An epiphany

--Bear with me here... I'm just a little excited about this one! ! !

To all of you creative, do-it-yourselfer, recycle lover, organic eating, thrifty mothers out there, I just found a wonderful new way of freezing and storing your pre-homemade baby food "for crawlers" and I'm so excited to share it with you!

Us picky-about-what-our-baby-eats baby food chefs have ALL done the freeze the baby food in ice cube trays, and then loosened and dumped them into freezer bags, only to later find yourself using at least 6 cubes per feeding for those growing little dears. Well, let me just let you in on something fabulous, the greatest idea, that just came to me today.

If you happen to buy some 'to go' packages of diced pears, diced peaches or apple sauces, go ahead and save the little plastic cups when finished eating the fruit, don't throw them away! Besides using them for baby food, they work great for snack cups, whether for nuts, raisins, crackers, cereal, jello etc. OR for little ones who need something to play with while mommy cooks. Back to the topic at hand, though... For use with baby food, place all of your preferably washed(but it is your house, your baby, so you decide, Ha) plastic containers into a glass 9x13 pan. I LOVE my Pyrex one, because it has a handy dandy green (love!) plastic lid that fits over the top. It will fit approx. 10 of them inside. Pour the baby food into each container and then place the plastic lid on top and freeze until hardened! Take them out the pan and throw, yes THROW, them into large freezer bags. If you are one who likes to think ahead throw one or two in the fridge in the evening for lunch and dinner the next day... or in a pinch, run warm water on the bottom of the container for a few seconds and the food will pop right out and you can microwave until thawed!

To all of you Mothers out there, my friends, my family, my strangers (is that a strange way to refer to you?) <*wink*wink*> Bravo! Keep up the great work! You have one of the hardest jobs on earth.

Loves!