Corgan Gets a Box

Oh, the joys of watching your daughter with her first box.  Corgan was feeling under the weather on Christmas, and she got most of her gifts in bags for her birthday, so when we got her new car seat a few weeks ago, we let her go to town with her first real box! 

She would climb in, we would close the flap, she would squeal, then she would burst out!  She had soooo much fun!  And of course we were laughing our *bleeps* off.  What a great moment in the journey we call parenthood.

Getting My Sew On...

Corgan and her Gigi.

My Grandmother (Corgan's Gigi) is a seasoned quilter, and has made dozens during her lifetime (maybe more, but I don't know for sure), and she is very generous with giving them to loved ones.  I got my first quilt from her when I was in middle school.  She came to visit us in Saudi for the first time, and she brought me an African-inspired quilt with a pattern she designed herself.  I had just returned from a school trip to Kenya, so she made it go along with the souvenirs I brought back.  I still have it, and will always cherish it as my first grandmother-made quilt.




Since having Corgan, she's given us three more, each marking a special moment in our lives.  One for Corgan's birth, one for her baptism, and one for a housewarming gift.  Along with each of these quilts she had some labels embroidered to mark each quilt.  This past weekend, I finally had enough time to sit down and sew the patches on to two of the quilts.

My new sewing kit that I got for Christmas from my mother-in-law.

The patch for 'Oriental windows' given to us for our housewarming (quilt pictured below).

We keep this quilt in our master bedroom which has Asian-inspired decor.

A close-up of one of the windows on the quilt.

This quilt was given to us for Corgan's baptism.  The little rings you see are actually embroidered rings of flowers.

I have one more patch to sew on to Corgan's birth quilt. I didn't know that sewing these patches on would be so emotional. I know the love and time that she put into making each of these works of art, and being able to add the patches on myself makes me feel like I had a small part in completing them and is quite moving.  I hope Corgan grows up to love these as much as I do.  I also hope my grandmother knows how much I love her for these amazing gifts to my family.

Starting to Work on Stuart's Gift

This past Friday, my Dad and I began work on Stuart's graduation present.  That's right.  This coming August my husband, Stuart, will have completed the six tyear journey for his MBA.  We are sooooo ready for him to be out of school, and I am sooooo proud of him for getting through it.

As a gift, I'm working with different members of our family to clear the 'back 40' in our yard and put in a raised bed garden.  Ever since I've known Stuart he has shared stories with me about his own Dad's vegetable garden, and how much he loved going out to pick the veggies himself.  So for his graduation gift, we're all chipping in and helping him get his own garden started.  Here's the progress so far.

Here is what the back corner looked like when I did my last major yard project.  This is when I should've cleared the trees out.

Here is what the back corner looked like right before Dad and I started worked on the trees.  Not too smart of a plan to wait until they get all their leaves back, but whatever.

After only about an hour, Dad and I had all 5 trees down and cut into some good sized chunks.  It's amazing what you can do with a hack saw.  Please note: these were junk trees busting down our fence.  We were supposed to take them down when we moved in over a year ago, but never got a round to it.

Since our gate is on the other side of the house, Dad and I decided to take down one of the panels in our fence so we could more easily haul out the brush.

The view from the front.  It was weird to basically 'destroy' my fence, but so worth it.  Made pick up way easier, and it wasn't hard to put it all back together.

Dad made my neighbors incredibly nervous when he brought the trailer up on our yard. You can see their brand new sodded yard in the bottom left-hand of the pictures.  No sod squares were harmed in the making of this blog.

How do you fit five trees into only two loads in a trailer? Have you Dad jump up and down on it repeatedly.  Now that was fun to watch :)

Us down at the brush recycling center.  It only took us two load to get everything down there, but we weighed in at 620 lbs of brush total.  We were a little tired after all this.  Trust me.

Here is the back corner as it looks now.  Next steps will be to kill off everything growing back there using a 9% vinegar solutions. We will then install three 8x4ft raised beds, install a white picket fence at the front of it (with gate), and get to growing!  I can't wait!!!

Corgan Misses Lily

I told you that Lily has a friend named Lily.  I work with Lily's parents, and we see Lily all the time at church and school.  Well, Corgan has taken to randomly asking for Lily.  In this wonderfully modern era, pictures are everywhere, so we will search Facebook for pictures of Lily to show Corgan. Either that or we'll go through our own photo files to show her pictures of her BFF.

Sunday, I got an idea :) Hee hee. When Corgan asked for Lily, I turned on my laptop's webcam and started showing her pictures.  Here is the cute results:

...and yes, that is Stuart punking us in the bottom, left-hand corner.

