7 months old

Likes: Any kind of food you give her, but particularly anything you'll let her feed herself; playing with any toy, but particularly one that belongs to Hayden; smiling, laughing, trying to jump out of your arms.

Dislikes: Any time mommy walks out of her line of sight; when you don't feed her fast enough.

She can crawl, very quickly I might add. She can eat, and is making the chewing motion so her baby food is a little less pureed and a little more chunky. She? Is the opposite of chunky. Still wee and petite. And fast.

Family time!

We took a weekend trip to Virginia to see Jay's family, and boy were they in for a treat. Lila Bean of course was new to them, and Hayden was only two the last time they saw him. We also brought our other new addition, Onyx, who loves new people (and chewing).

We got started on our drive WAY later than we expected, and that made for a very long drive. We arrived in Virginia around 1am, and let the kids give some quick hugs to their poppy. Shortly after, we proceeded to have the shortest and worst night's sleep ever, until we figured out to move Lila to another room. She is so loud when she sleeps!

We were supposed to go up for Jay's high school reunion, but that kind of flopped so instead we spent the whole weekend hanging out with family. Our nephew was at Poppy's for the weekend, so he and Hayden were excited to have a play buddy! They got in the pool just as soon as we would let them, and spent most of the day in it. Hayden loves the water, just not the ocean.

More family came over for a cook out and Lila didn't mind letting everyone hold her. She needed some momma time here and there, but overall did really well. Hayden had a blast with all his cousins/2nd cousins/family that we don't know how to classify. Even the dogs had fun, but they had to be kept separate from Jay's dad's dog, who isn't really used to new dogs.

Saturday night...we were all in bed by 8! Hayden fell asleep on me in his pajamas so I laid him in the floor with Shawny for his "sleepover". We wore him out all day, so he got some pretty good rest. Lila got some sleep as well, which meant Ifinally got some rest!

On Sunday we hung out and took a quick trip up the road to get oysters for my dad. We packed it up and headed home, another long 7 hour trip ahead of us. This seemed to go by a little faster, but we did have to stop a few times for the babies and the dogs. I hate it had to be such a short trip, but we're glad everyone got to meet Lila and see how much Hayden has grown!

Growing up too fast

So Lila is crawling. She went from rolling over and scooting, to sitting up and now to crawling in the blink of an eye. What's the rush, little lady?? As a result, they may be moving her to the "big baby" room at daycare. She's one of the younger kids in her "little baby" room, but she's more mobile than most of her classmates and they like to keep them together developmentally at this age, and she's an overachiever. I love all the teachers so I'm not worried about her having wonderful caregivers. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't sad that she was moving along so quickly. Jury's still out on a third baby (way down the road!) so this might be my last infant and it's just going too fast for my liking. She's so determined, and focused...wonder where she gets that from?

A shower for Katie & Turner

When our friend Katie found out she was pregnant, we were all excited about baby Turner! For her shower, we decided to do a literary theme since she's such a reader. We started with a "Once Upon a Time..." invitation and asked guests to bring a book to start Turner's library. We had it at the Mill at Bethania and everyone loved it!

Katie's favorite, lemon pound with buttercream icing. It was an amazing cake! The book pages you see underneath it are a book page runner created by Jordan.

Book flowers among the hydrangeas made for a simple but elegant decor!

Our menu was literary themed as well! On the other side we had "(Not) Green Eggs and (Turkey) Ham", "Curious George Juice", "The Very Hungry Caterpillar Fruit Salad" and "If you Give a Mouse a Cookie". We had tons of food and all of it was fabulous.

Jordan also made this awesome "floating" book garland, which was perfect!

What a perfect way to welcome baby Turner! After food there were presents and stories, cake and punch, fun with friends. I love a baby shower :-)

Crock Pot Baked Potato Soup

I always love when I find something yummy looking on Pinterest and have everything I need for it in my house! This was the case a few weeks ago when I stumbled upon a potato soup recipe that seemed easy enough. I love potato soup, but have never found a recipe that I loved. Until now!

I cut the original recipe WAY down (it called for a 5lb bag of potatoes! Who can eat all that soup??) and we really liked it. I can't wait to make it when it's COLD outside.

You will need:



■5 lbs russet potatoes, diced, NOT peeled

■5 tablespoons TS garlic garlic

■1 large yellow onion, chopped

■64 ounces chicken broth or stock

■16 ounces cream cheese

■bacon, sour cream, chives or shredded cheese for garnish

....

I probably used maybe 2 lbs of potatoes, and 16oz of chicken broth. I cut the garlic down to 2 T and I have no idea what TS Garlic garlic is, so I used regular minced garlic. I also cut the cream cheese way down to about 4 oz.

Potatoes, garlic, onion, chicken stock go into the crock pot for 6 hours on low. Once the potatoes are good and soft, add the cream cheese to the crock pot and stir/mash. The recipe said to process it, but I found that everything was soft enough to do by hand, and it made a perfect soup. I poured it into bowls, adding bacon, cheese, sour cream and chives and we loved it!

Crock Pot oatmeal

It's totally okay (and completely likely) that I am the only person ever to be excited about this recipe. But I've tried it a few times and just finally got it perfect. I love my crockpot, I love real breakfast, I love cooking ahead. This recipe combines all that and gives me a week's worth of breakfast that actually fills me up and doesn't leave me wishing I had stopped at Bojangles.

This is a Weight Watchers recipe, packed full of protein and fiber but low in calories and fat, so I feel good about it. And I'm a weirdo that loves the taste of oatmeal, even without all the bells and whistles.

There are two things I cannot stress enough: all crock pots cook differently, and use a crock pot liner unless you want to be scrubbing it for days on end.

Start by placing a liner in your crock pot and then spray it with nonstick cooking spray. Do not skip any of this step.

Mix your dry ingredients:

1 cup steel cut oats
2 T brown sugar
1 T ground flax seed
1/4 t salt
Season! (I use anything you find in apple/pumpkin pie...cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, allspice)

Once you've mixed those, add 1 1/2 c water, 1 1/2 milk. Stir and stir. Pour all of that into your crock pot. Next add 2 medium apples, cored and chopped (I don't peel and I use Granny Smith). Stir just a bit.  Add 2 T of butter, chopped into 5-6 pieces. Cook on low.

I've tried this a few times with mixed results. I might suggest you do it on a Saturday or Sunday, when you can check it after 4 hours and see how much longer you want it to cook. Last night I let it cook on low for 5 hours (Yes, I set my alarm for 2 am for OATMEAL when I have a child that sleeps through the night). Then I set it to warm until I went downstairs at 6:30am and it was PERFECT. But I like my oatmeal without any trace of runniness. Seriously, runny oatmeal ruins my life. Steel cut oats have a way different texture than quick cooking or old fashioned oats, but I love them in this recipe. I was able to portion out my breakfast for the week, and eat it on the run because it was more solid than liquid. Win all around!

When I heat up the cold portions, I usually add just a teaspoon or so of milk to keep it from drying out. YUM.