Guitar lady comes to visit

I have to share this picture from Jacob's daycare that I got yesterday.  His daycare started sending us pictures during the day recently and I love getting to see him having fun.  Makes the part in the morning when I leave him crying much better because I know that he loves it the minute I am gone. 

The caption said: Jacob loved having the Guitar Lady come in, play her guitar and act with her turtle puppet. He was showing her his dance moves and head bobbing. It was priceless! :)

This made me laugh because when I saw the picture of him up front and center (in the green shirt and shorts - birthday gift from his Aunt Sommer and Uncle John) I was thinking that I bet he loved it.  He loves music so much.  We have a bluetooth speaker we bought recently for our kitchen and when we make dinner every night we play toddler pandora music on it and he just loves to dance.  He wiggles his hips and bobs his head - no matter the day I've had, seeing him do that makes my day.  So I can only imagine what real live music sounded like for him!  The teacher told Brian when he picked her up that a lot of the other kids were scared of her and Jacob just LOVED her. 

He also loves recess at school.  I had to pick him up early on Friday for his 15 month check-up and they were out at recess.  It was like 100 degrees and roasting.  Most of the other kids were sitting under the shade, but Jacob was staning at the fence (wrought iron, so see-through) watching the older kids at their recess - I think he was jealous because they have more fun things to do since they're bigger! 

His 15 month check-up went well.  24.5 pounds (50%), his head and height are 75%, so he's taller than wide.  He passed everything well except we are going to have a speech therapist come work with him at least once (paid for by the state of Colorado so kids don't fall behind) to try to help his vocabulary a bit.  He still isn't talking much but I hear him trying new words almost every day, so I'm not too worried about it, I think he was just so focused on gross motor development that he fell behind in fine motor and speech.  But, it's free and absolutely can't hurt him, so might as well get a few tips and tricks to help him continue to thrive. 

One more funny story about daycare.  He always hates dropoff in the morning and cries every day.  Today there were 3 girls already there for some reason and when we got there he didn't even cry when I left.  Brian said he's got to be manly in front of the ladies - LOL! 

Jacob at 15 months

I promised an update on Jacob and now I can do it!  Emotionally I'm feeling a lot more back to normal and this crazy child of mine lights up my life every day. 

Jacob after getting a haircut.  July 2013

Jacob is 15 months, it's insane to think that my teeny tiny newborn is now running all over the house getting into EVERYTHING.  I mean everything.  You put a room full of safe toys and there is ONE thing he shouldn't play with and you better believe he finds that one thing, ha!  He loves going up to the receiver on the TV and hitting all the buttons.  The best part is that he knows he shouldn't.  He will go right up and look at you and then pointedly (is that a word?) push it.  He also loves banging on the glass fireplace, getting into the trash, and trying to pull out our glass lids and Le Cruset pots.  We have a gate to keep him in the kitchen, nook, and family room, but if the gate is left ajar he spots it like an eagle and bolts!  He runs right to the stairs which is also something he knows he's not supposed to do.  If he thinks he has more time before he gets caught he'll stop to play in the dog's water.  His newest thing he just started doing was chewing on the corners of our cabinets where there is a little rubber stopper to keep the door from slamming.  What - a - stinker!!  He love playing outside.  He will run down our driveway, try to eat rocks, and run down the sidewalk yelling the whole way (he loves making noise too).  He takes years off my life with worrying about him and yet he fills my heart with SO MUCH joy it's incomprehensible most day. 

