Happy Birthday Grammy!

Happy birthday Grammy! Mila sends you lots of "ooooohs" and "ahhhhhs" with a side of drool.... and this little video, just for you! The file was a bit large, so I had to split it into two videos... enjoy! :)

Mila's Baptism

Today was Mila's big day! She was baptized this morning. It was beautiful. I got a bit teary eyed when I thought of how big a deal this was. This is the first sacrament she's recieving and I couldn't help but imagine her going through them as I did, especially being here in the same church where just 3 years ago Jorge and I were married... here we were with the same priest in front of us, now baptizing our child... oh how time flies! She looked absolutely precious. My aunt Tia Elisa, my dad's sister in Colombia, made the gown especially for Mila and sent it to us months before she was born. I've been so looking forward to this day to put it on her! She looks beautiful! My Tia Elisa is so amazingly talented! The dress is just precious!




We chose Jorge's sister Blanca and my unlce Ricky as the Godparents. We can't imagine her being guided by more loving people. :)



After the ceremony, we took a ton of pictures. And when I say a ton, I'm not exaggerating -- I literally mean a TON. My family is seriously the paparazzi. They take a million and one pictures of the same thing. We must have the entire baptism taken from every possible angle!

Mila was great! The priest poured water over her forehead and she didn't cry at all. She didn't start crying until afterwards, during our paparazzi photo session. While we took the pictures, we all had to sway in unison to calm her down! It was hilarious! She eventually settled down when she discovered the lighting above and she stared at them until she eventually fell asleep.

We ended up staying almost an hour after the ceremony taking pictures in the church. We were there so long that the priest and the assistant had to literally kick us out. They turned off the lights, turned off the AC and locked all the doors except one! If they hadn't started closing up, who knows how much longer we would've been! LOL! My sister even said she saw the priest had come back out after a while, saw us, shook his head and then went back in. He must've thought we were crazy!

After the baptism, we had a small lunch in one of the meeting rooms of our apartment building. It was so nice of everyone to join us! Thank you to everyone for driving up to share this beautiful day with Mila! :)

Little Diva

After the lunch with Karina yesterday, Cindy and I went to a few baby stores and we came across the ADORABLE baby sunglasses. We couldn't help but have Mila try them on! Oh my goodness, we nearly died of laughter!!!! She makes such funny faces!

Mila & Liv

Karina was in town with baby Liv and we met them at the mall with Cindy. Baby Liv has gotten so big!! She's such a cutie!



Here's Mila waving hello to Liv and Karina, haha!



Karina, always so thoughtful, brought us some more of her the baby clothes that Liv has outgrown. Love her!!! I can't thank her enough. She's always thinking of us. I love hanging out with her, hearing her experiences and learning from her. There's so much to learn as a new mom! She is so great!

Baby This Week: 11 Weeks Old

Your baby is becoming very handy. Although she's already aware of her hands, she's now inspecting them like Sherlock Holmes. She turns them around, the better to look at her fingers from all sides. She opens and shuts her fists, watching each finger as it moves up and down. To help your baby develop her blossoming hand-eye coordination, try dangling a toy just out of reach so she has to grab for it.

Reading to your baby, even at this young age, will pay off. Hearing you read helps your baby develop an ear for the cadence of spoken language. Varying the pitch of your voice, using accents, and singing will make the connection between you and your baby that much more interesting.

If your baby looks the other way or loses interest while you're reading, just try doing something else and give her time to rest. Take your cue from your baby's responses.

You'll find plenty of good books to read to your baby — such as "Goodnight Moon", "Good Night Gorilla", and "The Big Red Barn". Choose board books that have large, bright pictures and simple text — or even wordless books with pictures for you to narrate. At this point you don't have to be slavish to age guidelines. Books designed for older children can captivate a baby if they have clear, crisp images and bright colors.

- BabyCenter.com

Mila and Mia

Our friends Amanda and Bob had us over for dinner yesterday. We had a wonderful time talking about our sweet little girls! I love seeing Mila and Mia together, they are just so adorable! When I got home, I went to transfer the pictures to my computer and then I thought I accidently deleted them. I was sooo sad. But turns out I did save them!

This first pic is my favorite: their eyes are so wide open! LOL!





Dinner was great, but dessert was amazing! Bob's mom, Celeste, was there and she made THE most delicious dessert called Italian Love Cake. Jorge and I had never heard of it. Once we tried it, she told us the secret ingredient: ricotta cheese! I was so surprised! It was seriously amazing... it was smooth and airy... cakey and moussey... mmmmmmmm! Amanda emailed me the recipe and here it is. Give it a try! It was oh so good!!

