Monday, June 29, 2009

Trouble...

So about 2 nights ago I had to have Spike lower Brock's crib to the next level because he just started pulling himself up on the furniture. Well... tonight Spike lowered the crib ALL the way and here is what I saw on the baby monitor...

So of course I had to run in there with a camera :-) I'll try to get a video up here of him pulling up. He's so cute! Every time we're on the floor playing, he gets real close to me, starts crawling on me and eventually grabs my shoulders to stand up!

Fireworks!

Last night we took Brock to our city's annual carnival, which celebrates the last night of a week-long fair with fireworks! He had a great time visiting with family before the fireworks:



Brock trying to get in on our annual "tickle grandma fest"
Start of the fireworks:

He LOVED them! Take a look:
...and literally 10 minutes later:

LOL! Poor baby. He was up sooo late, and he didn't want to take his last nap. I still don't know how he slept through the finale! Babies are crazy! Anyway, we can't wait to take him again next year :-)

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Divas Uncorked!!

This past weekend my youngest sister and I headed up to Traverse City, MI with our mom and one of my sisters friends. We had a whole weekend planned full of wine tasting tours on Old Mission Peninsula where 7 beautiful wineries participated in their 5th annual Divas Uncorked. I have a good friend of mine that lives in Traverse City, so we met up with her and she joined us on the winery tours. For this event, we paid $25 and got free wine tasting at 7 wineries, a souvenir wine glass, wine glass charms from each winery (which we kind of got crazy about near the end of the tour), and appetizers at each winery. We had a GREAT time! I planned this trip MONTHS ago! I couldn't wait to just get away for a weekend so I could sleep in! LOL! I think I was more excited about that than anything else! Despite getting Spike's news the night we left that he ended up in the hospital (read post below this one), I still managed to have some fun. Thankfully my sister-in-law was able to keep Brock over night since Spike didn't get home from the hospital until after 11pm. Anyway, here are some pictures from our trip!
The girls were exhausted from our 4 1/2 hour drive

One of my other sisters got me the CUTEST rain boots for my birthday. It was supposed to rain the WHOLE weekend we were in TC... so I had to bring my boots (by the way - it never rained, so I couldn't wear them).

Tina and Rebecca

Taking a picture of Tina taking a picture of me

Tina and I with mom

OMG! We were laughing so hard at my mom. She was too short to reach the trunk hatch on the rental car! Guess you had to be there, it really was hilarious!

Our favorite winery: Chateau Chantal

At our 1st stop: Penninsula Cellars

2nd stop: Chateau Grand Traverse:

3rd stop: Bry's Estate:

4th stop:Bowers Harbor Vineyards

5th stop: (our favorite) Chateau Chantal

6th stop:2 Lads

Our 7th and final stop: Black Star Farms:

We were so excited to get to the 7th winery to get our wine glass charm, that we headed straight to the bar asked for our charm and left! No one even sampled anything! We were so worried that they were going to be all out of charms! I think my mom actually got the last charm at Chateau Chantal! Can't wait to do it again next year!!!

Baptized!

Sorry for not updating in so long! We had a busy week leading up to Brock's baptism. My sister from AZ was in town for the baptism and just left yesterday :-( So we have been pretty busy around here. I also went away for a weekend with her, our mom, and my sisters friend. While I was out of town, Spike was admitted to the hospital and was diagnosed with Diverticulosis. He has been taking antibiotics for diverticulitis to get rid of the infection in his intestines. Scary scary stuff! It was so hard not being here with him. Thankfully he's starting to feel a little better. He is still having some discomfort, but at least he is able to move around and eat.

So anyway, back to the baptism! It was a really nice ceremony. Brock was the most well-behaved baby there (not that I'm biased or anything)! LOL. He kept making the Priest laugh too! It was great. After the ceremony we headed home and hosted a lunch for our friends and family. We had such a great turn out...(I just remembered that I have to get some Thank You cards)! Here are some pictures from Brock's very special day:






The BEAUTIFUL (and delicious) cake that my mom made!!

Friday, June 12, 2009

Teething HELL....

