Reed: 3 Months Old

On Saturday this little guy had his three month birthday.

I'm not really sure how that happened so quickly.

He went from being this scrawny little newborn:

To this one month old:

To this much bigger 2 month old:

To this 3 month old who looks like an absolute giant:

We pulled down the 6-9 month clothes for him and I very matter of factly told TJ, "These are huge.  They're going to drown him."  They don't.  They fit rather nicely, which makes me think I should also be pulling down the 9-12 month clothes.  I'm not sure what this kid is eating, but he is somehow at 15 pounds already (when his cousins born within his same week, both weighing more than him, are both at 12 pounds).  I also had to buy size three diapers.  Heaven help us.

We celebrated the big day by taking a few hundred pictures.

Part of that is because I'm just making the switch to shooting in manual and since I am still figuring it out I take gobs of pictures hoping one will work.

But the bigger part is because no matter how great the picture is it seems I can never quite capture him.

The way his little knees wrinkle when he straightens his legs.

The way he sticks out his tongue when he's smiling and it's so quick that if you're not watching closely you'll miss it.

The way his chins stack up.

The way he uses his toes so frequently: spreading and curling and clenching and wiggling them in ways I can't even do.

His big blue eyes that are so often wide open, taking the world in.  We hear all the time, "He's so alert!"  He looks and looks and looks at the world around him.

And really, no camera can capture that.  

I'm trying to sear into my memory all these little details and a million other little things, like how he lifts his foot to reach for my arm while he's eating and how he folds his hands in such a darling way that we can't help but call him "Reverent Reed."  I love his chunky thighs and the way his hair is curly after a shower.

He has completely captured our hearts.  

Sure there have been some long days with a fussy, crying baby who just wants to be held and walked.  There have been some rough nights when we are telling him we would really, really like to get some sleep now.  But we'd take the hard moments a million times over for all the goodness and fun and joy we're experiencing.

On Saturday night after getting him to sleep we took a few minutes to write down things we love about him, just like he is right now.

My favorite thing lately is the way he kicks his legs: his eyes are wide, his mouth in an o, his arms flailing while those chunky little legs fly as fast as he can make them.  It takes so much effort and concentration and it's absolutely adorable.

Reed tells great stories.  And when he's tired he tells such sad, sad stories that we can't help but laugh.

He has a distinct cry to request a swaddle.  He loves to be swaddled, particularly when he's ready to sleep.  After he's asked and we wrap him up tight he stares at us calmly with those big blue eyes wide open and it's as clear as if he said it verbally that he's thanking us.

He loves to be held UP: over the shoulder or facing forward, but he really hates being cradled.

TJ is pretty in love with his happy sigh, which is a bit of a coo, but his big lower lip that he sticks out when he's sad is also very cute.  Who knows how he learned to frown so perfectly.

Sometimes when you're looking at him he gets this shy grin on his face and he'll look the other way, like he's being really funny or teasing you.

After a nap he has some pretty epic stretching sessions.  His arms go above his head, he spreads his legs out wide or tucks them up to his chest, squirming and wiggling to stretch everything just right.

We keep watching and trying so hard to memorize all these little moments and feelings and smiles and laughs.  They are passing far faster than we anticipated.  We give thanks to our Heavenly Father every single day for letting us having him in our lives!

What are some of your favorite memories from the babies in your life?

Avocado Enchiladas

TJ's parents have a knack for always having delicious produce on hand, so when they texted TJ on their way to the airport last week that they had five perfect avocados in the fridge, I asked that TJ make getting those avocados a priority!  They were perfect, which meant I had a great excuse to make avocado enchiladas.  As fair warning, these are not great leftovers, probably because the avocados in the enchiladas just get mushy.

The version I made (imagine a lovely picture here...) was a mash-up of a few recipes (outlined below).  This is not a perfected recipe, but hopefully this is enough of an outline to get you to a great result.

Filling from here (Mountain Mama Cooks)
Sauce from here (Six Sisters)

Ingredients for the enchilada sauce:

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tbsp. flour
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 2 tsp. cumin
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. pepper
• 1/2 c. chopped cilantro
• 1 c. salsa verde
• 1/2 c. sour cream

Ingredients for the filling:

• 2 large avocados, diced
• 3/4 c. black beans, drained and rinsed (we just threw in the whole can)
• 1 1/2 c. grated sharp cheddar cheese, divided (we used some pepper jack too)
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 3 green onions, diced
• Shredded (already cooked) chicken (I'd guess we used half a rotisserie chicken)
• Tortillas (corn or flour - we used large flour tortillas and got 8 enchiladas from this)

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees (NOTE: I always think this should be step 4 or so because my oven heats so quickly, but I'll leave it here so you don't forget).

2. In a medium saucepan, saute the garlic in the butter for about 1 minute on medium high heat.

3. Stir in the flour and let it cook for about 2 more minutes.

4. Stir in the chicken broth, cumin, salt, and pepper and bring to a simmer.

5. Remove from heat and stir in the sour cream, salsa verde, and cilantro until smooth.

6. Spray the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish with nonstick spray.  Add about 1/2 c. sauce to cover the whole bottom of the dish.

7. In a separate bowl, combine all your filling ingredients (except the cheese).   I suggest adding the avocados last and gently folding them in.

8. Set up your assembly line: lay out your tortilla, put some filling in there, sprinkle cheese on top, and roll it up, placing it seal side down in the pan.

