Pullen Park

Today was a nice day. First, homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast. They were really sticky and messy but oh so yummy! I think we were all in sugar shock for the next couple of hours. Definitely only an occasional special treat for breakfast.

Samantha was feeling much better today. She slept until 9:00 am!! And then I had to wake her up. But fortunately my sweet little girl did not have a fever at all today and was not fussy either. We held off on the cereal today however. I wanted to be sure she was feeling better before dealing with that again.

We all needed to get out of the house for a bit so after a late lunch we headed to Pullen Park for some fun. I have been wanting to take Gabrielle there for some time now. It is a great park. I took the girls I used to babysit there years ago and it has not really changed much at all. There are swings, slides and the typical park features but Pullen Park also has a small train ride, peddle boats, a carousel, and a kiddie boat ride. The city of Raleigh is closing the park sometime next year for renovations so I really wanted to make a trip there before the attractions closed.

Dressed and ready to go...just waiting for Gabrielle to
finally finish her lunch.

Driving her little boat.

I love the expression on her face in this picture.
She was having so much fun!

On the swings.

I was a little worried that Samantha was
going to get dizzy on the carousel but
I think she did OK on it.

Definitely Gabrielle's favorite part of the day. She and Ed ended up
riding on the carousel twice and probably would have
done it a thousand more times if we could.

So it was a really fun day. I'm sure Ed has fallen asleep while watching the race by now. Gabrielle is watching "Sound of Music" for the first time. It is on ABC Family. During all of the songs she is lip syncing and dancing around. I don't think she realizes yet that she is not going to be able to watch it all. I will have to make a point to put it on for her sometime to watch - maybe the next rainy day.

I hope everyone else is having a good Labor Day weekend as well. I guess today is the end of our weekend since Ed has to work tomorrow but I think we made the most of the weekend we had!

Ordinary Saturday

Today started out as just a pretty ordinary Saturday. I could make a long list of things I needed to do - laundry, cleaning, data entry work, etc - but had zero motivation to do any of them. Ed got home from work around 1:30 and basically went straight to our bedroom to take a nap. Gabrielle was content playing in her room and Samantha was taking her second nap of the day after a fairly fussy morning. I decided instead of sitting at the computer, surfing Facebook and other blogs, waiting for motivation to do "chores" I would take the weekend off and only do the things I wanted to do.

I worked on Gabrielle's baby book first. I was not too far behind. I had not added photos from her second birthday yet but had at least journalled all the details of the day fortunately. I do not think I could have remembered everything now if I had to try. I added a few more photos in her book from various special moments like her first snow in January of this year and then I was done getting caught up with her book.

Next I started - yes, finally started - Samantha's book. I have a Baby's First Year calendar in her room with stickers for various events and milestones. It is a quick and easy way to keep up with all of her "firsts" so that when I finally have time to work on her baby book I'm not struggling to remember when everything occurred. My Aunt Betsy had given me a calendar like this as a shower gift when I was expecting Gabrielle. It was one of the best gifts I received so I was very excited when I found one similar at Walmart after I found out I was expecting Samantha. I did not get completely caught up with Samantha's book before she woke up from her nap but I felt good about how far I did manage to get.

Samantha was not herself at all today. She slept really late. I finally went in and woke her up because I did not want her entire day thrown completely off. She was only up for a couple of hours before she went down for her first nap. The nap lasted a couple of hours which is pretty typical for her. She was not interested in her cereal when we tried it today and was very unhappy unless I was walking around with her, bouncing her and patting her back. She was only awake from her nap for about an hour before she fell asleep again. She is usually awake for a couple of hours at least. She slept for another hour or so and woke up screaming. She felt a little warm but I thought maybe it was from being so upset and worked up. Once I got her changed and calmed down Ed took her temperature and sure enough she was running a slight fever. My poor baby was pitiful for the rest of the day. Tylenol brought the fever down and when I put her to bed at 9:00 she was still running a normal temp. Hopefully she will sleep through the night and will be feeling herself in the morning.

For Saturday night dinners I have started trying new recipes. I actually used to try new recipes just about every day of the week but Ed was getting tired of trying new things and never getting seconds and thirds of the meals he really liked so we agreed that Saturdays would be the day reserved to try out new recipes. Tonight I made Melissa d'Arabian's, the Next Food Network Star, salmon cakes and orzo with thyme and lemon zest. As I was forming the patties I was really unsure how dinner was going to turn out. My patties did not look like Melissa's and I could barely keep them together to cover them with bread crumbs. I ended up being really happy with them. I thought they were good, Gabrielle loved them, and Ed even mentioned they were good. Ed likes my cooking in general, or at least I'm pretty sure he does, but he is not one to compliment every meal or say when he likes something every time. So when he does mention that he liked dinner I know the recipe is a keeper. Since tonight's meal was a keeper I thought I'd recommend it. It is fairly quick and easy and an inexpensive seafood recipe.

I'm off to bed now. Hopefully I'll be able to get a good night sleep and Samantha will be feeling better in the morning.

This photo is not from today. It was taken about a week ago. I just think Samantha looks so sweet in this photo I wanted to share it.

Cereal - Yummm!!

My baby is getting so big!! Samantha went to the doctor Tuesday for her 4 month checkup. She now weighs 15 lbs. 1 ounce and is 25-3/4 inches long. She started out so tiny, or at least I thought she was tiny. Gabrielle was 8-1/2 lbs. when she was born and was very long. She has always been very big for her age. So when the doctor put this tiny 7 lb. bundle in my arms I couldn't believe how little Samantha was. For the first week Samantha kept losing weight instead of gaining. It was not anything major but an altogether different experience than I had with Gabrielle. Finally, after a week of life she decided she was going to pack it on and gained 8 ounces in two days!! She has been on a steady climb up ever since.

We received the go ahead to start on rice cereal and after a week on cereal we can start veggies. Today was Samantha's first taste of cereal and she did fairly well with the new experience. I went by the directions on the box for mixing baby's first meal and it ended up a little runnier than I probably would have made it on my own. It was challenging to even keep a small amount on the spoon.

With the first spoonful she had this confused expression on her face. Most of the cereal dribbled down her chin. With the second taste she was a little less surprised and by about the fourth taste she was lunging at the spoon!! Her big sister was more excited than anyone about feeding Samantha and insisted on helping.

After her first taste.

And she likes it!!

Gabrielle feeding Samantha.

Here is a small video clip of Samantha eating this afternoon. Once again I took the video with my regular digital camera so there is no sound. All you would have heard would have been Gabrielle asking Samantha if she wanted her rice krispie treat. I didn't realize my hand would block the shot of Samantha's face so much so I apologize for the bad camera angle.

Cupcakes!!!

Has anyone seen the new Duncan Hines snack mixes? I discovered them yesterday at the grocery store. They now have snack cake mixes that yield 12 cupcakes so no longer do I have to use two 12-cup muffin tins in order to get 18 cupcakes just to use up the entire cake mix. Maybe no one else will find this as exciting as me but I was tickled when I found these.

Here are some video clips and photos of Gabrielle and I baking away yesterday. I see an Easy Bake Oven in our future for our little chef. If Gabrielle knew such a thing existed I'm sure I would never hear the end of it. Maybe it will be a nice Christmas surprise.

Gabrielle putting on the icing...



And now for the sprinkles...

Sorry for the poor video quality. I did not use my video camera - just my digital camera - which is why there is also no sound.

I am so impressed with the self-control Gabrielle exhibited while baking. Although she kept asking if she could, never once did she lick her fingers, spoon or bowl while we were mixing the cupcakes. She even waited until we were completely finished icing the cakes before she licked her little spatula.

The finished product - beautiful and tasty!!

Now if only Duncan Hines would also make snack size versions of the frosting. Do you know how tempting that half can of strawberry icing is sitting in my fridge???