7 (almost 8!) months of Locke

Whoops I didn't realize I hadn't put an update here yet. This last month has been pretty fun and challenging at the same time. I'll break it down.

Sleeping: Locke sleeps from 6:30 pm to 6:30ish am. We had a few weeks where I was trying to adjust his schedule before the time change, and it messed him all up. He would wake 4-5 times during the night crying, playing, rolling around, etc. We finally started putting him to bed at 6:30 and it fixed the problem immediately. It sucks for us socially (really who am I kidding here? We don't go anywhere.) but we like our sleep so this is our life right now. He takes 2 1.5 hour naps during the day plus a catnap in the evenings. I wish he would do the "2 2-hour naps" every day but he has some kind of built-in timer that prevents this. He sleeps mostly on his back at night and sometimes for naps on his tummy.

Eating: Locke nurses 5 times a day, always with the option of feeding him more often if he acts like he's hungry. He has a certain "hungry whine" so I'm pretty good at figuring this out. He bit me several times really hard a few weeks ago when he was getting his second tooth and at one time I yelled pretty loudly at him. Not my finest moment as a parent, thank you Lord for forgiveness! Anyway I got my dues because he wouldn't nurse at all for about 2 days and I was freaking out a little. Self-weaning before a year old is pretty rare and I knew it was my fault. He wasn't taking bottles well either at that time. I prayed that God would give him a healthy appetite and he did! Last week I couldn't feed that child enough. This week we're back to him being distracted and not eating well. I'm going to try feeding him every 3.5 hours and some other tricks and hopefully that will help. Most days I feed Locke table food after 2 nursing sessions, usually around 11 am and 5 pm. BLW suggests working up to feeding them 3x/day. Honestly I haven't done this just because of the mess, but I need to do it. Some foods Locke has recently enjoyed are zucchini, yellow squash, butternut squash, chicken pot pie, cinnamon apples, and O'Charley's rolls. We took him to O'Charley's and he LOVED that roll and Erik and I were able to enjoy our dinner!

Milestones: Locke rolls all over the place now. If you put him on the floor and walk away, chances are when you come back he'll be across the room. He really loves being on his tummy now. His second tooth is all the way in. He is learning he can grab and hold things with his teeth. Last week he waved to me and my mom and I was confused at first. Apparently Erik taught him how to do it; I certainly didn't. We had our first "play date" with another mom and her kids. A girl I'm in Bible study with and her two girls went to Chick-fil-a with us last week. Locke did ok, but we left after about 45 minutes because it was time for all the kids to take naps. My big boy is sitting up all by himself now. He can do this for a long time unless he decides to reach for something far away and then he falls. Locke has been recognizing his own toys for a while now. If we're sitting somewhere and his toy is peeking out from behind a pillow he reaches for it. He loves Brown Bear, Brown Bear and The Gingerbread Man books. He recognizes their covers and gets excited when I get them out. I don't let Locke watch tv so we read a lot of books.

Diapers: I'm using cloth diapers during the day when we are at home but I've been dissatisfied with the poop situation. When he gets poop on the diaper covers, and he frequently does, I have to wash them immediately then wait til they dry. Granted he doesn't get it on his clothes but it's just as much work to clean the covers. I still use disposables when we go out and at night. I try to tell myself that once Locke is eating solids all the time his poop will be different and hopefully we won't have as many problems with this. By the way, I got a great deal at Kroger on diapers so I bought some of the Huggies Slip Ons. Don't waste your money. After an hour and a half of wearing the diaper the gel stuff in them was all over his behind. I'm going to take the unopened package back and I'll stick with my cheapo Luvs.

Daycare: Locke still goes 2x/week so I can sleep/work nights. He is really loved at daycare. He doesn't sleep well at all there and BLW has been an issue but otherwise he is very well taken care of. I will be so sad when he moves up to the next class because I just love his teachers. I feel very safe with him there.

