Quilt

Andy's co-worker made a quilt for our baby Austin. It is awesome! I was so surprised when Andy sent me a picture of it! We had no idea she was doing this! Andy works with a great group of people!





Front side


Back side


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Happy 9th Birthday Mason

I know I say this every year but I really can't believe my oldest is now a year older! I didn't want the day to go by without updating the blog with a birthday post. But Austin is having one of his nap boycotting days (I think he slept too much this weekend!). So I am updating the blog using blog press, iPhone pics and just my right thumb to type while I give Austin a bottle in my other arm!
Mason has had quite a year this year. He started his 8th year off losing his Papa which was very heartbreaking for him. He later found out he was going to be a big brother again! He played football on a team for the first time. He showed chickens at the fair for the first time. He has made the honor roll every 6 weeks this year. He started the year off in a reading pull out group to help increase his fluency. He worked so hard that he was able to exit the program in Dec instead of May! We are so proud of all of his hard work! Mason's favorite things to do are draw, play catch with the football, play on the iPad, DS, Wii or iPhone, build Legos, listen to music, play instruments, hunt, and just be outside exploring. His Daddy is his best friend! When you see Andy, Mason will be right next to him! Mason is a huge helper with his brothers!
Happy Birthday to our creative, hard working, adventurous and fun loving 9 year old! We love you so much!











Birthday pics to come in another post!

Weight Watchers

I joined weight watchers online last week but didn't start it until this week. Monday I ate like normal and tracked my points just to see what my baseline was. I am allowed to have 26 points a day. Monday I had 83!! And it actually could have been worse because I had a dt coke instead of a fully leaded one and I only had 1 dessert instead of 2. This is how bad we (my family) eat on a daily basis. Not good. So yesterday I officially started the diet. I came in under my goal at 24 points but I went to bed STARVING! I ate a bowl of cereal and a veggie sausage patty for breakfast (13 pts), a sandwich and a banana for lunch (6), a fiber 1 bar for snack (2), and a grilled chicken salad for dinner (3). All fruits and veggies are free but I haven't gotten into the habit of having that as a snack. I want CARBS! This is a rough week to start a diet, because food is comforting to me. But I seem to always have an excuse of why I should start tomorrow instead of today. So I am biting the bullet and just doing it. Wish me luck!

His eyes

This time last year I was sitting in a hospital room next to my dad who was hooked up to a respirator, feeding tube and monitor that monitored his heart rate, respiratory rate, oxygen level and blood pressure. He had so many tubes and cords hooked up to him. There was a couch next to his bed. There was one spot on the couch where I could sit and look past the monitor and through all the cords and just see his eyes. From that point of view my dad looked just like my dad. I couldn't see the tubes, the cords, the very skinny legs, or the swollen hands. I could pretend he was just taking a nap and that he was going to be ok. His eyes were always very important to me, so it was ironic that I was able to sit in just the right spot to focus on his eyes. Growing up people would always tell me that I looked just like my dad, that I had his eyes. I was very proud of that. My dad was my hero so I was proud to know I looked like him. I cherished the look in his eyes when I did something to make him proud. When I did something to disappoint him all he had to do was look at me and I was in tears. I can count on one hand how many times I remember him spanking me. He didn't have to. His eyes said it all. I always wanted to see things through his eyes. It's part of the reason I wanted to be in law enforcement. His eyes would light up like you wouldn't believe when he would tell his cop stories. I started working undercover operations with TABC in college because I wanted that same excitement, and I wasn't disappointed. I wish I had a recording of what both of our eyes looked like when we shared our undercover stories with each other. I'm pretty sure my eyes looked just like his. I strive each day to see the world the way he did. To love my family and friends. To put God first. To have fun. To meet goals and solve problems and to have something sweet everyday! You only live once and he LIVED his life. I will always strive to see things through my dad's eyes. It helps me know he is always with me. I love and miss you Daddy.

Lovin'

Mason and Alex are still the greatest big brothers. They LOVE baby Austin!






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Horseshoe Junction

Sunday we went to Horseshoe Junction to celebrate Mason's bday (a little early). The weather was perfect and the boys played on every attraction! We all had a great time. Mason's favorite thing to do is drive the race cars. His second favorite is laser tag. Alex isn't tall enough to drive on his own so he rode with me or Andy. Andy and I both had wrecks with show off kids at different points. Oops! Alex's favorite thing to do is play video games for tickets. He loves cashing in his tickets for various trinkets. I can't believe we will have a 9 year old next week!















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Mommy & big boys date

Saturday I got to go on a date with Mason and Alex. Andy needed to study so he stayed home with Austin and the big boys and I went to College Station. We did some shopping, ate at Fuddruckers and a fried pie place and saw a movie! Here we are waiting for our food at Fuddruckers.


After lunch we went to a fried pie place Andy told us about. They have huge fried pies (my dad would have loved it!) so the boys and I split an apple pie. It was yummy! They had a whole wall of old license plates.


We saw the movie Big Miracle. It was a neat true story. We all enjoyed it. But most of all we enjoyed reconnecting. It's been a LONG time since I was actually THERE with my big boys. We needed that!

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Austin- 9 weeks

Austin had his 2 month check up yesterday. He now weighs 14.3 lbs and is 24 inches long. He is in the 95% for height and weight. His congestion is getting better and the Enfamil soy formula is definitely working. The Enfamil soy isn't available in Brenham in the large can though. So I asked Dr. B about switching him to Similac soy and he said it shouldn't be an issue. I bought the Similac today and have given him two bottles of it and can already tell it's an issue. He is back to having lots of gas and yucky diapers. Poor buddy. Looks like we will have to be ordering formula online or driving to College Station. I'll definitely do what it takes to make sure he has the right formula for his little chubby tummy! He is starting to talk more and gives us lots of smiles and laughs. A few times this week he went 5 and 6 hours before wanting a bottle. But according to Dr. B he is drinking the max amount of formula he can have in a day (32 oz) so we will probably be introducing cereal in a few weeks. I know the big boys will be excited to get to feed baby Austin! We are so grateful for our bonus baby!

Valentine boxes

Mason and Alex had to make their own Valentine containers for their classroom Valentine's party. Mason's class was having a contest for most creative and he was determined to make his "container" look like a house. He worked with his Daddy to come up with the "barndominum" below! He used cardboard, staples, paint and foam letters. He won second place in the contest and received a certificate to spend $.75 at the school store. :)













Alex wasn't as into decorating his box this year, which is pretty unusual for him. He used stickers, foam letters and cut hearts out of a gift bag. It still turned out cute. The most important part to him was that it was filled with cards and candy! 

More brotherly love

Alex is a great middle big brother!


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Brotherly love

Austin has the best big brothers! Mason fed Austin and watched him while I dried my hair. I love that I have great helpers!


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Austin- 8 weeks

Austin is 8 weeks old. He is smiling and laughing now. He is starting to hold his head up for longer periods of time. He still eats every 3-4 hours around the clock. He has been sick for several weeks now. He is very congested and has a yucky cough. Poor buddy. I feel so bad for him. He is now wearing 6 month clothes in sleepers (anything that is an all in one with feet) because he is so tall. We switched his formula to soy hoping that would help his gas issues. It has helped some but hasn't completely solved the issue. He goes to the doctor next Thursday for his 2 month check up so we'll see what Dr. B suggests. He has started trying to talk to us with his coos and ahhs. It's very cute! He can follow objects and people with his eyes. He loves watching his brothers. They are usually always entertaining! Speaking of his brothers, I have been meaning to take pictures of them so I could post about them. I don't want them to look back on this blog one day and think Austin was a favorite! I love all my boys equally!

Baby face

I am so blessed to get to spend my days with this sweet boy.


