Cooking dinner, chicken on the left, mac n cheese on the right. 

The finished product, buffalo chicken breasts and macaroni and cheese. Magdalena had sweet potatoes. 

Magdalena and I sat down for an intellectual conversation today. She thinks I'm quite witty. 

I'm Alive!

I know, I've been absent. So many things going on but I have no clue what! I'm generating a big big post in my head though.

Let's try this meme:

Think of pictures you’d like to see. Leave whatever you’d like to see in the comments. Things around my house, or whatever… something I can take a picture of easily. Once I have enough requests, I’ll start posting them. If I can’t, or won’t, take a picture of something you’ve requested, I’ll let you know.

Nestle Exposed

http://www.babymilkaction.org/press/press16oct04.html

As a side note, every time I hear or say the word nestle I'm reminded of the episode of friends where Phoebes great great grandma Nestle Tollhouse (with a french accent) hands down a recipe for the best cookies Monica has ever eaten. :)

Four little monkeys standing in a row... 

Kiss Me Kate

Magdalena gives kisses. I cash in on my chance to get all the kisses I need to keep going since I know there will come a day when she doesn't want to give me kisses. She leans in and tries to put both her lips to together and kisses you and then giggles. I love it. She doesn't slobber on you either which is always a bonus.

I'm currently working on setting up a new play area in the house. That is keeping me pretty busy around here. My house is essentially in two parts so I'm hoping to finish it late tonight or early tomorrow.

Magdalena is still sick and has a super clogged up nose. It's no fun I tell you . She freaks out when she is asleep and can't breathe. I can't blame her.

Tooth Fairy

As if being in Snotland this week wasn't enough, the Tooth Fairy visited us too. Magdalena now sports two upper teeth and two bottom teeth. They seem to come in pairs, which is nice, because for some reason odd numbers of teeth seem weird to me. :)

Snotland

We are in Snotland. Miss Magdalena has her first upper respiratory infection complete with fever. She went to bed last night fine, she seemed a bit stuffy, but I was thinking that she was allergic to the organic peaches that we gave her for lunch. She was up off and on last night and really just wanted to stay on the breast. At about 5 am she really freaked out, her nose was almost completely plugged. Both Erich and I got up with her and noted she was clammy and feverish. We gave her some tylenol, suctioned her nose (no she didn't like that) and went back to bed. (Actually Erich got up. He's been having problems sleeping through the night. He even got up at 3am the other day and stayed up! He'll sit up and say "I'm up for the day." The single phrase that I think annoys me the most.) Anyways, I made a mental note to call the doctor seeing that it is Friday and T has a snotty green nose too. (grr.) We had an appointment at 2:20 and I spent the morning wiping snotty noses, suctioning them, and being irritated that my poor baby was sick. (And my subconscious blames starting solids and T. My brain keeps saying, " She never got sick when she was EBF." And everytime I see T with a snotty nose it seriously makes me annoyed. Is it just me?) Anywho. She has an upper respiratory infection. I'm about to go pick up some abx and some dimetapp which will hopefully clear the snot so we can all sleep. Her fever is responding well to the motrin and tylenol I've given her.

She also had her blood drawn for a lead level. The renovation we did on the house when I was pregnant and since she was born makes Erich worry constantly. So they are doing the test a bit early. We actually had to go to the hospital since she was under 1 year and it was horrible. We did get all of it done and she seems fine now. T and M walked away with stuffed animals. M for being so brave and T for being such a good girl and sitting still and coloring with the crayons and coloring book they gave her. She also got a scooby doo sticker, I'm telling you that girl cleaned house. :)

The Poop Station

Heh. That title makes me laugh.

Julee and Manda asked me about my minishower. For Manda, you can find installation guidelines here. It was really easy to install, though I did have Erich do the installation. What's the point in having a husband if I have to do those sorts of things myself? :) I'm really loving the minishower though. It is working well and I think it was a good investment. Rinsing diapers off does remind me a lot of my work in nursing homes using hoppers, but the smell is definitely not as bad and there isn't AS MUCH of a mess to clean up, thank goodness.

I've set up what I fondly refer to as "the poop station." Our bathroom downstairs is near the the stairs leading to the laundry room. I chose to place the hopper in this bathroom as it is the nearest to the laundry room and we change most poopy diapers down here. And the occasional poopy diaper upstairs, can easily be transported downstairs. :) I bought a cheap stainless steel trashcan that has the foot push/lid open system to store the diapers in. I'm going to carry wet rinsed off diapers downstairs nightly to keep little kiddies out and such and so there won't be so many. The poop station seems to really be working well. Just rinse of the diapers and then drop in the can. Wash hands. Repeat. It makes me really happy, and I have to say that my life is REALLY sad when a poop station makes me happy.

This is what Magdalena thinks of oatmeal and breastmilk. She thinks it was a waste of breastmilk! 

