Almost 29 Hours Later….

Tuesday 1/3/17 at 1:30pm checked into the hospital.

2:00pm we were in our labor room, I was in the awesome hospital gown, monitors hooked up to me, IV in arm and waiting for doctor. They don’t mess around. My body was not showing any signs of labor signs. My OB said we need to trick your body into thinking its in labor. So the plan was to do the cervical ripening pills, in order to break my water and then pitocin. My OB did a order for 6 pills, she said most woman don’t need more than 3 pills to get the show on the road. Well, I have never been like the majority, so why would I start now and my labor wouldn’t be. I had to have 5 pills, they put one in every 4 hours, I had to lay flat for the first hour after they put it in. They checked on me and baby almost every half hour.

This is still Tuesday 1/3/17-remember.

It was finally on Wednesday 1/4/17 around noon when my OB checked and I was only 1cm dilated, she broke my water. We thought ok shouldn’t be much longer-NOT!!! They started the pitocin it was then we started having problems. I had bad back pain, from the crappy bed and contractions. I haven’t slept at all because they kept coming in to check on me and baby. It was finally 2:00pm Wednesday that I said I would like the epidural, I needed to rest. I was so tired and exhausted when the guy was trying to administer it, I was falling asleep and I remember crying and saying I was sorry for falling to sleep. Once it was in and hit-holy crap-instant relief.

I was getting pitocin through the IV and baby was getting stressed from the contractions. I was on oxygen and fluids for baby  probably 80% of the time during this process. It was Wednesday evening, when the nurses saw every time I had a contraction baby’s heart rate would drop and have to work hard to get back to normal.

At 6:30pm the on-call OB came in and said she isn’t liking what she sees and baby is becoming distressed that we are going to do an “immediate” c-section. AKA emergency c-section, the only reason they didn’t call it emergency was because they could schedule it. It was scheduled for 7:00pm.

I remember when the OB said this Carl looked at me and I saw tears in his eyes and he said holy cow, he’s coming, its real now. I told Carl he couldn’t cry, because I had to stay calm. He was a great partner during this whole process.

At 7:20pm on Wednesday 1/4/17 our beautiful healthy baby boy was born. He weighed 6lbs 5oz and was 19 3/4in in length.

     

      

We are so blessed beyond words!

End of the year odds and ends!

Life has been crazy. Christmas snuck up on us and then was gone even quicker.  After Christmas I got super sick for over a week and being pregnant and sick is not fun. We didn’t do anything for NYE, I don’t think we even watched the ball drop. We are party animals can’t you tell. I haven’t blogged in a while so this is a hodge podge of photos.

The end of the year was good, minus being sick. The best was to come and sooner than we would have known. 🙂

2016 Christmas Photos

This year our Christmas/maternity photos were last minute and my best friend Teri took them again for our 4 year. She took them and had to edit them before she went on her trip to Hawaii plus she had a 2 month old! Can you say superwoman. We didn’t have much snow at the time and it was super cold. We decided this year to do it at a tree farm which was really fun! This is our last Christmas photo with just us and Arie.

Here are some of our photos!

Little did we know that our peanut was going to be coming very soon. We made it home for Christmas. We did the drive in a day, we wanted to make sure we were close to home. What a year 2016 was, we purchased our house and 4 months later found out we were pregnant. We did not know that we would be spending a lot of our time the next 9 months at the doctor making sure our peanut was healthy and growing. We were so blessed in 2016 and didn’t take any of it for granted.

A Week for the Books…

This year we were busy the week of my birthday- we had something planned every other day.

October 30th- Sunday, we had tickets to the Amos Lee Concert, which was amazing! There is something about his music and something even more when it’s live. I am so glad we got tickets.

img_1330 img_1333 a few pictures, we had good seats

October 31st- Halloween

img_1353 Loved our pumpkins this year

November 1st- my birthday Carl took me too a very fancy steak house- Ruth Chris Steak House I had lobster which was amazing and Carl had steak. Carl, got me a pedicure gift certificate, pretty earrings and tickets to A Christmas Carol play! It was a great birthday and very memorable.

img_1411 What a great birthday! Thanks Honey!

November 2nd- I had gotten us tickets to tour US Bank Stadium, that was an awesome tour and well worth it.

 

The week was packed and it wasn’t over yet, on Friday I had to clean for our 2nd baby shower that was at our house that weekend! Needless to say, I was pooped by Sunday!

I am blessed by the memories that were had during our busy week!

 

 

 

Wednesday Night Dinner

My sister came over for Wednesday night dinner a few weeks go. My sister is a great cook, so I wanted to make sure I impressed her or at least made a worthy supper for her. I think I succeed and it was delicious! 🙂 All of this meal was gluten free.

All of the recipes are ones I found on pinterest and were very easy!

IMG_0096

Rosemary Chicken with Portabella Mushrooms-The Midnight Baker

This was rich and creamy, very easy to make. I wondered if adding shallots would add another texture.

Highly recommend.

IMG_0095

Roasted Lemon Parmesan Garlic Asparagus– The Recipe Critic

These were easy to make in the oven and the flavor was great.

Highly recommend.

IMG_0094

Steamed Baby Potatoes with Parsley Butter

I actually did this one a little different, I put my potatoes in my rice maker to steam them and I had herb butter in the freezer that I made last year. So there was a bunch of different herbs, but super easy and flavorful.

Highly recommend.

This was a great meal and leftovers were awesome. We put the chicken back in the pan and heated slowly.

IMG_0097

My sister plated her food perfectly!

