Gourmet Baby Food

We've been making homemade baby food for Cannon ever since he started solids and I have to say that it's become my new favorite hobby. I enjoy cooking in general but it's even more rewarding to see Cannon devour his food...the kid can eat! Making your own baby food may seem daunting but it's actually really fun and super easy to do:

1. Steam veggies in microwaveable bags (huge time saver and also more nutritious than the stove-top method)
   
2. Toss the veggies into the food processor with some olive oil and pepper and puree
   
3. Spoon the puree into ice cube trays and freeze overnight
4. Transfer the cubes into freezable storage bags (keeps for several months)
   

Now that Cannon is a little older, we've started sauteing different veggies together on the stove top with with butter and onions/leeks which make his food so much tastier. Next month we plan to introduce meat which I'm sure will make things (diapers) interesting. We recently joined Farm Fresh to You, a CSA that delivers a box of fresh, local and organic produce to our doorstep every couple weeks. I love the idea of community supported agriculture and it's important to us that Cannon is consuming quality ingredients. We hope that starting him out on a wide variety of healthy foods early on will shape him into a good eater as he grows up.

One of Cannon's favorites - leeks, sweet potatoes, spinach, peas:

Slackers!

Holy cow, it's been 3 months since we've updated our blog. I guess we've been busy. :) Three months doesn't seem like a long time but it's almost one third of Cannon's life - he'll be 8 months old on Tuesday! We seriously need to do a better job at keeping up with our blog. Here are some of the major highlights since our last post:

• Cannon's PoPo (Grandma Lin) , GongGong (Grandpa Steve) and Uncle Tony drove down from Oregon for Thanksgiving. We cooked a major feast and had friends over to help celebrate.
• Cannon met Santa for the first time at Tiny Tots in Campbell!
  
• We drove up to Oregon for Christmas (11 hours) and then to Tahoe (12 hours) for New Year's. Cannon had fun sledding for the first time and we were able to get together with a bunch of friends to reign in the new year.
• We flew to Atlanta a couple weeks ago to visit MeMa, PopPop and lots of cousins. Had a great time hanging out and went to the zoo. The plane ride was much different than 4 months ago. We had to keep our little busy body entertained, luckily he's quite the social butterfly and made friends on the flight.
  
• Cannon now has a total of 6 teeth. His top two were really tough - we endured many painful night wakings but things are much better now. His two lateral incisors are the latest developments but they don't seem to bother him at all.
• In addition to rolling around, Cannon has started scooting on his bum. He also likes to lunge forward onto his knees while sitting which sometimes causes him to face-plant onto the floor. He recently got his first boo boo while playing with Mommy - he fell onto his wooden toy and ended up with a red mark under his eye. Just last week he bumped on his temple at daycare and got his first accident report! Many more to come, I'm sure.
• Last but not least, Cannon has become very chatty. He even said "dada" before "mama" and Benjamin of course likes to remind me of this. :)
  

Halloween Festivities

Cannon's first Halloween was full of fun festivities. Our friends Jennifer and Wayne visited us last weekend and we went to Uesugi Farms pumpkin patch in Morgan Hill. It was quite impressive with a train, carousel and maze. Afterward, we came home and watched the Oregon State vs. USC game. The Beavs ended up losing but they put up a good fight. We went to a second pumpkin patch in Saratoga with our neighbors. It was a small, quaint one with a petting zoo..very cute. Then on Friday, Cannon's daycare had a Halloween Festival where the kids and teachers all dressed up and paraded around the parking lot. Cannon went as a dinosaur and it just so happened that the other babies in his class were also animals. They all looked so adorable. On Halloween day, our neighborhood had a parade around the block and then we went over to our friends' house for a little get together and some trick-or-treating. Whew, what a week!
Uesugi Farms Pumpkin Patch:

Jennifer and Cannon sporting OSU gear/Cannon hanging out with Wayne:

Halloween parade at daycare/posing with classmates:

Neighborhood parade:

Trick-or-treating:

4 month update

We have to get better at posting updates more frequently! I can't believe another month has flown by. Cannon is such a happy, smiley baby. He's very social too which can make napping hard - he doesn't want to sleep and miss out on any action. Uncle Tony came to visit us from Oregon and Cannon had so much fun playing with him. My transition back to work went surprisingly smooth, mainly because Cannon is just down the street from me at my company's daycare and I can see what he's up to on the live video feed from his classroom. Cannon loves daycare and his teachers. He enjoys interacting with his new friends and has even done a couple art projects already. Sometimes we think he's bored with us at home so we need to think of some activities to keep him occupied. The latest exciting news is that Cannon has two bottom teeth; they broke through the gums a couple weeks ago...I think he's ready for real food now!
Hanging with Uncle Tony/first buggy ride at daycare:

Teeth!