Homemade Applesauce!

This was literally one of the easiest recipes I have ever done. I am so glad I finally made some yummy homemade applesauce!

10 LARGE apples

1 tsp fresh lemon juice

1 half of a lemon peel (I left this in for only half the cooking)

2 cinnamon sticks

8 tbsp brown sugar

Stick everything in the crock pot on low and let it sit for hours, stirring occasionally  I then just mashed it with a potato masher after a few hours which made it stay a little chunky, which is how I like it. Seriously it's like eating the inside of an apple pie!!

It was soooo yummy! I have even put in on top of vanilla ice cream and it tasted mighty fine!

We LOVE corn-on-the-cob!

I know I have posted about the girls eating corn-on-the-cob but they seriously eat it like there is no tomorrow! Madelynn will eat the whole thing in less than 2 minutes and then sign "more" while whining!

Madelynn

Natalee

Claire

 And I love how Natalee always puts her feet up like this while eating her corn...

They each eat at least 2-3 pieces a few nights a week. All I know is the local farmer really likes my family!

Snack Queen!

One day while cleaning up stuff in the kitchen before dinner, Natalee decided she wanted to try every snack in the cabinet. She would pull one box or container out and bring it to me and I would give her one or she would just do it herself. She went through so many boxes and was so happy so I didn't bother to take anything away from her.

Needless to say, she didn't eat much of her dinner that night but oh well, as you can see she could use a few more snack foods in her life to gain some weight, so I didn't mind!

Em's First Oatmeal!

Over the weekend I gave Emily banana oatmeal cereal for the first time and she did awesome! She has had it each day now, in the evening and is LOVING it! I swear, she is such a great eater and so much better than the triplets were at the same age!

And then I decided to take a little video of her eating too...and then when I uploaded it, it deleted itself!! Err!

More Spaghetti, Please?

By the look of these photos, it's no secret that my girls are in love with spaghetti these days. Two nights after these photos were taken, Claire had three huge bowls for dinner! 

Needless to say, they only get spaghetti on bath nights!

Natalee looks like she had a bad spray tan...but she was so happy!

I am so glad they are getting better and better each day with using spoons and forks and bowls. Such big girls! 

We LOVE corn-on-the-cob!

Natalee LOVES corn-on-the-cob! She does such a good job at eating it!

However, Madelynn and Claire aren't quite sure what to do with it, but that's okay. I'm sure they will get the hang of it very soon!

Our First time having Chocolate Pudding!

Their faces say it all!

My Kitchen Helpers!

In my opinion, it's never to early to teach your kids the quality of cooking together in the kitchen!!

I loved to help my mom and dad in the kitchen when I was little with my hand-made apron, and working for a chef taught me soo much and Tim and I love to cook with one another now. We laugh and giggle and always have so much fun cooking together, plus we love to challenge ourselves to harder things, like homemade raviolis and cheesecakes made from scratch. I told him this weekend as we were knee deep in seven pounds of homemade meatballs, that I just love that we love to cook together! We also made spice bread and a pumpkin pie this past weekend too!

But on Friday night, the girls were fussy and Tim went hunting so I put all the girls in seats in the kitchen and we made a spice bread. I was planning on giving one away but they didn't turn out so good, I must admit. It was a Taste-of-Home recipe so I was really surprised. But I had a lot fun explaining different cooking things to the girls (they were good sports and acted like they cared, but really it was just the measuring cups and spons keeping their attention!) and they were very good listeners, haha! We talked about the importance of measuring everything correctly until you get really good at it and don't have to measure anymore (momma is not there on most things yet!)

Here were my special little helpers (and measuring cups are the BEST toys to them right now!):

Baby Food...Will it ever end??

Some days I don't think I will ever make it passed this "baby food feeding" stage! My life swarms in baby food jars and tubs!

At 10 months old...

3 fruits for breakfast...and 1 some-sort-of-fruit mixed with grain for Madelynn, since she won't eat baby cereal. (4)

3 veggies and 3 fruits for lunch (6)

3 baby yogurts for snack (3)

3 rice/grain/pasta mixed with meat, 3 veggies and sometimes 3 fruits for dinner (9)

So that's a total of 19 jars/tubs of baby food and 3 baby yogurts daily and of course boxes of baby cereal, tubs of puffs, boxes of cheerios..ect, ect, ect!

For 31 days in a month, that's 589 jars/tubs of baby food!!!!

I wonder how much time I spend feeding...

Of course I know there is an end in sight...we have already begun "self-feeding" and the girls get better and better at it each week!

They have been eating ham and turkey lunch meat, American cheese slices, cheerios, puffs, yogurt drops, baby yogurt, dried fruit, bread, baked beans, canned vegetables, and various shredded meats (which only Natalee will eat). We have been basically letting them try anything we have, but as to them actually "self-feeding" themselves these items, they have only managed to do the Cheerios, dried fruit, yogurt drops and puffs! If I feed them anything by a spoon that has "texture" they immediately gag and spit it out, but if they do it themselves, there's no gagging what-so-ever. Weird! They will not eat any stage "3" foods that have texture, so I know we will be going straight to "real" food more and more!

Any tips on what worked for your little ones making the transition to "real" food?

NICU Carnival!

Sunday, October 2nd was the Shady Grove NICU Picnic! Tim and I were so excited to go and see all of our favorite nurses and show off our little ladies to them! Considering when the girls left the NICU, they weighed between 3lbs 15 ounces and 4lbs 5 ounces...they have grown A LOT! Only one of our nurses has seen the girls in person, a few weeks after they left the NICU!

Unfortunately it was FREEZING and then started to rain! I was so sad and very reluctant to leave but I knew it was best to get the girls out of the 40 degree rain! Tim swore he saw snowflakes, haha! I can't help it I told him to wear a jacket and he had a short-sleeve t-shirt on and a hoodie!

My momma and Madelynn

"The Nanny"/my sissy and Natalee



Claire, blowing bubbles!

If it had been nice, there would have been so many fun things to do...well and when the girls grow up a little. There was numerous moon bounces, a swing-ride, "pick-a-duck" and other cute carnival activities, some entertainment, face-painting, coloring, tattoos....and some food. They also had a family picture tent which was fun too!

Here's our photo:

Not the best photo...but I'll take it for free! They even put it in a little frame, and I will admit that it's the only framed photo I have in the house of the our family!! Whoops...but I am eagerly waiting for my canvas prints to arrive!

I made a bunch of mini pumpkin spice breads to give to the nurses and once again say thank you for doing an angels job! I will never forget our wonderful nurses and doctors who helped save my daughter's lives and I think you can never say thank you enough! They will forever be a part of our family and always in our prayers!

We left about an hour after we got there because the rain was becoming too much and I didn't want to risk the girls getting a cold! No way! Plus the Redskins game was on and so was the Eagles game...so we stopped by Chipolte and home we went! So we only saw a few of our nurses, but hopefully when Little Miss is born in January we can pop into the NICU waiting room and see some more and/or hopefully some of them will come to the girls first birthday party!