good eats

today i took a few hours and made some baby food for Brenna. I had made most of Garret and Raelyns food too. For convenience i always had a few jars in the cabinet if we were going to eat out or whatever. It isnt hard, just takes some time. Usually I make a bunch all at the same time and then dont have to do it for awhile because i can freeze it. When i was making food for Rae i found a great little book called "Top 100 Baby Purees. 100 Quick and Easy Meals for a Healthy and Happy Baby" by Annabel Karmel. I love this book because it gives me ideas i never would have thought of for baby and toddler food. It also has great pictures. There are a couple of reasons i decided to make the kids baby food. Making your own baby food is not only more economical but also assures me that my kids are eating foods made from fresh, top-quality ingredients. Here is a quote from the book... "take one of those jars and look carefully at the expiration date. The substance inside has been designed to last two years past the date of purchase. That's not exactly the fresh food that you intended to feed your baby. But that's not the worst of it. At their best, commercial baby foods are bland and tasteless. How can children develop any sense of taste if they start out with foods that don't have any?" I am not one of those moms that goes crazy about this, i just feel like if i can make the time to do i would like to do it. Like i said before i always have an assortment of commercial baby food in the cabinet for convenience some times.

When i first started out, i had no idea how to make it or where to start. So i thought i would go through the process of making apples for any one who is interested in trying this out too.
First I have to recommend my peeler, corer and slicer. It is the best invention in the world! you can use it for apples, pears, potatoes and probably other things too. all you do it stick the apple on the the end, spin the handle around and around and it peels, cores and slices the apple all at once. this makes the process SO much faster and creates such thin pieces it helps the apples to cook much faster.

To make about two ice cube trays (this is how i freeze the baby food) full of apples i use 6 medium sized apples.

1. peel, core and slice about 6 apples
2. put the fruit into a saucepan and add about a cup of water.... i never measure so sorry this isnt exact.
3. cover and cook over low heat until fruit is tender.
4. place in blender with some of the water that the fruit was cooked in and puree. add small amounts of extra juice at a time until you get it to the right consistency.
5. pour into ice cube trays and place in freezer.
6. once frozen label a freezer storage bag with contents and date and store in freezer.








Pretty simple, and like i said earlier i usually take a few hours and just make a bunch of things all at the same time. Today i made a tray of regular apples, a tray of cinnamon apples, a tray of sweet potatoes and a tray of sweet potatoes and broccoli mix. This will be enough food for brenna for about a 3 weeks to a month. right now she is only eating about one cube and cereal at lunch time and two cubes and cereal at dinner time. as she like to eat more we will start giving her more of the fruits and veggies.

Yummy Yum!

sweet leah

yeah, i finally have my header up that i created. i needed some help though and sweet leah was the one! so thank you leah for taking the time to help me out. love ya.

still learning

ok so i am still learning all the stuff and it is making me feel old that i am not catching on that quick. So here are a few more pics. These are of one of the sewing projects my mom and i did this past weekend. We made the bedding for my sister -in -law katies cradle. They are expecting their first girl the end of may and we are all really excited for them. They have two boys already and she wanted something a little more girly this time around. it was fun working with mom on this project. We also finished a t-shirt quilt for kay that was full of Long View Ranch shirts but i didnt take any pictures of it. oops. maybe once it is hung i can get a pic of it.



this is just a little shot of my garden that i am working on. we covered all the plants with plastic when the frost came and it seems like they all did ok.

Pictures

Here are a few more pics of Brenna...

Brenna loves her carrots!

Our beautiful cherry tree

6 months old!

So I am realizing that my blog is very boring because i have not posted any pictures. This is a picture of beautiful baby Brenna who turned 6 months old yesterday. I cant believe how fast the time flies. we have said that with all the kids so far but with the thrid now it seems to go by even faster. We cant believe it but we have almost been in our house now for a year too. Well Brenna is doing great. She is such a wonderful baby and is such a blessing to our family. She is always happy and so easy to care for. She just goes with the flow. We thank the Lord for her everyday.

Yesterday we also found out that all the kids have strep throat! it shocked me. i thought maybe they had colds or allergies, i was not expecting strep. none of them ran a fever, but they all had runny noses. no one even complained of a sore throat. well they are all on antibiotics now so we should be good here in the next couple of days. Other than that we had a good day yesterday.

Nice Visit

Well first i want to say that the flowers in the back yard made it through the frost. i am so glad. it would have made me very sad if i had lost them all.

Well this weekend my parents and little sister were in town. They came up beacuse my dad is on the board of directors for our camp. Mom and Mack got to come too. i think this is the first time since brenna has been born that my mom has been here and i felt good. she has come up a few other times after brenna was born but it was a call for help that got her hear b/c i was sick and needed help with the kids. but this weekend was really nice. i got to take her to the consignment shop that i had been wanting to for a long time. we did a bunch of sewing projects which is always fun and i know she enjoys that too. mackenzie was a great help with garret and raelyn. they all get along really well for most part. so it was a good weekend.

Cold AGAIN! ? !

i have to say i am pretty bummed that it is cold again this morning and might possibly snow tomorrow! i have enjoyed the warmer weather and not running our air or heat. i have also enjoyed planting a bunch of little flowers all over our big flower bed in our back yard. dave brought me home some plastic so we can cover them up tonight and make sure that that frost doesnt get them. i guess i was to anxious for SPRING! growing up in florida we never really had a winter so it is hard to get used to the winters now up here. everyone tells me that the winters here are so mild. thank goodness we arent running a camp in WI or something. well i will let you know how the flowers fair the cold night tonight. hopefuly everything will look good enough for some pictures.

spring cleaning

so today dave took garret to work with him. they worked at the camp all day getting ready for a group that arrived tonight. with one less child in the house i guess i got an energy spurt and went crazy with the cleaning. I mean i got on my hands and knees and cleaned corners and then reached up high and got the cob webs off the celing. the house feels so much cleaner. i scrubbed raelyn booster seat, cleaned fan blades, washed windows.... i got a lot done. i probably should do all that a lot more often than once or twice a year, but hey at least it is once or twice right? well although i am tired i feel like i was successful and got something accomplished today. often i feel like i am just trying to keep my head above water, forget trying to get something done. hopefuly i can keep it picked up now for at least a few days :)