Wood Chopper, Pie Baker, and Feeding Six

Friday afternoon Austin and Lauren played outside in the backyard. He was chopping wood. He was actually chopping wood--with his little garden trowel! See the tiny little chip of wood he is whacking at with the trowel? To my amazement, it really was being cut. He whacked his finger a few times too--but that didn't deter him from trying to chop that little scrap in two.


Lauren was making pies. She said they looked like "little girl pies" (the rocket-shaped molds). And once she said that, I do have to agree. She brought many pies to me: "Here's a pie for you, Mommy. There's tchocowate tchips and marshmawwows on it!"

See what Austin found in the garden? Two nice ripe red strawberries. We split them five ways, so everyone could taste them! Kind of fun to be finding strawberries in our garden--in January! It has been really warm here, in the high 70s and low 80s, this past week. Crazy!

Pictures of the girls after church

Pictures of all the girls. ;) Austin was only too happy to not be included.

He built a tent for Lauren and himself to play in. Guess he was taking my picture as I took theirs!

And...I am now officially feeding and washing dishes for six! Well, I guess technically I have been since Caroline's been born, nursing her should count, after all. But today we gave Caroline her first solid food! She got a little rice cereal mixed with water and applesauce, and ate it all gone, about 1/4 cup or so. She was so excited, kicking her little legs the entire time. It was also very serious business, as she had a look of deep concentration on her face much of the time. :)

Each of the big kids had to have a turn giving her a few bites, of course.

Empty bowl, full tummy. :D

We tried feeding Caroline more cereal/applesauce mixture at supper time, but she wasn't too interested and only ate a few bites. Her doctor ok'd starting solids at 4 mos, but said we could wait till 6 mos. if we wanted, and that it was probably better if she was sleeping well and didn't seem hungry. She didn't seem hungry after nursing and she is a wonderful sleeper--sleeps through the night every night now, usually 8 hours. :D :D Honestly, I didn't want to start solids any sooner than necessary because it is one more thing to do! But she certainly was ready today, so it was definitely time to start her. I have to also say, that none of the big kids got applesauce mixed with their first rice cereal. Things have loosened up on this tight ship. I'm not worried about allergies with Caroline, and the cereal/water mixture smells pretty much like paste, so that is why she got some flavor added!

One more thing, some of you might notice Caroline's new high chair! The one Julia and Austin used, the seat cover broke, completely in two and the foam came out. I was going to use the old cover for a pattern to sew a new cover, but never did. We were given a new high chair for Lauren, which we appreciate, but from the beginning, it reclined too much, which caused more spills. So we are going to sell that one (hopefully) and Caroline got a new one.