Champagne Before Breakfast

Photo Challenge: Remember

2011-09-10T21:02:00.000-07:00

So I was recently turned onto this blog a couple weeks ago by a fellow photo fanatic blogger and I really really enjoy it, a lot! The blogger has a lot of interactive posts which is super fun. Each week she posts a photo challenge with a theme (normally needing to be associated with your children), but this week there is an exception. This weeks theme is "Remember".

I went scanning through my collection of pictures from over the years. I originally wanted to do a picture from our Honeymoon in Bora Bora, oh how I love to remember that romantic time with my husband where we basked in each others love post wedding and slept til noon everyday (the sleeping part being key since I'm a sleep deprived mama). Then I went to pictures from my trips to Europe and China. I thought, I really want to remember all the amazing things I saw when I was travelling around the world. Then I realized this is a great opportunity for me to really focus on myself, since the rules are waived for the week and the focus does not need to be a child or really anyone else for that matter. So I went inside and came across this little nugget...

This is a snapshot I took on our trip to Hawaii a couple of years ago; pre-wedding, pre-baby, pre-stress. I'm not saying that my life is too stressful, I love the stress of being a working mom and a devoted and loving wife, but when I want to decompress and remember a quiet moment, this is the moment to which I travel back.

My toes in the moist, warm, sandy beaches of Hawaii being splashed ever so lightly by the cool ocean waves. No noise, no sound, nothing other than the salty breeze whispering in my ears and kissing my freshly tanned cheeks.

Mmm....I remember.

Thanks for helping me remember Paper Mama! :)

Maddie's Birth Announcements

2011-09-10T20:29:00.002-07:00

Since we are on the subject of paper works, I thought I would scan one of Maddie's birthday announcements.

The concept was created in mine and my sister's head and put to work by Celebrations in Paper a papetiere here in Scottsdale. They do some great work including announcements for my sister, invitations to birthday parties, announcements for some close family friends. My sister did my baby shower invite through Stephanie their graphic designer there, and it turned out brilliantly. I will have to take a picture of it and post in the future, impossible to scan as its a package(omg), yes a package invitation. Anyway, that's for another post.

Here's what the announcement looked like:

This was the outside sleeve. The picture was taken by our photographer Christine Johnson of Scottsdale. She did our engagement, wedding, pregnancy and new born photos! She's super talented and does all her work in film (can you believe?). I just love this shot she got of me and BJ it really is a great profile of the big ol' belly and it's super sweet with him leaning in for the smooch! I'm a goon, but I love it!

And this was the announcement insert. I just love our sweet little girl she's so stinkin' cute. I believe she was just over a week when this picture was taken. We went to Christine's home and she was able to capture some super intimate moments between me and the hubs and little Maddie.

I was so pleased with how the announcements turned out. They were not inexpensive mind you so if you are looking for a deal this is not the route to go, but if you want quality as well as a super cute keepsake (I framed these) then Stephanie at Celebrations in Paper is definitely the way to go!

Our Wedding Thank Yous

2011-09-09T15:16:00.002-07:00

So my post last night put me in a mood to brag about some work. :D

Last year after we got married I carefully chose 2 out of hundreds of wedding photos to use in our thank you cards. I wanted to do something different so I came up with the idea of sending thank you postcards! Not generic postcards either, each one of course would be personalized with their own individual thank you note, but on the back of the postcard!

Here it is:

It's really hard to see in the scan, but the back of the postcard is a very opaque picture of me and the hubs. We are kissing behind a paper parasol (lol).

I just loved the top picture, I know I look really serious but the backdrop is gorgeous. This is the picture we used for the wedding announcement for my hometown newspaper. I've mentioned this is an old post, but we ended up having the wedding in my sister's backyard. It was a beautiful view of Camelback Mtn. This picture was actually taken under a tree in her neighbors backyard. The neighbors house happens to be the David Wright Residence designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It was neat because the architecture of my sister's old home(before they knocked it down) was very modern (designed by FLW's son) as is the other home's property. But either way the pictures turned out amazing due to the setting sun in the background.

I "designed" these thank you cards and had them printed on an iridescent card stock. I liked them! :) I made like 75 and used every single one.

Maddie's Stationery

2011-09-08T21:43:00.002-07:00

Not many people know this about me, but my first job out here in Arizona was as a marketing research contractor for a non-explosives company. Yes, non-explosives. I actually remember the whole spiel about the company, but generally it used compact gas expansion to demolish rock where there were high explosive regulations (snooze). Anyway part of my job duties were to create the information packets, advertising mail outs etc. I had no background in graphic design whatsoever, but for whatever reason that responsibility landed in my lap and I went with it. I spent weeks on what I assume would take a professional only hours, but I was damn proud of my work as was everyone else. The company continued to use my work for months after I left (up until they went bankrupt yikes!!) It was such a great concept and really could have been successful had it been marketed in the right way. They had some horrible ideas and no direction, hence why I left! Anyway, I'm not going to post any of my work here (although I still have my presentation boards) because it's really boring stuff with a lot of explosive statistics. (snooze again). I don't blame you, if you have fallen asleep already!

Basically I'm prefacing the work I did today for Madison's thank you cards. So I have a little graphic design background working with Adobe CS2 (is what it was at the time, I believe). But I actually didn't use any of CS4 (which is what I have on my computer) I just used plain old Word to design her thank you's. I've done a lot of her thank you cards as well as my own in the past, but this one for some reason was the most successful the others were kind of blah. Mostly because I wasn't using a great quality paper with the right color.

