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Friday, June 20, 2014
We had so much fun this Spring and have been very busy lately. Thought I'd keep you guys updated. But first:
Check out these handsome boys! I won a giveaway awhile back from When the Boys Sleep for two bow ties. I chose these matching father-son bow ties and have been saving them for Father's Day. I was sooooo excited when it was finally time for them to wear them! Check out her shop (link above) for some seriously handsome boy's accessories. (I think I saw some 4th of July ones?! Might need to snag one or three.)
P.S. That little dress shirt has been the best thing ever. I got it as a gift but it is Baby Gap here. The best fitting church onesie out there, I swear. (Oh and the socks are Gap, too. Gotta love Baby Gap!)
Ok. Now lets get to the update!
Scotty is seriously the BEST at selfies. He is the king of them in fact. He poses for the camera pretty much every time. Can't believe what a HAM he is! It's hilarious. We spent a day shopping at the outlets with Granna and Auntie Katie.
As part of his Father's Day gift, I took Jer golfing. Such a beautiful course. It was fun to drive the golf cart and enjoy the scenery. Granna and Papa watched Scotty for us. We had a blast!
Scotty LOVES when Granna and Papa come to visit. He gets spoiled rotten!
We had fun going to Black Bear Cafe with Grandma Marva to celebrate a late Mother's Day. The food was so good! Scotty was...not so good. Haha.
It has been so fun to have Anna here for the Spring semester. We have been running together 3x/week and have fit in a few ballroom lessons and babysitting sessions. Scotty loves his Auntie! He is also really taking a liking to books. He will sit for a few minutes and look through a book.
Scotty is our greatest joy. He is quickly hitting many milestones, which is making us feel like we blink and he has grown even more! He is now crawling. Which makes us nervous, but he is really excited to be able to move around and explore. No teeth yet which we are OK with. And P.S. that hat is TDF when he keeps it on. (GAP) I'm sensing a trend here...
Friday, June 6, 2014
So I've been frustrated lately because I have needed prunes for Scotty for a while now and every time I go to the store, it seems the shelves are cleared! It really is so annoying. So when I was at Costco yesterday I saw the dried plums and decided to just make my own prune baby food. It's a good thing Scotty likes prunes because he loves bananas too, if ya know what I mean. :o)
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I did some quick math and discovered that it is SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper to make your own prune baby food. I haven't done the math for everything I have made but I wouldn't be surprised if it were the case across the board. Here is how I worked it out.
This bag was $5.99 at Costco. There are approximately 200 prunes. I used 10 prunes.
I filled 2 of these 6 oz jars with 10 steamed and blended prunes. Each of these jars of prepared baby food is a little over a dollar at Smiths.
So, I used 1/20th of the bag of prunes. $5.99/20 is about $0.30. AKA $0.30 for 12 oz of baby food vs. about $2.30 for the same amount.
I did consider the fact that I may not use all the prunes for baby food. And we don't eat prunes, so we wouldn't have a use for the rest. But consider splitting a bag with a friend. Plenty of prunes to go around. ;o)
I was pretty excited about that. Just thought I'd share in case anyone was interested.
On to the fun stuff! We have been doing lots of fun things already this summer. Firstly, Scotty just finished swim lessons and the Orem Rec Center! We took a class with 3 other friends.
The class was MWF for 30 min. and ran for 3 weeks. So we had 9 sessions total. Scotty was the youngest in the class and really had a hard time warming up to it. Literally and figuratively. He was freezing most of the time. But by the end, he was starting to hold himself up by grabbing on the wall of the pool. And was learning to hold his breath before going under water.
It was a fun excuse for us Mommies to get together and chat and the kids loved playing too. While Scotty is still a little young to understand what is going on, I am glad we took the lessons because now I feel a little more comfortable going into the summer taking him swimming on my own.
