My favorite thing that happened yesterday...

If you know me at all, you know that I go to sleep with the sun. So yes, that means that when I put Violet down at 7 o'clock, I'm feeling pretty ready for bed myself. Last night, it was only 8:15 or so, and I told Glenn I was going to get ready for bed. When I came out from washing my face/brushing my teeth, Pretty Little Liars was on the TV! (best show ever. Or should I say #bestshowever. Still not sure if I'm using that right). And I was like "Yes! PLL!" and watched the last five minutes of the episode with Glenn. Then as soon as it was over, Glenn switched it right over to The Bachelor. And I was like "Yes! The Bachelor!". Then I realized, he was trying to keep me awake with him by baiting me with quality television (haha). And it worked. And it reminded me that I have a sweet husband who just likes to spend time with me even if he has to watch Pretty Little Liars and The Bachelor.

P.s. Anyone watching The Bachelor? Courtney the Model???? CRAZY!

She scoots

Violet is slowly getting mobile! She does not crawl yet, at all, but she is learning how to get from place to place! She can roll both ways just fine. When she is on her tummy she can scoot backwards with ease, and if she is not wearing pants she can kind of scoot forward. You know, because then she has more traction. She is best at turning herself around when she is sitting on her bum; she just moves her legs a lot until she has turned which ever direction she wants.

(In mid-turn. And pretty proud of herself.)

Everyone always wants to tell me how much harder it is once they learn to crawl, and it probably is, but I'm so excited for her to be able to move! She has been so frustrated for the last couple of weeks because she wants to go places so badly!

And the winner is...

ME! I won a contest! Specifically, I won a gift card to Trader Joe's in a blog give away from this awesome blog!

Ok, so I love Trader Joe's always. But the timing is perfect! Remember how one of my new years resolutions was to be a vegetarian for the month of February?? Well, February is right around the corner, if you didn't notice. I have written up a meal plan for February, and I'm really excited about all the new recipes I have an excuse to try, but I am definitely going to need to get a few ingredients that we don't usually keep stocked. Trader Joe's, here I come!

Baby food muffins??

I should not have titled the post that. It sounds SO gross. The truth is, I had that leftover carrot baby food I made Violet that she hated. But it really is just steamed pureed carrots. Keep that in mind as I continue.

I had over-ripe bananas that needed to be used, but I'm not the biggest fan of plain banana muffins. And I also had these pureed carrots. So I made carrot-banana-oatmeal-raisin-delicious muffins! Seriously, they are good. And don't taste like baby food AT ALL.

Coolest kid at story time

We are headed off to story time at the library again this morning! It is getting to be a Tuesday morning routine. I hope somebody notices what a big Harry Potter fan she is for such a small person! (Do you think I am brainwashing her?)

AYCE KBBQ

How's that for an acronym? We live near Koreatown, and have been wanting to try Korean BBQ. I think I mentioned that one of Glenn's New Years Resolutions is to do fun things as a family every Saturday, and try to see new parts of the city.

We looked online for "best KBBQ in LA" and a place called San Ya kept popping up, so we went! We didn't know what to expect at all. The waiter took pity on us and showed us what to do. Basically, you are served a bunch of small side dishes (like kimchi, mashed potato-ish stuff, bean sprouts, etc). Then, you choose a few kinds of meat you want to try and they bring it to you raw. Then, you cook it on a grill in the middle of your table. We chose pork with bean sprouts, marinated pork, marinated chicken, and angus beef. It was all really good. My favorite was the marinated pork, but Glenn's favorite was the pork with bean sprouts, and I thought that one was delicious too. It was all you can eat (AYCE), so we were stuffed by the end!

The only downside? You leave with your clothes and hair and skin REEKING of Korean BBQ. I had to take a shower when we got home.

Pfannkuchen!

Lately I've been on a cottage cheese kick. It is just so delicious! But a girl can/should only eat so much of it straight from the carton, so I needed a plan for using some of it up.

Glenn didn't have school today, so we went running this morning, and then I made pancakes (aka Glenn's most favorite food in the world). AND THEY WERE SO GOOD! They were blueberry-cottage cheese pancakes, and they were amazing. One of my least favorite things in the world are flat, pale pancakes. These were fluffy and golden brown, spiked with cinnamon, loaded with blueberries, and tangy and moist from the cottage cheese.

