Happy Birthday Aunt Merry and Aunt Lilly!

Landon is incredibly lucky to have two awesome Aunts! And how funny that their birthdays are on the same day!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUNT MERRY AND AUNT LILLY! We love you!

Saying "No"

Is there even a point of saying "no" to a 7-month old? I repeatedly find myself doing it, but is there a purpose?

Landon will be sitting next to Bailey, seemingly petting him, and then he closes his fist around a chunk of Bailey's hair and rips! Poor Pup! He's been so good and patient around Landon. But each time I say "No, Landon! That's bad"

Bailey giving Landon sweet puppy kisses

And every night, while we are feeding him in his high chair, he'll slam his palm into his bowl of mush or rub his hand over his messy mouth and then spread it all over his face and into his hair. "Landon, no, you can't do that".

Although I don't think Landon can quite comprehend "No" just yet, he will eventually. It's more of a practice for me as a parent to learn how to take the upperhand and be the alpha in the parent-child relationship. I'll need to have this authority later on.

Let's just hope I can maintain it!

Can't Beat It

As much as I can't stand Hoboken (the impossible parking, high rent, snooty attitudes, I can go on and on and on....), this is one thing I'm going to miss when I leave

You can't beat this view! Actually, you can....

EuropeorBust2006.blogspot.com

But we won't be moving to the German Alps any time soon!

I need to enjoy the city while I still live so close!

My Son is a Dare Devil

....seriously, the next Evel Knieval! I put him in his stroller and turned around to put the leash on the dog. When I turned back, he was kneeling in his stroller!

Wow! That gave me a heart attack! Don't worry, when I was snapping the pictures, I was fully supervising him and within arms reach of him. But I was thisclose to having a terrible mom moment!

This just goes to show you, you cannot leave a baby unsupervised EVER! Sometimes you learn the hard way!

Standin' Landon

Look whose growing up so fast! Landon's new thing is wanting to stand ALL THE TIME! He constantly wants to be working those leg muscles. Here he is, holding on to his crib all on his own!

 And now his butt is starting to get heavy.

Now he just needs to get crawling! He wants to so badly, but can't get the motion right just yet. It'll happen soon!

Homemade Baby Food-Pears

Pears are another fruit I'm not so fond of. They have a weird gritty texture and are kind of like overripe apples. But Landon needs to discover what he likes and I won't hold him back. Here is another simple baby food puree to make at home.

Pears-1st foods

6-8 pears (I preferred Bartlett pears, see why below)

water

Core and quarter the pears. Put them in a steamer basket and lower into a large sauce pot with 1 to 1 1/2 inches of water. Bring to a boil and them cover and steam for about 7 minutes until the pears are tender. 

Remove the pears from the sauce pot and let them cool to room temperature. Reserve the water from the sauce pot. Once they are cool, peel away the skins. I preferred Bartlett pears compared to Bosc because the skin came off very easily. With the Bosc pears, I had to use a knife to cute the skin away.

Place the skinned pear pieces into a food processor and blend. Add pear water until desired consistency is reached.

Spoon the pear mixture into ice cube trays. Freeze overnight and then pop into freezer bags to store for the upcoming weeks.

Check out past homemade baby foods:
1st foods:
Prunes
Applesauce
Carrots
Bananas
Sweet Potatoes

What We Can Learn from TV Moms-Joan Harris from Mad Men

As some of you may know, I love Mad Men and I had been patiently waiting for it's return for a while now! I was so happy to see Joan's new role as a mother.

Photo courtesy of AMCTV.com

Just like the rest of us, Joan was mentally and physically exhausted from her new baby and adjusting her new life. The exhaustion made her even more emotional and more prone to snap at people easily. We've all been there. It happens to the best of us. I remember just a few days after coming home from the hospital with Landon, I was so exhausted and so emotional that I spent an entire day in bed sleeping while our entire family was outside in the living room (just steps away...our apartment is tiny!) playing and cooing with Baby Landon.  Joan reminds us here that it's ok to let go and let others help while you get some rest. 

She also struggled with the family-work balance. Going back to work is one of the hardest things you have to (or choose to) do as a new mom. On one hand, you don't want to put a hold on your career. And on the other hand, you cannot imagine spending hours away from your new bundle of joy. Joan reminds us that life is full of hard decisions and you have to follow your heart. 

