Weekend Recap: Shopping and Swimming

For me the weekend began on Thursday night.  We celebrated my mom's birthday with dinner in our backyard.  This was really the only good picture that I took besides the one of the cupcakes that I posted on Friday.

Hannah with Uncle Justin

Friday I took off from work to have a girl's day for my mom's birthday.  Hannah made a special present for Grandma, but she was really just interested in eating the paper and the bow.  She puts EVERYTHING in her mouth!  More on the gift later this week.

Then we went to the mall for some lunch and shopping at the Nordstrom anniversary sale.  Hannah got some cute coats for fall and winter- here she is trying on her new vest and headband.  I can't wait for her to wear it!!  It is crazy how lately I don't care at all about shopping for myself.  All I want to do is buy clothes and accessories for Hannah!  I am obsessed!

We measured her tiny little foot and she tried on some Uggs for size.

We ended the night with a little Daddy and Hannah play time.  It was such a fun day!!  I love getting to be with my mom and sister!

Saturday we went to our nephew Aidan's baseball game, but unfortunately we missed a lot of the game.  It takes us forever and a day to get out of the house now.  I hate being late and then when I married Michael I had to adjust since he is late for everything.  Now that we have Hannah, forget it!!  We cannot get out the door to save our lives!!  It was nice to get to see a little of the game though!  (Sorry Aidan!)  After we went to lunch and then came home and had a low key night.  Michael took Hannah for a walk and I made some pea baby food.  

I am bummed, I didn't take any pictures on Saturday.  One of the reasons I wanted to start a blog was so that I would be better at taking pictures and documenting our lives.  We were really good about it when Hannah was first born and then as we got busier, it got harder.  So I am trying!

Sunday was a nice day at home.  We spent the morning in our jammies and Hannah watched some golf with Daddy.  Michael is hoping for a little golf partner as soon as she is able!  He has been watching the Golf Network with her almost every morning since we first brought her home from the hospital.  

After some cleaning and a short nap for Hannah, we headed outside to enjoy the nice weather!!  She loves her baby pool!  Hannah rocked one of her new headbands from Friday's shopping trip.  I currently have 3 other colors in my cart online and am debating whether or not to get them.  They are so soft and stay on really well.

After a spit up incident in the baby pool, it was time to test out the big pool.  At first she seemed interested and was kicking her feet in the water, but once she got in it was an entirely different story!!  She was not a big fan of the pool!!

She was much happier after we took her out!  We will have to try again once the pool is warmer.

Check out those lashes!!  Lucky girl!!

We ended the night with some ice cream and Big Brother.  It was so nice to enjoy a three day weekend!

Friday Favorites

Today I am linking up with three other blogs: Momfessionals, A Little Bit of Everything, and Grace and Love.  I read all three of these blogs and I really hope to have a sweet group of mom friends like they do one day!

Every Friday I am going to pick my "favorites" of the past week.  I am not going to pick a specific number of things to stick to, it will be different depending on the week.  Spoiler alert - a lot of them will probably have to do with Hannah.  :)

1.  Hannah discovering new food

I am so glad that I decided to make Hannah's baby food.  It is so cool to watch her discovering food and knowing that I made it for her.  I already shared the pictures of her having apples earlier this week.  Here she is having sweet potatoes for the first time on Wednesday.

She already loves to eat!  She stares at everything that we eat in front of her and seems so fascinated by it.  The other night I ate a mozzarella stick while I was holding her and I honestly felt so badly that I couldn't let her have any of it.  She stared at it moving from my hand to my mouth the entire time.  It was so funny.  

2.  Haagen-Dazs was on sale at A&P

We seriously stocked up! We have a Haagen-Dazs problem and aren't afraid to admit it.  If I were still pregnant, these would have lasted approximately three days before I would have had to send Michael back to the store to get more.  Eight pints is a totally normal amount of ice cream to have in your freezer, right?  :)

3.  McGrath Family Photos

About a month ago, we had professional photos taken of Michael's parents and all 10 of the grandchildren.  We got them back from the photographer this week and they are adorable!  I will share my favorite photo of Hannah from the shoot now, and then share more from the shoot next week.

Sugarshots Photography

4.  Hannah's Vera Bradley Outfit

How stinkin' cute is this!?  She may or may not also have a bathing suit and cover up in this print.  :)  

5.  Cupcakes

Do I even need to say anything?  Yum!!

6.  My mom

Although my mom is one of my favorite things every week, today is her birthday so I am going to put her on this week's list.  I feel so blessed and lucky every day to have her for a mom and have her as Hannah's grandma.  I know that I have only been a mom for a short time, but I feel like I can already appreciate so much more everything she has done for all of us.   I hope I can be half as great a mom to Hannah as she has been to me.

Happy Birthday Mom.  I love you!

