Feeding Babies

Colette is 9 1/2 months old. I love this age. They are fun. Their little personalities are coming out. They are crawling and pulling up but not walking (at least mine aren’t). Except for occasional teething fussiness it’s a fun age. Unfortunately it’s also the age when you are elbow deep in baby food. I do not love the phase between exclusively breast feeding and being able to feed themselves…It’s a lot of time you take feeding them and then it’s either a lot of work or a lot of money to get the food!

With Capri I was hard core. I made all of her baby food. I don’t think she even tried any commercial baby food until we went on a trip around 10 months of life. I lived the Super Baby Food book. And it totally stressed me out. I had lists to make sure she didn’t eat anything I hadn’t gone through the process of introducing. I had to plan out her food a month in advance, making sure she was getting the right variety of foods so she got all of the essential nutrients. It was a little crazy and I really didn’t enjoy it. In fact I’m sure it made me cry on more than one occasion.

With Collete feeding her solids totally snuck up on me. I was more than a little behind the game on that one. And I just bought the baby food (except for bananas and avocados because those aren’t too difficult to mush up). But she is now eating significantly more and the grocery bill is getting more and more expensive and I decided I needed to stop being lazy and take a day to make some baby food. A friend had lent me the Cooking for Baby book with Capri but I didn’t really use it. I pulled it out this week and that’s what I’m using this time. It’s simpler and I think it adds a little something by adding herbs and such to your babies diet earlier. I still will probably wait on meat until a year old but I think otherwise I will go with the book.

I went to the grocery store on Monday and came home and spent the day making several batches of baby food. I made -

Sweet Peas with Mint
Butternut Squash Puree
Pears with Spinach and Pumpkin Pie Spice
Apples with Kale and Cinnamon
Green Beans with Mint
Millet and Zucchini Medley

I felt super accomplished! Yay for taking just one day and getting a good start to making my own baby food again…Colette, I’m sorry I’m not as hard core about your food as I was with your sister. I still love you. And I’m probably a better mom to you when I’m not super stressed about making your food and making sure you get a ridiculous variety of foods!

Summer Plans

Ok, so I’m a planner. That’s how I manage to stay sane. So the summer is almost here and this summer we are going to have so much fun! Because Capri is a little older and because Capri’s friend, Harper, will be with us 3 days a week! I think it’s going to be awesome, but I also think that I need to do some serious planning to keep two toddlers and an almost 1 year old busy! So I’m making plans. I’m pinning like crazy. I’m searching the clearance racks at Hobby Lobby and Target. I’m printing coloring sheets. I’m preparing to sew!

I’m going to share my plans with you. I would love feedback and ideas. I would love it even more if you did some of the activities too so we could share in the fun!

It worked out best in my mind to theme each week and focus on activities surrounding that theme! I’m not gonna lie, I’m pretty excited about this!

Now the first week is the only one I really have fully planned but you can check out my Pinterest boards for all of them to see what I’m thinking and I will try to post my planning updates as I pull stuff together!

Week of June 3rd and June 10th – Sophia the First. I went with two weeks for this one because I have plenty to do and we only have 2 days, plus I’m sure we’ll make some father’s day stuff too. We are a little obsessed with the girl we call Princess Sophie in our house. So I have plans to make some purple tulle dresses, we have lots of coloring pages from the Disney Jr site. Some things we are going to do – make necklaces out of pasta, make tiaras, make wands, build a castle fort, paint our nails purple, and bake cupcakes for…our Sophia the First tea party! Yes! We are inviting our little friends over for a tea party where the girls can dress up, do crafts, drink tea, and have snacks! It’s going to be so fun! We will also also be watching some episodes during the week. We have one downloaded and Disney Jr has a new one on the site every week. If I can get a hold of a copy of the movie we’ll watch that too. We also own the CD of the music so I’m sure there will be plenty of dance parties!

Week of June 17th - If You Give A… We own 6 of the If You Give a Mouse a Cookie books by Laura Nuemeroff and we love them. There are plenty of activities to do with these! I think we will be doing some fun stuff in the kitchen as well as some cool crafts!

