Making Baby Food

Even after having 2 other kids I find myself doing things differently.  I worked with my first child and never thought about making baby food. I just bought many,many little jars weekly.  With my second I stayed home from work, but still never thought about making baby food.  Now I am going back to work I find myself making my own baby food for my 3rd.  It is so easy and no little jars to rinse and recycle! 

This weekend I went to the farmers market to purchase my fresh organic veggies.  I bought carrots, green beans, broccoli, and sweet potatoes.  I came home and went to work.  After steaming all veggies I pureed them in my little food processor with a bit of water to a smooth texture.  Then I place spoonfuls into new, cleaned ice trays.  After frozen I popped the cubes out into freezer bags and now I am set for a many meals.  It was quick, cheep, and kinda fun.

 

 

Guess I will have to have another baby just to master this new skill :)

Firefly Fun

This is something I remember doing as a child that my kids have not done.  One reason is due to the fact that they are in bed before the summer sun sets.  For some that might seem early, but so is 6AM.  That would be the time they wake up!

So one night I surprised them by saying we should go out back and see if we can catch any fireflies. They were excited and grabbed their jars.  When they got outside they started looking for the flash of light. 

A was super excited at each and every light. She quickly shouted out it's location and pointed.  She had no desire to catch one however.  Mommy had to do that.

B was more daring on the touching a bug part.  She had a good amount in her jar before letting them go.  We all lasted about 15 minutes and then came back in due to the other bugs that came out too.

Girl Fun

I saw these in the most recent Klutz catalog and thought they sounded like fun.  The only problem was that I couldn't find them around.  Then as luck would have it I found them at Borders the other night.  Even more luck was that I had a 40% off coupon that I used too!!!  The girls and I decided to try them the very next day.  We are LOVING them.  It is super easy and the paints make quite a few.  The hardest part is waiting a full 24 hours till they are wearable.  This is now a playdate staple.  I highly recommend them.  Now if I can only figure out what kind of paint they use I am golden.  The replacement kit of paint is $12.00 not including shipping.  That is more than I paid for the kit in the first place. Plus the only colors they sell are the same that come in the kit.  Guess it means I will have to hit my neighborhood Joann's or Michael's and buy some different paints to try. 

Using the provided plastic and paints, drop dots of paint in a row.

For an additional effect use a toothpick and swirl the paint while wet.

When they dry it is a cool rubbery bracelet.  Oh I guess I don't have any after shots.  sorry!

Mexican Night Fun

We tried a new dish for dinner the other night.
 I made black bean tostadas. They were super easy and the girls had a lot of fun eating them.

6inch corn tortillas

3 Tbsp canola oil

1/2 large onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

2 15oz cans black beans, drained and rinsed

assorted optional toppings, lettuce, shredded cheese, salsa, sour cream...

Preheat oven to 425.  Brush both sides of tortillas with oil. Lay on cookie sheet and bake until crispy, about 10 minutes, turning over halfway through.

While tortillas are baking warm 1 Tbsp oil on skillet over medium heat. Add onion and saute' until soft and fragrant, 3 to 5 minutes.  Add garlic and saute' 1 minute longer.  Reduce heat to low and add beans and 2 Tbsp water.  Mash mixture with a potato masher or back of fork and cook until heated through. Divide bean mixture among tortillas.  Layer with toppings and serve.

I had the toppings on the table and the girls made their own.  It was fun and they really liked this simple, quick dinner.

Smores On A Stick

At "Camp Mommy" today I had the girls make Smore's on a Stick.

It was easy for them to do alone and really there was not much of a mess for me to clean up when they were finished. That alone means it is a good activity.

What you will need is...
***graham crackers crushed up. (I used pre crushed that I had left over from a pie crust)
*** marshmallows
*** melted chocolate (can be chips, bark, candy making... any kind)
*** sticks

Put a marshmallow on each stick and get ready to dip.

Dip each in chocolate and then...


Roll in the graham crackers to coat.
You could also roll them in candy pieces or sprinkles. Then...

Lay them on waxed paper to harden.

