Grocery Store Adventure (17 months, 3 days old)

Graham and I had a fun and busy morning.  We were scheduled to meet some of our favorite mommy and baby friends for breakfast.  We ended up rushing out the door and still being a half an hour late because Graham decided to sleep in for an extra hour because he woke up in the middle of the night with his little foot stuck in between his crib rails.  Luckily there was no lasting damage to his foot and we ended up making it to breakfast in time to relax and help celebrate a friend’s birthday. 
After breakfast we went for a long walk along the beach before heading home for Graham’s nap. 
When he woke up, we had the afternoon free, so we set out on a grocery store adventure. 
Graham has officially decided that he won’t eat vegetables unless they are pureed and served in a squeezie container:

We were on a mission to get all the ‘squeezie’ varieties available in Santa Barbara that contained a green vegetable.  We ended up going to three stores to get pear and pea combos that included spinach, green beans, and broccoli, respectively, but the real treats were the adventures that followed us to each store. 
Stop 1 – Ralphs.  Graham got to ride in the ‘toy car’ shopping cart for the first time:

Stop 2 – Gelson’s.  We ran into Alethea at the store, so I let Graham play with Alethea while I shopped.  He ran, at full speed, all around the store and attracted a lot of positive attention and comments, due to his extreme cuteness, I'm sure ;)  He ended up winning over the staff and got a special present:

Stop 3 – Vons.  Just a normal picture to go along with this adventure, but we ended up ordering some meat for dinner and the butcher prepared it right in front of us.  Graham was absolutely fascinated as he watched the man slice the chicken breasts and marinade the meat:

When we got home, Graham couldn’t stop playing with his new balloon. 
He also gave us two noteworthy tidbits to report. 

• Graham ate full size strawberries (without needing them cut into smaller bites) for the first time!
• Graham has learned how to say “love you” and says it whenever one of us is leaving :)  <3