So without further ado :)

A very simple, but what I believe is an elegant stationery for my daughter to write (I really mean I'm going to) all her thank you cards for the baptism gifts from family, when we were in Chicago. I know that people probably just read the note and think oh what a cute little card, but I really try to make each and every thank you card I send out special. I'm a dork! Every card I have written so far has been a note from Maddie herself, telling her family in Chicago how much she misses them and thank you so much for all the cool things she got. (She is one sweet little girl right!?) I think it's important, or at least that's how I was raised. (Tangent! - I wrote straight from my head so sometimes I go off on tangents haha Mommy Brain!)

The deets:

M is the monogram in Edwardian Script Font

Madison Noelle (Scribble Scrabble - yes done on purpose for anonymity purposes) is all caps in Garamond Font

Each of the above were positioned using simple text boxes

3 lines 2 of which were 9pt in pink and 1 in the middle 2pt in blue, lined up with no spacing

I printed it on cream colored 115# (I think) card stock

They are each 1/4 sheet of paper a perfect little thank you note.

I love to design invitations, thank you notes and everything in between! :) What fun! I'm trying to think of what my next project will be!

Maddie is 5 months!!

2011-09-07T17:18:00.005-07:00

The computer problems I have been complaining repeatedly about over the course of the past couple of weeks have now come to a resounding end. I have corrected the Apple issues and resolved the external HD issues with a successful DIY date recovery. And now that things are somewhat back to normal/order I wanted to add Maddie's 5 month post (a little late!)

Madison Noelle, where do I start. Ahh I could just squeeze your chunky little fat stinkin' thighs all day long, and give you big ol' smooches all over your neck rolls. You are absolutely 100% the cutest little thing I could have ever created. I don't know how much you weigh or how tall you are (no doctor visits this month) but if you haven't hit the 20 lb mark by your 6 mo. visit I'll be very very surprised!

All that squirming you were doing last month to prepare yourself for crawling has paid off. You are mere weeks from crawling. You are able to get up on all fours and you wobble back and forth until you flop down and get super frustrated, but you will get the hang of it soon!! You rarely like to hang out on your back anymore, when we lay you down you flip right over onto your belly - you even like to sleep on your belly (to mommy's dismay).

You have jumped into eating solid foods like a rock star. At first we had a hard time with the rice cereal, but after your persistent mommy kept feeding it to you and mixing it with your favorite fruits you gobble it down!! Mommy is making all your baby food for right now and we have tried apples, bananas, pears, peaches, sweet potatoes, sweet peas, green beans and carrots so far!! Your favorites are definitely the sweet potatoes and all the fruits (no surprise there). You love your mum mums and have recently started snackin' on sweet potato Gerber Puffs. You are currently eating 3 solid food meals a day and it has really helped with your sleeping. You normally take 2 solid naps (about 2 or so hours) everyday and you are sleeping (at the longest) a 6 hour stretch at night time, just a little feeding coaxes you back to sleep quickly until you've gotten a good 10-12 hours of sleep.

You still love to watch Baby Einstein although I've realized that whenever anyone starts speaking during the program you get very annoyed. You like all the pretty pictures and the toys to the music in the background, but none of the serious talk, right? You are also still watching NickJr. You just love Moose A. Moose, just like your cousin Kaia. You could watch him forever. You also enjoy Ni Hao Kai Lan, Mrs. Spider's Sunny Patch Friends and the Bubble Guppies. Mommy's favorite show is the Fresh Beat Band and maybe we will go to one of their concerts together when you are older ;)

We haven't had any exciting trips since last month when we went to Chicago. Daddy and I want to start taking you to the Zoo, but it's just so stinkin' hot here right now. As soon as it cools down we want to show you all the animals and we hope you enjoy it as much as we do :)

I cannot believe my next post about you will be your 1/2 birthday!! 6 months have gone by way too quickly!! Slow down little girl, please, your mama can't take you gettin' any older :\

I don't think there's anything worse...

2011-09-04T14:39:00.000-07:00

...than an Asian lady driving with a baby in the backseat, i.e., ME!

According to my husband I could very well be one of the worst drivers on the face of the planet, aside from my mom and her sister (100% Asian woman - I'm only 1/2). I understand that it's a stereotype that Asians are horrible drivers, but c'mon stereotypes stem from somewhere and coming from experience, this one is spot on.

You ever drive down the road and there is a car in the left lane going like 10 mph under the speed limit and you're cruising along trying to get around them? As you are pulling onto the left side of what is most likely a Toyota Camry you peer to your side just to catch a glimpse of what this driver might look like. There is like a 90% chance it's an Asian woman hovering over the steering wheel not even paying attention to the fact that there is a car to her left or the fact that she is going 20mph in a 40. Don't roll your eyes, you know it's true!

