Lovin' my CF boy!

I'm still here!

2011-08-23T10:44:00.000-05:00

It's been WAY too long since I've posted anything on my personal blog because it's really taken a backseat to my photography business (which is doing incredibly well - I've even booked my first wedding!).

Most things in my life are going fairly well, unless you count the big hiccup of Chris losing his job. Yep, that's been a huge bummer. After 11 years with his company, they decided to "reorganize" their accounting department starting with their CFO and controller and are now working their way down the list...his last day is September 2nd. He did get a nice severance package (and why not after 11 years?!?), so we'll be ok for a while until he finds something new. In fact, today he has an interview and later this week he has a 2nd interview, so I'm sure things will look up fairly soon.

Kyle is doing exceptionally well! At his last CF visit he was back into the 50th percentile for height/weight ratio and turned 2 years old a few weeks ago. We celebrated with a small gathering at our house with just us and his grandparents. I still think he's too young for real birthday parties and frankly, I don't see the point in them until he has actual friends he can invite. Maybe when he's 5 we'll think about it.

My only concern with him right now is his speech (or lack thereof). He knows several words, but doesn't take the initiative to say them, unless it's mama or dada. He will call for us when he needs us, but other than that everything is nana. Ugh...I'm sort of dreading making his 2 year appointment with his pediatrician because I don't want them to force him into speech therapy. I really think eventually things will take off with his vocabulary, but I feel we could wait until he's 3 on therapy.

Other than that, not a whole heck of a lot going on. It's been all photography for the past few months and I can't believe how busy I have been. The most busy was 3 shoots in one weekend and that made for a very, very busy week leading up to 2 more shoots the following weekend. So far I've gotten great feedback on my work and my customer service, which is really, really important to me. I really want my clients to get a great experience from start to finish...and even then consider me as a friend going forward. With me, it's not just a business, it's a personal business.

I feel like I should be putting some pics up...but sadly, I have a ton of personal ones that I need to go through. There really just isn't enough time in the day!

Ok gotta go...always something to be done. :)

Update through pictures

2011-06-02T08:17:00.000-05:00

I've been busy lately, which is good. I'm slowly, but surely building up my portfolio and my client base each and every day. Yesterday I actually got 2 referrals, so yay for referrals!

I figured I would sum up what I've been doing this past month through photos.

This is the large canvas I sold after posting this pic to Facebook of the Minneapolis skyline over Lake Calhoun. I took this while on our CF walk on May 7th. My cousin bought it for his daughter and I cannot wait to see it up on her wall. He said they had been looking for something exactly like this since Christmas and couldn't find one, so I was so delighted they loved this shot I took and wanted it in a large 29x44 canvas. I'm still debating which canvases I'll be ordering next and this might be one of them.

I recently had a photo session with my Great-Niece. She is so darn funny and at the age I love the most, 10 months. This was the perfect session for adding to my portfolio. It was a bit tricky having Kyle here while taking them, but luckily my nephew was here to keep Kyle busy playing blocks on our living floor while Nylah, her mom and I could get these done. I might have to start finding a babysitter for Kyle for my week-day sessions!

Over Memorial Day weekend we decided to bring Kyle to the MN Zoo. We didn't have the greatest weather as it ended up being cloudy and chilly and then started raining as we left, but I still managed to get some great shots in. Next time we go to the zoo, though, we'll be putting Kyle on a leash...literally. :) He was very antsy and just wanted to run all over the place leaving poor Chris to wrangle him in so I could take pictures, but we still had fun!

And last, but not least. I finally got around to taking some pics of me and Kyle together. A rarity, but definitely overdue! It was a nice, warm and breezy Spring morning so I broke out the tripod and went to work. I absolutely love these and Kyle was so happy about finally being able to pose with mom for a change. And I'm sure he liked having me on this side of the camera much better.

CF Walk | Mother's Day Catch Up

2011-05-10T09:47:00.000-05:00

Oh wow, it's been a long time since I've posted anything here. I guess I've just become so wrapped up in my photography lately.

We had our Great Strides CF Walk on Saturday morning. The weather couldn't have been more perfect. Sunny skies and cool temps made for the perfect "walking weather". We ended up raising $1200 for the CF Foundation, woo hoo! We had a nice turnout of walkers for Team Kyle - me, Chris, Kyle, my parents, Chris' parents, my sister-in-law and my 2 nieces, and my good friend, Jill.

I was able to capture this beautiful pic of the Minneapolis skyline over Lake Calhoun, too. This is probably the only shot that really turned out well from the whole day. I was too busy getting us registered and trying to coordinate our walk, plus DO the walk and couldn't really concentrate on picture taking.

After the walk, we all came home, ate lunch, then we put Kyle down for a nap. I started to develop a bit of a headache and tried to relax a little while he napped knowing I needed to save a little energy for my surprise Mother's Day dinner night out planned by my wonderful husband. Come 5:00pm and I still had my headache, but managed to get through the night and enjoy our time out at the Melting Pot downtown (soooooo good!). But, by the time we got home my headache had managed to double in size and I was down for the count. PJ's on, I was asleep on the couch by 8:30pm.

The next morning I woke up and thank God, my headache was gone, but we woke up to quite a rainy day. We had plans to go to my parents' house for a Mother's Day meal and spend time with my family. Before we got there I dropped off the CD of images at my recent client's house for her. She wasn't home so I had to put it on her front step since her screen door was locked. I didn't notice the mailbox until we were headed out of her neighborhood, but I'm pretty sure it's illegal to put things in other people's mailboxes anyway. She did let me know that all was ok when she got home, nothing was too wet. Thinking back I probably should have put everything in a plastic baggie for her. Live and learn!

That night ended up being a rough one since Kyle didn't get his nap in. I ended up sleeping on his floor with him, but luckily after a good nap yesterday afternoon, some lighter PJ's and a cracked window...he slept like a baby last night. :) We put him down at 8:00pm and he didn't get up until I went in his room at 7:30am to find him already awake playing with his stuffed animals in his crib. I love those nights followed by those mornings. I had gotten up 30 minutes prior and already had a nice uninterrupted cup of java. Lovely way to start off a morning. :)

Well, it's time for me to shower and get out the door. Gotta do a grocery run this morning before it gets too hot. 85 degrees today!!

My new canvas wraps!

2011-04-25T15:56:00.000-05:00

New Blogsite

2011-04-13T15:51:00.000-05:00

So I guess starting a business comes with a little trial and error, especially when you do all the work yourself. I started out using the site wix.com to create an online space to show off my portfolio and then expanded that as a means to be contacted linking my blog and facebook page to it.

At first, I really liked the site. The ease of use and the free Flash software for displaying my pictures without fear of them being stolen, but after getting severely frustrated with how slow the site was and some of the limitations of it, I decided to take my domain and move it to blogger where Alicea Rose Photography the Blog is now my Professional Blogsite. I still have a link back to my old wix page just for the use of the free Flash software for those that want to view my portfolio.

It's all definitely a work in progress.

In other photography news, I'm super excited for the 3 canvas wraps I ordered yesterday from Canvas on Demand. I signed up for their Pro Account and immediately got a credit for $84 (kind of a random amount, but whatever) and an additional 25% off everything on future orders. I then proceed to the area where you can order samples of your own images on canvas for another 40% off. Wowza!

After entering my 3 photos in sizes 8x10, 11x14 and 16x20, I only ended up paying $28 and that included shipping. The original total was $124. Sweet! And now I'll have some canvases to hang up in my home studio. :)

On a bad note though, my session for Saturday has been cancelled, but will soon be rescheduled. Weather is playing a factor as well as a missing babysitter. She was planning on bringing her daughter in for her 5 year pictures and leaving her boys at home. It would be too chaotic with all 3 here, so we're going to try and do something with all 3 outside once the weather warms up and it gets a little more green around here.

I'm a little bummed since this was my very first session booked by someone coming to me, but hopefully we'll get it all worked out. I still have my maternity session and 2 other family sessions coming up as long as the weather cooperates.

Soft Light vs Hard Light

2011-04-05T15:18:00.000-05:00

Before I start this post I just want to say that Kyle is finally starting to feel better. His congestion has cleared up and he is finally back to normal after one hellish week that ended with my aunt's memorial service on Saturday. I'm really, really, REALLY glad that week is over and behind me.

So...onto the point of this post. My experiment with Soft Light vs Hard Light in the studio.

I recently bought an AlienBee's Beginner Bee studio lighting kit. It came with the strobe, umbrella and stand. Below is a picture of it in my little spare bedroom studio.

It didn't take me long to figure out how to set it up and use it and now I am in love. I'm so excited for my upcoming photo shoot next weekend of my friend's kids. I just need to buy the 107" seamless to fit all three kids on!

So anyway, one thing I had always wondered was what photographer's meant when they said they used "hard light" vs "soft light" in a portrait, so I did a little experiment of my own using my lovely model, The Moose.

I decided to throw this little guy up on a stool and try out some shots using the White Seamless paper and using a dark brown blanket thrown over it as a dark backdrop.

