Fun All Day Long

 It's a good thing I like to cook. And play. And watch Sesame Street. Because I do that all day long in addition to cleaning, which I don't like nearly as much.

The floors must be clean for the rolling, creeping, crawling, curious baby and the kitchen and dishes must be clean to accommodate my new profession as baby food chef.

I need an apron

My parents joke that Connor gets gourmet baby food. He really doesn't, but I have been having fun lately with recipes. Connor is at the point where he has tried enough foods, we can begin having combination foods. This past week, I made a stew of butternut squash, yellow potatoes and Fuji apple. This was chopped up, sauteed in a bit of olive oil and then simmered in vegetable stock until tender. Pureed until smooth and YUM! I taste everything I make for Connor and this was one of my favorites. :) He loves it.

He is also doing great eating yogurt. Mangoes were a new fruit he tried a couple of weeks ago too. He likes smoothies made with yogurt and fruit he has been eating for awhile now: banana, mango, peaches. Very yummy!

We are finally trying meat: lamb! Lamb and turkey are good first meats for a baby and lamb is a great source of iron. So, we are going with lamb first. I cooked it in vegetable stock and then pureed it. It tastes pretty good for just unseasoned ground meat. :)

But first, we'll be doing 3-4 days of prune puree. So far, Connor is loving it. No wonder: it is very sweet and creamy! Prunes are supposed to go very well with lamb and I plan to mix them in if he doesn't take to just plain lamb right away.

 roasted carrots, lamb, and prune purees

I liked making prunes because I got 2 items from one pot: the prune puree and the prune juice! After simmering prunes in water, you end up with a very nice juice. It tastes a lot better than the baby bottled juice you can buy (way cheaper too).

We've been doing carrots for awhile now, but today we got young and tender organic carrots and roasted them in a bit of olive oil. Wow, these are good! Way better than just steaming carrots.

Connor has had a sippy cup for nearly 2 months now. He seems to like chewing on the rubber spout more than actually drinking water. One day at a restaurant, we gave him sips of water from a straw and created a monster. He LOVES straws now! It's actually great because he will happily drink water or juice this way. He can't suck from the straw yet but I think he's getting there.

We got this froggy baby food set at IKEA awhile ago. It's so cute...the cup has little webbed feet. I'm not sure Connor fully appreciates it yet. :)

He thought this was fun for a few minutes and then started trying to break out

Happy baby with morning hair. His hair is getting so long and it's always pretty wild when he wakes up

He loves water bottles even more than straws and grabs mine whenever he gets a chance

Connor has gotten very ticklish. Ribs and thighs mostly. He laughs hysterically if you chomp on his fat thighs or his tummy and ribs. It's even funnier to lightly stroke his legs with your fingertips. That really tickles! We spend a lot of time just playing, tickling and rolling around on the floor.