Chunky Monkey

Luke had his 2 month check-up today.

4 shots

23 inches long

AND.....

14 pounds!!

If lugging him around doesn't take the baby weight off, I'm not sure what will! (Wishful thinking!)

**Forgot to mention when I first wrote this, he also has a small umbilical hernia. For now the dr. will just monitor from appt to appt. Hopefully it will repair itself. Not a major concern.

Double Digits!

On December 15, 2000 Brian and I became parents for the very first time. We were THRILLED to have a healthy baby boy! Little did we know how fast he would grow up.

10 years have gone by in a flash. We are so very, very proud of the young man Ben is becoming. Smart, funny, athletic, musical, artistic, loving, sincere, technological, God-fearing and helpful are just a few ways to describe him.

I can't even begin to think about how fast the next 10 years of his life will go and all that he will accomplish.

Happy 10th Birthday, Ben! We love you more than you know!

10 classic pictures for 10 years of life!

Backyard Visitor

For the past couple of months we've been seeing an owl on a regular basis in the same spot in one of the trees. He's a pretty impressive fellow (or gal, not sure which), and today I was able to get a good shot of him.

Not a bad picture for a point & shoot camera through my living room window.

Same picture but cropped & zoomed.

12-11-10

What a weekend! The blizzard that the meteorologists forecasted didn't disappoint us.

*Glad we cancelled the birthday party

*All 6 of us stayed in our PJs basically from Friday night to Sunday afternoon

*Video of Dome roof collapse is pretty impressive!

*Bitter cold temps Saturday night...so we decided to put on all our gear, zip Luke up in my coat, and walk 6 houses up the block to hang out with a few neighbor families until 11:30 at night! We honestly couldn't have driven that far. The car would have gotten stuck in the cul-de-sac!

*Church cancelled

*24/7 Lifetime Fitness we belong to closed early

*Official snow total was 18"

*If this would have been during the week, we would have had at least 2 days off of school!

The view out our front door

Winter Wonderland the next day

Drifts as high as the fence!

Snow piled to the bedroom window

Brian cleared out the hydrant

The For Sale sign across the street from us

What's Happening

A busy month for everyone! Here's the latest from around here:

• Face showing great improvement. It's not over yet, but I'll now go out in public.
• Took Luke to my school to visit my colleagues and students. Can't believe my maternity leave is 1/2 over already.
• Hosted 3rd annual cookie exchange for neighbor gals.
• 3 big boys had annual gingerbread men decorating with Nana & Papa while the cookie exchange was taking place.
• Planning Ben's 10th bday party. The plan was to go snow tubing. Fortunately we have snow, but now it looks like the weekend temps will be sub-zero. Not sure of the back-up plan for the eight 4th grade boys arriving at our house from 3:00-8:00 tomorrow!

**UPDATE** Just got off the phone with the boys who were coming to the party tomorrow. We've postponed until after Christmas. Not only are we expecting 7-14 inches of snow and sub-zero temps, I realized that the place we were going to go tubing doesn't even open for the season until December 17th! That would have been a disaster. Show up with all the boys and no tubing to be had. Party scrapped. We're starting over.

• Haven't begun Christmas shopping yet.
• Baby weight seems to be at a standstill for coming off. Not a good sign.
• Fun visit from Brian's brother and his family from IA last weekend. This is Luke's cousin Amelia who loved holding him!

But the best part of all...

• Luke starting to stretch his nights to 6 1/2 hours!
• Real smiles starting to come through!

He's 4

Adam is acting like a true 4 year old lately. Very independent. Zipping his own coat. Likes to get his own food in the morning. Wants to pour his own milk.

Cutting his own hair.

Writing with sharpie on the furniture.

Thank goodness he's a boy and you can hardly notice the hair cut.

Thank goodness for the Magic Eraser. It worked!

Uncle Robert

Uncle Robert made a special trip from Kentucky to MN a couple of weeks ago to meet Luke. The boys have so much fun when Uncle Rob comes. (Plus this time he came with gigantic lollipops from Disney Land. The boys were super excited about those!)

We enjoyed our time with Uncle Rob (Grandma was here, too!), and had fun celebrating an early birthday with him!

A very sweet picture!

I think it's cool how the cake is in focus, but everything else is fuzzy.

Lots of brothers in this picture!

