Mmmm, mac and cheese...

Just a few pics of my little love from lunch today...she couldn't get enough of her mac and cheese!  Annie's organic of course- wink ;)

the toof!  praying the second top one comes in soon!!

love those baby blues...

'Naners...

We tried bananas this morning!  I thought they'd be a sure thing, but missy wasn't sold.  By her facial expressions, you'd think I had spiked the banana with lemon juice... but this was straight banana, freshly peeled and pureed!


**Not sure how to change the landscape of the video, so for now it's sideways...sorry!  If anyone knows how to fix it, please let me know!

Sweet Potatoes...

I decided to continue my "make your own baby food" journey over the weekend and hit the farmer's market on Saturday to see what organic options I could find.  I had never been to the Willow Glen farmer's market before...eh, it was so so.  After experiencing Campbell's market, it's hard to compare.  Sure, Campbell is SUPER crowded (almost impossible with a stroller; never doing that again!), but the quantity to choose from cannot be beat.  I did find some sweet potatoes and carrots, two of the staples on my list.  So after farmer's market, I decided to make them both.  

We got pretty excited and decided to go ahead and give Maya her first taste of sweet potato Saturday afternoon.  You're supposed to follow a 4 day wait rule in order to check for any reactions due to food sensitivities or allergies, so Maya will be having only sweet potatoes through Tuesday.  Then she'll be introduced to the wonderful world of the banana on Wednesday :)

Here are a couple pics from Saturday and Sunday's tastings...

First taste...

eh, not too excited

Much more fun to play with the bowl...

Messy face...

Then things took a turn for the worse...

They say you shouldn't try solids when your child is super hungry because they'll just get frustrated.  And as I experienced, you shouldn't try solids too close to nap time either...noted.

Hopefully things will only get better from here!

Homemade Baby Food...

I made my first homemade baby food today!  Any guesses what it is??  

Per the suggestion of a few friends after reading my cobbler post, I agreed that making baby food was a great way to use up some of our peaches.  It was really pretty easy and I got everything done, from picking to freezing, all while little miss was napping.  

For anyone interested, here's what I did...
1- Peel, pit and dice peaches
2- Steam for 5-10 min or until soft
3- Puree with a little water from cooking (I used my Cuisinart mini prep plus...love this thing!)
4- Strain with mesh colander and spatula
5- Poor into ice cube trays, wait till cool and then pop in freezer

Once they are frozen, I think I'll pop them out of the trays and put them in some freezer bags so I can label them and use the trays for another food.
Less than 2 weeks until Maya's 6 months!  Then I can finally see what she thinks of solids...can't wait! :)

mmm, spaghetti....

Brad and I often put Maya in her little seat (which she is clearly outgrowing) on the table when we go to eat dinner.  She normally just sits back and hangs out with whatever toy we put in her lap while we eat.  Tonight we put her on the table and we're grabbing drinks from the kitchen.  When we turned back around we saw this...

Not only was she sitting up in her seat, she was reaching for my pasta!  

CAUGHT!

She may look like her daddy, but let's not forget...she's an Italian girl!  

Boring...I mean, Yummy cereal!

Maya had her first rice cereal yesterday.  I haven't been in too big of a rush to start any solids, but with sleep training behind us (for the most part) and only a couple weeks to the 6 month mark (my goodness!), we decided to go for it.  

Maya was pretty indifferent to her first "solid" food which made the whole even pretty anti-climatic.  Of course, I still took a hundred pictures anyways...here are a few...

what's this dad?....

mom, what did dad just give me?  i thought i could trust this guy... 

i'm not so sure about this stuff...

...at least i get to play with the bowl!

Bananas are next week...stay tuned!

Solids or Sleep?

At Maya's four month appointment, we were given the green light to start solids and to do some sleep training as well.  A good friend of mine suggested not doing both at the same time...too many new things at once would overwhelm little missy.  It wasn't too difficult trying to decide between the two.  Not only would her little digestive system be more ready the longer we waited to start solids, but getting her to be able to fall asleep on her own seemed just slightly more important ;) 

Though it hasn't been easy, I'd say sleep training has been a huge success!  We read a book called "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child", and based on the type of baby Maya is, we decided the Cry It Out approach was the way to go.  Not everyone believes in it or can handle hearing their child cry and not respond.  Like I said, it's not easy, but knowing my child is now getting the sleep she needs and not waking up every 1.5-2 hours (yep, no kidding!) like she used to, it was well worth it.  Maya is now falling asleep between 7:30 and 8pm and wakes around 3 or 4am for a feeding.  Then it's back to sleep until she wakes for the day anywhere between 6 and 6:30am.  A few times she has skipped the feeding entirely and sleeps all the way till morning.  We love those times, but don't count on them.  We are ALL sleeping better and Maya seems much happier and well rested! 

Happy and well rested Maya

I find it pretty interesting to see in what position she falls asleep.  Before sleep training, I would lay her down very neatly with her arms at her side.  I love that she chooses to sleep like this instead...

...very lady like.  

Now we just need to tackle naps...that's a whole other debacle.  

So next up is solids!  I'm pretty excited to start them and can't wait to see how Maya reacts.  I've been reading "Super Baby Food" which was suggested by the pediatrician.   We already bought the rice cereal and I'm planning on prepping some bananas, avocado and sweet potato sometime very soon as Maya's first foods.  I'll be sure to post pics when the feeding fun begins!  

I decided to give our high chair a test run today.  It was the first time I put Maya in it...she looks like such a big girl!