Miscellaneous Videos

Here's another one I had in draft. Some videos that never got posted......

Caleb's famous head shake, which he's not really doing anymore:

More great "Happy Birthday" footage from the Ratatouille party, and a glimpse of the guests :-):

A cute one of the "little chefs:"

Silly boys...Caleb does this whenever the fan is on. Usually his whole body stiffens and he shakes and sounds a little like he hyperventilating (but he's not).

Check-Ups

We had a double-duty doctor's appointment last Tuesday: Gabe's three-year check-up and Caleb's 9 month check-up. Here are the stats:

Gabe

37.3" - 50%

36 lb. - 75%

He's definitely averaging out, especially for height! I really was surpised that he was still in the 75% for weight; he's only gained one pound in the last year! She said that's normal at this age, though. Gabe was really friendly with the doctor and while whe was asking me questions about what his habits, eating, etc., I heard him mutting along with the conversation and saying "yeah, he eats fruit puffs, and ..." then he trailed off a bit, but it was funny. She recommended a pediatric opthamologist because Gabe still doesn't know his colors (and catches on to other things quickly). My dad is color blind (as is Dan's, but it's passed from the mom), so we are afraid he might be as well. It's also time to see the dentist! Yikes, I'm a little nervous about that one.

Caleb

47 cm - 90%

30" - 90%

24 lb. 8 oz. - 90%

He's a big boy, but we knew that. :-) No shots this time for him, which I was grateful for, just a toe prick to test hemoglobin, which was fine. He clapped on command for the doctor which was cute (because they usually don't do things when you want them to!). He's health and we'll continue the soy formula and start phasing him off the acid reflux drops over the next couple of months. She said he will still likely be fine on regular milk. He also has a couple more teeth in the last week; the fourth on the top (right - a week ago) and the third on the bottom (left - four days ago).

I was a little nervous taking them both for appointments on my own, but they both did great, so I was thankful for that, and thankful for healthy boys.

WW Updates

Weight Watchers is a little slow going, but finally hit 24. I have kindof come to accept that slow is OK, as long as I'm going in the right direction! On the flip side, I realize how much further I have to go, but it's definitely better than nothing!

My 30th Birthday!

I celebrated the end of my twenties last Monday! As much as I've always thought I would dread turning thirty, it really wasn't too bad. I thought turning 25 was actually worse. The 20s were good, though. I got a card from Heather today and she made a good point - so much happens in your 20s.....college graduation, marriage, kids, moving, working. I feel very blessed and thankful for where I am in my life right now. I have a wonderful husband and two beautiful children, a home (albeit a work in progress :-)), a good job, loving family and great friends and really everything we need. I truly thank God for His blessings in my life, though sometime I have to stop and remind myself of these things.

The actual day / weekend of my birthday was great. Dan was so thoughtful in planning things. We went up to Rockford the Satruday before my birthday and I did some pre-birthday shopping with birthday money from Dan. On Sunday we went to church and Dan had arranged for us to stay at the Radisson, so we checked in early and took Gabe swimming. Then we got ready and dropped Gabe off at Bapa Hogan and Grandma Sandi's (Caleb was at my mom's) and went to dinner at JMK Nippon - yum!

Dan had asked me a while back what I wanted for my birthday and I told him I wanted a good night's sleep (somewhat jokingly, but wishing it could be true). He definitely delivered by arranging for Caleb to stay with my mom and Gabe to stay with Bapa Hogan and Grandma Sandi. So we went back to "check" on Gabe after dinner and as soon as we turned the corner I saw some familiar vehicles!! Dan had arranged a surprise party which Tim and Sandi were gracious enough to host. Everything was so nice and it was great to see everyone! They sure didn't let on an hour and a half earlier that there was going to be a party! They got to work right away with great decorations, a beautiful cake and other good snacks and some wonderful flowers. Gabe got into singing Happy Birthday and blowing out the candles as evidenced in this video. He just loves that; he actually started the song out and everybody joined in....he was like "OK, it's time to sing Happy Birthday!"


