Saturday, May 31, 2008

What a Day!

We (my Mom and I) took Brooklynn to the doctor yesterday to get her ears checked and get her "bump" looked at. She was born with a small bump on the right side of her head just above her ear, it was the size of a small pea. It has now grown to the size of a marble. Well she had such a traumatic time. She screamed the entire time the doctor was trying to look into her ears and feel her bump. Turns out the poor baby has wax compacted in her ears so I have to rinse her ears with warm water everyday and then bring her in to get them cleaned. YIKES! Sounds like that will be fun!

The doctor ended up sending us for an ultrasound of her bump. Love our doctors’ office everything is in the same building so we just walked next door. Brooklynn finally calmed back down and was playing just in time for her ultrasound. Now try to explain to an almost 11 month old that she needs to lay on her side and not move. Oh boy did she scream and fight to get up. We ended up binding her in a sheet. About 20 minutes later of her screaming and my mom holding her legs and me holding her head down we were done. I was on the verge of tears - my heart was broken as she was screaming and looking at me like "Mom what are you doing?". Well, after all the "excitement" she fell asleep and woke up her happy self. The doctor called - he thinks the bump is a dermoid cyst, which is common for babies to be born with. He is concerned that it is growing though. So we are going to take her to Children's Hospital to see a specialist for a second opinion. The only way to be certain that it is nothing is to have it removed. We will wait and see what the specialist says.

On a better note – it is BEAUTIFUL outside! Brooklynn is sleeping and I am cleaning and then going out in the yard. I can’t wait for her to wake up so we can go for our jog. I found this planter that I love at Kmart.com but it is online only not in stores. Argh! I don’t want to wait 12 business days! Guess I will try to find something similar.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Step By Step

Brooklynn is standing by herself for long periods of time and walking around the furniture. The other day she pulled herself up on her leapfrog table, let go and took 2 steps then fell. I think she will be walking before I know it. I can not leave her for a second! Last week she opened the entertainment center cabinet and got her index finger pinched. If I show anyone her "owie" or point at the small cut on her finger or talk about it she starts to cry all over. It must have really hurt! Poor baby!

I started drinking coffee again. I LUV it! I forgot how caffeine can help me buzz around in the morning and get TONS accomplished! Today I drank half a pot - yikes!


Wednesday, May 21, 2008

10 Month Photos

Yes I know she is more like 10 1/2 months. It was a lot harder getting pictures of her since she crawls all over and stands! Also her hair is at a point where it is so long that right after I brush it is gets messed up right away but isn't long enough to do anything to it. They still turned out cute! Got 2 love her little Brewer cheerleading outfit. Enjoy!




PS. I added a slideshow at the bottom of the site. It plays music - if you do not want the music to play go to the bottom of the site where the slideshow is playing and click on the speaker icon in the bottom left corner. It will mute it.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Our Big Girl

Well I thought it was time for another video. Brooklynn is doing so much. Here is a video mix - she waves Hi, gives "hi-five", stands by the couch & plays, throws her toy and crawls to go get it. I promise I will do better with posting more current video.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Added to the Baby Book

Brooklynn is all over the place crawling on all fours. She pulls herself up on everything and is starting to creep around furniture while standing. She thinks it is funny to let go and balance with out holding on for a second or two! She also learned how to shake her head "no". I have to admit with her all over the "N" word has been quite frequently used. I didn't realize I was shaking my head no at her while saying it, until yesterday when I was telling her no she shook her head no back. LOL too funny! She also loves to smell things. Yes, this may be a bit strange, but when I am folding laundry I say smell pretty and she scrunches up her nose and gives a good sniff. The other day while at the store we went by the candles and she started sniffing. I tell you - what entertained me before Brooklynn?

It's Lemon-licious


The lemon coffee cake was very good. Everyone seemed to like it (or didn’t have the heart to tell me it wasn’t good). Only thing I am changing, if I ever get bit by the Martha bug again, will be too leave out the slices of lemons in the cake. Instead I will just add some lemon juice to the cake batter. The slices with the rinds were weird in the middle of the cake and too tart for my taste. I guess I am not used to "gourmet".

