Once a month cooking experience

Last Sunday I tried "once a month cooking."  I was browsing around Pinterest (a fun website) and kept seeing all of these recipes for freezing.  I loved the idea of not having to worry about what you are cooking or making sure that I have time.  Some days Walker would be napping and I would get a chance to prepare dinner, but most days it was a challenge to play with him and get a decent dinner ready.  So when I came across this amazing blog where this woman cooks for an entire month in one day I was intrigued.

The blog is http://onceamonthmom.com/.  She provides a monthly menu, the recipes, the shopping list, instructions for the most efficient order to cook things, and the labels for freezing and how to re-heat.  It was so simple.  My neighbor had mentioned doing some sort of cooking club a few weeks ago, so I asked her if she wanted to help with this and cook for her family too.  I went to the store and picked up the items off the grocery list and then Sunday we set to work.  I started the cooking at noon and was finished by 6.  It was definitely a lot of work, but has been so worth it each night.  Did I mention that you also cook breakfast and lunch too! 

I have loved walking to the freezer and getting my breakfast, being able to make a super quick lunch, and then not taking a bunch of time out of my day to make dinner but still enjoying a great meal.  I totally recommend that you try this if you feel stressed about "what's for dinner."  It was also great going to Wal-Mart this week and only getting some salad and sides.  So quick and cheap. 

Here is the list of food that we cooked:
Raspberry Breakfast Cake, Bacon Hashbrown Wraps, Breakfast Popsicles, Smoked Sausage Mac and Cheese, Pita Pizzas, Chicken Burritos, Bacon Cheeseburger Chicken, Green Chile Burgers, Ranch Burgers, Baked Vegetable Sandwiches, Garlic Chicken Farfalle, Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches, Peanut Butter Pork Kabobs, and Dressed Up Sloppy Joes.  (Yes, 14 different things)

This is some of the ingredients.  It was a lot of stuff!

Each item is made to eat twice during the month.  So far everything that we have had we have liked.  I am going to wait and see if it is enough for the month and is better financially.  I think it is cheaper, but not sure that it will be enough for the month...I am still eating a TON because of breastfeeding Walker, so maybe I should have cooked for 3 people instead of 2 :)

Happy 1/2 birthday Walker

You are officially 1/2 a year old.  I have heard that 6 months starts the beginning of "the fun times" from many parents, so I am pretty excited because we have been having a lot of fun already.  I can only imagine how much better it might get.  You weigh 19lbs and 13oz.  I am not sure how long you are because you don't go in for your 6 month check up for a couple more weeks. 

August was really hot and...well hot.  I had big plans for us to go on the lake all the time since I am not working much, but it was just too crazy to try and put you on a boat while it was so hot outside.  The lake water was even so hot that it was not that refreshing. 

We started off this month with some "poop issues" and me giving you a suppository (see previous post if you dare).  We have continued to have some issues in this area.  I think you just don't like to go or you are trying to be a super sweet baby and know that I don't like to change poopy diapers.  I think I only changed 4 this month.  We have seen the doctor about this but he doesn't seem worried and thinks that you will grow out of it. 

We started on some solids this month for two reasons.  The first was that you started waking up at 12:30, 2:30, 4:30, 6:30 and then 7:15.  It was exhausting!  You would nurse all the time so I figured you were just hungry.  Now that you are eating a small lunch and dinner you sleep SO much better.  I also thought that if we started you on solids with fiber that they would help to move things along.  We first tried avocado, which you loved but it upset  your stomach and gave you a small diaper rash.  We then tried sweet potatoes (you loved), then butternut squash (you loved), then pears (not surprising you also loved).  I have plenty of other things for you to try in September.  I love feeding you and you have such good table manners...hope this lasts.  Right now I am making your food because it cheaper, more convenient, and fun for me to do.  I freeze it in little ice cube trays.  You eat two ice cubes for lunch and two for dinner.  Each cube is approximately one ounce. 

Great news, you are drinking from a sippy cup now!  This has been wonderful and means that I have been able to work or go out while someone else watches you for a bit.  You and your dad spent your first evening together for longer than two hours the other day while I went to play softball.  You had so much fun and did great together. 