After the party we went back to the Radisson and got a GREAT night sleep (on a Sleep Number bed!) and even slept in the next day (the latest I could do was 8, to my disappointment). Dan brought me Stockholm Swedish pancakes in bed (my favorite breakfast ever) and then I went to Lunch at Mary's Market with my mom, Grandma and aunts. Then a massage and manicure. Then a delicious dinner at Lino's. It was a great day!

Thanks so much to everyone for everything and for making it such a special day. Especially to my hubby for all of his thoughtfulness!

P.S. Gabe picked out a couple of presents for me all on his own at Target. One was a strand of beautiful outdoor lights that look like flowers (something I would have picked for myself - LOVE them) and the other was a box of "Bears and Bees" snacks (Teddy Grahams trail mix). Too cute.

P.S.S. I also got some beautiful flowers and great treats from my co-workers the Thursday before my birthday. So nice!

Corrections

So I may have made an error in the Eclair cake recipe. Apparently the frosting doesn't require separating the butter - it can all be together and all be room temp. My mom thinks she wrote it down that way because she uses butter and cocoa powder instead of chocolate baking squares (which the recipe originally called for). So, while I've never actually made it, I guess it's not as complicated as it sounded. :-)

Also, I think someone asked how to make the chef hats and I forgot to post that (Amy, maybe?). We had some big easel-sized paper and folded it accordian style and then unfolded it and folded the bottom up a couple of times and then made the hat and taped it in the back. Super simple!

Does anyone feel like I'm talking about this party a lot? Enough already! :-)

To Do

My 30th!
More teeth
Check-ups
Corrections
Random videos
WW

Friday Night Fun

Yesterday I was playing with Caleb and helping him make that sound where you pat your mouth (I'm trying to be politically correct by not using the only description that I know for this).

Anyway, at dinner he started doing it on his own and then would crack up when I did it on myself. Good times.

By popular demand....

I had a lot of requests for the Eclair Cake and BBQ recipes from the party (both my mom's). Here they are:

Eclair Cake

1 lb. box graham crackers
2 small packages instant French Vanilla pudding
3 1/2 c. milk (2%)
1 - 8 oz. tub of Cool Whip

Butter bottom of 9x13 pan. Line with graham crackers. Mix pudding with milk; beat 2 minutes. Blend in Cool Whip. Pour 1/3 pudding mixture over crackers. Top with another layer of graham crackers, then pudding and repeat with one more layer of graham crackers and pudding. Top with graham crackers and refrigerate 2 hours, then frost.

Frosting:
6 tbsp. cocoa
4 tbsp. butter
3 tbsp. softened butter
1/2 c. powdered sugar
2 tsp. white corn syrup
2 tsp. vanilla
3 tbsp. milk

Beat until smooth. Spread over top. Refrigerate cake for 24 hours.

BBQ

Season a roast of your choice (we used chuck, but my mom uses a better cut I think) with garlic salt and black pepper and place it in a crock pot with one can of cream of chicken soup, one can of water, and one onion (chopped or sliced). Cook on low overnight. In the morning, remove the roast (reserve about 1 cup of the broth), shred the meat and put it back in the crock pot with about 1 cup of the broth and a bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce (or you can make your own, which my mom does, but I'm not that good). Let it simmer until you're ready to serve on a roll of your choice!



Also, here's a quick shot of the favor bag contents (which Christina was so complimentary of). Everything came from the dollar store except the top package of "food," which came from Factory Card Outlet.

Bing's!

We were in town this past weekend to visit Grandma and Grandpa Hogan and to got to Teara's parents' 40th wedding anniversary, and on the way in we drove past one of my favorite spots ever.

Bing's is an old fashioned drive-in on Rockford's west side. I went there a lot growing up, and the thing I love is that NOTHING has changed since I was a kid! Not even the playground with the little tiny pebbles all over. So you pull up, push the button, place your order, and a nice young lady brings it out to you in a tray that hooks on your window. They have great burgers and they make their own root beer, which is also delish.

Ahhh, memories. Now if only Rockford still had the Belford!

I seriously need to do some laundry...

....this is what the boys wore to bed last night. I don't know why the tops to these PJs were nowhere to be found, but I do know that I am WAY behind on laundry. Sometimes I don't know why I post such things, but maybe it will make some of you other moms out there feel a little better. :-)

Note also how Caleb is covered in his breakfast and is missing a sock. I'm not exactly sure what Gabe's doing to him, but he doesn't seem to mind.

