Happy 8 Months Troy!

Wow, things have been very busy lately. I’m quite late with getting this post written, but I’m finally getting around to it!

Happy 8 Months Troy! I know I say it a lot, but it is amazing how quickly the time passes. A year ago at this time I was limping around Washington D.C., pregnant with you, thinking that although I was in pain it would be worth it all to have you. And now, here you are, already 8 months old!

You’ve gotten really good at eating your puffs . . . although last month you didn’t like the banana ones, you have finally come around to liking banana OK.  You’ve been eating more and more baby food, and so far you like it all. I’m thankful you aren’t a picky eater . . . at least not yet!

I love your laugh! Your sister and dad are great at making you laugh. I love seeing you and your sister play on the floor. One day Ella was playing “catch” with you by rolling the ball across the floor to you, and then running to get it, and rolling it back to where she’d been standing previously. Y’all were both having a blast and laughing hard! You are also very, very ticklish.

You LOVE to grab things, and your newest mission is to try to grab our Sonic cups. You also try to grab Ella’s cups at times. You must know there is something good inside those cups!

 

You learned to sit up on your own this month. You never did tripod sit – you just went straight from not sitting to sitting up. You are also getting close to crawling, but you are not crawling yet. You can turn a mean circle on the floor though, and you can make your way slowly around the room. You still love to jump in your jumperoo.

 

Your first tooth finally broke through . . . I think it had been bothering your for quite sometime. I really  hope all your teeth don’t bother you like that one little tooth did. I don’t like seeing you in pain!

We love you very much!

Big Sister is So Funny (a short video)

I am hating the fact that I have been so busy the past couple of weeks that I haven’t had time to do some real blogging. Hoping that things will slow down next week! But, I wanted to share this video (iPhone quality) of Ella and Troy. I think it is precious (granted, I might be just a *bit* biased).

Big Sister is So Funny from Lisa on Vimeo.

Favorite Photo in May

May has been an extremely busy month for us (in case you hadn’t figured that out from the great decrease in the number of posts this month!), so I didn’t get to take as many photos as I normally do. However, I really love this photo of Ella I took yesterday, so I thought I would share it as part of the “Click It Up a Notch” May photo challenge. She is looking so grown-up!

Wordless Wednesday

 

 

 

 

I Heart Faces: Yellow

 

Wordless Wednesday

Photo Challenges

Friend  @ The Paper Mama

 

Sleep @ Simplicity

This is far from technically perfect, but it is great to me. Ella RARELY falls asleep in the car!

Circles @ The Trendy Treehouse

Sweet Shot Tuesday @ My 3 Boybarians

Just a mom shot, but so much more than a mom shot. I know I still have a lot to learn about my external flash, but I’m thankful that I have it, and that I can get good indoor shots without blasting my subject with the pop-up flash! :)

Menu Planning Monday

We’ve got a few things going on this week, so only a few meals!

• Fried egg and bacon toasted sandwiches with breakfast potatoes or hashbrowns
• PW’s beef noodle salad bowl (except I’ll serve it with warm meat)
• Hamburgers with baked jalapeño cilantro french fries (I’ve never made these french fries, but they look SO yummy!)

 

(Warm, toasted roast beef sandwiches with caramelized onions, green peppers, and mozzarella cheese)

Homemade Baby Food: Peaches

(To read my introduction to homemade baby food, click here. To read Wholesome Baby Food’s information on peaches, click here.)

There are many different ways you can go about preparing the peaches. We chose to remove the pit and cut up slices of the peaches (with the skin removed) prior to cooking the peaches. My husband so sweetly volunteered to remove the pits and slice the peaches up for me.

I blanched the peach slices in boiling water for approximately 4 minutes.

After the peaches have been cooking for 4 minutes, remove the peaches and place them in a bowl of cold water.

Place the cooked peaches into a food processor or blender, and blend until you like the consistency (generally thinner for younger babies and thicker for older babies). You can add the cooking water (or breastmilk or formula) to thin out the peaches. You can also add cereal to thicken the peaches. The peaches I cooked were quite liquidy (is that a word?), so I added cereal to thicken up the mixture.

