january: week 4

I've been busy lately. The other day, in the midst of the busyness, I remembered that I have a blog. And that blog is terribly behind—over 3 months behind, in fact.

The fourth weekly installment of 2013 begins with a picture from the early days of Evan playing with his hands. Now, at 6 months old, he's pretty comfortable picking up toys, turning them over, passing them from hand to hand, and getting them into his mouth. He also has a lot more hair.

21/365 hands for the win

That Tuesday's picture was taken outside of the crepe restaurant on Valencia, during a late-afternoon walk. If I remember correctly, it was somewhat chilly that day, so there was no one sitting in the parklet across from the restaurant.

22/365 beer list

For Wednesday's picture, I shot the flowers in Evan's room. They were part of a bunch that Carmen had put out when we came home from the hospital with Evan, and apparently this kind dries quite well. The rest of the flowers are long gone, but these are still doing their part to add a pop of color to the top of Evan's shelves. 

23/365 puff balls

Evan and I took a walk down Valencia once again on Thursday, with him in the stroller this time. We went to Craftsman & Wolves, where I got a croissant and some drinking chocolate with violet marshmallows. I had ordered the drinking chocolate back when they first opened, but they seem to have acquired more specialized servingware for it since then.

24/365 drinking chocolate

I guess I was less ambitious again on Friday, because my picture of the day was of the bunting above Evan's crib. He seemed to like it quite a bit back then, though. He would look at it and coo or gurgle when I put him in his crib for naps.

25/365 something to look at

It was time for another Evan picture on Saturday, which ended up being a tummy time shot. He was still working on holding himself up for longer periods of time then. He rolls out of it consistently now, but these sessions used to end one of two ways: with him spitting up or with him rubbing his face into the floor and whining. If we were especially unlucky, he'd spit up and then rub his face into the floor before I could turn him over. I had to clean off his face and suction spit-up out of his nose once or twice...

26/365 daily workout

Last is a food picture for Sunday. These have obviously gotten less frequent in the last year, as feeding the baby has been a little higher priority than feeding ourselves new and fun recipes. Hopefully, we'll get back into the habit a little more soon, now that spring and summer produce are coming up.

But back to the picture below. Steve made Black Spaghetti with Clams, Pancetta and Red Chili from Mike Isabella's Crazy Good Italian. It was a homemade squid ink pasta that went well with the ham, the clams, and the white wine sauce. It was good both times that we made it—half of the pasta went in the freezer for the second go-round—but it was the kind of meal that didn't stick with me for very long. I was hungry again an hour or two later.

27/365 black spaghetti