Italian Love Cake

1 Duncan Hines Marble Cake mix - mix as directed on the box. Put in greased & floured 9X13X2 cake pan (or 2 10" round cake pan)

Mix the following ingrediant WELL:
2lbs Ricotta Cheese
3/4 Cup Sugar
1 tsp vanilla
4 eggs (beat in 1 at a time)

Spoon the ricotta mixture over uncooked cake mix. Level as well as possible.
Bake 1 hr for 9X13 pan or 50 to 55 mins 10" round pans

When cooled, spread on:
1 pkg instant chocolate pudding (small)
1 cup milk
Mix until thickened
8 oz. cool whip - blend well with pudding
Use as icing. Sprinkle with chopped pecans.
Refrigerrate at least 4 hours.



I didn't get a chance to take a picture of the cake before Jorge and I gobbled it up, so I found this one online. The one Celeste made had yummy peacans sprinkled on top. My mouth is watering just looking at it! Soooo good!

Baptism Invitations

Mila's baptism is just around the corner! I designed the invitations for the party and I'm so happy with how they came out!

Now that the baby is born, I'm looking forward to finally getting back to my wedding invitation business, Paper Petunia Invitation Studio. Aside from wedding invitations I also create baby shower invitations and birth announcements. As a matter of fact, I'm finishing up Mila's birth announcements now. It's so much fun! I'm so glad to be getting back into it. I really love what I do. My last wedding invitation project was last year and I finished it at the end of my first trimester. Since then I really haven't focused too much on it, with the new baby and all, but now I'm excited to get started up again.

I still have to update my website with some of the newer projects I've worked on. I can't wait!




When and where has been intentionally blurred out for privacy.

TMI: Clogged Milk Duct

As I go through motherhood, I find that I come across experiences that are interesting to me that I would like to discuss, but at the same time they may be too much for some people. I know I appreciate hearing and learning from the expereinces of other moms, especially the ones no one talks about. But I also understand some people just come to read my blog to catch up on the Mila, not to read about clogged milke ducts, haha! So, I'm going to label these posts as "TMI" as in, "too much information." Stop reading now if you're not interested in learning more about motherhood than you want to know. Ok, you've been warned!

Today's topic is clogged milk ducts. What's that, you ask?? I had no idea until yesterday. Last night, my left breast was ridiculously engorged. I thought I must have missed a side with Mila during her feedings. Maybe I put her on the right boob twice instead of alternating between them, which is what you're supposed to do. I loose track of which one I'm on all the time. So I figured I'd use the pump to release some of the engorgement. I pumped for 10 minutes, and where normally I would have expected 2-3 oz, I only got 1 oz. Not only that, but I still felt engorged and it was starting to get painful. For those of you who've never felt this, the closest thing I can imagine an engorged boob feeling like is an extremely full bladder and not being able to pee. Like it's about to pop. It was sore and tender. I'd felt this before, but I thought perhaps I was increasing my supply or something? So I put Mila on the engorged boob. She latched on like she usually does, but after a few minutes, she started crying and pulling off. I'd then put her back on, but then she'd cry and keep pulling off... At first I thought she had a burp, as she does that sometimes when she has one building up. But I burped her and nothing, she just kept crying as if saying, "I'm still hungry, put me back on the boob!" But when I did, she would continue the crying and pulling off. "Is nothing coming out?" I wondered. She would normally be chugging, especially since I know there's a ton of milk in there! She did seem to get some out, as some of the pressure had subsided a little bit, but I still felt engorged. The top half of my boob felt hard to the touch and I can feel the full milk ducts underneath, but the bottom half felt fine.

So I put her on the other boob to finish nursing and I figured it would just go away on it's own. I'd felt this a couple times before and it just eventually went away. She finished nursing on the right boob and I waited. I was distracted by the tv for a while, but about an hour later I was feeling worse. I was soooo full! It was getting closer to bedtime and I couldn't imagine falling asleep with all this pain! I tried pumping again, this time using a hot compress and trying to massage it out and still got hardly anything. It almost seemed like the milk was stuck in there. I went to the bathroom and to take a look, not that I expected to see anything... but to my surprise, found a little white dot on my nipple. What could that be??? I swabbed it with a Qtip and nothing. I had read breastfeeding manual "The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding" cover to cover and I remember reading about mastitis, a terrible, extrememly painful infection in the breast caused by a plugged duct. Symptoms include soreness, fever and flu-like symptoms. I cringed at the thought this could be mastitis!

