Bram, Balls, Bread, Burritos

Update on our life via iPhone photos:

Bram has been changing so much the past few weeks. He's have a "burst of development" like he did around 9 months. He's not walking but doing so much more with fine motor control. In the pic above he is signing "more". He doesn't always do it in the right context, but we think he knows that it means something. Other things:

• Things to Roll: He figured out how to roll a ball a few weeks ago, and now he rolls everything with a curved side (balls, cups, water bottles, pull toys, cars). He crawls around and amuses himself by rolling something then chasing it.
• He discovered how to bounce his basketball, and knows that the other balls we have don't bounce.
• He can turn knobs
• He can push buttons (in a couple ways, haha)
• He puts things into other things when he used to just take things out: For instance, he will take a bite of food out of my palm, and put it back in, and take it out, and put it back in. See picture below of where he decided to nest his water cup.

• He doesn't scream bloody murder when I clean out his nose with the nasal aspirator. This is big, folks. I think he understands what I'm doing, and that he'd prefer a clean nose over a snotty one. He still disapproves of the whole affair, but it's not near the protest he used to put up.
• He's starting to figure out how to blow his nose (I'm trying to encourage this!).
• He is actively trying to use his utensils at every meal. Just one day last week he decided he needed to actually use his fork and spoon instead of just flail them around. He's not very good at it, but he's internally determined!

 This is (part of) our backyard right now. If I had painting skills I know I could put them to use this fall. It's so pretty here!

I've been enjoying these beauties ever since we had a couple over for dinner last week. What girl doesn't like being surprised with flowers after a long day of prepping for dinner guests? Thank you, Matthew and Alanna!

These ingredients changed my bread forever! See the proof below. Thank you, Beth, for your help and your recipe. 

We ran out of tortillas, so I asked my friend Emily for her recipe. It was straightforward and easy and required no purchasing of special ingredients. Just flour, oil, salt, baking powder, and water. As long as I can make time for it, I hope to make these from now on instead of buying them. Previously, I was intimidated at the thought of making tortillas for a couple funny reasons: 1) I thought you had to have lard and, 2) I thought if you didn't have a tortilla press it would be a lot of work with a rolling pin. Wrong. I did use a rolling pin, but it wasn't hard. And I didn't have to buy lard, I just used my regular ol' coconut oil. Glad I can move on with life now...and tortilla making! And burrito assembling!

My boy is so happy when he gets to play with Mama's car keys. He had rummaged in my purse this night and found them, so we let him play with them for a few minutes. This pic was taken when Dada was dangling the keys in front of his face. Can't believe how fun car keys are!