BRU's Trade in Event

It's no secret that I have had my eye on a new stroller for about six months now.  I currently have a Jeep stroller that my cousin refused to sit in(LOL) and a lightweight Graco stroller that was a part of my travel system.   The lightweight one was great to use as a part of the travel system but it pretty much sucks on its own and the Jeep stroller is just too big and heavy for me to get in and out of the car on a daily basis.  I had my eye on a City Mini but the brand that makes them does not participate in the event so I went with a B.ritax B-Agile.  One hand folding, 17 pounds, a huge canopy so little man won't get a sun burn-yep sign me up.  I will admit it took me about ten minutes to figure out how to open it once it was closed but I was clearly just having a blonde moment as I didn't see the hook.

We went for a walk when we got home and it lived up to all of my expectations.  I could carry it folded in one hand and have Jax in the other.  Awesome.

We will be keeping the jeep stroller for trips to the beach as I don't think anything can beat that on the sand.  We are most likely going to trade in the lightweight stroller sometime this month and purchase another convertible car seat for my mom's car.

Bye-bye infant carrier, hello stroller.

First Haircut!!!

Look at that curl in the back!  Jax's hair was officially getting out of control-






All in all it went very well.  It only took her about ten minutes and there is only one little spot in the back where she took off a little more than needed because he moved.  She was worried I would be upset!  LOL, it looks ten times better and one hundred times better than if I tried to do it so I am over it.  It is still a little wavy in the back but there won't be much we can do about that until it gets thicker and it can just be buzzed on the sides.  I wish we would have gotten it done sooner.

Either

the Newark Post Office is built like a brick shit house or I am completely oblivious to the ground shaking underneath me.  I felt nothing during the earthquake we had a few hours ago, NOTHING.  I walked back to work and saw everyone standing outside thinking the fire alarm went off and they said that it was so bad on the third floor that the computers were shaking.  They are building a Wawa gas station next to us(hello pumpkin cappcinos) so I immediately figured something blew up and that was the reason for the ground shaking but apparently not.

Work has been incredibly busy, overwhelmingly so this month.  I broke down and cried in my office yesterday because we lost another person, so what is supposed to be a 7 man team is now a 3 man team and administration didn't even have the decency to email us and tell us we were down to 3 as of Monday.

I have kept this open for an hour to write more but work calls!

Little man's weight

I forgot to post his weight in yesterday's post!  He is now weighing in at 21lbs 7oz, people were really not kidding when they said that he would start slimming down as soon as he started crawling.  He is only up 5 oz since his 9 month appointment and he has definitely gotten taller since then.

My little sis is getting her wisdom teeth out today so Jax and I are headed up to Jersey tonight to cheer her up and help my mom with her if Casey is really out of it.  I think my dad and brother are away on business so we will do our best to keep everyone calm.  *I repeat, please remain calm*   Everyone keeps giving her horror stories about dry sockets, bruising, and being down for the count for days so she is way more nervous than she needs to be.  I know we are all different but I was fine by the next day and had zero bruising so hopefully she will be the same.

On Saturday my mom and I are going to hit up Party City to see what sort of Sesame Street stuff they have, Walmart for his wagon, possibly Ikea for glass jars to put candy in, and we also want to see The Help.  It's going to be a busy day!  Oh, I also need a new camera as mine is on the fritz and I keep having the nagging thought that is going to break for good during his birthday party so I am going to get a new one soon.

Little man getting nebbed in his sleep, the best way to do it!

Luke, I am vadering again

We dropped off Jax at daycare on Tuesday and he was fine, we pick him up and he is in full force vader mode.  It was bad, he was so congested but the mucous wasn't flowing at all plus he is wheezing again.  I take him to the doctors and it is the same song and dance as last year-too young for allergies, could be a sinus infection with a slight respiratory infection.  Lungs are clear which is good, it is all in his airway.  He was just on an antibiotic for ten days for an ear infection so I am not sure how much I buy that it is another infection three days after he finished his course.  Either way we had gotten him down to only one breathing treatment per day and he really did well for a couple months but now we are back on pulmicort twice a day and xopenex at least three, possibly four times a day until fall, winter, and spring viruses are over.  Bummer dude.

As of today we are still calling it reactive airway but I am pretty sure that when he turns one the diagnosis will switch over to asthma.  Good news is that with four treatments yesterday he is already sounding much better.

Other good news is that my work is really off the hizzle lately so I decided to not go back and hang out with Jax until Chris was done work.   We hit up Borders and bought favors for his party, a mini grover, a 2012 calender, a cookbook, and a Skippy Jon Jones board book.  It was 30% off with an extra 15% off for most of it so I would say it was a pretty good deal.  I am sort of kicking myself for not picking up a 2 feet tall birthday party elmo and may go back for it but I just couldn't justify the cost even with the discount.  Maybe once it goes half off I will check back to see if there are any left.

