Three Months with Jack

And just like that, another month has flown by! I had every intention of posting non-baby related things on here in the last month but we were so busy that it just didn't happen. We were busy with lots of fun things though! Jack's third month was filled with lots of visits and love from family. First Joe's parents came to visit for the weekend, then the day after they headed home, Grace came to spend her spring break with us. Jack and I did some running around town with Gracie and then spent the later half of the week getting ready for an even bigger crowd to come in town for Jack's baptism. Instead of listing everyone out here, I'll just do it on the actual pictures. :) Then the day after the baptism, Sara and Elsa came in town for a week! While they were here, my Grandparents came in town to meet both Jack and Elsa for the first time. After our visit with Sara and Elsa (and Andy for a night) we had a little down time before Mary and Michael and my parents came in for Easter! Now we're home alone again once more and Jack is re-adjusting to not being held and played with constantly :)

On the medical side of Jack news, we found out today that his repeat EEG came back normal and we get to start weaning him off his medicine! The doctor was very pleased with his EEG and with the results of the genetic test so we're hopeful that after being weaned off his medicine, Jack will be done with all of this. I'm looking forward to having no medical updates for Jack!

The rest of our spring and early summer is shaping up to be busy already. With more visiting with friends and family as well as a couple of cake orders for me. One thing I'm super excited about is meeting our newest niece! Joe's sister Abby just gave birth to little miss Adeline and we just can't wait to meet her!

Here's what Jack is up to at 3 months:
- Loves chewing on his own hands. And everyone else's hands for that matter.
- Enjoys talking and "singing" when I play the piano for him.
- Still waking up at least once in the middle of the night to eat :(
- Loves "flying" with dad
- Is beginning to be much more interactive with his toys
- Likes sitting up to play (while being supported of course)

Well I guess it's time to get to some pictures!

This is at the beginning of month 3. When he had MUCH more hair :)

Us with Jack's Godparents, Grace and Josh. Also, Father John Charles.

Mom, Dad, Me, Jack, Joe, Grace, Mimi

Lance, Liz, Me, Jack, Joe, Maria, David

Rocking the tummy time

Fun at the zoo!

 

Mimi, Me, Jack, Sara, Elsa, Mom

Sara, Dad, Jack, Grandma, Grandpa, Elsa, Me

Happy cousins, Jack and Elsa!

Just chillin' at the winery. 

Jack's first Easter

Jack with Aunt Mary and Uncle Mike on Easter.

Two Months with Jack

This is a few days late, but our little man is two months old now! And really, he's not so little. At his 2 month doctor's appointment last Friday he weighed in at 14 lbs., 10.5 oz. and was 24. 5" long! That puts him in the 90th and 95th percentiles respectively. As you can see, he doesn't miss a meal! Jack's 2nd month was MUCH less eventful than his first. Joe and I are very thankful for that! At his first follow up appointment with the NICU clinic, they told us that we could take him off his supplemental oxygen and heart rate/apnea monitor during the day. Now he just uses those 2 things at night and during the day we just have to spot check his blood oxygen levels with a pulse oximeter monitor they sent us home with. (The stickers you'll see on Jack's cheeks in all these pictures are what we tape his oxygen tube to at night.) This has made it much easier to care for Jack during the day because I can bring him around the house with me instead of him being tied to the living room. Jack has been doing great, with the exception of coming down with RSV a couple weeks ago. For those who don't know, RSV is a respiratory virus that can be very serious for infants. Many end up being hospitalized. With the help of a breathing treatment and frequent suctioning of his nose, Jack got over his coughing and stuffiness without having to go back to the hospital. He had to miss his first 2 birthday parties that he was invited to, but he is feeling much better now! Before I get to the photo roll I'll give a little list of the things Jack does and likes at 2 months. (This is really more for me to remember!)

Jack at 2 Months:
- Wearing size 3-6 month clothes
- Smiles and coos when in a good mood (or when you make funny noises for him)
- Does a great job at tummy time until he gets mad
- Has rolled over from belly to back several times. Thanks to his big head pulling him over when he lifts it.
- Loves being carried around on his belly in a "football" hold.
- Has started discovering his hands
- Will follow you around the room with his eyes
- Loves looking at anything shiny and gold in the house.
- Is a pretty good sleeper at night, but still wakes up a couple times to eat.
- Enjoys sitting with Mom and playing the piano

Now for some pictures!

Just chilling with friends on Valentine's day. Jack, Allie, and Warren.

Yes, I made us all coordinate for Valentine's day. 

Old man / heart breaker :)

Dad is so silly :)

He had absolutely zero interest in the toys I gave him.  

This is the face he gave me after pushing out a big squishy in his diaper!

Just snuggling with Mom before bedtime. 

Jack got to hang out with his Grandma and Grandpa Lombardo this weekend and will have a steady stream of guests and visitors for the next two weeks. We're looking forward to all the company! And help :) We're also excited about the amazing weather that is forecast for this coming week. There are lots of walks on the bike trail in our future! I think that's it for today. Have a great week!

One Month With Jack

As you can see, Jack chose not to participate in his 1 month photo shoot :)

We made it a month! And what a month it has been. Thankfully, the last 2 weeks have been MUCH less eventful than the first couple weeks of Jack's life. These days we're enjoying being at home with a happy, hungry, sleepy, fun little baby. I think most of you reading this already know the general story of whats been going on with Jack, but I'll still try and give you a little overview. Starting with when he was born!

Jack decided that he wasn't ready to come into the world on his own, so my doctor and I set an induction date of January 5th. Joe and I arrived at the hospital bright and early that morning and started the process to finally meet our little man. When I went in to the hospital, I wasn't 100% sure that I would want an epidural, but after a few serious contractions I was more than ready for one! After settling in with the epidural I was able to take a nap while labor progressed. The labor and birth were honestly pretty uneventful, and Jack made his grand entrance at 5:00 pm on the dot! He weighed 9 pounds, 3 ounces and was 21 inches long. We got in a little snuggle time then he got his first bath and hair wash which he thoroughly enjoyed.

We spent the next couple days at the hospital just holding and getting to know Jack while also trying to catch little cat naps in between. It is amazing how someone so small can have you wrapped around their little finger so fast! Needless to say, Joe and I were in love with him the second we saw him.

We made it home on the evening of January 7th with plans to settle in to life at home with a newborn. I actually don't have any pictures from our one day at home before we went back to the hospital! On the night of Thursday the 8th, we were hanging out with several family members who were in town and my mom was holding Jack while he slept, when he suddenly pulled his head back and had a seizure. After the seizure, he stopped breathing and his lips started turning blue. By this point we had already called 911 and were trying to stimulate Jack to get him to breathe again. Luckily, he did start breathing again on his own before the ambulance got here, but we still decided it would be safest to ride in the ambulance to the hospital in case he had another seizure on the way.

I won't go into too much detail about our 2 and a half week stay in the NICU, but basically Jack was monitored 24/7, had every kind of test possible run, and tested medicines until we found the right type and dose to control his seizures. Joe and I were very lucky to be able to get a room in the Ronald McDonald family house every night until Jack "graduated" to a private room that had a bed we could sleep in. Thanks to tons of help from our families, we were provided with a steady supply of clean clothes, supplies and food. We made it home from the hospital for the 2nd time 2 weeks ago and are very happy to be here! Jack is still on some supplemental oxygen as well as a heart rate and breathing monitor, but we are able to take him out of the house to run errands and go on walks. Thank you so much to everyone who called, texted, emailed, came to visit, and prayed for Jack. We can definitely feel the love over here!

Now for the real reason you are probably checking out this blog post... pictures of Jack! He's growing so much already and makes us laugh every single day without even meaning to :)

Happy to snuggle with mom after a whole day of not being able to be held

The many emotions of Jack while he falls asleep

This is one of my favorites :)

Watching hockey with dad

At one month old, Jack weighed in at about 12 pounds! He skipped right past newborn diapers (and clothes) into size ones. He's changing and growing so fast! I can't promise that I'll get around to posting much non-Jack related things on the blog in the near future, but I will try and keep up the monthly baby posts. Thanks again for all your thoughts and prayers, I know they're being heard :)

26 Dozen and 39 Weeks

Merry (belated) Christmas! It's been a while since I posted on here and we've been quite busy since then. Back in November, we had a few awesome baby showers hosted by family, friends and even coworkers. Then we visited with both sides of our family over Thanksgiving weekend and celebrated my Grandparent's 60th wedding anniversary. The trip to St. Louis for Thanksgiving was our last road trip before the baby gets here which means we didn't get to travel to be with our families over Christmas. However, we've still managed to have a jam packed holiday season. Between Christmas parties, last minute shopping/wrapping/shipping, and visiting with friends we haven't had much time to just sit around! It's been fun though. I hope you all had a nice Christmas are finally relaxing now after what I'm sure has been a very busy season for you as well! Today I went to Target with a friend and scored some half-priced Christmas goods including the cutest little diapers that look like elf pants or something. I can't wait to use those next year!

One other big thing we had in the last few weeks was a GIANT order for wedding cupcakes. I booked this wedding before I was even pregnant and decided to go through with it even though it was dangerously close to my due date. A couple months ago I finally reached out to my friend, Chase, who also has a little side job baking and she agreed to drive in from Wichita on the weekend of the wedding to help me bake. Or possibly bake, ice, and deliver all 26 dozen cupcakes by herself if I ended up in the hospital to have the baby! Obviously, I didn't end up having the baby that weekend, but Chase was still a lifesaver in helping me knock out the order! We baked and iced all the cupcakes on a Saturday, then Chase headed home on Sunday and Joe and I delivered and set them up on Sunday afternoon. Everything went as smoothly as I could hope for and I was very relieved when we got it all done. I told the baby that he could come at any time now but he seems quite content in there. Oh well. Here are a few pictures of the wedding set up:

There were still quite a few cupcakes in a box that didn't fit on the table, but this is the majority of them. 

As for an update on the baby front, as you may have guessed from the title of the post, I'm at 39 weeks and anxiously awaiting the arrival of our little guy. I think we have everything in order around here to bring him home. Our bags are packed and we're just waiting for go time! I've been really bad about taking any sort of consistent "belly" pictures throughout this pregnancy, but I do have picture of Joe and I at my work Christmas party that shows off my enormous belly! Now, this picture was taken a few weeks ago, and I was really sticking my belly out in it, but this might be a more accurate idea of how I look now versus then haha.

I'm surprisingly not miserable yet, but I am looking forward to being able to reach down and put socks and shoes on without struggling! It's nice to know that at SOME point in the next couple weeks he'll be here. Until then, Joe and I are just going to enjoy the last of our quiet time together :)

Oh, and here's one more cake I did for a coworker's retirement that I wanted to share but that didn't really merit it's own post. It's a big cake but was fairly easy for me to make and the man of honor was very surprised and happy with it!

Well I guess that's it for today. Stay tuned in the near future for a baby announcement! Thanks for reading and have a Happy New Year!

Hello Kitty Cake

Hello again! It's hard for me to believe that nothing has been written here for over a month, but we've just been busy I guess. I'm sure y'all have been very busy as well and haven't missed me pestering you with blog emails :) Today I've decided to just show you another Birthday Blessings cake I made recently, then give you a quick run down on what we've been up to the last few weeks. I'd love to hear what you all have been up to as well!
 

I guess first I'll talk about the cake real quick. The little girl who the cake was for said her favorite colors were pink and purple, and some of the gifts she asked for were Hello Kitty toys. I figured since Hello Kitty was a very simple design, I could probably get it drawn on the cake. To draw the kitty face,  I just pulled a picture of it up on my laptop and sketched it in free-hand onto the icing using a toothpick. Then I outlined all of the parts in black. You can kind of tell in one of the pictures that the kitty's right ear has raised white icing. That's because when I was filling in the bow with pink icing using a star tip, I got carried away and filled the ear in with pink too :( I had to scrape it out then try and fill it in with a little white icing. The sides were done with the ruffle icing technique. I should do a blog post on that...

