Cooking for Chloe Round 2

For our second installment of Cooking for Chloe we went with heritage. Being an Eighth Generation Floridian means our little stinker will crave an orange on a hot summer day, enjoy the tropical sweetness of a mango during the "spring" and bananas are an everyday snack.

Our second Daddy-made Chloe food combined these three ingredients in a sunset hued delectable treat I called the Florida Delight. 

With Chloe assisting from her high chair, Billy chopped up half a mango, one small orange, and one banana. Filled the baby bullet and once again pureed until the blender jar was filled with a runny fruit medley that smelled deliciously like an Orange Julius and tasted just as good.

Billy's concoction filled four of the baby bullet jars. For a 6 - 9 month old that is enough for two Florida style breakfasts, complete with the OJ.

Cooking for Chloe

Sometimes Crafting with Chloe means Cooking with Chloe, this is one of those times. We bought a Baby Bullet for the Stinky Girl and our first recipe was as easy as they come.

A bit of history: our teeny angel craved many things whilst I was pregnant with her but the one thing that she craved on a daily basis from week one to week thirty-nine was avocados. We thought it only fitting that she be forced to eat that as our first attempt at homemade Chloe food.

It was easy enough and Billy the master chef had the skills necessary to chop up some avocado, add some water and blend away until we were left with a green puree.









I think Billy was disappointed that it didn't take a lot of cooking but Chloe Anne enjoyed it nonetheless! Our girl eats just about anything but she LOVED Daddy-made avocado goo!

School Valentine Exchange

I love them!

Since most parents and probably the teachers would discourage the giving of chocolate or small candies to children under One we had to come up with something a little unorthodox for Miss Chloe to share with the class. After weeks of Pinterest scanning, Google searching, Peer questioning, and Parent pondering we came up with our Valentines. Miss Chloe's class has twelve children ranging from 6 weeks to 1 year. Here are the few ideas we came up with or found but ultimately voted off the idea island.

• Jars of Baby Food or those terrible pouch things - Voted down because not all of the babies are eating food yet and some have advanced beyond the typical puree.
• Baby bottles - Parents are so damn finicky nowadays I wasn't even going to attempt this
• Pacifiers/Binkies - Some parents don't use them
• Small Toys - Some babies were too young or too old
• Bibs - I was just too lazy with this one and didn't feel like making 12 bibs for non-Chloe children.

Sleeping on the job

Ultimately we came to this conclusion: Bath time is the only thing that babies from Birth to One Year share that parents aren't that persnickety about and has the possibility for adorable Valentines.

Our idea: Give the non-Chloe babies rubber duckies for their bath time pleasure and who do you think came through for me as they always do? Why our glamorous Target, that is who! Right there in the One-Spot (the dollar bins up front) were green, purple, and brown rubber ducks with hearts on them. Also, found in the One-Spot were cellophane Valentine's Day baggies. Triple Score. $13.00 later and we are heading home to create adorable Valentines for her classmates. 

Tags

The cards were just made with PicMonkey (my favorite free editing and creating software) and of course had one of  these very Punny lines, "I'm so Ducky you're in my class"  or "You Quack me up!" on the front. The back says, "From: Chloe p.s. I'm teething and my parents don't get much sleep". 

Cutting out the Tags

We glued the two sides together, punched holes in the tags, used some yarn to tie the tags onto the bags and we once again acknowledged ourselves as the best parents ever (until she says otherwise we are claiming this title). I can't wait to take them to school on Friday! Happy Valentine's Week!

I am so proud!

She awoke in time to finish up.

My Three of Hearts

I love Valentine's Day! What is better than showering those you love with balloons, candy, flowers (don't ever get me flowers), jewelry (not a fan but to each their own), lingerie, romantic get-a-ways, children-free meals, sex, love, and rock n' roll? The nay-sayers claim it's a "Hallmark Holiday", I don't care who popularized it I am in love with being in love and I have the three most adorable Valentines to sprinkle with my heart glitter. For those not so inspired by the heart holiday I have listed my plans for spoiling my manly-man husband, my infant daughter, and of course my terrible puppy.

To begin we will start with the one that made us all become a family; the husband, the father, my Bub! As usual we are taking a mini-vacation, leaving the drool-fools at home with the Grandparents for some much needed husband-wife time away from all responsibilities. This year we are headed to the Key for a weekend of seafood, sunshine, sand, surf, sweets, solitude and starlit walks. The trip is primarily our gift to each other but to add some fun and flavor I plan to make a goodie basket for him. Complete with Captain Spiced Rum, chocolates (of course), sexy lingerie, cigarettes, cigars, lottery tickets, maybe some Jack Links beef jerkey (in case Sasquatch shows up) and other brutely items that he will enjoy during our three days away. 

The puppy is as easy as they come. He loves stuffed animals and there are a ton of stuffed hearts, silly monkeys, and kissing frogs to chose from. Treats abound for our boy but this sweetheart day I thought we would try a healthy mix of people food to delight his pallet. Here's a list of the Healthy foods for dogs. I am thinking some frozen yogurt drops, an oatmeal pop, or a medley of apples, green beans and carrots (he loves carrots). For his date we will take him to walk his favorite beach and splash in the water.

I thought long and hard about what to get a baby for Valentine's Day, what traditions do I want to implement (if any at all), what can I do to make her love a holiday that is under constant scrutiny and rejected by all of the loveless people in the world. My first thought was to create a lucky bracelet (insert comical Irish joke about my lucky charms here), a delicate chain adorned with a lovely collection of heart shaped charms. This year we are getting her the chain and her first heart. The one pictured was labeled as a 21-charm bracelet. I really hope hers is just as beautiful on her 21st Valentine's Day. Maybe it will bring her luck in love throughout her years, it probably won't but it will show her that her father and I love her and she will always be carrying around pieces of our heart every where she goes. 

Stay tuned for Valentine's Treats made with the baby, photos of Bub's happy time basket, and other inspirations or ideas I have (or have found) for the red, white and pink holiday palooza!

You know you want to be mine!!!