Weve been in TX a week

Well I haven't posted the entire time weve been in TX. The flight went really well, Austin ate at the right times (taking off and landing) and he slept most of the flight. In fact when we got up the lady behind me said "I didn't even know there was a baby on this flight". Yay Austin!! Weve been having so much fun at Dodie's and Dude's (still not sure about calling my dad Dude). We have had lots of visitors and many more to come. Austin took a couple days to adjust but now he is sleeping just like he was at home. We miss John, but I'm so glad we were able to come down here for a month. Since weve been here Austin has laughed and started to eat his fists! He changes so fast!

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving. We went to my friend Patty's house. We went to Patty's 2 years ago as well for Thanksgiving. I'm so thankful that she opens her house up to us when we stay in Chicago over Thanksgiving. We took the pac 'n play and Austin's bouncer. He was such a good boy! He was flirting with all the new women that were there. All in all it was a great Thanksgiving. This was a Midwest Thanksgiving, so there wasn't any cornbread dressing or pecan pie, but we will get that at Christmas. Also funny story. I made Green Bean Casserole. They had NEVER had it!! HAHA!! It didn't go over well either so John and I have been eating it the last couple days. I couldn't believe it!

So wet

The other day Austin ate 45 ounces in one day! He usually eats between 28 and 33. He slept about 10 hours that night. When he woke up I went in his room to get him and it stunk! I flipped him over and this is what I found...he was SOAKED and he was wearing a disposable!! We have started having him in disposables at night and cloth during the day, You would think this would wake him up, but it didn't! Silly boy :)

Pasta Making Class

I have another GroupOn story. This past weekend I went to a pasta making class down the street from our house at "Cooking Fools". It had been a GroupOn that I bought a while back. It was SO much fun. We made pesto sauce, vodka sauce, ravioli, and papadele (or something like this) noodles all from scratch. I would love to say I would do it again, but I'm not so sure. It was a lot of work and it didn't taste that different to me. I would like to do ravioli again because you could get creative with that. The only problem is there are so many things you need that I don't have...starting with a counter to roll the pasta out on. Oh well it was a lot of fun and I got the recipes, so if I ever have enough space I can make it.

Austin Doesn't Have a Hernia!!

The pediatrician called tonight and Austin is fine! His testicles are still swollen but at least it isn't because there is an obstruction or a hernia. Yay! They should just continue to go down on their own.
On another note, Austin and I are going to the suburbs tomorrow to go to Hobby Lobby. Sometimes I really miss the suburbs!! I have pictures of Austin that I want framed and hung up before they are too old! Haha! I will post pictures once I'm done. This will be the first time Austin has been in the car for longer than 15 minutes. I hope it goes better than my trip to my ob today. We drove most of the way with my finger in his mouth, which isn't easy since I'm in the front seat and hes in the back! Haha!

Update on Kim and Austin

Austin had his sonogram on his scrotum tonight. We will wait for the results to know if there is anything wrong. I couldn't see anything and the sonogram technician didn't say anything.
Yesterday my milk duct became unclogged, but now it is killing me every time I pump! When I went to the doctor it was showing signs of being mastitis, which is a staff infection in your milk duct. Thankfully I didn't have that since mine wasn't infected. Breastfeeding has been nothing but trouble since the beginning! I'm going to stop once I get back from TX. I wanted to make it at least 6 months, but it just isn't worth it anymore. When I went to the doctor they recommended I pump every 2-3 hours around the clock to insure I don't get anymore clogged ducts. Well I just can't keep that up. I was trying to go longer at night so I could finally get some sleep and that's how I got a clogged duct. I've been doing every 4 hours around the clock for 10 weeks now and I NEED SLEEP!! I'm going to try going an extra hour between pumps and see how that goes.

Falling apart

I wanted to let everyone know about what has been going on here the last week. Austin has been sleeping longer and longer at night! Yay! This means I was trying to go longer at night without pumping. There is nothing more frustrating then having to wake up at 4 am to pump and you baby doesn't wake up until 8! Haha. Anyway I went 7 hours Friday night and 7 hours Saturday night. Well I woke up Sunday and now I have clogged milk ducts. Everything I try isn't working, so I've called the ob and am waiting for her to return my call. Clogged milk ducts isn't anything to mess with. If I develop an infection I could have to stop breast feeding. I've caught it early, so I'm hoping it will go away on its own.
Second, since Austin was born he has had rather large and swollen testicles. I didn't realize this at first since I don't have a pair of my own and had never seen a little boys testicles before. The swelling has started to go down, but at his 8 week appt last week his ped wasn't sure they are looking right. We are going tomorrow to have an ultrasound done on them to make sure he doesn't have a hernia or something else.
If everyone can just keep us in your prayers. By the way John is fine :). Hes healthy as can be. I've read that clogged milk ducts can happen because of stress, so I'm sure finding out he might have a hernia isn't helping....

Squirmy Wormy Strikes Again

I got some pictures this time! We put him down in the middle of his crib and by this morning he had squirmed his way over to the edge. He woke up because his arm was stuck and his foot was hanging out as well!! Haha! He was squirming around with his eyes closed trying to get it out. After I laughed at him I helped him :).

