Just In Case

Just in case it sounded like my birthday was a total wash with sick babies and our big clinic adventure, it was not.

We still had cake:

Yummy Dufflet mocha cake. It was a big hit, even with sick babies who didn't have much of an appetite for their supper.

There were nice presents too – and hopefully there will be some fun lunches/dinners out with friends in the near future once we've all recovered.

Yes, I said "all" because unfortunately, Gamma Rita and I have not escaped this round of cooties unscathed as it turns out. We both knew all those kisses from Nate and Seth would be our downfall, but really who was going to say no to kisses from either of my guys?

Not me and apparently not Gamma Rita either. We made our beds and that's a good thing since we might just be laying in them for the next couple of days.

- L.

This Isn't What You Think It Is

It's better. 

My alternate post title was "I Can't Believe It's Not Ice Cream".

Because it's not.

Although it sure looks every bit as yummy as ice cream, doesn't it? It tastes just as good too and unlike ice cream it's 100% naturally fat-free and actually good for you. It was also a snap to make since it only has one ingredient.

That's right – one ingredient. You might even have some on hand in your kitchen at this very moment. I know we are seldom without.

It's bananas, everyone. 

Frozen bananas. 

That's it.

And just in case my photo isn't selling it and you are picturing some kind of frozen pureéd fruit concoction, stop right there and just go make some and try it yourself. You will swear you are eating dairy. The short version of the "recipe" can be found here, and step-by-step instructions and more photos can be found here (click on the photos for details).

Please don't let the following customer reviews put you off. My other alternate post title was "Yay! More For Me!" since Nate and Seth are still a little unsure about really cold things at this point and/or they don't know a good thing when they see it. Just so they wouldn't feel short-changed after supper, I also served up some homemade applesauce for dessert and let them choose. 

– I choose ah-poo-sauce, everyone! Is not cold like cold new food. Someone tell Mommy to warm that stuff up next time please. 

– I chose ah-poo-sauce also, everyone. Is long gone by the time Mommy take my picture because is yummy and I don't waste time when it comes to things that is yummy. I agree that strange new cold food is offputing for eating... 

–... but certainly is fun to play with. I bring out the Touching Finger for 'dis one! *touch* *touch* *touch*

- L.

Easter Part II: Bunnies Are Welcome After All

Nate and Seth would like you to know there's been a change of heart on the bunny front, and as such, bunnies will now be considered an integral part of Easter – as long as they are made entirely of chocolate. Sadly, one such bunny met its demise after supper last night. I did my best to keep things as humane as possible, but we all know there's only one way to eat a chocolate bunny and it's never pretty.

Before:

After: 

Off with their heads!

I was a little hesitant about a sweet so late in the day, but it was their first opportunity to try chocolate and a special occasion no less. I couldn't say no to that.

Also, I was really curious to see what their reactions would be (other than a sugar buzz). I'll just tell you right now, it was a hit – but I have to admit I was expecting messier faces when all was said and done. Seth came through a little at the end, but Nate remained surprisingly tidy. I think he took extra care to make sure every last bit ended up in his mouth and there wasn't so much as a crumb in his bib pocket when all was said and done.

•   •   •   •   •

Nate and Seth surveying the goods for the first time: 

And following a most studious analysis, their first bites: 

Some close up/aftermath shots:

I make 'dis soul patch work everyone!
Wonder if Mommy will let me keep it.

Possibly the exact moment the sugar kicked in. Be afraid.

And behold the not-so-subtle mischief in these faces: 

Clearly, chocolate is fuel for shenanigans. Thankfully, our supplies* are limited. 

- L.

*Supplies of chocolate, that is. We are always fully stocked when it comes to shenanigans. Of course.

Not Stinkeroo: Salmon Cakes

Not only are Salmon Cakes not stinkeroo, they are about as far from stinkeroo as you could possibly get around these parts. I think they have officially replaced Grilled Cheese as the new dinnertime favorite – and it's a great way to get some protein into my guys who until very recently have remained less than enthusiastic about meat of any kind. 

