the monthly: Eight months old!

Oh Eleanor(cita),

You are growing up so fast. People are always saying "oh kids, they grow up so fast," and I know this is true...but wow! You have changed so much since you were first in my arms 8 months ago. You are mobile! Yesterday you finally figured out how to get from a sitting position to your tummy. Now I'm in big trouble! Gone are the days of just letting you hangout on a blanket while I run to the bathroom or fix something in the kitchen. But that's okay! I'm excited for the adventures to come as you explore...everything! You like to use the kitchen chairs as your personal jungle gym and you love putting shoes (and everything else) in your mouth...even Mama's nose and chin. 

You love being around people! You smile and reel them in with that toothless grin of yours. You also do this cute head tilt back and forth from side to side (see photo above...haha). The tilt varies in speed and people just die laughing. You even like to rock your head to the beat whenever there is music on in the background. I'm not sure where you got that cute trick, but I'm pretty sure we've reinforced it by mimicking it every time we see you! 

You also love spending time with your great Grandpa and the elderly ladies of the Rolando Community Council. I love seeing the elderly people light up when they see you...it brings them so much joy to see a happy baby!

This month you will have 4 new baby friends...and your little "cousin" Oliver, should be arriving any day now! Uncle Beau-Beau (who you can thank for the nickname Eleanorcita) and Aunt Sarah have been loving on you in preparation for their little man, and now the time has finally come! Aunt Sarah showed you how to clap just the other day and you just started doing it! When you are proud of yourself or happy, you start to clap and it's the cutest thing ever!

We have been truly blessed with you, little one! God has been so gracious with us! Everyone always comments on how you are such a "chill" baby, always pretty content (unless you're hungry!), and friendly as ever! That is all by God's grace! We can't take any credit for that :)

There are probably so many things I am forgetting, but until next month...I look forward to seeing more of your personality and exploring the world with you!

love you,

Mamacita

ps. more photos from this month:

you and your buddy Ezra

 playing with Amos

bear buddies, Lily and Eleanor

tilt that head! you look like you're stretching

quality time with great Grandpa

all smiles with Auntie Ang

hanging with papa after church

make this: Homemade Granola

YumOH! Last week I was looking for a good homemade granola recipe to pair with my plain yogurt. I had all the essential ingredients lined up in the pantry: oats, nuts, raisins, honey, brown sugar, dried coconut. Mmmm! Google came up with a few (thousand) recipes, and I peeked at a few of them...I scanned the recipes and judged the photos. With no personal references to any of these recipes, it was hard to tell which one would be just the right one. I wanted a keeper. And I found one!

I baked the homemade granola and it was AMAZING! The recipe was simple and flexible. I like flexible. I try to be flexible in baking (and I'm totally comfortable with not sticking to the exact recipe :) but I understand that's not for everyone. I made a double batch to make sure there would be plenty to share. Actually, scratch that. I accidentally poured 1/2 cup of honey into the bowl instead of 1/4 cup. It worked out anyways...I try to stay flexible! :)

When I checked my iPad later, to save the recipe...it was GONE! The page was closed. Boo! I quickly wrote down the ingredients and measurements that I had remembered. This was a recipe worth remembering and making again!

I wanted to share it with you :) it's flexed a bit, to what I used (and I can't take the credit!)...but you can substitute several ingredients to your liking and make it your own :)

Homemade Granola Recipe:

4 Cups Oats

1/2 Cup Honey

1/2 Cup Brown Sugar

2 tsp Vanilla extract

6 Tbsps. Canola Oil

1 tsp salt (or less)

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 Cup Raisins

1/4 Cup chopped Pecans 

Handful of dried coconut (to your liking)

1/2 Cup Chocolate chips 

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Mix oats, honey, and brown sugar with oil. You may need to use your hands! Add the cinnamon, salt (less is more, but it's a great salty-sweet combo), and continue mixing. Place in oven and bake for 10 minutes. Remove pan from oven, scrape pan and flip granola. Add remaining toppings (but hold the chocolate chips). Place in oven again and bake for another 10-15 minutes. Use your best judgement on the crispy-ness of the granola. The granola will bake a little bit longer after it is removed from the oven.  Let the pan cool and then store in an airtight container. Add chocolate chips and mix. 

and then...ENJOY!

I hope you make this!

Megan

like mother, like daughter

I almost forgot about this gem! This set of photographs was given to my mom, in a cute frame for Christmas. The photo on the left is my mom and I (1 1/2 years old?) at the San Diego Zoo. On the right, Eleanor (6 1/2 months old) and I tried to recreate this same photo at the Zoo, on the skytram. She kept looking at papa, instead of me, and I kept looking down to get her attention. Ah, well! We tried! 

I really love that photo of my mom and I. My parents took us to the Wild Animal Park and the Zoo on a regular basis when we were kids. When I was younger I loved it! We would go during the winter and see the festival of lights and my mom would make sure we were dressed in snow clothes for riding sleds down the hill of fake snow (we live in San Diego...haha oh snow). As I grew up, I got bored (and lazy-too much walking!) and the zoo became one of my least favorite places (I can't even believe myself ugh haha).  Of course now, I LOVE the zoo and the Wild Animal Park (I refuse to call it Safari Park). Grandma Ransom gave us our passes last year and renewed them this year as a Christmas gift. I am looking forward to making many memories with our little family there!