Chicago Chocolate Tour

Austin and I. Hes in the Moby wrap
Waiting for the chocolate tour to start
Waiting on the red line. Austin's first time on the train
Austin's first ride on the bus
Hes so cute all wrapped up!

I have another GroupOn story. Over a year ago I bought a GroupOn for a Chicago Chocolate Tour. It was winter so we didn't want to go. By the time it warmed up I was huge and not really in the mood to go on a 2.5 hour walking tour, even if there was chocolate tasting involved. So now here we are again in winter with a 9 week old and the GroupOn expires on December 4th. I went ahead and booked it for yesterday since I figured it isn't getting any warmer. As it approached we started watching the weather and realized it was going to be the coldest day we've had so far. We decided we didn't want to take Austin. I started calling friends and I couldn't find anyone who would go with me... TO EAT CHOCOLATE FOR FREE. Haha! So then I called to see if we could change it to Sunday since it is going to be close to 60 today. Well no such luck, the tours are completely booked up until it expires...SO we all went. This was the first time Austin rode on the bus and the train. The chocolate tour was fun, but once again Austin will not sleep in his car seat. We knew if he didn't sleep we would be in for a rough night. At the last minute I grabbed the Moby wrap that I was given recently. We had never tired it. It ended up working great! He was in it for 3 hours and slept almost the entire time. And I was able to zip my jacket up around him so he was so warm. All in all it was a good Saturday and we got to taste some delicious treats.

Squirmy Wormy

Well Austin was a squirmy wormy last night! We always put him down in the middle of his crib. We went in to get him this morning because he wanted out and he had wiggled his way over into the corner! He had an arm hanging out of the crib and his head was in the corner of the crib. I was SO shocked! I told John we need to set up a web cam to see how he did that. I wish I would have taken a picture. I will next time!

Halloween 2010

Austin was a monkey for Halloween this year. We felt he was too small to go trick or treating, so he dressed up for church! I do not understand why the bottom of his feet say "Cheeky Monkey" instead of chunky monkey...but I couldn't resist buying this costume anyway. I think it should say Chunky Monkey :). What does Cheeky even mean????

2 months

Its hard to believe that Austin will be 2 months old tomorrow. We have been concentrating on making sure he doesn't stay up for more than 2 hours at a time for about 2 weeks now. It is going great! We had some bumps along the way, but he only got up twice last night. At 11:15 then at 4:20. Then he slept until 8:45! He is getting so much better. Also when he wakes up at night hes usually up less than 30 minutes, just enough time to change his diaper and get some food in him. I would be getting much more sleep though if I didn't have to pump. Basically by the time he goes back to sleep then I have to stay up for another 40 minutes or so to pump. On the weekends John will feed him while I pump, but during the week John and I have an agreement. When John comes home at 6:45 or so I get "Kim time" and he takes Austin. I wish "Kim time" were spent doing fun things, but usually "Kim time" consists of doing the dishes, taking a shower, eating, and sleeping. Then I pump again around 11:30 or so and after midnight John doesn't get up again so he can try to get his 5 hours of sleep in before his alarm goes off at 5. Once I'm not so sleep deprived I will be able to do fun things during "Kim time" and while he sleeps, but right now I try to sleep when he sleeps and keep this house running.
I feel like its taken me 8 weeks to really get the hang of things. I'm still exhausted but I get more naps in now. I think this is a combination of me learning and Austin being older. He doesn't have to be held all the time and is ok by himself. Also hes sleeping in his crib and he doesn't need t be fed every 2 hours. I'm so glad that we are fortunate enough for me to stay home with him, but I feel like I never leave the house. Plus its starting to get cold here so we don't get to go on as many walks anymore. I can't wait for spring :).

Chunky Monkey

Austin has started to be a chunky monkey. Here are some pictures of his Buddha Belly.


He is starting to try to focus so he gets cross eyed a lot!
Look at that belly!

Ingrown toenail

Well I had minor surgery yesterday on my toe...I had an ingrown toenail. The frustrating thing is that this is something that can be easily prevented. I started having problems at the end of my pregnancy when I couldn't reach my toes. I let it go too far so by the time I had Austin and could reach my toes it was already infected. I performed "surgery" on it myself one night and thought I had it taken care of. Well about 2 weeks later it starts hurting worse than before. I woke up yesterday and I hurt so bad it was hard to walk. I called a podiatrist and they could get me in so I went. I WILL NEVER let it get that bad again. That was so miserable! They literally cut out a huge chunk of my toenail and then killed the root so my big toe will never have as much toenail again... I have a special shoe that I have to wear now and I have to soak it in an iodine bath twice a day until I go back in a week and a half.


