12 Weeks

Long time readers (and I’m sure there’s a lot of you ;-)) might be wondering if BabyD’s still around and growing.  Without an update in a couple months, when the boy isn’t quite 3 months old, it would only make sense to question his proper development!!  Let me calm your fears now – he is here and he is most definitely growing!!

For the first year of Chloe’s life, we had a monthly monkey picture.  So far with Devon, we have an “every 5 weeks or so” lion picture.  Here are his first 2:

5.5 Weeks

10.5 weeks

I can’t believe how big he’s getting already!!  In this picture he’s wearing (and barely fitting into) jammies his sister was wearing at 4 months.  He was 10 weeks at his 2-month check-up and weighed in at 14lb, 4oz and is 23 inches long.  He was about 88th percentile for weight, 50th for height and a mere 95th percentile for head size (a pinhead compared to his sister :-))

I started back to work part-time last week and Devon seems to be slowly adjusting to spending his mornings at MissK’s.  After my days off for Christmas next week, I’ll be going back to my full 30 hours a week and Devon will be spending his days at MissK’s – much to the delight of his sister.    She already loves to “take care of” Devon and MissK’s son, who is a month older than Devon, and can’t stop talking about having him there all day.  Hopefully the reality is as great as she thinks it will be!!

My kiddos are in the middle of this group of cuties. These are the friends they spend their days with.

Devon is only eating once a night, which is much better than his sister was doing at this age, although he’s been waking up more frequently as of late.  I know we’ll get there and figure it out though.  He spends some time in his Bumbo and has tried out his exersaucer.  I’m very excited about this stage of his babyhood and am trying to just soak it all in, because I know how quickly it will all pass this time around!!

Easy Peanut Butter Cookies

aka – Star of Bethlehem Cookies

Ingredients:

• 14 oz. Sweetened Condensed Milk
• 3/4 cup Peanut Butter
• 2 cups Bisquick
• 1 tsp Vanilla
• Granulated Sugar
• Chocolate Stars (~48)

Directions:

• Mix together the sweetened condensed milk and peanut butter.
• Add Bisquick and vanilla.
• Form into balls and roll in sugar.
• Baked at 375 degrees for 6-8 minutes.  (They won’t flatten out at all, so don’t worry!!)
• Immediately after removing from the oven,  press a chocolate star into the middle of each cookie.
• Let cool and enjoy!! 

Growing up, I made these cookies with my mom at Christmas almost every year.  When Aaron and I made Christmas treats together for the first time, we realized he grew up with them as well, just with a different name.  This year, Chloe helped me make them for the first time in our coordinating aprons.

These are a good cookie to make with kids, because even though the dough balls were filled with fingerprints and holes after Chloe rolled them in sugar, they all disappeared when the chocolate star was pressed down.

Chloe Mae did a great job – and was very excited to enjoy the fruits of her labor after dinner 🙂

Homemade Presents

Last year, I received a sewing machine for Christmas.  I was excited, but intimidated at the same time.  I wasn’t brave enough to try it out until August, shortly before BabyD’s arrival.  Then I made 2 Boppy covers – but I wasn’t convinced of my skills yet, because I just made it up as I went along.  There was no pattern and I expected (and had) imperfections in the completed project.

With Christmas approaching this year, I decided to be brave and make aprons for Chloe and her friend at MissK’s.  Then I realized I better make her one for home as well if I was making them.  And I couldn’t make aprons for the girls without making one for MissK.  I was hoping I would have enough fabric to make one for myself as well (turns out, I did :-))  I bought all the supplies, then they sat around the house for a few weeks while I gathered my courage.  This week, I took the plunge and in a surprisingly short amount of time, got all the aprons done.  (Thanks to DaddyMort for doing all the ironing!!)  I decided they should be early Christmas presents, so we could use them for our holiday baking.

For the adults, I used this tutorial.  And to add a little fun, I followed these directions to make a decorative flower.  I pretty much followed the directions – the only change was adding a safety pin to the flower so it’s removable for washing.  Here’s the finished product.

For the girls, I used this tutorial as a guide.  I shortened up the length a little, since I was making these for toddlers, not older kids.  I skipped the pocket and used ribbon for the straps instead of fabric.  The neck straps don’t seem to stay in place with the D-rings, although using the ribbon may be the reason the D-rings don’t really work.  I’m going  try tying the ribbon through the rings or putting some velcro dots on the neck strap to hold it in place better.  So here’s what they look like:

Our 2nd Deep Freeze

Why does a family of four need two deep freezes? Because this is what two weeks worth of frozen breastmilk looks like. A couple months worth pretty much fills up a deep freeze. And a full deep freeze gives this mama peace of mind!

Christmas Crafts & Goodies

With 2 weeks until Christmas, we’ve been busy preparing around here.  DaddyMort’s a big fan of Christmas music, Christmas decorations, Christmas movies…pretty much anything Christmas and he’s definitely ready to pass that on to his kids.  This is the first year that Chloe has been really interactive and interested to what we’re doing.  Here’s a sampling of what we’ve been up to.

After decorating the tree upstairs, Chloe Mae and DaddyMort put this tree up in her playroom.  She thought it was pretty darn fun and even got a stool out so she could hang more ornaments on the tree.

Then she got to play with her Little People Nativity Set.  It’s a hand-me-down toy that someone gave us after Christmas last year and it’s a BIG hit!!  Although we need to work on the specifics of the story a bit, because she put baby Jesus on top of the manger, where the angel is supposed to be…

On Friday, we decided to take advantage of my last day at home and try our hand at making these ornaments.  Chloe loved every step of the process – mixing the dough, rolling it out and cutting out shapes.

By far though, her favorite was decorating them.

Aren’t they gorgeous??

After perfecting her skills making ornaments, she was ready to make sugar cookies to decorate during our Cookie Exchange.  This was the first year we were going to have little ones helping us decorate, so I pulled out all the fixin’s – 7 colors of frosting, 4 kinds of sprinkles, M&M’s, mini chocolate chips, peppermint chips and 8 different shapes of cookies.

Most importantly, to Chloe at least, was the classic ‘Christmas Purple’ frosting.

She and her friends were decorating machines.  Only a few knives and spoons were licked and about half the M&M’s actually made it on cookies and not into little mouths.

This is a sampling of Chloe’s cookies.  We’ll be available for catering soon 🙂

With 2 weeks left until Christmas, we still have presents to buy and wrap, more cookies to make and the Christmas Program at church, where Chloe will be performing Joy to the World and Away in a Manger.  Oh, and a few more Christmas movies if DaddyMort has anything to say about it!!