Random Little Updates

1. Little Jon is fairly mobile. He can inch-worm his way across the floor it is really cute. I would post a video but I am not totally sure how to do it. He is so cute. His 2 bottom teeth are almost all the way up. I love going to get my son out of his crib in the mornings. It makes me feel so good to walk in there and have him look at me and get this huge grin on his face. It makes my day!
2. The mouse died! I got so fed up with it that I offered to buy my husband a gun if he would get rid of it without putting holes in my wall. Finally, it got caught in a trap, yay! I was so ecstatic to be rid of that mouse.
3. A couple days later, I saw another mouse running around my house. Words cannot describe my fuming hatred towards mice.
4. I got a piano for my birthday/christmas present for the next like 6 years. It is used but beautiful and old. We are the second owners of it, ever. It was bought in the late 30's and this lady has had it in her house the whole time but now she has moved to an apartment and needs a smaller piano. Once again I would post a picture but I am not sure how If someone wants to enlighten me I would be oh so happy.

Baird Reunion

This past weekend was the Rey Baird reunion, it was Jonathan's Grandma and all of her descendants. We drove down to Provo Saturday morning and joined right in with the family. Now what you have to understand is that Jonathan has 18 Aunts and Uncles and all of them have children so this was quite the crowd. The Baird's can also be somewhat, ok really, intimidating. Have you ever seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding? That is the Baird family minus the Greek and the fat and the wedding. But seriously I didn't think those families actually existed... until I got married. Now the movie is so much funnier to me because on the other hand you have my family which not in its extended state is very similar to the grooms family in the movie. Anyway I was so excited to meet all of these people and get to know my extended family on the other side. I decided that I was going to try really hard to get all the aunts, uncles and spouses names down. Forget the other generations I will work on them later. I did it! I was so proud of myself. (Forgive my spelling there are like 10 different ways to spell every name in the English language, sorry if I get it wrong) These are the observations of an outsider...
First you have Jim and Char Christensen, Char just studied abroad in Paris, France and they have a brood of 6
Second you have Elaine and Brian Partridge, they have a brood of 6 one of which is named Ben whom I met at the family reunion and is studying to be a physical therapist. They also have an Amy, who wasn't there and I can't wait to meet because she is so fantastic.
Third you have Russ and Margie Baird. I married into this family so I won't bore you with all the details I know about them ;)
Fourth, Ron and Janelle Baird, they have a brood of 6, and they have an Ethan and he wore shorts and cowboy boots to the reunion on Saturday, I made sure to make fun of him
Fifth, Becky and Monty Burkholder, Becky reminds me a lot of Ron in facial structure. They have some children and Monty is a go getter at getting food served, especially homemade ice cream
Sixth, Doug and Laurel, they have one son Thomas. Doug is a Physicist and is almost a replica of my father-in-law
Seventh, Sarah and Hyram Johnson. They have 3 children Coleman, Wyatt and Kate. They live in Driggs and we scarred their oldest when we hit a dear while he was in the car.
Eighth, Dan and Julie Baird, Dan is my new favorite uncle, like he told me at my wedding. He is a dentist and they have fantastic kids and an especially adorable daughter named Eliza. I like them a lot, Julie especially seems to like Little Jon
Nineth, Jeff and Janette Fisher. They just had a baby a few weeks ago and he is precious and very little like 7 lbs little. Now to most that sounds like a pretty average baby but remember mine was virtually 11 lbs. Anyway Janette is like the world's best pianist, at least from the stories I have been told
And Finally but very best is Rikki and Matt Vilburn. They have a drop dead gorgeous little girl named Emily and she is about 3, I think. Rikki is every one's favorite aunt. It is a self given title but acknowledged and believed I think by everyone. She is like 5 feet tall and super spunky and I love her. She and I became fast friends and I couldn't be happier, she is fantastic.

Overall the Baird clan is made up of fantastic people, all of them wonderful in their own way. I am so
happy to have married into such a wonderful family, where love and laughter abound.

Now for the activities, now remember I am a newbie so none of these traditions mean anything to me but apparently they are a big deal. We got there Saturday afternoon and It was rainy so we couldn't do the grandchildren birthday party at the water park, which Grandma used to rent out the entire thing for this party but now they wont let her, and I think it has been closed so now it is at the Veteran's pool. Anyway instead we went roller blade/skate-ing which was fun. My husband apparently was a super blader with Ben when they were younger. It was fun to see a side of him that I never have before. And he is really good, I looked really dumb but that is ok. The Russ Baird kids all jumped in with much enthusiasm and I was impressed with how many times they fell down and just jumped right up. Then we went and had dinner and talked and had the grandchild birthday gift exchange. You get a name of a cousin in your similar age range and it has to be from the dollar store. I had no idea you could get so many cool things at the dollar store. There was supposed to be a movie in Grandma's backyard which is another tradition but it was too late so we all just left. Sunday morning we all got ready and went to our various church meeting, a lot of the aunts and uncles are locals so they went to their own wards. Jonathan spent our time visiting important families from his Provo days, especially the Rowberry's. Joe Rowberry is a man to which I am very grateful for all his support to my husband in his youth, it was also pretty much the funniest thing to watch him play with Little Jon he became the biggest goof I  have ever seen. Then we had family dinner, we started trying to say good bye... and we left several hours later. After dinner was homemade ice cream and it was delicious. Then we left. The reunion goes through Monday but we have work.

My son over the reunion had a total of 4 hours of nap time? AKA not nearly enough. So today Monday it is currently about 6 pm. My son has been awake for  a total of maybe 3 hours. He is also detoxing from a week and a half of pure spoiling from family, which makes him really fun;) It is ok he is learning quickly and it hasn't been too bad yet. I am excited to be home for a while and get life back to normal.

A Week in Denver

So a couple weeks ago Little Jon and I went to visit my parents for a week. Jonathan would've come if it weren't for that blasted work! We had a ton of fun. Grandma and Grampa were so cute and spoiled my son in a way that only grandparents can, which is fine... until I came home. Whilst in Denver Little Jon popped out 2 teeth, right on the bottom. Overall it wasn't as bad of an experience as I was expecting. It was super fun but oh my was it good to be back and in the arms of my hubby.

Updates

So often I look at my bogs that I follow and I think Gosh why dont people update more.. then I realize I am such a hippo crate. This is me trying to be better. SOme of our recent happenings are that we finished our bathroom... mostly. It is functional and we are soooo happy, there are still other things to be fixed but they can wait. Pictures will come... once I figure out iPhoto. But in big news I am expecting again! Yay! We are so excited. I am due the end od December which will put our two little munch gins 1year apart. We aren't finding out the gender until the baby is born. I am feeling great! This pregnancy physically has been much easier than my last but emotionally more difficult but I think that is because I am in a more difficult part of my life right now. I am still trying to adjust to being a stay at home mom so I have all of those fun feelings multiplied by pregnancy it makes them really fun. I think it is funny how quickly I forget what pregnancy is like. I love being pregnant and it is fun for me to get the old symptoms back, like crying at almost any commercial.  Anyway thats our life and we like it!

Tiling

It is finally done my friends. Many of you dont know that when my husband and I bought this house we were given a budet so we could fix it up. The house it great, but the bathrooms are tiny and gross. So we decided to redo the hall bathroom. To save money we decided to do it all ourselves and seeing as my husband is a super handy man and home depot has a lot of how to videos we figured we were smart enough to do this on our own... and we were ;) Unfortunately this has taken much more time than either one of us wanted it to. You see we started ripping it out like the day after we moved in so we have been in a 1 bathroom house for the whole time we have lived here so for about 2 1/2 months or so. Unfortunately that means when family comes to visit which is very often by the way they have to walk through our bedroom to the bathroom which is so small you have to leave to change your mind. Anyway we started tiling and Jonathan was doing great. The problem is it was very discouraging so I kept encouraging Jonathan to get more and more work done and he got more and more discouraged. FInally after about 3/4 of the bathroom was done I offered to help...oops. Anyway we found the project was much easier when done in pairs so it didn't feel like anyone got banished to the bathroom. Today though I decided we were going to finish it so wen family comes up in like a week it would be done, or at least functional. Betsy came over and helped (because Jonathan had to work and Betsy is just a saint anyway) and we started around noon and we just finished with clean up and all at 9 pm. I am so grateful Little Jon took a very long nap today. I am so glad it is done, we got to the point where we were like does this fit? There is a little gap, oh well just put the darn thing in. I am happy with how it looks and that is all that matters. I am so proud of Betsy and I and I am also very exhausted. To get the full effect I will wait to post pictures until all the fixtures are in as well.

I need a hobby

No really I do. Being a stay at home mom with one young child was supposed to make me instantly busy. Apparently babies like to sleep a lot so I spend a lot of my day doing... nothing. You see when there are things to be done but just a few I tell myself I will do them later, and then I don't. It is also not helpful that I tell myself I will do it later cause I will have time to do nothing for 5 hours and still get done the 2-3 things I need to that day. And the sad truth is that I often have time for both. Sometimes I think there are to many hours in a day, call me crazy I know. This is my predicament. I feel like I have nothing to do, I could clean my house but at most that takes me 1.5 hours. Then what? The only friends I have are still in school and as much as I like to go see them, I don't want to be the kid that graduated and couldn't move on, you know? I decided I would start scrapbooking after Little Jon was born as a hobby and I have all of my stuff organized in my craft room, except I dont have a table. I could pull it all out and put it in the kitchen table but that just seems stupid and like a ton of work. And the kitchen table probably still has breakfast on it. The other problem is that when Jonathan comes home from work he wants to relax and when someone else is here I am motivated to work, it doesn't work out well.  I feel like I am just watching my life slip away as I spend hours doing nothing. How do I make my life busy again with out spending money?