Foodie Friday: Cedar Plank Salmon and Grilled Asparagus

Yummo! We just made the best salmon ever!!!! We picked up some cedar planks at HEB over the weekend to see if they actually worked on the grill.  OMG! They work wonders!!!

Cedar Plank Salmon & Grilled Asparagus

2 salmon fillets

1 bunch asparagus

1 lemon

red wine

olive oil

garlic powder

salt & pepper

Start by snapping the ends off of the asparagus.  This will take the 'tree' part off of the stem, and leave behind the perfect stalks.  Drizzle olive oil over them and sprinkle on some slat, pepper, and garlic powder.  Next, season your salmon with a little salt and pepper, then top with some lemon slices.  That's it.

About 2 hours before you're ready to cook everything, put the cedar plank in a pyrex dish and pour on some red wine.  Let this soak in for about 20 minutes. After a while, it might run off the plank, so pour the wine out of the pyrex into a cup and pour it back onto the plank.  This step is sooooo worth it. After the 20 minute soak, add water to cover and let it sit for the rest of the 2 hours.

Heat your grill up as you normal would. You want to cook both the salmon and asparagus at 350 degrees until they are done.  The asparagus cooks in about half the time, so have your oven on warm. It can hang out in there until the salmon finishes.  FYI, the cedar plank can (and did) catch on fire. Have some water ready to douse it if necessary. We forgot to check the time, but we took the salmon up to 160 degrees and let it rest to come up a little more in temp.

This was the most moist, succulent, sweet salmon we've ever had! The cedar and wine flavor came up from underneath, and the lemon flavor infused the top.  Each bite was so amazingly tender and juicy.  We had the asparagus on the side with a dijon sauce (whole grain dijon mustard loosened up with half & half) over top.

Even Corgan loved it, and she hasn't liked salmon since she was eating pureed food!

My Daughter Can 'Read'

Corgan can read.  She's 16 months old and she can read.  She's brilliant.

Okay, so she's not actually reading, but how cute was that!  She was reading Goodnight Moon to her Dada and she was making the 'hush' sound the Old Lady says.  She really is a bookworm, though. I was raised as a reader, so I'm determined to raise children who love to read, and we're well on our way.

As early as 6 months her bedtime routine included reading books, and now she's totally addicted.  She'll happily sit at her bookshelf 'reading' books to herself.  She also likes to 'read' to herself in her crib before nap time.  If you leave a book in there with her, you can hear her 'reading' over the monitor.  Talk about cute!

Really though, she already has some letter recognition.  She can pick out the letters 'O' and 'A' almost every time, and she's getting pretty good at finding 'E', too. I great by-product of her always wanting to read is that Stuart is finally getting to read a bunch of classic children's books.  He is not and was not a bookworm.  Reading is not his thing.  Now he gets to read with her (which he loves), and is learning to appreciate the stories and the fun that can be had from reading a book.  Who knows? Maybe I can raise my husband to be a bookworm, too.

Arena Football Game

One of the great things about working where I do is that we have some fabulous parents who love to show the teachers and staff how much we're appreciated.  One of our families donated a TON of free tickets to a San Antonio Talons arena football game to the school, and they were first-come, first-serve.  Luckily there were plenty to go around. I picked up a whole row so that Stuart could invite some people from work, and I knew we'd be meeting up with my co-workers.

It was really weird walking to our seat, though.  The last time we'd been to the Alamodome, it was for a Texas Tech football game, and now we were looking at at 50 yard field, with over half of the arena hidden with black drapes.  It was so tiny.  The cool thing was that literally every seat was a good one.

 We went with Stuart's brother and his girlfriend, so of course I had to get a picture.

This meant Philip had to take a picture of us.  I was ready! Stuart however still hasn't learned how to smile.  We're working on it, but it's taking some time.

It started getting closer to game time, and we were starting to get worried that no one would show up.  This video was taken about 20 minutes before kick-off, and the stadium was nearly empty. Happily, the rest of the seats quickly filled minutes before the the game started.  I forgot that other people don't honestly believe that if you're not 15 minutes early, then you're late.

I already mentioned the beer back on Monday, but here we go again: $1 Modelo draft. Nice.  Teeny, tiny cups, but quite refreshing.  It went well with the stadium popcorn, which is also a must-do when going to any sporting event.

Here is my husband and my priest/boss with the San Antonio Talons' event announcer.  They wanted to make all those people out there who couldn't make the game jealous that they missed it.  I wouldn't be too jealous as the only way they got this picture was to play air guitar for the jumbotron.  Not a win, guys. Not a win.

