Kellan's Pirate Party - 3rd Birthday Party

Kellan decided he wanted a pirate party this year to celebrate his 3rd birthday. He's REALLY into Jake and the Neverland Pirates and Peter Pan.

We're on a pretty tight budget, so we decided to keep the invitation list to only close/immediate family and a few friends. We were disappointed not to be able to invite all our aunts, uncles, and cousins, but since our families are so big it was just too many people! We also decided to keep costs down by having the party at 1:30pm instead of over a meal time so that we could just provide a few snack items, but not a full meal.My friend Desiree found an ad on Craigslist selling a bunch of leftover pirate party stuff for pretty inexpensive and sent it to me. Luckily it was still available and that helped us out a lot!

I wanted everything to be outside in order to have more space and let the kids run free and we were blessed with a beautiful day -- until the rain came. But we had a lot of fun outside before we had to move things indoors! We had a bouncy castle, a Treasure Dig, Walk the Plank, and a pirate water table.

Paleo Fruit Pizza

Kellan's FAVORITE dessert of all time is fruit pizza, but I don't like him to have a lot of sugar, so for his third birthday, I put together a paleo version!

Toddler Paleo Lunch Ideas

I am not a photographer. I am especially not a food photographer. I'm just a paleo mama trying to find quick & easy lunch ideas for my kiddos outside of the pbj & juice box norms. My oldest son is almost 3 and my youngest is 6 months. Here are some of our ideas! Hoping to continue to add to this list as we think of more things!

This is a picnic lunch we took to the park. Celery with nutbutter (sunbutter this time), cucumber and celery sticks, roasted sweet potatoes, and a hard boiled egg.

Summery ”Stir Fry”

 

1 large sweet potato, cubed

1 large yellow onion, diced

1 zucchini, quartered

1 yellow squash, quartered  

1/2 head of garlic, smashed/sliced

1 tbsp Italian herb seasoning

1 package Trader Joe's Spicy Italian Chicken Sausage, sliced thin

Extra-virgin olive oil or coconut oil

Salt & pepper, if needed

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Toss sweet potato in a little olive oil, spread on baking sheet, and bake for 20 minutes.

While potato is baking, drizzle oil in pan and heat on medium. Add chicken and brown. Then add onion. When onion starts to cook through, add squash and zucchini. Add potatoes when they come out of the oven and toss with the herb seasoning and garlic. Cook til everything is cooked through.

While potato is baking,

Why I Chose to Encapsulate My Placenta...

 

**Warning:  This post does mention in detail some of the intrusive and disturbing thoughts I experienced while dealing with PPA/PPD. If you are sensitive to these types of things triggering anxiety in you, please be aware.**

“Um… you did WHAT?!?! Like, you actually ATE it?” This is the most common response I get when people find out that I encapsulated my placenta. At first, I was nervous about people finding out about it and thinking I’d completely gone off the hippie deep-end, but it worked so incredibly well for me that now I want to shout it from the rooftops and encourage expectant mothers to look into this option.

Sweet & Smokey Maple Apple Round-up

1 lg sweet potato, diced
2 granny smith apples, cored, diced
1 yellow onion, diced
1/2 package of thick cut bacon (or 4 strips), diced
1 package Trader Joe's Apple Chicken Sausage, sliced thin
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 tbsp Grade B Maple Syrup

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Toss sweet potato chunks in olive oil and spread on baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes.

Heat skillet on medium heat and brown bacon and chicken sausage.

Once meat starts browning up, add onion and apple. Cook down a couple minutes and add sweet potatoes. Add more olive oil if needed. Drizzle and toss with maple syrup and cook til fruit/veggies are tender.

Kellan loved this so much he ate 2 3 servings!

Roasted Kielbasa and Veggies

1 summer squash, sliced
1 zucchini, sliced
1 turkey kielbasa, sliced
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 large sweet potato, diced
1/2 red bell pepper, cut in chunks
Toss all with extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast in oven at 400 for 40 min.

I am not a photographer, clearly.

Paleo Coconut Veggie Curry

• 1/2 red bell pepper, sliced thin
• 1/2 green bell pepper, sliced thin
• 3 cloves minced garlic
• 2 baby bok choy, sliced thin
• 2 c baby spinach
• 3 tbsp curry powder
• 2 cans coconut milk
• 1 c vegetable stock
• 1 carrot, shaved with peeler
• 2 green onions, sliced thin longways
• 1 sweet potato, cubed
• 2 tbsp coconut oil
• 1 tbsp ginger
• 1/2 bag pearl onions
• Salt & pepper
• 1tbsp palm sugar/coconut sugar

Toss sweet potato cubes in a little olive oil and bake at 400 for 15 min.