Then Jax and I walked over to Toys R Us to look at the wagons.   I really want one that will fit into the trunk of the Mazda at the very least, the ones that they had assembled were all freaking huge and wouldn't work so I might run to Walmart this weekend to see if I can get a look at the Radio Wagon Pathfinder.  From the reviews I read online this is the smallest one, the handle flips under and it fits into most trunks so we will see.

We then strolled over to Cheeseburger in Paradise which was awesome.  Jax ate guacamole and pretty much nothing else, I literally just drop spoonfulls in front of him and he picks it up with his hands and eats it.   You know the food wasn't great but it was so nice to have an afternoon to just relax with my little man.  We did a little more looking around and then went to pick up Chris before we headed home.

8/16/11

I finally picked out a theme and invitation for Jax's birthday party!  The way I was acting regarding his invitation you would have thought I was a frigging rocket science trying to figure out the best way to blast off into space.  We were going to do Chuggington as he loves it but party supplies will not be available in the US until after his birthday so we can save that for another year.  The next best thing to Chuggington is Sesame Street's Beginnings books, specifically Bubble, bubbles so that is what we are doing.  You would think it would be easy to find a customizable invitation for Sesame Street that can be printed but oh it is not.  It must have something to do with copyrights but none of the sites such as invitationbox.com, shutterfly, tinyprints, ect have Sesame Street layouts and there is no way in hell I was going to pay someone on etsy to create one that I will have to take somewhere to print out and then buy the envelopes.  What the hell is up with that anyway, I guarantee if they offered it at least half of the people would order from them if they offered to print them out and send you blank envelopes.  Anyway, I remembered that I have a good picture of Jax reading Bubbles, bubbles so I ran with that and made them on shutterfly.

So while I didn't go overboard with the invitations the rest of the party is going to be a totally awesome shitshow.  I am 99.37 percent sure I am only having one child so there is no reason not to go crazy.  While I was against printing out my own invitations I am all about ordering decorations on etsy and then printing them out on cardstock.  I am currently deciding between two packages and hopefully it will be done by Friday so Casey and I can start printing and cutting this weekend.  It is going to be a lot plus I am all athritic in my hands so I can't do a lot at once which is why we are starting over a month early.

Damn you Gordon Ramsay!

My favorite shows on television right now are reality cooking competitions.  I watch all three Gordon Ramsay shows plus reruns on BBC, Extreme Chef, Food Network Star, and the list goes on.  The downfall of watching all of these shows is what is going on around my waistline.  I can't help myself, when I am watching them cook their delicious meals I want to eat no matter how late it is.  Usually if there is fresh fruit I will munch on that with a glass of wine and be good but other nights hardcore snacking goes down in our living room.

This week on Masterchef, or it may have been last week's episode that I watched this week, they made shepherd's pie.  It dawned on me that not only have I never made it but I have never had it so I decided at work yesterday that I was going to find a recipe and give it a whirl.  I had one recipe but then once I got home I realized I was missing an ingredient and then I found Rachel Ray's recipe-I had everything and it stated it only took 30 minutes to make which is important.  It was holy crap delicious, definitely the best new thing I have made in quite a while.  There was also more than enough left over that I didn't have to make lunch today for the three of us.

I am always on the search for quick and tasty meals since I don't have a whole hell of a lot of time to cook at night since we don't get home until 6 and Jax goes to bed between 6:30 and 7.  Our favorite easy meal so far is just brown rice and chili, Chris likes regular chili and I like chicken chili.  It is super filling and takes less than ten minutes to make.  I may attempt making my own chili one of these days but so far Hormel's is my bitch.

Chicken Skin

I swear this isn't becoming a beauty blog but stay with me for a minute.  In my mid-twenties during the infertility years I developed chicken skin on the back of my arms.  We noticed it after my first miscarriage, I am not sure if that is when it started but that is when it started looking downright awful.  I asked my dermatologist about it and he just told me it was rosacea and that there was nothing I could do.  Fine, I had enough going on that the back of my arms was the least of my worries.

Things have clearly calmed down and Chris knows how much my arms bother me-between the scaring from the mole excisions and the red bumps on the back of my arms I was always trying to hide them so he did some research.  He finally came to the conclusion two months ago that this was not rosacea but Keratosis Pilaris aka chicken skin.  I did some googling and decided he was right and during my research I found this wonderful and cheap product.  Yes, it's just Eucerin Intensive Repair Creme which you can get for $6-7 dollars in the drug store.   It contains lactic acid, a much gentler AHA than glycolic acid, and it is supposed to unclog your pores which will stop keratin from building up and creating chicken skin.  Or something like that.  No matter what science is going on all I know is that this stuff works!  After two weeks my one arm was clear and the other looked much better.  Two months later and I have almost zero chicken skin areas on the back of my arms and the only reason I have any is because it started looking so good that I forgot to use the cream and it started coming back.  If this is too gentle for you there is also a product called KP Duty that can be found online or at Sephora.  It contains "potent" levels of glycolic acid and is $36 for 4 oz.