We love our new house and I think Jacob does too.  Our neighbors are all so great and most of them have younger kids.  The family across the street has a 5 year old and a 2 year old and Jacob loves the 5 year old girl. She will come run with him on the driveway and he gives her such big hugs.  Brian said he likes older women already :) 

He loves Gracie and loves throwing her his food when he's done eating.  His favorite food right now is yogurt, he could eat it all day every day and be happy.  He also loves pancakes, meat, and cheese.  He has yet to eat any steamed veggies but he will eat veggies out of pouches.  He also likes sitting on our lap and eating what we're eating (but heaven forbid we put our food on his tray, he wants to eat it off our fork) :)



Here are a few pictures of Jacob that make me smile (I have a million of them, so tried to just pick a few to show his personality and pretty hair).  The one of him standing on the box cracks me up because I forgot to mention that is his new favorite thing.  He loves climbing and dangerous boxes that could collapse at any moment are his absolute favorite!  I have brought up an upside down laundry basket that is way more sturdy and he still picks the stupid box time after time.  So funny.

I hope you can tell through the computer I am sarcastic and we talk about our crazy baby all the time but we couldn't love him any more if we tried.  In fact I have to run because I have to go get him from daycare and take him to his 15 month wellcare check at the ped.  I think we're getting the last of the series of shots and I heard a rumor shots go down from here, so just have to get through today.  I'm excited to see how much he weighs and how he's doing for his age with development as well.  I'll try to post an update soon.

Where has the summer gone?!

Holy cow, it is almost September and my baby is almost 15 months old!  I have so much catching up to do on here and so many wonderful things that Jacob is doing now, and I will try to go into details and stories soon.

Jacob turned 1 year old on June 1.  The day was tough for me because I had just found out the day before that I had a miscarriage.  I wasn't even supposed to be able to get pregnant and suddenly a week before his birthday I took an old expired pregnancy test on a whim and sure enough two strong double lines.  It was not something that was planned but very much wanted.  To find out the baby wasn't going to stick was very hard to hear.  All the years of trying so hard to get pregnant before Jacob and then to find out I may possibly be able to get pregnant and then have that ripped away was very sad.  The only thing it did was give me hope.  Hope that I might be able to get pregnant after all, and maybe this one loss was just a fluke.  I tried so hard to enjoy Jacob's day.  I made a homemade cake and had fun decorations I had purchased online.  He had a great time, went wild on his cake and had fun opening presents.  I need to find where the pics I took went so I can upload some. 

Two months later (two weeks ago) I found out I was pregnant again.  What the heck?!  I am suddenly Fertile Myrtle.  I was so scared to get excited since the last one ended badly.  This one ended the same way.  The second hcg didn't double as it should, but it still increased.  We did a third hcg and that one only increased a tiny amount.  We knew it was another miscarriage.  Two in three months.  To say that this has been hard on me in an understatement.  That's kind of why I needed to write to get some feelings out.  My mother had a miscarriage before she got pregnant with Doug, so she understands and has been very supportive, calling me to see how I'm doing, taking me to lunch, etc.  The rest of the family I guess doesn't understand having never been through it and I know they have lives of their own and problems of their own.  I'm coming to terms with that, but I have been very withdrawn lately.  I guess in my mind I envisioned a different level of support.  Many of them I haven't seen in months and we haven't talked much either.  I am so blessed to have a fabulous IVF support group.  We've all become very very close, even though the relationships mostly exist online, I've now met many of them through travels and girls who lived locally.  They have all been through miscarriages plus infertility and know just what to say - I really don't think I could have gotten through this without them.  I think this is extra tough for me because it's the realization that I probably cannot have a healthy baby naturally.  So I have to decide to prevent any more pregnancies so I don't have to keep going through miscarriages or keep trying and hoping one will stick.  The odds aren't great.  My OB tells me to do IVF again (HA - if she wants to fork over the cash, I'm all for it).  I am so so lucky that I have Jacob already and that his embryo decided to stick and that he's so healthy.  I have been crying every night putting him to bed singing "you are my sunshine" because he is SUCH a blessing, and if he's the only child that I get, I will still be eternally grateful to God for giving him to me.  I will hope that he will be a less than typical guy who will call his mother often and stay in-state for college and marry a wonderful girl that I can spoil like my daughter :)

A more uplifting post coming soon, I promise :)

Where has the time gone?

Holy cow, my sweet baby boy is almost 11 months old!  I was looking back at my last blog post and it feels like it has been such a long time since then.  He changes absolutely every day. 

