Ice, ice baby

While in Texas, we went to see an exhibit called ICE! featuring The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. If you didn't know, I LOVE the Grinch. (Now you know.) Specifically the Jim Carrey version. I don't even like Jim Carrey, but I LOVE that movie. While I was in college, my roommate and I used to start watching it right after Halloween up until Christmas. Silly, but true.

Anyway, ICE! is made completely out of...well, you guessed it. Ice! Everything was made out of ice or colored ice. It told the story of the Grinch Who Stole Christmas and the last room had an ice sculpture Nativity scene. There were also ice slides to slide down. The rest of my family slid down, but because I had Sweet P in the sling, I couldn't go (one person at a time). As you can see it was COLD! 9 degrees to be exact.

It was short display (and you had to pay more money to take a picture of/with the guy dressed in a Grinch costume), but worth seeing once. Poor Sweet P didn't see much, she fell asleep soon after the Grinch Stole Christmas.

Take time to realize

that your kid has to re-learn some things when you get back from vacation.

Like how to take a mid-morning nap.

And

How to not scream when daddy is holding you.

And

How to go to bed without throwing a fit.

We're working on it.

But I'm tired.

And also re-learning how to be a mommy without all those helpers! Looks like Sweet P's not the only one who got spoiled this Christmas.

Squish, Squash

While we were on vacay, Sweet P tried solids for the first time! She absolutely went bananas (which she just so happened to be eating). We weren't surprised that the kid loves to eat, but I was surprised by how much she enjoyed what she was eating (or at least looked like she did). I started her on brown cereal and bananas first, but after all that I have read on the subject--it's really up to you and your baby.

I'm a bit of a stickler about making my own baby food so while we were in Texas, Gammie, Auntie Rosita (Auntie Kandida had already gone home) and I took a trip to Central Market (a lot like Whole Foods). I stocked up on organic brown rice, organic oatmeal and an organic winter squash. Because if you didn't know, you can also make your own rice cereal.

Right after Thanksgiving, I wanted to get rid of a few acorn squash we had lying around so I baked it, scooped it out and stuck it in the food processor with some breast milk I had in the freezer. The directions for that and brown rice cereal are as follows:

Acorn Squash

• Cut your acorn squash into 2 halves. Line a baking sheet with tin foil (this makes clean up a cinch) and you can reuse the tin foil if you are baking more than one veggie at a time (which I recommend if you're going to be making your own baby food.

• Once it's nice and browned, scoop the inside (like a pumpkin) out and place it in your food processor. We have a mini processor and a large one, but I used to the mini for this. You can also use a blender if you'd like. Add a small amount of breast milk, formula or water to get started. Blend it a bit and then check the consistency. I did 2 acorn squash and used roughly 6 oz. of breast milk, but use your own discretion.

• Pour into ice cube trays and freeze over night. Or serve as is to baby. Once cubes are frozen put cubes into baggies or containers and label with type of food and date. (Ex: Acorn Squash, 11/29/09). Some baby food starts to look alike when pureed so make sure to label it so you know what's what! When you need one, just pop a cube in a bowl and let it thaw. These are great for taking to go because they are usually melted by the time you need them!

Brown Rice Cereal

Note: If you have a high powered food processor, you can grind the rice in that. Gammie's, however, was not working so we got out her coffee grinder!

• After cleaning it thoroughly (Sweet P doesn't need any more energy than she already has!), I placed about a 1/4 c. of brown rice in and grinded/blended it into a fine powder. While doing this, Gammie boiled a cup of water on the stove.
• Once the water was done and the rice was powdered, I mixed the two together until I got it to a watery consistency.

Gammie had an extra banana (that wasn't looking too hot for anyone else to enjoy) that we mashed up and sat Sweet P at the table in her Sassy Seat (more on that in another post). As you can see, she gobbled it right up! She'll be trying the acorn squash this afternoon!