Funny Eater

Yesterday instead of picking food up with his hands like Avery usually does, he decided to use his mouth instead. Meaning the food was on the tray and he just kept putting his mouth down to the tray and eating it right off the tray. Kind of like a dog! haha it was amusing!

Also usually when we go outside we put a pacifier in Avery's mouth to stop him from eating grass, sticks, dirt, etc. But yesterday I kept putting the pacifier in his mouth, then he would spit it out and grab a stick to chew on! He kept doing it over and over again! It was funny, but who knows how much dirt he ate!

Talking

Avery loves being outside. These days when I take him on a walk I usually put him in the baby bjorn and walk around the block. He loves it. Sometime the whole way he will just babble. He likes to make noises then use his fingers to move his lips and make "blah blah blah" sounds.

One line a day

Okay so clearly I am avoiding this blog. Just been super busy.

Here's the plan. After hearing one of my fellow moms speak I'm going to try and at least right one line a day about mom life, or Avery, or something like that.

For now I have a few lines.

Avery now goes through the dog door.... this is causing many problems. But it is super cute. Usually after he goes through it he just starts laughing. He loves being outside.

Avery also likes to take the vents off of the grates in the house. The other day he almost dropped a pacifier down one!

I can't believe my baby is almost one year old. It's been exciting and hard. It's definitely gotten easier the older he gets, but also in some ways harder. No longer can I sit on the couch and have my baby snuggle with me.

9 Months!

Well Avery is 9 months. I can't believe how big he's gotten. Time really does fly.

He still doesn't really crawl. He's really good at scooting. He uses his arms to pull himself forward, kind of like an army crawl. It's cute. He's also getting good at transferring himself from object to object standing up. He goes from his play block, to the coffee table, to the activity table. Problem is now he occasionally falls, which is sad because of course he cries.

We've also been going through some other hard times. Around 8.5-9 months he was constantly whining. I think he just really wanted to crawl and he couldn't. So he would just whine alll daaayyyy long. He whined when I was holding him, he whined when playing, he whined when eating! SO MUCH WHINING! Luckily it has started to slow down and I'm getting my sanity back.

Also Avery now refuses to get pureed food. He only wants to eat food that he can pick up himself. If you try to feed him pureed food he grabs the spoon and flips out. So we have resorted to cutting foods up into tiny pieces that he can eat. So cheese, strawberries, grapes. and bananas. He's also a huge fan of Annie's Mac & Cheese haha.

Other than these couple issues things are still going well. Avery has two full teeth on the bottom now and he's getting 2 on the top. He's 22 pounds now. My big boy :).

8 Months & First Snow!

Avery is 8 months! Goodness gracious he's getting old. Stop growing!!!

Anyway actually I'm really happy he's getting older. The baby phase is super cute, but I feel like it get's easier and easier the older he gets. Now he has his own little personality.

Avery also isn't crawling yet. I think his tummy is too big. He tries to get up on all fours and then just plops onto his belly. He just keeps going backwards! He rolls and turns to try and get where he wants to haha.

By the way pushing a shopping cart in the snow... much harder than it looks haha.

7 Months!

Well my baby is 7 months now. I was super excited to get to the 6th month mark, but now that we are at 7 months it's actually kind of sad. My baby is growing up :(

He isn't crawling yet, but he is sitting up very well. He has also mastered the art of sliding across the floor backwards on his belly.

Also sadly to say I only attempt to breastfeed him in the morning and at night. He got in this habit of trying to eat, being mad it wasn't coming out fast enough, biting me... and then pulling away crying. Therefore breastfeeding seems to only work when he's very calm and things aren't hectic. Well at least I'm still somewhat trying.

Making Baby Food - The Right Way

If you don't know already making your own baby food is MUCH cheaper than buying the canned/pouch stuff. For instance a can of baby applesauce is around $1.00. Instead you can buy an apple for less than a dollar and make around 3 cans with it. Much cheaper.

Anyway after making many bunches of baby food I've decided to let you know how I do it.

First of all Baby Bullet.... Great cute gift, great idea. Not very practical....

The Baby Bullet system comes with a blender, short cup, little jars, and one freezer tray. The blender is great is you're only going to make one of everything. Like put one apple, one banana, one sweet potato, etc.... But that can take FOREVER!!! If you only make one of each thing you'll just have to make it all over again in a week.

Baby food can last for a month in the freezer, so why not make as much as you need for a month and freeze it all? Problem is the Baby Bullet really can't handle that much. It takes FOREVER to blend anything besides a banana. You're constantly opening the container shoving the spatula in there trying to figure out why the thing isn't moving anymore. Pain in the butt... Also after you've spend ten years trying to blend a sweet potato you can't even put this blender in the dishwasher!

My solution? Just use a regular old food processor. You can put like 3 sweet potatoes in one and done in seconds! Also you can put all the pieces of a food processor in your handy dandy dishwasher.

Okay second part that isn't really necessary that the Baby Bullet has. The little jars to put the food in. Great I guess if you're constantly eating somewhere besides home and you need to put your food in jars. Problem with the jars is they are also way too much food than your child will actually eat in the beginning. Also major problem is you can't refreeze or refrigerate food after you have stuck a spoon in the jar that was in your child's mouth. Bacteria.....

So because of this issue the best solution is the freezer trays. The Baby Bullet comes with one tiny freezer tray, but if you're making loads of food like I am you'll definitely need more.

So buy more trays! My favorite are the Kiddo Feedo ones. Around $17.50 on Amazon. You probably only need two trays. These are great because they are silicone and therefore you can just pop out the food like an ice tray.

So you blend your baby food in a food processor, then pour it into the trays. Stick the trays in the freezer, then about 12-24 hours later pop out the "cubes" and put them in freezer bags labeled with food and date.

I've made all kind of food this way! It's great.

Usually for dinner I pop out 4 cubes onto a plate and then microwave them. I use these plates.


Here's a couple ideas for making food.

Peas (buy organic frozen, steam in bag)
Green Beans (buy organic frozen, steam in bag)
Sweet Potato (boil in water on stove or steam in microwave(20 mins)) (buy at your local grocery store or hit up a farmer's market)
Butternut Squash (boil, steam in microwave, or roast in oven) (buy at your local grocery store or hit up a farmer's market)
Apples (steam in microwave(5 mins)) (buy at your local grocery store or hit up a farmer's market)
Pears (steam in microwave(5 mins)) (buy at your local grocery store or hit up a farmer's market)
Avocado (no cooking!) (buy at your local grocery store)
Bananas (no cooking!) (buy at your local grocery store)
Peaches (no cooking!) (buy at your local grocery store or hit up a farmer's market)