5 Months

Dear Annie,

You are 5 whole months old today! You are definitely getting to be such a big girl, and are growing up SO fast. Sometimes I am truly blown away by just how lucky your dad and I are to be your parents. Your smiles and laughs really do just make our day! We are always SO excited to get you from your crib in the morning - your dad even gets a little mad at me when I go in to your room before he gets there. Even if you are whimpering a little, your face just lights up when you see us! It definitely is one of the best parts of our day. After you go to bed at night, there are a few more hours that we are still awake - we always end up missing you a little by the time we go to bed! I love holding you, and kissing your big fat cheeks, and squeezing your chunky thighs! I love that you will reach for my hand now, and just feel my fingers and palm instead of just immediately grasping my finger anymore - it's amazing to watch you figure out the world!

You just get more and more interactive each day - you really are smiling AT people now, and if we are particularly entertaining, we might get some extended laughs out of you, although it's still hit or miss. I think it's just that we aren't that funny :) You have started to get a little anxious when we aren't around. This is hard for us, because we know that we are coming back and are leaving you with people who care about you, but you might not quite get that yet! It is awesome to get a HUGE smile in the afternoon when we come to pick you up from daycare!

A few big changes happened with you this month. You learned to roll over consistently, and have really been enjoying being on your tummy now! You almost immediately became a tummy sleeper, which does scare your dad and I a little - just last night, after us being in bed for a few minutes, your dad was compelled to go check you one last time to make sure you were still breathing, so he ran back downstairs :) Right as he opened the door, you stirred a little, reassuring him that you indeed are alright! All that time on your tummy is making you so strong! You can lift your whole chest off the ground now - a far cry from your faceplanting in the early weeks of your life! You are turning yourself in circles when on your tummy too - I think you might start moving sooner than we may want! We really will cherish these last few weeks or months before you start to be on the move :)

You also are grabbing at everything! We sit you down in our laps, and you reach out for the table, or a glass, or my hair! It probably is a subtle change to other people, but a big one to us! No longer can we trust that objects are safe in front of you - just last weekend you reached out and dumped an entire glass of water on the floor at a restaurant - I guess we need to learn to keep things out of your reach now!

You are still kind of a little peanut! 0-3 month clothing still fits you just fine - starting to get SLIGHTLY tight, but still fits! Mostly you are in 3-6 or 6 month clothes now though. You are a little short for jumpers/exersaucers but definitely LOVE to stand tall! You are a great little stander - you stand pretty steadily with us only holding your hands slightly. You like to "do the hula" but you're still really good at supporting all of your weight when upright.

Sleeping is still among your favorite activities, and we REALLY hope that continues! You are sleeping approximately 11 hours straight at night, and sometimes it seems you would go longer! You seem to get very anxious for bedtime in the evenings - if we time things right, you really are happy to go to bed, but if we wait too long or you are too tired, you get QUITE angry! All is well within a few minutes when you fall asleep though. Your dad and I really enjoy reading you Goodnight Moon (Lap Edition) at night - you sometimes seem to tolerate it, other times you JUST want to get into your crib. What you enjoy even more than the book is craning your entire body and head around to stare at the red lamp behind us. Someday you'll appreciate fine literature, we hope :) While your naps during the day are short, you typically take them willingly, and fall asleep very quickly, as long as you are in a familiar setting.

This will be the last month that you will only eat mama's milk, and I am very glad to say that feeding is usually a pleasant experience for both of us, finally! You seem very satisfied by nursing, and really are quite content in my arms when feeding now, instead of being a wiggly fussy mess. You put your little hand up on my chest and look up at me when you are eating, and we get a few minutes of calm quiet time in an otherwise busy and hectic day. I know you won't remember this at all, but I always will.

Little bunkin, we are so proud and lucky to have you as our daughter! We love you to the moon and back.

Love, Mom

Brunch! Spinach & Cheese Strata and Strawberry Scones

As I mentioned in my 21 weeks post, we had Scott, Christie, Erik, Jen and Oliver over for brunch on Saturday morning.

Annie enjoyed watching 2 year old Oliver run around!

I wanted to make an egg bake, because you can prepare it the night before. Scott and Christie are vegetarian, so I chose this spinach & cheese strata from the always reliable Annie's Eats! This was actually pretty quick to pull together - we made this and the shrimp salad at the same time and it went very smoothly.

All ready to sit in the fridge overnight


Fresh out of the oven!

I really loved this strata - the gruyere was delicious (as it should be for how dang expensive it is!) and it felt healthy because of all the spinach ;) If I had to choose, I probably do prefer the egg bake with meat featured in this post, but we served the strata with sausage we'd picked up at the Farmer's Market from Blue Gentian Farm which was awesome. Ben had 5 (five) pieces. And still wanted more.