If you need them quickly place the tray in the fridge.

The girls had just as much fun making them as they have had eating them. I will say they taste pretty good too. They don't beat a melted marshmallow smore, but they will do.

Our dog "DOG"

For years now the husband has suggested that we get a dog. instead I have a new baby. This time both the old babies and the hubby wanted a dog. Being that I again have a new baby, I was not so into this idea. However a friend of mine helps place dogs into foster homes. I checked into the details of this "foster" home. It sounded like the perfect intro to adding a dog to the family. So after seeing this little one I decided we could try this.

He is super cute and the girls loved him right away. I have to admit , I did too. However it was short lived. by the 3rd day the joy of owing a dog was over. I figured as much, but still kept him around. In fact we kept him for a week before we decided that this little guy was not the right dog for us. It was a great lesson for all of us but mostly for my husband. Perhaps now the dog wanting phase is over.

Baby Crafting

I have been able to get my crafting hat on for a few minutes each day. I am glad to say that baby B has stuck to a 2 hour morning nap. (CHEER!!!) This has allowed me a bit of time to work on a few things that have been on my "want to make list" since he was born 5 months ago. Luckily for me a friend of mine just had a new baby girl, so the urge to sew hit me hard. I decided to make a few burp cloths somewhat following the tutorial from Homemade by Jill. I really liked how they turned out.

I then kept going. I have found that Baby B really likes his crinkle blanket, so I whipped one of those up too.

I love this fabric. It is super cute and soft since it is a flannel. The ribbons are a fun touch.

Lastly I made my favorite personalized onesie. I have a new sewing machine which has an embroidery stitch. I am getting used to it, so this might not be the best. I think my favorite part was adding the little bling in the middle of the flowers. Every girl needs bling!

Lastly I wanted to make a little something for the mom. Since this is her 6th child, I figured she has gotten many a baby present in her day. I wanted to find something just for her. After searching the Internet for a little I came across some special cookies. These "magic" cookies help produce more breast milk. Hey, that is what they claim. I decided to google a little more and found an oatmeal chocolate chip recipe to try. Now all I had to do was find where I could buy brewers yeast (the magic ingredient). Luckily Whole Foods carries it :) The recipe makes a whole lot of cookies so there were plenty for me to keep and give some as a gift. I eat one a day and I swear they work. I have been pumping a bunch to stock up for my return to work.



So that about covers my crafting for a few days. Love me a baby to make things for!

Can You Do It?

“Take Our Children to the Park…& Leave Them There Day”
Saturday, May 22nd is the first ever day in which children 7 years and older can participate in this event. It was developed in order to help neighborhood kids come together to play. In today's world we as parents are not too quick to let our kids outside without us let alone at a park. This makes it hard to let them out since we are busy and can't always be watching them. This also means that other kids are not outside cause we are not. I let my kids out when others are out, but not alone. So if we are not out, then others might not be out...you get the circle right?

I think that I am pretty good about giving my 7 year old some experiences with Independence. She has ridden her bike around the block to get a friend, walked to a friend's house alone, and even stayed in our house alone while I ran to the store. I have yet to leave her at the neighborhood park without me there however. I'm not sure I can do it. I trust, her but not everyone else. That is the problem. Guess this weekend might be a good time to try.

This is also a good time to see who is in your neighborhood. If all the older kids are at the park mine might find someone to play with. Since we don't go to the public school, like most of the kids in the hood do, my daughter often claims that she has no one to play with. This could be the event I have been looking for.

What about you? Are you in?

Softball

B playing first base. She is so serious.

She hit the ball! Run, Run Run!


Hanging in the dugout!

B has tried many a sport in her 8 years. Most of them have been the ones Daddy has wanted her to try. Golf, tennis, skating, basketball. I guess I have gotten in gymnastics, and now softball. I used to play when I was younger and loved it. A ton of her friends were going to play this season too so I figured it was a good time to try. She is on a team with 5 girls from her school and is happy. The worst part is the team name. A true CUBS fan can not put on this uniform without being a bit unhappy.

