Lauren's 18 month Stats

I know I'm way behind on getting this posted because Lauren is almost 19 months old. She didn't have her well visit until last week, though.

Lauren at her well baby doctor's appointment

She is 32 inches tall.
She weighs 20 pounds 6 ounces.
Her head circumference was 46.5 cm.*

There was a minor discrepancy in this because the head measurement from her 15 month visit was 48cm. The nurse measured her 3 times this visit and got 46.5 each time. Not sure why the measurements would be so off, but there didn't seem to be to be any concern with it.

She's talking a LOT. She will repeat pretty much anything we say, especially when we ask her.
Lauren can point to her nose, cheek, mouth, teeth, eyes, head, hair, tummy, fingers, hands, toes, arms, & a couple others.

She likes to talk on the phone and she loves to give kisses. She is still very opinionated and she has mastered the tantrum and the pouty-face for effect. She's a sweet little girl with a major naughty streak.

Lauren's hair is getting long enough for pony tails! So cute!

Lauren is still nursing a little bit and is sleeping a bit better than she used to, but we're still working on it.

Getting Ready for a Big Girl Bed

We like to introduce the next stage of sleeping arrangements long before we try to put them into action. Lauren is 19 months now and she only has a "mini crib" in her room. It will hold up to 50 pounds (and she's only 20) but she's getting tall enough to climb over the edge. She hasn't tried to do that yet, but we are well aware that the day is coming.

Ian climbed over the crib rail just before he turned two. Once he figured out he could get out of his crib, he climbed out four times in 15 minutes one night at bedtime. We removed the front rail (and converted the crib to a toddler bed) that very night. It's a long and mostly unimportant story, but we realized before the crib climbing incident that Ian's crib was really high off the floor even in its lowest position and we weren't comfortable leaving him sleep there without any rail at all and we were pretty disappointed in how flimsy the wood seemed in Ian's crib. Bottom line: Ian's crib was JUNK. (It has been recalled 4 times since we bought it for various reasons...we had already put it at the curb.) ANYWAY... We already had a toddler bed for Ian. It was no big deal to transition to the bed because he was already used to it being in the room.

Just days after we moved Ian and Aaron into the same bedroom, Ian taught Aaron to climb over his crib rails. We brought out the white toddler bed and all was well. The boys both have twin beds now.

It is just part of the natural flow here for us to anticipate Lauren moving to a toddler bed and adding a toddler bed to the room. When she does climb over the crib rail, we will move her to the toddler bed and pass along the mini crib. Doing some rearranging and cleaning and assembling also feeds my need for changing things up. Here's a secret about me:  I get twitchy if the furniture layout stays the same for too long. Roger will come home from work on a random Tuesday and find the whole living room switched around. It's an easy way to mix things up without spending any money and changing it so much that it causes problems.

I'm hoping maybe Lauren will start napping in her new bed. She doesn't like being "jailed" and refuses to sleep in her crib during naptime. She'll sleep un-jailed in any other bed in the house. (And I'm afraid to let her "work it out" in the crib during naptime for fear that she will start climbing over the rail.)

It's a work in progress.


Happy Valentine's day to all my friends, family, and blog reader friends. I hope you have a lovely day with the people you love. I've always believed Valentine's day is just another day to show everyone you love that you love them. We do celebrate a little bit: a steak dinner (at home) with candles and a special dessert. Maybe some chocolates or heart shaped cookies or something. Nothing big. This year I used an idea from Pinterest to write reasons I love Roger onto little pieces of paper and store them in a mason jar. So cute. I got the kiddos each a heart-decorated cup and a little heart shaped box of chocolates.


I've been teaching the children that it's a day to celebrate LOVE. That means we send wishes to everyone: family, friends, teachers, the neighbors, random people in parking lots. Valentine's day can be really fun if you take a light-hearted tone and a cutesy perspective. Everyone could use more love, right? 

Happy Valentine's day!

Say, "CHEESE!"

I've always wanted to try making cheese. This Mozzarella making kit was featured on woot.com recently, so I took the nudge and grabbed one.




We took the plunge into cheese making today.

First you heat up the milk.

And you have your helper check it with the thermometer,
you're looking for 85 degrees, first, then you add the citric acid.

This is how Ian smiled when I said, "look like you're having fun!"

This is about half-way through the curdling process.

Kneading & smoothing.

After chilling for an hour in the fridge.

On homemade pizza (and stromboli) for dinner!

It was fun! It was a little messy, and a little weird, but it was fun.  Of course we learned some things for the "next time" we make mozzarella... like not to forget to add the salt and not to knead it quite so much (for a nice, soft texture like we like for pizza.) It was perfect for shredding or slicing. I know I shouldn't have been surprised that an entire gallon of two percent milk only yielded an approx. 12oz ball of cheese, but I was. It seemed like a waste to throw away all the whey. Can you do anything with whey? I'm going to have to Google it.

PS- you don't need the cheese making kit, but it was an easy way to get all the necessary ingredients. I probably won't buy another kit now that I know what I need and how to do it. I also probably won't take up  cheese making as part of our daily life here on the homestead... but we will do it again.

Protein Bar Update:

See Original Post Here!

You can also just dump a whole bunch of delicious things from the cupboard into a bowl, like oats, flaxseed meal, chocolate chips, coconut, chopped pecans, cocoa powder, and peanut butter.

And then when you realize you don't have quite enough honey, you can use maple syrup.

Roger and I love maple syrup, but in case you're not crazy about it, just know this:

Neither Roger nor I can detect the maple flavor in the cookies.

They're delicious.

And let's stop beating around the bush: they are cookies.

Have a great weekend!