New Hobbies ...

So ... I've been baking. This may scare those who have seen me in the kitchen, but I must say ... I'm doing quite well for myself.

Vic has been on a desperate search for homemade apple pie ... which doesn't exist in Germany. Since I'm not ready to try my hand at a real apple pie - I found a recipe for low-fat apple fritter muffins - with a very fattening glaze ... so I gave it a shot. I spent a good hour chopping apples and hand-mixing all the ingredients - and they turned out delicious. This is the first thing I have ever made from scratch!!

My second attempt was low-fat, no sugar, no oil banana bread. Sounds horrible, right?? Wrong. Best banana bread. Ever. My neighbor even said it was better than her grandma's.

My third attempt didn't fare so well in the looks department. I found a recipe that seemed to be similar to my Mimi Sue's famous coffee cake. Now, if you have ever had the pleasure of trying Mimi Sue's coffee cake - you know it does NOT look like the picture below. On the bright side, it was still pretty good ...

This past weekend I had the sudden urge to participate in the 9/11 5k that was organized by the post. I made mention to Vic the night before, but I think he thought I was joking. I asked the Logan's if they could watch Eli, and, to Vic's surprise, I woke him up bright and early to run it with me! We did pretty well ... Vic probably could have done much better, but he didn't leave me in the dust. We had fun though, so I think we'll participate in more of these ...

This is a view from the course we ran ... it's easier to run when you have scenery like this!

After our run, we thought we would treat ourselves to a nice dinner on Saturday night. We tried a new Greek place called Delphi ... which almost felt like we were cheating on our favorite spot - The Stables.

The new place tried to win us over with free shots of ouzo, but it didn't work for me (although I still drank the free booze). The food was ok ... but we'll stick with The Stables for our Greek food fix.

This is Eli's puppy dog face when we're eating food in front of him ... I can't wait until he's ready for solids.

The boys after dinner ...

Eli is really on the move. He refuses to crawl, but he can make his way anywhere with a combination of scoots, twists, and rolls. He prefers to gravitate towards the non-kid friendly regions of the living room - which has led us to barricading him on the rug with pillows. Here he escaped, and decided to watch Baby Einstein from underneath the entertainment center.

Aunt Vanessa and Nana Jen both sent some fresh new burp cloths! Finally I don't have to be embarrassed that he's toting around dingy looking rags. Thank you Titi Vanessa and Nana Jen!

We're trying to ween him off the bottle ... so far, not so good. I have tried three types of sippy cups, and he's just not having it. He'll drink water from them, but refuses to drink formula. Hopefully he'll come around in the next few weeks!

Aunt Kelly sent us a Toys 'R Us gift card when Eli was born, and we ordered several toys for when he got a little older. We got this one out of storage for him earlier this week, and he loves it! It makes horribly annoying sounds ... but he thinks it hilarious. Thank you (Great) Aunt Kelly!!!

This is just a quick video of Eli eating. He gets SO excited!! This is towards the end, so he is kind of spitting stuff back out ... but he gets that excited with every bite ... especially if applesauce is involved ...