Knowlege Is Power...

Guest Post by Jess:

So Kelli and I have been doing pretty good about watching what we eat the last three weeks and exercising pretty regularly. Tonight we both had a huge craving for chocolate chip cookies (known as one of the food staples around our house). As many of you know Kelli makes some of the best chocolate chip cookies in the world. As they say - practice makes perfect. At least a couple of times a week Kelli used to make cookies and we would each eat 6-8 cookies before heading to bed.

I figured that since we have been so good lately we could put the kids to bed, whip up a batch of cookies, and guiltlessly polish off the whole batch. I got out the mixer and asked Kelli to tell me the recipe since she has it memorized. She said, "One cup of shortening" so I grabbed the shortening and then made the mistake of reading the nutritional value label. It said 120 calories per tablespoon. My first thought was that there is no way she meant a cup, she must have meant a tablespoon so I asked her. She confirmed that the recipe called for one full cup of shortening (which just happens to be 16 tablespoons according to my friend Google). At this point I wrote down the recipe, went to the computer, and calculated exactly how many calories we were preparing to consume. 1 batch of Kelli's best = 6650 calories! Each cookie is 222 calories!

I'm happy to report that no cookies were made in our house tonight and I will never be able to look at a chocolate chip cookie again with blissful ignorance of how many minutes on a treadmill each one represents.

Daddy's little girls

Lexi Update

Alexis hit her 6 month mark on September 22. A little late, but here is how she stacked up: She was 14.1lbs, 25.5" long and her head is 16 3/4". I have introduced her to rice cereal. She is not a fan. I keep trying, but I fear she may do what Summer did and just start eating real food. Here are her great skills in pictures:
This picture was taken at about 5 1/2 months. That is when she began to try and scoot herself around. Here she is even trying to stand up on her toy basket. No, no, no little girl!

This was taken right around 6 months. She figured out how to get up on her knees and make them move. I started putting her in dresses to slow her down. It didn't work.

This little hat is from our dress up box. I think it was Matthew who put it on her and she didn't mind at all. She must be all girl.

She's already not listening to me about standing up. Doesn't she know that she is too young? How many times will I say that to her in life? Yep, so, we're in trouble!

"Why not, Mommy? I can do it!"

She is really good at pulling up now. She has even figured out how to sit down after getting up. I think it's cute when they figure out how to get up but then are terrified once they get there and realize they can't get down. I spent a lot of time re-laying her down in her crib for about two weeks. Now if she could only find her own pacifier in the dark, we'd be set.

I am not fond of her uber-mobile-ness because not only is she our last, so we want to enjoy the baby stage as long as possible, Matthew did all of those things early, and we all know how "busy" he is. How could I survive two?