7 months old

7 months old and continuing to delight everyone with his beautiful little personality.

 

His brothers all dote on him, and who can blame them?!

 

It's three weeks now since he learned how to roll from his back to his front. A week ago he learned how to go from front to back again and will sometimes go over two or three times.

 

I found this batch of photos on the iPad that the boys took of him. They were so cute that I couldn't leave any of them out, so be prepared for baby overload!

 

These are Fraser with Ally (4) in the background. Ally is wearing one of Fraser's bibs because he wanted to be a cowboy that day :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And these were taken with his biggest brother James (14). I suspect that Calum (11) was the photographer of both sets of photos!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Despite how content he looks in all these photos of him on his tummy, he does soon get tired of it and want either rolled back again or picked up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another couple of milestones.

 

Just over a week ago he cut his first tooth. It's at the bottom but hard to see as he always sticks his wee tongue over it when you try and look in his mouth! He has always loved to chew on his thumb, but he's not a thumb sucker, and has occasionally given himself a wee shock when he bites it with his new tooth!

 

The second milestone was the introduction of solid foods yesterday. I didn't plan to wait until he was seven months and had meant to begin when he turned six months, but, well, I just didn't get around to it! Besides, he's not exactly wasting away on his mummy's milk!

 

The other boys were so excited for him to have his first taste of food.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He had a little bit of puréed mango & apple and he seemed rather impressed by it.

 

 

 

As you can see!

 

 

 

He was eager to try again at lunchtime today and now the excitement of introducing lots of different foods begins.

 

 

Sticking with food, last week when Alasdair had a dermatology appointment the doctor told us that she had just that morning received the results of Fraser's food allergy blood test and written to the dietician and our GP. We still haven't received our copy of the letter but she said that from what she could remember he has the same allergies as Calum (11) and Alasdair (4) - dairy, wheat and egg. She couldn't remember if he was allergic to nuts or not.

 

I really hoped he would be spared the food allergies but I suppose at least we know what we are doing by now.

 

Food allergies and eczema don't affect how beautiful and perfect he is!

 

 

 

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Weekend fun...

We didn't do anything special this weekend, but I thought I would share with you a few snapshots, taken on my phone, of a typical weekend in the housefulofboys.

You may notice that there seem to be quite a few food shots in there.

You may, or may not, find that surprising :0)

Friday night seemed a bit chilly, so I thought it was the perfect excuse to experiment with a new cosy pudding. Choc chip & banana, bread and butter pudding, only made with choc chip brioche rolls and not bread and butter. It was divine!

We usually have pancakes on Saturday morning, but on Friday I was out with a friend for brunch and we had the most delicious french toast, bacon and syrup. So, on Saturday morning I decided to try and make the same. (Our egg free boys had normal toast rather than the french toast.)

I need to feed them well on a Saturday morning you see, because the older three boys (and coach daddy) have shinty training later on in the morning.

While we watched the older boys, Alasdair and I had fun running around the park, pretending to be baddies and goodies.

Later on in the day the boys earned some pocket money by giving the car a well needed clean, both inside and out.

Sunday lunch is always a traditional roast in our house. Beef, chicken or ham. This week, I bought beef brisket and let it cook in the slow cooker overnight. By the time we ate, at about 2pm, it had been cooking for about 15 hours and was sooo tender. Although it wasn't technically roast beef, I still had to make yorkshire puddings to go with it!

Sunday lunch pudding might look a bit on the healthy side, but don't worry, there was a jug of butterscotch sauce to pour over the fruit!

After lunch we made life-sized soldiers by drawing round the boys and then drew on the Armour of God. They aren't finished yet, but are looking good so far.

Then in the evening, in order to compensate for all our treats, we cycled to and from church. 2.5 miles each way, if you're wondering. We are trying to cycle as much as we can before the weather gets too cold!

As are my brother and his family. We made up quite the gang as we all cycled off from church together, 4 adults, 6 boys all on bikes and one boy in a trailer! We went part of the way together and then had to head in different directions. They don't have quite such a steep hill to climb on the way back as we do either! 

