I know you are tired of hearing me say this and I sound like an annoying broken record, but here we are in mid-April and sick again!!.. arg!!! We are in a vicious cycle of sick for a week, recover for a week, feel better for a week, rinse and repeat, over and over for 5 months now. I would have started to pull my own hair out by now but that is already happening so I will be good and leave it alone.

When I have felt like cooking, this are the meals I fed my kiddos this month. It is spring and that shows in our food – a mixture of winter meals and fresh almost-here summer meals. Transition months are always funny because you go and make a big pot of soup when it is snowing out and then the next day it is 70 and sunny and there is no way my body wants something so warm.

Toddler – Ellie’s Meals

Breakfast

I feel like I am in an oatmeal and yogurt breakfast rut! Do you ever feel that you serve the same thing for breakfast every morning? I need to amp up my game – maybe some eggs, some fun toast spreads or even some fun waffles… the wheels are turning so we shall see what I come up with for next months post!

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Meal – beet and carrot oatmeal (recipe) with seeds and a drizzle of maple syrup, pear and blueberry salad and 1/2 piece of whole wheat toast with homemade peach butter. Verdict – I made this oatmeal for the entire family (pureed for baby) and we all were amazed how much it tasted like carrot cake! Yum!! Ellie ate the oatmeal and toast but left the fruit salad untouched, which I used for her snack.

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Meal – make your own yogurt parfait with strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, shredded coconut, mixed nuts, granola and plain yogurt. Verdict – she was pretty excited about this DIY breakfast and was completely covered in yogurt and all the toppings as she attempted to sprinkle the toppings onto the yogurt and mix it by hand. Apparently the spoon couldn’t do that job:)

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Meal – Aloha oatmeal – oats with dried pineapple, flax seeds, chia seeds and shredded coconut, a green smoothie made with spinach, kale, cucumber, frozen peaches, hemp seeds and almond milk, and a 1/2 piece of whole wheat toast with raspberry peach jam. Verdict – she drank 2 helpings of the smoothie, ate the toast but only had 2 bites of her oat. I on the other hand ate all my oatmeal.

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Meal – apple + quinoa pancakes with apple syrup, blackberries and 1 piece of chicken sausage. Verdict – she devoured the berries and sausage but only had one pancake, which was funny since of course she asked for pancakes that morning.

Lunch/Dinner

Dinners have been a little scattered around here lately because now that the days are nice and it is lighter later, we have often opted out of cooking dinner for riding our bikes to our local beer garden and getting some burgers with the kids while sitting outside to enjoy the warmth on our skin.

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Meal – grilled chicken with bbq sauce (it’s grilling season!!!), roasted potatoes with paprika, garlic and thyme, beet + carrot salad with feta and left over apple and blueberry salad. Verdict – Ellie ate 2 pieces of apple, 3 potatoes and then called it bath time. It had been a very long day and of course it ended with tears (hers as well as mine) but I put her to bed, ate her left over chicken and had a glass of wine while standing at the counter wishing the dishes could wash themselves.

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Meal – grammy’s chicken enchiladas (recipe will be in my new book coming June 1 at a bookstore near you:) with avocado, shredded carrots and a bowl of applesauce with blueberries. Verdict – I have been nixing her afternoon snacks because she usually sleeps until 4 and then we eat at 6, so she isn’t hungry for dinner, so today she ate everything except the carrots. She wouldn’t even take 1 bite of them, which is our house rule, so she couldn’t get an extra serving of applesauce, which of course led to a giant tantrum while I was trying to enjoy my meal. But I stayed strong and she finally gave up and just sat there pouting about it all meal.

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Meal – toddler lunch, sometimes you just gotta give a toddler a toddler meal=) organic chicken nuggets (from Whole Foods), grape and melon finger salad and a side of avocado. Verdict – she ate 2 of the nuggets and 1/2 of the avocado but no fruit! NO fruit! Something must be wrong because usually fruit is the first thing that gets polished off but this month she has been not into it.

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Meal – aidelle’s chicken meatballs with pineapple, red and yellow peppers over brown rice, peas and ice cream with peach jam on top. Verdict – of course I didn’t give her the ice cream up front, I held that back as my secret weapon. Ellie had a tough day and needed something a little fun so ice cream was in order. She ate all the rice she could pick off her plate (is my toddler the only one that refuses to eat with a utensil?), 2 of the meatballs and 1 big bite of peas. Oh, and of course ALL of her ice cream! Dinner was a win!

Baby – Parker’s Meals

Breakfast

Baby Parker is eating up a storm!! I can’t stop her, she wants it all and if that spoon is not near her mouth when she is ready for another bite, booooooy I am going to hear about it! I have to be ready and on my A-game when I am feeding her! She means business and her business is to eat as much yummy food as possible in the shortest time possible so she can get back to learning how to crawl (noooo… not yet!). A girl after my own heart!

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Meal – hard boiled egg mashed with some warm breast milk (you can also use formula) and a cube of purple carrot + blueberry puree (recipe) thawed and mixed with some smashed banana. Verdict – both were still a little too chunky for baby, so I smashed it down with the back of my spoon as I fed it to her and she loved it.

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Meal – blueberry + banana + greek yogurt with cinnamon puree for baby and a simple smoothie for me. It looks a little runny in the picture but was actually perfect for her, plus you can make it as thick as you want by adding less or more yogurt. Verdict – she devoured it and was eyeing my smoothie for seconds!

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Meal – mango + mint puree, purple carrot + blueberry puree and sweet potato with curry puree (recipe). Verdict – needless to say she loved it all and I have to get seconds of everything for her. Man does she pack away the ounces.

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Meal – baby dinner of cantaloup + banana puree, broccoli + leek with quinoa puree and butternut squash + apple with a little yogurt (all recipes found here). Verdict – I might need a bigger plate!!! Baby Parker is packing away the ounces and I have moved her to 3 puree meals a day plus 1 snack time puree or smashed avocado or banana. She still doesn’t like butternut squash, no matter what I mix it with I get this ‘hey mom, I know what you are doing’ look! This was her first meal with quinoa and she loved it!

What are your kiddos eating this month? I would love to see. Post a pic on Instagram #kiddomeals and follow me @babyfoode to see more of meals during the month.