Five Months

Five months old already!

I'm sure I keep saying this but, man, time flies by! It feels like about every week I write these updates, not every month.  You're growing so much and you continue to bring more and more joy with each new skill you develop and each "first" you have.  We love hearing more and more laughs and happy squeals each and every day!

Five Months

What you weigh: approx 15 lbs, 9.6 ounces

Eating: You're down to eating about every 3-4 hrs during the day and about once at night. Most of the time, you eat in about 15 minutes unless it's bedtime or you're sleepy. You still kind of cluster feed and bedtimes can still take several hours bc of your slow and drawn out eating.

Sleeping: You take naps now! Consistently! Twice a day! They're in the Boba carrier but mommy is just glad you take them. It makes for a happier day for the both of us. We had about a week this month where you woke up every hour or two hours at night but for the most part, you're still waking once or twice. 

Clothes: 6 months or 6-9 months with a few 9 months fitting here at the end of the month. You will certainly be able to wear all your 9 month clothes by the end of February.

Favorite Activities: Jumping! You absolutely love to jump when being held and stood up on the floor or a lap. You also kick those cute little feet a lot. Loving time in the jumper, Boba carrier, being sung to, clapping, laughs from mom and dad, tummy kisses, smiling, and squealing

Least Favorite Activities: Once again, being in the car seat for too long, ha. 

Big moments/firsts:

- You got dedicated to The Lord in church this month
- You've taken up high pitched girly screaming/squealing
- You started jumping like crazy this month

Other:
- Grandma Kris and Grandpa came and visited

- We got you a convertible car seat to try out in hopes you'll like it better than your bucket car seat

- You've still yet to roll back to tummy but you have come SO close. It's just more fun to jump, I know.

- Laughter is being heard more frequently as well as happy squeals 

- We've figured out how to conquer those red dry cheeks with California Baby calendula cream, woo hoo!

- You're constantly drooling so we usually keep a bib on you all day lest we have to change your shirt 20 times a day ha

January Photos

Door to Door Organics

One thing about living in St Joe versus Kansas City that is the hardest for us is ... food! Not only do we miss our favorite spots (Quay Coffee, Westside Local, Little Freshie, etc) but there's not an over abundance of fresh local and organic foods for groceries. We are thankful for the options Hyvee has but so often, I've found their organic produce to be lacking in quality and variety. Along with that, I love being able to purchase local products, especially meat and eggs, which our Hyvee doesn't offer.

Enter: Door to Door Organics

We've gotten Door to Door over the years sporadically but for whatever reason, had stopped getting it for a few years while living in KC. Once we came back to St Joe, however, I almost immediately signed up again because we could no longer just swing by Badseed on a friday night, etc. After tagging them in an Instagram post of Emersyn hanging out with these awesomely huge rainbow carrots I got in my box one week …

… I got an email asking me if I'd be interested in reviewing them. I don't really do many reviews on The Purple Carrot these days but this is one company I really do appreciate and love to share!

What Is It?

Door to Door Kansas City delivers fresh organic/natural local produce and food products right to your door in the KC and surrounding areas.

How It Works

Each order starts with a produce box that you chose and customize.

You can make 5 substitutions to your weekly (or biweekly) box and shop their whole selection of vegetables and fruit. Their produce is always USDA Certified Organic and sourced locally whenever possible.

After that, you can shop through their ever growing selection of pantry staples. They have a variety of farm-fresh milk, free-range eggs, gourmet cheese, humanely raised meats, sustainably fished seafood, and artisan breads - to name a few.

One of my favorite features is that you can put your order on hold anytime you want for as long as needed so there's no weekly or monthly commitment if, for some reason, you need to take a break from receiving it.

Examples

I snapped some photos of some of the past couple weeks boxes for some examples.

We get the majority of our groceries through them and they always seem to be growing and improving their selections. They also do a great job of keeping everything cold via their packaging even if it be frozen meat or milk.

 

Their prices are overall very reasonable and in line with most healthfood stores and I've always been impressed with the quality. Less than a handful of times have I had to contact them with any problems with an order and each time they were quick to happily fix it. I highly suggest giving them a try! I mean, who doesn't want to skip the store and come home to their groceries sitting at your doorstep? Yeah. Visit their website for more details and to check out what all they have to offer! And give them a try!

***Enter the word "purple" at checkout on your first order and receive a $10 discount!***

PS: Dear D2D, please add Oddly Correct coffee, Little Freshie pops, meat from Local Pig, aaaand Kalona SuperNatural milk to your selections. Thank you ;)

Tartine fruit galettes

Hello, 2014!

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year! Emersyn is now 4 months old and she had a great first Christmas.

I haven't posted as much as I'd like to here but I have been trying to bake at least once a week and have gotten into a nice groove getting dinner made efficiently these days. We recently got this Tartine cookbook filled with awesome baked goods, pastries, etc.

 

Tartine is a widely popular neighborhood bakery and cafe in San Francisco. While we haven't been there, one only has to see pictures to realize how awesome their breads and pastries are. I'm on a mission to bake as many of these recipes as I can and first up ....

Fruit galettes

The cookbook is filled with beautiful photos and very detailed and easy to read instructions even for the more complicated items.

We filled our galettes with sautéed apples and pears and paired them with homemade vanilla ice cream. 

Uh, YUM! It's taken us about all our willpower not to eat every one of these mini galettes in less than 24 hours.

They literally may just be my favorite tasting dessert I've ever made. The dough came out absolutely delicious with just the right amount of crisp and flakiness. I used two different kinds of Caputo 00 flour as we have a few giant bags lying around for Erik’s pizza making and it really seemed to work out perfectly.

I can't wait to make them in the summer at the peak of berry season! Tartine comes highly recommended by The Purple Carrot household and I'm already excited to make the next thing ...

Four Months

Welcome to the year 2014 and the start of month five of your life, perfect little girl! You're growing so much and you're such a beautiful joy!

Four Months

What you weigh: apprx 14 lbs 12 ounces

Eating: You're starting to not want to eat quite as frequently and also are eating quite a bit quicker. Whenever you're really hungry and eat aggressively, you'll "talk" almost the entire time you nurse. It's kind if like a groan/hum and so funny and cute!

Sleeping: You're fairly consistent in this area. Of course we had some of "those" nights but overall you're a pretty good sleeper. Averaging getting up once in the night, sometimes twice and only occasionally more. While you still almost always wake up about 20 minutes after I first put you down, after nursing you back to sleep again you typically stay asleep. We still swaddle you at night and nurse to sleep.

Clothes: Solidly in 6 month clothes

Diapers: Still alternating between cloth and level 2 Seventh Generation disposables.

Favorite Activities: Smiling, "talking", listening to Sophie the Giraffe squeak, watching daddy dance and make funny faces, "standing up" kicking your feet, being in the Boba carrier, kisses on your cheeks, the sound of clapping

Least Favorite Activities: A long time in the car seat, being near the blender when it's on, people talking loudly to you when you're tired, when mommy leaves the house when you're getting tired

Big Moments: 

- your first Christmas!

- you've started putting your little bum in the air when on your tummy and kicking your legs. I can't keep you on your tummy on the Bumbo lounger now. One day this is how far you got out of it

- you've become so much more aware this month it seems and we're really starting to see even more of a cute little personality 

- you're "talking" all the time

- you've begun communicating with a very high pitched girly scream/squeal

Other:

- You've had some eczema on your cute little cheeks. I've been putting some goop on it and it really seems to help the redness so long as I keep up with it. You really like to accidentally rub it all off right after I put it on!

December Pictures