Toddler Food Series

I'm so excited to share this post with you. I have been working on it for an insanely long time. I don't know about you but I am always looking for fun new foods and ways to feed Maggie. Fortunately she has always been an awesome eater. From the time she was 6 months she was wanting to eat whatever we were having. After a couple of months I realized I could use it to my advantage and I started making my own baby food. I would combine things like Carrots, Sweet Potatoes and Apple Sauce or Green beans with Avocado. I also loved it because I could play with around spices for flavoring and cut back on the sodium. It broadened her tastes so much. I can't say that I know too many almost 15 month old who's favorite food is anything Mexican because she loves spicy things. Now she pretty much eats whatever we are eating for dinner, and breakfast and lunches we get to be creative. 

She is getting to the stage where eating needs to be more fun, and not so much a chore. I have loved playing up her serving trays and giving her varieties of things to choose from. These are some of my favorites that we have purchased and want to purchase. 

 

1. Plastic Deviled Egg Tray

2. Landscape Dinner Plate

3. Start to Finish Plate

4. Ice Cube Trays

To give you an idea of what some of our meals look like. Breakfast I always try to include carbs or protein and lots of fruit. Some of our favorites are scrambled or hard boiled egg, eggo/ english muffin with cream cheese. Lunch always has a protein, veggie, fruit and some sort of treat like a fruit snack, or a handful of marshmallows. Dinner is almost always what we eat. Main dish, fruit, veggie, carb. I will be completely honest and tell you I am not a mom who focuses on non-processed, all organic foods. I do my best to make sure my child eats healthy, but when I'm in a bind, TV dinners and boxed Mac n' Cheese are lifesavers. 

1. Ham, Crackers, tortillas, cheese, raisins, marshmallows, pears, cheese puffs, peaches, flavored puffs. 

2. Blueberries, peaches, diced roast beef, turkey stuffing, dinner roll. 

3. Bow-tie Pasta with meat sauce, halved grapes and fruit smoothie. 

4. Mini pancakes, peanut butter, bananas, raisins, marshmallows, blueberries. 

 

5. Italian Chicken, corn, fettuccine noodles, cheddar biscuit.

6. Chicken and cheese quesadilla, guacamole, chicken rice and bananas.

7. English Muffin with strawberry cream ch., bananas, blueberries

8. Meatballs, butternut squash with cinnamon, and blueberries. 

9. Tortellini tossed with panko bread crumbs, hard boiled egg and kiwi.

10. Crockpot Italian Chicken, egg noodles, green beans and watermelon. 

 I hope this gives you all some fun ideas and that feeding time becomes a little more creative in your houses. Please comment and leave me your meal ideas too. I would love to add to our ever growing list of options. 

Wishing you a fabulous weekend. 

Happy Saturday! 

-Kelli

Gone Too Fast

I have so many Mom moments where I think to myself "Time is going by waaaaaay too fast!" It can be a good thing though, because those become the moments that get photographed the most and create the best memories. Those moments of stillness that are extremely rare with a 15 month old, become cherished. Lately Maggie has loved sitting in her rocking chair in her room flipping through books and looking out her window. Really though she just loves that she is big enough to climb up there all by herself. 

Then there are these moments, when they actually pretend to like each other outside of feeding time, when scraps are dropped to them from her highchair.  One day they will be best friends, that is if Maggie learns to stop poking their eyes out. 

The bad moments have to be documented as well, no matter how angry I was ten seconds before this picture was taken. I was cleaning our bathroom while Maggie was playing by the tub. I turned my back literally for 30 seconds and when I came back, she had gotten into a bottle of nail polish and attempted to paint pretties on her face. I knew something was up when I heard her going "mmmmmm" in the bathroom, and knew there was nothing edible in there. She knew she was in deep crap and refused to hold still for a picture. My Bathmat is now a piece of artwork with hot pink splatters on it, as are the pants she was wearing. 

We had a cousins birthday on Saturday. She wasn't sure what to think of all these hats on everyone's head. 

Friday we took her to the Zoo for the first time. She was just as thrilled to run wild as she was to see the wild. All of her stuffed animals came to life and she was so captivated. We wound up buying an annual pass so we will be going back often. 

Daddy's shoulders made an excellent means of transportation when her legs gave out. 

Somewhere buried at my parents are pictures of myself and all of my sisters drinking from this fountain. It's an absolute must have photo for all kids. 

What size Gorilla are you?!?!

The train was the coconut syrup to her Dr. Pepper! Heaven. She loved it and giggled the whole way. The giraffes were even kind enough to come out as we Choo-Chooed on by. She was so much fun to watch. 

We capped off our week of growing too fast by making a giant measuring chart. You've probably seen these floating around on Pinterest. They are a cinch to make. I purchased my already primed piece of MDF from Home Depot for about $7.00. I wanted something white rather than the stained wood. I just then just marked my tic marks with a yard stick and painted them on. I got my number stencils at Hobby Lobby. Seriously the whole project took maybe 2 hours. I love having it right in our Kitchen reminding us how quickly they grow and to make the best of each moment. 

I took the liberty of marking her 1 year old height...you know, for Good Measure ;)

This board will be so fun to look back at in twenty years and hopefully it will be filled with the markings of future littles, who I'm also sure will grow up way too fast. 