Weight and height: I don't know exact measurements because we haven't been back to the doctor since his 6 month appointment. However on Halloween when I took him for his second flu shot I asked the nurse if we could weigh him and he was 18 pounds 4 ounces. You have to take off a little for his clothes so I figure somewhere around 18. I guess I could get my tape measure and measure him, maybe I'll do that at 8 months.

Taking off his sock after naptime so he can chew on it. Silly boy.

Sitting up.

He loves this book. All I have to say is "Run run as fast as you can!" and he just lights up.

My sweet boy really is a joy to take care of. I love my days at home with him and I wouldn't trade this time for anything. It's flying by too fast. I work on a high-risk L&D floor now and I'm reminded every shift that not everybody gets to take their baby home, and not every baby comes out healthy. I feel very undeserving of this precious gift God gave me in my son.

Happy Halloween 2011

Well Halloween came and went without much hoopla. We didn't go to any parties, didn't do a family costume theme, and we didn't go trick or treating. Locke had to get his second flu shot earlier that day (apparently they make babies get 2, double the torture), so that allowed Locke to be in a gggrreeaaattt mood for wearing his costume and helping mom and dad pass out candy. Seriously though we've had a rough week with teething, a nursing strike, and then the shot so I had low expectations for Halloween night. We actually did take him to a fall festival Sunday night to see some people I used to go to church with and he had a good time. I didn't manage to get any pictures because we just walked around and didn't partake in the festivities. I thought we would have lots of trick or treaters because of the neighborhood, but I don't think we had even thirty. It doesn't matter that we had a bum Halloween because it marks the beginning of my favorite season. First there's Halloween, then my birthday, then Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years', and Erik's birthday. Love it!

Poor baby. He only wanted to be held and was not in a costume kinda mood. 

Smokey the Dog (UT Vols mascot) and Daddio 

Lil Smokey (haha) and Mom 

What I did not get a picture of was him trying to eat the pumpkin. 

My glitter punkins. 

Baby-led Weaning in Action

Let me just start by saying that I have nothing against traditional baby food and feeding technique. I was all ready to make my own purees and even looked into those fancy-schmancy baby food makers. It just so happened that one day I discovered baby-led weaning (BLW) through a link on a blog I follow. It sounded interesting so I did some more research. The main website I use as a reference is this one http://www.babyledweaning.com/. Gill Rapley, a community health nurse in the UK wrote a paper on it here http://www.borstvoeding.com/voedselintroductie/blw/engels.html and also wrote a book about it. I checked the book out from the library and was eager to get started, but we waited until Locke was six months old to introduce solids.
The basic gist is that you wait until baby is at least 6 months old AND can support himself in an upright position. This doesn't mean sitting up unsupported. For us, Locke can sit in a highchair in the most upright position it will go without falling forward. You offer baby large pieces (think chunky french-fry shape) of soft food and just let them go. Baby is always supervised, but you are not putting food in their mouth. This is what our feeding sessions look like: I nurse Locke and then 20-30 minutes later I put him in the highchair and put a large bib on him. Usually I cook something ahead of time and reheat it for him, but part of the beauty of BLW is that baby can eat essentially whatever the family is eating. Anyway, I give Locke a piece of food at a time. Too much food on the tray can overwhelm him. At first I thought this rule was dumb until I experienced first hand my son swiping all his food on the floor because there was too much on the tray. Go figure. Locke typically takes 30-40 minutes to eat. And it's messy. Very messy. That's just part of it. He definitely eats some of the food because the consistency of his poop has changed (hey it's the circle of life), but he doesn't eat very much. One of my favorite things about BLW is how laid back it is. I get Locke all set up and then I putter about the kitchen cleaning up, folding laundry, or cooking. I never worry about how much he eats or doesn't eat because he still gets 100% of his nutrition from breastmilk and everything else is just extra. Once he starts throwing everything on the floor I know he's done and then I get him cleaned up. The dogs take care of the food on the floor and I use a cheap Walmart washrag to clean Locke and the highchair. I wash off the tray and the bib. Seriously it takes like 5 minutes to clean up, not bad at all. The foods we've tried so far are sweet potatoes, acorn squash, carrots, broccoli, banana, toast, apples, pork roast, chicken, noodles, and mashed potatoes. Everyone is afraid of baby choking. As long as you follow the guidelines listed in the book it's really a non-issue. There is quite a bit of gagging involved. Note gagging, not choking. A baby's gag reflex is located in the middle of their mouth, not the back like adults, so it makes sense that they would gag some when they're learning how to move food from the front of their mouth to the back. On a similar note, every parent needs to know infant and child CPR and the Heimlich maneuver. You never know when your kid is going to put something small and dangerous in their mouth so learn how to do it. Ok, now on to the pictures!
 

