102 degrees = low grade fever...

My baby girl has her first cold:-( I noticed she was a little congested over the weekend and felt very warm at times, so I pulled out the thermometer. Ok first of all she is already not feeling well and now I am suppose to put this thing up her little baby bootie to get her temperature...no fun! After much fussing and squirming I was able to get her temp.102. Time to call the doctors...after talking with the nurse she advise me that Addison had a low grade fever, not to give her anything for it and to monitor her for the next few days. If her fever persisted to call back or if it went above 105 to bring her in. WHAT!!! 105!! and DON'T give her ANYTHING!! Being a new mom I called back later and talked with a different nurse and got the same answer:) So I did what I was told, it is so hard to see your little baby congested and coughing their little baby cough:( and there is nothing you can really do. After 4 days of having a "low-grade" fever and her little baby cough getting worse I brought her in. She just has the common cold and needs to run its course. I asked the Dr. why 102 was considered low for a fever and why I couldn't give her anything to help bring it down. He explained that a baby's immune system needs to learn to fight off the virus and to see if the fever goes down on its own...also it is considered low because it is her body's way of fighting off the cold. If it were to be any higher than that means there is something wrong within the body. Who knew!

Tuxedo Brownie Cups

*Nonstick cooking spray

*1 pkg fudge brownie mix

(plus ingredients to make brownies)

*2 square white chocolate for baking

*2 tbsp milk

*8 oz cream cheese, softened

*1/4 cup powdered sugar

*1 cup thawed, frozen whipped topping

*1 pint strawberries, sliced

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F . Spray cups of Deluxe Mini-Muffin Pan with nonstick cooking spray. Prepare brownie mix according to package. Fill wells of pan two-thirds full(about 2tsps of batter). Bake 12-14 minutes or until edges are set. (Do not overbake.) Remove pan from oven; immediately press tops of brownies to make indentations. Cool in pan. Remove brownies from pan; cool completely. Repeat with remaining batter.

2. Combine white chocolate and milk in large microwave-safe bowl; microwave on HIGH 1 minute. Stir until smooth; cool slightly. In large mixing bowl, combine cream cheese and sugar; mix well. Gradually stir in white chocolate mixture until smooth. Fold in whipped topping.

3. Spoon cream cheese mixture into brownie cups; top with strawberries(I use my egg slicer to get the strawberry slices). **you can also top with mint leaves or get a little creative and decorate with a little chocolate topping

4. Enjoy!!

Green Thumbs Down

Recently I repotted a few house plants that seemed to need new soil added to their pots. I have repotted plants before and they grew bigger and remained healthy. Well, I managed to kill 3 of the 4 plants in 2 days after repotting them. I have no clue what I did to them, I took them out of the pot, added new soil, put them back in and gave them a little water with food!! 1 day later 3 of the 4 plants shirveled up and wilted all the leaves away!! I have even kept them in their pots thinking for whatever reason they will grown back!! They were really pretty plants too, I myself was amazed at how well they were growing the last couple of years. So I bid my plants farewell, I hope you all revive yourself and come back soon, although to my dismay I am sure you are gone forever:(

What's in a Name

I get asked alot how we came up with Addison Bella so here is the story....

We had our baby's name narrowed down to 4 names. We wanted to keep the names to ourselves and keep it a surprise for everyone. It kinda back fired on us though. The week before our baby was due we had some friends email us telling us what they were going to name their baby girl who was due a few months after ours...I was devastated! It was like the joy of naming your child was stripped away from you. I cried and cried because the name they were using was #1 on our list of names!! I know I had 3 other names to choose from but what if that is what we decided to go with when we saw our baby girl. Couldn't they have waited to tell us until after our daughter was born. I could've let my preggo hormones get the best of me, but I didn't, I look at my daughter now and wouldn't have named her anything else. She is Addison Bella through and through:) See we started out with 2 names we liked then the list grew to 20. I told my husband we needed to stop looking at the baby name websites and dwindle our list down. We got it down to the top 4 and figured we would wait to see when she was born to see what she looked like:) well after our first name was taken, we went back to the drawing board, looked at the other 3 names we liked and went with our #3 name, only with a minor adjustment:) . The name was Madison. My husband wasn't too hip on naming our daughter after a city in Wisconsin (nothing against Wisconsin) so we took the M off and went with Addison:) After we decided on her first name, we then had to decide on how to spell it. Oh boy;-) !! We could've spelt her name...Adyson, Addisen, or Addison. We decided to keet it simple, cause lord knows when she gets into school her last name is a gonner for pronounciation:)
Bella, her middle name comes from the Italian language Beautiful. We knew with in our hearts how beautiful God was creating this little person for us to be loving parents too. Also after visiting Italy a few years back I fell in love with the country and its beauty. It was only fit to give Addison the perfect middle name. She is our Bella Babe! We call her Addison, goober(she drools on anything and everything), Addie, princess(she seems to think she is the queen of the house though), baby girl,and Bella.

FRENCH VANILLA SCRUB

Recently at a MOPS spa day we made a sugar scrub. I couldn't believe how easy and fun it was to make. So I set off to see if I could come up with a fun sugar scrub that I would like...here is what I came up with:-)

I did a little research on different homemade sugar scrubs and found a coffee sugar scrub. What is the benefit of a coffee sugar scrub?? I found on http://www.livestrong.com/ that a coffee scrub exfoliates your skin, helps to prevent acne, reduces the appearance of fine lines and hyperpigmentation and softens your skin. Because caffeine is a natural diuretic, coffee scrubs can also help stimulate the movement of water through your body, making your skin temporarily appear firmer and making skin problems like cellulite less noticeable.

Here is what you need:

3/4 cup Brown Sugar

1/4 cup White Sugar

1/4 cup of your favorite ground coffee(I like to use Caribou's Mahogany coffee)

3/4 cup of Olive Oil

1 tsp vanilla extract (or you could use a few drops of vanilla essential oil if you have it)

1 canning jar or a zip loc storage container

mix all the ingredients into your jar and enjoy!!

(I have read before applying scrub to make sure your skin is wet)

It's like a little smell of heaven in the mornings:)

If you want to get a little creative decorate your jar and give it as a gift!!

Philippians 4:8

8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble,

whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely,

whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy

—think about such things.

.

Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies!!????!!!

Can there be such a thing?? who would even think to make chocolate chip cookies "healthier"...and could it be they actaully taste really really yummy!!! well there is a "healthier" version of the chocolate chip cookie out there and I even tried it out. Lets just say not only did I love them....my husband even loved them!! I found the recipe from the weightwatchers website. Here is what you need to make them:

Ingredients:
– 2 tbsp light butter, softened
- 2 tsp canola oil (I used olive oil)
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar, dark-variety
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/8 tsp table salt
- 1 large egg white
- 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 3 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips, about 1/2 cup

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375ºF.
In a medium bowl, cream together butter, oil and sugar. Add vanilla, salt and egg white; mix thoroughly to combine.
In a small bowl, mix together flour and baking soda; stir into batter. Add chocolate chips to batter; stir to distribute evenly throughout.
Drop rounded half-teaspoons of dough onto one or two large nonstick baking sheets, leaving a small amount of space between each cookie. Bake cookies until golden around edges, about 4 to 6 minutes; cool on a wire rack. Makes 24 servings.

and this is the yummy goodness you get...

just a side note I doubled the indegredients of this recipe and made them into bars instead and they still tasted amazing!!

you know your a mom when....

1. You now shower in 5 minutes instead of 20-30 minutes
2. You don't eat your meals, you scarf them down
3. You can go through 5-10 outfits in less than an hour
4. Your new perfume is called "spit up au de par"
5. You can wipe a boogie from your husband's nose with your
hand, not thinking twice about it!!

Ok so maybe not all moms experience this but being I just became a new mom a few months ago this basically sums motherhood up for me. On September 22, 2010 we welcomed to our family Addison Bella. She is what I have been up to for the last 4 months:) and I am loving every second of it!! She is such a blessing to Rich and I. We love her giggles and smiles, and all of her stern looks. She is now at the stage where everything(literally) goes into her mouth. She is currently working on getting both fists in her mouth while holding onto your fingers:) She loves to talk with you too, its the best. She has been sleeping through the night since month 1!! I don't know how we it did, it just happened. Although she does fight taking a nap and lately she would rather stay up party at night than go to bed!! Where do they get the energy!??!! She is very attentative and has a personality like no other! (I know I am doting on my daughter and making it sound like she is the ONLY adorable baby there is, but doesn't every mom!!)

Very Little Sleep = Preggo Meltdowns

I am soooo tired!! and the baby isn't even here yet!! The last couple of nights have been very restless for me. Toss and take 5 minutes to Turn, toss and take 5 minutes to turn, get up to go pee, fall assleep for a little bit, toss and take 5 minutes to turn, toss and take 5 minutes turn, get up to go pee....and then repeat over and over until the alarm goes off. I feel emotionally spent and so tired I just want to sleep. My doc even told me to try Tylenol PM...didn't work:( So far I have had 2 melt downs within the last 12hrs....its the little things that can just set the tears to flowin'.

