Evelyn June- 3 Months Old

Miss Evelyn June, who is currently sitting on her Daddy's lap while he does his history homework on the netbook, is growing.



3 months have already passed us by, since she entered our lives. Three, months. Can you believe that? Or are you looking at the clock on the wall, wondering where the time went too?

No longer wearing preemie clothes. Not a newborn threading in sight. Done with the 0-3. This big girl is bustin' seams and sproutin' rolls left and right. We're rockin' the 3-6 month now, baby.

...Mama makes cream, instead of milk.



She wakes up with us at 6:00 every morning, after sleeping through the night with no more than just a whimper for a bink, and then shortly after a few rounds of nursing, goes right back to sleep.

And she sleeps, and she grows, and she sleeps.



Being the third child, there are a couple of things that may have slipped my mind, in the picture taking department, this time around.

Like her first bath.
I never took pictures of her first bath.

Or her second, or third, or-

It happens, though, right? Ten years from now I don't think I'll care that I don't have pictures of her bathing when she was skin and bones. I think I'll much prefer to see her all plumped up for bubble time.

Gah, the cheeks!
They kill me, kid.
You're so beautiful.



I have no idea what happened to all of the hooded towels in the house. We had at least five, and it seems they've all vanished.

Good thing I bought two at a garage sale before you were born.

Seriously, where'd they all go?

Your rubber band wrists are starting to take shape, and I couldn't possibly love it more.



Really, what is that look all about?

Oh, right. Maybe its because your big sister just stepped on your head? She must not have seen you laying there on the giant stuffed dog.

Your stink eye sure is cute.

Oh Evelyn. Getting to know you is beyond words.
Even when you keep your Daddy and I from getting anything done. Even when you leave me surprises on my shoulder and in my hair. And especially, when you create an entire load of laundry, as if you weren't ever wearing a diaper in the first place.

The best 3 months.
I mean that.



This girl is going places.

How We Make Applesauce

I'm always curious as to how people do things in other households.

How do other people wake up in the morning- do they brush their teeth before of after breakfast? Or not at all, on somedays, hah.

At what time of day do other people wash their dishes- 12 times a day like I do, so every time they step into the kitchen? Maybe they let them pile up?

Do they use diapers pails or just dump 'em in the trash (unless they're a cloth family, in which case I bow down to them)- that way the trash has to get taken out every day?

...just little things that I think about sometimes.

So I thought, maybe we'd start sharing with you, how we do things.

Like how we make our applesauce from scratch.
Well, not that we're eating any applesauce these days (but I took all of the pictures and thought about putting this post together before we temporarily ditched fruit sugars for candida cleansing purposes), but- this is the story of how we turn a bag of apples into a tasty puree, lazy day crock pot slow cookin' style.



We start with a bag of gala apples. Normally, if we were buying apples for eating (I haven't eaten an apple in over a year, by the way, because of my fructose malabsorption *insert sad face here*), we'd be picky about what they look like, sorting through the bins looking for the perfectly round ones with no bruises- but because these are all going to be pureed and simmered over heat for 8 hours- we just grab a bag off the shelf, throw it into the cart, and call it good.

While the kids are running around with ponies and cars in hands, screaming for "bite bite bite!"'s, I clear off the table, set up my gear- slicer, knife, blender, trash can- and dump out the apples. And I usually end up with a helper :)

I slice them all with my double handed press down slicer. I toss the cores into the garbage beside me. And then I pick up the knife and begin the loooooong and ever so annoying task of peeling each, individual, slice.

I've tried using a vegetable peeler. It slows me down. I've tried peeling and then coring. It slows me down. So this is how we strip our skins.



My hands get sticky, the table gets soaked, and I'm constantly spacing out and getting mixed up, throwing perfectly good apple slices into the trash, and the slivered up skins into the blender.

Its not usually until Eleanore shouts "Mommy was that bad part a good part?", that I realized I've drifted off into la la land again, fish the skins out of the blender (and of course they've all fallen deep down into the nooks and crannies of the heaping pile of apple chunks), and try to snap out of it, reminding myself that there are only "seven more apples to do, seven more apples to do, seven more apples to do".



Peel peel peel. Slice slice peel.
By now I've probably had to change at least two diapers, retrieve a matchbox car out of the inside of a plastic school bus, pop a binky back into a crying mouth, shout "behave yourselves!" in my mean mom voice, and sanitize my hands a hundred or two times.



But before I know it, there are no apples left on the table, the garbage can is loaded with pretty reds and pinks, and the blender is filled to the very tip top- ready for me to add about a cup of water, a small pinch of salt, and give it a whirl.



After my slices have been spun into mush, I plug in the crock pot (set on the table so I won't forget about it, because I have before), pour in my mix, and let it cook on low for about 8 hours. When its done, later that night, I add a couple of teaspoons of stevia to give it a kiss of sweetness for the babies, swish it into a tupperware, and then wipe my hands on my apron, and give myself a pat on the back.

Guaranteed gluten free, no added sugars, no added preservatives, and always as fresh as it can get.

So. Thats, how we do that.
...just thought you might have been wondering.