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in

Went to MOM & POPcorn in downtown McKinney today to buy some things for Kate's birthday. 
-Wish I'd had my camera with me in that fun store!
-Wish I'd thought to take this picture before drinking most of this DP.
-Wish I'd taken the shot in the daytime with natural light.  Maybe I'll try again tomorrow! (EDIT: I cheated and re-took this shot the next day and uploaded the new one. Natural light makes all the difference!)

playing in the field

in

There's a newish city park in our neighborhood with a couple of very large fields adjacent. It's where I like to take Kate to photograph her outside since there's nothing distracting in the background. Nick, Kate, and I headed over there on Monday afternoon to take the pic of me holding the sono photo and a few of Kate, too. She LOVED the field. She wasn't scared at all of being far from us... like opposite end of the field from us. She ran off so much steam that she was in total meltdown bedtime mode by around 6:00 that night. Here are a few pics I got of our sweet girl...







And one more of Nick tossing Kate... it came out way too dark, so I had to change it to B&W to get any detail. I love the look on her face, and I love her mittens sticking out of Nick's pockets. 


a "must have" baby item


I know this is a crazy topic for a post, but I need to share these spoons with you. They're from IKEA, the place where the most practical things are made "practicaler." And they're cheap.

This whole pack of 6 spoons is only $1.99. I can't tell you how well the little ones work since Kate doesn't feed herself yet, but the long spoons are wonderful. They're better than every other baby spoon. I know because I tried lots of other brands. But when I found these, those other ones got shoved in the back of the pantry. We've been using these for a few months now. They're tried and true.

The secret to the success of these spoons is that they're angled. Here I am modeling the terrific angle of the spoon since you can't see this in the pic from IKEA. (FYI, the small kid spoons are not angled.)




Here's why they're so great...

  • The spoon's angle makes it more ergonomic. It doesn't feel like an awkward grip or motion as you feed Baby.
  • The spoon's scoop part is relatively flat  so that it's easy to scrap the food off of it into Baby's mouth. You can get the whole bite in there without having any left on the spoon.




And here's Kate playing with one. She gives them two thumbs up!



I plan on buying a few packs of these next time I'm at IKEA to put with baby shower gifts. Everyone should have these!

Thanks for listening. I felt I needed to let the secret out!