When my first child, who is now four, was born - I had lofty visions of making all of my own baby food from scratch. Hand picking organic fruit from my garden that I would cook and puree and store myself, you know, along with all of the sleep I would be getting and time for pruning a garden. Ah, first time mom Mandi was so cute. Fast forward four years and another baby later, and I know a few things about motherhood. I also know you don't have to sacrifice quality when it's done for you if you know where to look. Lucky for us busy moms, Smart & Final has launched their own Sun Harvest baby food brand this month that is organic, clean, GMO-free and made simply from fruits and vegetables. That's it! Available in an array of delicious flavors and only $0.99 per ounce serving, the packaging is also BPA-free, which you know is a huge must for us and most mamas. You can choose from Mixed Vegetables, Pear, Apple Mango, Pear & Banana, Carrot, Apple, Banana and Strawberry and Sweet Potato, giving your little one a diverse selection of fruits and vegetables to please their budding palate. Which you know I am a huge fan of. Diversity in a child's diet, from a very early age, helps them to like an array of vegetables and fruits as they grow. For store locations and information on Sun Harvest, as well as other products offered at Smart & Final, you can visit their website here.
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Disclosure: This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #gardeinmeatlessmeats #lovesprouts #CollectiveBias
As the school year begins, and we prepare to move into our newly renovated modern farmhouse, #PimentalRanch, I am setting up all the easy solutions for our days to run smoothly. I call these solutions my daily rhythms. One of them, even though we home school, or maybe especially because we home school, is having our meals prepped and ready to grab at mealtime. Having them prepped for the day or week ahead, helps me keep the meals on our school table nutritious and balanced. As a nutritionist mama to a kiddo that loves veggies, (praise! Hoping all my littles share this love, haha), I love having vegan mealtime options. Your family needn't sacrifice taste or texture when opting for vegan entrees in a school lunch. You can parent young ones while leading a plant based life. Gardein offers a large selection of products to choose from for variety throughout the week. Our favorites this week have been the Sweet and Sour Porkless Bites and the Seven-Grain Crispy Tenders that we picked up at Sprouts. I'm sharing a list of options below to accompany each entree for a well-rounded meal for your kids or yourself. Good for the body and the planet, it's choices we can feel good about. With a wide-variety of the products on a path to Non-GMO verified, Gardein doesn't use any artificial colors or flavors. This is HUGE on my mama radar - artificial coloring and flavor can cause so many problems in our bodies, that we want to protect our kids bodies from being exposed to things we can prevent. For those of you with soy or gluten sensitive kiddos, the ones shown wouldn't be an option but they do offer gluten-free varieties!. For those who can enjoy these ingredients, these are a great option - good for little growing bodies. Pack The Perfect Plant-Based School LunchTo make well-rounded meals every day of the week, bookmark this list to check out some of our favorite sides to accompany the Gardein entrees. Easy to pack into lunch boxes, these are healthful hits with kids and adults alike. To accompany the Gardein Seven-Grain Crispy Tenders
To accompany the Gardein Sweet and Sour Porkless Bites
To make it easy to implement plant-based lunches and go meatless at mealtime, you can find a "Buy 2 Get One Free" coupon below you can use at Sprouts. Click on the Sprouts Digital Coupon link to be taken to the coupon.
Coupon offer good 8/13/2019-11/09/2019. Buy 2 Gardein Meatless Meat products and Get 1 Free at any Sprouts Farmer’s Market Store.
What are some of your favorite plant based back-to-school lunch options? Share them in the comments below! #gardeinmeatlessmeats #lovesprouts What a beautiful, exhausting, joyful, emotional sixteen months it has been as a mother. I count myself blessed every moment I get to spend with this little guy who is becoming such a spunky, quirky, cute, funny little person. No one tells ya all the feels you will have EVERY DAY playing this role, and so I thought I'd compile a little entry of what motherhood is to me. To inspire others, as a keepsake for myself and to lighten the usually heavy conversations that can arise in this season. Motherhood is...