It was so great to see this different side of Joan, but I guess she always was the mother hen of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. I hope we get to see more of it this season!

Sweet Tooth Sunday-Baked Alaska

Can we all just jump up and down and scream "YEAH!!" for the return of Mad Men?! I have to admit, I didn't watch it until a few months ago, but now I'm hooked. I got caught up with all four seasons while I was away on maternity leave. I needed something to watch while I was nursing and this was addicting! Thank God for Netflix!

In honor of the premiere of the new season, I wanted to make a retro dessert for this week's Sweet Tooth Sunday. After some scouring of the internets, I found this article about Mad Men parties on Epicurious. I've heard of Baked Alaska, but have never tried it. I'm pretty proud of how this tasted and it was pretty simple too.

Baked Alaska
1 frozen pound cake (10 3/4 oz)-do NOT thaw
2 pints of strawberry ice cream
6 egg whites
pinch of salt
1/4 tsp lemon juice
3/4 c. sugar

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Cut the pound cake crosswise, 1/2 inch thick. Line a 9 inch pie plate with the cake. Patch up any holes with the extra cake.

Cut the cartons off of the ice cream. Slice into 3 rounds for each pint of ice cream. Arrange the ice cream rounds into one layer over the pound cake. Use any leftover ice cream to fill in the holes. Freeze for 25 minutes.

After the cake/ice cream has been in the freezer for 20 minutes, beat the egg whites and a pinch of salt with a hand mixer until it's foamy. Add lemon juice and beat until the mixture holds soft peaks. Gradually add the sugar while beating until it holds stiff, glossy peaks.

Remove the ice cream/cake from the freezer and spread the meringue over the top and spreading it out to the sides. Bake in the over for about 6 minutes until the top starts to brown.

Yay for Mad Men!

Check out past Sweet Tooth Sundays:
Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake
Bite Sized Apple Pies
Rolo Peanut Butter Brownies
Blackberry Mille-Feuille
Raspberry Thumbprint Cookies with Lemon Glaze
Banana Pudding
Caramel Apple Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches
Sea Salt Caramels
Rainbow Cake
Mini Oreo Cheesecakes

What I Learned from French Mommies

I recently read Bringing Up Bébé by Pamela Druckerman about one woman's quest to learn how French moms do what they do. 

Cover from us.penguingroup.com

French parenting seems to be the latest fad after Tiger Mothering. While outsiders may find it strict, it's actually quite laissez-faire within the "cadre". Cadre meaning the "frame" of the parent-child relationship. French children are given strict boundaries, but are free to explore and do whatever they want in those boundaries. While I won't give you an entire synopsis of the book, these are the things I walked away with that I may try within our own home:

Goûter- this is the afternoon snack that every French child has at 4PM. They don't snack or have desserts at any other time of the day. They have three meals per day (8 AM, 12 PM and 8PM), all of which have several courses, but goûter is when children have their one snack. An example of why this is good is this: You are food shopping with your child. They spot the most delicious thing in the world. While many American families would give in and say "Ok, sweetheart, you can have this candy", the French would say "Ok, my dear, you can have this for goûter." The next time the American child spots a candy bar, they are more likely to melt down and throw a tantrum if her parents say no. This stops the "I want it NOW!" demand. The delayed gratification teaches children patience. Maybe I should try this on myself, not just Landon!

Adult time-no, I don't mean kinky stuff! It's the time of the evening when the children should be reading in their room or sleeping. Allowing the parents to wind down, relax and drink wine. There is no baby talk, toys, or loud noises. If the child is awake and in the parents' presence, they must respect adult time and leave their parents alone! That sounds like a good one to me!

The Pause or "le pause"- for new parents, it's le only way to teach babies autonomy. It's also known in America as "crying it out", although not as harsh as that. The theory is that if a baby is crying in his crib, give him 5 minutes (or so) before you go and check up on him. By giving him 5 minutes, the baby learns eventually to self-soothe. This also helps in getting babies to sleep through the night. 

And lastly, big eyes-or as my family likes to call it, "The Look". This is not something new to me, but I figured I'd mention it since it has such profound effects. "The Look" was a signature facial expression that my mom created many years ago. It's meant to convey "Are you kidding me?", "No, you will not do that" and "You better listen to me, or else you're grounded". It's completely non-verbal. "The Look" says it all. Being my mother's spawn, my genes are programmed for it. Bartek knows it very well and soon, Landon will too. The French know the power of "big eyes", too. That is how they always get their children to listen to them.