Sunday, June 1, 2014
This week has been so beyond crazy for us. We like to take on entertaining gigs to motivate ourselves to get things done. Oh, and also because we LOVE our friends and we love to play. :o) Work hard, play hard. That being said, we had a Memorial Day BBQ on Monday, we were preparing for our renters to move in this weekend (AKA finishing the basement), getting our boys and badges prepared for a stake Scout Court of Honor (today), and a Tea Party baby shower for one of my Nearest and dearest. With a few hiccups along the way, we have been able to get most everything done that we needed to. Here are a few shots of the shower. Thanks Carly for being the photog since I totally dropped the ball and took zero pictures.
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The group. Carly, Liss, Makenzie and I did the shower together. It was so fun!
Our guest(s) of honor. Amy and Baby Girl!
Tea sandwiches (Kenzie), Fruit Pizza (Liss), Caprese Kebabs (Car), Lemon Raspberry Bars (Me) recipe for the raspberry bars here. Everything was so yummy!
My sister Katie and I made a sign for the shower that Amy took home and can use in her room if she wants. For one of the activities be had a bow/headband making station with ribbon, fabric, etc. to make a bow for Amy's little girl.
For decorations we used lots of fresh flowers, tea lights, cute tea cups and dishes, and candy. Carly also brought pretty lace runners and doilies that looked awesome with the decor. One of my favorite things about this house are the flowers that have popped up in the yard. I take no credit for any of it but it has been beyond fun to go out and just cut roses and put them in a vase on the table. Fresh flowers make it feel so homey and its awesome when you don't have to pay for them!
As for the other two things, our yard looks much better thanks to our BBQ (pics to come), our renters are moving in as we speak and the Court of Honor is tonight. I have all the merit badges ready to go and I'm excited for the boys. The funny thing about a busy week is that most of the time the next week is just as busy. :o) But I think a busy life is better than a boring one, don't you?
Friday, May 23, 2014
I always planned to just buy the pre-made baby food at the store. I'm all about easy around here. But when I noticed how much my child eats and how dang expensive that baby food is, I decided to try making it. I got lots of advice from my friend Brittany who also has a baby about Scotty's age and exclusively makes her own baby food. Enter two of my best friends these days:
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Munchkin Steamer and Chopper here.
And Blendtec here.
I went to Sprouts yesterday (on Thursdays students and teachers get 10% off!) and stocked up on fruits and veggies.
I experimented with two different kinds:
Green beans with avocado and applesauce
and
Peach-Blueberry
I decided to try green beans and peaches homemade because so far Scotty isn't digging those two in the store-bought version.
I chopped and steamed the green beans in the chopper and steamer (you just pop it in the microwave, so easy!), threw them, some avo and applesauce (for texture and flavor) in the blendtec on "smoothie" and let er rip! It was quick and easy and Scotty really liked it!
When I steamed the peaches and blueberries (peels and all) they smelled like pie! I tasted it and definitely gave it the thumbs up. P.S. I haven't had the guts to try ANY of Scotty's store-bought food. That's bad, right?
I got the covered ice-cube tray tip from Brittany. It's perfect because they have silicone bottoms and then you can pop the cubes out, throw them in a baggy and save them for later use! I'm excited to try some more recipes!
And I know I have posted this meal before but it is just too good not to share. It's one of my favorite quick dinners.
BLEAT Sandwich.
Aka, Bacon, Lettuce, Egg, Avo and Tomato. We do a BLT with avocado and a fried egg. YUM. One of my favorite parts is the paper plate. ;o) No one likes to do dishes. Maybe I should blend this one up for Scotty? haha
Happy Friday and Long Weekend!
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
With Spring/Summer in the air, it has been so fun to see what pops up in our yard. Since we bought the house in the winter, we had no clue what was previously planted. We have discovered an awesome grapevine, a loaded cherry tree and a hybrid apple tree that grows 4 different varieties of apples! We also have some beautiful mature trees and bulbs that add color to our yard. While we are super excited about all this stuff, we are a bit overwhelmed. We have a pretty unruly backyard and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed to say the least. I started two raised garden boxes (not pretty) loaded with veggies that I am really excited about.
I share these (slightly embarrassing) photos with you to get your advice. I'm really excited about gardening but pretty much know nothing about it. We have kind of an ugly chain link fence that I feel like I want to mask. So what do I do?! Gardeners of the world, help a sister out.