Afterall, they're only small a little while, so soak up every moment, love them hard and enjoy the ride. 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
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.
This post was sponsored by Balance Bar and while I was compensated for this post all opinions on this deliciousness are my own,
As the countdown to Baby P draws to a close we are wrapping up all the finishing touches to be best prepared for our new "day to day" routine and that includes my business affairs.
Working from my home office as an editor, journalist and nutritionist, I found it tricky to choose my dates for maternity leave, as stopping at any point left me feeling like I'd leave loose ends, and I have a feeling it may be equally hard to decide the right time to go back to work. Not knowing what to expect from raising our first newborn and inevitable sleepless nights that lie ahead, mixed with the need to create and get back to my clients, I'm interested to see how it will all play out. I have had an amazing response from talented guys and gals who have stepped in to guest blog for me and the magazine's Fall issue wrap came right before my due date, giving me some time to step down from my roles and enjoy baby cuddles and some time away. And what I am learning most about all of these new transitions is that balance is key. I wanted to take this into consideration as I packed our new diaper bag. Mr. Charming and I each purchased our own, and each have our own packing system and needs when it comes to venturing outside of the house with Baby P. Mine is equal parts baby and me, as I love to get outside of the house and work from local coffee houses and cafes and take meetings when I need to. Wanting to have all baby essentials on hand, it was also important for me to be able to function outside of the house with baby as I ease back into work and I feel I was able to strike a nice balance between baby mama and business woman with my selections - so I wanted to share below my necessities to packing the perfect Momprenuer diaper bag.
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For more information on how TENA is supporting women, our health and our pregnancies, TENA products can be found at your local CVS* or by shopping CVS.com.
Nosh & Nurture readers and clients can take advantage of the current Ibotta Rebate beginning on 6/19.
In addition to the Ibotta Rebate offer, shoppers will be able to take advantage of the CVS in-store offer as well. Buy One and Get One at 50% off AND the Buy 2 Get $2 Extra Bucks In-Store Offer.
A great deal to take advantage of to see if TENA is right for your pregnancy or lifestyle. *CVS was also a great place to stock up on healthy snacks and bottled water to stock my gym bag. Love one stop shopping! |
I get to share something special with you fellow Pampers mom's who currently use diapers or training pants. And if you're not currently a Pampers user, the coupon coming out this weekend will make it worth trying.
Since June is National Potty Training Month, I've partnered with Pampers to tell you about an offer you can find in your Sunday paper THIS WEEKEND, on June 12th, 2016.
There will be a coupon offer for $3 off two bags or one box of any Pampers Diapers or Pampers Training Pants. So put on a hot pot of coffee, feed the kiddos breakfast and get out the scissors as you kick back, relax and peruse the paper while getting your savings.
Being a manufacturers coupon, you can use the coupon at any grocery, mass retail or discount store where diapers are sold. If you are new to Pamper's there are many options to choose from in the Pamper's line -
Pampers Swaddlers
Pampers Cruisers
Pampers Baby Dry
Pampers Easy Ups
Pampers Under Jams
Pampers Splashers
I will be sharing a Print-At-Home coupon as well all this week through this weekend, follow me on Twitter @NoshandNurture and Facebook @NoshandNurture to grab it and print it! |
Or visit Pamper's on social media -
Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/Pampers)
Twitter (https://twitter.com/Pampers)
YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/Pampers)
Do you currently use Pampers? Which ones are your favorite? I stocked up on the Pampers Sensitive for when I bring Baby P home this summer but would love your feedback!

