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Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Nicky is 5 months old

My precious little one is getting old. His latest accomplishments include rolling from back to belly and from belly to back all day long.. non stop, eating sweet potatoes, started to master the tripod, we'll see what comes up next.
In honor of his 5 monthday, we did this photoshot taking advantage of my newly acquired prime lens and the cutest overalls ever that I got at Children's place on sale. I'm really loving this lens!

Nicky 5 months


Nicky 5 months


Nicky 5 months


Nicky 5 months


Nicky 5 months

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Pseudo-sleep-training

DH and I decided it's time to do some sort of sleep training. Nicky is 5 months old and still wakes up religiously at 12am, 2am, and 5am every night. He eats every single time, sometimes very little, sometimes quite a bit. This drove me to do some research about sleep training methods. I've decided I'm going to modify everything I've found to what feels best to me, so I'm kinda going with my instinct on this one to a degree. Our first step is to follow a strict bed time routine at the same time every night, because although we always do the same thing, we do it at totally different times. I also plan to come to him when he cries at night to soothe him but not to pick him up.
Today's plan is to try to skip the 2 am feeding. We'll see how it goes.

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Thursday, September 10, 2009

A very pink intimate babyshower

A few weekends ago, I was part of the decoration team for one of my dearest friend's babyshower. She's having a girl, and since I have a boy, I was very very hungry for pink. And although I'm not a pink-loving kinda gal, having the chance of using it all over the place wasn't something I was able to resist. Per the honoree's request, we tried to keep it low key and simple.

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My first task was this diaper cake. My first one ever and I'm so proud. I got compliments from everyone that attended :).. instructions comming soon.

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I also made pink pina colada cupcakes with buttercream frosting. They were so yummy and such a hit!

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I bought this juice container on clearance at Macy's for $25 and filled it with ice and pink lemonade, we cut slices of lime for a little color. It looked so refreshing and was also a hit!

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We did three flower arrangements that we put on each of the tables we had. Simple purple and pink flowers using fish bowls from Michael's with purple glass beads. This fish bowls are so versatile, I've used them over and over again from my engagement party, to my wedding, and other parties. One of the other girls made foam figures and we glued them to wood sticks and placed them among the flowers.

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We didn't want a bulky guestbook, so we purchased a frame and mat and put a sonogram picture and had everyone sign it.
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Since the honoree is a self proclaimed anti-babyshower woman, and doesn't like games, we bought little shirts and onesies along with fabric paint. Everyone made their own design and she got to keep them for her baby.
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For a tooth!

Yes! My precious little Nick got his very first tooth this past weekend. I'm so excited, not only for his first piece of munchin' equipment, but because he's no longer a crazy fussy baby. Yay for me! It was bad enough that it kept me away from my blog. I did find that teething rings only made him more desperate and upset, frozen washcloths only worked for a very very short period of time, the only road to sanity were teething tablets. OMG! what a miracle! Couldn't have made it without them. Now I'm off to stock up, since my little man has a mouthfull of teeth still to grow.
Therefore, if you see a gazillion posts from me, that's me catching up!

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Tuesday, August 11, 2009

The fugly crockpot


My husband found this retro beauty at his office today. Since we're all about crockpot lately, he had to take this picture and send it to me!
His exact quote was:
"it's in the kitchen.
Compared to yours...this one is FUGLY and tiny!"

This one looks like it's worth its weight in gold, judging by the wear :)

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Almost meatless Monday

I’ve been reading Cheapskate’s mom blog religiously lately, so I decided to do a test run for meatless Monday. We always eat some sort of meat at every lunch and dinner; and for health and budgeting reasons, a meatless day sounds just perfect.


The Meal: Cajun Alfredo Pasta. (I figured if it’s spicy enough, it will have enough punch to be great without chicken)
So this is the recipe I came up with.


