Healthy Meal: Berry Baby Breakast Smoothie Recipe

In the Arrayan house, we love breakfast!  Food just tastes yummier in the morning.  Digestion is at its peak after a restful night.  Now is the time to give your body food it can use!

Heres a recipe I used this morning for the baby, but its delicious enough for even the most discerning adult.  The thing I love about smoothies is that there is no one way to make them and its very difficult to mess them up.  Its also super easy to sneak extra nutrition in, which is always fun with kids!

Berry Baby Breakfast Smoothie

1C almond milk (any milk will do)
1/2 banana
1/4C blueberries (or berries of choice)
1.5Tbs Shaklee Protein Powder (either flavor)


Add-ins (this is the fun/sneaky part)

1tsp Shaklee Kids Multivitamin Powder
1 tablet chewable Cal-Mag
1Tbs wheat germ
1 squirt flax seed oil

Put it all in a blender and blend until smooth.

Serve with a handful or two of Oat Os for a fanastic, delicious breakfast!

When Is the Right Time for the First Haircut?

The way this originally was explained to me, it is considered bad luck to cut a child's hair before they are a year old (Filipino superstitions).

Now that the boy is a year and some change, I think its time to give those golden locks a buzz, or at least a trim.  Mr A has been surprisingly resistant to the idea!  People have started mistaking our son for a girl, but not even a question of manhood could compel my darling husband to trim those curls!  I wonder why he's so anti-haircut?

I started putting his hair in ponytails in an attempt to drive home the reality of his androgony (the pink barrette was a bit overboard - but drastic times call for drastic measures) and Mr As only reply was that the baby looked like a "sumo wrestler!"

Hair grows back.  So do I cut it when Mr A is at work and let that be the final word or should I just let it grow because, in the end, its not that important to me anyway?   ..and that ponytail sure is cute.

The Master Cleanse

Two years ago I did "The Master Cleanse".  Its basically a 14 day fast where you only drink lemonade thats made of lemon juice, maple syrup, water and cayanne pepper.  You take laxative tea at night and flush your bowels by drinking salt water in the morning.  I liked the results and want to give it another try.  Ive been feeling all weird since giving birth and would like a fresh and clean slate (not to mention my acne is starting to act up again).

This time around is different though because Im going it alone, Mr A and Baby Ickey will still be eating regularly.  In the interest of keeping this blog about babies and not about my colon, Ive decided to tweet about The Master Cleanse and keep the blog business as usual.  So follow the link in the side bar and follow my fasting on Twitter!

Trick or Treat! Sticky Rice and Mango Pumpkins

Halloween was a blast!  We went to an awesome party down in Waikoloa.  We were even able to squeeze in 3 houses of trick or treating between poker and ping pong!

Some people pulled out all the stops!  This garage in particular, with its rabid Easter bunny and ambiguously real or fake inhabitants was super spooky.  Ikaika did go all the way inside (walking on his own - I didnt carry him in) and after several enthusiastic encouragements ("look at the cute bunny!"  "Kaika, look! A mouse!"  "What a precious little dragon!"" etc) he even seemed to like the decorations, especially the anamatronic undead animals.

One person gave us pretzels and another gave fruit snacks so Im encouraged to see people chosing different options than straight up candy.  And the pretzels complimented by beer-in-a-plastic-cup perfectly!

I made these cute rice pumpkins for Halloween.  Its sticky coconut rice with mango slices underneath.  The pumpkin tops are celery greens.  I got the recipe at Super Healthy Kids and changed it slightly by using sweet/mochi rice (coloring the soaking water orange) and mixing the steamed rice with a coconut milk and sugar mixture.  I think they turned out so cute and they were good (although not as sweet as normal because I couldnt add too much milk or they wouldnt stick together).

Sewing my first Halloween Costume

I am so excited about this costume!!!

I was poking around Craftster and I came across this awesome Starfleet Commander's uniform. Thinking back to the countless hours I spent with my dad watching Star Trek the Next Generation, nights my sister and I would pretend our trundle bed was the USS Enterprise, and reveling in my general nerdiness, I knew this was the perfect first Halloween costume for my kid!


I LOVE THIS SHIRT! I can already tell that its going to get a life beyond Halloween. Its perfect for HPA basketball games.

I ended up using 2 T shirts from the thrift store ($1 each), cutting and piecing the whole thing back together. Im sure theres an easier way to do it, but all together this project still only ran me about 2 hours of time. The communicator and rank insignia are irridescent gold & silver puff paint. The sleeves are a bit short but I think this will work out well considering we are Trick-or-Treating in Waikoloa, Land of Hot.

Speaking of Trick-or-Treating, Im not sure how this is going to work out. We dont let Ickey eat candy and Mr A doesnt eat candy and I dont need to be eating any candy right now...so why are we even doing this? In all likliness we will knock on 3 doors, take a few pictures, and then head over to whoevers house has the BBQ and beer.

Snuffy - the runny nose lifesaver

It goes by many names: Snuffy, Snuffalufagus, Squeegee, Nose Squishy. But, no matter what we call it, I couldn't survive a runny nose without it.

When I was pregnant and this was on the checklist, I was thinking 'i am ever going to use this thing?'. The answer is YES!!! Because the baby doesn't have the capability to blow his own nose, this thing gets all the boogers and snot out so he can breathe easy (for at least a few minutes). Our child actually sits still and let's us clear his nasal passages, probably because he enjoys the relief so much.

Ickey has had a runny nose for the past week and the one day we misplaced the Snuffy...well, let's just say it was ugly.

Ditching the Diapers - Phase Two: Wee Weka Knickers and Small Potty

All great minds think on the pot...


In case you were wondering - he's reading Little Husky's Big Game, a rhyming board book about The Apple Cup (UW vs WSU). I like the book because it uses terminology like "tight end", "nose guard", "screen", and "that punt's got hang time". Precious and educational. Ickey likes it because it combines his two great loves: dogs and football.

Notice the infant toilet. No baby bjorn but it is two pieces, easy to clean, and whimsical without being annoying.


So here are some training pants I made using the super SIMPLE tute for Wee Weka Knickers over at The Nappy Network.
Id like to thank my mother for sending me two shirts that no grown woman could ever hope to fit into! One shirt, as small as they were, made two pairs of knickers. I lined them with microfiber cloths I had in my diaper stash.


Even thought this material is surprisingly sturdy, I would like to try making trainers with PUL or some other water proofing material on the outside. The baby is far FAR from using the potty consistently so I'm trying to find the perfect compromise between full blown diapers and underwear.

I also want to figure out how to make one of these piddle pad things for the car seat! Although for 8 bucks - I should save myself some sanity and just buy the damn thing for Christmas.