Overall, it was a fun night.  I don't know if watching the game, watching the people, or watching my priest/boss's family watch a mouse was more fun, but a good time was had by all.  So thankful that I work where I do with the people I get to work with. (Awkward sentence, I know. Work with me.)

It's All About the Poo... The End?

We might be at the end of this saga.  Here's to hoping.  We got the test results back from the lab, and all was negative.  No strange bacteria.  No parasites.  No ova.  No salmonella.  No shigella.  Nothing. This should be a good thing, right? Not so much.  I admit I cried a little, but out of frustration, not relief.  Corgan's stool was still pretty much liquid, and now all the tests said that there was nothing wrong.

We hadn't seen a new diaper rash in two weeks, so we now know that those were caused by a milk protein intolerance. Soy milk is my new best friend! She's back to having a cute, little baby butt that is pink in the way it's supposed to be, not with giant, red, irritated welts.  But her stool still wasn't solid.  After speaking with the lab, I asked that her doctor give me a call back to see what the next steps would be. The answer: a visit to the pediatric gastroenterologist.  I cried again.  No mother wants to hear that her daughters' issue is not resolvable by her pediatrician.  I did NOT want to have to take this route to figure out what was wrong, but we accepted the referral.  It was going to take a couple of days for the referral to get called in and for us to receive a call from the gastroenterologist, so we waited.

Joy came the following day at day care.  I picked up Corgan at the regular time on Thursday afternoon, and Ms. Jessica's face lit up when I walked in the room.  "She had a healthy poo!" Did I really hear that? I'd been keeping the day care teachers up-to-date with Corgan's bowel issues since they were with her for most of her poos, so they were equally joyous over the solid poo.  Ms. Jessica proudly proclaimed that her afternoon poo was a normal, healthy poo and that she was actually able to roll it off of the cloth diaper and into the toilet!  What great news!!!  We're now 5 days later, and still going strong.  We think the probiotics that we had been dosing her with had finally taken hold in her gut.  So, how do you get Corgan to have normal poos? Take whole milk out of her diet, go soy only for her drinks, don't ever give her juice (even cut with water), make sure she eats tons of food on the BRAT diet, minimize the amount of watery fruit she eats, and dose her with five days of good bacteria in her drinks.  Voila! A piece of cake!

I'd say we've progressed from a Type 7 to a good Type 5. Yeah!

We're hoping that this is the end of this wonderful journey in the life of a parent, but just in case, we do have the referral in our back pocket.  Here's to hoping to we never have to use it.

A Week Goes By...

I totally forgot to blog last week.  Wow.  We've been so busy, and with this whole P90X thing, we've had so little time.  I looked up and it was Sunday, and I hadn't posted since the previous Wednesday.  So, for your viewing pleasure, here's a photo dump of our family's activities:

 We ran lots of errands with Corgan in her front-facing car seat.  What a great time!!! She loves it, and I love the lack of screaming coming from the back seat. She really hated the rear-facing seat.

 We read lots of books.  She is a total bibliophile (yet more proof that she is my daughter!), and she is always running to her bookshelves to grab the next great read.

 We went to the San Antonio Talons arena football game with some friends from our works, and actually had a good time.  People-watching is great at these types of events!

 ...and there was $1 Modelo draft! At the Alamodome! Granted, they were only 10 oz, and we only had two in the 4 hours we were there, but who ever heard of $1 beer at a sporting event? Weird.

 I spent time organizing my closet :) Yes, that was fun.  I realized how great prepping my meals was going, so I decided to prep my clothes.  I matched tops and accessories and hung them on special colored hangers. This way I don't have to think about clothes in the morning.  I just grab and go.  I'm actually kind of excited to see how this works out, and yes, I know I'm insane.

Our little budding artist kept busy, too.  Her favorite time at day care is story time, closely followed by craft time (or so we're told).  She loves her crayons and chalk, and when I get more comfortable with mess (ha!) she'll love her finger paints.

The Uber-Nerds Will Get It

We were on the loft after dinner the other day, and Corgan was going to town with the crayons:

I drew a flower, which Corgan then augmented...

  Then Stuart drew a landscape...

...which he augmented...

His exact words were, "Integrate, to assimilate, to exterminate."

If you're a true nerd, geek, techie, or Trekkie, you'll get it.

If you are one of the few who understands it all, leave a comment, but don't give it away.

