Brennan & Tonight

Brennan has been sick for 2 days now. We took him to the doctor yesterday b/c I couldn't keep his fever down. He'd gotten up to 105.7. That scares even me just a little. He was negative for the flu (yay!), but we don't know what it is just yet. His pediatrician thinks that it's just a virus, but he didn't want to draw blood just yet. I trust his doctor, and know that he has Brennan's best interest in mind, so I didn't question his course of action. Hopefully he'll get to feeling better soon.

On another note, tonight is New Year's Eve. This is my first time to work New Year's Eve. This will also be the first time in over 1 1/2 years that I'll be working a 12 hour shift...it will also be my first full night shift ever. I'm excited to see what the night will bring, but also to see how I do!

Everyone, be safe in your evening...b/c I don't want to have to take care of you tonight!

More Steps

Brennan is now up to 4 steps at a time before he falls. He thinks it's a game that he's playing with us! It is soooo adorable to watch him!

First Steps

What a joyous day! When things started settling down, some of us were sitting on the floor playing with the kids, and Brennan took his first steps! It was only 2 steps, but that's all he's ever done! Whoo-hoo! Maybe he'll be walking soon!

Merry Christmas

I had such a wonderful Christmas this year! The tradition changed a little bit this year...
It started off with my mom coming over in the morning to open presents with us. Colin and Brennan had huge piles of gifts, and thoroughly enjoyed opening all of them!
I hosted Christmas dinner at our house for the first time. Mom wasn't feeling up to it this year, since she just got out of the hospital a few weeks ago. I had the whole family over, and some friends. We had LOTS of food, lots of game playing and lots of time just enjoying the company of family. Our house is a little small to accommodate our large (and ever growing family), but we made do, and I felt so blessed by it! Since I was bust in the kitchen most of the day, I didn't get very many pictures of the family time :-(.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is always celebrated at Frances' (my MIL) house. We eat a traditional dinner then open presents then eat dessert. Brennan didn't stay awake this year, but Colin did...and he enjoyed every minute of opening his presents!
The boys wore their matching Christmas pajamas...a tradition, we we made sure to take the 'mess' picture after everyone opened their presents.
The rest of the photos are on my smugmug.
I'm super excited b/c tomorrow I'm hosting Christmas dinner at our house for the very first time!

A Festivus For the Rest of Us!

Jonny & Whitney hosted their 3rd annual Festivus celebration at their house. This years theme was Luau. It was so much fun! The food was delicious...kabobs, coconut shrimp (vegetarian...and SOOOOO Good!), fried rice, lots of pineapple & coconut things, punch etc. We had a blast, and of course the Festivus episode of Seinfeld was playing!

Christmas Card

Here is this year's Christmas card!

Brennan Stood Up!

Well, my boys are slow walkers. It's a fact. Brennan turned 14 months old yesterday, and isn't walking yet. He's been cruising for a while. He's gotten good at it. This afternoon, I watched him try and try and try and try and try to stand up from sitting on the floor. I didn't think he would do it...but he just kept working at it. I had the camera on my phone ready to snap just in case...and he did it! I'm so proud of him! He stood up, looked around, watched tv and then sat back down. I was able to snap a picture the second time that he did it b/c I wasn't fast enough the first time!

Dentist Visit

Colin and Brennan had dentist appointments today. It was Colin's 2nd appointment and Brennan's 1st.
Colin - He did much better than he did on his first visit. He picked out a black toothbrush with a giraffe on it. The hygienist cleaned his teeth, then brushed and flossed them. There was minimal crying...and it was b/c Colin didn't want to lay back; he wanted to sit up. The took x-rays this time, as he wouldn't calm down enough last time to do it. He has all of his baby teeth and you could see his adult teeth under the gums. It was kind of freaky.

Brennan - He did AWESOME! Colin picked out a blue toothbrush for him. The hygienist cleaned, brushed and flossed Brennan's teeth as well. He barely cried at all! They didn't do any x-rays this time. They did mention that Brennan has a very large frenulum (the tissue that connects the top lip to the gums) and that it connects much lower than usual. So, if he bumps his mouth, it will probably bleed a lot. It's also causing a gap between his 2 front teeth. The dentist said that it usually corrects itself in between baby teeth and adult teeth, but if not, then he could have a frenectomy (basically snipping it and reattaching it a little higher). That's not anything that we have to worry about for a few years though.

Their next appointment is in 6 months!

Christmas Portraits

The boys had their Christmas Portraits taken by my MIL this afternoon. These are just a few of my favorite poses! She did an awesome job! Need a photographer? Visit: Frances Otero Photography

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy thanksgiving! We had such a blessed day! It was filled with food, family, friends, games & most of all...LOVE! Now we are getting ready to go shopping!

Desserts

I figured I would post some pictures of the desserts that I made for Thanksgiving. From top to bottom: Caramel apple pecan cheesecake, Flan, Pumpkin cheesecake, and Cherry Cheesecake. They were all soooooo good!

Thanksgiving Preparations

Well, for the past 2 days I have been baking and cooking like crazy in preparation for Thanksgiving. I'll have to take some pictures and post some of my desserts before they get eaten! My contributions this year include: stuffing (my Nanny's recipe...and it's the BEST stuffing that I've ever had), cornbread, flan, cherry cheesecake, pumpkin cheesecake & caramel apple pecan cheesecake. I'm also going to be making the gravy tomorrow.

In case I don't get back here to say it, I hope you all have a blessed Thanksgiving. Think about all of the blessing in your life and remember to thank God for them! Happy Thanksgiving all!

11th tooth!

Brennan is just pooping all of his teeth in now! He cut his 11th tooth today. It's a molar on the bottom right. His mouth full of teeth makes him look so grown up! His smile gets cuter and cuter with the addition of each tooth!

Crawling

For the past few days now, Brennan has been really attempting to crawl on his hands and knees. He's still pretty slow, but I think he's finally getting the hang of it. He's actually doing it more now than the army crawl! He looks too adorable!

A Computer Monitor Tried To Kill Me...

Well, not really...but it did try to break my left foot. While cleaning out Colin's closet this afternoon, an old computer monitor (you know the kind...the really bulky heavy ones) tipped over and fell on top of my left foot. I immediately screamed out in pain and began to cry. It takes quite a bit to make me cry since I have a pretty high threshold for pain, so I knew that this had to be bad. When I was finally able to calm down enough to look at my foot, it had swollen up like a balloon and I couldn't walk on it. My mom came over to watch the boys so I could run to the urgent care place to get an x-ray. According to the doctors reading of the x-ray, it's not broken, just badly bruised. I'm so glad that it's not broken, but it still hurts soooo much!

2 more teeth!

I noticed today when Brennan woke up from his nap that he has 2 more teeth! Both are upper, 1 on each side. His tooth count now totals 10! It's crazy to me that Brennan has so many teeth by this point...Colin got his first one at 13 months, and Brennan has 10!!! I'm sure that this explains all the crankiness this week!!!

Cruising

Brenna has been doing it for a little bit now, but I never got around to posting about it...but he's cruising on furniture. He's really getting around now walking from couch to couch to get to where he wants to go. I can't wait for him to stand on his own!

Shindig

Shindig was a little different this year. New location, same general idea.
Miguel played electric guitar. Boy was it fun listening to him practice country music for 3 weeks. Can you hear the sarcasm in my voice? Frances & Felix came up again this year, and Frances got some really good pictures! We had a good time. After Shindig was over, Miguel and I met the rest of the crew at IHOP...which is tradition after Shindig. We left there after 1:00 am!

Dallas Arboretum Pumpkin Patch

Miguel and I took the boys to the Dallas Arboretum for their fall exhibit: Pumpkins! They had a really nice pumpkin patch. We took a ton of pictures, with a few cute shots! View the rest on my smugmug!

Thankful Thursday

I'm going to give this a try.
What are you thankful for? Join Sonya over at Truth 4 the Journey to participate!

This week I'm thankful for:

1. The ability to work at night so I can stay at home with my boys.
2. My church, YG (Younger Generation). What an AWESOME group of people.
3. My mom. She is a wonderful mom and grandmother and my boys love her so much!
4. My boys. Colin & Brennan can bring a smile to my face even on the worst of days.
5. My husband. Even though it's difficult at times, I love him with all of my heart.
   

Is God Opening a Door?

It's a little bit of a story, so either bear with me or stop reading now. ;-)
As you know, I'm a nurse. An ER nurse. It's my passion...ER, that is. I love it. I am a true adrenaline junkie. I work best under pressure and stress. I'm on my 'A' game then.
I'm also PRN, which basically means that I don't receive any benefits from the hospital as far as vacation or sick time or health benefits. I get paid a higher hourly wage for that.
The way that the PRN system is set up, it's basically for the hospital to have coverage when their full time and part time staff can't fill the slots. It's supposed to be a last minute call. Well, b/c of the extreme shortage of nurses, I have been able to be PRN for several years. I've actually been able to be placed on the schedule weekly and count on the hours. I think I've been spoiled by the shortage.
Well, 8 months ago, when I went back to work from maternity leave I found myself being called off (the basically call me before my scheduled shift and cancel me) or canceled days in advance. So, I decided to give working nights a try. Turns out that I actually enjoy working nights better! Yay! I was called off a few times on nights, but not nearly as much as I was on days. Things have been going great...
Things are still going great, but I've noticed over the last month or so they've hired a bunch of new full time staff. Nights were REALLY short staffed (which is why I moved to nights)...and now once all of these people are off training, I've been afraid that they are going to take my scheduled shifts. Miguel has suggested cross training to a different department, but with my short shifts (I only work 6 or 8 hour shifts currently), that probably won't work out too well.
So, all that being said...I'm going to talk about my love for the ER. I LOVE working in the ER. If I ever left, I've always said that I would want to go to L&D and/or nursery...but I don't want to leave the ER. The only thing that I really don't enjoy about the ER is working with kids. I guess that I am intimidated by their small bodies...or maybe it's the parents looming over me as I attempt to do anything to their child. I don't know, but whatever it is, I feel extremely uncomfortable working with kids. I've been a nurse for almost 5 years, and I have been able to have someone do all of the intrusive tasks o the kids for me...how did I make it this long not doing it?
Well, the past month or so I've decided that I need to get over my kid fear and just man up and do what needs to be done myself. No more bartering. No more trading off tasks with people. I'm going to start all of my own pedi. IV's, do all of my own pedi. caths etc. So, I've been doing my own tasks. I shake. I'm nervous. I feel overwhelmed, but I'm doing it. That's right. I'm doing it.
Now, I get to the 'Is God Opening a Door' part...
I was sitting in a training class for work last Thursday. I got a phone call and then a voicemail from my MIL. I texted her back and the basic gist of what she was calling about was that she has a contact at my hospital in the nursery and pediatric department that she was talking to on Thursday morning. The woman is the head of the department, and was telling my MIL about how short staffed they are. All things said and done, my MIL mentioned that I'm a nurse in the ER and the lady told my MIL that she wants me to work for her as well and for me to call her.
I called the lady later Thursday afternoon, and left a message. She called me back on Friday afternoon, and basically, she wants me to cross train to her department. She wants me to work in the Special Care Nursery and in the Pediatric departments during the winter. She is willing to cross train me and better yet...she is willing to let me work 8 hours shifts. We don't have anything set in stone yet, she still has to talk to her director about me, but said she will call me back as soon as she does. I'm so excited.
Now, I truly truly feel that God telling me somehow to kick my pedi. skills up a notch b/c he had/has a plan. I'm so nervous, b/c I am scared of kids...but we all know that God likes to make you shine in ways that you never thought you could. So, I know that if it is God's plan for me to cross train and I end up working there, I will shine. I will do great...and who know, maybe I'll even LIKE it!

Brennan's 1 Year Portraits

I just got back Brennan's 1 year portraits a few days ago, and figured that I would share a few of my favorites. The rest are on my smugmug.

Check Out the Comparison

I finally got Brennan's 1 year portraits back and completed the 1 year comparison of Brennan and Colin.
What do you think?
Brennan & Colin's 1 year comparison

Post

I'm planning to post tomorrow!

Look forward to pictures (Brennan's 1 year portraits and others), milestones, jabber, God's plans, surprises and more. Oh, and maybe even a new template if I'm feeling really motivated!

Sweet dreams!

Allergy Test Results

I was told that Brennan's allergy test results would take 7-21 business days, but I got the results this evening! The nurse from the pediatrician called me right before the office closed.
Before i go over the results, I'll explain the test and possible results pretty quick.
The blood allergy test was called a RAST Test.
They draw blood and expose the blood to specific allergens.
They score the reaction on a scale of 1-6.
1, 2 & 3 are mild reactions. Not something the doctor is concerned about. He wouldn't prescribe an epipen for these allergies or even call them an 'allergy'. Basically, you would just be 'sensitive' to the item, and would either avoid it for a while or re-introduce.
Level 4, 5 & 6 are sever reactions. The doctor would consider them allergies and would prescribe an epi-pen.
Brennan's results came in and he did not score any 4, 5 or 6's! Yay! Praise God. Food allergies are definitely not something that I wanted to have to deal with. They didn't tell me if he scored in the lower numbers, but I'm sure that he did...b/c I witnessed reactions to food on 4 different occasions. As of right now, I am just going to re-introduce the food to him in small amounts and see how he does!

ANOTHER Tooth

Brennan cut his 8th tooth today. That definitely explains all the fussiness! It's on the bottom. So now he has 4 in a row on the top and on the bottom. His smile is just getting cuter and cuter with the addition of teeth!

Colin Bakes!

Colin loves to help me cook! Every night he asks to help me make dinner. We may have a little chef on our hands.
I decided to make a Key Lime Pie for dessert tonight, and of course Colin wanted to help me make it. He donned his apron, stood on a chair and played the role of 'Super Mixer'! He did great, and was so proud of himself.
When Miguel got home from work all he kept talking about was how he 'baked a pie for Papi'!

Brennan's First Blood Draw

My little Brennan had to have his blood drawn yesterday for allergy testing. The phlebotomist had to stick him twice because she blew his little vein the first time. I must say that Brennan is a Powerhouse! He handled it like a champ. He barely cried...and the little bit that he did, I think it was b/c we were holding him down. I snapped a picture this morning with his band-aids on. Adorable!

Brennan's 1 Year Check -Up

Brennan had a good 1 year check-up. He saw the doctor this morning. Brennan weighs 19 lbs. 2 oz. (10%), and is 30 inches long (75%). He's so skinny! The pediatrician is happy with Brennan's progress. I brought up my concern about his possible food allergies, and the pedi. decided to run a RAST test...which is a blood test for determining allergies. He's says that it's a good starting point for determining. I took Brennan to have blood drawn after the appointment, but I'll post about that later. Brennan got 4 shots. Poor baby, but he handled them like a champ. He barely cried, and was done by the time that I picked him up! Miguel calls him 'Powerhouse'. One of the shots was his flu shot. We got one of the few doses left at the pedi.'s office. Brennan's next appointment is when he is 15 months old.

This past year with Brennan has had it's up & downs as he is definitely been our more difficult child, but it's also been amazing. Brennan is so loving. He just loves Colin to pieces and calls for him 'Ca' all the time! He is a good eater and a playful child. He is still doing the army crawling, but he is starting to pull up now. He points, claps, signs, and says a few words.

Brennan's Birthday Party

Well, we celebrated Brennan's 1st birthday party today. It turned out nice, but not as planned. I had planned to have the entire party in our backyard. It was a sports themed party. Lots of people showed up in fan gear! We rented a bounce house for the kids to play in, had sports balls all over the place, had a soccer goal & basketball hoop for the kids to play with. Right as the bounce house guy showed up to deliver it...it started drizzling and it was pretty cold out. So, I made the decision to cancel the bounce house and have the party inside...only problem...our house was too small for the number of people that were coming. We made the best of it. I decorated the house with all of the decorations that I purchased, spread the balls around the house, and made the food (hot dogs and nachos...what you eat at a sporting event) in the kitchen and let the kids run the house!

Brennan enjoyed his cake, but had a reaction to an ingredient. We had to give him benadryl.

The kids all enjoyed the pinata.

Brennan was a little overwhelmed when it came time to open the presents, so I did most of them while he *watched*.

Brennan with the birthday girl. Aly & Brennan were born only a day apart!

My boys together just after everyone left!

Colin's 1st Movie Experience

Miguel took Colin to the movies for the first time today! The saw Toy Story 2 in 3D. Colin was so excited. I packed Cheerios & raisins for Colin and that's all he could talk about all day long was how was going to go watch a movie and eat Cheerios and raisins!

Miguel said that by the end of the movie he had fallen asleep. When Colin got home he told me all about Woody & Jesse and his raisins and Cheerios!

1 Year Comparison

Colin - TOP Brennan - BOTTOM

Hmmm, so skin tone is definitely different. Colin was more yellow-y, and Brennan is pinker. I think that their eyes are very similar. Brennan has 7 teeth in this picture, and Colin had NONE!
I love my beautiful boys!

Happy Birthday Brennan

Brennan's birth picture. He was 2 weeks old

Brennan at 1 month. What a sleeping angel.

Brennan st 2 months. He despised bath time!

Brennan at 3 months. He has such a cute personality!

4 months old. He's so serious.

5 months old. What a chunky monkey!

6 months old. I love this picture!

Brennan at 7 months old. He's finally starting to look like he does now.

8 months old. Still serious!

Brennan at 9 months. He has the cutest expressions!

10 months old. You can see his teeth here!

11 months old. He's finally starting to enjoy his baths!

Brennan is 1 year old! Happy birthday!

We are waiting for his portraits to come back.

Oh my, how this year has flown. My baby Brennan is 1 today. Where has the time gone? I feel like I was just carrying him around in my belly yesterday. It's too soon. Time needs to stop ticking away.

I am extremely blessed by this little boy, and really couldn't imagine my life without him. He is so loving and just wants to be in your arms all the time.

Happy birthday to my precious little angel. May God bless you with many, many more.