beef stew and big brother

 My cookbook area looks like this: an utter disaster. So when I wanted to make a beef stew in the crockpot, I was forced to make it up from scratch. I did not want to spend hours (which I don't have!) to find my old recipe. I had veggies in the fridge I needed to use up and potatoes in the pantry I needed to finish, too. It was SO simple. Brent said it was the best stew I had made. I'll take that! So here's what I did.


BEEF STEW
1-1.5 pounds of stew beef
1 packet of Lipton Beefy Onion soup mix
a few potatoes (with skins left on)
a large handful of baby carrots (chopped up)
a few stalks of celery (chopped up)
some onion (i had half an onion left over)
a green pepper (chopped up)
1 can of beef stock
1 bay leaf

I put the stew beef on the bottom on the crock pot. Then layer the veggies and potatoes on top. I don't measure or anything. I just fill the pot up. Pour the packet of soup mix on top. Add the can of beef stock over that. Set crockpot on high for a few hours, or on low for all day. I added in a tablespoon of flour later on to thicken the soup up. Once it was done, I served it up with a loaf of white bread from our bread maker.

This was SO easy. And best of all I did it WITHOUT a recipe (I love that!) There was no work being done in the kitchen at dinner time which is key with Riley =) She doesn't so much enjoy me being in the kitchen working at that hour!

I now feel like "Big Brother" with our fancy shmancy video baby monitor. I'm happy I used my birthday money for this... the entertainment value is priceless! Watching Avery in her crib at naptime.. WOW. I wish I had this sooner!

Riley sleeping

Avery doin her thing during "naptime"

one happy customer

What are purple carrots? I don't know. Riley sure likes them.. mixed with blueberries and pears! Looks like the color of beets.. I NEVER would've fed this to Avery.. with her spitting up, it would've be awful to clean it up!

I've posted about how much I like the Plum Baby Organic food. I wish they made more varieties.. especially vegetable ones. If I see these on sale, I try and snag a few! I first heard about them from my sister and saw them on Amazon before seeing them in the store.

food and car seats

 It's been so fun to feed Riley lately. I like having a baby who seems to enjoy the process of eating baby food! So far she's liked every fruit and vegetable I've given to her. She wasn't into the mixed vegetables at first, but I added in a little applesauce to get her used to the taste, and by the end she was gobbling the veggies up sans applesauce.
This girl has the best smiles. She can be in a super fussy mood, yet will still crack a huge smile. Here she was super happy. Perhaps it was the fact she took a nap that was an hour and a half this morning!! Go Riley! That's triple the length of her normal naps! Granted she's been awake a much longer time since the nap too.. but I'll take it! She was so much happier today because of that nap. The past two nights she's only woken up once.. around 3am to eat.. and then gone back to sleep until 630 or so. C.R.A.Z.Y. I hope I didn't just jinx that.

Avery finally ended her napping hiatus today. She hadn't fallen asleep for a nap since Saturday! I actually missed listening in on her today on the monitor to hear what she was talking about and what songs she was singing. Ok, I digress... SOLIDS.. Doesn't Riley look so grown up in this picture at her booster seat? Brent nearly has a heart attack every time he thinks about the girlies growing up. So, if you're reading this, don't listen to what I just said about Riley =)

I put a few of those Gerber puffs on Riley's tray yesterday. She grabbed them and pulled them to her mouth, but they didn't go inside. She just tucked them away in her hands and let them get all sticky. It's fun to watch them explore new things.

I'm nearing the point of wanting to switch Riley out of her infant car seat to the cow print upright one we have. She is SO HEAVY in that infant seat! I can barely lift her up into the car without throwing my back out. The only plus side to keeping her in it is that it's a convenient place for her to be when we go out places. I set her in the front portion of a shopping cart yesterday and she cried. Not snuggly enough I suppose! We switched Avery out of her infant seat at Christmas. Have I said how I love being able to compare what I did and when with the girls by the calendar dates? Since they were born 2 days shy of 2 years apart it's SO easy to think back and not have to do the math in my head as to what age avery was and then calculate that for riley. Did that make sense? It did to me. Maybe only me! Riley's feet are past the edge of the car seat, so that might be reason enough. OH and the MAIN MAIN MAIN reason I've kept her in it is that she is still able to fall asleep in it!!! I would be up a creek without a paddle if she didn't do that. Avery stopped napping very shortly after we switched her out of her infant seat, so I think I'm paranoid that if we switch Riley she will stop napping in the car, too. Wow. This was a super rambly post. At least there were a few cute pictures to look at.

almost forgot!

As I was re-reading the last post about Avery I realized I forgot to write about something HUGE! Avery's been potty trained since November! We still put her in a diaper for naps and nighttime, but during the day she's PT! I started very gradually with her over the summer just letting her go potty whenever she'd mention it. By November she was asking to go A LOT. So I decided to ditch the diaper one day and we haven't looked back. She caught on SO quick. What a huge blessing. Potty training with a newborn around is quite the task =)