2 Months Old Already!

Well I wanted to update everyone on Niki’s progress. He is now 12 lbs 11 oz (75th percentile) and is 22 ½ (50th Percentile) inches long. So he’s very short and round almost like a little ball but he’s super cute! He does has a herniated belly button which means his belly looks like his hiding a little grape inside. The doctor felt it and goes “yep we see these all the time” and he said it should be soft and bubbly feeling inside when you touch it and it doesn’t hurt him at all. He said that if it’s still around when he’s 3 or 4 years or age then they will do surgery. He is very congested sounding but he said that’s from reflux that he has and since he vomits or spits up quite a bit from his nose that’s why he sounds so noisy when he sleeps. Again nothing to worry about but just something to watch and hopefully by 4 months old he will not make that noise anymore, but I guess time will tell. The poor baby also got 3 shots when he was there and he cried so very hard I felt very bad for him. And then the poor baby slept all day Friday. Overall his is healthy and growing very strong. He has a very firm grip. We still try to capture his very sweet smile on camera but it’s a hard battle. He smiles but mostly in the morning and he smiles when he is laid on his changing table as he’s talking to the stars on the walls. He is cooing quite a bit more and is starting to react to faces. He’s just taking his sweet time as he’s developing which is okay, I don’t want him to go too quickly any way. They said that by 4 months he should be rolling over, but if he’s not its okay too. It’s amazing how fast it’s going by. So things are getting ready to go “back to normal” on Monday. I’ll be back at work and the world will return back to a semi normal fashion once again. I’m excited about going back to work and sad at the same time. The normal feelings that a mom has when they go back to work I’m sure. I do enjoy spending my days with Nikolai and Maya but I’m glad that I’ll be back working again. I’m still working on my Couch to 5 K and right now I feel like I’m sucking a little bit. Today’s run was run 25 minutes. I had to slow my pace way down after about 3 minutes I felt like I was going to die then after that I had to stop 3 times I was soooo disappointed but since I had to stop I made myself do a 2 minute penalty which basically means that I watch for how long I stop and if it’s more than 30 seconds than I run an extra minute instead of doing the full “cool down” walking part I just add the time on there. I got to 2 miles but it was really hard. I should have it 2.25 miles but it just didn’t happen but luckily the next 3 work outs are this same thing again so maybe by the 4th time I do this I will be able to do this time with no problem. We have been doing this for 6 weeks now and during the time I lost 7 lbs but right now the last 2 weeks I haven’t moved in weight loss so it’s a little frustrating. So hopefully my metabolism gets a move on soon b/c I’m starting to get frustrated. So that’s life right now. Hopefully after next week I won’t be too tired and hopefully I’ll blog again soon. We’ll see how this whole returning to work thing works out.

Update!

So I took these super cute pictures of Nikolai in his outfit the other day that I thought were just WAY to cute not to share. My Aunt Samantha sent this extremely cute baby outfit to us for Nikolai’s birthday and I thought they were perfect. At first I thought that he was going to SWIM in it… but as you can see it fits him perfect so it all works out!!

So I have to say the Maternity Leave Timer is almost over. I only have a week left! Can you believe it? It has been a VERY fast two months but I’m ready to go. My boss called me the other day and left a message on my work phone, and since being on maternity leave I don’t carry that phone with me all the time and was VERY surprised to see that he had called AND that I missed the phone call. So I called him back (the next day) and he just was checking on me to see how things were going and to make sure he knew my return to date and we talked a bit and you know it was a good conversation. Our office right now is kicking Butt and taking names we are getting big clients and sending proposals to all different types of companies so it’s GREAT it sucks that I have missed the excitement but I’m so glad that Terry wants to do outside sales that makes my stress level lower already, just thinking about that.

So to get me ready to go back to work. Tait bought me a massage that he wants me to get before I go back to work to relax me for the week ahead. I scheduled myself a hair appointment to get retrimed and rehighlighted. We have a family reunion coming up at the end of April so I figured it would be good to get that done anyway. Also this week we all went to the eye doctor and I found out that I need ALL THE TIME glasses, well at least when I want to see 20/20 then I can wear them so working, reading, you know… most of the time so I am posting a picture of me with them. <

Both girls do NOT need glasses yet and Tait well he needs new glasses the doctor said his eyes were pretty bad with his current glasses so he has those ordered. So it was an exciting week to say the least. So here are some more pictures of Niki so enjoy!

Weekend Update

Well another weekend has come and gone. I have to say as the count down slowly comes down I am having mixed feelings about having to return to work. On one hand I'm excited I like my position and enjoy the work that I do. We have had changes while I was out and I now have a FULL TIME OUTSIDE SALES PERSON that means I don't have to do that any more thank goooooooodness but that was seriously the worst part about my position. I know I'm going to be going back to being Branch Manager but with me not having to go out and do outsides sales that means that I can be the Staffing Coordinator on the inside and do my inside sales which is WAY easier. I just don't want to get bored with it. On the second hand I do enjoy being home, I'm definitely not 'made' to be a stay at home mom and kudos to all of those that go out and do that. I just enjoy being around adults and not having to watch day time tv b/c if I had to do it the rest of my life we would have serious issues. I think people turn to Dr. Phil and Opera b/c seriously they have to break up the boredom during the day. I realize that if I WAS a stay at home mom I would have to join a mommy's group or something b/c I would gain 500 lbs. Also I really don't enjoy the normal household chores, I know what person in their right mind would, but I am so bored during the day that I look forward to having to switch and fold the laundry, and that my friend is NOT normal. But I do enjoy rocking Nikolai to sleep and me knowing this is my LAST baby it makes me a little sad knowing that I won't be the person he shares his firsts' with. The only thing that makes it a little better is knowing that Helen will be the person he does all of those things with. I also enjoy having the finances as well. I know you aren't supposed to feel that way but I do I like being able to take my family on "mini" vacations and be able to go shopping when I want... I like those things, so that means sacrifice and that means working. I also have set myself up for a goals to reach and one of those things in my professional realm is I want to be an owner of my own Express office. So in the next 5 years that's what I want to have accomplished, even if I have to start off as a partner office I'm okay with that. Tait told me that once I get my own office he'll come work for me. So I already have my staff :) Of course that means I'll have to go back to outside sales for some time, but maybe it will be easier when you know that whatever you sell the profits go DIRECTLY to you... the motivation I would imagine would be different. I just would like to go to Aruba for a week when you make circle. Now mind you our office did get a trip, to Vegas, of course I was on maternity leave when it happened but still. Having my own office would allow different opportunities for myself and for my family and I just want a shot at those opportunities. Today is kind of an off day today I'm feeling kind of sad for some reason. I was searching on face book for friends and found a couple and sent requests but just feeling "off" today. Maybe it's b/c my time home is almost over who knows it's hard to explain. Life does have it's ups and downs and today I wouldn't describe as a total "down" it's just not an up. Who knows it's probably just baby blues. I'll get over it, I always do. I'm also on a kind of random rambling spree today. So just two weeks left. April is going to be a busy month for us. But it should be a good month. I know once I return to work I'll get back in the swing of things fast I just don't want to lose my workout schedule or time spending with the kids and I know that by going back to work some things will be more difficult to do... But that's life as I know it for now...

March in Review

Can you believe it; we have a 4 & 6 year old already?

Lehna Marie Lehna Marie was 6 years old this week. She is in kindergarten and is loving school; she makes friends very easily and enjoys spending time with her sister and helping me out with Nikolai.

For her birthday this year we took her to Applebee’s for dinner and they sang to her and brought her a HUGE ice cream sundae which she happily shared it with her sister. After her birthday dinner we came back home and we all enjoyed her birthday cake and she opened her birthday gifts. She has wanted this Barbie Movie called Secret Barbie Fairy or something like that and so she got that along with 2 Barbie dolls.

