might attract bears, the whole head exploding thing

If you don't hear from me this weekend, it's because tomorrow we're leaving for Yellowstone.
If you don't hear from me ever again, it's because I'll be in a car for several hours with my family, and my head might explode.
Driving with my father who thinks the earth might actually stop spinning if we stop the car for anything but gas.
Driving with my mother who is constantly uncomfortable with the air temperature and will ask for it to be cooler, cooler, cooler, I can't breath it's so stuffy, agggghh it's so cold in here, open a window, shut up and grab a blanket, why is the a/c blasting?
Driving with my sisters that can go from zero to ax murderer in .2 seconds if they feel they have been trapped in the car too long with the parents (see above).
Driving with a baby who cannot yet understand that Honey we'll be there in two minutes and you can get out then, just relax a little bit longer, I'm sorry but we all have to be buckled in, I know I know, here have a snack.

pray for me.

Here is a video of my cat just for the hell of it. I'm going to bed.

dot dot dot

SOOOOOOOOOOOOO

• Yesterday was my youngest sister's high school graduation.


• Babies don't care for loud auditoriums very much.


• The family that sat in front of me (the 2 min I got to sit in there before Josephine freaked the eff out) had obviously been drinking, smoking, and splashing on cologne to cover up the stank.


• Outside the auditorium was a veritable nursery, so many babies.


• When the ceremony was over about a million people slammed into me and my previously calm baby freaked the eff out again.


• I didn't get one apology or "excuse me".


• When I'm in a big crowd or a loud environment I freak the eff out.


• I held it together as long as I could, but cried as I walked to the car at the end of the night.

My dad and I took a frillion picures of her in an attempt to get one good enough to send out with her graduation announcements. In 99% of them she was making a face, or had her eyes closed, or wasn't looking. This is the one she picked, (I took it! I'm the winner!) isn't she pretty?
She totally has a boyfriend now, but he isn't attending the same college as her in the fall sooooo...

tuesday cake

My mom decided that Josephine needs to have a cake for every month until she is one, at least. The only kind of cake that I really like is pound cake and she just happened to make pound cake at one month and I have made sure it's been pound cake ever since.

May is busy, my first mother's day, my sister's birthday, both parents' birthdays, (and tomorrow my other sister is graduating high school) so there have been lots of cakes. My dad, whose birthday was the same day as Josephine's 5 month, always has strawberry pie so I decorated a pound cake just because I wanted to decorate something.

Are you asleep yet? Gosh I can be so boring sometimes.

Anyway, here is the cake I decorated for fun:

No those are not turds, they are logs! Pretty awful picture, trust me the real thing was much cuter...still pretty cheesy though. The flames were made of some left over fondant and there were supposed to be marshmallow coals but someone ate all the marshmallows...someone who might be getting a bag of marshmallows for a graduation present.

Month Five

I organize all the pictures I take of you by month and when I had to create a new folder with the name "month five" I was kind of upset. In many ways it seems like time has gone too fast, and I know I say this every month, but it's true. Sometimes though, I am just so impressed at what an incredibly fun person you have become in just five months.

Josephine, you laugh every day. Every Day! You sometimes get fussy and want to be picked up and then grandma or papa come around the corner and you start giggling like you have just heard the best joke. At this point I am still your favorite person, I'm the only one who can feed you, but you get a little tired of looking at me by the end of the day and I don't blame you at all.

You have officially all-by-yourself rolled over, but more impressive is how fast you can spin in a circle. I can put you down for a nap and one minute later check on you and you are facing the opposite way I layed you down and you've pulled one of your stuffed toys under your head like a pillow.

You have really grown in your noise making this month. There's this thing you do sometimes when you see grandma, you suck air in and make a noise like a zombie and grandma always makes the noise right back at you and you think it's just the best thing in the world. Other days you practice squealing as loud and high pitched as you can. Usually when you are in your highchair the squealing starts, along with furious kicking and throwing of all toys within reach.

You are so full of new tricks! One trick that I'm not sure I understand is the scratching. Always with the scratching. Laying on the couch, scratch scratch scratch. Nursing, scratch scratch scratch. Sitting in your highchair, scratch scratch scratch. Scratch scratch scratch.

You might think that the best thing this month is that you have started sleeping though the night on occasion. It is great, but I'm still sad that you don't like to snuggle as much anymore. Sometimes you still wake up in the middle of the night and if it's early enough and I'm awake enough I put you back in your bed after feeding you, but sometimes I fall asleep with you by my side and instead of your head finding my armpit like it used to, you start flailing your arms and kicking you feet so hard that it's like trying to sleep through an earthquake. (the only time I've been someplace where there was a registered earthquake I actually did sleep through it, so whatever, you know what I mean. You kick a lot.)

