7 months young!

Look at me...I'm 7 months old! Check out my new friend, Owl. I love Owl! I'm starting to really love stuffed animals and I love all of my toys. I like to play, play, play! My new favorite toy is my set of cups my mommy just bought for me. I love taking them apart and banging them on my basket and sticking them in my mouth. My mommy thinks I'm about 17 pounds now. She complains all the time that I'm getting so heavy. I am a foodie, just like my mom, so what does she expect?! Lets see...what are my new tricks? Well, I grab everything now. I'm pretty much sitting all by myself, but I do lean sometimes. I can blow bubbles with my mouth. I LOVE the anticipation of anything! Even just saying...one....two....THREE...works for me! And, as always, peek-a-boo is still the greatest game on Earth.

Till next time!

XOXO-

Vivi Grace

My other love...FOOD!

So, I have two things to share concerning my recent kitchen adventures. The picture on the top was one of the quickest, most delicious meals I've made in a long time...I just have to share it. It literally took about 5 minutes. I bought frozen tortellini and threw those into boiling water. They only take 5 minutes at the most. While they were cooking I diced 4 tomatoes, 2 garlic cloves, about 10 basil leaves, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 tablespoon of Balsamic vinegar, and salt/pepper and I threw all of that into the blender. I blended it for just a bit, then tossed it onto the drained tortellini. That's it! That's all you gotta do! I didn't even cook the sauce. It was DELICIOUS! Talk about a quick and great-tasting summer dinner!

So, the second picture was quite the opposite....very time consuming. I bought the Sprinkles cupcake mix from Williams Sonoma for $13.99...not exactly a cheap cake mix. The directions were so detailed it actually made me laugh. It took a lot of extra ingredients and took some time. Now, don't get me wrong, they were some of the best cupcakes I've ever had, but I'm not sure if they're worth the cost/time/extra ingredients. The money I spent on the mix and ingredients, I could have just gone to a cupcake bakery and bought some already made! Oh well...live and learn.

Pretty Girl

Oh Vivi....you are so sweet! Today she gave me and Frank kisses on the cheeks. The open-your-mouth-stick-out-your-tongue-and-lean-to-your-face kind of kiss. We LOVED it, to say the least! Love my sweet Vivi girl! :)

The breakdown...

Okay...so here's the breakdown on the homemade organic vs. store-bought organic baby food. I bought a bag of organic carrots at Whole foods that cost $1.99. It made 18 one ounce servings of baby food. $1.99/18=$0.11 a serving. The organic 2 ounce serving of jar food costs $0.59 or 29.5 cents an ounce. I think that's enough of a savings, plus you know exactly what your baby is eating. My freezer is STOCKED with frozen baby food. I won't have to buy or make baby food for a long time. It's nice to just pop a fruit and a veg into a small glass bowl the night before and it's ready for baby in the morning. I can't remember the costs of all the other stuff I bought, but this is a good example. Also, two pears made 8 one ounce servings and Vivi's loving it. She loved the zucchini too! I'm so glad she's not a picky eater....I hope that doesn't change.

My Attempt at Homemade Baby Food!

It sounds so appealing to make your own homemade organic baby food. I've known, even before I was pregnant, that I wanted to do this. Vivi's been eating baby food now for about 6 weeks and I've just been buying the Earth's Best Organic baby food, which isn't exactly cheap. The small jars are about 59 cents and the bigger ones are about 79 cents. So, we headed to Whole Foods the other day and bought organic zucchini, pears, apples, carrots, sweet potatoes, squash, peas, and brown rice. I ended up spending about $35 dollars on these items, so I'm still not sure if it's more economical or not. I guess we'll see with the quantity that these items make. Thanks to some good friends, they bought us the Beaba baby food maker as a baby gift. It looks so cool. I will say, though, that I feel the instructions are lacking. It's obviously a foreign company and you can tell that a foreigner wrote the directions and English perhaps is not their first language. For example, tell me if you can figure this one out, "Place the mixing cover on the jug horizontally and ensure that it is lying on the six lugs inside the jug so that it does not slip down when mixing." Oh, and they spell flavor, f-l-a-v-o-u-r. There aren't any recipes either, so I had to research for myself online. I found a pretty good website called www.wholesomebabyfood.com. This has been very helpful so far. So...tonight I've made pears and the zucchini are cooking now while I'm typing. I now know that I won't be making all of it tonight...it's almost my bedtime. It's a good thing I'm not working this summer, because this will be a good project for me when Vivi naps. I will keep you posted on how it turns out, if it's worth it financially/time wise, and if the little bambina actually eats it! :)

Till then....

Naked Baby!!!

Look at those legs! Oh my gosh....I just want to eat her up! Vivi loves to be naked on her changing table. I think it's because it's easier to get those toes in her mouth when she doesn't have a diaper holding her back! You go girl!!

Wow...1/2 a year old!

My mommy can't believe that I'm already 6 months old. Boy do I do a lot of tricks now. I have two huge accomplishments this month. First and foremost, I must mention that I now have two teeth. I was REALLY cranky one Sunday and everyone kept saying it couldn't be teeth because I was too little. Ha! Little do they know! My mommy discovered them by accident when my paci fell out and I yawned. (She didn't know they had been there for days!) They're cute little teeth too...two on the bottom. I'm still drooling like crazy and am always chomping on my fingers, so I wouldn't be surprised if some more pop up soon. My second biggest accomplishment this month is that I can now get my toes in my mouth. That's hard to do, you should try it. My mommy laughs when she comes to get me from my crib and my toes are wet. I still LOVE to eat. I'm now eating two meals a day plus my four bottles. I can eat squash, peas, sweet potatoes, carrots, apples, pears, and bananas....and of course oatmeal! Now that my mommy's home for the summer, she's going to make homemade baby food for me. I'm sure I'll love that too because I'm not known to turn down food. I go to the doctor next week for my 6 month check up and shots, so I'll have to get on that dreaded scale and let you know how much weight I've gained. Till then...

XOXO-

Vivi Grace