Happy fall!
I just had to share this picture. Yesterday morning after I got Ezra up and ready for the day, I put him in his swing so I could eat breakfast. A few minutes later, I look over and see the most tired little baby I've ever seen. He was sitting so still, with this expression on his face. Of course, being the wonderful mother I am, I had to take a picture before putting him back down for a nap. When I stopped the swing to get him out, his hands were down at his sides and he was totally limp he was so tired. He proceeded to take a 2 hour nap, and this was right after he woke up for the day. More playtime with his daddy

Ezra loves his daddy

My Little Eskimo

Last night it got down into the 40s here so it was chilly this morning when we went on our walk. Actually, we went around noon, and it was still chilly. I decided to try out this thing I got while I was pregnant that's lined in some kind of fake fur and it basically covers the carseat or stroller to keep your baby warm. I put it on the jogging stroller this morning and Ezra seemed not to mind it. He could still see out, which doesn't really matter because all he does is sleep when I put him in the stroller anyway. It did block the wind though which is very handy in west Texas. Here are some pictures of our little one all bundled up. It's hard to know how many clothes to put on a little baby when the weather is chilly, but he seemed comfortable.

Before:After:Yes, I realize he is wearing a wintery outfit with a snowman on it and it's only September, but we got it on clearance months ago at Old Navy and he is about to outgrow it. He is pretending like he is asleep in this picture but he's really awake. I limit myself to taking one picture per day of my child while they are trying to sleep. (see above)

8 weeks!

Look...he's smiling! I guess I caught him at a good time.
This would have been a great shot if I hadn't been using flash. Wanted to include it anyway because it was one of the best smiles he gave me today. Hey, who's that girl in these pictures? Oh yeah, it's the kid's mother. I haven't shown up in any photos lately on this blog (none since the one our nurse took the day we left the hospital), so Chad snapped a few of Ezra and me together. In the first one especially you can see that there is no doubt that he is my child. I prepared this whole post thinking it was exactly eight weeks since Ezra's birth, then realized that it's Monday and he was born on a Tuesday, so tomorrow he'll be 8 weeks. Oh well. I think last week I posted a day late so this will make up for it. Hmmm...what's new about our baby boy this week...well, we went through a bit of a rough patch over the past week where he was being really fussy in the evenings, eating all the time, etc. but that has mostly passed, knock on wood. He is taking longer naps now and not eating every single minute (at least it felt that way to me). He is still waking up a couple times at night to eat, and I'm hoping that he starts sleeping in longer stretches soon. My favorite time of day is in the morning when he wakes up at around 5:30 and then again around 8 to eat, and he is so happy and smiley it just makes my day.

Weekly weigh-in and recipes

First up...I lost 1.4 lbs this week. Isn't it funny that when you're trying to lose weight and the first week you lose a big number, then you "only" lose 1.4 lbs the next week, you're all disappointed? Classic Biggest Loser syndrome (for those of you who don't watch the show, the second week everybody gets all sad because they worked just as hard the second week and didn't pull numbers near as big as the first week. Which makes total sense when you think about it, but just watch tomorrow night. I bet at least one person cries because they worked so hard and didn't lose very much weight.). Anyway, I worked out almost every day this last week and 1.4 lbs is fine with me. I'm still doing weight watchers but I used more of my extra points for things like wedding cake, sonic tater tots, food at a baby shower, etc. So I am not surprised at all that it wasn't another 5 lbs. And that's okay. I'm pretty sure a healthy rate of weight loss is 1-2 lbs a week anyway. So enough about that.

Recipes for the week:
Pan-fried pork chops and applesauce...these were fine. Nothing to write home about. I made cinnamon apples instead of applesauce.
Baked sweet potatoes with warm black bean salad...really liked these. I wasn't sure about them at first because we usually do sweet stuff on sweet potatoes like butter, cinnamon, brown sugar etc., but they were really good with the black beans. I used this black bean recipe to start out with (had leftovers) instead of a can of black beans, then added what the recipe called for. I also added a little plain vinegar to give it a little bit of tang. It turned out really good, and very healthy and filling.
The rest of the week we had stuff like fajitas, cooked out hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill, stuff like that. This week I am doing a couple of recipes I've done before like the potato bacon torte (substituting half and half for the heavy cream and using less cheese), salmon cakes (using the salmon in the vacuum packs that have already been de-boned and the skin taken out instead of the canned kind--it's about 4 grams of fat and 40 calories less per serving), and spaghetti, and trying a couple new recipes: cottage cheese chicken enchiladas (using reduced-fat cheese) and chicken with balsamic barbecue sauce. Side dishes will be basic stuff like fresh green beans sauteed with shallots, regular side salad, roasted baby carrots, using the rest of those black beans I made last week to go with the enchiladas, etc.

