Father's Day, The Rash and The Bump

Love thinking of titles!!!

OK, so I totally intended on posting Father's Day as it's own post, giving it all the attention it truly deserves, however, the week got away from me and I didn't have even one second to get on the computer to post, so now it becomes a combined story with the other happenings of this week.

So, first things first - Father's Day, last Sunday.
We started the day off with giving Daddy his cards and presents. It's fun watching him have his hands full with two children in his lap. Thank goodness Hannah is so willing to help open his cards and presents for him!!

We got him a new golf shirt and a new phone. I finally gave in and let him get a new phone, with the data package, so luckily, he's no longer in the dark ages with me and can text using a qwerty keyboard and surf the internet from anywhere his little heart desires!!!

We all got dressed and headed out to meet Dad and Julia for breakfast. Here are Hannah and Nicholas in their new outfits. Nicholas' shirt says my dad is Awesome, Fun and The Best!!

We went to a new place and it was very good. Alexandris in Medina, very fast and great service, good breakfast food too! They got us a wagon for the kids!! It was great!

We were going to go to the zoo, but it was just too hot, so we decided to go to Swings-N-Things instead. Good idea, but maybe not so worth it once we got there. We had a great time and it was fun, but it's pretty overpriced for what they have available to do. Oh, well....it was Father's Day, so it was worth it! Hannah and Tony rode the bumper boats a few times.

We played a round of miniature golf

And then we did an arcade bowling to cool off.




We went to Verizon to pick out Tony's phone and then we headed home and grilled some sausage sandwhiches for dinner. Everyone got baths and we called it a day - a GREAT day! Happy Father's Day Tony! You're a great father and the kids are very lucky to have you!

Monday morning, I got a call from daycare at around 9:20 - not even a half hour after Tony dropped them off. I was sort of irritated at first because I didn't think there was anything wrong, but Val said I needed to come pick up Nicholas because they thought he was sick and they weren't comfortable keeping him there. When I got there around 9:30, he looked really rashy and I lifted up his shirt and he was covered all over in huge red welts - major case of hives. I realized he was allergic to something, but the problem was that I did 3 new things this past weekend, so how was I to figure out what it was? I took him back to work for a little while so I could finish some of the things I was working on and stopped at CVS to get him some benedryl. We got home around noon, I fed him and this is what he looked like then - the welts were mostly gone, and he was left with this rash.

He was acting totally normal and happy. I took him to the doctor around 2:45 that afternoon and by then, most of the rash had gone away on it's own (I didn't give him any benedryl). So it obviously was either the rice cereal, the formula (which I used to mix his rice cereal on Sunday) or the new baby Aveeno baby wash and lotion I used on him Sunday after his bath. The weird thing was that it took 14 hours for his reaction to come through. So the doc recommended going back to the old baby wash and starting the cereal the following weekend.

I decided to start with the formula first since I'm going to be needing it soon - my frozen milk stockpile is diminishing quickly! I gave him 2 ounces on Thursday night. He got a little rash, but not as bad as earlier in the week. I gave him another 2 ounces Friday night and he broke out again, still not as bad, but I'm beginning to think I've found the problem. We gave him 2 ounces of soy formula Saturday night and he seems totally fine. I am going to stick with the soy for about a week and then give him the other stuff next weekend and see what happens. I think that might be the problem, but I want to be sure. I'm hoping this may be something he outgrows - food allergies are no fun and I'm hoping if he has them, they won't be severe or a major problem. We'll see.

And now the story of the bump. Hannah had swimming lessons Saturday morning. I took her while Tony stayed home with Nicholas. I went back into the pool area when her class was over and was standing by the pool talking to someone about Nicholas's rash issue. All of a sudden, Josh gasped and I looked up and Hannah was climbing the stairs to the slide and had seemed to have fallen forward. She looked up at me and started to cry so I told her to come down the stairs. She instantly had a huge goose-egg bump with a dent in it on her forehead. The rec center people were great. They got an icepack and we sat in the first aid room and checked her out. They wanted to call the paramedics to check her out, which I didn't think was totally necessary, but they thought it was a good idea as a precautionary measure. They came and checked her and she seemed fine, so they left and told me what to watch for in case of a concussion. She had quite a bump and a bruise, but she was fine. I forgot to take a picture of it yesterday and today, it's really not that bad!