She is rather good for her first time. She can hit the ball every time, catchs pretty well with the mitt and is the quickest on the team. The "games" consist of every girl getting to bat, no outs, and no runs being kept. It is all about learning the game and having fun. I even had fun this morning at the "game".

Yes, her team is the WHITE SOX. How can this be? Thank goodness it is only for a few more weeks. Then we can get rid of this ugly black stuff. :)

A Little Bit Frugal

I have a list a mile long of craft projects to complete. I think I continue to add to the list instead of completing items on the list. However once I finished painting the dining/computer room I was a bit motivated. Photos have been rehung, baby photos of little B were taken and hung as well. Now I just needed to upgrade my memo board by the computer. I used to have a metal strip on the wall that I hung magnets off of, but I am tired of that and need more room. I wanted a "fancy"cork board but was not happy with the $20+ price tags. I knew I could do better.


So off to Michale's with my 40% coupon. I found a 11x14 piece of cork for $1.25, a black frame for $2.99, and a piece of scrapbook paper for .79


So for $5.00 this is what I came up with:



I added the metal strip at the bottom of the frame too. I like that I have the option of cork or magnets now. The paper goes very well with my green walls. (not that in this picture you can see that) This is a bit of color now by the computer instead of just papers.

Few Special Moments

One of my special Mother's day cookies. I make sugar cookies and frost them. Then the girls wrote/decorated them using food pens.

My B on her First Holy Communion Day. So pretty and so excited about this special day.

A's 5th birthday cake. My first attemp at fondant. I made the fondant from scratch and it was easy and fun.

So Behind

Ever since my 2nd child was born i have been keeping a monthly journal for each of my kids. With the birth of our 3rd I now have to journal for 3. There have been times when I'd miss a month, but due to my blog I was able to recap easily.

A turned 5 the other day and so I decided to journal. Being her birthday I thought it was a good idea. Well I knew I had missed a few months, but not an entire YEAR! I had not written in her journal since last July! Not getting the mommy award now am I? I decided to check on the journal of my first born. Luckily I had been catching up on hers for I was only behind a few months. The worst part was that when I went to my blog to "remember" what took place in the missing months I was lost. I have not been blogging much either. So now I had to remember what took place.

I am up to date on the 1st and 3rd children, but have a lot of remembering to do for the middle one. I am actually thinking of doing a "year in review" for her and starting again next month. It might be faster and a whole lot easier.

Date Night

One might think with a title like this I would be telling you all about a fablous night out that I had with my husband. Well not so much.

This date night was between a daddy and his girls.

This is not the best photo of the 3, but they were too excited about getting to the dance on time to take photos. The 3 had a good time at the dance and were super tired when they got home.

The best part was that I got my sister to babysit the baby and I went to a friend's house to hang with other moms. It was a good night to get together since the dads were out with some of our kids.

Sweet Baby

I love this shot. It was taken by me after I "caught" my husband napping with the baby. They were supposed to be playing. I knew it was too quiet in the room.

New Bike

Uncle M came for Easter and the first thing he did was take out his tools and put together B's new bike. Before she could ride it there were a few things she had to learn.


She learned all about the hand breaks and how to shift.

Passed the instruction part of the lesson and is off for a ride. She waited a long time for this new bike and was super excited to get on the bike.

Easter Fun

My baby boy @ 3 months old. He looked so sweet in his Easter sweater vest.
Even while sleeping B was able to get an egg.

Here are the kids at our annual neighborhood egg hunt. I think I put out about 1000 eggs this year. It was a nice day and as you can see all the kids had plenty of eggs in their baskets.

