Brandon's Puppy

Brandonism

Yesterday afternoon:

"Every single people needs to go to one house"

What do you think he meant?

EOAS, week 2

It's Wednesday, and that means we're just two days away from the weekend. Hurray!
That also means it's time for the second installment of Evolution of a Scrapper.
So without further ado, here we go:

My Baby Shower was held on December 8th, one day after my birthday. It was planned two months before my due date. Little did we know that Brandon would decide to grace us with his presence four weeks later. We had a very boyish nautical theme.

Isn't my invitation cute?!

Look at all the goodies we received!

Our guests:

I love Christmas!

Can you see how swollen I was? We all speculated I wouldn't make it to the February 6th due date...and I didn't. See that picture down there, on the left? Brandon was born 3 weeks after that.

Hope you enjoyed the pages. Next week: Teeny, tiny baby!

Water Baby

We just got back from Matty's first trip to the beach! On a whim, I told the hubby yesterday afternoon, "let's go to the beach tomorrow with the boys". So we did. We told my sister, who coincidentally had plans to go to the same beach, and we spent about two hours at Bill Baggs State Park, near the Cape Florida Lighthouse. The water was perfect! Matty loved it, and Brandon, who is usually quite apprehensive about large bodies of water, proclaimed the beach his new favorite place. The only mishap was the death of my fairly new cellphone, which Eric had in his pocket and forgot about until we were in the water for about half an hour. Needless to say, it is unsalvagable. But no worries, I'll have a new one by tomorrow. But if I had your number (specifically Ziva, CTG, wRitErsbLock, Tere, Chantel and Marta), email it to me please.
Anyway, I'm off to take a shower, then potentially a nap, if the boys are still napping.

Pictures below the fold.

Have a great Sunday afternoon, everyone. :-)

(Yes, he really did fall asleep in there!)

hijacking your blog

I just can't take it anymore! My internet went out last night, and I'm going through severe blog and email withdrawal. So I'm hijacking your blog. This is important.

The Yoplait Light yogurts have seventy less calories than their regular yogurts.

And even less than that since the taste is so horrid you can't bring yourself to eat more than two spoonfuls of it (never trust your first taste). Ugh. I'll take the additional seventy calories to have something healthy-ish to have for my afternoon snack at work. Meanwhile, this "key lime" container of crap is hitting the trash. I just can't choke down another spoon of it.

Thank you for letting me vent over here, Amanda.

Happy Hour!!

Just got this email:

From: "Dj Zog"
Date: 2007/06/21 Thu PM 03:55:58 EDT
To: "me"
Subject: Martini Bar Grand Prize Winner 6/22/07

Hi Amanda,

You are the Grand Prize winner for the DJ Laz Martini Bar Happy Hour
Hook-Up!
Your name will be at the front door of Martini Bar (Sunset Place) on
Fri 6/22/07.
You and your 8 friends will enjoy a complimentary round of drinks and
food from 5-9pm.
21 and older only please.
Congratulations and Enjoy !!!!
Power 96

Very cool. I don't think I've ever won anything before!! (at least not from a radio station)

Moms Have Magic

Just got this via email from Lilli. Whether these are the answers really given by 2nd graders, I don't know, but it's very cute! I had to share:

WHY GOD MADE MOMS

Answers given by 2nd grade school children to the following questions:

Why did God make mothers?
1. She's the only one who knows where the scotch tape is.
2. Mostly to clean the house.
3. To help us out of there when we were getting born.

How did God make mothers?
1. He used dirt, just like for the rest of us.
2. Magic plus super powers and a lot of stirring.
3. God made my Mom just the same like he made me. He just used bigger parts.

What ingredients are mothers made of ?
1. God makes mothers out of clouds and angel hair and everything nice in the world and one dab of mean.
2. They had to get their start from men's bones. Then they mostly use string, I think.

Why did God give you your mother and not some other mom?
1. We're related.
2. God knew she likes me a lot more than other people's moms like me.

What kind of little girl was your mom?
1. My Mom has always been my mom and none of that other stuff.
2. I don't know because I wasn't there, but my guess would be pretty bossy.
3. They say she used to be nice.

