November 2014 – These Crazy Montanas

A Practice Thanksgiving

November 25, 2014 Taryn and TaviaLeave a comment

Thanksgiving is one of my all time favorite holidays. I think because it is the start of the holiday season, or maybe it is because I love food. Yea, it’s because I love food. This past Sunday on our weekly grocery shopping trip, I decided that it would be more economical to buy a medium size turkey, roast it on Monday, and eat it before we hit the road for Kansas to spend Thanksgiving with family Wednesday morning. The hubby did not object. My idea was to make this mini Thanksgiving as clean as possible…it was such a success!! Little Max also got to grub down on some mashed sweet potatoes and actually liked them!

Here is what we had:

8lb organic whole turkey roasted at 325 for 3 hours

4 organic white potatoes mashed with 3 tbs plain Greek yogurt (these were BOMB)

1 package frozen organic green beans steamed

1 package organic stuffing mix (soo pumped to have found the organic kind at Whole Foods)

Brown gravy made from the turkey juices with 3 tbs flour added

This was SO easy. I will for sure be that person that randomly makes turkeys throughout the year. Plus, the leftovers are the best.

Stayed tuned for a recap of our actual Thanksgiving meal..and our annual Thanksgiving morning workout!

LOL his face doesn’t look as enthused as I remember….I promise, he liked them!!

Solids Y’all

November 22, 2014November 22, 2014 Taryn and TaviaLeave a comment

Well ladies and gentlemen, we have started solids in this Montana household. And to my dismay, Baby Max is not thrilled. At. All. We started with avocado. We had his Daddy, Mimi, Papa, and Auntie Kienna all here to witness his first bites of real food. At first, he was just excited because we were all cheering for him, and then, the reality of this ooey gooey new texture in his mouth set in. He gagged, gagged some more, and it all came back up. Poor guy. I knew this could happen so I wasn’t discouraged (yet). We tried again the next morning, and an even worse reaction. So we took a few days off, and tried carrots, fail. Then we tried oatmeal, by this time the kid gagged at the sight of his spoon. I felt so bad. He wasn’t ready. I don’t know why I felt like I had to rush him into solids. It seemed like that was the next milestone we needed to check off the list right at the six month mark. We have taken a few weeks off from trying new solids and just this morning we went back to the avocados. You can tell by these pictures how he felt. Ha!

He’s not super thrilled but this is a huge improvement from last time. There was one gag, and no throwing up. LOL! In a way, I’m selfishly glad he isn’t ready for solids. I am so not ready for our breastfeeding relationship to begin to end. Any of you other mamma’s experience this when starting solids?

They’re G-r-r-reat!

November 6, 2014 Taryn and TaviaLeave a comment

This Halloween will go down in the Montana family history book as the first (and maybe last) hand crafted costume years. Thanks to Pinterest, I got the idea of making Max Tony the Tiger from the Frosted Flakes cereal box. The picture I saw looked simple enough! Tiger costume, front pack with a little fabric, make a box, cut out the letters, easy peasy. Well, after countless hot glue gun blisters, a floor full of fabric scrappings, a kitchen table with a nice little layer of spray adhesive, and a happy baby in a tiger costume…it all came together perfectly! We all enjoyed baby Max’s first Halloween probably way more than he did!