Strawberry Pickin'

Today we headed to Fall Creek Farms to pick strawberries!  I love that Fall Creek Farm is just outside of our neighborhood.  Close to home, fun for us, fun for the kids, healthy (organic farm), and we all get to eat strawberries when we get home! What's not to love?

Bella was so excited that she was able to wear clothes that matched the occasion.

Check out that good-lookin' guy!

Bella showing one of our 2 boxes of strawberries.

I think Balian enjoyed the dirt just as much as the strawberries!  Check out that face :)

 Fall Creek Farm has all kinds of metal "things" throughout the land.  Grasshoppers, a Daddy-long-leg spider, a dung beetle... But this is the only one that is bright and colorful...We had to get a picture with the Ginormous Strawberry!

Isaiah had fun chillin' out with me while we picked our berries.  Leaning over to pick strawberries while wearing this guy made for quite a workout, but worked well.  Seriously.  If you haven't tried a back carry - you should try it - LOVE it.  Makes life so much easier!

Now...to make my 1/2 year's worth of strawberry jam...

This time I'm going to attempt to make an all-fruit version (no sugar added).  We'll see how it goes.

10 Months Already?

I'm wanting to push the stop button, or at least the pause button.  My baby is getting so big so fast and I'm left wondering where the time has gone.

I weighed Isaiah the other day with his clothes on, and he was about 16.5 lbs.  So probably more like 16 is accurate.  He's our petite one, for sure.


We are still successfully breastfeeding, although I'm starting to re-evaluate the word "successful".  For a while there, I thought we were going to have to stop nursing all-together, because Isaiah is just so curious about EVERYTHING going on around him.  Nurse for 2 seconds, off for 5 minutes.  Nurse until I have a let-down, then immediately come off  to look at something, and get sprayed in the face with milk.  He gets distracted by the smallest, most insignificant things.  A noise.  A toy he sees.  The phone or TV remote catches his eye.  Daddy is somewhere in the room, he just knows it!  He comes off to flirt.  He comes off to play.  It's definitely been a battle the past couple of months.  This month, it's gotten a bit better, but we had to throw nursing in public (or around other people) out the window.  For those situations I have to pump and give him a sippy cup.  Otherwise, I'd be flashing everyone around me about a million times in one feeding, or he would be too distracted to eat at all.  Heck, we have that problem at home sometimes!  So the pump has become a very close friend of mine.

Isaiah is definitely loving table food right now.  I've been giving him some finger foods, but I'm also using the food mill more than I have for either of the other kids.  I love it!  He's eating a lot of the same things that we are now, which makes preparing food for him a snap!

His favorite foods right now: meat sticks, yogurt, bread, crackers, applesauce...but he really eats anything we give him.

Isaiah is still taking his time in the movement department.  He is on the floor playing ALL the TIME.  We don't put him in a jumper, walker, or any other contraption, and yet...He still isn't crawling on all fours.  He does his scooting version of the Army crawl.  I noticed today that he totally has the crawling down except for his left knee.  If I help him move his left leg, he does the rest himself.  Maybe something is out of line?  He's getting on hands and knees and rocking, moving into a sitting position, and even trying to pull up on things (only successful on his knees at this point.  No pulling to a stand yet, although he's trying).  He likes to stand and hold on to things, like his play-table and the ottoman in the living room, but we definitely have to be right behind him, because he isn't very steady on his feet yet.  It'll all happen in time.  Right now I'm kinda glad that he's taking it slow...more time to cuddle with mama instead of running away :)

In other milestones, Isaiah has reached the point of loving books for other reasons than eating them.  He actually looks at the pictures, touches the textures, and gets excited about book time.  He loves turning the pages as well.  And he loves turning off lights now.  Before naps and bed I let him turn his light off before putting him down in his bed.  Makes him happy.



And speaking of bed, Isaiah has a new thing with sitting up in his crib, taking out his binky, and throwing it over the side and onto the floor.  Sometimes it isn't a problem, but sometimes I'm wondering why it's taking him more than his usual 5 minutes to fall asleep...turning into like an hour...I'll go in and yes - he's done it again.

Isaiah officially has 4 teeth now.  He just cut his top two teeth at the same time, and you would never have guessed it, thanks to a Baltic Amber teething necklace.  The day before we got it, Isaiah was starting to get pretty fussy.  I put that necklace on him, and within a couple of hours he was back to himself.  seriously.  I never took it off, and you never would have thought he was cutting 2 teeth.  no fussing, no nothing, except a bit of drooling.  Amazing!

