chunky monkey

I just love this little butterball!
   

Yummy!

I'm kind of a recipe addict. I love trying new recipes, and I'm always trying new ones until I find one that actually works every time you make it. Nothing is more frustrating than spending hours in the kitchen and not having the recipe turn out (I usually try my new recipes on dinner guests so if it turns out bad, I don't have to eat it all by myself!)

So...I'm starting a food blog where I will post recipes that I've tried and that actually work and taste good! All important criteria. If you have recipes you'd like to share, please post a link to your blog site so we can all enjoy! (be sure to check out my link to Joann's Recipes, I get a lot of great recipes from her) I'm doing a cooking class for our R.S. activity each month so I'll be posting those recipes here as well, http://ldsbaker.blogspot.com/

Snow Day!

We woke up this morning to several inches of snow! It snowed while we were in Florida and one other time there was a tiny sprinkling so this is the first "real" snow we've seen this winter! It is light fluffy powder too, the boys had so much fun playing in it. Finally starting to feel like winter now that it's almost February!

smarty pants

Ethan's been reading small words since he was two, but now that he's three he's really starting to get the whole reading thing so I finally sat down and recorded him reading a few books. I print the books from starfall.com and DLTK . We also got the your baby can read dvd's a few months ago which he likes to watch in the car.

He loves doing homeschool and if you tell him something 2 or 3 times he'll remember forever. He can locate almost all the u.s. states, knows the pledge of allegiance, the first 8 articles of faith, all the apostles, the planets, and is a pro on the computer- he loves pbskids.org and starfall.com. and he's on a dinosaur kick so he can identify quite a few of them and will tell you random facts like "birds are pterosaurs". He constantly amazes me with the things he picks up even when he's running around the room like a wild monkey and I don't think he even hears a word I'm saying.

Disney

We had a great week in Orlando although the weather was crazy cold the first half of the week. The first day wasn't too bad, we went to Animal Kingdom and were pleasantly surprised when we went on the safari. When we went last April it was ok but the animals were far away and hard to see, we figured it would be even worse since it was so cold, but they were all out and really close to us, there was a giraffe and rhino that were less than 3 feet away from us. It was awesome. The lines were so much shorter too and it was a really pleasant trip despite the cold. It's so fun to see Ethan get so excited about seeing Mickey Mouse and Lightning McQueen.I ran my 5k on Friday morning. I was a bit nervous since I just had a baby and had bronchitis the last few weeks, but I finished in 40 minutes. Not much compared to what Anthony does all the time, but it was pretty good for me. Saturday the boys ran a 100 meter race, it was cold and rainy and they were crying at the end. Ethan did really well but kept looking back to see where Anthony and Joshua were. Anthony ran the full marathon then walked around the parks for another 4-5 hours that evening. We also got to see our good friend Tracey who did the goofy- half marathon and then full marathon the next day.

Of course just as we were getting ready to leave the weather turned beautiful again. But it was a fun trip. It's fun to see the kids enjoy it more each year as they get older. Now it's back to unpacking and getting settled into real life again...

Happy New Year!

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Years! It's always so fun to get everyone's Christmas cards and see how families are growing and changing. We had a nice quiet Christmas here with just our family. The boys had fun opening their presents- Ethan of course tears right into it and starts jumping on all the bubble packaging while Joshua tears one tiny piece off at a time and places each piece on the table before tearing another piece off. Ethan & Joshua are obsessed with Thomas the Train and they each got a little portable track and trains from their cousins that they play with nonstop. They also got sleeping bags from their grandparents and Anthony and Ethan have already camped in the backyard twice. Anthony also got them the cutest little bathrobes, Joshua looks so adorable tromping around the house in it. I got some new photography gear and a new computer with a large screen so I can actually see the pictures when I'm editing them.

Grant is getting to be such a chunky monkey. My other boys were always below the 25th percentile for weight, not Grant. He's in the 95th! This little chunker weighs 13.8 pounds and he's only 2 months old. He's already starting to outgrown 0-3 month clothes. It's nice to finally have a baby with cute little fat rolls!