The upper left photo is using the umbrella and facing the light away from my subject, so the light bounces off the umbrella and back onto my subject. You can see the direction where the light is coming from by the arrow on each photo. I kept it the same for consistency in each photo. You'll notice how the light wraps around the subject creating a very graduated transition from light to shadow across the face. Also lighting up the background creating a nice bright photo.

The bottom left photo is using the strobe pointing directly at my subject with no umbrella. You can see how the light shines right on the subject creating a very distinct line between light and shadow. You'll also notice how the background is a little darker as the light does not wrap around the subject.

The upper right photo is the same as the upper left, just using the darker background. Same with the bottom right photo. I just wanted a darker background for comparison sake.

This experiment really let me see the difference between the two types of lighting. Since I am, and always have been, a very visual learner this was huge for me. Some people can just see it in other people's work, but I needed a hands-on lesson of my own. And I'm so glad I did.

As far as personal tastes go I think I prefer the soft light, especially for shooting children. Not that I'm opposed to hard light. With the right subject, it can be used to create wonderfully creative and dramatic photos. I just don't know if that suites my personal style and taste. I'm sure there will be a time when I will use it for something, so at least now I can have confidence in knowing I will know how to use it.

Hopefully this post helps someone else out there pondering this same question. :)

Still Congested

2011-04-01T13:55:00.000-05:00

Kyle has continued having a rough week since our appointment on Tuesday. He has been congested every day. Not nasal congestion, but lung congestion directly related to his inhaling of the Chloral Hydrate he took on Tuesday.

Right now I'm noticing the congestion the most during meals, during his nebs and when he starts crying. I've upped his nebs to 3x/day, which was suggested by his CF clinic. They also suggested I take him into the Pediatrician to have his lungs listened to, but luckily my mother-in-law is a Nurse Practitioner and is coming over after work to listen to him, so we can avoid taking him to the doctor. She seems to think, like the CF clinic, that this will pass soon. I really hope so.

I've decided that if he's still congested on Monday, I'm going to call the clinic and have them do a chest x-ray, just to be safe.

With every congested cough he has, my heart stops. It's terrifying listening to him cough and heart breaking knowing there is nothing I can do to help him or clear it up any faster. I've been trying to get him to run around and laugh because that tends to get him breathing a little harder, which in turn gets him coughing and I can tell by the sound that the coughs are productive. He also swallows a little right after, too. I just keep hoping he's not swallowing so much mucus that he ends up throwing up again.

CF is really starting to show itself and here I thought we might be able to keep any major symptoms dormant, since he was doing so well. So much for wishful thinking.

I keep hanging on to hope that the new drugs they have in clinical trials will help with his specific mutations. We read up on this article yesterday and it all sounds promising. I remember when Kyle was first diagnosed, our CF nurse said she was hopeful a cure would be found in the next 5-10 years. If we can only keep him healthy enough to benefit from new drugs, or better yet a cure, that's all I want out of life. I keep telling God, do what you have to do to me, but save my little boy. I would give anything, including my own life, for a cure to be found for him.

Worst CF day so far

2011-03-30T14:33:00.000-05:00

Thinking about yesterday still brings tears to my eyes. It was quite possibly the worst day of anything CF related we've had to deal with so far.

Kyle had his infant PFT (pulmonary function test) scheduled yesterday for 9:30am. We were given instructions that Kyle is not to eat or drink anything within 8 hours of the appointment and he should also come to his appointment ready to go to sleep, which meant keeping him up late the night before and waking him up early the day of his appointment.

As instructed, we kept him up until 10:00pm and got him up at 6:30am, and hadn't given him anything to eat or drink since 9:30pm the night before.

Kyle was very sleepy, but still in good spirits, although it was very hard to tell him he couldn't have anything to eat or drink when he pointed to the kitchen and said "na na" wanting his morning num-nums before we left for his appointment.

We picked up Chris at work and got to the clinic where we checked in and got settled. It started out very routine with Kyle getting weighed, oxygen levels checked, breathing listened to, etc. He was good to go! The nurse explained they would be giving Kyle a liquid sedative that would help him go into a deep sleep, but would not put him under. They said it didn't taste very good and there was nothing they could do about that, but that most kids swallowed it down with a little bit of a struggle, but then it would be done. Ok fine.

So we head to the room where the liquid sedation medicine was to be administered and the nurse instructed me to hold Kyle down with one leg while I hold his arms down with my hands. She grasped his cheeks, opened his mouth and started injecting the medicine with the syringe. Of course, he fought it, gaged, choked, but got it down. After we did this a couple of times until all the medicine was gone, Kyle got a strangle look on his face, one I know all too well, and the vomited started. His vomit, because he's a CF'er is very mucousy and thick. Not exactly the easiest stuff to get up. He was crying, gaging, choking and having problems breathing because he was now inhaling his thick, mucousy, medicine mixed bile back into his lungs. Not good.

The nurses ran in with towels both wet and dry to clean him up. I held on to him and got him to calm down and slowly he started to doze off. While holding him in my arms, I could tell he was still having a hard time breathing. His breathing was gurgled and at one point, he stopped breathing. He woke up gagging and I flipped him upright and started patting his back to help. He plopped his head down on my shoulder where I could finally hear his breathing become more regular, deeper and clear. The nurse checked him and said his lungs still sounded clear, so I had a small bit of reassurance that was the end of the worse of it.

The nurses came back in and said because he had thrown up quite a bit of the medicine, they would need to re-administer half the dose. So yes, the terror I had just experienced and the trauma my little boy just went through was about to start all over again. And it did. Exactly as before.

After the nurses left again, I held on to Kyle as he drifted back into sleep and with tears in my eyes said to Chris "I hate that he has to go through this. It just isn't fair." I also told him if this dose doesn't take, I'm taking Kyle and getting the hell out of there.

After 20 minutes, it seemed as through Kyle was completely out of it. Even to the point where the technician was able to take him out of my arms and hold him for a bit before trying to lay him in the machine where he was to have his breathing monitored. But each time he tried to lay him down, Kyle woke up and fought to get out.

At that point, everyone agreed it just wasn't going to happen. I was relieved. Sad we couldn't get the testing done, but relieved it was over. No more medicine. No more gagging. No more vomiting. I could take my baby home.

We all walked back down to the nurses station where they monitored Kyle for about an hour. They wanted to make sure he could keep down water and he wasn't having any adverse reactions to the medicine. We finally left around 1:00pm and I couldn't have gotten out of there fast enough.

The rest of the day Kyle napped off and on, only to lift his head up, take a little sip of water and lay right back down until 7:30pm. Finally, he woke up looking a bit more awake and we got him to take his enzymes and drink some milk. He stayed up for about an hour and even played Lego's on the floor with Chris and I until we put him down to sleep at 8:30pm where he slept solid until 7:00am today.

Today, he woke up as if yesterday never happened. Bright eyed and full of vigor, just like I like my little guy to be. He ate his breakfast well and did so-so at lunch and is now napping.

The only thing that worries me is he's still a bit congested in his lungs from yesterday, but I'm hoping that clears up in the next day or two. We did get a neb/vest treatment in last night and I got one in this morning, too. I'm going to do one after nap and one right before bed tonight. I've also been encouraging him to cough for me when he starts sounded congested. Getting him to run around and laugh helps, too.

Chris told me last night that this could possibly be what it's going to be like should Kyle ever get sick and need hospitalization. God, I hope not.

Another loss for our family

2011-03-27T09:15:00.000-05:00

I can't remember if I had written about this when it happened, but my mom's younger brother, Jack, died a few months ago. It was half expected as he wasn't in the greatest of health, but the way it happened was a tragedy. He died alone in his little trailer and no one noticed until a few days later when he wasn't picking up his phone for his once weekly chat with his son. He was the first of my many aunts and uncles to pass away.

And yesterday we had another loss. This time, it was my dad's sister, Sherry. Sherry was diagnosed with Lymphoma a few months ago. She was stage 4 at the time, but made it through several months and rounds of chemo and became cancer free. While this was good news, the bad news was that there was only a 3% survival rate for her type of Lymphoma, unless she went through a stem cell transplant after her chemo treatments. She opted for this, since she knew it would be her only chance of living at least a little bit longer.

She was being treated at the Mayo Clinic, which everyone knows is one of the best hospitals in the country. We knew she'd be in the best hands possible after having several unfortunate incidents with the small little local hospital she had been previously treated at. Her brothers, my uncles, stepped up and offered to help pay for anything she needed that insurance wouldn't cover. My dad spent tireless hours searching for hotels and rentals that take cancer patients as well as husbands, brothers and dogs, and traveling between Rochester and the Twin Cities for weeks while getting her settled in and meeting with all the doctors and nurses that would be treating her.

Sherry had the stem cell transplant and the doctors couldn't have been more pleased saying she did so well, but now the hard part would begin. As her body would be completely rebuilding itself literally cell by cell, she would soon lose her appetite, energy and entire immune system, and eventually come down with both influenza and pneumonia affecting both her lungs and her heart. She was admitted into intensive care a week ago where she became unconscious.

