Brandon's Puppy

Oh, Happy Day!!

- Matty is 6 months old today!
- Hubby just left his citizenship interview. Everything went well. They'll send his letter for the naturalization ceremony soon. He'll be a bona-fied US Citizen in less than two months! WOO HOO!!

Fun in the Sun

It was a beautiful day on Saturday, perfect for spending the day at the beach. The water was calm and crystal clear. The boys were well-behaved and had a blast. Matty fell asleep in the water (again!) while Brandon splashed around near the shore. Once we got out of the water and dried off a bit, it was time to play in the sand. Later, we went back to the room for lunch and naps, then hung out with the family until nightfall. I wish we could have spent another night, but we missed Eric too much. All four of us will be heading back this weekend to celebrate the family annivesaries (ours on Saturday and my aunt and uncle's and Val and Maggie's on Sunday). And sshhhh, don't tell Brandon: we're going to this on Saturday morning! I can't wait to see the look on his face when we arrive at the performing arts center. =)

Gone to the Beach

The boys and I are headed to Hallandale Beach, to join the family vacation already in progress. Unfortunately, hubby has to stay home because he works all day tomorrow. We'll be back tomorrow evening.
Y'all behave while I'm gone, and don't forget to wish Tere a very happy 30th birthday tomorrow!

YAY, A New Baby!

Please joing me in welcoming Felipe Ignacio, first born to our dear friends Lilli and Adrian. He was born at 3:56 this morning, weighing in at 6 pounds, 14 ounces and measuring 19 and a half inches. I went to visit this morning and mommy and baby are doing great! More info and pictures here. Congratulations!!

Almost born

Felipe Ignacio is on his way...got a call from the daddy about half an hour ago, mommy is 3 cm dilated and contractions are approximately 7 minutes apart.
More in the morning. Please send happy thoughts to my friend having her first little one tonight!

EOAS, week 5

As they say, better late than never, right? Evolution of a Scrapper is back, so please continue this little journey down memory lane with me. Two things: amazing the difference two months makes, and yet another one of my favorite pages is in this bunch. Come on people, take a guess!

Brandon first scrapbook is so big (about fifty pages) of just his first seven months because I made pages for not just every monthly birthday, but every occasion I could think up. It helps that I had such an adorable and sometimes willing subject. ;-)

All I can say about this page is, my son is a typical male, isn't he?

Here we are, Brandon's first road trip! We drove down to Key West with our friends to celebrate my hubby's birthday. I was getting just a bit more creative with my scrapping at this point, as you can see by my use of the sunbursts.

Even though he seemed so big compared to his birth size, he just looks tiny in that infant carrier, doesn't he?

At just under three months old, our little guy was perfecting his attention skills. This is the first of many animated conversations with his Titi.

Looking at his outfit, you'd think our weather nears freezing point. But it's too cute, and just right to keep our snow bunny warm during "winter" in Florida!

Doin' Better

Thanks to all who left get well wishes. As I mentioned, I left work on Friday around noon, and went to my dad's house, which is about a ten minute drive from my office. I got there, had some water, and fell asleep, waking up every so often to--how shall I put this--let the virus take it's course. Hubby left work early to pick up the boys, then went to my dad's to pick me up. Around 6, I got up and tried to eat something, but had four bites before I was bowing to the porcelain gods again. I laid back down around 7:30, and when my stepmom woke me up around 10, the boys had been bathed and fed and hubby had eaten as well. We left hubby's car there, and drove home in my car. I vaguely remember the car ride, taking a quick shower, and getting to bed. Fortunately, hubby had the weekend off, so he was at my mercy, I mean, nursing me back to health all weekend long. I had nothing but water and saltine crackers until about 8PM Saturday night, when hubby made rice and steaks on the grill. That went down well, but the lack of sleep that night set me back a bit, I think. Brandon woke us around 3AM crying that his tummy hurt, and he threw up three times in three hours. The baby slept through all the commotion, but didn't skip a beat to wake up for his 7AM feeding. We finally all went back to sleep around 7:30, till about 10AM. I felt soooo weak yesterday, I couldn't stay standing for longer than five minutes. I was on the couch for most of the day, consoling Brandon and trying to stay away from hubby and the baby.
Fortunately, we are both doing much better, and there are no signs that hubby and Matty got the virus (so far). I called in sick today since Brandon shouldn't go to school, he might still be contagious, and I thought hubby had to work today, but he's off, so we'll be here doing some of what we didn't get done over the weekend. Laundry is first on the list, the rest on an "as needed" basis. We just finished breakfast, hubby made French toast and it was yummy, my second meal in three days, and Brandon's first in over 24 hours. Looks like the end is near.
Last week's EOAS is in draft mode, I just have to add the quirky comments for each page and it's all set, it will be up by tomorrow. I may even make it a two-fer and post this week's on Wednesday. Let's see how the rest of the day goes.
TTFN!

