Toddler Eats

So what happens when I have a random day off..... two blog post! yay!! 

I haven't blogged about food in quite awhile.... quite frankly because I felt like I was writing the same thing each time. To be completely honest, getting back into the routine of work had me in quite the food rut. Plus Dax's lack of teeth made food time not that exciting. But good news is now I'm settled into our new routine of work and Dax now has two sets of matching teeth (by that I mean teeth that match up on the top and bottom... molars on top and bottom, and middle teeth on top and bottom)  He still only has 9, working on 10, teeth so we're still a little limited but we're able to do a little more now. 

My main goal with Dax's food is that it's organic, has no high fructose corn syrup (I swear this stuff is a drug), low sugar (especially refined sugars), whole grain, and fresh/no processed (whenever possible). The one I have the hardest time with right now is the no processed one. With mine and Daniel's busy schedules it super hard to only do fresh stuff. But I do try to at least go organic with my processed food. Don't beat yourself up over it... it's tough to do everything right... just do what you can... and for now in our house... there has to be a bit of processed food. Moderation is key.

Here are some of the things that make up Dax's meals each day...

Breakfast:
*Earths Best Organic Mini Blueberry Waffles
*Earths Best Organic French Toast Sticks
*Whole Grain english muffins (with an organic fruit spread or a bit of butter and cinnamon)
*365 (whole foods brand)  Morning multi-grain O's   (these are like cheerios but organic and mulitgrain... I like them SO much more than Cheerios) .... when we do these we mix in some berries as well.
*Earths Best Organic Baby Yogurt.  We have the Vanilla Prune flavor right now. The only real difference between baby yogurt and regular yogurt is that it's made with whole milk, had no refined sugars, and is infused with a few more vitamins.  Dax recently saw me put granola in mine and wanted some in his. Since granola is still a little hard for him I crunched up some of his morning O's and put them in there. He loved it and it added some good whole grains
*Organic Unsweetened Applesauce.  This is a good side with his waffles or french toast. He liked to dip them in it :)
* Berries: He has some sort of berry every morning with breakfast (unless he's having applesauce). We rotate between blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries. All are on the dirty dozen so we go organic with them whenever possible.
* Omelets. I don't have much time during the week to make an omelet so these are the occasional weekend thing. Add in a small dash of shredded cheese and veggie (spinach works nice).
*Toast. Whole grain bread (we use Natures Own 100%Whole Wheat bread. It has 14g of whole grain per slice and no high fructose corn syrup! I top it with the same things as I do with the english muffins


 Lunch/Dinner: 
*Whole grain tortilla with low fast cheese. A toddler quesadilla.... Dax loves it.
* Grilled Cheese: On our whole grain bread of course and one piece of low fat cheese.
* Veggie Corn Dogs:  Dax still wont eat meat so this is our go to "meat" for him. They're Morning Star brand. Lots of good protein in these!
*Veggie Chicken Strips:  See above :)
* Spaghetti:  We use wheat pasta and organic sauce. Also if you get plain sauce and season it yourself you can cut back on the sodium drastically.
* Fruit: Dax has fruit with every meal. We mix it up between berries, mandarin oranges, watermelon, peaches, pineapple. We stick to the dirty dozen on these. And if you happen to get canned things (try to go fresh but I know it's hard) make sure you get some that aren't packed in syrup or "light syrup". Get the ones that are in their natural juice or water!!! 
* Veggies: We also do a veggie with each meal... but this is still a struggle for us. Dax has texture issues so a lot of veggies he won't eat unless they're pureed (he'll eat anything pureed). So we go with peas, carrots, green beans, and the occasional pureed veggie.  For our pea and green beans we go with frozen. We steam them all at once, put them in a freezer bag, freeze them flat, and break off what we need for each meal. Carrots we do the same thing but buy fresh.
* Annie's Whole Grain Shells and Cheddar. This is a "healthier" version of mac and cheese. We also mix it with veggies which Dax really loves (esp peas).
*Sweet Potato Fries: We use the Alexia Natural frozen kind.... delish!
* Earths best mini cheese pizza! These are made on whole grain bread and very yummy.