One thing about being on weight watchers is I really hate having to cook certain "healthy" recipes. I find Chad doesn't really like them and neither do I. I also hate using ingredients that are supposed to be good substitutes but really aren't, like ground turkey breast. I'm sorry but that stuff is not good if you are trying to substitute it for ground beef like in hamburgers, meatloaf or spaghetti. I would much rather cook my regular recipes, substitute some of the ingredients for healthier ones (like reduced fat cheese, half and half instead of heavy cream, etc) and just watch portion size. And, I like to put all my "points" into the main dish and serve side dishes that are 0 or 1 points (which is easy to do if I am getting my 8 fruits and veggies a day like I'm supposed to). Then, to me, it really doesn't feel like I'm on a "diet."

Is anybody still reading this and interested in the recipe thing? It takes some time to go through and find the links and I'm not going to do it anymore if nobody cares. Won't hurt my feelings.

Have a good week everyone.

What do you want to do today?

Untitled from Lesley Montandon on Vimeo.

Defiance

Ezra is REALLY tired of getting his picture taken. He averts his eyes when I get the camera out, and I feel like I need to blur out his left hand in this first one. No, this is not staged.
Mom, seriously. Fine, I'll smile. But it's going to be a weird, goofy smile, and you're going to like it. Here he is being a little bit sweeter.

7 weeks

Well, it's actually 7 weeks and one day, but close enough. Ezra is getting so big. He is smiling and talking in his own little language nonstop, and he is just a joy to have around. I've gotten to the point where every time I pick him up I think, "Man, he is heavy!" He was such a little thing when he was born. He is still eating every 2 to 2 1/2 hours during the day and a little longer at night. He goes down awake without fussing 90% of the time--such a blessing. He is pretty predictable during the day, which is nice for me. There were a couple nights where I put him down at 9, he woke up again at 1 and then at 5 and then for the day at around 8, but for the past couple nights he's been up 3 or 4 times. I am thinking he is going through a growth spurt because he's waking up early from his naps too. I realize that soon enough he'll be sleeping in longer spurts at night, so I'm just waiting it out. Oh yeah, he has also starting doing this thing where he sticks out his tongue a bunch and it's really cute. I'll try to get it on video, but he seems to be aware of the camera and never performs for it. I'm sure you other moms can relate. Basically, he is a very happy baby as long as you keep him fed, let him sleep in his own bed in a dark room (we moved him to his room a few weeks ago), and change his many dirty diapers. We love him so much!

My week in food part II and first weigh-in

I'm just going to start off with the best news, and that is that I lost five pounds this week! Yay!

Now, on to what we ate for dinners the past week and a half or so...
Chicken stew with biscuits...this is a Barefoot Contessa recipe, and it was pretty much chicken pot pie. I baked the biscuits separately because I hate mushy biscuit bottoms on top of anything, and it wouldn't be good as leftovers. It was pretty good, but not one of Chad's favorites (too reminiscent of something with cream of chicken soup in it, not that this lady would ever put that stuff in one of her recipes). Left out the frozen peas because I really don't like frozen peas. Also, too many leftovers. We like to have maybe leftovers one time and then move on.
Bacon macaroni & cheese...This was pretty good. I messed up the cheese sauce in the first batch, so I had to make a second batch. Probably wouldn't make it again. Reminded me of a bacon pasta recipe I have in a Southern Living cookbook that Chad really likes, only not as good. Also too many leftovers.
Oven-fried chicken parmesan...good and very easy. I used Ragu parmesan romano spaghetti sauce for the sauce, and chicken tenderloins instead of breast halves. We ate this up quickly. I would probably season the panko crumbs a little bit next time; they were kind of bland.
Pan-fried pork chops and applesauce...this is what we are having tonight, so I'll come back and let you know.
Grilled pork chops...these were really good. I made the barbecue sauce and simmered it for maybe 20 minutes before marinating the pork chops in it for maybe an hour. The recipe calls for much longer times. We actually did marinate a couple of the pork chops for longer and cooked them a day later, and I couldn't tell the difference between those and the ones that had been marinated for a short amount of time. Also, I replaced the apple cider vinegar with white vinegar due to Chad's strong aversion to anything that smells like or contains apple cider vinegar. Substitution was fine. I highly recommend this recipe.