Ingredients
• 1 lb ziti (or your favorite pasta)
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1/8 cup olive oil
• 1 1 16oz bottle of Ragu Classic Alfredo sauce or yo
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 1 Cajun seasoning; to taste
• 1 ground black pepper; to taste



Instructions
Pasta (This is how I prepare the pasta, but if you have a different way of preparing the pasta, I'm sure it will work fine):
Cook pasta in water quantity per package instructions, add salt and olive oil to the water and stir constantly. When done, remove water and run pasta through cold water. Add 3 table spoons of olive oil to pasta and stir.


Sauce:
Pour all the Alfredo sauce in a sauce pan over medium heat. Rinse alfredo sauce container with the milk and pour in the sauce pan. Add half of the parmesan cheese in and stir, making sure sauce doesn't stick to the sides of pan. Add cajun seasoning until it reaches a spicy level you like, add pepper. Remove from heat once sauce is hot.
Serve sauce over pasta and sprinkle remaining parmesan cheese over the sauce.


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Well, our try at meatless Monday was a fail, by the time the food was served. DH requested a serving of Tyson’s popcorn chicken on top, so we popped the little chicken pieces in the microwave for 2 mins.. and these is what we had: Almost meatless Monday.


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Friday, August 7, 2009

Nicky's first pool party!

I’ve been meaning to post about Nicky turning 3 months for a while. So I figured better late than never. We had a mini spur-of-the-moment celebration; we brought him into the pool for the first time ever, and since it’s our house pool, he just wore shorts and went commando; we had no accidents, well at least we didn’t notice any.
He was quite mellow, didn’t show hate or love towards the pool, I’m glad he wasn’t screaming though. Hopefully, he’ll be more enthusiastic next time around.
It’s incredible how big my little one is getting.

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Thursday, August 6, 2009

Making a good picture, truly amazing in Photoshop

I'm somewhat photoshop saavy; I can do a few things here and there, but mostly I play with the settings to see what I come up with. I have tried different soft focus tutorials for photoshop and this one by far is the best I've tried so far: Creating a dream like effect by thedigitalphotographyconnection.com . I took one of my un-retouched professional wedding pictures to see what I could come up with; I was super excited with the results. I absolutely love the final picture; and the tutorial was great and not at all confusing as I have found other tutorials to be. If you have photoshop, this tutorial is a definety must try.

BEFORE

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AFTER

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Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Crockpot mania!


So I succumbed and ordered a crockpot. I purchased a 6qt model with a temperature probe that reminds me of old times in organic chemistry lab, and regardless how others feel, to me those are happy memories. This Hamilton Beach Set 'n Forget 6-Quart Programmable Slow Cooker is great, the probe is not just fancy looking but it works wonders.
So far I’ve only tried cooking two things, cola chicken that I picked up on this recipe at bigoven.com and a whole rotisserie chicken. For the coke chicken I used frozen chicken breasts and I added chopped onions; it was delicious!, I’m so proud. DH loved the chicken, and he’s a picky eater. The whole chicken was great as well, but nothing out of the ordinary, I placed balls of aluminum foil under the chicken to make it more “rotisserie like”; however, it came out a little bit too white, so I popped it in the oven at broiler setting for five minutes to brown and it was perfect.
I’m very excited about the crockpot; all the raves about spending little time in the kitchen are true, absolutely minimal work. And there are tons of recipes online. I love bigoven.com and Stephanie O’Dea’s blog, which is totally amazing, she’s even got recipes for crockpot yogurt!
Next, I’m planning to try meatloaf, let’s see how that comes out.

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Friday, July 31, 2009

Playing with the Cannon XSi

I got this camera as my push present. Yay! for me. And between adjusting the little knobs and venturing in the manual mode, I came up with a few nice shots of my favorite model, Nicky. I would write an actual review of the camera, but honestly I don't know much; I should say that I really really like it and I'm loving the pictures it takes. Next, I'm planning to get myself a prime lens, according to my research it's a must to capture little baby moments.






This first one is completely un-retouched, and it's by far my favorite:




These following ones have a bit of photoshop retouching.. just because I absolutely love photoshop.




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Image and video hosting by TinyPic



The following ones are from his first few months.. and of course less expertise with the camera.