Snacks:
*Fresh fruits: berries, apple slices, watermelon, mango slices.
*Fiddlesticks: These are a processed snack that we throw in the diaper bag for when we're out and about. They're organic (Plum Organic Tots) and super easy for him to eat as a snack independently.
* Cheese sticks:  We buy a low fat, low sodium string cheese. Dax could live on these.... and so could I :)   We do a lot of cheese to get protein since he won't eat meat.... and he eats so much fruit that they balance each other out in the diaper area if you know what I mean ;)

*Trailmix:  I made Dax a trailmix yesterday and it went over really well. I mixed some of his Morning O's, dried strawberries and bananas (I bought at Whole foods), Pecans, Shredded Spoonfuls (organic cereal that's sort of like chex... again... these are seriously delicious!), and Annie's organic whole grain bunnies (they're just crackers in the shape of a bunny). I wanted to put some raisins in too but forgot to buy some.
*Yogurt
*Applesauce
*Raisins.... we go organic
*Kale Chips..... I actually just made these today. I love them so hopefully Dax will as well!



Well that sums up the majority of the things Dax eats. We are far from where we want to be with his food (especially his dinners and lunches) but we're getting there. And it will be much easier as he gets more teeth. We're hoping now that he can eat a little more we can all eat the same dinner more often instead of having separate things for him and us. What are some your little ones favorite things to eat??

First Birthday: The Cake

Well for Dax's smash cake I went with this banana cake recipe, but left out the cinnamon (Dax is allergic) and added in applesauce (so I guess you could say it was an apple banana cake). It was sugar free but I went ahead and used regular icing with sugar and all!

It wasn't that pretty but it served it's purpose :)  At first Dax had no idea what to do with it. He sort of poked at it a little and made a weird face. So I had to dig in for him and give him a little taste. He decided then that it wasn't so bad...

He ate it.... but I think he liked the attention he got more than the cake. That big chunk that's missing from the cake was not him... it was me :)  He also decided that the icing wasn't for him and started just picking at the cake part (apparently our boy is not a fan of sweets.... but anything bread-like is his favorite food)!
He ate for a few minutes... but then started getting a little fussy like the cake wasn't what he wanted. I went and got some fruit and instantly he was better...

Apparently Daniel and I did something right because this boy rather have fruit over cake any day!  It was pretty funny!
And after cake his little face was all broke out where the icing was at... so apparently he was allergic to something in the icing.... maybe the sugar ;) 

First Birthday: The Look

Get ready for an explosion of birthday party post with lots and lots of pics....   :)

Well the original plan was to have Dax's party at the lake so I had decided a beach ball theme would be super cute. I had some beach ball things but most of the decor was going to be basic color polka dots (red, blue, yellow, green, orange).  I thought it would be super cute for a one year old and the bright colors would make it very fun :) A lot of the decorations were hand made or bought on sale or in the dollar section at target so while there was a lot that went into  the party  it really was very budget friendly.  So here's a peak at how it all turned out.
The invitations I showed  here.  They were all handmade and a little different. I loved how they turned out!
And here was my sneak peak at a few of the details.
And now picture explosion in 5...4...3...2...1....

We had 25 of these cuties laying around the floor of the gym! Some big and some itty bitty! They were super fun, especially inside the moon bounce!

Cute beach ball plates right?!  For drinks we had 3 sodas, water, and sugar free raspberry lemonade.

The snacks!! We had whole wheat goldfish, whole grain crackers, pita chips, cheese, and hummus. We were going to make the hummus home made but ended up running out of time. And didn't the labels turn out cute?  You'll see a close up of those cute beach ball pictures stickers in just a bit! They were quite the find!

I found those cute letters for .30 each at HobbyLobby!  As far as sweets we had the cupcakes I talked about here, some basic funfetti cupcakes with blue cream cheese icing, cookies, and a cake my dad insisted on buying which actually turned out super cute!    We also have Dax's cute little smash cake in the pic (sugar free banana apple cake with regular cream cheese icing).  And of course one of the biggest hits of the party a collage of pictures from Dax's first year!

And here is the entire spread.... with the birthday banner I made hanging behind it :)

Here are the tables! I thought they were really cute! We did four tables with sand buckets, tissue paper, and balloons and the rest just had our memory card activity on them. I also had a few extra pieces from the high chair decorations I made (you'll see that in a minute) so I just laid those around on the tables as well.

Here's the memory card activity I just mentioned. I got inspiration for this from my besties party for her little boy. I had these set up on the table and small squares of construction paper set out for people to write on. We'll save these in Dax's keepsake box and give them to him later in life.   You can also see the cute beach ball stickers really well here! I found these stickers online (I really wish I still had the website) but they were only $1.95 for 24 pictures!! WOW! Such a good idea and I LOVED them!

