New Mom’s this one is for you…

Well I am trying to make my blog more user friendly as I am building it up I want to keep recipes organized for ease of access… so you will note my tabs along the top (I think I may become a computer technician in another life haha).  So there are lots of “coming soon” as an attempt to get myself organized.

Ok happy Tuesday hope everyone is having a good week Valentines Day is less than a week away and we have Family Day stat coming up how exciting!  I have these really cute Valentine’s Day mini-muffin papers so I am thinking Julia and I are going to create a Valentine’s treat for daddy (maybe it will even be baby proof…)

So I have been a mom for almost 13 months now and I will tell you it is by far the most amazing job that I have ever had… it is also the most challenging as you learn something new every day and you are constantly trying to figure out what your little one’s wants or needs.  We have done some sign language with Julia to help her communicate, she knows some basic signs such as: more, all done, water, milk, ball, bath we are working on more it is amazing when you see your little baby (I am not going to call her a toddler till 18 months haha) signing back at you makes all the persistence pay off (cause for months you are signing to them with no response).

Fatigue is an oh to common thing amongst new moms, seasoned moms I guess we could say all moms as there is never enough time in a day to do what we gotta do.  One of my energizers is my morning workout it doesn’t matter how tired I feel, how many times I was up last night, what time I went to bed bottom line I have a morning workout (I have a whole regime that I will get into at a later date “getting your body back after baby”).  After my workout I always refuel with a smoothie of some sort, I found/find with breasfeeding especially mid-end of workout is an energy crash so refuelling is key.

I was recently inspired by oh she glows “green monster movement” and decided to create and submit my own “Double Down Green Monster (GM)”. 

As a new mom to a nearly 13 month old precious baby girl I need to pack in all the nutrients I can to increase energy compensating for sleepless nights.

So here is what I have done:
2 cups fat free vanilla soy milk (you could substitute any milk)
3 cups of spinach (uncooked)
3 kiwi
2 bananas
1 cup frozen pineapple core (whenever we cut fresh pineapple we freeze the core as it enhances flavor, nutrients and texture of any smoothie)

I have named this “double down” for two reasons: firstly it’s a double batch as a new mom I don’t have time to make a fresh smoothie every morning so I simply freeze half take it out the next am put in some warm water and voila thawed and fresh as the day before in no time; secondly double punch of green, kiwi are often a forgotten about fruit loaded with vitamin C and many other nutrients.  I am going to get myself some matcha (finely ground green tea) to add in a future batch it is suppose to give a nice punch of energy, has anyone ever tried it?

I make these on a regular basis and rotate them with my regular smoothies (I will have to do a post on that in the near future I have many favourite combinations), I will never forget the 1^st time I handed my husband his 1^st green smoothie it was a look of “now what did my wife make” haha and now he too is hooked on the energizing GM.  So naturally with all this goodness and antioxidants I had to “babyize” this recipe for Julia so here is what I did:

Triple Down Baby Monster (offer after 12 month of age as kiwi can be allergenic and thus recommended after 1y of age unless you have a strong family history of allergies you should wait longer)

6 ripe kiwi

2 ripe banana

12 green grapes

1c of spinach

Toss it all in the blender puree to desired consistency, the juice from the grapes give this puree enough juice to mix up, if needed you could add more grapes.  Spoon into ice cube trays and all that green goodness is ready to go in your freezer.  I always try to take Julia’s food out the night before to limit microwave use but of course you could take it out defrost and serve!  Depending on your diet and the age of your baby you could add milk of your choice +/- yogurt to add some calcium it is really a perfect combination for people of all ages. 

Off to make a fresh batch of the double down “GM” so I can keep energy up to keep on blogging!!

Do you make smoothies? What are your favourite combinations? Are you a new or seasoned mom what are your energizing tips?

Can you guess what my next post will be about judging from these pictures...