She came to just long enough to make one last final phone call to my dad on Friday. She died on Saturday.

This woman had been through so much in her life. First, being born into a family of 6 brothers and sisters, with a controlling and abusive father. Secondly, marrying a man who soon also became controlling over her life to the point where she and her husband had no contact with any family for years and years until the horrible and untimely death of her 19-year old daughter, my cousin, Gina.

Then losing her only living child to what he called "her obsession over Gina's death" and not ever being able to know her own granddaughter. He now resides with his wife's family in WI with his daughter. We're not even sure if he has any contact with anyone from the family anymore or not. I think possibly one or two of my uncles may still be in contact.

The only peace I can find in this whole situation is that she is no longer in pain. No longer fighting the good fight. And she is now reunited with her daughter in heaven, and can now watch her granddaughter from a distance, which is more than she ever got on this earth. I can also find peace in knowing she was at my wedding having herself a good ol' time, and also attended my baby shower, where I will always treasure the little Winnie the Pooh she had attached to the gift she brought that day.

I will always remember her sense of humor, and especially her laugh. It's so strange that when I lost my grandmother, then my uncle and now my aunt, their laughs are the things that always come back so quickly to my memory. Maybe that's because through all the tragedy, I choose to remember them happy. The happy times are the times we should all choose to remember. And cherish, while we still have them.

Been Busy!

2011-03-23T14:34:00.000-05:00

Well, Kyle has been doing better. Not so much with the eating, but what he is eating and drinking he's been keeping down, so I guess that "good". While giving him a bath yesterday I noticed his arms have gotten a little chubbier along with this back and legs, so the ScandiShakes must be doing something right.

Sunday Chris, Kyle and I went to SuperTarget and loaded the cart with all kinds of fattening foods for him. The cashier must have thought we were crazy! We also bought a deep-fryer and I've been deep frying all of Kyle's fries, chicken nuggets, corn dog nuggets, etc. He loves McDonalds fries so much I thought, why not? So far, so good. He's not eating a ton, but what he is eating is high-fat and high-protein, which is just what this boy needs!

I have a lot going on professionally. Yes, that's right...professionally. I officially came out of the closet and announced my business to the world. Well, the Facebook world. After posting some pictures from this photo shoot, I received 2 e-mails from old friends wanting pictures done of their kids. I have a shoot on April 17th and one in June/July. I also still have my free maternity shoot I'm doing the last weekend in May.

Then I got an e-mail today from my SIL letting me know a co-workers friend's sister does High School sports photography and wanted to know if I would assist her on the weekends when she finds the need. So, of course, I jumped on that. Any opportunity to stretch my wings and get additional exposure I will take in a heartbeat.

So, I'm busy getting ready for my upcoming shoot on April 17th. I'm buying some studio lighting and some additional props. I really do love the studio work and it's nice that when we wrap up, I just go upstairs and hangout with Chris and Kyle. :) Although, I'm looking forward to on-site shoots as well, at least as an excuse to get out of the house.

Nothing Worse

2011-03-17T15:07:00.000-05:00

There is nothing worse than when your child who was Cystic Fibrosis is not eating well and when he does drink down a milk/scandishake combo pukes it all up about an hour after eating all over your parents living room floor.
Yeah, this was how my day started.

Kyle has not been eating very well over the past 3 days now. Picking like a bird at his breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner. I've been banking on him getting his calories from his milk shakes, but not today. We can kiss those calories good bye.

When he puked I just about started crying myself. This disease is so frustrating. This isn't the first time he's puked, actually it's not even the first time he's puked at my parents' house, try the 3rd or 4th time, but when he does I just keep hearing the words "feeding tube" in the back of my mind.

After he puked he started crying and choking on his vomit, so I rushed him into the bathroom and got him in the tub. He calmed down once he sat down in the warm water and got some toys for him to play with. I soaped him up and washed his hair and then let him play in the tub while my Dad cleaned the carpet.

I just hate days like these.

At least now he's taking a nap and will hopefully wake up with a good appetite. I fear making him another "shake" and him drinking it down without eating any food. I have a feeling they are just too rich for him tummy when he's eaten no food with them. If only this kid would eat. something.

The CF clinic wants him back for another weigh-in in a few weeks. I guess they could weigh him at the infant PFT appointment, which is scheduled for the 29th. No sense making a separate trip down just for a weigh-in.

2 steps forward, 1 step back. Every day with the crap-tastic disease. I hate you. I hate you, CF and everything you stand for. A big FU to CF!

Back to Reality

2011-03-09T08:43:00.000-06:00

Sometimes I feel like Kyle lives in his own little CF bubble. He has been so healthy these past 19 months with clear lungs and great weight gain. I even feel like at times he doesn't even have CF...until we have an appointment like we did on Monday and it's back to reality.

The appointment started off with chest x-rays, so his doctor can see if these are any blockages in his lungs. Holding my little boy down while his chest is scanned and x-rayed is just as unpleasant for him as it is for me. Luckily, if the technician gets it right, it goes by relatively quickly.

Once the chest x-rays were done we moved back to the waiting room to await the dreaded blood draw. This is all part of Kyle's annual "labs". The wait was rather long as they were backed up, but once we got in there all hell breaks loose.

First they tried to get blood from his left arm. No go. Then they switched arms and poked him again in his right arm. No go. Back to the left arm and finally with the help of the "sucker", as I call it, they finally got blood drawn. All this going back and forth while I once again, hold down my little boy as he fights, screams and cries. I'm stil not sure who suffers more. Me or him?

After he was bandaged up (on both arms) we headed up to the 4th floor to the Children's Respiratory department to see Doctor Cindy, his normal CF doctor. After his weigh in, height check, culture, oxygen levels, etc., Cindy comes in to tell us that Kyle's BMI has dropped significantly and has some concerns.

So, we discussed adding a few new things to his diet and changing a few things up. Before, we were doing the Carnation with his milk and now we will be using ScandiShakes instead:

One full packet of this mixed with 8oz of whole milk is 600 calories. Not that Kyle takes 8oz of milk at one time, but he usually gets 4oz, so mixed with half a packet will be 300 calories, mixed with whipping cream is another 50. We started this the same afternoon we got back from the clinic visit and I'm hoping when we go back in a month it will have made an improvement on his weight. Cindy mentioned the feeding tube as an alternative option, and at this point I really don't feel it's necessary. I'm hopeful that by adding these shakes and few other items to his diet this can be avoided.

Overall, though, he's still healthy. They did find a tiny, minor blockage on one of the smaller airways in his lungs, but Cindy said this is the same one they saw in August and there is nothing new, so I guess that's good. It's still bothersome that he has ANY blockage in his lungs already, but when he has his infant PFT's done (soon I hope) it will show if this affecting his lung function at all.

We also talked about adding Pulmozyme and Hypertonic Saline to his neb treatments, but since they aren't covered by insurance for infants/toddlers, we decided to hold off until we felt he actually needed them. He seems to be doing fine with the regular saline/albuterol mix, so again, we'll wait until those PFT's are done to decide any new treatments going forward.

I really, really hate this disease. I hate that my little boy, who would otherwise be just a normal, healthy little boy has to go through this all because of some defective genes. It just seems so unfair. Monday night I ended up crying myself to sleep. I try to stay so strong for Kyle and for my husband and my family, but when I'm alone and no one is around, I cry. Sometimes I just need to release it all and then I go to sleep, wake up the next day and start fresh. My own personal soul cleansing.

It just gives me more mental ammunitiion to keep fighting this disease and raise money for the cause. We will fight and we WILL win!

7D and Micro-adjustments

2011-03-07T08:31:00.000-06:00

I have had my 7D for a few days now and I am absolutely in LOVE with this camera.

The first thing I noticed, of course, was the amazing ISO capabilities. Wow! I took some shots in the lowest light I could find in my house and at ISO2000 there is very little grain. The grain is easily cleaned up in Lightroom at a low 20 on the noise clean up scale.

So, while I love, love, love this camera, I was noticing some severe out of focus pictures when taking them with my Sigma 30mm f/1.4 (another LOVE).

Take a look...

In this picture I am focusing (using the center focus point) on the T in Kyle's jammies. Where did it focus? In FRONT of that area on his sippy cup and sleeve by his wrist. Hmmmm...not cool.

Luckily, there will no trip to Canon's service center as the 7D has a fabulous feature called the Microadjustment! Yay!

After playing around a bit I found this lens needed a good +10 adjustment in order for focus to fall where it should...

Ta da!!! The T is now in focus. This is just a simple hand-held experiment, but for those perfectionists you'll want to set up your tripod for this one...as this perfectionist will be doing later.

Another example is using my Professional Photographer Magazine and focusing on the eye of the model on the cover. You can see that even the slightest adjustment can really move your focus area. I believe I was adjusting between +8 and +10 on these ones below...

See how in the top one the focus is more towards the bottom of her eye and on the 2nd you can see it's clearly towards the top. These teeny-tiny adjustments can make a big impact, especially with portrait photography, more specifically if you are a newborn photographer.

