What can I say, Olivia is an eating girl! Recently, Olivia discovered food... real food. Food that she doesn't have to work for. She really likes that. After weeks of wrestling her, I think she is back to actually enjoying nursing, but we can only cross our fingers. Here she is eating her baby food, with very good manners might I add.
I have decided to make Olivia's baby food. My motivation for doing this is two fold: I believe it's the healthiest and I believe it's more economical. I like that I can control the freshness and ingredients. Not that I have anything against canned baby food, but I like that I pick the produce and blend it up right away. I feel good about giving her great quality food.
So what I do is lightly steam the vegetable and then put it the Vita Mix and puree it until smooth. I then put the food into an ice tray to freeze individual portions. Each "cube" is approximately 1 ounce of food, so I do know how much she gets. After the food is frozen, I remove them from the tray and put a certain portion in a
vacuum sealed bag. So far so good.
Thus far on the menu: Bananas, Pears, Carrots, Sweet Potatoes, and Squash. She likes them all, but no matter what you give her, the first bite always produces a sour face. After the first bite, she just goes to town. The only thing she won't go to town on is avocado. It was hysterical! I mashed up some avocado and gave it to her. Not only did she have a sour face but she started gaging and tonguing it out! I was laughing so hard! She didn't find it so funny. But I tricked her. I added some banana to it and she ate it all. I am not ashamed to "hide" vegetables! They need it, even if they don't know they're getting them!
The weekend before I went back to work, Daniel and I went to Seaside... without Olivia... for TWO days! We had such an amazing time! I got GOOD sleep and we were just able to hang out and play together. We ate very good food, watched a movie or two, went in the hot tub, just did whatever we wanted, without a schedule. It was just so great to spend time together again. It was better than dating, because we both felt like we appreciated the time more. But boy did we miss Olivia. We talked about her a lot and called frequently to make sure she was eating and sleeping
ok. She did phenomenal! She stayed at Grandma Long's the first night and Grandma
Vrtiska's the second night. Both nights she did great! We were so proud of her! And when we saw her again it was a very sweet reunion... as can be seen in these pictures. My sweet dad captured the moment and I'm so glad he did!
We love our little family of 3! Olivia is by far the greatest blessing we've received and count our lucky stars that she was entrusted to us!
I have decided to make Olivia's baby food. My motivation for doing this is two fold: I believe it's the healthiest and I believe it's more economical. I like that I can control the freshness and ingredients. Not that I have anything against canned baby food, but I like that I pick the produce and blend it up right away. I feel good about giving her great quality food.
So what I do is lightly steam the vegetable and then put it the Vita Mix and puree it until smooth. I then put the food into an ice tray to freeze individual portions. Each "cube" is approximately 1 ounce of food, so I do know how much she gets. After the food is frozen, I remove them from the tray and put a certain portion in a vacuum sealed bag. So far so good. 
Thus far on the menu: Bananas, Pears, Carrots, Sweet Potatoes, and Squash. She likes them all, but no matter what you give her, the first bite always produces a sour face. After the first bite, she just goes to town. The only thing she won't go to town on is avocado. It was hysterical! I mashed up some avocado and gave it to her. Not only did she have a sour face but she started gaging and tonguing it out! I was laughing so hard! She didn't find it so funny. But I tricked her. I added some banana to it and she ate it all. I am not ashamed to "hide" vegetables! They need it, even if they don't know they're getting them!
The weekend before I went back to work, Daniel and I went to Seaside... without Olivia... for TWO days! We had such an amazing time! I got GOOD sleep and we were just able to hang out and play together. We ate very good food, watched a movie or two, went in the hot tub, just did whatever we wanted, without a schedule. It was just so great to spend time together again. It was better than dating, because we both felt like we appreciated the time more. But boy did we miss Olivia. We talked about her a lot and called frequently to make sure she was eating and sleeping ok. She did phenomenal! She stayed at Grandma Long's the first night and Grandma Vrtiska's the second night. Both nights she did great! We were so proud of her! And when we saw her again it was a very sweet reunion... as can be seen in these pictures. My sweet dad captured the moment and I'm so glad he did!
We love our little family of 3! Olivia is by far the greatest blessing we've received and count our lucky stars that she was entrusted to us!