Here are my veggie boxes. AKA free. My uncle had some old cinder blocks so I made use of them. I planted lots of veggies and I get so excited when I see a new sprout pop up! I started most of those plants from seed. Probably won't do that again, but it was a good experience. :o)
And what's for dinner?
Grilled fish tacos. LOVE.
Here's what I did:
1. Rub hake loins with taco seasoning. (I got frozen ones from Costco. Could use halibut, tilapia, whatever you have.)
2. Make mango-avocado salsa: mango, avo, red onion, cilantro, tomato, apple cider vinegar, pinch of sugar, lotsa lime, S&P.
3. Mix salsa with sour cream for sauce.
4. Grill fish turning only once.
5. Assemble tacos on corn tortillas: fish, salsa, red cabbage, sauce. YUM.
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
A while back a friend and I were discussing blogging and how we feel like it may have taken a turn for the-"posting things to make money and not really because you care about them." We both really wanted to have these awesome, popular blogs but realized that the "popular" blogging has often (but not always) been about companies trying to sell their products through the blogger.
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At that point, we both decided we would just blog about what we wanted and if people cared, they could read, and if they didn't, that's OK too. I still feel like blogging is a great tool to find out about awesome products or great recipes, fun DIY crafts etc. And if/when I find those things, you bet I'm going to share them with you! But, please forgive me for sometimes just posting the mundane. (i.e. my baby feeding himself on video or "Wheels On the Bus" in all its beat-boxing glory).
This blog is equally for me as it is for you. I like to keep a record of the things going on in my life. SO today I am going to blog about Little Bear's 6 month appointment! Hooray!
Today at Scott's appointment, his doctor said, "I just LOVE him!"
And I was like, "Um, yeah! You're tellin' me!"
6 month stats: 16.75 lb (30%)
27.75 in. (87%)
He is doing great developmentally and hitting all his benchmarks.
This round of shots was particularly hard but he's sleeping it off as we speak and will be glad we immunized him when he can understand that sort of thing. :o)
Fun things he does:
-Puts his own binky in his mouth
-Gives kisses
-Very close to crawling
-Fake-coughs
-Loves baths
-Doesn't love swimming but we are working on that in swim lessons (started yesterday!)
-Totally poses for the camera
-Loves being sung to, especially repetitive songs
-Loves the mirror
-Loves other babies and kids
He is really such a ladies' man. We're in trouble with this one.
How do you all feel about the blogging world these days? Do you agree to a certain extent? I'd love to hear your opinions.
Monday, May 19, 2014
I have been basil-happy these days because I am proud of my little plant I am growing so I have made many different forms of caprese in the past couple weeks. I found this recipe for Strawberry Balsamic Chicken on Pinterest and decided to make a few tweaks.
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1. Marinate the chicken in balsamic vinegar for as long or as short as you like.
2. Make a strawberry bruschetta. I added some minced garlic and a drizzle of olive oil to my recipe in addition to diced strawberries, fresh mozzarella and basil.
3. Salt and pepper the chicken and (I added this part) throw it on the BBQ. I really love grilled meat in the summer (especially when it is hot as blazes in my kitchen with the oven on.) I took a pastry brush and brushed the extra balsamic on the chicken several times during the cooking process.
4. Make a balsamic reduction. AKA boil it until it is thicker and half the volume.
5. Top chicken with bruschetta and drizzle with reduction.
I didn't really use amounts or measurements because when cooking for two I am always having to cut down the recipe so I often just adjust from the original recipe.
In family news, Scotty is just like his mom and loves food. His recent love is feeding himself with this awesome munchkin feeder. It is the best. Mesh bag=no choking=happy mama. Plastic ring=self-feeding=happy baby. Yes. I like to put banana, strawberries, avocado, really anything soft enough for his little gums to handle.
Find it here.
Awesome baby stuff FTW!
I know you all love watching my messy baby eat. I just think it is pretty cute.
HAPPY MONDAY!
HAPPY MONDAY!
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