Week of June 24th – Back Yard Bible Clubs – Our church is doing clubs and we are hosting one in the morning so that will take up our mornings that week and I think the afternoons will be spent recovering and just doing regular fun stuff like painting, coloring, swimming in the pool, etc…

Week of July 1st – 4th of July – So we will make an attempt at being patriotic with crafts and recipes this week! If anyone has any good pre-school appropriate books they recommend that would be cool…maybe we should watch Fieval! although I kind of remember that being really scary to me when I was little…

Week of July 8th – Cinderella - We love Cinderella in our house. She is a good princess – humble and kind! Plus the little birds and mice are super cute. We have a Cinderella coloring book that we will use. I’ll rent the movie from the library…maybe we will even check out the sequel. I might make something like this for them to wear! I have also found some paper doll printables and such. Maybe we will decorate a pumpkin! I also have some color on wood princess castles that I got on clearance at Hobby Lobby that we will probably use for this week.

Week of July 15th - Doc McStuffins – I think this will be fun too! We will watch some episodes and see if we can get our hands on some books. I have some little felt messanger bags that I got on clearance a while back and I think I’m going to make them little doctor kits! I’m sure there will be a lot of pretend play this week with our stuffed animals and we will also do some coloring and other crafts to go with it!

Week of July 22nd – Queen Esther – Because for sure we should do a biblical princess too! I’m thinking about trying to get the Veggie Tales version of this story but I think we will also read a couple of versions from the different kids Bibles we have and I’ve found some good activities on Pinterest for this as well!

Week of July 29th – Madeline - Again, renting movies and books from the library and using Pinterest to inspire some crafts for us!

Week of August 5th – Butterflies – We just have so many books about catapillers and butterflies that I thought we could certainly fill a week with this stuff. There are lots of crafts and I think it will be fun.

Week of August 12th – TinkerBell – Capri already has a fairy costume from last Halloween so we will see what Harper has…there are some adorable ones on pinterest that I am tempted to try! I’m thinking we might have a little party for this one too…we could make little fairy houses!

Week of August 19th - Belle - Belle was always a favorite of mine so I couldn’t leave her out! I know I’ll want to make this in yellow…but we will see…

Week of August 26th – Brave – I’ve only seen this movie once but people seem to really like it so I threw it in there too…however I know there is a chance we won’t need it but if we get that far I’m sure I can find some good stuff!

So that’s the plan! I will try to update as much as possible! Let me know what your summer plans are or if you have any wonderful ideas for me to add!

 

More of What We Are Eating

Sprouted Kitchen’s Edamame Dumplings. These seem like they are going to be hard but actually they were not difficult and didn’t take too much time! But I was worried…I wasn’t sure about the flavor. I thought they might be weird – BUT they were not! They were awesome! The more I ate them the more I liked them and I even thought they were better the second day! So I didn’t use the lemongrass because I couldn’t find it at my grocery store. I also couldn’t find mirin so I just used rice wine vinegar. I also skipped the microgreens/pea shoot garnish because I don’t have a lot of extra cash right now. I took the suggestion to sear them on each side first. I just used olive oil since I thought that much sesame oil might be strong for us. I love what it added to both the texture and flavor and none of mine came apart while steaming as a result. We gave these 5 stars! So good!

Sprouted Kitchen’s Ranchero Breakfast Tostadas. This is what we made for our family (including my parents) on mother’s day. I love breakfast but I tend to go heavy on the carbs and I wanted something that would taste somewhat healthy and fresh but that my dad would also think was awesome. Of course I turned to my Sprouted Kitchen cookbook because clearly I have some sort of obsession! These were sooooo good! They were everything that I wanted them to be! The only change I made was to leave out the cumin because Jeremy can’t eat it but otherwise we followed the recipe. Sometimes with a recipe after I make it I wish they would instruct on how to eat it because we were a little unsure. My first attempt I cut it with a knife…the 2nd one I made I went ahead and crushed my tostada up first and then piled on all of the toppings. It wasn’t pretty but I didn’t care! We liked it so much that the next day when we were make regular breakfast tacos we decided to make the beans that way again – mashing and mixing in a little sour cream with salt and pepper. 5 stars!

