Looking far, far, far ahead to spring

This Garnet Hill swimsuit is pricy, but seeing it on a fair-skinned redhead, I now realize what colors I should be wearing, swimsuit-wise. Beach trip is only 4 months away!

Caleb will need some swim trunks for all the shade lounging he's going to do on the beach trip this year. Seriously, he might be too young for sunscreen when we go and I'm not going to let him play in direct sunlight.

Flipped through the latest Food & Wine while getting my hair cut this week. This Roasted Cauliflower-Lentil Salad looks awesome for starting to get back in shape.

Oh, my garden! I miss it. It's the time of year where I dream about plants and drool over seed catalogs. I can't wait to be settled enough to plant a serious garden.

And speaking of springtime gardening, I'm thinking I need a new pair of Wellington-style boots. I had a cheap Farm & Fleet pair that I bought when I was working on the farm every week, but in the midst of the move from my parents' house, they were lost. They're incredibly handy for our slushy springs.

Routine/No Routine

Caleb eats every 2 1/2 to 3 1/3 hours...except when going through the 6 weeks growth spurt we've currently hit. He's eating more during the day and sleeping more at night. Except yesterday, when he refused to finish most of his bottles, leaving 1/2 - 1 ounce behind at every feeding.

Caleb takes a really great afternoon in his crib right around the 1pm time frame, except when he refuses to sleep anywhere but on my chest and then only for an hour.

Caleb loves to cuddle, except when he just wants to lie down on his back and wiggle and flail his limbs for upwards of an hour.

Just when I think we're hitting a routine, it changes. We're attempting to follow the Babywise Parent-Directed Feeding, but one of its major tenets is a consistent first feeding time. For awhile we were shooting for 6:30 am, and lining up his late evening feeding accordingly. But we can't predict when he's going to sleep for 3 hours or 4 hours. And I'm not going to set up an alarm and go wake him up to eat when he's just eaten 2 hours ago. So I'm taking comfort in the fact that (minus this growth spurt craziness) he's always eating full feedings, he doesn't cluster feed, he naps pretty well and he's a great sleeper who always sleeps in his crib at night. He's so adorable and already getting so big and looking like a little baby boy.

Party time! #bigbed #nakedbaby

Seriously, like the rest of the day...

Such a little love -- I can't resist that teeny face

Bread of Life: Looking forward to Lent

Our church asked its members to submit short devotionals for Lent. Our focus is on the "I Am" sayings in the gospel of John. This is my submission. 

I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. John 6:35

I didn’t grow up celebrating Lent, my church focused on the resurrection at Easter. In my early twenties, when I joined the Methodist church, one year I decided that for Lent I would give up my afternoon candy habit. It seemed like a good little luxury to give up and if I lost a couple pounds, all the better! As you can imagine, this was a time of deep spiritual growth and repentance. I recall that I eventually amended that fast to just workdays. After all, weekends don’t count. I felt very proud of myself come Easter morning – I had fasted from a luxury for 40 days(ish) and isn’t that what Lent is all about?

Pastor Wiley recently preached on reading your Bible on a regular basis. That’s the spiritual nourishment that Christ is urging upon his followers. When we fast from something material it’s important to fill up our souls with the spiritual. Like Advent, Lent is an opportunity to look forward to the fulfillment of a promise of salvation. It is a time to experience darkness and the coming of the light. Since that year when I successfully managed to avoid the office candy bowl for forty days I’ve often skipped giving up something altogether. How could I possibly put together a goal that lived up to the deep call of Lent? My admitted lack of commitment to Lent in the past means that I’ve no stones to throw at anyone’s definition of fasting. I’ve squandered the opportunity to seek spiritual nourishment, to take in the Flesh and the Blood, to prepare for the overwhelming Easter experience of Christ risen from the Dead by God’s all-powerful Love. Can I say that I’m continually striving for perfection as John Wesley preached?

I continue to wrestle with the Lenten experience and how best to strive for the Bread of Life. Thankfully, Lent comes at the time of the year when my husband and I have to take stock of our lives and make decisions for the coming school year. We discuss all our options and last year, fittingly just after Easter, we decided to expand our family. We didn’t look at these issues because it was Lent, but this year I want to be intentional about this season. I want to take Lent and delve into scripture, let the Word and the Bread be our guides as we again seek the right path for our family. Christ will not let us hunger and thirst and when we seek Him he will lead us forward with purpose and direction, just as he led the disciples. 

Smoked Salmon Composed Salad

I starting making a fantastic salmon nicoise salad in the past year or so and since then I've been inspired to create composed salads out of leftovers.

