2 Months

Today, March 25, 2011, is Mikaela's 2 month birthday.  (Do you really count them as birthdays??) She's growing more animated each month between facial expressions, squeals, smiles, and just scrunching up her face when she's sleeping or getting ready to let us know she's not happy about her predicament.  She's over 10 lbs now and about 22 1/2 inches long.  (She goes for her 2 month check up on Thursday, March 31 so I'll have her stats better updated then.)

She's so beautiful to us.  We each love to stop and talk to her or smile at her just to get a reaction from her.  If you talk long enough to her she smiles and coos and tries so hard to talk back.  Here she is, on her 2 month birthday in all her happy glory:

Photo Sessions

My sister, Brianna, is an illustration major at University of the Arts in Philadelphia and she has this awesome camera so I hit her up to come take pictures of us and the kids for different reasons.  So last Friday she came over and took a few pics of the girls.  When I lose all the baby weight and then some I'm going to have her come back and take some family pics.  Anyway here is a few examples of the pictures she took of the girls.

Aislynn

Mikaela

Both our beautiful girls

I put the frame around the pictures, but Brianna is responsible for everything else except creating the two kids.  Haha!  

Thanks to my sister for taking these gorgeous pics!

Sunday Afternoon

Sunday afternoon nap ...

It's all the cartoons fault!

I saw on the news last night that Kids cereal choices are affected by cartoons on the box.  This came after I saw that Ronald McDonald is being attributed to kids unhealthy food choices and should be "retired".  Really? Seriously?

You know I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure that it's part of my job description as a parent to make sure my kids know the difference between junk food and healthy food.  When my husband and I were kids (way back in the dinosaur age) there were no video game consoles, cell phones, computers and sometimes no air conditioning (GASP!).  We got our entertainment by getting up on the weekends at the crack of dawn, getting dressed and grabbing our bikes only to come home to pee or when it was too dark to see six feet in front of us.  Even when Atari came out with such fascinating games like Pong, we still played outside on nice days.  My Dad came out into the backyard to play wiffle ball, or have a catch, and even built a baseball back stop in my back yard.  The entire neighborhood gathered at my house for day long wiffle ball games.  I tell my husband (who laughs at me in pity when I remind him of this) that when I was growing up we weren't allowed to watch tv during the day, if it rained we read a book, we watched tv at night, all together as a family and at no other time during the day.

Is your kid obese or overweight?  You know what advice I'd give?  Get up off YOUR OWN ass and cook them a healthy dinner 5 out of 7 nights.  Get up off YOUR OWN ass and take them outside for a walk, or have a catch with the baseball/softball, DO SOMETHING other than sit in front of your own computer and drag them away from theirs.  Stop blaming cartoon characters (unbelieveably they were the same cartoons when I was a kid) or Ronald McDonald and the Hamburgler for YOUR kids food choices.  Really people, stop blaming everyone else for your lack of good parenting.

First Try

I have collected so many recipes over the last 15 years that my husband and I have been together.  I always wanted to be able to cook well and give my family food that they love and is good for them too, and I never really felt like I succeeded.  So now, at 34, after realizing how many different recipes I wish we could try, I decided to go for it.  I get emailed so many different ideas for dinners, snacks, and desserts for all occasions, from everyday to special occasions.  Some of these I've seen on Food Network and I'll make sure to link to all the websites you can look to find your own ideas with each tested recipe.  I'll show you the pictures they gave and the finished product that I made, if I made any adjustments or additions, and finally what the family feels about each recipe, the good, the bad and the ugly.  I'll also post about some products that we've bought and tried, like wine (I love wine!) and beer (my husband loves his dark beers) and anything else we find interested and want to share with you.  Hopefully, I'll learn something and so will you.