I hope little Miss Tyra liked her cake!

Now let's see if I can give some sort of quick re-cap of what Joe and I have been up to. Some of these things will hopefully have their own post eventually, but for tonight, I don't have any pictures to share of them.

In the middle of May, Joe and I celebrated his birthday and our 2nd anniversary. They were both pretty low key and as usual, we cooked at home and played some games :) That may sound boring, but it's always fun for us! Over Memorial Day weekend, I made a wedding cake that I delivered and set up on that Sunday. Unfortunately, I have no pictures because I was in too big of a hurry to remember the camera. Thankfully, the cake stayed standing and the bride and groom seemed happy with it. I'm going to ask the photographer if they have any pictures they can send me.

On the first Friday in June, I flew to Louisiana for a good friend's wedding. I got to see a whole bunch of my friends and Mary and Michael were nice enough to let me stay with them. It was a ton of fun, and as usual, I can't wait to go back! The weekend after that, Joe and I really got to work on the piano room on Saturday and got almost all of the work done. (That will have its own post soon. I promise!) All that is left now is finish painting trim. On that Sunday morning, we got up bright and early for me to participate in a duathalon race. This is the same race I did last year, but this year they upped the running segments to 3.2 miles (5K) each instead of 2.4. So the race was: run 5k, bike 13 miles, run 5k. I WAS DYING! To say I was under prepared is an understatement. At least I finished.

This weekend we drove to St. Louis to meet the newest member of Joe's family. Joe's sister, Abby and her husband, Albert, had a little boy on Friday, June 14th and of course we're all in love with him already! Baby Albert is just so sweet and adorable. I held him as much as I could this weekend :) We're already looking forward to seeing him again in July at his baptism!

We've also managed to get together with some friends over the past few weeks. It's nice to have people close by, but we're lucky if we can have free nights available at the same time to meet up with them!

Oh, and one more thing! Joe caught a glimpse of the "Deck Pooping Bandit" tonight! Turns out he also steals our birdseed! If you haven't heard the story, we often find little "gifts" from the Deck Pooper in the corners of our deck, but we weren't sure who was leaving them. Now we know!

I promise it'll be less than a month between now and the next post. Thanks for reading and have a great night!

One Year Blog Birthday!

It's finally the weekend! This has been a long week and as usual I'm afraid it's going to be a quick weekend. For today though, I'm going to celebrate the fact that I actually kept up with (and thoroughly enjoyed) writing this blog over the past year. When I sent out my first post a year ago today, I wasn't sure if people would read it, if I'd find enough to write about, or even if I'd be able to keep it up. Thanks to all of you who read this and give me positive feed back, I was encouraged to keep going. I really love when I hear that someone actually tried a recipe or project that I post on here and it has been so great to keep up with you all through this blog.

I try not to focus too much looking at my blog "stats", but it is fun to see how many people read the blog. Typically it's a pretty modest number, but last October that number really exploded when those Halloween wine bottles I made went crazy on Pinterest. Since then I've had many more views on the blog, but most of them are just for the wine bottles :)

You may have noticed that I post a lot of baked goods and sweets on here. That's because they're my favorite things to make AND eat! The problem is that I do eat them and I eat too much of them. I really wish I could share some of these things with you all, but logistically, it's kinda difficult. Instead I thought I would put a few of my favorite baking tools/utensils (new ones of course) together into a little prize for one of you. Consider it a birthday present from the blog :) Now I couldn't give you my absolute favorite kitchen tool which is my KitchenAid mixer, but maybe one day. The things that I do have to give away are:

- A Silpat baking mat - This will fit on a jellyroll size pan and is completely non-stick. It's great for cookies, breads and anything else you might bake, and it keeps you from having to waste parchment paper or grease the cookie sheet.
- A bench scraper - I use this to transfer chopped veggies from a cutting board to a pot, cut dough up into pieces, smooth the sides of cakes and who knows what else. It really is very useful.
- A pair of mini spatulas - I have a similar set to these and use them almost every day! They're great for scraping out small measuring cups that you can't fit a regular spatula in. They also scrape out jars and cans that aren't wide enough for other scrapers. And they're better than using spoons because they have nice flexible sides that make sure nothing is missed.
- Grease proof cupcake papers - These I really just wanted to throw in because they're fun. But the really great thing about them is that they are "grease proof" which means that they'll maintain their bright colors even after something is baked in them.

Well, that's all I have for you! haha. All you have to do is leave a comment below letting me know what you'd make first if you won this :) I'll leave this open for a few days so everyone who wants to has time to enter. The winner will be picked on Tuesday. This weekend before the Super Bowl I'm hoping to finally post about that special cake that I mentioned a couple posts back. I actually forgot to take pictures of it, but I'm making a similar cake for tomorrow, so I'll be sure to get pictures of that. Thank you again to every single one of you who actually reads this! You make it fun for me :) I hope you all have a great weekend, talk to you later!

New Goals for a New Year

We're a couple weeks into 2013 now and it's been a good year so far :) Well, if we don't count the fact that I'm going on 2 weeks of being sick, then it's been a good year so far. Of course this time of year always brings about an evaluation of the previous twelve months and what things might be good to change in the next twelve. Typically we call these "resolutions" but I think this year I'll call mine goals. To me, a resolution sounds so definite and if I fall short then I've broken my resolution. But a goal is something I can continuously strive for and isn't necessarily a lost cause if I fall off the wagon now and then. This year, I have a few areas of goals: personal goals, home goals and blog goals. We'll start with the personal ones I guess.

Personal Goals
1. (This is actually one Joe and I are both doing). Do one *good* push-up every night the first week of the year, then 2 every night the second week, etc. So by the end of the year, I'll be able to do 52 real push ups, with some breaks in between sets of course. I wanted to do this because I have to do push-ups every week in my pilates class and they usually aren't very good. Plus, it's something I can just do at home before bed. So far, Joe and I haven't missed a day and I'm happy to say that the push-ups are actually getting easier.

2. (Joe is also doing this one with me.) Run a 1/2 marathon in April. Every year Garmin sponsors a local marathon and 1/2 marathon and we've finally decided to run it. Our training plan starts tomorrow! Time to break in these new running shoes :)

3. Go to church more often. I have to admit that over the past few years, I have attended church much less frequently than I should. When I do go, I always feel better and a little more at peace. But it never fails that something comes up or I just don't "feel" like going. The physical act of going to church each Sunday will help me be more mindful of praying and thanking God for blessings throughout the week, and that is a goal that can always use improving.

Home Goals
1. Get organized! This will be an ongoing process for me. I'd like to be one of those people that has "a place for everything and everything in it's place". A couple of house projects we have going on will help with that by adding more storage spaces to organize things, but I need to get organized in existing spaces as well. Think junk drawers, messy closets and stacks of things covering the basement. I'll try and keep you updated on how this goes.

2. Slowly start finishing spaces in our home. I don't want to break the goals down by specific rooms, but there will hopefully be a lot of projects going on in the near future. Last year we reached our goal of paying off my student loans, so this year we'll have a little more money to put toward house things. Below is the current state of our future piano room/reading room. Hardwood floors will be going in soon!

3. Put clean clothes away once they're folded! Ok, I know this is pretty specific, but I'm the worst about this! I don't see this change going well, but I'll keep trying. Putting away clothes is just the worst.

Blog Goals
1. Post twice a week. You may notice that I've already fallen off the wagon on this goal already, but I'm ready to get back on!

2. Figure out why a lot of you aren't able to comment on the blog and fix it. I've heard from several of you that this is a problem, so I'll look into it.

3. Learn how to use my camera on manual mode. I guess this could be a personal goal, but since I mostly use the camera for blog things, it'll be a blog goal. I've had a friend offer to give me camera lessons in exchange for cupcakes so I think it's time to take her up on that.

