Monday December 7, 2009

Welcome to the full swing of holiday planning!!! Hope everyone is having a happy holiday season so far. Thanksgiving was good. We went to Josh's parents house, there were 9 of us (including Connor & Chance) and we had a 23 lb turkey!! Needless to say, we are all turkeyed out! Josh and I prepared most of the food this year and brought it down. We did a fabulous job! Josh made the turkey and it turned out so good, moist and perfectly browned. Then he made homemade stuffing, down to even making his own bread cubes for it! I was impressed! We also made a wild rice stuffing that everyone said was delicious (had mushrooms in it and I don't eat fungus so I didn't try it). There were glazed carrots, mashed potatoes with sour cream, cream cheese and toasted bread crumbs, and a tiramisu bowl as well. All in all it was a good meal.

Things of course have been hectic with the holidays. I just had our annual cookie exchange this past weekend with a record turnout of 18 people! And we had our first "snow" of the season. There is a dusting on some parts of the grass still but nothing like what I am used to for the winter season! It's a catch-22 here when it comes to wishing for snow. I wish we would get a big blizzard so that the kids (myself included!) can have a white Christmas but then that means that Josh would be out plowing. So goes the life of a snow widow.

I have been extremely homesick lately and I think it's taking its toll on poor Josh. I won't be home for any of the holidays this winter and I am not sure when the next time that we will make it up north will be. I hope that we can make it this summer but we will see how the work front is going. We just laid off 2 more people and I am still on reduced hours. Josh's company is thankfully doing good so we aren't worried there.

We are in the process of getting ready to remodel the kitchen, it's our Christmas present from Josh's parents. So far, we have the new dishwasher (installed) and the new microwave (still in the box in storage). We also have the beam design done for removing the portion of the wall between the kitchen and the living room, now I just have to hope that Pete remembers to bring it in before we hire the contractor! Once the wall is done the fun starts, we are replacing the cabinets, the counters, the floor, and moving cabinetry around! We still have to decide on a color scheme for the whole kitchen, apparently Josh and I can agree on a lot of things, interior design not being one of them. :)

Connor is getting so big! He is such a boy now, there are no traces of my baby left at all. I was looking at his baby pictures the other day and can't believe how fast he is growing. We will be going to an open house next month for the school where we want him to go to and I am so so not ready for that!!! This is his first year really understanding and believing in Santa. When you ask him what Santa is going to bring him, all he will tell you is "drums and a cymbal". I have a feeling I am not going to like Santa this year. We actually already got them for him and I am SO excited to see his face on Christmas morning!! I have a feeling that Josh & I will have ear plugs in our stockings! :0)

Chance is growing like a weed too! He just had his 9 month well visit on Saturday. He is a whopping 17.6 lbs now (by my family standards, he is a peanut!) and is in the 10th percentile for weight & height. It's a lot better than his 6 month appointment ~ he was only in the 4th percentile then!! He is crawling all over the place and is up to 8 teeth now. He is a maniac in his walker and is pulling himself up on anything he can. He just learned the other day how to crawl over obstacles in his way (such as my legs when I am sitting on the floor with him). He is nothing but smiles and dimples.

Ok....so anything else new??? I got my new truck, a 2010 GMC Terrain. I love it! I am going to miss the XM radio when the free trial expires. We will see if Josh gets me the subscription for Christmas. :) I think that about sums it up for now. I know that I say every time that I blog that I am going to try to be more diligent about updating this so this time, I am just going to say, I'll get to it when I get to it! ;)

Tuesday June 30, 2009

First of all, let's start by saying, glad I am not a celebrity!! Bad week for them, first Ed McMahon, then Farrah Fawcett, then Michael Jackson, and now Billy Mays! Ed was a given, he's lived a long life. Farrah, expected as well considering she has been battling cancer openly for 2 years. Michael Jackson, that one was a surprise! Now it's just a matter of ~ are you going to remember him as the musical icon and genius that he was or are you going to remember him as the pedophile that saw nothing wrong with hanging a baby over a balcony railing. In my opinion, MJ died a long time ago. His oddities had overtaken any semblance of a life worth living. RIP Black Michael. White Michael, don't know that you will be missed. It's too bad you got freaky on us! Billy Mays will be missed. Now who will I buy my as seen on TV junk from?? Am I supposed to start watching the Sham Wow guy?? Mr. Hooker beater himself? Guess he found out the hard way that you are never supposed to kiss a hooker on the mouth ~ didn't he see Pretty Woman??? OK, enough on all of that jazz.....

