Welcome to 5 on Friday. Today isn’t the happiest of days for me. I’m sad and tired and want to focus on my kids because it cheers me up. So that is what we’re doing today.

Mr. Elliot is now nine months old. That means we’re moving away from baby food and on to table food. Thank God, because feeding a baby tiny spoonfuls of food is the most excruciatingly boring part of parenthood. I thought it was bad with Audrey, and it has turned out to be that way with Elliot too.

How does Elliot feel about table food? He’s a big fan. He really likes waving now, so it is getting hard to get a picture of him without his hand in the way.

Moving to table food means that he’s now eating what we’re eating as long as it isn’t honey or a choking hazard. We just started doing mostly table food this week, so I’m keeping the textures soft as we get started.

Last week I headed to Trader Joe’s to pick up a few things that we love to eat that we wanted Elliot to try. You can get these items at any store, but they are super cheap at Trader Joe’s, which is very important to a budget conscious SAHM.

Avocados

Audrey and I eat a lot of avocados. We like avocado toast. We like avocado on our eggs. We like avocado slices. Bubba from Forest Gump is to shrimp what we are to avocados. Luckily Elliot appears to be just as much of a fan as we are.

Full Fat Yogurt

I could spend $6 on baby yogurt or $3 on Trader Joe’s yogurt.  This yogurt is delicious. Audrey and I have it with breakfast a lot, and Elliot appears to like it even more than us. The cups might be a little bigger than baby yogurt cups, but Elliot doesn’t have an issue finishing one. The vanilla also doubles as “dip” in our house for waffles. Audrey is 43% more likely to try something if there is dip involved.Bananas

$.19 a banana. You can’t beat that. 

Sweet Potato Gnocchi

It’s soft. It’s delicious. Both of my kids would like it for every meal. I have the following conversation 6 days a week. I would have it 7, but John gets up with her one day of the weekend.

Me: “What do you want for breakfast, Audrey?”

Audrey: “Gnocchi”

Me: “It’s breakfast, we aren’t having gnocchi.”

I gave Elliot gnocchi earlier this week and he gobbled it right up. I’m sure I’ll be having the same conversation with him before I know it. 

Cereal Bars

These are not a food that we eat every day. These are special diaper bag treats for when I have tired, cranky, hungry kids and I need them to stay happy for 5 minutes. I’ll pull these out if we are at a restaurant and it is taking a long time or we are running late for dinner and still have to drive home and they need a snack.

Next week I’ll post about something other than Trader Joe’s. Probably. No promises.