This weekend is my hometown of Kewanee’s annual Hog Days!! I grew up enjoying the many different Hog Days activities, so I’m pretty excited to take Reagan for the first time!
Reagan and Mommy ready for Hog Days!
Today after work we’re heading to Kewanee and spending the weekend at my parents. It should be a good time and I hope the weather is decent so we can take Reagan on some of the little kid rides at the carnival!
I’m ready, let’s go!
Reagan seems pretty excited to be going to Hog Days!
Reagan is still primarily on breastmilk, but she does get the opportunity to eat solids almost every day. We mostly give her fresh fruits and veggies while we’re sitting around the table eating dinner, but I’ve also started sending homemade purees with Reagan to the sitter. I didn’t expect Reagan to actually eat much (if any) of the puree, she normally only eats a few bites here and there from me, but thought it would be good if she had something she could eat while the big kids were eating. Strangely enough, Reagan normally finishes her entire container of food when she’s at the sitters! Because of this, I’ve actually been getting some decent use out of our Baby Brezza!
The Baby Brezza is a handy appliance that steams and purees food. The settings allow you to select a cooking time and then choose whether you want to steam, puree, or do both to the food. I know I could do all this without a special gadget, but as a working Mom who barely has time to take care of the essentials, the set-it and forget it all in one Brezza really makes my life a lot easier. Yes, I could buy jars of baby food and make my life even easier, but as a family we decided we did not want to give Reagan processed, pre-made baby food.
Here’s the process for making carrot puree for Reagan:
1. I started with a $1.50 bag of carrots and selected two large ones. I then washed, peeled, and cut 1.5 of them into chunks. The other 1/2 was sliced for Reagan’s dinner.
Fresh bag of carrots
2. The carrot chunks went into the Baby Brezza and I locked the lid into place. I filled the steam tank with bottled water (it only takes a few ounces) and set the Brezza to steam for 25 minutes and then puree.
1.5 large carrots cut up and steaming
While the carrots were steaming, I cleaned the kitchen and Reagan hung out in her highchair and played with some spaghetti noodles from dinner. She’d already eaten/chewed on an apple slice, raw carrot sticks, and cucumber slices while we were having dinner.
Reagan playing with spaghetti noodles while Mommy cleans up the kitchen and makes carrot puree!
3. After steaming for 25 minutes, the Baby Brezza automatically pureed the carrots to the perfect texture.
Carrots steamed and pureed!
Pureed carrots!
4. The last step is to pour them into containers. I use the OXO Tot Baby blocks freezable baby food containers and have been pretty happy with them.
Carrot puree divided up into the reusable/freezable baby food containers
All ready!
Right now Reagan is only eating 3-4 containers of food a week, so it’s easier to make these small batches so that way she’s getting fresh puree that hasn’t been frozen.
From my calculations, processed baby food is 8 times more expensive than making fresh baby food. **Side note: It might be more or less depending on the type of food**
Yet, to make it easier on me, I also bought the Baby Brezza and some freezable containers. Thus, the next question is how many oz of baby food will I need to make with the Brezza in order to break even?
Break even formula: $109.94 + $0.04 (X) = $0.32 (X)
Doing the algebra from the break even formula (or by graphing both and finding the intersection point), I need to make 393 ounces (rounded to the nearest ounce from 392.64 oz) of homemade baby food to break even. So far I’ve probably made close to 40 ounces of baby food, which leaves 353 ounces left!! That seems like a lot of baby food, especially since Reagan doesn’t eat a lot of solid food, but on the high side I’ve also used the Brezza to steam veggies for adult use! 🙂
Overall, regardless of the price or cost, we feel giving Reagan fresh non-processed food is healthier for her and better for her developing taste buds!
Today Reagan started sitting up on her own!! She’s been sitting unassisted since about five months and been trying to sit up on her own since she learned to crawl, but today she actually did it all on her own! Daddy got to see it first, but once she got home, Mommy made sure to give Reagan plenty of opportunity to show off her new skill! What a big girl we have!!
