A look back at Nolans first birthday!

Lets GO BANANAS!

I remember giving birth like it was yesterday (yes-even the pain…you don’t actually forget), so you better believe I remember planning his first birthday party when he was around six months! Some people thought six months was a bit early; however for me I can honestly say it wasn’t as much time as I would have liked to do all the things I had planned.

I went through countless online checklists on how to plan a birthday party…I utilized pinterest and various other sites. I quickly became inspired by moms turned party planning pros.  My son loved Curious George at the time and so the theme for his party was born.

Theme: Curious George

Color theme: red and yellow with touches of blue

Food: Pizza, Pulled BBQ chicken sliders, fruit and veggie platters

Snacks: Chocolate covered bananas, chocolate covered marshmallows on sticks, rice crispy treats dipped, cupcakes, jello cups topped with whip cream, chips, cheese puffs and of course a full color themed candy bar!

Favors: Curious George coloring books and stuffed monkey with mini red canvas carrying bag “Adopt a monkey” themed favors

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One challenge I have with having a very large extended family is that everyone always shows up late! There was a period of time that was pretty much a few people standing around waiting for everyone else to arrive which I will be planning around for the second party.

Here are some pictures from the party before I learned how to properly focus my new camera (sorry for the blurrrr)

It was a great party and I had so much fun planning it! I cannot wait to jump in and really start planning for his second party (I have already purchased some of the basics).

This would not be a proper first birthday blog without the cake smash photo of course so *drum-roll*

Summer time fun + sun!

I am so happy that summer is here and my baby boy is finally old enough to go outside and play!!

Our summer so far has been filled with trips to various playgrounds, day trips to get ice cream, tumble gyms, and mini pool adventures!!

I recently overheard a mother saying that her child did not need sunscreen because he has tan skin and wont burn…???!!!

Let me just say that I was infuriated to say the least! It was one of the most ignorant things I think I have heard in quite some time!  I wanted to inform her about the dangers of UV rays and such but she would have probably responded by saying UV what?! It would have been pointless!

I am leery of the chemicals in sunscreen; however, my child is extremely fair skinned and needs the full SPF50 for protection. If I come across a more natural solution to blocking the sun then I will for sure buy it!

This may have come off as a bit of a rant but I was so blown away by the thought that sunscreens only purpose is to prevent burning that I had to state my opinion on summer time sun safety.

I must now get back to brainstorming my sons 2 year birthday…in 7 months. 😛

Toddler mealtime!

Alright I have had the hardest time trying to feed my toddler.  We went through a phase of chicken nuggets and french fries and I of course felt like the worst mom on the planet! This is my attempt to help fellow moms find ideas on what to feed our toddlers…what worked for us and what did not work so well for us. The biggest challenge for us is allowing him to feed himself without making a huge mess because 9 times out of 10 he refuses food if we have to feed it to him! Stubborn!

This is basically a dream breakfast for my toddler! He absolutely loves it all.

Sliced bananas, sliced strawberry, scrambled eggs, and cinnamon flavored french toast waffles. The challenging part of this plate was the scrambled eggs of course because they are not exactly “finger food” friendly.  If you notice I left them in large chunks because I knew he would try to grab them and I try to avoid a mess whenever I can.  If I had given him the spoon or fork..well…he would have played with all the food and eaten none of it.

NEXT!

This was served as a dinner and was pretty much a FAIL…

The chicken I bought as salad chicken in a bag (strips of grilled chicken) and diced them up…he loved it.

The mashed potato was a disaster…he normally loves them; however this time the sight alone of them made him gag (a bit dramatic…i know)

The broccoli I bought in a steamer bag of only the florets because they usually go over well…not so much this time. He had one nibble after I danced around saying its a tree!…and then spit it out.

This breakfast was 50/50…He was not willing to try the different fruits (sliced grape, kiwi, watermelon, and honeydew mellon) He ate the whole wheat toast(dry of course) and allowed daddy to feed him most of the eggs.

This lunch was all about trying new things and as you can imagine it did not go as planned.

Penne-Licked it and threw it

Green pepper-chewed it and spit it out

Sliced cherry tomato-wouldn’t even touch them

Strawberry-loved them as usual

Sliced Blueberry-looked at it…picked it up…squeezed it…threw it

Chopped chicken-loved it as usual

So that is how our introduction to new foods has gone so far. Nolan is just about 17 months and is still wanting the bottle at bedtime and in the morning. We have found that giving milk in the bottle really spoils his breakfast so once we switched to water he has been more willing to eat a bigger breakfast.

Note: We will be fully weaning off the bottle by 18 months and I am sure that will be its own adventure…

First meeting!

As I sit here all I can think of is hurry up and put up the first post so we can all move on with the things that I actually want to blog about!

My son is sleeping on the couch like he so often does when he refuses to sleep in his toddler bed…probably due to my insistence on co-sleeping and attached parenting. I am hopeful that he will stay calmly sleeping for a few minutes so we can just crank out this first meeting.

Let me just say that after struggling with infertility and finally receiving the most beautiful gift, that I could stare at him for hours thinking about my immense love for this human.  Even on his worst behaved toddler days, he still makes me want an entire baseball team of cute little babies!

As sweet and wonderful as he is, he happens to be an extremely picky eater. I would like to post pictures of some of the toddler meals that we have tried because as a mom I sometimes feel that I feed him the same foods over and over just because I fear that he wont eat otherwise.

I would like to share our toddler food adventures!