23 & 24 weeks

I realized that I didn't post a picture last week. We were out of town and it slipped my mind, so you get 2 this week!

Anna is occasionally starting to suck her thumb to soothe herself. Yea!! If only it could be encouraged more! She's rolling both ways consistently and enjoys playing on her play mat for a little while at a time. She does still enjoy being in the Moby wrap and will sleep quite well there! I don't look forward to the day when she doesn't like it anymore!

What's been going on with us...well, trying to adjust to Emily not always taking naps. When she doesn't, bedtime is great, but the afternoon stinks. When she does, bedtime is horrible! I'll take any suggestions for making both afternoon and bedtime good! With a birthday coming up, I hope this transition doesn't take long. But, I sure will miss my afternoons of me-time!

22 weeks & a PSA

I know there are a couple of you who anxiously await a new picture every week. I take them. I do. I just forget to get them on the blog! Sorry about that.

Anyway, last Friday, I took Anna for a weight check. She's at 13 pounds now! She gained 2 pounds in a month; 3 in three months. Yea!! Her spitting up has decreased dramatically and is even better now that I've started giving her gas drops. (Could be that she's outgrowing it a bit too.)


This picture reminds me a bit of Emily. She LOVED chewing on the flag!


So, on to the PSA. One of my biggest pet peeves is car seats. I want parents to use them correctly so their kids are safe. Not too long ago, there was an article in the Abilene Reporter News that said that Safety City did car seat inspections. I was thrilled because I didn't think there was anywhere in town that did. However, I put off going to do it. Finally, I looked on their calendar and saw that they'd had an inspection day on May 9, but didn't see any others scheduled. So, I just emailed them. Jennifer was so nice and we scheduled for her to look at my car seats this morning.

She said mine looked great...one of the best she'd seen (whew!). The only things she could tell me were to take down the mirror we have up to see Anna (can't see her very well anyway), check on the weight limits of the LATCH in my car (some only go up to 40 pounds, so we'd have to start using the seat belt at that point, if that's the case), and that, in Texas, car seats should be replaced every 5 years, due to the extreme heat.

So, if you've never had your car seat installation inspected, go do it! It just takes about 10 minutes and they are so helpful!

5 months

I didn't realize how much hair Emily had at 5 months, compared to Anna, but, wow! It must be an age thing that they're both leaning in the Bumbo. Love it!

Chewy Granola Bars

After I stopped eating dairy and peanuts, I discovered that my snack choices were limited. I'd enjoyed graham crackers and peanut butter. I'd enjoyed strawberry Nutrigrain bars. Both of those were out. So, I turned to granola bars only to find that the only granola bars at HEB that didn't have dairy or peanuts were the Nature Valley crunchy granola bars. Not one of my favorites, but they have worked in place of no other options.

So, I searched the internet for chewy granola bars and found this recipe on Smitten Kitchen, an adaptation of this recipe from King Arthur Flour. I've known about King Arthur Flours for many years so I figured it must be pretty good.

This recipe is very flexible...you can add whatever dried fruits and nuts and just about anything else you want. Smitten Kitchen even says you could add puffed rice cereal or peanut butter. Never thought about puffed rice in a granola bar, but why not? I forgot to put the water in and it seemed just fine without it.

After tasting them tonight, I'd just make one change...about half the amount of dried fruit! I felt like I was eating a bowl of raisin bran with lots of raisins. I do like the sweetness of these and will definitely make them again. But, it's a recipe that will change until I find just the right mix of ingredients.

Here's the recipe, as I made it this time. But, as I said, I'll change it up next time I make it.

1 2/3 cups quick rolled oats

3/4 C granulated sugar

1/3 cup quick oats, processed till finely ground in a food processor or blender

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, optional

2 to 3 cups dried fruits and nuts (10-15 ounces--I used 1/4 C oat bran + 1 1/2 C raisins + 1/2 C Craisins)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup + 2 T melted butter or vegetable oil

2 T honey

4 T corn syrup

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a 9"x13" pan with parchment, allowing it to go up and over two of the sides, creating a sling. Lightly grease the parchment and exposed pan.