My foot soaking in the iodine bath. Yes this is a cooler. It was the only thing big enough to soak my foot in :)

Stomach Sleeping

Well we have had lots of rough nights lately, and its all John and I's fault. We've heard so many times "DON'T EVER LET YOUR CHILD SLEEP ON HIS STOMACH" so we have tried everything to get Austin to sleep on his back. When he was first born he would sleep anywhere, but now hes getting older and starting to notice things. Along with this comes more curiosity. Well about a week ago he started to refuse sleeping on his back, so I would let him sleep on his stomach during the day when I was hovering. Well as you can tell John is exhausted b/c he doesn't get to nap during the day. So he is here when Austin will scream and cry b/c he's tired but every time we put him on his back he stays asleep for less than 15 minutes. Then we try again... over and over for HOURS. Finally I told John I'm tired of fighting Austin and I'm going to let him sleep on his stomach at night. John was appalled. I told him I would rather Austin get sleep even if its on his stomach than get no sleep at all. John still wasn't on board so I told him I'm going to sleep and you deal with Austin and try to get him to sleep on his back. See John isn't here all day to see me try over and over and I just can't do it anymore.
Last night Austin was awake from 6:40 pm until past midnight. Babies at Austin's age shouldn't be awake more than 2 hours at a time, so as you can see he was REALLY cranky. I got up to pump at midnight and I told John he should really put him on his stomach. John said, look at him his eyes are wide open he isn't sleepy. I reassured him that Austin was sleepy but now he is at the point where he is over tired and gets wired. As soon as John put him on his stomach he was out and slept for 5.5 hours! That is a record!
Anyway I feel like we are terrible parents for letting him sleep on his stomach, but it came down to sanity. So now he will be sleeping on his stomach during the day and at night. I'm reading a book by Marc Weissbluth about sleep habits for babies. Its really shed some light on what we have been seeing, although Dr. Weissbluth says for him to sleep on his back as well... Oh well there isn't anything we can do. Cranky baby=NO SLEEP for Tarver family.

Austin's Blow Out

A couple nights ago John was feeding Austin and Austin blew his britches out. I was in the other room pumping and John starts yelling. "Kim get in here NOW". I come running in and he is holding Austin up and John has poop all over his shorts! It was SO funny. Haha! Anyway I took Austin from him and John walked over to the trash can and thew his shorts away. I told him we could wash them, but he said it was too gross so he just threw them away!! HAHA! A couple days later it happened again, but not as bad, his shorts were salvaged. Only John...

Bongo Room

John's dad, Greg, is in town to see Austin. We went for a walk yesterday and had brunch at Bongo Room. They have these really gourmet pancakes. I had caramel apple pancakes with praline cream. Greg had red velvet pancakes and John had a skillet. You have to have something non sweet to counter all the sugar in the pancakes. It was SO good. It was 50 degrees outside and drizzly so I bundled Austin up. It was so funny! John kept saying you are putting too many clothes on him, but once we got outside I think Austin was the only one who was warm. I definitely didn't have enough clothes on! Here is a picture of Austin all bundled up in his carrier.

Austin Pictures

It's been a while...

Well Austin will be 3 weeks tomorrow. Time flies, but at the same time it feels like he has been here much longer. I don't know if that made any sense...
Well last week my parents were here. They were a HUGE help. Not only did they help with Austin but we also did some things around the house that needed to be done. We even rearranged the furniture in the living room.
This week I've been here by myself. I've had some melt downs and John has been late to work most days and left early. I hope they understand that we are new at this...haha!
So here are some updates on what has happened since I posted last:
1. Austin finally gained enough weight that we don't have to keep going to the ped. As of Tuesday he now weighs more than he weighed at birth. I'm sure one day we will look back and this and wonder how we could have been concerned that he wasn't gaining enough!
2. Breast feeding is HARD. I've been having a really hard time with it. I haven't given up yet, but have met with 2 lactation consultants + 1 in the hospital. I finally have enough milk that we don't have to give him formula anymore, but I'm still pumping a lot and giving him a bottle. Hopefully this will end soon so I'm not tied to my pump every couple hours!
3. I gave Austin his first bath in his bath tub. Guess what...he peed and pooped in it! Haha. Anyway that was an experience, and I did it by myself so you can imagine how difficult that was.
4. Austin has started to sleep in his bassinet at night, he doesn't sleep through the night, but at least we don't have to always hold him.
5. John and I continue to have trouble being able to tell when he is going to pee on us or himself when we change his diaper. We go through SO many clothes and changing pad covers.
6. He is starting to get a little more control of his head, but by no means has full control.
7. He is smiling more now. Also he loves his hands. He touches everything and is constantly trying to feel things. He even grabbed onto my glasses with a death grip yesterday. I'm sure he didn't know what he was holding but still it caught me by surprise.
8. John HATES cloth diapers! Haha! We are using a diaper service that we prepaid for, but I still keep finding Austin in disposable diapers. Oh well, he will get the hang of it eventually.
9. I have started to leave the house more. At first I couldn't because I couldn't carry the car seat carrier with him in it up and down the stairs. Now we just need to get more of a schedule down so we can go for walks outside.
10. I've lost 30 of my 45 lbs!! I hope the next 15 come off as easily...
I have taken some pictures and will post some later. Austin is waking up, so gotta go.

