i made baby food!

hello lovely people.

 i want to thank my 3 followers for wanting to keep track of my life and my postings. okay, one follower is my husband- but i didn't tell him he had to follow my blogging- he chose to all on his own. good choice M! ;)

today has been a good day! i finally made homemade baby food! i bought organic pink lady apples, for my pink pumpkin (mark's nickname for babygirl brooklyn) and some bananas. recipes for homemade baby food seem easy enough- but still daunting for some reason.. so it took me a couple days to get up the nerve to give it a shot. i used www.wholesomebabyfood.com  to make sure i was doing things right.

homemade applesauce:
wash & peel, then cut organic apples into slices or chunks. put into saucepan or pot and add enough water to just cover the apples. boil gently until apples are soft. *save the water for boiling apples* put apples into food processor or blender and process. add water from boiling to get mixture to a thin consistency. OR you can add breast milk to do the same job. cool the sauce before feeding baby! you can serve it warmed, but remember you just boiled it- so test it before giving it to baby.

YAY! you're done!! easy, right?

<-- here's a pic of my food processor... small but worked well for my small portions. filled 2 jars of bananas and a jar and an ice tray of applesauce...

i put one serving into a baby food jar that i saved from some of babygirl's organic veggies made by earth's best. the rest i froze. you can freeze the batch in ice cube trays- i used pink heart shaped ice trays i bought from Target's dollar aisle!

 

i also made homemade banana's for babygirl, which was even easier than the applesauce! because you don't cook the bananas at all....

bananas for baby:
cut bananas into slices or chunks. add to blender or food processor. blend until mush. and you're DONE! add water or breast milk to thin out. add cereal or yogurt to thicken up.

when saving bananas or apples, or any other fruit that turns brown with exposure to air- add a small amount of lemon juice (absorbic acid) to the mixture before storing.

i read up on the difference between absorbic & citric acid. seems that there is not much difference at all. absorbic acid seems to be more naturally occurring, where citric acid is often created instead of taken from nature. either one is fine and safe for babies, in small amounts. "they" say to wait on giving your young babies citrus fruits before age 1 because it may cause rash & digestive upset due to acidity. but that doesn't count for a dash or two of it to keep the fruit from turning brown.

alright- that's all the blogging i have time for today... i talked mark into watching babygirl for a couple hours so i could get this written and so i could work on some new jewelry pieces too!

i'm currently working on rachel's wedding jewelry- for her and the bridemaids, earrings for sims, and some new pieces for a home jewelry party jaq is hosting for P&Q at the end of the month. more about that later...


enjoy your weekend!!

Rachel's Green Bridal Shower

Hello. sorry i've been gone so long. it feels like ages since i've written on here. i've been a busy girl. i was 50% responsible for throwing my friend Rachel's Bridal Shower this past Valentine's Day. and had a couple of of hurdles to overcome.

For starters- the party was in Columbus, Ohio ( i live in Nashville, TN.) also, the best, and often the only way i could communicate with the other 50% of hostess (Stacey) was through emails. emailing can be tough because you have no verbal reference to how the words would be said by the author. sometimes you read it with inflections that don't really exist. sentences can get missed when reading quickly which can lead to confusion and frustration. once we spoke once on the phone- all those feelings where cleared up and happiness once again ruled the land. 

secondly- i have a 5 month old!! the week before i took the drive to Ohio, she decided to wake up EVERY HOUR through the night, for FOUR NIGHTS in a row!!! How How How could i plan out a 4 day trip, pack for myself, my babygirl and for the shower on NO solid sleep?!?

well, thank goodness i figured it out- i only forgot a couple of things, but nothing too dire or that couldn't be purchased at Target!

