New steam pot and finger foods for baby

This mama has not made purées in while! I now just steam or cook all his food and let him feed himself. I still give baby cereal a couple times but it has reduced a lot!

I'm always searching these days for good finger food ideas for baby. He is 10 months old and has tried a wide range of foods! Our doctor gave us the ok months ago to try everything! (so always check with your doctor and you know too what your little one is ready for)

Here are some finger food ideas I have. Share yours with me too!

Steamed veggies!
Our favorites are broccoli, butternut squash, sweet potato, zucchini, carrots, peas, parsnips all steamed and cut into small pieces that he can grab.

Fruit, soft and cut into small pieces, favorites here avocado, banana, strawberries (pretty ripe and soft) mango, apricots. Steamed apples and pears (I make them pretty soft)

Egg yolks! Baby loves these. I boil them and cut them up and he loves it.

Black beans and chickpeas! I heat them up to soften them and serve. I cut chickpeas in smaller pieces.

Always watch your little one when they eat. ;) my little guy likes to stuff his mouth really quick! The other morning he was saving watermelon pieces in his cheeks!

I also give pieces of toast with cream cheese.

Cooked pasta cut up drizzled with olive oil.

Pieces of cheddar cheese cut up small.

All meats cut up in small pieces too!

A friend suggested to roll softer foods in Parmesan cheese or baby cereal for easier pickup for the slippery type foods. I'll try that one day too!

Some quick dry snack foods I give that are good for self feeding are the baby mum mum's and gerber puffs and cheese straws (not as meals).

What finger foods do your little ones love!?

First day of school, daycare or work

I live across the street from an elementary school. This morning I watched as all the parents dropped off or walked their kids to school. My street was busy with cars and kids. Everyone looking sharp in their new first day of school clothes, adorable!

Of course this is a reminder to me that I'll be starting work in a month. My little one starting daycare in 3 weeks and 5 days!

We are not ready!!! I am not ready!!

We are not even close to weaning!

Teething had my little guy grumpy all weekend. Not looking forward to zombiemom work days.

I have soo many concerns about daycare. How will they put him to nap? Will they give him cuddles and follow the steps I take to put him to nap? Will they give him the attention he needs. Will he miss me being away from me for almost 10 hours a day!
All first time mom worries, I'm sure. I know he will be fine and love being with the other kids. But it's sooo hard!

I truly never thought it would be this hard. Before I had Kris I was very open to sending him to daycare and looked up all the positives and now we are approaching the time and I only want to be the one taking care of him. I love being with him everyday!

I'm not ready for back to work either! My mind is not in work mode at all. All I want to think about is my sweet baby boy! I'm worried about work life balance, can I handle it? I'll have no choice! Ha! But I hope that in the busy days I always put baby K first! Having less time to play with him and watch him develop has mommy guilt already creeping in!

I know many parents are happy, excited along with worried and concerned about sending their little ones off to school today. Especially the first time preschoolers or kindergarteners. Sending positive thoughts all your way!

Baby K is 10 months old!

Baby Kristian you are 10 MONTHS!!!! I can hardly believe it! The days are flying by!

What are you up to?

You LOVE LOVE LOVE to feed yourself! You are unstoppable! I need to give you a little bit at a time because you keep filling up your little mouth full of food!

You are eating pretty much everything these days. I am giving you less and less puree's. I just cut up little pieces of foods either fresh, cooked or steamed. You are also eating our dinners along with us!

This week you are loving peas, black beans, broccoli, cheddar cheese and watermelon! 
 
Last month I was worried you were on the thin side... but that is changing this month with you gobbling up all your meals yourself!. You gained a full pound! Yay!

You weigh 17lbs

Still in size 3-4 diapers, 9 month clothes and still some 6 month clothes.

We are in the process of weaning you... you breastfeed about 6 times a day. Our goal is to daytime wean you as you start daycare full time in 4 weeks and 4 days!!!!!! I'm CRYING! You love to nurse and ask for it now too! You will throw your pacifier and tug at my shirt and say mommaa!

You are learning new things every day! You observe things closely and I can see you thinking haha! You are a happy baby smiling all the time and love when Daddy and I make you laugh! You love to copy us, it is soo cute! You love Zoe and wish she would let you pull her fur right out ha!

You have 2 bottom teeth with 4 up top coming soon!!!

I added more videos of you playing, on my youtube channel  :) http://www.youtube.com/user/DreamTNM

I want to remember all these fun times! We love you soooo much my little snuggle bug!

Our Morning Routine

Here is a little glimpse of our morning routine these days.

Kris wakes up around 8am calling for me while I try and take in any extra minutes I can as he continues to play haha.

 I nurse his for a couple minutes then we get out of bed, I change him into his outfit for the day and I sit him in the bouncy as I get ready.

Since the day he was born this was our routine. I hate leaving the bedroom without being dressed even more now with a baby since our schedule is unpredictable.

He sits nicely or not so nicely as I put my makeup on and get dressed. (I do my eye makeup but my hair is usually up in a pony tail, that I don't have time for, blowdrying and straightening... Haven't done that in a while!)

We then go downstairs for breakfast.

DH makes coffee before he leaves to work, so hot coffee is always waiting for me ;)

These days I need to give Kris a cereal cookie to feed himself to get him in his highchair.

I put some cartoons on and get babies oatmeal ready to feed him in between the breathes of eating his cookie aha


And I sit and drink my coffee while playing online and feeding him all while talking out loud to him about what we will do today ha!