Things he is doing now at almost 11 months is pulling up on EVERYTHING, walking around furniture.  Bending down to pick up toys and standing back up again.  He still rarely crawls the way you picture crawling.  He does this swimming frog crawl on his belly, and boy does he fly!  He does NOT sit still for a second anymore.  He is also going up the stairs now, but doesn't do it very well.  He always looks back to see if you're there and then falls back into your arms.  You cannot take your eyes off of him for a SECOND!  We put him in his walker a lot because then he can't get into things or go up the stairs. 

He has the absolute best personality, I couldn't love him any more.  He loves to play games and he laughs all the time.  He is sick today so he has been a little fussy, but he's usually very good natured (though demanding at times).  He loves watching Baby Einsteins and thinks out tablet is "his".  Sleeping through the night lasted several weeks when he was 7 months and hasn't happened again.  He went through a horrible sleep time at 9 months (right about the time we moved in with mom and dad - see below).  I think it was a wonder week plus moving to a new house.  It was horrible.  He's back to mostly just once a night, except last night he was so stuffy he couldn't sleep well, so he was up several times just crying, he didn't know why he didn't feel good, poor baby.  I think he's also cutting two molars, so I think he's sick plus teething molars = poor baby. 

Our house ended up going back under contract the first weekend we were back on the market and we got full asking price.  We moved in with mom and dad at the end of February and we are still living there.  We will close on our new house on June 13.  We are having a good time at mom and dad's and they spoil Jacob like crazy, but we are also very excited to have a house again.  I know I will miss all the help with Jacob and I will really miss my 2 minute commute (which will turn into 20+ minutes), but it feels like we've been there for longer than two months. 

Here's a pic of the house where it is right now:

 

Lots more going on, but that's all I have time for right now.  Will try to update sooner than 4 months :)

Jacob is 7 months old!

Two days ago Jacob turned 7 months old!  Time is really moving fast, I cannot believe my tiny baby boy is already 7 months old. 

Jacob is eating new foods every few days as we build up his food repertoir.  He is eating carrots, prunes, apples, peaches, bananas, butternut squash, peas, and sweet potatoes.  He has had plain yogurt a few times too, and of course baby oatmeal.  He is really eating a lot lately, about 4 ice cubes 3x a day plus 6 ounce bottles of milk every 2 to 3 hours.  The good news is that as a result of all of this food he is sleeping through the night most nights!  He will on occasion wake up in the middle of the night, but more often than not it's because he's filled his diaper and is leaking.  We have gone to overnight diapers one size up and that has helped a lot.  I'm sure it won't last forever and he'll be up soon again, but it is a great blessing right now! 

Jacob is sitting up pretty well on his own, but we still don't plop him down and walk away because he doesn't last too long and usually tumbles over after a few minutes!  He rolls all over the place, and spins too.  Last night he started crying about two hours after we put him in bed and I looked on the baby monitor and he was crying and spinning in circles over and over.  I have heard babies practice what they learn during the day in their sleep so you will often see a baby learning to crawl up on his hands and knees, but this was a first for me!  I was able to go up and give him his paci and pat his back and he eventually fell back asleep.  So even though he's not officially mobile yet, he definitely can work his way to where he wants to go!  Usually it's towards something we don't want him to have, like the fireplace hole in the floor (where you turn on the pilot light I think) or towards a dog or phone :)  What a stinker. 

He is also cutting at least two more teeth which will bring him to 7 teeth total.  The 6th has broken through and the 7th is about to.  He gets a little fussy when he's teething, but not outrageously so.  I really think the amber necklace has worked wonders.  I know Brian still says he doesn't really believe in it, but he puts it on him every day and around his ankle every night, so I think he believes more than he lets on :)  It has helped us not have to give tylenol or other numbing meds, so finger's crossed that continues on.