Here were all of the tables. Like I said I only put balloons on 4 but I thought it was just enough and looked pretty cute!

Here were the goody bags for all the kiddos!  I was pretty pumped because there was absolutely NO sugar in these bags and had awesome gifts that I got super super super cheap at HobbyLobby or Target.

Here was the gift table before it started overflowing with presents!  You can also see Dax's seat (a closer pic in just a minute)!

The birthday boys seat!!! The original plan was to make his hat but we found this one on sale for $2 at HobbyLobby and decided that I probably couldn't make one that cheap. Plus... it's super cute! I also made the banner with left over pieces from his shirt his aunt Lori made. I was super happy with how it turned out! 

That's it for now.... but get excited about future post on the cakes and presents!

Foodie Friday!!

This week I tried to coordinate Dax's foods with what we would be eating, so here's a peak...

Daniel has been dying for me to make popsicles so I finally did and made some mini ones for Dax. I did a blend of banana, blueberry, and nectarine and for Dax I just used his ice cube trays that we freeze his food in and stuck a craft stick in the middle. These were the perfect size for him and the big craft stick made for easy holding for little hands. These were just ok. They were sort of icey.... but I'm not sure why? Maybe that's just how fresh fruit popsicles are since there's no added fruit juices or anything? If you have any tips let me know!  Dax wasn't the biggest fan of them. I think little piggy wants instant gratification when he's eating something and therefore the slow process of eating a popsicle wasn't up his alley.

One day for lunch this week I made this very yummy wrap for myself for lunch with whole grain tortilla, spinach leaves, balsamic vinaigrette, turkey, cheese, and capers. So for Dax I went with whole grain crackers, turkey, cheese, and threw in some peas for a veggie (plus they're dax's favorite finger food). Of course he loved it and cleared his plate!

So yesterday was my first full day at home without Dax and I was sort of in Susie Home-maker mode (I think it was my way of not being depressed about being away from Dax). Well on top of cleaning the house top to bottom, making birthday decoration, and doing 3 loads of laundry, I decided to get "adventurous"  and make something for dinner! Whoa... step back a minute!  Anyone that knows me knows I can not cook, at.all. I do the baking around the house, and Daniel does the cooking. But I found a very yummy recipes for a crock pot meal in one of my cookbooks and decided to tackle it.  Introducing Italian Chicken (check out the recipe here).

This was minus the chicken and dressing and soup. Looks soooo yummy! I used diced tomato's instead of whole.  And here is the finished product!

I thought it was delish!! I put it on top of some Basil Linguine and I'm not going to lie... was pretty impressed with myself. Plus, it was super, super easy. Basically everything was canned or prepackaged so all you had to do was wash the mushrooms, cut up the chicken, and poor everything in. So, so easy and yummy! For Dax I saved some of the artichokes and steamed them, so he had artichokes, basil linguine, strawberries, and tried a few mushrooms (which he loved!). This was a great, super easy meal that I'm sure we'll be having in the future!
And to end foodie Friday here's a pick of our boy double fisting it :)  I like to give him choices on what to drink... and apparently this day he wanted both milk and water. It was pretty cute.

Foodie Friday

Alright, so here's a look at a few of little mans favorite things this week…

So Sunday night Daniel & I had the yummy tilapia dish that talked about here for dinner. So from there I found this very yummy recipe in my Baby & Toddler cookbook that I decided to make for Dax… and then we also planned on letting him try a little tilapia for the first time as well. So Sunday night Dax had tofu with rice & avocado seasoned with fresh cilantro and a small piece of tilapia.

Sorry it's so blurry. My camera was dead so I had to resort to my phone camera.

He absolutely loved this! So much that I had to make him stop eating because I"m pretty sure he would have ate until he got sick. The rice did make quite the mess but it was worth it because he really loved it.

Tuesday Daniel had clinic until late so it was just Dax and I for dinner. I like to try and eat when he eats one, because dinner as a family is so important, and two, because if I don't eat while he eats then I don't get to eat at all because he is screaming at me wanting my food the whole time. We had quite a bit of tofu left from Sunday nights meal, Dax had some mixed veggies he had been eating on throughout the week that we needed to use up, and I had some frozen veggies in our freezer that I needed to use. So I decided on a tofu & veggie stir fry. Dax's was tofu, garlic, EVOO, peas, carrots, corn, and green beans. Mine was similar with some additional seasonings and different veggies.

