iLove Instagrams (10)

Zeek's Week

 Wagon ride by Grandma A.

 Lunch at the zoo!

 In the bat cave, staring wide-eyed!

 Just his day job.

"Prairie-chicky" bedhead.  Just like Dad.

This kid is seriously too funny :)

Love, K

Fall

Today was the most beautiful fall day ever, here in Oregon.  Clear, sunny skies, crisp cool air and the beautiful red, orange, yellow leaves.  Our tree out front is BRIGHT red!  I love the way it looks - but the leaves are falling way too fast!  It looks like a snow storm out front because about 6 leaves are falling at any given moment.

I decided to take opportunity of the lovely fall weather and do a little photo shoot with Zeek!  He is NINE months old today, after all!  I cannot believe he is pushing the big number one already.  Trying to embrace all the time we have with him as an infant. :)

My boy and his expressions. :)  Daddy says he has a very expressive face like his mama!  He makes the best faces.  I love each and every one of them!

A Boy and His Kitty

Love those Big Blues.

 BEST. FACE. EVER.  His new thang. :)

 Always so gentle with his fingers.

Oh, I love my punkin!

I love this three-photo series of Zeek and Kitty... What ARE they looking at?!

Happy fall!!  I love love love this season.  I wish I could stretch it out to last about 3-4 months, but it seems it really only lasts about a month around here.  At least beautiful fall days such as this. :)

Love, K

Homemade {Mostly} Organic Baby Food

Homemade baby food: it's one of the easiest things to do and there are a million blog posts {I'm sure} about it already but I've had some friends ask me what foods and blends I do for Ezekiel, so I thought I'd go ahead and make it a million and one blog posts. :)

For just about everything, you wash, cut, and steam or boil it, then throw it in the food processor, scoop into ice cube trays, freeze and then pop out and store in gallon freezer bags.  (If you're boiling, don't boil too long - just long enough that it's soft because you don't want to loose all the nutrients!  Use some of your boiled water with the nutrients in it to blend with the food!)

It's that easy.  And it's hardly time consuming.  Between boiling and freezing time, it takes a little while, but actual work time is minimal.  Because the food stretches so far, I usually spend the extra buck to make sure I am getting organic produce...and it still ends up cheaper than store bought baby food (even the non-organic kind).

For example:  a bag of organic carrots at Winco (buy the big normal sized kind, not baby carrots) is $.88 and two bags will make 2 dozen.  So for $1.76, I can make 24 portions for Zeek.  That's $.07 per portion.  Two ice cube sizes are probably comparable to a jar of baby food, so even two is only $.14 for organic carrots, instead of about $.50 - $1.00 for non-organic store bought (usually with preservatives and other things) and $.90-$1.30 for organic baby food.   We always make sure we have organic/grass fed meats for Zeek.  We don't like to skimp in that department.  We bought our organic free-range chicken at Trader Joes for $4.99/lb.  More expensive, I know, but worth it.  I was able to get about 30 cubes out of just over a lb of chicken, mixed with a little organic tomato soup and a couple handfuls of bok choy greens.  So, let's say it cost me about $6.00 for all of the ingredients for that particular blend.  That's 30 meals for $.20 each.  Still well worth it.  The beef we get is from my uncle's farm which he gets butchered. 

Foods/Blends That I Make:

• Carrots
• Beets
• Butternut Squash
• Acorn Squash
• Broccoli
• Peaches/Spinach
• Plums/Spinach
• Sweet Potatoes
• Yams
• Green Beans
• Chicken/Bok Choy/Tomato & Red Pepper Soup
• Beef/Yams/Mustard Greens/Collard Greens/Spinach
• Cantalope
• Honeydew
• Santa Claus Melon
• Eggplant/Collard Greens

When we feed Zeek, we pull out 4 veggies/meats and 2 fruits and defrost the meats/veggies all together and the fruits together in a separate container.  We don't give Zeek to much of the yams or sweet potatoes because we would rather fill him with veggies and meats (protein) than starchy/filler foods, so we only give him one a day (some days none).   Though, yams and sweet potatoes are at least better than white potatoes or rice, which we give him none of.  We also avoid oats/grains/juice completely...but that's a whole other blog post. :)

I try to blend in greens (spinach) into most anything that I can.  He loves everything that we've fed him, so far!  One thing we don't do is treat fruit like dessert.  We believe that meals don't need "dessert" and want it to be treated as a normal part of a meal, not something "special".  We often will do half a scoop of the veggie and half a scoop of the melon and feed it to him in one spoonful, rather than feeding the fruit last after the veggies/meats are eaten.