Okay, so I'm no a slow driver, if anything I'm a lead foot, but I tend to be a little reckless. Hence my entry a couple months ago regarding my serious road rage and anger with beggars. Here are a couple of the common things I do on a day to day basis when I'm driving:

1. Roll through stop signs - not a horrible offense, there are a lot of people who do it. I just happen to do this without looking both ways assuming there is no one coming and more than likely cutting someone completely off. :O
2. Cruise through stale yellow lights...Hmm it's yellow!!! If my tires are over the pedestrian walking line and it turns red, I'm in the intersection! seriously!
3. Occupy 2 lanes at any given time. There normally isn't anyone in the second lane :)
4. Get my rights and my lefts confused and when turning left sometimes realize I need to be making a right and just cut across like 4 lanes! Woopsie

There are many many more, but I don't want to completely scare you from driving on the streets of Phoenix. I promise I have not been in an accident in about 3 years! (Yes an most of the car accidents I've been have been caused by me :\)

But all this horrible driving is exponentialized (yes I made this word up) by the fact that I have my screaming daughter in her car seat directly behind the driver seat. So when she is screaming I release the steering wheel with my left hand (making sure to keep my right hand in contact with it at almost all times) to reach back to the back seat fumble around in her car seat reaching to her sides, underneath her, up and around in search of whatever toy, pacifier, squeaky I can find to keep her from crying even louder. I noticed today while driving and this happened, that my driving skills are compromised to the extreme while attempting to do this and make a left hand turn at the same time. I narrowly avoided a large curbed median with trees and a pole, swerving erratically into the extra lane again narrowly missing the other vehicle making a left hand turn. Hmm..

So I can admit to the fact that I'm a horrible driver, I can admit to the fact that my driving skills are reduced to an even farther extend while tending to the a crying baby at the same time. I can also admit to the fact that occasionally I will text while driving (not with Maddie in the car though). I can lastly admit to the fact that all of the above combined pisses the living sh*t out of my husband, considering he is professionally trained in the art of pursuit/emergency/tactical driving (all safely I mind you). At least one of us is a good driver! :)

Cheetos, It's What's for Breakfast

2011-09-01T13:49:00.000-07:00

Between Maddie waking up numerous times last night and having a somewhat cranky baby this morning(and practically - but not really - force feeding her carrots), attemping to fix my external hard drive myself after a 4 day scan took place and getting the husband out the door for court I am wiped.

Maddie had a rough night followed by a somewhat rough morning and her morning nap only lasted about 40 minutes instead of her normal 2. In addition to this cranky little babe, I tried calling Seagate technical support to retrieve my scanned information after an "error" occurred while doing the data recovery scan for 4, count 'em 4 days went by, ugh! Upsetting!! Then my husbandio needed to be woken up at 9 on the dot after sleeping for 1.5 hours(he works at night) to head to court. The duties of a mother/wife/basically servant to everyone, never end.

So I had Cheetos for breakfast yup! I was hoping to throw a couple eggs on your the stove and a couple pieces of bread in the toaster for a quick and healthy breakfast to start my day off right, but instead I filled a bowl with Natural White Cheddar Cheetos and pounded those things down like they were going out of style. Breakfast of Champions! I advise, skipping breakfast all together instead of opting for a bowl of Cheetos, stomach not happy with me. o_O

You Think We're From Chicago???

2011-08-31T12:09:00.000-07:00

Not sure how many people who read this, which is probably not many, know that we are a Phoenix family, but we are! I personally have lived in the Phoenix metro area for over 5 years now. Gasp! (Damn, I'm getting seriously old.) Anyway, both the hubs and myself are from the Chicago-land area and I personally didn't have a strong connection to Chicago sports teams, but my husband and his family surely, surely, surely and just one more surely do.

These are just a select few of the Illinois/Chicago teams apparel we have in Madison's closet. What we have missing are some White Sox tees and more Cubs tees, a D. Rose Bulls onesie, like a crap ton of Bears wear. On top of that we have about 15 U of Illinois tees and onesies one which is so cute and says "I'm going to be a Division 1 athlete just like Mommy and Daddy" hehe cuuuuute!!!

So Madison is currently 5 months, wearing roughly size 6-9 months and will not be able to wear any of these outfits for at least another 6-12 months, but they are there ready and waiting for her because she is a Chicago Girl after all!!! :) I can't say I won't be disappointed if she doesn't go to Illinois!! Hmm, I guess we have a little time to figure that all out ;)

One of those HARD ROCK days...

2011-08-30T14:05:00.002-07:00

Actually I don't know if you would consider it "hard rock" but I remember this song from back in the day...

The video is so tacky it's hilarious and the tune is definitely catchy

I believe in a thing called love, do you?

Worst Computer Disaster of All Time!

2011-08-27T18:55:00.000-07:00

Roughly 2 months ago I came up with this amazing idea to get an external hard drive to move all my pictures to and open up some space on my iMac. So I went in search and found myself a Seagate GoFlex 2TB external HD. Yippee...I was so excited to plug that sucker in get it all formatted and ready to go. And 2TB, what would I do with all that space?

So over the course of the first couple of hours of getting home I managed to move every single picture I have taken over the course of the past 5 years over to the external HD and delete them off my iMac. Everything was hunky dory as I was still able to move the images back and forth for editing. I was in technological heaven.

And then disaster struck. Ugh! I plugged the HD into my computer to work on some images and what happens?? "Your HD is unreadable - please reformat" WTF!!! Quickly, I maneuver myself to the disk utilities and attempt to do a repair of the HD. Error. Error. Error. Oh motherf*cker!! In my non-computer genius head I decide to use the seagate website to troubleshoot to no avail. I finally lower my head in defeat and come to the realization that this particular job needs to be outsourced. I figure I need to get my iMac cleaned up anyway. I'll bring the whole getup into Geek Squad the next day and get them to fix everything for me.

WRONG!!!

