7 Quick Takes Wednesday

My little one is actually in bed and asleep (for the moment) and my husband is at youth group, which means I actually get a bit of time to myself this evening and so I thought I'd pay a visit to the old neglected blog.  I wish I had the energy and brain power these days to write meaningful, thought provoking posts about motherhood, faith, life, or literature, but well...as much as I have these thoughts swirling around in my brain all the time I rarely have the energy to put them on paper.  Maybe writing a post in the 7-Quick takes style that I used to write weekly will start the words flowing!  So without further ado, here's the latest in the Kennedy household:

**1**

I have to take a second to brag about my super awesome dad.  Tomorrow night he graduates from the University of Minnesota as a Family Nurse Practitioner!  Three years ago he went back to school and has spent the past three years writing papers, doing projects, participating in clinicals and internships, and reading a ton.  He'll now be working taking care of people of all ages.  We are so so proud of you Dad and are so excited for this next career in your life!  

**2**

We're getting settled in here at our new church which is so wonderful!  When Charles took this job it was on an interim basis, but not long ago the elders of the church voted to remove the interim part of his title and keep him on as their permanent youth director!  Which means we get to be here for quite awhile!  We have been SO blessed by this community already and cannot express how grateful we are to get to stay here and begin raising our son in this congregation.  He'll be baptized father's day weekend by Jim, our senior pastor and friend, and we can't wait!

**3**

I have been reading quite a bit while I nurse our munchkin, and for awhile I was striking out with books.  I tried reading The Emperor's Children but was not interested at all (I thought it was going to be so much better than it was).  Then I picked up The Swiss Family Robinson because I've never read it and it's a classic and it was on my list of books to read this year.  Yeah...if I'm ever stranded on a desert island, this is the book I want with me because it gives detailed instructions on how to do everything you would need to do in order to survive.  But just for pleasure reading?  YAWN.....But the last book I read, The Lightning Thief (the first book in the Percy Jackson series) was fantastic.  It was written for middle schoolers, all about Greek mythology coming to life here in modern day America (Percy is the son of one of the gods but doesn't know that until he's 12).  There are many similarities between this and Harry Potter in my opinion but it's equally as entertaining!  I'll be picking up book 2 in the series soon!

**4**

A few weeks ago I posted about how my menu from this month is coming from our new cookbook Parents Need to Eat Too, and let me just say this book is fantastic!  We have loved all but one of the meals we've made out of this book, and all have been SO simple and quick to put together.  I'd highly recommend it.

**5**

My mom comes to visit on Tuesday!  I am SO excited to see her, even though it's only been a couple weeks since Aidan and I were back in Minnesota.  The days get long and kind of lonely being at home with a little one all day (as I know all parents experience).  She'll only be here for a couple days, but I am very much looking forward to having company during the day.  I'm hoping to get some spring cleaning done...like organizing my disaster of a pantry!

**6**

It is crazy to me how much I adore our little one.  I know, that's a typical mom thing to say, but it really does catch me off guard sometimes, even in the middle of the night when I'm exhausted and he's awake again, or in the middle of the day when I desperately want him to go down for a nap and he'll only want to sleep in my arms.  I look at him and I see myself reflected back in his little face and expressions, and that is an incredible feeling.  Being a mom is so much harder and so much more exhausting--physically, mentally, and emotionally than I ever expected, but I wouldn't trade him for anything in the world!

**7**

This one is completely shallow, but I have been in love with the TV show Smash these days.  Broadway musical, drama, incredible talent, and scandal...what's not to love??  But in reality, Katharine McPhee is absolutely amazing, her voice is incredible and I love watching to hear her sing.  What I think is awesome is that both my parents are hooked on it as well :)

Three Months!

Little Bug!  You are three months old!  You're past that "missing 4th trimester" that people talk about!  Woo hoo, we all made it!  You are growing into such a fun little boy, your mommy and daddy just love you to pieces!  We don't have a 3 month doctor's appointment, so we don't have any official weights and measurements of you, but by our best calculations you're about 12 pounds 10 ounces and I have no idea how long you are but I do know you've completely out grown all your 0-3 month sleepers.  We're definitely into 3 month clothing with you.  In the past month you have come so far working on your tummy time and lifting up your head--you no longer howl at us when we put you on your tummy, and you are doing quite a wonderful job at lifting your head up off the ground.  It's hard work, and you still get tired easily, but we are so excited to see you actually working on it!  

This past month you got to meet one of mommy's best friends, Missy, when she came down to spend a couple days with us, and you took another trip.  You're going to be quite the well traveled baby!  This time you and Mommy flew to Minneapolis to your Grandma and Papa's house while your daddy went on a mission trip with the church.  They went to build houses in Arizona and you and I went to play and take naps and spend time with Grandma and Papa. 

Another fun thing is that you have started figuring out that you have hands!  You like to suck on your hands sometimes and you are paying more and more attention when your hands accidentally whack one of your toys or stuffed animals.  You like to reach out and touch the stuffed animals that are propped up on your changing table.

Your smile is getting brighter and brighter and you're trying so hard to talk!  We can tell you have a lot to say, and you'll lock eyes with mommy when feeding and stop eating to smile and talk to her.  This morning you laid in Mommy and Daddy's bed and told us all kinds of things--I think you were telling us all about your night :)  You have no idea how much I adore these "conversations"--I could spend hours listening to you "talk" to me.  

Every day it seems you become a little bit more aware of what's going on around you, and more interested in looking at the world.  You have come to love your baths and kick and splash (even though I am not sure you realize it is your own arms and legs making the water splash!).  Mommy gives you a bath most nights because it helps quiet you when you're getting fussy in the evenings before bed.  It is so much more fun now that you can kind of sit up on your own in the tub instead of having to have Mommy hold you!  