What I love most about Isaiah:
1. His beautiful eyes.  He has the longest eyelashes of any of the kids, and his eyes are brown and blue.  They are brown in the middle and blue around the edges.  All the time.  Just beautiful.  I've never seen anything like it.
2. His smile.  It takes up so much of his petite face.  I love it.
3. He is a happy, go-with-the-flow baby with a no-quit attitude.  Happy, persistent, and patient.  That's hard to find.

Didy, a.k.a Waves

 So after my first experience with carrying Isaiah on my back - and him sleeping for 2 hours - I was totally sold on it.  My friend Emily is the VP of Ft. Worth Babywearers, and she helped me out a LOT!  After researching wraps, I saw that even though it's just a piece of fabric, it wasn't something I could make and have the same results (comfort, support, etc.) of a bought woven wrap.  I went over to Emily's house and tried out different wraps, she helped me practice different techniques, and she helped me better learn how to get Isaiah in back carries by myself.  She directed me to thebabywearer.com where you can buy woven wraps used on the For Sale or Trade forum.  And that's where I found it.  A used Didymos Silver Waves wrap.  I bought it from a mama in Canada for a really good price, and after trying it out, I wonder how in the world I made it this long without one.  Seriously...those mamas all over the world that carry their babies around while they do everything with the use of both hands have an edge on us "civilized" folk.  See for yourself:

Here's Isaiah in it.  Totally comfy.  Good support.  Not tight around the legs cutting of circulation.  He can see everything going on around him, and I can pull up the fabric that's around his back so that he can go to sleep if he wants.  I can do everything using both hands.  I don't feel like I need to put a hand on Isaiah to support him at all.  On a particular fussy day, I put him back there like this, and cooked dinner.  chopped veggies, bent down to get dishes out of cabinets, etc.  not a fuss was had when he was back there.  seriously amazing.  Oh, and no tugging at my shoulders or making my back hurt because of the baby's weight.  No hunching over. nothing.  love it.

And just to show how supportive these wraps are, here's Balian in it.  Yes, he's over 2 years old.  Honestly, I could probably carry Bella in it if I really wanted to.  So what did I do when I wrapped up Balian on my back?  I took him for a hands-free piggy-back ride...running around the house.  yes, I was running.  and yes, without hands supporting him at all.  It's that supportive.  He had a blast!

Seriously...I wish I had known about these things sooner!  It totally beats slings, ring slings, and Moby's, hands down!

MmmmMmmm Good!

I've been making up more baby food for Isaiah.  Here, I've canned some Pears and some Plumbs.  I only can fruit purees.  With Balian, I wanted to do veggies.  However, the only way you can safely can veggies is with a pressure canner...and the pressure canner instructions specifically said NOT to do purees.  So...I gave up.  Botulism is not something I want to mess with.  So after steaming and pureeing, I can the fruit (high-acid) foods using the boiling bath method, and freeze the veggies in babycubes then separate into ziploc bags.  It's worked out pretty good for me.  But there's just something about all those canning jars lined up...makes me happy :)

Stainless Steel, Here we come!

I just ordered some stainless steel cups for the kids! I'm way excited!

For Balian, we have the Organickidz stainless steel bottles. They come in 4, 7, and 9 oz., and they have both narrow and wide bottles. We are getting the 9 oz. wide bottles, however, we're going to use it as a sippy. (you can use all of the Avent sippy spouts with it or Thinkbaby sippy spouts as well)...and later on as a sport cup. http://www.organickidz.ca/ But we got ours from Babies R Us - one stop shopping for bottles, sippy spouts, trainer handles, etc. (and a bit of a price break)

For Bella, we have the Klean Kanteen - 12 oz, has all kinds of different top options, including a sippy cup (using the Avent sippy spout...which means you COULD use it with the Avent bottle nipples too...but 12 oz. seems a bit large for that...). Later on, when the sport top comes out with the organickidz stuff, we'll get those and Bella and Balian can share. The Klean Kanteen comes in lots of different fun, happy colors too! http://www.kleankanteen.com/

How to Make Baby Cereal

So a good amount of people have been asking me about how I make baby cereal at home. Ask, and you shall recieve... Here's a step-by-step with pictures :)

Sidenote: I used the store-bought cereal for Bella, and she did fine with
it. I didn't even think it was possible to do homemade baby cereal, so I
just ignored all of the additives, etc. in the stuff. This time around, I
had to be aware, because Balian did NOT do so hot on the store bought
cereal. Turns out there's all kinds of craziness in those little
boxes. If you want a healthier option, this is it!!