Of course I can't let a breakfast go by anymore without something sweet! Since we got strawberries from our CSA, these strawberry scones (also from Annie's Eats) were perfect. I actually made these pretty much right when everyone was arriving so they'd be fresh and the dough wouldn't have to sit out for too long, since strawberries do add a lot of fluid to the dough. I am always a bit nervous to make scones, but every time I have, they have turned out wonderfully so they can't be that hard :) These were no exception! Everyone LOVED these... especially me. Definitely a delicious brunch!

CSA Box #2 and Pesto Shrimp and Veggie Salad

Since Ben picked up and unpacked our CSA box from Driftless Organics last week, I didn't get to take a photo of the box :( This is the first ever box that I don't have a picture of - sad!

In this box:
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Collard Greens
Fennel
Green Leaf Lettuce
Green Zucchini
Red Radishes
Scallions
Strawberries
Patty Pan Squash
Basil
Garlic Scapes

Patty pan squashes

I perused my starred items in Google Reader for some ideas of what to have for dinner last Friday night. I found this Grilled Pesto Shrimp and Veggie salad, which used a ton of the veggies we got! We did have to make some modifications to the recipe - first because there was a torrential downpour which made using the grill a bad idea, and second to try to use even more of our veggies. This turned in to sauteed shrimp and veggie salad instead of grilled :) We made garlic scape pesto, used one squash and half the zucchini, and the green leaf lettuce. Instead of putting the pesto on the shrimp before grilling, we just tossed the cooked shrimp in the pesto.

Big pan of beautiful veggies!

Since this made enough for 4 and we didn't particularly want leftovers, we invited our neighbors Nate and Molly over to eat with us - we served it with some crusty bread and it was a great summer dinner! We all enjoyed eating on the porch with the babies in bed, listening to the storms roll through.

Ben's method of slicing bread :)

21 Weeks

First and foremost, I am going to be an AUNT! x3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My sister-in-law Becca is expecting TRIPLETS, and I am SOOOOOO excited (and, so thankful it's not me :). 3 little cousins for Annie! They will probably (hopefully) come in December, since she's due in mid-January. It'll be a wild ride, and I can't wait! (but of course, want them to stay in Becca's tummy as LONG as possible!)

Once again, it is a very good thing I write these posts on Sundays, because this week was kind of rough! Annie is SO much happier on weekends! I think she is just so worn out by the end of the day at daycare that she's just super cranky at night. She had been finishing up her last nap at daycare at 2:30, and sometimes not wanting to take a nap at 5 when getting home, which made for a VERY overtired and cranky little Annie by around 6pm - NOT fun! A few nights this week were especially rough - and she even had a catnap those nights! Some nights Annie was just pissed off about going to sleep too - she'd cry all the way through getting wrapped in her blanket, and through the bedtime story, and through being rocked for a few minutes. Ugh, it was hard for us all. Those nights I don't even want to do a bedtime routine, but I guess that is the point of it - to be consistent! She would still fall asleep really quickly - just a few wails after being put in the crib and she was out. It pretty much made me dread every evening though, and just be waiting for her bedtime... which is horrible! Some evenings I was pleasantly surprised, but on the whole this week kind of sucked. I know it's just a phase, and at some point she will be ok being awake for longer. Can't wait until that happens :)

Sophie kept Annie occupied for a bit one cranky evening this week

We went down to Lakeville one evening for Ben's grandparents' 60th anniversary dinner, and that was quite honestly one of the worst nights I can remember for a LONG time! Not sure if it was all the people there, or she was just having a bad day, but HOOOOOO BOY, was she ever PISSED! And those who have heard Annie have a meltdown know that this child is L-O-U-D - no pansy newborn cries for her! We ended up leaving before we even ate (but we did take a plate of food back - which was delicious!) and Annie and I were both in tears for much of the ride back. Then Annie passed out, we got home, and she was HAPPY and laughing up a storm! WTF, mate?? Whatever though, we NEEDED to have a little bit of happiness after that screamfest! I just get SO anxious when she's crying. You'd think I'd be used to it right now, and sometimes I am, when there is a reason, and I can solve it. I really try not to take it personally and not feel like it's me doing something wrong, but that is hard. I also honestly am fine letting her cry a little before going to sleep too - I know she's fed, changed, and really just needs to sleep. I think it's much harder in a crowd because no matter how much everyone says they don't care, I still do! It is NOT fun to be among a group of people trying to calm a cranky little one - so yeah, no more weeknight outings for us for awhile.

