Rice Cereal

The doctor told me not to start Elise on rice cereal until she is eating better. Rice cereal will take up valuable real estate but she said it can help her with her spitting up. She recommended trying a little bit only after she has eaten a good meal. Well yesterday we decided to try it as Elise actually ate pretty well at school. We get home, I give her a tablespoon of rice cereal mixed with formula.. she loved it. Then proceeded to eat 6 ounces with barely any spitup. Then she promptly fell asleep from 8-5. Hm. that is the most she has eaten in one sitting almost since she was born. I think she ate 6.5 ounces once but the spit some of it back up. Maybe Elise just needs a little grounding in the belly before she eats. We tried it this morning too. Right now she is napping after her little tummy got full on 5 ounces! Might be having her eat some cereal everyday if this keeps up!

Deep Freeze

Oh yea! We purchased a deep freezer on cyber monday to be delivered (free delivery) next Saturday. Oh the things we can do with a deep freezer. The costco trips just got that much more expensive!

Yesterdays dinner

The crockpot cooking took a little break during the holiday but we are back! Yesterday we made corned beef and potatoes. Yum. The corned beef was some of the best around. Literally we just put quartered potatoes in the bottom, added some water, vinegar, sugar, onions, garlic cloves and the sauce stuff that came with the corned beef, put the corned beef on top, cook at 10 hours. Delicious. moistest corned beef I ever had. You can even add cabbage on top of the corned beef however i didn't manage to get that at the store so we left it out! Look out though on St. Patty's day!

Today we just put some foil wrapped potatoes in there for a side dish. B cut up some onion, put in some butter and voila. Man it is the best way to make a potato. They are so soft when cooked in the crock pot. The cookbook we have says you can even put a roast in the bottom with some water, add foil wrapped potatoes and foil wrapped corn on the cob up top of the roast and you have a full meal done!

There are some recipes in there that I want to try but need to make a store run, like mongolian beef, my favorite Chinese take out dish. Sunday will be another chili. Not sure if I posted about last weeks chili but it was the Obama 'secret' family recipe. Pretty good. Now that I have my friends corned bread recipe I can't wait for chili Sunday.

Lions, tigers and bears oh my...

Yesterday on our way up to night night, I left Sadie in her room briefly to go put her clothes in my dirty clothes pile to wash...two seconds behind me Sadie comes flying into my room and shuts the door. I said whats the matter Sadie? She said the lion in my room scared me. So we armed ourselves with lion defeating (water) spray bottle and went to hunt some lions. Luckily when we got back to her room the scary lion was gone. phew.

Elise Four Month Appt

Well Elise definitely didn't like shot number two which envoked intense screaming. However, shot number one and even the liquid vaccine both went over fine. She was even smiling after the liquid. The number one issue from her appointment is the fact that once again, momma was right, she doesn't eat enough and didn't gain enough weight. Elise averages about 20 ounces a day, when she should be averaging about 30. The doctor wasn't too concerned as she did gain one pound, so its not like she isn't eating but it isn't enough. She went from the 90%ile to the 50%ile in two months. hm.

Elise does have reflux. Now both girls are on medicine everyday. The medicine is helping a bit but it is only to make her more comfortable not to 'fix' the reflux. Basically she will just have to outgrow it. We have to go back in a month to get her weighed again to make sure she is still gaining weight. In the meantime, we have to make feeding times quiet so she isn't getting distracted. No more talking while eating Elise! After Sadie, the eating champion, it is so odd to have one that doesn't eat enough. We couldn't get Sadie to stop eating!

The numbers
Weight: 13lbs 8 ounces (50%ile)
Length: 24 3/4 (75%ile)
Head: 15 5/8 (15%ile)

Elise still continues to be a happy baby with smiles for everyone. The daycare teachers are still amazed at how anyone can hold her and she is happy. She does howver, reserve true happy giggles for few and far between. Big sister Sadie can elicit giggles by just being herself. Granted Sadie can typically get a little 'giggle' out of everyone or more like a 'wow sadie, who are you' head shakes. Elise also loves when people dance by her or momma/dada tickle her. Momma and dada however do not compare to laughter and big huge smiles Elise gives big sister Sadie. I foresee a little following action going on with those two. Elise following Sadie everywhere and Sadie 'taking advantage'. sigh.

The Meatloaf

was Fantastic!

It really worked. You put the meatloaf in a loaf pan, put the pan in the crockpot and voila, you have cooked meat. Sadie loved the meatloaf but not as much as daddy who almost licked his plate clean. Needless to say, this will be on our crock pot rotation.

Alligators

An update to my previous post about Sadie being afraid of the alligator. Well last night while sitting at the dinner table, she turned to the sink and said "don't come out of the water. there is no water here." Amen sister. We don't want no alligators in our house!

Crock Pot Meatloaf

Continuing on the fun of the crockpot, tomorrows recipe is going to be meatloaf. I am so excited. One, I heart my mothers meatloaf and two, you make the meatloaf in a bread pan IN THE CROCKPOT. How's that for fun stuff?

I'll keep you posted.

I did hear all my readers asking for the Bacon and Cheese Chicken recipe. I feel it will be tasty but alas it was our first crock pot incident. The recipe calls for 8 hours on low and we put it on 10 hours. The edges were burnt and the chicken was slightly dry but the flavor was still good. Leads me to believe it will be fantastic if not burnt. It will be tried again.

Olive oil the crock pot
Put 4-6 chicken breasts on top of oil
In small bowl combine 1/4cup teriyaki sauce with 1/2 cup ranch dressing (yep I'm serious)
Pour sauce over chicken.
Add 1 cup shredded cheese and 12 pieces of cooked bacon on top (try to put it between the chicken)
Cover and cook on low 6-8 hours

We put it over rice because Bryan thought getting rice at Costco was a good idea. I'm just saying.

eat. be merry.

taken from 'Make It Fast, Cook it Slow" mostly gluten free recipes

The girls

Well my friends I am going to try to document my crockpot trials in this blog. HOpefully it will be interspersed with stories of the girls. As an update to the girls, we were having a really hard time with Sadie being scared of her room. It was rough on both momma and Sadie to say the least. We seem to have gotten into a better swing of things but for awhile none of the girls in this house were sleeping. Sadie is ever the resilient child and has come back swinging. She sleeps through the night most every night now. We still have moments of 'mommy the alligator scares me' which prompt the answers of 'well Sadie, alligators have to live in water and we don't have any water in here". Ever the interesting world that of a toddler. If you have a toddler going through anything like being scared of their room call me. I have plenty of advice. It took a month or so of learning, and the help of many people to get this one nipped in the bud.

Elise has reflux so she is on a medication given to her three times a day. It seems to help as she eats more after she takes it. She still isn't eating enough which is quite the change from Sadie. At this age Sadie was a chubber. It makes me wonder if I did the right thing by not pumping with Elise. When breastfeeding didn't work out I didn't think I would be able to pump and still see Sadie. Pumping and feeding took so much of my time with Sadie. Alas, we will never know. A friend of ours daughter had reflux while breastfeeding too so it doesn't seem to matter either way. Tomorrow she turns four months so her next appt is next week. We will see how she is doing in the weight department then. We will however be starting her on some cereal this weekend as i think that will help her eating habits.

In other news Elise started daycare last week. She seems to love it. one day last week I came in to find her happily staring wide eyed at the letter "A". She barely even noticed I was there! The next day when Sadie and I picked her up she just gave the biggest smile. I think she will like it there too just like Sadie.

Sadie lately has been kicking me out of her classroom in the morning. In her fear stage talked about above, she had started having screaming fits when I dropped her off at school. It took all my effort to leave during those times but its best to drop and run. Two weeks later and bam, now she kicks me out! Last Friday she said "momma, go to work. I see you later." hows that for love? She is also repeating lots of things so we have had to be more diligent in choosing our words. Last week Sadie was sitting at the table, eating a kiwi and waiting on dinner. She said daddy a few times to no avail. Finally she busts out with "daddy are you hearing me call you?" Daddy chagrined " Sadie daddy was talking. what can I do for you?" Sadie " daddy can I have another kiwi please?" Where was mommy you ask? Well I was turned away trying really hard not to laugh out loud. busted!

OK now we are caught up.

Big Girl Panties

today we decided to go full force into potty training. Sadie has been sort of ready for months now, going pee pee and poopoo in the potty when she decides too. The problem is she never really tells us she has to poopoo until its in her diaper already. Then she says, Momma I have to potty. Goes into the bathroom and pulls down dirty diapers. let's just say that's unpleasant and leave it at that. Anywho. I bought big girl panties with monkeys and elmo (to make it more exciting), got the potty chart and stickers ready all last weekend. daddy this morning said, alright Sadie lets put on our big girl panties and start this thing. From everything we have read and heard pull ups are wasteful and useless. They are basically a diaper they can pull on and off. Trust me, Sadie doesn't need any help in that department. While we do have some pullups we decided lets just go big girl panties and let her feel what is like to wet herself. Hopefully she won't like it and it will be that much easier.

Its starts off well. She comes downstairs and immediately goes peepee in the potty.. Hooray. We got stickers on our chart. She is excited about the stickers. Twenty minutes later she says she has to go potty again. She sits down on the frog potty, says i go poo poo. nothing. shucks. We will try again later. Ah but no, 5 minutes later she is in the corner pooping in her big girl panties. We explain why thats not good and say doesn't it feel funny in your big girl panties. Sadie looks up and says, no daddy. hm. maybe we aren't just ready yet. We will try big girl panties the rest of today to see what happens. Should promise to be a fun one!