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First Birthday Party-Nico

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It’s about that time where I am starting to think about and plan Nico’s second birthday party! I can’t believe he will be 2 in August! My how the time flies! So I began reminiscing about his first birthday party and how much fun it was. A first birthday party is a major milestone and I had fun planning the day with all the little details I envisioned. I have been wanting to share about it for the longest time now so here it is! My goal was to create something that went along with a safari theme, was fun and handmade. I made most of the decorations myself and most of the food was also prepared by myself or family members. I hired an awesome photographer Deney Tuazon to capture the day for us. I am so glad I hired him because he took some incredible pictures that I can look back on for years to come and I was able to focus on setting up and entertaining at the party. Here are a few highlights and things I created for the party to hopefully give you some inspiration for planning your big day!

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I created a banner for the front entrance with balloons to match the safari theme and let guests know where the party was.

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I created a picture banner that I hung underneath the canopy that showed pictures of Nico from newborn to one year. I used safari themed scrapbook paper as my background and stenciled in the months with a black marker. Just whole punch the top sides and put a string through to hang.

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I also created a few extra photos that I spread around with the month it was taken and some had milestones on it.

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Nico’s birthday is in August which is a hot month where we live. So we set up a water play area for the kids to play. It was a hit on this HOT day! I also bought a mister that went underneath another canopy to blow some cool mist on the parents and the other play area I created.

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This was the other play area I set up. I just put out a mat with tons of toys and books for kids to play with.

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I created a time capsule where others could write a special note for Nico to open up on his 18th birthday. I also put some fun pictures and memories of the party for him in the capsule to look back on.

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I loved the fruit bowl that grandpa made for the party. I just told him what I envisioned, and he made it happen. He used cookie cutters that I bought on amazon to cut out animal shapes from the fruit and used skewers to poke in the watermelon basket to show them off. Such fun! I have a new fruit basket vision for his second birthday party… get ready grandpa!

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It’s Mexican tradition to have a pinata so we couldn’t have a first birthday without one!

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His auntie graciously got the pinata for him for his big day and filled it with cuties and safari themed finger puppets.

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I created a toddler snack table that was a hit with the kids. I had various organic snacks in different bowls.

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My favorite snack were the smoothies! I made about 4 different kinds of organic smoothies and put them in safari themed cups. I also made popsicles for the day too! They were a hit! I’m definitely doing this again!

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I put moss grass inside mason jars with a safari animal and hung them with moss wire along with shredded strips of safari themed fabric I picked up from the local fabric store. Everything hung from the canopy near the dessert table.

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I placed lots of different baby pictures of Nico and safari decor around the area. Loved my custom burlap runners from etsy!

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For favors: I filled mason jars with organic animal cookies and placed a safari animal “duckie” on top, tied with some ribbon and handmade thank you note.

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I also created a custom banner with Nico’s name on it using the same safari scrapbook paper and fabric that I used for other decorations. I found some cute safari animal stickers to use for the banner as well.

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Grandpa helped me make Nico his own coconut flour cake with coconut butter frosting. Nico wasn’t a huge fan and just wanted to eat the strawberries. haha I also made a cute cake banner with the safari scrapbook paper that said “Nico”. I used striped yellow straws to hold it in place.

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For everyone else we made homemade vanilla and red velvet cupcakes. I made custom toppers using toothpicks and these really cute metal animals I picked up from Michaels. The had metal twisties on that back that I was able to push down to hold onto the toothpicks. I also made some with the safari themed scrapbook paper. I thought they came out really cute. They were super easy to make too!

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By the end of the fun-filled day we were pooped and Nico was ready for a nap! He fell asleep soon after this picture was taken. I don’t think Nico’s second birthday will be quite like this, but I’m looking forward to celebrating his second birthday and thanking God for such a fun little boy to have part of our lives.

If you want to see more pictures from Nico’s party visit Deney’s blog.

A couple tips for planning a first birthday party:

Make sure the time of the party is during your babies happiest part of the day. Nico was still on 2 naps at this point so it was rough trying to figure out a time. But we decided to do it in between his naps because that was his best time of the day. Fresh from a nap and ready to play.

Keep the party short. We kept our party for 2 hours from 12-2pm.

Open presents when guests leave. This helps for keeping the party short, their attention spans in tact and you never know how your baby will react to opening a present. A few family members stayed later and after he woke up from his second nap we watched him open them. It was quite fun.

