At long last, Spring has come to St. Louis!

Our days are filled with trips to the park and playtime outside.

Little Michael is very happy when he gets to swing at the park.

When it’s rainy outside, we break out his sponge transferring set.  He likes using the ladle to move the sponges.

He wasn’t as engaged or entertained with dropping things into paper towel rolls.  Pinterest fail.

But he did get a kick out of dropping clothespins into a milk jug!  Pinterest success!

There are only so many things I can find to keep Michael busy indoors.  Luckily, the only part of April that did not feel even the slightest bit “springish” was Easter Sunday.  Even though it was freezing cold and sleeting, we had a very happy Easter.

It’s hard to believe how much our little one has changed since last Easter.

April 16, 2017:

April 1, 2018:

He was amused by our indoor Easter egg hunt, and he loved finding mini marshmallows inside the eggs.

When it was time to look inside his Easter basket,

Michael was way more entertained by the Easter grass than by any of the treats the Easter bunny left for him!

Daddy helped him eat a blue Easter egg, his first hard-boiled egg!

For our Easter dinner, Michael prepared us a delicious homemade lasagna.

He put a lot of work into the dish: 3 different cheeses (mozzarella, fresh Parmesan, and ricotta), Italian sausage and ground beef, and a savory blend of sauces were all layered together to create a beautiful and flavorful Italian Easter meal.  It was perfect for such a cold and wet day.

Little Michael spent Easter evening playing with his new toys.

Luckily, we have had quite a few milder days since our icy Easter.  Last week, we went to the St. Louis Zoo, and little Michael experienced his very first carousel ride!

Michael picked the big silverback mountain gorilla for our little one’s first ride.

He loved it!  His face says it all.

For another outing, we went to Toys R Us for what was probably our last visit.  We don’t go there very often, but Michael had fun taking little Michael there on several occasions.  I liked going to Babies R Us to get things for the nursery both when I was pregnant and after Michael was born.  The stores will be missed!  Little Michael had a very generous gift card from a friend of Michael’s, and he got to go on quite the shopping spree.

 

Michael is starting to learn his body parts and can point to some of them when we ask.  He loves showing us his tongue.

One of the local grocery stores up here, Schnuck’s, lets kids get one free gourmet cookie out of the cookie case when we shop there.  Little Michael was delighted to get his first grocery store cookie this month!

Mickey Mouse is one of his favorite characters, and he has fun crunching on Mickey-shaped veggie chips.

He now has 14 teeth.  For dinner, he eats whatever Michael and I are having.  He has graduated from baby food meals.  To our surprise, one of his favorite foods at the moment is bell peppers!  He likes the sweet yellow and orange ones and the regular red and green ones.  After dinner one night, he was eating marshmallows, but he motioned for the rest of his peppers before finishing his dessert!  He still loves fruit.  He eats a lot of Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, eggs, oatmeal, cream of wheat, deli meat, frozen peas and corn, broccoli, and other veggies.  Since he’s teething, I think the frozen peas feel really good when he crunches them.  He also loves when I give him potato pancakes from IKEA grocery.  He’s getting better and better at using a spoon.  But we still have a little ways to go with that; he frequently holds the spoon vertically when it’s going into his mouth.  We have a hunch our little one will be a lefty.  He always uses his left hand to hold the spoon and other items as well.

We’ve had a great spring so far, and we are looking forward to summer time.  Little Michael will be strolling down the jet way for another visit to Texas in just a few short weeks.  He is ready to fly!