@Wholesomebaby has great tips for making #homemade #baby #food
While googling around looking for information on homemade baby food, I came across this site by @wholesomebaby. It has a TON of information, and I really like how organized the site is. It’s basically become my pocket reference guide to homemade baby foods. Sure, I have a chart from our pediatrician that provides the knitty gritty details on how many tbsps of each food group my kiddo should be eating, but it doesn’t tell me all of the Stage 1 and Stage 2 foods or how to prepare them. I’m guessing the doctor assumes most people buy baby food in well-labeled glass jars and plastic containers. That’s all well and good, but I really wanted to go the homemade route if I could.
I recently baked apricots per the suggested procedure on @wholesomebaby’s site, and I was surprised how well they turned out. Here’s a pic of them right after I pulled them out of the oven:
You can see how the skin is just starting to pucker up a bit. Once they cooled, the skins just fell right off. It was pretty cool. By baking them this way, in a pan of water at 400 degrees F, very little of the apricot is wasted. The skin literally falls off in your hands, and you’re left with the yummy pulp. It didn’t take much pureeing with the immersion blender to get this wonderfully smooth product:
I then spooned the apricot puree into an ice cube tray (just your normal ice cube tray, nothing fancy), and popped it into the freezer overnight. After they froze, I dumped the cubes into a labeled & dated freezer bag.
It’s an awesome way to make, store, and prep baby food. Whenever my kiddo is ready to eat, I just pop a cube in the microwave for 25 seconds to melt it. Then, I sometimes stir in oatmeal cereal with a little booby milk. I’ve also started mixing different cubes together sometimes for a little different flavor. For example, today I put an apricot cube and a banana cube together and melted it. A little oatmeal, and voila, a yummy tropical tasting breakfast. I thought it tasted pretty good, and I didn’t hear any complaints from the kiddo.
So, if you haven’t yet, check out the tips from @wholesomebaby and give homemade baby food a try. It’s way easier than you think, and quite possibly the healthier, and more economical option.
The Immersion Blender: The Unsung Hero of Today’s #Kitchen
Let me start by saying I love my immersion blender. It was a Christmas present from my husband a couple of years ago. I kept asking and asking for one, but he would always make some comment about how it wasn’t really necessary and how much was I really going to use it anyway. Maybe he was just saying those things so he could surprise me for Christmas. :)
While I agree that it isn’t necessary and that I could get by without it, man, it sure is handy. I initially wanted it to purée soups and the like, but it sure is awesome for all kinds of things. Mine is a KitchenAid, and it is one powerful little bugger. It purées chunks of frozen fruit with orange juice in no time, and clean up is way easier than a food processor.
My latest and greatest use for it is puréeing homemade baby food. It is AWESOME at it. I can really control how finely it is puréed because I can see it, watch the way it gets pulled into the base of the blender and know if it needs more liquid, more purée time, or if it’s done. And, again, cleanup is a breeze. Tonight I puréed green beans with it. Seriously, just tossed them in, added a bit of water, and went to town on it. I’m so impressed.
I even use it when I just feel like the wire whisk just isn’t cutting the muster. For example, the custard for French toast, or just whisking eggs, in general. Want to get rid of those whites that just won’t whisk up? Just insert the immersion blender for a few seconds and bam, that’s one smooth, uniform liquid. It just makes eggs and French toast that much yummier.
As you can plainly see, I really do love my immersion blender. I hope it will continue to be a hero in my kitchen for years to come.
So, I passed on the opportunity to participate in this year’s flats challenge hosted by Dirty Diaper Laundry (click link above for more info). When folks were initially tweeting about it, I didn’t think much about it. I never really looked into it. I just figured it was some sort of contest that a bunch of the cloth diaper bloggers were doing. But, once the challenge started and I started reading about other people’s experiences, it started to pique my interest. It REALLY got my attention when I read the day 7 blog post by @MyCDStash. She decided that the knowledge she gained from doing the #flatschallenge should be shared with others. It should be shared with the families that can’t afford disposable diapers. There is a cheap cloth diapering option out there. AND, they can be hand washed, if you don’t have a washer/dryer. She is going to pursue teaching a cloth diaper 101 class to show families that they have options.
I thought this was truly brilliant. I’m going to discuss this with my church group, as well, to see if we could do a similar class in our community. There are at least a couple of us cloth diapering mommas that I think would be interested in doing this. Thanks, @MyCDStash for the wonderful idea!
My Washing Machine Smells Like Pee!
I don’t know if the rest of you #clothdiapering mommas have had this happen to you, but lately I’ve noticed that my washing machine smells like pee. My diapers have been coming out clean and smelling fresh, so I don’t know why the stink has been happening. Today, after washing diapers, I decided to run a hot cycle in the washer without anything in it. I just added a cup of bleach and let the wash cycle do the rest. That seemed to do the trick. Maybe I need to do this every so often to keep the washer fresh and clean…
Has this ever happened to you? What did you do to fix it??
