Blair is 6 months

Blair,  

You are now 6 months and 3 days old. You has a doctors appointment on Friday. You weigh 14 lbs and 5 oz. and are 26 inches old. You are growing on your own little curve and we are always told you are just a little peanut. 

You eat every 3 hours during the day and every  5-6 hours at night. You usually go down for the night around 730 and are up t 3 or so to eat then we have to wake you at 630 to get ready to go to grandmas.  You still nurse and take bottles great!

You are a very happy baby!  You army crawl all over and crawl sometimes but you are still working on your coordination. 

You have been eating solids for a few weeks. So far you have had sweet potatoes, peas, apples, bananas, and carrots. You do so good sitting in your high chair and eating. 

You recognize people you see often and give the biggest smiles. You are very vocal too! 

Your favorite toys Are your o ball and you exersaucer. You love to play in it and job and squeal.

You are going to be moving up to size 2 diapers as soon as the size 1s we have are gone. You wear 0-3 and 3-6 months clothes. Soon we will put the smaller size away though because they are starting to get to small. 

You bring so much happiness to our lives. We love you more than you will ever know!

Try It Out Tuesday: Shrimp Salad

Edit:  This was scheduled to go live on Tuesday and it didn't!  UGH!!!!  So here's Try It Out Tuesday on Thursday :(

A few weeks ago a co-worker was talking about a recipe she saw on Food Network: Shrimp Salad.  She started telling about it and I decided we could try it for dinner.  I went online to find the recipe and then of course made my own modifications :)


Ingredients:
1 pound cooked shrimp, peeled and de-veined
3 hard-boiled eggs, finely chopped
3 celery stalks, minced
1/2 cup mayonnaise
Dash onion salt
Salt and pepper
Seasoning salt
Celery salt
8 slices your choice bread, toasted
Lettuce and tomato slices, optional


Directions
Place shrimp in a food processor and pulse until finely minced. Transfer shrimp to a bowl and add eggs, celery, and mayonnaise; mix well. Add seasonings, to taste, and stir to combine. Spread additional mayonnaise on both sides of bread. Heap shrimp salad onto bread and then cut sandwiches in half. Serve with lettuce and tomato, if desired.
Source

It was VERY easy to make, and it made the list of make it again at our house.  My changes- I used 2 eggs, and minced fresh onion.   I just used a bag of store bought frozen shrimp, thawed them and rough chopped it.  The chunks of shrimp were good in my opinion. Jeff thought it was good but he said next time he'd try it with some cheese.

I served these sandwiches on crispy bread, but didn't toast it just warmed it a little bit.

Forgive the quality- it was a quick snapshot before I put away leftovers :)

Weekly Catch-up

Can we just start calling Thursday's weekly catch-ups?  The past few weeks, Thursday's have been my day to recap the week so far, so it may become a trend around here...unless I can get my booty in gear and start doing Midweek Random's with Megan.

This week has been SO BUSY!  Between Jeff working a lot of hours, and my busy season in full swing, I wonder how we function.  Although, I will say I was worried about us both being very busy and having a baby, it has all just worked it's way and things are no different than when we are working regular hours.  Blair has been great with changes and I am so glad!

Jeff has been working a lot of late nights, and I have just been swamped during the days, so we both come home exhausted, but somehow our exhaustion melts away when we are with Blair.  I will truly say I cannot imagine a night without my Blair time.  We all sit on the floor and play or watch Blair just move all over the place.  She can almost get her self to the sitting position, and is constantly on all 4's rocking.  We are sure crawling is in our very near future!  She's also working on some teeth and those have caused her some pain but she hasn't been horribly fussy with it.

"Our" garden (Shared with friends) is still doing really well.  We picked green beans again early this week and will have tomatoes ready soon.

This weekend Blair and I are heading to the Chicago area for a bridal shower and I am so excited to start the wedding festivities with Tim & Lindsay.  Jeff will be the best man, I am a bridesmaid, and Blair will be a guest- but she has the cutest dress to wear :)

52 Weeks of Blogging- Week 4

Week 4 with Becky

My Biggest Weakness .......

is Chocolate :)

No in reality, my biggest weakness is security in myself.  For as long as I can remember I was alway the girl who kind of hid in the back not wanting all of the attention on me.  IN high school things got better, and I didn’t mind if there was attention on me.  When I was in Junior High- I was fat- no joke.  I was the 5’ tall girl that weighed 180+lb..  I was very self conscious and didn’t like the way I looked or the clothes that I had to wear.  I wore clothes I hide myself and felt better doing that.

I don’t really know what clicked in high school, but I will say that started competitive powerlifting helped me.  When I was lifting, I wasn’t just another guy on the team,  I was a girl, and I was strong, and I was doing really well.   Powerlifting brought attention to me that I never thought I would have.  I guess when you finish in the top 5 in the nation 3 years in a row that will happen.  Local newspapers had articles about me, I had trophy’s hanging on the walls, and I was proud of myself.  For once in my life, I was very proud of all that I had accomplished.

Heading to college my insecurities came back- would I meet new friends, would I fit in, did I make the right college choice?  I quickly learned, I did make new friends, I did fit in, but I did not make the right college choice.  I made a move back home and figured my life out.

