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!

Orange Almond Whole Grain Muffins

Happy Monday! While my little Jack bear is napping, I've got a chance to share a recipe for some very tasty muffins I made recently. This recipe if a slight adaptation from one in the April 2014 issue of Better Homes and Gardens magazine. I made these for Joe to take to work when it was his turn to bring snacks to his team's weekly meeting. I was a little worried that they would be super dense with the quinoa and whole wheat flour, and that the guys on his team would be put off by the appearance since I used red quinoa. But I shouldn't have been! The muffins were nice and fluffy and Joe says that everyone really enjoyed them. Now as I said, these are slightly changed from the original recipe. They used walnuts instead of almonds and did  not use any vanilla or almond extracts. Here's how I made them:

Orange-Almond Whole Grain Muffins
Makes 12 muffins

1 cup regular rolled oats
1 cup cooked quinoa, cooled (I cooked the quinoa and used it while it was still very hot, and it worked fine)
1/3 cup slivered almonds, chopped
1 T olive oil
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1 orange
1/2 cup buttermilk (or 1/2 cup milk with 2 teaspoons of vinegar mixed in)
1/2 cup sour cream
2 eggs
3 T. butter, melted
1 t. vanilla extract
1/4 t. almond extract

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Place oats, quinoa, and almonds on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a non-stick mat. Toss with the olive oil to coat. Spread in an even layer and bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove and cool.

2. Grease or line 12 muffin cups with paper liners. In a large bowl, stir together all but 1/4 cup of the quinoa mixture, the flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside

3. Finely shred 2 t. of peel from the orange. Then juice the orange to get about 3 T. of juice. In a medium bowl or large measuring cup, whisk together the buttermilk, sour cream, eggs, butter, orange juice, orange zest, vanilla and almond extracts. Add to the flour mixture and stir until just combined. The mixture will still be lumpy.

4. Divide between the prepared muffin cups and sprinkle with remaining quinoa mixture. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

According to the original recipe, each muffin has 238 calories, 10 g fat, 43 mg cholesterol, 267 mg sodium, 31 g carbs, 3 g fiber, and 7 g protein. That's a good amount of protein for a muffin!

These are great to have on hand for a quick breakfast of you're rushing to get out the door.

I think that's it for today! I'll be back later this week for a 2 month post on Mr. Jack. He's been doing great and is growing like crazy!

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!

The Mostly Completed Nursery

It's been a busy several days since I last posted but I feel like I've accomplished a lot since then! The nursery decorations are pretty much all done and I've been checking other things off of my "get done before baby" list. Today we went to our birth prep class and I actually do feel more prepared after that. Now we just have several weeks to wait to put what we learned to use :) Yesterday while we had some snow flurries, we got some other "nesting" things done. Mainly cleaning out the basement storage rooms, which obviously won't get used by the baby, but it made me feel better!

Last weekend was when I got most of the shopping and projects completed for the baby's room. Joe was out of town in Washington DC on a trip with his Dad, so I took the opportunity to get as much done as possible. I guess I'll just jump right into pictures of the room now and talk about the different parts/projects as I get to them. First up, the same view you saw last time when I was talking about the dresser makeover:

As you can see, the large canvas got hung, as did a mobile, mirror, and two pieces of "sun art". I'll get back to the sun art in a minute. I also added a crib skirt to the bed (or as Joe likes to call it, a crib kilt). The lamp on the dresser was an estate sale find from a couple years ago and the brass pig is a bank that I found at one of my favorite vintage shops last weekend. The mirror is one that Mom and Dad had sitting in their basement that was no longer being used. Here is a closer up picture of the mobile which is made up of 3 wooden whales connected by brass wire semi-circles. It was a gift from my Uncle Charlie to Mom a long time ago and I love the way it looks in this room!

Close up of the "crib kilt". 

Now about that sun art I mentioned. I first heard about this project on this blog and decided it could be a fun idea for some additional art for the baby's room. All you need for to make these prints is some special paper that you can either buy online or at a craft store. (FYI: if you go to look for it at Hobby Lobby, the employees will most likely have no idea what you're talking about. So just know that the paper is located in the "science and education" section.) The first time I tried making these a few weeks ago, I just used some leaves from a tree for my print. This time I used actually photos that I printed in black and white with the colors inverted, as shown on this blog. All you have to do is lay your objects or photo on top of the sun art paper, then lay the provided piece of plexi glass on top of that, and set the whole thing out in the direct sunlight. Depending on whether you're using objects or a printed negative, the paper will have to stay out there anywhere from 3-30 min. Once you can see that the sun has done its job, just bring the paper inside and rinse it in a tray of water and lay it flat to dry. It's pretty amazing to watch the colors switch places as you rinse the paper off! I was very impressed/surprised with how well the paper developed with the printed negatives on top. Here are my final products:

The top picture is of some plants from the San Francisco Botanical Gardens, and the bottom picture is of jellyfish from the aquarium in San Francisco. 

Ok, now for the view you haven't seen and a few more projects. This is what the room looks like when you're standing in the doorway. 

No one can say there is a lack of color in the room! 

Now the first thing you may be thinking is that the chair we chose is not your typical nursery rocker or glider. That may be true, but I searched high and low for a more traditional rocker or glider that I liked, but couldn't find any that weren't WAY out of our budget. This chair came from Ikea and it truly is VERY comfortable and I've found myself sitting and rocking/swiveling in it just about every day since we bought it. The other things I like about it are that the leather will be easy to keep clean and it will be easy to move into another room in the house once we no longer need it in the nursery. The extra high back is also nice for me and Joe since we can lean our heads back on it. Enough about the chair. The little cart is another estate sale found that I cleaned up and spray painted. Those plants on top won't both be staying there by the way. Joe just wanted them to get some sun. The pillow on the chair is one I made and the blanket & small ottoman are more vintage finds from this past weekend. The blanket is super warm and cozy! The last 2 things on that wall are the new window shades and the little piece of art on the right. 

The window shades are another DIY project. They are made from the "skeleton" of a very cheap set of mini blinds that get combined with new fabric. I mostly followed the tutorial from this blog with a couple changes. It took a little trial and error, but I finally got them to raise and lower nicely while keeping the nice folds that are characteristic of Roman shades. I added blackout curtain lining to the back of the bright green corduroy to really help block out the light. 

The little piece of art is something I made using a kit I bought several months ago. The kit included a piece of fabric that looked like notebook paper, and dark grey embroidery floss. I decided to stitch the "ABC / I love you" print that I've seen online so I simply wrote the letters out in pencil then stitched over them. 

Finally we have the closet. I slapped on a quick coat of white paint 2 weekends ago, then we put in a small shelving unit from Ikea. Now we just need to add a bar for hanging clothes and get the whole thing organized. 

Well that's about it! With the exception of possibly adding some book ledges to the wall between the closet and the bedroom door, I'm calling the nursery done! Of course we still have to put sheets on the bed and a changing pad on the dresser, but those aren't exactly "projects" and will be easy to add soon. It is quite a relief to have all of this done now, especially since the holiday season starts next week with Thanksgiving and things will only get busier after that! Not to mention I'll just keep getting bigger and probably won't feel like doing much :) Pregnancy is still going well and I'm happy to say there have only been 2 nights when I had to get up in the middle of the night to pee haha. I do have almost daily heartburn, but Tums work wonders and I just hope that the heartburn means this baby will have some glorious hair! Ok, I've let this post drag on a little too long. Thanks for reading, have a good night, and stay warm!

Double Wedding Cake Weekend

Hi there! I don't know about you guys but I sure don't like how it gets completely dark at 5:30 after the time change this weekend. When it gets dark outside, I seem to get much less productive inside. Luckily I got a lot of chores done this past Sunday, so I suppose relaxing a bit this week after work won't be so bad. So while I sit here and watch The Voice I might as well write a blog post!

A few weekends ago, right after I got back from my work trip to West Virginia, I had back to back wedding cakes and cupcakes to do. To be honest, it was a mistake on my part to take both these weddings on the same weekend! I agreed to them at different times without double checking what I already had going on that weekend. Luckily, the first wedding was on Friday and it was a cupcake wedding plus a small display cake. Cupcakes are much quicker for me to make and I was actually able to get all 120 of them baked on Thursday night before the wedding. Friday was spent baking and decorating the display cake as well as decorating all of the cupcakes. I took a day off of work on Friday to get all that done. After setting up the cake on Friday night I came home and baked ALL the cakes for the Saturday wedding. But before we get to that, here is the cupcake wedding setup!

In case you can't quite tell, those are supposed to be trees :)

Lots of cupcakes!

The cake for Saturday was more of a traditional wedding cake. The flavor of all the tiers was a copycat recipe of Chantilly Creme cake from Whole Foods Market. The cake itself isn't that special but the icing is! It is a combination of fresh whipped cream, powdered sugar, cream cheese, and mascarpone cheese. The filling of the cake was the same icing mixed with some fresh berries. It is a delicious flavor combination! The bride had lots of cake designs that she liked so I came up with a combination of several of them for the final cake. I think it turned out great and she liked it too! I had to add the flowers at the reception, and needless to say, I am no florist haha. I just tried not to go overboard with them! 

The cake before the flowers.

The toppers are fox salt and pepper shakers. 

Well since the last time I posted, I've gotten a few more updates done in the nursery but I will post about those separately later. The room is really starting to come together now though! Only a few more DIY projects to complete and then we just have to get everything "installed". Unfortunately I don't have much to post about other than baby things, so you probably won't hear from me till next week sometime. Until then, have a great week!

30 Weeks and Nursery Updates!

As I write this there seems to be a little one man rave going on in my belly. This baby sure knows how to wiggle! I don't mind though :) This past Wednesday we hit the 30 week mark and things seem to be moving along right on schedule. My only pregnancy complaint so far is WHY ARE THERE NO MATERNITY PANTS IN LONG SIZES!? What are tall ladies supposed to wear?! Sorry for yelling, but I'm pretty fed up with searching for a pair of pants that aren't high-waters.

Anyway, before I get into nursery updates I'll give a quick rundown of what we've been up to lately. This isn't in exact chronological order but I'll try my best! Back in September we had Joe's parents in town for the weekend and had a nice visit with them, including a failed trip to our newly opened IKEA. We'll try again next time though! We've gone to a couple baby showers for friends and family and Joe and also went on a tour of some historic homes in the "Hyde Park" neighborhood in Kansas City. We saw some really cool places and did some serious walking! I took a 2 day business trip to Charleston, WV then came home just in time to make back to back wedding cakes. (Those will get their own post soon enough.) Before, after and in between all these activities I've been spending LOTS of quality time in a respirator mask while working on painting projects for the nursery. These projects include stripping and repainting/staining a dresser, as well as painting EVERY surface in that room at least twice. But it's done and I couldn't be happier with the results!

This thing really does work well! When I'm wearing it I can't smell anything!

Luckily this pregnancy has been very easy on me, with the exception of a week or 2 of back pain, so I've been able to get a lot of work and projects done. I knew I wanted a dresser for the nursery that would double as a changing table wasn't sure what kind to look for. One option was to use the campaign dresser that we bought on Craigslist a couple years ago. I'm sure it would have worked great in the nursery, but honestly I love it where it is in the entrance and didn't really want to move it. So I headed back to Craigslist and eventually found this beauty for $30. Sold!

That dresser in the background is another Craigslist makeover from the beginning of this year that I've never posted about on here. 

I wanted there to be some natural wood on this dresser, but I knew the top at least had to be painted since it was just plastic laminate. So I decided to leave the draw fronts natural wood and paint the rest in a satin black to match the crib. To strip the paint I used a product called Citristrip which I'd heard good things about on other blogs. Even though it claimed to be safe for indoor use with no harmful fumes, I still wore my trusty mask. Even when I did catch a whiff of it, it just smelled like citrusy cleaner. It worked very well for taking the paint off the drawer fronts, and I decided to go ahead and try to remove the paint from the dresser frame as well. For some reason, this paint was more stubborn than on the drawer fronts.

Painting on the Citristrip. 

After waiting an hour or so, the paint started to bubble and ripple up. 

Using a couple different scraping tools, I managed to easily scrape off most of the paint. 

I didn't try TOO hard to get all the paint off the dresser frame. 

The paint on the top of t he dresser really did not want to come off. Even with multiple coats of Citristrip. 

The drawer fronts and frame all got a good sanding before paint or stain. For the drawer fronts I used Restore-a-finish and the wax that goes along with it to color and protect the wood. There were little bits of paint stuck in some of the drawer fronts around the raised part where the handles go, and I just could not get it off. So I grabbed some brown acrylic paint and just painted over those spots :) Probably not the RIGHT way to handle the problem, but it is the easy/lazy/pregnant way to handle it haha.

Looking much better after sanding. 

And even better after adding a coat of restor-a-finish!

When it came to painting the frame of the dresser I used some black satin paint that we already had on hand from a different project. Using a combination of a brush and a foam roller, I gave the entire frame 2 coats of paint. After a couple of days it became apparent to me that the paint on top of the dresser wasn't really sticking and could easily be scratched off. As much as I would have loved to just leave it, I decided to scrape the paint off the top of the dresser, sand it down again, then start with a coat of oil based primer before putting on more coats of black paint. This time it seems to have stuck! We got the dresser moved into the freshly painted bedroom and got the crib set up as well. Now it's time to finish up the little details, which honestly are the hardest part for me. I've got a couple months though so hopefully I'll get it finished!

This was after having to scrape off the first round of paint from the top and adding back on a coat of primer. 

All done! The little circles under the feet are just furniture moving pads that we were using. 

Well it's just about time to go carve some pumpkins! I've got a lot of little projects left for the room, but I can't promise that I'll get them documented on the blog. I will post about the 2 wedding cakes soon though! Have a great weekend!