Baby Led Weaning?

My baby boy is ten months old today! I cannot believe how fast time is flying. Those of you with children already obviously know what I am talking about. It is bitter sweet for me. In one way I miss my snuggle bug of an infant, but in another way I am glad to be seeing all the new things my little one is learning, and how is he is growing and developing. I just spoke with my pediatrician about feedings specifically. We are at the point where my son gets SO mad if my husband and I are eating and he is not. Even if I feed him at the same time we are eating, he wants what we have..not the baby food. For the last month I have been letting him try things like scrambled eggs, mixed vegetables (chopped not pureed) whole grain pasta and cheese. He seems to enjoy feeding himself. He LOVES the eggs, the other foods he isn't sure about but I continue to offer him. I also still breast feed but that is dwindling down as well. He only nurses a few times a day now, and not for long when he does it. While talking to the doctor about it, they told he it was perfectly fine to begin the transition to whole milk. I am very excited about this. When we are outside of the home I do not even put him on the breast. He just sips water through out the day. I will breast feed before we leave or once we get home. It will be so nice to just give him a bottle of milk instead, and we can do that while we are out and about. Don't get me wrong, I am certainly grateful for being able to breast feed for as long as I have, but I will also admit that I am ready to be done. So I am printing out some organic milk coupons and adding it to my list!

As far as this "baby led weaning". It is basically giving baby anything we eat, just in smaller portions. He has tried most fruits and veggies with no problems already. We were at a pig roast this weekend and my husband was giving him little bits of pork to try and of course he loved it. This baby is definitely his fathers son! Anyways, I guess this is more of an update as to whats new in my world. If anyone reads this and has any good recipe ideas for little ones please feel free to share! Pictured here is my boy chomping down on whole wheat toast and mashed avacado:)

Newest Adventure in "Oil Pulling"

(Image from http://mystaranise.files.wordpress.com)

Happy Tuesday! I am sure many of you have heard of this new, but not so new technique of oil pulling using coconut oil. I actually first learned of it on pinterest. Pins were popping up all over the natural living boards. Then recently my girl Lauren Conrad (I just love her) posted a piece on her website about it. So, last night I gave it a go. What exactly is Oil Pulling? Well I shall explain in a simple form, and then share with you Laurens post.

It is suggested that you drink a tall glass of water first. After you drink that, take a tablespoon of coconut oil (or you can substitute sesame oil...I however do not care for that taste) and swish it around in your mouth like you would mouthwash for 5-20 minutes. I think I did about 15. The longer the better. My coconut oil was in solid form, so it was kind of an odd feeling when it turned to oil. I did this in the shower so that I could distract myself from it by washing my hair etc...20 minutes is a long time to swish! Once my shower was over I spit the oil into the trash bucket. It is suggested not to spit down a drain because of the solidifying. After I spit, I brushed my teeth and actually felt a little fresh in the mouth haha. With a hint of coconut.

Why Oil Pull? It is said that this is a great way to naturally detox your mouth. It is supposed to draw bacteria from your mouth and teeth, which is why you need to try not to swallow it. You don't want all that nastiness back in your body. On Lauren's site she mentions trying it for two weeks. She noticed fresher breath, whiter teeth, and she even says her skin seemed better. No blemishes or acne. I am going to give myself the same time frame to start with. Two weeks and we will see if I notice the same things.

Here is the link to Lauren's post about it.

 http://laurenconrad.com/blog/2014/05/healthy-habits-what-is-oil-pulling/

Read her post and check my pinterest page (or any page) for more information on this!

xo

Recipe Post...Toddler Teething Cookies

Good Thursday morning! Another gloomy day pouring in over my little town today. Yesterday was nice, my very good friend and also new mama and I took our babes on a hike through the woods. It was a lot of fun and a good workout. I am embarrassed to say I do not do much exercise at the moment, and my butt was sore this morning! That is something I need to get going on soon. Back to the gym I need to go!

Anyways, I wanted to share a recipe I found on Pinterest for making your own teething cookies. Obviously you can all search for your own recipes, but I figured at least I could share and review the one I tried. Click here for the link to the recipe.

 

Now for my son who at almost 10 months STILL has no teeth, these cookies probably weren't the best idea. Once they cool, they harden up and it was hard for him to eat. Maybe I am just a nervous mom and was afraid he would choke if he broke off big pieces. He enjoyed the taste, I ended up just breaking the cookies into smaller bits for him. I confess to eating a few of these myself. They tasted ok, but I couldn't really taste the banana. I think if i were to make them again, I would add a more ripe banana and maybe some vanilla. I also only had white (un bleached) flour at home, the recipe calls for whole wheat which is what I actually always buy. Of course when I need it I don't have it.

