Happy Half-birthday Christopher!

I can not believe my baby boy is halfway to his first birthday!  He is at a very fun age for me... he is sitting, cracking up at funny things (especially his big brother!), getting into toys a LOT, and getting to enjoy his first bits of solid food.  Here's my big boy:

Happy boy in his exersaucer!

No Mom, I want to be silly not take pictures!

Good lookin' boy!

With his bear on the blanket his Bapie made him.

Enjoying his cereal + breast milk... must have been bad timing because it looks like he doesn't like it but he is usually lunging for the spoon!

After his first serving of cereal... that is spilled  cereal on the high chair tray.  Somebody thinks it's fun to tip bowls over already!

I Wanna Talk About Me!

Okay, so the post isn't so much about me, but I haven't really done much of a post about us as a family lately!

Things at work have definitely calmed down in the sense that I'm not working 12-14 hour days. The project is still busy, but I don't think it'll ever not be in full-steam-ahead mode even though I'm ready to get back to my routine. Matt's work has been slower since it is the off-season for lacrosse. In the off-season they close the store on Sundays and have more restricted hours... I love it! It means that we always have Sunday off together... its exhausting to only get to see him nights when we works whole weekends (sometimes) during busy season.



I can't remember if I mentioned that my friend Brooke just had her 3rd daughter recently (she'll be 2 weeks on Sunday). Her oldest is 3 1/2 and middle daughter is Jack's age... she's going to be one busy mama! She's also an AMAZING photographer (I've put her Facebook "fan bage" on the side of my blog) who's done all of our family pictures since Matt & I got engaged. Well, tonight we took them dinner and got to visit with two other families that we're all good friends with... it was such a fun night! I brought a crock-pot pasta dish which I really liked (I think it went over well with others, too) and cookies while my friend brought garlic bread & salad. To our surprise and excitement, Brooke & her husband asked Matt & I to be baby Emma's godparents! I'm SO excited and honored to be such a special part of this beautiful baby's life. I'm also the godmother to our youngest nephew and Matt is godfather to our oldest nephew. It is an amazing responsibility and I am so proud to be entrusted with being a source of guidance in faith in my godchildren's lives. Here's a picture of Matt with Emma from tonight:
Jack is sneaking out of the side of the picture because I originally wanted to get him in it, but he was too interested in playing with his friends! Jack is wishy-washy about Emma, got to "hold" her one evening when we were visiting and he kind of pet her head, but he was very sweet and had such a look of pride when he was finished holding her (insert comment asking when are we having another baby below; not really). But tonight when I was sitting on the couch holding her, he was NOT okay with it... he needed to be right next to me with my arm around him. He's still my little baby, and I kind of love it when he stakes his claim like that.

In other Jack news, he now is very interested in using utensils with his meals. Forks are very cool and Grandma got him some Disney Cars "big boy" silverware (a fork & spoon). I will have to try and get a picture of him using them, he's not too bad for getting started... definitely not great at the gathering of/picking up the food but he can get it in his mouth when on a fork or spoon. He's also been into graham crackers, or as we call them "cookies"... and when I say into, I mean he'll go to our pantry and bang on the doors yelling and occasionally saying "Kkkk" (with a a bit of phelm (sp?) behind it, haha) in attempt to say "cookie".

I've been getting excited for Halloween and trying to figure out what Jack should dress-up as... my MIL has offered to sew a costume if we want. Feel free to suggest anything in the comments! I guess we should really get on that decision so she has plenty of time to get it done. Speaking of upcoming holidays (ok, I know all holidays are pretty far away), but I'm REALLY excited for Halloween (one of my favorite holidays), getting to decorate our house and pass out candy to trick-or-treaters!

This weekend will be busy! Tomorrow morning we're walking in the American Heart Association Heart Walk with my company (now 5th in central Ohio for companies with participating teams). Starting in the afternoon, I will be with friends celebrating my friend, Jessie's bachelorette party... we're getting a party bus, so should be a lot of fun! I am a bridesmaid in her wedding at the end of September and we've been friends since college. She and her fiance, Russell, have been together since high school and are SO cute! He's hilarious too... always a good time! They both live about 2 or so hours away from here as of recently so it'll be nice to get to see her! On Sunday, I will be going to a jewelry party at a friend's house... should be fun and maybe I'll get some [very] early Christmas shopping done, as I won't be spending any money on myself.

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Halfway Through the [Work] Week!

I'm so glad we're halfway through the work week! The first couple of days have seemed VERY long for some unknown reason.

Update on baby food... Jack hated it. And we're not talking about him not liking but swallowing it anyway, it was full fledged disgust, spitting it out & practically saying "eww"! I am pretty sure it was the texture, which of the food I made was pretty thick and not a smooth puree like store bought baby food. I will definitely be trying again, but probably using the blender to get the food to a finer texture.

Today was our 2nd NFP class. We went over the charting we had been doing and the symptom side of the sympto-thermal method. Its very interesting to see the way different things affect what you may be seeing in charting but still being able to interpret them correctly. I feel that we are learning a lot, but that a lot of what is explained is pretty intuitive. I think its also very interesting learning about it from this end after going through pregnancy & having Jack.

Well, this is a short post but I hope to post more tomorrow or Friday for sure!

Homemade Baby Food

WARNING: If baby food grosses you out, this contains pictures of baby food!

To start off, I must say this could not have been much easier. Here's what I did to make some homemade green beans for Jack:

1. Used "all natural" (read: no added salt, etc. the ingredients only said "green beans") frozen green beans in a microwave steam bag. I used the grocery store brand and it cost only $1.39. Cooked according to the directions (5 minutes on high) and let stand for a minute.

I also used a mini food processor (we don't have a full sized one). I would say that if Jack had not been getting to "2nd foods" (the more textured foods) this might not have done the job because it didn't get them very thin, but we do have a blender so maybe I'll try that next time to see how fine it gets the food.

2. I added cooked green beans until about 3/4 full and drained some of the water from the package in to help thin the food out. I only had the option of chop v. grind for levels of demolishing the food, so I went with grind. It took maybe 5-10 minutes and addition of a little more water (I used water from our Brita pitcher) before it seemed thin enough.


3. I scooped into these freezer trays, but you can use regular ice trays. I purchased these because they have really tight fitting lids.


4. I put the lid on and labeled with these really neat washable write-on labels I stumbled upon at the store (they wash off with water). By this point the food was pretty cool already, so I popped them into the freezer.Total time it took: maybe 20 minutes.
Cost: $1.39 + one time cost of food processor & food freezer trays if we didn't already have one
Servings it produced: Approximately 14 ounces.

Compare that to a 2-pack of Gerber 2nd foods that were on sale last week at my grocery store, total of 7 ounces, for $0.99. My price/ounce: just under $0.10 versus Gerber [on sale]: ~$0.14. I'm going to keep doing some price comparisons to see how much it might save over the course of a week... so to be continued on that topic.

Can't wait to do some more tomorrow evening! I will stick with veggies starting off because they are easy to cook in the microwave-steam bags, but will head to fruits next. I expect fruits to be easier because they have a higher water content to begin with so they'll probably puree better.