Us3

Us3

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Trying to crawl..

Here's a few minutes of AJ trying to crawl. So cute!

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Our First Play Group!

Today AJ and I hosted our first play group with some other moms and kids from our MOMS Club. It was really a fun time, but I learned a lot and realized just how much I don't know about being a mom.

At the play group, I'd planned to do a craft for the kids and have them make their own pizzas. I didn't know the exact amount of people who were coming or the ages of kids, but I knew they'd be young. I also knew that AJ would be WAY to young for any of this, but at least he could sit and play and see the kids.

The craft.... Well, once I figured out that most of the kids would be 2 years old, I had to think about what we would do?? I went to Wal Mart and got some foam beads so they could make necklaces (thankfully, everyone had girls). When they were trying to make the necklaces tho, I realized that of course these beads are choking hazards! Duh!! It hadn't even occurred to me. (Perhaps this is why it says for ages 4 and up???)Thankfully, none of the moms seemed worried and they helped their kids do the craft.

The pizza... Most of the kids were able to make their little English Muffin pizzas with a little help from their moms. Once they were assembled, I baked them for 10 minutes and without even thinking, I served them as is....without cutting them.... Again- I didn't even think about that! One of the moms just looked at me when I gave her the plate and I realized she wondered how she was going to cut this for her child! At that time, I said "maybe I should cut this?"

The other problem is that since AJ isn't crawling, our house really is NOT kid proof. We have stairs, but no gates; we have a BIG water jug on the floor for the dogs which one of the girls stuck her entire foot in and we have a big coffee table with pretty hard corners. Luckily, no one got hurt- it just meant moms were running around after their kids :)

We all had a great time at the play group and I'm looking forward to having it again, but I have learned many things for next time!

Oh ya- lastly- I will NOT clean my house before the play group...I will clean after :)

Making Baby Food

Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would be the mom who makes her child's baby food, but here I am! I absolutely love making AJ's baby food! I'd say I make about 70% of everything he eats. The only time he eats jar food is if we're out somewhere and it doesn't make sense to bring something I have made or sometimes at night I'll give him a jar of food that has a variety of things in it- for example, a chicken and veggie meal or pasta. For now, I am not making those foods, but I am thinking about doing it soon. The problem is that I don't know the correct ratios of food to use to make them taste good and be the right texture.

Here's a list of what I've made:

Sweet Potatoes
Applesauce
Pears
Carrots
Mango
Peaches

In the next week or so I'm going to make green beans, spinach, zucchini, and I'm going to attempt to do beans. I never know if AJ is going to like something I make so I try to give him a jar of something before I waste the time and food making something he'll just spit out at me :)

I have learned that if he doesn't like something to wait a few days or a week and try again as his taste buds certainly are changing. A while back he hated pears (as seen on the video) and now he eats them every morning.

I love the idea of knowing exactly what AJ is eating and knowing that I made it for him- even if that just means boiling it and pureeing it. I know its fresh and doesn't have any preservatives in it. I figure that soon enough he'll be eating junk food and candy so while I can control it, I will. Plus, making the food is easy and I can make a big batch at a time. Once it's pureed I just put it into ice cube trays and freeze it and then move it into Zip Lock bags. This way I only use it when I need it and it lasts for months!

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Build A Bear

This is AJ playing with his first Build A Bear :)

A Day With Daddy

Yesterday, Anderson and Jason got to spend some quality time together while I got away with my girlfriends to shop till I dropped!

Jason spends a lot of time with AJ and he's a great dad. That being said, I still had to give Jason some instruction on the day; how much to feed him, what to feed, etc... I was totally confident that they'd be fine and have a good time.

While I was out shopping, eating lunch and getting a pedicure from 11:30am until 8pm (WOW!!) Jason and AJ hung around the house, played and then had dinner with our neighbor. He also took AJ on his first trip to Build A Bear. I was soooo surprised to hear that he'd done that, but also so incredibly impressed by it too. It warms my heart that Jason wants to do this kinda thing with AJ and that he enjoys it.

I really missed both my boys yesterday, but I had such a WONDERFUL time with my girlfriends. I needed a girl day desperately and was so thankful that Jason suggested it.