Sleep...finally

Well John and I FINALLY got more than 3-5 hours of sleep last night! We noticed when we went to the doctor on Thursday that Austin will sleep in his car seat. So, at 10:45 last night we put him in it. John rocked him in the car seat and he fell asleep. We put him at the foot of our bed and went to sleep. I woke Austin up at 2 this morning and fed him. Then I went to bed and John worked on getting him back to sleep. It took about an hour, which I think is ok since it took me an hour to feed him. John got him back to sleep and then I woke him up again to feed, but this time to my surprise it was 7:45 this morning! Jeez he never even woke us up to change or feed him. That was a very welcome change of events. We still try to put him down in the bassinet or pac n play during the day, but he still wakes up about 2 minutes after we put him down. This means we will probably be doing the car seat again tonight.
Grandma and Grandpa Dahir are coming next week. I hope we have this worked out by the time they get here, but at least we have a system down so we won't be up all night.

First Check Up

Austin had his first week check up yesterday. We went to this pediatrician because of a referral. I loved her! An added bonus, she is from TX and went to UT Med school. When I found this out I knew it was meant to be :). He lost 2 more ounces since we left the hospital. That's a total of 10 ounces since he was born. She said this was normal. His belly button was trying to fall off so she helped it along by putting a chemical on it, it fell off this morning! She said he was in perfect condition. We go back next week for a 2 week check up.

Austin pictures

Austin and John havig tummy time.
Waiting to leave the hospital
A few hours old
Right after I gave birth.

Just after he was born

Bath time

We gave Austin his first bath today. We figured after he peed on himself twice yesterday and hadn't bathed since Sunday in the hospital that he needed one. Also, he really stinks! Haha! We thought he still had pee on him, but we gave him a bath, which he DIDN'T like until we massaged his head. He still stunk after. So we started smelling different body parts to see if we missed something. We found the source of the smell...his belly button. We don't think it is infected, but we are going to the pediatrician tomorrow so we will ask just to be sure.
On another note, we FINALLY were able to get him to sleep laying in the bassinet by himself. Granted it was at 5:30 pm and he only lasted about 1.5 hours, but we made progress at least. John and I still took advantage of it and napped when he did. We just hope he sleeps better tonight!

A note about mom: my feet and ankles are SO swollen!! OMG my ankles are growing ankles. I've tried icing my feet and drinking more, but I guess it just takes time for the swelling to go down. Besides that and being a little uncomfortable at the deliver site, I'm doing well. Of course this is because John is here to help me, I can't imagine having to do this on my own. I'm so glad his company gave him a week off and didn't make him use his vacation time. I'm going to get his diaper bag ready for our doctor appointment tomorrow. Wish me luck, I've never packed a diaper bag before :)

How we are doing...

We brought Austin home from the hospital on Monday (Labor Day) at 5 pm. We planed to leave around 12, but we are starting to realize we are on someone else's time now. John and I have been living on very little sleep. Austin sleeps during the day and is up at night. We are working on changing this around.
He is a big eater and so we had to start supplementing with formula, about killed me the first time we gave it to him but he didn't seem to mind. My milk started coming in last night so I think we are done with formula for now. John and I were going crazy trying to stay up with each other, but we implemented a new system last night that I think might work better. I slept from 10 pm until 1:45 am and then we switched. It is 5:30 am now and John is asleep. I am SO glad he stayed home with me this entire week. We are really starting to work out some kinks. We are still having a problem getting him to sleep on his own. He literally will not fall asleep AND stay asleep unless one of us is holding him. This has been kind of brutal to hold him for 24 hours a day, but we are trying to work through this. I think he will be over this soon. He just wants to be held because its a new world out there and he was used to being carried in the womb.
John has been so helpful. I have had a lot of swelling and been in lots of pain since I gave birth. He has picked up the slack and has been so wonderful. I couldn't ask for him to do anything better. He lets me sleep and will stay up with Austin whenever I need it. He also has changed most diapers b/c we are currently using the pack n play and my back is still so sore from the epidural and I can't bend over. All in all it is going really well and we are so blessed that I had such an easy delivery and we have a healthy baby. I will try to post some pictures later. We are both in love with Austin and cannot get enough of him! Got to go change a diaper, post more later.

What Austin has taught me so far

Austin has only been here 4 days and I have already learned so much:

1. What instintaneous love is.
2. I'm much stronger than I ever believed.
3. There is nothing better than watching my son in John's arms.
4. John is an EXCELLENT support person, has not complained once.
5. The human body is an amazing thing.
6. I can go without sleep and function when it is for someone who needs me more than I need sleep.
7. 1 little mam can bring down 2 adults pretty quickly.
8. It takes 3 Tarvers to change a really dirty diaper (Kim, John, and Austin).
9. When changing a diaper with pee in it, he can still pee on his face (this happened twice today).
10. I love to watch him breastfeed. Knowing what I can provide for him is all he needs is really special.
11. We still have LOTS to learn. Eveyday is a new adventure...