After checking in all my equipment signing a million and two pieces of paper and handing over my life so to speak I leave with an emptiness in the pit of my stomach. Those pictures consist of both my nieces births and subsequent birthdays. My very own daughter's birth. Our rehearsal dinner and wedding pictures. I mean all the memories I could ever want to hold on to are on those HDs.

Couting the days...day 4 I call, no answers. Ugh!

A week later...seriously a week!?! "Yes we would like to inform you that your external hard drive is not working properly and we cannot get your data recovered at this point. Also we would like to inform you that you iMac's hard drive has also failed" Yeah. So I go in to get a tune up on my computer and I get back a non-functional iMac. Fabulous! $150 later, I have less than what I went in with. I could literally, and I mean quite literally, bite someone's head off. Just jam my teeth into one of those tech's neck and start chompin' away until decapitation occurs. Grr..

But I haven't completely given up. I am taking my iMac to the Apple store tomorrow to be repaired followed by an attempt at a DIY restoration of data from external HD. We will see how that goes. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!!

Muffin Top

2011-08-25T21:12:00.000-07:00

What is with women wearing what I can only assume are size 24 jeans when they are very clearly not a size 24, closer to a 34. Can we say muffin top! And I mean an overloaded cupcake pan type muffin. Yikes. Ghetto! My number one question I want to ask is "How the hell do you get those ON?" number 2..."Do you think that looks good?" It is beyond me why women do that. Do you think they would be offended if I asked them?? Because I am honestly super curious. I can imagine how that conversation would go...

ME - "I'm so sorry to bother you ma'am, but I'm just curious, what's up with the muffin top?"

MuffinTop Lady - "Muffin top?"

ME - "You know, all that fattiness pokin' out from under your skanky halter top and hanging over your way too tight jeans? And while you're at it can you explain to me the physics behind leveraging such a body size into those tiny little jeans?"

MuffinTop Lady - *gasp* "BITCH!" *WHACK*(her fist hitting my face)

ME - "Ahhhhhh" *SPLAT*(my face hitting the ground)
Hmm...on that note...I'm not going to ask. I'm just going to assume they don't look in a mirror before they leave and are in absolute denial about their actual size or have not purchased a new pair of jeans since they were 12 years old, in which case I would be more than happy to buy them a new pair of pants, no joke!

Maddie's First Taste of Food!!!

2011-08-20T19:39:00.000-07:00

Madison has started "solids"!!! YAY I'm so excited for her.

Right before we left for Chicago we decided to start Maddie on rice cereal. She was not a huge fan. She ate a little bit, gave us that disgusted look and spit most of it out. We repeated the process for about 10 minutes and gave up. We attempted a handful more times of rice cereal to no avail. I tasted it myself, its pretty gross. blegh!

When we returned from Chicago I busted out the Beaba and made her some Fuji Apple applesauce!! She loved it. We have video of her screaming because a spoonful of applesauce is not in her mouth. We wanted to make sure that there was no allergic reactions so we waited about a week and 1/2 and now she has progressed to bananas. Oh my goodness if I thought she loved her some applesauce she is all about the bananas!! She has also recently become addicted to Mum Mums. Bananas flavored baby rice husks. THey jsut melt in her mouth and are something for her to chew on, cause I'm pretty sure she is teething. She loooves them. So, today is day 3 on bananas and applesauce and she went through 2 oz of each in addition to her regular feedings. Oh my chunky little monkey is gonna get so big!!!! :)

I think tomorrow I'm going to make her some carrot puree and freeze it in preparation to start her on Monday. I think apples and bananas are great, but they are fruits and I want to add in some veggies. I think after carrots I'll add in some sweet potatoes.

Can you believe on Thursday she is going to be 5 months??? Wow all these solids foods before she's even 5 months old?? I'm sooo proud of my growing little girl... I'm a crazy mom I know :-P

Monday, Monday

2011-08-15T09:20:00.000-07:00

Feeling a little slow going this moring, groovin' to the oldies - swaying back and forth to one of the best Monday songs of all time...

Enjoy the sounds ;)

Have a great Monday everyone!

Family Photo Picture Time! :)

2011-08-10T11:31:00.001-07:00

I am normally taking pictures left and right of everyone and Billy refuses to have his picture taken, so the fact that we even got 2 family "portraits" this past weekend is AMAZING!! I have to share :)

This one was taken at Maddie's baptism. Maddie is obviously in her baptism dress, so stinkin' cute!! Billy and I are as dolled up as we get haha :) I'm a little red in the face, not sure why...oh well

This was taken when we arrived at the Koepcke/Nybroten family reunion in DeKalb, IL the Saturday before Maddie's baptism. Maddie is distracted by her cousin Alarah in the corner. Fairly obvious in this picture that I have some work to do post pardum (on the bod) but Billy looks great! :)

So they aren't the perfect family portraits, but they are as good as its going to get at the moment, so I'm happy!

Little Miss Maddie at 4 months!!

2011-08-10T09:28:00.000-07:00

Madison Noelle, you are growing up too fast for poor old mama...will you please slow down!!
Month number 4 has been such an amazing milestone for you, you are being such an active little girl and I cannot believe my eyes everyday you are doing something new! You truly are advanced!!! =D

Last month you began to turn over with a little assitance from the parentals, but this month you busted down the gates and really started flipping around completely on your own. You actually don't even like laying on your back very much and everytime we lay you down on your play mat you flip right over and lift your head up super high. You are soo very strong and your head never falls. You are starting to hold your chest up with your arms and even attemping to bring you knees in under you - the first signs of attempted crawling! I cannot believe my little baby girl will be mobile soon. You get very frustrated easily I think because you really want to start cruising around but need to gain a little more strength. When you bring those knees in you tend to scoot backwards a bit, but you are definitely making strides in that department!

I took you to your 4 month well check up yesterday morning and I cannot believe how much you have grown. You are currently 25 1/2 inches long which puts you in the 75/90th percentile in height. You are also 15 lbs 4 oz putting you in the 75th percentile for weight (my hefty little chunkster) and your head circumference lands you in the 25/50th percentile which rounds you out and makes you very proportionate (so the doc said). Not that I had any doubt, but you surely are growing like a little weed!

You will not remember this at all, but you had what doctors refer to as a labial adhesion. Your cousin had this same issue so when I saw it whilst changing your diaper I knew what it was right away. It is extremely common in the "heavier set" babies verbatum per Dr. Struble. She fixed that problem with a little Q-tip and I was expecting some screams out of you, but your reaction was completely opposite, as if nothing has even happened! However the story is completely different with your second round of shots! : ( you screamed so loud, thank goodness Auntie Marissa was there to hold you while the nurse was giving you all 5 shots because sadly your mama was freaking out, those needles are so big!! But after just a few minutes a little milk you were totally fine and eventually slept the day away. A slight fever, but the grape flavored infant tylenol really helped (even though you don't really like the taste!)

So now that your 4 month well visit is over and I have written proof that you are a growing healthy little baby girl I am content.

You love you some Baby Einstein. It is absolutely crazy. While we were in Chicago for 2 family reunions and your baptism your Grandpa Steele loved to hold you on his lap and watch Baby Einstein with you. You just completely zone in on it like nothing else is around. When we are at home you love to have it on in the backgroud while you play with Jeffrey the Giraffe hanging from your belly time play mat. Your favorite song to laugh and play to are the ABCs my little genius. And when you are sleepy I sing "I love your my little baby girl" the song I made up for you and you just stare at me with those adorable loving little eyes as you drift off to sleep.

I could seriously go on for hours about every little thing that you do, but I will end there. Another month has passed and my love for you continues to grow. My sweet adorable chunky little baby girl! :) I love you.

Maddie has been Baptized

2011-08-08T16:13:00.000-07:00

And to be quite honest with you, it was amazing and touched my heart and I cried because I'm overly emotional! She was a princess the whole time and Father Frank is literally the nicest man on the planet. When he held her she barely fussed. The only time she started to fuss was when we laid her back for the actual baptism with the blessed water and it was amazing how she stared up at Father Frank as he touched her sweet little forehead and a hush fell upon her lips as if she was listening so intently on his baptismal words. Again, I love you my sweet little baby girl and now you are a child of God and even though there was no doubt in my mind before, He really does love you too!!

Baptism?!

2011-07-22T09:48:00.000-07:00

I've never been one to be super religious. I have always had a inner faith in something, but other than going to general Christian type churches growing up i.e., Lutheran, Methodist and then Catholic when I was in middle school, I've never really had super strong beliefs that follow the guidelines provided by organized religions such as the above.

Having a baby with a husband who has a very strong belief in the Catholic religion did not bother me in the slightest. I thought you have your beliefs and I'm not saying they are wrong at all...I'm just saying they are not the only ones. So when my husband was adamant about baptizing Madison, I had no qualms whatsoever.

I've seen, on facebook and blogs, the big events that go into baptism of children. Its a huge ordeal, parties, church events etc. Fabulous! I guess I'm just not...like that...well considering I didn't even realize my daughter was getting baptized until a few days ago anyway...

The Catholic religion is very strict, and I'm not complaining, to each their own. However, after realizing I was pregnant and our child would need to be baptized under the Catholic church, I started researching what I would need to do in preparation. This is when everything kind of just was pushed the wayside as I read about 6 month classes, my own baptism, confirmation, first communion etc. It's a lot to digest...really adopting a religion as your one and only. But that's not to say I don't want my own daughter following those beliefs. I want her to have organized religion in her life, I believe its important in developing her morals, beliefs and just who she is going to be as a adult/human being!

To make a long story short...my mother in law was able to find a Catholic priest who would baptize Madison even though I am not officially a practicing Catholic. This is awfully kind and wonderful of this man because based on Catholic beliefs (correct me if I'm wrong) unbaptized babies end up in purgatory if (God forbid) anything happens to them. And granted I'm not a practicing Catholic, I would still want my daughter at the right hand of God as I'm sure anyone would.

My mother in law kept asking me while she was talking to the priest that this is what I wanted for Madison and that I wasn't feeling any pressure from her. And I told her of course I did not feel pressure and I don't. I definitely want Madison baptized. The only hang up I'm having at the moment was a discussion I had with my parents the other day. Honestly I'm not a stupid person at least I don't think I am. I guess I just didn't put 2 and 2 together. But like I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I have been going to Methodist/Lutheran churches since I can remember. My father was raised Lutheran and my mother I guess was Baptist (still confused about this). So they are technically Protestant?? Which is a direct rival to the Catholics?? I mean for me it's like apples to apples, but to some it could be apples to a square box for all I know! I just don't want to offend anyone is all...I can't turn away from my family's beliefs, but my husband and I agreed that Maddie would be raised Catholic. Does this mean that I have to be Catholic myself??? I'm afraid it does...

predicament...

