The big five!

I cannot believe our sweet Benny-Roo is now FIVE months old. Pure. Disbelief.

Bennett is a happy baby. He is beautiful, full of smiles, and adores his big brother. With an easy going, content and laid back disposition, this little man is pretty flexible with his schedule and takes his seat "along for the ride" in stride.

At the ripe young age of five months, Bennett has just recently incorporated peas and sweet potatoes a la mommy into his diet. As far as sleeping goes, he's a bit of a stinker and favors shorter naps and midnight meals. But, who could complain with a face like this?

I was just recently looking through not-so-old baby pictures and videos of Evan and was awestruck at how much he's changed. He's such a big boy now! I want to savor my sweet boys in all seasons of life. There is something magical about sweet baby rolls, tiny toes, first laughs and "squishy" snuggles. I LOVE this stage.

My blogs may be shorter and farther between. My hair is not always freshly washed and certainly not blow dried. Sleep is not ideal. The house? Pause for laughter..

It's all but a small tradeoff for peek-a-toes with my boys, who are both growing up so fast. Stay my babies forever why don't you?

A foodie problem-share your solution!

Let's get right to it.  My two year old is super poopy. Literally. Solid #2's are a blue moon miracle around here, and every day is full of explosive, mushy, all over the place diarrhea diapers. This is not normal. And as one can imagine, a no doubt huge stumbling block to potty training. Not to mention, it's incredibly frustrating and-ahem-gross! Food allergies and sensitivities commonly go hand in hand with eczema kids, so he very likely is dealing with a GI issue-or so they say.  So logically, it looks like food is the first place to start making changes. As an aside, this is no new book we're reading here. But with potty training on the horizon, I'm newly motivated to make some lasting changes in his diet. I feel like I do a lot as far as cooking good meals, looking for better snacks and getting him excited about different foods. But unfortunately, the results are just not there.

So before we ditch the diapers, we have got to do something about this very poopy problem.

Let's be honest here, healthy eating is somewhat of an abstract idea for me. Shopping for gluten free/allergy friendly foods can be so incredibly intimidating and is either insanely expensive or just plain impracticable for daily living with two small children. It's kind of like window shopping in a very high end, boutique children's store where everything is ah-dorable but not at all complementary to a toddler's life and certainly too expensive for a ketchup stain. Am I likening organic foods to a "peaches n cream" dress? If the brownie box is $6, then yes. ;-) (No offense to you foodie types, I'm just teasing and SO jealous of your spinach shakes haha!)

I'm not trying to jump off the deep end here, but am simply looking to make small, "doable" changes to move towards a less processed, more whole foodie lifestyle complete with solid #2's for my favorite 2 year old.

Example...
This morning while brainstorming my grocery list and weekly meal plan, I come across a seemingly great website on the subject. This was a mama's blog, not unlike many others, on healthy eating. It boasted a list of the most "fun and easy" kid and allergy friendly snacks. Toasted pumpkin seeds and apple butter on rice cakes made the top five. Really? I mean, bravo to this lady, but I'm not sure my daily diapering schedule allows for such snack solutions. And what I mean by that is, it does'nt. Add to that, given the choice between fruit snacks and sesame oil marinated edamame, I'm pretty sure my two year old is going to take the fruit snacks, hands down. Especially when they come in the shapes of character's from "Finding Nemo." Touche Kelloggs!

 

(Seriously, how long did this take to put together?)

 

The odds stacked against me are this-ease of preparation(no flour mill), expense, and a two year old pickypants. So, I need some help, some tried and true tips! Even google has failed me. GOOGLE! I'm not looking to go completely gluten free here, but rather to do things like buy more fruit instead of fruit snacks. Rice chex and honey nut cheerios I can do-that's the sort of thing I need. Please share any advice and healthy food wisdom you have to offer. Pinterest pins welcome! No dairy please. Looking forward to your tips!

4th of July-Playdate picture story!

 

We are so thankful for our freedom, happy fourth everyone!

Budding brothers

Just for fun, here are some side by side pictures of our two boys. Same age, same outfit, very different look! Evan is on the left in all of the following pics with Benny to the right.

This is around 1-2 months-both boys are chunk-a-roos! Bennett had a lot more hair back then, and much darker at that. Apparently, goofy camera faces run in the family.

 

This picture on the right below is from Evan's birthday party, hence the Pablo mask. What a cute penguin Bennett makes! One notable difference here is that Bennett is a paci baby, see his cute clip?

 

Both of the boys started baby cereal at the same age. Evan sits pretty in his brand new highchair, while-true to his second child nature-Bennett keeps its real in the Bumbo on top of our breakfast table.

 

At 4 months the biggest difference I see in these boys is their eyes. Evan has daddy's deliciously deep chocolate brown eyes, while Bennett takes after me with a hazel mix of blue and green. Their eye shape is quite different as well.

Another not so subtle difference I spot is their skin. In the picture above you can see that Evan's eczema and dry skin issues started very early in the crooks of his elbows. Thankfully Bennett seems to have different skin altogether, though is sporting a nice drool rash at the moment. ;-)

Looking at these pictures, I'm blown away at how very distinct these budding brothers are in their own looks. And, I can't help but notice that Bennett has already changed SO much. On a related note, I'm happy to report that Evan is noticing the changes as well and has taken to hugging and kissing his baby brother, helping retrieve fallen pacis and passing wipes for diaper changes. He's always been a great big brother, but we were missing the "interaction" for a while, which I think is typical for boys. In any case, I just LOVE seeing them enjoy one another-melt my mommy's heart! This is my first "brothers" label I've posted under in my blog....can't wait for more!