Eleven Months

I cannot believe that in one month Anabelle will turn one year. What!?! Where did my little baby go. I guess time really does fly when you are having fun. These days really are too few to not cherish every second. Have I ever said how lucky I am?

I feel like Anabelle has changed in so many ways this past month. It seems as though something inside clicked. She understands quite a bit of what we are saying and what is going on around her. She really is so observant at this age. I can see her wheels constantly turning. 

Right now Anabelle can say two words: "Ma ma" for me (yay!), and "Ba!" for ball. She will chase her little golf ball and tennis balls around all day. Little Miss busy body is so playful and ticklish too. Her giggle makes me melt. Her Daddy makes her laugh the most. Anabelle does absolutely everything possible to not let me change her diaper. (Oh it's frustrating, especially with the poopies!) 

Anabelle is cruising everywhere now on her two little feet. She LOVES walking, and loves to grab our fingers and try to take us somewhere. It's kinda funny though because she hasn't figured out how to stand up by herself yet by leaning forward on her hands. Since she is always playing on her knees, she will put one leg up (like in Tebow position) and try to stand up without using her hands for help. Great effort and good balance, however, not very successful.  

We are entering a new stage of "I can do it by myself," and I'm sure this is just the beginning, with many years to come. Anabelle has almost no interest in me feeding her, but she loves to feed herself. As long as her food is cut in little pieces and put in front of her, those pintchers are good to go. This has actually made it nice for me because I can actually enjoy my food rather than lapping it up real fast at the end of dinner. Anabelle still loves the piano, but she won't let us play at the same time. If we put my hands on the keys when she is playing she will grab our fingers and move them off the keys, then continue on with her tunes. She knows what she wants. Silly girl.

 Baby girl likes to rest her head. She does it over and over because of the great reaction we give her. So precious.

 You know your baby is growing up when she stands up and takes off when trying to get her picture.

 Out getting some fresh air.

 Look at that tongue hanging out... like Daddy, like daughter.

Baby Food

I started this post about 4 months ago when Anabelle started solids, and I never posted it. 

I love hearing things that "work" nicely for other families and mom's. So I'll share something that I am so happy that I am doing. I decided to make all (well, most) of Anabelle's baby food. I am so happy that I did. To be honest is has saved us a lot of money, not to mention the fresh food health benefits that Anabelle gets with it. So, if you are thinking about doing it, do it. It's really quite simple. Here is what I do.

For veggies, steam them just enough to get them semi soft, not mushy. I like to make sure they still have the bright color that they started with. I don't want to loose all of those precious nutrients. Then, all I do is whip them up in the blender with a little water. When Anabelle was first starting solids I pureed them, now I leave them bumpy and mashed-like.

 Then, I spoon the food into my trays and freeze it. ( I am happy I bought the trays with lids)

 After it is frozen I take them out and put the baby food cubes into bags and label them with what it is and the date. Then you can do it all over again with another food. The yellow puree is spaghetti squash. I love having a variety of food cubes in the freezer so the baby can have a variety of foods in her diet each day. I really like the size of the cubes too because I don't waste the food. I can take as many out at a time as Anabelle will eat. It seems like whenever I feed her the store bought jars, half of the food is wasted. Each morning I take out a few cubes and put them in a bowl for the baby and then they defrost. Then the food is not reheated and nuked in the microwave loosing the vitamins and nutrients. Although, sometimes I forget to take it out in the morning, so I end up having to heat it a little.

 Making baby food on my own has made me more aware of what is in the foods we give our little ones. Now that Anabelle is older and mostly interested in feeding herself I always put out chopped up fruits and veggies on her tray and then try and spoon feed her as well.

I've done lots of different foods, some being... brown rice, quinoa, carrots, sweet potatoes, squash, green beans, peas, broccoli, berry blends.

All in all, I am happy that making our baby food from fresh fruits and veggies and whole grains. It has made me more aware of what I am feeding Shane and myself too. As I said before, it saves money too. Rather than buying a 4 oz jar or bananas for $.60, I'll buy regular bananas for $.50 a pound and mash them up. And instead of buying a box of baby rice cereal for $5, I buy the big bag of brown rice from Costco for $13 and cook the rice, then blend it up and cube it. Think about how many little baby servings come in that big bag. Also, then it is more affordable to feed the baby organic. The little organic baby food jars are at least $1.00 each. A huge bag of organic carrots are about $2.00.

I took a few pictures on my phone at the store, and I guess a little research fully convinced me.

Okay I am OBVIOUSLY not an expert at this, but it is something I am learning, and trying to become better at. This could be the thing that is saving our grocery budget!!! 

One more thing... 

It seems to be getting harder to feed good foods especially on the go because there are so many easy things to give her. I try to stay away from the baby junk foods, cause most are loaded with sugar and other additives and preservatives. Don't get me wrong, I do have a jar of peach puffs in my purse. Some days I have to break them out. They seem to be an instant cure-all for screaming babies, like in sacrament. With only two babies in our ward it is pretty noticeable when Anabelle is going crazy.

