The 4th of July

For the Fourth of July, Ken and I took Elizabeth to the Fort Lauderdale Riverwalk and Himmarshee Park. This is the first place Ken and I went to when we first started dating, so it was nice to go back with the baby for the first time. We enjoyed lunch at the Riverwalk, then walked up and down the water in Himmarshee all the way to the Broward Center.

Elizabeth did very well all decked out in her Fourth of July duds and bow I made her. (Yes, I will torture her for the rest of her life by making her huge bows and forcing her to wear them!)

It was quite beautiful as the sun was going down!

Someone started to get a little fussy, so we had to break our Mr. Catepillar to bring back the happiness.

Someone kept busy by showing her goods to all the little boys! We're in trouble. That's what I get for buying her a mini-skirt!

While sitting there watching Elizabeth and waiting for Ken to bring back coffee for us, I was startled by a blue crab peeking his head out of his hole in the bushes!

The famous Jungle Queen made an appearance! We have been on several of the boat tours, but never on the JQ.

Ken always has to have his coffee. Today was noooo exception. :)

It was great to get out of the house with the baby and enjoy lunch out and a beautiful stroll along the water. We had a wonderful day!

Happy Fourth of July!

First Sweet Potato

Today we had our first taste of real food - Sweet Potatoes! Elizabeth looks less than enthusiastic about taking this plunge, but I assure you... she loves her food. I think she still has more of a love affair with her bottle at this point, but that might change soon because let's face it - I'm a darn good cook, right! Haha.

I spent this past week making lots of baby food. For the first time. When I thought about having children, I never really thought I'd be one of those moms that made her baby's food. But I am having a lot of fun doing it. It's much easier than I thought it would be. The hardest part is bagging it all up after it's frozen. I first steamed everything in our awesome steamer. (Ken bought this device a couple of years ago, and we've barely used it. This was my first time using it , and I am now a believer! I will be steaming lots more veggies for us in the future. Sorry Ken.) Then I pureed it in the food processor. Then I packed the food into 1 oz. cubes (which can go from freezer to microwave or travel and are BPA free!) and put them in the freezer. After they are frozen, I pop them out and place the frozen cubes in Ziplocs bags and write the food name and date I prepared it. I can then take out what I need for each feeding and defrost it in the microwave. Easy! So far I have made sweet potatoes, carrots, green beans, bananas, and mangos.

Now back to the Sweet Potatoes.....

Elizabeth has not been as easy (since the first week with cereal) to feed. I actually stopped giving her ceral for almost a week because she was just getting too upset. Part of the reason was because we had switched her formula and her tummy was not doing well and she had become a very fussy baby. We've also learned that it helps to give her a little "appetizer" of milk before we start her food now, hence the bottle in front of her. We're ready to go!

I call this one "A Little In, A Little Out". She did really well with the sweet potatoes and seemed to really like them! We're still learning to make our tongue do what we want it to do, but she's learning fast and doing a great job of getting the food to go in the right direction most of the time.

Here we have a partial smile. A smirk, maybe? We have success! After we were done, she said "Thanks Mommy. You're the best cook!" Awwwww... she's so sweet. ;-)