It's been a while - I guess as weaning came to an end a long time ago for us! However there will be more weaning going on next year as we are expecting TWINS in April! We are very excited and looking forward to baby-led weaning again- all those gorgeous messy pictures - times 2!

Jacon is doing well, eating well and is generally tickedy boo! He loves to say 'mmmm delicious' when he approves of his food - a real incentive to keep the good food coming!

xxx

Veggies galore

Mmmm this soup is gooood!



Austrian boiled eggs just taste better!


JJ has been enjoying his food as usual. He is a proper little boy now and seems so grown up...especially when I look back at the pictures on this blog! He eats beautifully with a fork, spoons in his cereals at breakfast and is still keen to try new things.





I now have an allotment and a greenhouse so he is currently enjoying lots of fresh veg. He is a bit of a monkey at sneaking into the greenhouse and picking and munching all the ripe cherry tomatoes (although they do taste sooo good home grown.) This week he tucked into 2 bowls of a yummy (and very green) veg soup made with lots of rainbow chard which we picked that morning. We are also picking up 3 chickens this week so we will have lovely fresh eggs each day. JJ developed a taste for boiled eggs for breakfast on a recent holiday to Austria so this should please him, as well as the fact that he is animal mad! He was great on holiday, eating anything we ate, his favourite being risotto. I think the staff at our hotel took a liking tohim as he was so appreciative of the food and ate so well!





Hope all the regulars and their little ones are well xxxx

Busy bees!

My little prince

Look Mummy, no hands!




Look what I'm eating mummy!



After licking his lis yogurt lid, Jacob kindly cleaned it off in his water.



Mmmmmm, chocolate!







Oompa, Loompa doopity do....



Wow, it's been a long time! Things have been very busy here as we have been doing some home improvements (which are still ongoing!) so blogging has been bottom of the list.

Jacob is gorgeous as ever. He is sooo active and barely stops for a minute.....hence his raging appetite! As usual anything edible will do! Things he is particularly fond of at the minute are: pasta (any shape or form), meat, cheerios (dry as a snack preferably but will have some with milk for breakfast), Goodies cereal bars, satsumas or similar.

I don't think Jacob has had anything new particularly - oh except pickled red cabbage which he is realy enjoying! He continues to eat everything we eat and seems to love it all. Many people comment on how well he eats and I am sure it is down to BLW (oh and his mummy's wonderful cooking of course!). We are very proud of him. I am looking forward to trying some new recipes soon as we have a fabulous new kitchen, living, dining open plan space for Jacob to run free in while I cook (best laid plans......). Recently we have eaten out at Ask (pizza/pasta restaurant) and they were very baby friendly. Jacob had a children's menu consisting of garlic bread, salad, cheesy pasta bake and a banana split - yum he loved it!

Fun video!

Snacks in the park


Yeay! Salmon for tea

JJ has been eating fairly well over the past couple of weeks. Fish is a big favourite at the moment with salmon being top of the list! He has also taken a liking to Organix gingerbread men (although we try to keep his sweet snacks to a minimum but he knows where they are kept and he knows what he wants!).





I have added a very cute video of JJ eating his tea. It shows quite well where he is up to with his fork too. He isn't normally so excitable at meal times but it was salmon for tea which I think sent him into a frenzy! In fact he ate his fillet of slamon in about 30 seconds and then kept shouting more and pointing at this daddy's so ended up having another half!





JJ has been a bit more challenging behaviour wise recently. He has become very clingy to me at home which is driving everybody mad. He is fine if I am not there but the second he sees me he starts whinging and wanting to be picked up. I have read this is a common stage and that it passes but I really hope it passes soon. To add to this we are doing some major work to the house - re-arranging the whole ground floor and this just adds to the chaos! Because the kitchen will be out of action for a while, me and JJ are heading to my Mum's for a few days while his daddy works on it.

Going out for his first walk.


Gnocchi with pesto veg and cheese.



JJ has enjoyed getting to grips with his walking over the past couple of weeks and is very impressed with his new shoes!

On the food front JJ is eating well. He has a great fondness for beans (of any variety but especially kidney beans) at the minute - he even chose them over blueberries! He is getting good at telling us when he is hungry now. He will say 'num num num' as a kind of eating noise. If we ask him if he is hungry he goes into the kitchen. He is also pointing at the cupboard. If he gets grumpy it is often if he is hungry and needs a snack.

He had a fillet and a half of salmon (which I marinated with honey, ginger and lime) last night along with veggies and cous cous (he found the cous cous hard work though!). Guess he needs the protein. He is loving kiwi fruit, beans, potatoes (as always!), greek yogurt with honey, bananas and cheerios.

He has also got one more tooth now which evens out his 3 on the bottom. He was pretty grouchy with it coming through though so I'm not looking to the rest coming through.

Walking!

Pinching biscuits!

Cinnamon apples - the old favourite!

Stew - a winter fave!

Play dough - don't hink he quite gets it!





Since the last post JJ has started walking!! He has been looking like he is ready for ages but never seemed to have the confidence to walk without holding our hands etc, but one day he started taking a few steps on his own and the next day he was walking every where! This does however mean that he has quite a few bumps on his head and he is scaring me half to death most of the time. I guess you have to let them toddle and they are bound to fall so I have to get used to the knocks!

He has seemed very grumpy in the run up to tea time recently - I think he is using more energy now he is walking, so we have started giving him a banana and rice cakes mid afternoon.

He is also now no longer breast feeding :-( I stopped the morning feed just after Christmas (replaced with cows milk) and he didn't seem to notice. I then finished his bed time feed on the 11th- again he hasn't seemed bothered and doesn't ask for it so I think he was ready. He has barely taken anything at night for a long time now - it was more for the cuddles - so he still get cuddles but no milk. He has cows milk now morning and night.

On the food front things are pretty much the same. He has stalled a bit with his fork, he got quite good and could use the scooping action to pick things up now and again but he hasn't managed it for a while now. I think Christmas and all the upheaval has set him back -I also think it depends on his mood a bit.


He drives me mad some days thinking it is so funny to drop his food over the edge of his high chair and then shakes his head and says no (well 'booooooow' which is his version!) before I do, so he knows he shouldn't. He does do it sometimes with particular things he doesn't fancy but I don't think he always realises they are going over the edge as he just sort of flings them out the way! It is usually when he has about had enough that he messes about so I just take his food away and stop the meal, or take it away for a minute then give it back. I should maybe try to ignore and say nothing, pretend not to notice so I don't reinforce it, as he thinks it's funny when I say no and I don't want him thinking it is funny. Will give it a go and let you know.

He is really growing up now and is such a cheeky chappy at the minute, but can have the odd tantrum too! I can't believe how quickly time has gone by.

Haven't heard from a few of the 'regulars' in a while - hope you are well - leave a comment and let me know how you are getting on!

Christmas capers!

Birthday cake



Christmas Dinner




A scarily green Christmas tree meringue at a party!


Wow, it's been a while since I posted! I blame the massively chaotic festive season with a string of parties, family gatherings and other such jolly festivities!

We have had a lovely Christmas time and Jacob has had a ball!


It was also his first birthday which was great - he had a blueberry sponge cake as blueberries must be his all time favourite food. He loved it, although he much preferred the berries to the cake, and spilled crumbs all over his granny!

We had a couple of baby group Christmas parties and he ate well at both - a lot of treats he wouldn't normally have but he did do well with sandwiches and fruit at them too. He thoroughly enjoyed his Christmas dinner, with turkey hot or cold being a firm favourite at the minute..luckily!

Other food he has had worth noting is Thai red curry - went down well surprisingly! He is loving clementines, pate, anything wrapped in pastry, risotto, meat (especially turkey!), jelly (occasionally at parties), malt loaf too. He has started eating toast by sucking, licking, nibbling off whatever is spread on it before (sometimes) eating the toast itself. He is much less messy and is getting very good at spooning his own yogurt and using his fork (unless he is really hungry or it is something he loves and then the fork is to slow and hit and miss so it is back to shovelling fist fulls in!).

I am not sure if Jacob is officially weaned now or not - he eats exactly what we eat 95% of the time so perhaps he is!? I will still keep blogging for a while longer until he has mastered cutlery but there is much less to report nowadays now that he has tried almost every food out there and seems to always like most things. So to avoid boring you all I will do fortnightly or so posts unless something exciting happens.

Wishing you all a happy new year!!!