Cabin weekend!

Ok, so this post is going to be a lot of pictures, not much writing :) We had our "annual" Spaeth family cabin weekend 2 weekends ago and had a great time. Here is the picture summary of it. 

 

 

Blake riding in style up to the cabin. It is hot outside, but he still wants a teddy bear, pulls any reachable pillows over his legs, and snacks on a granola bar.

Blake loved the boat. Well, he loved to "drive" the boat. He went straight for the driver's seat each time he got in. We were hoping he'd like it, b/c when running it in the driveway, it was really loud and a little smokey and he hated it. Once in the water, he was fine :)

Our littlest driver



Oops, our littlest driver wasn't wearing a swim diaper b/c I couldn't find it (and the new one I bought for him was too small [we use cloth swim diapers too]). Here is Daddy rinsing off the seat from his, ahem, accident...:)



Scott chillin on the deck

My two men



Blake loved the cabin and being able to explore!

Breakfast



Yes, we got the men to help. Kyle is always in charge of pancakes--his specialty :)

Gary & David's turn for clean-up. They are inspecting the pans to make sure they are spotless :)

Mom & Dad's posed "sorrowful" face at losing some fish due to the fridge somehow getting turned off. The appliances here were pretty high tech and somehow it got turned off and all Dad's hard work at cleaning the fish was all for naught. By the way, Mom is awesome at her sad faces (LOL).

Another meal/lounging photo

Ha, I got Priscilla. She tries to hide from pictures

Me and my Blakey

Blake on the paddle boat. He felt most secure when Mommy was along for the ride. He is actually wearing his swim diaper here! Score, I finally found it!

The paddle boat was a great addition to the cabin amenities. It was being used constantly!

I believe this is Lucas waterskiing...his form has improved from last year! I wasn't on the boat to get great photos this year :(

Violet was loving being in the middle of the lake with the guys!

Another paddle boat picture

 

Me and my Blakers taking a dip

Blake loves to be kissed on both cheeks by two people. Usually, it is Daddy & I, but this time Grandma stepped in :)

The grandkids, minus baby Clara (the bunk house is in the background)

 

The Spaeth Family (in front of the main cabin)

Another pic of the grandkids, minus baby Clara. Violet was loving on Blake :)



The grandparents with all the grandkids! Aw, isn't baby Clara a cutie!!!

Kristi trying to get baby Clara to take a much needed nap!



This was a miserably hot and humid day (when we took our family pictures), so we retreated to the air conditioned bunk house. This is one group of people playing cards in the loft area.

Blake and Josh checking out the games



The second group of card players (Dad is behind the picture taker, which I believe is Priscilla)

Blake found another large stuffed bear! His first love was Debbie Whitsitt's large bear :)

Grandpa and Grandma came for a couple days, so that was fun!!

We got family pictures of those who happened to be there at the moment :)



More guys cooking--not sure why we only took pictures of guys cooking, haha

Lucas instructing David (or so it appears) :)



Scott (not much more to say about this picture)

Kyle and his hot swim trunks (hehe)



Mom and Sarah looking beautiful, as always

The boys checking out the trampoline

And loving it!



Got some great action photos here!

Love this one, haha!

But I love this one even more. Scott decided to help them out with their jumping height. The looks appear to be a little concerned...:)

Parenting: a learning process...

Every once in a while, I look back on something I did with Blake and think, "that was stupid of me". I recently had one of those moments. Blake had gotten into our matches and I showed him one and how it makes fire. He was a little scared at first and didn't want to get close to it. He also didn't want to blow it out.

Later, I showed it to him again and he was more interested. We even lit a candle! Now, whenever we see a candle in a book, he wants to go light a match and candle. So, yesterday we lit a bunch of matches, he blew them out, we lit a candle, and he loved it. Now he loves doing this...see my problem?? :)

I now have to move the matches b/c he gets into them and tears them off the match book...last thing I need for him is to try and strike it!! Scott pointed out how stupid it was that I was teaching him about matches, but no need Scott, I had already realized it :)

On another note, I made another smoothie, but this time it was much tastier. My first one I didn't love and took me a few times to actually finish it. It was too big and too tart :)

I bought some fresh beets and beet tops and I've heard beet tops are highly nutritious. So, I used the tops, some frozen mango, a few blueberries, peach kefir and a touch of almond milk and I loved it! Actually, so did Blake! He looked cute with a smoothie mustache, so I took a couple of pictures which I thought were on the memory stick, but they are actually on the camera memory, and at the moment, I have no way of getting them off. So, this is a pictureless post :)

Baby gadget...recommendation

A good friend of mine recently told us she was pregnant (yay!) and said she'd like recommendations on baby necessities. Well, one item that is not a necessity is the wonderful idea, not so wonderful product in the Gyro Bowl. For the most part, I do actually prefer giving Blake snacks in this bowl, because it is better than using a regular plastic bowl in regards to spills. Oh wait, for those of you who don't know what a Gyro Bowl is, here is a picture of the rotating interior bowl that is supposed to make it impossible to dump out food.