All of the above images were shot at f/2.0 SS1/200 at about 3 feet.

I also did an experiment with my 50mm f/.1.8 and it only needed an adjustment of about -1. So when you do your adjustments on your 7D or any camera that has this feature make sure you make these adjustments per lens.

Now...on to figuring out what to do with those zoom lenses.

7D and CFF

2011-02-28T08:18:00.001-06:00

Sometimes when I start a new blog post I have no idea how to start them. There is so much on my mind that I want to get down that I just don't even know where to start or even how to articulate my thoughts, so maybe just a random list today.

I ordered my 7D on Friday and it should be here tomorrow. I am so frickin' excited for this camera. I have been feeling the limitations of my XSi for some time now and have been feeling that if I really want this whole photography thing to work, the XSi just isn't going to cut it. I had really debated between the 5DM2 and the 7D and decided after much, much research and thought that the 7D was the right choice for me.

I also ordered some stands and seamless paper, a must for anyone wanting a "home studio". For now I'm just going to stick with my speedlite for my lighting, but will eventually get a studio light starter set. I'm banking on using the outdoors for my studio the majority of the time, but will definitely need and will probably find very useful an indoor studio as well.

I have raised $110 for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation walk we're having on May 7th! My mom is doing a fundraiser at work for April and my brother is looking into the matching program at his work as well. I also have a team of about 10 walkers so far, too. Yay for my friends and family, who are all SO supportive. Love you all!! Let's find a cure for my little boy!!!!!!!

Ok, so I guess that wasn't really a list.

Well, I guess that's it. Yeah, not terribly exciting. Until next time. :-)

He reminds me daily...

2011-02-21T14:14:00.000-06:00

on what a strong little boy he already is at only 18 months old.

I took this picture of Kyle getting his neb and vest treatment with Daddy to post on our new Great Strides Fundraiser page at http://www.cff.org/. We are participating in our first walk on Saturday, May 7th! We already received our first donation - thanks, Jeannie! So far we have me, Chris, Kyle, my friend, Jill and my Mom walking with us and I'm sure there will be more. I'm looking forward to a fun filled day with my wonderfully supportive friends and family!

If you would like to donate as well, the button to donate is on the top right of the blog. Anything you can give helps the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation find new treatments and hopefully a cure for this disease!

Weekend and Valentine's Day recap

2011-02-18T09:35:00.000-06:00

I wrote this as a draft on Tuesday morning as I wanted to include the pictures, but then I came down with Strep and have been bed-ridden ever since. It's Friday and I'm just now getting to this post!

I had one of the busiest weekends that I've had in a really long time.

Saturday I decided to take Kyle visiting to my sister-in-law's house and my parents' house, since we didn't get to see my nieces or my parents last Thursday. I stayed home with Kyle instead of going to my parents for our usual Thursday visit since I didn't sleep well the night before due to my aching knee. Still not sure what I did there, but it's been off and on for about 3 weeks now.

After we got home from our visiting Kyle took a 2.5 hour nap! It was pure heaven. Saturday night Chris and I didn't do much, I think we just watched TV and kind of did our own thing, which was fine.

Sunday I headed out at 9:30am to my photographer's house/studio for some hands-on Q&A. She had a shoot with my old wedding coordinator so I got to sit in on that and help out. Once she left, Amber and I sat and went through her editing process and she answered some questions I had. We talked mostly about gear and what my plans were for my own business. Because I'm so new to this, I really have no idea what I like to photograph the most or what I want to concentrate on in my business, but I love photographing babies, children and families. I certainly wouldn't mind doing a wedding, just to try it, but I have a feeling it won't be my "thing".

I think with my business I really want the term "personal photographer" to mean just that. A very personal experience and relationship with my clients. More one-on-one, which is where I think I tend to shine. I'm not very good with large groups, nor do I like being the center of attention of one. But, since I've never photographed a wedding, I really can't say for sure that I won't like them. Anyway, Amber offered to let me be a 3rd shooter for her at one just for the experience and to see if I would like it or not. She said it would be a good opportunity for me to see a wedding from the "other side". I most definitely will take her up on that. :)

Yesterday was Valentine's Day and Chris went out of his way to make it a very special day for us. Before leaving for work in the morning he left a series of clues and notes around the house with little boxes of goodies taking me on a sort of a little scavenger hunt, sending me e-mails throughout the day leading me to my next one.

Then he brought home dinner and champagne. We had the champagne after Kyle went down for bed, along with chocolate covered strawberries he made the day before.

I probably say this a lot, or maybe I don't, but I really do have the best husband anyone could ask for.

And as a side note - the whole time I was sick with Strep, Chris stayed home to watch Kyle so I could rest. He made me breakfast, lunch and dinner every day while taking care of Kyle, too. He even said to me yesterday as I was starting to feel better "Do you know what the best part of taking care of both you and Kyle was? Nothing." I know it was a lot of work for him. Work he's definitely not used to doing.

I so do appreciate and love him. :)

18 Month Check Up

2011-02-11T09:25:00.000-06:00

Kyle had his 18 month check up on Wedensday and everything looks good, once again!

He's at 22lbs 8oz, which for his height puts him in the 75th percentile for BMI. Both Sally, our RSV nurse that comes to our house, and Tammi, his pedi, were thrilled with his weight. I still believe this is due to his super-milk I make for him at each meal - whole milk, heavy whipping cream, strawberry syrup and instant carnation breakfast. I've had a little taste, and it is yummy!

Kyle had a bit of a set back with eating and sleeping on Sunday and Monday night. For some reason he was refusing to eat dinner, which meant he went to bed hungry, which menat he didn't sleep well. He ended up coming into bed with me those night and I don't think either of us slept well at all.

I talked about this with Tammi and she suggested instead of bringing him into bed with me, to bring a pillow and blanket and lay down on his floor next to his crib. So, last night after Kyle woke up at 3:00am screaming, I took a pillow and blanket and did just that. And, it worked! He fell back to sleep within about 10 minutes and then I snuck out and went back to my bed and we all slept until after 7:00 am.

This is definitely a win-win-win for everyone in our house! Kyle gets to stay in his own bed, and so do Chris and I. :) I was feeling so guitly for Chris having to move to the couch on those nights I brought Kyle into bed with me, so this is a much better solution.

I have been so thrilled with Tammi over the course of Kyle's care with her. She is so right on about everything we've been through with Kyle and I've grown to really trust her and depend on her insight. Love her!

And on a sidenote...I have officially become a dot com. :)

Alicea Rose Photography is up and running! I even have a Maternity session booked in May for an old friend that is due with her first baby in June. I am super excited and a bit nervous, but have high hopes for this!

Wish me luck. ;)

Progress and he's 18 Months!

2011-02-05T09:09:00.000-06:00

I have not been the greatest blogger lately. I don't know why. Not much to say? Nobody cares? Lost interest? I really need to keep up on this, though. Even though it very often feels that no one reads this and/or no one cares, I do this for me.

When I go back and re-read old posts it always amazes me to see how much I was going through at one time or another and how much different, no not different, stronger I am for it when all is said and done. This blog, for me, is about progress, as I think life in general should be. If you are not learning, growing and striving for more, than what's the point?

In my own personal growth and progress, I feel every day I make a few more steps forward with my photography. I have a new laptop, monitor, Lightroom 3, CS5, and a few new lenses with one more on the way (should have been here 2 days ago - stupid UPS). I'll soon be doing more one-on-one work with my mentor/photographer/friend, Amber Procaccini, to improve my skills and I have a newborn practice shoot tomorrow for a friend I met through the SPN site (which my new lens was supposed to be for, so I'll need to make due with what I've got).

I also have several friends that are super supportive and excited for me and have asked for portraits in the Spring. I'll be doing some shoots for my brother and his family, my nephew and his family, my friend Jill and her family, my friend Robin's twin boys, and I'm hoping to help out another friend with some photos for her catering business, too. All-in-all, things are going really well and I couldn't be happier.

Oh, and in other news, Kyle turned 18 months old on the 1st! A year and a half. Wow. This time is flying. I keep saying it, but it is. Every day he does something new and is forming into this little person with his own agenda. I love every second of it. He's also talking more now, too, or at least attempting to. He can answer us when he wants something now with "yeah, or da" for yes. It's so cute.

We have lots of appointments coming up. His RSV anti-body shot is Monday, his peds appointment is on Wednesday and next month we have his CF clinic and infant PFT appointments. I also need to get him in to the other Children's clinic for new shoes for his club foot. He's still wearing the shoes to bed each night, but is starting to fight it now. It's been a little bit of a struggle, but hopefully it will only be for another year or so.

Overall, he's still very healthy. We have been so darn lucky and entirely blessed.

Catching Up

2011-01-24T10:52:00.000-06:00

I have been MIA in the blogging world lately. I have had a lot of projects going on that are finally starting to wrap up.