My iPhone photography skills are way, way behind my cooking skills

Smoked salmon, a local farm-raised product I picked up at the farmer's market. Cherry tomatoes broiled with the last of the basil breadcrumbs. Blanched green beans, sliced almonds, baby greens and the citrus vinaigrette I made for our Valentine's day salad. Delicious! 

Caleb, 1 Month!

I can't believe our baby is an entire month old. (Every parent says this, right?) The days are long but the weeks go by so fast. Caleb's already so much bigger than he was at the hospital and starting to look like a little baby, not a newborn.

He sleeps better at night than during the day. During the day he'll take one, maybe two really good, long naps. If he refuses to nap in his crib I'll hold him for an or hour so that he doesn't completely melt down from a lack of sleep. At night he'll sleep for 3 to 4 hour stretches and that's always been in his crib. He likes to sleep all wrapped up, either in a swaddle blanket or a sleepsack, and he's just grown out of the newborn size sleepsack and we have to bump him up to the 0-3 size.

We're following a "parent-directed feeding" schedule (aka Babywise) and that seems to work really well for us.  I've never felt like I've denied him food when he's really hungry and he always takes a full feeding. With bottle feeding we know exactly how much he's getting, usually 4 ounces 8 times a day. At the moment we're working on going down to 7 feedings a day and I'm trying to figure out how to increase some of his feedings so that he gets the same amount of food over the course of the day. He gets half formula and half milk now.

"Mom, stop trying to get pictures of my cute outfit and change my diaper!!"

He hates tummy time, but can hold his head up and looked around when he's being held sitting up. Sometimes he likes to just lay next to you on the couch or bed and kick his feet and wave his arms in the air and make faces, gurgling and cooing and grunting. He looks like the little drummer boy. He's basically the best baby and we're so, so lucky to be his parents.

Mom and Baby selfie at 1 month old.

Valentine's Day

(With a baby. I feel like all of my posts are how life is different, with baby or life is the same, with a baby.) Valentine's Day was fairly normal for us. We stayed in - I dislike going out on Valentine's because of the high expectations around forced romance. Brian and I worked together to hang out with the babe, make dinner and tidy up the dining room table enough for a meal with candles and flowers.

Valentine's Day 2014 

Green Salad with Citrus and Almonds
Surf & Turf 
   Steak with Blue Cheese Butter & Broiled Scallops Provencale
Green Beans with Almonds 
Chocolate Trio 
   Spiked Hot Cocoa, Chocolate Truffles, Sea Salt Chocolate Covered Caramels 
French-style Apple Cider 

Not to be too self-congratulatory, but it was an incredible meal. I think I've mentioned the steak with blue cheese butter before. It's a recipe from Screen Doors and Sweet Tea, a recipe I waited almost five years to try and we've probably had it five times in the past few months. The scallops was another recipe I waited entirely too long to try. It's from Serious Eats, posted back in 2012, and I've had it saved since then but never found a reason to pull it out. Scallops and cherry tomatoes are buried under a layer of basil breadcrumbs and broiled until just cooked through. I won't wait until two years to make it again and I'm brainstorming what else I can pair with the basil breadcrumbs.

I wrote a couple months ago that I was going to miss leisurely cooking a really good meal once we had a kid. Thankfully, while life has definitely changed, it's not all that different. I still think about what we're going to have for dinner. I get to have a glass of wine while standing at the stove. I'm taking trips to Whole Foods with my mom, trying new recipes and having fun with Caleb. If this is parenthood, I'm in.

My Valentines

Nothing's better than a steak in a cast iron pan.

Found this Door County produced cider at Whole Foods.

"You brought me flowers!"

"Of course I brought you flowers. You're my Valentine."

The scallops topped with basil breadcrumbs.

My birthday and Valentine's gift from Brian- a garnet necklace, Caleb's birthstone.

I Keep Starting Posts in My Head

I start them at 1:30 am, 4am, the middle of the afternoon, in the shower, but I never seem to make it to the computer. Life with a newborn is a series of productive days and lazy days, three hour intervals concerned with bottles and burping, endless laundry trips. We had a fantastic visit from Brian's brother and sister in law over the weekend. We went out for tacos and margaritas on my birthday. (I had a birthday- I spent most of 28 not drinking and now I'll spend 29 learning how to be a mom.) We hit up the farmers market to say hi to my former market colleagues and show off the baby. Brian and I dropped off Uncle J and Aunt M for a brewery tour and went to relax at a cool coffee shop on the east side of town. We should know better than to try to be cool now that we're parents- Caleb had a major blowout and the bathrooms had nothing resembling a changing table- cue me changing him on the bathroom floor. Both of us needed a good scrub down after that experience. Otherwise we've been watching the Olympics and enjoying the fabulous meals that our friends have been dropping off. I spend a lot time staring at this guy and his funny faces.