This was another big hit. He LOVED, especially the tofu.

Wednesday for lunch I needed to use up some of Dax's pita bread before it went bad. I also steamed an orange bell pepper that day so wanted to use it as well. So I drizzled a little EVOO over the pita, added just a tad of shredded cheese, heated it until it was melted, and then diced up some orange bell peppers. Sorry no picture for this. But Dax really enjoyed it. But then again anything with a bread product is going to be a hit for him.

Introducing....

So a couple of the other blogs I follow do something called Foodie Friday where they highlight a few of the things they cooked that week for lunch or dinner. I love reading these…. but Lord knows I have no ability in the kitchen other than baking or making finger foods for Dax. I also think it's really fun to hear/see what other people with little ones are feeding them and to share ideas with them. So from there, I've decided to do my own version of those oh so fun blog post. This week I'll actually list Dax's entire menu from the week so you can get a feel for how food works for us. But in the future, Foodie Friday will online highlight a few of the things I made that week.And if you have any questions on anything I listed please ask!! It will make my day :)
I've made Dax's baby food from the time he was 5 months old and have had so much fun doing it! But now that he's on finger foods I'm having even more fun coming up with fun combinations of food and watching him try them out. Despite the fun, I am constantly worrying about making sure Dax is getting all the vitamins and nutrients he needs (ok… so I may be a little obsessive with that… but it's not a bad thing right?). Daniel reassures me that I'm doing great and I'm starting to feel pretty confident in the foods I"m feeding him. So here goes nothing…. Foodie Friday: Toddler Edition

Saturday
Breakfast: Half of a whole wheat bagel thin with a really thin layer of low fat cream cheese cut into bite size pieces & sliced strawberries. This is probably Dax's favorite thing to have for breakfast!
Lunch: Butternut Squash
Dinner: Yogurt & Plums

Sunday
Breakfast: Bagel w/ mixed fruit
Lunch: Carrots & Cauliflower
Dinner: Pasta with hummus cut into bite size pieces. Dax loves pasta and we have a lot of hummus that needs used so I thought I would try it out. Dax loved it!

Monday
Breakfast: Oatmeal & papaya
Lunch: Pita with hummus and peas and bite size pieces of red bell pepper. I found mini whole wheat pitas at Target so I spread hummus over those. I also wanted to get another veggie in there so I spread pureed peas on the pita with the hummus. We also had some steamed red bell peppers left from making the hummus so we cut those into bite size pieces as well. He absolutely loved this meal!

yum yum yum... he loved it!

Dinner: Yogurt & applesauce

Tuesday
Breakfast: toast & pears, mango, & plum
Lunch: Butternut squash & apples
Dinner: Pasta w/ asparagus & parmesan. I had some whole wheat penne  and parmesan in the fridge but wanted to get a veggie in there somewhere so I mixed in  some pureed asparagus. Dax LOVED this and we'll def. be making it more!

Wednesday
Breakfast: Oatmeal w/ pears & papaya, strawberries
Lunch: Pita w/ hummus & chicken
Dinner: I wanted to get some dairy, fruit, and veggie in with dinner tonight so we tried something new. I have seen those premade pouches of baby food with things like spinach & pears on it, and I looked on the homemade baby food bible for things that mix well with yogurt and found that it suggest carrots & mango. I was out of mango so we went with a combination of yogurt, pears, & carrots. It was delicious (sort of tasted like a creamy sweet potato) and Dax loved it!

Thursday
Breakfast: Egg yolk & parmesan omelet. In one of my baby cookbooks it has a recipe for egg yolk, asparagus, and parmesan omelets that we've had before and Dax loved. We are out of asparagus so I just followed the recipe without the asparagus and make one for each of us for breakfast! Yum! And Dax gobbled it up really fast!
Lunch: Carrots, cauliflower, peas, & eggplant
Dinner: Yogurt w/ papaya & pear

Friday
Breakfast: Bagel w/ cream cheese and blueberries

The blueberries always leave quite the mess...