We've spent this past month working on sleep with you--I realized about a month ago that babies are supposed to take naps after being awake only an hour and a half or two hours, and that has made a huge difference in our house!  You're only napping for 20-30 minutes each time but it seems to be enough to help you "reset" your little brain and body and makes you ready to be awake and play again for another 90 minutes or so.  This probably goes against every baby sleep book, but your afternoon nap is still almost always in Mommy's arms, laying on my chest.  We lay down together and that seems to help you get in a bit of a longer nap than 30 minutes (today you slept for an hour and a half!) and it lets Mommy get a much needed nap and some baby snuggle time.  You have no idea how much I adore the feeling of your little body snuggled up next to me.  Someday we'll probably have to stop these little naps of ours, but for now I will treasure every afternoon we get to snuggle together.  

Another exciting thing of the month is that you've started paying a little attention when we read to you! You will stare at the pages of a book and actually let us get through most of a short story, which absolutely makes me beyond excited!  Your favorite book this month is Chick a Chicka Boom Boom about all the alphabet letters that climb the coconut tree and then they all fall down!  Oh no!  We have read this book a LOT this month (well in the last two weeks, your Grandma gave it to you when we went to her house and we've read it every day since then).  Here you are with Papa, he's reading you Good Night Moon and you were pretty fixated on the pictures!

It was your first big holiday this month too!  Easter!  We went to church and then had a beautiful lunch at Jim and Chris' house.  You had fun for awhile but got awfully tired and couldn't settle down to take your nap with all the people around, so we finally brought you home to sleep (and you slept for 2 hours, woke up for an hour and then went to bed for the night!  Poor baby, Easter really took it out of you!)  Here's our little family at church on Easter.

Aidan, your Mommy and Daddy couldn't be more in love with you!  You are going to roll your eyes when you read this later in life but almost every day I look at you and I get teary just thinking about how perfect and amazing you are.  There are tough days, days when I can't seem to figure out what you need, but those are getting fewer and father between.  You crack me up all the time with silly expressions like this one in this photo and you melt my heart with your smiles, coos and attempts at laughter (which right now is more of a one syllable "ha!")  I love the way your eyes light up when I come into the room to get you from a nap, and I love the way you never ever stop kicking your feet if you're awake.  (Changing you is quite the challenge!)  Every night as you lay snuggled in my arms in the rocking chair as I rock you to sleep I  am overwhelmed at how God has blessed us with you.  I never knew that when I became a mom I'd know you better than I know any person on the planet.  I know what your perfectly round little cheek feels like against my lips.  I know your scent.  I know the temperature of your forehead and little ears and now I know how my mom always knew if I had a fever by kissing me.  It's because she spent an exorbitant amounts of time kissing my forehead so she knew if something changed.  

We love you so much baby boy!  Happy 3 months!

Parents Need to Eat Too!

If you have known me for awhile, you know that cooking is one of my loves. I love menu planning for the week, grocery shopping, and setting a fresh meal on the table. As you can imagine, since our little one was born I have not done much cooking and that has been frustrating. It's not the fact that I have not been able to cook that has bothered me, it's the fact that when I don't have a menu and plan set I am so much more likely to succumb to fast food, frozen pizza, and other unbalanced meals just to fill our bellies even if it is completely unhealthy. This drives me crazy and goes against everything I was raised to value about food and meal times! A few weeks ago my friend Karen, also a relatively new mom, told me about a cookbook she found and loved. It's called Parents Need to Eat Too by Debbie Koenig and is full of easy meals that are designed for tired new parents. Some are crock pot recipes, some are "one handed meals" that you can eat while holding a little one, some create larger amounts of food so that you can freeze a portion for later, some are "nap friendly" recipes so that she has them broken into stages that you can put together during your kid's various naps throughout the day, and some are designed to help increase milk supply for nursing mothers. I ordered a copy of the book and while I've been here at my parents house I actually read through the entire book cover to cover. It has great tips, and the recipes look SO yummy and balanced and healthy. I decided to take advantage of the extra help I have here and created my monthly menu for April, and then went through all the recipes and made my grocery lists for each week of the month. Debbie has a website that goes along with the book (www.debbiekoenig.com) with links to a ton of recipes not in her book. In order to get you to purchase the book she doesn't link to those recipes. So in case you need some inspiration, new ideas, or are just plain tired of your normal menu, feel free to try some of these along with us this month! To make things easier for planning I assigned a different food category to a different night of the week. So in our house this month Mondays are Mexican food night, Tuesdays are pasta nights, Wednesdays are left overs, Thursdays are some type of meat and/or potato night, Fridays are free nights--so something out of our freezer, or left overs, or going out, Saturdays are slow cooker days, and Sundays are soup and salad nights. So many bloggers I read use a system similar to this to help their planning out, so feel free to borrow the idea as well!

Here's what we're going to be testing out this month--all these are from this new cookbook.

Quick Black Beans & Rice

Beef Ravioli Lasagna

French Onion Chicken (you caramelize the onions overnight in a crock pot and then add chicken in the morning to let it cook all day--so easy and it looks amazing!)

Balsamic Beef Stew

Quesadillas with cheddar and mango chutney

Pasta with roasted cherry tomatoes and shrimp

Chipotle Sloppy Joes

Moroccan Red Lentil Stew

Butternut and Gruyere Stuffed Baked Potatoes

Roasted Vegetable Beef Barley Soup

Blue Cheese & Bacon Stuffed Baked Potatoes

Curried Lentil Soup

My mouth is watering! Anyone else ready to get cooking!? I'll let you know later how these things turn out and if I'd still really recommend the book after cooking from it, but for now I'm just super excited to have a month of meals planned out and the shopping lists to go with them!