Mommin' It Up!

About two weeks ago, when I was sure that Jonah was a champion nurser and was gaining weight, I started trying to get him to take a pacifier.  Because, REALLY, sometimes you need to have a way to quiet the baby!  Without sticking your bewb in his mouth.  I had hit some baby clearance while I was pregnant and had several different kinds of pacifiers for Jonah to try, plus I also had a few I had been sent for review. PLUS, I had the kind you get from the hospital and one with a cute little bear attached to it that my sister-in-law gave to Jonah.

So we tried some pacis.  And then we tried some more – and then – finally, we got him to take one! Just ONE out of the 5 or 6 different brands, and that blessed, golden pacifier is the NUK Genius.

(insert angels singing here!)

What’s so great about the NUK Genius?  Well, Jonah won’t tell me!  BUT, I am thinking it has something to do with its superior design.  It’s designed to be extra soft, extra thin, and reduce pressure on the jaw and the teeth to a minimum.  Plus, it’s natural shape simulates mom’s breast while breastfeeding.  And even though Jonah doesn’t know it, it’s BPA free, which I love!

So, there ya go.  The NUK Genius is Jonah’s paci of choice, and we already can’t live without it in my house!

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The nice people at NUK USA sent me a NUK Genius to review.  And luckily for us all, Jonah loved it!  All opinions in this post are totally mine.  And my baby’s.  Because neither one of us would lie for a $5 pacifier.

I come from a family of board-game lovers.  As a kid, I ate up the old-school Memory and Sorry games; as an adult, I love Yahtzee and all things Trivial Pursuit.

In light of this, I have an astonishing confession to make: I have thrown away more than one preschool board game of Joshua’s when he was little.  Because, they were just TORTURE to play.  Too long, too complicated, and ultimately just more stressful than fun!

So, when Sophie started expressing an interest in playing games, I was hesitant.  But, then, one day on a play date at Cortney’s, she fell in love with this game:

More accurately, she fell in love with it and then batted her long eyelashes and convinced Cortney to let her “borrow” it (which means we kept it and I bought Cortney’s boys a new one!).  But that ended up working out really well, because it is FUN to play!  Every member of our family (well, not the baby) really enjoys playing it.  It is SO age-appropriate for Sophie, but still fun for the rest of us.  Turns out, Cortney had received this game to review from the Wonder Forge, the genius creators of said game, and all the “I can do that!” games, and so she passed on my info to them and soon, a box of MORE wonderful games arrived at my door!  In the past week, we have had a great time playing with them as well!

Sophie really loo-oo-ooves this “What’s in the Cat’s Hat?” game as well!  It’s a fun game that combines sensory activities and guessing and careful thinking and reasoning, even!  It’s another one that our family enjoys, and it is really simple to learn, set up, clean up, and start playing.  Also, it doesn’t take long to play which means you can play several times in a row and still have time to get on with the rest of your life. 🙂

Another game we received and have really enjoyed is the Curious George Matching Game:

This is one of my favorites because matching games were my forte as a child.  I pretty much dominated in the matching game arena. 🙂  Sophie, Joshua, and I all love playing this together.  There are a LOT of cards though, so I suggest breaking them up into two sets if you don’t have a lot of time to play.  Sophie loves the TV show on PBS so she has a lot of fun finding matches of all her favorite folks, from the Man in the Yellow Hat to Chef Pasketti and Gnocchi that cat!

Finally, another one that’s really fun to play is the Discovery Garden.

It’s basically identical to the Curious George Beach Discovery game that Sophie first fell in love with, but with a garden instead of a beach.  There are lots of critters and tools to find – great learning for Sophie since her mama has not exactly exposed her to gardening much. 🙂  As a matter of fact, Sophie is bugging me to play this RIGHT NOW – so I gotta go – but go check out all the great I Can Do That! games from the Wonder Forge (you can buy them on Amazon) and bring some of this great, age-appropriate fun for your preschooler into your home – it will be fun for ALL of you, I promise!

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The Wonder Forge sent me three games to review.  This post and the opinions expressed in it are all my own.

One of the most challenging things on my Weight Watchers journey has been get-togethers with friends. I mean, it’s a great excuse to eat indulgent foods… and to eat too many of them!

Last week I had a few friends over to my house. I knew a couple of them were on Weight Watchers, like me, so I set out to find WW-friendly foods that we’d all enjoy – and that everyone else would too. After giving it some thought, I decided to have a Mexican-themed party, using some of my favorite recipes – just tweaked slightly – and some from the Weight Watchers Kitchen Companion iPad app!

The Kitchen Companion is another great tool – and it’s free to download. Anyone can use it, but WW e-tools subscribers can log in and have greater access. Here are some of the features:

Everyone who downloads the app can:
• Get the latest 10 featured recipes
• Save up to 10 favorite recipes
• Create custom shopping lists
• Set cooking timers in recipes
• Watch cooking technique videos
• Share recipes with email or Facebook

Subscribers to Weight Watchers Online & eTools can also:
• Find thousands of Weight Watchers recipes
• Access complete shopping, ingredient and equipment guides
• Get cooking primers and technique videos
• View exclusive recipe collections hand-picked by our editors
• Use the WeightWatchers.com Recipe Builder to create and edit recipes
• Send recipes to your Plan Manager for tracking

For the party I hosted, I particularly used the Recipe Builder… which actually I use just about every day to help me track my points! I just put in all the ingredients for a recipe and the number of servings, and the app does all the math and tells me how many points are in each dish. It also has ideas for less-points substitutions, which was helpful as I planned my party!

Here are the things I made:

Lime Chicken Soft Tacos

Ingredients
1 1/2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast meat – cubed
1/8 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 lime, juiced
1 teaspoon white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 green onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
10 (6 inch) flour tortillas
1 tomato, diced
1/4 cup shredded lettuce
1/4 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1/4 cup salsa

Directions
Saute chicken in a medium saucepan over medium high heat for about 20 minutes. Add vinegar, lime juice, sugar, salt, pepper, green onion, garlic and oregano. Simmer for an extra 10 minutes.
Heat an iron skillet over medium heat. Place a tortilla in the pan, warm, and turn over to heat the other side. Repeat with remaining tortillas. Serve lime chicken mixture in warm tortillas topped with tomato, lettuce, cheese and salsa.

Guess how many points is in a serving of the chicken. Ready? TWO. That’s it. I added some reduced-fat cheese and cilantro (and I personally skipped the tortillas) and voila – delicious!

I also made taco dip, made famous by my BFF Jess’s mom, Cheryl. Again, I used the Recipe Builder for substitution suggestions and to add up the points (5, in case you were wondering). Baked chips made it a really reasonable snack!

My friends brought other Mexican foods to round out the meal, but I knew with what I had prepared I could have a really satisfying dinner without completely blowing my diet. However, I was somewhat baffled by dessert.

I did a little digging and came across this brilliant – and incredibly simple – idea.

Chocolate-covered strawberries.

As you may know, all fruits (and most vegetables) are now ZERO points. Really, this blows options for low-point desserts wide open! My chocolate-covered strawberries were not nearly as pretty as the ones in the picture, but they tasted great and the only points came from the chocolate (which I went light on).

Want to skip the chocolate all together? Try this – strawberries & cream!

Perfect!

So, what are your go-to recipes (and how do you avoid blowing your diet) when you entertain?

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Weight Watchers provided me with an iPad and a three-month online membership to facilitate my review.