It's been one of those days!!!!!! Thankfully I have Monday off, too, so it will be a nice long weekend.

Big day!!!

Today was a big day on the potty training front! We've had a couple days this week where we've started out in underwear. He was even willing to sit on the potty occasionally, which is typically hit-or-miss. The other day, he went through a couple pairs before he started telling us when he had to pee. Well, then we put him on the potty and he got REALLY upset, so we put a diaper on him. But he didn't want to go in there now either, so he was just sad and dancing around and sortof holding that area. Finally he went in his diaper and we called it a day. I figured at least it's good that he really is aware of when he needs to go, and apparently can even hold it!

Same exact scenario for today, but after I put the diaper on him today, he went a couple of hours crying, dancing, etc. and still wouldn't even go in the diaper. Finally he took the diaper off and ran around like that for a while (still crying, etc.). He was in Caleb's room (this was all happening at Caleb's nap time, so I'd put him in his crib to try and help Gabe and he'd freak out and vice versa) and a little started to come out, but he stopped it and I ran him QUICKLY to the big potty upstairs. He was freaking out, but it started coming out and he calmed down and finally went #1 in the potty!!!! I think maybe it finally clicked, but I know this is probably just the beginning. It's progress nonetheless. I seriously almost cried for joy after all the commotion this afternoon!

He and Dan are at the store right now buying the movie "Cars," as that was the deal today for going in the potty. :-)

I'm a crawler, I'm a picker, I'm a heeaad shaker....

Caleb is 9 months old today!!! It's been an eventful couple of weeks. Last Tuesday he started officially crawling. Then Friday, when I put him down for his nap, he was super quiet and when I peeked he had pulled up to his knees in the crib - today he pulled all the way to standing! And, he got another tooth yesterday (if you're looking at him, the one on the left of the front two). He still likes to imitate us shaking our heads (hope to post a video of that soon) and as you can see from the picture, he's also learned to stick his finger up his nose. We're so proud.

Fresh Air

FINALLY it's feeling a little bit like spring! We had a beautiful, sunny day here, so we took the opportunity to spend part of the day hanging out in Oak Park and enjoying the weather. We had a great lunch at Fuego Logo and hung out at the park for a while - it was just great to get some fresh air!

Cookin' up some fun!

Last weekend we had Gabe's birthday party, and after asking him numerous times over the last few months what kind of party he'd like to have, the most common answer was a Ratatouille party. So, Ratatouille it was. We decided to go with a "little chef" / French theme and overall I think it was really fun. I'm realizing that I really like party planning; I just wish I would start a little earlier on some of the things so that I don't run out of time!

I ordered some Ratatouille party supplies from Oriental Trading, as well as some kid aprons and paper chef hats, but when the package came, it said the hats were on backorder - this was an essential ingredient for our cooking party! So, after searching high and low, we ended up making paper hats, which I think turned out really cute (we got the idea from a kids cooking shop we stopped by). The boys made english muffin pizzas and cupcakes; it was so much fun to watch them and I think they really liked it.

For food, I struggled because I always feel like I need to tie the food in with the theme (which in reality probably does not matter to anyone but me!), so I debated fancy French food (soufle, crepes, croissants), but compromised on barbeque....on french rolls. And my mom made ratatouille, which was surprisingly good. We also had some other French accents - mini quiche, mini eclairs, Eclair cake (also made by my mom, one of her specialites), some French cheese (Boursin) and french cookies for the goodie bags. Party favors were cooking supplies from the dollar store and some candy food.

Most of all it was just really great to see everyone, and I think Gabe was super excited realizing this year that they were all there for him! It was a smaller crowd than we've had in past years, so it was nice to be able to really visit with everyone (not that we didn't miss those who couldn't make it!). He got tons of great gifts and loved hanging out with everyone, especially his buddy Henry. His friend Hunter also came, but I realized I didn't get any pics of him!

Thanks to everyone who came and helped celebrate! Here's the link to all the pics, as well as a few of my faves.