food glorious food | The Angel Forever

Category Archives food glorious food

Baby Food Exploration

Posted on March 10, 2008 10:48 am by TheAngelForever

As a food connoisseur for more years than I would like to admit, it is fun to watch my children learn to appreciate different foods/tastes. I had forgotten how interesting it is to watch the face of a baby trying new culinary delights for the first time. At almost ten months old JSL has been quickly adding new items to his repertoire. We try to gradually add in new items, but lately he has been eating what we have most evenings.

JL and I enjoy watching JSL smile and coo as he tries something for the first time. He almost always gobbles it down without a fight. You know, basically not being like big brother NHL. Sad thing, NHL used to be the same way, but in recent months he has become – well you know what I mean!

Here are some photos of my little guy enjoying some new foods.

JSL approves of taco "meat" with Morning Star burger crumbles, red kidney beans and corn.

As you can see he thoroughly enjoyed his trip to Mexico for our own version of Tacos. Of course a tub was required soon after to clean up the little guy from the mess that resulted.

A day or so later JSL was able to try egg (just the yolk) for the first time. He was like a vacuum with this once he realized it was something to eat. I have never seen him eat something this quickly.

Next time we will definitely have to make him two egg yolks since they were gone so quickly. Then on Friday night he showed us that he is a carnivore. The little guy really loved ground turkey. Since he liked it so much we then gave him more with the sauce, chick peas, and corn. . . plus brown rice. He LOVED it.

There is nothing like a baby with a shiny food speckled face to make you smile!

Categories:
food glorious food health awareness jsl laughs milestone yummy

Visit to Bubbe & Grandpa – Day 3 & trip home

Posted on January 7, 2008 6:49 pm by TheAngelForever

Tuesday morning we were ~~told~~ ~~begged~~ asked to let Bubbe and Grandpa sleep in to at least 9. Both boys slept a little later than normal (so 7-ish or so). JSL nursed and then we all went to watch television and check e-mail and things on the computer in the room NHL was sleeping in.

JSL was really tired from being very restless all night (teething is evil I tell you). He and I went back to rest for a little while. When we got back up everyone was getting ready for breakfast. Bubbe was making pancakes for everyone. JSL was content at first just eating his Gerber Graduate Wagon Wheels and things:

This did not last. Soon after this JSL was very vocal about wanting more. JL and I decided trying pancake in small pieces could not hurt. He had a few bites of JL’s and LOVED it. He was quite upset when it was all gone. Bubbe was great and whipped up another batch so JSL could have his own. The little monkey ate the entire thing. Here is a study of JSL eating his first pancake:

After pancake time we all got dressed. Here is JSL learning how to be a boy with JL:

We were all pretty tired and decided to stay in during the day. JL working on my father-in-laws computer and the boys and I just played and rested. Lunch was left over Greek and Chinese – very fun combo.

Then at about 3:30 JL’s friend and his fiance came over to visit for a little while. G & L have been engaged for quite some time. Just before we left an envelope was in our mailbox from them. We had already received a holiday card, so I guessed maybe it was a wedding invitation. Sure enough it was. However, this was not just a wedding invitation, it was amazing. All 4 of us were invited to be their guests for a week long event around their wedding in SC late this year and it included transportation and accommodations!!!

We had to congratulate them, thank them and ask some questions. JL and I both wanted to make sure they were positive about the kids coming. They said they were. We found out from talking with them that there are only 30 or so people invited to this destination wedding. We were beyond honored. G later e-mailed JL and said he forgot to ask him a question. He wanted JL to be in the wedding party. G was JL’s best man in our wedding. There are a ton of things going on with the wedding. The actual ceremony is going to be early in the day on Halloween. We just have to figure out how many days we will be going for, but we are going to be there for G & L on their special day.

When G & L left it was time to think about dinner. JSL was attacking me for milk, so we went to nurse in another room. This is the result:

My mother-in-law was making her delicious chicken cutlets, lentil/tomato soup, potato kugel, and challah. Everything was delicious! Soon after this the boys went to sleep and we said goodbye and thank you to my father-in-law (he had to leave VERY early for work).

The next morning we woke up and I started to pack our things up. To complicate matters it was snowing outside, but nothing to even coat the ground. My thought was to get on the road at 10:00 to avoid rush hour traffic. This did not happen. We finally hit the road at 11:00. We made great time to the halfway point in our trip. Stopping to stretch and check out a store (Disney Store) at the outlets there was good, but man it was windy. Rather than eat lunch there, we went over to Pizza Uno nearby. BIG MISTAKE!! We were finally back on the road two hours after we stopped.

Driving was not bad, we made great time and pulled up to our house to see there was no way we could get into the driveway. After we were plowed out from the initial storm, another 4-5 inches of snow fell and the city had plowed us in. JL got out and helped to get a path to head in.

All-in-all it was a very nice visit with Bubbe and Grandpa. I never had an allergic reaction to their dog Lacey, which is a first. A few things were said that bothered me, but such is life. JSL never wanted to be held by them much thanks to being so grumpy from teething, plus he has only seen them 4 other times (when he was born, his bris, NHL’s B-day, and Great-grandma’s B-day).

Sorry this took so long to finish. I was busy trying out a new photo editing program. I used it to make the collages up above.

Categories:
allergies family food glorious food jsl milestone photos road trip sleep teething

Snow, sleet, sledding, secret ingredient cookies & sleepy babies

Posted on December 17, 2007 12:15 am by TheAngelForever

Storm #2 of the not even officially winter season is heading out (I think). As of this morning we had 5-6 inches of snow and the ice kept on coming all day. Our plan was to stay home, watch movies, dig out, and bake cookies. Some of those were accomplished. We are partially out from under the snow and ice, we never had a chance to watch a movie (thanks to a certain little monkey), and we ate cookies that were delicious.

By mid-morning JL finally decided that it was time to head out into the snowy cold "fun" and took NHL with him to get out some energy. The poor kid was experiencing some serious cabin fever from being in the house since early Thursday afternoon. Here is Darth Daddy with his camera of course!

Now please note the dorky Abominable Cameraman taking a photo here while measuring the snow fall:

Finally it was time for NHL and JL to dig out at least the front area of the house:

After some time they finally made it further down the sidewalk to clean up more of the snow. Look at the little guy following his daddy – AWWWWW!

Digging, digging. . . . and yes more digging!

I went back inside to check on the little guy who was keeping warm. As you can see he was having a blast playing, but you can also see his poor little nose was very sore looking. He now cries when he sees a tissue coming toward him.

A little while later JL came in to get me for some photos. The boys had decided to take a break from cleaning up snow to play in it. Here is a mosaic of their sledding fun.

The smiles one both of their faces were just SO big!

Soon after this the boys came inside to get warm and eat lunch. We had lunch that NHL picked out – tomato soup with alphabet noodles in it. Mommy thought he might get a kick out of them and bought them. After this we noticed that NHL was getting tired. We knew he would not go to his bed. Instead we got him to snuggle up on the couch under a blanket. After fighting the nap we finally noticed that he was quiet and calm. Here is how I found the little guy. It still amazes me how kids can fall asleep in the most odd ways.

Meanwhile another little boy in the family was miserable. He refused to eat solid food, wanted to be held and could not sleep. He would settle, get into his crib and wake up crying within 20 minutes or so thanks to his poor nose. Here is how he greeted me after one of the mini-naps. The shine on his nose is vasoline to help the sore areas from constantly wiping all of the dripping.

While NHL was napping JL was ambitious and made some chocolate chip cookies using the recipe from Deceptively Delicious. The secret ingredient in these cookies are whole chickpeas. NHL woke up just in time for the first batch to come out of the oven. JL made one recipe which yielded 40 cookies (Seinfeld’s recipe says it will make 2 dozen – what size cookies does she make?). As you can see NHL approved and wanted more than the two that he was allowed. They truly were YUMMY and you never would know there was something like chickpeas inside.

Now both of the boys are in bed and the house is quiet. The 7 month old was a struggle since he was beyond overtired, congested (did the milk thing to help), and two teeth are really coming in. He also learned a lesson – you do NOT bite mommy when nursing and laugh. If you do that mommy will pass you to Daddy and say "No BOOB for you!"

Night-night for now since the morning will be here soon to finish digging out.

Categories:
food glorious food fun jl jsl nhl photos sick kid teething weather weekend winter yummy

Chanukah Party & Family Day (12-8)

Posted on December 10, 2007 4:16 pm by TheAngelForever

Thursday evening my brother (Uncle I), sister-in-law (Aunt M) and niece (SG) came into town. Due to NHL being really sick Friday we were not able to have dinner with them that evening. Saturday morning all seemed to be well. The high fever disappeared almost as mysteriously as it had appeared. Thanks to this we felt it was fine to make plans and see our family.

Aunt M and Uncle I requested lunch out at the newly opened PF Chang’s. We all said that was fine, so I made a reservation for 12:30 for the nine of us (that included the two babies). We had a very nice lunch, looked around the crazy mall quickly and then stopped at Target. We needed to go there for more Aveeno diaper rash cream as well as frosting and sprinkles for Aunt M’s Chanukah cookies.

After that it was time to head back to my parent’s house. At Nana and Papa’s we all decided to let the kids have some of their Chanukah gifts. Nana and Papa gave NHL the new Fisher Price Smart Cycle. It seems like a great "toy" for in the house during the winter. It will provide him with muscle movement (PT), and nice hand/eye coordination with the joystick (OT) using educational games. Here is a mosaic of NHL opening the gift. Note when he finally sees what is inside. Also included are some photos of him riding on it.

Meanwhile JSL was enjoying his first Chanukah (check out the cool shirt that Nana and Papa got him). It was so fun watching him get into his new toys. He sat on the floor for quite some time playing, talking, watching and enjoying the farm toy that Nana and Papa gave him. He loved finding the places that would make music and kept experimenting with everything. Here are some photos of him including when he got there in his snowsuit, playing with Papa, modeling his "My First Hanukkah" shirt. Unfortunately we never had SG and JSL in a photo together with their matching shirts on. In addition to the farm toy he LOVED the Glow Worm from Uncle I, Aunt M and SG. When we got home Saturday night he kept singing with it. When it would stop glowing he would kiss it on the face and talk to it trying to make it go again.

Of course the Smart Cycle did not come assembled since Santa does not do that for Chanukah – *wink* Thanks to this JL had the opportunity to put it together for NHL. Here’s a shot of that fun.

NHL was quite bored waiting for his Smart Cycle to be ready. Part of the time he watched Papa’s new "baby" play Noggin.

By this point he was starting to really need something to do. Aunt M had him help SG open her Chanukah gifts.

Then he was quite sick of waiting. Note the sour puss.

Since I was getting slightly bored I took the following photo of my shoes and dreidel socks:

SG was quite content when mommy read her a book and Papa came over to chat with her:

Once NHL’s bike was set, everyone just stayed together in the living room waiting for the other family members to come to the Chanukah party.

Even the Chanukah Puppy was just hanging out:

Finally everyone arrived and it was time to eat. Here is a mosaic of all of the family gathering around the lit menorah enjoying our meal together. Oh and of course the goodies!

Poor JSL just had too much fun and excitement and fell asleep while the rest of us ate our meal.

We had a very nice time with my family celebrating Chanukah together. More photos and weekend/Birthday updates coming later.

Categories:
family food glorious food holidays jl jsl nhl photos weekend yummy

Thanksgiving 2007 – a photo recap

Posted on November 25, 2007 11:32 pm by TheAngelForever

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays (actually I think it is my favorite). There is just something extra special about spending time catching up with family, playing games with the kids, and eating amazing food!

This year we were lucky enough not to have to brave the roads with the boys. We stayed home and went to my Aunt S and Uncle M’s house. Their two kids (Cousin J and Cousin A) came home for the holiday. Cousin AC was also here to add to the fun, along with my parents and grandmother. In addition to this Uncle J, Aunt A, and Cousin Y all came into town. We were all surprised when we got there to see that Cousin Han was also in from Israel. I am not too sure when the last time I saw him, but it was wonderful seeing him (he is absolutely amazing with the kids – as is Cousin Y).

One realization hit hard – my little cousins have all grown up. It is so hard for me to believe how my younger cousins are almost all adults. I know this should not seem as such a shock since I am now a mother with two children of her own. Ah, the memories are wonderful and hopefully there will be many more in the years ahead.

Rather than bore everyone with what happened I am going to do it with lots of photos. Here are photos of Thanksgiving.

Here are pictures of JSL’s first Thanksgiving. As you will see being cuddly and playing with everyone made the poor little guy tired: