Not Me Monday

I did NOT try several different kinds of pacifiers to get my newborn to take one. Didn't work. Cannon doesn't like the pacifier.

Blueberry-White Chocolate Cookies

Just your normal cookies? No way! These are some of the best around.

We have a friend who is a fabulous cook. She actually has a blog where she post recipes called, Lets Eat. So far this is the only recipe that I have tried to make myself, but the results were almost as good as hers so I thought I would share.

The recipe makes 36 if you scoop it using a 2-Tbsp. scoop. The best thing is that you can bake a batch and have everything cleaned up in 30 minutes.

Blueberry-White Chocolate Cookies
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups oatmeal
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 bag white chocolate morsels
1 (6-oz.) bag dried blueberries

1. Beat butter and sugar with a mixer until creamy. Add in eggs, 1 at a time, beating until blended after each addition. Add in vanilla.
2. Combine flour and next 4 ingredients. Gradually add to butter mixture, beating until blended. Add in white chocolate morsels and blueberries. Drop by 2-Tbsp. scoops onto parchment paper-lined baking sheets.
3. Bake at 350° for 10 to 11 minutes or until done. (I prefer softer cookies.) Cool on pans 10 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Little Momma

I really wasn't sure how this little girl would adjust to not being the baby of the family once Cannon arrived. I had thoughts that she would just love being the big sister and helping out with the new baby, but I also had thoughts that she would have absolutely nothing to do with the new baby due to some jealous feelings. I think she is kind of a mix of the two.

90% of the time she now has a baby doll on her hip. She changes her dolls clothes & diapers several times a day, she feeds it, burps it, loves it, pushes it around in the stroller and so on...

All these things for her baby doll. Cannon, not so much. She loves him don't get me wrong, she'll talk to him & love on him, but doesn't pay him as much as attention as I thought she might. She actually uses his cries & whines. When Cannon cries she doesn't run to him to see what is wrong, she runs to get her baby doll b/c it means her baby is hungry.
She is quite the little momma - to her baby.

I'm sure things will change once Cannon is a little older. When Cannon was only 2 wks Izzy was helping me put lotion on him and she dropped the lotion bottle on him & not only did he cry, he got a scratch and I'm pretty sure it terrified Izzy that she hurt him. We have reassured her it was ok, but to that sweet little 4yr old she's afraid it may happen again.

1 Month

I had been preparing myself to deal with postpartum after the arrival of Cannon. I just wasn't sure how my body would react after having a 4th child. Or living life with four. To my surprise I have been fine, until today. Cannon is exactly one month old. However, I wouldn't call it postpartum, just life moving faster than I want. Only have 11 more months and he'll be one! I know it's silly, but to this momma it kinda makes me sad. I do kinda laugh at myself and remind myself of the line in the movie When Harry Met Sally.

Sally: AND, I'm gonna be forty.
Harry: When?
Sally: Someday.
Harry: In eight years.

But accepting reality and....

Loving that we have a healthy, precious, bundle of joy, Cannon, our one month old. And trying to soak every moment up that I can.

4th of July

This year to celebrate the 4th of July we backed the cars out of the carport and pressure washed it clean. Made a few trips to the store, there is always something I forget no matter how many times I go over the list. Got bunches of burgers & dogs and fired up the grill. Then we had our small group as well as some neighbors over for some food & fun.

This little guy wasn't going to let us have fun without him, he stayed awake most of the day.

All the kids had a blast playing football, bubbles, and drawing with sidewalk chalk until....

the downpour! We didn't have an umbrella big enough, so Ben grabbed some plastic to take the neighborhood kids home. Wish I had taken a video instead :)

After playing in the rain for a bit, little missy decided she needed to change clothes and add her rain boots to her wardrobe.

What do you do when the rain starts falling? You break out some board games.

Wish I had a picture of all four kids together, but I'll take what I can get. It was a great time of fellowship. Then to top it off some close friends of ours came over for dinner & we were able to load up 7 kids and 4 adults and go watch the fireworks - Thunder on the Mountain. Good times I tell ya, good times.

Sleep fighter

I really thought baby #4 would be "go with the flow". We have good days, but we also have the not so good. Cannon LOVES to be held and sometimes that is the only thing that will stop the crying. Why does he cry so much the big kids ask? Well, he fights sleep. Boy does he fight sleep! Good thing is he only fights it during the day - he's a great night time sleeper, most of the time anyway. During the days of his fighting sleep with all the loud crying it means this momma is holding and rocking and bouncing and rocking and.....you get the picture. All that means momma is tending to a baby and not getting to interact with the other three like they are used to. Not to worry though, they have found some pretty creative ways to entertain themselves.


Then after a day where momma has tried and tried to get the baby to sleep with no success, dad comes home and this happens.

Drive In

We are a family that loves movies. However, I don't like paying the price for the theater so we are big fans of Netflix. We also take advantage in the summer of the free movies every week at the Rave. Thing is both Neflix & summer free movies are all older movies. This summer there have been some new releases that the kids just couldn't wait to see. Like Mr. Popper's Penguins, which we went to see. Then Cars 2 came out. Instead of heading back to the theater we took a different approach and went to the drive-in. Much cheaper and I think more fun.

In honor of the movie I packed everyone a bag of popcorn in their very own Cars bag.

We quickly got our chairs set up and just had to wait a short time for the sun to set & movie to start.

Yes, at almost a month old, Cannon has now been to two movies.

The closer drive-in to us is the one in Argo, which only has one screen. Harpersville has two. That means double feature for us :) The two older boys made it through Cars 2, but Izzy & Cannon fell asleep. The next movie was Green Lantern. We made the decision to stick around even though it was starting at 10:30. Some of us stayed awake till the end, but some of us didn't make it (like those of us who get up several times a night to feed a baby).