"Ay, Dios Mio!"

Goodbye 2010, Hello 2011!!!

Goodbye 2010!

His new face he's making.

Fun times with Dad.

Had a great 2010 but looking forward to a new year. Loved every moment of watching Duke grow and change through his first year! Hoping for good health and much happiness for our 2011. Also looking forward to meeting my new little nephew. It should be a great year.

Happy 1st Birthday Duke!

On Christmas Eve, our little guy turned one year old. How quickly the year went by. He had all his aunts and uncles and grandparents there for his first birthday dinner. It was a really fun day and he did great opening his presents. We gave him one at a time throughout the day so he wouldn't be overwhelmed and he loved opening them and playing with each of them a little bit. Mom-mom and pop-pop Horgan had dinner for all of us and he ate his first birthday cake.

He had such a great first year and we enjoyed every moment with him. I can't wait to see what this year brings.

A Very Merry Christmas Indeed

A blog of poop

Over the past week there's been a lot going on. We've begun introducing milk into Duke's bottles so we can switch him off his formula when he turns one in a week. Plus, he's had a cold and to help with the runny nose and cough, we've been giving him a tsp of benadryl in the morning. Well, both can lead to constipation. Sunday morning was his last poop. Monday - no poop, Tuesday - no poop. While I was working and didn't get to see much of his behavior during the day, I did know that when I got home, he strained a lot and was a bit more fussy. Tuesday, my sister said he was pretty lethargic and when Jack got home, he agreed. Jack said he did not eat much in the afternoon for him and he decided he wanted to take him to the ER. I left work and went home to feed the dogs thinking that at the ER, they would give him a stool softener and send them home. The baby was constipated. But in the time that I went home, fed the dogs and made it to the ER, they extracted some poop and found a little blood. So they wanted to do a sonogram to rule some other things out. They couldn't do the "procedure" there so they said he had to be taken to CHOP in and AMBULANCE!!! They hooked him up to and IV (torture) and away we went to Philadelphia.

I thought he looked so fragile with his hospital gown on.

At CHOP he gets x-rayed, sonogrammed and poked and prodded all night. The intussesception was ruled out (thank goodness). All they found was A TON of poop. It was midnight and at this point they wanted to keep our baby overnight to monitor him. I was devastated because I knew I had to leave and go to work. Jack was going to stay with him so I could work but being a new mom and leaving your baby at the hospital is the worst thing in the world.

On a side note, I am the worlds ugliest crier. My sister Annie is a close second. We are just not cute criers. Our face contorts to horror movie status and it's just not pretty. I have to look like a freak show the whole way to the car. Three people ask me if I am ok on the way out of the hospital and I didn't think the security guard was going to allow me to leave.

On Wednesday, he FINALLY took a nap. Very little sleep for him.

Okay, so after I get home at about 1 AM, Jack texts me and says that Duke pooped!!! But they want more to come out. So they are at the hospital all day on Wednesday. They do an enema and give Duke some miralax and now he is pooping like a champ and he is diagnosed with CONSTIPATION and home they arrive at 7:15 PM!!!!!

Mom and Dad Horgan went down and spent the day with them, thank goodness to help Jack and to bring them home safe and sound. It was over 24 hours of hell. I don't know how the parents of sick children do it. My heart broke for all of the long term patients there at CHOP. I hope that I never have to go back there with my son again.

Waving bye - he was ready to come home.

Yesterday he did great! He is pretty much back to normal. He was pretty exhausted and it is good to have him home and running around like always.

This was the day after he got home. He was a happy camper.

Moral of the story: Always call your pediatrician first!!!!!

Sorry Santa!

Friday was the big day! We had his one year picture and Christmas picture at JCPenney's and then we were off to see Santa for another picture! The JCP pictures did not go well. That is actually an understatement but I am over it :-). I was really disappointed in the photographer and her impatience with a not yet one year old's inability to smile on command and sit still. I have never been one for "portrait" type photos and she didn't really seem like she wanted to catch the moment and try to get what she could. If he wasn't sitting and smiling, she wasn't snapping any photos. SO we are going to try again at another place next week and see how it goes and if that doesn't go well, I'll have to fork out the bucks and have someone come to us and work with us. It will be fin (my mantra of the week).

So after that mess, we were off to see santa!!! Duke's first pictures with santa and they came out great! In my opinion - they are great. I love the I don't like santa pictures - they are funny. I just hope he is not too traumatized. He kept looking back at him hoping that it would be his dad.

