Gracie is 7 months old!

Our little one is growing so fast! Here are our developments for this month:

-She is sitting pretty well on her own.
-She babbles a lot!!!
-She like to grab hold of her brothers when playing but doesn't want to let go. So, we are teaching her to be gentle. She rubs their heads and says "ahhhhhh" and then they all giggle.
-She is eating three "meals" a day with our family. Each new item introduced she did not like at first, but now she is eating everything very well.
-She has graduated to size 3 diapers (well she still fits size 2, but Mommy refuses to buy a Costco size box of size 2's cause she will be out of them soon!) She is mostly in 6 month and 6-9 month clothes, although she can wear a few of her 9 month clothes too.
-She has her first tooth!
-She can grasp things with two fingers.
-She is desperate to be on the move. She can "crawl" backwards, which is more like a scoot, but it gets her to where she wants to go, namely wherever Luke and Ben are! She also gets up on her knees and then cries in frustration when she is not moving!

As a side note, my sister gave me a wonderful book at my shower about making homemade baby pureed food. I was totally intimidated at first, but I am hooked and so is Gracie! It is so easy. The food is so mush fresher, it is incredibly easy, and best of all...cheap!! Most things are just steamed, pureed (I have a hand held blender that works great), and then placed into ice cube trays to freeze. Once frozen, I pop out the "cubes" of pureed food and place in ziplock bags that have been labeled. Each cube of food is about 1 ounce, or 2 cubes equals one small baby food jar.

As an example of how cheap this is, I got four large sweet potatoes for less than $1.25. Washed them, covered in foil, and baked for over an hour while we were outside swimming. While the kids napped I spooned out the contents, added a little milk, pureed, and just like that I had two ice cube trays full of ready to eat sweet potatoes! (That equals at least 16 baby food jars that would cost at least $8 at the store!)

I am still new at this, but I love it! If you have tried this before and have any tips I would love to hear them! So far, the ones that I have tried are: sweet potatoes, pumpkin, butternut squash, carrots, prunes, apples, avocado, spinach, pears, bananas, and peas.

Here are the photos of this month with our Gracie, enjoy!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

All American Babies

I just had to share this photo. I think it is, so far, my all time favorite picture of my three babies!

Strawberry Update

Okay, so awhile back I shared about our strawberry picking adventures. Well, I just have to share a recipe that I found for strawberry jam. I have never tried making jam, or doing any canning, because it totally intimidates me. Well, this recipe you just freeze the jam, no canning allowed! :) I made it and froze it back when we went strawberry picking and we tried it this week. It is so delicious, I will never buy strawberry jam again if I can help it! I actually used less sugar because I ran out, it still was delicious but a bit runny. You could probably use less sugar and more pectin to cut down on the sugar a bit, but I have not tried that yet.

Freezer Strawberry Jam (Makes 5 cups)

quart fully ripe strawberry
4 cups sugar
3/4 cup water
1 box fruit pectin (like Sure Jell)

Directions

You will need clean plastic containers and lids; rinse them thoroughly with boiling water and make sure they are completely dry.
Rinse strawberries gently with clean water, pat dry, then stem and crush them thoroughly, one layer at a time.
Measure exactly 2 cups crushed berries into a large bowl; stir in sugar.Let stand for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Mix water and pectin in small saucepan; bring to boil on high heat, stirring constantly.
Continue boiling and stirring 1 minute.Remove from heat and add to fruit mixture; stir constantly for three minutes or until sugar is dissolved and no longer grainy; a few sugar crystals may remain and that's okay.
Fill prepared containers immediately to within 1/2 inch of tops.
Wipe off top edges and immediately cover with lids.Your jam is now ready to use, and can be stored in the fridge for up to three weeks or frozen for up to one year.
Let stand for 24 hours. Freeze, and thaw before serving.
Enjoy!!

Our Father's Day

Since Mommy had to work in the afternoon of Father's Day, but got called off work on Saturday we celebrated Father's Day on Saturday! We asked Daddy how he wanted to celebrate, and he decided on going to the Gun and Knife show at the fairgrounds, and Chinese buffet for lunch!

Here are a few pictures of Daddy with his three kiddos this weekend! We love our Daddy and are so proud of him!

Photo Contest!

We just found out last week that a photo I submitted to a "Daddy and Me" photo contest for the Adoptive Families Magazine was the runner-up! No, there were no cool prizes, but our picture will be in the July/August issue! How cool is that? (The caption for the photo got the boys ages mixed up, but we are going to ask them to fix it.)