First things first, the water damage fiasco is about done. Our contractor, Kurt, wrapped up his end on Saturday morning and we can now move on to painting the bedroom walls where the work was done. Chris is going to paint next weekend when Kyle is out of the house at an overnight visit with my parents. Yes, an OVERNIGHT visit and we are so excited for this, let me tell ya! Not that we don't adore and will miss Kyle, but it's a break that is long overdue.

Secondly, the water damage fiasco has turned into a "let's turn the guest bedroom into an office/studio" for me and I am thrilled to have my own space in our house to hang my pictures, have a desk, a studio set up and a little spot for me in the house to "get away" for a couple hours. We donated the queen bed to a lady who needed a bed for her son and we are in the process of figuring out what to do with the bedroom furniture. Soon, I will have a desk and some seamless paper and stands to play around with. This will hopefully make the winter months a bit easier photography-wise.

I have also created and bought a new logo for my photography. You can see it if you click on the link under Photography at the top. I'm also in the midst of revamping my website before officially launching it. I can't wait to get some more shoots under my belt so I can add to my portfolio, which is my goal for this year. I need to revamp my goals as well, as they feel a bit vague.

I received the notice from HP this morning that my new laptop is ready to ship. I can't wait to see the look and feel the speed of the new computer under my finger tips as I edit my pictures. Right now LR and my old laptop are having a very hard time keeping up. I blame my conversion from shooting JPEG to RAW, as this is a huge processing and memory suck for both. I think it might be time to do a back-up to the external hard drive as well.

I will leave you with this, a photo of my niece, Meadow, I took last Fall. I am in the process of fine-tuning my b&w conversions in LR. Actually, this is my very first b&w conversion besides just clicking "convert to black and white". I followed a tutorial I found online. I know it's not perfect, but I feel it's pretty good for my first one. I'll be posting on SPN for some feedback soon.

My new baby

2011-01-17T15:03:00.000-06:00

And one thing leads to another...

Unfortunately the new beautiful 22" widescreen HD monitor that I got for Christmas would not jive with my old laptop (the old laptop wouldn't output the right dimensions for the correct resolution), so after going back and forth on this decision I decided to go for it and get a new laptop. After much research I ended up going with this one from HP:

It's a G-series, G62t to be exact. I ended up upgrading a few things - Intel dual-core i3 processor, 4GB RAM, 500GB hard drive, updated 512MB graphics card and added a webcam. It's being built on Jan. 26th and I should receive it the first week of February. I'm super excited!!

What the (&%$#)?!?

2011-01-15T21:53:00.000-06:00

After all the hassle our insurance provider put us through, we got a check in the mail from them for $750 and they also said to send in our contractor's estimate for the remaining balance and they will pay us in FULL! Woot, woot!

I have no idea what happened. We were totally shocked. Recap: Tuesday the adjuster came out and said at most he could give us a hundred dollars or two. Tuesday night I literally bit the head off of the lady at my insurance agent's office after she was the 2nd person that day to tell me there is nothing they can do for us. Wednesday morning I sent my agent an e-mail along with photos, and then Friday night as we are opening up the mail we get a letter with a check.

So, looks like another e-mail is in order to my insurance agent along with an apology letter to the lady I chewed out in his office. Or maybe I shouldn't have to do either since they should have done this in the first place?

Oh, the moral dilemma.

Feel frustrated

2011-01-12T18:14:00.001-06:00

I am feeling entirely frustrated. Frustrated that neither my townhouse association or my homeowner's insurance provider can take responsibility or help us deal with the water intrusion we experienced shortly before New Years. 2011 is starting off terribly.

After hearing from our association that they have no responsibility in helping us deal with the ice damn, I turned reluctantly to our insurance company to file a claim. The representative from my insurance office said "no worries. After you pay your deductible we'll take care of the rest. That's what we're here for."

Enter the insurance adjuster (condescending, patronizing jerk) who claims we have no damage since he cannot see any damage and there is no mold since he cannot smell any mold. Ya wanna bet? I took these pictures of our bedroom carpet right after he left.

The black areas are limited to the area right where the water came in.

So, today I sent an e-mail with these pictures directly to my agent hoping he'll be the voice of reason here and take my claim. A claim that comes to all of $2000. Pennies to the big insurance company that raked in $777M in net income in 2009 (yeah, my hubby accountant looked that one up).

I told my agent if I don't get a decision by Friday, I'm cancelling my policies and taking my business elsewhere. I'm also filing a complaint with our State's Attorney General's office and State Insurance Commissioner. I don't know if doing either of these will help, but someone has to know what's going on here, because it isn't right.

"When you get. Give." - Maya Angelou

2011-01-07T08:48:00.000-06:00

Let it be known, I am a huge Oprah Winfrey fan. I do not listen to all the negative press about her, because I believe actions speak louder than words.

Ever since she announced she was ending her long running daytime talk show, I was very disappointed wondering how on earth was I going to get my Oprah fix now? Enter - OWN - Oprah Winfrey Network. Ahhhhhhhhh! And yes, I'm already addicted and in love. With her. All over again.

For those that do not have the network, or have not watched anything on it, no, it is NOT all.about.Oprah. She has several shows that she does not make one single appearance on and many documentary-type shows, as well. One in particular I'm looking forward to watching is Shania Twain's show which follows her after her divorce and the end of her career. I always wondered why she stopped, even after the divorce? I was/am a big fan of hers, too.

In light of all of this, I was watching OWN the other night and they were showing one of Oprah's interviews and I can't remember what the question was to her, but her answer back was "When you get. Give. Famous words by Maya Angelou." I absolutely love this.

One of my personal goals for 2011 is to give more. Give more of my time to my friends and family. Give more to charities (CF Foundation, specifically). Give more love to everyone I know. I think as everyone knows it always feel better to give than to receive.

I Heart Faces - Best Face Photo of 2010

2011-01-04T08:32:00.000-06:00

My first entry. I'm so excited!! I can't remember if he he had an earache, or was just done with me taking his picture at this point since it's the last in the series from this day, but it makes me want to pick him up and give him a big hug every time I see this one.

17 Months

2011-01-02T21:27:00.000-06:00

My baby boy turned 17 months old on New Years Day. This time is really starting to go by fast, but I'm loving every second of it.

Kyle now has a total of 10 teeth, but luckily has been in a great mood and is still sleeping pretty well despite the new molars coming through. We did have a few rough nights for about 3 nights in a row, but last night he slept solid from 8:30 to 7:30 this morning. I'm hoping for another great night as Chris goes back to work tomorrow after being off since Christmas Eve.

He's not saying a whole lot more yet, but he does try. He's good at no no, which comes out na na none. He also says na none for all done, too. Of course, Mama and Dada or daddy are his favorites. He also walks around saying me me me when he wants something.

He waves good bye anytime anyone leaves the house and when he goes to bed for naps or for the night. He goes down for naps like a champ. I just tell him it's nap time and he goes to his room, takes his blanket and his "elly", plays for 20-30 minutes in his crib and then lays down and goes to sleep napping for 2 hours.

His favorite foods are still blueberry eggos, French toast sticks, pop tarts and any other type of bread or carb. He still won't eat cheese and has now stopped eating any type of meat, but luckily he gets plenty of milk and carnation along with his multivitamin every day to make up for anything he's missing.

He loves to takes baths and brush his teeth and hair. He absolutely adores his Daddy and plays kick the ball and chase me around the house (Chris actually kicked a beach ball into a hanging ceiling lamp in our entry way one night - yeah, they get into it).

He has really started to ham it up these days and now realizes when new people come to the house, he has a new audience to entertain; unlike the stranger anxiety he used to have.

There really are no words to say how I feel about him. Sometimes love just isn't a strong enough word, but man, do I love this kid.

How about an ice dam to kick off the new year?

2011-01-01T14:04:00.000-06:00

Welcome, 2011!

Chris and I had a very low-tone New Years Eve. We decided to stay in, have some appetizers and wine, play a few games of Monopoly, watch the ball drop and go to bed precisely at 12:05 am completely exhausted.

Our day started out with a phone call to our insurance agent to file a claim on our homeowner's insurance for the water that leaked into our home due to our association's negligence in taking care of the 4+ feet of snow on our roof. After phone calls to both the association and their insurance agent, we were told we would have to file the claim against OUR insurance and not their's.

We realized Wednesday evening after a warm up into the 40's plus rain, an ice damn had formed on the roof causing it to leak into our basement guest room. Lovely.

Chris spent the whole day Thursday chipping away at the ice near the gutter and getting it melt so it would flow out of the gutters and away from the house. Thankfully that stopped the leaking, but most definitely we have damage beneath the surface. Damage which we cannot afford to have for the sake of our child. If mold forms in those walls, it could literally kill him. We also discovered our carpet in our 2nd floor bedroom was wet as well, so the damage extended further than we originally thought.

If you look closely, can you see a 2nd bedroom window? Yeah, that's Kyle's.

The association sent out some roofers to clear the snow up on the roof, so at least that has been done. We can actually SEE out of Kyle's window now. Today we had a contractor come out and he's having a water repair guy come back with some moisture testing equipment, but in the end it sounds as if the walls in all 3 bedrooms along the outside of the home will have to come down, fiberglass insulation replaced and walls repaired/painted. I'm really not looking forward to this, but it has to be done.