Operation Baby Food

Making my own baby food was not something I always thought I would do.  I don't think I really ever gave baby food much thought while pregnant, it seemed so far off.  I didn't think Hannah would even have any food until she was 6 months old, which is still another month away, but at her 4 month check up her pediatrician encouraged starting food if we wanted to.  True to form, I immediately jumped into research mode.  I decided to give making my own food a try, and since I don't even eat  most of the foods that Hannah will be eating (therefore I don't normally cook them), there was a lot to learn.  I bought three books and read lots online about it.

I did a lot of reading on this site and some other blogs that I found.

These are the three books I bought on Amazon.  There were so many to choose from!

Like all other baby topics I have read about, practically every book and everything that I read says something different.  So frustrating!!  Different cooking methods, different rules about what to give babies when, different lengths of time you can keep the food frozen, etc, etc...I get so overwhelmed by all the information that is available.  My pediatrician just offered the advice to "have fun with it" and everyone that I talked to offered their own advice and methods.  Seriously, I get so overwhelmed!

I decided to just start off with something simple, while I did some more reading and ordered some gear that I needed for food making.  I wasn't going to make my own baby cereal so we decided to start there.  We started with Earth's Best Whole Grain Oatmeal Cereal.  We didn't go with rice cereal since Hannah already has issues with constipation.  The oatmeal cereal didn't quite agree with her little belly either so after a few days we decided to stop giving her that and move on to real food.

We started with a Whole Foods trip and then spent lots of hours in the kitchen.  I got out all three of my books and we started with sweet potatoes and apples. 

I roasted the six sweet potatoes in the oven at 350 degrees.  The recipes said they should take around 45 minutes to cook.  I honestly lost track of how long they took to cook but it was A LOT longer than 45 minutes. (I love my Williams-Sonoma baking sheets!!)  

We washed, peeled and cut up eight apples.  Then put them in a pot and covered them half way with water.  Once it was boiling I reduced the heat to medium and let it cook for 10 minutes.  

Once the apples were done cooking they went into the Vitamix.  (We got this one from QVC a few months ago and we love it.  Totally worth the investment.)  I didn't use all of the liquid that was left in the pot after boiling, just enough to make it the consistency I was looking for.

After blending I loaded it into silicone ice cube trays (I read online that these were best to use because they were easier to pop out then regular ice cube trays) so that I could freeze and store them.  Each cube is 1 oz. of food. 

Once the sweet potatoes were finally done roasting, I scooped them out, blended them and loaded them into the ice cube trays.  I used my jar scraper spatula to spread them in the trays and it was the perfect size.  They don't have my exact one at Williams-Sonoma anymore but this one is similar.  

Here is everything in the freezer.  I also cut up some avocado and froze them on a baking sheet before loading them into zip lock bags for storing in the freezer.  I wouldn't cover the ice cube trays with plastic wrap the next time I did it.

Once frozen, I popped out the food cubes and loaded them into labeled freezer zip lock bags.  The cubes are a perfect shape for stacking bags on top of each other in the freezer because they lay flat.

The sweet potatoes made about double the amount as the apples but I spelled potatoes wrong on the bad so decided not to post that picture.  :) 

Hours later, Hannah finally got to taste the fruits of our labor!  Apples were ready first so we decided to go with apples as her first (non-cereal) food.

After a few tastes, she realized that she loves apples!  She can't get enough!

Can't wait to see her reaction to the sweet potatoes and avocado.  I have also made peaches since.  Carrots, peas and butternut squash are on the agenda for this weekend.  Hope Hannah becomes a good little eater!  

Fourth of July Weekend

Fourth of July weekend brought lots of first for Hannah, which means LOTS of pictures!  Her first fourth of July, her first time having baby cereal and her first time "swimming."

Thursday I was able to leave work early and even though the weather was crappy, it was nice to enjoy some time with Hannah.

Later, Aunt Emily came over to play and practice sitting up with Hannah.

Friday morning Hannah got her first taste of baby cereal.  Thanks for the adorable bib, Kristin!

Not so sure she likes it!

She was DONE with the cereal and just wanted her bottle.  We tried again after she finished her bottle  but she was still not having it, so we let her play with the spoon!

After a serious bath for Hannah it was time for some BBQ fun!  Our BBQ got moved indoors because of the weather but we still had a great time.

Fun with Aunts, Uncles and Cousins

Saturday we relaxed and enjoyed the beautiful weather.  We set up Hannah's baby pool and she got to rock her Fourth of July bathing suit!  

Not so sure about this whole pool thing.

Getting ready to go in.

She loved it!!

Her fan club came to watch!

 I die every time over that smile!!  She can't wait to "swim" again!

Aunt Emily came over and we practiced eating some more and then relaxed outside before bed.

Sunday was a nice day of relaxing as a family and cleaning before we had to go reality (work) on Monday.  We had a little after bath photo shoot, Hannah perfected her cereal eating and we enjoyed being together.