lactation granola bites

since alice was tongue tied and had a tough time removing milk and i have supply issues to begin with, i've been trying to eat lots of things to help up my supply. some of them are yummy - like this recipe - and some not so much (fennel/barley water - ew.) i was thinking about making lactation cookies, but every time i thought about the 2 cups of sugar that most recipes call for and my complete lack of self control around cookies*, i decided to try something different. this recipe was adapted from shutterbean's peanut butter granola ball recipe that became an instant favorite of mine. i think i made it the very same day she blogged about it, and have been making it for meetings and classes and such that i'm supposed to take food to. so i just added the brewer's yeast and flax seed that is in most lactation cookies and - tada!

lactation granola bites

• 1/3 cup honey / agave nectar


• 1/3 cup natural peanut butter (crunchy, please!)


• 2 Tbs. butter


• 3 Tbs. brewer's yeast (i'm going to try 4 next time)


• 3 Tbs. milled flax seed


• 1 cup oats


• 1 cup crispy rice cereal


• 1/3 cup dried fruit (mmm raisins - heaping 1/3 cup for me)

melt together the butter, honey/agave, and peanut butter on the stove or in the microwave. stir in everything else. this time dumped it all in at once - next time i might stir in the brewer's yeast and flax seed first. scoop out tablespoon fulls and put them in mini muffin papers (or use a little ice cream scoop if you have one - i wish i did!) refrigerate until they firm up a bit and then enjoy!

*i dont really have much self control around these granola bites either.. but they are at least a bit healthier!

2 months

alice at 2 months old

she got upset during her photo shoot and had to be nursed to sleep

sleepy girl

she seems to smile more and more every day. her favorite place to be is still next to me, and she spends quite a few hours every day being worn. in fact, she doesnt nap very well during the day unless she is in a carrier of some sort. sometimes she'll chill out propped up in the recliner - especially in the morning while i round up breakfast for the boys. the boys do all sorts of crazy dances to keep her entertained (and me entertained as well). i think at some point we might invest in a bumbo, because she loves to be sitting upright - but i'm not sure what age those are recommended for.

camp recipe

i can't remember what website i saw this on, but we gave this camp meatloaf a try and it was YUM.

first you get two or three layers of an onion and chop up some of the onion innards to add to some meat. i did three onions but didnt use all the onion innards. i used some ground turkey - added the onion, salt and pepper, egg, some crushed up sun chips (i was going to throw in some bread crumbs, but the boys were gone in the car which had the bread in it) and i'm not sure what else.

then you stuff the onions with your meatloafy mixture and wrap it all up in foil.

then you put jeremy to work making fire and cooking up all the goodies you've prepped. we ate this meatloaf with the potato and asparagus packs that i showed in the last post.

i think we cooked it at least 30 min or so... i'm not really sure. a meat thermometer would have come in handy here.

and then the boys gave it a test run. jeremy said it was the best meatloaf he had ever had! and oscar finished his meatloaf way before any of his potatoes and asparagus were gone. for dessert we had banana smiles - we went through a lot of foil that night.

springtime camping

we were really looking forward to going camping this spring since we didnt get to do any camping last year. also, we got some new camping gear money from mom and dad for our birthdays and christmas, so we wanted to test out our new stuff! plus it was alice's first camping trip!

oscar, alice and i went the the campground on friday to pick out a site and get some things set up. it's hard finding a site that has room for a tent, but finally we found a nice one.

then alice took a nap just long enough for me to set up the new tent

and then it was oscar's turn for a nap

and later (much later) we had hobo pies by candlelight

we zipped our giant sleeping bags together into a huge family sleeping bag and it was so snuggly! oscar spent most of the night in his wall-e sleeping bag which is made of the slippery stuff, so he slid all over the tent. jeremy tucked him in with me and alice when he left to go fishing in the morning.

we went over by the playground and grilled hot dog and hamburgers for lunch. oscar's favorite part of the trip was probably playing on the playground.

alice and i did some food prep while oscar and jeremy went fishing. mmm... asparagus!

alice spent a little bit of time with jeremy, but most of her time was spent in a baby carrier attached to me!

tongue tied

so it turned out that alice (like oscar before her) was born tongue tied. i knew from birth we were having issues with latch, but when i looked at her tongue (apparently not closely enough) while we were in the hospital, it didnt have the heart shape that oscar's had when he was born. so 8 weeks later she was finally diagnosed. and this time around i knew of an excellent dr that specializes in breastfeeding medicine, so off we went! (oscar is still tongue tied - when i asked the dr in town about clipping it when oscar was a baby (because we were having so many breastfeeding issues) he scoffed at me and told me that people dont do that anymore!) here are some photos from alice's frenotomy-

here is a before

and another before picture - can you see how the tongue goes down in the center instead of lifting up?

and here you can see the frenulum

and just a quick snip snip - which takes less than a minute

and then back to nursing, which helps control any bleeding. oscar took these last 3 pictures for me

she still had to re-learn how to nurse, and STILL doesnt latch on right sometimes, but we're getting better at it every day!

alice handled it like a champ and it didnt seem to bother her. i expected there to be at least some extra grumpiness, but she maintained her normal amount of grumpiness!

the ladies at the mississippi breastfeeding medicine clinic were wonderful! i'm so glad i knew about them this time around. head on over to facebook and like their page for great breastfeeding info!