The Purge

Hello everyone!

I know you are all on pins and needles waiting for an update to my skin issues so here it is!

When I saw the dermatologist he put me on clinda.mycin in the morning and differ.in lotion in the evening.  He did state that for cystic acne the best thing is going onto a tetracyclin antibiotic but I am allergic to those so that was a no go.  He warned me right off the bat of the purge that would most likely occur when I started using these medications and of course he was right.  It has been two weeks now and things have mostly calmed down and my skin is looking pretty clear for the first time since I had Jax.  A friend of mine is pretty much on the same regimen and she has issues with these topicals drying out her skin but so far I have not had that problem at all.  

My main problem now is the red marks and scars that remain.  I am currently using a sample of Cliniq.ue's Dark Spot Corrector and Ole Henri.ksen's Little Wonders Kit.  My jawline is not the place to look now for improvements as it is so irritated but I have been keeping a close eye on two areas by my right temple and the difference is pretty amazing.  The red marks are still there but smaller and lighter in color so I am hoping that within a few months we will see a change in how my jawline looks.  Then just maybe I will be able to leave the house without throwing something on that area. 

The other new product I tried this month is MUFE's DuoMat powder foundation.  It's basically the best stuff ever-buildable(is this even a word?) coverage that takes the place of my concealer, liquid foundation and powder.  I walked into Sephora and told them that my face is an oil slick and this is what they gave me.  At $32 it is a little pricey but considering it takes the place of three products and it totally rocks I don't care.  They also gave me a sample of Nar's Illuminator in Laguna and I am sold on this also.  It stays put way longer than my regular blush and I don't look like a zombie by the middle of the day which is a major plus.  It's tough being pale!

8/8/11

We started our weekend a day early this time around.  A summer cold hit out house like a ton of bricks last week.   Jax was up on and off all night on Thursday so I knew it was more than a cold and I felt like holy hell so I decided I would stay home with him and since Chris was still recovering also we made a day out of it.  Our first trip was to urgent care where Jax was diagnosed with a double ear infection and a red throat, whatever the hell that means.  We were told that we could wait two more days to see if the infection cleared on its own to limit his antibiotic use but after seeing them pull blood out of his ears I decided to wait two hours.  Maybe it's me but when they pull blood out of your infants ear I am reaching for the drugs.

Friday night we had a Picture People appointment and even though he wasn't feeling well we decided to keep it.  Here are the pics-

By Saturday he was a new kid and we headed to the beach.  Jax played in his stroller for a good 45 minutes once he was done with the sun.  Everyone around us got a kick out him talking to himself and playing with Chris' glasses.  We did try to put his feet in the water again and he freaked out again.  

Sunday was awesome, let me tell you.  The three of us went with our friends Janki and Jason to Max Brenner- Chocolate by a Bald Man for brunch in Philadelphia.  I like chocolate, but I don't love chocolate so I had the Brenner Burger which was delicious, it had me at onion ring to be honest.  The waffle fries were to die for, Jax was holding one and not eating it and for a split second I thought about taking it out of his hand and eating it.

Everyone else had breakfast which was delicious but entirely too rich for me.  Chris and Janki had some sort of Vanilla French Toast with white chocolate dipping sauce.  So good, but I would have had an eighth of it and been done.  

We also ordered drinks, which killed our bill by the way.  The drinks were as much as our entrees. Here was my banana split martini.  

Chris liked it all so much he wants to go back for his birthday, which isn't until next April.  I would go back again also and I would still go the sandwich route but order a milkshake for a drink instead of a martini.  

Then we went to Yards Brewery.  I was not at all impressed with the ten beers that we tried.  

We also walked to JFK park and took a cheesy tourist picture-

Jax was so fascinated with the water fountain we had to turn around so it looked like he was looking at the camera.

Happy 10 months kiddo!

Holy crap, he looks more and more like a little boy than a baby every day.

8/3/11

It's 82 degrees out today!  It is still so humid you can barely breathe outside but compared to a heat index of 127 I will take this.  As of today it looks like we are a go for Rehoboth on Saturday, it is supposed to be 84 with possible showers in the evening.  The beach, outlets, plus a wine festival on Sunday equals one awesome weekend.

Beach Pics

I just realized there is not one single post from June!   We made it a priority to get to Rehoboth as many times as we could this summer.    In May I scheduled beach days into our google calendar so there would be no excuse of "we got too busy" and it worked out great until it got too damned hot out.  I am hoping it will cool down and we can go again a few times towards the end of this month and September.