Like I said, great idea, but in reality, how great is it? I guess it depends on your toddler, for sure.

This is how Blake holds his Gyro Bowl:



Yep, he's secured the interior bowl from moving with his thumbs. Genius.

He will also shake the bowl hard to remove the contents if it isn't working to dump the contents, which is rather effective on his part. So, depending on his mood, this bowl may or may not work.

Ok, so I'm a little hard on the bowl since as I said earlier, I do prefer it for snacks over regular bowls :) 
Out-takes:

Side view of "the hold"

Cute baby eating blueberries. :)

Vita-what?

I know not everyone has heard of a Vitamix, but let me introduce you. It is a high powered blender that can pulverize ice, veggies, fruit, you name it. It does it in seconds, is super easy to clean (no parts to take apart), aaaaand costs a pretty penny.

Well, I've wanted one for years, and I finally decided I should get one. Unfortunately, I didn't get one when Blake was an infant b/c then I could have made baby food for him with it, but now I can use it for baby #2 and get rid of the baby food maker I did get (a cheap-o one that didn't puree things as well as I would have liked). The only downfall to getting rid of my little cheap-o is that it does blend smaller quantities than  my Vitamix, but that's ok. I plan to do batches and freeze the baby food and probably won't miss the space that my other one takes up. For not loving stuff on my counters, I've really started to collect appliances that perch permanently on my beloved counter space...must get a bigger kitchen with the next house...



Me and my Vitamix

There are a few different models for Vitamix, and I decided to get the cheapest b/c you are getting the exact same product, except for some minor improvements/differences. 1). Variable speed vrs 2 speeds 2). Shorter, wider container, and 3). pre-programmed settings. Most have at least 2 horsepower, including the most expensive, so I'm not worried about that part.

After looking into the differences and what I am paying for these differences, I decided the Vitamix® TurboBlend 4500 Blender was perfectly sufficient. The only thing I was really wondering about was the variable speed option, but I think that option is really only necessary when trying to master sauce consistencies for more gourmet chefs. Well, that is my opinion and I definitely do not claim master chef :)

How have I liked my Vitamix so far?? Well, I love it. I made a Chocolate Almond Milk shake, which was super healthy and satisfied my desire for ice cream, so huge bonus there. And the time to make it was probably about 2 minutes, clean-up included!! The 2 cups of ice I used was blended to about the consistency of a Wendy's frosty, yeah, it was that good! :)

As I'm writing, I've decided to pause and make myself a smoothie. Hold on and I'll get a picture when I'm done (well, I'll hold on, you continue reading like I never left :) haha).

I've decided to try a citrus smoothie which includes 1 orange, 1 lemon, 1/2 cup of pineapple, and 1/2 cup of ice. Well, after starting to make this, I realized this could turn out a little tart, so I added a little milk as well. The Vitamix performed wonderfully with zero ice chunks in less than 30 seconds:


Citrus Smoothie

Yum...but I look really old in this picture. Hopefully the vitamins I get from making healthy smoothies will help with my skin :)  Rabbit trail--I've been having more acne with this baby than with Blake but less heartburn. I'll take the blotchy skin over heartburn any day!

My goal is to start making super healthy smoothies with lots of veggies like my brothers, David & William who are also proud owners of Vitamix blenders :) So far, I've stuck with a little more "fun" stuff :)

In order to get some better pictures of my blender, my little model helped me out.

This is how you use the tamper device.

It is basically a stick that you can shove down solid items in thicker smoothies/sauces/mixes. One thing I LOVE b/c my old blender started fast and shoved all my ingredients up, so I constantly had to start and stop and push stuff down. It was too hard to push stuff down and keep it down while running. The Vitamix tamper is designed to push ingredients down while blending and there is a stopper at the top so it won't go too far.

This is how you blow on the tamper device.

Oh wait, is that not a Vitamix function??

This is how you easily remove the blender container from the base.

Be careful not to fall with the container though b/c your Mommy might not appreciate her new blender falling on the ground. Blake was mid-fall here, but he caught himself pretty good and no injuries to my blender :) This did concluded my model's shoots though, as I didn't want anything broken :)

Working the tamper (before the fall) :)