The advice started coming as soon as I told people I was pregnant with the 2nd one. It seemed everyone knew what was best for my child and wanted to make sure I knew they were the expert on certain things. This wasn’t my first rodeo so most of their advice I would politely nod at and take it with a grain of salt. The one topic that did seem to keep coming up was disposable versus cloth when it came to diapering. I was hearing more and more about cloth diapers and the pro’s for using them. My hairstylist was the first person to give me the low down on cloth diapers. She had done her research and was very open about the pros AND the cons to cloth diapering. My oldest always got horrible diaper rash and I never thought it might be because of the diapers, I just assumed he was prone to diaper rash – Like I said earlier, he was my trial and error baby for sure. I started doing my own research and even found a class at a local baby boutique that educated parents to be on the ins and outs of clothing diaper. I was curious to learn more… the next step was getting my husband on board. I tried starting with the selling point that we were raised in cloth diapers so why not use what was used on us. He just gave me an odd look like I was crazy. I asked him to join me at one class and if it wasn’t something he wasn’t 100% on board with then we could go the disposable route.
The class was very informative and got my hubby on board. We learned that there was a variety of cloth diapers – prefolds, covers, all-in-ones, pocket diapers… It seemed like the options were endless. The instructor showed each kind and went over the pros and cons of each. There were so many questions that we had, that were just like the other parents. We also learned the average cloth diapered baby is potty trained at 18-22 months, while disposable is 26-30 months. When it came time to potty train my oldest, I remember I tried pull ups until I realized they were glorified diapers, as soon as I put real underwear on him, he was potty trained within two days. The thought of cloth potty training a child sooner made sense.
I also did my research on natural disposable diapers such as Honest Company, Huggies Pure and Earth’s Best. I loved the designs that the Honest company offered, I loved that I could find Huggies in Target and Earth’s Best was the brand of baby food I had used with my oldest – all names that I was familiar with and felt “safe” with. They had their pros as well – they were hypoallergenic, made without fragrances and latex and have you seen the cute designs by The Honest Company?? My husband and I went back and forth on what we wanted to do. It ultimately came down to cost and our child’s health. The upfront of investment for cloth made more sense for us versus the long term cost with disposable. The chance of diaper rash with cloth was a lot less than with disposable – and in the event my 2nd was prone to diaper rash, I wanted to avoid it at all costs. We made the leap into cloth diapering and 6 months in, so far, it’s not that bad. I hardly notice the extra laundry – but I could do without the smell – yes, I admit, the smell of pee when you open up the wet bag that holds the dirty diapers, knocks you on your butt the first few times… but so does a diaper genie.
There were also some myths that I would love to debunk.
3 MYTHS DEBUNKED
MYTH #1
It’s expensive to invest in cloth diapers and cheaper to buy disposable.
Cloth diapers are a bit more expensive upfront however, over the life of your little one, you save more money than you think.
An example (using the medium priced cloth diapers) Fuzzibuns at $18.95 per diaper. You would want to have around 35 to have a good stash and they are sized for kiddos 7-35lbs (so will last until your little one is potty trained). The total upfront investment of around $665. Pre-folds are even cheaper.
Pampers run around $24.94/box (for 80-100 diapers depending on the size). They say you’ll change your child on average 8 times a day – with that math from birth to age 2 you’ll spend around $2,000 on disposable diapers.
Huggies Natural are about $18 for a pack of 30 – running $3,669.
Honest Diapers are $13.99 for a pack of 40ish diapers – running $2,000.
Cloth diapers also hold their value. There are lots of mamas who buy their diapers used (once they have been stripped and bleached) and they pay anywhere from 50%-75% of the original price.
MYTH #2
My water will be increase dramatically when I use cloth diapers.
Not true. Our water bill has gone up maybe $10/year. There are also services the do the cleaning for you!
MYTH #3
Disposable diapers really aren't that bad for the environment.
7.6 billion pounds of disposable diapers a year are discarded in the U.S. They are not biodegradable, so they sit and rot for a lifetime.
Cloth diapers are not for everyone. They do require a bit more time and some extra laundry each week. Some natural diapers offer subscription services so diapers arrive at your doorstep without you ever having to get out of your pajamas. I don’t believe there is any right or wrong way to diaper your child – it’s all about preference, time and cost. Do what is best for you and your family and you’ll have one happy baby.

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