Labels

Pucker Up 3

Swell & Good

Sunday, March 25, 2012

RC is ONE!

RC you surprised us by coming early at 37 weeks and 2 days. You were just too excited to see us! You were a cuddle bug in his first few months. There were days you just wanted to cuddle with mommy, but when you learned to scoot about, you became a very independent little boy. You are very strong willed. I can see when you are trying to figure something out. You are all boy. You love to listen to music and "dance" to it. You love to play with the big kids in MOMS Club. You love your monkey blanket and won't sleep without it. You love to jump up and down on your bed. You think mom and dad's bed is for jumping on too. You are learning to stand and love to stand up next to dad while he's laying on the floor and then topple over onto him. You do the same thing on our bed. You loved fruits when you first began to eat solid foods and hated the rice cereal. Now you love oatmeal, still love fruits, and love many veggies too! Your favorite is to "share" apples with daddy. You can giant bites out of it. You learned to use a sippy cup with a straw and finally figured out how to use a regular one too! You now take juice or water from one with a straw and milk from the other. You figured out how to walk holding onto furniture a month or so ago and now you are trying to figure it out without holding onto things. You are growing up way too fast! Mommy and Daddy love to watch you grow and learn. Happy Birthday RC! We love you!

RC

March 25th

9:25 pm
6 lbs 15 oz
19.2 inches

RC
1 year
19lbs 14 oz
30 inches

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Happy Birthday to my little Robot!

RC is ONE!!! To celebrate we had a robot birthday party and invited his friends from MOMS Club and friends of Travis'.

For his party, I searched Pinterest for ideas. I found several ideas and blog postings of the robot party they put on. Using some of their free printables and ideas I jumped into the planning process. It was so much fun. I worked on and off for over a month on RC's party.

First, the favor bag! Every party needs a good favor bag to send home with the kids that attend. After reading one of the blogs, I decided to go for a bag of goodies that was mostly eatable and mostly healthy! I used the idea for the robot treat from My Insanity. My treat is a 100% apple juice box with Rolos for feet, Kit Kat for arms, and on some a Hershey's kiss for a hat. Travis thought to make it look more like a robot to print the head and body out and glue one the juice box. All the candy is attached with glue dots. I think they came out pretty good.


I also included a container of Play Doh (well the generic version) from the dollar store. I created a robot label and a thank you for coming label and taped/glued those on.

For the final snack item. I made a bag of "Nuts & Bolts" which were multi-grain Cheerios, pretzel sticks, and a few M&M's thrown in! I got the printable from Wendolonia.

Lastly I tossed in a couple robot shaped erasers from Oriental Trading. The bag was simply a paper lunch sack with a printable glued on that said thanks for coming and had some robots. Here is a picture or the favor bag with all the goodies.



For decorations, I printed off pictures of robots and hung those around. I made a robot from cardboard for the front door and also made one from recycled materials for the table. The door decor was fairly easy to make as I have a project that made it easy to trace a robot onto the cardboard. I painted it and then used an Exacto knife to cut it out. This idea came from My Many Colored Days.



I saved up formula containers, soup cans, puff containers, and coffee cans for this next robot idea that came from Kathie Cooks blog. The feet are soup cans with the body the formula container. The arms are puff containers and the head is a coffee can. I cut out parts from one of the printed out robots and used glue dots to attach them to make it look more like a robot. Inside the coffee can has the plastic knives for the party.



For party games and activities we had "Pin the battery on the robot," make your own robot, and mix and match robot puzzles. The pin the battery on the robot idea came from Boy oh boy oh boy blog. I painted up a robot and then used slips of paper with the child's name on it for the batteries. I used some of the extra favors from the party bags for the prizes.


The make your own robot was from Oriental Trading. It was a cut out of a robot with various foam pieces for the kids to add.

Lastly the mix and match robot puzzles I made I simply printed out pictures of robots, cut the head, arms, and legs off, and then laminated all the parts and cut out again. The kids could mix and match the body parts to make the robots. These can be reused and RC can continue playing with them!


 Finally the FOOD! There's no party without food. All the food had a robot name to it.
  • Gears: Ritz crackers (also had a gluten free option for one of our guests)
  • Computer Chips with Lubricant: potato chips with ranch dip
  • Memory Cells: Cheese Puffs
  • Nuts & Bolts: multi-grain Cheerios with pretzel sticks
  • Fuel Cells: Pizza (also a gluten free option for one of our guests) (Travis came up with this name)
  • Robot Cakes: Gluten Free Brownies and of course a special made robot shaped cake plus some cupcakes (for the kids)



    And no robot party is complete without the birthday boy in a special robot cloth diaper and robot shirt!
    You can't see the diaper that great, but it's a Rumparooz Robotronics cloth diaper.

    Wednesday, March 21, 2012

    Eight years ago....

    I married my best friend. My other half. It's been an amazing journey so far with many more adventures to come.




    Tuesday, March 13, 2012

    RC's Birth Story

    This is for the Mommy Talk Tuesday over on The Not So Secret Confessions of a Second Time Mom blog.

    RC birth was not what I expected. Almost 1 year ago, I was at a non-stress test. I had to have these twice a week due to an ultrasound showing more amniotic fluid than was needed. All had been going great throughout my entire pregnancy. I passed both my glucose tests, my blood pressure was perfect, I wasn't showing any signs of issues....well other than too much amniotic fluid. They weren't really concerned with it though.

