Stuff Parents Need

Easing the chaos in the nest, one find at a time.

(Almost) Healthy Mac and Cheese Recipe

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Welcome to Simple Sunday Recipes!

I absolutely LOVE this (almost) healthy mac and cheese recipe. I’m not going to tell you that it is the very best mac and cheese that I’ve ever had, because that’s not true. But it is most definitely the easiest homemade macaroni and cheese I’ve ever made, and given the fact that it doesn’t contain any butter or heavy cream, it tastes AWESOME. I suppose it isn’t exactly accurate to call this a “healthy” meal, but I really think this is a great recipe to use when you want some comfort food, but you want to skip the guilt that comes from eating a dish with enough calories in it to sustain you for 3 days straight!
healthy mac and cheese recipe Best  Healthy Mac and Cheese Recipe

8-10 oz cooked macaroni (you can opt for whole wheat pasta, to increase the health factor)
8 oz shredded sharp cheese
12 oz cottage cheese
8 oz plain yogurt
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350.

In a 9×13 pan, stir together cooked macaroni, cheeses, yogurt, Parmesan and salt and pepper. Put foil on top and bake for 30 minutes. That’s it! I seriously love when recipes are this simple. Enjoy!

A Great Bulk Purchase: Kirkland Baby Wipes

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bulk wipes from Costco (Kirkland brand)

(Image from Costco.com)

Tim and I are members of a wholesale club, Costco. Since we are only a family of 3, sometimes we have a hard time finding things to purchase at Costco, especially when it comes to food purchases. We often can’t eat the food fast enough before it spoils! But we have found a great deal that we will purchase again when it comes to Kirkland baby wipes at Costco. And little Darah has no fear about us buying 900 wipes at a time. Trust me, she’ll use them!

If you are a Costco member, you can get 900 Kirkland wipes for $27.99. That’s 3.1 cents/wipe. If you aren’t a member of Costco, you can still purchase Kirkland Baby Wipes at Amazon, and right now, they are the same price as at Costco!

I like to try to get wipes for around 2 cents/wipe, but that’s very difficult to do without coupons, and sometimes I just don’t have coupons or the mental energy to scope out deals. That’s when paying just a wee bit more is fine with me. They are still cheap baby wipes!

I’ve found the baby wipes by Kirkland to be a little bit thinner than Huggies wipes (which are my personal favorites), but they are still highly effective, and I don’t have to use any more wipes than normal to get the job done. They have a light, pleasant scent, and best of all, they are environmentally friendly by being made from renewable resources, being 100% biodegradable. Woo hoo!

I really liked purchasing so many wipes at once, because it means that I don’t have to even think about wipes for a few months. That makes my job as a parent just that much easier!

Stay tuned for a crazy cool experiment at our house: we’re going to give reusable wipes a try!

Do you have a favorite wipe, or a price point that you look for when purchasing baby wipes?

This post contains an affiliate link.

Disposable Nursing Pads Review:The Good, The Bad, and The Bulky!

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Affiliate links to the best disposable nursing pads included. All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a little while, you probably realize that I’m a thrifty gal. I love a good bargain, and I’m not inclined to dish out extra money just to get a brand name. I do value quality in a product, but before I stick to something with a hefty price tag, I’m at least going to try out the less expensive competition! Such was the case for me with disposable breast pads or nursing pads. Before I began using them, I was solely fixated on getting the best bargain. Here’s what I learned about the best disposable nursing pads (and the worst)!

A girlfriend gave me Lansinoh nursing pads at a baby shower, so they were the first breast pads I used. They worked great, but I had no point of comparison. I also was given some Gerber breast pads (pads on the left). disposable nursing pads by Gerber I used those second. I realized pretty quickly that the Lansinoh pads were better. The Gerber pads were thin, which I appreciated, but they simply could not contain what I was producing (sorry, I just don’t know how else to put it!) Gerber pads are pretty inexpensive, but I guarantee you that you’ll have extra laundry to do if you use them!

