A note about baby food: Mac and Cheese!

I am a HUGE advocate of homemade baby food! Max has only had a few store bought baby food items: apples and chicken, sweet potatoes and chicken (I don't have the equipment to blend the chicken up enough for him to eat), oatmeal, and yogurt. He occasionally has apple sauce from the store, but it's the same kind I eat at this point.

Let me just tell you...we figured out that making your own baby food is EXTREMELY cost effective! It costs about a third of what store bought baby food costs, and it is so extremely easy!

The basic rules? Cook (in whatever way you will lose the least amount of nutrients- usually baking or steaming), add a bit of water or breast milk, and blend! We put it in ice trays and freeze for later, then just pop them out when we are ready to use them. At this point, we occasionally add some seasonings and are trying to add more variety by mixing different things together, etc.

Our newest venture? Mac and cheese! I simply took a little bit of spaghetti noodles (leftover from last night's dinner), put some butter and a little cheese on top, and microwaved it all for a few seconds. Then I just put it all in the blender with a splash of water and puréed it until it was the right consistency. Max. Loved. It. And it was so simple and easy to make! Please, moms, do not let me catch you buying store bought baby mac and cheese for your little ones!

As we are getting a bit more adventurous with Max's diet I will be filling you in a little more about how we do things over here :)

Here are a few pictures of my sweet boy enjoying his dinner!

Learning how to cook

So, since I am now a stay at home mom, at least for a little while longer...and that is my "job"...I have decided I need to get better at it :) And that means that I need to learn to cook.

For those of you who may not know me very well, I am a terrible cook. I have actually improved a little bit over the last few months- at one point, while I was still pregnant with Max, I was attempting to make spaghetti for dinner and the noodles were all sticking together, and not cooking properly as a result. I remember crying and telling Nick, "I can't even make noodles!" Well, I have come a LONG way since then :) I even made breakfast (including homemade gravy) for 6 people on Christmas Eve.

However, I still feel like I have no idea how to make a decent meal for my family on a daily basis. And that definitely has to change.

Tucker an Chelsea (my brother and his lovely wife-to-be) gave me an apron for Christmas that I completely adore (Anthropolgie...what's not to love?!?!) and it has inspired me, somehow, to be fearless in the kitchen!

I'm going to set goals for myself to make two new things- one dinner type item and one baked item- each week, for a while anyway. AND I'm going to tell all of you about those adventures in the kitchen so I will actually stick to it :) All of this will be starting next week, because we have way too much going on before then. I am so excited to get started...wish me luck!

Yes, I am back, again.

I know, I said I was moving to tumblr. But Blogger got an iPhone app, and so I am back again! I just don't have the time right now to blog on the computer. Plus Max thinks he loves the computer, which makes it that much more difficult! I will have to update the look of our blog, now that it's not all about having a baby ;)

I hope everyone had a great Christmas! Ours could not have possibly been better...and Max loved it! However, our house (which was spotless before everything started on Christmas Eve) is now a complete disaster. Our very generous family's gave Max tons of fun toys, but I have no clue where to put them all just yet. And we hosted our first Christmas eve brunch with Nick's family, which of course we never had time to clean up after before leaving for Wilkes. It was all completely worth it!

I will leave you (for now) with a picture of our sweet boy, helping us get ready for Christmas!

our blog has moved!

Since I never ever have time to write a real blog post now that Max has arrived, I have moved this blog to tumblr :)

Tumblr is much easier, faster, AND I can post to it from my phone with no problem!

My goal on tumblr is to post a picture of Max each day so that we can see how he changes, document fun moments, and add some motivation for me to actually take pictures!

Great idea, huh?

So...hop on over and check it out!

On Love and Family

Surprise, surprise...I LOVE being a mommy. It is hands down the best thing I have ever done.