She and I went shopping for a birthday gift for Reese and she was doing OK, no headache, no feeling sick. We did some things around the house and she took a nap. She took a shower with me - her first shower!!! She's been wanting to take a shower, so today was the big day! We got ready and went to Reese's second birthday party.

After the birthday party, we went to the Brunswick Home Day's fair. Hannah got to ride some rides and we watched Mr. Speed (a KISS tribute band) for a while until it started to rain and it got late. Nicholas was so happy - blowing major raspberries in his stroller!

We were very lazy today, which was fine since it was super hot - over 90 today! I got groceries and did laundry and we had dinner.

Nicholas is 4 months!

Nicholas turned 4 months old last Friday, June 18th! It's sometimes hard to believe it's been 4 months already and then at the same time, it's hard to believe he's only four months!


I guess it's hard to believe he's only four months because he's so big and he's doing things that I'm just not totally ready for my baby to be doing already! As I said in my last post, he's has already rolled over. He's grabbing at EVERYTHING he can get his hands on. He is talking - er, growling all the time. He raspberries ALOT! He's sleeping better at night (sometimes). He sits up with help very well - he's very strong. He holds himself up while on his tummy and scoots all around when he's lying on the floor. Up until now, he's still on 100% breastmilk and smiles and laughs way more than he cries! He's totally cool and such a loveable little boy!

So now for his stats from his 4 month well visit on Saturday. He's a whopping 16 pounds, 14.5 ounces!!!! That's just over the 90th percentile. He's 25-1/2 inches, up 2-1/2 inches from his 2 month visit and in the 75th percentile and his head was 16-3/4 inches - 75th percentile. So the good news is that he's still ON the growth charts and also that he's a very strong, healthy, growing baby!!! Everything went well at his visit and he got 2 shots and pretty much just cried while it hurt, didn't last long.

Here is the big 4-month old!








Check out those rolls!!!

We also had some other new big-baby things this weekend. We put him in the exersaucer, which he seemed to like real well.



He also tried rice cereal for the first time Saturday night. We first tried when he was hungry....not a good time, so we fed him a bottle first and then the cereal. That went better, but then of course he wasn't so interested in eating. He did have some and did pretty well with it and then he got the case of the raspberries, which meant I was going to be wearing the rice cereal if I kept it up!



After that we went to play outside for the rest of the evening. Hannah's been wanting to try to learn to ride her bike without the training wheels, so Tony took them off and we gave it a try. I love this picture because she's so excited at the idea of doing this and she's a total spitting image of me when I was a little girl!!



Here they are trying no training wheels. It didn't go that great, although no crashing, but she needs lots more practice. We agreed to practice a little each night (or every few nights) and maybe she'll get it soon!



Then she wanted to catch lightening bugs. She actually did catch one and then screamed when it went to fly away and flew toward her again! She's still such a chicken!!!



I'm going to post Father's Day on it's own post later.

Rollin'-Rollin'-Rollin'

Rollin'-Rollin'-Rollin'
My 4-month old is Rollin'
Watch that baby moving
Around!!!
(that was to the tune of Rawhide in case you wanted to sing along!! Perhaps that may be something only my dad or sister can appreciate?)

So yeah, Nicholas rolled over this weekend - from his back to his tummy. He did it on his activity mat. He rolls on to his side real easy and then he uses the bars of the toy thing and kicks over. He had some trouble getting his arm out from underneath him, but he did it!!! He actually enjoyed being on his tummy then for a while. Val said he was rolling both ways today at daycare - from back to tummy and then to his back again...I wonder if he was completely on his tummy or if his arm was still tucked under him.

I can't believe how fast that came! This is like one of the first big "firsts" and I can't believe it happened already! We're going to be celebrating his first birthday before I know it *sniff, sniff*! I may have said this before, but as each new baby thing passes, it's a little sad to know that will be the last time we do it since we're not going to have any more children. It's just the realization that each phase is the last time in our life we'll experience it. Reality sets in that we're getting older and moving on to different things...good things!