9. After filling the dish, pour the rest of your enchilada sauce and some cheese over the top.

10. Bake for about 20 minutes.

Santa Party - Part 1

Growing up, on a Saturday at the beginning of December we always went to Grandma Savage's house for her Tree Trim party.  Dinner was set out in the kitchen and we would eat in the front room or the back room.  I remember there were always deviled eggs and "little hot dogs," cheeseball and jello.  We couldn't all fit in one room so we would just spread throughout the house: sitting by the fireplace in the back room, or near her singing Christmas cowboy by her front portrait window.

After dinner we went to the backroom and decorated her Christmas tree.  It was always so overwhelmed with decorations that you could hardly see the tree.  Some of the older cousins would hold out the bulbs while the younger kids would put them on the tree.  At the end (at least in recent years), Aunt Rose would cover the whole thing in metallic streamers until it looked like it was fairly dripping with love.

In Grandma's back room on the wall there was a leather belt with jingle bells on it that someone would ring when Santa came to give us presents.  What a magical sound those clanging bells made for us!

Grandma Savage passed away two years ago: I still miss her.  My mom has worked her tail off to keep the Santa party going each year, which I so appreciate.  She puts so much work and thought and planning into that thing, coming up with a theme each year and planning everything around it.  This year the theme was "White Christmas."  TJ was too sick to go (I missed him a whole lot) but I was so glad to be there.  I went over early to help decorate (with our big family we have moved to a local church).

My mom's poses crack me up:

She was pretty set on an all-white Christmas tree that she could dress like a snowman:

Lots of snowflakes for all the walls, a craft table (see that cute snowman the kids could make), and a poem about our family.  I'm telling you, this is quite a production.

 Next up, the party itself.  :)  I took so many pictures (and Matt took my camera and doubled the count) it will take me a bit to get through them all!

Telestrations

Our neighbors own this fabulous game called Telestrations.  It's sort of like a mix of Pictionary and the old "telephone" game when you would whisper a message in a circle and see how close the final message is to the original.  This is my favorite game to play with these neighbors.

Recently we convinced Graysen that he could play by himself instead of being on a team and man oh man was that a great decision: we get some humdingers out of him that crack us up (discreetly).

His word in this round is "Kiss."

If you got that picture passed to you I'm sure you'd know exactly what it was, right?  :)  He zoomed in on the lips and everything.

And I probably should've taken a picture of what this one is because I definitely can't guess it now.

This kid is so darn handsome.

Bryce doesn't seem to mind just wandering while we're playing, especially when his beloved "T!" is in the room (he adores TJ).

Grinning at T (the photographer here):

Pretend this isn't blurry, I just love that little grin.

Here he is calling T on the phone.

And entertaining himself by trying to sit in the box (oddly a recurring theme when we play, ha!)

TJ usually wins best artist:

But Mylee is starting to give him a run for his money.  Check out her farmer!

If I remember right, Mylee's guess for this one that Jodi drew was "big fat hairy cat."  :)

A couple weeks later while TJ was in Japan, Jodi had me over for dinner and a couple rounds of Telestrations.  I texted TJ some of my favorites from Graysen.

(Sorry this one is sideways, I don't know how to fix it).  I took a picture of this because I love how he did the letter k.  

"Jail cuffs"

And my favorite of all.  I sent this to TJ to guess what it is and he came up with picture frame BUT if you look closer that is pretty clearly Rapunzel.  I adore this one.  :)

Love this family, love this game.

All the Meat

Since being pregnant it seems like I want all the meat I can get my hands on.  It's a funny change from the pre-pregnancy days when we were having meat every two weeks or so.

A few weeks ago we went to Cubby's and in a moment of (very uncharacteristic) spontaneity, ordered a hamburger to go with our standard salad.  For the record, I think that is the fourth time in my life I have ordered a hamburger at a restaurant...  It took an awful lot of effort to stop eating halfway through so T could have the other half - ha!  I loved it so much that TJ went and bought me another the next day.  I think we're on four straight weeks of having a Cubby's hamburger date night and I cannot get enough: who'd have guessed?

 This is a face of a woman who loves her hamburger:

2016 Grateful Tree

This year I skipped Halloween decorations entirely.  While neighbors and friends were pulling out skeletons and witches, I was putting up my Thanksgiving decorations (which are probably my favorite decorations I own).  On a Sunday in October Mylee and Graysen were here and we got to work on our Grateful Tree: I've wanted to do one in the past and this year we made it happen.  The kids helped me draw branches on a roll of brown paper and then while I spent a whole lot of time cutting that sucker out the kids got busy cutting loads of leaves.  One unforeseen benefit of young cutters is that we got some really awesome leaf shapes that I would never have thought of.

As soon as that tree was taped on the door the kids were writing things they were thankful for and taping them up.  

Check out this concentration:

Over the next couple months Mylee and Graysen would add to the tree whenever they came over.  T and I added a bunch of our own and as we had others over they, too, would add what they were grateful for.  I loved it.  

I took the tree down on Sunday and had to take a few pictures before I deconstructed it.  I think next year we'll try to cover more of those branches.  :)  

I loved Brock and Cooper's contributions: they are more than a little obsessed with their favorite colors.

"Legos" from Graysen - one of my favorites of all:

I just love his "full of effort" handwriting.  This one is "Rachel and TJ," just a bit scrambled:

Check out this leaf shape:

I can't remember what gift prompted this one from T:

I grinned when I saw this from one of TJ's deacons (we had his family for dinner):

Graysen had me spelling out these words for him to write.  He got a little tight on space so I had him put "our" on the top row, which makes me love this leaf even more.  I couldn't throw these last two away: they are taped securely in my journal.

What a great way to be greeted each morning from October - January.  I love the great feelings that gratitude brings.