Glorious Food

You be the judge of how the sweet potatoes went over. First, here's my sweet potatoes thinned and getting heated up.Now what?
That wasn't rice cereal!

What's that you say? I have it all over my face?
I'll just wipe it off then.
Mmm...this bib is delicious. I think I'll suck on it for a while!
Yes, I ate all of it. Do you have a problem with that? Let me continue to clean off my bib please.
After I ate, Mommy put me in my exersaucer. This is one of the few pictures where I look like her (at least my mouth does).

I enjoy my exersaucer.
It's the perfect size for me. I don't even need a math book to stand on!
The inevitable happened after about 15 minutes of exercising. I felt so good afterwards.
And here's a bonus picture of my kissable thighs.
So far today is going like clock work. I eat, play, then take a nap. Mommy is so happy that I liked the food she made especially for me.

FOOD!

Mommy is going to give me sweet potatoes for the first time today! She'll try to take some pictures during the process, but it will be tricky since I'm a messy eater. I "help" Mommy by rubbing my mouth clean.

Mommy is going to try to make as much of my food at home as possible since she isn't working. For $4 she made a few dozen cubes of sweet potatoes and one cube is a serving. Plus, it doesn't have all that added gunk. Mommy might get a little crunchy now that she has me. She documented her first foray into baby food making.

First she baked the potatoes in the oven for about 45 minutes at 400 degrees. She just cleaned the taters and poked holes in them with a fork in preparation.


Next, she cut the taters in half, scooped out the good stuff, pureed it in the blender, and then poured it into ice cube trays. She covered the trays with foil and let the cubes freeze. She learned that she can't use the blender around me because it's super scary sounding!!!!


Once the cubes were frozen, she broke them out of the trays and put them into freezer bags. She put the freezer bags into the deep freeze.


The day before I'm going to eat, she just removes a cube or two from the bag and allows it to thaw in a container in the fridge. Directly before I eat, she mixes in some expressed breast milk to thin the food to the correct consistency and puts the container into a bowl of warm water to take off the chill. This is the milk Mommy made this morning from just one side so obviously she doesn't have to pump every day in order to make enough milk to thin my food. Go Mommy! She's VERY lucky that her body produces so much. And they thought she might need to supplement with formula early on...
My favorite food is still straight milk though. Here's a picture of me doing my favorite thing back in February. Mommy edited the picture a little, but you get the idea.


If you'd like to learn more about making your own baby food at home, then check out this link: http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/ It isn't for everyone, but it's an option!

I Heart The Buddy

Euclid is my snuggle partner. He also makes me laugh. Mommy has been teaching me how to pet The Buddy. I love my doggy brother! This picture was taken on Mother's Day. Mommy was snuggling me also.

Happy Mother's Day!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Mother's Day! I'm going to give my mommy lots of snuggling and kisses today. Daddy got Mommy a blue topaz necklace (my birthstone) and made her a yummy breakfast.
I had a fun experience yesterday. Mommy and Daddy filmed and took pictures.

Where's my toy? What's going on?
Mommy is always taunting me when I sit in this chair so I'm just going to ignore her.
Wow! That was delicious! Give me more.
This is the best thing since breast milk!Daddy gets in on the action. Mommy was so excited that she covered part of the camera lens. Hehehe...Daddy is very good at cleaning up the mess.
Rice cereal induced coma. Check out my full belly!We also went to a party yesterday. UIHC was celebrating 20 years of IVF and all of the families were invited to listen to music, get tours of the new facilities, eat food, play, and talk. It was so fun to see hundreds of miracle babies and children!

Roly Poly

I love to roll. I showed Daddy how I do it last night. He was impressed. This morning I rolled from my back to my tummy when I was playing in my play gym. I got so comfortable that I took a two hour nap. Generally I'm a very good night sleeper and an awful napper so Mommy was happy for me. She took a picture (of course).I kept Mommy company while she ate lunch. I have my own chair now. She keeps taunting me with food. The other day it was cheese puffs. Now she's trying to feed me plastic!
This isn't food! I'm so confused...
I'm in such a good mood. I love to play with my feet. Daddy says I'm not very ladylike.

Pictures Galore

Mommy took me to visit lots of family from Sunday until yesterday. We had a good time even though I didn't sleep very well. Mommy has been spoiled by my usual 10+ hours of sleep (yes, straight through). She had to get up with me around 2 or 3 am both nights and I didn't feel like going back to bed. I got all the snuggling I wanted.

I was excited to get going. However, I slept the entire 2.5 hour drive. I had to save up some energy for visiting family. I experimented with finger foods on Sunday afternoon. Anya's fingers were delicious!
Yummy...2nd graders are tasty!
Milo gave me lots of attention too. He's excited about his little brother that is due to arrive very soon. He's going to be a great big brother.

Aunt Emily has a convenient shelf. I kept kicking it, but it never kicked me back. That would have felt funny. Doesn't she look beautiful?Aunt Claudia wore me. I felt very safe and secure since she's so strong. She's been working out. Macy liked to make me smile. She kept saying happy and it was funny.I got to see Great Grandma W on her 89th birthday. Doesn't she look great?I went to see Daddy's parents before we left. I love their sun porch since I love the outdoors. I was in a great mood on Tuesday and full of smiles.Mommy decided it would be okay to start me on solids. Grandpa was a little confused about which foods would be most appropriate to begin with. They didn't let me take a bite. Shucks!I chilled out while the grown ups ate lunch. Mr. Duck and Super Star kept me company. I laid on one of Daddy's baby blankets. Check out my legs. Can you tell I've been working out?After lunch I had my first piano lesson.I was pretty good for a 4 month old. Daddy will make sure I take piano lessons once I'm big enough.Daddy was so happy to see us when we got home. I smiled at him and he took me out of the car seat only to get a big surprise. POOP! EVERYWHERE! He got it on his arm and it was all over me and the car seat. Mommy and Daddy had lots of cleaning to do after that. Hehehehe...

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Here are some bonus pictures taken by miscellaneous people at miscellaneous times. Mommy got some of them from Grandpa H's camera and some from "Uncle" Diego.

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Diego took this one and played around with the colors.

Milo gives the best kisses. I can't get enough!Daddy took this picture with Grandpa H's new digital SLR. Mommy is jealous.Can you guess where I am in this picture?This is a fantastic picture of me with Great Grandma H. She came to visit a couple of weeks ago.What are you looking at?I can blow bubbles.