What did mom need to know about dad before she married him?
1. His last name.
2. She had to know his background. Like is he a crook? Does he get drunk on beer?
3. Does he make at least $800 a year? Did he say NO to drugs and YES to chores?

Why did your mom marry your dad?
1. My dad makes the best spaghetti in the world. And my Mom eats a lot.
2. She got too old to do anything else with him.
3. My grandma says that Mom didn't have her thinking cap on.

Who's the boss at your house?
1. Mom doesn't want to be boss, but she has to because dad's such a goofball.
2. Mom. You can tell by room inspection. She sees the stuff under the bed.
3. I guess Mom is, but only because she has a lot more to do than dad.

What's the difference between moms & dads?
1. Moms work at work and work at home and dads just go to work at work.
2. Moms know how to talk to teachers without scaring them.
3. Dads are taller & stronger, but moms have all the real power 'cause that's who you got to ask if you want to sleep over at your friend's.
4. Moms have magic, they make you feel better without medicine.

What does your mom do in her spare time?
1. Mothers don't do spare time.
2. To hear her tell it, she pays bills all day long.

What would it take to make your mom perfect?
1. On the inside she's already perfect. Outside, I think some kind of plastic surgery.
2. Diet. You know, her hair. I'd diet, maybe blue.

If you could change one thing about your mom, what would it be?
1. She has this weird thing about me keeping my room clean. I'd get rid of that.
2. I'd make my mom smarter. Then she would know it was my sister who did it and not me.
3. I would like for her to get rid of those invisible eyes on the back of her head.

The Treat

Welcome to my new feature, Evolution of a Scrapper, or EOAS, which you can expect on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. I'm not sure which yet, I guess it all depends on how the week is going, and how often I've blogged.
When Marta, who is an avid scrapper, came to town for Cuba Nostalgia, I told her I would take my scrapbooks to the convention so she could look at them. Well, of course I forgot them, and she said, "just take pictures of the pages". It took me a month, but I finally did. I decided that I should share them with you all as well. I've made 3 albums for Brandon, and just started Matthew's while I was on maternity leave. You will see how I went from novice to semi-good scrapper as the weeks go by.
I figured this is a sure-fire way to get me to blog at least once a week (let's see how long I can keep it up), and to share with you all the milestones and beautiful moments in our lives. Sometimes I'll share a page or two, or will have a group of pictures representing a certain event, like a holiday or a trip. Although most of these are documented in the archives of this blog, you know what they say: A picture is worth a thousand words!

The first set of pages are below the fold.

This page is the very first picture in Brandon's first album, which contains a some pages from my pregnancy, and the first seven months of his life. It's the second picture we took of him after he came home from the hospital, five days after he was born. It's one of my favorites. He was so tiny!

Here's are two pages of sonogram pictures taken throughout my pregnancy. I had about five or six done total because the technicians thought they suspected abnormalities during the 17-week screening. They thought the baby might have Spina Bifida, and gave me the choice of an amniocentesis, or a series of sonograms to be sure. I chose the sonograms, and thankfully, nothing was wrong with our little peanut.

As one of my first pages,I like how this one came out, except for the big blue numbers on the right-hand corner. It's a summary, if you will, of the different stages of my pregnancy.

And here I am, with quite a fitting costume, on Halloween 2002.

Next week: my baby shower, and the month prior to Brandon's birth.

A Real Treat

Alright people, I'm cooking up a little something for you all. I'm going to introduce a new feature here at Brandon's Puppy, possibly starting tonight.
Stay tuned!

