love it

You can find this on Etsy - the store has some really fun stuff on it! Here is the link.

update!

FINALLY I am blogging again!! Wow, its been a while. Things have been going well here. Over the last month or so....

We went to Frederic over Mother's Day. We spent a bunch of time at the school playground in the great weather. Matea is getting more and more brave and coordinated every day - it is fun to see the progress in her. We had preschool screening this week and although I was not surprised by anything in the results, it was funny for me to see that she scored TWO points ABOVE the "minimum" for her motor skills!

We went to a Twins game with the Schunks, Jen, Brandon, and Robby. It was FUN. The weather was PERFECT, our seats were great, the kids did fantastic, there was lots of scoring...but the Twins lost. With the way their season is going it sure wasn't a surprise, but it was still disappointing.

Adlee is doing great. She has been sleeping through the night since she was 8 weeks old which, obviously, is fantastic. She is growing well, although she is still little! She weighed a whopping 8# 1oz at her 2 month check up. She has started cooing/talking a LOT and we can get her to respond to us pretty easily. I am enjoying her more and more every day.

And weight loss update: I have lost a total of 5 pounds in the last 6 weeks. So, I'm making progress. I was hoping for more. I have been exercising 5-6 days a week but I am going to really start watching my calories now!

Our last bit of big news is that we are moving to Champlin in July! After months of prayer and contemplation we decided to pull the trigger. Our house has been for sale since early April and we found a place in Champlin 2 weeks ago. The new house is not in the location or the style of house we were thinking we'd be, but this just seems right. There were a number of cool factors that are leading us to believe that this is the place God has for us. It will work really well for Aaron to keep his business in the home for a few more years and the price couldn't be beat! We are now trusting that God has the sale of this home in his hands. As I've mentioned to a few friends, here is where we get the chance to actually trust God, and not just talk about trusting Him! :-) If you know of anyone looking for a place in Duluth, send them our way!

working it out

I had my six week check up with the doctor on Tuesday and was given a "clean bill of health." Those were the doctor's exact words. I didn't know people actually said that, I thought it was just in the movies.

Anyway, the only "problem" that I have is that my hemoglobin levels were extremely low - as in the nurse told me I am borderline anemic. I was actually kind of glad to hear that. I had been mentioning to Aaron that I seemed more tired than I should be - some days I will sleep until 9:00am, take a nap, and then be exhausted at 8:30pm. Even with a newborn it seemed I was way more tired than I should be. Turns out I was right. Bring on the vitamins, red meat, and spinach. Hopefully in the next week or two I'll be a little more normal.

My 6 week check up has officially ended my "take it easy" time and has ushered in "time to get back in shape." I stepped on the scale yesterday morning and officially have 21 pounds to lose to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight. I am planning on not buying any new clothes until I have gotten back to a reasonable weight for me, and with each day I am loathing my maternity pants more and more so I think I have great motivation. I decided I'll be blogging periodically about my weight loss in order to have a little extra accountability and motivation.

This week my fitness goals are:
*exercise every other day (work out videos)
*take my vitamins daily (got to get my energy level back up!)
*work on a healthy 2-3 week meal plan that I can continuously rotate.

I think that's good enough for now. :-) I did exercise yesterday and it felt GOOD! It is a little weird to be back at the beginner level of my videos, but, I did just have a baby, right?

4 weeks

We are officially a month into life as a family of 4. Well, technically four weeks in, but that's basically a month in my book. Things are going well, for the most part! We weighed Adlee on Aaron's shipping scale yesterday and she's a little over 7 pounds so she's gaining weight well. I can definitley tell that she is putting on weight - she doesn't seem as "fragile" as she did for a while. I know babies aren't fragile, but its nice to have some extra cushion on her. :-)

Nighttime is going well - I feed her at 11 and around 3am (or whenever she wakes up), and then Aaron takes the 7am feeding and I sleep in. It seems to be working decently, although I am learning that I really do not do well with broken increments of sleep. I am very, VERY thankful that Aaron works from home and is flexible enough to allow me an extra couple hours of sleep in the morning. That being said, I think we're both looking forward to when Adlee sleeps the majority of the night and we can get back to a "normal" schedule.