And before you think all we eat is pork chops, it's been a good week and a half since we had the grilled pork chops. Totally an appropriate time lapse for another round of pork chops.

Happy Saturday!

We are enjoying a lazy Saturday with highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s. It's cloudy here but not rainy, so Ezra and I took a long walk this morning (isn't he cute in his hoodie and sweatpants?), and now everybody is napping but me.

Stay tuned...Monday is my first weigh-in and yes I will be telling you how much weight I lost. I'll also be reviewing the meals that I made this past week. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

9/10/09

I just had to get a picture of Ezra in his little hat and jeans today as we were getting ready to leave the house. What is it about baby boys in hats that is so stinkin' cute?
Here's the picture I took on Ezra's 6-week birthday. He was really tired when I took these, which is probably more apparent when I explain that this was the best picture I could get. Also, I need your opinion: the brown onesie with blue stars all over it: cute or girly? Chad thinks it's kind of girly, so we didn't leave the house much that day.
So I mention in the video that we are done with newborn clothes and on to 0-3 months (yes, they are two different sizes). The fun part about this is that Ezra is growing into a lot of the "little man" clothes that I love, so it's not all footed pajamas and onesies all the time. Here he is wearing the Nikes that were a hand-me-down from Erin. If I remember correctly, these are the shoes Josh bought when they found out Kellen was a boy. And still in perfect condition.
Over Labor Day weekend our friends Matt & Jill and their sweet little boy Shane came to visit us all the way from Tyler. We spent a lot of time talking, playing with the babies and cooking out. It was a lot of fun.

6 weeks from Lesley Montandon on Vimeo.

Scroll down to the post below to check out the latest pictures of our garden...luckily Chad hasn't neglected the garden itself as much as I've neglected posting pictures of it on the blog. But can you blame me? I mean, when you have a cute baby, who has time to post pictures of plants?

Garden update

The cutest watermelon ever.One of our okra plants...we have quite a few more of these, but I'm going to leave it to Chad to do something with them. Trying to eat healthy and okra don't mix when you hate stewed and pickled okra. Anybody got a way to prepare okra that's not fried, stewed or pickled?
This plant is called amaranth. It's the ornamental kind, although there is another kind that has a grain that you can eat. Chad got the ornamental kind, on accident I think, but it is really pretty.
Finally, a tomato! I have a few tomatoes on my celebrity plants, and they are starting to ripen up. I thought that none of my tomato plants would produce anything this summer, but it looks like we'll get a few. I've already pulled up my roma plants. Also, I didn't take pictures of this, but our jalapenos and serranos are producing, and I used them to make some salsa this last weekend. It was yummy.
I thought I'd take a few pictures of our garden before we tear it up and plant our fall "crop." It's finally starting to produce some fruits and veggies, just in time for it to start getting too cool for any of this stuff to really grow well. Yes, we learned our lesson, no more planting in mid-June. Stay tuned to see what our fall crop produces.

Also, stay tuned for a new installment of My Week in Food...this week on the menu is pan-fried pork chops and applesauce, bacon mac & cheese, oven-fried chicken parmesan (all three out of my Cooking Light magazine), grilled pork chops, chicken stew with biscuits, and braised pork. It looks like we're eating a lot of pork this week, but a couple of these recipes are from last week. :) Also, I will include my first weigh-in and let you know how much weight I've lost so far, if any.

Six weeks!

Ezra is six weeks old today. Just in the past couple days he has really been smiling a lot more and focusing on our faces. He is such a joy and we are having a blast being parents.

I'll try to get a picture later today when he is up from his nap.