Mother's Day

I had a FABULOUS weekend!  My 2nd Mother's Day and they only get better.  (There was only one semi-big hiccup, which I will detail later.)  It started when I got home from work on Friday.  I worked late, so Stuart picked up Corgan from daycare, fed her, made my gift with her, and got her ready for bed. I came home to a peacefully quiet house, and a treat.  Stuart wouldn't give me my gift from him and Corgan until Sunday, but I got the gift from daycare:

I admit, it brought tears to my eyes.  My little munchkin, smilin' away! What a great way to start the weekend.  On Saturday, we relaxed around the house for a while before we had a special dinner at O'Brien's.  We met up with my Mom and my grandparents for a four-generation Mother's Day meal.  If you haven't gone to this restaurant, you must! It's hidden off of highway 46 between Old Blanco Rd. and Boerne.  The food is wonderful! I also got to enjoy my next present: Stuart finally caved and we now have a front-facing car seat for Corgan!!!!

Chillin' and ready to go!!!

The best treat of the evening, though, was the time spent with family.  I grew up overseas, a loooooong way away from any family except my immediate family. I can't help but be in awe of watching Corgan fall completely in love with her Grandmother and Gigi (her great-grandmother).  I wouldn't change my up-bringing in any way, shape, or form, but I'm so thankful that Corgan gets to grow up with such amazing and strong women in her life.

That 'semi-big hiccup' came when we got home, Darwin was yipping pretty bad, so we made plans for Stuart to take him to the vet the next morning.  This meant he had to miss church on Mother's Day, but that's what you do for your kids, right? You do what you have to do.  He's having a 'minor' flare up of his disk disorder, so two weeks in isolation and pain meds. Poor Little Man.

While Stuart was at the vet, I got to enjoy Mother's Day service at my wonderful church/job.  I love my job more than any I've ever had, and I love that I work with a Rector that will let me pick the video we show on Mother's Day during worship. I can't upload the video here, but visit Shiftworship.com and search for Jedi. It's worth it :)

After service, I went home and spent the rest of the day with Corgan, Stuart, and Stuart's family.  Stuart also finally gave me the gift he made with Corgan.  He made a paver for my garden that has her footprint in it, along with her name and date. Well played, Mr. Bankey, well played. The paver is at the bottom of the picture.

Lastly, we introduced Corgan to the smell of childhood: Mr. Bubbles!!! All-in-all, I would say it was a great weekend!

You Knew It Would Happen...

Corgan is an animal lover, and we all knew this day would come.  She's obsessed with our cat, Jetta, and her favorite stuffed animal is a grey cat named 'Mao.'  (She really calls it 'Meow,' but it comes out sounding like the name of a Communist Chinese dictator, which is way more fun.) She also likes to torment the puppies in their kennel. In fact, the kennel seems to be her favorite toy downstairs. She actually figured out how to get inside it the other day:

Problem is, she can't always figure out how to get out again:

Next step: figuring out the dog door.  You know it's gonna happen.

Foodie Friday: Pork Chops with Snap Pea Saute

This recipe proves that make-ahead meals are the way to go in my household!  I had a fresh, home cooked meal ready in under 10 minutes on a weeknight! This recipe comes straight from Rachel Ray (don't judge me mom), and it was pretty tasty.  I think I would use a different marinade on the veggies in the future, but the pork was scrumptious. I prepped the pork and veggies (along with the rest of the week's meals) on the previous Saturday during my daughter's nap, and it was ready and waiting for me when I got home last Wednesday night. All I had to do was put my Little One in the highchair to eat her dinner, then pull these two bags out of the fridge and get them on the stove.  10 minutes to table! Love it!

Out of the fridge..

...and into the frying pan.

I added the garlic bread last minute while waiting for Stuart.

All gone!

Pork Chops with Sugar Snap Saute

(Copied from Everyday with Rachel Ray)

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1/2 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp olive oil

1/2 tsp honey
4 bone-in pork chops
1 tbsp butter
1 red bell pepper
1/4 lb sugar snap peas
salt and pepper

Mix the vinegar, oregano, olive oil, and honey. Put the pork chops in a ziploc bag along with this marinade  until you're ready to cook it.  Mine marinaded for two days and was perfect, but the recipe said it would be good to go in as little as 20 minutes. Chop the bell pepper into strips and add to a separate bag with the snap peas.  Add some olive oil, salt, and pepper.  I think we also threw in some Mexican oregano (not in the original recipe), and it turned out okay. I would probably use a spice mix like Cavender's or Adobo next time.

When I was ready to cook it, I heated up a grill pan for the pork and a regular pan for the veggies.  Because all the ingredients were already coated in olive oil, I just threw them straight into the pan.  Stir the veggies every now and then, and flip the pork when the grill marks show up.  Enjoy!

P90X - One Week In...