I Bet You Didn't Expect...

to see pictures of food I made on MY blog!

I LOVE apple pie, but I've never made it myself. I decided to give it a try for Thanksgiving tomorrow. I found a simple recipe for caramel apple pie on allrecipes.com. Had I known making a pie was this easy (I didn't make my own crust), I would have been doing this a long time ago!

I haven't tried it yet, but hopefully it tastes okay!

We have so much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. A brand new, healthy baby, stable jobs, a warm home, our health (skin issue aside), family and friends, the list could go on and on.

We are very blessed!

Some Answered Prayers

I'm sure you're dying to know the latest in my skin crisis. Let me give you the lowdown:

First of all, let me just say that it feels weird to be spending this much time and energy thinking about my skin, but I can't help it.

After posting about it on my blog, my SIL left a comment with some very practical and helpful suggestions. I think in the midst of my emotional breakdown I didn't think about what I could do BEFORE my Dec. dermatologist appt to advocate for myself a little bit. So, I called the derm office on Sunday afternoon while I was in tears and left a long message about what was going on and basically begged them to call me back and see me sooner. On Monday morning, I truly had an answer to prayer and the office called back and they were willing to see me... THAT SAME DAY! Yes! I got into the derm TODAY! What a major answer to prayer, considering it took me almost 8 weeks to get the December appt. His conclusions are:

**I originally had perioral dermatitis (a college friend left a comment suggesting as much. Lisa, maybe you should quit your day job and become a dermatologist!) He doesn't believe I ever had pregnancy induced eczema.

**I should have never gone on the topical steroid. My skin became addicted and is now going through withdrawal. This addiction combined with the original dermatitis condition has caused my skin to flare and "wig out". (My words, not his.) Steroid induced rosacea is what he's diagnosing.

**I'll stay on the tetracycline, but now he's replaced the metrogel with an ointment called protopic, and has also added a lotion called clindamycin.

**Timeline: he says within 2-3 weeks I should notice quite an improvement. I am praying that he's right, and that things might begin to recover sooner than that.

**Breastfeeding: Some info I read online conflicts with what I was told about not being able to breastfeed. I've got a call in to the pediatrician to see what she recommends. In the meantime, I'll continue to pump (and save rather than dump just in case it's okay). The dermatologist said that when I see him in Dec., he may pull me off the meds that are preventing me from bfeeding if things are looking good.

**UPDATE**

The pediatrician called me last night at 10:15 and spent almost 40 min with me on the phone. While there are some possible side effects associated with the tetracycline, she said the benefits of bf FAR outweigh the risks of the small amount of medicine that gets passed on to Luke. Her quote, "The only reason I would recommend stopping bf for you right now would be if your breast was going to fall off because of it!" Such a relief and another answer to prayer!

Bring on the boob...and hopefully the skin healing, too!

This Sucks!

There are no other words for it. For the past 4 1/2 months I have been dealing with some type of skin issue, and now, it seems to have exploded!

In September I was given a topical steroid to deal with the issue which seemed to contain the itching and flaking somewhat, but didn't cure anything. After some internet searching, I realized that I shouldn't be putting a steroid on my face for too long, so I went off it. My skin is now the worst it has ever been in my entire life! RED. ITCHY. BURNING. TIGHT. RAW. And to top it off, it seems to be spreading. It's even begun to move up into my nostrils!

I went to urgent care and the older dr. clearly felt sorry for me. He was as kind as could be and suggested a regiment of tetracycline and a topical gel called Metrogel to treat what he thinks is rosacea. The problem...I can't breastfeed while taking these meds. I feel like I'm in a catch 22. Am I selfish for wanting to take the meds and clear my skin? Not only is it uncomfortable, it's terribly embarrassing. I've even canceled a couple of outings because I felt too self-conscious to go out. I desperately want the skin issue to be over and done with, but at the same time, I want to be able to breastfeed Luke. I enjoy the bonding time, it's good for him, it's convenient, and I also appreciate the weight loss benefits it provides. I've got about a week's worth of frozen milk, but after that he'd be on formula. What I don't know is if these meds will work. How long will they take to work? If and when things get better can I go off them and begin breastfeeding again? Is it worth it to pump and dump, or are my breastfeeding days with him over already? I certainly don't want them to be.

I decided to pick up the meds at the pharmacy, and the poor pharmacist had to deal with an emotional, post-partum mom. I was totally crying as she and I discussed the the pros and cons of everything.