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Ramblings

I wish I had more time to blog because I am going to look back on these days and wonder how I spent my time. So I am going to take a few minutes to document that. Austin will be 8 weeks old on Thursday. In some ways it feels like he has always been a part of our family and it other ways the 8 weeks have flown by. He still eats about every 3 hours around the clock. He has his first illness. It's so sad. I hate not being able to ask him what hurts. He sounds like he is brewing coffee! Mason and Alex are sick too. At least they can tell me what's wrong and I can give them medicine. I hate it when my boys are sick. I wish I could be sick for them. Mason has sinus trouble and Alex has had an ear infection for the last 6 weeks. He still has fluid in his ears so Dr. B put him on a month of antibiotics. After a month he will be checked again. If he still has fluid we will see an ENT to discuss getting tubes again.
Austin has started smiling. He has also started making sounds back to you when you talk to him. I borrowed a bouncy seat from Natalie and he loves that. He still doesn't care for his swings. He prefers the playmat, bouncer, or someones lap! He still just goes with the flow, which I am so thankful for. Mason and Alex are still super helpful and the best big brothers. They feed Austin, play with him, help me give him baths, sooth him in the car if he's upset. They are constantly getting things for me and are becoming way more independent in taking care of themselves. I took all three of them to the grocery store yesterday and surprisingly it was a pleasant experience. Austin slept, Mason grabbed the things I needed off the shelf, and Alex scratched them off my list. I was so thankful for an easy grocery stop. I'm sure they won't always be like that. Actually, I'm not sure if it will ever be like that again! Maybe it was because they were all sick so they weren't 100% on their game!
These last couple of weeks have been tough ones for me. It's nearing the 1 year anniversary of my dad's death. I can admit that I have not even started the grieving process. I have just been doing what I do best which is block everything out. I don't what to continue doing that but to allow myself to think about the reality and to remember those times of him being sick, etc is so painful. My mom gave me some grieving books that I have read. They have been helpful. I know I need to start talking about things and I need to allow myself to cry. The timing is just hard because along with thinking about the events that went on last year during this time, I am also dealing with less sleep than normal and post baby hormones. Although I have to say the post baby hormones are much better this time around then with Mason and Alex. I still get sad sometimes about missing adult interaction and feeling unproductive. I shouldn't feel unproductive because there isn't a moment that Austin is sleeping that I am not up doing something (washing bottles, doing laundry, etc) but I guess the things I am doing don't bring me as much reward as what I used to do. I miss not being able to help at Mason and Alex's school. I miss not being able to get my errands and all my chores done during the day. Now these things roll onto Andy's plate or take up time on the weekend. I know these things are all minor and will soon pass. I need to keep reminding myself of that. They are small prices to pay for the precious gift God gave me. This is the first time I have been able to stay at home with a newborn. And knowing it's the last newborn I will have, I am truly going to take advantage of it.
Last week Austin was having a particularly tough day so I called the doctor to see if I could get an appt. A nurse called me back (I'll refrain from using her name here) and said (in a very country accent), "Well, when you are feeding him his formulaR (yes, she added an R at the end of formula) you just need to hold him upright." REALLY?! So that's what I have been doing wrong. Now she tells me on kid #3! Then she says, "And you need to make sure you burp him real well." "Then after he has finished his formulaR you can put him in his carseat to sleep, that will help with the congestion." I explained that I was already doing these things and I was worried he had some sort of infection and I was worried about his breathing. She told me I could discuss all of this with Dr. B when I bring Austin in for his well check appt. on Feb 15th (13 days from then!) I was NOT happy. After that phone call I decided I needed to switch him to the Enfamil Prosobe formula because if he was anything like Mason I knew that would work. I didn't remember seeing it at HEB that morning so a very cranky Austin and an unshowered, tired & grouchy mama head to Walmart. Of course, they don't have the formula. I call Andy for the 8th time that day to complain. He knows how to handle me when I get like this, thank goodness. He listened, validated my feelings, and called Brookshire Brothers for me to see if they carried it. They did. Austin and I went to HEB anyway, just to double check. They didn't have it. So off we go to Brookshire Brothers (at this time it's 2:40 and I should be in carline to pick up the kids). BB has a small can of it for $16, but at least they had some. At this point, I am so frustrated with Brenham. I was missing the boys Pediatrician in Austin and the big HEB right by our house. (I might add we had to drive to College Station the day before to buy a birthday present because the places here didn't have what we wanted. I sometimes get so annoyed that we have to spend 1.5 hours in drive time when the kids have homework and school the next day. I miss going 5 minutes up the road to get what we need.) So all of that (along with the hormones) had me in a funk. After leaving Brookshire Brothers I rush up to school to get the boys. I start to walk into the office and there is a small post-it note on the door that says "Attitude is Everything". I opened the door and just started laughing. I told the ladies in the office that I had a bad attitude all day. Then I told them the story of the nurse at the clinic and the grocery stores that didn't carry what I was looking for. They had me laughing so hard I was in tears. I left there that day with an entirely different attitude then I had when I walked in. I was so grateful. I don't think they had any idea what role they played in my attitude adjustment, but it was definitely needed. I went home that evening and was able to be a little more relaxed and maybe only yelled at my kids a handful of times instead of a dozen! Just as the ladies in the office helped me adjust my attitude, I know I can help my kids adjust theirs by keeping positive. It's so hard to do these days though. I feel like I am constantly on them for something and snapping at them for the smallest thing. Just because I am going through a rough patch doesn't mean they need to take the brunt of it. I wish I could channel my frustration and sadness in a more productive way, instead of toward the ones I love the most. I know I need to start exercising but most days I can barely fit in time to shower! I know this is a stage that will soon pass and I just need to be patient. But patience is NOT one of my virtues. I know I have so many things to be thankful for on a daily basis and I don't need to let so much get to me. That's something I really need to work on. And I learned last week that a good cry and a good laugh both give you the same outcome...a little peace and calmness.
Andy is still staying up until all hours of the night studying for his next CPA exam. He is scheduled to test at the end of the month. After that test he will only have one more to take. I am so proud of his motivation and drive to get this done, even with the strains of work and now a family of 5. He is definitely modeling hard work to the boys.
Having a newborn has definitely forced us to eat at home. I have been cooking for 3 weeks in a row now! I don't think that has happened in our entire 10 years of marriage. Pretty sad huh?! I am not a fan of cooking. But it's definitely cheaper than eating out every night. I would say it's better for you too, but I haven't mastered healthy cooking yet, just cooking. If you have any easy and tasty recipes send them my way! I am tired of making the same five things!
I'm sure I only have 2 people still reading this, and that's ok. It's more for my own record keeping! Happy Tuesday!