Rattlesnake Ledge

This weekend we did a family hike to Rattlesnake Ledge! It was such a great day to get out, especially in nature! It was our first real hike of the season-and first one with the babe! We went on a little warm up hike a few weeks ago to Meadowdale Beach Park, just to try out our backpack! Here are a few photos from this weekend!

This was before the hike-I look pretty ridiculous :)

He loves hiking!

This was the view from the top-beautiful!

I love nursing in nature!

:)

He conked out on the way down and it was so bumpy!

That rock is where we hiked to!

The next hike we go on, we want to start earlier, so we can have a little more solitude-this was a busy trail! There were probably 25 people at the top, and we started at 9:30am (later than we anticipated)! But all in all, a great hike and we'd do it again!

Garden II

The previous post's pictures were taken in mid March, so now to update you on what has changed!

I've planted almost everything now, only a couple of things left. In the 5'x3' planter, I planted two squares with 8 pole beans, two squares with 8 snap peas, one square of cucumber (I am going to plant another square today), two squares with 4 garlic plants, 3 squares with 9 onion plants, and 4 squares with 4 strawberry plants each. 

In the 4'x4' planter, I planted two squares with one broccoli plant each, two squares with one cauliflower plant each, two squares of 16 carrots each, one square with 16 radishes. I have 4 squares for spinach which I am planting every two weeks so I don't have a boatload of spinach all at once, I also have 4 squares of lettuce which I am doing the same thing. Here are two really cool paint pictures I made up to show you what is planted where, and also some real photos :)

5'x3'- all have been planted except the middle cucumber (to be planted today)

So far I've planted two squares of spinach and lettuce each.
I'm not sure what I want to put in the bottom 'basil' square. Any ideas? 

5'x3' planter pictures. Today I put up a few tomato cages for the beans, peas and cucumbers. You will see them in a future post.

These are the garlic plants

Onions!

Here are the strawberry plants in the front, with the onions behind them.

These are the snap peas coming up! (no beans coming up yet)

And now for the 4'x4' planter box.

This is the first square of spinach! The lettuce is barely showing, so will update later on that!

Here is one square of broccoli. The cauliflower looks the same so far.

Here is my square of radishes (I don't even like them!!)

I also have two brussel sprout plants that my mother-in-law gave me.

I have planted 2 pots with German butterball potatoes, and two with Red Pontiac potatoes, but there isn't anything to show yet.

Here are the blueberry plants.

Happy little lovers :)

Also, my basil and cilantro plants are looking great!

That's all I have for now! I WILL post again in a week or two about the garden, with photos of the growth! YAY! I love gardening and can't wait to teach E where his food comes from!

Gardening!

So I knew I would be an awesome blogger....NOT. It has been almost 2 months since my last post-out of what, five total? Ahh well. That's what's so wonderful-it's my blog and I can blog when I want to!

So this post is about my new garden! I've been working on it for a month or so now, and it's looking good! I have lots of pictures to share! I decided this year that I really wanted to do a good garden, and since we have a little backyard and a bit of space in the front, I did it! I am doing the square foot gardening method, it is so easy and very low maintenance!

I built two planter boxes, one 5'x3', and one 4'x4'. I was intending to put the 5'x3' box in the front of our place to get lots of sun, but quickly got reprimanded by the condo association. So we moved them to the back-much less sun, but we'll see what happens!

I built these myself, and put a plywood base on the bottom to keep the weeds out. With the help of the hubs, we put some ceder legs on the fronts to make them level! I used some nylon string to show each square foot. My uncle, who is a great gardener and sells plants and flowers at his local farmers market, sold me some dirt and chicken poop. He also gave me 16 strawberry plants, two blueberry bushes, three lavender plants and some garlic and onion sets! Thanks Uncle!

This is the 4'x4' box filled with dirt.

Here is the 5'x3' box with dirt.

Here they are together, however we just moved them yesterday,
so they are closer together and directly behind our unit.

In the front area I have the two blueberry plants, three green planters that I just planted zucchini, yellow summer squash, and grey squash, a ceder planter with three lavender plants, my dying rhubarb (oops), and some thyme. I also have a sage plant, which is perennial, but it doesn't look like it will come back! Maybe it will... 

Strawberry plants

Lavender

Here's the rhubarb looking pretty good..

Blueberry plants (two so they cross pollinate!)

In the house I planted two canning jars of cilantro, and two canning jars of basil.

I did all of this a month ago. I will do a second post to update you on how things are doing and where we're at now :)

First Foods!

Oh, how could I forget? On Saturday we started giving Elias food!! Of course, only what I'm able to eat. We decided to go with 'Baby Led Weaning' as our method of feeding. Here is their website if you want to check it out! A few of the reasons we chose to do it this way is because we want to be able to eat with him, instead of feeding him and then feeding ourselves. It also makes things quite a bit easier! I won't have to puree a bunch of extra stuff! I've also been reading the book, and a lot of the pros make SO much sense. So far it has been a blast! He is really enjoying feeding himself!