Out Sick

I left work early yesterday around noon, I have a stomach virus. I've been sleeping on and off since about 1PM yesterday. EOAS will be back soon, but I'm going to go back to bed now. I'll be back possibly later tonight, or tomorrow.

Update, Sunday morning: Only slept from about 11PM to 3AM. Brandon's got it too.

Approaching the hill

Happy Birthday, SarahK!

Starting to get superstitious...

I was reading this post over at Pam's yesterday, and oh boy, can I relate! Not with the part about her 30-year-old daughter, but about the lack of mishaps on Friday the 13th...until now.
Here is my week in review, something fishy's definitely going on.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday-not so bad. I was only at work half-days. I was attending a training those three days, and got to leave the office at noon, and start the training at 1:30, ending at 5. I went to my grandparents' house all three days for lunch, hanging out and shooting the breeze for a while before heading off to the training. Wednesday was a bit rushed as I had to drop off some documents at another office, and went to pick up some Marlins tickets for my employer's Marlins Family Night. We get one free ticket, and up to three more for $1 each. And, coincidentially, the night of that game, Blues Traveler will be having a post-game concert. TOO COOL!
Thursday was quite chaotic at work, as they usually are, but even more so since I wasn't there for half the time the previous three days. And, I ended up staying late in order to provide my supervisor with some information for a meeting the next morning.
Friday, after the aforementioned meeting (during which my department provided us a breakfast including bagels, donuts and muffins...yummy!), I spent most of the afternoon on the phone with a mortgage broker my friend referred me to. We've been trying to refinance our house for the last month, and the market is so bad that the numbers just aren't there. The guy basically told me that there's nothing to be done, one of us has to get a second job. Well, not even two hours after that conversation, as I'm headed home, hubby calls and says "Before I say anything else, I'm okay". Guess what that meant? Yup, he had a car accident. He got hit from behind and got sandwiched between an SUV (in front) and a VW Jetta. He's fine (thank God), but unfortunately, the car is not. It is driveable, because he was able to get back to work, and later from work home, but the repairs will cost more than the car is worth. No doubt I got home an absolute sobbing wreck.

So you can see why I have a newfound respect for Friday the 13th. I expect this week to look a bit brighter. The re-fi is still an issue, and so is the car, but I'm taking a sick day tomorrow to just de-stress and hang out with my aunt and uncle, who arrive from New Jersey in the morning. Both hubby and I have payday coming at the end of the week, so that will help loosen the bad-luck noose a bit.

My new addiction

See that box on the right? The flickr box? Yeah, that's it. I'm going to have to go to Flickr's Anonymous at some point. I may not be an overly talented photographer, but I do love, love, love to take pictures, and I equally love sharing them. So far I've loaded the 4th of July pictures, a few random pictures of Matty, and the pictures from our trip to NYC from August 2005, just because I love that set. I haven't upgraded to a pro account yet, but I will soon, and there will be lots more for you to see.

EOAS, week 4

Here we are again, Tuesday night. It must be Evolution of a Scrapper Night!
This week takes us from the end of Brandon's first month through the beginning of his second month. Again, be warned, lots of baby sweetness ahead. One of my favorite pages is included here. Can you guess which one it is?

Although he still looked tiny, Brandon had grown significantly by the time he turned 1 month old.
He gained a pound and ten ounces, and was no longer wearing preemie clothes.

Our little heartbreaker received his very first Valentine from his Titi, as well as one from Beka.
His outfit was obviously too big, but so cute..

Both our little guys are fortunate enough to have not just two, but three grandmothers, and four great grandmothers around to spoil and love them rotten.

Here are the three grands, my mother-in-law on the top left corner, my mom on the middle right, and my stepmom on the bottom left.

Two of the four great grands: my grandmother on my dad's side on the top right, and my grandmother on my mom's side on the bottom left. I still need to make a page with hubby's grandma, and my stepmom's mom, who is just as wonderful with the boys as any blood relative.

At just under two months, Brandon was becoming quite expressive. As you can see, his eyes did most of the talking!

Check out our little BabyGap model! I bought these coordinates for him before he was born, and I just HAD.TO. do a layout with them.

Next week: Baby's first road trip!!