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Thursday, July 30, 2009

Remembering the NICU time

I was thinking about the NICU and that first terrible week of my baby's life; I started tearing up alone in my cubicle. I have never written a birth story or about my NICU experience before. I guess I didn’t want to fill precious board space with something so long and personal, but my blog seems the perfect place for that.
NICU time was only one week and by no means as dramatic or lengthy as for other families, but it was my baby, my first born and it hurt.
He was born on his due date via c-section because his heart rate was dropping in the monitors. I never expected him to have any issues because he wasn’t a preemie; but there he was, all 5 pounds and 1 ounce of my baby, not wanting to eat at all, not latching, barely taking in a few milliliters of formula, and his glucose levels falling down to floor.
The first nurse in charge would help us feed him with a bottle, because when we tried, he wouldn’t have any. The second nurse just gave us the milk, bottle, and left the room. We tried so hard to have him eat, but he wouldn’t have any at all. The nurse warned us that they would have to put an IV with fluids on him if his glucose didn’t increase. They would test his sugars at every meal, pricking his brand new skin, squeezing his little feet as if they were lemons trying to take blood out for testing; it would break my heart every single time.
On day two, they took him away to the NICU, put him in a warmer and hooked him to an IV. I stayed sobbing, desperate, and confused; I didn’t know what to think; my breastfeeding dreams went out the window. I felt as if I was in a nightmare. And my hospital wasn’t too good about explaining much either, so that made me feel worse.
I can remember the first time I saw the IV on his little hand; what I felt is beyond words, seeing the IV on my tiny baby. At first I didn’t know I could visit him all day or try to nurse there; no one told me anything. Eventually, I learned I could go at every feeding to change him and feed him and such.
I hold a grudge against the NICU, for not explaining things better, for running a battery of tests on Nicky without asking me first or telling me why or even the results until he was dismissed, for finding more malignancies in him than I can count, and more over because I felt that they were keeping him hostage there even after he was off IV. Sometimes, I think a lot of the things done to him were because we have decent health insurance.
And I can’t help to feel guilty, maybe had I done something different he would have been larger and with no problems. Had I not drank caffeine, had I eaten better, had I not skipped my pre-natal vitamins as often as I did. And although he’s all good now, good size and weight; I sometimes still blame myself; I blame the hospital, I even blame my OB for not noticing he was so small; I guess I’ll have to live with those feelings for the rest of my life, because I highly doubt I’ll ever forget.

Here is a pic of DH feeding Nicky in the NICU:

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Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Books for Baby!

We had stayed a bit behind at getting reading material for Nicky. So we went out to Barnes & Noble and picked up a few. Some we bought there and some we saw there and then ordered on Amazon for a lot less :D
These two were Nicky's absolute favorites
1) Clifford the Big Red Dog board book
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2)Funny Faces Charlie Monkey

He started cooing and going crazy. Yay! for reading.

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Thursday, July 2, 2009

Nicky outgrows his wardrobe

Nicky was born a mere 5 pounds and 1 ounce; he started with premie outfits and a few newborn size pieces, now he's finally moved one from everything he wore at first. I literally took everything out of his drawers to replace it with the next size up. My little peanut is a whole chunk bigger.
The next step is to figure out what to do with all the stuff he outgrows: keep some, donate some.. I can't decide.. it's all so new, and it's hard to part ways with his little outfits.

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Friday, June 26, 2009

First post - RIP MJ

I finally came around to start my blog. I hope to write about all sorts of things I enjoy and don't enjoy. I'm sure many other gals will relate, dealing with a brand new marriage, brand new baby, building a career.. and if that weren't enough, keeping alive my love for music, fashion, crafts, all things geeky.

And it's hard to start it today without mentioning MJ. First, I can't believe he's gone; I'm still in denial. I was never a big fan at all, but his music inevitably had a huge influence in mylife, mostly childhood memories.
I know the guy had tons of personal issues and for many it's hard to disregard that part of him. DH says I find an excuse for everything and everyone, and maybe I do; but I can't help to think MJ's weirdness and all bad behaviors were a result of a stolen youth, influenced by a rain of fame and who knows what other stuff that he was put through. We'll soon forget his mistakes, but his music will sure live on forever. RIP MJ

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