meredith ward: August 2012

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

her dad

She is going to have so much fun with him...

Friday, August 24, 2012

food

I've become pretty interested in food lately. I've always been interested in eating it, but lately I've been more interested in where it really comes from and what's really in it.

about a year ago, I saw an episode of Oprah talking about where our food comes from. They talked a lot about the book & movie Food Inc. I meant to read or watch it, but never did.

a few months ago my friend Melissa was telling us about the movie and basically how their eating habits changed. I finally rented it from our local library.

You need to watch this movie. Everyone should watch to know where their food is coming from and the deceitfulness behind it all. We cannot afford to buy everything organic, but we are taking small steps to get away from things that are contributing to this "fake food system". Jack and I both agreed that our food is something we look at as an investment. We are hoping to keep medical costs down by eating well. This has been really hard lately with food prices rising. I rarely get out of the store these days paying less than $80-120/week. Jack did make me feel better after breaking it down into meals and how many we were able to get out of it. We are able to get three meals a day plus snacks for about 5.5-6.5 days, and this is eating mainly good fruits, veggies, and meats. We usually only eat out if it's a date or if meeting friends somewhere.

This whole dilemma has forced me to start cooking and planning meals a lot more than I used to. I'm actually really enjoying it and have started trying new things.

a few successes lately have been:

Zucchini Breakfast Casserole

This is really good. very lite compared to your casseroles loaded with meat.

(I added some extra hot sauce and some Chops seasoning. I also omitted the bread and just spooned everything into a pie crust).

Fruit & Spinach Smoothie

this is basically just a smoothie I make when i don't have time to cook anything. I usually don't measure anything out, but basically it's blueberries, strawberries, greek yogurt, spinach, some flax seeds, chia seeds, protein powder, and water and/or milk. In my opinion, the spinach enhances the flavor of the fruit.

Quinoa Protein Bars

These are actually really good. The first time I made them, I omitted things I didn't have (dates and chocolate silk greens). I also froze them in balls like she suggested, but will not do that again because it made them hard to eat. The second time I added protein powder and omitted the banana, and liked them much better. These are great for a guiltless chocolate craving.

Also, did you know you could be featured on a website and not know it? I happened to find this after noticing a traffic source coming from Disney Baby. It was weird seeing it on there...i think mainly because I didn't know! Good surprise I guess;) Check your traffic sources!

Thursday, August 23, 2012

half a year

I can't believe Ames is 6 months old already. Goodness.

With 6 months comes solids. I don't care for solids much. I remember wishing for the day I would be finished with breastfeeding, but now I would much rather breastfeed than prepare food because of the cost and ease of it, not to mention the smell of her dirty diapers now..nasty. Yes, this picture is for real. Things got a little out of control to say the least.

Ames was a trooper for her 6 month photo shoot. We only had one spill on the hardwoods, and it wasn't that bad.

This is her koala bear. I'm surprised we haven't named him yet. He sings "I come from a land down under." He's like our live-in nanny. With the press of his button she suddenly stops crying, and he can even get her to eat..it's really crazy. His battery is dying right now so he sounds pretty creepy, but she doesn't seem to mind.