New dishes you MUST try

Pinterest is a tricky fad.  It's full of wonderful home decor ideas that I envy, clothes I wish I had but will never buy, hairstyles I love but will never have the courage to try, parenting tips I find interesting, recipes I try where some are wins and some are disasters, helpful home remedies, workouts that inspire me but I can't find the motivation to actually follow through with, so on and so forth.  

This post is mainly about new dishes that I've tried and were huge hits in our home.  If you are looking for new recipes to change up your weekly routine, try some of these!
(PS these pics aren't mine, they are directly from the blogs they belong to.)

Teriyaki Salmon with Sriracha Cream Sauce

Melt in Your Mouth Chicken Breast

5 Ingredient White Chicken Chili

Cilantro Lime Chicken

Crockpot Orange Chicken

Avocado Cheddar & Sundried Tomato Quesadilla

(I added shredded chicken, lime and cilantro to this recipe)

And lastly, for a quick and healthy snack, try these no-bake peanut butter bars.  I've made them twice now and eaten the whole pan myself.  I'd like to add chocolate chips sometime!

There's a baby in that leaf pile!

We have three trees in our backyard.  One is a locust so it drops all its pesky little leaves fairly early but they're so small it's impossible to rake them.  On the other hand are the two maples. They drop their leaves much later in the fall and let me tell you, if we raked all the leaves into one pile, we'd be the hottest spot in the neighborhood for kids to come and play. Here's our backyard after just one of the maples dropped its leaves.  There's grass under there somewhere.

The time came to rake and of course, we had to have a photo shoot with Selah and the leaves.  

  

Yeeees, yes, I know I'm biased.  But man my kid is cute!

This is one of my favorites!

Hahahahaha  Baby in a leaf pile!

He pulled her up and leaves were stuck all over her.  

  

Why not eat the leaves?

  

Here's all the leaves from one of the maples.  See how far behind me it goes?  And there was more behind the camera that we didn't get in the photo!

Happy fall!

First solids

Selah will turn 6 months old this Friday.  She is noticing what we're eating and reaches for our plates. Although, she's teething, so if she can get her little paws on something, it's going to go right in the mouth. Since my milk supply has decreased, we decided it's a good time to start supplementing breast milk with some solids.

Now, starting solids is a big deal to me!  I wanted Caleb to be home when we first tried so he could be a part of this fun milestone.  You know, video taping, taking pictures, the confused and unsure look on her little face, baby food all over her face, hands and in her hair.  I wanted to capture every moment!  

All we had on hand was Cream of Wheat and Oatmeal.  I researched a bit and while babies can eat Cream of Wheat, wheat is an allergen, and I decided I didn't want to try that first.  I found a recipe on how to make oatmeal for babies.  

I busted out my food processor which, until now, has only had the privilege of making salsa.  The food processor whizzed and chopped the oats into a powder, which I then made into oatmeal on the stove followed by watering it down with some breast milk.

We don't have a high chair yet so we strapped her in the Bumbo seat and began her first solids feeding. Here goes!

Let's just say... it was kind of an epic fail.

I knew it'd be a very different texture than what she is used to.  I knew it'd be bland tasting.  She hated it.  In fact, she cried.  

I found this really well done and thorough blog on making your own baby food.  I plan to try avocado, sweet potato and bananas next.  Here's to hoping it goes better next time!

5 months

This is incredibly late.  Almost 1 month late actually.  But Selah is finishing up her 5th month and we've experienced a lot of new things this month!

Milestones

She rolled over from back to tummy (just yesterday!)
She "talk"s so much; it is one of my favorite things she does.  
She loves singing.  We sing to her a lot, usually making up goofy songs.  We sound ridiculous but she enjoys it.
She loves her Exer-Saucer.  She is in her own little world talking to herself and the toys.
She actually enjoys bath time now!  She is enthralled with the bubbles, loves to kick and splash and loves her blue turtle bath toy (Turtledove as her daddy calls it).
She cut her 2 bottom teeth at 4.5 months.  She grinds her gums.  It's a horrible sound.  Her sleep was being disrupted by what we assume was teething.  We are trying the amber teething necklace and it seems to be helping her sleep better at night.
She generally sleeps very well at night now.  She goes to bed around 7:30p and will sleep till about 4a when a very heavy diaper wakes her up.  From 4a on, sleep becomes hit or miss, which makes for early mornings in the Redelman household...  for probably the next 8 years at least.
She refuses to nap in the crib.  Her naps are either in the swing, in my arms, in the car, or in the Baby Bjorn carrier.  Not super helpful.
She has found her feet.
She puts everything in her mouth.
I waved and she waved back.  7 times.  It wasn't just a fluke.
Her laugh is the most amazing sound in the world.
We are working on helping her learn to sit up.  It's hard to do tummy time with her because she spits up every time, even hours after her last feeding.  
She is noticing the food we eat and is constantly grabbing for it.  We will be starting solids in the next week.
She gets super excited when she sees her daddy come home from work.
She is enthralled with my hair and plays with it gently while she nurses.

Love you baby girl!  Stop growing!  But ... keep growing because it's fun to watch you learn.  Just don't do it too fast :-)

Selah's first Halloween

Let's just get this out in the open.  I am not a fan of Halloween.  I used to like it.  Then I used to hate it.  Now I suppose you could say I'm indifferent about it.  I'll go along with it but it comes with a reluctant sigh and a roll of the eyes.  It does help that I have a child and let's face it...  babies in costume are one of the cutest things out there.  Just look and see!

Bobbi (Selah's grandma) got her a pumpkin costume and thankfully, it fit perfectly.  She did look pretty darn cute if I do say so myself.  

 Darn that slippery couch

 Happy Halloween mom and dad!

My small group had a get together on Halloween and of course all the kiddies came dressed up.  Look!  You can't get much cuter than this!  But trying to get 4 babies to cooperate for a photo shoot is near impossible.  Although Ella has it down pat.  She's the only one that has figured out that you smile for the camera.  To be fair, the rest of the kiddos were staring at us like we were crazy because they had 6+ adults trying to get their attention.  There was a lot of funny noises, gestures and faces being made to get their attention, hence all the staring.

 There's Caleb being a good guard to make sure none of them took a dive off the couch.

We've got Zeke the lobster, Ella the Bernese Mountain puppy, and Selah & Jack the lil' pumpkins.

 This picture cracks me up.  Selah does not look amused.  And Jack, ahhh the old soul Jack.

Happy Halloween from the Redelmans and their dazed and confused lil' pumpkin.