Saturday, March 9, 2013

Family Fridays: Alexander at 5 Months

Another month has flown by and Alexander is now 5 months old. This last month has been a bit easier (than the couple before it), as Alexander has been napping more than 20 minutes at a time again. Now he'll he'll usually take at least one long nap of about 2 hours and often one or two other 1 hour naps. He's still not super great at sleeping at night, but a lot of nights now he'll sleep 5 hours in a row, and I'll take whatever I can get. He has also been happier and more easy going again. In fact he is super smiley guy lately. This is a fun stage of babyhood.

At 5 months:
  • He is quite vocal and babbles a lot.
  • He can push himself backwards when he is on his tummy.
  • He can roll from front to back and back to front, but doesn't often, because he has a tendency to roll off our play-mat and hit his head on the hard fake wood floor.
  • He seriously wants to try eating everything and loves tasting anything that we let him, but is still growing fine on primarily just milk.
  • He is 17 pounds 12 ounces and 27.5 inches.
  • He is wearing 9 month clothing now.
  • He really wants to do everything his big brothers do. And I have never seen a baby show such determination and persistence as this little one. At this point motor skills don't seemed to be his natural gift (like Andrew), but he like he will eventually learn anything he wants through sheer determination.
  • He loves to give kisses now (especially to mommy).
  • His brothers like to jump in whenever I am trying to get pictures of just the baby.
  • He can drool A LOT!





















Wednesday, March 6, 2013

DIY Non-Alcoholic Irish Cream Coffee Syrup and Virgin Irish Cream Lattes

I don't drink and I've never had an actual Irish cream coffee, but the upcoming St. Patrick's day holiday made me crave the fake Irish cream coffee creamer I used to use sometimes back in the states. I've never seen international delight creamer here, and I'm sure even if there is somewhere, it is crazy expensive. So I set out to make my own flavored coffee syrup.

The vanilla, almond, and touch of chocolate flavor combo seems just like the Irish cream flavor as I remember it. You could mix the flavors into 1 cup sweetened condensed milk and 1 cup cream or half and half if you want ready made creamer instead. That should be quite similiar to store bought versions. I just prefer to add more regular milk instead.

This syrup is also great in hot cocoa. And of course if you give anyone a cup of hot cocoa topped with whipped cream and sprinkles you'll instantly becpme their hero. At least that is what happens around here. :)

Homemade Non-Alcoholic Irish Cream Coffee Syrup Recipe

  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/2 tsp almond extract
  • 1 Tbsp cocoa powder
  1. In a medium saucepan combine sugar and water. Bring to a slow boil until the sugar completely dissolves.
  2. Once the sugar is completely dissolved, turn off heat. Add vanilla, almond, and cocoa and stir until well combined.
 I store the extra syrup in a glass jar in the fridge.

Homemade Virgin Irish Cream Latte Recipe

  • 1/2 cup strong coffee
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • Homemade Irish cream coffee syrup to taste
  • Whipped cream (optional of course)
  1. Brew coffee.
  2. Heat milk in a small saucepan or in the microwave until just beginning to bubble at the edges. Froth milk if desired.
  3. Add coffee syrup to taste and top with whip cream if desired.






Tuesday, March 5, 2013

DIY Chili Lime Popcorn

We love popcorn around here and eat it instead of chips most of the time. Most often I either just add sea salt or cheese powder, but sometimes I like to add different seasonings to change things up a bit.

I recently saw this idea for Chili Lime Popcorn over here and it sounded so good that I made up a big batch the other day. I actually didn't really follow any recipe, just sprinkled stove popped popcorn liberally with sea salt, chili powder, and lots of lime zest (like several tablespoons). This was sooooo good and quite different from our usual flavors. Everyone loved it! In fact we all ate so much we called it lunch.

Homemade Chili Lime Popcorn Recipe


  • Popped popcorn (I popped mine on the stove in some sunflower seed oil)
  • Zest from some limes (I recently discovered what I think are actually key limes here, more on this later, and I used several tablespoons of the zest from a bunch of those tiny little guys that were still under ripe and very green)
  • Chili powder
  • Sea salt
Once your popcorn is popped begin sprinkling on seasonings, stopping to stir and taste until desired flavored combination is reached. Enjoy!






Friday, March 1, 2013

Family Fridays: The Queen's Doing Dishes and Mr. Lincoln Is Doing Laundry

Mr. Lincoln
Lately Aaron and Andrew have been obsessed with Reader Rabbit 1st grade. When they are not playing the game on the computer, they are often pretending to be Reader Rabbit and Sam the Lion. They even gave the rest of us roles in their fantasy world as well. Daddy is Ivan the Inventor. Alexander is Fluffy, the dog who eats all the time. And because I'm the only girl around here, I get to be Queen Cumulus, queen of the cloud world.

So one night while I'm doing dishes, Andrew (3 years old) comes running up to me asking, "Queen, Queen, what are you doing."

"Um, I'm doing dishes."

"Queen, Queen, why are you doing dishes?'

"Because the dishes are dirty."

"Queen, Queen, why are the dishes dirty," as he runs off.

Um, the King is working and our subjects are too small to wash breakable objects and knives?

Then later after we made our president's masks, the boys started pretending to be Washington and Lincoln all the time. So one day when I told Andrew it was time to help with the laundry he said, "No, I am Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln is going to do the Laundry."

Fine. I guess as long as the laundry gets done it doesn't matter if Mr. Lincoln does it.

And Mr. Lincoln did a good job with the laundry.

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