Picky Picky

People, we have a picky toddler on our hands!  I felt like I did everything right when it came to feeding Peanut, but he is full blown fussy these days.  I'm sharing because I feel like I've tried a little bit of everything to help him become a better eater and things have only gotten worse.  For example, in the last week he has refused pizza, a cheese quesadilla, and last night macaroni and cheese (!!).  Last night really clinched it for me, because he requested the macaroni.  This is not about the taste.  Most of the time he will not even touch the food once he's decided he doesn't want it.  There's no "one bite" rule in our house, because there simply is no convincing him to touch something he's decided he doesn't like. 

See?  He used to eat veggies!!

So, I'm doing a little experiment.  People say kids won't starve themselves.  They will eat when they're hungry.  Peanut has been known to defy expectations and the norm though.  When he was five months old, he went on a nursing strike.  Did I mention he also didn't like bottles?  Yeah, so that means he refused to eat. Period. For about a week, I could only get him to nurse once a day.  Usually in the middle of the night when he was quite drowsy. 

Back to the experiment.  For two days, I'm only offering foods that aren't his favorites and nothing else.  No fighting, bribery, or comments.  Just, here is your meal.  Don't want it? Fine.  I'm not getting crazy here with all spinach salads, but I'm certainly not going to offer him a plate of pancakes or he'll just stuff himself with that.  I figure he can't possibly starve himself to death in two days.  So, we shall see.  I may have aged considerably over the next two days, but I'm sticking to my guns!

Halloween

We had so much fun on Halloween this year! Peanut actually really loved trick or treating last year, but he couldn't actually say "trick or treat."  This year we practiced throughout October and read a lot of books about Halloween so when the actual night came he was so psyched.

One thing that I've looked forward to about having two children is dressing them alike (what mother doesn't love that?? ).  So for Halloween, of course they had to have coordinating costumes.  Peanut loves Curious George and likes to pretend to be a monkey so when I found a super cute monkey costume at Old Navy that was that.  What goes with a monkey you ask?  A banana of course!

We started off the day with pumpkin pancakes for breakfast.  Daddy went into work a little late so he could eat with us.  Dinner was a jack o lantern pizza and then we hit the streets with Peanut's best friend Timothy and some other friends of ours. 

He stayed up way too late and ate way too much candy, but hey, I figure its just one day!

Keeping Up and Catching Up

Well hello!  I'm not sure anyone is still reading this little blog of mine, but in honor of national blog posting month I've decided to get back on the wagon.  There have been quite a few changes around here. For one, our little family of three is now a family of FOUR!

Last year, between my pregnancy and my brother unexpectedly passing away, I sort of lost my desire to blog. My brother is a long story for another day, but I'd like to get back to documenting the kiddos and sharing thoughts and recipes.

So here goes:

We found out we were expecting baby no.2 in November, and in January found out we were having a little girl!  We were so excited!!

In April, we celebrated Phillip's second birthday with a Choo Choo themed party, which was only appropriate because he is obsessed with trains of all kinds!

 

In July, I gave birth to beautiful baby Natalie Rose Kelleher.  She was 5 lbs 15 oz and 19 inches long.  Blessedly, I was only in labor for about 18 hours, which seems mighty short compared to my 50 hour labor with P!



 

 

I'll be back again tomorrow (hopefully!) with some more updates and pictures.



18 Months!!!

I can't believe my sweet little boy is 18 months old!  Actually, he's been 18 months for about a week now, but I'm slow to be able to get on the computer these days, ha!  He had his 18 month check up yesterday, and here are the stats:

Height:  32.5 inches - 55th percentile
Weight:  21 lbs 10 oz - 5-10th percentile
Head:  18 inches - 75th percentile

We've been worried that he is not talking enough yet, but the doctor said he is doing just fine and obviously understands a lot.  For example, when she asked him if she could look at his ears, he pointed to his ears and when she asked him to stick out his tongue he did!  Haha, so proud!!  So far his words are no, hello, cheese, shoes, car, go, this, Dada, and VERY rarely Mama. 

He LOVES Elmo, reading books ('Where the Wild Things Are' and 'Corduroy' are favorites), playing outside, and pretending to cook.  His favorite foods are rice, pizza, apples, cinnamon bread, and mexican food!  He still nurses once a day at bed time. 

He was a great sleeper for several months, but lately has been really difficult.  We are hoping that this is just a passing phase!

