Quick Seth story: Our conversation over breakfast this morn

M: Eat your breakfast Seth
S: Well...(hands held out in an "ok just stop" fashion) I hate to tell you this
cause I don't want to hurt your feelings.
M: Tell me what? I can handle it
S: Are you sure? Ok well here it comes, now I don't want to break your
heart...can you handle it?
M: I hope so. Just give it to me and i'll try to deal
S: Well, I don't really like to eat your breakfasts

Bwhahahahahahaha I LOVE it! :) Seriously, what did we do before we had our own personal comedian?!

Changing my viewpoint

Ok, so i've been quiet lately, one because we have been super busy but mostly because i've been extremely emotional. But now that I can handle it, I will explain my situation and see how you guys handle it if you have this problem.

I have really been praying hard that God will change my way of looking at things. See, we have been staying with family the last little bit and I feel that I have missed soooo much with Aaron being little. Now are those things major, not really, but to a momma...yes! He didn't get a nursery set up, I am selfish and don't want to share all of his first with everyone. I want some to just be for us, then later get to share it with the gparents. I have been taking camera pictures like a mad woman, but we haven't had the finances to keep up with professional pics like we did with Seth. And altho Seth wore hand-me-downs, he had plenty of his own clothes that we bought him. Not so much the case with Aaron.(he still has had new clothes just not the same amount)
He is a well rounded happy child that knows without a doubt he is loved. He has all the basic needs taken care of and then some, so there is no reason to technically be upset but you momma's understand i'm sure. My prayer has been that instead of dwelling on the 'missed' I focus soley on what we did share and have with him. If I put just as much effort into getting his book together, taking my pictures to be blown up and do my own editing and retell him the wonderful memories we had with him as a baby, he will never know that I feel he was slighted unless I tell him (or 15yrs later he finds this blog post!) I have really put in a lot of time and energy getting things together for him, and ya know what...he actually got a lot that I didn't realize. My focus had just been on the wrong thing.

Has this feeling happend to any of you, and how did you deal with it?
Here's some pics of my little bug...

So far so good!

Ok so call me Amanda teehee! Amanda has always been great with the pictures, but I think it's funny we decided the same day to post our meal pics. You're my blogger hero Amanda lo

So, we are on day 3 of doing good with our foods. I did a lot of research on changing eating habits and how to encourage picky eaters. I have to say that I'm finding a lot of the problem to be me! I think because I expected mealtime to be a fight, that's exactly what I got. Now i'm trying to approach it in a positive way for both of us and make it a fun experience.

Seth has always been a great su chef and LOVES to help me cook dinner. He can crack a mean egg people. But now we are looking up recipies together and finding what he thinks looks good. Then i'm trying to focus our meals according to the ingredients in his. I'm behind on my dates, but you'll get the idea.

Wed lunch:
Octupus in the Sea (blue noodles with smokes sausage)

He helped me cook the noodles, put in the blue food coloring, then helped cut the octupus legs on the sausage. (he didn't know about the mixed veggie puree that went in the noodles before the food coloring he he)
He liked it so score one for creativity!

Since he was having smoked saugsage and noodles this is what we had. It was yummy!


Thursdays breakfast we all had parfaits:granola with dates, raisins and almonds, blueberries and kiwi as our fruit. I let Seth put the fruit in a baggie and smash it all up, then mixed it in his yogurt. He didn't eat all of it, but half was good enough.

This morning I was running slow cause I was up all night with the baby. John and I had scrambled eggs w/feta cheese and toast. Seth had slightly toast bread, pb with sugar free jelly and banana. Now one of the things I learned was sometimes they will eat something they used to eat if it's given to them in a different way. I remembered Seth loves toothpicks, so I sliced the banana and gave him a toothpick to eat it with. This was the result:




Ate it all and asked for more!!!!! It's been a long time since he's had a banana. Brother enjoyed them too.

Day 1...overcoming picky eating

Ok, so I asked some moms for food ideas for Seth. I am determined to try and slowly break this cycle of not eating in a non frustrating and enjoyable way. The dr tells me it is nothing to worry about and he will outgrow it, but it's been almost 2 yrs and seems to only be getting worse. The list of things we can now mark off that he will no longer eat just this past year is frightening. We now longer eat:
bananas
grapes
mixed fruit
toast
oatmeal
waffles
pasta

Now that might not seem like a lot, but when you only ate a handful of things to begin with, that's HUGE!!!

So instead of cracking down and MAKING him eat, I've decided that I am going to continue to make him try at least 3 bites (more if it's not too big of a fuss) at his own pace along with something I know he will eat.

Here's what I made for breakfast this morning. It was lightly toasted bread (if it's still soft he will eat it) with about half an egg to make the face.


This is what he gave it


This is how much he ate of it, and considering it's our first day and he usually instantly gags and gets sick if I make him try eggs I consider this a success!!!!


We finished up with our usual pancakes and peanut butter. Tomorrow we try a parfait!

Here's a couple picks of my other eater...no problems there :)

4th of July!

Well, this was Aaron's first 4th and so many great memories were made. It started Sat. with us going out for lunch at Cracker Barrel. Both boys were soooo good. We had the best meal ever. It's soo nice when there is no fussing and everyone is on their best behavior. Aaron and Seth sat beside each other and I wasn't sure how that would work, but it was awesome.

Later that night, we went to a cookout at some friends house. In college, John and his friends would get together and play games and for some reason it got named Couple's Skate Night. This was my first one with most of the old gang, and what a good time for a bunch of old married couples all with kids :) It rained on our cookout, but we didn't let that stop our fun!!!







Because we stayed out late, John stayed home from church with the baby. Seth and I went because I had to lead singing. Now during the service, Seth was tired and ready to go home. He flipped flopped around and layed all over me. Trying to keep him wrangled I was having a hard time concentrating on the message, so I knew for sure he wasn't listening...WRONG!!!!

Brief snippet: As christians we have fallen asleep to our surroundings, we need to wake up, stay awake and not fall asleep.

What Seth learned: 'See mom, I don't have to take naps anymore, Pop said we have to stay awake and quit falling asleep!' At least he was listening!!!! LOVE IT!

John cooked some hotdogs for us then off to the fireworks. It wasn't a very good show, but the boys liked it and that's all that really matters anyway. It has been a great 4th and I hope everyone else enjoyed theirs.

Full steam ahead

So since Aaron has cut his 2nd tooth and they no longer seem to be bothering him, he has decided to take off with his other developmental skills. He has been so close to going from crawling to sitting himself up and yesterday he did it! He just needed to learn how to give that one little push. I'm still trying to catch him in action but no luck yet. Of course it happens every time I put the camera down...boo!

His little personality is just exploding too, and he loves to play bashful with the ladies. He talks and babbles all the time and loves for you to cheer for him so he can clap his hands. He is changing soo fast and I feel like I can't keep up. Slow down little man, your momma's emotions can handle it!

Last Friday, John surprised me with a date night. His mom had volunteered to keep the kids and he took her up on it and we had a nice dinner. It was long overdue. It was cute because when we told Seth he said "So we get to listen to Mema and Papa rules, not mommy and daddy rules?" He was excited about his night out too :)

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