I love these baby foods for on the go, because Anabelle can eat it all by herself.

However... they are pretty spendy. So when I can, I take this spoon and fill it with our homemade pureed goods and feed her with this. It works pretty well too :)

Shane's 25th

One year older and wiser too, Happy Birthday to you, my love! This week we celebrated Shane's big twenty fifth. I made him an angry bird cake (minus the cake.) I guess it was just a pan  of brownies and a small candy creation. We went to the Jazz game and had a lot of fun. We took Anabelle too. I was kind of nervous about it, but she did quite well. There were a couple uproars that scared her, other than that, I think she had a great time. There were so many things for her to look at.

10 Months Old on Christmas Day

Yep that's right, every post is about Anabelle :) Anabelle is at a really fun stage right now. She is blabbing like crazy and it makes us laugh so hard. We are so lucky to have such a pleasant girl. Christmas was pretty exciting with a little one in the mix. Not that she had a clue what was going on, but it was fun to buy her a few things and wrap it all up. On Christmas Eve Anabelle was so darling she just wanted to walk everywhere! Of course every time she took more than a couple steps we didn't catch it on the camera, but in the end we caught a pretty good one. I'm sure it will still be a while until she is walking everywhere, but she is definitely trying. She is growing up too fast.

 

 Thank you Shane for picking out the darling Christmas outfit 

On Christmas we woke up and opened presents with just our little family. Anabelle wasn't too interested in the whole thing, but she loved the food that Santa left in her stocking (Santa knew what would get her excited :) Oh she also loved the box that her new shoes came in, and my nail polish. We went to sacrament and listened to testimonies and sang Christmas songs. I loved the spirit that it added to our day! Anabelle liked it too, she didn't stop singing and blabbing the whole hour.

Our stockings and nutcrackers - traditions that we are carrying on from two of our grandmothers. 

After church we headed down to Utah County and started the Christmas festivities and visited all of our family. Here are a few pictures at the Mink's house. Unfortunately, I only used the video camera at the Worley's and the Rowley's later that day.

Baby girl was so excited about the shiny bows on this gift

Coleson sporting the hat we gave him

The day after Christmas we went to my Uncle Brett's house for the Heninger party. It is always crazy and wild! Anabelle trying to get down on the candy, and Shane busy being the best Daddy ever.

 My cute sister, me, and cute cousin Shaylee (No I do not have a lazy eye, I was laughing so hard because we couldn't get one picture without a kid jumping in front.)

 A piñata in the house - the kids went crazy!

Thank you to all of our family for the fun memories and the overly generous gifts. We are blessed to be surrounded with so much love and support. Hope you have a safe and happy New Years!

It's the Most Wonderful Time...

(This post is ridiculously long, random and chaotic... Oh well.)

Something about hats, gloves, coats and babies makes me smile.

 I want to give a quick recap of this month so far.

We started off the month by going to the Utah Symphony Messiah Sing-in with my Mom & John, and Jesse & Dave. I liked going to it at the beginning of the month to help get me in the Christmas mood.

Next on the calendar we hosted a white elephant Christmas party with all or Shane's Orem High Friends. True to form and forgot to take pictures. There were some funny gifts and some crazy laughs!

Then we went to Temple Square with Rogan & Kim and their kids but I didn't have a camera so here are a few phone pics. So pretty but freezing cold! The little one was all bundled up.

 A few other fun things... We also went to the Jon Schmidt and Mannheim Steamroller concerts. Both were really good and festive. We went to The Desert Star Playhouse and saw It's a Wonderful Life for Shane's work party. It was cooky and crazy, but pretty fun! Thanks to all of our babysitters.For the Rowley family Christmas party we got Chinese and all went bowling. Congratulations Kathryne for the high score 172! Shane came in second with 160, and I did terrible... we will leave it at that :)

 Daddy and Anabelle played on Tuesday and I went with all of the Rowley girls to dinner. It's always a good time when just the girls get together ; ) We exchanged gifts and then visited Uncle Dale. 

(sorry Kathryne I don't have the picture with you in it)

Baby Update

As far as the little one goes Anabelle turns 10 months on Christmas. Most of the time I feel as though I have a little girl, not a baby. She loves trying new foods. She loves her fruits and veggies too. She now has two little teeth. She takes about 3-4 steps on her own then crashes. She loves bouncing and dancing to music too. She also claps now and waves goodbye. The other day I was baking sweet potato fries in the oven and she was so excited and going crazy over them. It made me laugh.

 

 She also loves when she can see her reflection in the oven... it's somebody to play with that is just her size :)

We put our tree up after Halloween, but until recently Anabelle didn't really care for it. It's like one day she realized it, and now I cannot keep her away from it. She will play with the ornaments and bells all day long, whipping them around by the string, chasing after them and eating them... And of course it's too cute to make her stop. That's why the bottom of the tree is looking pretty empty. 

Hope you have a very special Merry Christmas. What a blessing it is to remember the Savior's birth, life and ministry at this time of year. I am truly grateful, I know that we have been given the greatest gift of all - the sacrifice of our Savior Jesus Christ.