I'm hoping the rest of this year goes better than how it started!

PS...my photographer said YES to mentoring me this year and I'm super excited! She's been a bit busy, but when things calm down a bit, we're going to work out a schedule of some sort. Yay!! There are other developments photography-wise in the pipeline, but that will be a post for another day.

No Guts, No Glory

2010-12-28T14:07:00.000-06:00

As most that are close to me know I really want to expand my photography "hobby" into more. More of a business specifically. There are several reasons for wanting to do this.

a) it will give me a chance to take more photographs, and not just of Kyle and the objects around my house (although I do love taking shots of Kyle when he lets me)
b) it will provide me with social interaction outside of my home, which I am desperately needing since quitting my job to become a full-time stay at home mom
c) I've finally found a hobby that I love and am passionate about. I have taken up other hobbies like scrap booking, that I spent loads of money on only for the products to sit in drawers or on shelves collecting dust. With photography, not a day goes by that I don't take a photo, play with my editing software, re-arrange my camera bags and/or do online research regarding photography and photography gear. I feel like I am learning something with this hobby and not just exercising my creative muscles.
d) In 4 years time, I would this to be my full-time job

So, in light of those reasons, I put forth some goals for 2011 and one of them is finding a professional photographer to mentor me. Enter my photographer, Amber Procaccini and the e-mail below I sent to her this morning via Facebook:

Hi Amber, I've been meaning to write you for a while now and I have a question for you. Let me know if I'm totally out of line here.

I've been dabbling in photography over the past year now and have some goals for myself for 2011. One is being to find a mentor to help me improve on my skills. Since you are one of the reasons I even got into photography (Chris' words a year ago were - "see what kind of camera Amber has and get one of those" after I told him I needed a hobby to keep busy while staying home with Kyle). I've always loved taking pictures with my old film cameras and point-n-shoots, but wanted to take it to the next level.

I ended up buying a Canon Rebel XSi and since have bought a few lenses and other accessories as well. This past Christmas, Chris hooked me up with a new monitor, calibration software and Lightroom 3 (Photoshop still goes over my head a little).

I completely understand if you are too busy or don't want anyone tagging along or looking over your shoulder, but I wouldn't mind getting some tips and tricks from a real pro. I so appreciate and admire your work, so it would be a real honor to work beside you.

Let me know your thoughts on this.

~Alicea

So, I now sit here in wait. A little nervous. A bit excited.

The worst she can say is no.

Christmas Wrap Up

2010-12-26T15:41:00.000-06:00

First off, I will preface this post with saying I have the BEST husband ever. EVER. He is so extremely supportive of everything I do to the point of spending WAY too much money on me this year in an effort to see me thrive and grow in 2011. See below...

New Calibration Software for my...

new 22" widescreen monitor and...

a new Tamron 28-75 f/2.8 lens...

which I used to take these pics this morning

And should I even mention the $500 from my mother in law to use however I choose? Yes...there might be another new lens in my future. :) I am one happy girl!

Kyle also had a fantastic Christmas getting loaded with toys, clothes, books, puzzles. He was one happy boy! He did great both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. In the car he was an angel while we traveled. We couldn't tell when he was awake or when he was sleeping besides the quiet babbling to himself here and there. He was a little skeptical of everyone at Chris' Mom's cousin's house in WI at first, but warmed up quickly and was a little ham for both days.

Definitely one for the record books!

Self Portraits

2010-12-23T09:13:00.000-06:00

I've been trying to take advantage of the 2 hour naps Kyle has been taking in the afternoons now and yesterday I pulled out the tripod to practice taking photos with my remote in preparation for tomorrow. Christmas Eve night we will be going to my in-law's house to celebrate with dinner, family time and of course, presents! I think the best "present" is having Chris' sister, Ann, and her boyfriend, Rodrigo, up from Chile. We only get to see them once a year and this is it.

So...I'm planning on taking a large family photo to document our time together.

While doing so, I decided to test out some pics on myself and wound up with quite a few self-portraits. I sat in front of our living room window, so some have natural light and some are with flash (speedlite). Honestly, I can't remember which is which and I can't tell the difference now either. The only thing I did post-processing was fix the WB, upped the exposure, cropped and then converted some of them to B/W.

I'm actually pretty happy with how they turned out and I learned a lot about lighting just by taking these. It was quite the fun experiment!

To have, or not to have

2010-12-20T10:05:00.000-06:00

Chris and I got to get out of the house on Saturday night and have ourselves a little date night. We went to a local steakhouse and let me tell you, it was fantastic! 3 little petite filets encrusted with 3 different crusts - parmesan, blue cheese and bacon mashed potato. My-oh-my!

During our date night we started discussing Chris' desire to go back to school to get his Master's Degree. He has been at his current job for 10 years now and will not advance much further without more schooling. Being that he doesn't want to take out school loans, if he decides to go this route we will not be moving within the next 2 years.

While I desperately want to move so that we can enjoy more space and a bigger yard for Kyle to play in, long term this may be the better choice for us.

The other big decision to be made is whether to have more children, and how we go about doing that. If Kyle had not been born with CF, this would be a no-brainer. We do want more children, I've always wanted 2, but seeing that both Chris and I are carriers for CF we are just not sure we want to try naturally. That leads us to adoption, which is an expensive and emotional process. One I'm not sure I want to go through. This has been weighing on our minds heavily since we both feel we're under a "deadline" with Chris approaching 40 in the next 2 years as well. He's always said he doesn't want any more after turning 40.

I do know that if we are blessed with only one child I would be ok with that. Probably more than ok. Kyle has more than fulfilled my dream of becoming a Mother. There are no words to describe how I feel about this little boy. He is my life, my heart, my dream, my soul. To say this kid has me wrapped around his finger would be the understatement of the century.

Hopefully we can make a decision on this by the end of next year. A lot can happen in a year.

PC or Mac

2010-12-16T21:56:00.000-06:00

So, this was my new editing set up...until the monitor crapped out on me.

I should have known it would happen. It was an old monitor Chris has since now replaced. Why he kept it, I don't know.

Now, I would have been perfectly happy with this set up. Really. Then Chris reminds me that we'll have a tax return coming in a few months and if it's close to anything like last year's, I'll have a bit of fun money to play with come Spring.

I was hoping to possibly buy a new lens or two, but...I really think a new computer is in order. The one I have now cannot be calibrated, is almost 5 years old and when we bought it was intended to be used mainly for just surfing the internet. Now that I'm getting more serious about my photography, it's time to get more serious hardware.

My debate is whether to stay with PC or try a Mac. I do know I want an all-in-one PC or the iMac. If I go with iMac, it will be a refurbished one bought directly from Apple. If I go PC, I can get brand new and possibly get it for less than the refurbished iMac. I may have to wait and see exactly how much money I'll have to play with, but I'm leaning towards the Mac.

Snow Storm!

2010-12-12T15:22:00.000-06:00

Sleep has been much improved since letting Kyle learn to get himself back to sleep when he's tired. There is a huge difference between him getting up tired (crying) vs. getting up well rested (talking, babbling until we go and get him). When he cries we just leave him alone and he's been going back down within 10 minutes. Naps have been GREAT!! He goes down around 1:30 pm and doesn't wake up until I wake him at 4:00 pm. He's still going down by 8:00 pm on his own for night time sleep and has been waking up in the night, but putting himself down rather well and then sleeping until around 7:00 am or 7:30 am (today was 7:45 am!). Let me tell you...it's been heaven. :)

And a few picks from the past few days...

Kyle the bucket head...this kid put everything on his head!

Which ones can I get, Mommy?

Here, let me help...

Snow storm!!! The view out Kyle's window...

View out the patio doors onto the deck.

And Kyle giggling at Daddy so Mommy can get a good shot.

Our driveway and roads are finally plowed out...although, our Metrodome cannot say the same. Minnesota once again made National News for our glorious weather!

Happy Winter!

Changes

2010-12-10T15:05:00.000-06:00

We are in need of some major change around here. Mostly, Kyle's sleep habits.

Kyle is now in the habit of going to sleep on his own (good) and waking up crying for Mommy and not going back to sleep until Mommy either a) brings him into bed with her or b) rocks him back to sleep (baaaaaaaaad).

It has been very disruptive to say the least, especially at night, and is causing Chris to become a little cranky. :(

So, I've decided to start tackling this problem today, starting with naps. Kyle's normal naptime routine is to fall alseep on his own with a little pre-bedtime playing/babbling in his crib after lunch. Only to wake up within 45 minutes to an hour wanting to be held for the rest of his nap and/or be rocked back to sleep.

Not today.

Today we started a new naptime routine of reading books 30 minutes prior to being put in his crib, which I found got him to go to sleep faster than usual, and then when he woke up 45 minutes later I let him cry it out until he fell back to sleep on his own. He only cried for all of 7 minutes (yep, I was timing it). I checked in on him after 10 minutes of quiet and found Elly (elephant rattle) and his blankie on the floor. I picked them both up, placed them back in his crib covering him with the blankie and left hoping for at least another hour of quiet for Mommy.