1) Stir together all the dry ingredients, including the fruit and nuts.

2) In a separate bowl, whisk together the vanilla, melted butter or oil, syrup or honey, and water.

3) Toss the wet ingredients with the dry until the mixture is evenly crumbly.

4) Spread in the prepared pan, shaking the pan to evenly cover the bottom and patting down gently

5) Bake the bars for 25 to 30 minutes, until they're golden brown around the edges.

6) Remove them from the oven, loosen the edges, and cool for 5 minutes.

7) Use a knife (or bench knife) to cut the bars while they're still warm in the pan. Carefully remove warm bars from the pan, and cool on a rack. Alternatively, remove from the pan before cutting into bars; it helps to cut in half first, then loosen the bottom of each half with a turner/spatula before turning out onto a sheet of parchment to cut into bars. (At the suggestion of Smitten Kitchen, I let mine cool in the pan for 20 minutes, then pulled the sling out and let them cool completely before trying to cut them.)

8) Wrap bars individually to store; or place in a single layer on a plate, and cover with plastic; or store in layers with parchment in between. In humid weather, it's best to store bars in the refrigerator. They also freeze well.

21 weeks

Anna is starting to bring things to her mouth. She can find her pacifier and get it in and out of her mouth on her own. Sometimes a good thing, sometimes not! But, she's still sleeping and eating well. We'll go back this week for a weight check. Hopefully, she's gaining weight like she's "supposed to."

20 weeks

As I mentioned last week, I've been having to change our feeding routine with Anna. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be going well. She cries at nursing times (and only then!) a lot and I just can't seem to figure out why. Hopefully she's gaining weight, but the crying makes me sometimes wonder if nursing is still worth it. (Yes, I know it is, if I can.) Anyway, would you mind praying about that for me. I know I'm starting to stress about it.

In happier news, Anna rolled from her back to her tummy a couple times this week. A big milestone for her!

Today was a good Mother's Day...all four of us napped at the same time! How was yours?

19 weeks

I've already written much about this week, so I'll just let the picture speak for itself.

Anna's four month check up

Today was Anna's 4 month checkup. She's 11.1 lb and 25" with a 15" head circumference. When the doctor starts with, "As many children as there are in the world, there are that many growth curves", you know something's not quite right. While Anna has grown 2.5" in the last 2 months, she's only gained 1 lb. According to the charts I'm looking at (the same ones I used for Emily), Anna has gone from 25th percentile in weight to 5th, 50th percentile in height to 75th, and 10th percentile in head circumference to not even on the charts on the low end.

Obviously, the doctor is a little concerned, but he did say that very few lasting problems come from slight undernourishment in early months. However, he does want me to really push her to nurse more (longer at a time) or we will have to start supplementing formula. We'll go back in one month for a weight check and in two months for her regular six month checkup.

Let's just hope she's just being laid back and that I can start pushing her to nurse more!

Braids

Before

After

Wordless Wednesday--Easter

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Just a few of the almost 900 pictures my sister took this weekend. She whittled it down to the best 50 for us!

18 weeks & Easter

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Yesterday, we headed to my granddad's place for an Easter Egg Hunt. As usual, the hunt was over in about 5 minutes. :-) Emily enjoyed looking for eggs and found quite a few. Don't tell her, but some of the candy in her basket today came from yesterday's hunt. :-)

This morning was a good service at church, followed by lunch at Rosa's and home to open Easter baskets and naps. Following naps, we had an egg hunt here at the house, just Emily...no other kids! She loved it, but, just like last year, wanted to stop and open each egg as she found it. Sure makes the hunt longer!

Anna is so close to rolling from her back to her tummy, but still isn't quite there yet. And, while she's figured out how to take her pacifier out of her mouth, she can't always get it back in and still hasn't figured out that her thumbs are good for sucking on. :-( Hopefully, she'll figure that out soon!

