Baby's New Trick

Matthew just started rolling over today! He has never been a huge fan of tummy time, so we don't torture him too often with that. I was a bit worried that he hadn't learned to roll over yet and that we weren't helping the cause, but he figured it out from his back to his tummy and is able to get back to his back some of the time. We will likely be putting the bumper in the crib now because he is hitting his head on the wood slats as he moves all around. We love our little boy!

Savannah, Georgia

One of the advantages of my job is that I get to see many exciting and diverse cities all over the United States. Tyler, Texas, Binghamton, New York, and Fargo, North Dakota are just some of the exotic locales to which my job has taken me. Last week I got to go to a genuinely nice place: Savannah, Georgia. I don't have to travel out of state too much for my job anymore, but I saw this hearing on the calendar and noticed that all the regional attorneys down there were busy so I snatched it up.

The Forsyth Park fountain. It's supposed to be famous. The park where the fountain is located was full of hippies.


The most fun I had in Savannah was strolling down the streets admiring the 19th century architecture. Savannah takes a lot of pride in preserving its city the way it looked in the middle of the nineteenth century. But for the cars, telephone wires, and minorities roaming free, one would think it was the Antebellum South.



Robyn just completed her first month of P90X. She's extremely dedicated. She even brought the DVD's with her to work out on vacation. She set up the computer in the bathroom and worked out in there so as not to disturb baby Maffew, who was sleeping.



Baby Maffew gets a bath in the sink.


Baby with his new teething toy, Sophie the giraffe.

Talented

There is a woman in my ward who is so talented in the art of cake decorating. Every baby shower we have, she shows up with these amazing cakes decorated to go with the theme of the shower or the theme of the baby's nursery. I asked her if she would teach me how to make cakes, so she held a couple classes at church to teach me and others how. We had two classes and these are the results. Maybe we will continue in a few months. I am hoping that I can at least be able to make neat birthday cakes for Matthew.

The first class we learned how to frost a cake. Normally, this would be an all day process, where you stick the cake in the freezer several times to get the result you want - nice and smooth. We did this is one setting, so it's not as slick looking. I was a good girl and did not have one taste of frosting or cake that night. I waited until my "free" day the following day to have a piece. It was REALLY yummy.


The finished product.


We practiced making flowers and borders.


The inside. I made my cake from scratch. In my opinion, cake is not worth eating from a box (unless it's doctored up).

For the second class we had to make our cake at home along with the frosting and bring it to class frosted so we could practice working with fondant. My friend Sarah came over and we spent around four hours making frosting and perfecting the art of frosting our cakes.


I originally wanted to paisleys all over my cake. That evolved to water drops and after, the fish and frog. I did not make the frog. Carmen made that as it was a bit above my level of artistry and patience! We died all the fondant.


Up close.


Inside - the doctored up cake recipe. Matt's favorite.

St. Patty's Day!

I have a family tradition to do a green dinner for St. Patrick's Day. Normally, I dye different foods green to accomplish this, but this year I wanted to do things a little bit more natural. I started searching the internet for "green dinner" and found all sorts of links to "earth-friendly" green dinners. That wasn't quite the direction I wanted. I found an AMAZING recipe for chicken pesto pasta.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Phenomenal-Chicken-and-Pasta-in-Creamy-Pesto-Sauce/Detail.aspx

We had our favorite Pear Feta Salad. Grace brought Watergate Salad (a pistachio pudding based salad) and I found another recipe for Lucky Four-Leaf Clover Rolls. This may just become our staple St. Patty's meal. It was so good and I just don't know that I could improve upon it. Matt made Key Lime Cupcakes and Mary and Mark brought mint chocolate chip ice cream. Matt and I spent several hours preparing all the food and we all enjoyed eating it. Matt and I make a great team in the kitchen. He is always so willing to help and I really love that about him.

Grace showed up in a lovely green sweater and early so that she could help take care of Matthew while we prepared the meal.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/tasty-kitchen/recipes/breads/lucky-four-leaf-clover-rolls/

*I'm pretty sure mine turned out about twice as big as they were supposed to - I may try to make the balls small next time. They are yummy either way.

Mary claims she doesn't own one green piece of clothing. Looks like we have some shopping to do for next year! Mark is licking his lips! I tried taking another photo, but unfortunately it was blurry.

Key Lime Cupcakes. We forgot to dye the frosting green because we were so anxious experience the deliciousness of these cupcakes. I had one later and at least doubled the amount of frosting on top - the best part of a cupcake in my opinion.

Our Big Baby Boy

We left for Savannah, Georgia today (Matt will post more about this later). Matt had a hearing in Baltimore at 1 p.m. and our flight left at 5:30 p.m. So, Matthew and I went down with him and took a trip to visit Aunt Mary at work while Matt was in the hearing. He was a bit nervous about being in the hospital - maybe he has traumatic memories of his birth or maybe it was just all the unfamiliar faces, but he cried pretty hard a few times. He calmed down and then I put him on the scale and he really didn't like that either. I just had to see how much he weighs.

17 pounds, 9.8 ounces! That's with his clothes on, but I'd say he is a big, big boy for his little age of four months. We had fun visiting Aunt Mary and letting her show off little Matthew to all her co-workers!

Your Baby Fix

Here are some pics of our adorable Baby Maffew to hold you over until you're lucky enough to see him in person.

For the last week or so, when we go into get Maffew in the morning we find him totally askew in his crib. We always lay him longways in his crib, of course, but throughout the night he somehow manages to wiggle his way down 90 degrees. I find it baffling how a 4 month old baby has the physical strength to move himself so much. He is starting to wiggle a little, but throughout the day I never notice him moving that much. It's kind of like the crop circles or the big statues on Easter Island: it's a mystery how it happens but you know there must be a logical explanation, right???




Maffew has really taken to sucking on his fists (and our fingers). Though in this picture it looks like another baby came out of nowhere and punched him in the mouth.



Baby and daddy take a nap, after which we both got diaper changes.


Is it any wonder where Baby gets his good looks? I told Robyn that all of Maffew's friends were going to tell him how beautiful his mother was. Her reply: "I hope so."


Cody and me relaxing on his couch.


Baby Maffew loves his play dates with Ainsley from the ward. He just lays there right now, but soon he'll be big enough to pull her hair and stuff.