Last week, the the Eat Well, Spend Less team was blogging about babies and food!

Kitchen Planning When You Are Pregnant -- Amy writes about overcoming pregnancy tiredness and aversions, with simple tips for planning ahead. Her final advice? Keep it simple! (I definitely do that... and it's 100% okay. :D)

Tips for Taking Meals to a New Mom -- Carrie gives some AWESOME tips about meals for new moms (and their families), with things to keep in mind whether you're on the giving or receiving end of the meal. I resonate with everything she says!! Food is one of the best after-baby gifts (in my opinion!) and even if you're not making it from scratch, it's still a blessing to the mom who didn't have to plan the meal or get the items from the store. And on the receiving end, let others serve you and try not to be high-maintenance. But just go read Carrie's post -- it's great.

The Postpartum Diet -- Aimee writes an overview of some things to consider for postpartum eating, with tips for making healthy food choices, yummy breakfast oatmeal (milk-supply boosting!) recipes, and a high-fiber prunes recipe that Aimee says is amazing enough to eat any day of the week, postpartum or not!

Food Celebrations and a New Baby -- I smiled all through Jessica's delightful post about celebrating a new baby with food! I think I've tried nearly all of her ideas in the past -- including making a BIRTH-day cake to celebrate the new baby's arrival! (I didn't get a BIRTH-day cake made this time, boo!) Best of all, Jessica gives us permission to stock our pantries with easy foods and drinks. (Is this the time to admit that my kids have been mostly eating cold cereal and milk for breakfasts for the past month?)

A Homemade Baby Food Primer -- Mandi shares about several homemade baby food approaches, with approachable ways to avoid the shelf of jarred baby food at your grocery store. If you're already serving fresh healthy meals to the rest of your family, homemade baby food just makes sense!

Real-Food Baby Food -- Katie talks about the ways she's started her babies on solid foods and gives pointers for introducing some of the best "first foods" for babies -- avocado, sweet potatoes, egg yolks, bananas, and more!

Food for New Parents to Eat Well and Spend Less -- Shaina has some tried-and-true ways to eat well as a new parent without spending hours in the kitchen or spending a lot on take-out food. I love that she recommends keeping carrots, romaine lettuce, and apples in the fridge  -- all foods that keep well and make for healthy snacking! (They're also some of the more affordable produce items at the grocery store.)

This month's Eat Well, Spend Less topic is all about BABIES! Okay, babies and food. ;)

In the past few weeks, Aimee, Carrie, and I have all given birth to baby girls! The rest of the team decided to help us celebrate and picked baby-related topics to write about. (Scroll down for links to the other posts in this series!)

You know, I love having children. Every age (that I've experienced so far... my oldest is only 8) is amazing in a different way.

My older children are inspiring to me, make me laugh, and bring so much love to our home. My littler ones say cute things, make big messes, and bring so much love to our home. ;)

And my newborn, Channah -- she makes me feel so relaxed and content, everyone fights over getting to hold her (but I get her the most :D) and she brings even more love to our home.

And I sure don't feel like working in the kitchen when I could be cuddling with a sweet little baby!

So, I don't. I mean, as much as possible. And how is this possible?

1. Make freezer meals.

This was my biggest regret after having my first baby: I hadn't made any meals for the freezer. Oh, I'd planned on just making "easy stuff" but with a fussy baby who didn't sleep much, I very quickly realized that my 30-minute "easy meal" was not at all easy to pull off as a new mom. In fact, things that normally took me 30-uninterrupted-minutes suddenly took 90-very-interrupted-minutes. Or more. :)

With subsequent babies, I have made freezer meals my top priority when getting ready for the baby. And with even more hungry tummies to keep filled, having dinners made ahead transforms any afternoon into a much easier juggling feat of naps and quiet-time activities, minus dinner prep.

We're picky about what we consider a good freezer meal (e.g. it really shouldn't taste like frozen reheated leftovers!), but I've been able to find a good variety of freezer meals we like. At the very least, freezing cooked or grilled chicken breast, cooked taco meat, cooked beans, or other "ingredients" can make from-scratch cooking a lot faster!

My freezer meal plan in 2010 (with baby #4)

My freezer meal plan this year (with baby #5)

2. Don't do dishes. (Or: Have a dishes plan.)

When we lived in a house without a dishwasher, we bought paper plates and bowls to use for the first few weeks after baby was born. This really kept the kitchen cleaner, and with no effort on my part. (For some reason, Joshua enjoys kitchen clean-up a lot more when it doesn't involve him having to wash dishes!)