Here are a few photos!

The avocados were a little slippery!

Nom nom nom...

Here he is eating a spear of zucchini!  

Sweet potatoes were a definite hit!

So far he's eaten avocado, sweet potato, zucchini, yellow squash, and pears! Oh, and he ate almost all of each thing I gave him today! I didn't expect him to eat so much so quickly! I guess that's why he's a healthy 18 pounds!

Update!

It's been a few days since I last posted. Nothing was happening-I was eating the same things over and over, and Elias was still puking a bunch, so there wasn't anything to report! But that's started to change! Elias is not puking as much! HOORAY! He still does for sure, but definitely not as much!

I also introduced some rice milk and rice cereal (it does have molasses and sugar...). I really needed something for breakfast, so this was the answer for me! I wonder if I am being too strict on the diet, because in the information that I read, they said, "Rice products, such as rice beverage, rice-based frozen dessert, rice pasta, rice flour, and millet are available in nutrition stores" , Since rice desserts would have other ingredients in them, I'm just not sure! I should have looked it up in the actual book! But then I thought about how they said you can only have potatoes seasoned with salt and pepper, so I thought it made sense that it was that strict...hmmm. I guess I'll never know!

Here is my loot from a shopping trip...The chips are just potatoes, salt and olive oil! YUM!

Oh, and I mentioned that I was going to make potato chips! 

I also tried making zucchini chips...those didn't turn out at all (burnt to a crisp)!

This was all I was able to recover, but they were mighty tasty! (that's a little kids bowl)

Here are a few cute photos of my boy :] I put him in overalls for the first time, he's so darn cute!

Day 3 of the Elimination Diet

Here's a little update on how I'm doing! 

The first day, I caved and ate the rest of the banana bread I made on Sunday...and a small bag of BBQ chips. I was SOO hungry. But since then, I haven't cheated, except to add peaches and quinoa to my diet. Both are low on the allergen list, so I did it. It helps a lot! Quinoa is so tasty, even with just a little salt on it!

This is what I had for lunch on Monday, and now I've added quinoa.
Oh, and this is what I have each day for lunch.

This is what I had for dinner last night, and lunch today!
I finally found some yellow squash!

For breakfast, I couldn't finish it today. It was so UN-appetizing. I only ate the pears, with just a little bit of millet. I felt like I was feeding a child, trying to trick them into eating the good stuff. It was silly!

I bought two different types of pears to eat, but they both were terrible. It's definitely not a good season for them now! So, I buy the canned pears, they are so tasty! I make sure to get the ones with no added sugar or syrups or anything. I'm also considering adding brown sugar to my diet, that way breakfast can be a little better...

I am going to try making baked potato chips later today! We'll see how that goes! 

On to other news: Elias!

He's recently started getting really sad when other kids make grunty/growling noises...this is what that looks like:

So sad, but so silly :]

Here's a couple more, just for fun!

He was looking out at our Christmas tree and bikes. Yes, we still have the tree...

Silly boy :]

Here's a couple of silly pictures of Elias this week :]

You can see the laundry piles in the background-5 loads yesterday! 

Elimination Diet

Okie Doke. Today is Monday again. Today is also the day that I start the dreaded elimination diet. Last week we went to the pediatrician for E's 6 month appointment. It went really well! He's a big boy coming in at 18 pounds! He's doing great developmentally and everything looks good. Except for the puking. I told her that I found this diet, and she said she HIGHLY encourages elimination diets to find allergies-especially in babies that puke a bunch!

So off I start! This morning I am making millet with pears for breakfast. It is currently on the stove cooking. I've never had millet, so this will be interesting! From what I've read, millet is actually better for you than oatmeal! Score! The recipe I found calls for cooking it in soy milk and brown sugar and a few other yummy things, but since I can't have any of that, I decided to cook it in pear juice since I can have that. I will be putting pears on top too.

Here is a picture of millet pre-cooked-in case you've never seen it!

 This is how it looked while cooking...

And here is!

For lunch, I am not exactly sure what to do. I don't like turkey or lamb (without additives :) and I can only use salt and pepper! So I'm thinking of having quinoa-it's not on the list, but it is very low on the allergen lists, and it's a whole protein, so I wouldn't HAVE to eat the meat! I will also bake a sweet potato and some zucchini. MMMmmm, that sounds so yummy to me! I hope I don't get burned out and don't like them any more. That would be so sad.

Jonathan is choosing NOT to do this with me... understandably! So I am going to fix him a big pan of lasagna and a chicken pot pie for him to eat this week. It would be tough trying to coordinate two meals each day, so I am making his in advance. It will be plenty for him, and he seems to do well eating the same things over and over!

-Oh, the millet is finished and I'm eating it with pears on top, it's very interesting! It's mushy and grainy at the same time! But not bad considering it's only flavored with pears :)

I'll let you know later how the rest of the day goes!