Sweet potato

Broccoli (he didn't like it)

Avocado ( a little too slippery)

And a movie!

I've really enjoyed BLW so far even though I haven't given Locke much of the food we normally eat. It's just very easy for me to bake some sweet potatoes and apples along with our normal food. We eat a lot of soup and spicy Italian stuff and I can't see giving that to Locke. At some point he will develop his pincer grasp and be able to pick up small pieces. BLW will be really easy by then and I look forward to him sharing our meals and eating as a family.

Six Months of Locke

Six months have come and gone since sweet baby Locke arrived and that's hard for me to wrap my mind around. He's getting to be such a big boy and it makes his momma sad! Every time I see a teensy newborn I get nostalgic for those first few weeks of Locke's life. If I could describe him in one word it would be busy. He is always on the move, although not really because he isn't crawling yet. He gets so distracted when he's nursing so I've had to feed him in a dark room where it's completely quiet and NO ceiling fans can be on! Nothing distracts him like a ceiling fan! At his appointment last week he weighed 16 pounds 8 ounces and was 28.5 inches long. He gained almost two pounds in two months and grew two inches. He's 97th percentile for height and just under 50th percentile for weight. I hope this means he's going to be tall. He is getting a tooth! His bottom right tooth (I don't know the name) is coming in and man that was so much fun-not! Of course it started coming in when we went out of town and poor Locke was fussy and irritable. He's chewing on anything he can get his hands on and drool is pouring out of his mouth. It has finally popped through the surface of the gum so I hope the worst is over. We've entered the babbling stage. He's conquered the "da" sound, and he says it all the time. We're not counting "da da" as his first word because to him it's just a sound and not a person. I'm pretty sure the other day he said "geese" but I don't think this counts either. He also loves screeching at the top of his lungs. I call it doing his scales. You can tell he enjoys hearing the sound of his own voice. We still haven't started solids yet so I haven't written a post on baby-led weaning because we haven't put it to practice. Right now Locke loves: peekaboo, more specifically being startled by one of us jumping out at him, the dogs, his exersaucer, the bumbo at daycare, people, and eating books. His dislikes are: getting dressed in the morning and when I put his pjs on, tummy time, having to take a nap at daycare, and removing boogers. Trust me, he has an abundance of boogers. Now on to some pictures.

He looks so much like my brother Ethan in this picture.

Isn't this the cutest?

 Locke loves his feet.

 My walking buddy. At some point on our walks he always fall asleep.

 I think he's done taking pictures.

 In the middle of babbling.

 My little chatterbox.

Cute pictures of Locke with captions by Jessica

"Say whuh?"

 

"Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go right now"

"She wore WHAT to the Emmy's?"

"Help! My mom won't stop taking pictures of me!"

"Cankles"

"Nom nom"

What we've been up to lately...

We've been busy here at the Fuqua household so here's a rundown of our most important events.

Cute t-shirt wearin'

Actually we haven't been doing as much ball throwin' as normal. Sorry Roxy.

Football watchin' with Daddy. Locke isn't allowed to watch tv when Mommy's around so he convinces Daddy to break the rules.

Nappin'. Hallelujah for 1 1/2 hour naps!

Book readin'/ eatin'

And some more sleepin'. Being cute is exhausting. Just ask his mother. :-)

Labor Day Weekend

We had a pretty low-key Labor Day weekend. I am so fortunate with my new job that I don't have to work any holidays-yay! I wanted to visit Cheekwood in Nashville but the weather was going to be really hot so we decided to go an indoor museum. I highly recommend Lane Motor Museum in Nashville. It's a vintage car museum and it was only $7 for an adult. We had a great time looking at all the cool old cars, mostly European, and it's small enough that we got to see everything even on a baby's schedule.

