Solid Foods

We followed the American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines to wait to start Sadie on solid foods until she was 6 months old.
When we did, I wanted to make all of her food.  Between talking to her doctor, researching online and talking to friends, I ended up buying her cereals and making the rest of food.
Her doctor suggested starting with the cereals, veggies next, then fruits, not trying a new food within 5 days of another new food to ensure no food allergies, and adding one meal every two weeks.
We started her off with about a tablespoon of rice cereal (Gerber baby cereal) mixed with breastmilk at dinner time.  It was interesting to watch her at first because she really had to figure out how to take in the food.  She figured it out fairly quickly.  The next food we added was oatmeal cereal.
When we got to veggies/fruits, I used the Baby Chef that we received as a shower gift.  The left side steams the food and the right side purees it. (Can you tell from the monitor that this picture is from one night when she was asleep?)

 After pureeing her food, I put it in these wonderful freezer cube trays that a friend passed along to me (that have silicone on the very bottom to make it easier to get the food out).  I freeze the cubes and then pop them out and place them in ziplocks to thaw when I need them.

I can't remember the exact order of the foods that I introduced, but I think that I may have started with peas and then carrots.  I've followed the food suggestions from Wholesome Homemade Baby Foods to know what to introduce.  

  Sadie now eats carrots, peas, green beans, butternut squash, pumpkin, chicken, apples, pears.   As far as finger foods, she'll eat avocados and bananas.  We buy baby yogurt and Gerber puffs also.

Sadie is a great eater and she'll now (at almost 9 months)eat about 4 veggie cubes with cereal and milk mixed in as well as two cubes of fruit/some finger food for lunch and dinner.  For breakfast, she'll usually eat 2 cubes of fruit with oatmeal mixed in or yogurt and part of a banana.  She always tells us when she's finished by closing her lips or starting to fuss.  She's also started showing  a preference towards the sweeter parts of her meal.

Quiche

One gift that we receive for Christmas each year is a honey ham.  We have typically picked it up after Christmas and as much as we can eat, there's always left over.  This year, I chopped all of the extra and froze it so that we could use it for pizzas, etc.  After not having planned out my meals last week, I looked at what we had and figured out that I could make a Quiche.

I made quick pie crust using this recipe

1½ C sifted all purpose flour

  ½ tsp salt

 ½ C shortening

 4 to 5 TBS cold water

and then made my Quiche with a recipe from All Recipes
Ingredients:

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 cup half-and-half 3 eggs 2 slices Swiss cheese 1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch single crust

pie 1/2 cup chopped fresh spinach 1/2 cup canned mushrooms 1 (4.5 ounce) can ham, flaked 1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

Directions: 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2. Beat together flour, salt, half-and-half and eggs in a medium bowl.
3. Place Swiss cheese flat in the pie crust (I had shredded cheese that I layered on the bottom). Arrange spinach evenly over Swiss cheese, then cover with mushrooms (I didn't have mushrooms but did use onions and peppers). Pour the flour and egg mixture over mushrooms. Cover with flaked ham (mine was diced) and top with Cheddar cheese.
4. Bake in the preheated oven 45 to 55 minutes, until surface is golden brown.

Thief

"Comparison is the Thief of Joy." - Theodore Roosevelt

I think that this is one of the most true statements I've heard.  When you're little, you want to have the best toy, the best grade or the latest bedtime and once someone has a better toy, grade or bedtime, you're jealous.
As you get older, you want to be the best at sports or go to the better college or get a better job with the higher salary or you want the best clothes or to take the best vacations.  You are perfectly satisfied with what you have until someone "one-ups" you.

And then you have a baby...from what I can tell so far in my short stint in motherhood, comparison in the realm of motherhood is a disaster.  
I can be okay being a working mom until I hear about how many of my friends are getting to be stay at home moms and then I start comparing the number of hours that I lose with my little one each day.
I think my child right on track doing exactly what she's supposed to as an almost 9 month old (sitting (reluctantly), scooting, army crawling, etc) until I see a video (oh social media!) of someone's 7 or 8 month old crawling.

Shame on me for my comparisons!  (Teachers of all people know that babies develop at such different rates...they're little people!) When we compare, the joy that we had turns into guilt and worry. 

So here's my goal: I want to spend my time with my little one (hopefully little ones someday) focused on them, not their friends, not my friends, but on them.  I want my joy to come from my time with them and my focus on them.  I will know that I am doing my best to love and raise them and at the same time, knowing that the are doing their best growing up. I think then I can steal all of my joy back and truly enjoy every moment with this sweet, perfect baby girl and any siblings that we may be blessed with later on. 

Houston Half Marathon

In May of 2012, I signed up for the Houston Half Marathon for January of 2013.  I had really enjoyed the 2012 race as was ready to do another and I had even seen some pregnant women running the full marathon the year before, so I thought that I could do the half easily.  Well, being a pregnant diabetic was a little more work than I thought that it would be.  Although I kept running, I was not running very long distances and the amount that I had to check my blood sugar and levels that I had to keep it at were not conducive to the half, so my doctor told me I couldn't run it (which was honestly kind of a relief to hear).  So my big belly and I deferred my entry to the 2014 race.

