This month has brought on A LOT of new tastes to little man's palette and many more opportunities for him to sample foods outside of the house. This has made going out, and bringing him along on our date nights, much more fun and easy. Not having to bring so much external food from home makes it easier to be spontaneous and I'm thankful he is eating so many fruits, vegetables, healthy oils and meats now because we can order something for him at almost any restaurant I can eat at. He's moved to having lunches and dinners that are unique to what we are having, so moving forward you will see separate breakfast, lunch and dinner sections for even more meal ideas. We also introduced, GLUTEN. (insert shocked gasps here), for many reasons, that I will talk about in next months post, but you will see some bread included in the meals below. *Note that these are the meals he's served from breakfast, lunch and dinner. He also gets two-three snacks a day. Snacks include apple slices, pear slices, organic teething cookies, organic puffs and vegetable based baby food purees breakfasts
Banana Bread, Strawberries and Egg Yolk lunches
Turkey Lunch Meat, Avocado, Freeze Dried Berries dinners
Leftover rice from Chipotle, Shredded Chicken and Peaches
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If there's ever a chance to infuse more music into our lives. I'm all about it. Experts say exposing your baby to a variety of music can increase their social skills and their intelligence. Myself, being the fan of music that I am, and my significant background in the field, I knew I wanted our children to have a well-rounded sense of the music arts. With this in mind, I started a tradition with Grey that allows him time to soak up different genres, sounds and artists every day, giving him a chance to find what it is that he prefers. And I have to admit, it's been quite cute to watch, and so far, 60's rock is winning. #OldSoul. Just in case anyone else is interested in doing something similar to expose your little to a variety of genres, instruments and songs, below, I outlined the music I play on different days of the month. Since I limit TV in our home to only 1-2 episodes of educational shows a day (less if we go out with daddy or for a playdate), and no music or tv while we are doing our "learning time", music has been a fun way to break up the day and make meal times more entertaining. I usually play music during breakfast, while I'm prepping dinner and during one of the play times after a nap. All sticking to the same genre on the specified day. I use a music app on my phone to randomize songs in the particular genre I choose to play that day. Feel free to be creative and tailor your list to YOUR tastes, and to the types of music you want your littles exposed too. This is just what works for us! Mondays:
Tuesdays:
Wednesdays:
Thursdays:
Fridays: (Classical and Opera proved to be too hard to listen to all throughout the day. I felt like I lived on an elevator, so we do Friday mornings or winding down before nap to the list below.)
On weekends we just mix it up and listen to Christian or Top 40 Radio when we are out and about with my husband, as the weekends are for adventures, errands, day trips and quality family time. For more on what I'm doing in music, check out www.NVERecords.com where I've just accepted a position as label director and couldn't be more thrilled to be back in music full time once again! As we dive deeper into Baby Led Weaning, I thought it would be fun to share the meals that little man enjoys. He's got SUCH an appetite and it's no surprise he's our child, since he's a foodie through and through. We stick to organic, healthy choices for him, and as of yet he's still dairy-free, gluten-free, soy-free and pretty much Top 8 Free. We are going slow with introductions and now that he's almost 1, we will be introducing more and more for variety and nutrition. I've posted some photos of the meals I put together for him, and I plan to share along the way, leading up to toddler meals. These are the meals he's currently enjoying at 10 months of age. I would love your ideas too! If you have some great infant or toddler food or meal ideas, feel free to share. Any recipes of a specific dish I make for him, I will link to the recipe here on NoshandNurture.com! *Note that these are the meals he's served from breakfast, lunch and dinner. He also gets two-three snacks a day. Snacks include apple slices, pear slices, organic teething cookies, organic puffs and vegetable based baby food purees. breakfasts
lunches + dinners
when we're outThe beauty of eating clean, whole foods, is that Grey can usually eat some of what I order.
