Chunky Monkey

Matthew reached his 2 month milestone on the 20th. Today we went to the Pediatrician and our chunky monkey weighs 14lbs exactly. Sarah and Jenna weighed 14lbs at 6 months. Matthew is only 2 months. He is such a chunk! We are in for a ride with him.

In case you have not heard, there is a silly bandz craze sweeping the world (or at least our part of the world). Our girls have silly bandz, and I even have given them as prizes for Sarah's success with the potty. The girls also absolutely love Matthew and have taken to putting silly bandz on him too (actually Sarah is the one who mostly does this). They want to hold him all the time and really love him.

Matthew's Godparents, Tim and Jen, have chosen the following life verse for him:

"So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." ~Isaiah 41:10. Erik says this Bible verse is "manly" although I'm not sure what that means.

The girls start ballet today and Jenna starts kindergarten tomorrow. I'm so nervous for her and I have no idea why!

57 points on Quiddler today.

(lots of children)!=sleep

Psalm 127:2 states "For so He gives his beloved sleep." Yet directly after that verse in Psalm 127:3-5 we have the following words "children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them."

This is an apparent Biblical contradiction, almost as blatant as the geneaology of Jesus contradiction in Matthew and Luke. How can one with many children get sleep? Last night Matthew slept a blessed 6 hours. While everything I've read says that a child weighing at least 11 lbs can sleep 8 hours, my massive chunky monkey can't seem to go that long without food. More on his weight in a later post. Anyway, even though Matthew slept well last night, Sarah woke up three times screaming prompting me to actually sleep in bed with her last night to calm her down. Not sure about the "beloved sleep" thing with 3 kids.

In other news:

1. I will be going back to work on Monday (the 30th) teaching an online class. It is online so I don't have to leave the house, but I'll actually have to check my email and respond with phrases other than "I'm on maternity leave now, please direct your question to....".
2. I reactivated my Lifetime membership. While I can not workout during the day since Matthew must be 3 months old to go to the childcare center, I did go to a Pilates class in the evening. It was amazing, and I felt so good afterwards. The teacher is as flexible as gumby and maybe someday I will be too!
3. I finished book 2 of the Conquerors trilogy by Timothy Zahn. This is a fun series but I am waiting to read book 3 until I finish a library book. The library tends to get mad and charge me lots of fines when I don't return books. Again I've maxed out my library card and had to use Jenna's card to check out books. Apparently this is "ghetto" according to one of my students. Anyway, the library book is called the Briar King by Greg Keyes and is very good. Terry Brooks liked it (according to the back cover) so I was less hesitant to read it than Gardens of the Moon.
4. Erik and I are working our way through Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson. The author uses big words like trireme, however he has not used the word "inchoate." This is one of the words authors seem to prefer using when they want to sound smart. It's on my mind since I recently read it in Searoad by Ursula K. LeGuin. Yes - I'm reading that one too!
5. 97 points on Quiddler today. I got 20 points for an 8 letter word!! "clanking". That just made my day - who needs sleep when I can get 8 letter words!

Chocolate milk cartons

Kindergarten starts in 1 week. 1 week!! My baby is going to kindergarten. When I toured her school - I was pelted by the sounds, smells, and visuals of elementary school. It transported me back to sharpened pencils, chalk, stickers, and chocolate milk cartons. OOOH how I love chocolate milk cartons! Now they have these plastic twist top milk bottles that are far inferior to their cardboard counterparts. What has this world come to?

Jenna's kindergarten orientation was tonight and she is not looking forward to going. She talks so much about not wanting to go to kindergarten that Sarah has started saying "I don't want to go to ballet." Not because she doesn't want to go, but because she wants to be like big sister and have something that she "doesn't want" to go to. (Jenna and Sarah will both be in ballet this year). Anyway, we are trying to encourage Jenna but she is very anxious about kindergarten. We are praying for her to have a good experience.

On a different topic, one of Erik's favorite desserts is chocolate truffle tart. It consists of 1/2 lb butter, 1 lb bittersweet chocolate and 6 eggs. It's low fat yummy. Anyway, Erik and I have become obsessed with sea salt lately. So I wanted to modify my chocolate truffle tart recipe to include sea salt. (the girls helped stir the batter - see picture). I added 3/4tsp of sea salt to the batter and then sprinkled some on top. Awww Yea. To quote the compositional masterpiece of Yo Gabba Gabba "there's a party in my tummy, so yummy, so yummy."

I also got some hi-gluten flour from Yutzy's. Normally I add 1 tsp of gluten per cup of flour to my bread dough, but I wanted to see how the hi-gluten flour would compare in my honey wheat bread in place of the gluten. It worked great! I was excited to see the results, however Erik was less than thrilled. I currently have the following types of flours in my pantry: all purpose, self-rising, whole wheat, bread, and hi-gluten flour. Erik is not thrilled with the numerous types of flours we are storing (yes I threw away the cake flour before he noticed). He is already annoyed that I want another waffle maker (ours died the other day) since it is a unitasker.

When Nicholas and Emmerich were over the other day, all 4 kids were playing in/on/around our play car. Surprisingly they all got along well. I also snapped a picture of Sarah wearing her tigger outfit. She has been wearing it a lot lately and she looks adorable!

71 on Quiddler today and I made the word "winner"!

Tooney

Thank you to everyone who voted in my very important poll on who Matthew resembles. Erik is winning but surprisingly, many people think Matthew looks like me too! No one thinks Matthew looks like Sarah though. That's okay - she is a wisp of a girl and we don't want Matthew to be a wisp (maybe a night elf but certainly not a wisp).

I've included pictures of the girls getting their haircut. While this may seem mundane, it is actually Sarah's first haircut at a salon (Cookie Cutters). Sarah, who hates when I brush her hair in the morning, loved getting her hair cut. Now Jenna will be ready for school and Sarah will be ready for... something.

When Erik's Mom and Grandma were visiting, we took a picture of all 4 generations together. It came out really nice and is good to have everyone together like this. Now if the kids would just look at the camera!

The Cooper book club picked our next book to read. It is Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson. I was so excited to read this book until I learned that Steven Donaldson gave it a good review (he is the author of Thomas Covenant). So I am a little worried. However, I am looking forward to reading this book and discussing it in our book club.

I was informed by the book club that I am not allowed to read the next Brandon Sanderson book until everyone else does. I find this to be highly unfair and will probably sneak read it. Is that actually something? Sneak reading??

58 points on Quiddler today. Apparently "tooney" is not a word. It sounds like a word to me!

Who does Matthew resemble? Please vote!

Who does Matthew resemble?
	Daddy
	Mommy
	Jenna
	Sarah