2nd Homemade Cake

For those of you who don't know, I share my birthday with my Mom. I was born on her 19th birthday 12/27/1985. I decided this year that since I am celebrating my birthday with my friends on the 6th of January that I would make our actual birthday all about her. I woke up at 6:30am and made my Mom a delicious breakfast and her favorite cake. Double Chocolate. For Christmas this year I received everything needed to make wonderful treats, cake pans, cake stand, new piping bags, all kind of tips and a new decorating book for cakes and cupcakes, so our birthday was the perfect day to use all my new goodies. Here is the final product. I need a lot more time to work on my word piping but I think the "Happy Birthday" did not turn out well because the frosting was not stiff enough. But It was delicious and my Mom loved it so I don't care =)

Wine Tasting on My Birthday

For a few months now I have been wanting to go wine tasting at my favorite winery in Washington, Chateau Ste Michelle and the Columbia Winery. Its about an hour drive from where I live and on the plus side there are about 6 other local wineries in a 1 mile radius! So for my birthday which was yesterday the 27th, my Dad and step mom Wendy took me for an afternoon of tasting and tours! The grounds were amazing and I found a very delicious dessert wine that I cannot get enough of, Muscat Canelli! Photo courtesy of Google.Enjoy some photos that I took of both wineries!Chateau Ste MichelleColumbia WineryI bought a bottle of the Muscat Canelli and found an Ice Wine at at the Columbia Winery that I love as well, unfortunately I did not blow all my money on wine and I regret it.

4 Christmas'

This holiday season has been less then hectic. With this being Audrey's first, there were a lot of family and friends that invited us to their house for celebrate. It was hard to choose but we decided to have friends come over to our house and we would go to several of our families homes for Christmas celebrations. Here are just some of the photos from those Christmas', more are on my NEW CAMERA I got this year!This is at Nathans Grandparents home on the 23rd.Their gorgeous tree.Our girls Hayley 6 and Audrey 7 months!Audrey and Daddy opening gifts!Hayley opening gifts with help from great Grandma Sharon.Audrey and Grandpa Jeff.The mess from all the presents.Hayley doing a cheer with her new pom poms!

On Christmas Eve, Nathan and I had a romantic dinner at Anthony's on the water, while Audrey stayed home with Grandma. It was a little busy but our wait was not bad, we had a drink in the bar and was seated about 10 minutes later. Dinner was great, it was nice to spend time with just the two of us. After dinner we came home and opening presents with my Mom, sister Lynn and Kevin, who was able to come home before going to Afghanistan.Lynn opening her stockingMom and Kevin opening stockingsGrandma and Audrey opening presents!
On Christmas we went down to my Grandparents house and had A TON of food and I got to use my NEW CAMERA! More photos are to come.

Stuffed Pork Chops

My best friend Sam and her Dad bought us this great package of Louisiana pork for Christmas! With it came these great pork chops that I could not wait to cook up. I have never made pork chops so this was my first attempt! I made stuffed pork chops with cornmeal stuffing!First I stuffed them and then browned them on both sides for a few minutes and seasoned them with salt and pepper!Next I placed the chops and left over stuffing, (for flavor) I baked the chops covered with foil on 350 for about 30 minutes!They were extremely juicy and tender! I topped my pork chop with an onion poppy seed dressing and had a half of a whole wheat bagel! YUM! Thanks Sam.Lastly here is a photo of Audrey and Nathan at the doctor! I thought this was precious. She kept caressing his face. I adore them!

Baking with Family

My niece Lexie and nephew Sylvan came over on Saturday to spend some time with us before Christmas. They helped me bake banana nut muffins.And brownies!I even let Lexie lick the whiskAfter we were done baking, the kids wrote letters to Santa and then dropped them into this cute little Santa's mailbox we have as decorations!It is nice to see that they still believe in Santa! It was a great way to spend Saturday.

One of the better days

After a rough week I must say that Sunday was the best day. Minus Saturday night where we barely slept. Lets start from the beginning. Saturday night Audrey had another rough night sleeping. We were up most of the night, she was laying in the bed on her side so I could pat her back while I was on the laptop watching shows on HULU. At about 3:30 in the morning I decided to see if my Mom could maybe get her to sleep. I put her in bed with my Mom and I went to sleep for a few hours. When I got up at around 6:30am I found my Mom holding Audrey in the living room trying to rock her back to sleep. I told my Mom that I would take her back so she could try and get some rest. All through the night about every hour Audrey would drink about an ounce of formula, by about 7Am she had about 6 ounces. I had given her gas medicine about every 3 hours along with a little bit of Tylenol. I rocked Audrey back to sleep, or what I thought was her sleeping and decided to lay down again myself. Audrey sleeps in our room since we do not have another room in the house for her, but that all changes on the 1st of Jan, I am saving that for another blog. After I laid Audrey back in her crib she was asleep for about 20 minutes before she was back to fussing and moving all about. I was beyond frustrated at this point and my Mom could tell. So she came and grabbed Audrey and took her into the living room to try and soothe her. When I woke up again at about 11am Audrey I guess had just woken up as well, about 45 minutes before me and was watching tv. My Mom told me that she fell asleep in her boppy chair watching tv and slept for about 3 hours. My Mom fell asleep on the little couch. This now bring us to Sunday afternoon. I immediately made Audrey homemade banana oatmeal for breakfast and a bottle. She ate about half the oatmeal and about an ounce of bottle. I also had given her the laxative earlier that night so her diapers were pretty nasty all day. She was doing much better as far as I could tell. My best friend Samantha came over to give Audrey her Christmas present and to hangout for a little while. Sam made Audrey the cutest onesie with a baby monkey in a diaper holding a bottle with hearts around it and cute purple dress from Old navy! Audrey was in such a good mood that I was able to get a few things like wrapping more gifts, chat with my Dad for a few and some small house chores. Audrey took little naps and ate every few hours which was much better then days before. She had normal fussy times but for most of the day she was pretty good. Now she is sleeping in her crib and only fussing a little. I am making an appointment at Children s Hospital in Seattle so they can look at her GI tract better then Mary Bridge. I need more answers and I feel like I am not getting those at MB. She has an appointment with her normal doctor to check for an ear infection on Tuesday. I want to rule out what we can before going to Seattle.