Druckerman has many different French parenting ideologies in her book, but these are the ones that I thought would be the most useful for us. Would you do any of these?

Happy SPRING!

Yay! Spring is here! Not like it's already been averaging around 60 degrees in NYC for most of the winter or anything. But hey, it's the Vernal Equinox so we need to celebrate!

Spring is such a great time of year. You ditch the heavy winter coat for lighter jackets. You wear prettier colors instead of drab and dull winter colors. You start to wear sandals, so that means more pedicures and bright, pretty toe polish.

Here are some more things I'm looking forward to:

Enjoying days at the park. Relaxing with my boys, throwing a frisbee or a football. Having a picnic.

Rutgers Day - I had a lot of fun last year when I went with my family. We got to walk around Cook and Douglass. Get free samples of things that college kids made. And in general, celebrate how awesome Rutgers is!

I was hugely preggo at the last Rutgers Day

Going Hiking-one of my favorite things to do, but I don't do it enough. It might be a challenge now that we have a 20(+) pound baby. I'll just strap on the Ergo Baby and accept the fact that my quads will be killing me the next day.

Unfortunately, we won't be hiking in Hawaii. New Jersey will have to do

And lastly but not least, enjoying daffodils! I don't know what it is, but for some reason, daffodils make me so happy. When I see them planted around our little area of Hoboken, it makes me super cheery and it definitely means that Spring has arrived!

Snapped this photo today while walking Bailey

So many fun things to look forward to. What are your favorite things about Spring?

Next Steps

We are outgrowing our apartment. It seems so tiny now that we have so many baby things. Our coffee and dining tables are getting cluttered with baby toys, bibs, etc.

I guess it's time to start thinking ahead. There is a slight chance that when our lease is up at the end of June that we will have enough money saved for a down payment on a house. If not, we're moving in with you, Mom and Dad!

Bartek has finally got me hooked on Zillow.com. I even downloaded the app onto our iPad and it's incredibly addicting (notice that I'm posting after 1 am). It allows you to pull up a map of houses for sale in an area. If you zoom further in, you can see what other houses in the area have sold for.

This is the Android app, but you get the idea

Photo from Zillow blog

Now I just wish I had an iPhone so I could be portable with it! So, it looks like I will be spending the next three months scouring Zillow for our new house. I just hope I don't drive myself crazy!

Sweet Tooth Sunday-Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake

Thank you all for being patient with me. The past week has been incredibly stressful for me since my grandmother passed away. But knowing that my grandma is now at peace, I think things will start to look up from here on.

As strange as this sounds, doing my Sweet Tooth Sunday today felt like I was returning to normal. I let Bartek pick the dessert from my Pinterest Board and he fell in love with the first thing he saw (or maybe he just wanted to get it over with so I would stop nagging him!)

Here is my easier version of the recipe found here. I used blueberries instead of blackberries since I had just bought a huge carton of them and a pre-made graham cracker crust because I'm lazy!

Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake
Premade graham cracker crust
1 lb cream cheese (2 boxes)
3/4 c sugar
1/3 c milk
2 eggs
1/2 c sour cream
1/8 c flour
1/2 tbsp vanilla extract
3 c blueberries
Zest and juice of 1 lemon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, use a handheld blender to cream together sugar and cream cheese until it's soft.

Blend in milk. Then beat in the eggs one at a time until they at incorporated (don't over-blend). Then mix in the vanilla, sour cream and flour.

In a food processor, purée 2 cups of the blueberries with the lemon juice and zest. Add is to the cheese mixture and fold in the remaining cup of blueberries.

Pour the mixture over the graham cracker crust.

Bake for about 50 minutes until the top is firm. Then refrigerate or stick in the freezer to cool until ready to serve.

Enjoy!

Check out some of my past Sweet Tooth Sundays:
Bite Sized Apple Pies
Rolo Peanut Butter Brownies

Blackberry Mille-Feuille
Raspberry Thumbprint Cookies with Lemon Glaze
Banana Pudding
Caramel Apple Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches
Sea Salt Caramels
Rainbow Cake
Mini Oreo Cheesecakes

In Memoriam: Mary Coremin

On Monday, my grandmother passed away after suffering a massive stroke two and a half weeks ago. My grandma will always hold a special place in my heart and I will miss her so much.