See how happy she is?? This is probably going to be my favorite video of all time. I was clearly a little emotional that evening because I was crying when she was laughing too and at one point you can see me wipe a tear away. I watched this video about 10 times at work on Friday.

This weekend she has been great for sleeping - for naps and bedtime - she got a LITTLE cranky a few times, but NOTHING like what she during the week! We are going to talk to Sue about pushing Annie's awake time between naps - at times she'll put her down when she's only been awake for an hour (I have a feeling this is when she is in the swing and just falls asleep), and she seems to nap for longer and be on a better schedule if she's up for about 2 hours between naps, so that she wakes up from her last nap at like 3:30-4... and can keep going until at least 7pm for bed! Hopefully that conversation goes okay... I think she's going to stop putting her in the swing as often now because she now tries to twist her way out of it. She does 20-30 minutes of floor time each time she's awake, and now is going to get out the Exersaucer/jumper thingie for her too - we'll see how she does with that! We don't have one so we've never tried it out.

It was this week that I noticed that I actually am starting to enjoy breastfeeding. I honestly never thought it would happen, but lo and behold, I really start to look forward to feeding times now! Even if Annie is being fussy through a feeding (happens kind of frequently before bed), I still like that cuddle time together. She's much more interactive now too, and will look up at me, and it's just a great time for us to share. Plus, she's much more efficient now, so each feeding only takes like 15 minutes which is awesome!

We had a really nice weekend - we didn't have many firm plans, but it ended up being really fun and relaxing! Yesterday, Scott, Christie, Erik, Jen and Oliver came over for brunch - I really enjoyed cooking again - there will be several blog posts coming up with things I've been making over the past week. It was nice to get back into the kitchen a few times, it had been awhile since I took the time to actually enjoy cooking and baking! We then spent some time in Newell Park in the afternoon - it was HOT but Annie seemed to like going on the swings - yes it was a total photo op but it was fun :)

We also went to Becca and Joe's paella party yesterday - Annie nearly had another meltdown after being passed around from person to person, but we placed her on the grass in front of a fan, and she stayed happy for a long time that way, and then even allowed a few family members to hold her :)

Eating her dress with Aunt Amanda and Grandpa


Hanging out outside after we got home!


The evening was capped off for Annie with an outdoor bath!


Nice butt.

Today was really fun - we decided to head to the University of Minnesota campus for the day - we met up with Liz and Jono on the mall, walked to the West Bank, where Liz and Jono decided to pick up some Nice Ride MN bikes, which is a really cool idea - you pay for a bike at one place, and you can drop it off at any of the other places, which are all over Minneapolis. There are a ton of the spots on the U of M campus, and near Liz's apartment in Northeast. After they left, we walked over the Purple Onion, grabbed some iced mochas, and walked around for awhile to allow Annie to get in a "good" nap (which for her is like 40 minutes) - she woke up and seemed QUITE alarmed - she SCREAMED a few times but was happy as soon as she got out of the sweltering stroller (she was super sweaty!) and got her eat on :) We finished off our outing at Stub and Herbs - all in all it was an awesome day!

I had to show Annie Murphy Hall, where most of my journalism classes were :) She was VERY interested.




Liz and Jono with their bikes!


Passed out




Giving Annie some time to cool down :)




Happy as can be, just kicking away and chewing on a burp cloth


Annie has definitely discovered my hair and likes to grab and pull now!

Father's Day

I know I'm way late with this post, but I wanted to make sure to share just a few more photos from Father's Day because Annie was just looking so cute :)

Annie with her card for Ben :)

First, we headed down to Lakeville for brunch with Ben's family.

There was a lot of this going on - I love her little hand on the back of her head :)




We then packed up to go to my parents' house in Apple Valley, Annie held Ben's beers for him :) (not in the actual car though, don't worry :)


Sitting on the big chair with Dad






Annie graciously allowed us to eat dinner (very quickly) so we could head home before she needed to shut down for the night!


Happy Father's Day!

How did we use our CSA box?

Sometimes I definitely feel like a slave to the box in the summers, especially when we have a lot going on. Our last box from Driftless Organics arrived 2 weeks ago, and if you will recall, Ben immediately did the MS150 and pretty much 12 of the past 14 days we've had something or other going on so didn't have much of a chance to eat at home. We still managed to do pretty good with the box though - it definitely helped that Scott took half.

Hopefully this post helps people with CSA shares get a few new ideas of how to use their box!