It's been a long couple of days. I had to stop working out. I woke up one morning and my ankle was swollen and hurt. That was 2 weeks ago. After a week of trying to just push thru it and try to just take it easy on it, I decided to suck it up and go to the doctor. This is how it went on Thursday:

First order of business there was answering the question, no, I don't recall any injuries. OK, well, let's get some xrays done. Do you spend anytime in wooded areas? I say, no but if you are thinking Lyme's, my husband is a landscaper and has brought home his fair share of ticks already, none that I have had on me though. No, I haven't noticed any rashes. OK, let's get some blood work done to rule it out. While we are at it, why don't we do a Rheumatoid Arthritis test to rule that out as well.

Got them all done and had to wait until Monday for any results. Call and the xrays came back normal. Great! Lyme's test came back negative. Even better!! Haven't gotten RA test back yet. Today I get a call at work from the Dr. RA test came back positive. Oh, fantastic :||read sarcasm||:

Well, apparently just because the test came back positive, that doesn't mean that I actually have RA, just that I am predisposed to it. I have to go see a rheumatologist and have some more testing done now. They can't see me until August 7th!! Apparently a lot of people have RA?? I have been doing some research online and am not liking what I am reading. Doesn't sound all that promising for me.

Other than that, not much else going on. We went to a wedding on Saturday for John and Mayumi. One of Connor's teachers from daycare babysat for us. I think Connor has his first crush. It's so funny to watch! She said that Connor was a perfect angel, with the exception of he peed on her foot!! If she was gonna get peed on, I really would have thought that it would have been from Chance!! :) Speaking of him, apparently he was pretty cranky that night. Well, I found out why. He didn't have that tooth in his mouth when we left on Saturday but it was sure there on Sunday when he woke up!!! :) He got his first taste of rice cereal on Sunday too. I couldn't shovel it in fast enough!! He was tearing that up, I didn't even have to wipe his face off after he was done, he didn't waste ANY! He's been sleeping thru the night for the last month and he's been sleeping in his own bedroom as well! Mommy and daddy have their room back to themselves!! Connor has been acting out quite a bit lately. I think that the fight for attention has begun, and he knows that he is going to get attention (albeit the negative kind...) when he does something he isn't supposed to. He did have a good day today though. They had a Happy Birthday America party at daycare and they had a moon bounce and a giant water slide and a picnic lunch and all and he LOVED it!!

Connor is SO excited to go to MN in a couple weeks! He keeps saying how he is going on the big jet plane with daddy and Clay and we are going to see Angie and Hannah (and Hannah is his girlfriend) and Grandma & Grandpa, and Tate and Kyler, and Kody, and Missie Missie, and the puppies, and blah blah blah (he just keeps going and going!! You'd think he got his knack for talking from me or something....)

Well, I am going to call it a night now, it's gotten to be a long post, at least for one of my posts! I am getting a little better at updating it now though! Hopefully I can keep it up! Now, I must get back to watching Deadliest Catch......

Sunday June 14, 2009....beginning my journey...

Ok, so I have decided that it's high time I lost all this baby weight. I have started a new workout plan and it's a tough one (at least for me!) Although, I think the hardest part is making sure I stick with it everyday! I am doing Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred. If you aren't familiar with her, she is the trainer for the reality show "The Biggest Loser".

Ok, finished with day 4 of "the shred". I must admit that even though I am not seeing any results yet, I feel good about doing it everyday. I can't remember how many days in a row you are supposed to do something before it becomes habit but my goal is to make this a habit! I also was able to do about 10 minutes on the Wii Fit before my husband came downstairs and got mad that I wasn't up on the couch with him. It's not fair, he sits around all day after work and plays video games and watches tv and eats all kinds of junk and crap and doesn't gain an ounce! Although since he is a landscaper, he is out doing manual labor and WALKING all day long! I sit at a desk. Not fair! I did set my default printer to the one farthest away from me in hopes to get a few more steps into my day. I am also taking the stairs in the parking garage. I would take them in my office but I can't show up to work all sweaty (we are on the 8th floor) and it would take too long for me when I leave and every minute counts for me to get to daycare on time. I wish I could justify moving the kids to a closer daycare but they LOVE it there and we love the teachers there!

I think that starting tomorrow, I am going to give the 8 minute workout a try on my Taebo dvd along with the Shred. I will probably be hating life the next morning but hey, no pain, no gain right?

In other news.....Chance is getting to be quite the little talker, babbles and coos nonstop now! It's so funny! He watches Connor like a hawk. Connor still loves being a big brother, although I have noticed that he has gotten a little clingy lately :) I just had their pics taken and will post some soon.

sorry this is a lot of babble about nothing but my working out. Trying to keep myself motivated!! I promise to do better next post!