Where we live now, we have a dishwasher and haven't felt the need to use lots of disposable dishes. Using my homemade freezer meals means there is already a lot fewer dishes to be done each day, and with the dishwasher, kitchen clean-up is something I've been able to do in ~20 minutes after dinner (for the whole day's dishes).

At any rate, if you hate dishes or don't have a dishwasher, have a plan so you don't need to worry about them.

3. Clean the kitchen floor.

A dirty kitchen floor drives me crazy! It wasn't so bad before we had all these kids who drop so many crumbs with every meal. Seriously, it is next to impossible to keep the kitchen floor clean with kids unless you...

...have the kids help clean up their crumbs! (And if you don't have kids to help sweep crumbs, then hopefully this means you have way less crumbs on your floor than I have on mine!!)

My favorite kid-friendly sweep-up method is to have a Dirt Devil or similar sort of cordless hand-held vacuum and let them use it to sweep dry crumbs (I make them pick up wet food spills by hand). We had a Dust Buster for several years and used it multiple times a day before it wore out. It's easy enough for even a 2-year-old to sweep up crumbs from the floor.

Currently, we use good old fashioned brooms and dust pans. The kids have their choice of a regular broom or whisk broom, and after a meal I usually assign someone the task of sweeping up crumbs. They don't do a perfect job, but they do get a lot of the crumbs -- and I know there will just be more after the next meal anyway. ;) Every couple days the vacuum cleaner gets brought out and then we really do get every last crumb swept up. :)

4. Grocery shop before the baby's born.

I found it helpful to stock up on pantry staples (at Costco, of course) before a new baby. With a stocked pantry and freezer meals made, it's so nice to not need as many groceries each week for a while!

Grocery shopping is also one of those things you can mention when someone asks if you need anything. Armed with a detailed list (and your grocery money, of course!), having a friend or relative pick up groceries for you is such a blessing if you don't feel like going out with a new baby in tow.

(Personally, I just never feel like going anywhere with a new baby. I'm such a homebody!)

5. Use appliances.

If you have a crock pot, bread machine, rice cooker, or other handy kitchen appliances -- learn how to use them for foods your family likes!

Babies are often really unpredictable, so when you can start a meal early in the crock pot, or use the timer feature on your bread machine, you can fit dinner prep into whatever snippet of time you have early in the day rather than scrambling at the last minute (or stressing out because you need to work on dinner but you'd rather rock your baby to sleep!).

I don't have a lot of kitchen appliances, so help me out here -- what other appliances streamline dinner prep or include timer features? :)

6. Accept help.

This only works if you have offers of help, which I hope every new mom does -- from her husband, family, or friends. When someone wants to help, accept their offer! Okay, so your husband doesn't do housework just like you would -- but that's okay. Your kids fold the laundry and it's not folded "right" -- but that's okay.

I feel really blessed right now because my husband and kids can and DO do so much around the house for me! And honestly, they do a pretty good job most of the time. No, it's not all exactly how it would be if I were doing it. But it's definitely okay and I thank them and tell them how awesome they are. :)

More on preparing for a new baby: All the stuff I did before #2 was born :)

6 Tips for Cooking with a Baby (because eventually, you gotta do it!)

More about babies and food from the Eat Well, Spend Less team:

Food celebration and a new baby (Jessica at Life As Mom)

The postpartum diet (Aimee at Simple Bites)

A homemade baby food primer (Mandi at Life...Your Way)

Taking meals to a new mom (Carrie at Denver Bargains)

Kitchen planning when you're pregnant (Amy at Keeping the Kingdom First)

...and more to come from Katie at Kitchen Stewardship and Shaina at Food for my Family! :)

I don't own a spoon rest. (Do you?)

For some reason, spoon rests seem cluttery and annoying to me. I usually just put spoons on the (clean!) counter when cooking and wipe the counter when I'm done. Before I had a dishwasher, that seemed easier than washing an extra dish! :)

When warming up leftovers, I like to use the empty leftovers containers as a "free" temporary spoon rest. The dish is already going to need washed, anyway!

Related tips:

Defrosting and reheating without a microwave

Quick water at the stove

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please!

