Lucky Girl

Last Saturday, on Wren's 5 month birthday, we introduced her to solid food for the first time. Given it was St Patty's day, and since avocado was Max's 1st solid food and Otto (as Christy so wittingly observed) loved saying "avocotto," I decided the best first food for Wren would be avocado too.

Lucky girl! At least I thought so given they are one of my favorite foods.

I was hoping for a nice, peaceful and orderly environment to introduce Wren to food. But quickly decided that she'd likely be in high school before our house feels like that again. So, other than the initial planning that went into selecting Wren's first food, there was very limited "set up" (boy, was there set up for Max's first feeding...lights, camera, video, clutter cleared, etc). We just dove right in and gave it a try.

Ha! That was not a picture of Wren's first bite, but I think it was the most animated one we captured.

For Wren's first feeding, she basically just gummed the avocado and licked her lips a lot. She did not take any real bites.

Max was really excited to help out and take a turn feeding her. Otto was quick to follow.

A day later Auntie Cristy got a chance to feed Wren, too. This time Wren wanted full control of the spoon. While she was still unsure of the food, she realized that the food was the way to get to chew on the spoon.

One week later and she's still working on getting the hang of taking a bite and swallowing. We've moved from one green food to another and introduced her to peas mid-week. I'm pretty sure once I give her sweet fruits instead of just veggies she'll "suddenly" know how to eat...but I'm a little stubborn and would like to stick to veggies for a bit longer. As if this will have any impact on her desire to eat veggies when she's a toddler...

XOXO. The Treats.

What is Valentine's without chocolate? I'd say "Just another day in February" but I wouldn't be fooling anyone. You all know me well enough to know that there's a little chocolate in every one of my days - not just February 14th!

I tried a couple twists on the classic "Peanut Butter Kiss" cookie. The first was using a shortbread type cookie and adding some marachino cherries to it. Looks kind of perfect for Valentine's...

The second cookies I made were actual Peanut Butter Kiss cookies, using a chocolate heart instead of a chocolate kiss in the center. So simple you'd think I wouldn't need Pinterest to think of them...

And finally, I made the boys special lunches for Valentine's. Mostly red stuff and a few treats they don't normally get.

Pintastic! Pancake Possibilities

It's Sunday morning and I can practically smell the pancakes we aren't cooking. Maybe it's because our pancake creations from last weekend were more memorable than usual.

We tried two different variations:

Bacon Strip Pancakes

These ones were good, but nothing great. They reminded Joe of bacon donuts. I prefer my bacon crispy, and after pouring pancake batter over the bacon and griddling, the bacon got soft and chewy. Max, however, enjoyed them.

Apple Ring Pancakes

Core an apple and then cut into thin slices. Dip them in pancake batter and griddle. These are a delicious new pancake find. In fact, they really taste like apple fritters - and are so easy to make. Stack them up, toss some syrup on them and it's like you're eating something much fancier and more time consuming than they actually are.

Happy Sunday Everyone!! Make some pancakes!

Pintastic! Authenticity vs. Originality

"It's not where you take things from, it's where you take them to." - Jean-Luc Godard

That there is something I saw on Pinterest. And so is this...

Authenticity is invaluable, originality is non-existent.

I now present to you where I've taken the Pinterest version of Apple Smiles:

You'll have to look close as the photos are grainy, but you might notice there is a slight difference between Max and Otto's apple smiles. Max's has one black tooth, just like him!

When I was buying the mini marshmallows for this snack, I also noticed some chocolate mini marshmallows. Immediately a little light bulb went off in my head and I had to make sure Max's apple smile had a black tooth just like him.