Happy Thanksgiving!

I just wanted to wish a Happy Thanksgiving to everyone out in Blog World!  This is my first attempt at a turkey so wish me luck! 

A few pictures....

After our last salad fiasco, I decided from now on I'd make Mercedes her own salads to eat from so she wouldn't keep trying to thieve mine.  A few days ago Miss Mercy and I went out to lunch with my dad.  We went to a buffet, and my favorite part is by far the salad bar.  Having learned my lesson I made Mercy her own salad with all sorts of good stuff on it like cucumbers, broccoli, cauliflower, peas, carrots, spinach, and croutons.  She thoroughly enjoyed it.  I think her favorite parts were the dinner roll I gave her and the cucumbers.

At one point she got a little overwhelmed with all the food there was to eat, and her poor little hands just weren't enough to handle it all.  She had a slice of cucumber in one fist, a piece of roll in the other, and then she saw the rest of her roll on the table in front of her and she just face-planted to grab it with her mouth.

One of our last nights in Oregon I put in a request for pork and broccoli, and my momma made it for us.  We fixed Mercedes her own bowl, put a blanket down and let her go to town.  Her favorite part of that was the broccoli, but the rice was especially fun to play with, and the pork was good for flinging out of the bowl. Good to eat, fun to play with.  I'm going to have to deem pork and broccoli a success.






One last picture, my little ham face, enjoying some of my sandwich.

Who are you to judge me?

My sisters and I took a little road trip early the other morning.  We had to take my big sister to the airport, which is a two hour drive away.  We left around 3:30 and stopped at a McDonalds around 4:30 for breakfast.  It was a pretty hilarious stop.

McD: "I can take your order whenever youre ready"
Me: "Can we get a number 4 with an orange juice, and a small latte?"
McD: "Any flavoring?"
Me: "No thank you"
McD: "Non fat or low fat?"
Me: (asking my sister) "Low fat"
Me: (to my sister) "What about full fat? What if you wanted ALL the fat in your latte!?" *insert car-full of giggling girls here*
McD: "Anything else?"
Me: "A number 4 with an orange juice and a hot chocolate"
McD: "Anything else?"
Me: "A number 5, and can I get that with a large coke?"
McD: "uh......suuuure"
------
The McD guy was JUDGING me for wanting a coke in the wee hours of the morning! I can't even describe the tone of his voice but it was definitely one of  "WTH is wrong with you that you would want a coke at this hour of the morning?!" We decided that he probably walked over the coke machine and tested it, to see if it worked that early.  Maybe it was because it was because we were all operating on roughly 2 hours of sleep, but we found this HILARIOUS.  We pretty much laughed at it the rest of the drive.  Another conversation went like this...

Jess: "At least I wasn't judged by the Mcdonalds guy."
Me: "At least I don't care if I was judged by the Mcdonalds guy.  He's working the overnight shift at a Mcdonalds off the highway, who is he to judge me?! I certainly don't care that he did.  I definitely won't be blogging about it."

Other fun parts of the trip include Minna scaring the crap out of me by making me think a truck was about to merge into us and run us off the road, and my inability to tell my little sister to F*** off resulting in me telling her to "Fffffffffffff......."

I'm pretty sure there was more fun had, but the sleep deprivation has resulted in memory loss.  But, I am pretty sure I've got the two best sisters in the world.

For my cloth diapering mommas....

There is a giveaway over at My Boho Baby is Hippie Chic, for a wet bag from The Nappy Shoppe, go check it out and enter!

Expanding our palate

In roughly the past two weeks Mercedes has had: quesadilla, chicken enchilada, shredded beef burrito, spanish rice (we like mexican), sweet and fiery chicken, mar far chicken, pork fried rice, chow mein (and chinese), chicken adobo (filipino), and just last night some good ol' barbequed country ribs.

There are multiple things I hope to accomplish with Baby-led solids.  The most important is my desire for her to have a wide range of foods she likes.  I want her to enjoy all sorts of foods and not be afraid to try new things. I don't to raise a picky eater or a kid who you to bribe, threaten, and cajole into taking a bite of something they haven't had before.

Another thing I hope to accomplish, which I guess is just an offshoot of that, is I want her to prefer foods that are good for her, or atleast foods that aren't bad for her.  I want her to love her fruits and veggies, which I think I've already accomplished to some extent.  I've heard stories about babies turning their noise up and clamping their mouth shut when it came to pureed green beans or pees, but Mercy loves grabbing a string bean to munch on or a handful of pees.  I don't want her to grow up and be one of those kids who screams for McDonalds or doesn't want to eat her dinner because she only wants twinkies and candy, or a child who won't drink milk or water because she only wants pop or juice.

I know I won't be able to keep all of that away from her, she has already successfully thieved a sour punch straw (or skittle or gobstopper, we're still not sure), some Mickey d's fries, and a bite of cookie (that one she snatched right out of my hand!). But, I can hope to cultivate in her a preferance and appreciation for better tasting and better for her food.

The gDiaper formerly known as Vanilla

gDiapers seems to have a surplus of orange and vanilla gPants so they are the cheapest to buy, but also the least "cute" of their selection.  But, I'm cheap and decided to buy them anyways and just embellish them on my own and make them cute.  The first couple pairs I got I did the pirate iron ons. 

The vanilla pants are also good for dying.  I picked up a pack of dylon dye a few weeks ago and finally got around to dying them tonight.  If I were a good blogger, I would have taken pictures of the dying process and made a "how to", and I thought about taking picture.  I thought "I need to remember to take pictures of the process so I can make a blog about it" and then I forgot.  It wasn't complicated though.  I will take pictures the next time I do it.

I dyed them purple, and I'm pretty pleased with the way they came out.  I have some cute pink skull iron-ons that I'm thinking of adding to them.  For now though she is rockin her plain purple g's.

Fang

Miss Mercy is my carnivore girl.  She got steak the other night.  Shes had little pieces of meat before but usually only a little bit of ground beef or a piece of chicken.  Her little teeth started popping through last month, and she got an incisor first.  When she smiles you can see it all pointy and it earned her the term of endearment of Fang from Auntie Minna.

Anyways, we went to Outback one night and since she had her fangs and her bottom teeth coming through I gave her a strip of steak.  She LOVED it.  She went crazy for it.  It was the most fun I've had feeding her ever.  Next time, I'm totally listening to my mom sooner. I think we'll make steak the first food for baby #2 when we have it.

 When I took the piece she had away to give her a fresh piece, she made me pry it from her fist and then yelled at me.  This girl loves her meat.  I wouldn't be entirely surprised if next time she growls and bares her fangs at me.

She definitely inherited our love for food.  After I was done eating I took her out of the highchair and put her in my lap.  Next thing I know she lunged for my plate and grabbed my baked potato skin off the plate and was trying to cram it into her mouth. It was pretty darn funny.  I love eating out with this girl, it is always an adventure.

Little Miss Independant

One of the points of baby led weaning is self-feeding.  This is pretty much all Mercedes has known.  She wasn't spoon fed, and for the most part all I did was put food in her hands and let her take it from there aside from in the beginning when I would put something in her mouth so she realized it was food and edible. 

While in Hawaii she tried a few things that I wanted to feed her instead of letting her do it because it would be messy. When attempting this we found out something rather interesting.  She doesn't like being fed.  She wants to do it herself.  Anytime Minna or I would try to put something in her mouth (yogurt melt, puff, piece of fruit) she would stick her tongue out. Kinda like this...




only with her mouth closed, so we couldn't put said food in her mouth.  More like she was saying "NYEAH" in her head.

Or, she would incessantly reach out her hands to try and grab the food or spoon and do it herself.  "I got this mom, I do it myself."

My girl has got such attitude.