Catching Up and Stinky Poop

I never told you about the trip to Kansas City. It went well. Magdalena did very well in the car for about 9 hours of the trip and the last hour she was miserable. I think that was great considering both Erich and I were miserable the last hour too. The trip back went the same way, first 9 okay, last hour awful. Erich spent a lot of time in the backseat with Magdalena because I get SO carsick and I still wasn't sure if dramamine was OK. We made it though. It was fun visiting with family. On our full day there we went to Independence Center and did some shopping. We got Magdalena's Halloween costume which I'll have her photographed in probably next week. She's going to be a lady bug. :) We also got her baptism gown, which is very very simple but absolutely gorgeous. Erich's aunt gave me a meat grinder so I'm anxious to take AB's advice and grind my own hamburger and sausage. :)

The festival went well and we are glad it was over. Good food was had by all, we visited with lots o friends, and at one point we had 8 babies in our house!

Last weekend we had T with us. Saturday I spent a long three hours running an IV over at my adult sitting job. Joy. It was really only supposed to take like 1.5 to 2 hours. I'll leave that alone so I don't get so worked up about it again. On Sunday we went to church and then up to my Mom's house. We also did some errands on the way back and hit up Wmart. We hate that place, though it seems we go there often.

I caught Magdalena's scrapbook up. I'm doing the layouts by month. The layouts are complete, I just need to add pictures. There a couple of special layouts like sitting up, teeth, crawling and first solid foods that I need to find something else for. I'll try to get the pictures printed up soon. I've also started albums over at Photobucket. Here is the link for my album, and if you'd like the password please leave your email addy in the comments. :) Sometime this week I'll be adding a permanent link on the website somewhere.

Today we are going to the triplets birthday party! Can you believe that they are already a year old? Remember this picture? I'll get a picture of the four of them today and post tomorrow.

I had my first encounter with Stinky Poop. SP showed up in Magdalena's diaper yesterday. Those darn organic bananas. I was very very very grateful that Mini Shower is in the mail. :)

ETA: MY MINISHOWER IS HERE! MY MINISHOWER IS HERE! I live a sad life when I'm excited over a minishower.

As the Princess of this dwelling, we will watch what I deem appropriate on TV. If you were wondering, this remote will also serve as my wand.  

Banana Fo Fana

True to my word, Magdalena started solids today. She had some organic bananas and loved them. I feel reassured in my decision to delay solids until 8 months. She didn't fuss and she knew what to do. After the first bite, I didn't have to hold her hand out of the way, she just opened wide. :) Daddy was here for her first meal and he fed her a bit too. (I also did this while T was at preschool so that it would be more of a family thing.)

Magdalena's first official taste of solid foods. Organic bananas, yum! 

My cousin Pete in Iraq. 

Iraq Soldier

I found out the other day that my cousin is in Iraq. I'm simply amazed. He has already been wounded twice and has gone back for a third time. It really surprised me because when my mom said "you remember your cousin Pete, right?" I expected her to finish the sentence with... he's in jail. But that didn't happen. I'm super super proud of him, but very very scared. Iraq has always been this scary thing to me, but it has seemed so abstract until now. Now it seems very very real and very close to home. I'll post a picture they sent us.

T-isms

First in a long series.

1) "I'm not a Queen because Queens have servants. God picks the servants to serve the Queen. They come from jail. So when ever the Queen wants something the servant has to get it. Whatever she wants, hot cocoa or some peaches, they have to get it. "

2) "...But the baby drinks from here *points to breast*. So you mean the baby is going to drink from your breast and eat some baby food too? I've never heard of that!"

3) "Did you know I'm smart? I'm smart because I know lots of stuff."

8 months

My baby girl is 8 months old today. **sniff** I can't believe that time has flown by so quickly. I weighed her the 0ther day at an appointment, and she weighs 16lbs 4 oz and is about 26 to 27 inches long (we think). She is still wearing 3-6 months but I'm transitioning a bit into 6-9 month clothes. Though the other day, I did put her in a 0-3 month outfit and it fit perfectly. heh.

She has been saying Mama and Dada. Usually says Dada when she's looking for him, and Mama when she is crying. I noticed yesterday that in chatter when talking to me she says Mama, which warms my little heart.

We'll officially start trying solid foods tomorrow. I had to work this morning and I wanted to do it late morning with Erich. So that adventure will unfold tomorrow, which will most likely bring with it some pictures and another entry.

She's hungry so I need to feed her now and enjoy her last day of being exclusively breastfed. **tear**

IOU

a real post. Yup Yup. But I'm tired to write one. I will tell you that I finished off two books in the last week and a half or so and they were grrreat. Midwives and Trans-sister Radio by Chris Bohjalian. I feel like I've rekindled my love for reading. It's so nice. :) Any suggestions for my next read?