Now Lehna BEGGED us for a birthday party but at this point we told her no. I thought that with her as young as she is it would make more sense to do a birthday party a little older when she can invite her special friends over. I just didn’t want us to set up a party and only 3 kids show up I think that would be a disappointment to her. So I told her that we would go to Key Lime Cove in a couple of weeks and she was okay with that. (Key Lime cove is a hotel/water park that is in Gurnee)

Maya Elizabeth Maya Elizabeth was 4 this week. She is not currently in school or day care right now. She is quite a funny little girl she loves to dress up in princess clothes and wearing “dresses” which can be anything from her night gowns to her church clothes, which in turn drives me crazy b/c once when puts them on she takes them off and leaves them all over her floor and I spend a lot of time telling her to pick them up. She loves playing with her little dolls (like strawberry short cake and mini princesses) Maya could spend all day in a room by herself and she would play perfectly fine.

For Maya’s Birthday she wanted to go to Red Robin and they sang to her and brought her the perfect size ice cream sundae which she sheared with her sister. Maya opened her presents in the morning so she could spend all day enjoying them. Maya go the movie “Tangled” and Mini Strawberry Shortcake dolls. She didn’t want a party she talked about having one or at least Uninviting me to it when she got mad at me for not giving her something she wanted, but for the record she didn’t really want one. It’s going to be really hard in the years to come not to gain 50 lbs this week. With two birthdays’ we had two birthday cakes which in turn meant A LOT OF CAKE. I love cake so it was VERY hard staying out of it. And I gave in a number of times which sucks against my will power! So along with Birthdays to update me also wanted to update what we have been up to recently. At the beginning of the month we went up to visit Mom and Terry. Jackie and Marcus and their kiddos were coming for a visit and we wanted to spend some time with all of them so we all went at the same time. It was great. We hung out and just spent some quality time hanging out. We played Scrabble and also Totally Insane Card game. Man I truly miss having Game nights. We didn’t go anywhere this time we just had some good R & R time which was really. Also this month Lehna had her spring break so at the beginning of the week I asked Lehna what things she wanted to do while she was on spring break and we tried to do all of them. She had simple things like make an art project, go to the art store, and go to the park, things of that nature. So we were able to get all of the things she wanted accomplished except on thing, which was go ice skating but instead of doing that Tait took the day off and we headed down to Chicago for the day. We rode the train. The girls LOVED it at least for the first 30 minutes than they were over it. Lehna got a free family pass to go to the Shed Aquarium this year so we took that pass. Once we got to the train station we went via taxi to Shed now Lehna was VERY disappointed that we weren’t on Cash Cab but there were excited they got to ride in a taxi. We spent the entire day in the Aquarium we talked about going to the Children’s Museum but we didn’t b/c the train schedule really only allowed one activity. And I think by the time we left the aquarium the girls were ready to go. We did get to the train station way to early and we spend time going through the little stores there and buying books and things for the girls to keep occupied. We also bought a ton of snacks for the train ride home, which Tait kept saying that he bought way too much but we ended needing all that he bought. On the train ride home there was an accident and it delayed the train almost 2 hours. And during that time the girls were STARVING so it was nice that they had something to snack on, it at least kept them entertained. On the home front, aka normal life. Things are going well. I still have two weeks left of my maternity leave so I’m enjoying my last couple of days with the baby and also with Maya. I am still working on getting in shape so I have been really working hard at my diet and also trying to get in running shape for the Rudd Walk/Run that’s coming up in May. Last year I walked it and this year I want to be able to run it. I downloaded a program called Couch to 5K for my IPhone and I have to say I LOVE it! It tells me how to get in that correct distance shape. After I complete this program I am going to go straight to the Bridge program from 5k to 10K I don’t have a goal time set for the 10K yet but I’ll figure something out. I guess I just want to prove to myself that I can do it! I have about 60 lbs to lose as well so I figure this will help me get rid of that as well! It’s all for the greater good and since my baby making days are now coming to a close I don’t have a reason NOT to get my body into some good shape… at least I can’t us “well you are going to have another baby” as an excuse NOT to get into shape b/c I want to get there dang it. So that’s my goal for the next couple of weeks. I’m half way though my running program only 4 more weeks and it will be complete it comes right before the Rudd Walk actually so timing is everything right!

Nikolai Anthony 1 month