For where to buy breast pads, I personally headed to Target (though you can easily find them at Walmart or even on Amazon). I saw that a 60 count box of Lansinoh pads was $9.00, and a 100 count box of disposable breast pads by Avent. These are terrible! Avent breast pads was $10.00. Despite having already had an experience with an inferior breast pad, this was a no brainer for me. I purchased the Avent breast pads (on the right). These were so unbelievably bulky! There was absolutely no way that I could leave the house wearing these, because there was not a single shirt I owned that could disguise the fact that I had giant cotton discs on my breasts! Seriously! I used up the box, and I hated every stinkin’ minute of it.

It turns out that you really do get what you pay for when it comes to disposable nursing pads. I found the Lansinoh pads to be ultra thin, so you can wear them outside of your house with confidence. And wow, they can really hold a lot of liquid, people. I don’t know what is inside of these pads, but whatever it is, it keeps moisture off of your body, which is awesome. They also have a lining on the back so that your clothes don’t get wet (learn from them, Gerber!).
best breast pads
So go ahead and fork over the extra dough for these breast pads, as I think they are truly the top rated nursing pads for a reason, and they are worth the price difference. Nothing else really compares, and this is not an area where being thrifty pays off! And if you might be interested in the best reusable nursing pads, check out a post I wrote on that very topic!

Introducing Simple Sunday Recipes

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One thing that all parents need are simple, go to recipes. If you are like us, you have more important things to spend your money on than going out to eat frequently, so you need to cook. But isn’t cooking such a pain when you already have a million other things to do, and when you kitchen is already dirty and cooking will just add to the mess?!?!

I can certainly relate to this feeling. My solution has been to come up with an arsenal of recipes that are quick and tasty. Believe it or not, I actually have recipes picked out for every single day of the year in my personal cookbook. While some of the recipes get repeated once or twice during the year, many of them are only featured once (I’m not so big into eating the same thing very often). Before we got pregnant, we actually had another blog called Feed the Moose where we would talk about our trials and tribulations in the kitchen. That blog is defunct, but I can still share with you some of the great recipes we discovered during that time.

So I’d like to introduce Simple Sunday Recipes as a weekly feature on this blog. Each Sunday I’ll share one of the recipes that we have on hand that makes cooking not such a hassle. I hope you will enjoy this feature and find some recipes to bring back to your own kitchen! You’ll find Sunday dinner ideas and ideas for any day of the week when you want cooking to be easy (which would be every day, in my book!)

Our first recipe is Larry’s Black Bean Tacos

Recipe name: Larry’s Black Bean Tacos
Source: Recipezaar (and of course, Larry)
Servings:4-6

Ingredients

2 cans black beans
1 can stewed tomatoes
1 package taco seasoning
1 lb ground beef (turkey for us)
1 package soft tortillas

Directions

  1. Brown ground beef with taco seasoning.
  2. Add stewed tomatoes and black beans.
  3. Simmer for 5-10, until black beans heated through.
  4. Serve with tortilla chips or make soft tacos using soft tortillas.

Larry, this post is dedicated to you and yours. We don’t know you, but we like you.

Our substitutions were as follows: We used ground turkey. We also used large tortillas so that these turned into burritos rather than tacos.

The dish was really simple to put together, but Larry, you made one crucial mistake; you left out the cheese! We added a small amount to ours, and that was a great decision.

So make this dish, eat it, love it, take it to work the next day, and make your co-workers jealous!

The Baby Bouncer Chair We Love: Boppy Cradle in Comfort

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boppy baby bouncer

image from bedbathandbeyond.com

Our good friends loaned us the Boppy Cradle in Comfort Bouncer to use while Darah is still small. The bouncer seat can recline or sit a bit more upright for infants who can utilize its “bounce” feature. Darah is still in the stage where the seat needs to be reclined. People, she LOVES this seat! LOVES IT! For that reason alone, I’m going to say it is the best baby bouncer chair out there.

I think there are a couple of reasons why it is so popular with our baby. First and foremost, the Boppy baby bouncer, itself, appears to be very comfortable. It really does “cradle” the baby! The material is very soft, and the angle of the chair is just right.

