Essentials 9/10

I remember reading a list such as this when I was pregnant. It helped me a bit and also made me conscientious, during Ev’s first year, of our needs. Without further ado (since it’s 3 months late anyway. Who am I to make my readers wait?)… I present the ten things we could NOT live without for our first year of parenthood. I’ll post them one at a time because they’ve turned into quite lengthy little guys!

9. Cuisinart. I was a baby food making junkie. I never bought jarred food and really enjoyed cooking for my boy. However, I started the process with a mini Cuisinart and it would take me all day to make one weeks worth of food. You have to steam most foods before you food process them so the entire process of steaming/broiling, peeling, food processing a cup at a time, labeling and storing food, then cleaning out mini Cuisinart for next food was taking forever. We purchased an 11-cup Cuisinart and I was able to do the entire batch of apples, squash, etc. in one push of the button. It was SO incredibly easy. The hardest part of the whole process was finding a few straight hours to devote to it a month. I had a few good friends that would come over and entertain our boy while I cooked. I could spend about 3 hours in the kitchen and make/store enough food for Ev for over a month. I really liked knowing exactly what he was eating. Also, on a side note, I’m a complete cheapskate and those baby food jars are EXPENSIVE! One month I totaled up what I purchased and prepared and it came to $22 for over a month of baby food. Holla!

My trusty mini: (on another side note: I LOVE kitchen gadgets and such. I actually begged for this little guy for our first Valentine's as a married couple. Wade tried to refuse saying it wasn't very "Valentinsey" but I told him, "If you want to make your Valentine happy, get the adorable mini. Please and Thank You.")


Mini's big brother. Though I don't make much of E's food anymore as he now eats most of what we eat, I still use this bad boy at least once a week. It can grate a 16 oz block of cheese in 30 seconds flat. No lie. Super handy with the pimento cheese making. I don't remember how much we paid for this but I do remember we got a great deal on it from Kohl's. Man, I am really revealing my cheapness in this post.


This was one of my first times to make his food. We bought a deep freezer for times such as this with the hypothetical second child. If anyone has any better ideas to store breast milk, throw those hints in here for me too. I would freeze 3 oz in each bag, lie them flat to take up less space, then stack in Coke cases in chronological order.