30 pounds

So, I have decided to up my weight-loss regimen by joining weight watchers online. When we lived in AZ I did Weight Watchers and was fairly successful at it, though at that time I only had about 10-13 pounds that I wanted to lose. So I know how the program works, and this will help me stay on track with my food. Plus, they have a specific program for nursing moms, so that is a positive for me. And I am going to tell you, all my blog readers, that my goal is to lose 30 pounds. There. I said it out loud. So now I will come back here periodically and let you know my progress. 30 pounds isn't really an arbitrary number, it is the amount that I still need to lose to get to 5 lbs below what I was when I got pregnant. It's the amount that I need to lose to really be able to fit into my clothes. So obviously it's going to take a while, but I am committed. Another thing I did today was buy some decent workout clothes that fit. Anybody else out there a lot more motivated to work out if you have something cute to wear? I know my brother-in-law Josh knows what I'm talking about. So there you have it. Weight Watchers, 30-day shred (which I'm doing in a lot more than 30 days because I don't do it every day), and walking and jogging with Ezra is my plan. Wish me luck!

ETA: Chad let me know that the comment about Josh was vague, so what I meant by that was Josh enjoys athletic clothing, specifically shoes, specifically Nike (right Josh?). Specifically when he is a coach and has an unlimited budget for ordering gear.

More pictures

Sweet sleeping baby

Look how strong I am!And look how bald I am!
Sitting in the Bumbo for the first time

Ezra and I had his first outdoor photo shoot today. It was a little bright for him even though it was cloudy...hence all the squinting.
Scroll down to see videos.

Videos

Two weeks old from Lesley Montandon on Vimeo.

One month from Lesley Montandon on Vimeo.

First time in the Bumbo from Lesley Montandon on Vimeo.

Too sleepy from Lesley Montandon on Vimeo.

I was finally able to post these videos that I've taken over the past few weeks. They're nothing monumental, just a fun way to document how Ezra has changed and hopefully put a smile on your face. Enjoy and have a great 3-day weekend!

Pictures!

Wow, three posts in one day...lucky you. Well, at least this one has pictures. Here is Ezra on his 5 week birthday, as I promised. I'm looking forward to when he can sit up and it's cooler outside, so the backgrounds in all the pictures of him aren't his swing or his play mat. Chad took this picture the other day because I was having one of those moments where I really wanted to freeze time. When Ezra's really tired and I'm rocking him he will just look up at me and talk to me and smile every once in a while. I just wanted to remember him that tiny and sweet.
These other ones I shot today and although they're all pretty much the same, I thought they were all cute so I couldn't decide which one to post. So you get all of them! Can you tell he spends a lot of awake time in his swing? He likes it, what can I say.Tired boy.

My week in food

Surprise! It's a post that's not about my kid.

For the past couple weeks, since our life has gotten somewhat back to normal, I have started my "weekly schedule." Basically it's a way for me to keep the house clean by only having to do one thing a day, remind me to study my Bible and exercise, etc. so I don't feel overwhelmed with my new housewife tasks (I know that sounds dumb, but with me, getting overwhelmed happens pretty easily especially in the midst of taking care of a newborn). So part of this weekly schedule is planning a menu and grocery shopping. I know many of you are friends with me on Facebook and might remember my status after I made my very first meal after having Ezra (the first day our friends stopped bringing us food and I realized that I was once again responsible for what we were going to eat). Basically it said something like the meal was nasty and Chad went out for ice cream and we had that for dinner instead. I had thought I was being all smart before the birth, so I had frozen some meals, and this one in particular was sloppy joes. Well, it was nasty. I took one bite and threw the rest away, which gave Chad permission to do the same thing (he is usually very polite when it comes to my meal blunders and at least eats firsts, even if he doesn't lick the leftover bowl clean). Anyway, I decided at that point that this was my job now. I HAD to start making better meals, because I just couldn't stand to eat meal after meal of my own bad cooking. And eating out for each meal for us is not an option, both for financial and health reasons.