We'll go to the doctor this week for her 4 month check up and I'll update stats next week.

17 weeks/4 months

Here we are at Tuesday again...just now posting Anna's week picture. And, I'll be honest, I didn't even take it until today. But, I guess the important thing is that I'm taking them regularly. Four months means time for another doctor visit (Friday) and the beginning of our treks to Sears for pictures (Thursday). I hope we can get some good ones. The photographer I loved there is no longer there. Bummer!

We got out the Johnny Jump-up this week for Anna to try out. She, obviously, doesn't know what to do so she just hangs out and sucks on the side of it. Hopefully, she'll enjoy it. I also need to get out the Exersaucer, but just haven't had time yet. I think it will get lots of use!


Saturday was the 8AFOFEEH&HDP (8th Annual Families of Faith Easter Egg Hunt & Hot Dog Party, in case you didn't know!). We've been the last couple years and Emily really enjoys it. Anna had a great time, just hanging out and Emily loved finding the eggs. We've got another Easter Egg Hunt at Granddaddy's place this weekend and I'm sure Emily will have a blast there too.

I forgot to take pictures along the way with my Once a Month Cooking adventure last Saturday, but it went well. We now have about 20 meals plus 3 quarts of spaghetti sauce in the freezer. All I have to think about now is side dishes! Yea!

Once a Month Cooking

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A few years ago, I read about freezer cooking or once-a-month-cooking. I even gave it a try with so-so results. The recipes I tried called for the chicken to be cooked before freezing and they just never tasted great when they came out of the freezer. And they were only chicken recipes.

Then, I found Life as Mom. She started talking about freezer cooking and the meals she was making just looked so good. They were normal recipes! So, I started thinking about it some more. A year ago for my birthday, Phillip gave me Once a Month Cooking by Mimi Wilson and Mary Beth Lagerborg. I even planned a freezer cooking day of my own last year, but just couldn't pull it off because I didn't have anyone to watch Emily. So I abandoned the idea.

Until now.

A couple weeks ago, I decided I was going to jump in and do it. I picked this Saturday and picked out one of the two week cycles in my cookbook (only rejecting one recipe due to too much dairy). Each meal makes 4+ servings (some up to 10 or so!) so these 13 meals will make about 20 meals for us...easily enough to last 3-4 weeks.

I'm so excited. I spent last Wednesday doing much of the planning and grocery list making and container list making and supplies list making because I just couldn't wait. Today was the big shopping day and it didn't take as long as I thought it would. I've never picked out meat before (other than chicken breasts, frozen fish and ground beef) so that part was a bit of an adventure, but I made it. I'd read somewhere that you can ask the meat department to cut up ham for you, so I had them slice it for me. Now all I have to do with that is dice it.

Are you curious yet as to what I'm making? Well, here's the list:

Spaghetti Sauce (next time, I'll probably use my own recipe, but I wanted to follow their recipes as close as I could this time)
Baked Fish (tilapia) in Spaghetti Sauce
Baked Jambalaya
Stuffed Pork Chops
Twelve-Boy Curry
Cranberry Chicken
Sweet Soy Marinated Chicken
Karen's Barbecued Chicken
Chili Hamburgers
Beef Goulash
Caraway Pot Roast
Taco Soup
Marinated Flank Steak
Fiesta Shrimp Dinner (rejected because of too much cheese...no easy way to make it dairy free)

The cookbook even offers some suggestions for what to serve with the dishes, though many of them I probably won't use. However, I'm planning to try some new side dishes or at least ones I haven't made in a while because I won't be making a main dish every night.

So, that's where I am right now. Super excited about trying this and hoping that they all taste good! I'll try to take some pictures along the way (if I can remember) and post about how the day went. I'll be taking a break in the middle to go to an Easter egg hunt so I hope I don't lose my momentum too much. As excited as I am, I don't think I will!

