Back to Work

This is my last week at home with my precious, growing little boy before I go back to work next Monday. Part of me has been anxious as I am still new to being a PA and worked so hard to get there that I can't wait to get back to it. Part of me has been dreading the infamous drop off at daycare as I can imagine I will cry the 15 minute drive to work after.

Austin is 11 weeks old now and growing way too fast as everyone always says. Jason comes home from work these days to find our 13lb boy in 3 month clothing. The problem with that is that 3 month clothing stops fitting at 12.5lbs! Jason always comments on how Austin can't even stretch out cause he's too long, or how his belly is going to burst through the shirt. I guess I am delaying the inevitable of putting my not even 3 month old into 6 month clothing.

I finally put him in his bumbo chair and he sure did enjoy it!

He's smiling and coo'ing at every feeding now. He also just started sleeping longer this past week with most stretches now from 10p until 4:30a. Although last night he suprised me while sleeping from 9:45p until 5a! That's my boy! I was so nervous that I would have to make him cry it out before going back to work but things change so much in one week with a baby that hopefully this continues or gets even better.

Some mornings I have a few things to get done right away that I will put Austin under his play gym and laugh from the other room as I hear him talking to the frogs and turtles over his head.

He's getting the hang of tummy time....so cute how he puts his legs up in the air to try and help him roll over.

There he goes....well tries....

So I am packing up the diaper bag for daycare, typing up Austin's schedule and helpful hints (not just for daycare but for Jason too since he will have Austin all to himself every Monday), and getting out of the house as much as I can since next week is a whole new ball game!

Austin's First Trip to the U.P.

We decided to make the trip easier on Austin and leave after his middle of the night feeding, knowing he would awake somewhere between 2 and 4am since he was 8 weeks at the time. Sure enough he awoke at 3am and we were able to leave the house at 3:30am. Austin slept in the car until we stopped at the bridge which was at about 7a. We stopped at a Big Boy and I quickly found out how important it was to have one of those Koala changing stations in the bathroom cause this bathroom did not have that and I had to change Austin in the booth! Jason and I took turns feeding Austin while running to the buffet to stuff our faces in hopes we could make it the rest of the trip with no stops.

We had to stop one more time right before arriving at Grandma Candy's and we found this perfect little coffee shop that you wouldn't expect to find in the middle of nowhere. It had a big tv and couches in the back so we could just sit down and relax while letting Austin eat. I have to mention that I recently had strep throat and was taking my first ever round of antibiotics. The amoxicillin did not agree with me and on the 7th/8th day, I had the worst, itchiest rash, I have ever had. And I have had every kind of poison ivy and oak on the planet! This was terrible. I went against everything I had learned in PA school and I stopped the medication. I couldn't have steroids due to breastfeeding so this was my only option. I tried not to take too much benedryl so that I wasn't a zombie but that was a battle!

Grandma Candy didn't take but a second to grab Austin and start snuggling!

Austin and Daddy taking a rest

He sure does love to sleep with his arms up.

The infamous "ooh" face

Great Grandpa Wodzinksi

Great Grandma Wodzinksi - I can't help but stare at the background since this Grandma is incredibly talented and just about everything in the background is painted or made by her!

Four Generations

Grandma has a nice shoulder to sleep on....

Great Grandpa Letson

Good thing I brought a turtle neck to hide my crazy hives, although at this point they were on my face as well!
Grandma likes to call Austin her little 'monkey'. so cute!

Cousin Cayden....He's 4 months and 16lbs and Austin sure is trying to catch up.

Grandpa Rogers - Austin sure is listening to whatever Grandpa has to say!

Cousin Somara holding the boys. She even mentioned at one point how she wanted to take Austin home with her!

Austin did not come home the same boy! He had a growth spurt one night that kept me feeling like a cow as I pumped and pumped to keep up with his eating. He had 4.5 ounces and continued to be fussy shortly after. I never had him eat more than that so I sent Jason to the store for gas drops in thought that he had a belly ache. We decided to give him some more food with the drops and sure enough he ate 2.5 more ounces. Again, shortly therafter he became fussy, which is so strange for Austin and he ate 2 more ounces. It was just about his bedtime and he ate another ounce before passing out. I thought after 10 ounces that he would for sure sleep thru the night for the first time, but nope, he awoke as usual at 3am for another feeding! He has been eating 5 ounces consistently since we returned. Such a cute little piggie!

2 Months Stats

Austin's 2 month stats:
Weight:  11 lbs 14 oz - 25th percentile
Height:       24 inches - 75th percentile

Here's our favorite "ooh" face:

2 Months

2 months have already flown by since Austin was born! I only have a few more weeks left at home with him before I go back to work. I am going to miss being around at home all day with this little guy but I am also incredibly new to my career and miss the challenges of neurosurgery.

We are currently working on getting Austin on a schedule. This is going to be so helpful for myself, Austin, AND daycare so I just have to keep working at it. There are so many hard parts to it all, especially since he would rather fall asleep after eating rather than play, but then when I finally get him awake to play, he doesn't want to go to sleep. I can't seem to win with that battle.