Sautee onions, garlic, and coconut oil on medium heat in wok until onions start to carmelize. Then add peppers, bok choy, and carrots, and ginger. Once those veggies soften a bit, add vegetable stock, coconut milk, and curry powder, mixing well. Add palm or coconut sugar, sweet potatoes, and baby spinach. Cook until spinach is wilted and add salt and pepper to taste. OR you can pour over sweet potato chunks when serving. We added curried chicken strips, but any meat would be good with this!

Spicy Poblano Stir-Fry

1pkg Trader Joes Jalapeno Chicken Sausage
1 medium sweet onion, sliced thin
2 poblano peppers, sliced thin
1 red bell pepper, sliced thin
2 cloves garlic, minced
1-2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
4 green onions, sliced thin
1 med zucchini, sliced thin
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp chili powder
Salt & pepper

Heat oil in skillet on medium
Add onions, saute until fragrant 1-2 min
Add sausage, brown
Add peppers, zucchini, garlic, and spices
Saute until tender, mixing spices in well

Blue-eyed Boys

Applegasm

Yes, it's that good! No, the crappy pics don't do it justice. I was in too big a hurry to eat it to stop and take a decent picture. This has been my latest guilty paleo pleasure.

1/2 red delicious apple
1/4c raw almonds
1 tbsp Enjoy Life mini chocolate chips
1 tbsp caramelized coconut chips
Drizzle honey (about a teaspoon)

You can thank me later.

Frosty

Jim and Kellan built a snowman last night. (Never mind Kellan's face, Jim is clearly an excellent photographer.) They came back inside and K was telling me all about it and of course my first thought was, "Oh, how fun!" Then when Jim was putting him to bed he said, "Don't forget to say goodnight to Snowman!" So, Kellan runs over to the window and say, "Goodnight, Snowman, I love you!"

 
This is no good. He's just humanized Snowman, who will inevitably melt within the next day or two. Greeeaaat. All day long K has been looking out the window checking on Snowman. At one point he even told me, "Mommy! Snowman is so cold! He needs a warm ribbon on his neck!"

Well, sometime in between K's nap a few hours ago and when Jim got home, Snowman's head fell off. Jim pointed it out to me when he came in from work. So I made him go fix it. How traumatic would that be??? He said when he was trying to fix it the whole thing broke and so he recreated it but now it's missing its eyes... Ah well...

Love

He has the longest eyelashes ever.

Remedying Reflux with Paleo?

Reflux, reflux, reflux.... The bane of my existence right now. We've been dealing with some pretty intense tummy issues for the little guy ever since he was born. Spitting up (well, more like copious amounts of vom), arching his back until he was practically in a back bend, hiccups, gurgling, not sleeping any longer than 15 minutes at a time, and the crying... Oh dear lord god, the crying. It never ever ends. It's pretty constant, all day, every day, except for the few fleeting moments of smiles and laughs and happy quiet time. But the crying would always start again and it's not like any baby crying I have ever seen. It's shrieking. For hours and hours.

At first the pediatrician tried to tell me he just has colic. I wasn't buying it. First of all, I'm not much of a believer in "colic" even though I've been told my baby has it. I don't believe babies cry for no reason. There is always a reason. And my baby is telling me something is wrong. My gut was telling me this was not okay and it was not normal. Granted, I was spoiled as a first-time mom because my first son was the world's easiest baby who rarely cried. But I knew that even if A was a fussy baby, this was not okay.

No words...

“Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” -Elizabeth Stone

There are no words to describe how much I love these boys.

 

I had no idea. Before I had kids I had no idea how profound my love for them would be. I've heard people talk about it, but I couldn't help feeling like no one told me or warned me. I know now that it is because there are no words to describe it and no measure to compare it to. It's just not something a person is capable of understanding until they are holding their baby and experiencing it.

When Kellan was born, I was completely overwhelmed by how fiercely I loved him. I have never loved anything more in my life so intensely. The enormity of it scared me. It still scares me. I couldn't imagine loving anyone or anything else anywhere near as much as I loved him. His birth was when my eyes were truly opened to what real, raw, unconditional love is and I realized, to my horror, how absolutely devastating it would be if anything happened to him and why my mom was so "ridiculously overprotective" of me. I get the term "mama bear" now, when before I thought it was just cutesy. It's very real and quite descriptive of how fiercely a mama protects her babies.

When I was pregnant with Aven, like most 2nd time mamas, I still worried that I couldn't love another child like I did my first. I couldn't imagine that it was possible. It seems silly now that I worried about that because as soon as he was born, I felt that exact same fierce, intense love for him too. It was no different and no less and just as overwhelming as it was with his brother.

 

Several of my friends, now pregnant with their 2nd child, ask "Will I love this baby as much as my first?" You will. I promise you, you will. Just like you couldn't prepare for how much you loved your first baby, it will blindside you and overwhelm you and sweep you off your feet and bring you to tears because of its enormity. There is nothing sweeter.