First Trip- May 22nd

It wasn't a real nice day but we decided to go anyway





Thrasher's Fries were a big hit!


June 19th- Father's Day Trip

Not a fan of his toes in the water


This was probably one of the only smiles of the day!  If you couldn't tell by the massive amount of drool there was quite a bit of teething going on that day


June 26th- Now we have figured out what we need to bring to keep Jax entertained!



If you are headed to the beach a mini-baby pool is a must!  We threw a few buckets of sea water in there and he was good to go for an hour.



and then he finally passed out!  This was our only issue with the earlier trips, he is so interested in what every one else is doing that he couldn't relax enough to sleep.  This time I threw a muslin blanket over the stroller so he couldn't see what was going on.



We haven't been back since because of the heat!  It is only supposed to be 88 on Saturday so depending on when it is supposed to rain we might try and sneak down for a few hours.

*So I was just thinking and I know we have gone more days than these three.  I am going to have to find where those pictures are!  I forgot to put my memory card back into my camera one day and ended up with a disposable.   Hmmm.....

Happy 30th to me!

My birthday was yesterday and I did not have a mid-life crisis, not that I thought I would but I always hear everyone talking about what a rough birthday it is to have.  On Saturday we went to my parents to celebrate which was very nice.  Foxy watched Jax while Chris and I went to see Cowboys and Aliens which was a decent summer blockbuster movie.  If you don't go in expecting an Oscar winning film you won't be disappointed.  Then we swam a little, ate dinner, and then topped it off with a triple chocoholic blizzard cake from Dairy Queen.  Holy hell that was one hell of a cake.  I highly recommend it.

I got some fun gifts from the fam.  My mom bought me an adorable dress, a Life is Good shirt since it is an all, and a new purse.  I was there when we picked the purse out and I thought it would be perfect.  It is a satchel and as soon as I got home I emptied out my old purse and put everything in the new one.  I thought it was perfect...until I used it the next day and realized that this arthritic 30 year old has no business carrying something on her forearm.  After a half an hour I had to throw it into the stroller because it was killing me.  So back it goes next time I am at the outlets, I am most likely just going to get the same purse I have now in a fall/winter color.   Casey got me a sephora gift card which I used to buy some new foundation and Ry got me a pandora giftcard so I can pick out whatever I want.  I am sure I would have loved whatever he picked as it is more a sentimental jewelry piece vs a fashion statement but this works also!

Chris' gift is still in the mail!  I have no idea what it is other than the fact that he told me it is not alive and that it should be here soon.  I did get roses and a card plus they took me to Brio on Sunday(I love that place).

Here are some pics from the weekend-




You can see the new purse in the background of this one-

I love my keurig!

and Jax loves the box!

I can't stand the taste of coffee but since I had Jax I have been succumbing to the caffeine.  I started with Starbucks and would basically go in and ask for coffee that doesn't taste like coffee.  The cute old man who believes I am still a college student introduced me to Dark Peppermint Mochas and Cocoa Cappuccinos.   Then I moved onto Dunkin Donuts as it is closer to home and work and found the Mocha Swirl latte and I finished off my coffee finding journey with Mocha Mint iced coffee and Pumpkin Spice cappuccino from Wawa.  I pretty much died and went to heaven over the mocha mint coffee, it seriously tastes like a milkshake.

I realized after 9 months that we were spending quite a bit on coffee each morning for the two of us and I had been reading rave reviews about the keurig.  The problem- well I need lots of flavor and milk to like it.  Then I researched espresso machines and that just seemed like way too much work.  The whole milk frothing business seemed like a burn waiting to happen.  Then it dawned on me, I have a cocoamotion and can froth milk that way.  I know you technically need espresso to make a latte but well I don't like coffee anyway so I figured I would just go bold for flavor and improvise as needed and then the ghetto fab latte was born...

Start with your coffee-

My favorite so far is the Caribou Coffee Blend.  The only one I have tried and really disliked was Gloria's Butter Toffee, it tastes like water and coming from me that is saying a lot.  As it is still 100 degrees everyday I put ice directly into the mug to start cooling things down.

While that is going I use the cocomotion with skim milk-

(they no longer sell the cocomotion.  It was replaced with this-http://www.amazon.com/Back-Basics-CM300BR-Cocoa-Latte-Hot-Drink/dp/B0002TUVQM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1312205265&sr=8-2)

Then I fill the cups with ice and pour in Hershey's Dark Syrup and a shot of Torani syrup.  We tried Caramel this morning and I wasn't super impressed, so far my favorite is still sugar free vanilla.



Pour in coffee, then milk, and walla you have a ghetto fab latte


I saw Pumpkin Pie syrup in the store last week and grabbed it but I can't bring myself to make one with it yet.  That will officially signal fall in my brain and it's just too hot for fall right now.