This is how Locke spent most of his time. He was very content to chew on his straps.

I LOVE this scooter! If only I had a need for it/place to ride it/money to spend on it! 

World's smallest working car, I think.

We also got to see one of Erik's old friends, Jessica Maloan, and eat at San Antonio Taco Co. It was good and seeing Jessica was great as always, but it wasn't the Texas Mexican food I know!

My little old man

One of the things about having a boy is that the clothes just aren't as much fun. With fall just around the corner I washed all of Locke's winter stuff plus some stuff that my dad and stepmother so kindly sent to us. I got such a hoot out of seeing Locke in pants. I don't know if it's the diaper but the pants make him look like an old man! We keep calling him "Eddie Sr." because he looks just like Erik's late grandfather.

I love this picture because it looks like he's saying, "Hey gimme a break here!" in an Italian accent.

Old-man pants in action.

Here he is in his football outfit! Cheering on the Vols, the Baylor Bears, the Skyhawks, and the Titans!

Post-Bath

This dude has some serious baby-abs.

Five Months of Locke

Well it's been a whole month since I last posted but things have been busy around here. I started back to work part-time and that coupled with various projects around the house have kept me away from blogging. I think I'll say it every month-I cannot believe my child is another month older. I mean, five months? Didn't I just give birth to this kid? Sometimes I miss the days when Locke was nothing more than a lump of baby-fat, but now he's Mr. Personality. He's very social, loves attention, and loves people. He also loves Daddy. His daycare teachers still give me compliments about his easy-going attitude. I've figured out that your kids behave better for other people than for you! He's also very demanding, which I'm sure is common with most babies.
We haven't been to the doctor since his four month appointment (yay!) so I don't know his weight, but if he's on track with where he has been, then he's probably over 16 pounds by now. He's definitely gotten longer because his feet come out the bottoms of his 3-6 month sleepers and we've bought him some 6 month ones. As far as milestones, he can hold his own bottle now. He has started grabbing at anything we are holding, like yesterday he grabbed Erik's Chick-fil-A cup right out of his hand. I'm still holding off on giving him any food, and I'll explain why in another post about Baby-Led Weaning. He is talking so, so much. Of course it is just babbling, but sometimes it sounds like he's trying to have a conversation with himself. He is mouthing everything! He especially loves his set of baby keys, and has recently acquired a taste for board books. It makes reading to him a challenge because he gets upset and wants to eat the book. When I give him a book to chew on it ends up breaking down the board and I'm afraid he'll swallow some so I'm not sure what to do about that. I really enjoy reading to him and I know it's a huge boost to his brain development, but I'm afraid I've created a monster. Locke is still not rolling over yet, and honestly it concerns me. I know every kid is different, but deep down I wonder why it's taking so long to accomplish something most babies have mastered by now. If he's still not doing it by 6 months I'll let the pediatrician know and he can guide us on what to do. I'm not sure if it has to do with Locke's tortecullis or not.
As far as sleeping we have hit either a major breakthrough or fluke, I'm not sure. Last week he took several 1.5 hour naps, sometimes even two in one day. I didn't know what to do with myself, because normally he sleeps for 45 minutes and then we play or try to find something to do with the extra time. Don't think that he's doing this at daycare. Oh no, he keeps to his 30 minute naps there, I guess because there's so much going on. He's still sleeping through the night, although last week he had a couple mornings where he wanted to eat at 4:30 (AM people!) so I got up and fed him. He wakes around 6, but I continue to let him play in his crib until I get up at 6:30. His bedtime is around 6:45, meaning if he's had a bad day with terrible naps I put him to bed at 6:45, and if he's had a good day then it's more like 7.


We've been doing a lot of this: hanging out on the porch in the exersaucer and me trying to squeeze in a few pages of reading. He really does enjoy being outside.

Did I mention how much Locke loves Erik?

He's also in love with the dogs, more so Crockett than Roxy. Mostly just because Roxy couldn't care less about him but Crockett likes to be around me, and thus around Locke. He lights up when they come near him.

Ha! He's also been doing a lot of this, especially in the afternoon/evenings. It might have been mean for me to take this picture instead of attending to his ridiculous demands vital needs, but when he's 18 and thinks he has life figured out I want to be able to look back and see that there were times when he was just plain upset. 

Random Things on a Tuesday

1. Today I looked at how much my delivery, epidural, and hospital stay cost and I was blown away. Healthcare is expensive!

2. My son poops out the back of size 2 diapers (all brands). He poops out the sides of size 3 diapers (all brands). I'm seriously considering cloth diapering.

3. I am now officially a night nurse. So don't call me on Thursdays, Fridays, or Saturday mornings. You have been warned.

4. I am within 5 pounds of my pre-pregnancy weight!

5. My son has been sleeping for an hour and 45 minutes. I'm pretty sure that means Hell just froze over.

6. My dogs haven't been bathed in weeks and their nails are ridiculously long. Can you tell we had a baby?

7. Today I'm wearing a wrinkled polo shirt to Kroger because I'll be wearing Locke in a sling and it will hide the wrinkles. At least that's what I'm telling myself.

8. Last week I baked a cake for Locke's daycare teachers and I'm pretty sure the frosting I used was expired. Like at least by two years.

9. I'm living in a constant state of clutter and each weekend we try to chip away a little of it. Then my mom (who has moved out of her condo) gives me more crap and the clutter just gets worse.

10. Last week I went to get Locke up from one of his miraculous 1.5 hour naps and he smiled this huge smile at me. I was so overwhelmed I teared up and I'm getting teary-eyed just thinking about it now.

Four Months of Locke

I've come to the conclusion that there's just about nothing sweeter than a four month old baby. They are so easy to take care of, so easy to entertain, absolutely melt-your-heart adorable, and so much fun. Locke has really come into his own little personality in the last month. He is "talking" up a storm! He talks when he's happy, when he's mad, when he's hungry, and especially when he's tired. He starting laughing last month and although it takes quite a bit to get him giggling, the payoff is well worth it. He is a baby of definites. He is either definitely hungry or definitely done nursing. Most of the time he is definitely happy unless he's super tired or it's past his time to eat. He is still sleeping through the night, although we have dropped the dream feed and he sometimes wakes up around 5 and talks to himself until he falls back asleep. His legs and arms are getting chunky and I just love the rolls and rubberbands! I get compliments from the ladies at daycare that he is such an easy baby, that he is so happy, and that he is rarely fussy even when he doesn't nap well.

That brings me to our major struggle with Locke and that's naps. While he is a great nighttime sleeper, he's a terrible napper. I tried going to a combo 3/3.5 hour feeding schedule and it was a disaster. Most days I'm lucky if he takes three 45 minute naps and one catnap in the evening. He can do this easily on a 3 hour feeding schedule, but when I tried to stretch that out it did not end well! It's nearly impossible to get a baby to wait for their food when they're not sleeping through the extra time. So we went back to the three hour schedule and dropped the dream feed and it's working great for us right now. I usually start Locke off in his crib for naps but if he wakes after 45 minutes I put him in his swing to see if he'll go back to sleep, because he won't if he's in his crib. This works about 50% of the time. The other 50% we just play and I try to make up the lost nap time by putting him down 15 minutes earlier for the next nap. I've just come to accept that Locke is not a great napper and move on with the day.