#FamilyTravel with an Infant: Not as horrifying as you might think
We recently completed a 1000 mile road trip with our five month old daughter. It was our first time traveling with her, and we were nervous considering she’s been known to go bonkers in the car after 15 minutes. Based on what worked for us, here are some tips to help your next family road trip go more smoothly:
1. Formulate a game plan! That’s right, you and your husband are a team, and it’s important to agree that you’re actually on the SAME team. Discuss your strategy ahead of time. How long will you let the baby cry? What “degree” of crying warrants an ASAP stop? How often do you plan to stop for feeding/changes/exercise? Etc…
2. Take turns riding in the back with the kiddo, especially during awake time. Infants can’t exactly help themselves when it comes to picking up a dropped toy or pacifier. It helps when this sort of situation can be immediately rectified before the kiddo finds herself stuck on the crying channel. Not to mention, you can feed baby while on the road to cut down on time spent at the rest areas.
3. Have baby feeding and entertainment essentials close at hand so you can safely access them while cruising down the road.
4. Print a list of the rest area locations. That way, if baby starts to cry, you can determine if you can make it to the next rest area, or if you need to pull over sooner.
5. Drive while the kiddo sleeps! We hit the road by 5 AM so we could get 2-3 hours of driving while the kiddo finished up her sleep. It’s a good way to cover some ground early in the day.
6. Plot your course ahead of time! If you’re using a GPS, plot your course before your travel day and make sure it does, indeed, go the way you want to go. If you have an iPhone or iPad (or other smart phone), I highly recommend checking for traffic updates. We used our iPad to check traffic patterns via Bing maps. Nothing is worse than being stuck in traffic with a crying baby. Check traffic flow as you go and adjust your route accordingly. There’s a ton of summer construction projects going on out there. Don’t let one of them ruin your day!
7. BE PATIENT! Accept that traveling with a baby is going to take longer. You just can’t strap a kid down for 17 hours. What you once could do in one day is now going to take two. Stop for breaks every 2-3 hours. Just relax and enjoy this time with your family! One thing’s for sure, it’s going to be a memorable trip!
#HowTo Line Dry Your #WetBag
If the waterproof interior of your wet bag didn’t agitate itself inside out in the wash, go ahead and pull it out. Then attach the waterproof end of the bag to the line as shown in the picture. This allows any water stuck in the bag to run out as it dries. If you attach the cloth end to the line instead, you’re likely to end up with a pool of water at the bottom of the bag. That’s it! Easy peasy!
The totally unnecessary, but way too cute to pass up for 75 cents #yardsale find of the day!
#Yardsales: The BEST place to #buy #baby #clothes
It’s yard sale season again, and I’ve never really been pumped about them like I am now. Now, I scour the classifieds on Thursdays to look for the sales that say “baby and kids clothing”. Why Thursday? Well, some of the sales aren’t posted until then, and some sales start as early as Friday. Yet another score for the Stay-at-home-mom: I can get to the sales on Fridays before most other people can and REALLY snag some good deals.
Today, for example, I went to two sales, filled two plastic grocery bags, and spent a grand total of $10. Score! Two weeks ago, I went to one really awesome garage sale, STUFFED two paper grocery bags, and spent $22. I even scored stuff that still had the tags on it!
Seriously, it’s silly to buy your kid brand new clothes. Let everyone else do that! For $32, I’ve nearly completed her wardrobe from 6-12 months, and scored a few 18 months items that were too cute to pass up.
And the extra super bonus? I can save these clothes for a possible future sibling, and them sell them at my own garage sale at some time in the future.
Babies grow so fast, it’s nearly impossible for them to wear out clothing. Save your cash and shop the yard sales!! If you can find a mom-to-mom sale, even better!! They’re like hitting 20+ garage sales all at once! It’s an endless treasure trove of baby clothes and supplies. I’ve also hit the jackpot on craigslist, so it’s also worth scoping out, especially in winter time when yard sales are non-existant. Used baby clothes: worth every penny you didn’t have to spend!
Click the link above to check out some awesome alternatives to storing your fruits, veggies, and herbs. I love the science behind the design of each of the storage options. These all look pretty simple to build at home. It’s definitely worth the read.
Simplify #FamilyTravel with a Hotel Bag
On our recent road trip, I packed one bag with all of our overnight essentials to cut down on the number of bags/things we would have to lug into the hotel from the car. Now that we have a baby, we tend to come with quite a bit more “stuff” than we used to. So, I decided it would be smart to consolidate all of our hotel essentials into one bag. My hotel bag inventory was as follows:
Pajamas for mom, dad, and baby
Two outfits for baby (in case one got…..soiled)
Clean shirts for mom and dad (can wear yesterday’s jeans again)
Clean socks and underwear for mom and dad
Toiletry items (toothbrushes, toothpaste, face wash, etc)
Two overnight cloth diapers (for me this meant two double-stuffed BumGenius diapers)
Hair brush and comb
Wall chargers for iPad and cell phone
Blankets for the pack-n-play
With all of that in one bag, we just needed to lug in that bag, along with the Graco pack-n-play and the diaper bag and we were set for a night in the hotel. We were actually able to carry the baby and all of our necessary “stuff” in one trip from the car. It worked out well!
