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Jaye L. Knight blog tour

We have company today!! Jaye L. Knight of jayelknight.com will be answering some questions, and has allowed me to share an excerpt of her newest book, Samara's Peril with you. Samara's Peril  is the third book in her Ilyon Chronicles series. Hi Mary! Here are my answers for the interview! :) Hello, it's exciting to have a real live author with us today! This lovely young lady wrote the book "Samara's Peril", and is taking a blog tour for a couple weeks. I'll add a book excerpt at the end of this post, hopefully you'll like it so much that you buy her book :) Thank you so much for hosting me here! :) I'm trying not to ask you the questions everyone probably asks you, but I probably will. What's your most frequent question? Do you have a stock answer for it, or do you give different ones every time? Some of my most frequent questions are writing advice or where the inspiration for Ilyon Chronicles came from. Ther

Four Months Old!

Yep, you'll still be seeing blog posts about my child monthly for a looooong time! Get used to it ;) So, four months old today! And at the advanced age of 18 weeks, she can: Laugh out loud Roll over both ways Put all her weight on her legs Sit up propped on her hands Reach for things she wants Hold her feet and try to eat them She's in 6 month clothes at 16 pounds and 26 1/2 inches. Sadly, she has begun to outgrow many of the small clothes that were gifted to us. So I bought her some new clothes, including this dress Which she was fascinated by My very lady-like daughter in her pretty new dress I did get some good pictures though, after Daddy came to make her laugh. And laugh she did!! And here's her hair at four months. Eek, it's getting so long! Mommy can hardly wait to fix it up!!

Mother's Day/Birthday Cake

Pudding cake 1/2 cup butter 3/4 cup sugar 2 beaten eggs 3/4 - 1 cup of milk Small box vanilla pudding (powder) 2 cups flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt ~~~~~ Chocolate drizzle filling 1/2 package chocolate chips 1 Tablespoon butter 2 teaspoons milk 1/3 small package chocolate pudding Mix together on stove over lowest heat. ~~~~~ 350 degree oven 9 inch greased and floured pan Cream the butter and sugar, then add eggs, milk, and pudding mix. In a separate bowl combine dry ingredients, and add to the wet ingredients a small amount at a time. Don't mix the batter too much. I made a two sided cake, chocolate and vanilla. Just mix a second batch of batter, this time adding 2/3 of a package of chocolate pudding. The batter looked and tasted good enough to eat right then! I folded a cardboard divider, and poured out a small amount of batter on each side to hold the divider in place while I drizzled the c

Random 6 o'clock Blog Post

Here I am at six in the morning, writing instead of sleeping. I've had a busy, fun, and productive week! I got quite a bit of driving in, even a little practice on wet roads, and drove somewhere I haven't driven before. I took the baby to see her great aunt Wilma, our visit was too short, but I hope we can go back next week. My plan was to drive to Wilma's, then church, then home, but it POURED as we were about to leave her house, so Garrett's dad drove to church. I never thought I'd be the weird mom at church until we started homeschooling, but people already know I'm different. I guess you can't hide the weird!! Haha! I let a lady at church hold Anna, and when she went to her seat with the baby, I followed her. She thought it was pretty strange, but I'm going to be where my baby's at, no matter who holds her. I so love watching the older ladies at church hold her and enjoy her. There are so few babies to enjoy. Most of them have 2 or 3 grandch

Three Month Birthday

Somebody was three months old yesterday! It's so exciting to see her doing more every day, and being more deliberate in her movements. She now can: Roll over Laugh Squeal and shriek Reach for things Hold her back and head steady when set upright Babble Turn when she hears a voice Watch TV :P Put things in her mouth Put quite a lot of weight on her legs She weighs 14 pounds, is 25 inches long, and LOVES airplane rides on my knees. She's also in the middle of her first cold, but she's taking it  like a little trouper. I decided to practice using the baby thermometer (underarm) and either there's something terribly wrong with the baby, or the thermometer, because my little girl had a temperature of 95*. I checked mine to compare, and was about a degree warmer. I know I always measure colder, but not that cold! It seemed to be working later that evening, though, showing Caleb to be 98 and me 97.  Anna at Three months   Two

Happy Resurrection Day!

Here at the Crouch house everything went smoothly on Sunday morning. Everyone was dressed, some people were adorable... ...and then she threw up on my dress and hers. Ah well. A good reminder that Easter is not a time to dress up and be fancy at church. I found an emergency outfit for her, and threw myself something together, and we headed to church to hear a very good message. After we got home, we picked up a few things from the house and went to Garrett's parents house.  I got some more driving in! Learned how to pump gas, and stopped by our favorite antique place to browse. I picked out $4 worth of children's books (some titles I read when I was little!), and Papaw bought Anna a little rocking chair. It was a very good day, and we ended the day satisfied and filled. He is risen!