I got the recipe here, and mostly followed it, but I used wheat flour, and it made them so good.

p.s. Glenn still says he likes my oatmeal pancakes the best, but these were my favorites I've ever made. fyi.

Carrots

Is it too early to say my daughter is a picky eater??

She half-heartedly ate rice cereal for a week. Then we started oatmeal, and she really took to it! So a week later, I lovingly made some homemade carrot baby food. Violet took one bite, made the biggest stink face you have ever seen, and threw up everywhere! This was two days ago, and yesterday I gave her a carrot-break and fed her only oatmeal. This morning I tried giving her another bite of carrots (clueless-mom moment: she was wearing her new, beautiful, all-white outfit) and she threw up everywhere again! Anyway, the remainder of the homemade carrot baby food is in the freezer now, and I'll wait a few weeks before I try that again! Any suggestions for her next new food? I would prefer for it to be a vegetable.

The Wedding

Here's the happy couple!

When the bride and groom are both this good-looking, every picture turns out beautiful!

I posted the following picture on facebook, sure that a sweeter picture was never taken:

But then I saw this one, which definitely rivals the first one in sweetness:

Have I mentioned that Glenn is the best dad in the world?

Incidentally, Glenn was not originally planning on coming to the wedding because of school. But then he decided he really wanted to be there, so he surprised Courtney and Judson and drove down all by himself late Friday night! It was the so wonderful to have him there for the festivities. The whole wedding was so fun! Courtney and my mom did a great job of making every detail interesting and perfect. Congratulations to Courtney and Judson!

Story time

Well, I never did manage to post while I was away. But the wedding was perfect! We had so much fun being there for it. And Violet did a great job on the plane, which was such a relief!

This happened last week, but I never posted about it. I took Violet to story time at the library! I thought she was too young to really appreciate it, but she looked right at the story teller the whole time, and when we did the dancing part (yes, there was a dancing part, and it was kind of awkward, but I participated for Violet's sake) she smiled the whole time!

(Look carefully, I promise she's in there)

(I'm sure you recognize that tall hair by now)

We went with Courtney and Parker (seen here), and they had fun together. I'm so glad I have a friend with a baby near Violet's age. It is so much more fun to do things like story time with a friend!

Back home!

I'm headed back to Arizona AGAIN today! My sister is getting married on Saturday, so congratulations Courtney and Judson! I'm too busy packing to post about what I planned. Tomorrow maybe??

Houdini

We started calling Violet Houdini in first hours of her life, when she continued to break free from the swaddle no matter how tightly we wrapped her. It has remained an apt nickname; she is still a master escapist. Last night, though, she outdid herself.

We don't know how it happened! Glenn was holding her, and we were talking, and when we looked down at her she was halfway undressed! When she can crawl and walk, I'm really going to have to keep an eye on her.

At the beach!

We have had beautiful warm weather around these parts lately, so we decided to take advantage of it and go the beach on Saturday! When we woke up Saturday, it was cool and cloudy! After a week of 75-80 degrees, it was cold on our beach day! But by 11 it had warmed up, so we still went, and by the time we got to the beach it was beautiful!

We learned long ago that going to the beach by ourselves (just Glenn, Violet, and I) isn't really that fun. It will be when Violet is a little older, but for now someone has to sit on the blanket with her. And the other person then has to play on the beach by himself.

So this time we invited some friends! They are in our ward, and have a little boy who is four months older than Violet. They had fun playing together! Before Christmas break (the last time we saw them) Violet was still too little to be very fun for Parker to play with. This time she could sit up and play with his toys, and they were very interested in each other!

I brought a picnic, and we stayed a couple of hours. Glenn and Paul played whiffle ball and Courtney and I played with the babies. All in all, it was a wonderful way to spend a Saturday afternoon!

Oh yeah, Paul is the other member of the bishopric, besides the bishop. And Glenn got his call like an hour before we left for the beach, so they had fun talking about Glenn's new calling!

A Surpise Visit and a Suprise Calling!