So to go along with this, if you know me well or at all (and if you don't, why are you stalking my blog? Oh wait I do that too), you know that I love the Food Network. I have it on in my house pretty much all the time unless Top Chef is on, which incidentally is another food show in case you didn't get that from context clues. Problem is, none of that knowledge was really rubbing off, or I would see a recipe that looked good but never would try it. So now that I have more time to plan our menu and cook on a daily basis, I've been trying out a lot of recipes and they have all been good so I wanted to share. There's this new show on called Ten Dollar Dinners which is hosted by the lady who just won the Next Food Network Star, and I have tried a bunch of her recipes and they are all good. I am putting the links to all these recipes because I recommend all of them. The only issue I have with the "Ten Dollar Dinner" thing is that I don't think they always cost only $10. She calls for a lot of fresh herbs, thyme for example. That's fine with me because I have thyme growing in my backyard, as well as a lot of other herbs, but to buy herbs like thyme and basil in the store costs a good $3-4. Also, for the recipe I'm making today, it calls for white wine. Well, we don't have wine at our house, so I had to buy a bottle and even the cheapest wine is $5 or $6 a bottle. They always say on these shows "Cook with a wine you would drink," which to me means don't cook with wine, because I wouldn't drink wine. So I really don't know what that means, except I do know not to buy that "cooking wine" they sell next to the vinegar. I think it has salt in it or something. On the other hand, she will plan a menu that uses all of one thing (like a lemon in the salmon cakes/asparagus/orzo meal) so nothing goes to waste. I like that because I hate having a part of something left over and then feeling like I need to use it for something, but really having to throw it away most of the time. So here is what we've been eating the past couple weeks:

Potato Bacon Torte (used refrigerated pie crusts instead of making my own)
Roasted carrots

Salmon cakes (sidenote: when I told Chad, who's not a huge fan of fish, that we were having salmon cakes, he said, "I'm scared." I was too. Anyway, they were really good and Chad even had seconds and then ate the leftovers, so there you go.)
Orzo with thyme and lemon zest
Roasted asparagus with Lemon vinaigrette

Crispy-skinned chicken a l'orange (I made the leftovers into chicken salad and it was really good)
Basic fruit salad

I also made my mom's friend Genie's pork tenderloin recipe, and it was really good as well and the best part is I have all the ingredients at my house already. The other good thing is that although pork tenderloin is a more expensive cut of meat, there are usually two per pack and it's really hard to mess up. Here it is:

Mix all together and coat meat on all sides:

1 tsp chili powder
chopped garlic
3 T brown sugar
1/4 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp basil
1/4 tsp rosemary
salt and pepper to taste
parmesan cheese
olive oil

Sear meat 2 minutes on all sides to brown.

Roast at 350 degrees for 1 to 1 1/2 hours or if you use a meat thermometer 160 degrees internal temperature. I guess the time depends on the size of the roast.

Today I'm making North African meatballs with Couscous with dried dates and tomorrow I'm making one of Ina's recipes, chicken stew with biscuits. I'll let you know how those turn out. (Update: made the meatballs and couscous and it was really good, but I probably won't make it again for a while. It had a lot of ingredients I don't normally have on hand, like kalamata olives, dried dates, etc. But it was worth trying once).

I am starting to get my cooking confidence back. Every single one of these meals has been good, and the positive side to it is that we have eaten all the leftovers. It's my job to clean out old food from the fridge, so it's been nice to not have to do that. It has made me enjoy cooking again, and now I look forward to cooking dinner every day. I'll probably start posting the links to whatever I am cooking each week, only I think I'll post them after I cook the meal. Then I can say if it was good, and if it wasn't, I won't be recommending it.

I hope everyone has a great Labor Day weekend...we are having friends in town and grilling on our new grill! Chad went out and bought one the other day. Which reminds me, does anyone have a good recipe for pork chops on the grill?

P.S. for all you other Food Network lovers out there...is there anybody else who couldn't care less what Brian Boitano would make?

Ezra, Ezra, read all about it

For a while now I've been pondering writing a post about how we decided on the name Ezra for our sweet baby boy. When I tell people our son's name, I get a few different reactions: they love it, they pretend to love it ("That's...different."), or they have never heard of it and I have to repeat it a couple times. It really surprises me every time someone has not heard the name Ezra. When we were contemplating the name, I thought, "It's easy to pronounce, it's a biblical name, and everyone has heard it." Not so. The first time we went out to eat with Ezra, our waitress asked his name (along with touching his face and hands--ACK!) and when we told her, she said, "Oh. That's new. But just wait, people will hear it and then they'll like it and start to use it." Like we had started a trend with our kid's made-up name. It cracks me up that in this day and age of so many made-up names, we chose one that is literally one of the oldest names still in use today, and people think it's made-up.