Finally, I can tell you about the last few months...

OK, so it's been quite a while since I updated any of this. It's been a long year already, and not necessarily in a good way, more bad than good I think. Where to start....

Well, I had mentioned before that Angie and Dave had a beautiful new baby boy Rylan. This is where the year starts getting bad...On January 26th, Rylan earned his Angels Wings. He passed away from a heart problem. I am sorry but I can't go into much detail, a) because I am not sure of all of the medical things that go along with it and b) it is still very sad and I still have a very hard time discussing it with anyone other than Angie.

(Rylan Koeller 9/29/08 - 1/26/09)

Rylan was laid to rest on January 30, 2009. Angie is doing as well as can be expected after something like this happens, actually, I have to give her props because she has pulled together for the sake of her family and is an amazingly strong woman! No parent should ever have to bury their child, it's just not natural.

I had a very rough last month of my pregnancy. I was in the hospital the night that Angie had to take Rylan to the hospital. I was having contractions with bleeding. They gave me a drug (I can't spell it so I'm not going to attempt to tell you the names of any of them) to stop the contractions and it caused a major spike in my heartrate ~ up to the 200s. It stayed this way for longer than it was supposed to. Because of this, they had to give me another medication that was supposed to counteract the first. It didn't work. It dropped my blood pressure. They tried yet another med and that did nothing as well. I had to wait it out until the first med was out of my system. Needless to say, it was about 6 1/2 hours and the whole time, my heartrate was running over 200. The good thing, the bleeding and the contractions had stopped. Around 6 pm, my heartrate just all of a sudden dropped from 200+ to 80 something, in one single beat. By the end of the night, my chest hurt so bad! When I was released, they put me on temporary bed rest. I got the call from Angie Monday morning.

Fastforward about 2 weeks. Blood pressure is still up high, still have 3 weeks to go before my due date. Back in the hospital for contractions and blood pressure again. They kept me for several hours to monitor me but decided against induction that day. The following weekly appt, they decided to induce me due to my blood pressure and I was close enough to my due date that the baby would be fine. They scheduled me for the next day to be induced. They said that the hospital would call me anywhere between 4-9 am. I was hoping for 9 but nope...

...At 4:30 on February 24, 2009, the hospital called me to say they had a bed available and that I had to be there within an hour. We got to the hospital at 5:30 and I was admitted and taken to my room for induction.

(Right before being induced)

They started my petocin drip right at 6 a.m. At 7 a.m., the doctor came in to break my water. After this, I started to really feel the contractions. The nurse came in to ask me about my epidural, and I said yes, so I got that at about 8:10. By 8:30, it should have worked completely but I was still feeling the entire left side of my body, and it felt like that baby was pushing his way out! The contactions were getting really strong so Josh called for the nurse. She checked me and very quickly walked out of the room calling behind her to us that she was going to get the doctor for delivery!! Baby was on his way! I started pushing around 8:40ish and pushed for no more than 20 minutes. At 9:00 a.m., we welcomed our second son into the world! He took no time getting here at all, 3 hours start to finish!!

(Right after birth)

He was 6 lbs 13 oz and they said that he was 19 inches long (we later found out that he was really 18 1/2 inches). We named him Chance Rylan Harrison, his middle name after Angie's little angel.

Connor has taken very well to his little brother, he is very protective of him and loves to be around him. He loves to show him off to everyone!

I took both boys to MN for 2 weeks, they were very well behaved on the plane rides! I took him to the circus with Angie and Hannah, and Missie and Kody. He LOVED it!! If you ask him what his favorite part was, it was the light saber that Angie bought him! He still plays with it!

(Connor & his light saber at the circus)

We also went to Hannah's birthday party at the Edge Indoor Water Park in Duluth where Connor had a blast!! He played with Dave the whole time, I think Dave slept really good that night! It takes a lot to keep up with Connor!

I also had my sister's bridal shower, which turned out really nice!

We had so much fun in MN, but it's always nice to be home again! I know that Connor was really starting to miss his daddy, he was asking about him all the time! Now that we are home, he is asking for Tate, Kyler, Kody, and Hannah! You just can't please this child!! :)

I go back to work on Monday...it went way to fast! Hopefully I will be able to keep this more updated but for now, I think I have reached my limit! There's so much more that has happened but I can't type & breastfeed at the same time very effectively!

Into the new year! Welcome 2009!!

Ok, so it's been a while since I have posted!! Well, since early November....what can I say, too many websites to keep up with and not enough hours in the day!

2008 was a bit of a whirlwind! Big changes, Josh started a new job, Connor turned 2, I got pregnant again! So much excitement! This coming up year looks to be just as eventful with the new baby coming!

