Adventures in Making Baby Food

Izzie has spent the first two weeks on solids, eating rice cereal twice a day.  After two weeks of that, it was time to move onto veggies in the middle of the day between the two feedings of rice cereal.  With Brady, we bought all organic baby food jars and boy was it expensive.  He would go through 3 jars per day, so over the course of a month, it could cost $90 or more!  While I was pregnant, we were walking in a grocery store and Andy saw the jarred food and mentioned that he had heard of a lot of people making their own baby food.  He suggested we try it.  Since he does all of the cooking in our house, I told him I didn't suggest it because I didn't want him to have to do more work.  He said, you do it on the weekends and then you've got week's of food.  That was before she was born, and now here we are, time for her to start eating food.

The first batch was carrots and peas.  We had gotten a steamer at my bridal shower and had never taken it out of the box.  I can now say we've used it since for our veggies to accompany dinner.  Andy steamed the veggies, then threw them into the mini food processor.  He then placed them into ice cube trays (seen in the picture at the top of the post) and we let them set in the freezer before popping them out.  We've lost one of them because we let them set too long and when we twisted it, it broke in half.

 A week after Andy made the first batch, it was time for Izzie to eat her first veggies.  We started with the carrots.  She made a face when she got a taste of a new texture, but soon she was gobbling it up.

Andy's next batch was squash, green beans, plums, and bananas.  He boiled the plums for a few minutes to cook them.

He placed the plums in an ice bath after boiling them to loosen the skins.

Food processor time.

Of the four veggies, Izzie has tried so far, she only has balked at the green beans.  She still ate about half the bowl though.  Other veggies we plan to make for her in the future include broccoli, sweet potatoes, and avocados.  She has one more week and then she'll start having fruit in her morning cereal and with lunch.  The reasoning for her eating veggies for two week before starting fruit is because veggies aren't as sweet.  If they have sweet fruits first, they might not want to eat the veggies. We took this same approach with Brady and he still loves veggies to this day.

Kids Safety Day

Last week the local emergency room held a safety day for kids of the community.  We knew Brady would love it, so we headed over for a fun afternoon.  They provided lunch and all of the activities.  We spent about two hours there.

 Brady with the DTE Energy mascot.

The police handed out badges to the kids and had child identification packets for parents to fill out.

Brady couldn't wait to get inside the school bus.  He sees it every day and will love when he gets to ride to school in it.

He must have the cool kid genes because he headed right for the very back seat.

 With Sparky the fire dog.

Brady can't resist the emergency vehicles.

They had the K9 unit there and Brady fell in love with Rocky the dog.  He even said to the police officer, "You have a beautiful dog."

Izzie hanging with Sparky.

Second week in a row for face painting.  This time he got Angry Birds and made sure that the artist made him pink.

The bouncy house is always a favorite.

Izzie meeting a red-haired clown.

 This bunny was hilarious and was dancing all the moves to Gangnam Style.  Poor Scruff McGuff didn't quite know the moves.

Izzie watching on.

Brady decided to dance along after a while.

With Scruff McGuff.  All we were missing was Smokey the Bear.

Up high in the driver's seat of the firetruck.

 

 At the end, he had fun rolling down this little slope with his friends, Sophia, Emma, and Ella.

Block Party 2013

Every year the sub-division we live in has a block party.  It occurs each September and we went to our first one last year.  It's a great opportunity for newcomers to meet the neighbors and for long-standing homeowners to catch up with each other.  Last year it was very cold and there wasn't a good turnout.  This year there were showers on and off, but there was a really good turnout and we were surprised at how many kids live in the neighborhood.

 

One of the activities set up for the kids was a face painter.  Brady got a dog on his arm.

 He went back later and got a cat on his face.  Not really surprising as he pretends to be a kitty most days.

 Izzie and Andy hanging out in front of the big-screen TV rented for the event so everyone could still watch their Saturday football.

A lot of the kids brought their ride-on toys and Brady of course loved that.  Sophia was pulling around all the little kids in the three-seat wagon.

A fun twist on musical chairs.  It's so nice we live close to the party, you can see our house right behind the stop sign.

Pie eating contest (just whipped cream on a plate).  

Brady took a few licks, but when he realized it was messy, he decided to stop.

The first responders are right across from our sub-division, so Brady sees them every day.  He LOVES them.  We knew that it had been arranged for both the firetruck and the ambulance to come to the block party for the kids, but didn't tell Brady.  It was a great surprise for him!

All the kids got firefighter badges.

Next up, the ambulance!  Brady informed the EMT that it was for sick or hurt people.  He even asked for a shot!

I got a kick out of the fact that the tire on the firetruck was just about as tall as Brady (who is roughly 40 inches tall). 

Checking out his reflection.

When it got towards evening, everyone sent someone home to get their dish for the potluck dinner.  At the end, people vote on the dish they liked the best for prizes.  We got second prize for Andy's pepperoni rolls.  We lost by one vote and guess who's vote it was?  Mine!  I thought it was unfair to vote for ourselves, and Andy thought that was silly.  He asked, "If you were running for president, wouldn't you vote for yourself?"  I would, so I guess I should've voted for our food.  We won $10 Target gift card for second place ($20 went to first place).  There was a big bin of dum dum lollipops for the kids to guess how many there were inside to win it.  Brady can't count past 20, so I guessed for him.  I guessed 110.  Wasn't I surprised when he came running up with the big bin with the biggest smile on his face.  I hit it right on the nose.  We had a great time and can't wait for the fun next year when Izzie can really participate as well!