Running on Cuban Time

I hope every one had a wonderful Father's Day! Our weekend was hectic, as usual. Hubby had to work both days, so I had the boys, and while they are both delightful, they both require lost of attention, and I end up putting other things on the back burner (like blogging). It seems that I'm busier now than when I was attending classes at night.
I'm still trying to get used to this "back at work" thing (as you can see by the time of this blog entry, I'm not being very successful. LOL). Here is the much-overdue recap of our experience at Cuba Nostalgia, which was exactly a month ago. I was supposed to go all three days, but it was the end of my first week at work, and sheer exhaustion took over. Hubby was off that weekend, so we ran errands and cleaned the house before heading out, around 6 in the evening. We arrived at the Babalu booth, and about ten minutes after the rounds of hellos and hugs my uncle's phone rings. It's Marta, she's at the front of the hall with Amy! YAY! I was so excited to meet them. And I know she was just as excited to meet us, especially Matthew. While we waited for her, we crossed over to the Los Pollitos Dicen booth, where I purchased this tiny piece of cuteness for Matt. Although I missed Cary, who had left for her fabulous trip to Spain, I got to meet her partner Oscar, who was as sweet as can be. We then went back to the Babalu booth, and when Marta arrived, she snatched Matthew from me as soon as she could, I don't think she even put down her purse! I immediately proclaimed her his Great-Aunt Marta! =D (note to Marta: you need a search option on your blog. I was going to link to your post so people would know what the heck I was talking about...)
We hung out with the Babalu family for a while, and even got a visit from the Three Guys. Here is a great picture of four of my favorite cooks, to whom I am ashamed to say that I've yet to master the skill. Soon after Brandon started to get a fever and did not feel well, though you can't tell that from the picture. We spent a good 15 minutes saying goodbye, and quickly walked by most of the exhibits on our way out, and were home by about 9. I wanted to go back on Sunday, but I couldn't make it, and as we say in Spanish, me quedé con las ganas. I was sorry to have missed George at our booth on Friday, as well as Cary at Los Pollitos Dicen, but there's always next year! =)
Speaking of next year, I know that my uncle is probably already brainstorming for the 2008 exhibit. He will go back and forth tossing around ideas, complain that it's too much work and that he's not doing it, then he'll get a second wind and get all riled up about it, and get some great idea and imagine all the different ways he can make it happen. Lather, rinse, repeat. But you know it's gonna happen anyway, so what's the plan for next year?! I've got a couple of volunteers...

Happy Father's Day

To all dads, those who have passed, those who are with us, those who will be, and those that aren't but play the role. Happy Father's Day!

(p.s. seems like just yesterday I made this anouncement, doesn't it?!)

Running for a Reason

My little sister Maura took up running a couple of years ago while she lived in Virginia. It was her way of proving, to herself and the world, that she had won her battle with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis. It was pretty bad. She'd frequently accumulate liquid in her knees and had to get shots to alleviate the pain. She was on medication for a very long time. She had good days where she could go shopping for a few hours with me, and bad days where she couldn't even get out of bed. Fast forward a few years, and she decides to take up running. Not just running, but running for the benefit of others. She participated in several marathons while living in Virginia, and has taken part in a few since she moved back home as well, from the AidsWalk to March of Dimes. She's now set her sights on the Nike Women's Marathon on October 21st in San Francisco. She is a part of the The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team in Training. This particular race hits a bit closer to home for us, since our great-aunt Amanda died of Leukemia when she was 19, and our Uncle Ismael is currently in the final phases of his cancer treatment.

I am so proud of her. A few years ago, we couldn't imagine she'd have this kind of physical endurance. But now, she's taken on this goal, and is determined to make it to San Francisco. I'm doing what I can to get her there by asking you all for help. Go to this link and throw in a few bucks. Every little bit helps, and you'll not only be supporting my sister, but you'll be helping this wonderful organization find a cure to blood cancers.
Thank you!

http://www.active.com/donate/tntsofl/tntsoflMLopez2

Brandon says, part 2

(Sunday evening, as we were driving to a friend's house)

"Look mommy, that cloud looks like a camel with two humps!"

Please note that by the time mommy was able to take a picture of the cloud, there was no longer a gap in the middle. Imagine a bigger gap and more structured first "hump" in the picture above.

Brandon says

(Yesterday morning, as we're getting dressed to go out for breakfast)

"Mommy, when I started to get up, I started to play because today is Sunday!"

A Breakthrough

The good news:
I'm wearing my pre-pregnancy jeans.