Distribute the peaches into the ice cube trays, cover, and place in the freezer. Once they are frozen, remove from the ice cube trays and store them in the freezer.

Happy Mother’s Day

Just a short note to wish moms a happy mother’s day! I’m so thankful for my own mom – I love her so much! I’m also thankful for the other moms out there that have impacted my life in many ways . . .  including encouraging me in my journey in motherhood!

 

Happy Mother’s Day!

2011 Project 365: Week 18

We’ve been crazy busy this week, plus my allergies have really gotten me down (went to the doctor today and got something else for them, so hopefully I’ll be feeling normal again soon), so I didn’t remember to take a photo every day. However, I made a collage this week in Lightroom (using these templates) of photos from the past week.

Growing Closer

I’m truly saddened and heart broken when I think about the state of many marriages in today’s society. Marriage is something that is so precious and special, yet it seems as though many people don’t treat it that way. I doubt many people enter into marriage with the intent of it only being a temporary thing, but they end up treating it that way through their actions. Marriage is hard work (like many worthwhile things in our lives), and I think it can be easy to forget that it requires work.

I am so thankful that my husband and I are growing closer as we continue in our marriage, rather than growing apart as is the case in many marriages today. I’m thankful for a husband who is committed to our marriage, and demonstrates a selfless attitude toward me. We aren’t perfect by any stretch, but I know we are moving in the right direction as we do grow closer, especially through keeping God as the center of our marriage and home. I feel as though our marriage has only gotten stronger as we have become parents, and as we face new challenges together  that come with parenting. I hope that we can teach our children the importance of marriage, and to seek out a spouse who also views marriage as sacred.

And Jesus said in Mark 10:6-9: “But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh;so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Why I Blog: Part 1

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I’m going to start sharing the reasons behind my blogging. All in all, I doubt there will be anything earth-shattering in most of these posts, because if you read my blog, you see what I blog about, and probably have at least a decent idea about why I blog. However, I’m writing these posts not only to share with you, but also to focus myself, because I want to create a blog that is not only worth your time to read, but also worth my time to write.

I blog to create a family journal.

When I started this blog, I really had no intention of writing any posts dedicated to journaling my children’s lives. I wanted it to be more about my personal journey and experiences: bettering myself. Although I planned to discuss aspects of motherhood on the blog (after all, I’m striving to do the best I can as a mother), I didn’t set out to make the blog a place to journal things about my kids’ lives.  In fact, I started this blog when Ella was about eight months old, and I didn’t write my first monthly milestone post about her until she was 17 months old.

However, I am SO thankful that I decided to chronicle at least a few things about my kids’ lives on the blog. We live a very crazy busy life, and I’m glad that I am able to take a least a few minutes to write about my children so that I will always have these stories and posts to look back on. I really wish that I had started regularly writing about Ella when she was born rather than after she was a year old. I couldn’t imagine my blog without journaling about my children’s lives now.

I think a large part of the reason I didn’t plan to journal about my children’s lives is because I didn’t want to be just another mom blog. Don’t get me wrong, there are many mom blogs I love, but that wasn’t the goal or purpose for my blog. Sure, my blog is “just another mom blog” in many ways, but I want it to be more than that (more on that in future posts!).

Wordless Wednesday

Menu Planning Monday

• Biscuits, gravy, sausage, and eggs (I realize this has been on the menu a couple of times lately, but we haven’t actually gotten around to eating it! I’m finally making it tonight.)
• Rachael Ray’s grilled chicken caesar mac (This is a new recipe I’m trying this week.)
• Ground beef/turkey rice casserole with a green veggie.
• Grilled pork chops with au gratin potatoes and a green veggie.
• Toasted roast beef sandwiches topped with cheese (probably pepper jack) and caramelized onions and green peppers with mashed potatoes and a green veggie.

I Heart Faces: Soft and Sweet