More food blogging

What's wrong with me? Look what I'm up to:

Another Marta recipe, of course! One minor edit though, I DO NOT like olives, so they were omitted. Next time, I'll try the little potato chunks. That's how my grandmother makes it.

Old Clothes

Alright, people, brace yourselves...

A little less than two weeks ago, I cooked authentic Cuban cuisine! I made Ropa Vieja using Marta's crockpot recipe. I'll give you a minute to get up off the floor and compose yourselves. All better? Okay then. Well, I had to slightly tweak the recipe as I didn't have any coarse pepper or Spanish onions, so I used ground pepper and yellow onions. And I opted to cut the cooking time by about a half-hour as I started too late (around 8 PM), and otherwise we would have been eating dinner at 1 in the morning, so the meat was not as tender as it should have been. But considering this was my first try and all, I think it was a success. What do you think?

The beginning:

Almost done:

Dinner is served!

Matty's First Independence Day!

Hi everyone! I know it's been kind of quiet around here the last couple of days. Hubby has been sick, and Matt has woken up during the night the last few days. He's definitely teething, putting everything he can get his little hands on in his mouth.
We hope you had a lovely Fourth of July, celebrating the 231st birthday of this great nation. In spite for the on-again off-again thunderstorms hanging around last week, we decided to host our second annual Fourth of July Extravaganza. We invited our friends over for BBQ, followed by a fireworks display put on by my community. The day started out quite eventful, with Matt holding his bottle by himself for the first time, and hubby and I encountering this little guy when we were sweeping the front walk. I don't know if this is usual, but did you know that frogs squeak? Well, I didn't, and this sounded just like the squeak of a kiddie or doggy toy. As you can tell, he was pretty tiny, so I was a bit brave and stood about five feet from him to hear him squeak, and to take the picture. Shocking, I know.
Our guests began trickling in around 4:30, and by 6 the house was packed: 14 adults, and 7 kids, all under 5. The kids were scattered throughout the house: some entertained themselves in the playroom, while others hung out in the boys' bedroom, and the youngest one showed off for his Titi in the living room.
After feasting on cheeseburgers, hot dogs, potato salad, corn, and watermelon (check out the smiley face! It was like that when we cut the slice!), we all headed outside to see the fireworks. Matty just glared at the sky, not sure what to make of them, while the other kids jumped up and down, waving their little flags. I guess the 15-minute live display wasn't enough for Beka and Brandon-once inside, they watched even more on TV.
It's amazing how something so simple as sharing a meal and good times with loved ones means so much. It was a pretty good day, and all I can say in closing is Happy Birthday, America, and Thank You.

EOAS, week 3

Is it just me, or do the days seem to pass quicker when one has a weekly feature?
This week, we continue our journey through Brandon's scrapbooks. I'm warning you, there is much cuteness ahead, with pages from his birth through his first month.

As I've mentioned before, I had already been in the hospital for a week before Brandon was born. I was being tested for pre-eclampsia, and received my final diagnosis on Friday afternoon. The doctor said that I had mild pre-eclampsia, and was to stay on bed rest until the end of my pregnancy. I was 36 weeks pregnant, and the thought of having to stay there for another four weeks was completely disheartening. I guess I willed Brandon's eviction, because my water broke that night, just as we starting to watch "Office Space" with our friends Lilly and Adrian, Eight hours later, our beautiful baby boy entered the world.

Our little peanut spent four days in the NICU. I was released on Monday morning, but they didn't release him until Wednesday afternoon, almost evening. Thankfully, the only reason he was in there was to gain some weight. I thank God every day that's all that was "wrong" with him.

Welcome Home! Here's Brandon with the typical Cuban "going home" outfit, which was a gift from my dear friend Christie and her mother. The outfit, and the pañuelo, are very special to me, and they are put away in Brandon's keepsake box. Even though it was store-bought, the intention was that Christie's mom, a talented seamstress, was going to hand-make it, but unfortunately, she was slowly losing her battle with cancer, and just did not have the strength to sew. She died on April 19, 2005.

Here's our little burrito!! And on the bottom, you can see just how small he was, not much bigger than Eric's arms.

These are a few of my favorites. We enlarged the picture on the bottom left, framed it, and hung it up in Brandon's room. Matty has a similar picture too, also displayed in their room. Doesn't he look angelic?

That's it for this week! See ya next time. =)

Mi Pollito

Wardrobe courtesy of Los Pollitos Dicen (Thanks Carrie!):

Silliness

A certain baby recently discovered his mouth:

And thinks playtime is the best time of day: