Aaaaand I'm off!

Well, I wasn't going to mention this. I kind of hemmed and hawed and all that, but in the end I think I should put this out in the open, in this most public of forums. That way I can almost be held accountable by y'all, no?

I'm on a mission. A revamping of myself, if you will. I haz a little weight to lose, and the time is now. I began Weight Watchers the first week of January and have lost 9 lbs to date. My work is not finished, friends. I want to lose another 25 pounds. Gah! That sounds like so much. But, it has to happen. I want to finally feel like my old self again. Pre-pregnancy, pre-cancer self. I want to feel beautiful when I look in the mirror. I don't want to cringe when I see myself in photos. I want to be healthy and feel great as a mother. I want my amazing designer jeans collection back.

My goal? Gabriella's 1st birthday. I think it's a totally attainable goal with consistent, hard work, and I am beyond motivated. I know it will be tough, and I may lose sight of my goal at times... maybe I should threaten myself with a mandatory bathing suit pic come June 21? Double gah!

So hubby and I joined a gym (well, we did a free 10 day trial first, to make sure we'd actually do it and we totally got into a groove and determined we just had to sign up). We have a couple free sessions with a personal trainer and he totally worked me last night. My legs feel like jello.

And for the first time in my life, I can honestly say I like the feeling. I was always the girl who hated working out. I was on the track team in high school and when we had to do our 2 lap warm-ups, I'd walk the second one (I was a sprinter/hurdler, so distance - i.e. hard work and effort wasn't my cup o' tea). I'm the girl who gets winded going upstairs. I always was naturally skinny with an insane metabolism, but man, I have never really been "in shape". Kind of scary.

So here I go! Wish me luck, and if you'd like to join me, go for it. I'd love to hear your stories about success (and failure??) with getting fit.

Baby Food Making

Not to be confused with baby makin' - that's not happening for a long while! I wanted to share a bit about the foods that I feed G. When I was pregnant I received a Beaba Babycook from my aunt, and there were quite a few snickers at my shower. They just didn't believe that I would have the diligence, or time, or what have you to make my own baby food. Honestly, doubt me and you make me that much more determined. That aside, I knew I wanted to make my own baby food for a host of reasons - 1) It's the freshest, healthiest food that I can provide my baby, 2) It saves a ton of money, and 3) I thought it would be fun.

Yep, fun. I haven't always had the healthiest relationship with food (my idea of healthy is pizza with veggies on it) and I knew that if I got in the habit now of putting time and thought into making G's food I would have an opportunity to learn and explore foods that I ordinarily wouldn't. I really want to be able to prepare healthy meals for my family, and homemade baby food is as good a place to begin as any.

My experience so far has only solidified (ha!) my belief that I'm doing the right thing for me and my baby. At the expense of sounding like I'm preaching, I think many people put off the idea of making their own baby food because of misconception of a few things. It's not as time consuming as one would imagine - you can prepare a few batches of food in about an hour that will last you weeks. And it's not complicated at all - all you really need is a pot with a steamer and a blender/food processor (ok and a knife, vegetable peeler and ice cube trays if we're really going to be specific). I really like that the Beaba does everything all in one but it is a small chunk of change, so it's not really necessary. In fact, it can be a little limiting in the capacity size, so I may just give it a go with the old-school method eventually.

Here are a few pictures of the process. I've made carrots here:

I'd really like to recommend the book Baby Love by Norah O'Donnell and Chef Geoff Tracy. It's really straightforward and comes packed with some great advice and recipes. I also have another book by Annabel Karmel that's pretty decent (she has tons of books on the subject). Honestly, you probably don't even need a book, you can look up recipes online, or just use some common sense re: veggies and fruits to feed baby. See, it's easy!

My 7 Month Old Girl

My little lady is now 7 months old. So much has changed from when she was a tiny little newborn to now. Here are some updates:

• She's been saying mama since New Years. When someone will ask here where's mama, she looks at me. It makes my heart melt into a huge mush puddle. She's been babbling tons in the last few days too - baba, gaga, da... 
• We lowered her crib to the middle setting last week. She'd been getting up on all fours and it just seemed like we should do it before she gets any ideas to try climbing over!
• She's been trying so hard to crawl for over a week now. She gets up but somehow manages to move backwards instead of forwards. Silly girl. She's thisclose to getting it. I'm so nervous to have a mobile child now! I'll have to post a video of her doing her pre-crawl rocking, it's so funny cute. Just add that to my to-do list.
• The most notable "achievement" requires a huge drumroll (maybe even a drum solo?)... We are sleeping through the night!!!! She started doing this as of January 1, no joke. It's like she had a little resolution or something. It was on and off for about a week and a half, and now for the past couple weeks, sleep has been amazing. I'm talkin' 12-13 hours at night y'all. *please don't hit me* She'll occasionally cry out at 3 a.m., but all she wants is her paci and she's back out til morning. It's been a long time coming!
• Her first tooth came in this month! It's still a sharp lil guy working his way up. I'm curious when he's going to have a little friend join him, because she's chomping away still.
• I'm still making all her food and she eats solids at the dining room table twice a day. Sweet potatoes and pears are still a solid fave, but she also likes papaya, banana and will chow down on peas and broccoli if I mix them with a little sweet potato. 

So we're finally getting some consistent sleep around here! Some friends have asked what we did, and the truth is we have no clue, man. We didn't Ferberize or anything because she always has gone down to sleep easily. And we did try letting her cry a little, but it didn't work for us. It was much easier to just give her a quick little feeding than hear her cry for an hour. And there's something about her cry that I physically cannot just listen to and not do something. I actually am in awe of moms who can just go about their business while hearing their babies cry - I can't carry on! Anyway, I guess she just stopped wanting her middle of the night snack. Maybe since mama started Weight Watchers she's trying to slim down too? Silly girl, I like my babies curvy :-P

 

Here are some more pictures from the last couple weeks. It's been so nice and warm here - uh too warm at times (we had a high of 90 one day!). Crazy Los Angeles Januaries.

 

 Oooh you can see her lil tooth in this one! Sorry for posting a bazillion pictures at once, I just can't help myself. G Bunny can't help herself when it comes to my camera either - she discovered the strap and loves to reach for it and nom on it. Her two favorite things: my camera and the remote control.

Stay tuned for more. I know I've been somewhat of a blog-slacker as of late, but I have some interesting posts in the works, lest you worry.

In case you were wondering...

what exactly happens when you put baby spoons in the sterilizer, here's what you get:

Crispy, no?

We may get big fat FAILs in the sterilizing department, but I still rock on in the savings area.  I buy my Dreft on Amazon. Subscribe and save, baby. 2 jugs for $13.17. No tax, free 2 day shipping. Join in on the fun. Check out this awesome deal today - $20 Amazon gift card for $10. Oh, you're welcome.

We haz a tooth!

And we aren't exactly thrilled about it! Poor little G. She didn't sleep very well at all the other night, and then yesterday morning she was sticking her tongue out a lot. I decided to feel her gum and sure enough, I felt a little sharp something poking through on the bottom left (her right)! I was totally surprised, because while she slept poorly, she still wasn't up all night screaming or anything. She was a little fussy during the morning, but yesterday afternoon I guess it all hit home, because she could not stop screaming from the pain. I felt so horrible for her. I gave her some all natural Camilia from Whole Foods to help and I guess it did help a little because she was able to calm down enough to finally go down for her afternoon nap (and she slept for 2 1/2 hours after that). We are now stocked up with Baby Orajel and her teethers are all cooling in the freezer. Whew!

As I told her, I'd rather grow a massive tooth out of my forehead than have to have her go through this pain, but I know she's not going to want to be eating puree-d everything when she's 20 so teeth it is. I made her a nice juicy steak to celebrate.

Yeah right, I would never do that. Steak is so gross.

Here's another look at the lil guy pokin through...

Can you see it??









No?!??









Here, I'll help.

:-D Isn't it purdy?

Happy New Year!

Hah it's actually one of my pet peeves when people wish you a happy new year like a week after the new year. Ah I guess it's a nice thing to do, but whatev. Anyway, I've got a little updating to do! We had a fun little weekend get away with some friends at their cabin in Lake Arrowhead. It was Gabriella's first time seeing the snow, and I'm not quite sure she was too impressed. She was actually quite indifferent!

I on the other hand don't think I could hack it living in the snow. The ground is slippery. How do you carry your baby around on an icy driveway!? And naturally G had a blowout poo in the car. Usually I just pop open the trunk and change her on the nice big flat surface. Nope, not in the snow! I had to maneuver changing her in the passenger's seat. Not an easy task to do (at least not in our friends' SUV). And digging your car out of the snow every morning?? It took the boys an hour to get our car out so we could leave. I think I'm more of a fan of watching the snowy goodness from the warm indoors a couple days out of the year. L.A. weather has spoiled me.

I've included some captions. They should probably go underneath the photos, yet I did it the wrong was and have zero motivation to correct it. I apologize for my laziness Who cares? ;-)

Her "auntie" Kristin was so happy to get some snuggles in with G. Boo to our friends for moving down to San Diego.

This was moments before she decided to make the biggest poop known to man inside the car.

Riley was so good with G! And Gabriella absolutely loved her too. I can see them being great friends in a few years :-)

I had a little fun with some PW Photoshop Actions.

 

The view of the lake. Well you can't see any lake because it was snowing, but when it was clear there was a nice view of the lake.

Our friends' two little ones, Riley and Cayden. Aren't they so cute all bundled up in their snow gear?!

G and Cayden were both making eyes at each other... we're going to have to watch out for those two!

Snow Angel!

 Adam sledding down the hill in the backyard

Our little SUV buried under snow! We couldn't even park in the driveway because we don't have all wheel drive and it was so icy when we got there. And fail that we didn't have chains, but we didn't do any driving while we were there so it wasn't really a big deal.

Our friends and their little boy, Cayden

Adam found an apple tree so he ate one. Seriously! I told him it was highly likely that it wasn't an apple at all, and probably poisonous bear bait, but he maintains it was the most delicious apple he's ever eaten.

The cabin

Chilly

G has mastered babbling mama at me now and I absolutely love it. Not sure if it counts as her first word, but isn't that relative? I have a little video of her talking away :-)

And our foray into solids is well underway - she has loved just about everything we've given her: sweet potato, carrots, zucchini, pears, squash, bananas... except a horrible experience with avocado. We apparently hate avocado with the passion of (fill in the blank with something massively descriptive). I gave her a teeny bite the other night and she made a face and kind of gagged a little bit. I made the horrible mistake of trying to give her another little bite - she gagged and then proceeded to projectile vomit all over herself and her high chair tray. She's never thrown up before and I felt so awful. Actually I cried a little. She was all smiles a minute later but mama still feels guilty :-( One thing's certain, I'm not making her eat avocado again!

And since it's a new year and all, naturally it's time to get fit. I mean, doesn't everyone somewhat aspire to do this every January (and usually fail by February - ha!)? We've been having so much fun with the X Box Kinect Santa brought for Adam this year - this dance game is such fun and a major workout!

I think I may have forgotten to update about my arthritis situation; I ended up not going on the methotrexate drug. It just made me too apprehensive to be taking a chemo medication, so I sought out a second opinion and this dr. actually recommended cortizone injections in my knees along with other medication. Yeah shots in the knees are as frightening as it sounds, but the minute of pain has been SO WORTH IT. Oh my panini what I can do with my knees now! It's like I'm a child again - I can leap and bend and sit with absolutely ZERO pain whatsoever. I can't believe I didn't try this before. Coupled with Celebrex, I've been doing much better. Hence the getting crunk.