A week ago Stuart and I lost our minds.  We borrowed the P90X program from one of Stuart's co-workers, and just started. We didn't really talk about it, or discuss the pros and cons of starting an intense, 90-day workout plan right in the middle of one of the crazier times in my work year. Glad we did though.  For those of you who don't know what P90X is, here's a link to part of the infomercial:

It's made our lives pretty structured, but its been great to spend time working out together. I leave work between 4 and 4:30, go pick up Corgan, get her home and feed her dinner, cook dinner (from one of my pre-prepped meals) while she's in the highchair eating hers, Stuart gets home about 5:30, we eat dinner, we play with child, one of us puts her to bed while the other cleans up dinner and feeds the dogs, then we change into workout gear, clear all the furniture in the living room, do 60-90 minutes of P90X, put all the furniture back, clean up, and try to relax. It all ends between 8:30 and 9:00.

The synopsis of week one:
Day 1 – Chest and Back, plus Ab Ripper X
This kicked our butts! Pull ups? Really? Who can do pull ups anymore? We made the deal that we would finish the whole thing no matter what, and we did, but we hurt so bad the next day.  It felt great.  I love the way I feel after a good workout.  The achy muscles remind me of how good I was.  Too bad I'm normally too lazy to actually work out.

The Ab Ripper part is kind of a nightmare, and we have to do it three times a week. You do 11 different hellish ab/core exercises at 25 reps each.  Stuart is doing great at this one, but my once-broken tail bone is fighting me every minute.

Day 2 – Plyometrics
This is supposed to be the hardest of the first month videos, and it was a lot of fun.  Think "jump like a cat." This video keeps you moving and up in the air like a cat that someone snuck up on.  Luckily, I started running again about 3 weeks ago so my cardio was where I needed to be to survive. I don't think Stuart was as lucky.

Day 3 – Shoulders and Arms, Ab Ripper X
This was a lot of biceps and triceps exercises, but we don't have enough weights to make it truly effective.  We have resistance bands, but we ended up using canned green beans (1 lb) for me, and pasta sauce (2 lb) for Stuart.  Does anyone have 5 or 10 lb weights we could borrow for a few months? We would really appreciate it!

Day 4 – Yoga X
Good stretch, difficult moves, BORING!  After 45 minutes we called it quits.  The session is 90 minutes, but neither one of us was enjoying it.  It was taking a lot of will power to stay in some of the positions, and it felt great to stretch out our muscles after all the arm workouts, but yoga is not our cup of tea.  We'll probably do 45 minutes each time alternating part of the video.

Day 5 – Legs and Back, Ab Ripper X
I totally blew this one apart! (Sorry Stuart) I love this one. Keep in mind I'm a dancer (no, not that kind), so I've always had strong legs.  It was fun to remember what I can do with them.  It was no kick line workout, but it got the muscles working for sure.

Day 6 – Kenpo X
This was Stuart's favorite.  He's a second degree black belt, so he was having fun turning it into a Tae Kwon Do workout.  I was doing my best not to look like a total doof.  (Yes, that's a word in my world.) We sweated up a storm, but my muscles are adjusting to the workouts, so I'm not crazy sore.

Day 7 – Rest or X Stretch
I did a one-week weigh-in, and I'm a little disappointed.  Before we started doing this, we took all our measurements (which I won't share right now), and took the 'before' pictures (which I may never share), but we forgot to get the 'before' weight.  I had weighed myself a couple of weeks ago and was sitting at 163.9 lbs.  I figured after a week of P90X that would be down a bit, so I went and took my 'before' weight on the rest day.  I gained 1.5 lbs! What the *bleep*! So irritating.  Stuart says its because our water intake has drastically increased (I used to drink almost nothing in a day, and now I'm up to a couple of large reusable water bottles), but I'm not convinced.  I'm down a belt notch, and I feel like I'm doing better, but I gained weight! I know muscle weighs more than fat, but I didn't think that would come into play for a while yet.

Well, we're still going to keep it up, because it feels great to be active.  I'm really riding the endorphin high, and I think my cheery attitude is irritating Stuart. He hates the working out process, and I'm like a giddy little school girl right now.  7 days down, 83 to go!

Bath Time Kisses

For the past year Stuart has been in grad school, while working a more-than-full-time job, while being a new home owner, while attempting not to drive me, the wife, up the wall (I'm a little demanding at times.)  Two nights a week he goes straight from work on one side of town to school on the other, and hopefully he remembers to eat between the two.




To thank him for his willingness to do all this so that our future can benefit, I try to send him photos and videos of Corgan before class.  Last week, I caught a gem: