Last week

My mom was in Chicago all last week. The unfortunate thing is that it was SO cold! On Friday the high was 10. We stayed in our condo most of her trip and spent time together. We also organized my condo, which seems like a never ending process. We have too much stuff and not enough space! We went to the Science and Industry Museum on Thursday with one of my friends who is a member to the museum. We saw the Jim Henson exhibit. Austin was a good boy so I think we will do it again. We were only gone for a couple hours, but it was nice to get out. Austin has started eating baby cereal. He LOVES rice! I have to mix rice with oatmeal and barley to get him to eat it. He gags so bad and throws up as soon as he tastes that oatmeal or barley is in his mouth, its so funny.
I've been talking to John about us planning a family vacation. My idea was to go to Niagara Falls. John said if we went he would like to take the train. I think I'm going to start planning the trip so we go. I'm thinking June or July so I have plenty of time to get Austin a passport.
I wasn't feeling well today so John stayed home with us. It has been SO nice. He is going to spend the evening doing laundry because when we tried to do it over the weekend the pipes were frozen. Living in the Midwest can be a real pain in the winter! We go to our first play group for Austin and I tomorrow. I think it will be really fun, and it gets us out of the house.

Sleep

Austin has been sleeping through the night or only waking up once for a while now. The only problem was he would go down at midnight and sleep until noon or later. I called him my frat boy!! I was hoping that this would just work itself out, but it didn't. Thursday of last week I started waking Austin up at 10 am, then Friday at 9:45 am, ... by Sunday Austin had revolted and didn't go to bed until 1:15 am. I was about to give up, but thought I would stick it out. Sunday morning I woke him up at 8 am. I HATE waking him up, I don't want to deprive him of sleep, but we had to do something. This had been going on for at least 2 months. John was exhausted from staying up until midnight and waking up at 5 every day. So Sunday night he went to sleep at 8:55!!! I could not believe it. Monday he went down at 7:50 pm and Tuesday he went down at 7. He's been waking up around 10pm to eat and then goes back down until morning. I'm so glad we finally got this worked out. Its still a work in progress, but I've stopped waking him up and have let him sleep when hes tired and wake up when hes done. Austin is a good sleeper and he sleeps a lot still.
On another note, he STILL hasn't rolled over. We try to work on it, but the minute I put him on his stomach when hes awake he screams his head off. I keep thinking if he gets mad enough he will try to roll over, but that hasn't been the case. Yesterday we signed up for a weekly play group at Little Gym. My friend Ashley and I are going together with our babies. Her daughter is 6 weeks older than Austin. I'm really glad we did this. It means we will at least leave the house once a week. Its been so cold and we've had some snow so we haven't been able to leave much. The general rule I've heard from my friends is that Austin shouldn't go out if its below 20. Well sometimes a week can go by and we don't get above 20. That hasn't happened yet this year, but its been kind of mild.
My mom, Dodie, is coming on Monday for a week! We are so excited. I have a list of things I want to do while shes here. I've already done some things that I've been putting off. Like putting pictures in Albums. I'm only pumping 3 times a day now, so when Austin is sleeping I can now do something besides pump or eat.
On Sunday Austin is going to be a part of the baby dedication ceremony at our church. There were 5 babies born last year! I know that doesn't sound like anything special, but our church doesn't have more than 35 people in it. So 5 new babies is a lot!

Some photos from the past month

Look at my belly!
Go Mavs
Katy and I at a Mavs game
Kerri, Kirsten, Amy, Kristen, Sophie and I
Kee and I
Our family on Christmas
I'm teething
Happy New Years!
I'm a chunk
MMMMMM teething ring
Austin and I
I had to wear this at my family's gag gifts
Erin, Ross, Drue, Leila, Austin, Mom and I
Allyson, Sadie, Tripp, Austin and I
Mom, Dad and Austin on one of our first nights in Dallas.

We are back

Austin, John and I have been back in Chicago for a week. It has been pretty chilly. The morning we left Austin started to develop a really deep cough. We were getting concerned so Austin and I went to his pediatrician last week. When I went they weren't sure what he had so they did an on the spot test for a Respiratory virus, the flu, and then if both of those came back negative they were going to test him for whooping cough. He didn't have the respiratory virus so they came back and tested him for the flu. It came back positive, so we started him on tamiflu for 5 days twice a day. He never developed a fever and the cough went away! I was so happy. John and I have been on tamiflu as well just to make sure we didn't get it too, even though we had our flu shots.
That's pretty much all we have done since we've been back. This week we should have more to write about. The problem is ever since John got me an I-touch I never get on the computer. I will have to make a better effort to blog.

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 :)