Happy Monday

XO-Kelli

Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head

It's a common known rule that when a July Thunderstorm hits...you dance in it. 

You take advantage of not having to water your plants. 

But most of all, you do the stinkbug walk!!!

And when that loud clap of thunder hits, you hightail it back into the garage and in the house as fast as you can. 

And finish watching the storm from inside. 

And when the Sun finally peeks through the clouds, you wish you were as smart as the neighbor kids and put on your swim suits to take advantage of the flooded storm drains. 

I have only seen this drain overflow flood one other time in the last five years. Usually it's completely dry, but today it was at least 5-6 feet deep. That's what a torrential downpour does on a July afternoon. 

With all these rain storms, we haven't been able to get outside much, so I decided to get a head start on some Christmas projects. We intend to get Maggie a play kitchen for Christmas, so I wanted to whip out an apron to go with it and use some of my scraps. 

Not to bad for having no pattern. I just used a small dessert plate to cut the curve in the body of the apron. 

Happy Tuesday

XO Kelli

Weekend Recap

Friday, Grant and I celebrated 6 years of Wedded Bliss (Universal Applause)....cause 6 years is BIG! 6 years of Happy and Still in Love is even BIGGER! Due to unfortunate circumstances on our One Year Anniversary (Grant deployed to Afghanistan the following day) we weren't able to celebrate as we had hoped. Our Air Conditioning was not working and we were dying to get out of our 90 degree house and our minds off of the year ahead. We pretty much decided to go out to eat at the next place we saw a  commercial for...It was Red Lobster. We decided then that we would make it our Traditional Anniversary Dinner and we would only be allowed to eat there on our Anniversary, and no other time during the year. So Friday we carried out Tradition and had us a night on the town. Okay we really just ate dinner and then went home, but we were still without the Wee Maggie so it counted. 

I of course had to rock my Anniversary Wardrobe. 

T-Shirt and Necklace: Here/ Diaper Bag/Purse: Here 

We tackled a project that has taken us, ahem...5 years to complete. We could never agree on how to landscape this side of our yard and we hummed and hawed over it every year trying to decide what would be best for it. Finally we both just agreed that we wanted it done and fast and with as minimal work as possible. So we finalized on this. 

This ham has been such a character the last few days. She has taken it upon herself to help me out each morning by removing her diaper and throwing it across the room. At what point it comes off I don't know, somewhere in the 20-30 minutes of deadly silence she gives after she wakes and we don't know it, but out of 5-6 times we have only had one accident. I'm hoping it's a sign of early potty training.  She also walks around the house now mimicking any sound she can with a gurgling growl. The toilet flushes....grohgaohlhs, the vacuum turns on...grarohaaouhs, dogs bark....ghrouahgoush, it's great fun. She popped her top right tooth through on Sunday. I only knew she was teething because she took a 4 hour nap, no swelling, no fever, no drooling baby. We really lucked out. Saturday she decided to chill on the couch and watch Clifford while drinking her milk. She never sits still like that so I had to document. 

After 14 months of making, buying and deciding, I finally today put the finishing touches on her room. I never really felt happy with the completed project when she was first born, so I have since been looking for just the right touches to finish decorating it. I will be posting a room tour and product list soon. 

Happy Hump Day!

XO: Kelli

Strawberry Days

One of my Favorite things about Summer in Utah is all of the City Festivals that happen, EVERY week. This weekend we celebrated Strawberry Days in our neighboring town of Pleasant Grove. Really though, who was the genius who decided to celebrate Strawberries?! It's tradition to end our evening with a little Strawberries n' cream for dessert and a walk through the carnival and craft fair. Maggie experienced the Carousel for the first time, and could not figure out if she loved it or hated it. She spent the entire ride doing this freaked out giggle. We had to go back a second day so Daddy could come and see her in action. By her second and third time around she had the hang of things and was blowing kisses to everyone....and then she came home and threw up ALL OVER THE FAMILY ROOM. Maybe the Carousel two days in a row after having a stomach bug all week wasn't such a good idea. 

I just had to document, not only my first selfie, but my little, tiny, post pardom, broken bangs/antlers have finally grown out enough that they can be flat ironed in with the rest of my bangs....Huzzah. It only took OVER A FREAKING YEAR to no longer look as though my antennae were trying to phone E.T. home. The things our bodies do for these little ones! (ignore the unmade bed). 

These guys are just as much our children as Maggie is, if not more since they have been with us for five times longer than Maggie has. They had their annual teeth cleanings on Saturday, literally took till 10:00pm for their anesthesia to completely wear off. They spend the afternoon walking into walls and barstools, tripping on stairs and being completely lazy. Maggie loved that they were too out of it to run away when she tried to "Snuggle them" - AKA- tried to shove her doll bottle up their noses.  

Sunday usually means lazy afternoons since we have church at 9:00am. We decided to try out our new mason jar mugs we found at Walmart with some green smoothie. For whatever reason she did not want to pick it up, so she sat on the kitchen floor and drank the entire cup. After every sip she would look up and go "mmmmmm", and then go back for more. I love her in all of her mismatched pajama glory. 

I have been getting the house all geared up for the 4th of July, and doing some minor accessory redecorating in the great room. Stay tuned for a little tour of my Patriotic decor, and my red, white and blue felt wreath. 

Until then, Here is a little sneak peak of my new decor.