On another baking note… I am on a mission to find finger food that I can make for Brooklynn that are healthful. She LOVES the Gerber graduate raviolis, but I can not feed those to her every night. After scrounging through some books I found a recipe for chicken & apple meatballs. I of course adapted it to be Italian chicken and carrot meatballs. Let’s just say it took a while but after they were done… SUCCESS! Brooklynn loved them and gobbled them up! I have been trying to get her to eat veggies and she gags and will spit them out. But not these hidden carrots, she didn’t even know they were there. Ha Ha.. I knew I could trick her. I am so excited and have all these ideas on other things I am going to try for her. The great thing about these meatballs is they will travel just as easy as the Gerber raviolis. So if anyone else has any healthful finger food ideas I would love to hear them so that I could add them to our “menu”

Here is the recipe for the Italian Chicken & Carrot Meatballs:
2 raw chicken breasts
Steamed carrots
¼ C parmesan cheese
Italian Seasoning
¼ C Italian bread crumbs
¼ onion chopped fine
1 egg beaten
garlic powder
pepper

In a food processor puree the chicken and carrots. Mix together all ingredients ( I mixed all ingredients in the food processor). Roll meatball mixture into small meatballs and roll in flour. Shallow fry them in a pan of hot olive oil until golden brown. If you need to cook them further cook in the oven.

They were actually pretty good, I even liked them.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Flip it to Me


If you can't tell I am a picture and home video junkie! Have you seen the new Flip video camera? I seen this and now wish it was Christmas time! I already have a video camera that I love and use, but if I don't have it set up I miss things - so I end up using the video on my digital camera and it SUCKS! This would be ideal for those day to day moments that I want to catch. Check it out! ---> Flip Video Camera

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Happy Mother's Day

Hope every one had a great Mother's Day!

Friday, May 9, 2008

When You Gotta Go... You Gotta Go!





Yesterday was quite eventful. Brooklynn took a digger into our surround sound speaker. YIKES! After holding frozen peas on it, her egg went down to a bruise. You can barley see it today. It is just a small blue line on her forehead. Question – As a parent do you ever not feel so horrible when your child gets hurt? I mean total pit in the stomach OMG feeling? My guess probably not.

After the trauma in the afternoon I decided to make a new dinner. Brooklynn and I went to Pick N Save and got the ingredients for Chicken Fried Rice (Nick brought home a recipe for fried rice because he had a taste for it) WOW is all I have to say. Even though it took longer than usual and was difficult keeping Brooklynn entertained in her walker while I was cooking away; it turned out great! It tastes just like real chicken fried rice. Wouldn’t you know it is already all gone except for the tasters that I saved for my Dad, Nick gobbled it right up! So while I was cleaning up from dinner, Brooklynn totally filled her pants, so Nick decided to give her a bath. Nick always carries Brooklynn around naked when he is getting her ready for her bath. I always warn him that she is going to tinkle on him; she never has until last night. Yep from the kitchen I heard an “OH NO!” from the bathroom and then laughing. Brooklynn totally tinkled on him and he was soaked in you know what!!!! LOL I just have to say it… I told you so!

Today was a very productive day. Nick hooked up our pool, cut the grass, fixed my dryer vent, opened our pond and organized a set of garage shelves. He also watched Brooklynn for almost 3 hours this morning while I attended a webinar for work. I came home to a picked up house and a sleeping baby, I should leave more often! LOL the most exciting thing that was done today was we finally got Brooklynn’s name hung up on her wall! It only took me 9 months to finish painting them.


Tomorrow is another very exciting day, for a couple of reasons. First my best friend Renee is in town (so excited – I wish she lived here!) and Nick and my Dad are hanging our new front door and screen door. Can not wait!

Almost forgot - I tried a Martha recipe today. It was a lot of work but smells DELISH! I was working with Martha on for background noise and she was making this lemon coffee cake, it totally caught my attention. So I decided to make it and give pieces of it to all the mothers in my life :-) It is supposed to be made with meyer lemons (which I looked up are not really lemons it is a lemon crossed with a mandarin orange) Well wouldn't you know good all "Pick Your Nose" didn't have them so I made it with lemons and oranges. Close enough I thought. I will post a pic of my Lemon/Orange Coffee Cake and let you know if it is good. Off to make my homemade glaze!

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Social Butterfly

Brooklynn loves to say "Hi" which sounds like "Ha" to everyone! She waves and says Ha,Ha,Ha until she is acknowledged. If whoever she is talking to doesn't respond her, her Ha becomes very loud and hard to ignore. I have a little social butterfly on my hands. She loves waving and saying Hi to everyone she sees in stores. She even tried waving and saying Hi to our neighbor through the window. He of course did not notice her because he was cutting the grass. She was very disappointed. Too funny. She is turning out to be a little chatter box and she can't even talk yet!

Fingers crossed she slept through the night last night - first time in 2 months! From 9:45 pm to 8 am. "Knock on wood"