Pains

       So sorry I haven't updated in a long time, I have so much to say and share but I will update that later.... hopefully :) So about 2 weeks ago I went in for a routine check up with Little Jon only for the doctor to tell me that my son looked "scary" as in underweight scary. He weighed in at 11 lbs 13 oz at 4 months old, oh yeah and he was born weighing 10 lbs 11 oz, I guess he was right. So I had 2 weeks to get him up in weight, I went from nursing him 20 minutes every 3 hours to 40 minutes every 1.5 hours. After a few days of gorging himself (which ps made me feel like a great mom to see how much my son was starving) we calmed down a little but he was still eating about 20 minutes every 2 hours. We went back 2 weeks later and with all the extra feeding my son weighed in at.... 11 lbs 5 oz, that’s right he had lost more weight. At this point the doctor tells me to go to the hospital today, now. Oh and I should plan to stay overnight my doctor says. I walk home bawling my eyes out, not sure how this is happening but apparently I am starving my baby and now he needs emergency care. And as a side not this whole time my baby has never been fussy or grumpy except for the 2 brief moments of sickness, which could’ve attributed to the weight loss but who knows, he has always been mellow and wonderful. The only way I can console myself is to keep repeated he was acting so happy how could I have possibly known he was starving. 

       We get to the hospital and they want to put an IV in Little Jon however since my son is so dehydrated and his skin is so baggy they are unable to find a vein, oh yeah they tried 8 times to find one by the way. Do you have any idea how hard it is to hold your son down while he screams in agony as needles are repeatedly pushed into his body? I am crying now just thinking about it. (Oh and Jonathan is at work now so I am there all alone). Also, did you know they can try to take blood from the veins IN YOUR HEAD! Yeah they tried on Little Jon, I didn’t watch in stead I buried my head in his knees and cried. The problem was they needed blood to run some tests so finally they got the ok to stop poking him except in his heel, which they must have done 3 times right in a row because I have seen a baby heel prick before and it never bled like it did this time. Over and over again I wanted to scream at them to stop but I couldn’t do it, instead again I cried. At times it was so hard I had to leave and just let the nurses hold him down because I couldn’t watch which then also made me feel like a bad mom because I couldn’t stay to support and help my dear sweet boy. 

       After the whole ordeal with the needles one of the nurses tries to talk to me and ask me about the back story of his feeding and begins to lecture me about how "I’m not going to correct your mothering skills but..." which once again makes me feel great. All alone, I am a horrible mom with a starving baby. They finally get me up to my room and everything slowly gets better and I calm down. Which is why I didn’t have either mother come down and help me, because they worst was over and I figured I was ok, and I was. Jonathan gets off of work and comes to join me they have put Little Jon on formula because he needs to gain weight fast. I pretty much assume that nursing my son is over because well even when I have pumped and fed it to him he has struggled trying to nurse after that, how in the world is he going to cope with trying to nurse after straight formula and bottle for 24+ hours? That night the nurse comes in and says they couldn’t get enough blood for one of the tests so they will have to prick him again, inside I scream not even wanting to think about how this time is going to be but fortunately they are going to wait until tomorrow morning when he is more hydrated. In the morning they take the blood via heel prick again and it isn’t that bad for which I am so grateful. I talk to the doctor, the nurse, the dietician and the lactation specialist and long story short I don’t produce enough milk anymore. I only produce about 4 oz every 6 hours, yeah definitely not enough. So basically Little Jon is on a formula only diet and if I want to breast-feed I can supplement with it but really h just needs to be on formula, I tried nursing him once and he actually kind of did but I already fed him formula like ordered so it lasted like oh 3 minutes. I decided to nurse my baby on a "as mommy needs basis" thus far I haven’t nursed him again, though I might go try after I finish this post. They weighed Little Jon after about 24 hours of formula feeding and he gained 10 oz, all in one day I was so proud, but also a little hurt. I was upset that I could no longer provide for my son what he needed. My mother-in-law has always talked about how hard it would be to be a pioneer mother and have your baby die because you weren’t nourished enough to provide milk for your baby and they starve to death, I think I kind of get what she is saying now, and yeah it would suck. 

       As to why I no longer produce enough milk well we have no idea. It is probably nothing I did just mother nature, so that made me feel at least a little bit better. We were released from the hospital and we went home. Now I have been lucky enough to never feel engorged or in pain if I miss a feeding or 2, I have just been super blessed that way, maybe it is because my breasts are so freakishly huge now that they could never possibly get completely full but whatever. Anyway so I told the lactation specialist I have never been in pain so she didn’t give me anything to help my milk dry up. I haven’t fed my son in 3 days. It hurts, and they are so heavy. Running today was a painful experience in a new way. It isn’t really bad just when I put almost any kind of pressure on them. I tried to hand express some milk today in the shower barely anything came out, but they are still as hard as rocks. If it gets worse I will go to a doctor but for now it is just a new pain. Being a parent brings such a new understanding to the pains of life. I know it is helping me become a better stronger person but it is also really hard, especially those protective mother pains, oh well maybe some day it will get easier but I doubt it.