Adventures in Canning and Homemade Baby Food

I've had so much fun making Ezekiel's baby food AND we have saved so much money in the mean time! A friend referred me to the site www.wholesomebabyfood.com it's a great sit that tells you what foods are appropriate for baby's age and such, has several recipes for great meal ideas for baby and so many tips on how to cook and store homemade baby food! I'm loving it :)




We recently went to the pumpkin patch, while we were there I picked up a dozen or so honey crisp apples. They were so huge and beautiful I couldn't pass them up, applesauce was inevitable and it turned out so yummy! I made a sugar free batch for Ezekiel and a sweet batch for Brian and I :)





I am so excited about these peaches! If you've never had canned peaches, they are sooooo much better than store bought peaches! We were up to are ears pealing and slicing enough to make about 100 quarts.


Love my boy!! He loves my food ;)


I've been able to make all of Ezekiel's food for about $10/month! I'm loving every minute of it!

When I'm Bored, I Bake!

I've decided that there is no possible way that I will ever be super skinny... Simply put: I just love to bake too much! Baking is one of my favorite pass times, I think I made my first coffee cake when I was about 9 using my 4H cookbook. A committed "American Girl" my sister and I loved cooking new recipes out of our Felicity and Kirsten cookbooks. Oh how I wish I still had that book... :) I'll never forget the time Cait and I decided to have our own restaurant at the house when Gma Judy was visiting one time. We had menus and a four course meal complete with desert. So Fun!

Last night I was craving cookies, but I had a dilemma! I have NO chocolate in my house!!! No chocolate chips, no baking cocoa, nothing! So I decided to pull out one of my cook books and looked for something that I actually had all the ingredients for and I found the classic "Cinnamon Coffee Cake" in my Taste of Home cookbook.

Not going to toot my own horn, but this was seriously the best coffee cake I've ever had! So moist! Not to mention the cake batter was delish as well.

InstaFriday

I'm loving InstaFriday! We had a pretty fun fast week :) Brian went Backpacking at Duffy Lake so Ezekiel and I where all by our selves for a couple days last weekend.

Check out Jeannett's page at Life Rearranged, such a fun site :)

Here we go...

Brian went backpacking last weekend so Ezekiel and I went swimming at Grandma and Grandpa's house! He didn't like it at first but by the time it was time to get out Z was having a blast!

Swimmin' with the fishies :)

We went to Red Robin for the first time in a while and Z was lovin his sunglasses! He didn't try to take them off even once! Love It!!!!!

Rid'em Cowboy! He's a natural... I guess it's in his blood. :)

How does one look at this face and refrain themselves from slobbering kisses all over it????

Hooray! I went to Joann's finally and picked up some fabric for my throw pillows!

Meet Mr. GrumpyFace! :(
I think we are try to teeth again....

Have a blessed weekend everyone :)

Mission Curtains: Complete :)

I've been wanting to have curtains for our master bedroom for a LONG time now! I actually purchased the material for this project back in January when I was getting this for Ezekiel's nursery, but had NO motivation during my pregnancy to do anything but work on the nursery! The machine that I used to make the curtains in the nursery was like a 1930s Montgomery Ward and half way through the project the motor went out and I had to hand crank the wheel to get the curtains finished. Needless to say I was not about to start on the curtains for my bedroom until I either got that machine fixed or just purchased a new one!

Well my wonderful husband surprised me the other day and bought me a new sewing machine! As many of you know it took me a little bit to get the thing figured out, but it's working! :)

Yes, I am hiding our Window A/C behind those!

I'm in LOVE <3

My next project, when I get around to it........ Pillows for the Sectional in the Living Room!

Berry Bash-What a Family!

At the end of July we were blessed to get to fly to Missouri/Illinois to see my family. We got to go to the Annual Berry Bash family reunion and my Grandparents "Surprise" 50th Wedding Anniversary! In a world where marriage doesn't seem to be valued very much and spouses are traded in like new cars this example is very precious to me! 50 years! Wow! What an inspiration and a challenge to all of us young married couples! Grandma and Grandpa, I love you guys so much thank you for being a great example for all of us :)

Awww.... Just as adorable :)

I was so excited for my family to meet our little Ezekiel, sad that he is already 4 months old but so excited that he finally got to meet 2 of his Great-Great Grandparents! Yes that's right 2 greats! We are hoping that he will get to meet Great-Great Gpa Grant and Gma Annie around Christmas!

Great-Great Gpa Wayne, Momma & Z, Great-Gpa Berry, & Grammie :)

Great Gma Berry, Momma, Grammie
Great-Great Gma Ruby & Ezekiel

What an AMAZING heritage!!! This little one is so blessed to have so many grandparents! I thought I was blessed to have 1 Great-Great Gma alive when I was born, Ezekiel has 6 Great-Great Grandparents alive and well :)

Oh..... Gma Berry if you are reading this.... you should comment and give us some advice on the 50 years of marriage.... :) Something we all should have asked at the party.... <3

Encouragement for Nursing Mommas: How He Loves Us So

Recently my husband and I made the huge decision to let me stay home and raise Ezekiel. Even though I only worked 2 days a week the thought of being away from my child for those 10 hour days just broke my heart and made me feel sick inside. I think I was a little jealous of the thought that someone else could possibly see my baby do things for the first time and I would miss out on his accomplishments. It wasn't just those little things that made the idea of returning to work hard, it was also everything involved with nursing a baby. I had already celebrated the day that I got to return my beloved pump when Baby Z graduated to a full time nursing baby and I just didn't want to welcome that awful thing back into the family... HA!