Here is the website if you want to see the winning photo and other photos submitted:

http://www.adoptivefamiliescircle.com/

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day! What a special blessing our Grandpa and Papa are to us, as well as our Daddy!!






Love,
Luke, Ben and Gracie

Gracie's First Swim, for Real!

So, before Daddy started work this week, he did take time to blow up our kiddy pool for the backyard. This pool was given to us by friends when we first brought Luke and Ben home and is huge! It just about takes up the whole backyard of our little townhouse! It even has a small slide! Luke and Ben had a blast. Gracie enjoyed herself too! She was splashing and giggling, although she was a bit timid when her brothers got too roudy!

More VA Fun

Here are a few more pictures of our trip to Virginia.
To answer a question from our previous post: although Gracie would not swim in the cold water, the boys loved it! Luke was shivering, but we could not convince the kid to get out and get warm!

(Doesn't our Ben look so old in this picture?? Where did my baby go??)



Grandma and Grandpa are going to have to get a new pool soon. As you can tell from the picture, it is quite cramped when all the Morgan cousins are together!



For the last few summers when we have visited, we have had a themed family meal. Two summers ago we had a Luau, last summer was Mexican and this year was Italian! (Complete with laurel wreaths for the girls, and Roman soldier helmets for the boys!) We always look forward to this new family tradition. Grandma Morgan is going to have to get pretty creative as the years go by!



Gracie got to sit in Grandpa Morgan's highchair!!! Yes, Grandpa sat in this chair 71 years ago!



We also took the kids to a petting zoo. The goats kept trying to eat Gracie's stroller, and the boys were a bit overwhelmed at the time but have been talking about it non-stop since. Luke loved the llama, and he makes a "Llama face" to match that gets us all laughing!






Of course, Ben does everything Luke does, so here is Ben's "llama face"!




Gracie just thought everything was funny! She especially like's Luke's llama face! She tries to make her own Llama face too!



We were glad to get a chance to visit before Daddy starts his new job. It was good just to spend time with family.

200 posts!!!

This officially marks my 200th post on this blog! To those family and friends who continue to follow along with our family updates, you are a faithful bunch!


Fittingly for this momentous post, we will share some wonderful family news. Daddy has been hired on with a local police department and will start his new job this Monday, June 14th! Thank you so much for your prayers for our family as we have waited for this exciting day!This is something our whole family is looking forward to! Please continue to pray for our Daddy as he serves in potentially dangerous situations. We are grateful that Daddy has been able to care for Luke, Ben, and Gracie and develop close bonds with each of them while Mommy has worked. I will probably still work once a week, but will be home with my children full time, which has been a prayer of our hearts!


To share a story to illustrate how excited we all are about this change, while putting the boys to bed this week I had shared with them that I would be gone the next day to work. As usual, Luke asked, "Why do you have to go to work?" My answer, which they know well is "Money, Honey!" Luke then gave me a hug and told me that while he was sleeping I could get money out of his piggy bank instead.

Daddy is also extremely excited to be in the work force again. We are so proud of him!

Thank you for continuing to be a part of our lives, even via technology! Our family has come a long way in 200 posts!

Gracie's First Swim

While we were in VA, the kids all got a chance to play in a pool. This was Gracie's first time in a pool. I am not sure if it really counts, because she just put her feet in and freaked out! She was content to sit in our laps and watch and look cute instead. So maybe, I should say it was her first time in a swimsuit! :) In her defense, they had set up the pool in the shade to help protect the kids from the sun, and the water was a bit chilly!

Here are a few pics of our sun bathing beauty!

Generations of Sub-Eaters

This weekend we went to visit family in VA. While we were there, we had to stop for subs at Wawa. If you don't have Wawa's where you live (as we do not in NC) you are missing out. They are our favorite! So, we decided to introduce the boys to the art of eating a Wawa sub. The key really is not worrying about making a mess, letting the mayo and mustard fall where it may, and opening up really, really wide! (Luke, our Mr. Clean, had a difficult time with the making a mess part, but he warmed up to the idea after a few bites.)

So, like father....



Like son...


Like grandsons!!




Yummy!!

Gracie the cannibal?

"Sweet Pea" is one of the nicknames Mommy calls Gracie. So we thought it was appropriate that one of the first foods Gracie tried, after cereal, was sweet peas! It was a little rough at first, but towards the end of the first feeding, she actually did pretty well, even though she wore more of it than she ate. Daddy thought it was funny that our Sweet Pea was eating sweet peas, so he called her a cannibal! :)