We are doing tummy time and he is getting a lot better at head control, but he sure does like to fall asleep while doing tummy time.....

He has outgrown all of his newborn clothes and is now wearing 3 months! I am interested in seeing what his stats are at his 2 month appt. next week as he fills out the 3 months clothes as far as length! Sometimes when he stretches his legs out, you can tell the fabric is pulling in each direction to give him room. I also had to stop trying to wrap those little baby towels around him, as he was too big for those too. My mom made him some towels that fit much better!

He is on the verge of "coo-ing" as he does just a few a day and he also smiles but mostly when he has a nice full belly, we call it "milk-drunk". I am excited for when he starts looking at us and smiling when we do!

We are taking our first trip to the U.P. with him this weekend, so I am just praying that he does well in the car for all that time. We are deciding to go after his middle of the night feeding so that way he sleeps for a few hours and we can stop in the middle of the trip for a nice break and to feed him again.

He is waking up just once a night which is nice, but I still look forward to getting an uninterrupted night's sleep someday! Hopefully he is doing that before I go back to work!

DIY:Carol Roeda Inspired Board

If you remember my nursery, you'll remember my Carol Roeda board that I couldn't wait to put up with Austin's photos attached.

Here is a preview of what I changed it to after getting Austin's newborn photos back.

The beginning of this project came about after always seeing my Aunt Nancy's board at her house, which is probably three times the size that we are making. We went and bought a peice of sheet metal, which was hard to find at the hardware stores since they all seem to have a dent in them somewhere! We chose a great spot in our kitchen for it......(Jason already started putting up liquid nails before I could get a pic, you gotta watch him, he is so fast at projects!)

After putting on the liquid nails, we put the sheet on the wall and made sure it was level.

Next Jason cut some trim to frame it out. Good thing Jason taught me how to use the nailer back when we did the master closet because I got to help!

We painted the frame black after filling in the nail holes. The black ties in well with the bistro table that it sits above. After it was dry, I couldn't wait to add in some pictures and magnets. I received lots of these magnets for Christmas and since the board in Austin's room is pretty full, I just couldn't wait to have another spot to put them! This gives me a whole new reason to print more photos rather than just post them on facebook or store them on the computer. This is going to be a great way to decorate for an event at our house, or even for any holiday! I love it!! Thanks to the hubby, this project was completed in less than 2 hours.

My First Turkey

For Christmas this past year, I received a 16 lb turkey from work. Now if you know me, you know that I am not a cook as it is, but I couldn't wait to cook this and hope it would turn out better than that dry turkey from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

We finally unthawed the turkey and the day that I cooked it, I was feeling horrible. I came down with an unusual case of strep throat. Not unusual in presentation, but I have been staying at home with Austin and have never had strep before, so this just suprised me that I even caught it!

I put the turkey back in the fridge thinking there is no way I am going to get up the urge to cook it, but around noon that day, I was feeling better and decided to give it a go. I decided to stick to the recipe out of the Southern Living Christmas book I also received at Christmas time.

First thing first, I had to take out the neck and then all the giblets. Now even though I get to touch brains at my job, this doesn't mean I enjoy touching odd objects! I put on dish gloves and took everything out.....ick is all I can say!

The hard part for me was that everything online and in books talks about how the wings are usually clipped. Of course I would get one of the birds that doesn't have clipped wings. I couldn't get them behind the head so I resorted to YouTube to find a video of how to put these darn wings behind the bird's back. It said that you want the wings to make it look like the bird is sun tanning. Easier said than done with my bird. I pretty much had to suffer through breaking the wings practically to get them tucked behind.

I ended up making gravy from the book as well. Jason brought home a box of stuffing since we didn't really plan on me making the turkey that day, so we weren't as prepared, but everything turned out amazing! We have already enjoyed making new dishes out of the leftovers!

Excuse how crazy I look, remember that I have strep throat!

Stepping Up The Front Porch

Jason has been wanting to re-do the front porch floor for a long time now. We have thrown across so many ideas since anything is better than what it was. Old outdoor carpet was just not doing it for us......yet somehow we kept it for almost 5 years!? I guess other projects always took precedence. We did try to at least make the stairs look better in the beginning by having Lowe's match the paint with the beige vinyl siding. Even the Duramax paint couldn't withstand the use of our front stairs.
BEFORE:

We had an interest in our house this week, even though it's not even on the market. In thoughts that the people were coming back and possibly going to make an offer, Jason got an urge to start and finish this project in a split second! I thought Jason was going to come back from the store with just some outdoor carpet that was nicer, but of course he found some good deals and decided on tile!

Here were the two options for how he was going to use the tile and composite decking:
Option 1:

Option 2:

We chose Option #1!
Then Jason continued onto the stairs with the composite decking. He started the project on New Year's Eve when it was 50 degrees outside but then had to of course finish it while the weather quickly changed to 20 degrees and snowing!
AFTER:

Here's a before and after looking from inside the house out onto the porch.

This project was well worth the 100$ spent!