

Banana, blueberries, avocado and sometimes oatmeal or small pancakes

Snack:

Toast with hummus

Lunch:

Chicken, corn, avocado (his favorite) and crackers (snax/Ritz)

Snack:

Seedless grapes cut in half, rice cake

Dinner:

Whatever meat and veggies we are having for dinner. His favorite nights are the nights we have couscous!

If it is edible, he has tried it within what is safe. HONEY is not okay until after year one, but I know you know that. We have strayed away from peanut items, but he has so many fruits and veggies that he barely has time to eat what he has!

No more boring menu but if you want some more ideas, you can look HERE!

WARNING: These recipes are fancy schmancy. I look at them and think...right...pancakes, meatballs, veggies, etc. Don't get too fancy when the whole purpose is to make life simpler.

It is important to note:

Feeding this way can be very messy. I am constantly cleaning the highchair. If you get a catcher bib and strip them to their diaper, clean up is pretty easy. In public, I use the same bib and he eats things without any form of sauce, etc. That way, I don't have to strip him down in public.

Hope that answers all the questions.

If God blesses us with another, we will do the exact same if possible. Starting at 6 months, gave him the time to get the skills needed to explore his food. Starting with purees allowed us to allergy test. We may do purees for that reason with the next but who knows.

Tomorrow--back to the regularly scheduled shenanigans.

uzzlepay.

I thought I mentioned in a previous post about going to check in with Ms. Marie. I can't find it so I will tell you that she said she has been watching those who walk by her house in hopes that it would be Brennan and I. I thought that was super sweet and let's me know that I am not imposing on her too much by forcing her to be my friend! Haha.

We went by last Wednesday to have afternoon tea with her. Brennan had just woken up from a nap so he was ready to play. He investigated every corner of her house. This isn't a terrible problem because he knows that he isn't to touch certain things and typically listens when I say no. He didn't touch her china cabinet, her purse, her plants or anything too dangerous but what did he head straight for?!...her ALMOST completed 1000 piece puzzle.

She wanted me to help her with the harder bits of trees and bricks. These just happen to be all of the pieces that look exactly the same. I am not a good puzzle putter togetherer. She said I had to at least add a piece before I left. She even made the repairman that came earlier add a piece before his job was complete. See why I like her?

Well, as we sat and discussed the puzzle and her recent trip to see Phantom of the Opera, Brennan honed in on the puzzle board.

It's one of those moments that goes slow motion. She had divided all of the different colors onto small pieces of cardboard that were hanging off of the edge of the table. I won't say more except to say that I must've momentarily had the reflexes of a cat.

After fitting in a few more than my initially promised piece, we had some tea. She bakes all sorts of wonderful things and sets out plate after plate. Brennan likes to try it all of course! When he bit into one of the muffins, he spat it out on to the floor. Not sure what his problem with it was, but he hasn't done that before or since. Luckily, it was quite discreet so I could distract from the fact that he didn't like that particular item. I loved them all and felt like I had earned it after the puzzling brain workout.

Little man is getting some more teeth. He also must be growing as he eats everything in sight and took a four hour nap yesterday before he ate and went straight back to bed for the night. This is what worn out looks like!

souvenirs

When we took Brennan on his first trip to the beach, I wanted a souvenir to commemorate the occasion!

I looked a while before I found the perfect piece of driftwood.

Now I didn't want just any random piece of driftwood, because we have plenty of those. I wanted something that I could paint and make into an actual memento.

Here is the finished product!

It's a whale in case it doesn't look like one. ha!

While in Queenstown, we were walking along the shore one morning and I was looking for rocks. I found this one which already had the outline of the mountains in it. 

So I picked it up and decided to paint the scene from where we collected it. 

The mountain range isn't identical to The Remarkables but it works to remind me of how much fun we had on our first family vacation!

If there are rules against taking things in NZ at the beach or Queenstown...I didn't know!

 I'm not the most talented painter, but it is fun.

It is a neat tradition for us that I think I will continue.

What do you think?

BK and I don't mean Burger King.

Where has Brennan been this week?!

Well...

He's been busy catching up on work you see...

 It takes a lot of effort to eat all of this healthy food (which he did) and stay in shape!

He's been hiding things in the toy box and getting caught...

and then using his good looks and stylish hair to try and get out of it...

He tried to tell mommy the candle was too close to the wall...

and in the down time, he stares out the window at the rainy days, while waiting at 5 p.m. for Jared to come home.

