Halloween!

We've been having a fun fall! I've been making a bunch of fun Halloween sandwiches (just sandwiches cut with a cookie cutter) Butter, cheese and pickles is the current favorite. James' own creation. If he likes it who am I to complain. Here's a ghost with grape bugs and eyeballs:

Acorns (a treat)



Spider (cheese, pretzels, raisins)


We're still plugging along. Kaylee hasn't been weighed recently. I tried to get her in to see the Developmental specialist but they make it impossible - shouldn't be that hard for existing patients to be seen! I mean really?! I have to call 3 months in advance and the appointments fill up that fast and really you can't schedule into the next month? You want me to call every day until you have the new calendar available? Really!? Anyway..... She sees the Ped Endocrinologist in December.
James weighed in at 28 1/2 lbs when he was seen for his cough last week. I just don't understand. Would my kids not weigh anything if I didn't go to all the extra effort to boost calories like I do??!? I guess I'm getting myself into one of my frustrated moods. Kaylee has decided it's grand fun to drop her food on the floor. She eats a few bites and then it's game on. I really want to force her to cut back on the toddler milk, but I know she gets all her calories that way.
On a bright note: She's learned to bite things! Cereal bars, cookies, chips, muffins, lots of things! And she loves that danonino yogurt. She grabs them out of the fridge and says "ogurt pleeeeasseee!" How can I refuse even though i know it's going to mean an extra bath?! She loves feeding herself yogurt.


A tip to increase calories for this post: I add cool whip to chocolate pudding. I am lazy and I buy the store brand (Hunts I think has the most calories per serving) and I add cool whip. You can make a cute ghost with it using sprinkle or chocolate chip eyes.

New Schedule

James is now in preschool 3 days a week. That's caused us to have a slightly new schedule. This has led to Kaylee falling in love with her snack cup! She seems to be eating more. She'll have a snack while waiting to get J from school and still sit down and eat lunch with us.
And the "fun" lunches have been cut back. The good thing is that J seems to come home hungry (even though they give them a snack) He now likes peanut butter and banana sandwiches and bread and cheese and pickle sandwiches. A monkey (use your imagination!) A pig and a bear with some bear friends. Halloween is coming - I have lots of ideas! (we'll see if I can get into the groove of this new schedule and find the time)


As for calorie options: Kaylee had raviolis (gerber toddler ones) and we added butter to the top.
James has started eating hot dogs (cut into bite size pieces) inside a hotdog bun with ketchup and mustard. He will eat 2 buns, 1 hot dog for lunch this way. *But be sure the ketchup is on the bottom! haha*
We've been snacking on cubed cheese (colby jack). They like it with crackers or veggie sticks or just about anything! And apples with peanut butter or caramel dip. Fried apples are good and you can top pancakes with them but the kids aren't really fans. I bought some mini muffins at the store (little debbie maybe?) and they both like those in the morning (So do I) I must get myself a mini muffin pan asap!! The fall baking season is about to start!

Still fun!

Kaylee's still small, but doing well! James starts preschool this week! Where is all this time going? His school is nut free, but thank goodness he doesn't eat lunch there. His favorite right now is peanut butter sandwiches. Almost every day he asks for a PBand J with no jelly. Who am I to say no?! I am not sure what I'll feed him when he has to take a lunch and it's a nut free school....Guess I'll start doing my research and testing now!
Still doing the fun lunches - he eats it up. And when I do bento style lunches (small portions of several different foods) he loves that too. I may just have to purchase an actual bento box set. Here's some of our fun foods:

A strawberry mouse with a banana tail, and some blueberry "bugs" with banana wings and antennae.
Buttered bread with marshmallow teeth, marshmallow and chocolate chip eyes. He ate this with a bowl of soup.
A raspberry and blueberry flower with pretzel stick stem. Strawberry and cracker butterflies with blueberry eyes.
Dog Pb&J Minus J. Cracker ears, marshmallow eyes, scooby snack crackers and a splitz yogurt.

Grilled cheese fish sandwich with some small cracker buddies.

