Sweet Potatoes

After a friend mentioned on her blog a new baby food website she'd discovered, I started pouring over the new recipes there. I found a recipe for "Sweet Toes". Here's a link to the site, Nurture Baby.

First I baked the sweet potatoes, with skin on....

The peels came off very easily. I cut them in chunks and pureed them with water and a teensy bit of cinnamon...

Then I plopped it in ice cube trays. I ended up with three trays full from nine medium sweet potatoes. James eats just one cube (watered down) a day. I figured it comes out to be $0.04 or $0.05 a cube!

And the verdict is...he likes it! He was doing a little sweet potato dance in between bites, because he wanted more! I really enjoyed the prep ahead and freeze method!

Fun Weekend

James with Great-Grandma

Sitting on his own for a few moments at a time...he loves being outside!

My brother Joel was home for a visit with his wife Elizabeth

Reading (a spice catalog) with Grandpa

Trying to figure out how to talk...

Aunt Elizabeth and Duncan....James was fascinated by the puppy! He even stuck out his little tongue just like Duncan.

3 Days, 6 Months, and 2 Years

THREE days of eating avocados and he's acquired the taste! He has been loving them since Tuesday! I think my friends "Correnta" and Kami were right when they commented that it could be a 'texture' thing. I thinned it way down with watery rice cereal the last two days and he gobbled it up. Here he is licking the spoon! I'm not sure how much I should be letting him attempt self-feeding. I'm sort of a neat-freak about James and need to let it go, I guess. I know he wants to dive into the bowl so badly, but I don't let him touch it and only let him have the spoon at the end of the meal.

SIX months ago today I was in labor...and James was born at 4:57pm. What a fun six months it has been! He's acquiring more and more personality (accompanied by a few more tantrums than he had just a few weeks ago) and it's just been too fun to see him discover new things all the time. We love being parents! No teeth yet, but we wonder if he might be teething...

TWO years (and two days) ago Mark and I were married! Some of you probably think--whoa, two years and already a baby? We've packed in, seemingly, a lot in two years, but I wouldn't change a thing. I love Mark so much and adore being his wife. He's a GREAT husband and father and makes it seem so easy!! These are the flowers he brought me Tuesday. Tulips and Iris! Aren't they beautiful? I've decided I don't really have a favorite flower but enjoy them all! We celebrated over the weekend when Andrea babysat (James was an angel for her--a 'first' for babysitters) and we went to dinner and a movie.

One of those self-taken, to-close-to-the-flash photos, quickly snapped right before James spit up all over himself and Mark.

Avocados...What do you think?

It's week two in feeding James solids. Over the weekend, I read my friend's post about freezing avocado slices and got pretty excited about it. I picked up two avocados at the grocery store and mashed up a slice for James' lunch, freezing the rest of the slices, after 'bathing' them in limewater. I'm just not sure what to do. James had tasted avocado before and seemed to love it. Today he liked the first bite, but then acted grossed out for the rest of the meal (his slices today had not been in the limewater). Watch the video below and let me know what you think in the 'comment' section. Should I stick with it? Would it help if I mixed it with another pureed food? I had thinned it out with some watery rice cereal, which he does like. I guess it's probably a good thing to try it a few days in a row. Maybe he was just too used to the cereal?

Almost six months...

Sitting up on his own...only for a few seconds at a time.
Whee!! Eating cereal is funny!

"photo shoot" on our new floor

James started "talking" and babbling away like this a few days ago. We never know when he's going to start in...but love it when he does!

Food!!

On Sunday afternoon James had his first taste of baby rice cereal. You'll hear my mom in the background, as she and my brother Jeff were over. He had quite the audience. Since then I've fed him cereal every afternoon...and he LOVES it! I think there's hardly anything cuter than the bits of mush all over his tiny face. Next week I think we may try avocado or sweet potatoes.

What we've been up to lately...