This is how we tailgate...

  Your first iowa vs iowa state rivalry game....Iowa vs Iowa State. 9/14/13

In Ames. 5:30pm kickoff. 

Saw the Shehan's & Cristi Setchell. 

You were a champ even though you were fighting your first cold. 

We accidentally let you get your first sunburn on your cheeks. 

After the tailgate we went over to your Aunt Amy's house. 

You were the halftime entertainment. 

You showed off your tricks -- rolling from your back to your stomach --- and then a new one. Eating your toes. 

Green Beans

Jensen, we gave you your first "real" food tonight (it's hard to call puréed green beans real food, but it's more real than milk). The doctor said we should probably start with veggies and wait 3 days after introducing a new food before  adding another. He didn't mention anything about rice cereal but it seems like lots of people start with that so we bought some of that when be bought you green beans. 

Your dad was very excited about first giving you the green beans. You ate 5 or 6 bites and made some pretty hilarious faces. And then you coughed/gagged and puked. Oops. We put the green beans away and gave you a bath. For your bottle just before bed we added a little bit of the rice cereal and you didn't seem to care. Maybe we should have worked up to the green beans...

P.S.  I set your high hair up without any help from your dad. I hope I did it right! :) 

Nap time smiles

You make the silliest faces when you wake up from a nap. I need to video tape it sometime. You go from mad to upset to confused to happy. But it absolutely melts my heart when you smile when you see me. 

This is from waking up after your nap today (8/24/13). You can't see it but your onesie says I Love My Mommy.  :) 

3 months old

You are growing so fast. You just started rolling over (both directions) and you are able to sit up for a few seconds by yourself too (you balance your belly on your thighs). You are the happiest when your diaper is being changed. You kick your legs like crazy, smile big and giggle. Sometimes when your dad cleans your neck rolls (yes, you have rolls there and we purposefully have to clean them so that you don't get smelly) you chuckle -- it's deeper than your giggle, more if a hehehe. It's cute. Your hair is still falling out (I can see them on your sheet)- but the sides are coming in. I love holding you when you're sleeping. You're all soft and cuddly. When you're awake you are very independent. You like playing in your jumperoo and when we have the tv on you're always trying to turn your head to watch it. Dad thinks that its funny to let you watch, but I usually turn you around or take you to play in your bedroom. You just started to become more interested in books - you actually look at the pictures now. You are becoming very vocal. Nothing discernible - just lots of noise. It's so fun to have conversations with you. I ask you about your day and you will talk and talk. Many of these conversations happen on the changing table. You just really love it there :) 

Day Care Day 1

You started at your new official (but temporary) daycare provider today -- Kristy. She has 3 kids of her own - 1 girl and 2 boys. She's going to watch you until a spot at a daycare center in town opens up. Apparently all the moms with kids in the center are having more kids so we keep getting bumped. But I like Kristy and you seemed to too. You didn't sleep much during the day -- so many new people and places. And now you are completely exhausted and sleeping the evening away. (I'm kinda sad that you're sleeping - I miss playing with you.)

Too much fun

You were having fun playing. I went into the kitchen and washed out your bottles. I came back and you were asleep.

Letters to Jensen

Changing it up... It's hard to find time to blog ... Or do much of anything g right now. But I realize I do want to record memories of these early days with Jensen so that he knows more about his life - from his Momma's perspective. So most of the post will now be written more like letters to the little guy. Then I can print off the posts and make them into a memory book to read later. 

Jensen's 1st Day Trip

We went on our first (day) road trip this weekend. Matt's cousin Josie graduated from high school this year, so the main purpose of the trip was to attend her party. But since we were headed east on  I-80 we decided to make a couple additional stops. 

Wendy and Kyle had baby Haylee five weeks before we had Jensen. We stopped by their home in Kalona to finally meet her and introduce Jensen. 

Then we stopped by BackPocket Brewery. Stacy met us there and got to see how much Jensen had grown in 2 weeks since she saw him at the hospital. We didn't stay long - just long enough for Matt to enjoy a seasonal beer in his mug (and I enjoyed a root beer). 

