saturday in the country

Steve split and stacked wood.
All day.

So me and the boys did some other things to occupy ourselves.
We walked to the hardware store from the bridge. 
Actually Olaf, Serenity, and Micah rode their little run bikes while Christie, Donna, myself and my mom walked behind them, carrying the little babies.  And on the way back Olaf had to be carried too because apparently his endurance isn't that of his cousins :)  But we all had a good time out in the rain, even Forest and Kyler who both (blessedly) slept the whole time.

After lunch somehow both the boys ended up sleeping at the same time - yeah!  So I made applesauce, as shown below.

Does anyone else ever use these apple peeler/corer/slicer doodads?  They are AMAZING.  I want one, badly.  This one is my mothers.  I borrow it sometimes in the fall because it makes anything with large quantities of apples so much easier.  I swear we'd eat more apple pies if I had one.  (Hint hint mom, Sue.... Christmas... just sayin')

Nevermind the particle board countertop... we'll get our concrete one installed one of these days...

Since Wenatchee calls themselves the "Apple Capital of the World", we always have lots of places to get apples in the fall during harvest time.  They used to export more apples than any other place in the world, and do hold the world record for largest apple pie ever baked, but I think Japan is beating them in apple exports now.  That's okay with me.  There are still PLENTY of apples to go around.  Not to mention pears and cherries.

My applesauce recipe is this:  Put all cut up apples in a pot with some water to keep it from burning.  Bring to boil.  Turn down to simmer for like 1/2 hour, stirring every 5 minutes or so.  Put in the blender and pulse a few times until smoother.  Voila!  I don't add any sugar.  These apples were Fujis from Mom and Dad's tree, so they were already pretty sweet.

I just love making things to eat to put in the freezer.  This is my third batch made!  Although batch 2 didn't count because I sort of forgot I was making it, and burned it to the pan so badly it took steel wool, hours of scrubbing, and my sister in law's mom Donna to get it all off the pan.  Needless to say that batch didn't quite work out.  I am just thankful our precious All-Clad cookware survived.  I can't afford it again without a wedding registry.

Fire in the fireplace was nice too.

All in all a good day.

2 months old

2 months.  Wow.  My (most likely) last baby is growing up WAY TOO QUICKLY for me!

Forest.  Already there has been so much change in your tiny little body.  Small chunk rolls are starting to form on your upper arms and thighs.  You can hold your head up for pretty good extended periods and then BAM it goes all wobbly again :)  Then you pick it up again to view the world.  I swear you seem to know exactly what's going on.

I love when you SSTTTRRREEEEEEETTTCCCHHH both your arms above your head and scrunch up your face so that only your huge Saugen lips are showing clearly.

Everyone has an opinion about who you look like - most say Daddy for sure.  Some say Mommy.  And I myself don't really see anyone but Forest in you.  I can't pick out either side of the family dominant in you.  However you do have your daddy's giant lips, and every now and then at a certain angle, I see Auntie Kirsten's baby pictures replicated in your face.

 I LOVE this view of your peaceful self while we are walking... so content

Unless you are in a really good sleep, you make constant noises just in your breathing!  Luckily daddy and I are usually so tired that we are able to fall asleep to the sound of it.  You are still sleeping in our room in the cradle that PopPop Moritz made for me and my sisters when we were little girls.

You LOVE people.  Looking at them, interacting a bit, SMILING (since 6 weeks), being held.  You track me with your eyes and head as I move about and if I stop right in front of you and smile, you will usually smile right back :)  Lucky me!  It's an adorable smile.

When you are sad, all I have to do is pick you up and you stop crying almost immediately.  You do not like to be left alone unless you are very tired or asleep.  If I set you in a room to look around, then leave the room with Olaf for another room you let us know you don't like it!  (Olaf usually says "Mommy - Forest is CRYING!  He wants you to pick him up!")  All I have to do is go back for you, pick you up and move you to the new room to sit, and you are content to watch the happenings.

You seem to adore your big brother.  He loves to come to wherever you are, put his (huge) head against yours and say "Hey little buddy, you're okay!"  I often think he might be squashing you but when he pulls his head back up you just look up at him with admiring eyes.  Oly also loves to sing his ABC's to you when you are sad, however he refuses to sing them unless you are crying.  Apparently the ABC's are only for when you are not already happy.

You definitely have a new cry too - the frustration cry.  It usually comes when we are nursing but are taking a burp break.  You sound SO annoyed with this cry, like I should put you back on the boob immediately.  Like snap to it, Mommy!

You first started smiling at us between 5 & 6 weeks old.  It is so precious!  None of those crazy Saugen dimples, but some uber-cute laugh lines around your mouth.  You features (aside from the ever expanding double chin) are still very delicate, just like when you were born. 

You are finally out of your newborn sized clothes, and are wearing 0-3 months.  We should get a few more months out of them - YAY!  At your checkup yesterday you were riding those 50% lines right up the charts.  Totally average sized, which is great!  After having one chunky baby, I am excited to have one smaller one.  You now weigh 11 lbs 6 oz., are 23 inches tall, and have a 15-inch head. 