Not My Fault

If you read my St. Pat's post you know about the trouble I had with the gold coins the girls were supposed to get from the Leprechaun. I went yesterday to the chocolate shop to return the Chanukah coins and get my money back. Plus I wanted them to know that I was pissed about it and let them know they almost ruined my little girl's leprechaun treat. When I got to the shop it happened to be the same lady behind the counter that sold them to me a week ago. I explained to her how unhappy I was with my purchase. She actually asked me if I wanted to exchange them for other coins! NO, since St Pat's day is over I don't really need them. DUH! I think she was then going to tell me that she couldn't give me my money back. I quickly began telling her how upset I was when I found out that these were Chanukah coins and almost ruined my girl's day while there was were other people in the store, I think she changed her mind. As she was giving my my cash she actually tried to tell me that this was MY fault. Um, I don't think so. I replied with, "Well I didn't think you would still be selling Chanukah candy since it was months ago." Then just for fun I added,"I guess next year I will know not to come here for our coins so it doesn't happen again"

On a good note, yesterday my hubby and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. The girls wanted to bring us breakfast in bed (so sweet) but I explained that this was a day for Mommy and Daddy to celebrate. They didn't have to do anything. B seemed to like that idea, but still told us happy anniversary right away in the morning. She sure is sweet sometimes.

St Pat's Day Here We come

I finished making the girls little paper purses, for the Leprechaun to leave, after they went to bed tonight. I had wanted to get cute St Pat's paper, but knew if I went into Archiver's just for paper I would not come out with just paper. So I figured bet not go and just make what I have work. They turned out kinda cute right?



I am trying to scale back on all the holiday gifts, so I went with the little purse and bought some gold chocolate coins to put inside it. I was so good I bought the coins last week and hid them till tonight. As I opened up the expensive bag of coins I noticed that they we all holiday coins. And by holiday coins I do not mean St Patrick's Day. They were all Chanukah coins!!! What they heck! It is now 9pm and I have nothing to fill the purses. I am so pissed. I can't wait till I go back to the chocolate store tomorrow for a piece of my mind. Not only did they charge a lot for these stupid pieces of chocolate, but they are selling OLD pieces of chocolate. I mean this holiday was months ago! Luckily hubby ran to store and came back with the only other thing I could think of...ROLOS. At least they are wrapped in gold foil.

A new thing this year was the making of the leprechaun traps. B was all over this as soon as she got home from school. It is pretty cute and creative. the only problem was how to make it look like the leprechaun set off the trap but did not get trapped. I ended up taking the real gold coin and left a few rolos inside the trap. All this sneaky behavior has totally worn me out. Well that and the fact that my littlest shamrock has been awake and rather fussy since 5 pm. It is now 9:30pm. He better sleep well tonight that is all I have to say.

A didn't make a trap. Instead she mad a bag for the leprechaun to put all of his gold in.

HAPPY ST PATRICK'S DAY TO YOU ALL!

Grabbing Some Heat

The other day I was trying to get the girls ready for school. this is not an easy task with a very opinionated 4 year old. then again what task is at this age? I was getting to the end of my limit for I could not find A anywhere. Then as I cam down from the stairs I noticed a bundle of fleece blanket in fron of the heating vent. Yup. You guessed it. Inside the bundle nice and warm was Miss A. Not a bad idea for staying warm. She sure did think it was funny that I was calling her and couldn't find her.

2 Months Already

I have a hard time believing that my new baby is 2 months old already. It does not seem like that amount of time has passed. Funny that 8 weeks does not sound so long, but 2 months is huge! I will say if it means he will start sleeping through the night I am all for time moving quickly :) These late night feeding requests are getting a little old especially when he nurses only one side and falls back to sleep. Not what I'm looking for after dragging my sleepy ass out of bed @ 12:30am, 3:30 am and again around 5:30am. I'm sure once these feeding stop I will miss them, but for now take them away!

The girls are more in love with their brother each and every day. They are now so into getting their own personal smile from little bro. it is not a good day if they each don't get at least one good smile. Little B is really starting to be all baby and I hate to say infant is gone. He is growing so quickly.

I still don't have him on a good solid schedule yet. He seems to like the sleep one day and not the next system best. Me? Not so much for this schedule. We are getting better, but still need a bit of work. Until I figure out how to make a baby fall asleep for longer than 30 minutes, I will have to relax.

Can You Say Competitive?