We just got back from a nice LONG drive to MN for Christmas. It was so nice to have a real white Christmas again and to see my family actually on the holiday, not before or after! It took us about 2 1/2 days to drive there, we left late Wednesday night (around 7 EST) and made it almost to Pittsburgh (only drove a few hours that night) before we stopped. The next morning, just outside of Pittsburgh, a truck kicked a rock up and chipped the windshield, right under the drivers line of vision but it didn't spider...yet. Thurs we drove straight thru to the MN side of Chicago and got caught in the snowstorms that we slamming them. We went to sleep with only a few inches of snow on the ground and woke up to about a foot! We trudged on though and Friday made it to Grand Rapids around 8:30 pm CST. Along the way, we saw 15 cars, 10 tractor trailers, and a snow plow...yes a snow plow...in the ditch!

We had a great time with my family, I got to see relatives I haven't seen in years and years and got to meet some that I hadn't met yet (cousins wives and kids!). We also got to make it down to Duluth and see Dave's new Club, which is AWESOME! If you are in Duluth, you gotta check it out, it's called Score and is on the corner of 4th & Superior (I think). It's the old Duluth Athletic Club building if that helps! We got to see Angie's new little boy Rylan, who is so absolutetly adorable that I just wanted to take him home with me! Connor and Hannah also got to play together for a little bit, which was nice!

Christmas was the usual at Betty's house and my grandparents house. I have pics to post but of course they are still on the camera, one day I will get more efficient at transferring them in a timely matter! Betty was ever so nice to Connor and got him drumsticks for Christmas...which my tupperware thanks her for! However, not to be outdone, my parents just went ahead and got him the drumset!

And now this brings me to the weather...it was cold but not as bad as I remember it being when I was a kid (we didn't have any below zero during the daytime while we were there, well, the morning but it always warmed up). I remember as a kid having highs in the -20s! Josh, however, found it very cold! It didn't seem to bother Connor too much, he was just happy to be out of the car! And speaking of car, let's go back to the windshield...yep, you guessed it, with the moisture in the air and the cold weather, we watched the crack spider right before our very eyes. Needless to say, we got a new windshield while we were in Rapids!

After a week of fun in the snow and cold, we began our adventures home on Friday. And I do mean adventure! We went down thru the Cities this time so that we could stop by to see my brother and his family. When we left there, we didn't make it too far because the fog was so bad that visibility was down to about 30 feet in the good spots. We stayed in Rochester that night. The next day we headed out with high hopes of making it at least to the PA border. The torrential downpours that we encountered the entire day pretty much squashed that plan! We pushed thru WI, IL & IN and once it started to get dark out (keep in mind, still POURING rain out) we had a little mishap with the passenger side windshield wiper. I guess all the snow and ice buildup in MN had sheared the clip to hold the wiper in place because it kept coming off and flopping and crashing on the window! We were having to stop every 5-10 miles to fix it so we finally found a Walmart and replaced the stupid thing. Then the winds started to pick up as well. We finally conceded that we weren't going to make it PA, let alone anywhere near it and checked into a hotel in Freemont, OH around 2 am. Around 5:45 am Josh woke up and realized that the hotel had lost power due to the winds! The rain had at least finally stopped (go figure now that the wipers were working the way they were supposed to!). We got back on the road again around 9:30 and decided that we were just going to push thru to get home. We finally made it home about 6:30 pm on Sunday.

We celebrated Christmas with Josh's family on New Years Eve. Connor was spoiled rotten, as were Josh and I. So far the favorite gifts from there have been Guitar Hero World Tour and Rock Band 2. Connor is so funny with Rock Band because he won't let anyone else play the drums, it's always his turn! He also likes to sing! His favorite new song is Eye of the Tiger! Too funny when he does it! I will post video of it when I get around to transferring everything off the camera!

I was back to work on Monday after having 18 days in a row off, what a reality check that was for all of us! None of us were used to getting up in the mornings anymore! Connor apparently got used to being home with me all day because he's getting a little clingy when I drop him off at daycare now. The first day he was very excited to see his friends and yesterday was ok, I'm here so I will play but I really want to stay home. Well, today, it was a fight to get him to let go of me! Hopefully he had a good day so it won't be so bad tomorrow!

Well, I think that about sums it up for now. One of my New Years Resolutions is to keep this updated a little more often! I know that when I am on maternity leave it shouldn't be a problem but when working and being full time mom at the same time...well that leaves little time for mindless typing about our lives!

I hope you all had a great holiday season and everyone is safe and warm! Best wishes to everyone going into 2009!