In order to keep the kitchen tips more easily accessible, posts not adhering to these guidelines will be removed. We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Transferring dry ingredients without mess; marking containers (Feel Good About Dinner)
2. Keeping lettuce fresh after cutting it (Frugal in Florida)
3. Frying pan tips (The Local Cook)
4. Easy baking soda dispenser (Purposely Frugal)
5. Electric pressure cooker tips (Jayde at The Riley's Blog)

I woke up at 5:30am, and felt the dampness on my skirt. I could feel water leaking and as I headed to the bathroom, I mentally calculated... just barely 36 weeks.

I knew it wasn't time for my baby to come.

I don't feel unbearably huge yet. My babies don't come early. Joshua had brain surgery last week and can't lift or drive. And the house is a mess.

Despite my hopes that the "little leak" would just go away, it didn't. A visit with my midwife confirmed that it was really leaking (not that I had any doubts!) and also that...

"Your baby isn't head-down. And I can't change that for you."

Read the rest of Channah's birth story...

It's nap time / quiet time at our house right now... we'll see how much typing I get done before Channah wakes! :) At 2 1/2 weeks old, Channah is probably my most content baby ever. She's nursing great and sleeps a lot, mostly with me. I figure since I'm supposed to rest and take it easy for a few weeks, I may as well rest with the baby in my arms! :)

So let's see... where to start. With a little about her name, I guess! :)

Channah is the Hebrew name of Hannah in the Bible. The "ch" is a soft "ch" sound like in the word "Chanukkah" or "challah" or "loch", and the "a" sounds are like the "a" in "father". Channah means grace, or compassion.

Shalom is (of course) the Hebrew word meaning "peace". When we were expecting our first baby, we decided we wanted to use Fruits of the Spirit (from Galatians 5) for girls' middle names. Ruth's middle name is Patience, and for Channah we decided to use Peace -- but liked the sound of the Hebrew word Shalom better with Channah. :)

During rest time one day, when both Ruth (4) and Moshe (2) were asleep in their beds, I put Channah by the window for some sunshine. I came back to find Yehoshua (7) had gotten his camera out and was taking pictures of her as she slept. So sweet!

The girls' room, and more...

I know I mentioned a family update (and more baby pictures!) last week, but I'm totally guilty of just lounging on the couch and doing a bunch of baby-holding. :D

So this week, I will. I WILL turn on the computer and write about baby stuff and include kid pictures and tell you how we're pronouncing "Channah" and things like that. By Wednesday. (There, I gave a day... so it's official.) :)

But here's just one... Ruth holding Channah. I shared her for a few minutes. ;)

Now, for a kitchen tip:

When I wash rubber (or silicone) spatulas, I feel like I need to take them apart (pull out the handles) in order to get them really clean. It just seems like food and germs probably get trapped where the spatula meets the handle and I can't NOT take it apart. ;)

But washing the parts separately means that the slot on the spatula gets wet, and it takes a long time to completely dry. I don't want to put the spatula back together before it's completely dry, but I also don't want spatulas out on my counter waiting to dry when everything else is put away.

My solution? Put both parts of the spatulas back in the drawer, but not assembled. The drawer isn't air-tight, and the utensils are stored loosely enough that the spatulas can finish drying. When we need a spatula, we grab both parts and put it together before using. :)

Related: Use a spatula to reach things in a high cupboard without needing a stool

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please!

In order to keep the kitchen tips more easily accessible, posts not adhering to these guidelines will be removed. We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Kneading tip for smooth rolls (Donna at Moms Frugal)
2. Egg tips (The Local Cook)
3. Organizing and filling spices (Heather at Feel Good About Dinner)
4. Plastic shoebox in the kitchen (Frugal in Florida)
5. Almond milk tip (Adrienne at Whole New Mom)
6. Stretching bacon (Kolfinna's Korner)
7. Greasing pans tip (Gwen at Gwen's Nest)
8. Water kefir tips (Gretchen at The Little Pink House)
9. Making bread kits (Gretchen at Extraordinary Ordinary Life)
10. Brown rice tips + switching rice types (Deb at Wholesome Homemaker)
11. Tip for crispy sweet potato fries (SnoWhite at Finding Joy in my Kitchen) 

I've always wondered which kind of canned tuna I should be purchasing. Chunk Light tuna is the cheapest per can, but it never seems as meaty as the more expensive ones.

When we were first married 10 years ago, I would stock up on the Chunk Light tuna when it was $0.25/can at Kroger. Now, twice that price is about the lowest I've seen it get recently.

(Anyone have cheap[er] tuna tips? Our family could easily use 5-7 small cans of tuna for a light tuna salad lunch... which is why we don't have tuna salad very often.)