Maddie at 3 months!!!

2011-07-05T15:30:00.000-07:00

Actually she's 3 1/2 months now because I'm entirely too slow and entirely too busy with the day to days.

Madison Noelle is advanced, as I like to continually say. Yes, I am that mom!

She is still loving her boobie milk and drinking it straight from the source and her bottles (when mommy is at work) like its going out of style. Unfortunately for mommy, her pump broke a couple weeks ago and she has had to resort to manually pumping, but is devoted to her growing baby girl so does it without complaints! :)

Maddie is such a great little girl and loves sitting up in her support seat and watching Nick Jr. and Baby Einstein. Her favorite toy is her Baby Einstein Ocean animal "TV" (not sure what its actually called) but it sits in her crib and plays music while the ocean floors spins around for her to see all the animals. She could stare at it for hours!

She is still sleeping with mommy in bed and only wakes up about 2-3 times a night to eat and then falls quickly back to sleep. She sleeps about 12 hours hours at night with a long 3 hour nap during the day and small cat naps (20-30 min) every couple of hours.

Next month we will finally start trying rice cereal and see how she likes it and I'm sure time will just fly by when she starts eating and then crawling. She still loves her tummy time and just recently rolled from her stomach to her back 2 times in a row! :)

She has such a great little personality smiling all the time and rarely crying as long as she is not left alone for too long. She really enjoys going for walks anywhere, like the long walk we took around the neighborhood community center on the 4th of July as well as long walks through the mall where its nice and cool with lots of different color lights for her to look at!

At her 2 month peds appt she was in the 90th percentile for height and weight and we are eagerly awaiting her 4 month eval in a couple of weeks!

Scrambled Egg Ice Cream

2011-06-14T17:39:00.000-07:00

Yeah....sounds disgusting cause I'm pretty sure it is.

I come from a small Midwestern town in Illinois where they have one of the best "ice cream" hot spots in the country. And I use those quotations very loosely because it's not at all ice cream, but rather FROZEN CUSTARD!!! I'm pretty sure this is a Midwest desert because when I lived on the east coast I never really saw it and here in the west coast/desert I never see it, which is really surprising! But man do I miss me some Ollie's Frozen Custard. It was just a short bike ride down the nature trail from my house and a few quarters out of my pocket before I was enjoying that smooth, creamy, oh so delicious decadent dessert.

So in remembrance of my childhood cravings I decided to make some homemade ice cream/custard. I'm pretty sure the main difference between ice cream and custard are the egg yolks. This recipe called for 8 egg yolks. I actually make this delicious treat memorial day weekend and it turned out phenomenally. It requires tempering the eggs, which is not exactly an easy task. I believe my first attempt at this recipe was a successful fluke!

Today I woke up early and started on the custard mixture. After tempering the egg yolks and adding them to the remaining vanilla flavored warm cream I reduced the heat to med/low (maybe not paying attention to that fact that it was a bit closer to medium) and walked away for only a few minutes before returning to do a quick stir/whisk. I peered down into my saucepan and what do I see? Scrambled Eggs....blegh! One batch totally wasted. I figure I'll stop by the store pick up some more whipping cream and 1/2 and 1/2 and start over a little later in the afternoon.

My second attempt of the day went similarly...tempered the egg yolks added to the mixture to the creams in the saucepan and then I needed to breastfeed baby Maddie. So I called the hubster over and instructed him to continue stirring until further instructions. As I sat down to feed Miss Maddie I must have totally zoned out because 5-10 minutes later I hear from husband from the kitchen, "how long am I supposed to stir this for?" crap crap double crap...I jumped up and take a hopefully glance into the saucepan hoping that the continual stirring has prevented the cooking of the eggs, but no such luck. Another batch...wasted?!?!

My husband turns to me and said hey why don't you just finish the steps and see how it turns out, either way if its bad it'll still end up in the garbage disposal. What a great idea. I pour the mixture into the mixing bowl and place in the fridge for cooling. A couple of hours I return to see very chunky looking custard. I whisk the custard thinking oh well let's see how this turns out and to my surprise...it smoothed out and became very thick and custardy!! So I've put it in the frozen ice cream maker attachment to my kitchen aid stand mixer and we will see...what...happens... but so far so good! :)

Looking forward to some delicious scrambled egg custard!

Milk Shortage

2011-06-13T12:27:00.000-07:00

I'm panicking, I'm pretty sure I'm running low on milk and going to be forced to supplement with formula and Maddie isn't even 3 months old yet!!

Like I have mentioned before I work every day from home which leaves me at the office Mon, Wed, Fri. I can be gone for up to 14 hours a day which also means I'm pumping for all this time. Its so stressful because sometimes I don't have the luxury to pump on a regular 3 hour schedule.

Now over the weekend I came to the conclusion that Maddie is not getting enough from the breast. She was really grabby all weekend not taking extensive naps during the day as she usually does and at night having a difficult time falling asleep. I feed her in the middle of the night once around 2 am and another time around 5 am. To add to that I'm reading on all these mother/baby websites that by this age their babies are sleeping although all the way through the night. So I'm obviously doing something wrong!

Today my husband is at home watching Maddie while I am at work. I fed her around 7 am this morning and she ate again around 10 from the bottle. In the past she was regularly eating around 3 oz per feed. This morning my husband informed me she "GOBBLED" (his words) down 4.25 oz. Again I couldn't pump at the exact time she ate, but I pumped at 11:30 and only get 4.5 oz out of both boobs together!