Matea is doing great as a big sister...she is super helpful and really seems to enjoy Adlee. Today I took Matea to the library for story time with some friends and it was nice to get out and do something one-on-one with her. Plus I got to visit with some friends, so that is always nice! Matea has had a pretty wicked cold the last few days so this afternoon she and Adlee both took 2.5+ hour naps and I took a 2 hour one myself. It was FANTASTIC.

So there's the one month update. Sorry no pictures...I'll get some on here soon. Surprisingly I haven't taken a ton...I should get on that. :-)

love

Adlee Elizabeth

A week later I am finally getting around to this blog post!!

Adlee Elizabeth was born March 2 at 9:56pm. She weighed 5# 70z and was 18.5 inches long. It was a LONG day, and I am so glad it is over. Here is our first family picture - not the greatest of me, but who really looks good after having a baby, right? :-)


We went to the hospital at 6am (I got induced) and they started pitocin at 7:30. My water broke early afternoon, and I got an epidural around 4:30 in the afternoon. I slept for a couple hours and woke up when my right side started to hurt. Between 4:30 and 7:30 I went from 5cm to 9.5cm and half of my epidural started working. They said it was pointless to get a new one at that point - I started pushing shortly thereafter. Apparently I'm not a very productive pusher because it took 2 hours. It was pretty brutal (for me - I'm not tough at all).

After Adlee was born we had Matea come in for a couple minutes by herself to meet her new sister. It was nice to have a bit of time as our little family - Matea is doing well with the baby (and all the extra attention from grandparents/aunts/uncles!).

We had a bit of an interesting beginning...Adlee had swallowed a ton of amniotic fluid and was very gaggy/spitty for the first 24 hours or so. She had to get "deep suctioned" twice to get the fluid out of her lungs and had to be watched constantly so she wouldn't choke. We also had a hard time with feeding early on and she lost a lot of weight quickly so we had to stay in the hospital an extra day. We were FINALLY able to come home on Saturday evening.

I haven't taken very many pictures this week, which is kind of weird for me. I am starting to feel pretty healed up and I think it won't be long before we are in a good routine with Adlee. I am looking forward to getting outside and going for walks with my girls!

I am so glad that this pregnancy is OVER...and I am so thankful that we had a completely 100% uneventful 40 weeks. That is a total God thing - thank you to all who prayed for us during the pregnancy. Adlee seems very healthy despite being a little peanut and we are looking forward to watching her grow and learn her personality!

unexpected comment

I had a doctor's appointment today which was pretty uneventful. In an effort to try to jump start any chance of going into labor this weekend we spent some time this evening at the mall doing a little bit of shopping and A LOT of walking.

On our way out to the car we were stopped by an african american man who was outside. The abbreviated version of our conversation went a little bit like this:
"Is she your daughter?"
"Yes, she is."
"Well CONGRATULATIONS! I am from Mississippi and you just don't see multi-ethnic families down there. It is so wonderful to see the love you have for each other. Thank you!"
"Well thank YOU for saying that to us! It really means a lot coming from you."

I had a couple thoughts as we got into the car....
First, I am proud of our family, but I often wonder what other black people think when they see us. It was really cool to have someone go out of their way to comment positively on our family.
Second, I always say that I want to be more encouraging to people and I rarely seem to do that. When I have exceptional service at a store or restaurant I always say, "I should write the manager" but never do....I too often just keep my mouth shut. Being "complimented" (for lack of a better word) by this total stranger really made my night - how often can I do that for others just by being NICE? Really, it isn't that hard. I just need to step up and do it.

So, those are my random thoughts on the night. It was a good night. And, I guess that's all I've got!