At his appointment he weighed 14 pounds, 10 ounces, which is a gain of 3 pounds 2 ounces since his 2 month appointment. He was also 26.5 inches long, which is 2 inches of growth in 2 months. He's already started growing out of the bottom of his 3-6 month sleepers. I can't remember if I mentioned earlier but Locke has something called torticullis, which is a tightening of the muscles in one side of his neck. It's probably due to him lying a certain way in my uterus for so long, and it manifests itself in that he prefers to turn his head in a certain direction. We've worked with him, per our pediatrician, in his tummy time and stretching out the neck muscles on the tight side and forcing him to use them. We got a good report from the doctor and instructions to keep working on it. He also took some x-rays of Locke's head because it's pretty asymmetrical due to Locke sleeping on his back and therefore one side of his head plus with the torticullis he lays on that one side whenever he can. His skull is kind of "bulgy" for lack of a better word around his temple and the x-rays show it's just positional and will correct itself over time. Locke's sutures in his skull are open (this is normal) and will allow for shifting and normalizing of the skull in the months to come. As far as milestones, he is grabbing and grasping objects and putting everything in his mouth. He can roll from side to side but not over, although he wants to and is trying. He is really working on picking his head up and can hold it up very well. He sticks his right arm out when I hold him because I think it makes it easier for him to balance that big noggin! Now on to the pictures!

We had Locke's 3 month pictures done 3 weeks ago but since I haven't ordered any yet we took some pictures before church last weekend. Everyone says how much Locke looks like Erik but I think he favors me a little.

Locke and Daddy.

Look at that sweet face! He sure does love when Momma comes to get him from naps!

And....he's done.

And again, happy baby!

Every day I wake up at 6:45 and although I'd love to sleep in, I really enjoy getting Locke up from his crib. In the past few weeks he has really started recognizing me as his mom and his main caretaker. It's more than that, though. I'm reading a book by Penelope Leach (I highly recommend another book by her, Your Baby and Child) called The Essential First Year and it talks about how babies need that one person in their lives who care about their every need, someone who truly cares if they have a wet diaper, if they are bored, and if they need some cuddling. They are few problems that can't be solved by momma. I love that feeling!

Nature's Bounty

We are very fortunate to live so close to our family members and they have been so generous to us since we moved back. My mom and her boyfriend planted a huge garden this past spring and we are reaping the rewards from it. My mom gave me tons of cucumbers, zucchini, squash, and tomatoes and I've been trying to find ways to use them up.

First I made Chocolate Zucchini Bread. Oh.my.word. It is amazing! I left out the allspice the recipe calls for because I'm not a fan but the cinnamon alone makes it taste wonderful. I do recommend tossing your chocolate chips in some flour before adding them in, because mine all sunk to the bottom of the loaf pan. You'll need one medium zucchini or half of a large one for this recipe.

1-½ cup Zucchini, Shredded
1 cup All-purpose Flour (or Substitute 1/2 C. Whole Wheat Flour And 1/2 C. All-purpose Flour)
½ cups Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
¼ teaspoons Baking Powder
¼ teaspoons Salt
½ teaspoons Cinnamon
¼ teaspoons Ground Allspice
½ cups Canola Oil
½ cups Granulated Sugar
½ cups Light Brown Sugar, Packed
2 whole Eggs
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
¾ cups Mini Semi-sweet Chocolate Chips (or Regular Sized)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and place rack in the center of the oven. Grease, or spray with nonstick vegetable spray, a 9×5×3″ loaf pan. Set aside.
Grate the zucchini using a medium sized grater. Set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and allspice. Set aside.
In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), beat the oil, sugars, eggs, and vanilla extract until well blended – about 2 minutes. Fold in the grated zucchini.
Add the flour mixture, mixing just until combined. Then fold in the chocolate chips.
Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake until the bread has risen and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 55-65 minutes.
Place on a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes, then remove the bread from the pan and cool completely. Recipe courtesy of oneordinaryday.wordpress.com.

Then I made Homemade refrigerator pickles. Lawd, those are good! They don't keep as long as pressure-canned pickles, but you don't have to mess with a that boiling water and such. I omitted the peppers and only added onion and garlic. I used pint containers and I think this recipe made enough for 3 or 4 pints. Yum!