Sprouted Kitchen’s Pumpkin Pecan Granola. Have you ever been making a recipe and realize it uses way less of an ingredient than you thought it did so you decide to just double, triple, or whatever the recipe so that you use it all up? Well, that’s what I did with this recipe. I opened my can of pumpkin and then realized I only needed 1/3 a cup so I decided to…wait for it…quintuple the recipe! This was going swimmingly until I realized that I was going to end up using my entire bottle of (new) organic maple syrup (plus what was left in my Mrs. Buttersworth bottle), use all the oats left in my house plus a cup of steel-cut oats, and not have enough pecans or raisins…It’s all good though! I made Jeremy a batch without nuts anyway and have just been adding the raisins in as I eat it. I love pumpkin and I love granola so there really was no way I wasn’t going to like this recipe. I do like it. Although, not gonna lie, I’m still partial to the granola I grew up eating…Capri, however, couldn’t probably eat this day and night with a little yogurt to go with it – she absolutely loves it! 4 stars!

Sprouted Kitchen’s Toasted Millet Salad with Arugula (Spinach), Quick Pickled Onions, and Goat Cheese (with roasted chicken). So I was nervous about this one too…I wasn’t sure I would like it. I LOVED it! I used spinach in place of arugula because sometimes I don’t really like arugula. I also added some shredded roasted chicken that I had left over from the night before (it was a good call). This was so great. We ate it warm the first night because I was not going to wait for the millet to cool down and I actually preferred it that way even though I had it cold as leftovers later. I also used regular balsamic vinegar instead of white because that’s what I had on hand and thought it worked out just fine. I think this may become one of my go to sides to bring places! And those pickled onions – so good! I can’t wait to try them on some fish tacos! 5 stars!

Look forward to more reviews for The Sprouted Kitchen as I plan on trying the Moroccan Stuffed Squash and the Roasted Cauliflower Capellini this next week!

Order by Friday and receive $5 off!

My sweet friend Annabell hosted a party today and we are giving 10% of the sales to help families in Oklahoma. If you would like to place an order, please let me know by Friday!

*Don’t forget that this month you get 1/2 off any thermal when you purchase $31 worth of products!

**If you place an order by Friday I will give you an additional $5 off!

Check out the catalog here or contact me and I’ll get you one!

Fun on the Run Summer Special!

Get ready! My 2nd special of the summer is now available!

1 Large Utility Tote in Pink Cross Pop with embroidery “Fun on the Run” in black (retail value $42)
1 About Town Blanket in Black with stars icon and embroidery “Super Star” in hot pink (retail value $50)
1 Fresh Market Thermal in Pink Pop Medallion (retail value $50)

Have you added it up? That’s $142 in retail value and I am offering it to you for only $105!!!
Check out the picture for the full effect. So if you love this Fun on the Run package, post a comment to let me know that you are ready to purchase! First person to comment and commit gets it!
*Some of the items have been used for display purposes
**Embroidery cannot be changed
***Standard sales taxes will apply

 

Recent Reads – Bread and Wine

Recent Reads:

 Bread and Wine by Shauna Niequist. Another winner from Shauna. She is great. I love her writing style and her honesty. I loved her first book so much, but the truth is that life happens and I feel like Shauna has lived a lot of life since that first book. So in some ways it may not have been quite as enjoyable but it was certainly very real. I love it when books have recipes at the end of the chapters! I’ve made one recipe so far and am excited to make more! I recommend this book and any of her books and her blog! to everyone! Beth did a great review on this book along with some recipes, you can check it out here.

Currently Working On:

The Sprouted Kitchen by Sara Forte. I haven’t made a lot of reading progress here lately but I have made more recipes! It has become my new ‘kitchen Bible’.

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The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease. Still working my way through. With every reading I am more determined to read to my kids as much as possible. This week at the library we even got a couple of the books that he suggests in his treasury.

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Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. A few chapters in and am loving it. It is written so beautifully it’s like reading a rich and decadent dessert!

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A Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp.  Speaking of beautifully written books…I have had this book sitting on my bookshelf for almost 2 years. Why didn’t I start it before?! The words in this book are amazing. She is a gifted writer and so far it is speaking right to my soul.

