meal/care package for new parents

Some friends of mine just had their first baby last week.  It’s been a little while since new babies have been happening around here so baby Caleb arrived and I couldn’t be more excited.  You see my oldest will be 20 next month and my little baby girl will be 13 on Sunday!!  It’s been a while since I held a baby or even remember exactly what it was like to have a new-born bundle around.  I do remember though that it’s the most awesome blessing, they are amazing little miracles and when I received a few home cooked meals delivered to my door I was ever so happy.  I would much rather be hanging out with my new little baby then cooking dinner.  I wanted to return the favor.  I looked up on Pinterest and the internet about new parent care packages and honestly I didn’t find a whole lot.  I was disappointed actually and well, part of it could be my skills researching on not exactly the best.  There may be lots of blogs and ideas out there but I didn’t find them.

I didn’t want to just drop of a meal.  I wanted to make it special but at the same time I didn’t want to break the bank.  We are all on a budget after all.  I thought about it a little bit and decided a homemade soup would be good, it was a gray and rainy day.  A healthy soup with broth, beans and veggies and a little chicken sausage.  Then I figure a good loaf of bread always goes well with soup.  That would be the quick and easy meal.  I wanted to put it in something cute besides a plastic Tupperware so I used a glass container for the soup that I didn’t care if I got back.

Dessert is always a good idea but I didn’t want them to feel like they had to eat it right away.  They may have been getting other sweet treats so I made cookie dough and froze individual servings.  Then put them in a jar of course. This way they could pop them in the oven when they felt like a batch of warm cookies.

I made sure to include the recipe I made up for the soup and all the ingredients just in case the new mama had eating restrictions.  This time of year I have a thing for daffodils so I put a little bundle in her basket so she could enjoy watching them open up in the days to come.  A tiny notebook for notes on feeding times and stuff like that and a good magazine all about babies.  I ran to Goodwill to pick up a basket for 2.99, and honestly if I spent more time thinking this out I would have maybe painted the basket and made it cuter, I also would have maybe used something more special than newspaper to fill up the void in the baskets bottom but my idea and shopping was limited to Sunday afternoon.  I thought I would share here what I did.  It worked out well because my family ate the same soup and also got cookies out of the deal.  It was a win win.  Plus when I delivered the basket I got to hold a sweet new precious baby boy!