He is so funny with his actions lately.  He likes to roll onto his side and life his arm and leg up in the air, like a yoga move.  When he lays on his back he loves to vigorously shake his head side to side and usually gets his whole body in on the action, it cracks me up!  He also likes to shreak really loudly which scares our dogs because they don't like high pitch noises!  His favorite toy is still his jumper where he can get out a lot of energy, but he is also liking more interactive toys like some vtech toys that he got for Christmas. 

New Year's this year was nothing very exciting.  Brian worked 9-9, so we weren't planning on doing anything anyway.  The contract on our house unfortunately fell through on New Year's Eve also.  The buyers insisted on a new roof from the inspection even though we had a letter from our insurance company and a 3rd party roofer that our roof was in sound condition.  We are very frustrated to get back to square one and have showings again, but we hope the next buyers will be easier to work with than these people had been.  We had a showing New Year's Eve from some couple who called on our house last week when we were under contract.  My realtor called them back and they came and took a tour.  I guess they really liked the house, so now we're waiting to see if they make an offer.  The good news is they didn't have a realtor so if my realtor makes the sale he can cut down some of his fees so we can make a little more profit on the house.  At this point I don't care, I just want to get it sold.  I am nervous we will lose our new house as a result if we don't get our house sold in the next 60 days, and that is crushing.  We are so excited about this house, I just have to pray that God knows a lot more than I do about what's best for us, and it will definitely work out. 

In other house news, they broke ground at our new house!  I got the email the day after we went back up on the market, so it was kind of bittersweet.  We go next Friday to pick out all of our finishes in the new house and I REALLY hope we have a contract by then so I can enjoy the process more.  I haven't told my contact at Richmond yet about our house going back up on the market, I'm hoping to keep it on the DL until we are under contract again so she doesn't make us sign the addendum to penalize us more if it falls through (to break our contract when we're under contract is a $250 penalty - to break our contract if we are just for sale is a $1500 penalty - yikes!)

Our new house!

This past week has been very busy in the world of real estate for us.  We got a contract on our current house with a closing date of January 25, 2013 and we went under contract on a new house!  We are a little nervous about the inspection going well on our current house.  The new buyers got a good deal on our house, we ended up settling a little below where we felt comfortable, so we verbally agreed it would be an "as-is" price unless there is something really dangerous with the inspection (they used radon as an example).  We are worried they might find something in the inspection that will make them want to walk away.  It could be that they see too much damage to the wood floors or something else that isn't dangerous, but enough of an expense for them to fix to cause them to walk away.  The inspection was scheduled for this past Wednesday, but we had a good snow storm that day, so it was rescheduled for Monday (Christmas Eve), which is the last day they can have it inspected before their inspection period ends.  So finger's crossed all goes well with that and then we can finally get excited about the new house!

The new house we bought is actually a dirt lot!  It is a Richmond American house, the Andrew floorplan, and we get to pick all of our finishes!  I have always dreamt of getting to build a house from scratch, but never thought it would be a possibility.  New houses get expensive very quickly.  Brian and I went on kind of a whim to look at some homes that they had already built that they were selling right now.  There was one that was built that would have served us just fine, but as we started looking, we realized this lot was available in a neighborhood closer to the tech center that they are building in.  We had heard they didn't do any 3 car garages in this neighborhood so we hadn't even looked there.  It turns out, not only is this a 3 car garage, it's a way bigger lot!  Plus the prices are are a little lower, for whatever reason, so we can afford to get a finished basement and still stay within our price range.  All in all I think it will be perfect for us!  When we were touring the lot there were a lot of neighbors outside.  Many homes on our new street just closed in November, so everyone is new.  Everyone on the block has young kids or babies and is similar age to me and Brian, so we are hopeful we will have some fun neighbors to hang out with!  We both grew up in neighborhoods like that and it has always been a dream of ours to have friendly neighbors, and our current neighborhood does not meet that goal.  The home to the left just had the basement dug out and the home to the right has the foundation poured, so all of us will probably move in within a month or two of each other, which will be fun.  Our plan will be to move in with mom and dad from end of January to whenever our house is completed.  They are VERY very generous to allow us and our two little Italian Greyhounds and Jacob to move in with them (Gracie will live with Brian's Uncle Mark).  Living with my parents will allow us to save a lot of money as well to help pay for rear yard landscaping, blinds, and a refrigerator and other miscellaneous things once we move in.  

