Avocado Baby Food Tutorial (with Pictures!)

Hooray, it's Toddle Along Tuesday! Your hosts for this baby blog hop are Mama G from Growing Up Geeky and Kristin from Our Growing Garden! Today's featured blog is... hey, it's me! Welcome, Toddlers, to my blog sweet blog. :)

For those of you who are unfamiliar with my blog, I am the proud mommy of an incredible almost-six month old boy named Colin. As a first time mom, I've been doing a lot of experimenting to find what works best for us as a family. One of my latest adventures has been in making homemade baby food. One of Colin's favorite foods so far (even though it can't touch his beloved pears and peaches) is avocado puree. I love that he loves it, too - it's so easy to make (no cooking required. Sold!) and it's so good for him. You can read about the benefits of avocado on this website. Here's how it's made!

First, get thee to the store and buy yourself an avocado.

Next, open that bad boy up. Ooh, pretty.

Remove the pit and the skin (it peels right off),

break it up into smaller pieces, and throw it in your blender

(or food processor, or whatever you have handy)

Add water as necessary. First, I added about 1/4 cup...

...but I didn't quite get the texture I wanted, so I added 1/4 cup more...

There we go, muuuch better. This is what we like to call a puree.

Pour your lovely green puree into an ice cube tray -

this decent sized avocado made 12 cubes -

and freeze. When frozen, just pop 'em out

and store them in a labeled baggie.

Easy peasy! A warning, though: If your blender is as loud as mine is, be sure to have your husband close by to entertain and distract your little one when it's time to make baby food. :)

Do you make your own baby food?

What are your baby's favorite foods?

Thanks for stopping by!

Please don't make me do that again

Since our sweet Colin boy hasn't been sleeping as well at night, we thought we might give the Ferber method a try, to see if he could put himself to sleep. The theory behind that thinking is that if your child can fall asleep on his own, when he wakes up at night he'll self-soothe and go right back to sleep.

Sometimes Colin falls asleep on his own anyway, so we thought he'd be ready.

First we followed through with the bedtime routine. Warm bath, lotion, jammies, story time, bottle. Laid him in his crib awake, turned on his white noise, said goodnight, left the room.

Commence screaming.

I don't even think I made it the full five minutes. I went in and offered a paci. He spit it out and continued to scream. We went through this ritual two or three times, his screaming gradually getting louder and louder, before I finally picked him up and snuggled him with tears in my own eyes.

He fell asleep on Daddy in the glider a few minutes later.

Yeah, we're not ready to sleep-train just yet.

Wordless Wednesday: Reading with Mommy

Can a 5 month old throw a temper tantrum?

Today I'm linking up with Mama G and Kristin for Toddle Along Tuesday!

So, I'm pretty sure my five month old son has learned to throw a temper tantrum. I'm hoping it's just a phase, or that maybe he's starting to teethe, or that he's just learning too much right now to pause for a nap. Whatever it is, Colin was Mr. Cranky Pants for the better part of our Fourth of July weekend! Now, don't get me wrong: even at his worst, he's still the cutest kid around. And, we've been lucky in that he's pretty much always been a great eater, sleeper, etc etc. Basically we've had it easy up until now, which is why this has thrown me for a loop! For weeks, our sweet boy was sleeping through the night, but now? I'm up with him at least once a night. Last night, after a rough day of crappy naps, he slept like a little prince, only waking once and falling back asleep as soon as I popped a paci in his mouth.

I'm hoping our decent sleep last night was a good omen, and that my little man is about to start sleeping through the night again. Wouldn't that be nice!

It would also be nice if Colin decided that naps weren't so awful/scary/torturous and just allowed himself to drift off when he started to feel sleepy.

Kind of makes me miss the days when I could barely keep my newborn awake. Ha!

More to come. :)

Happy Birthday, America: A Wordless Post

And the winner is....

For those of you who submitted ideas for new blog titles, thank you! There were lots of great suggestions, and I had a hard time deciding between several of them. But, as you can see, I've already made some changes based on my favorite one.

And so, without further ado, the winner is Kenon K. with his suggestion of Love, Lattes & Lullabies. I loved this one because it was a throwback to my original blog title, Love and Lattes. I like that it's still "me," with a little mommy twist to it.

Kenon, because I used your idea, keep an eye out for info on how to redeem your 25 free prints from Snapfish!

I hope you enjoy the fresh new look.. I know I do!

Not baby related, but still awesome

Check out my friend, Neil, and his awesome video!

 

If you watched it, and you like it, then share it! Such a cool concept.

Also, don't forget to share your ideas for a new blog title...

there's a giveaway involved! Comment on this post for a chance to win!