Food & True Love

Carter & Lydia in the car:

Funny, they do this ALL THE TIME!!

Food:

I posted the recipe for Carter's pasta dish, and I thought I should update it, now that he eats it on a regular basis and I have tweaked it a little. I also make a spaghetti version that I would like to share. He loves them both, and even though they are still rather mushy.

Chicken Pasta:

One package (12 oz) Barilla Stelline (Stars) cooked to be fairly mushy.

One package (12 oz) frozen Peas and Carrots

One can (15 oz) Corn drained

One lb chicken - shredded

Yams or Sweet Potatoes - peeled, cut, baked, and pureed

Mix all ingredients together. Add more or less yams depending on your child's ability to eat solids. When Carter was younger, I put more yams/sweet potatoes than I do now. I freeze this mixture in ice cube trays and it works great. I freeze the pasta mix separately from the yams and combine them during re-heating. That way I can adjust the ratio of pasta to yams. You can also add any more vegetables that your child will eat. I tried a can of Veg-All once. It was hit and miss as to his disdain of that batch. I decided to be on the safe side and give you what always works for us.

Turkey Spaghetti:

One package (12 oz) Barilla Stelline (Stars) cooked to be fairly mushy.

Two packages (26 oz each) of Pomi tomatoes - strained

One to Two lbs of peeled baby carrots - steamed and pureed

Spinach - sauteed in olive oil to taste

Welch's White Grape Juice frozen concentrate (11.5 oz)

One lb ground turkey - browned and broken into small chunks

Mix all ingredients together. I choose the Pomi tomatoes because it is pure tomatoes, NOTHING added, not even water. I usually get the organic carrots because they are not any more expensive, and it can't hurt right? The juice that I use does not contain High Fructose Corn Syrup. The White Grape Juice Cocktail does contain HFCS - unsure what the difference is. I stood at the frozen juice section for too long in the search for a juice that does not contain HFCS. There aren't very many of them. I have tried ground beef, but he does not like it as much as the turkey. You can also use Venison.

I found that I can feed him more of the pasta and spaghetti because it contains more vegetables. I was feeding him a meat, a vegetable, and a fruit at each meal. Then I realized that there are already a lot of veggies in his meats. So, he just eats more of the meats now.

Carter is content to eat his mush. Some days he wants to try something I'm eating, and other days he absolutely will not!! It is hit and miss, but these are usually winners in our house. Hope that helps you.

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Carter Lee Lewis

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Us

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Catching Up

Sorry for the catch-up posts. I have been preparing a trip for David's birthday. We were gone all weekend, just the two of us. It was a lot of fun. If you are looking for a getaway here in Washington, The Inn at the Lake is definitely the place to go!! We have been dragging our feet for 7 years to get out there. I wish we had gone sooner. Apparently a lot of people we know have already been. We even ran into a couple we knew there this weekend!!

I wanted to say a thing of note that Carter did today - he told me "potty" when I asked him how he was doing. I thought he was just babbling, but I repeated it to him and he said "Poo Poo" I asked him if he had pooped in his diaper, and picked him up to check. He said "Peee-Ewe". He was pretty stinky. I was flabbergasted. It only happened the one one. The next stinky diaper was not as noteworthy I guess. It could have been total random chance. Lydia is already acknowledging her dirty diapers and has been for a week. She knows exactly when she needs to be changed, and points and says "poo poo". He could just be mimicking her as he does with so many other things.

Easter

Our church had an Easter Egg hunt for the kids last weekend - before everybody was out of town for family events. They read a story about Jesus (which Carter wasn't really into yet), and then they set them loose. The 3 and under crowd all went into a room together - to make it fair. Carter got one egg per hand, and he was good. He continued to look, and ask he found a new egg, he would let one go and grab the new egg. Notice that he has different colored eggs in each picture. The older kids saw him with only two eggs and felt bad for him. They would give him more eggs. I found him with eggs shoved in his pockets!! He had sooooo much fun.

Carter made a friend. He found my friend Sarah. I think he spent more time talking to her than I did!! He is such a ladies man.

Science Center

We went to the Science Center with Carter on Monday, April 4th. David was off work and we went as a family. They were having a free day - the first 1000 people made it in for free. That made it all the more appealing. We trekked all the way into Seattle, drove around for 30 minutes to find a parking spot, stood in line for about 45 minutes in the rain, and we missed it by 10 people. We paid to get in, oh well. Carter seemed to enjoy it. He didn't want to do anything other than play in the water when we first got there:

Until he found the computer. We pried him off of that kicking & screaming:

They had BIG blocks:

And fun pillows:

And lots of buttons to push:

I think it was a successful trip:

First Go-Gurt

Carter is adventuring out with his foods. He actually ate some noodles that came from my plate last week!! Even thought it was only 3, it was progress. David brought home some Fruit-by-the-Foot for our little trip that we took this weekend. I picked one up and Carter saw me. He came running over saying "YUM YUM!" reaching for it. How did he know it was supposed to be yummy??

Anyways, Carter had his first Go-Gurt by himself - the first ever was at Costco as a sample, but he was not able to hold it himself. This time, he had full control. NO MESS!! He was very clean about eating. He doesn't like getting messy.

And I have the picture to prove it!!

Hurricane Carter

Carter is like a little hurricane. We are working on putting our toys away before we get out more. He dumped out all of his legos on the living room floor. . .

. . . then he picked up as many as he could hold in his hands, and took them to the boot room.

He has started to feed himself. He thinks he is being funny by holding the spoon in his open mouth as long as he can.

Attitude

Carter is really starting to open up his vocabulary. He is starting to repeat animal sounds, like the sheep, duck, dog, elephant, cat, duck billed platypus - just kidding on that one. It all started this week. He has been a little slow in this category, but I'm not too worried about it. My real frustration is when the camera comes out, he shuts down. He will not say another word until bed time.

He also breaks out in random prayer. He will take off his hat, fold his arms, bow his head, close his eyes, open his arms, and say "AMEN". He does a sign similar to "All done". His amen sounds a little like all done too. He will go to our bed where we pray at night and say a little prayer. His other favorite place to randomly pray is on the changing table. He will be playing with his toys and pray. What a crazy kid. He will also let you know if your prayer is too long. In church two weeks ago he reminded Brother Sampson that it was time to conclude his prayer by saying "Amen" right in the middle of it. When Brother Sampson didn't stop his prayer, Carter became agitated and said "Amen" multiple times before we had to distract him with something else. Good thing Brother Sampson was far away and hard of hearing.

We went outside today, and his little attitude came out royally. He has the cutest facial expressions too. It is hard to not smile at his anger.

Handsome Little Man

Carter has two new words/phrases of note. "Excuse me", and "Outside". I am trying to catch them on video. However, he knows that he can see pictures of himself on the back side of the camera. So, whenever I pull it out, he just wants to see himself. It makes it hard to take a picture.

Carter loves daddy's glasses. He runs over to the nightstand, pulls off the case, opens it up, and tries to put the glasses on himself. He is not very coordinated, so he had help for this picture.

Carter went to the nursery at church for the first time all by his self last Sunday. Our church has a nursery for kids 18 months to 3 years, then they go to Sunday School. Carter was very quick to send me away. "Bye Bye" a couple times. He was ready for me to leave. However, he didn't participate at all. He wouldn't eat the snack. He wouldn't play with toys. He just st and watched the other kids. Just so you know, I didn't hover over the window, I got a report at the end of the class.