Third Trimester Here We Are!!!

"Welcome to the third trimester-the period of leg cramps, hemorroids, varicose veins, itchy skin, aches and pains, swelling, heartburn, idigestion, and....the arrival of your baby!" :)

This is the saying they had posted on my pregnancy week by week page for this week. Well, I already get the leg cramps in the middle of the night(really not fun at all) I can attest to the itchy skin syndrom and a few aches and pains in my lower back but the rest I have yet to experience. Not really saying I am looking foward to the other items listed except of course the arrival of my baby!! Most people ask if I am getting nervous, my response is, no I am more excited for her arrival! I can't wait to meet the little bugger who lets me know she is in my belly all day long by exercising her freedom to move about. Sometimes I wonder if I am not incubating a little gymnast inside my belly:) It is fun though to feel her move about.

Well the picture above is me at 28 weeks in the nursery. We did a lady bug/butter fly theme. I hope she likes her room:)

We are Having Aaaa.....

... a little girl:) here she is all cuddled up in my tummy:)

She is a very active little girl in mommy's tummy,

always turning and kicking and movin' around!

This is her picture at 23weeks.

Register for This Not That!!

So my husband and I took a gander at the whole baby registering thing and well lets just say we had no clue what we were doing in the baby basics section. How do you know which bottle to use, will you really need a wipe warmer, what a about a bottle warmer, and a nuke holder....really?!!? how do you know what items you need to first start out with? do you register for items for when they get older? do you go with pampers or huggies? These were just a few of the tons of questions/thoughts we stumbled upon. They really should hire an experienced mom to have on hand to go through the store with you so you know which items you will for sure use and which ones you will be like "why did I register for this" :) So like any other rookie parents we just started clicking! We did have fun but it was overwhelming to say the least. I should almost have my "mom" friends go look at our registry when it is done and tell me which items to keep on and which items to let go.

Cruisin' the Caribbean

We boarded the Celebrity Century a few weeks ago to cruise around the Caribbean! It was one of the best trips ever. We didn't even get sea sick!!! We ported from Miami and then headed over to Ochios Rios Jamaica. The we set sail on a catamaran ride to go snorkeling along one of the coral reefs and then sailed over to Dunns River Falls(when I get the water camera pictures back I will post them) We climbed up through the 600ft waterfall!! Pretty crazy stuff, and yes we did make it up to the top of the waterfall. It was way cool. The next day we headed over to Grand Cayman. We were able to take a tour of the island in 3 hours. It was a pretty neat little island. We toured a pirates cave, stopped at the Tortuga Rum factory and tried out some tasty rum cake, we stopped off to see what they call "blow holes" on the ocean line...

You can see in the picture how the water comes up through a hole that was made by the ocean on the shore line. We were lucky that the waves were rushing in that day to come up through the holes to get some cool pictures. After touring the island we headed into the main part of the island where there were shops and shops galore of watches and jewelry. You would probably see one or two tourist shops literally. Grand Cayman is a tax free island, so I guess they are big on their watches/jewelry shops. After Grand Cayman it was back to sea. We spent over all 2 days at sea and had great weather both days to hang out by the pool all day! They had other activities for you to do as well. We saw a show every night after dinner. Some were boardway shoes, and a few were comedians. Which were both very funny and clean to say the least(except one had an "adult only" show which wasn't very clean) Each night we had a sit down dinner with a group of people from the ship. We had a fun table and our server was a blast!! The last night we had dinner on our own and watched the sun go down...

For our first time crusin' we were very impressed and had a great time!!

160 Beats

I got to hear my heartbeat today and then... I heard our little baby's heartbeat! It was the funnest thing to hear ever!! So yes my husband and I will be parents come this September:) It has been fun journey so far. We have this book called Pregnancy Week by Week(I forget author) but each week it tells you how your baby is growing and what parts it is developing. And all along I thought when the sperm met the egg a little baby was formed already....who knew the baby started out as a blob per say and formed day by day to become little one, the things you learn:) I haven't had much of the morning sickness thing, just a little nautious in the morning but goes away. But I do know when I get hungry...I am HUNGRY!! lets just say we have had a few incidents with not feeding me in a timely manner:) I did go out with my mom last weekend and bought my first pair of prego pants and a few shirts. I do have to say I am not to excited about the style of pregnancy lines. the outfits I have seen makes you look like you are back in the 80's or 70's at times...so any suggestions of good places to find cute prego summer shirts is welcomed!! Well here is a picture of our little one at 8 weeks(our dr is great she figured she wouldn't hear the heartbeat then so she did an ultra sound for us) **if you look close enough you can see it's one arm and little eyes**