(The most recent LeSueur family picture. Can you believe everyone was there at one time?? They all turned out beautiful, this one is blurry because it is a cell phone picture of a computer screen.)

Glenn's parents came to visit us this weekend! It was a total surprise, and so fun to have them here, even though it was for less than 24 hours. Here's why they came:

On Friday night, Glenn found his lost cell phone. It had been gone for about two days. On it, there was a voicemail saying he needed to call the stake president before Sunday. So on Friday night, GLenn did so. They set up a meeting for Saturday morning and said his wife needed to come too. They called him to be the second counselor in the bishopric of our ward!

We called GLenn's parents after the meeting to tell them. And then, at about 7 at night, they called to tell us they were halfway to LA! They decided to drive out to be there for the sustaining and setting apart. It was really cool to have them there, and I'm just glad we got to see them. Also, Terri held Violet all day at church, so I actually got to listen to all of relief society. (I'm going to try out something new here:) #haven'tdonethatinsixmonths

Did I use that number symbol thingy right? Courtney? Anybody? All of the sudden those were popping up everywhere, and I have no idea what they actually mean. Or how everyone else knows how and why to use them and I don't.

Happy Friday!

Glenn didn't have school this morning, so I'm getting to the blogging a little late. I love when Glenn has a morning off!

Yesterday, we went to my favorite farmer's market. I bought 1 onion, 1/4 of a kabocha squash, and 1 bunch of dinosaur kale. And then last night I made DELICIOUS lentil/curry/squash/kale stew. But Glenn didn't really like it. I loved it though!

Happy weekend! Violet will probably be busy playing with her favorite Christmas present:

Thanks, Redd Cousins! She loves it!

New Years Resolutions

I made some this year! And I'm really excited about them:

1. Be a vegetarian for them month of February. (I've been collecting recipes like crazy. See some I'm really excited about: here and here.)

2. Start a book club in my ward. Any suggestions for our first book would be greatly appreciated.

3. Run a triathalon. Probably will tackle this in the summer.

4. Gosh darn it. I know there is another one. I just can't think of it.

What are your New Years Resolutions???

p.s. Last night, Glenn and I decided it is time for Violet to start sleeping through the night. She is old enough to not to eat five times a night anymore. She is even old enough to not to eat AT ALL at night anymore. So we decided that I would not feed her last night. And guess what? We made it through the night! She actually only woke up once, at 3:30, and cried for about an hour and then went back to sleep. It was a very sad hour for me. And for her, I'm sure. But after she went back to sleep, she slept til 7 and woke up happy! And I was super excited to feed her to show her I still cared about her. The end. That was a long post-script. Bonus picture:

Violet and her skills

As I mentioned yesterday, Violet is doing all sorts of new things these days! It was fun that we were with our families while she was changing so quickly!

1. Violet has two teeth! She got them both in the same 24 hours. They are her mandibular central incisors. I tried to take a picture, but she sticks her tongue out every time you try to look. It is pretty cute though, so I'll post that picture:

2. She can roll over! She was a little late learning how to do that, so I was really excited when it finally happened. She done it a couple times a day since the first time. Incidentally, she did it the first time last Tuesday, which was also the day she got her teeth. A big day for the little girl!

3. She eats solid food! Kind of. I can't believe they actually classify rice cereal as "solid food". It looks as thin as milk to me. We started her on it two nights ago. She doesn't swallow much of the time, but she eagerly opens her mouth for the spoon! We documented the first time:

p.s. I'm wearing one of my Christmas presents for the first time today. IT IS SO AWESOME!

(Hey Annie, it fits perfectly! Thanks!)

Home!

It feels good to be back home! Our trip to Arizona was long and awesome. This afternoon as we were getting stuff done and settling back in, I said to Glenn, "Too bad we can't live at our parents' houses all the time." I didn't really mean it, I love being independent from our parents and all, but it is so awesome having someone cook your meals and play with your baby while you read all day long! Also, I really loved hanging out with my family, it was so fun playing games and just having them around all the time.

Here's why I didn't post more often:

We were too busy jigsawing.

How ridiculous/funny is this picture I tried to take of all four of us?

Here is a better one:

More about our trip tomorrow! And you'll never believe all the new things Violet is learning to do!