When I'm saying I'm panicking I don't been oh this is funny I'm panicking blah blah blah blog talk....I'm literally stressed to the max! I took her to her 2 month check up a couple weeks ago and she was in the 90th percentile which technically should mean she is getting enough food from me right?? She's growing she's healthy, but now she's not sleeping like she use to which means she's probably not satisfied in regards to eating. I'm not pumping enough at work to keep up with my storage in the freezer (I have probably an extra 10 feedings or so in the freezer, if I'm lucky) I don't think the every other day she eats from the breast is stimulating my supply enough. And to seriously top this stress monster off my pump broke last week and I've had to manually pump for like 2 or 3 days now!! AHH my sister has a Medela Swing, which is a significantly smaller pump, but would do the trick so I'm going to snag that from her, but still....

I know formula isn't all that bad and that she'll be happier and healthier in the end, but honestly every time someone looks at her and sees how healthy she is and they ask oh is she breast/formula fed...when they hear me say "all breastmilk!" they get this smile on their faces and say "good job mommy!" like it's something to be seriously proud of....and I am!! What do I do now???

Fatty Neck Rolls & Curdled Milk

2011-06-07T10:30:00.000-07:00

Umm....I am the worst mom on the planet or does this happen to everyone??

In my half sleeping daze this morning I was nursing my little chubsters. When she was satisfied and in a playful mood (which Mommy was not) she started squirming around begging for my attention. I reluctantly complied, especially because I couldn't resist those sweet little smirky cheeks!! So there I was in bed tickling my little girl to get her to give me a sweet little giggle and as she throws her head back in laughter.... I see it!! Red splotches hidden beneath the creamy white fatty cheeks and neck folds. I panic!! OMG what have I done, how long has it been like this, I inspect further to find what I can only assume is curdled milk!?!? Yuck, yuck double yuck! I quickly formulate a plan of attack...red splotched curdled milk folds must be terminated at all costs!!

I begin a rigorous sweep of the area with handy baby wipes. She is fighting me with all her might very much not wanting to tolerate me pushing her fat cheeks and neck folds out of the way to open the area of interest. Screams bellowing from her once smiling mouth, Plan A = FAIL. On to Plan B -- immediate execution of bath time. I bundle her into my arms frantically attempting to turn on hallway bathroom sink to medium temperature, insert Puj bathtub and strip baby to birthday suit. Commence serious bath time! I immediately target the "infected" area, trying with all my might to get into the secured area between the fatty cheek and upper chest. Gently I sweep a the area attempting to oh so gingerly clear the curdled milk from the depths of the folds. Upon completion of bath time, success rings through my ears. I cuddle her into her towel, drain the sink and with a spring in my step walk her to her changing table for a little rub down of lotion.

I start with her belly and her legs making sure to get her well moisturized in this dry desert atmosphere. I then continue to her arms and her back then her cute little booty. Finally I switch lotions and begin her face and neck. With my thumb and forefinger I get into the creased area under her chin and what do I feel.....MORE curdled milk!!!

WHEN WILL IT END!??!?!?!

Maddie is 2 month!!! 05/26/2011

2011-06-01T10:08:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe you are already 2 months old and that its been a whole 2 months since we were in the hospital anticipating your arrival! :) You have made some drastic changes and really grown up in the short 1 month span since our last picture session.

You have become incredibly interactive and your smile lights up a room. You are going to be one gorgeous lady and I'm going to have a hard time fighting those boys off for you, but don't get me wrong I'll definitely win cause I'm like one of those mama bears protecting her young!

I say this with the most pride a mother can possibly have and the most love I can exude, that you are one little chunkster. And I say with pride because after the tough time we had at the beginning with breastfeeding you have always been an eater and you are growing in leaps and bounds. I am eagerly anticipating your 2 months peds appointment tomorrow morning to see what percentile you are in, height & weight! :)

You are the sweetest little angel with the best termperment a mother could ask for. Only crying when tired (which you fight so hard to stay awake most of the time) and when you are hungry (you love you some milkies) but other than that you really enjoy taking in the world around you, cooing and babbling with mommy & daddy and getting super strong during tummy time.

You are our pride and joy. When you lay next to me and stare at my face with those gorgeous blue eyes of yours I just melt into a big puddle of mush and I can't ever imagine my life without you. I love you so much my sweet little Maddie-boo.

I don't want you to grow up too fast, but I love taking your monthly pictures my gorgeous little girl! Smooches all over your cute little cheekers!!!

Early Morning Work

2011-05-26T08:22:00.000-07:00

I'm a working mom, so as I've mentioned before I work from our office on Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays. Tuesday and Thursday I am able to work from home! This morning was a good example. I do all the medical billing for our office and Corey my brother in law and the Ophthalmologist worked on charts last night. So he texted me said I could pick up the charts this morning and then meet Brad (our office manager) to hand them off. So I set my alarm for 5:00am! As my phone starts beeping at me I slowly awaken from my slumber to not only a beeping alarm, but also a whiny little baby girl! She was very obviously hungry. I needed to feed her, which put me a little behind. After she was done I packed her up in her car seat (the husband wasn't home from work yet so I had to take her with me) and drove to my brother in laws arriving at 5:45am. Grab the charts from their kitchen counter (everyone was still asleep) and headed back home.