When traveling in Long Beach, we stayed at the Westin and for breakfast I ordered scrambled eggs, gluten free toast and avocado. I shared my avocado with Grey, ordered him a side of bananas and brought a puree pouch of baby food to round out his meal. Mama + baby were satisfied. Done and done! Keep an eye out for What Grey Ate, every month on Nosh and Nurture! And as always I'd love to hear your feedback and what you're feeding your littles. I also share a lot of our mealtimes, and more, on my Instagram Stories, so if you're over there, follow along! Find me @noshandnurture. Today I packed up Grey's Easter outfit in his baby memory box after church and my breath caught in my throat. I glanced in and there they were. The outfit we brought him home in, his first Halloween costume (Donald Duck), his Thanksgiving onesie, his Black Friday attire (haha), his Christmas outfit and jammies, his Valentine's Day outfit, his dedication/blessing suit and as I placed his Easter outfit atop it all, I smiled. And then I teared up. Because it's going so, so fast. My baby has experienced all the major holidays already! My baby will soon be my baby no more and his next milestone will be his BIRTHDAY. Easter was so beautifully special. For the past five years, Mr. Charming and I have attended the sunrise service at our church and really did plan to make it this year. But the babes stayed up until nine and at the 5am alarm, we couldn't bring ourselves to wake him. So we planned to attend the 10:30 service. We got to church a little early, because the grounds are BEAUTIFUL and made for the perfect location to shoot his Easter photos and give him his Easter basket. It was a gorgeous sunny day and lightly breezy. His basket was simple, a bible book, a bunny book and a cuddly bunny. We talked all day about Jesus and God's love. As we finished photos we went in to get a seat and were turned away because it was FULL! (YAY CHURCH!) Which we didn't mind because we love to see our church growing and thriving and we came prepared with lunch for all three of us. We would just hang out until the noon service. We sat at a table outside and enjoyed a healthy lunch while Greyson ate and watched the big kids play. After we ate we played some corn hole (our church is so fun, haha) and let baby crawl around for a while. We got our seats for the noon service and Greyson made it halfway through before he was over it. I took him to the Mom's Lounge and nursed him and rocked him and held him as he napped while Mr. Charming stayed in service. What was SO nice was there was a screen playing it all for me to see while he napped so I didn't miss the message. This year our churches focus what on the importance of the Resurrection. That you can't believe in Jesus' teachings if you don't believe in his Resurrection. That its pointless to do so, because the Resurrection is what its all about and what ultimately saved us all. After nap and service we took flowers to my husbands mom and she gave Grey some more Easter goodies and snuggles and we relaxed at home the rest of the evening.
It was so perfect and special and I loved spending SO much of the day at church. I'm hoping to do that a few more times before the weather becomes too much to bear to be outside here. I hope you all had a beautiful Easter with your family and friends and that the message resonated with you and your soul. Refreshing you as ours did mine. Celebrate always! For He is Risen! Today our precious little bubs turned 6 months old. Half a year old. We are halfway to his first birthday and I am feeling alllllll the mama feels today. As hard as the early baby days were, and sometimes still are (we will sleep good someday again right?) I am starting to see just how lightning fast all of this goes and with each new milestone I see him moving further away from being my tiny baby and more of him growing into my little boy. Today was a beautiful day to celebrate him, as Sundays are our favorite around here. We get daddy cuddles in the morning. Slow, delicious breakfasts, THIS breakfast was on repeat all weekend and we spent the late morning in the sunshine playing with toys. We also decided to implement a family tradition of celebrating his half-birthday. And although he can't yet enjoy these delicious cupcakes (he seemed to love on his carrots today though) I hope he appreciates the traditions that we are creating with him. I remember growing up, being three, four, five years old and loving when I could say I was a half a year older! Always in a rush to grow up when we're young... so I thought it'd be fun to make it a fun day where we could bake cupcakes, maybe pick a special toy and have family time just celebrating him and his life. Every step of the way. If you want to snag my recipe for my white cake mix that is gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free and soy-free you can click here. It's SCRUMPTIOUS. For the frosting I used Miss Jones organic vanilla frosting and dye-free sprinkles by Indian Tree. This month has really been a favorite with him so far. His little personality is bursting out and he makes me smile bigger and love harder than I ever thought imaginable. He's weighing in at just over 18 lbs and his chubby cheeks and chunky thighs are EVERYTHING. He is loving and cuddly and ADORES his daddy. I know they will be best pals. He laughs and it's the best sound this side of heaven and he smiles and talks with his eyes. A trait that made me fall in love with his daddy. His sandy blonde hair and hazel eyes goes to show we really couldn't have guessed how he'd turn out (we thought it'd be dark features all the way from daddy) and listening to him "read" his little books is probably the cutest thing ever. My little smarty. We love every new milestone, month and experience with our sweet little Grey.