Austin's Arrival

Well here is how it happened. I woke up at 3:30 am on Saturday September 4th with mild contractions. Ive had these off and on for weeks so I didn't think anything about it. At 4 am I woke John up because I figured since it was a weekend he could wait through them with me. Much to my surprise at 4:30 my water broke. John was still uncertain that it had but I kept telling him trust me. Anyway, I started walking around with a towel between my legs and about 5 am we called the doctor just to see when we should go to the hospital. He said we should come down but we wanted to wait a little longer. John still didn't believe I was in labor. In fact when I hung up he said you didn't ask any specifics about your water breaking. I was a little irritated, I'm like I didn't pee in my pants, what else would it be??
So about this time I decide to eat some cereal since they told us at the hospital they won't feed you until after you deliver a baby. I had John keeping track of my contractions, they were coming pretty fast. So we finished packing the bag with our day to day toiletries and he called a taxi. Even at 5:30 we had to wait for one to get there. I was worried about going down 4 flights of stairs so we went ahead and went down and waited outside for the taxi. Good thing we did, I lost my breakfast on the sidewalk outside our condo building! My contractions were coming pretty fast so John ran down to the corner and flagged down a taxi. We told him not to drive like crazy because he wasn't coming in the next 20 minutes.
We get to the hospital about 5:45 am and we went to triage. This is where they evaluate you to see if I am actually in labor. While we are waiting John says "You aren't in labor. We will be home by dinner!" OMG I wanted to strangle him. I'm in so much pain but he always says I'm a weenie, he didn't even believe the two towels I had soaked through...
In triage I start asking for an epidural within the first 20 minutes, I was in so much pain. They checked to see how far dilated I was and I was at 6.5 cm already, but they said they didn't give epidurals in triage...UGGGGGGGG.
So we had to wait for my labor and delivery room to be ready. That was the WORST wheel chair ride of my life! I get to labor and delivery and I start in again pretty quickly, WHERE IS MY EPIDURAL. They inform me that I'm second in line and will get mine once someone else gets theirs. The meanest Kim you have EVER met came out. I was getting contractions every minute or 2 and every time I would yell WHERE IS MY EPIDURAL. Same response every time...FINALLY the anesthesiologist gets there. I have NEVER seen anyone walk so slow in my life. I couldn't believe it, I mean I'm in REAL pain here. Then she says I need to tell you the side effects and have you sign some paper work. REALLY???? Why did I sign all this electronic paperwork already?? It was all the same questions over and over, so finally we are done and she said she has to look at my chart on the computer. Then she says, well the computer is frozen. I about LOST it. I even said some explicatives. John had to leave the room and they put the epidural in. She waited until I had a contraction before the needle went in, so you can imagine how well this was going...
Anyway after I had my drugs I was normal Kim. Of course this is when the nursing staff changed! So I apologized over and over to the original nursing staff who had "mean Kim". They checked again and said I was still 6.5 cm dilated. This was about 7:30 am or so. The doctor comes in and says you still have 2-3 hours of pushing ahead of you once we hit 10 cm. This is average for most moms. I'm like OMG I'm starving because I lost my breakfast, we have a long way to go. I told him, well I already feel like I should be pushing. He was like, Oh lets check. Much to his and everyone elses surprise I was at 10 cm and so they got me set up and I started pushing. I pushed for about an hour. Austin was born at 11:05 am on September 4th. He weighed 7 lbs 9 oz. Even the doctor was shocked that he wasn't at least 8 lbs because his head was so big. I said, well he got John's head haha. Anyway John cut the chord, in one try and then they dried him off. Then they had to stitch me up because I had some tearing. We stayed in labor and delivery until about 1 pm and Austin was awake the entire time. We then went to our postpartum room. We have an AMAZING view of Lake Michigan. Austin has been the best baby. Barely cries, sleeps a lot, and we have gotten much better at breastfeeding. We are all doing well and can't wait to go home tomorrow.

38 Week Picture

Here is my 38 Week picture. As you can see, I'm READY to have this baby. I wish he was as ready as me :)

Car Seat

Did you know 7 out of 10 car seats are installed incorrectly?? I was so shocked when we heard this at our Infant CPR/Choking/Safety class. Also was shocked to find out the hospital doesn't check this for you when you take your baby home. We found out that in most cities the fire stations will check your car seat for you, but not in Chicago. The police station does it in Chicago. So after calling about 5 times I finally got a hold of someone and we had it installed last week. We couldn't put it in the middle like I wanted because the seat won't fit in the back with the front seats how we currently have them. We had to put it behind the passenger seat, which means every time I'm in the passenger seat my knees are crammed into the dashboard. I think it is dangerous how close I have to sit. (By the way I sit in the passenger seat about 85% of the time since I rarely drive).
I've been telling John since I got pregnant that we need a bigger car. He never believed me, but I picked him up from the train the other day. He sat in the car for literally a mile in the passenger seat and now he realizes I'm right. So we started looking yesterday for an affordable bigger car. We want to get it for about what we can sell our civic for. I think we might have to get a minivan! AHHHHHHHHH! I always told John I would never be one of THOSE moms, but I guess I might have to change my tune. I would rather have a minivan than my knees shoved in the dashboard... We will see if we actually get a bigger car, but I'm sure hoping so.