Let me tell you...letting him cry it out is getting harder and harder the older he gets. Not for him. For me. We tried last night, which left me almost in tears myself, which led me to bring him into bed with me, which in turn led to an unhappy husband sleeping on the couch.

I'm hoping by the time the weekend is through, we will have established some better sleeping habits so my husband can get a good nights rest before returning to work on Monday. Fingers crossed!

You can help fight CF!

2010-12-09T07:23:00.000-06:00

Please log onto http://tacklecf.com/ and click "share" on the clipboard to share this on your Facebook page. For each "share" Samsung will donate $5 to the CF Foundation!

CF appointment time!

2010-12-07T14:19:00.000-06:00

Kyle had a great CF appointment today. His height/ratio is at the 75th percentile and he weighed in at 22 lbs 8 oz. That's a whole pound gained from his peds appt a month ago! Thank you, Carnation! His lungs sound clear and we will continue with his meds as-is until next Spring.

His next appointment will be scheduled for some time in March. At that time they will draw blood for his annual lab work and have his infant PFT's done (measurement of his lung function). He'll need the PFT's before he turns 2 to establish a baseline to compare his future PFT's to. He won't be able to do adult PFT's until he's 5 or 6 years old. His doctor also wants us to add another med to his current neb meds, so we could possibly be looking at up to 3 nebs per day starting next Spring. Everything he's on and will be on in the future will all be prevention, so whatever it takes!

He was pretty tired after the appointment and fell asleep on the way home. He woke up once we got in the door and I'm sure he'll be up for the rest of the day until bedtime tonight. Yippee!

And a picture...with my new watermark in light of what happened to a cyber-friend who's family pictures were stolen and placed on FB under a false identity. It's a sick world, people.

16 months

2010-12-01T09:18:00.000-06:00

I just realized Kyle is 16 months old today! If he were in a daycare center, he'd be moving up to the toddler room now. My big boy toddler. :)

Not much new to report. He's trying to add more words to his vocabulary, but I have no clue what he's saying. He walks around mumbling and I try to guess and repeat, but he just smiles and walks away probably thinking "oh Mom, you just don't get it.". I'm sure I'll hear that more than once in his life time.

His 2nd molar is coming in now, too. He has one that has popped through on his right side, now we're on to the left. Gotta love teething!

My dad is so graciously coming over today to watch him so I can get some groceries. The weather is pretty bad and I guess the roads are still very slippery from our rain on Monday that turned into ice/snow on Tuesday, so best Kyle stay in and not come out with me.

Other than that, not much new going on...he's slept in his bed the entire night last night and the night before, so that was nice after having 2 rough nights prior. I think I figured out why, though. He didn't have his beloved "Elly" the elephant rattle that he sleeps with in bed with him. We had taken it downstairs to wash and hadn't gotten around to it, so Monday I washed it and now all is well. :)

Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Photography GTG a huge success!

2010-11-29T14:43:00.000-06:00

I had a blast yesterday with my ladiez from the SPN!

We met up at the Landmark Center in downtown St. Paul for our photography get together and it was a lot of fun. I was a little nervous going into it (I always am when I meet new people), but everyone was so nice and almost everyone had their little ones with. Kyle would have blended right in with the ages ranging from 9 months to 2 years, but I'm actually really glad he stayed home. It let me concentrate on getting some great photos of some great women and their families.

These are some of my favorites and the rest can be seen on my Flickr page. Enjoy!

How do you keep the faith?

2010-11-26T21:47:00.000-06:00

Happy (late) Thanksgiving to anyone reading this. We had a nice and quiet Thanksgiving with my in-laws. My Mom had to work (retail) the day before and after, so she just wanted the day to rest up and relax. We are going to do our Thanksgiving with them next weekend.

So, I am one that never watches the news. I stopped watching a long time ago when everything on the news was just sad, sad, sad. I really hate hearing all the negativity and it just seems to be the same crap every night. Last night, I decided to watch it since I wanted to see what the weather would be like over the next couple of days and I knew they would be reporting on all of the store openings and such, so I tuned in.

After the reporters went on about early store openings, customers waiting in lines for days, etc., etc., they moved on to a story that literally left me crying for hours after it ended.

It was just a quick little story about a man who had shaken and beaten to death a 17-month old little boy and had finally been sentenced to life in prison. They went into detail about how he had shaken the boy, the damage done, and so on. Then they posted a picture of this little boy and he looked just like Kyle. And I lost it.

I started sobbing uncontrollably and when Chris asked me what was wrong, I was sobbing so hard I couldn't even get out what I was trying to say.

This tiny, innocent little boy was only one month older than Kyle is now.

So many, many thoughts came into my mind and all of my anger and sadness was turned to God. How could He do this? How could He let this happen? What kind of God lets a tiny, little baby die like that?

Now I've never been an incredibly religious person, my faith is more of a spiritual kind. My relationship with God has always been extremely personal and never discussed much with others. I do not "have" a religion, but I do believe in God. Although, my faith is being tested.

Last night, I was sad. Very, very sad. All I wanted to do was hug my little boy and I wanted to scoop up all the little boys and girls that are neglected and abused and bring them home with me to be loved and taken care of like they deserve to be.

Today, I woke up angry. Very, very angry. I cursed God for allowing this. Where was his "divine intervention" when this poor baby was being shaken to his death?

I just don't understand and I don't think anyone will ever help me to understand why things like this happen. There is no justification or reasoning for a child's death. None.

How do I keep my faith in God when things like this happen? I just don't know. It makes me severely question it all. I want answers. Answers that no one will ever be able to give me.

A Birthday Party

2010-11-23T08:02:00.000-06:00

My niece turned 2 on November 15th and we had her birthday party on Sunday. I offered to take pictures of the day for my brother's girlfriend so she could relax and enjoy her day. These are some of my favorites:

She was thrilled with them and that made me super happy!

Photography GTG

2010-11-20T14:59:00.000-06:00

I am super excited for my very first photography get together! I was invited to join the SecretPhotoNerds (SPN) forum and right away was drawn to a special forum just for local get togethers. Low and behold, a group of girls were always coordinating one, yippee!

We have our date, time and place nailed down for next Sunday the 28th at 1:00 pm. One of the girls driving down from St. Cloud is going to join me at my place and from there we'll carpool to St. Paul. It sounds like there will be about 6 or so photographers along with several subjects to photograph followed by food/drinks at a nearby restaurant (if time allows).

I'm stoked to be leaving Kyle at home with his Dad and having the entire afternoon to myself to devote to photography and a little social interaction, as well. A much needed break that I am more than looking forward to. I was going to rent a lens for the occasion, but decided against it since money isn't exactly growing on trees around here and could be used towards Christmas presents instead. I think I'll have to settle on using my 50mm f/1.8 since light will be low and most of the pictures taken will be portraits (I'm assuming).

Only a week away, yay!

Just a thought

2010-11-15T08:30:00.000-06:00

Did anyone see Sex and the City 2? Ya know how Carrie still had her apartment and she would go to it whenever she needed to be alone and/or to get work done? I wish I had one of those some days. While I absolutely love my life and this is exactly where I want to be, sometimes I wish I could get away to my own little space for a day or two. Recharge the batteries. Reboot my system. Then come back home afresh and renewed. Just a random, guilty thought I've been having lately.

And some Kyle updates:

- says "na none" when he's done eating (all done)
- says "Da and Da-eee" for Dad and Daddy
- says "Yeah?" when I ask him a question
- points to his nose, cheeks, ears and eyes when asked
- claps for himself when he does something he's proud of
- knows how to put things together and takes them apart when we ask him to

We enjoyed our first snow of the season on Saturday - see pics above or on my Flickr page. Just have to get Kyle the matching snow pants and boots for his jacket.

And he's back to waking in the middle of the night - twice before midnight last night. Eventually he came into bed with me to sleep and Chris went on the couch. He hadn't done this for quite a while, so I actually enjoyed snuggling with him - until he backhanded me right in the nose. *shakes head*

Enjoy your day!

Whoa! Hello, stranger anxiety.

2010-11-12T08:56:00.000-06:00

So, Kyle has major, major stranger anxiety. We've had several occasions for him to demonstrate this in the past week or so.

First was the pediatrician appointment. He completely freaks out when anyone (other than me, Chris or his grandparents) goes near him. I mean freaks! It makes his exams very hard.

Next was when our nurse came by on Wednesday for his RSV anti-body shot. He literally cried, screamed and hid in his room the entire 30 minutes she was here. I really thought the appointment would go better than when we go the pediatrician's office, but actually it was worse. Possibly because she came to our home and "invaded" his space? After she left he was so exhausted that he fell asleep and slept for an hour and a half. Poor kid.

Then yesterday when we went to the pet store to pick up cat food, one of the employees came up to him and said hi and he grabbed me tightly and started to go into panic mode. Oy!