Being in college helped me to grow as a person and the growing I did was helpful in overcoming my insecurities.  I felt like I was finally secure in my body and knew who I really was as a person.

Things have continued to get better.  I will have my days that I am very insecure in myself, but I work through them.  I try to overcome my weaknesses and strive to be the best person I can be.

My wish is for Blair in this very judgmental world that she can be proud of herself and strong in her dreams.  It’s a tough tough world out there but I am going to do my best to raise a strong girl with an even stronger sense of self-worth! 

4th of July

To catch up from the last few days-

Blair got to celebrate her 1st 4th of July!  We started off celebrating with my family in Saybrook at the Star's and Stripes Celebration.  We took in the parade, had lunch with family, visited with a lot of my friends, and headed home with a very tired baby!

She wore these to avoid the loud noises :)

On the actual Holiday we went to Minonk and watched the parade with Tim & Lindsay.  That afternoon we also had a little cookout with them as well.  We went to fireworks in Pontiac that night, Blair, Lindsay and I took in the fireworks from the truck :)  Blair was asleep and then woke up to the big booms, but she never cried or made a sound.  She did seem startled a few times and looked at me, but overall she did a
great job!

Eating Sweet Potatoes at our little cookout!

Hanging out with Daddy before the parade

Try it Out Tuesday

This week I'm going to start a Try it Out Tuesday.

This Tuesday, my try it out was homemade granola bars.

I pinned this on pinterest: "No Bake Monster Cookie Granola Bars"

I didn't exactly do the same, but here's what I did.  I used her recipe for general direction and made it my own.  This is the receipe from the website

Ingredients

• 2 cups of rolled oats
• 1 cup of crisped rice cereal
• 2/3 cup of honey {of agave, or maple syrup...just something STICKY}
• 2/3 cup of peanut butter
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup of m&'s - I used a mix of m&ms and chocolate chips}

Instructions

• combine the oats, and the rice cereal
• add in the peanut butter, honey and vanilla
• mix until everything is thoroughly coated
• spoon into a square baking dish
• add the m&ms
• press firmly in to the pan
• let the bars rest for at least 30 minutes before cutting
• {cooling in the fridge also works well}

I did not use Honey.  I used Light Corn Syrup and a bit of maple syrup.  I also used the peanut butter, and use mini-chocolate chips.

When I added the peanut butter, I actually microwaved it until it was soft and was able to pour it over the dry ingredients- this may have increased my time before cutting, but I wanted to make sure the peanut butter was incorporated.  I also added a little extra vanilla, because I like the flavor.

When I put my mixture on the greased baking pan, I actually sprayed my hands with cooking spray so I could press the mixture down in the pan and have it not stick to my hands.

I do have to say, I eat a lot of granola bars and I won't be buying another box anytime soon.  I am going to guess I got approximately 15-18 bars out of one mix, which is MUCH cheaper than buying a box of bars at the store.

Next time, I am going to grab some white chocolate chips and dried cranberries and put them in without the peanut butter.  I will increase the amount of sticky (syrup) I put in to compensate for the lack of peanut butter. 

I would say the possibilities of what you could combine in with the basic ingredients are endless- crush up some oreos, put in m&m's, throw in some pecans, or really any kind of nut or dried fruit.  I can't wait to try more combinations!

Week 3: My Life in 5 years

5 years from now....I have to think about where I was 5 years ago and then get a sense of how much can change in just 5 short years ago.

5 years ago- 2008.

5 years from now- 2018.  That's hard to even type.  Ever since Blair was born, I have learned to enjoy the moment and not wish away time.  She is changing so much that I hate thinking about what it will be in another 5 months, let alone 5 years.

5 years from now I'd like to of course be more finiacially set.  Student loans have made me learn to budget so I can get them paid off sooner.

We'd (Jeff & I) like to have a house in the country- back to our roots.  We will have cows, chickens, and pigs and raise our kids like we were raised.  Ideally, I'd envision us living close to the family farm and helping when needed and raising our kids to know what hard work is and to appreciate the work others do for you.  We will have a big garden and each year can our produce just like we did growing up.

In 5 years, we'd like to have at least one more baby.  More than one would be great, but at least one more.

I'd like to find a career, not just a job.  I want to pour my heart and soul into something that I Love.  I have some ideas floating around, but those will be put out public later.

I'd will be able to say that I have proudly been married for 8 years.

I will dedicate time to family and focus on those that are most important to me.  Cleaning the house, folding the laundry can wait.

I will look back on all of the family time and know that I loved them as much as I could.

I will have talked to Blair about her grandpa Wayne, Grandpa Phil, and Grandma Bonnie, and she will know who they are, even though she never will have met them.

I will know that Jeff is my rock and my partner though everything.

I will have ran at least 1 5k- yes I say this now, but I"m giving myself 5 years to accomplish it- I'm not a runner at all.

I will have friends that will be friends for a lifetime and my children will know them as Auntie or Uncle.

Jeff & I will have a stronger marriage and continue to work at it each and every day.

I have so many others things that I'd like to see myself do in the next 5 years, but I could write them all day.  In 5 years I will say I have loved the last 5 and look forward to the next 5.

Linking up with From Mrs to Mama