7 Months Old

I'm 7 months old!  Can you believe it!  I'm closer to my first birthday than I am to the day I was born. . .  

...........................{"Mom are you ok?  Mom?}.....................................................................

Sorry, just had to help Mommy.  She fainted from the shock of how old I am.  

This month has been huge for me.  Remember that whole trying to crawl thing?  I totally have that down now.  Plus I can go from laying to sitting to crawling to kneeling to sitting.  And get this. . .I figured out how to pull myself up onto my feet!!!!  Is that awesome or what?!?!?!  The only bad part is that I can't stay up long and I just fall over.  I usually hit my head and cry. 

I don't have any teeth yet.  Mommy says at the rate I'm going I'll be bald and toothless but walking around.

I weigh about 18lbs now and I'm in a size 6-9 months (sometimes I even wear 12 months if the clothes run small)  Pretty soon I should catch Ezekiel.  

Well, it's naptime so I need to go.  

Peace out!

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Through the Eyes of a Child

I often wonder what my children see when they look at me.
Do they see me as the cook?
The laundress?
The person who reads them stories and spends hours and hours teaching them?
How about the person who plans all the fun outings?
The face behind the camera?
Perhaps they see me as the fun mom who turns up the radio and dances around?
Maybe as the person they can tell all their secrets too.

Do they look at me and think, "I wish my hair was brown like Mommy's" as I admired my mom's golden locks?
Do they hope to wear dangly earrings like me someday?
Or maybe they look forward to the day when they can wear red high heels like Mommy's favorite pair.
Maybe they see me taking care of the boys and hope to be a Mommy just like me someday.

Or maybe it's none of the above.
Maybe it's this:

"the lines show you're tired"

AWESOME

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6 Months Old

Well, here I am at 6 months old.  I wasn't really ready to smile yet but unfortunately Mommy only got one shot off before this happened:

Ah well, that's the life of a youngest child I guess.  Despite my lack of smile I'm a pretty happy guy.  I'm almost sitting up by myself.  I do it just well enough that sometimes people forget I can't actually sit for very long.  I then fall over.  I'm really, really close to crawling.  I get on all fours and rock back and forth until I fall on my face.  Then I cry while Mommy laughs at me.  She's mean like that.

Can you tell from my picture how chubby I am?!?!?  I'm up to 16lbs and in the 50% for height and weight.  Sometimes, if I don't have anything to wear, I even borrow my brother's clothes!  I'm a tank!

I had to say, "goodbye" to someone near and dear to me this month.  Dr. G from Chop said, "As cute as you are I just don't see any reason I can keep seeing you!"  She told my mom, "He's an absolute miracle.  It's just amazing."  (my mom said she already knew that though).  So goodbye Dr. G.  Goodbye Chop Hematology!  Thanks for taking awesome care of me!

I've done some pretty fun things this month.  I got to meet my baby cousin Brooke in Georgia.  (I was a total champ in the car.) Went peach picking (Mommy even let me hold some of the peaches!)  I also went to my first Phillies game!  Just me, Mommy, and Daddy went to the game.

Hope you enjoyed the extra pics:)  I can't wait to see what the next month brings!

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Real Crunchy Step: Onion Soup Mix

by Denise at Better Than My Best

A few weeks ago I made "Nature's" seasoning (click here for the recipe). In addition to using it in a salad dressing, I've used the seasoning on grilled chicken, chicken salad (the kind with the mayo), grilled steak, and pot roast. It made me wonder how many other seasoning mixes could be homemade. I went on a search for one that I use often, onion soup mix. I use this to make a veggie dip, spinach and artichoke dip, and crockpot pot roast.

There were several options, but most of them called for ground beef bouillon or powder, both of which contains MSG. (The regular packets of onion soup mix also contain MSG). After a lot of searching, I found one at www.heavenlyhomemakers.com without MSG that looked worth trying.

2/3 cup dried minced onion (this is slightly less than the 2oz McCormick bottle)
3 tsp parsley flakes
2 tsp onion powder
2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp celery salt
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp sucanut or sugar
1/2 tsp ground pepper

Mix it all together!

4 TBLS equal 1 packet of soup mix. It is recommended that you shake the bottle before using it. I noticed the ingredients don't mix very well. I also noticed that turmeric smells awful.

I mixed 2 TBL into the sour cream that Shannon made and let it sit in the fridge for an hour. I put the rest of the mix into the empty Minced Onion bottle and wrote on the bottle 4TBL=1 Packet.

Then I got a carrot...

...and decided that it was pretty good! It made a good dip! I expect that it will also make a good pot roast, but I'm not too sure on the spinach and artichoke dip. It tastes close to the Lipton version, but not exact. It did seem to leave a celery aftertaste, so I may put a tad less in next time. It also looked less appealing than the Lipton version (more yellow and chunky) so it may need to be stirred more often if using it for a dip.

If you don't have all of these ingredients, the first time around will be expensive. Turmeric, Sea Salt, and Celery Salt are more expensive spices (think $6-$7 a bottle depending on size), while the others are only $1-$2. However, for the amount you can make with these spices, I believe overall it will be cheaper.

Heavenlyhomemakers also has an italian seasoning mix that looks worth trying. See the recipe here.








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