Baby Treats

I found a recipe on Pinterest for baby teething biscuits that could use baby rice cereal and jar food. I have a couple of boxes of the baby oatmeal and rice cereal that he'll never eat (I tried). I also have several jars of baby food that he rejected.

I made two batches.
1-Using rice cereal and peas. No cinnamon and not cut out into shapes. It went over pretty well with Ryden.
2-Using the oatmeal and bananas. Added cinnamon and stamped out into star shapes. Without telling him what was in them, I just called them "Daddy Treats" and gave them to Chris. He's being a very picky eater right now, but he loved these "sugar-free cinnamon oatmeal banana cookies."

The Dad Treats

The consistency reminded me of making dog biscuits. More so when Momo ate the dropped pieces. They still turned put pretty good. I'll be experimenting with other flavors that we have sitting around.

Source for the recipe:
http://imprintalish.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/homemade-baby-teething-biscuits.html

We Love You From The Bottom Of Our Hearts To The Tips Of Your Toes

Another Family Craft Project

This was made a little while back. I glued the last canvas onto the ribbon crooked. When I look back at it in a few years, I'll say, "Oh, that's when Ryden didn't like to be put down. And I had to glue each piece in over a series of hours."

His feet - His hand and Mine - His foot and Dad's (dad's is a little squished in)

1st Mother's Day

One of the gifts to my mom

Last year for Mother's Day, my work was having a "wear a hat for Mother's Day" event. I bought a big sunhat for myself, but ended up not having to work it. So we went to I-hop for lunch. I was given a rose by the waitress for being a soon to be mom. It was a sweet day.

This Mother's Day was wonderful. Saturday, I got to spend time with my mom going to antique shops in town. I scored a Saints necklace for $3.50. The woman that made them had all sorts of Louisiana charms. Saints, seafood creatures, etc. I went with the Saints mascot. I also found a couple of old Mardi Gras dubloons to add to my collection that will get passed to Ryden when he's old enough. For lunch, we picked up Chris and the baby and went to I-hop just like last year. That evening, a baby delivered a balloon and three boxes of fruit gushers to me. I cut the string off the balloon and let the baby case it all over the house. It was very amusing. Every time he'd reach for it, it'd fly away and he'd crack up then crawl after it again.

Sunday, I was given the things I needed to make a name necklace. It came out cute. My sister gave me a Happy 1st Mother's Day card. That evening Chris and I went to my favorite Mexican restaurant that just opened a location in my town while my mom babysat. Mmmm greasy chicken quesadilla and a big thing of queso on the side. That night, we watched the new Game of Thrones. Then the baby gave me one more suprise: a pink heart necklace that says mom. I'm so lucky to have such an awesome little family.

The necklace I made with the stuff I got for Mother's Day

My mom is awesome

This is where the idea came from for the footprint vase project:

http://www.classifiedmom.com/2011/03/baby-craft-footprint-flower-vase.html

Baby's First Beach Trip

We went to the beach last Saturday for Ryden's first beach trip. I grew up going to the beach every summer, and I want him to get that experience, too.  The original plan was drive down to Gulf Shores for a day trip. We would've had to have left at 6h00 to get there. Then the plans included hanging out on the beach, walking on the pier, lunch at a place on the beach, geocaching, hunting dinosaurs, -There are four giant dinosaurs randomly placed in the woods above Orange Beach. No one knows where they came from. Keeping them company in the woods are also knights, a giant spider, a goddess statue, and I'm sure more things to be discovered.- souvenir shopping at the giant shark place, more beach time, dinner at the Wharf, then getting home very late. The forecast called for rain in Gulf Shores, but only cloudy in Biloxi so we opted for the closer trip from home. We didn't have to wake up so early and it only took an hour and a half with all of our stopping to get there. In the end, I'm glad we picked the closer beach since we were all exhausted by the end of the day.

For only being on the actual beach for an hour and a half, I over packed. By a pretty big extreme. We didn't use: the extra towels, umbrella stroller, the tote of toys I had packed for the baby, baby powder for getting sand off (we were dry when we went to leave), extra clothes and swim suits, baby carrier, aloe vera gel, roll of paper towels, cover ups, jackets, books (when will you have time to read on the beach with a 6 month old?), snacks, underwater camera, umbrella, extra jug of water to wash things off with or fill his baby pool, swimmer diapers (he never actually got wet except when he peed on himself), and my itinerary.