Second, and almost as important as the first point, is that this chair VIBRATES. Oh yes it does. Darah will only sit in the seat for a few minutes without the vibrate feature on, and then she’s over it. But once you hit that button, she’s golden, and she’ll stay in the seat for a solid 30 minutes most of the time. She will often even fall asleep in it. The vibrator turns itself off after 20 or 25 minutes, and she will wake up when that happens. Turn it back on, and she’s good to go again!

Sometimes I think of this chair as an extra pair of hands around the house. I don’t abuse it and put her in it constantly. If I did, I suspect she would rebel a bit more. But she finds herself in it for various amounts of time maybe 3 times each day. It’s also highly portable (even with the baby in it). I’ll move her all around the house in it and go from room to room straightening up while she watches. She really likes to sit in it and watch us make dinner in the evening.

Bed Bath and Beyond is selling this for $54.99 right now. We were lucky enough to get to use it for free (thank you, friends!). I have to say, I don’t know that I would have thought to put this item on my registry if it hadn’t been loaned to us. If you are expecting, my advice is to get one. It is SOOO worth $55! I’m guessing that I’d get maybe half as much done during the day if I didn’t have it. It definitely makes my job MUCH easier. I hope this bouncer review was helpful!

Best Dr. Seuss Book: Green Eggs and Ham

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Sam I am holding a plate of green eggs and ham
Reading is such an important activity to do with your children, no matter how young they might be. I fully believe that Darah already has some favorite books, and she’s not quite 2 months old! While she likes it when we read just about anything to her, I’ve noticed that she seems particularly excited when we read certain Dr. Seuss books to her. Does your child have a favorite Dr. Seuss book? Even at such a young age, mine does! Her very favorite is Green Eggs and Ham. She also enjoys Fox in Sox (a super tricky book to read, since it’s all one big tongue twister!). My theory is that the patterned rhythms found in Dr. Seuss’ books are enjoyable for her to hear at this age.

Since Dr. Seuss is one of the most popular children’s authors of all time, we have found every single one of her Seuss books (and I think she has around 10) at yard sales. I have also spotted them for decent prices at places like TJ Maxx and Marshall’s. Make sure that your child’s library has at least a few books from Dr. Seuss. We’ve found them to be something that makes our little girl smile!

Two Months!

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I can hardly believe that you have been in this world for 2 whole months, Darah! There are no words to describe the joy you have brought to my life. Even as I sat down to write this post, you called to me from your bassinet, letting me know that once again, you were NOT interested in your nap. I thought about being frustrated, and then you smiled at me, and it was a smile of pure love. My heart is totally yours, peanut.

Stimulating Activities for Babies: What Works for Me

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stimulating activities for baby

New parents are well aware of the fact that babies don’t come with instruction manuals. But most new parents have gone to to libraries and bookstores to make up for that fact and borrowed or purchased a ridiculous number of books that teach us how to swaddle, soothe, feed and change a diaper. I was definitely one of those moms-to-be who read at least 20 books on such subjects. I am very thankful for those books, because they gave me helpful information to ensure my baby’s basic survival. But pretty much all of these books came up short in one department: stimulating activities for baby! But I found a book that highlights the development of an infant through play and that taught me how to play with my baby.

baby games babies

image from librarything.com

Enter Baby Play.  I found this book on Amazon and purchased it used (thrifty is SO HOT, people!). I flipped through it before the baby was born and found it to be loaded with the best activities for babies. The book has games for you and your baby organized by age (0 months and up, 3 months and up, 6 months and up, etc.).

When we brought Darah home, we really enjoyed staring at her and holding her. These are both terrific things to do with your newborn, by the way. But then we realized that we had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how to play with babies. I went to the bookshelf and opened to the 0 month section, and found many different things that we could do to stimulate and entertain our baby when she is in the mood to play. Most of the activities include baby play toys that you likely already have on hand (a blanket, a ball, etc.).

I highly recommend this for any new parent who does not have extensive experience playing with babies. Who knows? If we hadn’t purchased this book, we might still just be staring at our baby!

This post contains my Amazon affiliate link. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are strictly my own.