Declan videos

I captured a couple of cute videos of Declan the other day.

Here's one of him giggling like crazy as we tickle his belly and surprise him.


Here's one of him finding his toes on Tuesday. For those who care, take note of the wall color behind him. It's blue! It's not the horrible ugly red anymore (as seen in the previous video)! :)

No Knead Bread

Have to give props to this recipe that I tried this week. I saw a recipe for no-knead bread on Mother Earth News website and thought it sounded interesting. Made my first loaf today and it's pretty darn tasty. It's just a white bread, but it came out better than anything I've done in the bread machine, and almost as good as the honey-whole wheat I make occasionally. The recipe is set up so you can make a small loaf every morning or two, so you don't have a huge loaf going stale or moldy.

Back from Vacation - link to picture album

Yes, I know I haven't written anything in a long time. I was on vacation for 2 weeks, and during that time, we went to Illinois to visit the grandparents and when we got back, we spent 4 days repainting the baby's rooms. Then I found a new computer game and had to go back to work.

Anyway...

Here's the link to the picture album. I'll try to sort some out later.

Visit to Illinois Jul 09

The trip wasn't too bad. It was long; 2 days each way and about 18 hours total. Anytime we stopped, it seemed to take forever, even if it was just for gas and a bathroom break. The second day up there was bad. Declan cried and cried for almost the whole day. We were so glad to get there and hand him off to his grandmother while we unloaded the car.

While we were there, we went to Moonshine's for a burger. It's a little town with a population of 2, and they server great hamburgers (moonburgers) in a little country store. It was packed. Must have been 200 people there. We had tons of cousins there because it was a Burkybile family reunion that weekend. It was nice because I could hand Declan off to almost everyone else, and I never had to hold him.

Then we went to see Harry Potter. Honestly, not as good as I was expecting. It seemed slow. And we had burgers again, this time at White Castle, since there aren't any around here.

Saturday was the Burkybile family reunion at the park. It was a great time to see cousins I barely knew. Took my nephew Devin for a walk around the park.

Sunday I went geocaching with my dad and found 12 caches. I took a travel bug that wanted to go to Galveston, and I still need to put it out down here. I won't take it all the way to Galveston. I figure someone else should get that honor, since I brought it all the way from Illinois.

So glad to get Declan's room painted. His bedroom is a soft, robin's-egg blue, and the connecting playroom is a soft, buttery yellow. I don't have drapes up yet, and it's so very bright in there. It looks so, so, so much better than it used to. Still working on arranging the furniture and I don't have pictures up yet, but that will come soon.

New baby pics - hip baby

Here's my hip baby with his new sunglasses.

And just as hip in his swing...


I was playing around with black and white and sepia, and I like some of these pictures.





And a cute one of him with his daddy.

Long week

I had training for three days, then on my last day, I have to go to the eye doctor in the morning. So I can't work for 3 hours until my eyes un-dilate. Normally not a problem, but I'm on vacation for 2 weeks now, and I had a lot to get done. I'm still not done. I'll have to finish it up tonight or tomorrow.

I also pulled a muscle in my upper back, and it hurts like crazy. I seem to always be tweaking my back lately, and I hate it. I also need more eye drops for my right eye. Now I'm taking a glaucoma medicine. Not because I have glaucoma, but because it helps stabilize the pressure inside the eye and will help reduce the vision fluctuations I'm getting because of my old eye surgery.

My growing boy

We measured Declan at home today. He's up to 25.5 inches long and 18 pounds. That makes 4 pounds gained in the past month, and an inch and a half. Daniel says he's fat, but I don't think so. His legs are suitably chubby, but his midsection is fairly lean...for a baby.

He's been wanting to sit up the last week, and he definitely fusses if we leave him alone on his playmat too long. He can also hold his head level with his body when I pull him sitting upright with his arms. He has also learned to blow raspberries. Only done it a few times but he's getting the hang of it.

Today was a good day for Declan. He was in a good mood for almost 3 hours throughout the day. He giggled and laughed and cooed lots. Too bad I've misplaced my camera for a while. I know it's around, but I'm not sure where I put it. It's probably buried under a baby blanket somewhere.

Hot weather and sore backs

I hurt my back a couple of months ago, strained it pretty badly. I thought it was better, but yesterday, it flared back up again. Was especially hard to get up and down from sitting, and made it hard to put Declan down. Feels much better today, but with that warning twinge that says you're about one wrong move from having a really, really bad week.

The weather has been so miserable hot here. Even for Texas/Houston, it's been a very unusually hot and dry June. I think it hasn't rained in 2 months. This upcoming week's forecast shows 40-60% chance of rain every day, so I'm very hopeful the weather patterns have changed and we can get some rain soon. Everything in my yard is burning up. Plus the heat leads to some killer power bills. Ouch.

Yesteday, we drove downtown to a store called New Living. It's an eco-friendly, green hardware store. They carry no-VOC paint, cork, bamboo and linoleum flooring, all kinds of tile made from recycled glass and concrete, and natural beds and pillows. I tried the wool and natural latex pillow and fell in love with it. But it's $159, so it'll be a while before I can get one. They even had a paint consultant to help us pick out colors. I always tend to go too dark on color, so she help me pick out colors that would hopefully be what I wanted without going too drastic.

Expensive Ice

I called Sears to come fix our refrigerator last week. The ice maker hadn't been working since Ike. I thought some ice had gotten frozen in the system somewhere. Turns out the motor had burned out. I don't even want to think about how expensive it was. I could have bought bags of ice for 2-3 years instead. Ouch.

He made a liar out of me.

I was just bragging to my mom about how well Declan goes to sleep. I give him his bath, then swaddle him and give him his bedtime bottle. He falls asleep while finishing it, and I rock him a little bit, then put him in his crib and he'll stay asleep until 2 or 4 or 6. You never can tell. But he will sleep at least 6 hours.

Until tonight. About an hour after I put him down, he started screaming. Turned out he had wiggled one hand loose from his swaddle, pulled out his paci, and realized he was still hungry. My goodness, you'd think he was starving, but he'd just eaten 4 ounces. Crazy kid.

After another 4 ounces, he's swaddled again and back to sleep. Let's hope that holds him until 6 tomorrow morning.