A couple new blogs to go check out...

I've got a few new blogs for you to go peruse (because, like me, I know you all have tons of time to spend reading on the internet):

The first is the blog home of our church's church planting ministry, Clear Note Fellowship. The posts that are already up there are great, and I'm looking forward to an upcoming post by one certain philosophy Ph.D. candidate.

The second is a companion blog to the first, The ClearNote Ladies Blog. I'm very excited about this one, and proud to call the women writing my friends!

New Cookbooks!

I was very excited to get two GF cookbooks for Christmas this year:


It is a bit of a slow process to get started in gluten-free baking because of the expense of the various flours and other things that you have to buy. I have been having David stop at the local health food store every Tuesday (their 10% off day) for the past few weeks, getting just a few ingredients every time. I finally have a critical mass of ingredients to start baking things, and Ellie has been my happy food critic. Actually, she's not much of a critic. Here's how the conversation goes:
me: "Ellie, I made you some chocolate muffins!"
E: "Really, that I can eat?"
me: "Yep."
E: "How many can I have right now?"

I've also made a GF sourdough starter, though haven't tried making bread with it yet, and tonight we'll be having corn muffins with dinner. The chocolate chip muffins were actually delicious, I would have no trouble passing them off as normal. I froze most of the dozen, after letting the other kids split one, and she gets them when the rest of us are having some dessert that she can't have.

My other fun new cookbook is something that I just decided to splurge on and buy for myself:

I've been using their whole wheat basic recipe for a while now, which can be found for free here. We have enjoyed it, so I went ahead and bought the book, which promises healthy, and even some GF recipes. The UPS man brought it from amazon today, and I've been using every excuse to nurse Rose so that I can sit and read it for a few minutes. So far, I'm loving it! There will be many breads coming from our kitchen this winter!

Solids!

I've never been very excited about baby food. I find it a little disgusting and either expensive or very time consuming to make. With Laura, we skipped "baby food" almost entirely, and instead just gave her stuff from our meal, either mashed or cut up really small. So, I was very excited to realize this afternoon at lunch that the red lentil, sweet potato, and carrot soup I made last night easily converts to baby food! Rose and I shared a bowl at lunch(with me getting the vast majority of it), and she seemed to like it. But then I remembered my one rule about solids: wait until they don't spit up anymore to give them real food! I had to change her outfit shortly after lunch after watching her regurgitate a combo of milk and soup. Yummy!

Let it snow!

Some days I look at Ellie and wonder how she got so big. Here's one of those moments for me!

Because you've all been dying to see my quarter cow...

This is now our freezer. And, yes, the entire contents before yesterday morning fit into the door. Lucky for me!

There Were 10 in the Bed...

Awww...

Sometimes, I get these moments as a mom where I realize that God has been faithful, even through my many sins in parenting. I had one of those tonight (actually, it's been an ongoing conversation between me and Carver over the past few days, but I finally put it all together tonight) at dinner. Carver was trying to tell David and me what he wanted to get the girls for Christmas, and we were explaining to him that he shouldn't be trying to have that conversation sitting next to them at the restaurant booth. But then it hit me--he wants to get Christmas gifts for his sisters! How cool is that? So I told him that he and I can go and do it tomorrow when the babysitter comes to play with the girls for an hour.

Here's the great part--guess what he wants to get them? He wants to get them burp cloths for their baby-dolls (we'll be making those of felt so that all he has to do is cut squares--no sewing involved), and he wants to go and get silk flowers to make a bouquet of "fresh" flowers to put on their kitchen! How sweet is that?