Poor guy.

Cousin Avah is trying to telepathically tell Duke not to ruin this moment for her. She needs to get her list to santa. Duke is looking at her in disbelief that she is ok with this.

Trying to make his escape.

And he's fine. Barely any tears just not thrilled with be placed on this strange mans lap.

Picture day!

Two weeks from today, Duke is turning ONE! I can't believe it. Today we are getting his one year/holiday picture at JCPenney's. He has a cold so I am hoping they turn out ok. His nose is slightly red with crusty's. Hopefully if I give him a bath after his nap, we'll be all spic-n-span for the 12:15 photo shoot. I don't think this is going to go off easily. I have a hard enough time changing him into one outfit let alone two if I am lucky. Maybe he'll be a cheese for the photographer and ham it up.

Off and running with monkey.

The pj's do not lie.

This morning I was changing a dirty (very) diaper and I barely got him cleaned up and he got up and took off with monkey. Not cool. So I gave up and let him run around in his glory for a little bit. He thought he was so funny.

Yes grandparents, he is standing on the fireplace. He is all boy.

I think he is very pleased with our undecorated Christmas tree.

He is learning to use a straw now.

Watching Barney in the very messy living room. I like this picture because it looks like he actually sits still for more than 30 seconds.

We do have some Christmas decorations up and the tree is up but not decorated yet. I am not ready for that battle! We may be decorating the top half only. It still looks pretty lit up at night :-). He doesn't seem to bother it much now but once all those toys are hanging from the branches - it's going to be a whole new story.

I am hoping for him to see Santa Claus at the mall today too. I will take him after pictures. Hopefully he doesn't lose patience and we can get in and get out. I think Aunt B and cousin Avah are coming to help.

One More Month!

Cake Boss

For Avah's 6th birthday party, she decided on having a "Cake Boss" theme. It is one of her favorite shows on t.v. according to her mom. She also decided she wanted a 3 tiered birthday cake to go with the theme. Challenge accepted. I figured that if I can make fondant cookies, I can make a fondant cake. Well, I made it but it was nowhere near as easy as the cookies.

Here was the process. My sister and I had to bake six different cakes - two for each tier. That we started on Thursday and finished friday.

Then we had to fill them with buttercream and stack them. We did bottom layer vanilla, middle layer chocolate and top layer white cake.

Next was icing each tier with buttercream to keep the cake moist before you put the fondant on.

Here are the tiers with fondant. This was the hardest part. As you can see - they are nowhere near perfect but it is harder than it looks on t.v. I don't know how they get the fondant looking seemless. I figured that the decorations will cover the mistakes for the most part.

Starting to decorate and adding some bling. She wanted purple polka dots.

She also wanted zebra print middle tier but I was exhausted and didn't know how I was going to do that. So I left is as it is.

I think she liked it!

Here are all the kids decorating their own cupcakes so they each had a candle to blow out.

Our nephew, Christopher, loved eating up all the leftover icing.

Happy Birthday Avah!!!

And Duke got a buzz cut from his daddy. He is still carrying around the balloon from the party yesterday.

The party is over and I can tell that Avah had a great time with her friends. I hope next year she just wants brownies or something easy like that. She is always cooking up something big though so I am getting nervous :-).

Kiss Kiss

Thanksgiving is a week away, which is just unbelievable to me. One week from today, we will be feasting on yummy food all day long and enjoying time with family. I can't wait, but I can because it too will all go so fast. Then the chaos starts with decorating, parties, birthday's, and shopping!!


As the time is flying by, Duke is growing up and mastering walking. He is actually jogging, not walking. He is learning to kiss and so many more things. He is trying to form words and he LOVES to look at our pictures in the house. I really really hope he doesn't destroy the Christmas tree. I am getting very nervous because he gets into EVERYTHING!!! He eats EVERYTHING!!! He spill EVERYTHING!!!

Sweet Avah is growing up too. She turned 6 years old today!! I made her monkey bread and Duke and I took it over for her this morning. Within 30 seconds, Duke spilled her hot chocolate (luke warm at this point) and then spilled a plate of monkey bread carrying a handful down the hall and taking bites on his way to Avah's room. Happy Birthday Miss Moon. I hope we didn't make your birthday morning more chaotic than it needed to be.