Meats we have tried: chicken (in a variety of formats), beef (also in a variety of formats), white fish (sole, halibut) and lastly fresh salmon. The only meat they will eat consistently is salmon which seems like an odd choice for little ones (although it's certainly delicious, so I'm not judging, just saying). I can sometimes sneak a little ground beef into them via spaghetti sauce or lasagne but everything else I've tried serving them meat-wise has been soundly met with the stinkeroo stamp of disapproval. Especially chicken. Chicken is the ultimate stinkeroo meat, just so you know.

But I digress. I suspected the Salmon Cakes might be a hit since they are made almost entirely from ingredients I already know both my guys like: salmon, cheese (lots of cheese!), eggs and bread (in crumb form, but still... you can't go wrong with bread or bread-like products over here). The only "surprise" was a little green onion, so I made some with and some without just in case – but apparently green onion (at least a little) meets with their approval.

Chili sauce is optional, but I decided to go for it when I served these up for dinner tonight and but for a little extra mess on hands and faces things remained pretty civilized.

– 'Dis salmon cakes is awesome everyone.
– Chili sauce pretty awesome too. Yum! 

– Seriously everyone – you should drop what you is doing and go make yourself some right now. And if you happen to make some extra, call me. I be right over.
– You call me too. And don't forget the chili sauce! Is yummy, but also fun for doodles.

•   •   •   •   •

Special thanks to Grandma Leslie and Auntie Stephanie for the recipe.

Printer-friendly version here (click to embiggen): 

- L.

5 O'Clock Shadow

... brought to you by cinnamon.

In a related story, homemade applesauce is a big success.

- L.

First Sit-Down Breakfast

I've been doing two sit-down meals since the boys started solids – lunch and dinner basically. With their waking/morning nap schedule it always felt a bit too rushed to try to squeeze in anything other than a bottle, but things have changed in the past week.

Last week the Party Babies™ were waking up around 8AM and staying up partying until 9:30 most nights. They would have 2 naps – 1 mid-morning and one mid-afternoon. I have to say the 9:30 PM bedtime wasn't really working for me and I guess my guys decided a change would be good too. On Friday they jointly ditched their afternoon nap and were down for the night at 8:15. – and we haven't looked back.

Even though I no longer get a little break in the afternoon, I am liking our new routine. The boys still sleep until 8AM, have one really good nap (up to 2 hours) late morning and then go to bed around 8:15. It gives me a bit more time in the evening to unwind and get a few things done, I still get to sleep in AND there's now ample time for 3 sit-down meals a day.

Today the boys not only had their first breakfast we even tried out a new food!

Nate and Seth feasted on:

Oatmeal with Pears
Buttered Toast
Yogurt with Apple/Plum

AND...

Scrambled Eggs!

Seth really liked his eggs – a lot actually. They were a big hit!

Nate, on the other hand, was pretty suspicious of the new food and pushed the little egg bits around on his tray for a long time before he finally picked up a little egg crumb and put it in his mouth. He then made a big show out of gagging on said crumb, but I have a feeling he'll come around. For now, toast is a hit with him at least and they both like their oats and yogurt. And of course, I served Cheerios® afterward while I cleaned up.

- L.

PS. I realize that on the surface the photo I posted appears to have nothing to do with breakfast – however, their tummies are full of said breakfast in this picture. That counts, right?

More Random Acts Of Domesticity

I have a favorite recipe that I used to make quite a lot, especially during the cold winter months. Of course, that was pre-babies when I could afford to spend 2 hours preparing and cooking dinner. In fact, I thought the days of enjoying some of my favorite recipes were long gone – until I discovered the wonder of using a slow-cooker that is. It's a magic device that makes my dinner for me, quietly doing it's work all day while I am busy chasing babies.

After a couple of recent successes with pot roast and beef stew, I decided to modify that favorite recipe of mine so it could quickly and easily be prepared slow-cooker style, with prep work that requires no more than a 5-7 minute commitment at a time (because if you have 2 or more little ones then you already know you are lucky to get even that).

