peas!

Today I pureed organic green peas in our Beaba. They didn't turned out as smooth as I had hoped. I'm not sure what the secret is. And I think that since it wasn't as smooth, well, he didn't care for them too much! He did eat them, but not without making faces like this:

Gosh, he cracks me up!

baby's second food - sweet potatoes!

Tonight we tried sweet potatoes. Yummy! I used my new Beaba to steam and then puree 1 large sweet potato. It turned out mighty tasty, if I do say so myself. Let's hope little man likes it.

Verdict:

 

He loves it! He doesn't seem all that excited in this photo, as he was ready to go to bed! But he gobbled up his portion. 

Here's how I made the sweet potato puree.

Homemade Sweet Potato Puree

1. Dice 1 large sweet potato

2. Using your Beaba or veggie steamer, I steamed in the Beaba for about 15 minute until soft. 

3. Place the cooked sweet potato in the Beaba or food processor and puree adding the left over sweet potato broth until you've reached the right consistency for your baby. I even added additional filtered water to make it a little thinner, as it's his first time to try. 

4. Using an ice cube tray, I filled the whole tray and placed the lid on it and into the freezer it went. 

5. Using freezer bags, I placed the cubes by portion size into the bags to store.

6. When ready to feed the baby, I take out one bag, fill a small bowl with hot water and let the food defrost.

7. If the food still needs to be heated, I heat in the bottle warmer and serve.

 

baby's first food - avocado

Besides breastmilk, Baby A has been eating 2 Tbls of rice cereal before bed. He loves it! We decided to mash up an avocado for him to try. Both my husband and I love are fruits and veggies, so we were hopefully that he would love one of our favorites, too.

Verdict?

 

Not so much! He hated them. Gagged every time he tried to swallow. Poor guy. Oh well. We'll move on to sweet potatoes next!

tostada tuesdays

A lot of families have Taco Tuesdays, but not us. Tostada Tuesdays here in our household. We love being able to pile on the toppings with the tostadas. And one additional change. We don't use refried beans as the base, but guacamole. Super yum! This recipe is definitely WeightWatchers friendly as it comes to 3 points each. And to top it off, they extremely filling. 2 do the trick for me. Here's how we make 'em.

Whatcha need: (1 serving)

• 1 Tostada
• 1/8 cup guacamole (or 1/4 cup for 1 additional point)
• 1/4 cup lean ground beef or turkey
• lettuce
• tomato
• onion
• salsa

Let's build it:
It's pretty simple. Once you have your meat browned, start with your tostada and use guacamole as your base. Then add your meat followed by your toppings of choice. We like tons of tomatoes, chopped spinach and a little onion. And we can't forget the salsa!

Points may vary based on the kind of tostada you have.

sunday morning sweetness

I love trying new recipes, especially good ones! Don't you? One of my favorite websites, Skinny Taste, has the best low calorie, low fat recipes ever. She takes yummy food and removes some of the fat and calories. She even lists the Weight Watchers PointsPlus, for those that are on WW. It's a fabulous site that I recommend. Her recipes add in herbs and seasoning that really make the dish flavorful. I can honestly say I haven't made a recipe from Skinny Taste that I wouldn't make again.

I recently came across a recipe for an Easy Blueberry Buttermilk Cake.  With my in-laws in town for part of the weekend, I thought it would be a good opportunity to try it out. Since there would only be four of us enjoying the cake, I made half the recipe.

The verdict: Everyone ate it up! My husband had to actually keep his parents from finishing the whole thing, due to it being low fat.  I'm glad I didn't make the full recipe. It was delicious, and I highly recommend it. It's perfect for a warm summer morning.

for the love of sleep

With any new baby, the topic of sleep arises. When I was about 7 months pregnant with Baby Awesome, I became addicted to Happiest Baby on the Block and Healthy Sleeping Habits, Happy Child. I was bound and determined to do things "the right way".

Now that my son is 5 months old, I'm starting to figure things out in regards to his sleep.

1. No matter how many sleep books and sleep sites I'm on, it doesn't make a difference if you don't apply the technique.

2. I still haven't figured out his naps. He's the best 30 minute napper!

2. Putting your baby to bed awake but drowsy allows them to fall asleep on their own = allowing them to put themselves back to sleep in the middle of the night.

3. For us, rice cereal DID make a difference. While I wanted to wait until 6 months for any type of food, at 4 months we started him on rice cereal, 1 TBLS.

4. Not rushing to him every time he makes a peep. This was probably my biggest downfall. I never wanted my child to fuss nor cry. While he certainly was happy, mom here was exhausted! 


Five months in and Baby Awesome's sleep is dramatically improving. Over a 12 hour sleep period, he's up twice to eat, normally only getting me up once. He falls asleep in his crib and on occasion, I hear him going from one sleep cycle to the next. While I can't wait for him to sleep through the night, I'll take the few night feedings over multiple!

happy 5 months!

With each passing month, I'm sure one of my blogs will start with "I can't believe...". So, I can't believe that my little man Austin is 5 months already. Time is a flyin'!

He is such an enjoyable little man to be around. His smile is contagious, and his laugh makes me laugh. I just love being his Mom and get to see him growing up each and every day.

Everything goes in his mouth. He is enjoying his rice cereal each evening. He gets super excited when he sees me getting it ready and starts kicking his legs fast and furious. As soon as he sees the spoon, his mouth opens wide!

With each new day, he seems to be accomplishing more and more. He's very close to sitting up by himself. He seems to recognize himself in his photos and videos by smiling and kicking his legs. He loves when he is dad comes home for the day to play with him, bathe him and put him to bed.

Here are just a few of my favorite photos from the past month.

privacy

While this is my first blog post on this site, this is not my first blog. I started blogging a while back, but the website contained a big privacy "oops" - my name. Now that I'm married with a baby, privacy has become extremely important to me. I don't like everyone knowing what it is that I'm doing. While I love technology, I struggle with the fine line that is walked between sharing information and opening myself up to those that have no business knowing about me.

Maybe it's the Mama Bear in me wanting to protect my Baby Bear. Maybe it's the fact that Big Brother really is watching us. Or maybe I'm just becoming paranoid. Whatever the reason may be, I'm starting this new blog so that I have more freedom to blog about things that is not attached to my real name. Sure my friends may know who I am, but when you Google my name, I don't want photos of my son to appear for just anyone.

To my old friends, welcome! And to my new friends, nice to meet you. :)