What We Are Eating

Sprouted Kitchen’s (Smoky) Red Lentil Soup. “Smoky” is in parenthesis because I didn’t use liquid smoke – it gives Jeremy terrible heartburn. I also couldn’t find red lentils at my grocery store, so mine were green or brown I’m not sure. I also didn’t use cumin…again Jeremy. However, this was a tasty little soup. It reminded me of split pea soup but without such a harsh ”pea’ taste so it was good. It’s nothing super exciting but healthy and hearty. I will be making it again. 4 stars!

Sprouted Kitchen’s Lemon and Herb Hummus. So a couple of weeks ago I tried Smitten Kitchen’s hummus and wasn’t in love. This week I tried Sara’s hummus. I feel like the jury is still out on this one. For starters I went to add the dill and my dill had gone bad so I definitely think I’ll try it again with the dill. I substituted some sage and I added quite a bit extra lemon juice. It definitely was better the 2nd day. Capri loves it and asks for it whenever I offer her a snack (and sometimes when I don’t offer). I think the reality is that I just like my hummus kind of plain. Beth makes a great hummus…I’m going to try her recipe next and then another day I will make this one again with dill and maybe the feta and cucumber topping too! 4 stars.

Shauna Niequist’s Magical White Bean Soup. Wow. Just Wow. And Yumm! This was so much better than I thought it would. I mean I like white bean soup. I’ve made some before, but this was so much richer! I was out of celery and only had a couple of carrots left and I used bacon instead of prosciutto. It was so good! And don’t skip the vinaigrette  It was so good! And I don’t generally love fennel but I couldn’t taste in here or at least I didn’t taste anything I didn’t like! This recipe is from her new book, Bread & Wine. You should get it and read it and make everything in it! 5 stars!

Look forward to more reviews for The Sprouted Kitchen as I plan on trying the Edamame Dumplings and Ranchero Breakfast Tostadas this next week!

 

Music for my Heart

I’m not a big music person despite the fact that I tended to date musicians…and marry one. I do like music. I’m not very musical and therefore not very confident in my music selection sometimes. Of course, like all people, music does take me back to times past. This morning I turned on some music hidden away in our music files that reminded me of quiet times in high school. Jeremy commented that it was terrible and I responded that the lyrics were good and it somehow made me feel peaceful and joyful.

In high school I went through a Christian-only music phase (except for maybe a renegade Ricky Martin CD or two!). A little narrow, but probably not a bad thing for me at the time. Really my whole life was mostly Christian music for a long time. My first CD was Amy Grant’s Collection and my second was DC Talk’s Nu Thang After high school however I branched out a bit. Moving to Texas I did open myself up to country music. Later I realized how much I liked angry girl music…music I still listened to frequently much to Jeremy’s chagrin (except for Pink…I think he likes Pink). And now I have kids. One day while blaring Avril in my car with my little one in the backseat I realized I might need to think about switching to music that doesn’t occasionally slip the f-bomb in there.

So I now listen to Christian radio in the car…unless the music stops because I still can’t handle listening to their djs talk. In the morning when I get ready I have a Christian station on Pandora and I am coming to like it. And sometimes the song lyrics speak right to my heart. Despite it being my first CD I have not listened to Amy Grant since her House of Love CD (except for Christmas, my family always listens to her Christmas album, I guess it’s nostalgic), but she has a song out now entitled “Better than a Hallelujah”. The first couple of lines make me cry every time…

“God loves a lullaby
In a mother’s tears in the dead of night
Better than a Hallelujah sometimes”

I know it’s my stage of life. I know that those lyrics speak to my heart because it’s happened so many times in the last two and a half years, but it’s beautiful to my heart to hear.

In church a couple of weeks ago I was really struggling. We sang “Forever Reign” by Hillsong . At the end of the song it says

“You are God You are God
Of all else I’m letting go”

Yep. “Of all else I’m letting go.” It needs to be my mantra. Enough said.

And finally Josh Wilson’s “Carry Me”.