You stopped wanting to be swaddled for bedtime this month.  I think that might have been part of the waking up more too.  I had to go and buy some sleepers because you didn't have any.  The only thing you had ever slept in was the halo sleep sack.  I just cut the bottom when you started to get too big.  Your dad and I love watching you sleep in your sleeper pjs.  We just talk on and on about how big you look and how fast you are growing up.  Some nights you don't even want me to rock you.  I just put you in the crib and you put yourself to sleep.  I am sad about this because I used to use this time to pray for you and our family, but I am working on finding a new routine for this.  Even though I don't get to rock you every night I still pray for you as I place you in the crib.  Soon I hope we will be praying together.  You have started sleeping on your side, which would be fine except you smash your face into the crib bumpers (which are mesh) and stick one leg over the bumper out of the crib slot.  I would go crazy worrying about you if we didn't have the Angelcare monitor that lets me know you are still OK. 

You were dedicated at church this month (also a previous post) and did so great. 
You babble much more now and are blowing "raspberries."  This would be fine except you also like to spit your spit up everywhere, so now rather than just dripping out of your mouth it is projectile as you spit it across the room...fun for me to explain and clean up. 

We traveled with G-mama to Little Rock for 3 days because she had some work down there.  You and I went to the mall and played in the hotel pool.  I loved being able to just be with you and watch you enjoy a new place and new people.  G-mama also loved getting to spend so much time with you.  However, your dad was ready for us to be home because that was the longest he had been away from you.

Our daily schedule looks something like:
8:00 wake up and nurse
9:00 1 oz of apple juice with 1 oz of water
10:00 nap
11:00 wake up and nurse
12:00 2 oz of food
1:00 nap
2:00 wake up and nurse
4:00 nap
5:00 wake up and nurse
6:00 2 oz of food
7:30 nurse
7:40 bath time
8:00 bedtime massage
8:30 asleep
you usually wake up once and nurse during the night.
When you awake you have blanket time on the floor with your toys.  You like to practice rolling over and sitting up.  You also play in your jumper or exersaucer.  You still like to be in your swing a lot too, especially when you want to be rocked but I am busy.  Some days you take more short naps and then some days you take only a couple of long naps.  But you are happy no matter what. 

Baby x-rays

What started out as a slow paced craft day quickly turned into an all-nighter (well, morning if you consider that it was really 1am-6am) and then all day at the doctor.  Yesterday made day 7 of no poop for Walker.  We have been eating solids consistently for a couple of weeks now (2 oz at lunch and dinner).  He loves to eat, but I was starting to worry about where it was all going...Well bright and early, way too early, Walker woke up with gas.  He was wide awake and wanted to play.  Every few minutes he would strain like he wanted to poop, but nothing would happen.  At 3am, I finally broke down and gave him another suppository.  It worked for the night and gave him some relief to be able to sleep in his swing until morning.  We got in to see the doctor, not really because I thought he was super sick, but because I wanted to be educated on how I can keep this from continuing to happen.  The doctor was very supportive and said that we are doing the right things and to increase our juice to 1 oz a day.  He also ordered a stomach x-ray to make sure everything "is in the right place."  During the appointment he asked if we had ever been told of a heart murmur.  I said no (but then Marcus later reminded me that Walker had one in the hospital when he was born).  The doctor went ahead and ordered a chest x-ray since we were already getting one for the stomach and he thought he could hear a murmur. 

Walker and I then spent the afternoon waiting to get his x-rays.  We had good cuddle time and he loved watching all the other kids in the waiting rooms (all the other sick kids, yuck, germs).  Everything turned out fine on the x-rays, healthy heart and tummy.  The doctor said to add some miralax to Walker's juice to help keep things moving.  I hope this works because Walker is definitely into his solid food and did not like it yesterday when we missed his lunch. 

The whole experience really made me stop and realize how much my heart has grown because of Walker.  I feel like before him I was like the Grinch, but now my heart has swollen full of love for him.  I honestly didn't get that anxious about the x-rays yesterday because I trusted that things would be ok, but I still ached and hurt in my heart for my sick baby.  It is crazy the amount of feelings that I am aware of now.......I am sure some of them are hormones still from having a baby, but I think most of them are because I was given this great gift to love. 

Walker's Dedication

Walker had a busy weekend.  Sunday, he got dedicated at Fellowship Bible Church.  This was very important to Marcus and Me and a big day for our family.  Fellowship Bible Church defines Parent/Child Dedication as the parental willingness to partner with God and the Church to raise your child. This dedication is a public expression that parents will raise their child in a godly home, with the support of the church. The scriptural root for this type of dedication is found in 1 Samuel 1:27-28 "I prayed for this child, and the Lord granted me what I asked of Him. So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord."  Since the day I found out I was pregnant I have asked God for his guidance in raising Walker and to help me be the best mother and wife that I can be.  Yesterday, was our way of proclaiming this publicly and asking for support from our family and church on this journey. 