I knew that the second that Max came into the world things for Nick and I would change drastically, but you never really know what exactly how the change will occur until it does. His birth changed EVERYTHING, and I am not exaggerating at all...our responsibilities, our feelings about life in general, and the way we tackle everyday tasks/how we live our daily lives among other things. Most surprisingly to me, however, is how it changed our love for each other.

I am a firm believer in the common advice that babies don't fix relationships. Nick and I really had no relationship problems before Max arrived though, so please don't misunderstand me. We had an enormous love for each other and for our life together prior to having a baby. Now...that love has grown even more. I never realized that we could love each other quite as much as we do and in the way that we do now. Seeing my husband as a father has caused my love to expand for him in drastic measures...and it seems that he feels the same way about seeing me as a mother. I LOVED being married and living our life together before Max came along, but I have learned very quickly that I love my life even more now that we are a family.

Max has completed our relationship in a way (at least for a few years...we want a big family, so there is definitely room for growth in the future!)...everything just feels right, and I love it.

This picture was taken by my Momma...at the exact moment that I was realizing how much I love being a family of 3 (literally. That is one of the things I can remember very clearly from my labor and delivery experience). The look on my face says it all...

Max's Arrival

We had the most amazing delivery experience with Max :)

He was delivered at Women's Hospital in Greensboro. We had a great nurse throughout the day on Wednesday, and she played such a big part in how well everything went. She previously worked in a birthing center and had lots of tips on how to control pain naturally prior to me getting an epidural. She taught Nick to read the monitor, which he loved, and was very supportive. By the time Max arrived we were very comfortable with her and it made a big difference in our overall experience. I really believe that it was all because of our nurse and my amazing doctor that everything went so well and so smoothly.

I was given Cervidil overnight on Tuesday, which very slowly started my contractions. By Wednesday morning I was in active labor, and my contractions were coming pretty regularly by themselves. However, they went ahead and gave me Pitocin to help me along a little quicker. Honestly, a lot of the day was a blur. I do know that my contractions were pretty intense after I was given Pitocin, and I don't think it was long after that that I got an epidural. I do remember that getting the epidural was not nearly as bad as I had expected it to be. I expected it to be very painful, but it really wasn't. It was more of just a strange feeling, and was a little uncomfortable, but so much less painful than the contractions I had been having (I guess labor pains will put everything into perspective for you)! After I had the epidural I started progressing a lot more quickly and even took a nap. I did get sick twice, but it was pretty insignificant really didn't even phase me. After they checked me and told us that I was 10cm dilated, Nick asked the nurse how much longer she thought it would be before Max arrived. She responded by saying that since I was a first time mom that I would probably be pushing for about 2 hours. BUT...apparently we exceeded the odds...because I only pushed for 35 minutes and he was here!!! :)

Turns out, Max is quite the little miracle baby. We knew that his umbilical cord had only 1 artery instead of the usual 2, and that it was attached to the side of the placenta rather than the top...none of which really worried us. However, after he was delivered we discovered that his umbilical cord was barely attached to the placenta and could have easily become detached. Our nurse was very interested in it...she said that she had never seen that because they very rarely ever make it to delivery apparently.

I absolutely cannot say enough thanks to Nick and Momma, who were both in the delivery room with me. They were both so very supportive and helpful, and I couldn't have asked for two more perfect people to have with me for such an important event.

Nick and I are so extremely happy, and we just love being a family :)

He's Here!!!

As I imagined it would be, life as a new mother is crazy. And of course completely wonderful!

But honestly, my priority has not exactly been posting news about our precious little boy all over the internet...so, sorry it has taken some time ;)

Max Parker Brown was born at 6:32pm on March 30th. He weighed 7lbs 13 oz and was 21 inches long...and is completely perfect, in our opinion!

We came home on Friday morning and we are all doing wonderfully. Nick and I love being parents and everything is going really smoothly (so far so good)...

I will post more about our new addition and our labor and delivery experience later on, but for now, here is a picture for your enjoyment!

This was taken just moments after Max arrived