I have several posts to catch up on from the last week that I’ll be working on this weekend. But first here’s a cute picture of Natalie to tide you over.
Her hair is getting so long, and she just talks up a storm these days. She’s getting quite a bit more… ahem, independent. I love her.
Not just this egg… isn’t it pretty though?
I’d never seen one quite that color. We LOVE getting our eggs from the farm. Fresh eggs are THE BEST!
I think eggs are one of the most versatile, useful foods!
This is something we eat pretty frequently, especially in the summer. Scrambled eggs, pancakes, and smoothies. Yum!
One thing I like to do with eggs and potatoes that I don’t have a name for: I shred up a raw potato, then mix it with eggs and fry it up. I think the easiest way to do this is scoop it onto a griddle, kind of like a pancake. Or you can just throw the mix into the fry pan and kind of flip it over in parts so it’s all cooked. They’re kind of like hashbrown eggs, and every now and again, I just get a hankerin’ for them. :)
We love eggs hardboiled, poached, fried, scrambled, on top of enchiladas, in fried rice, on toast, in salad. Not to mention mixed into baked goods. Yum.
I made another batch of granola bars on Monday, but this time I added some goodies: chocolate chips and peanuts – yum!
I know I’m lazy, but I LOVE mixing them in the Kitchen Aid. And I just know my little blue mixer gets lonely if I don’t bring it out and use it. :)
Here they are going in to the oven:
And coming out. The girls and I couldn’t wait; we ate our first bars warm and crumbly. Mmmmmm…
Mmmm… chocolate.
I try to plan meals that do not involve the oven because it’s just so dang hot! But sometimes I just want something that I can’t have another way (bread, granola bars). And sometimes even if I can have it another way, I don’t want to. :)
Last night we had pizza but decided to bake it instead of grilling it. I’d just pulled out a loaf of bread so my oven was hot anyway.
I LOVE zucchini and spinach on the pizza. LOVE LOVE LOVE. I leave the spinach raw (in fact, I can’t stand the taste of it already cooked on the pizza), but I sauté the zucchini first. I had some diced chicken in the freezer that I added as well.
Mozzarella to top it off (and “glue” everything together). :)
It was soooooo good.
I’ve been using this pizza dough recipe lately, and I just love it! It’s so easy and so fast and so yummy!
David picked up these super cute little deck chairs for the kiddos. We tried them out this afternoon.
James will absolutely pitch himself out of the chair if I’m not careful. :)
This was the best shot of the lot, but I’m posting them all because I think they’re funny.
Professional photographers amaze me.
I can usually get one kid looking cute.
But sometimes no kids.
And almost never all the kids. :)
We are so having family pictures done in the fall. Once I can go outside and not die.
James and I got to go (alone!!) for his 9 month check-up on Tuesday. They were running pretty behind, so I was very glad that Christiana was watching my girls! Thank you Christiana!
Here is James posing with his stats.
In case you can’t read the crayon, James is 16lbs 6oz and 27.25inches long with a head circumference of 18inches. That puts him in a very low percentile for weight, a mediumish one for height, and a higherish up one for head circumference. He looks great!
And he knows it, too. :)
Another cute one, though his arm looks like it’s phasing out of our reality.
I figured Dr. Harper might appreciate a clean diaper for his check, hence the change of pants.
James entertained himself by crawling up and down the little table, pulling on the paper, and attempting to fling himself off the table. I entertained myself by taking pictures of him doing all of this, including not flinging himself off the table.
He looks perfect, of course. His boy parts are all healed up from last week, thanks to the antibiotics.
At 9 months they’re supposed to do a blood draw to check for anemia and whatever. But nobody mentioned to me when I made his NINE MONTH checkup on a TUESDAY that the blood people are only there on MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, and FRIDAY. And I told Dr. Harper this (in my just slightly exasperated voice). So he said we could do it at 12 months. He didn’t care. He knows I have three small children, and likely not a deep desire to drive 30 minutes to the doctor’s office with any or all of them… twice. :) So I will make his one year checkup for a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday. Because now I know.
And ya’ll, that’s only THREE months from now. Aaaacccckkkk!
And sort of on that note, I just might be doing a birthday party theme for James involving milk (ahem… cow milk, okay?), and I’m LOVING the idea of using those Starbucks Frappuccino (of course I did not spell that right on the first try) bottles for the milk. They’re gorgeous. And perfect. But I really don’t drink coffee. All this to say, if any of you actually are going to drink any in the next couple of months and you aren’t going to keep the bottles and lids, could you pass them along? My mom loves them, and I bet Matt would like them if he tried them. And heck, mixed with some chocolate milk, I might even drink ‘em. For a good cause. :)
My friend Candice mentioned the other day about making granola bars, and that really gave me a hankerin. I’ve bookmarked a recipe or two, so I decided to try one out!
I used this recipe. This isn’t a blog I read, so I must have linked over from somewhere else at some point. It looked promising, and I had everything I needed to make it.
The recipe did call for a cup of chocolate chips or seeds or nuts but I didn’t have any, so I just left it out. I don’t think it really affected the outcome, but obviously I don’t know for sure. :) Of course it would be delish with chocolate chips (I mean, what wouldn’t?), but it was also very tasty without!
They were very easy to make, and they’re a good to-go snack. I stuck a couple in a reusable snack bag the other day for myself. Perfect! They aren’t chewy like store-bought chewy granola bars, nor are they hard like those Nature Valley ones. They have a cookie consistency. They aren’t too too crumbly, though I did feel some granola-y stuff under my feet in the dining room after the girls ate their bars. I cut them apart, flash froze them, then stuck them in a ziplock in the freezer. Yum!
I want to try out another recipe or two, as I think there could be something better out there, but I do like the taste of these.
This is big new people! James is 0.75. He’s 3/4ths. He will be ONE is just three measly months. I’m not ready for this!
We took some 9 month photos out on the deck this evening. These puppies are straight out of the camera – raw, unedited…
and delightful. :) The first few I would like to title The Many Faces of James:
He may have been checking out his daddy or one of his sisters here – that’s a pretty happy face!
See his little pointed toes? I am in LOVE with these little feet!
He was starting to tear up a little – allergies?
Gotta keep tabs on the sisters.
Oh this boy!!!!!! Couldn’t you just eat him up with a spoon?!!!
Oh the feet! The feet!!!
That little teeny grin:
This may be my favorite of the evening, though that’s a tough call. The lighting is really good in it, I think. And he looks like himself. :)
That boy is just so stinkin’ precious!!!!!!!!!
A few things he is up to on this, the nine month anniversary of his birth. James…