Without further ado, below is the recipe for The OP's Braised Chicken and how I did it. Of course, if you don't have babies to chase after, you can probably get your prep work done in one shot. Or not. It's up to you.

•   •   •   •   •

The OP's Braised Chicken

Step 1: Prep your veggies* the night before. I sliced up half a white onion, 1 green pepper and 1 orange pepper (a yellow pepper is also a nice option). I tossed everything in a large bowl, covered the bowl with plastic wrap and placed it in the fridge. I was able to pull off this amazing feat while the boys were busy having their nakey time. No one even noticed I was missing.

*Optional: 1 or 2 chili peppers, sliced. I find one gives a bit of kick without being too hot – although I am a self-admitted lightweight about these things. If you like it more than kicking, better add two.

•   •   •   •   •

Step 2: The next morning I prepared the yummy marinade while the boys crawled around exploring the kitchen. If attempting this yourself, exercise caution so you don't step on any babies. Then get busy and mince 3 cloves of garlic and place into a bowl. Add:

• 3 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 generous tsp. paprika powder
• 2 generous tsp. curry powder
• 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/8 tsp. ground cumin 

Take a moment to breathe in the wonderfully fragrant aroma from the marinade you just made, then cover bowl with plastic wrap and leave on countertop. Retrieve babies from whatever imminent kitchen danger you were unaware existed until just now. Retreat to nursery with said babies.

*BTW, if you're planning to take pictures of your efforts, try not to use a shiny reflective bowl like I did (unless you want an inverted image of yourself among the spices that is). Spices, I might add, that resemble an inverted version of this. Spooky. 

•   •   •   •   •

Step 3: I managed this last step by throwing some Cheerios at my babies after their lunch. Cheerios are a great diversion, btw. While they were distracted, I quickly salted, peppered and browned 2 chicken breasts in a little olive oil. One or two minutes per side and you're done. Place in bottom of crock-pot and brush with roughly half of the marinade you made earlier. Looks pretty good already, no? 

Pour 1/2 cup of chicken broth around the sides of the chicken. Toss the veggies you prepped the night before with the remaining marinade and add to crock-pot. Top with 1 28 oz. can of diced tomatoes, including juice from can. 

Cover, set your crock-pot on low and enjoy the next 8 hours with your babies. 

The finished result: 

Prior to serving, remove chicken and gently pull apart with a fork. Top with veggies and reserve liquid to your liking. Serve alongside or over rice (Basmati goes well with this dish). Makes at least 2 very generous servings.

Enjoy!

- L.

PS. Or, if you prefer, here is the recipe minus the mommy rambles (click to embiggen):

Random Acts Of Domesticity

I recently came across a recipe online for a slow-cooker pot roast, although I'm not even sure I should call it a recipe since it was so simple. Really, it was a meal that cooked itself with less than 5 minutes of prep time. And it was not only delicious, it yielded two freezer meals for a lazy day (or two lazy days rather) plus a generous supply of homemade Baby Beef Stew after a run through the food processor. 

If you'd like to make this delicious feast yourself don't forget I already warned you that it may take up to 5 minutes to prepare.

Easy-Peasy Pot Roast:

• 3 lb. pot roast (I used a cross-rib)
• 10-12 little potatoes, halved (I pulled out all the stops and used both red and white potatoes)
• 1 bag of baby carrots

Rinse and place into slow cooker.

• Add 1 pkg. Club House pot roast seasoning (mixed with 1 cup water per package instructions).

• Pour over meat and veggies.

• Place lid on slow-cooker and set on low for 8 hours.

• Walk away and enjoy the rest of your day. : )

If you want to get fancy like I did, you can steam some peas and make a side-salad at the end, but this is purely optional.

Here was the end result:

Uninvited guests (unfortunately) may be included. Can't really blame poor Zed for trying though – and yes, I did (reluctantly) share.

All in all it turned out pretty well so I took a look around to see what I could get into next and noticed an entire bag of blueberries in my freezer – and you know what they say...

When life hands you babies that hate blueberries, better get baking!

