Ezra has become increasingly obsessed with playing the piano. To the point today where he was standing at the piano crying. So I sat with him and Noah a bit to play. Then Noah was done and I desperately need to stuff diapers, so they could have clean ones to wear, but Ez was not done with the piano. He is too little to sit on the bench all by himself, so I used my mommy brain and came up with a solution:
I have been on a huge hummus kick for the last several months. Serious addiction is more like it. Needless to say I was thrilled the other day when Erica posted this recipe.
(I know totally lame to just link for a NaBloPoMo, but it has been a long and tiring day)
After the boys’ second nap yesterday we took a walk down to one of the neighborhood playgrounds and enjoyed swinging and playing in the grass. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous lately.
Some pics of the fun:
I thought I was snapping a pic of Noah, when I inadvertently caught him making one of his favorite noises on camera:
This is a special edition of photo Friday! Pics from Ethiopia, I know finally. I know you have been thinking, “gees they’ve been home 5 months, where’s the pics from their trip!”
New family!
Sleeping Noah
Me and a teeny tiny Ez
Awwwww
Happy Ez
Floor time
At the lion zoo, Ez refused to be in a carrier
Noah
Noah’s first time in my carrier
I put up all Matt’s photos in the gallery. I need to find the ones that were taken with the little camera, must still be on the back-up drive. We didn’t take nearly the photos we thought we would, the boys kept us busy!
Our plan all along was to turn the boys around when they hit one year, as long as they were 20 pounds. Those are the recommendations we had always heard, but a friend posted on facebook that her pediatrician recommended keeping her baby rear facing until 2. Turns out that is the safest way to ride in a car for a baby according to AAP. Our doctor (family practice) recommends turning them around now so we can interact with them more. For now we are ignoring our doctor and keeping our babies nice and safe in their rear facing positions. I think safety trumps interaction, not that we don’t want to interact with them, we would love more interaction.
What age did you turn your toddler around? Any regrets? Any tips on keeping them happy while rear facing?
My babies are now officially toddlers. I still can’t believe they are already one, the past five months have just flown by. They had their one year check-up at the doctor today and are healthy! Noah weighed in at 22 pounds and was 28.5 inches tall. Ezra weighed in at 21 pounds and is 28 inches tall. They got their first shot since being placed in our arms 🙁 . The doctor would have given them several more, but I don’t want to do too many at once and this shot was already a 3 in 1, so I thought it was more than enough.
They are doing so much these days and are getting very close to being into everything! Ezra crawls everywhere, he will even crawl in the dark, he isn’t scared of much. Noah is still trying to crawl, he mostly goes backwards with occasionally movement forward, he rolls around a lot more to get to things. It is nice seeing him have some initiative finally. I thought he was just going to sit there and expect me to bring him everything for the rest of his life 😉 .
Ezra stands unassisted now and for longer and longer periods of time. He even claps while standing, and occasionally tries to dance! Noah has pulled up a couple of times, but only on me or Matt, nothing else yet. I think it is because he hates to fall! He prefers to stay close to the ground.
They both clap now, all the time. It is pretty cute, they do it when they are excited or when the other brother does something they approve of. Noah plays peek-a-boo frequently and Ezra is finally starting to do it too.
There are a lot more smiles and giggles now, that makes it a ton of fun. Ezra is extremely ticklish, I mean extremely! Noah is ticklish too, but you have to work a lot harder to get giggles, but they are worth the extra work.
Ezra still has one tooth, but the second one will be here any day now. Noah seems to be working on his first one!
They self-weaned from their before bed bottle, which had the nice result of sleeping through the night most nights. They wake up when teething now, but they don’t need a bottle, just some love and either tylenol or teething tablets. They do wake up between 5 and 6:30 drink their morning bottle and then go back to sleep until at least 8, this is a nice change for us.
We are done with formula! They are happily drinking whole milk with no issues. I will next be transferring from bottles to sippy cups.
We feed them all sorts of table foods now, they usually like what we are eating for dinner and then they still eat their baby food. Last night they ate almost 2 pieces of pizza between them and then ate their food, I was a little shocked at how much they could put down!
They both say momma and dadda a lot. They do seem to have their twin language already. I swear they have conversations!
I am sad to say goodbye to the baby stage, but I am totally looking forward to this next year. They just keep getting more fun!
I am gonna get you!
Hi Elmo!
Playing with new toys from Nana and Papa.
Trying blueberry pancakes, still not so sure about it.
Ez devouring his blueberry pancakes
Working so hard he needs two computers
When you only go backwards you get stuck
Hi mom
Drinking and riding
So I shouldn’t crawl over my brother to play the piano?