Spring is here...

...and so are the creepy crawlies. Yay! Hello, spider in my bathtub, yes, I would love to have a gaping gangrenous sore, so please, enjoy our home - while I grab some wasp spray and douse the bathroom. Hahaha! So anyway, with all the beautiful weather is coming all the charming bugs that the South has to offer. Our house is very old, and although I love old houses, they're very leaky.  What we have seen in the past two weeks: Ants Roaches Wolf spiders Mouse droppings Countless pantry moths WASPS Did I mention spiders? And the WASPS?? I sat down to play the piano a couple days ago, but when I opened it up there was a red wasp sitting on the keys. I screamed and jumped backward off the bench (All I need to be an Olympic jumper is a good supply of wasps). I sprayed it to death, because sadly I'm too much of a chicken to swat it. Now I'll be paranoid of  playing for a long time. I'm imagining wasps under everything!  Thankfully the mice in o

Something new!

I have a piano!!  Every key but one black work, and it sounds tuned!! I may not be a pianist, but I can play melody, and who knows? I could get better. For now it's good enough for us. A couple of the keys stick, but can I complain about a $25 piano? Um, I don't think so! Little A went to sleep when I played it yesterday, so I can see that it will come in handy, as I like to play music, and she doesn't like to sleep. It took five men to get it in the house, and they left it in the kitchen. Thankfully the thing has wheels, so I pushed it to its new home in the dining room this morning. It squealed so much that I was afraid A would wake up, but no, apparently the child would sleep in a rainforest, because that's what it sounded like, an aviary full of squeaky tropical birds.  Free bench, too! ^

Dust on the Guitar

Finally got my guitar out to play yesterday!! The poor thing's been shut in its dusty case and  stuck in the corner with the equally dusty fiddle and mandolin cases for too long. I have played it since baby came, but maybe only once. She seems to enjoy listening (as long as I sneak a kiss in frequently!) and it's good to get back to playing. Of course, it's easy to just pick up a guitar and play it, we'll see how it goes when I pick up the fiddle again. Eeeep o.O I want to get a couple of the 'Wee Sing' books soon to play from. I remember so many of the songs, but not chords. I can't wait till she starts singing along!!

Breastfeeding is easy!!!

Said no one ever. I wish I'd been a little more prepared for it. I devoted too much time to preparing for the birth, and taking care of the baby, and not enough learning how to feed her. It's important, feeding a baby, but I thought it would be easy and natural. It's natural, but the farthest thing from easy for most women. I wish somebody had told me: Latch is VERY important Babies need a lot of help latching on  Latching on is very hard Bad latches hurt After a few weeks, baby will try to help latch This does not help Those little flailing arms make a hard job harder There will be less milk at night There will be more milk in the morning Feeding a baby is one of the most enjoyable experiences in life There SHOULD NOT be any pain if the baby is on properly Annalise was such a little trouper those first two weeks. Feeding was agony. And it just got worse and worse. Finally I pumped and gave a bottle for a few days. I know a lot of people

Big plans... aaaaaand a baby

I like to do stuff. I like to keep busy and fill my days with all kinds of stuff. I enjoy variety. Every week I plan all the stuff I want do do in the next seven days. It sounds great, it sounds fun, but nope. Some things just don't work in around a little person's needs, and little people need a lot. Some days my big exciting plans are to clean the bathroom (yes, really!), because the time is harder to find the bigger baby gets. I bought some shelves with my birthday money, and my plan was to put them together that night and organize them. Haha, nope!! Annalise was awake and hungry and fussy, and needed mommy a whole lot more than those shelves did. It took me three days to get them together, clean the living room, and mop a couple floors. But my baby was cuddled and loved, and that's more important. I like to make exciting long term plans months in advance. Right now I'm excited about a craft show in May that I'd like to sell at. It's two and a half mont

One Month Birthday

Little miss is one month old today!! And not to be a overly biased mommy, but she is very advanced for her age, hitting milestone after milestone early :D She can: Hold her head up by herself Make "ah" sounds Pay attention to a rattle Focus on faces Smile spontaneously Bring her hands to her mouth Hold her head up on her tummy Smile when she thinks something's funny All in all, just working her precious way farther into our hearts. We love our girl!!!

Greetings!

Hi, I'm Mary Crouch, and I'm excited to finally start a blog I just might actually take care of!! I've started two before, I think, and never made it past the first draft of the first post on either one. BUT, I have a baby now, and that means a lot of wakeful nights, and opportunity to write. I'm a stay at home mom in Kentucky where I live with my wonderful husband and our little baby girl. I plan to blog randomly about babies, and animals, and crafts, and life, and books, and living naturally, and modest fashion, and serving Jesus, and hopefully meet a lot of great people!!