No, the best thing is when you see me come into the room and you squeal, and smile, and kick your feet so fast you almost take off in flight. The best thing is when I come into the bedroom as you are waking up from a nap and your little brown fuzzy head is peeking up just enough to see who's coming in and you get a big smile on your face as you quickly duck your head back down, rub your face, and pop back up. The best thing is when you are nursing and you feel so comfortable that you start singing between moments of sucking and you look up at me, waiting for eye contact so you can laugh and go back to nursing and singing. The best thing is that I know you are supposed to be my daughter and I am supposed to be your mother and I have never been more sure of anything in my life.

do this:

isn't this sweet? I plan on doing this sometime in the future. Even if Josephine ends up hating dolls. What a fun summer project to do with the kiddies huh?!

Hurry and get in line! Practice your silly faces! What would they do if you dropped trou and mooned accross the pond?

I don't have a title for this post

Movies I've seen lately:
I am Legend -I liked it, I like Will Smith, the ending was eh.
No Country for Old Men -I didn't think it was bad, but I don't see why it was nominated for best picture and all that hooplah.

I think Josephine might be starting to teethe. She gets cranky pretty fast lately and has started waking up at night again. She did this over Easter weekend too though, so she may just go back to being her cheery self again any day now. I need to schedule a dentist appointment for her too.
Yeah I know, she doesn't have any teeth yet but our insurance covers preventative dental checkups so there's no reason not to take advantage of that!

I'm house/dog sitting again for the next week. I stayed there when I was pregnant and being so uncomfortable made it a little challenging. Now having a baby with me is the challenge. Josephine didn't sleep well there last time.

Last weekend my parents, Josephine, and I went to cheer on a local marathon and I kinda seriously want to run it next year...but I didn't want to tell you because there is a good chance I'll chicken out. So there's that.

Did you celebrate Israel turning 60? I did! We went down to Salt Lake City to celebrate with Congregation Kol Ami. We ate falafel, listened to a Russian choir, and sang Happy Birthday. Okay we didn't do that last part. We had to cut the day short though, because some very responsible young ladies remembered that they had several hours worth of homework they hadn't started, as well as boyfriend hanging out time to catch up on.

Only the third Tuesday and I'm already sinking

So here's the deal: My sister Martha eats what I cook for her, my dad eats what I cook as long as there's little to no wheat, my sister Sarah has only been here a little over a week so far but will eat what I cook, and my mom is so picky that she very rarely eats dinner with us.

This last week my dad was out of town, Sarah was busy visiting all of her friends she hasn't seen all school year, Martha has been busy preparing for the end of her high school career, and I was house/dog sitting for a few days.

What I'm saying is, I haven't invested much time in the kitchen this past week.

I have made several batches of the granola bars though.

Almond/cranberry

Blueberry/pecan

Chocolate/cherry

Chocolate/coffee

Bacon/sunflower seed

Also, you HAVE to let them cool completely in the fridge before cutting them up.



Tonight for dinner I plan on making some stuffed chicken, because there is chicken in the fridge that needs to be cooked.

And some potato pancakes, because YUM!



My mom had a birthday and she's a big pirate fan so I decorated her cake to look like a treasure map of our property and put a red X where her presents were hidden. Aaaand I didn't take a picture of it. Aaaaand the cat got into it the next day. It was covered with plastic wrap on the counter and when I looked at it I wondered who had been punching the cake. I know it wasn't that pretty, but come on! Turns out it was cat foot prints.



My sister had a birthday too but she opted for a Cold Stone cake instead of a "Rachel cake"...I don't blame her.

neat stuff Thrusday!

So, I saw this first thing a while back and bookmarked it with the intention of sharing it with you all. Then a friend posted it on her blog and I was all Whaaaaaa? Get out of my head, mind reading sorceress!

Link

Since that idea was hijacked from my brain I'll come up with a second thing to share:

A story about a child that doesn't sleep. Suddenly Josephine's sleep regressions seem like a breeze.

Link

Finally, a picture that I have saved on my computer, but I don't remember where I found it.

Recipe Twofer Tuesday

I made these the other night.

mmmmmmmmmm

(I even made some w/out the bacon and they were good)

Rachael Ray annoys the crap out of me, but she usually has great recipes.

Second, my favorite food right now is a very simple wonton soup.