Cancer is SEW DONE! block 1

Well, here is my first try at making a block for a quilt. I joined one of the groups called black w/ a pop of bright and this is what I came up with for my first block. You can't tell by the picture but a few of the seams are off centered and if it wasn't for my dear friend Drea my block probably would've looked more like a triangle or something!! I have a few more to do so we will see how I do on those ones. Here is Drea and I with our first blocks for SEW Done.

Sew Done & Book Club for 2010

Well 2010 is bring new adventures for me. My friend Drea got me started on this new project (anyone who likes to try their hand at sewing can join) it is called Cancer is Sew Done http://cancersewdone.ning.com/ This group sews together all these different blocks to come up with one quilt to go towards rasing funds in the fight of cancer. I am not a huge quilter by the way so this means any rookie sewer could do this. I have yet to make a block yet for this but am looking foward to trying my hand at this block making for the quilts. I will try and post pictures when I get blocks done:) I can't say mine will look like the above but I can sure try:) I not only joined this group to try my hand at block making but with recent family members finding out that they have a form of cancer, it has really hit home a little more for me.




Another adventure I am trying out is a new book club I just joined. We call ourselves the Lovely Ladies Book Club:) We have already made it through our first book called the "Lovely Bones" Overall it was a very good book(I wont go into detail incase you want to read this one), if you can make it through the first chapter or so it is a real inspiring story. I guess they are coming out with a movie on it, so that would be fun to see. I have always wanted to join a book club so we will see how this year goes with it.

One Very Hot Pan+Cooking Wine=No Good For Shorty:0

Last night, I was cooking my usual italian chicken , I dip the chicken in italian spices and after the chicken is cooked almost all the way through I pour some white wine over it to make a nummy sauce...well this time around, I almost burnt our entire kitchen to the ground!! yes my first kitchen fire:( I didn't realize the pan/stove was soooo hot and as the wine went into the pan... the flames went up!! kinda like, ok exactly like when you see on the cooking shows how the pan flames up when they add wine to it, only my flame kept going and going. so I quickly pulled the pan from the stove and the fire in the air kept going...and yes LUCKILY it died out and no damage was done to the kitchen, except for the poor door that hangs above microwave...just "slightly" singed on the bottom of the door...

Fun Picking Apples

I visited the Apple Orchard a few times this month, once on a trip with my sister,and the other time was with the in-laws. I do have to say there is a story to tell in the picture with me in the tree but ... lets just say I don't think we were suppose to be picking from that tree!!! I do wish though we had a longer fall this year, and luckily we were able to enjoy the few days we did have of it. I made a few apple pies with the apples we picked, and attempted to make apple butter, but if you ask me, it tastes like applesauce. Oh well, here is to the few days of Fall that we actaully had here in Minnesota...

2nd Hand Smoke

Frustrated, Upset, Sad, Scared, Not Understanding, Compassion, Forgiveness.

These are feelings I have been going through this week with the finding of my grandma being diagnosed with lung cancer yet she has never smoked a day in her life. I want to be frustrated and upset with my family for continuely smoking in her house for years and years, and wonder does it even phase them that they were a factor in my grandma (their mom) getting this disease? Sad to know that this had to happen to her, scared in wondering or knowing this could happen to me even. How long does she have to live, How much suffering will she have to go through before it completely takes over her? Not to be able to be there for her and hear about how much pain she is in, and how sad she is about all of this. Finding forgiveness towards my aunts, uncles who didn't have a care in the world where they lit up.

You see those commercials about second hand smoke and how it can take one's life so easily, but it doesn't truly set in on what they are talking about it until it happens to someone so close to you. I love you grandma, and I pray that God will give you peace and fill you with His comfort during this time.

FuelPerks

Ok, I just have to say how much of a fan I am of the Rainbow Foods Fuel Perks deal they have going on...I just saved over .50cents a gallon on gas last night!! I was pretty excited about that, only having to pay $2.06 for gas. I know alot of us drive around family cars so they can take a pretty penny on filling up, but if you are dorky like me and after swiping your rewards card to see how much they are taking off the price, filling up my Acadia isn't so bad after all:)