Just another cute video

Quinn is quite a crawler these days -- not fully up on his all fours, but doing the commando crawl very well. He's also massively cranky, since his 3rd and 4th teeth are just breaking through. The combination means he's using the "stranded beetle" move quite a lot. It's his way of saying "pick me up".

A day to say THANKS!

I am thankful for So much in my life...
Tonight we spent some nice time on skype with both sides of the family. This summer we traveled to CA and saw a lot of our family and friends we hadn't seen in a long time, and Everyday I am thankful for these two guys... My two guys!

A little late, a little early, or...

just right! So it is a little late to dress up for Halloween, and a little early for Christmas, but these pj's fit just right-right now, so we had to put them on Quinn. Quinn is very long, lean, and fitting in most of his 9 months clothes at 7 months. He also has a funny resemblance to Thing 1 and Thing 2 from the Dr. Seuss books. No blue hair yet though!

Our teddy bear's picnic

A couple weekends back we took our little teddy bear and enjoyed a picnic in our favorite park- Inverleith Park. I would like to say (as I touch/knock wood) that Quinn is officially a fan of his pram. Yay! He especially likes to sit up in it and watch the world around him. If he could have a pram that had a rotating seat he would LOVE that. If he could, he would like to see where he came from, and where he's going all at once. Still very curious!

A different kind of keyboard

Riffing on the previous post, here's Quinn on the musical keyboard. He's improving his two-handed technique. "Mary had a little lamb" will come in the next post.

Our little gamer

Quinn is needing more and more interactive games. The toys that don't make sounds or movements are losing their appeal. Enter the laptop. AlphaBaby is the perfect app for a 7 month old. However, with a laptop I'm a little worried about how it will hold up. So, it's time for an external keyboard I think...

Who knew~

That long underwear could be SO little, SO stripey, and SO cute!




Happy 7 months little Q.

Ware else

The 4 hour train trip took us to Ware England, where we visited our good friends Matt and Anna. What a great weekend it was. We enjoyed good food, good talks, good walks, good Quinn time, and did I mention good food? We first met Matt and Anna in San Francisco where John and Matt worked together. Anna trained to become a cook while living in S.F. and we shared many delicious meals together. They have moved back to England and lucky for us, we get to see them every few months. When they moved back from the States, they spent last year driving all over Europe into Africa tasting their way through many different countries and writing about their different experiences. They created a blog of their travels which also includes many yummy recipes I recommend checking out (http://www.culinaryanthropologist.org/about.html).
Quinn was a ball of fun this weekend too. He shared lots of smiles, giggles, and cuddles with Matt and Anna. Quinn also ate from a metal fork for the first time this weekend and had a few beans from our full English breakfast.
SO during this visit just a few of the delicious things we had were...homemade preserved rhubarb on soft cheese crostini, homemade rosemary topenade, lamb ragu (with homemade chicken stock, and passata), quince tarte tatin, I could keep going....John asked Anna to teach him how to make a pastry base for a pumpkin pie. While they did that, Matt and I pierced the skin of some sloes we picked on a walk along the river and made some sloe gin. This digestif will be ready for first sip come Christmas.
If your mouth isn't watering yet, then its time to see some photos!


The walk




The pastry lesson

Piercing sloes while sipping Manhattans

The cordial is corked and ready to sit...for a little while!

The gorgeous quince tarte tatin. Oh, and some delicious wild oyster mushrooms Anna found on our walk. We had them with the roast beef-Yum!


John and his pumpkin pie (made from scratch) that we ended up enjoying for breakfast on our last morning.

Thank you Matt and Anna for a wonderful weekend. Looking forward to the next visit...in London!

All aboard, we're off to England. Choo Choo!

Quinn's first train trip happened this last weekend as we traveled 4 hours into England. He was a good little passenger and didn't fuss too much. He really enjoyed watching the cables from the telephone polls go by, as well as get the strangers around us to smile at him. He has become quite the charmer.

Culdees Bunkhouse had a farm---E I E I O!

This past weekend we went up north into the Highlands and stayed on Loch Tay. It was a beautiful setting, and a fun time had by all. The Bunkhouse had a farm, with animals (hog, sheep, cows, a calf, and chickens) which were fun to show Quinn. Many delicious meals were enjoyed, fun games were played in the music room, and one late night was one too many. We learned that late nights are now on hold till Quinn sleeps in...so we can too!We experienced a lot of rain starting Saturday afternoon, but we took a little walk to enjoy the view nonetheless. Quinn was a hit with everyone...most are 'still' interested in having little one's of their own! His hair and drool sparked many conversations!