I could eat it every day. This is what I suggest:

• Goat cheese or feta
• Sausage* (I use Jimmy Dean sage)
• Spinach

Mix them up and fill wonton wrappers, cook them in broth with some green onions, peas, whatever...OR steam them (then are they dumplings?) or fry them in a little oil (then are they pot stickers?) and eat until you have to change into sweat pants. Then eat some more (you can totally have one more)

*So there were two sausages in a frying pan, one sausage rolls over to the other and says "Hey, sure is hot in here, huh?". The second sausage rolls over and replies "AAAAGGGGHHHHHH A TALKING SAUSAGE!!!"

This is what I live with

Sister 1: Did that sound like a zipper?
Sister 2: huh?
1: Did that sound like a zipper? or it sounded like this? (scratches nails along couch fabric)
2: Yeah
1: It's because my butt cheeks are so tight together.

confessions

I watch old episodes of 7th Heaven in the afternoons. If I'm too busy to watch when it airs, I record it.

When I go to the bathroom I pull my shirt all the way up to my chest. I have a bare belly when I pee. I didn't notice until I was a giant pregnant lady and exposing my big ol' belly needed to be done a bit more purposefully. I don't know why I do this.

I made up a pumpkin pie hamburger thing for dinner the other night. A can of pumpkin, eggs, whatever spices I could find, pound of hamburger and most of a can of olives. Baked on top of butter soaked saltines. It wasn't too bad. It wasn't too good either.

I can drink an entire pitcher of cranberry juice in one day. A pitcher being a prepared can of concentrate, however much that is. Is this bad? Can I overdose on cranberry?

When Josephine nurses she likes to play a little game. I look away, like at the tv or computer and she immediately unlatches* and looks up at me while milk drips down her cheek and onto my lap. Then I look back down at her, ask her if her belly is full, she smiles and quickly latches back on. Rinse and repeat.


*Sometimes she doesn't actually unlatch, and it huuuuurts.

Your belly is not full yet lady! This is meal time, not play time!

If you read the last monthly letter, and you didn't die from the sappiness of it all, you know that I have a fat baby.

The last few weeks she has started asking for food other than breast milk and so I've started giving her tastes of a few mashed up veggies (she likes avacado the best). Other than that she has gained all her chub from the boob. I'm trying hard to spread her feedings out even more now, if it were up to her she'd eat, or snack, every hour (I totally don't let her, but some days I'd like to). I don't know why, but I really thought I'd have a skinny baby. She totally skipped past some outfits too. One day she was my little 0-3month sized baby and then BAM! she's pushing the limits of her 3-6month onsies, wearing 6-9month stuff and what the crap? who said you could grow up this fast!

And she is sleeping right now

Somebody slept through the night! (not me!) I have read somewhere that "sleeping through the night" to a pediatrician means sleeping 12am-5am. HA!
I didn't want to jinx it so I haven't mentioned that Josephine has been sleeping better this last week, mostly waking up once or twice again instead of 589million times. Then last night she slept from 10pm-630am. I am not even kidding.
I know you think this is probably as exciting to read as a post about what color my socks are, but I had to document this momentous occasion. When Josephine decides to punch me in the face by waking up every hour tonight I can come back a read this and remember that anything is possible!
Of course when you are used to nursing at least once or twice in the night and the baby sleeps through those feeding times, you wake up anyway because your boobs are so swollen they are wedged against the ceiling making it difficult to sleep.

Recipe Tuesday!

Let's see how long I can keep this up. I can get pretty excited about food, but my time management skills could use some work.




Today I made granola bars.

mmmmmmmmmm....



Mix together:

3 cup rolled oats

1.5 cup crisp rice cereal

1 tsp baking soda

1 cup flour (I used whole wheat)

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup butter

3/4 cup honey

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

2 cups yummy stuff (I used almonds and dried cranberries, be creative!) (maybe next time I'll try mini chocolate chips and some coffee?)



I started mixing it with a spoon, but had to finish with my hands to get it mixed well enough. Then I had to use all my will power to keep from shoveling the mixture right into my mouth because it smells sooo good.

Bonus! when you wash your hands, just rinse them off w/out soap and they will be soooo smooth.

Grease a 9x13 pan and pack that stuff in there. Smoosh it as hard as you can. (smoosh is not a word)

Bake at 325 for around 20 min. Cool and cut.



** always remember that I don't really "measure" so, you know, cook accordingly.

Hey, let me have that camera!

Yeeaaaah

Last night I toasted marshmallows over a fire in our back yard with the family.
Today Josephine had her first experience in her baby pool.
Summer?