5 Months Old

Our little munchkin met his 5 month mark yesterday. One more month and he will start to eat cereal and baby foods. He is such a happy good natured baby. He is so responsive now and flirts sometimes. He is constantly smiling or laughing and loves splashing the water during bath time. He is very intrigued with his older brothers and now will respond to them when they give him hugs and kisses. He plays with toys well and can spot me from clear across the room. He wakes up when we are out in public and loves to be carried around in his bjorn while we are shopping. Even if I wish he would stay in his seat. And of course is rolling over. He stays on his stomach for quite a while, I can see his little brain trying to figure out how to crawl. Oh boy 3 mobile children. I'm in for it :) We love him more and more each day and are so blessed to have him.

Rolie Polie

Grady has a new nick name and it's Rolie Polie. Some times when I'm cooking I put him on the floor right under my feet on a little rug that normally goes where I would stand if using the sink. I love it because I can see him and he is happy cause he can see me and the rug slides with him on it if I need him to move with just the nudge of my foot. Except yesterday someone started rolling off the rug. Yup that's right we now have accomplished the rolling over stage. He actually does better going from his back to his stomach, but can do both.

I was very impressed to watch him roll from his back to his stomach numerous times. I know it's a little late but for my kids it's a little early which makes me nervous to think he may move fastest of all my kids. Hopefully we can just enjoy the rolling stage for a while.

Great Summer Treat

Lemon Sheet Cake
Note: don’t have any butter milk don’t worry, take 1 cup of regular milk and add 1 Tbls vinegar let sit for a couple of minutes and you have buttermilk.

Cake

2 ½ cups cake flour (I used just reg. flour and it came out fine)
1 tsp Baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
¾ cup buttermilk, room temp.
3 Tbls grated zest from 3 lemons
¼ cup lemon juice from the same 3 lemons
1 tsp vanilla
1 ¾ cup granulated sugar
12 Tbls unsalted butter (1 ½ sticks) softened
3 large eggs plus 1 yolk, room temp

Glaze

3 cups confectioners’ sugar
3 Tbls lemon juice
2 Tbls buttermilk

For the cake: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour 13 x 9 inch pan. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in medium bowl. Combine buttermilk, lemon juice, and vanilla in liquid measuring cup.
With electric mixer on medium speed, beat granulated sugar and lemon zest until moist and fragrant, about 1 minute. Transfer ¼ cup sugar mixture to small bowl, cover and reserve. Add butter to remaining sugar mixture and beat until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in eggs and yolk, one at a time, until incorporated. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with 2 additions of buttermilk mixture, and mix until smooth, about 30 seconds.
Scrape batter into prepared pan and smooth top. Bake until cake is golden brown and toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, 25-35 minutes. Transfer cake to wire rack and let cool 10 minutes.
For the Glaze: Meanwhile, whisk confectioners’ sugar, lemon juice, and buttermilk until smooth. Gently spread glaze over warm cake and sprinkle evenly with reserved sugar mixture. Cool completely, at least 2 hours. Serve

Hiking with Grady and more

So Tuesday I got a sitter for the older boys, strapped Grady in the Bjorn and went on a hike with some other Church members. It started out as a youth activity but as time went on I got to the point where I said "hey it's a public hike, anyone who wants to come can come just bring what you need". This is the group we came up with. Not bad considering we only average about 45- 50 people a week. Two hours later this was the top. I was told it was "A HIKE" but you could take kids. Well had I seen what I was in for before I probably wouldn't have taken Grady. We did at least an hour of boulder climbing. My little trooper did so well he only started crying the last 15 minutes on the way up and that was because he was hungry.
After having Grady literally strapped to me for 2 hours I was wanting to be away from him for a little while. Here is our oldest Young Woman Kayanna with Grady, she is an avid hiker and informed us all that it wasn't that bad.

Well maybe not so bad for someone who does this all the time, but our older people really struggled and my shoulders were killing me by the end of this. It was all worth it. Look at this beautiful lake at the top. There were fish every where. We saw tadpoles and frogs too.