OMG! It seems like Brock has been teething FOREVER! He had a fever all day yesterday. It was pretty low grade, but I called the Dr. anyway. His temp was 100.4 and the nurse said "yeah that sounds like a teething temp." She couldn't be more right. While he hasn't cut a tooth yet, his gums are pretty red and swollen. He has something in his mouth all day! Poor baby.

Thankfully someone recommended using these homeopathic teething tablets. They are AMAZING!

It looks like he has a few bottom teeth that are trying to come through and his two front teeth as well... so needless to say, out little man is pretty uncomfortable :-(

On a side-note, we're Baptizing Brock this Sunday!! I'm super excited, but I'm so stressed because I have sooooo much to do around the house!

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Such a big boy!!

The other night Brock hit a HUGE milestone!! He can sit all by himself!! Here's a video of him. He was a little excited that Dora was on:

Monday, June 1, 2009

Canning baby food

We did it! We spent the entire weekend canning Brock's baby food with Spike's dad and stepmom. I intended on pureeing all of Brock's vegetables, but I kept reading that the processing time for pureed vegetables hasn't been properly determined - therefore has been deemed unsafe for home canning. So... I was a little bummed, but we decided that we would just cut all the veggies up into little bite sized pieces, cook them for a few minutes until tender-crisp, then can them like that and process them accordingly. This was the safest way to do it. Yes, it means more work for me, but whatever. I know what went into those jars and I'm satisfied that I am feeding my son food that I made! The veggies will be soft enough to just mash with a fork or spoon when I open them, so no biggie :-) We canned them using plain hot water instead of making sauces or syrups. So they are all as plain as can be.

Over the course of 2 days here is a list of what was canned:

Applesauce
Peaches
Pears
Plums
Green Beans
Carrots
Gold potatoes
Zucchini - frozen puree
Asparagus - frozen puree
Mangoes - frozen puree

The last 2 veggies and the Mango, I decided to just steam,puree, and freeze because I didn't buy a lot. It wouldn't have been time effective to can those. The Mangoes were just peeled and pureed, they didn't need to be cooked.

We still have to make:

Butternut Squash
Sweet potatoes

Although it was a lot of hard work, it was worth it! Before this weekend, Brock hated carrots. We made a lot of canned carrots, so I was hoping he'd open up to them. After we finished canning the carrots and let them cool down, we opened up a jar and let him try them! OMG!!! He ate pretty much an entire 4oz jar!!! He even cried when I set the jar down! That was the moment that made it all work it!

Here are some pictures of the weekend. Enjoy! Let me know if you have any questions :)
Sterilizing our jars

Cooking the carrots

Carrots about to get lids and ready for the pressure canner

1st jar of carrots!!


I didn't take pictures of every single fruit/veggie all the way through to the final product. But it was all very exciting. Here are some other pictures:
Plum puree


How my wonderful boys spent their time while we were canning


Ok, I'll post a few more pictures later. Brock's waking up from his nap.

Weekend recap!

WHOA! Talk about having a BUSY weekend :-) Saturday morning I got up bright and early to participate in the Race for the Cure walk downtown. After the walk we went to my in-laws to start canning Brock's babyfood! I'll have a whole separate post for that. We canned all Saturday night and all of Sunday!

But anyway, I walked as a team member for "Save the Boo-Beezz!!" The company Spike works for put the team together, and my sister-in-law and I were part of the team planning. It was a lot of fun to be involved with naming our team and helping to come up with ideas for our team t-shirts. This was our teams 1st year and we had some pretty cool accomplishments! First of all, our team won the Detroit Tiger's Wives Club "Rookie Team of the Year" award! We were the largest new team with 113 members! Because of that, we won a plaque and tickets to one Tiger's game! SA-WEET! Secondly, our team t-shirt was entered into the t-shirt competition and won 2nd place!! The 2nd place prize was $200 for New Balance for the team! How exciting! This year, the race had over 30,000 walkers. Its such a breath-taking experience. This is my 2nd year participating. It is so amazing to see so many survivors and supporters. Its hard not to have a dry eye the whole morning :-) Here are some pictures from the morning.


Part of our team (we were so big, the guy couldn't fit us all in!)

Our shirts! This is my sister-in-law and her kids