So I whipped up a batch of blueberry muffins that have suddenly made breakfast for me a real thing around these parts again. These are straight from the Company's Coming cookbook series and very yummy. 

And last on my domestic endeavors for the week...

De-pilling the boys' Disana wool covers:

Oh, how I could go on and on about the awesomeness of these covers, but I will admit the extreme pilling caught me a little off guard this time around. However, 10 minutes with a razor and voilà:

BTW, I included the "leavings" in the pic so you all wouldn't think this was just a 10 minute Photoshop job instead of the real deal. 

Now if I could only find another 10 minutes to finish the other cover I'd really be in business. Ah well, there's always next week.

- L.

Updates On Everything II

Well, it's time for another mass update post since I feel like I'm getting behind on keeping up with Nate and Seth and all their antics and adventures.

First things first... the boys are 7 months old today! Don't worry, this isn't our official 7 Month post – check back later today/early this evening for updates and cute pics of the babies. Speaking of which...

Videos, Videos, Videos: 

I uploaded 5 new clips to our YouTube™ channel the other day and then ran out of time to let you all know about it over here on the blog, so by all means head on over and check 'em out while they're still fresh. Here's our list of new titles (in no particular order):

Spooky Seth™: What can I say? The boy makes some spooky sounds that are very much his own, although I never thought I'd actually capture it on video since Seth is typically distracted whenever I've got camera in hand. This video features an unexpected visit from Spooky Seth™, interspersed with some really big grins.

Spooky Seth™ Part II: Not so spooky anymore but Spooky Seth™ sounds were certainly the jumping off place for Seth's NEW noises, which sound suspiciously like Donald Duck to me. 

How To Steal Your Brother's Butterflies (And Get Away With It): This video has a bit of everything: playtime, big smiles, bonks in the head, songs from the jungle gym, Spooky Seth™ noises, kicky legs, cuteness and of course, butterfly thievery. 

Peas: Lip Smackin' Good: A short video of Nate trying peas for the first time. I love the lip smack at the end. : ) 

Peas: The Bib Is Also Tasty: A short video of Seth. I think the title says it all really. A small funny... when you upload videos to YouTube™ it automatically generates tag suggestions for your convenience. Sometimes, however the suggested tag really misses the mark. YouTube's recommendation for this video was "Combat Sports".

New Foods:

Speaking of peas, here's an update on our first foods. So far we've tried sweet potatoes, peas, bananas, avocados, peaches, squash and pears. I've made some things myself and left others to the fine people at Gerber™. The babies are fine with either, except sweet potatoes which they now prefer from the jar. Of course. Naturally, I let them know they were breaking their mama's heart but I don't think they heard me over the lip-smacking going on. They are both hearty eaters and love their solids.

As for favorite foods, I was about to declare avocados the big winner until they tried squash. They loooooove squash. Can't get enough. Pears are a close second, and they definitely consider it the best meal EVER when both are on the menu at the same time.

I, on the other hand, prefer the avocados since I'm convinced they keep my babies fuller (and therefore sleeping longer) at night. We also introduced oat cereal at bedtime a week ago and it seems to be helping with keeping everyone asleep past 5:30 AM (or the dreaded 4:45 AM!) for the most part as well. As far as I'm concerned, avocados and oat cereal are the best meal EVER – and since I've been mixing in some pears with the oats, everybody wins! : )

Toothwatch 2010:

Gotcha Nate!

Finally, a photo of the prized teeth. No other teeth to report yet, however. Toothwatch 2010 is still in full effect for Seth. 

Nate's Plagiocephaly:

After just 5 visits to the osteopath, I'm so happy to report that we are seeing definite results. I took a "before" photo of Nate's head around the beginning of July and some "after" photos yesterday morning. Pardon the messy food face/neck in the "after" shots, but breakfast in the high-chair seemed like the best time to catch Nate in profile without a helper around to hold him while I took the pictures.

Before: 

Even here his head was not as flat as it had been originally since we had already been doing tummy time and positioning him off his flat side at night, but you can see the flatness is still quite prominent.

