I DID IT!!

This will sound so lame to you mommas who have done this before, but I'm so excited about what I just did! Let me give you some background...

Almost 4 years ago, when we lived in Seattle, I babysat a little girl named Iris. Iris was 2 days younger than GraceAnne, (they were both 9 months old at the time). GraceAnne HATED baby food. She always did. I fed her food from my plate, smashed or cut into tiny bits and she did okay, but naturally there were some things she didn't get to experience thanks to her age and gag reflex. One of my jobs with Iris was to give her her evening meal. Her mom was way more crunchy than I and made all of Iris' food. I would pop two cubes of food from a ziploc container in the freezer and heat them in a mug until they were melted. Usually I would sit GraceAnne on the floor with some cheerios or puffs while I fed Iris in the high chair and then let GraceAnne eat whatever I was eating. Sometimes GraceAnne would be hungry while I was feeding Iris and she would cry. I felt so bad about this, but what could I do? Then, once in a while, I would feed GraceAnne a cube of whatever Iris was eating. She mowed on it! I figured it was because Iris was eating it and it was all about getting what her friend was getting. Whatever it was, I was just happy she was eating SOMETHING and I knew it was healthy and organic, too. I swore when we had more kids I would make their food.

Then Violet was born. 4 years later. I was tired and REALLY into couponing. I managed to get A LOT of Gerber Organics baby foods for super cheap, (think 5 cents a container and that has 2 meals in it.) I figured "at least she's eating organic..." She likes baby food MUCH better than GraceAnne did, but she's taken much more to food off of my plate than the jarred stuff.

Yesterday I fed her a 3rd food called Cinnamon Apple Oatmeal. I thought, "how ridiculous...this must be SO easy to make!" So I looked at the ingredients and noticed that I had them all on hand and this morning I was bored beyond belief, so I ground some rolled oats in my food processor, (the chintzy little kind that almost everyone owns), and cooked them in the microwave with water and cinnamon, (I would have used breastmilk, but I have too much of some enzyme that causes breastmilk to spoil when frozen and thawed), steamed some apple slices with apple juice and mashed a banana, (yes, that was in the ingredients of the Gerber, so I used it). I blended it all together in the food processor and she LOVED it! GraceAnne even liked it. She ate a bunch, but I had enough to freeze some cubes for other days. I am SO EXCITED that I actually did it. Now I need to make other varieties, but I don't have much on hand as we are leaving for WI in a week, so I haven't gone all out on groceries this month. I really hope I can keep up with this, because I have more coupons for baby food, but I haven't seen anymore sales and I was about to pay 50 cents a jar yesterday. *gasp!*

Another step taken on my quest to be more crunchy. YAY!

P.S. Yes we are still in the guest house, no the electricians have not gotten their jobs done and they are now TWO weeks late and yes, I still have faith that God can get us back in this house by the week before Christmas. We shall see.