Lunch: Whole wheat pasta w/ parmesan, carrots & asparagus
Dinner: Yogurt & apple/strawberry sauce
 
And just a side note about Dax's meals. He still, at 11 months, doesn't have  a single tooth! So almost all of our finger foods are steamed so that they're super soft and pieces of bread and pasta and strawberries are cut small enough for him to gum and not choke on. We only feed him whole wheat/whole grain pasta and bread and we go by the dirty dozen on organic fruits and vegetables. We also usually give him yogurt at dinner which may seem weird, but yogurt has a ton of protein in it and your body uses that protein to help you grow most while you sleep so we figured it was a good time to give it to him. Our little man also has a pretty sensitive tummy, with a lot of things giving him gas. Because of that I try to give him something I know will be easy on his tummy before bedtime and we try all of our new things at breakfast or lunch. Snack usually consist of fresh fruit or veggies cut up and occasionally organic puffs, and he has a sippy of water out all day he can get a drink from as he needs it.

That's it for our first Foodie Friday! I know this one was super long but from now on it def. won't be! I'm excited.... and I hope you are too!

Birthday Cupcakes!

Well in a month from yesterday we'll be having our little boy's first birthday party!! Everything is about 90% done which is really exciting! This past weekend I decided to go ahead and try out a very yummy recipe that we'll be using for some of the cupcakes for the party. For Dax's smash cake we'll be using this banana cake recipe that my best friend used for her little boy with a substitution for the cinnamon... b/c apparently Dax is allergic to it (something I found out about 2 days ago). For everyone else we'll be doing a dozen regular, boxed cupcakes and then a dozen of these yummy goodies you're about to hear all about!  Introducing the low fat, about 80% organic Strawberry Banana cupcakes!
So here's what you need....

2 1/3 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup of firmly packed light brown sugar
2 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder
1/8 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of chopped fresh strawberries
1 cup skim milk (we had 1% so I used that)
1/3 cup low fat banana yogurt (we had plain yogurt so that's what we used)
1 mashed banana
1 large egg lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla

Ok so this was absolutely delicious! I loved that it was low fat and used whole wheat flour. I used everything organic or all natural except the salt baking powder and vanilla. Here's where you go from there...

1. First, preheat the oven to 400 degree and spray or line the cupcake tin. This recipe made a total of 18 cupcakes for me.

2. In a large bowl combine the flour, sugars, baking powder, and salt. Once you get that mixed well stir in the strawberries.

3. In a small bowl combine milk, yogurt, banana, egg, and vanilla and mix well.

4. Add the milk mixture to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined.Then fill the cupcake tins about 2/3 full

5. Bake for about 20 minutes or until the tops are firm and golden (ok so the golden part is sort of hard since it's whole wheat flour...mine cooked for 16 minutes and were just perfect).

6. Let cool completely and then ice if you want. These would be great just plain (I was thinking for breakfast) but since we're serving them at the party we decided to put a thin layer of cream cheese icing on top.

These were a definite winner! They won't only be served at the party but I plan on making them here pretty often as well! We figured they're about 180 calories each which is really good for your typical cupcake which apparently are on average 300 calories each!  Winner for sure with the low fat strawberry banana cupcakes!

Birthdays...

Happy First Birthday Caedmon Michael!!!

Today is this very special little boys first birthday. He doesn't know it yet but he is very lucky to have two of the best parents a little boy could wish for! His mom just happens to have been my best friend since 1st grade and is more like a sister than friend. She is beautiful, smart, fun, a wonderful mom, and not to mention and awesome blogger (like how I threw that plug in there).  We have yet to meet this special little boy in person but I already love him so much. I remember being 7 1/2 months pregnant and anxiously waiting every day to get word that he was here, and then finally getting the message that he was and feeling like a little boy of my own was born.  Now I'm anxiously waiting for our family cruise in March so that I have the chance to spend a whole week with 3 of my favorite people that I rarely get to see. I can't wait to see Daxton and Caedmon play together for the first time... I'm predicting a lot of emotions will start streaming through my head.   Once again though, Happy first birthday sweet Caedmon.... your family in Oklahoma loves you!

Dax's first birthday is around the corner! Decorations are coming together and invites are almost done. My mission today was to find recipes for Daxton's smash cake as well as for the cupcakes for the guest. I think I'm going to use the Banana Cake recipe that Melissa used for Caedmon's smash cake and for the guest cupcakes I think I'll do some with a  basic vanilla recipe and some with a yummy, pretty healthy Strawberry Banana recipe I found this morning. I plan on trying that out soon and when I do I'll give you all the yummy details!