There are so many things that I didn't really think about before Ezekiel was born. I knew I would probably be home and not do very much for the first few weeks, but I never thought about how intense a schedule for a EBF baby could be.. like if you don't nurse after a few hours not only is baby screaming but Momma is dealing with a t-shirt problem if you know what I mean?? And not the Wet T-shirt contest that anyone would want to enter...(not that I would ever have/or thought of entering any other kind of wet t-shirt contest either). I didn't think about how I would be planning out when I needed to feed my baby and plan it just right so that we could take off and be driving to Portland or where ever for 2 hours or so and get there before he would start crying because he was hungry. Or going out to eat... or going to the beach...

I never considered the fact that sometimes I might just have to be prepared to feed my baby in PUBLIC with no private nursing mothers room! It's funny the little tricks and methods you can come up with to keep yourself modest. I know I live in hippie town USA but I'm sorry I'm not just gonna whip out the boob for all to see... and I never really thought about the fact that there are just somethings that I might have to miss out on....

LIKE WATCHING FIREWORKS ON THE BEACH LOOKING OVER THE OCEAN....HOW ROMANTIC.......

This 4th of July we got to be at the coast for the first time on this holiday and as everyone was loading up to go find the perfect spot on the sand I thought to myself (being very practical) "Why in the world am I thinking that I can bring my baby out to the beach tonight?" It probably would be a lot different if we were on the beach in Southern California or in Florida somewhere warm, but on the Oregon coast even during the warmest day in the summer the beach is cold, windy, sandy, did I say cold and windy??? So Brian jumped in the van with his parents and I ended up back at the house with my bubby.

As much as was glad that I was in a warm house snuggling my sleep, exhausted from a long weekend baby, I was starting to get a little sad about the fact that I was missing out on the fireworks. At this point one could get a little depressed thinking "I'm not gonna get to do anything fun for a while" or you could think about the fact that the decisions you make could adversely affect this tiny little being in your possession! So be wise, right! I'm not saying sit at home and do nothing or go nowhere.. Evaluate each situation as it comes up.

Psalm 37
⁴ Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you your heart’s desires.

<sup>As I was sitting in the house with Ezekiel getting ready to feed him (another thing I didn't want to do at the beach) I could hear fireworks going off everywhere. I just love that sound of celebration, the 4th of July is one day that you can relax when big explosions sound off and not work if something is wrong! And then to my surprise in the corner of my eye I see a huge firework burst right outside of the balcony window!!! Wow! These weren't just the little firecrackers that you can buy in Oregon, these were the big illegal ones that you have to drive to Washington to buy!! I was so excited I grabbed Zeke and put him in his warm jammies and we went out on the balcony and got to see our own private little display of fireworks!!! And at 3 months old I KNOW he saw them because each time one went off he perked up and his eyes just got huge!

It says take delight in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. If I had chosen to get upset at the fact that I wasn't out with everyone else enjoying the show would we have got to see our own little show? Maybe? Maybe not? But I'm gonna take it as an example of the LORD giving me the desires of MY heart. :) Something I have been really needing for a while.... a little pick me up to know that He still cares for ME.</sup>

^{Psalm 22
9} Yet you brought me safely from my mother’s womb
and led me to trust you at my mother’s breast.
¹⁰ I was thrust into your arms at my birth.
You have been my God from the moment I was born.

I'm sure it wasn't a coincidence that when all of the family arrived back at the house at about 11pm at separate times each one individually told me that I had made the right decision to take Zeke home instead of going to the beach. I guess it was extremely windy and very cold, they had made a fire to stay warm and all smelled like campfire smoke when they got home. I'm so glad that I didn't go I would have been so upset with myself if I did go and because of the weather my baby had gotten his first cold.


I'm so grateful that I can trust God to take care of me when I listen to Him. In all of this I am learning how important my role as a Momma is to my little one. Now I don't just make decisions for myself but along with my husband we have to make decisions for our child. We have to make decisions that please God because ultimately we are teaching little Ezekiel how to trust God by how we live. It's amazing to me that even this tiny little being already knows the presence of God. He absolutely loves the song "How He Loves" its one of the only ones that automatically calms him down every time it is played. This afternoon we were singing to Kari Jobe and Klaus' version of the song and I had my hands raised and at that moment I looked down and it was like he was already mimicking me and he had his hands raised praising the LORD as well. It's amazing to me that the most powerful moments of the song are when my little Ezekiel smiles the most! He already knows How much he is loved by God and I will do my best to make sure it stays that way!