The pile of useless stuff.

We got to the beach around 11am. We had beach towels, but for the baby, I brought a sleeping bag to spread out on the sand for crawling room. He was cool with crawling around the sleeping bag for a while. After he started to get fussy, I carried him around where the waves were breaking for a little while then let him walk holding my hands in the waves. He liked it for about two minutes.

Picked him back up, carried him around the shore a little more, then brought out his frog pool. This thing is awesome and only $13. It doesn't take too long to fill and it kept him shaded while allowing him to crawl around. He did discover that each piece of the rainbow shade isn't attached to the next piece. He only tried to reach through it a couple of times.

We were only a half mile from the pier. But when we were deciding to walk to it, Ryden started to get fussy. It was lunch time anyways. We packed everything back up and headed over to Shaggy's Bar & Grill on the beach. There was a thirty minute wait, but I think we only actually waited for 15 minute before getting a spot inside near a big open window for an ocean view.

My spicy fried pickles and mushroom cheese burger were delicious. Chris went for the healthy quesadilla, and Robyn had a buffalo oyster po-boy that she said was only okay. Ryden hung out in his car seat for part of the time, but really wanted to be a part of the action.

Our little family hanging out in the shark head.

From there we went to Sharkheads, a souvenir place similar to the one in Gulf Shores, to buy seashells since there are none on the beaches of Mississippi and to look for a geocache. We ended up not looking too hard for the geocache since we were all exhausted. We got back around 4pm. Not too bad for a day trip. Next time, I'd like to make it to Gulf Shores, but maybe as a two day trip. I'd also like to hit up the barrier island, West Ship Island this summer (though not with the baby since we wouldn't be able to leave at any given time and there's no shade on the island). I've never been there, but it looks awesome. There's a military fort from the 1800s, lots of marine life, mostly sting rays, and hiking opportunities.

All in all, it was a fun way to spend a day at the beach. Things that came in handy: sleeping bag to lay on the sand for the crawling baby, sunhats, frog baby swimming pool, and that's pretty much it. Next time, I'll be less prepared.

Ryden's Little Library

Most of his library sits on top of my piano right now.

Ryden now has 51 books (61 if I included his Children's Encyclopedias). It may sound like a lot for a six month old, but I'd really like him to have a huge collection of books. I loved story time when I was little. Begging for one more book to be read. I plan on being one of those moms that reads with my child. Hopefully, reading will be one of his hobbies. Whatever the Harry Potter or Hunger Games book is, I want to have conversations with him about it. A mom I know does this. She has an amazing relationship with her very smart daughter. I admire that. I don't know how many books we'll end up with by the time he turns one, but it'll be a never ending collection. Maybe I'll even do rewards in the form of books.

His 50th book came from a six month birthday exchange within the moms group I'm a part of. The 51st book was one that I made. When we went to the zoo, I made sure to get pictures of a variety of animals. Ever since my friend Allison told me about Shutterfly putting out free codes for photo books, I watch for them. Either from Shutterfly or Snapfish. I scored a pregnancy book, Ryden's 1st Christmas book, and made a Father's Day Book for my Father-in-Law. I didn't have to wait long for Shutterfly to put out a new code. When they did, I took the pictures from the zoo and made Ryden's First Trip to the Zoo.

It's his first animal book. I designed it with 1-2 animals on a page along with the name of the animal. Flamingo, Elephant, Lion, White Tiger, Gorilla, Alligator, Pelican, and the list goes on. I also included a few of the baby and family pictures. The shipping is a little pricey, but still cheaper than buying a book for the regular price. And it came out great.

The Baby's 1st Easter

We've been celebrating all of the baby's first holidays. While we won't dye eggs or hide plastic eggs this year, I still wanted to do a few things.

His Easter basket is made from an old Enfamil container with fabric modpodged to the container part. The lid was yellow so I left it. Glued squiggly eyes, a pink cotton ball nose, white cotton ball tail, and drew the whiskers and mouth in place. The ears are from a bunny headband. I cut a hole in the top of the container and pulled the ears through it. He already loves the basket with the squiggly eyes!