More first birthday party tips

More Inspiration from parenting.com

More Inspiration from hostess with the mostess

Photography by Deney Tuazon

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Chipotle Labels GMO’s

chipotle

If you look from the outside you would think that Chipotle doesn’t use GMO’s. I mean, their website says FOOD WITH INTEGRITY on it. They have a lot of great things going for them like using local ingredients, responsibly raised meat, pasture raised dairy and some organic ingredients. But, if you dig a little deeper they do in fact use GMO ingredients! I think it’s great that some restaurants, including Chipotle are jumping on the bandwagon and making it easier for consumers who want to avoid GMO’s in their diet. On their website you will now see a link entitled Ingredients Statement and on that page lists all of the ingredients used at Chipotle. If there is a G next to anything it means it is GMO or made with GMO ingredients. Most of the GMO’s they use are usually in the form of Corn or Soy. I just don’t understand why they source some great ingredients; some of them even organic and then ruin it with genetically modified oils! I’m also wondering why in Manhatten they use rice bran oil but for everywhere else they still use gmo soybean oil!? I don’t get it. Anyway, I am hoping they are able to eliminate them completely one day!!

Let’s face it. Living in our busy real world it is very difficult to avoid gmo’s all together. My goal is to try and avoid them as much as possible, but I know that I will consume them at times. If you want to avoid them completely either don’t eat there or choose a better option:

BEST THING TO GET AT CHIPOTLE?

Salad bowl with black beans, carnitas and salsa.

You can take a look at their ingredients list here to see what other options you have at Chipotle. But there is slim picking unfortunately.

Photo: Source

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Love-Things that Make Me Happy

Flip and Tumble Set of 5 Reusable Produce Bags: Go green and use these reusable produce bags for your fresh produce! I love that they are breathable, lightweight and eco-friendly!

My son helping me bake some mini carrot/zucchini oatmeal muffins. Yum!!

Organic Essence Products. All natural and they use eco-friendly packaging! Not only that but they are a wonderful company with great owners who truly care about offering safe and eco-friendly products to everyone.

This yummy brussels sprouts recipe!

Happy Weekend!!

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Fun-Popsicle Time

Summer is just around the corner and it’s the perfect time to talk about popsicles!! Have you ever read the label of a box of popsicles they sell at most stores? Most are filled with artificial colors, artificial preservatives, high fructose corn syrup and words that you can’t even pronounce. Some even contain Splenda! (Read here about why you don’t want to consume Splenda or any kind of “fake sugar” like that). An alternative to the store bought popsicles are homemade popsicles using fresh ingredients that you can feel good about serving your kids even for breakfast! I make popsicles year round for my toddler and feel so great about giving them to him at any time. They are so easy to make and he loves them so much that it makes my job of making them a joy! I love watching him chow down and get all messy. It’s so cute!

I’m so big on popsicles because they remind me of my childhood and who doesn’t like anything cold and tasty on a stick? It’s so refreshing during those hot days. You can even be super creative with your popsicles and put so many ingredients in them that are good for you! If your kid doesn’t like eating vegetables or fruit this is a great way to get them in. I’m not a huge fan of “hiding” veggies into things, but lets face it maybe your child doesn’t like the texture of a certain vegetable. Problem solved! Just put it in the popsicle and be sure to tell them what’s in it! It will taste so good that maybe they will start trying that vegetable outside of the popsicle. It’s even a great idea to have your children help make them! It’s really a fun way to get your kids involved in the kitchen and it’s a great bonding time too!

Here are some of my favorite things to begin making delicious and healthy homemade popsicles at home a breeze.

(Click on picture):

FAVORITE BOOK:

Ice Pop Joy by Annie Daulter

This book is great because it tells you everything you need to know about making homemade popsicles and even gives you lots of healthy and delicious recipes to try. This book has really inspired to stretch and go beyond the simple ingredients to create lots of new recipes for my little guy.

FAVORITE POPSICLE MOLDS:

Orka Silicone Ice Pop Molds

These are awesome because the popsicles come out super easy and I feel are the perfect size. If you don’t have popsicle molds you can even use ice cube trays with toothpicks or wooden popsicles sticks in them.

If you want to get a little fancier and want the popsicles within a few minutes the Zoku Popsicle maker looks awesome!
The only other thing you really need is some fresh ingredients and a blender to blend up all those yummy ingredients. My favorite blenders are either the Magic Bullet or Blendtec Blender. But any blender that blends is just fine!

5 Simple steps to creating your own popsicles at home:

Gather your ingredients.
Blend you ingredients.
Place in popsicle molds
Wait patiently for them to solidify.
Eat and enjoy!

It really is THIS EASY!!