Do you have a favorite tradition you've implemented with your littles?
This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #WhyPlumFormula #CollectiveBias #Sponsored
I've learned the road to motherhood can be a bit bumpy. Learning schedules (or throwing them out the window because baby's change weekly), raising a tiny human on little sleep and making sure you give them optimal nutrition to keep them healthy are all areas in which I feel we are constantly trying to navigate with little guidance and much instinct.
I remember that one of my first thoughts when Grey was born was how I was so excited to breastfeed him right away. When they handed that tiny, pink, wrinkly babe and he latched on like it was the most natural and beautiful thing in the world, my heart soared. However, there were circumstances with health issues in the hospital, with both him and I, that called for more nutrition, and more volume, than what I could give him. My instincts as a mother quickly shifted to making sure he got the nutrients he needed to help him thrive. All mom guilt aside, I had to do what was best to feed my baby under the new circumstances we faced.
If you've been following the blog for a while you will know I am a MAJOR advocate for organic living and consuming whole foods with no or minimal artificial ingredients or processing and I knew I wanted to hold fast to the same standards for our new little babe.
Having heard of and having researched their infant snacks and food line, I knew that Plum Organics® was, and is, America's number one organic baby food brand. I was ecstatic to learn they also made formula. Their organic infant formula adds no corn syrup solids, which was a huge plus for me. And since lactose is the most abundant carbohydrate found in breast milk, their carbohydrate source is from cow’s milk lactose only. In addition, the milk they use is from cows not treated with the hormone rBST**. I also love that they respect a woman's desire to breastfeed during those crucial, early days and I adored their understanding outlook on it. It made me feel good, and assured, that what I was giving my baby was a product that was created by parents just like me. As an organic food company, we’ve always admired nature’s complex, built-in, and beautiful way of nourishing baby. We believe breast is best. But we’re also a team of parents that know first hand that life – and parenting – isn’t always perfect. Because life happens, our goal was to design an organic formula we can feel good about feeding our babies and yours. - Plum Organics
In addition to their Grow Well® Infant Formula being organic, it is also non-GMO and contains essential DHA and ARA. They believe that formula is food and should be treated with the same care we'd give ourselves and the rest of our family members when seeking an organic diet and lifestyle.
The formula can be found at Safeway and Albertsons nationwide and for those of you wanting to make the switch, I've included a coupon for you all below.
For more on Plum Organics and their full range of products:
**No significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rBST-treated and non-rBST-treated cows.
How do you ensure your family reaches their nutritional goals? I'd also love to talk to fellow mamas about your breastfeeding and formula journeys! Leave it in the comments below and let's connect. SPOILER ALERT! If you haven't yet made your way through the 4 episodes of Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life, this post will be filled with spoilers. But seriously, how have you not binged it multiple times like the rest of us? To be kind, I waited until January in case anyone needed to catch up. For those of you that don't know me yet, Gilmore Girls is in my top two favorite television shows ever Friends and Gilmore Girls. I have memorbilia. I've been to Stars Hollow and Luke's Diner on the Warner Brothers set and much of my pregnancy was spent in bed binge watching the series. My new years resolution for 2017 even revolves around the famed "Friday Night Dinners" concept. And I did that to my baby for his 5 month photo shoot. :) Good thing he loves me oh so very much. He's almost sitting up alone for longer than 30 seconds, he's rolling EVERYWHERE. He wants our food OH SO MUCH (but we are waiting until months) - naps are better, night sleep is very broken most nights, he talks so much, his laugh is infectious and is the BEST SOUND IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. He loves his toys, being out of the house exploring and playing with his hands and feet. He is just the light of our lives. Our little nugget. On to the recap... First off, I have to say, overall - it was a mix of warm fuzzies and dissapointment. That was until "Fall". Then I felt like the cast was back into their groove and we were back home with them again. To bad it happened so late in the game. As you know, the four-part series visited Lorelai, Rory and the gang nearly 10 years after we watched Rory graduate Yale, turn down Logan's proposal and after Luke and Lorelai FINALLY got back together. When the revival was announced over a year ago, the countdown begun for us to see where our favorite small town folks would pick up. So, onto the good, the bad and the ugly. Ending with the good, as I always love to save the best for last. The Bad:
The Ugly:
The Good - and what redeemed the show:
Final Recap: While I'm glad they did it, it was different than I think a lot of us expected to be. But as stated above, I loved so much of it and really do hope they continue the series after a cliffhanger like that one. I know some see it as the "perfect" way to wrap it up and leave Rory as the "next Lorelai" with her single motherhood-ness and all. But I would really like some of the strings tied up and I'd love to spend as much time in Stars Hollow as we can. Because who doesn't love small town charm, familiar faces and of course, all the Luke's Coffee we can get our hands on? OK, grab a cup of coffee and a danish and let me know what you loved or loathed about the revival? So if you've read Part One and Part Two of Grey's birth story you would have read that I was in labor for 26 hours and pushed for 4 hours. We had a completely medication, intervention free natural labor and birth that was not without it's complications. Within moments of Grey being born I started losing a lot of blood. My uterus had worked so hard, too hard, and I had to be administered many medications to get my bleeding under control. I was also in a great deal of pain, having also torn in multiple places, and skin to skin wasn't what I had always imagined it to be. I had to ask Mr. Charming to take him from my chest. 26 hours of natural labor to feel connected, euphoric, and that endorphin rush was elusive. I felt robbed of that moment, and it took me a long time to accept what had happened. What had gone wrong. I wanted to feel empowered, strong, and I know now that I am. But it messed with my mind a lot, that had I done that, birthed him naturally in the exact way that I did, anywhere but in a hospital, I probably would have died. And that shook me to my core. In the days following his birth I had to have a double blood transfusion because of the blood loss and I will be honest and say fear totally stepped in at that point. But with MUCH prayer, an AMAZING nursing staff, a competent doctor and my beautiful husband and baby to distract me, I got through it. Praise Jesus yet again. And again and again. And in everything, always. Following the traumatic experience I endured, our little one became severely jaundiced and had to be put under lights for 18 hours. They brought him to me to nurse every three hours though, so I got my cuddles in and Mr. Charming walked to check on him often. While he was in the nursery the hospital treated the hubs and I to a filet mignon dinner with sparkling cider to celebrate and we stayed up well into the night talking and having our last date night before we'd go home as a family of three! We stayed in the hospital an extra day to watch both mine and Grey's recovery and then we got to pack up to take our babes home! He is a dream. Our son, our moon and our stars and we now see why God's timing is perfect. If it wasn't at this time, it wouldn't be Grey, and we can't picture our little one being anyone but him. Our mini Mr. Charming. Our little love. Our rainbow. For information on our doula