Upon arrival home I attempted to put a very sleepy/cranky baby back to bed and started my chart work by 6 am. Our office manager wanted to meet at 7am this morning for the hand off. He texted me at 6 informing me that he was leaving his house in 20 minutes, whhaaa??? I had something like 60 charts to do so I had to get through them fast. I called the husband told him I wasn't going to be able to make him breakfast this morning and starting crackin' on the charts. 6:45am I'm only 1/3 of the way through, oh crap! Fingers flying over the keyboard, completed charts stacking up higher and higher. 7:10am 2/3 of the way done. Faster, faster, faster my eyes are glued on the upper right hand corner of my screen where the clock is reading 7:25am, DONE!!! Speedy, speedy -- good thing my typing skills are a killer 115WPM, round about with a few errors here or there ha! I left my house by 7:30 and arrived at the hand off location by 7:42am! I'd say that's pretty good for a quick morning's work!

Back home now enjoying my healthy oatmeal and fruit breakfast and loving the silence of the house while my husband and sweet baby sleep! I love my life...

The Coupon Craze

2011-05-22T19:27:00.000-07:00

Okay, so no one can deny that there is not a coupon craze going on. I mean it's obviously become a popular past time of a lot of stay at home moms. Kudos to all of them, seriously. I've been seeing these extreme couponing shows on TLC and then in addition to that I've also seen a lot of people that I am friends with on facebook talking about coupons too!

I wish I could coupon that heavily to be honest with you. To be able to walk out of the store with $1000+ of stuff for practically nothing?!?! I mean that's pretty friggin' awesome. Free stuff is the sh*t! So I've been slowly starting to "clip" coupons and searching online for good deals etc. and today was my very first awesome buy and I thought I would share with all of you.

I purchase this Crest Pro-Health Sensitive + Enamel Shield Toothpaste from Safeway
The regular price for this product was $4.49
It was on sale for Safeway member cardholders for $2.99
When I was online last night I found that you can add additional safeway coupons to your membership card by going online and selecting the products that you want the coupon for. I added an additional $1.50 off coupon for this product
I also clipped a coupon earlier that week from the weekly circular for an additional $1.50 off this product

That left me paying -$0.01 for this toothpaste!!! Yay!!!

So its not like a HUGE savings in terms of my entire grocery store trip. I think with in store and manufacturer coupons I saved a total of 21%. But the fact that I got something for free, or the store actually paid me a cent to take it made me feel pretty awesome. I'm going to keep putting a little more effort into couponing and maybe it will eventually really pay off! :)

It's What's for Lunch...

2011-05-22T16:31:00.000-07:00

Like I have mentioned in a few of my past posts, I've really been putting a concerted effort into eating healthy and trying to lose the baby weight. This combined with my recipe from a couple posts back "Lazy Chicken Dinner" creates a couple recipes or moreover mumbo jumbos (because it really doesn't require cooking) that I wanted to share. The first being my signature salad I eat almost daily for lunch and the second an alternative chicken salad that can be eaten on lettuce wraps or wheat bread. Both being made from cubed chicken from the "Lazy Chicken Dinner" post, pictured below.

I make this chicken ahead of time (almost a whole bag frozen breasts) cube then refrigerate for easy access :)

Kirsten's Signature Lunch Salad
(Keep in mind this recipe includes vegetables I like I keep around the house, but can literally have anything you could possibly imagine in it!)

Ingredients:
Cubed "Lazy Chicken Dinner" Chicken
Lots of Romaine Lettuce
Spinach Leaves
Broccoli
Carrots
Raisins or Dried Cranberries
Feta Cheese

Salad Dressing:
equal parts Olive Oil & Balsamic Vinegar
(for individual serving roughly 1/8 cup)
squirt of dijon mustard
squirt of lemon juice
salt & pepper to taste
sugar or artificial sweetener of your choice
(to taste, I tend to like my dressings a bit sweeter)
**shake**shake**shake**
voila

Combine all the above ingredients in serving dish and enjoy! :)
When packing mine for lunch I combine all the veg/chicken/cheese etc. in a large container then the salad dressing in a smaller container so as not to get the lettuce all soggy!

I don't have a picture for the following recipe, I haven't actually made it in quite sometime and it just popped in my head while I was cubing the chicken this afternoon.

Healthy (Waldorf-ish) Chicken Salad

Ingredients:
1 cup cubed "Lazy Chicken Dinner" Chicken
1/4 cup sliced grapes
1/4 cup cubed green apples
1/8 cup walnuts (optional)
1/2 cup plain 0% fat Greek Yogurt
2 tbsp mayonnaise
salt & pepper to taste
Bib Lettuce for wrapping

Now I wrote a post a while back, probably almost a year, raving about Greek Yogurt. There are a ton of varieties out there now even Dannon has jumped on the bandwagon. My favorite being Fage because it's so ultra creamy and delicious. But the really cool thing about Greek Yogurt is that it takes on the taste of almost anything you add to it. So for instance you can add a little bit of mayonnaise to it and it tastes like mayo with significantly less calories and fat and much more protein. Greek Yogurt is a great source of protein. So for this recipe you have the protein of the chicken and yogurt and the fruits and nuts keep it pretty healthy although grapes tend to be high in sugar at least its natural. The lettuce wraps keep the carb count down, so you are good to go! :)

My family is coming over for Memorial Day weekend to swim in the pool and hang out in the backyard so I think I'll throw a couple of these together and maybe take some pics to add to this so you can see what it looks like. Until then enjoy! <3