(or stares and waits for his friend Jeana to arrive.)

how animals eat their food.

I know a lot of you have seen this but it makes me and Jared laugh so hard, we get hiccups.

WhyFi

 Some may say...

"God?

There's no God.

I can't see Him or feel Him.

I can't touch Him with my hands and prove that He exists.

He can't exist because you cannot prove to me that He is there."

"WiFi?

Of course it exists!

You can see the effects of it.

It's influence on people's live is evident.

It is vital to communication in this world of technology.

You know when you are connected and when you are not."

God says...

You can't physically see Me, touch Me, 'hear' Me, smell Me or see Me face to face.

BUT...

You can see the effects of My presence.

You can see the power of My influence.

My communication to you is vital.

I know when you are connected and when you are not.

I say...

Everywhere I go it seems I am searching for WiFi but I can't find it. Everywhere I search for God, He is there. It may indeed take more faith to believe in WiFi than it does to believe in God. :)

punkinhead

My little pot drum playing...

punkin' hat wearing...

10 month old with blueberry five o'clock shadow...

had a great rainy, giggly, funny day!

go fly a kite.

I cleaned every inch of this house today. I mean cleaned.

I cleaned it out, organized every cupboard, pantry and closet. I donated and tossed. Having had a lot of company and being gone on vacation during the past month, I haven't had time to do my weekly sort and purge. This helps me to not hoard.

Because I am a hoarder. (not over the top but too much of one to not fit the label)

I clean by putting things in piles and then moving those piles from place to place.

So to overcome those tendencies, I have to stay on top of things.

Brennan was awesome today as he played with new things that I found and the trash that I threw away. He also willingly follows me wherever the vacuum goes so it is easy to keep him in sight.

I never vacuum without him. Not just because he follows me, but I will even wait until he wakes up to vacuum because he laughs hysterically and screams and jumps the whole time. I love it.

Today, he was playing with the vacuum close to the trash bag.

I had given him a rice cake about 5 minutes earlier and he promptly traded it for a piece of styrofoam from the bag. He took a chunk before I could get to him, but he spit it out. I am not surprised he opted for the flavor of styrofoam over the flavor of his rice cake!

When Jared got home, we ate dinner and then took a walk to the park.

We all needed some fresh air and Jared got a new kite this weekend so he wanted to try it out.

Brennan watched in delight as Jared steered the kite through the wind. I tried two times, both of which ended in crashing immediately.

I took Brennan to the swings and his cackles of delight were enough to bring Jared from his high flying activity.

The wind really picked up so we went back to the kite. Lots of people coming through the park were coming to see him fly the kite. There was one couple walking through and the man had a parrot on his shoulder!

Another man sped by on his bike as I yelled 'Woohoo, Go Baby!' to Jared. The man smiled and winked thinking I was talking to him.

This day made me so ready for summer nights!

 The look on his face cracked me up too much to exclude this photo!

 Don't let him fool you...it is much harder than it looks!

talkin' bout this generation

Thank You Lord for comfy beds!

Let's just say our sleep last night was a bit less than desirable.

It was well worth the sleep-crawling baby that kept laughing in my face and then instantly falling back asleep.

The lock in for our youth and Wellington youth was nothing less than awesome. The guys worked so hard to prepare the food, quizzes and games. Our kids agreed unanimously that this was the best one yet!

Our team did come away with a win and a trophy which will have to be defended at the next Bible Challenge in January. We were SO proud that they allowed us to be a part of their group!

Our youth learned a lot the past few weeks and even this weekend. I learned something too.

We give teens such a hard time.

'This generation is so disrespectful'.

'This generation is spoiled and doesn't know what hard work really is.'

'This generation...blah blah blah.'

Let me tell you something.

This generation rocks.

They deal with things on a daily basis that I didn't have to face until my college years or even later.

They are bombarded daily with messages that they should be different than how God made them.

They are concerned about the spiritual and emotional well-being of themselves and others.

They have opinions and ideas that really are thought provoking and incredible.

They fight the fight against Satan everyday.

They are fully aware that they are in a battle.

This generation is looking to us to not send them to the front lines of that battle. They want to learn the skills of war and go into a fight knowing there is victory on the other side. 

 

It is our job as seasoned veterans to stop pretending like we never fought.

We must tell the gory war stories of our losses at dealing with sin.

Take the opportunity to rally the troops with stories of triumph through Christ!