After having Sadie, I wasn't cleared to run until 6 weeks after she was born.  I started off slow and easy (honestly slightly afraid my stitched from the c-section would rip open..haha..).  Luckily, they did not!  I think that starting running again after all that my body had been through would have been difficult, but starting all of this at the end of June in Houston added a new facet to it.  Once I got back into it though, running became my "me" time.   After Sadie turned 6 months, I was able to bring her along with me and I have enjoyed getting to introduce her to outside time and being active.

I planned out my training for the January race by adding 2 miles a month until I got up to 12 miles and running that distance a few times.  I was not able to run as many days a week to train, but that's okay!

Last Sunday, I finally got to run my race.  I felt about as nervous as I did for my first half.  I was running this distance in a race for the first time in 2 years, without a running partner and all of my training runs had been slow.

The weather was wonderful and thanks to full nights sleep from my little one, I felt rested.  I started off cautiously, afraid that I would be unable to finish or would have to walk.  

I ended up finishing in 1:52:35 and felt great.  I was exactly two minutes slower than 2 years and a baby ago.  I'll take it! Nine half marathons completed! Now I'm ready to sign up for the 10th!

I hate driving downtown and the road closures make me nervous, so I was SUPER early...like the 5th person in my corral

Nervous, but ready to run 

Finish time

 So excited to be finished!

8 months

Sadie was 8 months old on the 9th

She 

*weighs 17 lbs 9.3oz

*is 2' 2"

*has 2 teeth and 2 coming in on the top

*is a rolling maniac...she rolls all over the house and her brace does not prevent her from rolling at all

*army crawls

*rocks back and forth on her hands and knees like she is ready to really crawl

*Says "Dada" and "Mama" which often sounds more like "Mum"

*Is such a happy girl!

*Talks a lot and makes a lot of noises

*Sits up in the bathtub and plays with toys

*Is a very busy girl..always doing something

*Doesn't love naps...especially if they occur in the afternoon

*Loves to snuggle

*Eats lots of fruits and veggies

*We had to move her crib down to the next level

6 years!

Cody and I celebrated our 6th anniversary at the end of December (Last year I did a year by year recap in this post).  What a year it has been! We have become parents and have learned to work together and rely on one another unlike anything we could have imagined doing.  I am thankful each day for this amazing, constant man who I have fallen even more in love with while watching him not only be a fabulous husband, but take on the role of loving father as well.

We went to Shreveport to celebrate and enjoyed a nice dinner and I spent my first night away from Sadie, while mom kept her in Longview (and I made it y'all!).  It was nice to have a restful night (even when Sadie sleeps through the night, I still kind of listen for her..), but so good to get back our little family of 3 (5 counting the pups of course).

Happy Anniversary! Looking at the blessings of these first 6 years of marriage, I can only hope that the next 50+ years will bring even more joy than we could possibly imagine.

Christmas Plate

After seeing plates like this in early December, I decided that we could easily make them.  I just used plates, acrylic paint (yellow, brown and blue) and a ceramic marker.

We made one for each set of grandparents and kept one for ourselves.
We started with the footprint (the manger)...getting the footprints on the plate was the most difficult part.  We took a sponge and put paint on the bottom of Sadie's foot, Cody then guided her foot onto the plate and held it still to get the print.  Jesus' head is Sadie's thumb print too.

The whole craft was fun, but VERY messy...

Pumpkin Bundt Cake

One Sunday morning, I got up early (shocking, I know with a young baby..) and decided that I wanted to bake (which is just really not all that unusual).  We had a can of pumpkin, so I searched for a recipe that I could use it in and came across this bundt cake recipe.

Pumpkin Bundt Cake
from Taste of Home

Ingredients

• 2-1/2 cups sugar
• 1 cup canola oil
• 3 eggs
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 can (15 ounces) solid-pack pumpkin
• Confectioners' sugar

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350°. In a large bowl, combine sugar and oil
• until blended. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each
• addition. Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and
• cloves; add to egg mixture alternately with pumpkin, beating well
• after each addition.
• Transfer to a greased 10-in. fluted tube pan. Bake 60-65 minutes or
• until toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool 10
• minutes before inverting onto a wire rack. Remove pan and cool
• completely. Dust with confectioners' sugar. Yield: 12-16 servings.

*I used my mini bundt pan to make small cakes rather than large ones.

*I also mixed together an icing using milk and powdered sugar to cover them with  

when they were still warm.

*Using the small clear cups, I was able to divide them to pass out separately.

Christmas

Everything about Christmas this year was understandably more exciting.
We spent time with family in Longview and Marlin as well.  We got to watch our little one entertain all of those she was around and giggle with the attention that she was getting.

 Christmas Day: Jammies

 Playing with her new toys

 The Brown cousins playing together

 Girls' Lunch with five of my absolute favorites!

 Hanging out watching tv with Big Daddy 

 Sharing her new chair with cousin Colton

 Marling with my cousin, Mindy and her sweet little one, Cami.

 Mamaw and all of her great grands

Christmas is not only a time that helps us focus on the ultimate gift that God gave to us through His son, but also reminds us of how blessed we truly are with friends and family.