I went to my parent's house for lunch again today. I began with a cherry pie appetizer then had a mom made ham sandwich. The pie appie was to fit in my cherry pie that I am not allowed to have as a dessert. I gave up desserts for Lent this year. So I have figured it out that if I eat the sweet before a meal or in the middle of the day, it doesn't count as dessert. It is now an appie or a snack. Yesterday was Washington's birthday and so I knew that my mom would have a cherry pie to celebrate this president. I LOVE cherry pie, so I planned my meal.

While at their house I went on my blog and I noticed that I have over 400 posts. I told my younger sister this and she replied with, "I have more!" I said, "How can you have more? and "Why do you know that?" She told me it is because she tries to beat me! Yes, apparently I am in competition with my sister over who can post more on their blog. I had no idea, but now that I know I guess I better step up my posts. I certainly wouldn't want my little sister to have more posts than I do.

Guess this goes to show me that siblings are never too old to compete and that we will compete over just about anything.

So get ready to read lots of post fans for game on Vic!

Guess What We Got!

B is a big fan of infomercials right now. There seems to be plenty of them during the kid type shows they watch. One of the items that she really likes and wants every time she sees it is the...

BUMPITS!

I refuse to spend $10 on it, but happened to see it for $5 at get this... Office Max. Well for $5 I will try them. They are not as easy as they look. In fact they are a bit hard to do. B wanted it in her hair the next day for school. After a few tries I got it "good enough" for her. She was so happy and couldn't wait to show off her fashion bumped hair at school.

We tried again Saturday morning with the headband look.

Little bit of a bump from the front.

We still need to practice to get it right. I tried the Hollywood bump in my hair and it was HUGE. I looked very strange. I am thinking I will try the small one that B wears next. Little A wants one too, but she really doesn't have enough hair to make it work.

Which Are You?

"There are 2 different kinds of people in the world: those who finish what they start

and those who." Brad Ramsey

This about sums up how I feel lately. I seem to have a pile of things to finish that I just can't seem to find time to finish. I somehow find time to start something new, but not to finish something new. I used to be the person who finished projects. Where did that person go, and when might she return?

Many will say it is due to the new baby. I'm sure that is part of it, but other people with new babies finish stuff. I read all about it on their blogs. They even post photos. I can't even finish downloading the new baby photos off my camera onto my computer.

I find good reasons why I can't finish things, just not sure if they are good enough.

Perhaps for Lent I should make finishing projects my goal as well as giving up something. Not a bad idea right? 40 days devoted to finishing. On that note I better go make a list of all the things I need to get done in the next 40 days.

Day 1: finish making the list :)

Where Did Valentine's Day Go?

I'm sure if you stop to think and remember you can list a number of Valentine's Days in which you had a good day. You might even remember a few special gifts. I can remember how special this day was for my husband and I in the years before our children. He was a great gift giver. Time seems to have changed things. Now it seems to be about the kids.

Each year Daddy buys the girls HUGE balloons. I try to provide them with a little something. This year it was new makeup for them to use. Sad part was that I did not get a thing. Not one valentine from anyone. Not that the gifts are important, but a heart something would have been nice.

Well, maybe next year...

(I did enjoy a yummy heart shaped scone from my sister)

1 Month

Hard to believe that Baby B is 1 month old today. That time sure went quickly. he is staying awake more and his eyes are open much more now. I would like him to sleep better at night and without me next to him. He seems to enjoy laying in or by mommy instead of his crib. I try to remember that soon he will not want to lay next to me, so I have to enjoy it now, right?

His sisters still L-O-V-E him. They can't seem to get enough of him. They have enjoied all of his "firsts" so far as well. big Sis B is really helpful with just about anything. makes me think that another would not be so bad :) Then I remember just how tired I really am right now and think again.

Another Great Gift!

Baby B has received a bunch of great gifts since his arrival. I'd have to say that this might be one of my favorites. It is simple and to the point especially in the winter months. My Aunt sent this for me/the baby. She is the head of infectious diseases in MI, so germs are her speciality. She did send a toy and outfit too, not just this. This was from the doctor side of her :)

I say all hospitals should hand this out as you leave with your new one. It hangs right on the car seat too.