And just so you don't think Kaylee gets left out: Though the fun in her lunch is dumping the entire plate onto her tray. (she has wagon wheel noodles with butter that I cut up for her, deli chicken - Boarshead everroast mmmm - and some cheese.)

As for the high calorie aspect of these lunches: We add double peanutbutter to his sandwiches, butter to his soup, butter to the noodles, I put butter on both sides of the grilled cheese and double the cheese and then he dips into mustard or ranch or ketchup... We've also had "brinner" alot. Thats breakfast for dinner. Bacon and pancakes or banana pancakes with a side of hashbrowns and eggs. Or french toast. If you want to add extra calories to those just use heavy cream instead of milk. Top with syrup, whipped cream, yogurt or jelly (or ice cream topping) We had fried apples on top of pancakes two weeks ago to get into the fall season. It was so good!
I can't wait to start doing my fall baking!

More fun food!

James still really enjoys "Fun Lunches" here are a few of my latest attempts:

Mouse
Smurf houses/toadstools/mushrooms
Mouse ("warehouse mouse")

Wall-E

I find that he eats more if I do Bento style lunches. (Small servings of a bunch of foods.)

Kaylee had a trip to the ER. She slipped and hit her head. She checked out ok and did wonderfully during the whole thing (CAT scan included!) She weighed in at 17lbs though. She's still gaining slowly but surely. Her new favorite foods are yogurt and cereal bars.

As for high calorie stuff - we still do what we can to add to their foods. Kaylee still gets 27 cal/oz toddler formula. She's finally starting to learn how to use straws so I see a lot of shakes in her future! James loves his peanut butter lately. He's also discovered that apples go well with peanut butter and caramel.

CF

This website has some high calorie recipe ideas for kids. It's meant for kids with CF. James took the sweat test and passed so no CF but we can still use the calories! http://kidshealth.org/kid/recipes/cf_recipes/about_cf_recipes.html


Fun foods: This week we've had a turtle shaped quesadilla, butterfly pastas with leaf shaped cheese, a bear face sandwich, cucumber and pretzel tree, and pumpkin shaped sandwich with pumpkin puzzle cheese and watermelon. And James has eaten his lunch every day with no complaints. EVERYDAY. Looks like i'll be continuing on with the fun lunch stuff. Good thing a Party City just opened in the shopping center up the road! (and I'll post pictures shortly.)




Kaylee lost 2oz at her last weigh in, but grew 1/4 of an inch. And she graduated from Physical Therapy!!! Yeah!! We might start adding Duocal to her diet. I think I can be sneakier than when we tried it with James..... We shall see.

Fun lunches

Just getting started so cut me some slack. Here's our first "fun lunch". A sailboat sandwich with pirates treasure fruit and dip. (and veggie sticks)

James ate the whole thing and more fruits and veggie sticks.

I'm collecting more "tools"and gadgets for more fun lunches. Hopefully more creative than this one~ stay tuned!

Slowly but surely...

Kaylee is up to 16lbs 6oz and 30 1/4 inches. Not huge but she's growing and that's all that matters. James outgrew 2 pairs of shoes this summer and his jeans are SO short. We have alot of shopping to get to this fall!

The other night we had Banana "coins" or banana pancakes for dinner. It was a huge hit! All I did was dip bananas cut into small circles in the pancake batter and then tossed it on the griddle.
Today for lunch I served his sandwich and yogurt with blueberries in a pirate muffin cup with a pirate flag (toothpick/food pick) and James loved it so much. That means I'm going to go ahead and dig out the cookie cutters and start making lunch time fun. It might mean a few extra minutes preparing the meal, but if I don't have to say "eat your food" 1000 times it'll be worth it. I'm also hoping to get him to try new things. If it looks this cool/fun it MUST be good right?! I sure hope so! I'll post pictures as we start doing this - first I have to get everything together and get some meals planned. (I'm sure my husband will appreciate it if I don't go out and spend a mini fortune on this stuff all at once too!) I'm excited though so I hope it rubs off on James - and in turn Kaylee too.