This is the blended eggplant/collard greens.

Yams, beef, collard and mustard greens with a little beef broth added to make it actually blend.

Scoop it into ice cube trays and throw it in the freezer for a couple hours.

Plop them out into a labeled gallon sized freezer bag and throw them back in the freezer!

 Pull the cubes out and store in the fridge to defrost them. 

I found these awesome little containers in an 8 pack at a dollar store in Texas!

 I needed a few more containers and actually found these at Staples!  

They are perfect and just the right size.

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I try to have Zeek's food out and defrosting at all times, but I definitely do forget to pull it out ahead of time some days.  We don't like microwaving in plastic, so if I forgot to pull out food ahead of time, I just put four cubes in a small pyrex glass dish and throw them in the microwave to defrost for a few minutes.  If you do this, be sure to check several places in the dish for heat because there will be pockets of the food that are hotter than others!  I always just touch the food to my lips to test the temp.  

So there you have it.  Easy, quick, healthy, cheap food for bebe! :)  Hope this was helpful!

Love, K

Why I'm Choosing: Breastfeeding...for 2 Years

Breastfeeding in general was something that was a no-brainer for us.  Of course I was going to breastfeed my babies.  At first glance, these were the reasons why we knew there was no other way:

Benefits for Baby

• Breastmilk is the perfect food for your baby - no formula (as "good" as it claims to be) is the same as a mother's milk nutritionally, and the baby can digest it easily (where formula is harder to digest)
  
• Passes antibodies to the baby
  
• Breastfeeding can prevent illnesses and allergies in your baby
• Reduce chance of childhood obesity
• Boost your child's intelligence
• Reduces things like colic, constipation, upset stomach, meningitis, 
• Promotes facial structure development, straight teeth
• Maternal bonding, comforting/soothing
  

Benefits for Mom

• Reduces stress and chances of postpartum depression
• Reduces the risk of breast and ovarian cancer
• Promotes weight loss (I weighed less than I did pre-pregnancy by 6 weeks after birth!)
• Develops special emotional relationship with baby
• FREE!  (Don't tell me raising a child is expensive!)
• Helps uterus contract after birth to prevent postpartum bleeding
• CONVENIENT!  If I am out running errands,  I just give Zeek a quick feed while in the car, and I know he's good for another couple hours while I'm shopping or whatever.  So easy and convenient.
• Makes night-time feeding way easier, since I don't have to prepare a bottle

Before I became pregnant and really starting thinking about babies, I thought that I would breastfeed for 6-9 months.  I don't know why I picked that number - it just seemed "normal".  Once I started doing some research,  I discovered something I didn't anticipate: information on the benefits of nursing for up to two years.  The more I read, the more I saw how many benefits there were for nursing for longer than my 6-9 month time-frame.  I am now convinced to breastfeed for at least a year, but probably 2 years.  After a year, it will likely be mostly just night-time nursing before bed or before nap-time, but even in just that, there are plenty of benefits.

This is some of what I found out as I dug deeper.

• Breastfeeding continues to be a great source of nutrition and disease protection for as long as it is continued.
• Nursing toddlers have fewer illnesses and shorter durations of illnesses than non-nursing toddlers.
• Fewer allergies
• According to Elizabeth N. Baldwin, Esq. in "Extended Breastfeeding and the Law":
  "Breastfeeding is a warm and loving way to meet the needs of toddlers and young children. It not only perks them up and energizes them; it also soothes the frustrations, bumps and bruises, and daily stresses of early childhood. In addition, nursing past infancy helps little ones make a gradual transition to childhood.  Meeting a child's dependency needs is the key to helping that child achieve independence.  And children outgrow these needs according to their own unique timetable."
• The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that "Breastfeeding should be continued for at least the first year of life and beyond for as long as mutually desired by mother and child... Increased duration of breastfeeding confers significant health and developmental benefits for the child and the mother... There is no upper limit to the duration of breastfeeding and no evidence of psychologic or developmental harm from breastfeeding into the third year of life or longer." (AAP 2005)
• "Weaning when your child is ready is more natural and less abrupt than picking an arbitrary end point. Nursing a child beyond the first year was common around the world before the invention of formula and still is in some cultures."  (www.babycenter.com)
• Here's a statement I hate to hear: "If a child can ask to nurse, there's something wrong with doing so." Interestingly enough, it's deemed appropriate to hug and cuddle children, while nursing -- something that is also an act of love and affection -- is seen as inappropriate past a certain age. Giving children bottles, which were designed to imitate the breast, is also acceptable.  Why is this? It is indicative of a culture that has made the human female breast solely into a sexual object instead of its primary and original role as an organ that supplies nourishment.   (La Leche League)  And by the way - my son has been able to "ask" for nursing since he was born! 
•  Dr. William Sears, author of The Baby Book:

  "We have studied the long-term effects on thousands of children who had timely weanings and have observed that these children are more independent, gravitate to people more than things, are easier to discipline, experience less anger, radiate trust...[after] studying the long-term effects of long-term breastfeeding, the most secure... and happy children we have seen are those who have not been weaned before their time."

And I love this...

As stated in The Nursing Mother's Companion:

Many toddlers are dependent on a bottle, pacifier, thumb, or blanket, and this is quite accepted, but a mother who is nursing a toddler may have to deal with veiled or point-blank suggestions that her child is too old for it.

Amen.  I can't even tell you the number of times I've walked in a grocery store and witnessed a very large toddler sucking on a binky still.... Yet, this is appropriate, while nursing that same toddler is not.  What a selfish, sexual minded country we live in, to deem nursing your young child as inappropriate. 

Some good websites:

 http://www.kellymom.com/bf/bfextended/ebf-benefits.html 
http://www.babycenter.com/0_extended-nursing-is-it-for-you_8496.bc
http://www.llli.org/faq/advantagetoddler.html
http://www.kveller.com/blog/parenting/i-breastfeed-my-toddler-got-a-problem-with-it/

This was Zeek's sign for me that he was hungry (extending a pinky or two).  He did this since day one and did it continually until 6 months of age.  Now at nearly 9 months, he does it only periodically.  

This was a part of our breastfeeding journey that I loved.  

I loved our "language" and his communication with me.

I have loved my nursing experience with Ezekiel so far.  Breastfeeding has been the most loving, sweet mother-son dance that I have ever come to know.  When I leave for a few hours around Zeek's bedtime, Dad is always able to get Zeek to sleep still.  I can still have my own independence if I desire it, so I feel like I am in no way unfairly stuck to my son when I want to have a girls night or whatever the case may be.  But I know that I am offering Zeek the very best that I can, for as long as he needs it and wants it, for as long as I am fine with it still - despite any comments that I may encounter about "he's old enough to wean" from well-intentioned friends, family, and even strangers.  

We'll stop when it's the right time for us.  Not when it's deemed the "right time" by our weird societal standards (who made them up, anyway?).

That said, any amount of breastfeeding that can be given to your baby is hugely beneficial.  So, I would encourage it as long as you can and want to! :) 

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Love, K

Zoo

Yesterday, we decided to take a little break from life as we know it.  No school books, no computer, no cleaning, no facebook. :)  We packed the car and headed to the Oregon Zoo for Zeek's first time (and a lovely family day).  He was so fascinated by seeing all of the animals!  We could bend down, point, and he would follow our finger and find the animal right away...and then lock on and not take his eyes off until we strolled on to the next animal.  Skyler was so proud of his future hunting buddy for being able to quickly spot the animals. :) 

We enjoyed a nice picnic lunch by the elephants and the crisp, sunshine-y weather! 

Zeek loved the Zoo and I cannot wait to take him back!

Love, K

Oregon

I was going through some old pictures of mine and my father's this week...
And I was reminded why I love Oregon SO much!

The Green Luscious Landscape:

 3 Fingered Jack and Marion Lake

House Rock.

Field of Yellow.

Vineyard.

  Timberlinn Lake

The Flowers:

LOVE tulips.

 The Waterfalls:

The Coast:

Newport

The Covered Bridges:

Hope you enjoyed some of my favorite things about Oregon. :)

Love, K