Monday, March 5, 2012

Adventures in Making Baby Food

So we FINALLY ran out of the free food from Auntie Ellen (aka Ellen Degeneres)!! It was a very sad day in the Sentelle family household! Buuutttt, I did decide to start making my own baby food so I know exactly what I am feeding my little man. I want him to be as healthy as possible and preservatives just aren't in the picture of healthy in my book! Our adventure began like this!


I bought strawberries, bananas, blueberries, sweet potatoes, apples, carrots, spinach and avocados! I also bought peas but I forgot them in the freezer at home! (Thanks Dad for getting me some more!) I bought most of this at the grocery store only because the amount sold at Costco is just a little insane when I don't have that much storage. I did buy the sweet potatoes at Costco because I figured that Brayden loves them and they won't go bad for a while. Anyways, my mom and I started with the veggies because they were going to take longer. 
Steaming the carrots.

Boiling the sweet potatoes.
While this was going on, we started on our fruit! We needed to peel the waxy skin off the apples and simply wash everything else.
Prepping the apples.

Washed blueberries! Yum!
We were finally ready to make some food!! For the first batch, we used blueberries, apples and strawberries.
Batch #1

Batch #2
Our second batch of fruit was less blueberries with apples, strawberries and bananas. The fruit was a success! Now our sweet potatoes were ready to go. P.S. we left the skin on the potatoes because it has so many vitamins but I was sure to thoroughly wash them to get all the dirt off. Anyways, here are our beautiful sweet potatoes!


We simply popped these babies in the blender with some of the water used to boil them and they were done! We also made another batch of sweet potatoes with spinach just to add some extra vitamins. I eventually got to make some peas when my dad got back from the store and I also mixed those with spinach. We put everything into meal-sized portion cups and popped everything in the freezer! 48 portion cups later (and some baggies because we ran out), Brayden's food was complete! 


This isn't all of it...clearly!
While all of this was going on, my little man was really enjoying some fruit in his mesh pacifier thing!
He started out like this...in his
super cute bowling shirt!

And ended like this....eating strawberries= naked baby!
Our adventure ended with testing out the sweet potatoes on the only little man that matters...Brayden of course!

SUCCESS!!!! He loved the sweet potatoes and later that evening he had the sweet potato and spinach mixture. I would say that taking an entire Sunday to make some healthy food for this beautiful son of mine was entirely worth it! I can definitely say I will be doing this again!
If you have any questions about my recipes just leave a comment and I can let you in on my secrets! 








Sunday, March 4, 2012

Alabama the Beautiful!

Our family trip to Alabama was amazing to say the least! We bought our tickets very last minute because it was really the only time we had to go after looking over our calendar. We left on January 31st and took the red-eye flight. And by flight, I mean FLIGHTS! We had two stops in Vegas and Houston. I don't think we will be doing that again but it seemed to work fine for Brayden. He slept through each of the 3 flights and that made it so much easier for us. The flights weren't very packed either so I actually got to lay Brayden down on one of the flights across all 3 seats. He slept like a rock! Once we finally made it to Alabama, Lisa picked us up and we immediately went to see Brayden's Big Sittie (his great-grandmother). She was so excited to see us...well Brayden really but we can pretend! Then we headed back to Lisa's house so we could unpack a little and then nap! Four hours later, Chance and I woke up and we continued our day!
We got to see so much of Chance's family and everyone finally got to meet Brayden! We also went to a rodeo (without Brayden of course!) We can't wait to go back and we know that Lisa will be out for Brayden's first birthday in July! I will let the pictures do the talking of our awesome trip!
Ready to go!

Hanging out in the airport!

So sleepy!

Beautiful trees! Even in winter!

Taking a nap in the car!

Cousin Clara!


Of course we had to go to Bass Pro Shops!

Beautiful Farmhouse!

Mansion...I could live there!

Tree-lined roads!

Meeting Great-Grandmother Sue!

Wearing Dad's hat

YUM!

Such a happy camper!

Perfection!

Tornado destruction!

New houses being built!

Construction to rebuild!

Grandmother Sue and her boys!

Family photo!

Night out at the rodeo!

Crazy bulls!

He loved meeting Big Jittie!

3 Generations!

I'M BAAAAACCKKKK!!!

Whew! It has been a super crazy couple of months! As a short recap, we have traveled to Alabama, San Francisco...twice, and Palm Springs. On top of all that, Chance and I both got new jobs and I started mine. As for Brayden, he has been growing like crazy and discovering new things every day. He discovered that he can now pull himself up on things and let me tell you, he hasn't stopped doing it since! He is constantly giggling at just about anything and is still a champ at traveling with us wherever we go. He is wearing 9 month clothing and I won't know his length or weight until our 8 month appointment which will be in just about a week. Brayden is getting so much more personality now and we absolutely love it! He is just so much fun! Brayden is still sleeping through the night although we had a week-long spell where he was waking up 5-10 times per night...that was NOT fun! He still only has the two teeth but I am positive that more are quickly approaching. He is also actually crawling now too which is fun but at the same time, I have to keep a very watchful eye on him! Chance even bought him a play yard/cage for when he is at home. Brayden isn't so fond of the cage yet but hopefully he will get used to it.
Now that I have a work schedule, I am planning on penciling in when to update my blog so this two-months-without-posting thing won't happen again! But seriously, a 9 hour work day and then attempting to keep a clean house(which hasn't been happening) and making dinner is just a little crazy but I am getting used to it! I know you will all forgive me if I show you some pictures of the little guy so here ya go!!
Wine tasting with a baby is normal right??

Got to meet cousin Kelli!!

Pretty views!

"I am adorable...and I know it!!"

So happy to see Aunt Samantha and Uncle Mike!

Best margarita EVER!!! Habanero tequila...YUM!

Love Auntie Samantha!

Being silly!

Lord help us!

First baseball game...go Dirtbags!

Looking a little ghetto!

Two baseball games in one weekend=spoiled!

Standing in his crib...the following picture would
have been Chance moving the mattress down!

Yep, that's right...a 3rd baseball game all in one weekend!
Taken by Kelli...clearly I need a better camera!


Family photo in San Fran!
So there ya go! Most of them are from our trip to San Francisco to see Samantha and Mike! The baseball photos are not(obviously, since the Dirtbags aren't a San Fran team!) We had an absolute BLAST in San Francisco and we cannot wait to go back! Hopefully next time Chance will get to come with us!