The bad news:
I'm wearing a loose shirt to hide the very stylish "muffin top" look I'd be sporting otherwise.

Hey, at least they buttoned!

For SarahK, FrankJ, and babysitters wRitErsbLock and sherlock

Wii-itis

Because I care.

And because I want to Wii too.

¡Azúcar!

(Cross-posted at Babalu)

I wrote this piece for BlogCuba, Val's Cuban blogburst, two years ago. My heart still aches for our dear Celia when I hear her music, how she could never see her dream of a free Cuba become a reality. Our dear Celia gave us a unique and wonderful gift, and I enthusiastically await the day that her music is heard throughout the streets of a free Cuba. She will look down at her beautiful homeland and see the people dancing in the streets to her infectious music, and she will smile knowing that they have a future to sing and dance about.

If you are in the South Florida area, I urge you to visit the Celia Cruz exhibit, showing now through August 19th at the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach. While I've not yet gone to see it, I am sure it is quite a fitting tribute to the Queen of Salsa. I expect to go in the next couple of weeks, and will post all about it then. Stay tuned!

Matt in Motion!

Going...

Going...

Gone!

UPDATE, 7:30pm: All that exercise wore him out!!

Search terms

Although I still have a few things to write about, to which I have mentally added several other items, I thought I'd take this opportunity and share with you, our adoring public, search terms that have brought people to this lovely little site.

nebulizer for puppy
-sounds to me like puppy needs to go see the vet

me together with my puppy, we are both so very happy
-good for you and your puppy! =)

my puppy has been coughing and hacking for three weeks
-awww...poor puppy. I think he needs to go see the doggy doctor

ant bites on puppies
-that might be painful

ant bites to puppies
-may I suggest some puppy calemine lotion?

puppy age tickers
-I hope they mean a ticker like the two I have on the banner, not a ticker like a pacemaker.

puppy aluminum foil
-uh, for what? No, wait, don't tell me. I don't want to know.

That is all for now. I'll be back later!

It's me!!

(mommy told Brandon to tell the people something, so she wrote down everything he said for about five minutes)

Hi.
I want to show you my drawings. I make my rainbow and my name. The rainbow is for everybody. Do you like it? I didn't have school today. I played with a train, Thomas trains, because I like Thomas. ::laughing:: I stayed with daddy, and we saw The Lion King. I was playing a little bit. I love my mommy. I like to drink water and I'm going to MGM, nerfsal studios...and mommy what's the other place called? (looks for map) Where is that map?? I need to show mommy what that thing's called. Mommy what's the place with the animals called? (Mommy tells him) I going to Busch Gardens too and mommy loves me too. Um...I help my daddy with baby and I went to the theater to watch Shrek part 3. Tomorrow I'm going to the theater to watch Pirates part 3 (no, he's not). I made a rainbow for my mommy. I watch all the Lion King movies at the living room.
Goodbye! =)

Friday Meme

I helped myself to this from Lilli's:

Instructions indicate that I "must answer each question using the first letter of my name. And it must be a 'real' answer, nothing you made up. If you don't have an answer, skip it." So here I go:

Your Name: Amanda
1. Famous Singer/Band: Aerosmith
2. 4 letter word: Able
3. Street: Aragon (in Coral Gables)
4. Color: Aqua
5. Gifts/Presents: Apple ipod
6. Vehicle: Acura
7. Things in a Souvenir Shop: Asprin
8. Boy Name: Aaron
9. Girl Name: Alani
10. Movie Title: Anastasia
11. Drink: Apple Martini
12. Occupation: Astronaut
13. Flower: Amarylis
14. Celebrity: Anna Kornikova, or Paula Abdul
15. Magazine: Allure
16. U.S. City: Atlanta
17. Pro Sports Teams: Astros
18. Fruit: Apple
19. Reason for Being Late for Work: Accident
20. Something You Throw Away: Aluminum foil after it's been used
21. Things You Shout: Amen!!
22. Cartoon Character: Archie

If you want to play along, consider yourself tagged. Leave a link in the comments section.