We're still getting unpacked, it's going to take me forever to get everything in it's place, and even longer to take pictures, but I did manage to get a picture of the living room- the only room that's 90% unpacked, and since we're getting ready to go to Disney World I'm sure it will be July before I get any other pics posted. Anyway...here are all the pics from December...

Sold!

It's official, We've sold our house! It was really a great first house and we're going to miss it- especially the view we had from our deck. We'll be moving into our new house tomorrow, it's in the same city just a few miles away. Kind of sad to see the walls bare and hear the rooms echo. I'll post pics of our new place once we get settled....back to packing!

It's been a while. We've been busy getting our house ready to sell, trying to find a new place to rent and just enjoying our boys. Grant is still such a good baby, it's been so much easier than I expected it would be. The boys are so good with him- Ethan loves to hold him and is always helping me. Joshua adores him and is always giving him kisses and if he cries he goes and gets his stuffed puppy dog and gives it to him. It's so sweet. I've even managed to go grocery shopping with all three boys- twice. Anthony's had a lot of time off work lately and we've had so much fun having him around. We spent Thanksgiving with Anthony's second cousins who we discovered live just 3 hours away from us and had a lot of fun. I've been taking tons of pictures of the boys but keep forgetting to upload, so I put a few of my favorites below.
*Sorry I should clarify- we are just moving across town. We thought we were leaving next summer but we're going to be here another year and a half (although it would be nice if we were going back to NH!) we've outgrown this house and a really nice couple put an offer on it so we couldn't very well back out. We are still finalizing everything but should be closing mid-December. More later!

more pictures of Grant...

Baby Grant

Grant Daniel Osborne was born Monday October 26, 2009 at 1:27pm. He weighs 7lbs 5oz and is 19 1/2 inches long.

He is such a good baby, he sleeps all the time and rarely cries. It's funny how huge Joshua seems now. Joshua doesn't have a clue what the baby is and doesn't care to go near him. Ethan is excited to have a baby brother and is taking it really well. This birth experience was so different from the first two. If you don't like birth stories- stop reading now...

I decided to be induced on my due date because I was already a 3 the week before and ready to have this baby and Anthony's parents were in town and I not only wanted them to see the baby but wanted them to stay with the boys while we were in the hospital. I had decided months before if I had back labor for the third time this would be my last baby. I was not going to experience that again. A week before my due date I started panicking realizing that I was about to have this baby and dreading the back labor that I knew was impending. I decided this time I would be open to medical intervention and started doing research on epidurals. I had my previous two babies naturally- I feared the procedure of an epidural and felt the drugs weren't good for the baby, and my first midwife said the epidural might not help back labor.

Anyway, we got to the hospital and they started me on pitocin around 9am, I was already at a 4 and had back labor for a good hour before I decided I've already tried it that way twice, might as well try something different this time. So after hounding the poor nurse about how bad the needle really would be and promising it would not slow my labor down, I finally decided to try the epidural.

There were a few scary moments when my blood pressure dropped, but aside from that it was much better than I anticipated. It was the funniest feeling I've ever had and I couldn't stop laughing at my legs, they were like jello and it felt so weird to touch them, it was like when you go to the dentist and have a fat lip or tongue. I was still only half expecting it to help back labor, so I was pretty surprised when I went completely numb and couldn't feel a thing. I couldn't even feel any of my contractions and two hours later they said I was complete and ready to push. It was the most relaxing day I've had in years and I couldn't believe I gave birth, I spent the whole time sleeping.

He was born at 1:27, so 4 1/2 hours from start to finish, just like the last two, only this time I was 100% pain free (aside from the first hour of back labor). It was a bit dissapointing at the end because it was so anti-climatic. I didn't have the adrenaline rush and overwhelming emotions that come from natural childbirth and the satisfaction that you just birthed a baby. Because I have such fast labors the epidural didn't have any time to wear off so it was still in full effect when he was born and I couldn't believe I'd just had a baby. If it were my first birth, I'd have been really dissapointed, but I've already had that twice, it was nice to have a relaxing experience this time. Plus it may make the difference as to whether we have another baby in the future.

Anyway, we're glad to have the little guy here, he's so sweet and so far such a good baby. It was really fun for Ethan & Joshua to spend so much time with their grandparents, they got totally spoiled and really miss them now that they're gone. I'll be posting lots more pictures later!

