Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Dropping the Bottle...

We are dropping the bottle.  In fact we've dropped every bottle except for their bedtime bottles.  I know we should but I'm scared.  It has been so easy to drop their other bottles (thus we still have formula left) that I worry it's like this means the bedtime bottle has a trick up it's sleeve.  But I promised myself that once the formula runs out that they are done with bottles.  No going back.

On that note we have also been search for a better sippy.  I had been using the Take N Toss sippy for a while.  They seem to like the hard spout better.  I added in a cheap Nuby style (also with a hard spout) but they seemed to like the handles.  But then the Take N Toss ones started to leak more and more.  So I was on the look out for a shorter sippy with an easy grip.  Which brings me to my favorite sippy of all time now.  They are easy for the girls to hold and drink from, they don't leak and they are simple to wash.

Oh yes, the bottle dropping went well.  Probably to easy.  We ran out of formula and threw away the bottles to prevent temptation.  The first night went okay but they woke up a couple hours later.  They cried.  They cried for an hour (well actually more like just one cried) and then when she tired out and gave up our other twin girl cried for 20 minutes.  We tried a couple times early on to calm them down and to give them a sippy, both of which just made them worse.  By the time our second child was crying we gave up and fed them some oatmeal.  Once their tummies were full they went back to sleep...yeah!  The next night we gave them oatmeal before bed and had no issues.  Now we feed them dinner with us around 6pm and then start bedtime routine around 6:30pm and haven't had another issue since the first night.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Breaded Chicken Chunks

I was at the grocery store last night and looking at the frozen meats...chicken nuggets and strips to be more accurate.  Most of the bags I looked at had 25% of your daily value for sodium (a couple were 17%).  Yikes!  As I said before I'm becoming a nutritional prude when it comes to my kids.  So I decided to make my own in somewhat bulk and freeze them.

Breaded Chicken Chunks
-3 chicken breast (5 breast pack for $8.50 @ $1.97 per lb)
-plain finely ground bread crumbs ($1.08)
-1 egg white with water

Beat your egg white and water til frothy.  Slice and dice chicken into small chunks (you can always cut them smaller for baby to eat after cooking).  Pour bread crumbs into a separate bowl (add seasoning if you like; I added a little Italian blend).  Dip chicken chunks by the handful into the egg white and then coat them with the breadcrumbs and place on a cookie sheet in one layer.  Bake at 350* for 20-25 minutes.  Check to make sure your chicken is thoroughly cooked upon removing from the oven.  Serve warm or freeze and reheat at time needed.

*pictures to come

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Homemade Mac and Cheese

The girls had macaroni and cheese for lunch.  They seemed to enjoy it.  I was trying to figure out what to make and suggested Mac and Cheese (you know the Kraft kind) but I still don't like the idea of processed food or high sodium food (despite the fact I prob feed myself plenty of this).  So my husband said "well what's in mac and cheese...pasta, milk, butter and cheese...try that"  So we winged it and a masterpiece was born.

Small Shells Mac and Cheese

1 C cooked small shell pasta (you could use other pasta...this went through the food mill in the end)
1 Tbsp butter
1/4 C milk
1/3 C shredded cheese (we used colby jack)

*add veggies for some extra nutrition...we added peas and the girls still loved it.  They did okay with the small shells but we decided to mill the food so it wouldn't take so long for them to chew and swallow (plus minimize choking or gagging risk).

-the next time I made this they weren't having the ground up kind but they loved being able to feed themselves the non-ground kind.  *sigh* 1 years olds hehe

Ratings:
Kendall - 4 stars (she loves peas)
Seren - 3 stars