I didn't have a picture for the "blog goals" so here's a picture of some birds at our feeder this morning. I tried to get one of the Blue Jay but he kept getting scared away. 

Well, I guess that's it! I could have kept going on some of these, but you've probably heard enough. Thank you so much for reading and feel free to share your goals in the comments and maybe we can keep each other accountable! If your goal is to eat healthier then I made a couple recipes today that might interest you. I'll share them soon :) Have a great week!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Joe and I are really ringing the new year in with style. We're staying home from work with terrible colds/sinus infections and moping around the house. :( We can at least be thankful that we stayed healthy through the Christmas break. Our trip to Ohio and back to see my family for Christmas also included a couple stops in St. Louis to visit with Joe's family, as well as a side trip to Illinois to celebrate my sister and her fiance's engagement with a party thrown by his family. As you can see, there was lots of family time, but that's the way it should be at Christmas! I won't go into too much detail about our trip, but I will give a somewhat quick recap. Unfortunately I was a bad blogger and didn't take very many pictures, so instead I'll sprinkle a few shots of our Christmas decorations at home since I never got around to writing a post about them haha.

Our  Christmas card display over the piano.

My wedding ornaments from Joe's Grandma got a tree of their own. I love all these ornaments!

The first 2 nights of our trip were spent in St. Louis at Joe's parents. Joe's mom took me and Joe's two sisters to see the musical "Wicked" on Saturday, and it was awesome! I'd never seen it before, and I'm glad that I have now. It was fun to see the backstory to the Wizard of Oz as imagined by the author. Hopefully it will come to Kansas City one day and I can drag Joe to see it with me.

Nut crackers and stockings hung on the dresser. You'll see in another picture why I couldn't really hang the stockings on the mantle.

Sunday morning we headed to Ohio. We needed to be there by 4:00 to be in time for Grace's piano recital and we were just in time. Grace played 3 songs (1 solo and 2 duets) and did an amazing job with all of them. Mom even played one of the duets with Grace and she was great too. We spent the next few days at Mom & Dad's. We all got up early on Christmas for presents then just relaxed the rest of the day and played some new games we got. We even got a few inches of snow in Ohio on the day after Christmas which threw a wrench in some travel plans, but it all worked out ok. On Thursday night we checked out a local winery and brewery with my family then went out to eat in downtown Lebanon.

Sara and Andy on Christmas morning. I wasn't able to get a decent picture of everyone else, and I think I would get in trouble if I posted the pictures that I did get :)

Me and Miss Mollie. She never misses a chance to get in on the action. 

Friday morning we all loaded up and headed to Bloomington, IL for the engagement party for my sister Sara and her fiance, Andy. The party was at Andy's brother's house and it was really great to meet his whole family and spend some time getting to know them. On Saturday morning we had brunch at Andy's parent's house in Peoria, IL then it was time for Joe and me to head back to St. Louis for one more night before going home. We celebrated Christmas with Joe's family on Saturday night and played some more new games. Finally on Sunday it was time to head home.

Our Christmas tree and the poinsettia garland I made. 

We decided to have people over on New Year's Eve, so Sunday night was spent making a few appetizer type things and trying to get all of our gifts and travel stuff unpacked and put away. Monday brought a full day of snow to Kansas City, and I left work after half a day to avoid bad road conditions. Of course this also gave me more time to get ready for our friends to come over that night :) We had a great New Years Eve, but Joe and I both woke up sick on New Years day and unfortunately it has only gotten worse :( Hopefully a good night sleep will help. Well, sorry for the long winded post, but I guess there was just a lot to share! I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Years as well. Before signing off for the night I just want to tell all of you thank you so much for reading the blog this year! Knowing that you all read it and enjoy it (I hope haha) is what keeps me writing. I'm hoping to keep the posts coming pretty steady this year, and thanks to a few new cookbooks I got for Christmas, there should be an abundance of cakes and desserts :)