I can't sleep, neither can my baby

It is almost 2am and Audrey and I are still awake. I am not sure but I think Audrey is having more gas then usual at night time, making it hard for her to sleep through the night. The GI doctor warned us that her laxative was going to cause more gas on top of the soy formula. We have upped her gas medicine by a significant amount and with the MRI and X-rays coming back normal, im not sure what to do for my baby. All the doctor can ever say is up her medicine, but if we do that she gets a really horrible diaper rash which causes more pain and crying. I feel like at this point the other shoe should be dropping and someone should be able to tell me what we can do for Audrey. It is not normal at all for Audrey to not be able to sleep through the night but this is the 4th of night of sleeplessness. I am just grateful that I have my Mom and fiance here to help me when I cannot soothe her. I need to write on the white board on the fridge so I do not forget to call her GI doctor and let her know about her sleepless nights. Do any of you Mom's have anything like this or had anything like this go on? I need tips, anything will help at this point. I am only concerned about Audrey, I can sleep when I am dead, I just want her to be healthy and happy and finally out of pain. On a good note, Audrey is full of smiles tonight! She is laying in bed with us being adorable! 5 more days until Christmas and 7 until my birthday!

Audrey's 1st and 2nd Christmas presents

Well I know its not quite Christmas but Audrey got to open her first 2 presents today! The first one was from her Grandma and Grandpa Rodriguez! They got her a baby laptop! It lights up and makes all sorts of different noises! Audrey loves it and so do I!The second gift was from my Godmother Kim and her family! Her family got Audrey 2 Disney hoodies! They are adorable but they are 18month size so by this time next year Audrey can sport them!Audrey's next chance to open more gifts will be on the 23rd when we go over to Nathans grandparents home for Christmas dinner!

Celebrations!!!!

Good morning!! TGIF!!! I am really excited about this weekend and the next 2 weeks to follow, let me tell you why! Today I am baking and cleaning all day for a little Christmas get together with my girlfriends for our annual gift exchange and dinner! This year we decided to save money and make tacos and margaritas, not traditional holiday food but we are all far from traditional! This year our budget for our secret Santa was $10, which always poses a challenge but it was pretty fun for me! I had to buy for my best friend Megan and let me tell you I had a lot of fun with it! I bought her her favorite wine which is Cabernet Sauvignon, plastic popcorn holders, red fingernail polish, a 16 month calender with the ocean and lighthouses and a can of olives which are her favorite and yes all for $10...thank you $1 bin at Target!!! She can use it all at once for a night at home with her boyfriend since they love to watch movies!! I am excited to give it to her and have some yummy Mexican inspired food!! Each girl is bringing something for tonight but I have the majority of goods so I am going to prep them today for dinner tonight! Along with making dinner tonight I am making brownies, banana nut muffins and vanilla butter cookies for my in laws goodie tin I am making for them! We are going over to their house tomorrow for our 1st Christmas celebration! Since I could not afford to buy everyone gifts I wanted to make homemade goodies for those I didn't buy gifts for in a container that they could reuse! I got these great plastic Christmas containers 3 for $3 in the Christmas section at Walmart, they are large and have a cute design on them with a great snap on lid! Our family is celebrating Christmas 4 times this year, with so many family members its hard to get them all together so we have decided to venture to everyone's house instead which means a lot of travel but it will be fun! Tomorrow we are celebrating with Nathans Dad and step mom. On the 23rd we are going over to Nathans grandparents house for dinner and gifts, on the Christmas eve we are going to Nathans Mom house for dinner and gifts, then back to our house for gifts which opening gifts on the 24th is a tradition! On Christmas we always go down to my grandparents house for the day but this year we are leaving from their house early to go over to our friend Joe's house for dinner and we are going to play on his new WII!! I am cooking dinner on the 24th at Nathans Mom's and then on Christmas at Joe's! Then if that was not enough my Dad is coming from Great Falls Montana on the 26th for a few days! I share my birthday with my Mom and our birthday is on the 27th so we are all going out to dinner and then my friends are planning something fun for after the new year for my birthday as well! Woo, see I told you I would be busy! But I cannot wait and plus this is Audrey's first Christmas so she has lots of opportunities to open presents and eat!!! Now I have to start my cleaning and baking!!

Family Photos

Our little family got our photo's done today at Sears today and the photos turned out so well! They are the most adorable photos I have ever seen!