Ball!

Ben has decided that he is really interested in balls (yeah, yeah, save the jokes, I still have those childish thoughts too!)  He loves to point to a page in one of his books that has pictures of them and he says "ball" when he sees one.  We went swimming last Wednesday night and these sisters were playing with a beach ball and he wanted in.  They were, of course, oblivious and I didn't except them to share but I realized that he should have a ball of his own in addition to the baby sized ones he already has.  A few days ago Ben and I had a lovely evening trip to Walmart, if you can ever refer to a trip to Walmart as lovely, and I was looking at the clearance swimming aisle which has been banished to the back of the store in favor of back to school merchandise and he suddenly said "ball! ball!".  To my right was one of those huge cages of cheap rubber balls.  I couldn't say no to a $2.00 ball and picked a fun yellow one for him.  We could barely finish the shopping because he kept trying to climb in the back of the cart to get it. 

I let him hold it on the way home even though that probably violates some car seat rule because everything violates a car seat rule.  He was squealing and talking the whole time.  It was nighttime snack time when we got home but he would barely take a bite of yogurt because he wanted to play with that ball. 

 

This ball is his new beloved and I love it too.  It is entertaining, light enough to not damage anything in the house or hurt anyone and if anything happens to it we can easily get another one.  It's so cute seeing the little guy starting to take interest in certain things like cars and tractors and balls and kittens!

And also he has taken an interest in breaking into my car...

I made my first zucchini based baked good (and probably not my last based on the quantity of zucchini we have) of the season and actually of my life besides some bread I tried to make two years ago but it ended up being like a brick.  I made this cake I saw on Pinterest. 

http://www.cookingclassy.com/2013/06/zucchini-cake-with-cream-cheese-frosting/

I took a picture of my cake but food pictures never look that good.  No one needs to see a white frosted cake in a standard baking pan.  I usually am intimidated by recipes like this because it has several weird ingredients (Applesauce?  Greek yogurt?) but I was tempted by that frosting so I went for it.  It is so good and having success with this cake makes me feel like I could hold my own among the church ladies of my youth.  Actually, I think I could stand out among them!  As long as they cut the perfectly partitioned pieces of cake...I am not too good at dividing up a pan!