Miss Reagan Kay is thirty-five weeks and keeping us busy! She’s been crawling for a little over a week and has gotten much faster at getting to where she wants to go! Luckily she still wants to be around us, so the most she does is crawl to wherever we are or around the room we’re in.
Ready or not, here I come!
Reagan really is adorable and seems quite pleased with herself when she crawls over to where you are or over to something she wants to get into! She’ll look up and give you a toothy grin and you just melt. She is just way too cute and with all her teeth coming in, she just gets cuter and cuter!
You can’t catch me now!
Another big milestone occurred on Thursday when Reagan said Dada for the first time! She was sitting on the bed with James while I got ready for work and looked right at James and said Dada perfectly!! It was pretty special, but since then the only time she says it is when she is babbling so it’s not as clear that she knows what she is saying. That’s fine though, with the crawling and teeth coming in, she’s been pretty busy already this week!
Miss Reagan Kay is eight months old and this month has been a big one for developmental milestones! Reagan went from getting up on all fours and rocking to fully crawling! She’s still a little unsteady, but every day she gets better and faster!!
Crawling!
Here’s more of what Reagan has been up to this month:
Reagan Kay Jones – Eight Months!
It’s crazy to think about how much Reagan has changed in the last month and I can’t even imagine what she’ll be doing by next month!
Saturday afternoon we went to Gene and Alice’s so James could help set up their new computer. Their other computer had been hijacked pretty bad and was about six years old, so they had decided to go ahead and just get a new one.
Helping Grandpa with his computer!
Most of the time Alice and I played in the living room with Reagan, who was pretty funny and really really liked Grandma Alice’s feet! She also did a good job showing off her crawling abilities!
Reagan and Grandma Alice
Reagan playing with Grandma’s toes!
After the computer was set up, we got treated to a really good home cooked meal and then spent a little time talking before heading home. It was an enjoyable afternoon and Reagan had a really good time being with her Grandparents.
Reagan having fun with Grandpa!
Saturday morning I set Reagan on the back porch with a small tub of water and some toys. She splashed and played in the water for almost an hour!!
Ready to play in the water!
Getting wet!
Fun with the water!!
Sometimes it’s the simple things that are the most fun.
Thirty-four weeks was a big week for Miss Reagan Kay! She is officially crawling!! As mentioned before, we knew it was coming, but it still came as a happy surprise!
Time to crawl!!
Walking next??
Reagan also cut another tooth (#5); the one next to her top right tooth. You can’t quite see it yet in pictures, but it’s peaking through!!
Helping Mommy with the laundry!
Love that smile!
Reagan is still an amazingly happy baby and we are so lucky to have her! She is just so sweet and with her developmental changes her personality just blossoms even more!
Reagan and Daddy taking a dip in the pool!
Reagan and Mommy ready to go run some errands!
Yes, we have a crawler!! Reagan is officially crawling as of Sunday afternoon!
I was cleaning our bedroom and putting laundry away while Reagan played on the floor. She’s been getting up on all fours and rocking, but every time she went to take a step, she would fall on her tummy. This didn’t seem to bother her though and she kept playing with her toys, climbing into the laundry basket that she had pulled over onto it’s side, and generally just having fun.
James came in from working on the pond, talked to us for a little bit, and then got in the shower. I went to hang up some clothes in our closet and continued to talk to James. I turned around to go back into the bedroom and there Reagan was… crawling towards the bathroom!! [Side note: Our bedroom and bathroom are connected and you have to go through the bathroom to get to our walk-in closet]
It was crazy! Reagan had been unsuccessfully trying to crawl not even five minutes earlier and here she was really crawling!! It was slow and methodical, but she was crawling!! I yelled for James and he stuck his head out of the shower to watch her and told me to hurry up and get the video camera. I tiptoed past Reagan, grabbed the Flip recorder, and managed to get the following video!