Let them know that the only victory is in God and that even though we may fail in battle from time to time, He has already won the war!

If we learn from each other and fight sword by sword, when the battle is done we can all go Home...together.

cucumber encumbrance

-->

Monday we had a few errands to run before we headed to the airport around noon. I had packed the night before but after weighing suitcases, I had to repack everything anyway. My carryon must have weighed 50 pounds and I was sad at that moment that it was a backpack.

During a final run through of the apartment, I checked the fridge and realized that we had left a whole cucumber, a ripe avocado, a container of butter and a pack of sandwich meat. Of course, being the waste not want not type, I shoved them any way I could into my backpack.

After our rental car place returned us to the airport, we checked our bags and sat down at the cafe to wait for our flight. I saw signs and heard announcements that your carryon would be weighed and if it exceeded 7kgs (14.4 pounds) that excess charges would apply. Seeing as how my arms were tingling from the weight I just knew it was over. There was nothing I could shift because we had already checked our luggage.

If you know my travel history, I am quite notorious for this. 9 lbs over on each bag coming back from America my first time. My carryon back from America that same trip ended up weighing 12 kgs. How? I have NO idea.

So here I am in the cafe trying to feed Brennan the last of the food we had bought. I snatched a plastic knife and started cutting up the avocado and feeding it to him with a spoon, I then moved on to the cucumber and just prayed that no one would ask me why I had a vat of butter melting in my bag!

Can you imagine the sight of a grown woman hacking away at vegetables with a plastic knife in the middle of the airport?! I should apologize to my children in advance for the embarrassment I will cause.

Our trip home was safe and uneventful. We even boarded through a gate that didn't make you weigh your bag. That means that all of my last minute veggie ditching was for naught.

Today has been a great day as well. I feel like we are getting back into the swing of things. We have a lock-in in Wellington tomorrow. That is our first big event with all of our youth group and we are pumped!!!

Two of the girls are staying with us tonight and came over earlier today.

We headed to the park up the road and to the dairy for a popsicle.

I sent them to the swings and then went to visit Ms. Marie (referred to as Morrie previously).

She lives across the road from the park.

She answered the door and looked quite excited to see me which was a good feeling.

She said that when she had her afternoon tea, she would sit and watch people walking by to see if any of those people were me and Brennan. Isn't that cool? We are going to visit her again next week (after she gets back from Phantom of the Opera) so please keep that possibility of a study in your prayers!

Goodnight!

This is a picture of Brennan playing on the infamous 'Buzzy Bee' at the airport when we landed. I forgot to include it earlier.

satsun

We took Saturday morning slow with a little bit of laundry and a long breakfast. Jared had been gone a while so Brennan and I decided to take a walk into town.

Jared had walked to his conference in the CBD the day before but forgot to mention the GARGANTUAN hill that you must go down to get to town. I seriously thought that if I wasn't careful, Brennan's stroller and I would be doomed. The worst part about going down a big hill is the thought of going back up to get home. More on that later.

Since the day we arrived, I had my eye on a place called FergBurger. The line was out the door all hours of the day and night. They are open 21 hours a day so that is saying something! While I was in town on Saturday morning I thought I might investigate this store. Yes, it was morning...but I thought that might be my only chance to ever get one.

I was out of luck as there was already a line and so I moved on to their new venture next door, FergBaker. It's a small pastry shop with lots of 'too sweet, must eat' goodness. I settled on their 'famous' Boston creme donut and shrouded my utter delight until I exited the premises.

 Now THAT is something to be famous for.

I took my breakfast down to the wharf and Brennan fell asleep along the way. I was looking for a certain spot to sit and eat and this was my view. Not bad.

 It was my luck that there happened to be a community market at the lake that day. There was lots of beautiful paintings, ceramics and jewelry. All of these were priced for tourists so it was nice to look but not buy.

 After Brennan woke up, we went to Underwater World!

Now in my head, I am picturing a vast aquarium full of indigenous fish and maybe even some ducks.

What we got was four windows along a wall where you had to pay to feed the fish so that you could see them. Not quite ideal. Even Brennan wasn't really impressed but I am sure he thought it was a little cool. What he thought is really all that matters anyway right?

Second nap in 3 hours...go for it dude.

 When it was time to walk back to the hotel, I followed my instinct and went through the Queenstown gardens. You get to the same place, but it is several small hills instead of one goliath one. I am a cheater when it comes to hard stuff. Don't the say to work smarter and not harder? I thought so.

