Bread Salad

Like that shiner. Ethan gave it to Jon while we were all wrestling with each other. This picture was taken about five minutes after the fact. You should see it now; it's all yellow and green and purple. Very ugly. Jon's mom asked Ethan on Sunday what happened to his daddy and he said "I smoked him while we were at home." Crazy little runt. But there's no denying that the kid is funny.

So, for FHE this week we did an activity where one of the kids had to come up with a funny "What if...." scenario and then we all worked together writing a poem about it. Christopher said "What if Ryan could fly?" Then I'd ask questions like: where would he go, what would he do, what would happen then...etc and we'd put a sentence down and then the kids would have to think of a word that would rhyme with the last word in the sentence for the next line and Jon and I would have to try to use the word they picked in the poem. It was a lot of fun and helped the kids with their rhyming skills too.

Today I'm posting the recipe for bread salad. I know it sounds a little weird to those of you who've never tried it, but it's cheap, healthy, quick, easy and tastes really good so don't be such a chicken. Give it a try.

For the poems and recipe...

Firsts

Christopher lost his first tooth (the other front one is loose too) and Ryan took his first steps(I'd post the video later in this post except my video posting thing isn't working). Our little family just keeps growing and progressing, it seems so crazy most of the time but mostly it's a good kind of crazy. The photo up top is a picture of the wedding cake I did a couple of weeks ago. I'm posting the recipe for desperation cookies today because I thought it was appropo for me at the moment. It's a great recipe and it never turns out the same way twice. The great thing about it is that you just use whatever you have on hand which is why it never turns out the same but it's always delicious. I first came across it in a book by Joanne Fluke. She writes murder mystery books that have recipes all through them. I think this one was in Peach Cobbler Murder, but I'm really not sure. Anyway...For the recipes

Tinkerbell and Strawberry cake

I did a couple of birthday cakes for a friend so I thought I'd post the pictures. The pictures are from her cell phone, so they're not the best, but I didn't take any pictures because frankly my brain is not fully functional yet. On the up side, despite the constant crying as of late, it appears that Timothy may not have colic after all. We went in to the pediatrician for a follow up appointment for Christopher (more below) and I had him check Timothy's ears while we were there and the poor baby has raging ear infections.

So Christopher come to me crying Thursday afternoon. It took a minute to calm him down, but when he did he finally got out what the problem was. "Mom, Ryan made me swallow a battery!" Fan-freakin-tastic. It turns out the he got the button battery out of his book light and was just messing around with the stupid thing in his mouth and accidentally swallowed it. Poor Ryan just happened to be witness to the incident which means he-of course-had to be at fault as it couldn't be Christophers'.

Apparently my child isn't the only one out there with a penchant for appetizers of the alkaline variety though. There is a special hot-line just for button battery swallowers. We had to drive up to Texas Childrens Hospital and do x-rays and sit around for 5 hours because-shocker-no one at our hospital is qualified to fish the thing out if that's what needed to happen. Luckily we had Timothy with us and the nurses felt he was too young to sit out in the waiting room with the sick people so we got to go to an exam room that had a tv and watch the Discovery Channel while we waited. It seemed to be moving along and, after much debate, it was decided that we would be allowed to go home. On the way up to Houston Thursday Christopher asked me if they would have to cut him open to get it out and I told him that they wouldn't because they have a special tool that could go down his throat and into his tummy to get it. Jon said he'd get to eat lots of ice cream if that happened and then Christopher was hoping that it wouldn't come out after all. Crazy kid.

We're going in today for another x-ray and as long as the thing is still moving we're good to go. If it's stuck somewhere they'll have to go in and get it out so it doesn't start leaking acid. So everyone keep your fingers crossed for us okay. I swear, if you know my kids you'd think it would be Ethan going to the emergency room all the time, but it's always Christopher.

Oh, I'm also posting the recipe for homemade strawberry cake because I told Brandi I would. So, here you go dear....

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...