Making Baby Food

A couple of weeks ago, my good friend lent me this book 'Blender Baby Food' by Nicole Young. I got a bit carried away the first time making LT food by making him the 'Lentils, Carrots and Celery' meal. He ate it OK, but I think it was a bit much for his first home made meal. So, I decided to make him some apple sauce today. I wasn't sure what to expect with just apples and water, but it turned out really good! It looked and tasted just like apple sauce you buy in the store...but the best part is I know exactly what was put into it. AND it was soooo easy.

APPLES

4 cups chopped peeled apples (about 4)-I used Gala
1/2 cup water

1. In a medium saucepan, over medium-low heat bring apples and water to a simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, until apples are very tender, about 20 minutes.

2. Transfer apples to blender, and puree on high speed until smooth. (I used my handy new immersion blender that I got from my mother-in-law for my B-day (thanks!!)...it made making this meal so easy).

*Makes about 2 cups (4-6 jars worth) Can freeze safely upto 3 months, and most fresh food is OK for about 3 days in the fridge.

I LOVE that I can make Liam fresh and healthy food, so he can stay strong and healthy though out his life. I am hoping by doing this he can learn to appreciate all sorts of tastes and textures, and continue good eating habits when he's older.

Update on Life

Not a whole lot going on...finally got the lap top working again. The adaptor went bad, so we had to buy a new one. Found a good deal on Ebay...gotta love Ebay. Can't believe the summer is nearly over. This year has flown by so quickly. It doesn't seem like that long ago that we were bringing Liam home from the hospital?! He is growing up so fast, and it seems like he's doing something new every week.

His most recent milestone has been deciding that he wants to sleep in his crib full time. We had him in our room at night because it's on the main floor and his bedroom is on the 2nd floor, and both of us are zombies if we are waken in the middle of the night. But alas, he just couldn't sleep in his hard playpen any longer, so we decided it was time to buy a video monitor. We hesitated for a while getting one because we read some reviews that it interferes with the other electronics in the house. But, we bit the bullet and decided to just get one, and return it if we had problems. We went with the Summer brand, 7 " LCD Screen Monitor. So far it has worked great. The sound is staticky, but we turn that down and use our other monitors for that. The picture works pretty well, at least for what we need it for, and that is just to be able to see how he's doing. Before with just the sound, any little cry or whimper in the middle of the night was exaggerated 10 fold when I was half asleep. It made for many restless nights. Now I can just glance over on my nightstand and see that he is well. It wasn't cheap, but having peace of mind and better sleep is priceless! We love watching him on our L-TV (Liam Television).

Happy 8 Months Liam!!

8 THINGS WE LOVE ABOUT LIAM
1. His smile and laugh is contagious
2. He loves new things
3. He is sweet natured
4. He's beautiful!
5. Good sense of humor
6. Super healthy and strong
7. Good with other people.
and last but not least...
8. He loves us!

Dinner with Family

My Grandparents (Liam's Great Grandparents) were in town from St. George, and we had them over for dinner tonight. Mike made vegetable Lasagna, Focaccia bread and a salad, and Liam put on quite the show.

I am so much more grateful for my family, now that we have a son.

I LOVE seeing my grandparents enjoy their great grandson.

Thank you for visiting us Grandma and Grandpa T.

Fun at Park City

Today we took Liam to the Park City Art Festival. We have been going to the Art Festival for the last 10+ years. It seems that a lot of people go to look, but we go with the intention to buy. We both love art and now that we have more horizontal and wall space at our new home, we are happy to fill it even more! Usually when we go, we take a look at all the booths, and then try to decide what we want to buy. By the end though, we usually are hot, tired and a bit grumpy and it's hard to discuss what we really want...This year was different because we had Liam with us, and we knew that we would not have time or energy to go up and down Main street trying to decide what to buy. So, we decided to just go ahead and just buy what we like as we went. This resulted in us splurging a bit, but I guess it makes up for last year when we only got one piece. It was a bit tough last year because we hadn't moved yet, and didn't really know what we wanted for the new home. Anyway, we had a great time, and Liam was a perfect angel. He didn't fuss much, and it seemed he enjoyed being out and watching all the people. Everyone commented on how cute he was too!! As we got on the bus, I remembered that I forgot my camera, so I don't have any pictures other than the ones on my phone...but I will post some pictures of a few of our favorite pieces.

The first is from a local artist that we have bought several pieces from over the years. Her name is Alison Armstrong, and she makes collages with different pictures and images. Her earlier work is more serious, and her later work is more whimsical. We love both genres of her work, and find it interesting and quite unique. And it was nice that she she gave us a frequent buyer discount! We got a few new ones from her this year, and this one is our favorite. It is called 'Mesmerized' and this is a copy of the original that she made, but the print we got is a little different, but close enough.


The second is from an artist that we bought the single piece from last year. It was a piece that we wanted to find for our babies room. This year we found a few smaller pieces to put in Liam's room too. Her name is Lisa Telling Kattenbraker. The originals are batiks and the limited edition prints are reproduced from them. This on is titled 'Waiting Room' and we thought it was so cute for LT's room.

The third artist we had seen in previous years, and decided to buy a couple prints from her. Her name is Barbara Kline, and she makes surreal photographs from different photos, and then finishes it with transparent oil paint. This one is called 'Secret Garden'

Pottery is our favorite medium of art, although for the last several years we haven't found much that we liked at the festival. This year though we were able to find a couple new pieces. ( I don't have any pics of them yet, but will post them later). You can see the website of one of the artists here, but it's under construction at the moment. The other pottery artists site isn't working at the moment but her name is Yvonne Hegney, and her work is so different than anything we have, and we were glad to find something new like that.

All in all we were pretty happy with our finds, and we were really impressed with how well Liam did there!