Fantastic First Birthdays!!

Have you missed me? I know I have sure missed blogging with all my blogginess. What is a busy Mama to do? Maybe bake a cake, sugar cookies, make baked mac and cheese, special sandwiches, and awesome veggie dip. Yes, I was a food making Queen for Ian’s party. Did I overdo it? It is quite possible but Ian deserved it and he sure enjoyed all the food. I now know his new favorite food, mac and cheese.
The cake turned out great thanks to the help of my Mother-in-Law. I baked it okay but the decorating part was my problem. I have never been one to ice cakes well; they tend to look all gloppy. She showed me her technique and volia, a beautifully iced cake! I really loved his cake and the American cake got the Swiss thumbs up!

Seeing Ian eat cake for the first time was one of the most funny and cute things!! I for sure will never forget the moment. How could you when you have a face that looks like this..

He got some great gifts for his birthday and everyone was so nice! From his Swiss Grandpa and Grandma some cute Pooh clothing! From his “Aunty” Sinem and Uncle Mike the coolest toy bath set ever!!(pictures to come soon), from Andrès Aunt Isa and Uncle Markus a lego set, swiss air bib, choochoo train her little boy used to have(his fav!!), and a singing Winnie the Pooh book..and lastly an awesome talk and learn Mickey from my Mommy and Daddy! Everyone was just super generous to him!!

Ian really enjoys the bike we got him so yesterday we took him out for a ride on it to the park and around the block. This toy is great for short outings with him! I want to order one in big people size please! So order up?

Overall, I think Ian had a Grand first birthday…and here is to another fantastic year!!

*More birthday pictures to come in April when my Flickr account resets so I can upload more pictures! I just take too many pictures!!

Easter Weekend 08

This Easter weekend was pretty good. It was my first Easter away from home so I was able to experience Easter in a different way and it was also Ian’s first Easter *edit*: So I had to fix this(thanks Lauren and Hallie), it wasn't Ian's First but I guess I should say his first interactive Easter. I think he had a good one and he sure got plenty of Chocolate from the E. Bunny and his Grandparents but I think André and I will have to eat most of it because he sure doesn’t need much! Let’s see, we went to André’s Aunt and Uncles home and chilled about then headed over to his parents for some dinner. Here is your overload of Easter pictures:

Oh yes, André’s birthday was Saturday so we went out to shop and have some Burger King. We picked ourselves up a little hand vacuum and what a blessing that is! I don’t know how I was living without one. I think overall he had a good birthday..atleast I hope.
I know you all are going to miss me this week, but I have a lot to do! Friday is Ian’s First Birthday; I know, One!! His party is going to be on Saturday so I have a lot to do and cooking all his food and attempt making a cake! All this is on my plate plus a busy week of school and all my other daily tasks. I need some more hands for all this stuff! Enjoy your week everyone!

Busy and a Little Under the Weather

School has been keeping me pretty busy this week and I am trying to work out a good routine with that, Ian, and all the other daily things I need to do. I just about have something that works for me but I just knew that I shouldn’t have put the satin sheets on the bed this week! It is taking me forever to get my big ole’ booty out of it!
School has been going well and it isn’t that hard….yet. What is required in that class is, you do your set of assignments daily, make screen shots of it all(place that in a word document of its own), then at the end of the week submit all files in a zipped folder, oh yes and participate in a weekly discussion board. I really hope I will include everything that is required because that part is a little bit confusing! Not too bad you say, right? I made my first calculator interface yesterday, wahoo!
I have been feeling a little under the weather this week. My body has waged a war against me and I can’t give it a good fight back! My throat has been sore, I had a migraine last night, and my “annoying friend” has come to visit! With all of that two of those came through last night while I had a crying baby who wouldn’t go to sleep and I was the only one that could comfort him. I literally thought I was going to have a meltdown! I am so glad the migraine is gone because that was the main thing making me go crazy.
On to better news, Ian has been a busy man. His “talking is getting a lot better and he will point at things and says something. Sometimes it even looks like he is trying to read.

Look on the above post

What do you think?

I took More pictures of Ian doing his thing around the place to get more practice in. I learned more about the camera to get the exposure right and the focus where you want it. I really want to try to take some pictures of my family and friends when I go visit in June so I can practice on people that will stay still and they will have some nice pictures that will hopefully look professional. I just have so many ideas floating around in my head!
Here are some more:

Yum, Redbull

I cut his head and feet off..oops

This one the color is off and he is blury

I entered Ian in a photo contest, so if you all could vote for Ian that would make my day!

Link:http://www.photowow.com/

Instructions: Click on the "Photo contests" link. On that page, enter Entrant #50078 to vote for Ian.

He îs at number 8 now..come on number 1!!!!

Another Photoshoot!

We finally got our light fixture shopping done! What a load off my shoulders but now the thing is getting them installed. I am hoping this week! I got a really neat one that hangs over the kitchen table and the rest are plain and simple ones. Once installed, I will try to get a picture up for you all! I did get to make my first trip to the the Bébéhaus and let me tell you what..that place rocks my mommy socks!! They had almost every stroller you could think of, including all the BabyJoggers and accessories. We were able to get Ian’s puzzle playmat and it works great. He isn’t really into the puzzle part of it yet but all that really matters is it protects his little noggin, which he has already wacked twice today!! I was getting really proud of him because he hadn’t hit his head in days..but low and behold..today happened. That just shows that you can’t protect them from every little thing.
Tomorrow is the start of another class towards my degree. I am looking forward to it yet I am not. I know there is going to be a lot of hard work to do in this class and I have to use my brain…NOOOOOO!! Oh well, I will see if I can push aside some space for this new knowledge they call Visual Basic.
I did another photoshoot with Ian and this time it turned out a lot better. He is getting harder and harder to photograph since he is all over the place and wants the camera so I have to be tricky; thank goodness it worked this time around!

Mad that he can't have the camera.

Still Mad.

The Aftermath

Since I decided to try to get Ian off the bottle, I decided it is a good time to move him to regular milk. It was surprising how well he took to it! It is like he doesn’t even notice the difference between that and formula so we are almost totally off formula. I bought my last box this week!! See you crazy formula prices hello almost decent milk prices!!

Growing up and its transitions

I have been trying to transition Ian off his bottles but my attempts do not seem to cutting it too well. I first tried a regular sippy cup with milk and he just doesn’t turn it up and does not want to drink out of it, so I tried a cup with a straw and yes he does better with that but I feel like I am chasing him around with it all day because he won’t even think about drinking out of it if I don’t put it to his lips. Only then, will he take a lousy sip and then throw it down. I want him to be able to get enough fluids during the day so he has all morning to drink the milk out of his sippy then he gets a bottle in the afternoon. I hope I didn’t get this kid attached on bottles *gasp*!! Why can’t he be one of those easy transition kids? I guess I can’t have everything going well! I am lucky he hasn’t been really sick yet *knock on wood*.

More attempts have been made on trying to get him to stand up more so maybe he will choose to let go. His toy boxes haven been stacked up so he has to stand up to get them. He does well with standing up holding on to things, so please choose to let go soon Ian, do it for Mommy!!!

So on to Mommy news, I baked my first Chicken last night! It turned out fantastic and it was Hubby approved. I made a Multi-Herb Chicken with added potatoes and carrots. I have to admit pulling up the chicken skin so I could stuff the seasoning wasn’t the greatest feeling in the world but it made for a good chicken. Here is the recipe I used: http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_10436,00.html . I did not have cooking spray so instead I used olive oil to coat the pan, chicken, potatoes, and veggies. It ended up being really juicy so I am not sure if it was the oil or the fact that I pulled the skin up then removed it after cooking. I was a well satisfied cook.

A big thanks to The Food Network

I tried to work on my close-up shots today but since Ian is more mobile now, it is not working out so well. To try to keep him close to me long enough I let him bang away on my computer while I enticed him to “Look at Mommy (finger snaps)”. This didn’t work out well! I only had one decent shot out of 30! The second I would get the shot he would move while I took it and it was blurry. I need to search on the net to see how to fix it that.

I had to show you the last one for laughs. That one happened to be the most clear and best light out of all and he had to look woozy! At least I have a cute woozy baby!

Annoying Mondays

Mondays, I think I will start today off with this:

How To Know If You Have PMS
A few early detection schemes to know if you have PMS (PMT)

1) Everyone around you has an attitude problem.
2) You're adding chocolate chips to your cheese omelet.
3) The dryer has shrunk every last pair of your jeans.
4) Your significant other is suddenly agreeing to everything you say.
5) You're using your cellular phone to dial up every bumper sticker that says, "How's my driving? Call 1-800-###-####."
6) Everyone's head looks like an invitation to batting practice
7) You're convinced there's a God and He's male.
8) You're counting down the days until menopause.
9) You're sure that everyone is scheming to drive you crazy.
10) The ibuprofen bottle is empty and you bought it yesterday.

Yes a lot of those are me this morning! I even had to put Ian down for an early nap because he seems to be a little like his mama; he wants to drink then he doesn’t and he wants to do what he wants..haha kids! At least he is peacefully snoozing upstairs.

This weekend was a pretty normal weekend. I did have to run over to the Cell Phone store to check my phone in because it won’t turn on. What is a girl to do with out her 24/7 MSN? It should be about 10 days for repairs. Other than that I spent it at home cleaning up and chilling about.

Yesterday evening I spent it at the In-Laws. André FINALLY got a haircut from his mother and yes it was needed oh so badly. He decided to place a blue cap on top his mop and I couldn’t convince him to take that thing off. It was more so sitting on top of the hair then being on his head. He said he had to use it to cover up his ugly hair but he would have been way better of with letting his hair flow in the breeze then contain it with a hat. Oh well..

Ian was ultra clumsy yesterday. He hit his head a total of 5 times!! At first André thought it was because I wasn’t watching Ian but as soon as we were over at my In-Laws, Ian tried to call through a doorway and just flopped on his face. Hopefully tomorrow we can get out to go look for those foam puzzle mats because I am not sure how much more his noggin can take! Maybe he needs a helmet!

Sprucing Up!

Not too much has been happening on the Lisa front lately. I’ve just been trying to spruce things up around the new place. Yesterday I put all the curtains up and adjusted the new set I bought. They all need adjusting since the inner ones are too long now. I have no idea when I will find the time to get to that. I also fixed up that empty spot in the bedroom, so now all it needs is a little plant behind. This is what I did with it:

You have to love the playboy bunny, right..right?!! The chair and the table were purchased at Ikea for about $50 all together, what a deal!! Since I went to Ikea I just had to get this red tent I saw:

Can’t you see that Ian loves it? Ha, not too much yet. Mommy had to entice him in there with various toys. I think it will grow on him though and it will be perfect for beach time since it just pops open and closed and you can’t beat another great deal of $15!

You might have noticed Ian’s strange tongue contortion in the previous picture; he has been doing this a lot lately. That coupled with not being interested in his milk much leads me to believe he has another tooth coming in. I tried to get a peek in but I couldn’t see nor feel where one might be coming through but he sure has been cranky enough! So we will see!! I dedcided to pop some tylenol up him when he got up this morning and he seems to be doing better since then. He is drinking more today, so I can worry a little less!!

Ian is now in that stage where he does no want food as much. I don't know what it is. Maybe he is too interested in playing but every main meal is a struggle and I spend atleast an hour trying to get the food down him because he sure puts up a good fight!! Please PPPLEASE let this be over soon!

I decided to make Ian a first birthday signature for my Babycenter posts:

I think it came out pretty well and that face he makes is soooo cuuute!!

I am going to leave you all with pictures from today’s Fun Friday!!

His favorite Item, the laptop.