    At my appointment, RC was not cooperating. He wanted to sleep, while the tech needed him to move. I had been hooked up to the monitor for about an hour already. This was pretty routine for me. It always took at least an hour. The tech felt bad an wanted me to be able to go home. She came over and tried a buzzer on my belly to wake RC...that didn't work. She then started pushing on my belly to 'poke' him awake. Next thing, RC's heart dropped from 160 to 40 and took over 3 minutes for it to fully come back up to 160. The tech went off to get a doctor. The doctor came in, looked at the sheet, said "you're 37 and 2 days correct?" When I said yes she said, "good, call your husband your going to the hospital tonight to have a baby!" On the way out the door she said "hopefully we can have a natural delivery, but we'll see how things go when you get there."

    I tried my husband's cell...no answer. I had to stay an additional 30 minutes to continue being monitored just in case. Kept trying...still no answer. My husband just about never answers his phone. Very annoying when he was told by that point in my pregnancy to always have it on him just in case! I was released to drive home, get my things, eat dinner, and report to the hospital.

    When I got home, I told my husband, pack your bag we're going to the hospital to have the baby. He looked at me, didn't believe me and went back to what he was doing. I told him, no really we have to leave now. Get moving. Stopped at subway for dinner, then headed across the water hoping we missed all the traffic in the tunnels!

    When we got to the hospital we were checked in for extended monitoring to start with even though the doctor had said tonight was the night. We got to our room, they hooked me up and they showed us how to unhook me from the machine if I needed to use the restroom. In the meantime I have texting with my mom and sister informing them what is happening. My sister was ready to hope on a plane to fly out that night. She was finally talked out of it. It would have been super expensive. I finally had decided I needed to use the restroom. Just as my hubby was coming around the foot of the bed I said "wait, I think the heart rate is dropping again." Sure enough 160, 150, 140....70. I pushed for the nurse and said "I'm sure you see this but his heart rate is dropping again." Several nurses came running in, yelling roll to your side." I'm going which one! They pull me over and the heart rate starts to go back up. When the doctor came in, she asked "did you feel that?" "Feel what?" "You had a contraction, only a minor one. Since the heart rate dropped with that minor of a contraction, you now get to have a c-section."

    After hearing that I told myself to just stay calm as it wouldn't be good for the baby. I sent more text messages to my family. Did I mention my mom was on a cruise at the time? She was freaking not being on land to get here.

    It took about an hour before they got me into the OR and then I was prepped and laid out on the table. The spinal was the weirdest feeling ever having most my body completely numbed. It took affect so fat that I almost could lay myself on the table after they were finished! The procedure seemed to take forever, mostly because I couldn't see, but also because it was a teaching hospital and the doctor was teaching over me.

    Finally she pulled RC free, said "I told you, the cords around his foot" and said "Dad, hurry up and take a picture!" RC got to stay in the room while they finished up with me then he was carted off to be cleaned up and checked. It was about 2 hours before I finally got to hold my baby boy.



    Sometimes I feel cheated that I didn't get to have the full experience, but then after I hear some labor stories, I rethink that! My baby boy was just in a hurry to see me so he found a way to do so!

    Tuesday, March 6, 2012

    Ugh...

    last night was another one of those nights where RC screams in pain...for what seems like hours. It started at bed time when I laid him down...and the screaming began. I gave him Motrin, but he still wasn't wanting to lay down or cuddle (at least not without squirming around like crazy). He played for a while, watch a little Veggie Tales, and then sometime around eleven (3+ hours after his bedtime), he finally would lay down and sleep.

    RC doesn't really cry that much. Usually only when he is tired but is fighting it and when he is in pain. His in pain cry is a scream though. An ear piercing scream. So at 3 am I'm awoke to that ear piercing scream. Some more Motrin and 1.5 hours later of fighting him to just lay and cuddle, he finally calms enough to go back to bed.

    Today we head back to the doctor. Two weeks ago RC had a double ear infection. After he finished his antibiotics, he started getting fussy again. So, last Monday, we went back to the doctor. No ear infection and nothing else wrong. The doctor said he may have some fluid left causing the pain. Needless to say, the last week has been like RC was a newborn (which he was nothing like). Hopefully we find something out today, but of course, I don't want him to be sick. We would like some answers though. It has been a week of on and off screaming each night. :(

    Thursday, March 1, 2012

    In a rut

    I have been in a rut for a while now; since our return from our Germany trip actually. I'm not sure why I have been in this rut...if it is just that I don't want to track all my food, would prefer to eat what I want when I want, or that I have in my head that with all my thyroid problems it is just too hard to loose weight! Whatever it is, I need to get back on track. I really would like to get some more weight off.

    I am a little bummed after talking with my endocrinologist on Tuesday that she confirmed some of my suspicion that my thyroid problems are part of the issue. She said it is going to be very tough to shed the pounds. In fact she gave me a look of "that's going to be near impossible" when I said I would like to get to 170. At one point in my life getting to that was easy. In fact I did it over a summer. Give it, I weighted less then than I do now, but I still shed 40 pounds over that summer. That was before all my thyroid problems began.

    Now I need to find something else that will get me motivated again. Something that will show results even if not on the scale to keep me motivated! Not sure what that is. Even Travis saying he would buy my a new Bearcat t-shirt if I get to 250 and a Bearcat hoodie at 200 isn't seeming to work. :(

    Something needs to change. Maybe the weather changing will help. It will be nicer to get out and take walks. RC is getting old enough we can go to the park across the road, walk the beach area, and play at the play ground. Perhaps we can start a walking group in the moms club I am a part of as well!

    So far I have lost around 10 pounds since starting weight watchers and about 30 pounds since having Richard. I am doing fairly well, but would like to get to pre-baby weight soon.

    What are some things you do to keep yourself motivated?