We were so blessed with all of the people that came to celebrate this day with us.  Walker's Great-Grandparents on the Necessary and Walker side came.  My parents and Marcus's parents, along with Camille, Derek, and Alexia were able to come.  The other guests were Sandy, Jetty, Nancy (my other "moms" :) ), Scott & Brenna, Aaron & Christy, Cortney & Kelly, Zack & Ashley (my cousin and his wife), Joel & Alexis, and Dany (Walker's awesome baby sitter).  It was amazing to be up on stage with Walker and look into the audience at all of the wonderful people that are involved in our lives and showing their support for us.  I almost cried many times throughout the day when I would just stop and look at the love and support that surrounds Walker. 

After the church service we had everyone back to our house for lunch.  I thought having it our house would help with Walker being in a better mood and not having to stress about being at a restaurant.  We ordered Fred's Hickory Inn for the food and it was delicious!!!!  My mom brought some petit fours from Rick's Bakery (my favorite!) and I made some lemon cupcakes.  All in all, I think it was a very wonderful day.  During the week last week I worked on some decorations for the party with my great crafting machine the Silhouette.  

the banner I made

I cut out vinyl to put on the vases

it's hard to see but it has "jNw" and a cross on it

the yummy petit fours

my lemon cupcakes.  I used the silhouette to cut out cupcake holders and put different pictures as the toppers

this was on a table and is a prayer tree that I made.  i had each guest write down a prayer that they will promise to pray for Walker.  one day Walker can look back at these and see all of the love that surrounded him.

my first attempt at a tissue paper wreath

happy with his new bible

We took one large group picture but it wasn't with my camera.  I will have to post it up some other time, but I definitely think it will be a picture that Walker and I will treasure. 

The other busy part of Walker's weekend was getting to stay over at our neighbor's house while Marcus and I went to see a band play.  He loved getting some good cuddle time with Alexis (my neighbor...I know it can get confusing).  Joel and Alexis are the best neighbors ever.  They babysat Walker on their anniversary!  I didn't know it was their anniversary when I asked, but they assured me that they didn't have plans and had already celebrated.  It was great to be able to walk next door and get Walker when he was already asleep.  Saturday we went out to my parent's house and played on the lake with their Sunday school class.  Walker made friends with all of the other little kids.  Luckily, today we are just planning on taking it easy, doing some laundry, and relaxing.

End of Bottle Strike 2011 (sort of)

Well, you can all rest easy now, the bottle strike of 2011 is over.  My five month old and I have managed to come to a compromise.  He gets his milk from a "big boy cup", aka a sippy cup.  It has worked great.  We started with diluted prune juice (yuck) in the cup first to help with his digestion.  It was a total mess and I think a lot of it ended up on the towel rather than in his mouth, but at least he wasn't fighting it.  I then found this wonderful sippy cup for 3+ months.  It has a top like a bottle nipple but you can bite it like a sippy cup.  This was so much easier for him and he didn't have to suck on it if he didn't want to.  This sippy cups also comes with an interchangeable top so when he is a little better at controlling the amount he wants out I can put in the 6+ month regular sippy cup top. 

Yummy

Anyway, he has been getting 6 or more oz out of his big boy cup, and we were even able to go on a date night with another couple while he stayed with a baby sitter.  It was nice to be able to leave for more than two hours and not worry about him.  However, it is crazy how much I miss him and think about him even when I am only gone for a little bit and I know he is sleeping.

We have also started solid foods.  I wanted to wait until Walker was 6 months before starting any solids because I have heard this is best.  But, Walker had started to wake up much more at night (like 12:30. 2:30, 4:30, 6:30...no fun) so I wondered if maybe he was hungry.  He has always liked to eat :)  I started with avocado when he as 5 months and one week old.  He LOVED it.  It was super easy to make.  You just mush up the avocado and I added some breast milk for a familiar taste and a thinner consistency.  On day two of the avocado he had major diarrhea (I think it was the avocado, but you never know because it had been 6 days since his last dirty diaper, so it might have been coincidence). 