He has a little book about pumpkins that I bought his last year at Halloween and so he knows about pumpkins and points to them everywhere we go.  It is the sweetest thing!  We took him to a pumpkin patch this last weekend and he loved it so much.  He picked out a little pumpkin to take home and he loves to carry it around and show it off.

Here are a few more pictures of our fall so far:

What I'm Making... For Breakfast!

I like to start the Peanut off each day with a hot breakfast.  I'm not a huge breakfast person and I guess he takes after me, but I have a few delicious breakfast tricks up my sleeve to entice him to eat a little something!  One of his absolute favorite
breakfasts is pancakes.  It may sound like a lot of work for a weekday morning, but the great thing about pancakes is that I can make a batch and he'll eat a couple and then I'll freeze the rest.  Then on another morning I can pop a couple in the microwave for about 30 seconds and they are hot and ready to go!  I do the same thing with muffins too.


I usually keep it simple with plain pancakes topped with butter, but today I made a fun variation:  Nutella Swirl Pancakes!

Nutella Swirl Pancakes
*Makes 10 pancakes

Ingredients:

• 1 cup bisquick (I use the gluten free version of course!)
• 1 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• nutella
• butter

Directions:  Mix the bisquick, milk, egg, oil, and vanilla in a bowl until just blended.  Heat a griddle or skillet over medium heat.  For this next step you can use a few different techniques.  One is to use a pastry bag.  Another is to use a ziplock bag and cut off a corner.  The last one is to simply plop on the nutella with a spoon!  I usually do the ziplock bag.  Melt a tablespoon of butter in the skillet and drop batter in to the pan using about 1/4 cup for each pancake.  If you have the nutella in a pastry bag or ziplock, simply pipe thin vertical lines down each pancake.  Then use a tooth pick to swirl the nutella in a marbled pattern.  If you prefer the spoon method your nutella will just be dropped on and will be more concentrated in clumps.  Cook pancakes until sides are dry and then flip.  Cook until golden and devour!! 

A few things...

I just have to share a few things new to my life that I absolutely cannot live without right now!  First up, my amazing new ipad... a graduation gift from my sweetie!

The ipad is seriously a mommy's best friend!  I do everything with this little beauty.  Before I got one, I really didn't understand what made it so much better than a laptop.  Well, let me tell you that it truly is!  Just a few of the things I use it for:  making shopping lists and carrying in my purse to the grocery store, playing Elmo videos in the car (yes, this may be its most important use!!!), to-do lists, surfing the web, and looking at recipes while cooking (I have a really cool mount that holds it in the kitchen).  Peanut and I are headed to Steamboat Springs this weekend and I don't know if I would be up to the trip without the ipad.  Hopefully Elmo (and an endless supply of snacks) will keep him happy on the plane.


Next, my sister recently turned me on to a new frozen dessert called Arctic Zero.  Now its not exactly icecream, but the entire pint has only 150 calories!!!  Feel free to judge, but I cannot tell you how many times I have eaten an entire pint of icecream before.  This stuff does not fool you into thinking you are eating Hagen Dazs or Blue Bell, but like I said before "150 calories!!"  It comes in several flavors including pumpkin for fall... can't wait to try that one.

So how about y'all?  Any new fabulous finds out there??

What I'm Making... For Lunch Everyday!

I eat the same thing for lunch pretty much every single day.  The recipe changes slightly here and there based on what I have on hand, but its basically a greek salad.  It's hardly even a recipe really, but I thought I'd share because I used to have such a hard time coming up with something yummy, healthy, and easy to throw together for lunch everyday. 


So each week I buy a cucumber, a bell pepper, hearts of romaine (or other greens if I'm in the mood), grape or cherry tomatoes, feta cheese, and a pack of chicken breasts.  Sometimes if I have any on hand, I'll use some pepperoncini or garbanzo beans as well.  I cook all of the chicken breasts after marinating them in italian dressing overnight.  It is so wonderful to have this chicken in the fridge ready to throw on the salad at lunch time or to give Peanut for a quick snack.  I also wash and chop all of the veggies so they are ready to go.  Then at lunch time I combine everything and dress with one tablespoon of Newman's Own Olive Oil and Vinegar dressing mixed with a couple of tablespoons of white wine vinegar.  I LOVE a lot of dressing on my salad so this is a good way to get that without a lot of extra calories!

What do y'all eat for lunch during the week??