More of Timothy John

If you think he looks bad you should see me. It is not pretty my friends, not pretty at all. The house is a wreck, the laundry is building up and Jon and I are both sleep deprived. So pretty much average for a newbie in the house. Really, we're doing okay here. Still not getting out anywhere but church though.

Christopher and Ethan are loving being big brothers. I tried to potty train Ethan for 8 months to no avail and Jon was home for one week and like magic the little runt is potty trained. He's doing great and hasn't had any accidents in days. Apparently Daddy just has it and Mommy doesn't. Maybe we should try doing the 'Mr. Mom' thing. Jon could stay home and change diapers and I could start a bakery. Just kiddin hon.=)

Timothy's not even two weeks old and I've already had a raging case of mastitis. I think it's a personal best for me as far as quickest infection time. Let's see how long it takes before Timothy and I get thrush together. Yay! I'm told it's because I produce more milk than any 6 babies could drink so I'm never 'empty' and it leaves me more prone to infection. Laura says these gel things from Target really help to stave off infection and to fight it if you have one so I'm going to try them.

For those of you who don't know, I had some nerve damage that left me unable to use my right leg in some ways the last month of the pregnancy and it didn't get any better after the delivery. Nicole has been helping me with some exercises and I'm trying to be good about it and it's getting much better. I can now get into bed by myself and even put on my own pants without any help. Pathetic, I know, but that's not sarcasm. I really am excited about it. Anyway here are some more pics of the new kid on the block plus some of our little cutie pie Ry-Ry. Also, if you click on read more and give it a sec there's a cute video of Christopher rocking Timothy to sleep at the very top of the post. Too cute!

Sweet Tooth

Until recently I didn't know that fresh strawberry pie was my favorite pie. I'd never actually tried it because the ones at the store or in restaurants looked......less than what I would call 'fresh' shall we say. Then I took the boys to pick strawberries at Frobergs. Here's a link if you want to know how to get there http://local.yahoo.com/info-19153006-froberg-vegetable-fruit-farm-alvin . Also, here's a link to a site that lists pick your own fruit and veggie farms all across the country http://www.pickyourown.org/

At $1.80 per pound of strawberries it's loads of fun and you get some fantastic strawberries. It took a little guidance at first, but once they got the idea of how to find the perfect strawberry they were off. Two buckets and 7 1/2 lbs of strawberries later we went home. I froze a few but decided to try strawberry pie since I never had before. After I got the crust rolled, Christopher booted me out of the way and took over the pie making but graciously told us that Ethan could make the whipped cream and I could cook the crusts after he decorated the edges. The pies turned out great and I've been craving more ever since. I doubt it would be as good with store bought strawberries, but I'm still tempted to give it a go. Anyway, here's the recipe for fresh strawberry pie and a few other random desserts that are equally delicious as well as a few pictures of my strawberry picking crew....

Mr. Sneeze

For those of you who don't know, Mr. Sneeze is a pirate who wears shorts on his head and helps Captain Hook chase Peter Pan. That's what my boys think anyway. So periodically they put their shorts on their head or just leave the shirt they've been taking off hanging inside out on the top of their head and pretend to be pirates.

Yesterday Jon took Christopher, Ethan and Ryan to the ward BBQ social and Timothy and I stayed home. I had a lovely apple and brie quesadilla for dinner which I will include the recipe for and had a nice relaxing evening. Jon told me what happened when he and the boys got home and got out of the van to come upstairs and I thought I'd share the story.

One of our neighbors was standing outside the building smoking. She was wearing a do-rag on her head (like a bandanna Gram) and Ethan says "Hey Daddy look she's pretending to be a pirate!" and points at her. (For those of you who don't know Ethan, 'quite' and 'subtle' are not terms he's familiar with. She definitely heard him.) Christopher looks over and says "Yeah Daddy look, she's a pirate!" Jon hates a scene of any kind and just pretended like he didn't hear either of them. Nice try dad. They just assumed he really didn't hear them so they said it again-only louder. My sweet embarrassed husband said as quietly as he could "Yep, now let's go upstairs" and rushed them up. I personally think the woman probably got quite a kick out of it, but that's me. Jon thought it was funny-if a wee bit embarrassing-and the boys thought it was great that grownups pretended to be Mr. Sneeze sometimes too.

On another note, Timothy and I are both doing great. He's sleeping 4 hours at a time at night now so that's nice. He's a pretty sweet little guy and he gets cuter every day. Jon and I feel so blessed. For those of you I haven't e-mailed or called or anything in the last little while I'm sorry. You know how I am. For a while the mass communication of one blog entry will have to do, but I'll get back to e-mailing and calling like a normal human eventually.

For the quesadilla recipe......

He's Finally Here!!

Obviously this isn't going to be a long post, but I thought I'd put up pictures of the newest addition to our little clan for all you friends and family out there. He was born at 5:55 am on Tuesday the 13th. He weighed 7lbs and 13 oz and was 20.5 in long. He took longer than any of the others to get here and was a LOT more painful, but he's pretty cute so we'll let it slide. Jon and I couldn't come up with a name and it finally came down to picking a name or setting up camp at the hospital. We finally got it down to Timothy and Luke and asked the boys what they liked better. They both agreed on Timothy which is almost a sign in and of itself. We picked the middle name John since it's a family name on both sides. That's all for now. For the pictures...

Easter Eggs and Hollandaise

Here's a picture of the three hoodlums at Christopher's preschool after the egg hunt. (I was holding Ryan during the egg hunt and didn't get any pictures, sorry.) Sometimes they're just too cute. Still no baby here yet. Maybe he's waiting until we actually come up with a name for him. In which case I'm hosed because we still have nothing. I don't think I was ever this tired during the other three pregnancies. I feel like someone has literally sucked all the life out of me. It's all I can do just to get up and feed the kiddos most days. I sat down to fold laundry a few weeks ago and just woke up 1/2 an hour later. Nothing was on fire and no one was bleeding so that was good but still...

I do think the kid has finally dropped though. With the other three, when they dropped I started having some trouble with my round ligament. Yeah.....lately I'll be walking along and then suddenly it feels like I'm having a charlie horse in my groin area. Not so much fun really but if it means he's finally coming then bring it on.

I'm not posting much today but as I sat here still in my jammies at noon on my couch I was thinking I'd post my hollandaise recipe. I know I just did a breakfast post, but I was much amiss at not including hollandaise because it is liquid deliciousness. It's also great on fish and well loads of stuff. I realize there's this aura surrounding hollandaise sauce because it's supposed to be hard or something. I was in college before I was brave enough to try. Yeah, it's not hard. I've never had one that didn't turn out and I fudge on the 'rules' all the time. I'll leave it over the heat for a few seconds without stirring while I grab something or answer the phone, everything isn't always the right temperature...whatever. I'm not much of a rules person when it comes to food as you know. Anyway, this is super easy. I'm told there are easy versions involving a blender, but I like to have control of the consistency which you can't really if you're blending things so...

Anyway, for more Easter pics and the recipe...