I think he likes it

I expected it to be messier

I decided to wait a little bit on the solids because maybe his stomach wasn't ready and we were going out of town (see Little Rock post).  He continued waking up a lot during the night to eat, so when we got back I made some sweet potato for him and this has been a huge hit.  I froze it in an ice cube tray and then put the cubes in individual baggies once they were frozen.  It has been so simple to just warm up one cube for his meal.  Then, I tried some oatmeal cereal for his brunch meal so he could have the sweet potatoes closer to bedtime and I knew that he was not having any bad reactions to them.  I used oatmeal instead of rice because it is supposed to be easier on his digestion.  He tolerates the oatmeal, but does not like it that much.  I might try mixing it with some pears next week and see how that goes over.  Today I am making a batch of butternut squash, so I will let you know how that goes.  Oh, I should add that he is sleeping much better now that he is getting "dinner".  It might just be a coincidence, but I'll take it. 

Waiting for his dinner (I promise I put clothes on my kid)

On a much sadder note, I had to throw out 495 oz of expired breast milk last night :(  You might not fully understand how awful this is until you have worked hard to save this up and know how precious each little drop is (many moms call it liquid gold to give you an idea).  I SO wish that I would have donated it somewhere but I didn't realize how much I had that expired.  I was very frustrated with myself for not checking the dates before, but honestly I forgot all about the milk (in the freezer in the garage) once Walker stopped taking the bottle.  I am now back to working on building up another emergency stash so I will definitely remember about donating it before it goes bad.

Latest crafts and desserts

I have continued with my weekly goal of a craft and new baked good pretty well.  However, last week I did two crafts instead of baking...it seems that when I bake no one eats it and it just goes to waste.  That makes it sound like it is bad, but I promise that they taste good, we just don't eat pies and things like that around here very often. 

I have been playing around on pinterest (check it out if you haven't) a lot lately and saw a "taggy" blanket.  I decided to give it a try with some left over ribbons from the diaper cake at my baby shower and some left over fabric.  I think for my first time it turned out ok.  Walker loves it already, which is all that matters. 

I also baked a turtle cheesecake, which was delicious and I ended up giving to my dad because we were going out of town and I didn't want it to go to waste. 

Last week I worked on party decorations for Walker's dedication this weekend.  I will post pictures of them after the party.  And this week, I have already made another taggy blanket, a bib, and burp cloth for a friend, and two pillow covers for my living room.  I still have a few more things I want to make for the celebration this weekend, so I don't think I will be doing much baking...except for the cupcakes from a box, which doesn't really count.

My Vacation to Little Rock

Is it sad that these days Little Rock classifies as a vacation?  Probably, but nonetheless that is how things are :)  I was just happy to get out of the house and spend some time with my mom while she worked.

We left Sunday afternoon and returned Tuesday evening, so it was a short trip.  Two nights was the longest Marcus had been away from Walker and he was ready for us to be home.

All ready for the trip

We decided to take my dad's Yukon because my car was getting new tires on Wednesday and we didn't want to risk taking it to Little Rock on the old ones.  We also needed a large vehicle because where ever Walker goes, so does tons of stuff.  Even though it was just two nights I think we had enough stuff for 10.  I brought the baby bath tub, johnny jumper, vibrating chair, and play mat.  All of that, along with diapers for 3 days, a pack and play, and clothes means two suitcases and a packed trunk.

We headed out and made it to Winslow when...blow out (not the diaper kind)...my dad's brand new tire decided to explode.  I have never experienced a blow out before and was very thankful my mom was driving.  She handled it perfectly.  We googled a towing and service company in Winslow and they came out to fix it.  What did people do before cell phones and Internet???  There was no way that I could have changed that tire.  This added about an hour and a half onto our trip, so I was a little worried about how Walker would do.  He ended up doing really great except the last 15 minutes.  Again, the Internet came to the rescue.  I never let him watch TV, but I found a baby Einstein video on you tube and it was like he was hypnotized.  He would be screaming and then stop to watch the video, then as soon as it was over he would scream again.  Luckily, we weren't far from the hotel. 

The tire

The hotel was so nice.  It was a Holiday Inn Suites Express.  The rooms had an extra seating area that was perfect for the pack and play and I set up the "diaper station" on a table.  Walker and I spent time in the indoor pool (he LOVES the water) and at the mall.  He was so good on the trip and in the hotel.  I loved spending time with him without feeling like I should be doing 10 other things like dishes, housework, errands, etc.  It was also great to be with my mom and have her be with Walker and me.