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.