Back in October I made a dermatologist appt, but the first opening was in mid-December. For now, I've decided to try the meds the dr. prescribed, and I'll pump and dump until I see the dermatologist. Hopefully things will be looking up by then. I know in the big scheme of things, none of this is a big deal, but for right now, this sucks!

It took all of my courage to post this picture, which I think looks better here than in real life.

4 Weeks

Luke is 4 weeks old today. It is absolutely amazing how fast time is flying. He has changed so much already. I'll admit I'm looking forward to some extended sleep, hopefully in the not too distant future, but for now, I'm trying to enjoy and appreciate all these special moments with a new baby.

4 week stats:

*We're guessing he's close to 10 pounds

*nursing 8 times/day

*takes a bottle no problem

*sleeping ~3 1/2 hours at night (He has had some 4 & 5 hour nights, but not lately)

*not too fussy / easy to console

*likes his baths

*falls asleep with a lot of noise around him

*doesn't seem to mind his carseat

Pictures taken just today:

Baby Gifts

We have been very blessed over the past 3 weeks with generous and sweet baby gifts. We've gotten several new outfits, money, gift cards, meals, new baby toys, and some unique gifts that I wanted to share, too! We are thankful for all of our friends and family who have helped us welcome Luke into our family!

An adorable wooden baby block. I'm considering ordering them for the other boys so everyone will have their own.

Is there anything more important?

I had gotten this necklace with the 3 boys' names a couple of years ago. The Luke charm was given to me approximately 9 hours after he was born!

(A tiny part of Luke's name is based on the fact that it would fit on the same size charm as the other boys!)

Post-Pregnancy Hormones

**I wrote this a few days ago. I've been feeling more upbeat lately, but I'm posting this so I can remember what thoughts I was having.**

A sampling of my irrational thoughts lately:

*Got teary clearing out maternity clothes. Sad it's over. Realized I never wore a cute shirt I bought...got even more teary.

*Frustrated that at only 2 weeks postpartum I'm not fitting into my smallest jeans (Stupid, I know!)

*Wondering how on earth I'll ever work with 4 kids; as if no one in the world has ever figured it out before!

*Feeling like the older 3 will never have quality time with us and we're doing them a disservice.

*Super stressed about $$. That's nothing new...I'm always that way.

*Wondering how I'll ever have an exercise routine again, and then feeling selfish and guilty for wanting to have an exercise routine again. (I did cover 2 miles on the treadmill today, and then felt bad that Ben was holding Luke for that time. Neither of them seemed to mind. The next day I ran 2.5 w/ Holly & felt good. )

*Feeling guilty that my job-share partner is now working full-time and not really loving it. She wasn't required to fill my position, but offered to, but I'm feeling bad for putting her in this predicament.

*Feeling frustrated because I know these thoughts are irrational, yet they still seem to creep into my mind and consume me!

Hungry Hippo

16 days ago we brought home a baby who weighed 7 lbs 6 oz.

Today at Luke's 2 week appointment he weighed 9 lbs 1.5 oz.

Rolly-polly here we come!

Note to Self

The next time I plan to have a baby, I need to plan ahead so the baby does not arrive 2 weeks before Halloween, one month before Thanksgiving, and two months before Christmas. These holidays tend to complicate my weight loss quite a bit.

I've lost count of how many mini-candy bars I've had today, not to mention the tupperware of Grandma's bars we're pounding through right now!

Pumpkin Carving

Adam drawing out the design for his pumpkin

Classic Matt...not happy with how his drawing came out, but we managed to save it!
Ben actually did all of his own carving this year!

Ben designed and carved the "4 Boys" pumpkin!

Grandparents

Our kids are fortunate that they are able to see most of their grandparents fairly often. My parents only live 10 min away, and Brian's parents are 4 hours away, but Grandma is a trooper and makes the drive here fairly often! We were thrilled to be able to share baby Luke with them.

Hopefully Opa can meet Mr. Luke soon, too!

Grandma holding grandchild #11 on Brian's side of the family.

Luke tipped the scales in favor of the boys...6 boys & 5 girls.

Nana & 1 hour old Luke: grandson #10, grandchild #13

Papa with 3 of the 5 MN grandsons

They share a middle name

I'm not sure who was more surprised here!