Food storage analyzer

Last winter when we had the huge ice storm it was a wake up call for us to get our food storage and preparedness gear in order. We have most of our long term storage and 90-day supply but we always wonder if it's enough, especially since most food storage calculators are based on adults rather than children. We don't want to have overkill but we want to make sure we've got enough to meet our family's needs. I just found out about Emergency Essentials new analyzer that helps with that. You plug in what you already have and what you anticipate buying in the near future and it lets you know how long your food storage will last your family (based on age and gender) and what nutritional value your food will give you so you can see what gaps need to be filled in. Check it out http://foodstorageanalyzer.com now is the perfect time to re-evaluate your storage options before the winter storms hit.

Three years old

A little late, but Ethan had his 3rd birthday on the 14th. It's hard to believe he's so grown up already! Anthony had Columbus Day off so we celebrated his birthday a few days early. His main gift was a bike and he had lots of fun helping put it together. Then we spent the afternoon at the park riding around and playing. Joshua loves to ride too. Anthony's parents came in town for a visit and the boys have had so much fun getting spoiled by them. They'll be back again this weekend and we hope to have a new baby by then...

Happy Fall!

I love fall, it's my favorite time of year. I love crisp coolness in the air and the leaves as they change. I love making fall desserts like apple crisp, pumpkin bars and sugar cookies. I really miss New Hampshire this time of year for the beautiful colors and the apple orchards. We don't have any apple orchards but we do have a few pumpkin patches and we took the boys to pick their own pumpkins. They had so much fun running through the hay maze and playing on the pumpkin carts. Anthony found these mr potato head type eyes, nose & ears for halloween and the boys had fun decorating their pumpkins.

We spent the week in Columbus, OH and got to visit our good friends on the way home, the Toronto's, who just moved a few hours from us. It was so fun to catch up with them and their 3 boys. It's going to be a blast getting together with all 6 boys.

Our zoo has a Halloween party and since I'm not sure if I'll be out of comission on Halloween or not (baby's due on the 26th), we took the boys up to go trick-or-treating. As soon as they got into costume they started running around like wild things and were bouncing off the walls. I was surprised how much attention we got though, people kept stopping us all night long to say how cute they were and would yell and wave at thing 1 & 2 (of course I thought they were cute, but didn't think we'd cause such a commotion). They had so much fun and Joshua actually kept his hat on the entire time. Kind of fun to celebrate Halloween all month long.

My angel...

I've always called him my angel because he never cried as a baby, slept through the night the first week and was just so easy to take care of. He turned into a whiner after he got teeth, but now he's settling down and is a little angel again. This is absolutely my favorite stage. Although he's really clingy and follows me around all day long like a little puppy, Joshua is so sweet and cuddly. He's started carrying his blanket around the house and loves to just sit on my lap and cuddle. Ethan never liked to cuddle much, so I'm really enjoying this and constantly think about how I'll miss him when he grows up...

Fall projects

Since I didn't have to buy anything new for this baby, I decided I'd attempt to be crafty and tackle some projects. I made a new nursing cover, decor for the boys room- although Michael's discontinued these wooden letters so I'm not sure how I'm going to finish it for the new baby, some burp cloths, baby hats, blanket and attempted my first- and last- quilt.

Most were pretty simple except the quilt- I've never done one before and have no desire to patchwork pieces together, and I hate the tie quilts because those fuzzy things always go up your nose. I thought it would be easy to hand stitch designs in the fabric. But after I started I realized the stitching looks terrible on the backside and couldn't figure out how to make it look good. So I decided to machine stitch it. I don't have a quilting machine and it took hours to try and go around each curve. I think I can safely say it was my first and last quilt. And I did go ahead and make another blanket with ties- I figured it's not my nose they'll be tickling.
For some reason I was feeling ambitious and decided to make Halloween costumes. Call it nesting, I call it a dose of reality- my last few weeks of semi-freedom. But I did manage to complete them all. The boys are going to be Thing 1 & Thing 2 and Anthony's the Cat in the Hat. It was actually kind of fun, I have gotten out of the sewing mode and it was nice to work on a few projects.