New Church Building

Yesterday was our first church service in our new building. It is still in a loft building, so a little different than most people probably would think, but we are SO excited about it. Do you know what the best part is...CENTRAL AIR!!!!! Our old building didn't have central air and I literally puked last week at church I got so hot. The second best part...A WOMEN'S BATHROOM IN THE CHURCH. Our other building you had to walk to the 4th floor to use the bathroom. We had a luncheon after service and I made cupcakes and sopapilla cheesecake. The cupcakes were a new recipe and they turned out really good.
We are so blessed to find such a wonderful church. John helped them move in on Saturday and I stayed home and baked.

Swelling

Well it is getting to the time in my pregnancy where no matter what I do my legs, feet and ankles are swollen. Thankfully I work at a company that allows me to work from home. This is my first full week at home and it couldn't have come at a better time. So everyday I work sitting in the couch with my feet propped up and my water next to me. Once we get our new reclining couch today, it will be even easier to prop my feet up!

Smoque

We went to Smoque last night to say good bye to my friend Kristal. She is engaged now and is moving to Minneapolis. She will no longer be in Chicago, but her sister is staying. Anyway we had a great time. Smoque has the best TX bbq we have been able to find in Chicago. In fact I ordered WAY too much just so I could eat it for lunch today too. I'm eating it right now as I write this, it is SO good. I knew we were going and have been looking forward to it for weeks. I decided a week ago what I would get: brisket, TX sausage, beans, cornbread, and peach cobbler. Smoque was featured on Drive Ins, Diners and Dives (or whatever that show is called). So it is a complete dive, every time we go there is a line out the door. You wait in line to place your order then go sit down. There is only room for 45 people to sit, and they squeeze you in there. Well when it was my turn to order, I placed my order and they were OUT of peach cobbler!! OMG I was so sad. They have the best peach cobbler we have found here, the only thing its missing is some ice cream (blue bell of course). Anyway, so I got mac n cheese instead because this place is so small the only kind of potatoes you can get are french fries and there is just something WRONG with getting french fries with bbq! The midwest people we went with do not see anything wrong with it so they all got french fries... WEIRDOS! Haha!!

36 weeks 3 days Pictures

36 Week Appointment

Well I had my 36 week appointment today. I had a growth sonogram to see how big he is. Well after she took lots of "pictures" and took lots of measurements they told me he weighs 7 lbs. I don't know how accurate they are with this number, but JEEZ. I still have a little under 4 weeks left until my due date. Most of my friend's have had babies that were that big and they were at 39 or 40 weeks. The doctor basically said if I go to term he would be AT LEAST 9 lbs... I thought they might push my due date up, but no such luck. I'm hoping he comes over Labor Day. My doctor is also on call over Labor Day so that would be nice.
Besides how big he is everything is fine. He had a good heartbeat and he is head down. Also, you could definitely tell he was a boy this time HAHA! He isn't down into my pelvis yet, so we still have some time before he is ready. Also I was dilated 1 cm. I told John we should pack my hospital bag this weekend just in case. It doesn't hurt to be prepared :). John is going out of town next week for business for two days, so Austin has to stay in at least one more week. I would probably kill John if Austin came and he was out of town.
That's pretty much all that's going on. I'm now working from home until he comes, going into the office was getting to be too much of a chore. I can't wait for my new couch to get here on Tuesday. I think I will sleep in it the first night :).

Christmas Travel

Well its already that time of year again...time to book our Christmas travel. John and I always book early. I'm not a person who likes to search every day and try to wait it out for the best deal. I just want to get it done and move on it with it. So we booked our plane tickets today. I figured we should do it while we don't have much going on.
Austin and I will be in Dallas for 20 days. If you want to see us let me know and I will tell you the exact dates. I'm a little nervous about flying with and infant AND that I will have to do it by myself the first time. I'm sure it will go fine and even if he screams the entire way, its only 2.5 hours :). I just don't want to be one of THOSE people. Oh well... we are going to be on his schedule by then and I'm sure we have a lot of changes in store for us.
If anyone wants to get together, let me know. We will try to see as many people as possible.

Update on this week

I wanted to give a quick update on what we have been up to. John is feeling much better. He went to the doctor on Monday night and got something for his sinus infection. He ended up staying home on Tuesday, but was much better by yesterday.
We are looking to refinance our house since interest rates have dropped so much. We have a meeting on Saturday with a guy we are going to refi through. I didn't want to do this AND couch shopping because they are in suburbs on opposite sides of Chicago. Yesterday I drove to work, it is just too hot here. I know you are judging this Texan, but we have been having heat index over 100 and with all the walking I have to do its too much for this pregnant lady. Anyway, at work I didn't have much to do so I left at 3:30 and drove out to get John at work so we could go couch shopping by his office. WE FOUND ONE!! We went to La-z-boy, Carson Pirie Scott Furniture Gallery (a department store), and Ashley Furniture. At each store we found one we liked, but at Carson's they had the floor model of the one we liked marked at 55% off. The couch at La-z-boy was more comfortable, but it was also $1000 more. We just couldn't do that because the one at Carson was VERY comfortable as well. So we will be getting a new Lane reclining couch on the 24th. Unfortunately they couldn't deliver it to our house any sooner :(. Oh well, that's something else we can mark off our list of things to do before Austin comes!

New Couch

It has come to the time in our married life where we are going to buy our first NEW couches ever! Yay! Its a little scary though since I've never bought a new couch before and we want something that will last. The couches we have now we bought from Allyson and Jeff when we still lived in Wichita. They have been great couches, but we want something that reclines. We are going to the suburbs to look. We were going to go today, but John has some type of head cold, so we are going to go next weekend. We are buying them with the points from our credit card. We might just replace the big couch and keep the small couch we have. I'm not sure yet. I want to get something nice and we have a budget so we might only be able to get one for now, but that's ok because the love seat barely ever gets used.

Cloth Diapers

I looked online today and found a diaper service in the Chicago area. What surprised me the most is there is only one I could find. Chicago is such a "green" city I can't believe there aren't more options. We are going to go with Bottoms Up Diaper Service. They deliver the diapers to our house once a week and pick up the dirty ones. You don't even have to rinse the diapers out. The cheapest way would still be for us to wash them ourselves, but after we found out we weren't getting a washer and dryer I decided it would be best to have a service. I'm going to call them tomorrow and get us set up. I will let everyone know how it goes. The only thing I don't like is you don't get to choose what kind of diaper you use. From the info I saw online it looks like they have one option. Oh well, less decisions to make!

NO to washer and dryer

Abt came by today to give us a quote on what it will take to put the tankless water heater, washer, and dryer in our condo. As we are talking to them they are adding to the cost left and right. Talking about drilling a hole in the roof, re wiring electricity, re wiring gas,... Then what I thought was the worst news of all came out. The guy's that came were plumbers and so they called an electrician to see how much it would cost to add another electricity line from our breaker box into the utility closet. While he was on the phone he explained what we were trying to do. We heard him say "Oh I see" and we couldn't tell if it was a good thing or bad thing. Then he hung up the phone and said the manufacturer will not allow us to stack a front loader washer and dryer on any floor above the first unless the floor it will be on is concrete. Of course we don't have concrete, so basically we would have to get the crappy washer/dryer that come stacked already. We had one of those in our downtown condo and we could barely do six shirts at once.
One of the other things the plumbers were concerned about was whether or not we had enough gas to power all the appliances in our house once we add the tankless water heater and dryer into the mix. John took the guys to the basement so they could see our gas supply. While down there they determined that if we did put the tankless water heater in we WOULD NOT have enough gas power. That was the real kicker right there. There are tankless water heaters that are electric but we would run into the same problem with the amount of electricity it requires and the gas ones work much better.
Basically there are options we could do to get a washer and dryer without removing our water heater. We could take out our half bath and put in a washer and dryer, but we would still have to re-wire and drill a hole in the roof to vent out the dryer. We could also get really small stack-able and put it in the closet with the water heater, but again we would have to drill a hole in the roof and it would be really tight and we don't think it would be safe. Basically after going through all the options we decided if we can't get a tankless water heater and we can't get the front loaders, then it isn't worth doing...

Washer/Dryer Update

We drove out to the suburbs today to go to the one store, Abt, that sells a tank less hot water heater in the Chicagoland area. Traffic was SO bad and the money was burning a hole in our pocket. I already had everything picked out, we just had a couple questions left to answer. We went to talk to the people about the tank less water heater first. OMG, the instillation cost more than the water heater AND there are all these stipulations on where in your home you can put it. The more we talked to the salesman the more discouraged we got. I'm not sure if we will even be able to do it! We scheduled a free home estimate for Thursday. They are going to come out and let us know whether or not we are able to put this in or not. The problem is we live in a condo and I'm not so sure our condo association is going to let us put a hole in the roof. I guess we will just have to wait and see.
Even though we didn't get the news we wanted to hear, I really recommend Abt to anyone. I'm not sure if they are in other cities or not. It was HUGE and they sold everything home appliance/electronic you can think of. The sales man were also very knowledgeable, which will make me come back anytime. There is nothing worse than going to a store and the staff can't tell you anything about what they sell.
We found out that if we are able to put the tank less water heater in our condo that we will be able to get FULL SIZE front loader washer and dryers and have them stacked!!! I'm so excited, so I'm hoping Thursday goes well :).

Birth class

Today we took our birthing class. It was from 8:30 - 4:30. We chose to do the all day class instead of breaking it up over multiple days. This is because of John's work schedule. The classes that spanned multiple days started during the week at 5 pm. John cannot make it to downtown by 5 pm, be probably couldn't even make it by 7 pm. So we decided to do the all day class.
The class was good. I had heard we would have to watch a birthing video so I had psyched myself into thinking it would be awful. It actually wasn't as bad as I thought. It wasn't traumatizing at all! Haha! We ate in the cafeteria at the hospital. I wouldn't call it hospital food, but it wasn't that great either. I found out that when I deliver the hospital offers room service for the mom. So I will get good food and John will have to eat the cafeteria food or take out from somewhere near by.
After the class we were pretty tired so we are just hanging out at the house tonight doing nothing. Tomorrow we are going to Abt, a Chicago area electronic store, to pick out our washer and dryer! Yay!

Work Shower

Everyone at my office surprised me with a baby shower today. It was so nice! They threw it during lunch and served pizza, watermelon, and cake. I don't have any pictures since I wasn't expecting it so I didn't take my camera. We got a Dallas Cowboys onesie and blanket! I'm going to John's office on Thursday for a shower at his office. Busy week!

32 Week picture

Here is a picture John took of me today. I'm 32 weeks and 5 days.

32 Weeks

I'm 32 weeks this week. I went to the doctor yesterday and Austin is measuring 36 weeks. He keep growing faster than he should and has since the beginning. The doctor was a little concerned by how big he is but they don't know much until I have a sonogram. My next sonogram is scheduled for August 20, when I'm 36 weeks. They will determine at that time whether we need to schedule him to come early or if we should just wait it out.
We went to our first class at Northwestern today. It was called Newborn Basics. I think it really helped. We learned some things that I never thought about and its also just comforting. We got to practice on a baby doll. John changed his first diaper :). Haha!

Caravan Beads

Yesterday I took a class called "Beadgirl Boot Camp". We made a necklace, bracelet and earrings using different methods. I even put the loops on the wire that attach the bracelet beads together. It was very interesting. I definitely think this is something I'm interested in continuing to do, but will need more classes. At Caravan Beads, where I took the class, they offer free classes on every Saturday. You only have to pay for the supplies.
I found this place on Group On. For those of you that don't know what Group On is, you need to. It is awesome! I get an email everyday about the Group On of the day. It is something different everyday, sometimes its restaurants, clothing stores, golf lessons,... you name it. Each vendor puts what the price of what they are "auctioning" off and it is usually at least 50% off the original price. The Group On is "on" when the threshold has been met. So each vendor will say that once a certain number of whatever they are selling has been bought then it is officially on, this is when I get an email. Alot of times it is something I'm not interested in so I just delete the email. The other Group On's I've done are 50% off a spa pedicure, 70% off a haircut at a hair salon, the bead class, and a Chocolate Tour in the city. Group On is available in most major cities. I recommend it!
Here are some pictures of what I made:

Dreaded Stretch Marks

Up until last week I had zero stretch marks. All the sudden this week they are popping up everywhere!! I've been using cocoa butter the entire pregnancy, I just think he is growing fast right now and my skin can't keep up. Right now they are on my hips and lower abdomen, so most likely won't be visible unless I wear a skimp bikini after I give birth...haha yeah right!
I'm hoping that they don't keep coming, but oh well I guess if you are going to get them there isn't much you can do...still it is frustrating.

No Texas... :(

We found out yesterday that John will not be getting the job in Dallas that he applied for with his company. They said he did a very good job interviewing but they went with someone who had more experience. This just means we will have to wait a little longer to move back. There aren't any other positions open at this time with John's company in Dallas, but we are still hoping there will be another one soon.
Austin will definitely be born in Illinois...I'm having a harder time with this than I thought. It pains me a little that he won't be a "true" Texan, but there are much worse things in life :).

31 Weeks

I'm 31 weeks as of yesterday. Only 9 left!

Baby's now the size of a squash!
Baby's going through major brain and nerve development these days. His irises now react to light, and all five senses are in working order. (He won't pick up anything from his nose until after birth, though -- smell is transferred through air, not amniotic fluid.)

Weeks 29-32 (Month 7): Squash

Average size: 15.2-16.7 inches, 2.5-3.8 lb.

Erin and Ross: Sunday

Today we went to the Field Museum. I had a wheelchair again :). John tried to get me a small wheelchair. When I went to sit down in it my hips barely fit and then we realized that it was a kids wheelchair. The only other size they had was huge, so we had to use it. Then we went to Chinatown and had dim sum. Then we finished off the night with Navy Pier. Here are some pictures.



As you can see, Drue juiced me :).

Erin and Ross

Erin and Ross got here on Thursday. They took the Amtrack from Dallas to Chicago. It was a 23 hour train ride. They brought Drue, their 3 month old. I picked them up at Union Station and we rode the bus home. Then John, Erin and Ross went to see Jack Ingram at Joe's bar down the street. I stayed home with Drue. She is the BEST baby! Never cries. You wouldn't even know she was with us sometimes.
On Friday we went to the Mag Mile, Millennium Park, Willis Tower (Sears Tower), and then came home. We had Giordano's for lunch. You should have seen Erin and Ross's face when they brought out the deep dish pizza! It was great.
Today we went to the Planaterium, Shedd Aquarium, and went to eat Indian food for dinner at this place walking distance to our house. It just opened a couple months ago and we heard it was good. Erin LOVES Indian food so I knew they had to go while they were here. John had never had real Indian food before and really liked it. Everyone liked it but me, which I have tried Indian food about 5 times and I just don't like it. I had Nan, which is the bread for dinner. Its my favorite part! I walked so much yesterday that we got me a wheel chair today at the Aquarium! It was AWESOME!
Here are some pictures:

Erin about to eat her first bite.
Me in the wheelchair. I was giving John some practice.
Drue and I
John, Erin and Ross at the concert
John and I with the skyline behind us.
Erin and I at "The Bean"
All of us at Giordano's.