16 weeks

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Examining a seed pod from a live oak with Mrs. Nancy

Reading Good Night Moon with Mrs. Nancy (an elementary librarian!)

This weekend was the family retreat at church. Growing up, our family never went so I didn't really know anything about it. We decided that we wanted to try going this time. It's held at the HEB Foundation camps near Leakey. We had a good weekend and enjoyed getting to know some people better, but I think we'll wait until the girls are older to go again. The area is not especially toddler-friendly and we didn't really know enough people to just let Emily go play. We were all exhausted last night after chasing Emily around and dealing with the heat all day. Emily even asked to go to bed! She fell asleep in about 5 minutes! She and Anna both slept all night (for the first time in a few weeks). Yea! We made it home today, unloaded and are resting up for the busy week ahead.

15 weeks

Argh! Sundays just keep slipping away from me. At least I got the pictures taken yesterday (a day late!). I couldn't decide between the two, so you get both today. No information to update you on. Just same old, same old.

Easter Egg Matching Game

The other day, I was reading my email from Faithful Provisions and saw a craft that I just couldn't ignore. Emily is really big on matching things right now, so I knew this would be right up her alley.

Linda at Little Family Fun shared how she made an Easter egg matching game using plastic Easter eggs, an egg carton and paint chips. I didn't have time to get paint chips, so I just printed off some circles with colors that matched my eggs. (I accidentally printed it on plain paper instead of photo paper so the colors bled a little, but I think it'll still work!) I can't wait to give it to Emily after the glue dries!

14 weeks & my first cold

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Thanks, Nicole, for the cute owl onesie!

This week, we headed back to the hospital for the first time since Anna was born. No, no one was sick. My mom had back surgery, so we were up there quite a bit. She's home now and doing well.

Over the weekend, my allergies started acting up and Emily's had a bit of a runny nose too. Now, Anna has a runny nose, so maybe it's not just allergies. I hope it is, but we'll just have to wait and see.

The other day, I put Anna in her play-thingy (what are these called!?) and came back to find her asleep like this. How cute!

13 weeks

I know the picture is a couple days late. Sundays are so hard!

3 Months

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Today, to celebrate Anna's 3 month birthday, we picked up the nursery furniture I won back in December. Let me say...I'm impressed. I knew it had a retail value of $1700, but I didn't really know what to expect. The three boxes it came in are huge (and heavy!). Thanks to Bryan (Phillip's brother-in-law) for the help getting it into the truck and into the house!

By the way, if you happen to know anyone who would be interested in buying it from us, please let us know! It includes a convertible crib and changing table and hutch. It's new in the box. We're asking $1500 or better offer.

This week has been a week of visitors. Tuesday, Phillip's parents, grandparents and aunt came to eat at Bogie's and my best friend was also passing through town. Then, Thursday, my aunt & uncle came to visit her uncle and eat at Bogie's. It's been a yummy week!

Anna has been learning to enjoy tummy time and roll from her tummy to her back. She's slept through the night a couple times and it's been wonderful for me!

That's about it. I think tomorrow's week post may be a wordless one because I already gave you the update today!

Planting

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For a while now, I've wanted to plant some vegetables or fruits.

I'd thought about strawberries because I remember picking them from my grandparents' farm in Tennessee, but then I remembered picking them at my parents' house here in Texas. Quite a different story. The quality and quantity was considerably less.

So, I thought about cucumbers. I love them and love making sweet pickles and I remember picking them when I was less than 5 years old at our house in Amarillo. After talking with my dad, I settled on cucumbers because they are so easy to grow. (The lady at Lowe's agreed!) So, today, Emily and I went to Lowe's to get a planter box, some potting soil (not a potty stool, as Emily heard me say!) and some seeds. Just before naptime, we planted seeds not only in the planter we bought, but in two more pots as well. For as cheap as the seeds were ($0.68!), what could it hurt? And, Emily has been super excited ever since we bought the seeds this morning! I sure hope these work!