Voting

Today we early voted. It was an interesting experience to use the electronic ballots. Even after a brief orientation on how to do it, I wasn't entirely confident that I could properly cast my ballot. But turns out it isn't so difficult.

It was interesting to have several candidates for local offices meet us in the parking lot and attempt to sway our vote. They were all pleasant, but it made me a little uncomfortable. Especially when the guy who took our photo asked us who we had voted for.

I was disappointed that the Texas primary and caucus were so late in the race. (yes, they do both. Texas must always be unique.) And therefore it was too late for my vote to do my candidate of choice any good. Still, it felt good to do our civic duty.

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Hope to see you again soon.

Scott, Les & Ian

No More

Just wanted you to know I will no longer be making Ian's baby food. No more frantically boiling and pureeing green beans while Ian is impatiently banging his hands on his high chair tray. No more slicing yellow squash while Ian releases screams from the pit of his growling stomach. No more scrubbing the blender by hand because I ran out of pureed veggies before we ran the dishwasher.

But I am a little sad about it. Something about doing it all was fun to me. Not the screaming, and certainly not washing those tricky little blender blades. I think it was the 'organic' feel of it all. The feeling that I knew exactly what was going into Ian's body, and knowing that it was pure and wholesome, from foods that I had handpicked (from our local grocery).

And originally I thought making baby food would be an economical way to make sure Ian was getting healthy foods. Turns out that most foods are more expensive when you buy them fresh or frozen and make your own food out of them. Even more expensive than if you were to buy those cute little tubs of Gerber pureed foods. And that's not even accounting for my very precious time put into it. But I kept it up simply because I thought it was fun to make his food. But it stopped being fun last week, so now I am putting the blender back on the shelf. No more homemade baby food. And you know what? Ian likes the Gerber stuff better anyway. And we might actually save some money now.

Valentines Day

Our friends Brandon and Jenn watched Ian while Scott and I went out to celebrate Valentines Day last Friday. Once again, I was reminded how glorious it is to go out sans baby. We tried a new restaurant, and then made very good use of a gift card my sister and her husband gave us over Christmas. My new favorite ice cream is chocolate cake batter with graham cracker crumbs in it. So good.

Scott knows just how to help me celebrate Valentines Day -- really good chocolate! I think this was my introduction to the best chocolate in the world, and I hope to become very familiar with it in the future. I loved every single piece of it.

And for Scott, I surprised him by starting our wedding scrapbook! Turns out I really enjoy scrapbooking. And it also turns out I love our wedding pictures. A little cropping goes a long way, doesn't it? I have about half the pictures done, and will post photos of the pages for your enjoyment. I am pretty proud of the results.

And just in time for Love Day, our amaryllis bloomed. We got a total of three large flowers and it was fun to see the first one open on Valentines morning.

Ian also had a great day: He got an adorable Valentine from his grandma and grandpa Larson. He carried it all the way back from the mailbox and didn't want to let it go. Thanks for sending it grandma and grandpa!

Ian imitates more words every day. Most of the time, he only manages to repeat the tone and inflection of what you said, and usually with the same amount of syllables, but not so much the actual word. But on Tuesday he began saying 'cracker' with great regularity. And it actually sounds like cracker! To reinforce the word and it's meaning, I fetch a graham cracker every time he says it. It has made for A LOT of trips to the pantry. I love hearing him communicate. And check out those teeth! He currently has 7 teeth: four on top, three on bottom.