This is the last photo I have of her, taken when Landon was a month old in September.

And this is her holding Delainey in February 2010

Rest in Peace, Sweet Angel.

Obituary

Help a New Mommy Out!

This is something that I totally forgot happened to me, probably because bringing home a new baby causes your mind to go fuzzy. After reading this article, I recalled how incredibly helpful this was when we came home from the hospital:

People made and brought us food!

Having a new baby, especially your first, is so incredibly time-consuming. You literally have no idea where the time has gone. You're waking up at 6 am and seemingly minutes later you are watching the sun go down. You have absolutely no time (or energy!) to cook. I don't think I started cooking until maybe 3 or 4 weeks postpartum.

What got us through the first weeks was our family and friends' incredible kindness. Every time our parents came over to visit, which was probably every other day, they brought food for us. Our freezer was full of chicken marsala, courtesy of my dad! What I loved the most were the sweets we got. My brother, Nick, and sister-in-law, Meredith, sent us a chocolate-covered Edible Arrangement. And my friend, April, brought over a Snickers Ice cream cake! We finished that in a day!

One of the comments in the article from TheKitchn.com was to give new moms food that they can eat with one hand, because that other hand will constantly be rocking, nursing, and carrying a baby. Muffins, granola bars, pasta salads are all great ideas.

Other great ideas are lasagnas, casseroles, stews, and chili which can all be frozen easily.

I will definitely be keeping this in mind for all the babies that are coming soon!

Funny Onesies

A lot of them are the same- "iPood", "Party at My Crib", and "BYOB-Bring Your Own Bottle".

But this one from Solid Threads in Hoboken is just awesome:

Quit Playing With Your Dinghy

I also love this one:

That's How I Roll

Hip Hop Anonymous-for any one who remembers that one scene from Big Daddy

LOVE THESE!

Happy Birthday Babcia!

This is a day late because we spent yesterday with you, but HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABCIA!

Homemade Baby Food-Prunes

Prunes are quite possibly one of the grossest fruits I can think of. They are sticky and nasty and they remind me of old people. Alas, I have to let Landon try everything so he can discover what he likes and doesn't like. So that does mean I have to let him eat prunes and Bartek has to let him eat bananas. We'll see if he likes them tomorrow!

Prunes-1st Foods

1 package of prunes

water

Immerse prunes in a bowl of warm water and let them plump up (about 10 minutes or so). 

Transfer the prunes into a food processor. Process for 2 minutes or so. 

**Check the consistency. I found that while they ground up really easily, the consistency of the plum puree was still pretty thick. I added at least 1-2 cups of the prune water to thin it down.**

Spoon the mixture into ice cube trays and freeze overnight. Once frozen, pop the cubes out into a ziploc bag and keep in the freezer until you need. it.

By the way, I'm really loving this whole baby-food making thing I've got going on. It makes me feel like a good mom and it's simple and cheap! Now we only buy pre-made baby foods to have if we have to travel somewhere, like to our parents' houses. 

Sweet Tooth Sundays-Bite Sized Apple Pies a la Mode for Two

This weekend was an incredibly busy one. That's why I chose this recipe, because it said it only took 20-25 minutes! Yes-perfect for my hectic Sunday!

I halved this recipe, to make it perfect for a date night dessert for two.

Bite Sized Apple Pies a la Mode for Two
1/4 c. sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
refrigerated pie crust (use just 1 crust)
3 tbsp. melted butter
1-2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and cut into wedges
Caramel Sauce
Vanilla ice cream

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Combine sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Set aside.

Unroll 1 pie crust on a lightly floured cutting board. Brush crust with about half of the melted butter. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

Cut into 6 strips vertically and one cut directly in the middle, horizontally (so you have 12 strips total). I figured I'd like my "apple pies" to be less crusty and more appley. I used a pizza cutter, which I think made it much easier to cut than a knife would.

Wrap each apple wedge in a strip of dough. Place on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Brush the tops with the remaining melted butter and dust with the remaining cinnamon sugar. Bake for 13-15 minutes until the crust is golden brown.

Serve warm with ice cream and a drizzle of caramel.

These may have been my favorite Sweet Tooth Sunday yet!