My favorite ingredients to blend together:

Kale
Coconut Water
Strawberries
Bananas
Blueberries

Other tips:

I generally make a smoothie every day. If I have extra or leftovers I throw it into a popsicle mold so it doesn’t go to waste!
I don’t use juice because most juice has a ton of sugar that is unnecessary to make the popsicles taste good. Maybe when my little guy is older I may experiment with adding a little. But not at this point. It’s really not necessary! You can always try squeezing your own oranges and lemons and making your own fresh juice to add to your pops! Yum!
If you do dairy you can even add a little unsweetened yogurt or kefir into your ingredients!
Experiment with adding greens and other veggies into your molds. Don’t be afraid to mix fruits and veggies.
Look at the menu of your favorite smoothies shop and see what ingredients go well together!
Don’t be bias towards certain ingredients. Just because you don’t like a certain fruit or veggie doesn’t mean your child won’t like it!
Allow your older children to experiment with ingredients and make their own!

Here is some Inspiration via Pinterest for recipes to get you started.

Here are some other great Healthy Toddler Food & Snack Ideas.

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Quick Tip-Choose Grassfed

I took this picture on my trip over Spring Break. It was so cool seeing the cows just graze on the grass and enjoy the beautiful scenery and weather. With that gorgeous beach and green pastures what more can a cow ask for? If you eat meat this is the kind of meat you would want to choose to put in your body whenever possible. It may be impossible to eat like this all the time, but it’s a great goal to have. Choose grassfed whenever possible! Lets talk about why:

It has been well documented that products from animals raised on pasture are healthier for humans. From a nutritional standpoint, grass-fed beef is so completely different than grain-fed beef that you might think the meat came from two different types of animals. In fact, 100% grass fed beef is so good for you that it is actually considered a “health food”.

One of the biggest differences between grass-fed and grain-fed beef is overall fat composition. Grass fed beef is rich in all the fats now proven to be health-enhancing, yet low in the fats that have been linked with disease. The complete opposite is true of grain fed products.

Fat Profiles Of Grass Fed Beef

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Grass-fed beef is high in nutrients and contains all 22 amino acids, including the eight essential amino acids, which must be supplied in our diet.
Grass fed beef is leaner than grain-fed beef with much less saturated fat (also making it lower in calories, about 100 fewer calories per 6 ounces).

Data from J. Animal Sci 80(5):1202-11
Grass fed beef is high in Omega 3 fatty acids (60% of the fatty acids in grass are Omega-3s). However, the supply of Omega-3s drop each day that an animal spends in the feedlot.

Omega 3s Vanish In The Feedlot

Grass fed beef has the recommended 3:1 ratio of Omega 6 to Omega 3 fatty acids. General consensus is that a healthy diet needs to maintain a 4:1 or lower ratio of Omega 6:Omega 3. People whose diets exceed that ratio are at a higher risk for degenerative diseases such as Cardiovascular Disease, Cancer and Diabetes ( grain-fed beef can have ratios that exceed 20:1).
Grass-fed beef is a great source of CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) a recently discovered good fat that helps reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes, and a number of immune disorders.

Fat Ratios Key To Optimal Health

Maintaining Healthy Fat Ratios is one of the keys to maintaining optimal health.Nearly every biologic function in the human body is somehow interconnected with the delicate balance between omega 6 and omega 3 essential fatty acids. These fatty acids are considered essential nutrients critical to human health. But the human body is not capable of producing these essential nutrients, so we must get them from food.

In the United States, extensive use of vegetable oils and grain feeding of livestock have led to diets that are very high in Omega 6 and low in Omega 3 fatty acids. This fat ratio imbalance is a top contributor to the rise in degenerative diseases.

But the health benefits of grass fed beef do not stop there.

Grass-fed beef is an excellent source of Vitamin A (10 times more than grain fed), and is higher in Vitamin E (3 times more than grain fed beef).
Grass-fed beef is higher B vitamins, calcium, magnesium and potassium.

Health and Safety

Finally, when it comes to health and safety from food borne illnesses, grass fed beef is the clear winner.

Grass-fed beef is safe from Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as Mad Cow Disease (MCD).
The risk of E. coli infection is typically much lower in locally sourced grass-fed beef. The cattle are cleaner at time of slaughter and are typically processed by a skilled local butcher who takes great care to ensure the meat does not come into contact with feces. See our blog (The Daily Beef) for a more detailed comparison of E. coli risks between factory farmed beef and local, pasture raised beef.

Grass Fed Beef Scorecard

Grain Fed vs Grass Fed Beef
	Grain-Fed Beef	Grass-Fed Beef
Added Hormones	Usually	No
Fed Antibiotics	Usually	No
Fed Grain	Yes	No
Omega 6:3 Ratio	20:1	3:1
CLA (conjugate linoleic acid)	Low	High
Beta Carotene, Vitamin E & A	Low	High
Total Fat	High & Saturated	Proper Balance
E. Coli Risk (ground beef)	High	Very Low

When animals are raised in pasture where they are able to forage on their natural diet of grass, they live low stress, healthier lives. They dine on nutrient rich foods and are so healthy that there is no need to treat them with anti-biotics or other drugs. It seems like a simple concept but is somehow lost on most of us. Optimizing the welfare of the animal leads to healthier, happier animals which in turn optimizes the welfare of the people who eat them. Experience the grass fed difference and spread the word.

Source for pictures and content: Photo #1 Josefa Ciccarelli/ All other photos, charts and content via Only Grass Fed

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Fun-Spring Break Adventures-Carmel and Monterey

Last post I began sharing about our Spring Break Adventures. We started in Morro Bay and Big Sur in part 1 and this post will be all about Carmel and Monterey. This was probably my favorite part of the trip as we stayed the bulk of our time in Carmel.

CARMEL

While in Carmel we stayed at an adorable cottage called Edgemere Cottages just a couple blocks from the beach and a 10-15minute walk into town. Gretchen was our host at the cottage and she made us feel right at home. Each morning we woke up to delicious homemade breakfast and got to enjoy hot organic teas, views, and a warm cozy fireplace. There are a couple cats on the premises as well and you would sometimes find one snuggled up at the fireplace. Nico loved trying to play with them and pet them. We really enjoyed our stay here and highly recommend a visit soon! Carmel is a cute little town with lots of things to do. One morning we headed to Lobos State Park which is an amazing park just a short drive away! It has a beautiful hike, pretty water and lots of nature. Another day we walked a long the beach and headed to town browsing through the stores. There was a super cute children’s store called Star Child where I bought Nico some cute Tom’s and a Jelly Cat stuffed animal. There is also a good restaurant called Carmel Belle that has a fresh menu with organic options. They even have organic cookies if you are in the mood for a sweet treat! We also went to this restaurant called Mission Ranch that has beautiful views of the ocean, green pastures and sheep grazing. We LOVED Carmel and will definitely be making a trip back here again.

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MONTEREY

We took a day trip to Monterey to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the pier. The aquarium was fantastic! Full of fun things kids can see, touch and do. They even had little play areas for the kids. Nico really enjoyed himself. Something I noticed was that they did serve healthier options for food. Healthier then any aquarium I’ve ever been to in fact. I was impressed.

Before we headed to Oxnard we went to Earthbound Organic Farms Stand where we got to have lunch and walk around and view the grounds. They serve all Organic food, had an herb garden, kids garden, and market where you were able to buy farm fresh produce. I was able to pick up some upstarts to plant in my new garden as well! Loved this place and so glad we got a chance to go!

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Fun-Spring Break on the Central Coast-Morro Bay & Big Sur

This Spring Break we decided to stay local and visit the Central Coast. I have been wanting to do this trip for a while now so I am so happy that we made it happen. We went to Morro Bay, Big Sur, Carmel, Monterey and ended the trip in Oxnard. It was magical. We planned it out so we didn’t have to drive too much while Nico was awake. It’s not fun driving when you have a restless toddler in the car seat. An hour of driving while awake is tops for us. haha We left on a Friday night so Nico would fall asleep for the 3 hour drive that was a head of us. He slept the entire way (thank goodness!) and we stayed the night in Morro Bay to start our adventures. I definitely recommend this trip for anyone who loves nature, the outdoors, hiking, pretty water, shopping, and nice views. We went to several places and I took so many pictures so I will share it in two different posts.

MORRO BAY

We started our trip in Morro Bay. We woke up early and walked into town to explore. It was pretty quiet at 8am and it seemed as though we were the only ones walking around. We rented a surrey and rode it to take a look at the famous Morro Bay Rock. We drove around and had a blast looking at all of the beautiful scenery. Then we found a super cute park for Nico to play in at the other end of town. He had a lot of fun playing on the pirate ship and throwing the sand around. We ended the day at Sunshine Health Foods and Shine Cafe, a natural foods store and cafe. I felt right at home because I was able to pick up some necessities that I forgot like a travel size of Dr. Bronners body wash and some Tom’s Deodorant. It was like a mini wholefoods and I loved the quaintness of it all. The cafe next door was awesome as well! They had delicious smoothies and healthy food. Score!

BIG SUR

From Morro Bay we drove highway one and was able to check out amazing views all along the coast. Big Sur is absolutely beautiful. I highly recommend visiting Julia Pfieffer State Park . It’s a VERY short hike with beautiful nature and stunning views. We even got to see a guy play a ukulele while sitting on a huge branch over looking the ocean. Nico was dancing and having a blast listening to the music, climbing everything and searching for lizards and rolly pollys. We ended up at Nephenthe Cafe which is famous for it’s breathtaking views and simple, yummy menu.