For all of these instructions, you can use white rice, brown rice, or oatmeal. Here, I'm showing oatmeal.

1. Pour old-fashioned oats (Quaker, off-brand, organic, whatever. Just make sure they're old-fashioned. The quick cooking ones have ingredients other than just oats!) into a food processor.


2. Process on High Speed for a minute or two...

...until they are ground up into a course powder...

...that looks kinda like this. (rice will take longer to grind up because of the hard outer shell)

3. Put the powder into a container, and store until you need it to make cereal.

4. To make cereal: Use 1 cup of water per 1/4 cup of oatmeal powder. I do 4 cups of water and 1 cup of oatmeal powder at a time, now that Balian is eating more each feeding.

For rice, I have found that I need to increase the water a bit.

5. Boil the water.

6. Slowly whisk in oatmeal powder.

7. Whisk continuously (reducing heat, if needed) for 5-10 min, or until cereal gets to a very thick consistency. (they need to cook for a while...the more they cook, the easier it will be for baby to digest...so they say) I usually keep mine at a pretty high heat (just under high) and cook for about 5 min. and it has worked wonderfully.

Rice seems to thicken much faster, so consider turning down the heat and cooking
longer...combine that with adding more water at the beginning, and it may have a better result.

This cooks down a good bit. I transfer the cooked cereal into one of my 3.2 cup Rubbermaid containers and stick it into the refrigerator.
When I need to make some cereal for Balian, I scoop out however much I need, microwave until just warm (probably 10 sec. on a normal microwave. Mine's slow, so I have to do 30 sec.), stir up a bit on it's own, then add breastmilk/ formula until it's the right consistency. You can store the cooked, non-mixed-with-milk cereal in the fridge up to 3 days (I'm sure I've done it for a day or so more than that, and it's been fine).
Otherwise, follow the same rules as the ready to mix stuff - discard any unused, prepared (with milk) portion.
If mixed with milk ahead of time, follow the guidelines for breastmilk and formula as far as refrigeration requirements. (ex. refrigerate immediately, use within 24 hours, only keep room temperature for however long...etc.)
Hopefully this isn't too overwhelming - just trying to cover all the bases. It really is easy, especially considering how much healthier it is for baby!
Let me know if you have any questions!!

New Baby Sling

I have a baby sling that I used with Bella. It is from Annabearbabyware.com and it is great. Here's the link to the site:

http://annabearbabyware.com/

Here's a picture of Bella in the sling the day she came home from the hospital:

My only complaint about this sling is the fact that it wasn't really adjustable at all. It worked great when she was a newborn, because all she did was lay in it anyway. But once she got older and I wanted to hold Bella on my hip with it, it didn't work so much. The top part was always too loose, and I felt like I needed to kinda hold her with my hands, even though I shouldn't have to. I followed the instructions on how to fold it at the shoulder to where it was tighter at the top, but that just wasn't comfortable at all.

Seriously though...I LOVE this sling...this is my only complaint. There are actually some things that I can do with the annabear babyware sling that I probably wouldn't be able to do with any other kind.

However, this time around, I decided to try to find one that was a bit more adjustable.

Funny thing...when I went home for Christmas, there was a lady at my parent's church that had a baby sling that had rings to adjust it - it was awesome! (this was around the time that Neil and I were trying to get pregnant) I asked her where she got it, and she told me that a friend had made it for her. So, I got home and looked around online, and found the Maya Wrap website, which features the Maya Wrap Ring Sling.

The most awesome part is that they feel so confident in their product that they post instructions on how to make one yourself if you're trying to save money! Here's the link:

http://www.mayawrap.com/n_sewsling.php

So... guess what I did?

Instead of it costing around $60 plus shipping for one of these babies, I made mine, and it cost somewhere around $10-12 for 2.5 yards of fabric, thread, and metal rings.

And it is SUPER easy! Yes, I am a very advanced sewer, but it only took me about an hour at most to make. AND - it's so strong, that I can hold Bella on my hip in it, without supporting her with my hands... and she weighs 30 lbs!

Here's the finished product:

I even made a "mini" version for Bella to wear with her baby doll:

Next, I'll be working on making a "Hooter Hider"... so check back on that later!