Here are a few more shots from our Zoo day. Eleanor's been a few times now, and she is more and more interested (and awake) in the animals each time we go!

Family photo-My mom gave us a canvas print of this one :)

kisses, kisses!

There's that world famous PANDA in the background...being lazy, as usual.

Until next time...lots of love,

Megan

the monthly: (seven.months.old)

Oh sweet Babycakes,

This last month has gone by so fast! At the beginning of the month you were practicing sitting up on your own. You picked that up pretty quickly and moved (literally) right into army crawling. At first I called it crawling, but your Papa laughed and said, "that's not a crawl...a scoot, maybe." :) Needless to say, you are quite the mover, pulling yourself toward toys and making your way across the rug. You like my shoes, biting my chin, and playing with your toy phone. You are more alert and definitely more active. Leaving you in one place is a thing of the past. 

You can't tell in this photo, but today, you took a BIG tumble and rolled off mama and papa's bed. We laid you down like normal, and less than thirty seconds later, we heard a "THUD!". I was really scared! I found you on the ground, face down, arms and legs spread out. Major face plant, major fail! Sorry baby girl! You cried for about an hour and your nose was bleeding a little bit, but you were okay. You gave us a scare. We thought you might have broken your nose...but luckily you had just a little scrape, a small bruise, and a few tears. We prayed with you, held you tight in our arms, and then you fell asleep and napped for 2 1/2 hours. You smile every single time we say "Dear Jesus..." and start praying. That is the sweetest thing. We pray that you grow up and come to know and love Jesus just like we do!

We love you so much! We just had our first parenting class with our church and it gave us a lot to be thinking about and praying about! One thing that we were reminded in the class was that "There are no perfect parents. There are no perfect children. Just one perfect Father, and one perfect Son," (from the book Give them Grace). Phew! Just lots and lots of GRACE! I'm sure we'll all need reminding of this as you grow up and start to understand more and more :)

love love LOVE,

mama

p.s. you still love to do that cute trick, sometimes when you're mad and other times when you are super excited! it's presh. muah!

handmade with heart: a few Christmas gifts

Eleanor and I were sick the week before Christmas and a few days after, so blogging and updating on crafts and life stories hasn't been a huge priority :)

Eleanor passed out in my arms when she was sick...this rarely happens!

We are feeling much better, although Eleanor still has a runny/stuffy nose. We joke that "maybe her teeth are coming in" every time her nose is runny or if she randomly wakes up in the middle of the night. Still no teeth here. :)

There has been some scooting/army crawling action going on over here though.

She got herself situated under the recliner. This was the happy face before she realized she was stuck.

On to the real post with handmade gifts...here's a little snapshot of a few of the things I worked on for a few of the Christmas gifts. It was so much fun!

Crayon/Art Pack-handmade by me

Inspiration found via Pinterest (Hope Peterson)  

I looked online for free patterns, but only came across this blog that was selling a pdf pattern. I decided to make my own pattern and just "wing it" :) and this is what I came up with. I wanted to make a crayon holder for my niece who is 18 months old. On Christmas morning she opened lots of presents (Grandma definitely spoiled ALL of us ;) she even got a rock band Elmo! When she went to open our gift, I thought she'd just open it and toss it aside to get back to Elmo and Grover...but she didn't! She loved the crayons and paper and went straight to coloring...everything! Good thing those are washable crayons :) (you're welcome Jaime...haha). I loved the way this turned out and am looking forward to making more as gifts in the near future.

Owl calendar

I also made an Owl Calendar frame for all the grandparents. The photo above is Eleanor with Mister Owly and a monthly calendar print from My Owl Barn. For the last two years, the My Owl Barn blog has been creating these cute calendars. There are over 40 artists who participated this year, each contributing their cute owl drawing to the collection. When you go to the website you can select any of the drawings for whichever month you like, and then print! It's super easy, and super cute! I love this! I should probably have one of these printed for our house too...ha! Check it out if you get a chance!

Last up! Crochet-knot headband for my lovely special seester

Found on You Seriously Made That? blog

The DIY tutorial was free and easy! You can't go wrong there :) I think I'll make a few more, with more chains to make it a little bit longer. I also visited youtube to get a little help with re-learning how to crochet. I've had some great friends help me along the way already (Lindsey, Ang, Alysia). Can't wait to crochet again!

So there you have it...a few of the handmade (with heart) gifts from our Christmas! I may post a tutorial (if anyone's interested) for how I made the crayon pack. 

We had a great time celebrating the birth of Jesus with all of our families. We visited the Nativity Scenes on Euclid, ate amazing food and desserts, opened way too many presents, and enjoyed time with loved ones. I was definitely blessed just to have Ryan home for so many days in a row (he had 3 paid days off from work!). 

Christmas with the Ransoms, Moos & Mullens

Now it's 2012! I can't believe it! The time flew by so quickly! We rang in the new year with some close friends, watching Tron and raving with glow sticks and champagne. What a night :)

I'll be taking some time to reflect on the past year. Maybe I'll post some of those reflections here. We shall see ;) I'll also be posting some "What's for dinner?" recipes and the monthly photo/letter with miss Eleanor...so come back soon!