Then we headed up to Shueyville for the grad party. I didn't get a pic of the grad, but did take one of Jensen and Aunt Lindsey. 

Overall it was a fun day - a bit chaotic with feedings, pumping and diaper changes, and it kinda zapped our energy, but we survived. :) 

It's a boy!

Jensen Thomas arrived on May 22nd at 6:55pm. He was 7lbs 5.9oz and 19.5 inches. There's so much to say about his birth but its going to take awhile to get my thoughts down. Short story is that he wasn't quite ready to join us and his transition to life outside the womb was a little rough. But thankfully after a couple of days he was fine. 

Thanks Liz for taking such beautiful photos of our baby! www.lifeinyellow.com 

Nursery delays...

It is now April 10th and we still have no floors in our bedroom or the nursery. The carpet was supposed to be in by now. Matt went through the entire order process with a gal at Lowes back on March 19. Around March 28 Matt talked to a guy at Lowes who told us the carpet had been delivered to Lowes and the install crew would be calling soon. When we hadn't heard from the install crew last week and we couldn't get someone on the phone at the store, Matt went in and cornered someone in the flooring department. "It doesn't show that any carpet has been ordered." WHAT!?!?!?!?!? 

It's probably best for that lady at Lowes that Matt was handling this. If I would have been there I probably would have been crying and screaming. Apparently people straight up lied to us. They gave us a discount but Matt's not one to make a fuss so there certainly wasn't any crying or yelling going on. The carpet has now been reordered and should "be here in a couple weeks". Install should only take a day, so hopefully we won't have to wait long once it actually arrives at lowes.

I realize that the baby doesn't really need much when it's born. We have a pack and play that could be set up in the basement with us which should work. But I would feel so much more comfortable and ready if we could actually put up the crib in the nursery. I'm 35 weeks today and the doctors said that if I go into labor anytime after 35 weeks, they won't stop it. And while I realize most first time mom's go 41 weeks, because we're not ready yet, I feel like the baby is more likely to come early.

And I would really love to sleep in our 3-yr-old, queen-sized bed -- not the 20+ yr old, full-size bed in the basement.  (I know, I'm whining... I should just be grateful that we have a roof over our head and a safe place to bring baby home to. And that we are blessed enough to even be talking about bringing home a baby. I am very grateful, but just very frustrated too.) Ok, rant over...

Since my hope of having the nursery all put together has pretty much been dashed, I've been thinking about fun ways to customize it for a boy or girl once the little one arrives! Here are a few of my favorites right now...




Options are endless :)
http://www.etsy.com/listing/96827057/yellow-and-gray-nursery-wall-art-yellow?ref=shop_home_active

 

Instead of blue, thinking green for a boy and pink for a girl
http://www.etsy.com/listing/108809368/nursery-quote-print-8-x-10-print-baby?ref=af_you_favitem

  

Or at least we hope Gable will be their (first) best friend
(Can't actually buy on Etsy, just found it and love it)

 

Thinking white washed board and different colors of yarn
(sorry - I can't find the etsy link for this....)



How adorable, right?
http://www.etsy.com/listing/127649462/custom-name-wooden-letters-block-puzzle?ref=usr_faveitems



Walk it out

Last week Gable and I went on 4 walks together (plus a trip to the dog park). I'm pretty sure that is 4 more walks than occurred during the month of March. A couple factors - 1) Gable is finally better and we can't get away with not walking him 2) The snow/ice that was covering the trails at the park has finally disappeared so the risk of me falling on my butt is reduced 3) We finally have had some warm weather which just can't be ignored 4) The sun is out later so walking Gable after work is actually a possibility and 5) I had a low key weekend planned so I had plenty of time to walk him.