We had a great weekend! Saturday night, we went to Shinto with Laura & Aaron. Nicholas had his first babysitter. Gloria, our teenager down the street, did a great job watching all 4 of the kids! We laughed because she might do better than the actual parents since we got home around 10:30 and all 4 kids were in bed. When we were over at their house on Friday night, the 3 girls were all still running wild at 11:00 at night!!!

I tackled more weeding Sunday in the hot, humid, sticky weather. I cleaned up the island in our back yard that was completely full of thistle weeds. I always forget to take "before" pictures, but here's one from last week that you can see the mess of weeds in the background.

And here's what it looked like after I cleaned it all up!

I put down that landscaping fabric and then mulched on top. I really hope that the fabric keeps the weeds away and that area is no longer a big maintenance area. Tony got the grass cut and trimmed. We laughed because our backyard will look great by the end of summer if we get the deck redone and finish all the weeding and landscaping! Hopefully we'll have a chance to enjoy it before winter comes.

Blog facelift

I guess this blog needs a facelift! I've been wanting to change the look for some time now, but I hardly have the time to do my posts, let alone change the design. I signed on this morning and blogger offered some new template designs, so I'll mess around with them a little and give it a change. I'm sure it won't be that fantastic, but maybe a little different look.

We didn't do a whole lot this week, but the week went really fast! Hannah's summer gymnastics class started on Tuesday evening. We've had about 3 contractors come out to look at our deck and are working on quotes. We get different suggestions and opinions from everyone so it'll be a tough decision on what to do. We've sort of narrowed it down to redoing the pavers on both levels, or replacing the top with wood decking or going with stamped concrete. I like the stamped concrete idea best, but there's the issue of it cracking or not, which of course no one can guarantee. We'll see what we come up with. Another guy is coming today and another one next week. We were stood up twice by one company.....I'll call them out as to NOT recommend them....Rock Solid Land Design. Evidently, they aren't interested in any business, so feel free to NOT consider their services if you're in the market!!! It was really annoying. The first appointment we made with them was at lunch time on Wednesday, so Tony and I both came home and waited. I called after he was 20 minutes late - got voicemail. We waited about 45 minutes and gave up. The guy called and had all the excuses of why he didn't make it and I gave him a second chance for Thursday evening. Again, no call, no show....sorry Damon, you won't be getting any of our money!

Last night, we hung out at our neighbor's house for dinner and the rest of the evening. The weather was great and it was so awesome to sit outside and enjoy summertime! The girls have a great time playing together and Nicholas does pretty well hanging out with us too.

I asked Laura and Aaron to be Nicholas' Godparents and they were honored!! Now I have to schedule his baptism!

We're going out to dinner with Laura & Aaron again tonight - to Shinto!!! YUM! We're all looking forward to the night out and awesome Hibachi Dinner!

Laura and I are planning to start a new Mom's Bible Study and Fellowship group. We really don't like how our other one is going. We're not getting out of it what we'd like, so we're starting something new. I'm excited about what it will turn out to be. More on that as it develops. Right now, we're just working on getting a group together for a first meeting in July.

Here's a little cutie from the other day! Love baby butt shots!!!

Memorial Day Weekend to now

It is I, the absent blogger, here again with a long update to cover the past 10 days or so.

Hannah had her last swimming lesson for the session the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. She did OK this time around, but has a lot of work to do to be self-sufficient in the pool. She's enrolled for the preschool alone class again in two more weeks.

After swimming, Tony and I did a ton of yard work. Our deck is falling apart and really needs to be redone, but it was even worse off with all of the weeds growing in and around it. I spent the day pulling them and cleared up the whole area. We have flower (weed) beds around the perimeter. We're digging it all up and starting over. We also want to cut down our lilac bush in the corner - all that will come when we actually re-do the deck. We're working on getting about 5-10 quotes on the deck. We hope we're able to do it this summer. It's a great structure, but kind of crappy since it's falling apart so badly. Tony got all the grass cut (twice) and I still have a lot of weeding around the yard to go, but at least we go the deck area cleaned up. So now we're scheduling some contractors out over the next couple weeks.

Last Sunday, we spent the day down at my dad's. My sister was home from Florida for the weekend, so we spent some time with Grandma & Grandpa and Aunt Susan and the soon-to-be Uncle Will....this comes a little late, but Congratulations to my sister. She's engaged to be married to Will and will be moving back up to Ohio this summer. We're excited to have her back and now Hannah can tease her about eating corn all the time!!!

Hannah wiped out on the drive way for the 3rd time this weekend! She got herself some serious scrapes!!! Her knees and elbow were a wreck!

I went to get a few groceries Monday morning and then we got ready to go next door for a cookout. The kids played in the pool and sprinkler all afternoon and then we ate.

I ended up going home a little while after that to lay down with Nicholas. He was pretty fussy and I was a little worried about the sleeping thing since he didn't want to sleep in his bed again Sunday night. Since this is now after the fact, we're proud to report, that was just a bad night. Nicholas has successfully slept all night in his bed (with one feeding during the night) for over 2 weeks now!!! AND I'm excited to say, this past Saturday night, he slept ALL night straight until 6:00 am!!!! It was good and bad. I loved that he truly slept all night long, but if he's going to get up at 6 now, I'm going to have to refigure my schedule during the week! That was only one night so far, so I guess I'll worry about that when it starts happening more often.

The work week went quickly...I love short weeks! We need more of them! We spent Tuesday evening outside, going for a walk. Nicholas likes his stroller and he loves to watch Hannah - she has fun being his big sister too!

Wednesday was my mom's birthday (Happy Birthday mom) and was also Hannah's Gymnastic's Expo. It was a really long show this year. It went for over 2-1/2 hours and the kids were tired. She had a blast though and was so excited to get her ribbons and medal. Picture taking in the gym isn't good, so I don't have great pictures - sorry!

I had my NAWIC meeting on Thursday night. I got home around 9:30 and Tony had “the look” on his face! Nicholas gave him a run for his money with crankiness. He was fine when I got home. Hannah might be right, Nicholas may just really miss me when I’m not there…that was her explanation for him crying a lot at daycare.

We didn’t do anything Friday night other than get a pizza and play outside. We’ve been doing that a lot now that the weather is nice. It’s great. The girls from next door and Hannah ride bikes and play together and we hang out with Laura & Aaron.

I got my haircut Saturday morning. It is really nothing drastic, or really much different, but I had a new guy cut it and I liked how he did it a lot better. I wasn’t very crazy about how my other guy ever cut my hair. I used to really liked how he colored it, but since I don’t pay to get that done anymore (I do it myself) it was time to switch for haircuts. I was so way overdue! I hadn’t had a haircut since November! It feels much better now! And the even better news was that I used a gift certificate that the girls from work got me for Christmas AND I still have $45 left for the next cut!

When I got home, I wanted to do something different and fun, so we took Hannah to Memphis Kidde Park. We had never been there before, but it was fun – perfect for a quick fun thing to do for the day! There are about 15 different rides there, each one being one ticket. The tickets don’t expire, so if you don’t use them all during your trip, they’ll be good the next time you go. You can’t take drinks in other than sippy cups and bottles and concessions are a bit pricey, but we had a great time! Hannah got to ride 10 rides and then it started to rain, so it was a perfect amount of time spent there for the day.

The cranky bug bit Hannah after that, so we were going to go to the mall, but instead went home for naps!

We went to dinner later that evening and then back home. The kids went to bed and Tony and I played a few games of poker and then went to bed too. This was the night Nicholas slept until 6:00!!! He wouldn’t go back down in his bed after since it was already light out, so I brought him back to our bed. We slept until Hannah got up around 9. We all got dressed and went out to breakfast. I cleaned the house and did more laundry and Tony was working at rearranging his KISS room. I went grocery shopping and then we had dinner. Nicholas had a little tummy time, which is helping his strength so much. He is pushing his arms up and kicks his feet around and wiggles a lot! He's just getting so big, so fast!

We sat outside while Hannah played for a little while, gave the kids baths and got some ice cream! We over-indulged ourselves this weekend, so the dieting begins again this week for Tony and I!

We had a great week and a terrific weekend!

Tonight, we ate dinner and then hung out in Hannah's room, playing games, doing puzzles and coloring. She's such a great kid!