Arugula - We made a much easier version of this pizza, with canned pizza sauce and a pre-made crust. It was still definitely delicious! I did really like the sauce in that recipe, so if you have some extra time I'd recommend it. Ben also made some arugula pesto with the remaining greens and froze it. We'll see how that thaws. Basil pesto freezes really well, not sure about arugula but I guess we'll find out :)

Blue Potatoes - Scott took these. I had a bit of a rough experience with colored potatoes when in my first trimester of pregnancy last summer, so I'm still a bit wary of them :)

German Butterball Potatoes- Still have a few of these left, but we did make some garlic mashed potatoes with them to serve as a side dish with the Blue Gentian Farm leg of lamb that we had for Ben's birthday dinner. We used this recipe for the leg of lamb, and it was tasty but perhaps was a little overdone due to having to deal with a cranky baby right as it was finishing :)

Green Garlic- Used these for the leg of lamb, and also in some scrambled eggs

Kohlrabi- Peeled and sliced and ate with some ranch dressing as a snack - delish!

Purple Scallions- Used in the leg of lamb recipe and maybe also in eggs as well.

Red Butterhead Lettuce- Had a salad with all of this the first night we got our box

Red Radishes- These went in the salad, I think there are a few left.

Spinach- Ben had some of this in eggs (I think?). He loves him some eggs, clearly. We also mixed the rest of it in to our spaghetti sauce from the freezer meals. A great way to add a TON of greens into a meal! Not like I hate the taste of spinach, but you really can barely taste it this way.

Clearly nothing too fancy, but we did manage to use our half of the box pretty well even though we had a ton going on. We need to be diligent about meal planning because I HATE wasting food, it causes me extreme anxiety - seriously. I feel bad for food we throw away, in much the same way that I felt bad as a child for not playing with certain toys anymore. Like I thought that my teddy bear would be sad that I was now moving on to a different bear, so at one point I slept with 3 teddy bears. Yes, I have issues :)

The Day of Ben!

Since Ben is such an awesome Daddy to Annie, I wanted to do something really special for his first Father's Day! I always have a really hard time coming up with presents for him, since he is SO picky about everything. I was talking with my coworkers Jen and Janelle about the things that Ben likes: scotch, cigars, pipes, biking, coffee. Yeah, there are a whole lot of vices listed there :) I know I could just buy him a bottle of scotch and call it a day, but I wanted something better! (I did get him a bottle of scotch for his birthday though... but it played into the Day of Ben too)

I think it was Janelle that originally came up with the idea to have a day of doing all of the things that Ben likes, which sounded perfect to me! After coming up with that, I settled on an itinerary. Ben has been hemming and hawing about getting a pipe for awhile, so I gave him a "certificate" to just go out and get one. Janelle also jokingly said I should get him a smoking jacket, and I became obsessed with the idea because I thought it was hilarious :) I do think one of Ben's greatest dreams is to live in a classy mansion with a nice smoking parlour. Maybe someday... I scoured ebay, and found a vintage smoking jacket. I had Nate purchase it so Ben wouldn't see it on the credit card that he checks 100x per day :)

Here is the day in photos...

This certificate was a bit confusing for Ben. At first he thought it was actually for a place. I think it would have been hilarious if he brought it to Stogies on Grand and was like "hey, I got this paper here - it says I get a pipe! Chosen by me!"


First, we hit up the Farmer's Market - Annie got lots of comments! I think everyone thought she was a boy again (little Danny!) but oh well. She seemed to quite enjoy looking at all the veggies - I made sure to tell her what everything was :)


Ben had a foot long hotdog for breakfast, but then saw some brat wrap something or other later that he wished he'd had. I had a berry scone - I kind of wanted a cinnamon roll but that would have been difficult to eat with Annie's head right below my mouth.


After we got home, Ben went out to purchase his pipe. When he returned, there was a box with a card that said "for your enjoyment whilst smoking" (thanks for the wording, Scott!) lest he think it was just a robe.


With his pipe and smoking jacket


We then took a walk to Nelson Cheese & Deli


Ahh, the beauty of Snelling. Yeah, not the best walk, but whatever.


Annie eventually passed the F out.


We ate our Cheesemaker sandwich (even splitting it is MORE than enough for both of us) and then Ben tried out his pipe!


Soon enough, a few of Ben's friends came over to enjoy some scotch (or beer) and smoking with him


Don't worry, Ben wasn't smoking while holding Annie :)




Annie enjoyed herself too!

After everyone left, my mom and sister came over to watch Annie so we could go out for dinner! Ben chose Ginger Hop - we'll have a review up on We Got Served ..... someday :)

What a great day for a great Dad :) Father's Day itself was another fun day, but that might have to be yet ANOTHER post since this one is already super long... no promises though ;)