I jumped online and googled "engorged breast and white dot on nipple" and got a ton of responses, all of them referring to a clogged milk duct. After a bit of reading at AskDrSears.com, I realized it was a plugged duct, not mastitis -- at least not yet. Seemed like the white spot was a small milk blister and that if I used a needle as directed on kellymom.com, I could relieve it. Needless to say, I was not keen on the thought of putting a needle anywhere near my sore breast, but honestly, at this point it was hurting so much I was practically in tears. I figured I needed to do try anything!

I sterilized it in alcohol and I gently ran the side of the needle (not the tip) on the affected area and immediately milk came out! Seemed like the blockage was right there. I was so relieved! I then swabbed it with a Qtip and then went back to the pump and it worked! What a relief! It was such an easy fix and I felt soooo much better. I had felt this before in the past and I'd always just dealt with it until it went away on its own, usually after a nursing. Now I know what to do.

It must have been caused by nursing Mila on the same side consecutively. She had also taken a long nap in between, so that also extended the time I had last nursed on that side. Don't let this happen to you!

Another technique you can try is mentioned here in this hilarious post about clogged milk ducts. Despite the pain, it really made me laugh.

Mila and Bijou

Today I got together with our friend Spencer at a new moms group. Spencer and I met in our childbirth class, and we've kept in touch since then. It was so nice to catch up with her! Today was the first time we met her little girl, Bijou. Bijou is one month and one day old today, just 6 weeks younger than Mila. She is so cute and so little! I can't believe Mila was ever that small. Time has just flown by!

It's so cute to see them together! They were friends before they were even born! Can't wait to get together again! :)

Mila Sleeping in the Swing

We'd heard so much about baby swings -- even from our pediatrician -- that we went out and bought one about a month ago. Originally I was going to buy one before she was born, but our friend Karina gave us her bouncy chair and I figured she didn't need a swing if she had a bouncy chair. Same difference, right? Noooooo.... they're two different things! While the bouncy chair has been great, she's never slept in it and everyone we talked to swore that if we got a swing she would. Everyone would tell us how much they loved their swing and that it was their best baby purchase. Well, with all these promises, we went out and bought the swing that we planned on getting all along: Graco Sweetpeace Newborn Soothing Center I read in my go-to book for baby gear recommendations Baby Bargains that this swing would work great. What I really liked about it is that it's able to swing in 2 directions either back and forward or side to side and that you can switch out the seat to the Graco carseat. It also plugs into the wall instead of running on batteries. Plus it had great online reviews. Sounded like the perfect swing.

Jorge went out and bought it after work and he put it together as soon as he got home. We tested it out, put on some music and then put her in it and expected the swing to work it's magic.... instead what we got was a screaming baby crying out bloody murder! She seemed to hate it! We were so disappointed!

I was persistant though, I'd keep trying every few days or so and little by little she'd tolerate it a bit more. For the last few weeks she could last up to about 15 minutes in it without crying, but she'd never fall asleep. I was happy with that though! Fifteen minutes gives me a chance to make some lunch!

Then, today, a miracle happened. I put her in while she was awake, just to grab a snack. She was in a good mood and recently fed and changed. While I made my sandwich I looked up and saw this:



I couldn't believe it!! She'd fallen asleep in the swing!! Unfortunately, because of the construction going on across the street, she woke up after about 5 minutes. But later that day I put her in again and she was asleep for TWO HOURS!!! It was amazing! I couldn't believe it! During the day the usual place she'll fall sleep is on my lap after nursing. Whenver I've tried picking her up and taking her to her bassinet, she's ALWAYS woken up. So I'd given up trying and just let her sleep on my lap. At least I'd get some peace and quiet for a little while, but I was a prisoner to my chair! Fortunately, I have my laptop set up here, so whenever she naps on my lap, I go online and blog. ;) But now I just was so happy to be mobile without the baby in my arms! I felt free! I was even able to make dinner BEFORE Jorge got home and we were even able to have dinner at the same time! Usually we have to eat in shifts because someone has to hold her. But not today! It was wonderful. I'm sooo loving the swing! Woo-hoo! Seems like she just needed to get used to it. This was a big accomplishment! Let's hope she continues to like it! :)