Ear tubes

So, after many, many ear infections, we decided to put tubes in Barrett's ears. He had the surgery on August 17th at 7:00. He could not eat after midnight the night before, so he was a little cranky that morning. We had to be at the hospital at 5:30 and everything actually went pretty smooth. We were able to wait in a room with Barrett until about 6:50 and then they took him away to surgery. Ross and I went back to the waiting room and before I even got out the book I brought to read, a nurse told us that the doctor was done with the surgery and he'll be out in a few minutes to talk to us. I'm serious when I say this was about 7:10. The doctor came out, said everything went well and gave us instructions for after care. We finished talking with him and were immediately bought back to post-op. This was probably the hardest part. Barrett was fighting the anesthesia but he immediately popped up when we entered the room. For about 30 minutes, nothing made him happy. He didn't want to be held, he didn't want milk, he didn't want food. After what seemed like forever, he finally started acting normal again. Then, there was no stopping him! He was running around, opening cabinets, playing with the curtains, and entertaining everyone in our wing. Thankfully, he was the only one in post-op that early in the morning, so we were not disturbing anyone else. We had to stay in post-op for an hour and then we had to stay in a room for another hour. We got home about 9:30 and we all crashed for a nap. When Barrett woke up, he was completely himself. You'd never have known that he had surgery that morning. Fingers crossed, this solves all our problems! He's not had an ear infection yet, but I'm he's not really been himself this past weekend. I'm hoping it's just teething but who knows!!!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar 1st Birthday

For Barrett's first birthday, we threw him a Very Hungry Caterpillar party. I got most of my inspiration from Pinterest and from Rachel at Polkadots and Puppies. We tried to keep the party small by only inviting family and a few friends. Barrett had a blast but was not at all interested in the cake. Unfortunately, we made the mistake of throwing the party during his normal nap time, so he was exhausted before it was all over.

All of the desserts were made by my fabulously talented sister, Sabrina. She did a wonderful job with the cakes and cookies!

I made a made all of his decorations (except the shirt!). I got the idea of the balloon wreath from The Creative Homemaker. I plan to re-use it for all of Barrett's birthdays...now that I see a picture of it, I'm noticing how much pink is in it! Oh well! The caterpillar paper lantern idea came from Pottery Barn Kids and the month by month picture caterpillar came from Pinterest.

Like I said, he wasn't into the cake at all...it was nap time. So, I let him have a bottle, gave him a bath and the party was over. Usually, he has one nap from 12-2 but I was able to get him to take a nap from 9-10:45 so I really thought he'd make it the entire party. That's ok....a lesson learned! He had a wonderful party and we are so blessed to have such wonderful family. He got WAY too much stuff!


I still really wanted those messy cake pictures, so I did take him to JCP to take some cheap pictures. I bought an 88 cent cupcake at Walmart and let him have it at for the pictures. We got some cute ones!

HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY, BARRETT! WE LOVE YOU!

The Big ONE

Last Saturday, our little man turned the Big ONE. I still find it hard to believe that I have a toddler rather than a baby.

Here are some of his stats:

• Wears size 4 diapers and 18-24 month clothes
• Was 30 1/2 inches at his 1 year appointment, which is in the 67th percentile
• Weighed in at 22 lbs 8 oz at his 1 year appointment, which is in the 50th percentile (his weight was up to 24 but unfortunately, every ear infection his appetite diminishes)
• Has 6 teeth - 4 on the top and 2 on the bottom
• Can say Mama, Dada, bye-bye, night-night (more like nye-nye), quack quack (more like wah wah), and occasionally thank you
• Sleeps all night and has 1 long nap
• Eats all table food - favorites are pizza, hot dogs, broccoli nuggets (see older post!), goldfish
• Is a complete copy cat
• Loves "talking" on the phone
• Loves cleaning out my pantry (he is doing this as I type)
• Is starting to play better alone (I don't have to sit by him while he plays)
• Loves playing with anything that is NOT a toy
• Loves getting his toes tickled....especially while in the highchair!
• Runs when he thinks he's getting chased or when he thinks I'm going to take something away from him
• Loves watching The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse intro and the hotdog dance, Yo Gabba Gabba, and the Hokey Pokey baby dance  on BabyTV
• Loves reading books 
• Brings us his shoes when he wants to either go outside or leave
• Makes a humming noise when he plays trucks or tractors

I'm sure there are more, but that is all I can think of at the moment...

Our Family

We went to a wedding last night, so of course I took the opportunity to set up my camera to do a self-timed picture since we were dressed up. By the way, it is hard to make a little one smile when no one is behind the camera!

It's amazing how fast time flies...here is our little family 10 1/2 months ago, on Barrett's 1 month birthday.

Broccoli and Cheddar Cheese Nuggets

Today, I made Barrett some of these yummy broccoli and cheese nuggets for lunch.

They were a success!

To make these, you need:

16 oz of frozen broccoli, cooked, drained and chopped
1 cup bread crumbs
1 1/2 cups shredded cheese
3 eggs

Preheat oven to 400. Coat baking sheet with olive oil. Combine all ingredients and mix well. Shape mixture into nuggets and place on baking sheet. Bake 20-25 minutes and turn over after 15. I found the recipe at Momtastic's Wholesome Baby Food.

It was a pretty big recipe, so I'm going to try to freeze half of them. Hopefully they will re-heat well because I am running out of ideas to pack in Barrett's lunch for daycare!

Breakfast sausage rolls

Ok, I'm not going to lie...I'm kind of excited to start blogging. I just want to share one of our current obsessions...breakfast sausage rolls.

You need:
16 oz of ground sausage (we like the spicy kind)
2 cans of seamless crescent rolls or pizza dough
shredded cheese (I never measure out cheese...so I'm not sure how much)

You can also either half the sausage and make one sausage roll, or you can just make a really thick roll. The first time I made it, I just used 1 can of dough and I found it to be a little messy because there was too much filling in it. However, it's your preference.

I can only find the seamless crescent rolls at United Market Street...so if I'm just going to Walmart, the pizza dough works just fine. I do prefer the crescent taste so it's up to and depends on what you're able to find.

Preheat the oven to 350. Brown the sausage and then drain the grease. Roll out the dough on 2 cookie sheets. Sprinkle a little cheese over the dough and add the cooked sausage. Sprinkle a little more cheese over the top. Roll up the dough and close up the sides so the mixture doesn't fall out. You can bake both rolls on 1 cookie sheet. I like to bake for 10 minutes and then cut the rolls to make little rolls. This just allows all of the dough to bake up a little better. Bake an additional 10 minutes and enjoy!

I like to bake this on Sunday night and then we enjoy breakfast during the week. Since I make 2 rolls, it usually lasts us for the entire work week. Plus, it reheats well!

Here's the final product...the picture really doesn't do it justice. Trust me, they are much better than they look! I'll work on my food picture taking skills.

Welcome! :)

I've been wanting to start a blog for some time now and I feel like it may help me in documenting some of the things our family is doing and Barrett's milestones. Even when I am filling out his baby book each month I have trouble remembering all of his amazing feats and the things that have made us laugh. Right now, I'm so busy with our 10 hour days and trying to get everything ready for someone's 1st birthday, life has been crazy. So,we'll see how good I am at this blogging thing...

For now, I'll leave you with this sweet picture of our little man.