and her company, visit: http://lovebugdoula.com/ I usually don't quote other people's work often in this space, however, as a new mom I've been hearing so much advice from friends, family, doctors and Google on how to take care of this new little nugget of mine. And while most of the advice is solicited (seriously, I'm calling everyone about everything and settling in with my new mom tribe to know I am not alone in this journey of new motherhood) some of it is not. And while I know it's coming from the very best place, it makes it hard to know what's right, what's wrong and what is just one persons experience or opinion. Then I came across this entry below from a book published in 2002 and it spoke to me. Like "I could have written this myself!" kind of speaking to me. It was as if I wrote it based on how I feel about being a "pacifier" to my newborn son and I couldn't have written it better, so I decided to include it below. This is a topic that most women, both mothers and non-mothers have given their opinions on. The Human Pacifier Credit: Lu Hanessian From NEW BEGINNINGS, Vol. 19 No. 1, January-February 2002, p. 14 I'm sitting in the rocker with my son in the blue light of dawn. We've been at this a few weeks now, getting to know each other after nine months of anticipation. I am searching for feedback; a sign that I'm doing right by him, getting closer to figuring out what ails him when he seems so inconsolable. I would love to hear your feedback. New mamas - when our babes feel safest with us, there is nothing wrong in giving them security, love and the closeness that can only be achieved by allowing them to soothe themselves on us. I am completely devoted to being that person for my precious son, especially during this "fourth trimester". My son who arrived into a big, scary world that he has yet to know how to navigate. I am all he knows, I am home to him. And I pray that through his life, I will always be home to him. That in my presence he would feel safe, secure and oh so very loved. Our Little Man is 4 weeks old today, and technically one month old on Monday, since he was born August 5th. And I love him with all of my being. So much so it aches. I can't believe the miracle we prayed so long and hard for is in our arms. And he is wonderful and perfect. Motherhood is definitely rocking my world in amazing, beautiful, wonderful and challenging ways. This adventure is like nothing else I've ever experienced and I am humbled everyday. My ability to love harder, deeper and selflessly also grows with each passing day with this new little love of my life. Sometimes motherhood feels so lonely, at the same time so fitting. It's like he's so brand new to us, but at the same time he feels like he's been our family forever. Mr. Charming's work was beyond amazing and he was able to be at home for a lot of the time during our first two weeks home as I healed and we adjusted. Four weeks in, I am learning how to be on a newborns schedule, and as I spoke of being humbled daily, I have learned that in the days when all I've done is snuggled my son, fed him many times over and bathed only one of us (that would be him, haha) that I can be OK with that in this season of my life. Which I'll admit has been really hard for me. I've felt guilt over not performing well as a wife. I've felt guilt over not blogging and Instagramming. I see so many other new moms in my circles already on outings with their newborns Snapchatting and blog posting and I've had to pray and let go of comparing. I'm not them. And I needn't be. I need to adjust to motherhood at my own pace and possibly when Little Man starts napping again (for the past few days he's found it fun to nap no more than 20 min spurts, which means "sleep when they sleep" doesn't exist for me right now) I can be more productive. But in these moments, instead of being frustrated or feeling guilty, I consistently strive to turn that into feeling blessed that I can relish in more time singing with him, enjoy his snuggles when the only place he will sleep is on my chest and be thankful that he's at an age where he needs me more than anything else in this world. I know those moments are so fleeting. He is growing like crazy, and at his Naturopathic Ped appointment he weighed in at 9 lbs 14 oz! We had to supplement on formula for a while, which I wasn't crazy about, but it was for the health of the babes from him being so jaundice in the hospital and I was just given the green light to start breastfeeding exclusively since he's gaining so well and has grown almost 2 full inches!
He has also hit all the 4 week milestones and has even reached 2 of the 8 week milestones AND a 3 month milestone! Proud of my little over achiever. #NaturalBirthMama. His baby book also arrived today from Land Of Nod (can you say OBSESSED with that store?) and I can't wait to start filling out all of his little moments. I am praying for all of you other new mamas out there. Those of you that are sitting in the darkness, nursing your little humans, praying over them while also praying for sleep. I pray that you will find your tribe of mamas, and that I too, will find mine. And may I continue to look to God and be thankful for this season. This chapter, where we are at right now and kiss my little blessing a million times over. |
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