I don't anticipate that we will continue at this pace of 4 walks a week. (Weather man says colder temps with a chance of rain/snow is on the way plus next weekend is busier for me.) But hopefully we can continue taking a couple walks each week. While it wasn't much fun hauling my much larger self off the coach and bending over to tie my shoes - once we got started on the walk I actually felt pretty good (despite the constant heavy breathing and slower pace). At work I'm doing lots of quick two block sprints between meetings which have become increasingly more uncomfortable. So it's nice to know that my body doesn't mind the slower paced longer walks as much. I hope these can continue up until baby's arrival!

We made it to Exile...

One of my goals for 2013 was for Matt and I to go out and try new restaurants together. Well I FINALLY have one to report back on. (Well actually we've been to 2 in the last couple weeks but one of them PepperJax Grill shouldn't really count. It's like Pancheros but they serve Philly sandwiches instead.) So where did we FINALLY go??? Exile Brewing Co.

Matt had to take his car into the shop on Thursday so he ended up driving to work and then came back to pick me up. Exile is right downtown so it was easy to head there after work. It was much fancier than I expected a brewery to be but given the clientele it made sense. Lots of business people eating there and I know it's used for lots of networking/social events too. And while it was a little more upscale than I originally expected, those dressed in jeans still looked like they belonged.

My biggest disappointment was that the didn't have a house rootbeer, nor are they supporting other Iowa breweries by having one of theirs on tap. (However if I could drink, I would have been happy choosing a cocktail off their drink menu.) Matt decided to get a flight of their 4 staples... His favorite of the night was the Hannah.

We got the sweet potato fries for an appetizer. They were delish (and they still tasted great as leftover snacks)! For our main meals Matt got the Italian Stallion and I had the Mac & Cheese. We both liked our selections but I don't think they will make ou list of favorites. Good enough to go back but not so amazing that I won't want to try something else. We (and I really mean I) ordered a dessert to go. It was a chocolate mess of Oreo crust, rocky road ice cream, marshmallows, drizzled in chocolate and caramel. Very chocolately - which I've been all about lately :)

Another emergency trip to the vet

Gable hurt himself again this spring. Apparently he missed hanging out at the emergency vet hospital in Ames. Matt and Gable were out walking in the woods (the story starts the same) when Gable came running back to Matt with a bit of limp and a little bit of blood on his paw. Matt checked it out and it looked like he stepped on a rock or stick or something and it punctured his paw pad.  (Just like if a human stepped on a tack with bare feet.) Understandable it was sore but when Gable started acting weird a few hours later, Matt got concerned.

He took him up to the hospital to have him checked out. The doctors on call didn't see anything wrong -- just a puncture wound. They cleaned it out and gave him some antibiotics so that it wouldn't get infected.

Well a day and half later and Gable wasn't getting any better. Actually we noticed that when he woke up in the morning, his "wrist" was swollen. Back to the emergency room. They put Gable under and went in for surgery. They found a half inch thorn that had worked it's way up from his foot into his "wrist". They extracted it and bandaged him up. Doctors orders were to get him rest, keep him off his foot for awhile, and not to get his bandage wet. (Seriously someone needs to come up with a waterproof cast/bandage for dogs. Putting a sack over his paw everytime he goes outside to pee is sooo annoying.)

Thankfully Gable is all better now... and thankfully we have dog insurance on him. There were a couple rough days in there where Matt was freaking out about Gable's health (which then caused me to freak out) but this time he didn't have to be bandaged up as long as last years' incident.



swollen wrist/paw
(his left paw is the one he hurt - you can see that where his dewclaws were removed is where the swelling is noticeable)



all wrapped up
(Yes, Matt was thrilled that they wrapped Gable in camo tape each time)




all better
(just need the hair to grow in from where they shaved him for his iv)



love you Gable!

Baby Mack

Kelly & Joey had their baby back in December. He came a week early during a snow storm but was perfectly healthy. It also worked out well that he was early because Kelly wanted to spend as much time with him as she could before starting back at nursing school in January. Visiting Mack was so fun - he has the silliest expressions. And when is holding such a cute, adorable baby not fun. But this time, knowing that there's a baby growing inside of me, it's different holding a newborn. Still fun and exciting, but it caused my brain to start running a mile a minute with all sorts of questions and daydreaming.

Here is a week old ...

And here he is almost 3 months old...



I am so thankful that we're having Baby B around the same time as so many of our friends. Matt and I were ready so regardless that "all the cool kids were doing it" we would have been trying for Baby B anyway. But it is so much more fun that our friends are having babies too. While we won't be in the same school district -- Mack and Baby B will be in the same grade at school, just like Kelly and I. It's so fun thinking about them being friends! (Plus there are SOOO many other babies being born plus or minus a year of Baby B -- it's incredible!)   

Matt turns the big three oh! (And we get new floors!)

I had wanted to throw a party for Matt but he was against celebrating him turning 30. Not so much he doesn't want to turn 30... but rather he thinks it's not that big of a deal and definitely doesn't want to draw attention to himself. (oh, how differently we feel about birthdays!) So following his wishes I didn't plan anything. Looking back now, I'm so glad we didn't -- Matt's birthday weekend ended up being a bit of a mess. First neither of us were feeling well -- Matt was sick last week and then I was sick over the weekend. It was a headache / sinus pressure / congestion type of sick and we pretty much both just felt miserable.

But the other reason why it was a mess is because my birthday present was finally set to be installed on Matt's birthday. That's right - the year long hunt for new floors is finally over! I had been slowly working on clearing out the office to make way for the nursery, but last weekend (9th-10th) we really focused on emptying it out. Then during the week and throughout the weekend, we cleared EVERYTHING out of the main floor and moved it to the lower level or garage. Saturday night we had almost everything moved and went out to Flying Mango to celebrate Matt's bday with his parents, my parents and the siblings. (Just thinking about Flying Mango now makes my mouth water - so good!)

  

Happy 30th Birthday Matt!



On Sunday my parents came over and helped. Matt and my dad ripped up all the carpet (family room, hallway, 2 bedrooms) and pulled up 2 layers of linoleum in the kitchen. Apparently best practice says that you should pull up linoleum before placing down a new layer, but the last homeowners bucked the trend. So unfortunately for the boys they had an extra layer to scrap off, but fortunately for me, it was fun to see what the original floors looked like!



Original floors

I tried to capture a few pictures of all the craziness that was going on, but the pictures don't really seem to caputre how chaotic or messy it really felt. Maybe being 7 months pregnant just made it feel more chaotic and messy in the moment.


Garage -- plywood to go under the new floors, the pile of old carpet, temporary storage for our furniture



 

our "master" bedroom



empty nursery



A glimpse at the chaos in the basement



Oh - I forgot to mention... we decided to paint all the doors and door frames white. Matt took all the doors off their frames and applied 2 coats of primer to them and to the door frames. Then when my dad was there on Sunday he helped apply the glossy white top coat. In case you're curious, in the hallway we have 2 closet doors, a bathroom door and 2 bedroom doors and then there is an accordian door in each bedroom --- so 7 doors in total.



Dad applying the glossy white coat

Despite the craziness, we were able to get everything done prior to Matt's 30th birthday when the installation guys showed up! Matt spent his birthday supervising the crew, putting his feet up and keeping Gable calm. We found out from the install crew that the bedrooms aren't level and would either require a contractor to come in and level them before they could put in the pergo floors, or we could put in carpet instead. So when I got home from work, we went out to dinner in Ames at Old Main Brewery and then picked out new carpet. It's amazing to me what a deadline can do - It took us a LOOOONG time to pick laminate flooring that we liked, but because we HAD to make a decision right away about the carpet, we were able to pick one in an hour. haha!

Here's what we selected -- Very curious as to how it will look when we see more than 3 inches

It's still feels chaotic in the house since the bedrooms are awaiting carpet and we're sleeping in the basement. It's also super dusty because the bedrooms just have floor boards and every morning I track dirt/dust from that room (need to get to the closet) into the hallway which spreads throughout. Plus they made some of the flooring cuts in the house so there's pergo sawdust still lingering. Matt still needs to install the base boards but without futher ado... here are the new floors!!!