I think for a child with teeth these cookies would be a great idea. There are so many more recipes you can try. I simply picked one and gave it a shot:)

Hope everyone is having a great week. I have to go fill out my Moms Meet Feedback Survey about the Beech Nut baby foods now:) Baby LOVED every flavor!!!

xo

#sproutsweetie!

My little man was picked as the Sprout Sweetie for the month of May!!! I'm so excited! I cannot remember the last time we won anything in this house. So baby boy will get a prize pack with his favorite flavors of food, as well as be on the time line cover for Sprout Babyfood the entire month of May:) Thanks so much to Sprout for picking my little darling!

Green Moms Meet Samples

So I am very excited for two reasons! I got picked to be a mom ambassador for Green Moms Meet which means I can be invited to do many more product samings and reviews as they come up:) Wahoo!

I also recieved my kit today which consisted of twenty jars of baby food. Five jars of four different flavors. They are : Just Honeycrisp Apple, Just Apple and Aronia Berry, Just Pears and Black Cherry and Just Pineapple, Pears and Avacado. They look and smell delicious!! 

Once I get together with my other mama friend we will have a tasting! I will update with more info soon.:)

Xo

Green Moms Meet/Picked to Sample!

Good afternoon! This weekend was pretty busy at our house. We actually had a day of nice weather so the hubs and I spent a lot of time outside cleaning things up a bit. Cleaned out and vacuumed the car, raked a little, potted some flowers, etc...Just hope Mother Nature decides to make it a regular thing soon. I must sound like I complain a lot about the weather, but I feel like Spring and Summer fly by where the Winter lasts so long. Yes technically this is Spring...but It doesn't feel like it when every other day is cloudy and rainy.

Anyways, I wanted to share something I am excited about, that I got picked to do via Green Moms Meet. First of all, if you do not know what GMM is, I suggest heading over to their website and looking around. If you are into the "all natural/organic" lifestyle like I am, or are just interested in that kind of thing, this is a great website. It is basically a community of moms coming together online and discussing all sorts of topics from healthy eating, to DIY, gardening, parenting etc. One of the neat things (that I'm about to talk about) is that you can apply to become a "Mom Ambassador" When you become a mom ambassador, you can be invited to sample a variety of healthy products. The folks at GMM send out invitations via email when a new product is up for sampling. Not every one gets picked for each product, and you do not have to do it if you do not want to. I recently got picked to try Beech Nuts new whole fruit and vegetable baby foods!

(photo used from greenmomsmeet site)

It is sort of similar to the Happy Baby party that I held through Seventh Generation. It will come with a variety of foods, and I along with a few mom friends will try it with our little ones and give feedback to Green Moms Meet. This is my first time doing this through this website but I am excited. I saw that on their Facebook page they hold "meetings" about products. You sign into Facebook at a specific time and moms who sampled the same things can post questions and feedback and have conversations about it. You also take a couple photos and send them over so that the people running the groups can see what your taste testing looked like. The ingredients in these new foods sound wonderful. Nothing but 100% whole fruits and vegetables. That is what we want to feed our children! It does not say its Organic...which I prefer, but if it is indeed made up of what they say, then I'm sure it is perfectly fine. I cannot wait to try.

So once my kit arrives, I will share more details about what was included and how we did our tasting. Like I said, I am new to this one, so please...go to their website and browse if you have time. Then check out their Facebook page.

I hear a my baby waking up from nap, so I have to cute this short. Go take a peek!!!

xo

Fresh Eggs Soon!

Well, I finally did it! I posted about a month ago that the hubs and I were going to be getting chickens again this Spring, and after a 2 yr hiatus we have them! It was more me than the hubs however. Now that he is back to full time construction his motivation to do anything around the house is slim. I basically have to make things happen or they wont. We kept talking about the darling birds, we need fencing, to clean out the coop, etc... all excuses as to why we couldn't actually GET the chickens yet. Well I decided that if maybe I got the chickens first then we would HAVE to take care of the other stuff! Luckily we had everything from our last flock of hens. The only thing I had to purchase was the food. Here are our new baby girls!

There are six, and three are Americana and three are some type of Red. ( I missed what the guy who sold them said) Americana will lay colored eggs...so cool I cant wait to see. The Reds will lay nice brown eggs. This makes so much sense because the amount of eggs that my husband alone eats, is amazing. I buy a dozen Organic eggs (roughly 4-5$ a doz.) and they will be gone in a week! I love eggs also, but I tend not to eat as much because I want there to be enough for the hubs! Once these ladies start laying...we should see six eggs a day. It will be so nice not having to buy them anymore.

Anyone else have chickens? What types of things other than grains do you feed them? Fruit/Veg scraps? Any information on these little ones, Id love to hear it!

Have a great weekend!!

xo