Today is Monday so we have grocery shopping on our to do's. If we were to stay home we would have floor playtime at this time.

We finish breakfast around 945 and make our way to the grocery store.

I carry him in the baby bjorn carrier (exercise for me) and we shop. He gets to hold some packages in his hands as if he is helping and we name the different foods as we go along. He gets the attention of a lot of people and we always get stopped so people can talk to him, Kris loves it! Smiling and talking back.

We are back home around 1045 and Kris is ready for his nap.

We go to his room sit in the rocking chair, play his sleep sheep, pacifier in his mouth and he is out in 5 minutes.

Down he goes and I get a couple hours to clean up, put groceries away, go online for a bit and make his lunch.

We only have 5 weeks left till he starts daycare full time.I'm counting down so be prepared to hear about it in all my blog posts haha!

I think I need to change our wakeup time to 7am soon. Not so much for the baby but for me. I'll work on this soon. It's a lot of adjusting for me too! I'm not looking forward to being a Zombie Mom at work!

So far napping without nursing is going great. I'm still working on weaning him fully during the day.Taking it day by day!

The next 5 weeks we will be busy changing up our daily routine and breastfeeding schedule. Big changes are coming and it's hard work with a little one!

I'll also be taking Kris to an indoor playground weekly.  We went to one on the weekend for my nieces birthday and Kris loved it! I'm considering doing his 1st birthday party at a playground as well, although I always thought I wouldn't for the first birthday, but the kids love it and I think it will be a great first birthday party with his little friends.

Fun times playing

Yesterday I went over a friend's house for a play date! Check out her blog here. She posted lots of pics!

We had a sushi lunch and the kids got to play together. Isaac is so quick crawling and standing and soo adorable! Kristian doesn't crawl yet but loves to stand up, we were hoping Isaac could teach him to crawl hahaha!

Yummy!

 

 My friend bought Kristian a 1 year old birthday shirt!! I can't believe how fast time went by! Isaac turns 1 in a month and Kris in 2. ugh!

 She also bought me this beautiful friendship Angel for my birthday :)

Last night Kristian was up every half hour from 4:30am to 8:30am. I see the white of the 4 top teeth, two more than the others. I'm exhausted today! and Kristian has been a little cranky.

I took out some new toys for him to play with and he is having some fun and driving Zoe our cat crazy haha!

Zoe wants to play too

Got Mail? haha!

This weekend is packed with fun. My niece is having her birthday party at a fun room and it's my sisters birthday too! Along with the keys to her new house! My sister will be living close by! Yay!

Thinking about fall clothes and shoes

I spent my day at my grandparents house with my niece and little Kristian. I was soo tired today so we just stayed in playing on the ipad and watching TV.

I talked to my niece about starting school and she was showing me her new shoes and her new backpack, very cute pink stuff :) haha

I then started thinking of allll the things I need for this coming fall and especially for back to work, it's creeping up.

DH had got me a gift card to the mall as part of my birthday gift, for those things specifically. But when I went to the mall I was overwhelmed. Ya there were a lot of things I liked and wanted, But I had no vision of what I really wanted to wear. What style do I want? I was confused! I haven't really thought about it in a while!

So I decided to follow what the, What Not To Wear show does. Buy a complete outfit from top to bottom. So my goal the next couple weeks is to buy 3 outfits to get me started. Top to bottom! A casual outfit, a work outfit and a going out to dinner outfit.

Buying shoes are the easiest for me so I'll start with the bottom up haha

Some shoes from the Aldoshoes.com site that I have my eye on ;)

New foods and favorites! Baby food

My little guy loves to feed himself now! He was great with holding bigger pieces but not the tiny pieces until yesterday!

So now I have been cutting up little pieces of all kinds of foods for him to chow down on!

Pieces of cooked carrots, parsnips, pears, squash, sweet potato! The list goes on!

Today I made a mix of red lentils, sweet potato and garlic. I made enough for the week along with steamed squash and broccoli. I also made his favorite purée of squash and pears.

Tomorrow we will try some ground turkey!

I'm excited that we have been moving away from mostly purée foods and on to chunkier foods.

This little one is growing up fast!!

Baby is awake when...

Even tho I have a video monitor so I can check up on Kristian when he sleeps, I don't even have to look at it to know when Kristian is awake. I just hear the music. Ha! When he wakes up he turns on the baby einstein aquarium music and plays. Adorable!

Birthday fun!

Yesterday was my little niece's 2nd birthday!!!! Her official party is next week at a playground but last night they had a babkyard BBQ party for her.

Kristian loved playing with his cousin.

She is sooo in love with Minnie Mouse it's the cutest thing!

Quality of the pics aren't the greatest. I forgot my camera!

Some new things!

Kristian is learning so much everyday. I get so excited when he does something new and make him do it over and over haha. I love when I say "clap your hands" he claps, when I say "splash" when he is taking a bath he splashes like crazy. When I say "kiss kiss kiss" he gives me kisses.

I love watching him play with his toys and copy what I show him to do.

He is growing up sooo fast! Love my little boy soo much!

Less than 2 months and I'm going back to work ;( I have so much to do before then, it's totally stressing me out. That's another post on it's own.

My birthday was on Sunday, we had a small bbq and Kristian helped me blow out my candle ;) when midnight hit I was nursing Kristian, perfect start to my new year.