I decided to compare the 3 kinds of canned tuna in my cupboard. The Chunk Light tuna (top) was $0.60 on sale; the Solid White tuna (middle can) was $1 on sale, and I can't remember how much the Albacore tuna from Costco (bottom can) was.

I opened all three kinds (Chunk Light - left, Solid White - middle, Albacore - right).

I drained them well.

I weighed them each on my kitchen scale.

I figured out the price per ounce for the drained tuna meat...

...and they were all right around the same price per ounce. :)

So instead of a tip about which can of tuna is the cheapest, here is a tip for making tuna salad!

You can change up the flavors when making tuna salad by substituting various things in place of the mayonnaise. Try:

White salad dressings (like Ranch or Caesar)

Sour cream

Plain yogurt

Cream cheese (at room temperature, or whip with some milk to make it easier to incorporate)

Depending on what you use (like plain yogurt!), you could even end up with something a little healthier than normal. :)

I don't have a tuna salad recipe online, but here is what we like in ours:

Canned tuna, drained well
Mayo (or others from the list above!)
Chopped celery
Minced onion
Finely chopped dill pickles (or dill pickle relish -- easier!)
Garlic, salt, and pepper

Mix until creamy; serve on bread with lettuce added, or serve in lettuce leaf "cups".

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please!

In order to keep the kitchen tips more easily accessible, posts not adhering to these guidelines will be removed. We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Tips for braising/stewing (The Local Cook)
2. Make your favorite cookies healthier (Heather at Feel Good About Dinner)
3. Make baked potatoes in the crock pot (Purposely Frugal)
4. Tip for making "drop" cookies (Robin at Happily Home After)
5. Stretching pasta sauce (Kolfinna's Korner)
6. 7 ways to use leftover cornbread (Wholesome Homemaker)
7. Checking the doneness of meat without marring it (Alea at Premeditated Leftovers)
8.

Just when I thought life couldn't get any crazier!

Channah Shalom was born this weekend, weighing 6 lbs. 5 oz., our smallest (and by far, earliest!) baby and with the longest labor (but thankfully not the hardest labor).

Our planned home birth ended up a hospital birth when my water broke and the baby wasn't head down. Several hours later, she did turn head down, but labor was very, very slow.

After almost 24 hours I used pitocin to (gently!) get labor going, and she was born 15 hours later. Phew! I had a really great hospital experience. While I would much rather labor at home (especially with a long, slow labor!!), I chose to be there and was blessed with nurses who left me alone as much as possible, and my midwife who provided moral support and coaching at the very end.

I'm so glad I started early on my freezer meals, and just last week I washed a load of baby clothes and got a car seat (to replace our expired one).

Pretty much everything else on my "want to do" list didn't get done, I missed my kids like crazy during the 2 days at the hospital, and I had a very emotional labor (I just wasn't mentally prepared for an early baby with a labor that needed augmentation, etc.).

We're getting lots of family time and pulling together to share new responsibilities. Joshua is only 2 weeks post-op from his second craniotomy, so now we're both on 10-lb. lifting restrictions and our boys are getting to exercise their strong muscles! ;) Everyone is in love with little Channah and now, life really does need to slow down for a little bit!! :)

I will eventually write Channah's birth story and share it here! Until then, here are the announcements from Ruth and Moshe's births:

Ruth Patience (2008) (birth story here)

Moshe Paul (2010) (birth story here)

Update: Here is Channah's birth story (with lots of baby pictures!)

This week, Stacy at Stacey Makes Cents, is hosting Kitchen Tip Tuesdays for me. Head over there to add your Kitchen Tips and see what others have shared!

Thanks, Joshua ;)

I think I breathe a sigh of relief when dinner is finally served every evening. I've become more and more of a "morning person" and making and serving dinner is like my last big challenge of the day. Unlike many other things, dinner can't "wait until the next day" or just be skipped... ;)

So food prep... whether I love it or hate it, whether I'm in the mood or completely exhausted, it's something I've just gotta do most days. (Does "taking a day off" count if it means I did double the day before?) ;)

Here are 6 ways I make food prep more fun. If you have any tips for me along these lines, I'm all ears! :)

1. Food prep is more fun when you... Plan a menu!

I'll be the first person to admit that "menu planning" and "fun" don't usually end up in the same sentence for me. When I first started trying to plan weekly menus a few years ago, it was one of the most challenging things I made myself do each week!