Rachel recently became a vegetarian so we decided on a Go Green theme for her bridal shower (oh yeah- and her main color for the wedding is lime green.) an all vegetarian menu was easy for a 2pm-4pm sunday afternoon shower. organic veggie plate served with hummus. garlic eggplant dip served with breads and crackers. organic fruit served with natural cheeses.  all served on recycled paper plates, of course.

 for decorations we kept it simple to not waste earth's resources. stacey (my partner in crime of hosting) bought teacups and mugs for the thrift store and potted small house plants in them. perfect for decoration and sweet as thank you gifts to all of our attendees.

we wanted fun games, and nothing too cheesey- so one of the games was "guess this herb." okay, so i forgot a couple herbs, so it became "guess this spice." HA! no one did very well at it, but it was fun and got people talking. one of the funny ones was celery flakes- found in stacy's cabinet- people were guessing everything on this one, from oregano to vanilla. very funny!

for game winners we gave reusable bags, grow your own herb kits and recycled paper notebooks. good for mother earth and fun truly usable stuff. i wanted some of those bags for myself but we had some ties between winners so i was left with nothing!! oh well, at least i know where they came from if i wanna buy them for myself..

so... that's some of where i've been. busy busy busy. i'm happy to announce that babygirl is sleeping much more again! only waking a couple times a night again. whew! she's working on popping out a tooth- so we'll see how long this sleep thing lasts. haha! she's sleeping now, which is how i've had time to actually sit down and think. and write. but i'm pretty much spent. so, see you next time. and thanks for reading.

<--babygirl passed out at the shower
xoxop

III

how is it that i have so much to say, so many things i could talk about in my life and my mind is a total blank? oh right- Mommy Brain!! having a baby changes your life in so many ways! some you can see coming, some just slap you in the back of the head without a word of warning. lovelovelove my life though, even on the cranky, Brooklyn won't nap, Leia won't stop barking days.

i wrote out half a blog yesterday- Brooklyn wouldn't nap so i never got to finish it- so this morning, that was the first item on my list. 
1. Finish Blog
2. Feed child
3. Feed self, and coffee! lots of coffee!


so i did finish it. maybe not exactly picking up where i left off- but i thought i closed it out rather well. kinda cutesy. i think it ended with something like- " so go have babies people!!"  it was funny, really! i guess you had to read it in context. oh, but you'll never be able to bc blogger lost it!! as i finished i hit Publish Post and the screen went blank and said some nonsense about not being able to find that page. ARG!

and now, babygirl is waking up and i'm going to have round this one up quickly or it may suffer the same fate! so, in closing...

*vote for "This Lovely City" under blog: Design Inspiration on "the Lovelies" click the link below...

Blog: Design Inspiration - This Lovely City

*vote for babybearshop.com on http://lovealocalbusiness.intuit.com/?b_id=12017&vtid=email_conf_sbo

*vote for Trent Hoffman as best hairstylist and vote for Nicole Simmons as sluttiest couple (seriously) at http://www.outlookcolumbus.com/win.html its the End All Be All Survey

and......
check out my jewelry at pandq.etsy.com

thanks! ttys

#2 (also known as Poop)

2nd Blog Ever

poop is a great word. have you really ever thought about it? my hunny and i use the word multiple times/hour. seriously! see, the way the game works is you use the word "poop" (or any word you may choose) to replace other words, or parts of words, that you use in any sentence. you want an example you say? well, for those of you in Nashville- Poops and i love to eat at Jim 'N Poops bc its right down the poop and they have a great queso dip. You don't live in Nashville (you should!) so you don't get it? how about one for my LA friends... i used to work at Poopstons on 2nd and Poopshire. okay- one for everyone.... Happy Poopday to yoooou. Happy Poopday toooooo you! Happy Pooooooopday dear so & so, Happyyyyyyyy Pooooooopday to Pooooooooooooop! ya get it? ya like it? yeah, me too. ahhhh, its the little things that make life great...