FOR 1 QUART PICKLING BRINE
3 cups Cold Water
1 cup White Vinegar
2 Tablespoons Canning Or Picking Salt, Up To 3 Tbsp (You May Use Table Or Kosher Salt)
_____
For Pickles:
Small Whole Cucumbers Or Peeled And Sliced Cucumbers
1 Large Onion, Sliced Into Rings
2 Tablespoons Whole Black Peppercorns Or Coarse Ground Pepper
4 Large Cloves Garlic, Sliced
Fresh Hot Peppers Or Crushed Red Pepper As Desired, Optional
Green Bell Pepper Sliced Into Rings, Optional

Stir brine ingredients to dissolve salt as much as possible.
In quart jars or any airtight container that can be used in the fridge, pack fresh whole cucumbers or peeled and sliced cucumbers, adding sliced onion, peppercorns, garlic and hot peppers if used, equally among the jars/containers. Stir brine again and pour over cucumbers to cover, then cover tightly and place in the fridge.
You may also use small zucchini squash in this recipe or in almost any pickling recipe that calls for cucumbers, including relishes, chow chow, piccalilli and my favorite, bread and butter pickles.
For the refrigerator pickles, I’d use equal parts cucumbers and small zucchini if using the squash in this recipe.
According to how many cucumbers you have, you may need more onion and garlic and more brine to cover your cucumbers. These have to stay refrigerated because they’re not processed in a canner for long storage. Recipe courtesy of dianesrecipeblog.blogspot.com.
Then, if you can believe it, I made Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Zucchini Muffins and boy, they are good! I left out the lemon juice (didn't have any) and added an extra tablespoon of milk. Instead of walnuts I used about a 1/2 cup of oatmeal. These came out so moist and not too sweet. Thanks to allrecipes.com for the recipe.

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup shredded zucchini
• 1/4 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup chopped walnuts
• In a bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Combine the egg, oil, milk, lemon juice and vanilla; mix well. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in zucchini, chocolate chips and walnuts. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20-25 minutes or until muffins test done.

Locke's Room

When we bought this house the first priority in decorating was the nursery. We did things a little backwards, by having the baby and then doing the nursery, but that couldn't be helped due to the move. Locke's room was originally a disgusting brown color. Seriously, it looked like the color of baby poop. There were about 40 holes in the wall that I had to spackle and sand, and the trim was partially painted the same color as the wall. Also, all the outlets and outlet covers were painted the same color as the wall. No, really. Who does that? Anyway, I went to Home Depot, picked out a nice green color and got my paint on.

We had to pile all of Locke's stuff in the center of the room and then cover it with a sheet. Our garage is still full of boxes so we had nowhere else to put it! Before.

After. My good friend Lori had these pictures painted to match some owl fabric I'm in love with. Originally I was going to have Locke's bedding made out of it but the lady was asking way too much and I haven't had the budget to make it myself-yet! We reused my old bench and dresser from when I was a kid. The white and blue blanket on the bench was Austin's when he was a baby. You can see the wreath a coworker of mine made for Locke when he was born. She did a fabulous job and I love looking at it because it reminds me of that wonderful day!

Another coworker of mine made the letters for Locke. I should have taken an up-close shot because they are too cute. The rocking chair was Erik's mom's when he was born. I'd like to get the cushion recovered because it's a funky (and not in a good way) orange color. I made the owl mobile from a pattern I found online and used baker's twine and a stick from our backyard. Locke really loves that thing.

So in this room we (I) painted the walls, trim, had the carpets replaced (knasty with a K!), replaced all the outlets and outlet covers, and bought a new crib. I still would like to get some of that owl fabric and make curtains and a fitted crib sheet. Then I'd like to get some coordinating fabric and make a bed skirt so I can hide some of Locke's stuff under his crib. We still need to paint the doors because they are painted an off-white color that doesn't match the trim, and replace the doorknobs. I'd also like to get a cordless blackout shade for the window. Not pictured is a wonderful owl drawing my mom's stepdad did and that my grandmother had framed. It's above the dresser, but I still have to do some touch-up painting around the light switch so I didn't take a picture of it.

I absolutely love Locke's room. I love the soft carpet, the color, the fact that we reused furniture, and the open space. Locke and I sit in there and read books, do tummy time, and just play. Now if only the rest of the house looked so put-together!