In other news, this year will be Jacob's first Christmas!  Last weekend we met John, Sommer, Emma, and Landon at Park Meadows bright and early and waited in line to see Santa.  I thought Jacob would scream or be in a bad mood by the time we got up there, but I fed him a bottle in line and when we got up to see Santa, he actually behaved really well!  I have another picture of the three kids (Jacob, Emma, and Landon) that is so cute too, but I don't have it digitally, so this will have to do.  How freaking cute is my baby?!  Jacob has three teeth on the top of his mouth all breaking through at the same time, so he has been a little congested and fussy, but really not too bad considering what he's going through!  I was worried he was getting an ear infection, because I really don't know how you tell - the symptoms are very similar to teething - but this morning he was in better spirits, so here's hoping it is just teething!  His right front tooth and the two on either side of the middle front are coming in right now.  So he will have a total of FIVE teeth!  Foods we're eating now are bananas (love), sweet potato (love), peas (like), avocado (like), baby oatmeal (tolerates), and butternut squash (doesn't like).  We are going to do peaches this weekend.

6 Months Old!

6 months old!

Jacob is 6 months old!  We just got done with his 6 month appointment, and he is doing great!  His weight is 18 lbs 2 ounces, 60%, his height is 27.75 inches, 80%, and his head is 17.25 inches, 50%.  He is surpassing all milestones except for getting up on all fours in a crawling position.  Today we saw Dr. Lisa for his appointment.  She was very good and talked to Jacob in a baby voice.  He has really liked all of the doctors we have seen at this practice so far, they are great with kids (I guess that's why they're pediatricians!)  They have advised us to - gasp - turn off the video monitor so we don't hear every time he wakes up unless he really screams.  I am not quite ready for that, so maybe we'll just turn the volume down a little bit... :)  Jacob is still waking up twice a night and she said it is completely habitual right now, he doesn't need the nourishment.  I do love my bonding with him during the night, but I am also constantly tired.  We'll see.  She also advised it's time to ramp up the solids, so we will start giving him two meals a day and some little cheerios or puffs to get used to putting solid things into his own mouth. 


He loves putting his feet in his mouth!

Poor nugget has been cranky lately.  He has had an upset tummy, constantly pushing, and much more poopey diapers.  Today while getting him dressed after his appointment I noticed another tooth was just breaking through on top right, next to middle tooth.  The middle tooth on top right (I guess his top left) is really swollen, so we'll see, but that could be why he's been extra fussy lately.  I have gone down to nursing just morning and night now.  We have had so many changes at work, it has been very busy and I was having a hard time squeezing pumping into my busy day.  My original goal was to nurse for 3 months, then 6 months, so I made it 50% to 6 months and now I'll see if I can go another month or so doing morning and night, which the doctor said gives him all the great nutrients and benefits of nursing full time. 



5 months old!

I never posted his 5 month picture, so I will attach that as well as other pictures from the last month as well.  I think from 5 to 6 months he's actually slimmed down a bit, probably from being so active!



Sitting in the Bumbo
at Grandma's house

In other news, our house is on the market!  We listed it for sale on November 21, so about two weeks ago.  We have had a lot of showings, but still waiting on an offer.  Needless to say it has been a very stressful two weeks keeping a house spotless with a baby and 3 dogs (and making it look like a baby and 3 dogs don't live there!)  Hopefully my next post will have good news on that front.

All mommy wants for
Christmas is a Silent Night!

 

Here is the first Christmas onesie picture.  We hope to go with John and Sommer to take the kids to see Santa at some point this month for the photo-op!  I took this picture at the crack of dawn this weekend when I was up with him exhausted.  That smile makes it all worth while though :)