“Carry me, carry me, carry me now
From my sinking sand to Your solid ground
The only way I’m ever gonna make it out
Is if you carry me, carry me, carry me now
God carry me, carry me, carry me now”

There are many times in my life when I could have sang those words but motherhood has longed for them the most. So tired. So routine. So much to do. So tired. I love being a mom. I’m so thankful I get to stay home with my girls. I love them so much. But sometimes “God carry me now” is all I can bring myself to say.

It’s these songs that have been running through my head and my heart the last couple of weeks. And they help. Sometimes when I am by myself I turn up the speakers and blast some girls’ screaming angry voice, but sometimes now I catch myself searching for something that will make me pray while I drive, something that will bring me peace.

Do you have any songs right now that are bringing you peace?

Family Fun Summer Special!

I am excited to offer my very first exclusive package! I have plans to offer some special Thirty-One Solutions packages at discounted prices. I only have 1 package so it will be first come first serve! The package will be about 25% off retail price and if you live near me, there will be no shipping charge. Are you excited?!

Drum roll please! My first Discounted Special Package is the Family Fun Package. It’s full of fun summery colors and is great for busy families (busy having fun!). The package includes:

1 Large Utility Tote in Party Punch with embroidery “Family Fun” (retail value $42)

1 Top-a-Tote in Grey (retail value $10)

1 Pocket-a-Tote in Turquoise with embroidery “Little Extras” (retail value $17)

1 Thermal Tote in Punch Bowl with embroidery “Organic” (retail value $25)

Have you added it up? That’s $94 in retail value and I am offering it to you for only $70!!!

Check out the picture for the full effect. So if you love this Family Fun package, post a comment let me know that you are ready to purchase! First person to comment and commit gets it!

*Some of the items have been used for display purposes

**Embroidery cannot be changed

***Standard sales taxes will apply

Recent Reads

I have been tired lately. I normally am a night reader and lately it gets to be night time and I finally have time to read and I can’t keep my eyes open long enough to even finish a page…so reading has been a little slow for me lately. It was a week before bookclub and I realized I absolutely had to start my book so that I could get it read on time. So that week I took nap times and even a couple of mornings before the girls’ woke up to get that book read! So here’s what I have finished and what I’m working on!

Recent Reads:

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. This was April’s bookclub pick. I wanted to like this book so much. It seems like the kind of book I would love. Female lead who is a detective. It’s a very literary kind of book and there is also quite a bit of sci-fi thrown in which I apparently like (hello, Ender’s Game obsession!). I just couldn’t get there with this book. I never connected with the lead character. I felt like it was super obvious that she was written by a man. Also the book is written in an alternate reality. Sometimes I love this, but in this book I felt like I was always trying to catch up. When I read Harry Potter I feel like I have been welcomed into another world and become a part of it. In the Eyre Affair I felt like I was an outsider and there were constantly new things popping up. It’s like there was too much stuff and it overwhelmed me. Finally, if I hadn’t read Jane Eyre (multiple times) I would have been totally lost. And there are a ton of literary and pop culture references. I feel like I’m pretty well-read as far as Shakespeare and the classics (thanks to a thorough high school education), but I know I missed a lot. Anyway, it wasn’t a bad book but it didn’t compel me to want to read the next book in the series.

Currently Working On:

The Sprouted Kitchen by Sara Forte. Clearly I have an obsession with this book. So much so that I have been reading it cover to cover! It’s so inspiring and the text is lovely and the pictures are beautiful. Yes, I have become a person that reads cookbooks…there are worse things!

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The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease. My mom gave me this book at one of my baby showers and I have begun reading it. I’m not sure what my opinion of it really is yet. I don’t think I love his attitude or writing style, however I agree with pretty much everything he says. It has helped keep reading to my kids at the forefront of my mind and made me be extra proactive about it. Reading to our kids is so important and I really do want them to love reading!

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 Bread and Wine by Shauna Niequist. I have been a big fan of Shauna’s for a long time. This is her third book and is another winner. I’ll admit her first book is still my favorite but I do love that this one has a recipe at the end of almost every chapter! As with her other two books, I only allow myself to read one chapter a day so that I can savor it

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Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. I haven’t technically started this one but it is sitting on my nightstand ready to read. This is May’s bookclub pick and after reading the description again I am excited to start it!