Great his already figured out how to climb on things to be taller
I have been no ‘pooing for well over a year now and I love it. It is so nice to not have to buy shampoo or conditioner anymore and my hair is perfectly healthy and has not build-up. I use the baking soda and apple cider vinegar method described in the link above and wash my hair every other day. I did have a problem with tangles when I had long hair, but it wasn’t anything that stopped me from doing it.
(not the planned post for the day, but Matt broke the blog and I can’t upload photos, we will see if Photo Friday happens!)
I promise not all our NaBloPoMo posts are going to just be quick photos and videos, but I will say those are so much easier right now! I have a lot I would like to share and get out of my head, but most days my brain is mush. Noah and I making some baby food not long after arriving home from Ethiopia
I decided to make all the boys baby food even before we brought them home. I just couldn’t stand the thought of all those little glass jars, plus I figured it would save us money. I honestly have not kept good records of what we have spent so I cannot do an accurate cost analysis. I would like to think it has saved us money. We did buy jarred food once for a picnic and thought the consistency was weird. The boys ate it just the same though.
Why making our baby food works for me:
1. I love to cook and it is one of the ways I love to show the men in my life my love. I only had Matt to feed for 7 years, it is nice to have two new men to feed!
2. I do not like packaging, I couldn’t deal with throwing away/recycling all those jars and containers.
3. I like to eat organic, local, and seasonally, much easier to do if I just go to the farmers’ market and make the food.
I received a good book recommendation from a friend, “Super Baby Food.” I purchased a used copy for cheap and I love it. While the author can annoy me at times, she really likes the term super and she seems super proud of herself, I still love the book. It has lots of tips, recipes, and information on all sorts of veggies and fruits. She also has recipes for the toddler years, it is nice to have something that lasts beyond the baby years. I am going to try some of her cracker recipes soon and will share if it is worth it. I don’t do everything she suggests, in fact I haven’t even read the entire book. I got it right before we left and have been busy with the boys since we returned home, so I always just turn to exactly what I need. Ezra enjoying something yummy
I cook most of our baby food in my solar oven, but she gives you cooking directions for each food at least three ways, microwave, steamer, and oven. I use her food cube method to make large batches and freeze so I am not constantly making food. We go through a lot of food around here!
I would like to address a couple of the bad reviews on amazon, because I always read the bad ones before making a decision.
1. She promotes a vegan menu for babies. She does not, she does promote a vegetarian menu for babies, which was fine with me, because I was only planning on introducing meat once they were eating what we were eating and since we don’t eat meat often this was a good approach for me.
2. She introduces allergy foods too early, yep sometimes she does, but she does have a short chapter dedicated to allergies and does encourage you to talk with your pediatrician first.
3. One reviewer thought she was not breast feeding friendly based on the food serving suggestions. She is not against breast feeding and suggests you serve your baby the amount of food they can eat. She does say to feed them their meals with bottles and give them snacks. I decided to feed the meals and bottles at least an hour apart and thus did not have to feed snacks. She also states the amount of breast feeding/formula drinking they should be doing and if it drops when you push solids to cut back on the foods so they get enough breast milk/formula. My boys drank 30 – 36 ounces a formula a day until about 10.5 months when they naturally started wanting less bottles. Noah eating avocado
I feel with any book or recommendation with child rearing you look at it with an open mind, discuss with your pediatrician, and then decide what works for your child. Not every single suggestion will work for every single child/family. I understand making baby food will not work for every family, but for ours it did, and if you think it will work for yours, I highly recommend it. You get to avoid all those little glass jars and no preservatives.
Now for a typical daily menu at our house at 11 months old:
Wake-up – 8 oz Bottle
Breakfast – Whole Banana and 1/3 cup of prepared steel cut oats (each)
Wake-up from nap – 8 oz Bottle
Lunch – 1/2 cup of yogurt, 1/4 cup of fruit (apples/pears/peaches), and iron fortified baby cereal to thicken (each)
Wake-up from nap – 8 oz Bottle
Dinner – They snack on something while we eat, sometimes crackers or cheerios, but sometimes it is what we are eating. For their actual dinner they eat about 1/2 to 3/4 of a veggies (sweet potatoes, carrots, butternut squash) about 1/4 lentils and sometimes I sneak a green veggie in there!
Now that that we have transitioned from formula to whole milk, I will start giving them snacks because the milk doesn’t seem to hold them over as long. Since we don’t eat a lot of meat I will ask the doctor about iron supplements next week at our 1 year appointment. That’s it in a nutshell. Please feel free to ask questions!
Last week we went to the park for a play date with the fabulous Ms. S and her mom. I spent most of the time keeping the boys from eating an endless amount of sand, then thankfully the swings opened up!
No I wasn’t eating more I promise!
You really want me to stop eating sand?
One day soon they will be trying to climb this.
Their swing styles really shows their little personalities quite well. Notice how Ezra is leaning forward poised for action and Noah is leaning back enjoying being pushed by mom.