So before Ezra was born, I had a pretty long list of boys' names, maybe 20 or 30. I went through my Baby Name Wizard book, wrote down every one I liked, with the ones I had loved for a long time asterisked. Oddly, I was just sure we would have a girl though, because of our family's lopsided number of girls (on both sides) and the fact that we had a girl's name picked out from the get-go. But alas, we found out we were having a boy. So back to square one, which included me marking names off my own list that I liked enough for a hypothetical baby, but not for MY baby. My two favorites for boys' names for a long time have been Ezra and Asher. Chad was given full reign to nix whatever names he didn't like, which I found easier than asking him to come up with his own list as well. Chad immediately nixed Asher, claiming it sounded pretentious, which cracks me up. However, I wanted to avoid a name that I thought was going to become really popular soon, and I see Asher doing that, so I was fine with taking it off the list. Also on the list was Jonah, which I still love (it came down to these two names at the end). People often ask us if we had to have a biblical name. Absolutely not. I loved a lot of other names, but in the end it just happened to come down to names from the Bible (Asher is certainly not a name I would choose for its biblical significance, I just liked the name). So the night before we went to the hospital, we sat down and talked about each of the names and their significance. Ultimately we chose Ezra because of its Hebrew meaning, "Servant of God," and the story behind the Ezra in the Bible. The name Ezra is also a nod to a couple of well-known authors, Ezra Jack Keats and Ezra Pound (significant to me because of my English background). And contrary to what some of my high school/college friends might think, no, we did not name him after the band. Finally, we just liked its quirky sound, what I like to call "zippy." A few people (family members maybe? Let's not point fingers) have said it sounds like an old man's name. That is also fine, because he will be a man before we know it, but let's not talk about that now or I might cry.

Finally, about two months before Ezra was born, I consulted the social security name website. Going back to my desire to not name my child something that every other kid was named, I looked at the rankings and more importantly the number of spots the name jumped over the last year. Ezra jumped about 40 spots, but was still ranked below Jonah, which jumped about 30 spots. So I figured the chances of my kid having the same name as a bunch of other kids is slim to none. Plus, I realize the name Ezra probably doesn't appeal to as many people as the name Jonah. I know, I'm OCD.

So there you have it. And please don't call him Ezzie.

**ETA: Ezra's middle name is Paul. We chose the name for two reasons: Chad's dad's name is Paul, and Ezra is the first male grandson on Chad's side, so we thought that would be special. Also, the biblical Paul is the ultimate reminder of God's grace and forgiveness, which I always enjoy being reminded of.

Update and 5 weeks

Well, a few of you have asked if Ezra is feeling better and the answer is yes. Thanks for asking...in fact, after his little fussy spell last night, he went to sleep a little after midnight and slept until 5:40 this morning, which means I did too! Yahoo! He is back to being his happy self today and is doing well with eating--none of this eating for two seconds and then crying business. So, I am going to attribute it to just being fussy. Although, we still think he had a bit of a fever. He is a hot-natured baby, so we are trying not to bundle him up all the time just because he is a newborn. Surprisingly I haven't gotten too many comments from the little old ladies at church telling me to put some socks on my baby.

Also, Ezra is 5 weeks old today. I'll try to take pictures, but I just took those other ones yesterday, so you get the point. He's asleep right now, hence, the blog entry. I got to spend my morning running errands, shopping for some cute new fall clothes (for him, of course), and picking up his birth certificate at the Lubbock Health Department--quite the place. I am so thankful for my husband who is so willing to spend time taking care of his baby so I could go out alone. They had some good "boy time."

P.S. I know there are a lot of my friends who read this that are new moms as well, and I wanted to pass along that our pediatrician said NOT to give him Tylenol, because a fever is most often the first indicator that something is wrong. So FYI, if your baby has a fever, don't automatically give him Tylenol.