After: 

What a difference already! It's easy to spot some pretty dramatic changes to his head shape, particularly at the base of the skull and overall less of a "cone" shape to the crown as plates of his head move downward. We have a follow-up visit in 6 weeks time to check for further progress and possibly have additional treatment if required. In the meantime, Nate has become a confirmed tummy sleeper during naps and at night which is going to go a long way also in helping his skull bones reshape themselves naturally. Go Nate!

And with that, I think that's all our recent news for now (or at least the highlights). Don't forget to check back later today for our official 7 Month post – hope this keeps you all busy reading in the meantime.

- L.

Look What I Can Do 24 Hours Later!

What a difference a day makes! Seth is not only holding his own bottle but he's sorted out the angle enough so that he can actually drink from it. He definitely prefers the do-it-yourself approach – and particularly so with food. Once he got over the initial shock of the Mum-Mum biscuits, he loves eating them and I think it's at least partly because it's something he can hold onto himself. His favorite thing to do while I'm feeding them their purées is having a grab at the spoon and he can be rather the relentless one. I always make sure I have a few extra on hand just in case since it's impossible to wrestle a spoon away from someone this pathetic. I haven't the heart for it.

Here's a still from the video I shot of Seth making us all proud:

You can check out all the action at our YouTube™ channel of course. : )

- L.

Look What I Can Do!

Although Toothwatch 2010 remains in effect for wee Seth, there's a new video over on our YouTube™ channel of him showing off his newfound skills with a bottle this morning. If it seems like they are both learning something new almost daily, they are. My babies are growing up entirely too fast.

- L.

Mum-Mums Get Mixed Reviews

In amongst trying out purées (so far we've successfully tried sweet potatoes, peas and bananas and are moving on to avocados today!), I thought I'd give Nate and Seth a Baby Mum-Mum biscuit to sample. They are basically a rice husk that melts in the mouth and are a nice size for small hands to hold. They come in different flavors and I bought banana since I figured that would be a flavor they are already familiar with and like. 

Nate took to the Baby Mum-Mums like nobody's business on the very first try and I managed to get a nice video of him showing off his skills. You can check it out on our YouTube™ channel, but I'll add a still frame here so you can see what a fine job he did:



Seth on the other hand was not terribly impressed with food he had to hold himself on the first try, but he had it by the second day and I'm SO glad I had the camera handy again because his reactions were absolutely hilarious.

Here's a still before he really tasted it:



... and after:



Talk about a stink-face! You know you can't resist checking out any video with that expression in it, so head on over.

- L.

PS. The background noise you can hear in both clips is the dryer running. I use Nellie's dryerballs so it makes things a tad noisy (but they get the job done nicely). 

Showing You All How It's Done

Nate has been seriously working on holding his own bottle here and there over the past week, but it still caught me off guard yesterday when he decided it was really time to go for it. I scrambled to get the camera as fast as I could and got a great clip of his antics. Check it out over on our YouTube™ channel!

The middle part is a little long, but something told me to keep the camera running and I'm glad I did since the ending is priceless. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

- L.

PS. The camera shakes from time to time were from Seth kicking my elbow while I was filming.

First Solids

I was so excited to start taking pictures yesterday after I got everyone into their highchairs for their first meal that I almost forgot the bibs. Whoops!

Much better. Now we are properly suited up:

Here's Nate after his first spoonful of sweet potatoes:

He wasn't at all sure what to think at first, but after a few more spoonfuls it was a decidedly less than favorable review.

Here is Seth after his first spoonful:

I love the look on Nate's face in the background. You can see he is very apprehensive about the new food and everything that comes with it.

Seth on the other hand seemed to really enjoy his sweet potatoes, although he would like you to know that the spoon is definitely the best part.

And if the pic isn't enough to convince you, there's video:

Sorry for the camera shake, but I had a very squirmy Nate on my lap at this point.

And just in case you haven't had your fill of messy faces, there are a couple video clips of the boys in action. Here is Nate being less than impressed:

And Seth between spoonfuls surreptitiously chewing on his bib:

- L.