6 months old!

Pslam 127: 3

Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him.

Gabriel is 6 months old! He loves to stand and work on his balance - and gives us big smiles when he does!

He can now sit alone and reach for toys and back up again. He still hates tummy time - but now even more because he'd rather sit and stand. Drooling is a standard feature in our house now. With two bottom teeth already in, he is working on two top teeth as well. Anytime now they will be popping through.

He gets more and more interested in everything now - grasping for everything and anything that is within his reach. I have to be extra careful with what I hold him close to :-) Pictures on the fridge, plates on the table, my hair...always my hair.

He also loves to pat things - the table, the couch, the piano, etc. It's amazing to watch him as he explores his world and learns new things everyday. I'm so thankful for digital cameras because I can't stop taking pictures and videos of him.

Happy 1/2 birthday Little Man!
Thank you Lord for the blessing of children and the opportunity to raise them in Your love.

Making baby food

So I decided that I'm going to make a lot of Gabriel's babyfood and I've started him on banana (last Friday). Since he doesn't eat much at once and bananas quickly ripen and go bad, I pureed the organic bananas in my food processor....

Until smooth.... and then spooned in to thoroughly cleaned ice cubes trays....

After they froze, I popped them out into a ziplock bag.

I now have 48 banana cubes - that will last up to 3 months in the freezer.

Each evening I pull out one cube and put it in the fridge to thaw over night

Then it's ready to eat in the morning. As it thaws, it has extra liquid which is great to mix the cereal in with it for Gabey's breakfast! I'll be doing sweet potatoes next and using the same freezing method.... Super easy and definitely cheaper than buying it in the store. Although I'll be buying some that I can throw in the diaper bag when we go out that doesn't need to stay in the fridge.

Gabriel's New things....

I just love watching Gabriel grow and learn things. He changes every day and it's amazing how big he is already (18 pounds 14 oz!) and how much he's learned in a short 5 1/2 months. He is such a happy boy - only really fusses when there is something wrong and we can usually figure it out and fix it! He loves it when Papa comes home from work in the evenings to play with him.

Yes, teething - and his favorite thing to chew on is a finger.... preferably someone else's besides his own, although he does plenty of that too.

I have been trying to get a picture of his tooth that has come through 2 1/2 weeks ago and this the best I can do :-) You have to look really closely to see it. He also popped a second one earlier this week but it's not big enough to see yet.

Lately he has been obsessed with his hands and will hold one wrist while fanning the other fingers and watching intently....

His newest trick....... sitting up! Here's the tripod pose....

Balancing......

And he did it!

Yay Gabey!!! We still have to catch him after a minute or so but he's getting stronger every day.

Hannah is very proud of his new ability

After his cereal Gabriel gets to drink a little water. He loves big boy cups, although I should probably start him on a sippy cup...

I love all the noises that he makes. His newest is some sort of growling... it's quite cute. (Can you tell we are in love with our little baby!?)

College Football season has started!

Football season has started with a Cowboy win over Georgia 24-10!

This was Gabriel's first game - all decked out - waiting for the game to start with Papa.

It was a fun afternoon as a family filled with cheering and game day food (meatballs, cheese cubes, crackers, etc). It was nice to have a day at home, a break from the busyness that usually consumes our weekends.

He's covering up my OSU logo in this pic - but I was sporting the colors!

He was actually more interested in his toes at this point than the game...

And little Miss Hannah picked out her own clothes and it did not include anything orange.... but she still watched the game with us and cheered on the Pokes!

Gabriel's First Cereal

So, the time has come to start solids with Gabey! He is 5 months, 1 week already. At 4 months his pedi said to start cereal any time but I didn't feel that he was quite there yet. So I've been waiting and watching for readiness. Lately he has been grabbing anything that I pick up, especially food or cups. I have let him 'drink' water from a cup and he loves it. The water doesn't really stay in his mouth or get to his tummy but he has fun trying. He watches us very intently whenever we eat and will take a spoon in his mouth - to chew on :-) This week I've felt like he was ready and waited for this morning so that James could be here for it too. Kudos to James for getting great pictures and a good video...

Here's Gabey with the very first spoonful of Earth's Best whole grain rice cereal!

Incoming....

It's there....

And... it comes back out!

"Yay for me!"

Just wants to play with the spoon...

And the video of his first cereal....

September Farm Update

The garden is growing so well this year. I have had an abundance of everything I planted! I have juiced tomatoes and made spaghetti sauce, frozen pounds of squash and zucchini, and canned pickles from the cucumbers.... Here is a peak into that process.

Water bath processing....

Ta-da! Dill pickles!
The animals.....

On the left we have Selah, now 2.5 months old and growing so fast! She loves to play with the other goats and of course climbs on anything she can find.

We finally got the west pasture "goat proof" with field fence so they can work on all the weeds that have taken over. We are about to have some really happy but fat goats!

We have been milking Zeva, the black goat, and she gives us 1/2 a gallon of milk each time. She's a great mama and milker especially since it's her first time.

We have been able to make cheese from the milk and have experimented with different flavors like basil, garlic salt, and honey-walnut. Shown here is the honey-walnut. It's really good on Pita Crackers!

We took a couple gallons of milk over to a friend's place and put it through a cream separator. After it goes through, cream comes out on the left and skim milk comes out on the right. I then tried to make butter out of the cream but the first try didn't work so we need to do some research and try again.

This is what we get at each milking! We kept Selah in the barn bottle feeding her for a couple of weeks while we milked Zeva twice a day. We started getting overrun by milk (a whole gallon a day!) so we've started putting Selah back out with her mama during the day and in the barn at night. So now we only milk in the morning - which is a nice break at evening chore time, not having to milk again.

Here are the rest of the farm animals. They are all doing really well. The kittens are growing fast and Daisy even caught a mouse the other day! Yay! (Since that's the main reason that we got them).

Misty and CC watching the goats when we first let them out on that side!

Daisy having some fresh goat's milk...

Oz, the orange cat is super sweet and let's Hannah carry him around the barn. We have recently let him and Daisy out of the barn and "be free" - and they are so happy. Oz sits on my shoulders while I'm milking and Daisy stares at me until I fill her bowl with warm milk.

Our chickens are now "free range" chickens spending a lot of time in the goat pen and laying eggs in their hay feeder. They also come running when I come out the back door hoping for some veggie scraps. We are really enjoying watching them run around and not "cooped up" (hehe) anymore. In about a month we should be getting about 14 more chicks to add to our flock. There is a high demand for farm fresh eggs in the Tulsa area and we hope to get into that market next spring.