Highs and Lows

I planned on linking up with Shannon from L.A.I.D. again for So What Wednesday today but after thinking through what my 'So Whats' would be I decided against it.  In my head they sounded pretty depressing.  I don't feel the need to only write about the good things, but I didn't want a Woe Is Me post either.  Instead I thought about some highlights, low-lights, and Pintrials of the week and that sounded better.

Noah and I started swim lessons on Tuesday at the Homestead Aquatics Center.  We are doing a bi-weekly class for 3 weeks and it was pretty inexpensive, even for non-CH residents.  I love to swim, love it; so I was pretty excited to start the class.  Though I was a bit schedule-anxious; the class starts at 9 about 30 minutes from home and Noah usually gets up around 8.  But guess what, he woke up around 7:15 for our first class.  This is kinda a low-light in the grand scheme of things though, especially with daylights savings Spring Ahead coming (and the fact that this morning it was 6:35!).  When the instructor said she had been doing this for 56yrs I got a little worried, but it was fun.  It was the first class, but she did a lot of talking in the beginning and Noah was ready to go.  The facility is really nice and had a big zero-entry side for lessons separate from the lap lanes.  The pool was pretty warm.  So far no complaints and we did get a picture together too, but the instructor hasn't emailed it.  I'm looking forward to our next class and am a little sad the class is only 3 weeks long, though bi-weekly with a 30minutes commute would get old quick.

I'm working on my discipline techniques with Noah (well... all of us are- this is a family activity) because he's starting to test us and I need some tools to use.  One of the first issues we wanted to work on is Noah throwing [insert any noun] from his highchair.  Thankfully the book I just read had a section dedicated to this very problem.  He does do it in restaurants but not as readily and frequently as at home.  So the advice given in this book is to warn once, "We don't throw food on the floor."  Next time it happens give the threat, "If you throw anything on the floor again your meal is over and you are getting out of your chair."  Third offense and he's outta there; he can go play while we finish our meal and he can eat again at his next snack/meal time.  I've been doing this, which means Noah has been eating a little less than usual.  I have two problems with this plan: 1) I thought we would only need to go through this a few times to get the behavior to stop because it feels a bit drastic but instead he is doing it more!  I'm guessing he's trying to break me and see if I really mean business every.single.time.  2) He usually starts throwing his food when he's not that interested in food any longer so he could care less that he doesn't get to eat anymore.  He does care that he can't sit with us though.  Cleaning up food off the floor all.week.long has been a low point for me this week.



Noah and the Husband both like yogurt and the Husband was told to get a little more probiotics this week. I swear I saw on Pinterest Frozen Yogurt Bites; but I didn't pin it myself because I don't like yogurt and I just figured if I wanted to make it I'd find it later.  But I can't find the original pin, so I apologize to whoever the original source is.

I made Frozen Yogurt Bites anyway making up my own recipe using Yoplait Strawberry Lemonade yogurt because I thought it might be a bit more interesting than just plain strawberry but I didn't want it to be too crazy of a flavor.  I also used an icing tube to make the bites, hoping they would be cute little shapes.  This didn't work out too well, especially when fruit got stuck in the tip.  It was pretty messy actually. But on my second batch I just used a plastic baggie (tip cut off) and it worked really well.  Chobani yogurt actually worked better too but the flavors aren't as exciting. I used strawberry Chobani for the second batch and it's much thicker than the Yoplait. Yes, I've already made a second batch; Noah & Ben both really liked them.   Bonus is this takes minutes to make.

Pre-Freezer

Post-Freezer

To make Frozen Yogurt Bites:

• Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
• Put your yogurt of choice into a plastic baggie and cut off the tip to make a piping bag.
• Squeeze the yogurt out onto the paper - whatever size you want, nickel size worked well.
• Put the tray into the freezer until firm- anything over two hours depending on the consistency of the yogurt.
• Pop (or scrape) the yogurt off the paper and they are ready.
• I've been storing our bites in a Gladware in the freezer and just shake the container a bit before opening to free them up.