And that was our weekend!

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Meal Planning

I have been writing out a weekly meal plan for some time now.

I find it really does cut down on your shopping bills to know what you need to buy for the week ahead. Or to not decide one day that you will make X for dinner, only to find you need a certain ingredient for it, pop out to the shops for said ingredient and then buy a whole pile of other stuff too.

It doesn't mean I won't buy anything that is not on my list but on offer.

When I am doing the food shopping, if I see a meat or something else that is freezable on a good special offer, but that isn't on my meal plan for that week, I will probably buy it and pop it in the freezer, then include it in a following week's meal plan.

I have been known to succumb to the odd chocolate offer too :0)

I was quite excited to see that Sainsbury's (my store of choice!) have this last week launched a 'Feed a family of four for £50' meal plan.

The meal plan includes breakfast, lunch and dinner for 7 days, with the recipes and shopping list. It doesn't include any snacks or puddings but I don't think that is too big a deal. I bought extra fruit for some of the snacks, the rest will be home baking anyway, as will any puddings.

We will have to modify things a bit, with all the food allergies I need to cater for, but on the whole I'm planning to stick to the menu, which we started last night.

The dinner menu is:

Monday - Meatballs & Spaghetti 

(two lots of pasta, one normal, one wheat free)

Tuesday - Vegetable Stir Fry 

(I'm planning to add the left over beef from Sunday's roast. The suggested protein was peanuts, which are a BIG danger in this house!)

Wednesday - Sausage & Bean Hotpot

Thursday - Cottage Pie 

(an almost weekly choice in our house anyway)

Friday - Salmon Pasta Bake 

(again, two lots of pasta needed)

Saturday - Toad in the hole

 (I just can't get wheat & dairy free yorkshires to work, so as well as this I'll cook wheat-free sausages for Calum & Alasdair and they can have them with the mash.

Sunday - Roast Chicken

It's really nice to have the menu's made up in advance, and I think Sainsbury's are planning a month's worth, so I'm looking forward to what next week has in store - thanks Sainsbury's!

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Miscellaneous Monday

The 1st of November really seems to have brought with it the winter tonight! With the clocks going back an hour at the weekend, it was dark here by about 4.30 and that's only going to get worse in the next few weeks. There is a strong wind and on top of that, it's raining quite heavily. It really took all my enthusiasm to take the boys out to Monday club at church tonight after dinner! This weather just makes me want to hibernate in a cosy house! Thankfully my brother usually takes the boys home from club, so I didn't have to brave the elements a second time!

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Saturday's coffee morning seemed to go well. The children all loved the second-hand toy stall and the washable tattoos (which were cute little Bible themed tattoos). I sold a few cards and there was a lovely selection of cakes.

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Christmas stuff comes into the shops so early these days that I do my best to completely ignore it until November, so now I am allowing myself to think about it a bit more. I didn't quite make it to November before making my first batch of these little beauties though:

I made them on Saturday night, which was almost November. I have been known to make up my own mincemeat for them (a Nigella recipe, of course) but I'm not sure if I will this year or not. 

I don't tend to make these wheat-free, as Calum doesn't like raisins, although I did last year as I was on a wheat-free diet to see if it helped Alasdair's skin. I'm still working on perfecting my wheat-free pastry.

Traditionally, I try and make my Christmas cake on one of the first couple of weeks in November, to give it time to mature. I made two last year, one wheat-free and one normal. My wheat-free one was far too crumbly though, so it needs a bit of fine tuning. Calum won't eat it, but Alasdair might - he loves raisins!

Out of those little pies above, there are not too many left!

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Finally, here's a wee clip to show what Alasdair has been perfecting over the last week:

Gaelic word(s) [three of them!] of the day: 

coisich (cosh-eech) - walk

fliuch (fl-yooch) - wet

gaothach (gi-hach) - windy

All ending with the Scottish ch sound, and the i sound in gi-hach is as in is.

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