Forest, I just love you so much, I could go on for pages.  As you keep growing, I find new things every day that you do which fascinate me and make me so happy.  But I will just save it for a new post.  Keep smiling buddy - it brings so much joy to people around you. 

Love, Mommy

the boys

If I had known how easy it would be to potty train Olaf, I would have done this months ago!  It pretty much took a week for him to figure it out.  (Mostly he just figured out that he doesn't like wet pants - we went straight from diapers to superhero underpants, pullups didn't seem to work all the previous times I tried it)  Of course I am sure there will be accidents for quite a while, but seriously, one diaper a day for overnight is awesome.  No more $40-$50 a month on diapers!!!!  Yay!!!  (I am just switching from buying size 5's to size 1's.)  And there isn't much of anything cuter than a little boy is his superman underpants, and that's the truth.

I pretty much thought I was mom of the year last week because while Olaf was rock-star-ing his potty time, Forest was sleeping through the night.  Yeah, that's right.  WELL HE WAS JUST PLAYING A MEAN TRICK ON ME because he only did it for 3 nights.  Granted, they were a glorious 3 nights, but he definitely hasn't figured out how to sleep through the night.  Because that was over a week ago.  What he has figured out is that I am sucker and hate to hear him cry... especially since he sleeps in our room...  and I will always respond at 2:30 with milk...  so if he doesn't figure it out on his own daddy is going to have to help me in the self restraint category and let him cry it out one of these nights.  But I can wait on that.  At least another 3 weeks till I go back to work anyway.  Then I'm going to want me some sleep!

mr. photogenic

I think this kid is ridiculously cute.

I can't help it.

Do you see those monsterous dimples?

If he's anything like his father he will have quite a following of ladies when he's older.

I don't know how I feel about that...

I like being the leading lady in his life.

mishaps

Yesterday at lunch Olaf had some raisins for dessert.  I turned around at one point and saw Olaf putting raisin near his nose and I said "No raisins in the nose Olaf, do you understand?"  He put his hand and the raisin down and said "There's not a raisin in my nose!"  Hmmmm.  He just kept saying "There's not a raisin in my nose!"  Considering whenever he has a poopy diaper he says "I don't have a poopoo!"  it clued me into the fact that there may in fact already be a raisin in there.

After a closer look I saw there WAS a raisin up there.  Holy heck.  I ran upstairs for some tweezers.  When I got back down the raisin had moved a little farther back up there (basically I could just barely see the tip of the raisin.  I still tried with the tweezers but I didn't even touch it due to the squirmy crying toddler.  So we plugged the other nostril and I told Olaf to blow his nose.

Out shot the snotty raisin, across the kitchen. 
Really hoping he didn't think it was funny enough to try again!

on getting your toddler to eat his vegetables

For nine glorious weeks this summer, our family was able to split a fresh delicious box of vegetables from a local CSA, Tierra Garden Organics.  The boxes were full of kale, spinach, lettuce, collard greens, kohlrabi, squash, potatoes, leeks, garlic and more... wow, just tons of good stuff.  I was forced to experiment cooking with quite a few things that I had only heard of, and some I hadn't even heard of (like kohlrabi).  Most of the experiments came out great (creamed collard greens, anyone?). 

I don't know about the rest of y'all parents, but it is a FIGHT to get Olaf to try things at dinner, especially weird looking veggies.  Sometimes we can coax one bite into him, which sometimes will make him gag and spit it back out, or cry.  It is not so awesome.  Even if he says he likes it, he usually maxes out at 2-3 bites. 

So here's my confession.  At least once a week, sometimes twice, he gets those boring, non-organic, kind of gross (to me) mixed veggies from the freezer.  Carrots, peas, corn and green beans.  Microwave with water in a small bowl, drain water, and squeeze a little ketchup on top.  And he will gobble an entire bowl of them!  I figured it is better that he is getting vegetables at all, rather than try to force tiny bites of those premium organic vegetables into every meal.  Right?  Right. 

from the peanut gallery

Thoughts from Forest at age 7 weeks:

I am just so cute!  Sometimes I am very happy to sit and let mommy take a bunch of pictures of me.  She thinks I have funny frog legs, and a big round tummy, and no booty.   Apparently all these things make me endearing to her.  I like to smile at her when I am really happy.  Not just when I have a full diaper either, but when I am warm and full and content to be looking at her face.

(Mommy's note -- I think he usually looks like a Saugen, but he TOTALLY looks like a Helseth in this picture above.  Just like my older sister's baby pictures.  No seriously.)

I took a bath with my big brother the other day.  It was pretty fun.  He didn't throw any water on me, although he did try to smear bubbles all up in my face.  Mommy put a stop to that pretty quickly.  We didn't fit too great in the tub with my huge baby bath in there too, but it worked for the 5 or so minutes were were in together.  I liked hanging out with Olaf!

 

Sometimes I am tired of pictures.  What can I say? -  I am always getting photographed and sometimes enough is enough!