The peek to the left is technically the top which my brother and Kayanna decided to venture to. I would have joined them had I not had Grady, but my shoulders did all they could do and I still needed to go back down. Next time, because I will do this again.

It was a little foggy so you can't see this view very well, but I think you get the picture. It was a little piece of Heaven up there. I forgot how much I loved hiking. It's been so long. Next year I think I will get a sitter for Grady and take the boys up. It would be hard but I think they could do it with another year behind them. I want my kids to like to do this kind of stuff anyway. It's good for the soul and in Maine you need to take advantage of these kind of recreational things because we don't have much else.

My brother Chip came along and it was nice to see him and see him hiking. He loves it. He loves it so much that he used to go on numerous backpack overnights on the Appellation trail. One of which I went with and is a memory I will never forget. It was good that he went or Kayanna our avid hiker would have been bored out of her mind because he was the only one who could barely keep up with her.

Sorry for the spit up, but I wanted a close up and didn't realize we caught him in the act until I got home. Oh well he is a baby after all. Besides him crying that one time because he was hungry, he was happy and content almost the whole time. As hard as it was carrying him up and actually harder carrying him down, because I felt like I was going to fall down all those boulders, I was happy to share this experience with my cute little guy. I love it here, it's beautiful, clean, and safe. Life doesn't get much better than this.
Even if it did take me 3 days to recoup.

Moving on up

So I'm very close to packing up the swing, he is just not a swing boy, because Grady has moved up to the walker. He loves it. He get such a kick out of pushing him self backwards. It's the only thing he can do in it so far, but you can see the excitement in his eyes every time he makes himself move. It's not fair how fast he is growing, already almost put away all of his 0-3 months clothes and fitting just fine in a lot of 6-9 months clothes. He is definitely looking more like Hayden now, but it goes back and forth I'm sure he'll go through another Coy look alike phase and them back again. No doubt they are all brothers.

Shoes, Shoes, Shoes!

So a week ago I got a huge, incredibly heavy box from my sister. In fact it was so big and heavy the post worker informed me that the package was a topic of conversation for them and was seriously concerned on whether or not I could carry it to the car. Well I did but I had to move fast because it wasn't going to last for long. I knew there were shoes in there but, this was like shoe Christmas. My mom and I pawed through all the Italian designers, Franco Sartos, and Banana Republics. My mom drooling with envy because she won't fit in any of them and me giddy as a school girl at all my new shoes. Can you believe she still has a huge shoe and clothing wardrobe after giving me all this stuff. She is my own personal shopper, or so it feels like it. There were lots of other fun things in there too, but there were so many pairs of beautiful shoes I had to share with those who care about this kind of thing.

I love you Nica but there are just some fashion trends I refuse to succumb to and these boots are one of them. These are Italian and I guess some people actually wear these in Italy. They are stilettos and tights in one. My mom and I were busting a gut when we pulled these bad boys out. Are you kidding me. If this is what they are wearing in Italy count me out. I guess I will just be unfashionable in Europe until these pass by because I wouldn't be caught dead in these puppys.

Growing a Lawn?

So we have been unsuccessfully trying to put plant some grass. Our first attempt didn't do so well so we had the elders come over again to try a different tactic on another section. Travis wants a yard with absolutely no weeds in it. This is not the norm in Maine and is extremely difficult since we live it the woods. But of course knowing Travis and the perfectionist he is our yard will some day be as such. The only problem is we are having minimal sun and lots of rain. So much rain that it's washing the seed away or building up in puddles. So we have a nice patch of grass growing with dirt all around it. The perfect breeding spots for more weeds to take over. The clovers are crazy out here. What a challenge. Thank goodness for these great elders help we wouldn't have gotten done even as much as we have if it wasn't for them. They are good hard working men and are little branch is fortunate to have them.

Swimming

My mom got the boys this little pool and these floaties. We haven't been able to use it much since it's rained every day except 3 the last month, and still counting. The few times they have used it they love it. A good way to get them used to the water. So far they are not water babies, and I love the water so it makes it difficult when we go to the beach or to a pool. We are getting there.