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!