It does get easier, though. While menu planning still isn't my favorite chore, I don't dread it like I used to, and I love the benefits of having a menu plan! :)

Some tips for easier menu planning:

Use a category for each day of the week. A category could be a meat (beef, chicken, fish, meatless, etc.) or a cuisine (Mexican, Italian) or even just something you love (like breakfast for dinner, using the crock pot, or having Friday night pizza!). Planning the week's menu would involve coming up with something from each category -- meaning less "thinking" involved (hopefully)!

I don't use categories for every day, but I do have my own habits, like making beans in the crock pot on Saturday, and using up leftovers from the fridge for weekend lunches. And unless we're really burned out on pizza, homemade pizza on Friday nights is the perfect ending to the week. :)

Balance between tried-and-true and something new. I love variety, so my menu plans usually include trying something new. But, old favorites that always turn out well and are faster to prepare help me get through busy days without spending so much time in the kitchen.

Be okay with what works for you. I do "three things for dinner" a lot, and while it's not a gourmet meal, it satisfies us and keeps us healthy. Take advantage of the convenience foods that help you (like canned or frozen items)! :)

Get help with menu planning! Sometimes when I'm really stumped (and nothing sounds good to me, at all), I ask Joshua or the kids for suggestions. They help me come up with things we haven't eaten recently, or things that sound good to them.

I'm not on Pinterest, but I've heard lots of people say they head there for menu planning inspiration! And I have scrolled through my online recipes here when planning my menu... it's more visually stimulating than my recipe box. ;)

2. Food prep is more fun when you... Start early!

I have a lot more fun in the kitchen when I'm not rushed and running late with a meal. Start plenty early, even the day before for some things, if you like to cook at a leisurely pace like I do. ;)

Of course, starting early is so much easier when you have a menu planned! :)

3. Food prep is more fun when you... Keep things stocked!

Ever go to bake cookies and realize that you need to refill your containers for flour, sugar, and oatmeal? :) I enjoy cooking and baking more when I've kept things refilled as needed. I don't always refill something right away, but I do leave it out on the counter so I can fill it later before putting it away and forgetting about it.

Tip: I buy my spices in bulk, so I do lots of refilling. When I run out of one spice, I check to see if any others are getting low, and if they are, I refill them too. This post shows how I label and easily access the spices in my kitchen cupboard.

4. Food prep is more fun when you... Have the right tools.

Since I do a lot of cooking, we've invested in some good kitchen tools through the years we've been married. A friend recently commented, "You seem to have the right 'thing' for everything in your kitchen!" Well, yes -- for everything that I regularly do. :)

Some of the kitchen tools that make food prep more fun and a whole lot easier for me include a sharp knife and big sturdy cutting board, stainless steel mixing bowls (including large ones), my glass 9x13 and 8x8 bakeware, my bread machine, half-sheet pans with silicone baking mats, and some really great stainless steel cookware.

(You can see more of what I use in the kitchen at my Amazon "store", with notes about many of the items.)

Your most-used items could be very different from mine! But as a rule, when we consider which kitchen items to get or to upgrade, we start with the ones we use on a daily or near-daily basis.

5. Food prep is more fun when you... Enlist helpers (or company)!

I have my own built-in helper team, since all four children will gladly help with just about anything in the kitchen (including things I won't let them do yet!). ;) This post has lots of ideas for things my young children like to do to help in the kitchen.

I really love it when Joshua has time to help with food prep. Even if it's just chopping a few little things, having help gets me moving faster and having someone to talk with while we work is nice (and working together is a great relationship-builder!).

If you don't have a noisy house full of little helpers, plan to chat with a friend on the phone while doing the more mundane food prep tasks like washing dishes, chopping veggies for a salad, or peeling fruit for sauce or dessert.

When the house is quiet enough for me to be on the phone while I work (a rarer occurrence as the years pass!), I like to:

• Make a list (or get everything out of the fridge/pantry) before I'm on the phone, so my brain can run on "autopilot" and I can have a more involved conversation

• Use a headset or other hands-free option that doesn't involve putting my shoulder to my ear while on the phone

What do you do to make food prep more fun? I'd love to hear about it!

Related: 6 tips for cooking with a baby

This month, the Eat Well, Spend Less team is blogging about making food FUN!

For more fun foodie inspiration, check out:

Jessica at Life as Mom

Katie at GoodLife Eats

Aimee at Simple Bites

Katie at Kitchen Stewardship

Alyssa at Kingdom First Mom

Carrie at Denver Bargains 

Mandi at Life...Your Way

Shaina at Food For My Family