Cheers!

-Blondie!

Transformation-Office

Here are a few photos of Carl’s office and the transformation.

IMG_1493 Before-It was a little girls playroom

Carl’s Office-After it is painted

Carl took all the trim off and we will paint it white so all the trim in the house matches to the white.

This has been our first project and we are almost complete! 🙂

 

Now I Gotta Cut Loose, Footloose Kick Off Your Sunday Shoes!

Last weekend, we had a wedding to attend. It was a lot of fun, probably one of the best times we have had at a wedding. A friend of our’s son was getting married. The wedding was at a venue I haven’t been too only have heard about. We had time to stop at one of my favorite local establishments for a drink. The decor was beautiful. The bride had a dress that looked stunning on her.

Carl and I literally danced our feet off! I would like to say I had the hottest date and best dance partner, obviously I am bias! 🙂

It was a fun night and a good distraction from house stuff.

We are happy for the newlyweds!

Cheers!

-Blondie!

Arie Finding Himself.

This transition has been interesting for Arie. He’s trying to find his “spots” in the new house. In the townhome, he had certain spots he would lay while Carl was working or when we were home. There were certain “lanes” where the ball was thrown.

In the new house it is different for Arie. The floors on the main floor are laminate which aren’t comfortable for him to lay on and downstairs we are still unpacking and putting boxes away. And of course we need to find a “lane” for ball throwing.

Carl sent me this photo.

IMG_1502 he is sitting at the top of the stairs.

He did this same thing at the townhome; however, the stairs were outside of Carl’s office, not in the new house.

The Monday after we moved, I drove to the townhome to pick up our canvases and other odds and ends. When I walked into the townhome, this is what I saw. It made me sad a little, Arie left his mark in the townhome! What great memories we had!

IMG_1504

Can’t leave the tennis ball.

We are trying to fit in at the new house. Sweet Arie!

IMG_1564              IMG_1567

 

Coming To A Close…

I would like to think I’m a pretty patient person, but waiting to hear if you are approved to close on a house is HORRIBLE! We weren’t told until the Friday before we had closing. We were scheduled to close on Thursday January 21, 2016. Most people said it would be pretty good if we could close in 30 days from when we put in our offer, apparently that doesn’t always happen that smooth. We wanted to be out of the townhome prior to January 31st so we didn’t have to pay rent for February and then we wouldn’t have to start mortgage payments until March 1st. The week before closing is when all my co-workers and friends decided to tell me all the horror stories of their house experiences. NOT COOL and it only made me more anxious. I was relieved when my signature was on the last page.

4641461 Outside of the house.

We closed on Thursday January 21, 2016 and had all the papers signed by 10:00am that morning. We have great families and friends. One of my sisters came Thursday with the big suburban, you don’t know how much they hold until you pack them full. She also helped me clean the kitchen so everything was all clean and ready for my mom to put all the kitchen stuff away. We made 4 trips total on Thursday. We brought Arie and his stuff that night to let him be there without the distraction of everyone else.

The next two days were crazy busy, we were up by 5:30am every morning, packing and moving boxes. Carl’s parents came on Friday morning with both vehicles! We were able to pack a lot in both vehicles. My friend came to help move all the precious wine making things-very important plus we packed our vehicle. We got a lot moved that day, my friend was on her game and started unpacking kitchen boxes to get stuff in the cupboards-thank goodness, I would have been lost! lol My parents showed up later with lots of yummy food for all of us to have lunch! Which was nice to have our parents there. My mom started really helping to unpack the kitchen was beyond helpful and my Pa and Carl were looking at what they were going to need from Menards. Then we went back to the townhome and finished getting everything ready for Saturday for the movers. I was really sad on Friday night because we were leaving a place where we had lots of memories, we loved our neighbors and our pond.

image (10)

On Saturday morning, the movers were coming to move all of our big stuff/furniture. It was really nice of my parents to come Saturday morning as well! The movers rocked, they had all of our stuff packed up and moved to the other house and unpacked in just under 4 hours, so our quote and final price was much cheaper! 🙂 We did more unpacking, two of my other sisters showed up to help. One helped set up the beds and make them, the other was awesome and cleaned all of our bathrooms. My brother showed up later and helped Carl with wiring a few things for the computer for his work.

 

We are beyond blessed and thankful for all the help from our families and friends. Now to get settled!

-Blondie!

Mama if that’s movin up, then I’m movin out- Billy Joel

The last month, was nothing short of quiet; that is a LARGE reason for my absence. Carl and I had been looking at houses on and off for the last year, which felt like forever. We found a house that fit us so we put an offer in in mid December. The house had been on the market for a few months and it’s winter here. So the odds were in our favor.

This house was exactly what we were looking for: 4bd 3ba, just over 2,000 sq ft, a fenced yard, open layout and close to work

Friends with kids kept saying  a house with 3bds on one floor is a big deal for having kids. We had a hard time finding a master bedroom that had a master suite was hard to come by. We wish the yard was a tad bigger with acreage; however, we have one of the bigger lots. It is a quiet neighborhood, which we like, close to highways and literally EVERYTHING! We can get to any store or place within 10 mins or less. That is a big change because in our last home we were at least 20 mins from the nearest highway. We are much closer to family, friends and my work, which is a huge plus.

Arie, was very unsure of what was going on with all the packing and moving of boxes. He definitely knew something was up.

Here are a few pictures.

We literally moved up, north of the metro and moved out; as Billy Joel said it best!

Stayed Tuned for many house photos!

-Blondie!