His loot! I had wanted to make a lot, but ran short on time. The list became:

• (3) Dr. Seuss board books
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar book book
• Oh Baby, Go Baby from Dr. Seuss
• A pair of sunglasses
• A pirate and lion finger puppets
• Two Easter bibs from Target's dollar section
• A super soft Peep plush bunny
• A shakey chicken toy by Fisher-Price. It clucks when shaken.
• (3) Sensory Peep eggs. We filled the eggs with rice, beans, and bells then hot glued them on the inside and outside, smoothing the glue down.
• Not pictured-A hat made from cute chicken and number material.

Looking forward to getting him all dressed up for Easter day!

And lastly: We hung up the Easter wreaths me and my mom made a couple of years ago. We made them from things we found on a trip to the Dollar Tree.

• A vine wreath
• Plastic eggs
• Mini Chicks
• A big bag of Easter grass
• Glitter paint

The ribbon was scrap ribbon. It was a pain hot gluing the grass, but got easier over time. It was a really fun project to do with my mom.

Baby's First Trip to the Zoo

We took Ryden to the Audubon Zoo on Saturday for Earth Fest. He's five months old now. We figured that maybe he'd be old enough to see the animals and have a response. He likes looking at pictures of lions, and he loves to try to grab the cats and dog.

Ryden rode the elephants.

Lesson #1 that I learned: Do not go back to the zoo during a big event. Luckily, he slept through the miles of traffic. Parking overflowed into the grass by way of the zoo staff. However, they left after it was full and "smart" people thought it would be ok to park wherever there was a patch of grass, even if that meant blocking the exits to the faux rows. Inside the zoo, it was so crowded. We had to pretty much stand in lines to see exhibits for the first couple of animals near the entrance.

Part of the zoo is  under construction, like the petting zoo. They had a couple of zoo staff holding animals. I don't dare let Ryden touch them by himself. He doesn't know how to pet the animals as evident in the pulling out of the puppy's hair incidents. I let him hold one of my fingers then run his hand over the creature.

Ryden's lion with a real lion.

"Don't let it eat me!"

Lesson #2: Animals at the zoo on a hot day are going to be lazy and probably out of sight or far away. I really wanted him to see these lions he seems to like in real life. Well it was tucked under some shade at the back of it's cage. Some animals came closer. Ryden at least seemed to enjoy just getting out and viewing the scenery. He didn't have a single meltdown.

I brought a stroller, but held him most of the time in an effort to allow him to see the animals. When I did put him the stroller, he would fall asleep after a few minutes.  He slept through the monkeys. Lesson #3: Baby will sleep at some points. Normally, when I wanted to get a picture of him next to something for instance: the monkeys he was dressed up. So we just took pictures whenever he was awake and stopped planning to do things like put him in a tree. I tend to spend a lot of time trying to get pictures for memories, instead of making memories.

My favorite part of the zoo is the swamp walk. We saw animals, ate food, walked over swamp, saw the Rou garou, let the baby view the baby gators. That's also where Ryden was most excited by an animal: the bobcat! The bobcats probably look a lot like our cats. They stretched like a house cat and rubbed against things. We let him watch them for a while.

The Bobcat Stretch.

Swimming with gators.

Escaping the Rou garou.

Lesson #4: Time flies. We got to the zoo aorund 11am and left around 3pm. I had imagined we would stay there for about 2 hours, but not 4. Audubon Zoo is very big. We didn't even make it to all the exhibits. I had planned on geocaching afterwards, but we were pooped when we left. The baby slept well that night.

Baby Aztec sacrifice.

Lesson #5: Bring sunscreen. For self. I tend to forget that I burn. It did fade after two days. I didn't put sun screen on the baby (he has very sensitive skin anyways), but we kept him covered. And put his monkey hat back on his head every time he pulled it off. 

What's up, Monkey Butt?

Unless we go with my Pumpkin Patch moms, I think our next NOLA zoo trip will be when he around October. The Aquarium of the Americas is possibly in our future in May. And the Baton Rouge zoo is another possibility for the summer with my sister and niece. We've got a long list of places to go with the baby and activities we can do.