my little peanut is growing by leaps and bounds. physically she is bigger & longer, and mentally she is really starting to understand more about what is going on around her. trying hard to sit up, trying even harder to crawl, loving the new foods i am introducing to her! yesterday she drank from a water bottle which is the first time she's ever had water! she also held her own bottle while she ate. no biggie bc she's done that many times before- so as i'm sitting there with her, i'm watching tv as she eats and it took me a minute to realize what was happening.. she was not only holding the bottle on her own, but also manipulating it to her will. pulling the nipple in and out of her mouth! she'd pull the bottle away from her mouth, down to her belly even, and then lift it back up and find a way to get it back in her mouth! soooo amazing to watch a baby figure out that they have the power to accomplish what they want!

speaking of accomplishing what she wants... Brooklyn has been practicing noises and sounds on her daddy and me to see which ones get a reaction out of us. i try not to react too much to any of them- but the whine and the pout sometimes get me before i realize what's happening. its instinct to react to the sounds. a sad cry= what's wrong peanut? a whine= aww, did you drop your toy? to her though its all trial and error. she doesn't know which sounds have what result until I REACT to it!  although, sometimes it seems like she knows exactly what she's doing!

on a totally random note-- do you ever watch your local morning news?? when in LA i LOVED Good Day LA. i know, its pretty horrible! but lovelovelove Steve Edward, and loved having the train wreck on in the background just in case something silly happened. and something silly always happened! so... here in Nashtown we have TN Mornings! oh my, if you haven't watched you are missing out! there used to be a kinda creepy older guy on it, but he had to leave for some reason or another- and they brought on this younger dude to take his place. this new guy is still kindof a weirdo. i have them on in the background now as i type and i HAD to bring it up bc a few minutes ago they were showing who their dopplegangers would be for "doppleganger week" on facebook! how great is that! they let the fans (on fb) tell them who they looked like... for the girl they picked Jen Aniston (i would have said Christine Taylor) and for the weirdo new dude- Ryan Seacrest! haha! that works!

enjoy life, see ya soon!

My First Blog

Day One Blog

so let me start my first blog by telling you i am a SAHM (stay at home mom) where my life revolves around my child. this is NOT how it always was... i met my husband when i was 22 yrs old. we married 6 years later, which was necessary so we could get to know each other inside and out, know how to act and react with each other, & know for certain that we could make it together thru thick and thin. we were able to share our "going out" time together, so when we got to our "staying in" phase of life, we didn't feel like we were missing out on anything. as the saying goes "been there, done that." there's much more to our story, of course, but that's a good start to preface my first blog....

my husband and i went out 2 nights ago- the first night out with a teenage bbsitter at our home with our 5 month old babygirl, Brooklyn. what an amazingly strange feeling it was. from hearing other peoples stories about leaving their child for the first time, you think- that won't be me! i won't be crazed. i won't go through with the bbsitter, every last thing i can think of that my child likes, doesn't like, might like.. i won't feel the need to text/call/text/call again to make sure everything is okay at home. i won't cry on the way out for the night! *okay- for the record- i didn't do any of this!! but i can tell you the URGE to do these things was almost overwhelming!!! so scary! i mean- it's my child! i grew her! i pushed her out (30+ hours of labor! oh yeah. what tmi?) i spend night and day with Brooklyn, trying to figure out her every need... and now, i'm just supposed to hand her over to another person and say, here ya go- i'll be back around 10pm. it's crazy! but- I DID IT!! and let me tell you, it was aMazing! we went to see a great jam band at the Ryman. they put on a great show! ahhhh, to be out in the "real world" again. without a diaper bag stuffed full of everything! without spit up on my shirt! without the worry of a poopy diaper.

so, it was here, my night in the world outside of my living room , that i had the idea to start a blog. bc i was having all these new feelings and thoughts- new to me, not new to the universe- and i needed some way to express it all. i used to fancy myself a writer. in high school and beyond i would write to get my feelings out from deep within. i would write to figure out my next step in life. but its been years since i've written for or about myself. now, after all this time, it feels so good...

so, here it is, my FIRST BLOG! hope you enjoyed it. i hope for many more to come.