When Jared's conference was over, we met him for fish and chips. These pieces of fish were as long as my forearm. I would post a picture but I fear that you may be getting bored with my food pictures.

oops.

Sunday, we took a drive to Glenorchy. I feel like this would be a name of one of the orks in the Lord of the Rings. 'Hi. My name is Glen. Glen Orchy.' Can't you see it?!

Here are some pictures from our road trip.

 We took a detour to a place called Paradise.

When we got to the River Jordan (not joking), it was flooded.

 But what do you do to get to Paradise? Cross the River Jordan in a rental car of course!

At last we made it to Paradise!

 Jared wanted to see the start of the Routeburn Track so off we went after leaving Paradise.

 It was really gorgeous on the drive to and from the Routeburn track.

 The grayish part of that mountain in the front was a giant slip (landslide)

 This is hard to see but I took it for my dad. That is an absolutely raging waterfall way up in the mountains. They were all over. They were really high up and I zoomed a lot on my camera to get this one!

I chose not to include pictures (nor did I take any) of the events that transpired on the way back from Glenorchy. I will put it like this...little man takes after his dad when it comes to car sickness. :(

unfortunately for us, this time it was 'in a rental car' sickness.

ear slaw

We knew that Thursday would be our only full weekday to enjoy Queenstown together. Jared's conference started early Friday morning. He would be walking and I would have the car, but we still wouldn't be together.

We started off early by taking a walk down to the lake and snapping some pictures. After coming back and getting ready, we headed into town.

While I was making 3 separate attempts to pay for our parking, Jared found our breakfast spot. It's called Les Alpes and its an authentic French restaurant right on the lakeside. It was decorated beautifully like an old farmhouse. I had the Millefeuille d'oeufs poches. Yes, I had to point at it. It's basically, poached eggs between two layers of puff pastry served with hollandaise sauce and ham. So...eggs benedict.

and Brennan had his first experience with soft boiled eggs and toast soldiers. 

It's a common breakfast food for kids here and it is GOOD. :) I only know because I shared some with him. Jared had a crazy assortment of French pastries.

 no...not all of these.

 and let just say....we made another run for those almond croissants later in the week.

Brennan decided that if you must eat at a French restaurant, you must have a French hairstyle.

 There will be a lot of talk about what we ate because it was so pretty and so good. Let me apologize in advance.

Jared had our day nice and planned so I was along for the ride. He took us up to Coronet ski field. Our rental car company had provided us with chains, but none were needed. The only place there was snow was on the actual ski field. We couldn't believe our luck with the warmer weather! It was awesome. This is where the fathead comes in! While attempting to get a selfie shot of 'The Remarkables' mountain range, I covered it up--with my head.

Here it is in all it's actual beauty. (The mountains, not my face)

 Brennan seemed to find 'The Remarkables' quite unremarkable.

The next stop was around lunchtime and we went to Arrowtown. Arrowtown was at the center of the New Zealand gold rush There is a Chinese settlement and a beautiful quaint little town.

It was recommended that we eat at a place called 'Provisions'. They are known and famous for their homemade sticky buns. Sitting outside in the garden, we experienced said sticky bun.

And to be honest, it was great but maybe not worth being known for.

Between breakfast and Coronet Peak, we had booked a trip on 'The Earnslaw' steamboat. Luckily, the booking agent didn't bat an eye when I misread and asked for tickets on the 'Earslaw'. This ship is coal fired and runs to the other side of Lake Wakatipu.

As you travel from shore to shore, they tell you interesting bits about the boat and the lake. They also point out mountains and talk about the history of the surrounding towns and sheep stations. They said that the name 'Wakatipu' means hollow of the sleeping giant. Apparently, the mountains look like a giant sleeping and the lake is in the middle. I am not sure how those who named it would have seen it from the air to know that but we'll pretend they did.

On this voyage is where I first had to dress my boy incognito.

Every single person on that boat that was visiting from Asia wanted to take a picture of him. A picture of him and a peace sign too. We were getting our picture made on the deck by the lady that tries to sell it to you...and there were Chinese tourists snapping our picture and trying to make Brennan laugh. I wish we had bought the picture so that you could have seen the quizzical look on his face. Now I am not being racist, I just think they thought he was the cutest thing they had ever seen. That is a fact that spans all cultures I guess. :)

I've written a book here, so I will save our mommy and boy adventures for another day!