True to the Childers / Hawkins nature we plan and evolve our lives around food.

Since Hill is now able to eat veggies and fruits, I like to involve him in our food planning.

As some of you know I am trying to make as much of Hill's food as I can. Since the inception of our local farmers market. I have made him green beans, zucchini, squash, new potatoes, and eggplant.

At first I bought the natural and the organic Gerber foods. I just wasn't 100% sold that they really were organic. I mean how would I really know the difference? I did it anyway to give me a piece of mind.

He started off with natural green beans from Gerber. He enjoyed those and moved onto organic peas, which was great too.

More peas....please

I got him the Gerber organic carrots which was a hot mess, but he gobbled them up!

Then I bought the squash and zucchini at the farmers market that you saw in my previous post  and he loved them both. He did get sick of the zucchini fast, but he ate it anyway.

The next week I bought new potatoes at the farmers market. I was nervous about all that starch, but I assume it will be ok. He loved them as well.

My potaTOES

Then we tried the Gerber organic sweet potatoes. Wow, you would think he'd won the lottery! He ate those sweet potatoes like it was going out of style and couldn't get them fast enough! We will have to get more of those.

I steamed him some eggplant that I bought at the farmers market. I was a little nervous about it and I guess I haven't familiarized myself with my motherly-intuition-o-meter because I gave him like 3 bites and he was trying to figure out how to hock it back up. He just sat there and looked at me like...no, lady....this is not going to be ok. Then around his mouth got splotchy and I decided to stop feeding him eggplant before he went into anafaliactic shock. So I decided to try mushed up avacado. Yum o right? It's like guacamole with out the spice. He wasn't a fan of avacado either he just let it sit in his mouth. I couldn't even get any effort from him to swallow it. I think it had to do with the testosterone exuding from his dad standing nearby saying "we don't like no stinking vegetables, do we buddy?" So I ate the other half of the avacado and cut my eyes at his daddy for acting a fool and teaching our son bad habits.

We do fruits in the morning - pears, apples, bananas. We tried the Gerber peaches but they were too strong or something. I bought some fresh peaches the other day and pureed them, but he hasn't tried them. If he hates them it's ok - since I stuck them in the freezer they are already frozen and mommy can make her a daquiri or something tasty out of them. Same with the canteloupe and watermelon that turned to watery slosh after putting them in the food processor. I froze them and worst case scenario popcicles or fun ice cubes for mommys fun drinks.

Here is a tuckered out little monkey that fell back asleep eating his bananas.

Then we tried the sippy cup on Father's Day. That was an interesting concept. He knew what was in it, but couldn't figure out why it was different looking.

Yum - I think.

What is this thing?

Speaking of formula...I pretty much hit the mother load at Wal-Mart the other day. Similac Advanced (which is Hill's drink of choice) was $10 a container. Yes, I kid you not... TEN BUCKS! It's usually $21 and so I saw it. Walked by. Did a double take. Reversed. Picked up the container to see what it's malfunction was. Nothing weird except the price. So I went to the worker in that department and she said that the price was correct they had just way over ordered and they had to rid of the excess. Which had to be like two whole car loads worth because I got one car load. I wish I'd have taken pictures of them in my car. I looked like a door to door Similac sales man and the factory was in the back of my car. Instead I managed to get a picture of the Similac pyramid. Note that there are two supportive rows at the bottom. I bought 20 containers. Yes, you can do the math. I spent $200 - - but I saved $220! Hill will never want for formula ever for the rest of his life (I hope.)

On a different note, yet still related to food. Here is a picture of the cake they had at the Welcome Home celebration for our local troops last Friday. Hill didn't get any cake, but he did get to meet the heros that exhibit the truest form of honor and selflessness and are the symbol of our freedom. Our gratitude for them can't be spoken or written in words. There are none. What a privilege for Hill and I to be a part of something so wonderful.

Chippy had a fabulous first Father's Day. Hill pretty much 98.5% rolled over that day. He got all parts of his body over but his arm was stuck underneath which caused a problem and as far as I know...he's given up because he hasn't tried again. This morning we set him on his stomach and he props his arms and head up. I didn't witness it, but Chip said he lifted a knee as if to crawl. He pretty much can say Mama, but I don't think he associates it with me yet. I mean, I'm pretty much just sayin' he's the smartest sweetest good eatin' lil boy ever.
And once I figure out how to post video - - you can see how strong he is, how he loves to stand up 24-7, and how loud he can burp.

Have a great day!