I sure hope this doesn't last too long. I guess this is one of the downsides to being a stay at home Mom with a kiddo who has a life-threatening disease. Makes it very hard to get him socialized. I am grateful for the time he gets to spend with his cousins on Thursdays, though. He absolutely adores them and they do him, too.

Small sacrifices to keep him healthy. He'll become socialized eventually, right?

Motivation

2010-11-10T20:53:00.000-06:00

I am seriously feeling very motivated as of late. I loved, loved getting out of the house and taking the Canon EOS seminar, which I discovered once I got there was put on by Canon through National Camera Exchange. It was nice to get some insight directly from the company itself and it sure cleared up a few things I was confused about. Specifically metering modes and the histogram.

I also met a lot of nice people, too. The lady in front of me had an XS and mainly took shots of her family. The couple next to me had the new T2i and they are travel photographers (she being the Canon shooter, he being a Nikon) and there were 2 girls next to me who, from my ease dropping, were hopeful wedding photographers.

I came home so completely excited and well, giddy. I let my extremely understanding and supportive husband know I planned on taking future seminars if they ever offer them here again. What does my awesome husband do? Jumps on the computer and finds some local studios offering workshops that I could take instead. Pretty darn awesome thing to do for his stay-at-home-doesn't-make-a-dime wife :)

We found this great site where I found this workshop . I don't plan on going to the Nov. 20th class, but they listed that they'll have one again in January sometime. I want to wait until after Christmas when I might possibly have my new lens.

I think 2011 is going to be a great year for me. I finally feel like I am doing something that I love.

Camera Class

2010-11-06T08:37:00.000-05:00

After owning my camera for nearly a year now and becoming what I consider an "intermediate" user, I signed up for my first camera class for intermediate users through National Camera Exchange. It's a 3 hour class and I'm hoping to get something out of it. It was only $20 for the entire 3 hours, so hopefully it won't all be things I already know.

It could also be a great tactic for getting people hooked in to buy gear from them, since they will conveniently selling lenses, flashes, etc. at the class.

I will be asking them about having my camera cleaned and possibly trading in 2 of my lenses. I never use my kit lens and although I love my 50mm f/1.8, I would really like to upgrade to the f/1.4 version. I'm not afraid to give up the kit lens, since I'm 95% sure I'll be getting the Tamron 28-75 for Christmas. If not, I'll buy it after Christmas myself.

If I have the new 50mm f/1.4 and the Tamron I should be good to go for building my portfolio next year. Once I have these lenses, I'll also take the plunge and ask for favorite photographer friend (my wedding and family photographer) if she could mentor me next year, as well. I'm hoping she won't be able to say no to that and a few bottles of wine. :)

15 Months

2010-11-05T08:25:00.002-05:00

My little man turned 15 Months on Monday, so off to the peds we went yesterday!

Overall, he's still very healthy, but we do need to go back for a consult on the hydrocele in his testicles. Apparently he has a little extra fluid down there (still), which could require some minor surgery to correct. I don't have the name of the surgeon, so I'll need to call the peds office today to get the number again.

His weight is up to 21lbs 8oz - 10th percentile and he's grown to 30.5 inches - 25th-50th percentile. His height/weight ratio is back up to the 50th percentile and this is all I really worry about.

Dr. Tammy said he's developing just fine with his large and small motor skills. The fact he can say 2-3 words is about where he should be and by 2 he should be saying 50 clear words. He walks forward, backward, in circles, climbs on everything, is getting his molars, etc., etc. Her only concern was the hydrocele.

Luckily he only needed one shot at this appt, too, so it ended up being not so bad. He mostly played and goofed around in the room until Dr. Tammy had to examine him and than all hell broke loose, but she did it quickly and then he was back to goofing off (as long as she didn't go near him).

Afterwards, we came back home, did his treatment and then headed to my parents so Kyle could play with his cousins. Unfortunately, that meant Kyle wouldn't nap the entire day, so it was a little rough in the late afternoon/early evening until he went to bed. Still at 7:30 pm, which is heavenly.

So, next week we have our first RSV-antibody shot of the season, followed by another CF clinic visit next month. I'm also hoping to get him into Gillette's Children's clinic to get him new shoes for his ponsetti's sandals. He's still sleeping in these at night to keep his clubfoot corrected, but he's growing out of the shoes again. Better get new ones before the end of the year since I'm pretty sure we've met our deductible.

A home for the neb and vest

2010-11-01T21:08:00.000-05:00

I have been meaning to post this picture on here for a while. This is our "neb/vest station" in our home. On the right you will see Kyle's nebulizer machine (little green one - the huff-n-puff) and his Vest machine. The back of our bookcase has holes for wires to pop through so this worked out perfectly to permanently give these machines their own little home.

It was getting to be rather cumbersome always lugging these in and out of Kyle's room to please the aesthetics of the living room while our home was listed, but finally one day I said "to heck with this" and placed them on their shelves. Where they will stay. Until we move.

Speaking of listing the home, we officially took it off the market today in hopes for better luck in the Spring. We plan on listing again the first week of April. Our agent even thinks for the type of buyer we'll end up getting, this is a wise decision. More than likely we'll get a first time home buyer and current renter. It is a relief not to be listed anymore, that's for sure.

On a sad note, I went to Andrea's Memorial Service today. I got to see some old co-workers, since that's how I met Andrea's Dad and have remained good friends with. Rick and Linda were both putting on a very brave face. I'm sure it will be so very hard for them for a while. I wish there was more I could do for them. They will see their beautiful daughter again someday, though, this I do believe.

Happy Halloween!

2010-10-31T20:16:00.000-05:00

Since My Friends Tigger and Pooh is one of Kyle's favorite cartoons, we decided to go with this little number for his costume (a la Target). Although, we didn't take him trick-or-treating, we brought him to the door at Chris' Mom's house every time kids came to the door, so he could see the other kids in their costumes when she gave out candy.

Honestly, he had no idea what was going on, but we all had fun. :)

RIP, Andrea

2010-10-29T09:18:00.000-05:00

Andrea died Thursday morning in her sleep surrounded by her family. Although I didn't know Andrea all that well, had met her a few times at the shop her mom and her ran, I knew she was a beautiful person inside and out. I am so saddened for my friend, Rick, to have to lose his child this way. Monday is going to be a very hard day.

Losing a child is something no one should ever have to go through. Whether it's through pregnancy loss, stillbirth, or death at any age after birth, it just should not happen. I can't imagine a worse loss than this.

This became a reality for me when Kyle was diagnosed with CF. I had to come to terms with the fact that I may one day lose my child to this disease. That is why I try to make each and every day with him special, and try to make every moment count.

Kyle got up at 1:00 am last night crying and was having a hard time falling back to sleep, so I rocked with him for almost 30 minutes. As I sat there rocking with Kyle snuggled up to me wrapped in his blanket, I couldn't help but wonder if Linda rocked Andrea this way when she was a baby. I hugged Kyle tight, cried and prayed for Linda, Rick and Andrea.

I also prayed for my aunt, who was diagnosed with Lymphoma and is going through chemo right now as well. She also lost her child, Gina, when Gina was hit by a car at 19 years old. It was a rainy evening and Gina was walking home from work when she tried to cross the street. The car didn't see her because of the dark and rain. She died almost instantly.

I thought about these two scenarios. Losing a child suddenly and losing a child gradually. Either way, it's still losing a child and I can't even begin to fathom this feeling of loss. And pray that I never do.

Rest in Peace, Andrea and God Bless the Pomeroy family.

Just some randomness

2010-10-27T13:23:00.000-05:00

Kyle has a molar popping through on his upper right side. This could be the reason he won't eat food that has too much hard breading on it. He won't eat anything other than soft bread type foods (bread, croissants, eggos, cinnamon rolls, donuts, etc.). I'm still supplementing with his super milk and he seems to be having regular BM's and wet diapers, so I'm not going to worry quite yet.

He has his 15 month peds appt on Nov. 5th, so we'll find out then how much weight he's gained and how tall he is. I hate getting those percentiles because they seem to be going down and down each time we go in for a visit. He is just so darn active and doesn't eat even 1/2 of what he was eating at 12 months. I try to get him to sit down with me and read books or watch a movie just so I don't have to sit there and watch him burn off those much needed calories. Very frustrating indeed!

I decided to merge my 2 blogs into one. Since photography has become such a big part of my life it will be something I'll be posting on regularly here now. I have a feeling I'll be getting the new lens I want for Christmas along with a new editing program. Chris keeps telling me to try out several so I know which one I really want. My Lightroom trial is almost over, so next I'll be trying Elements. I don't think I'll go with Photoshop because I've already got Gimp and that pretty much does everything PS does. I really, really like LR and will have a hard time letting go of it in the next couple of days. :(

We decided to take the house off the market until Spring. We did get an offer yesterday, but it was so low that we just rejected it instead of countering. I wasn't going to waste my or my agent's time on this. There was no way they were coming up to where we want to sell from where they started. They are just another buyer trying to take advantage of the market. Well, go find yourself a foreclosure or shortsale, people. We are not either of those!

And on a sad note...my good friend, Rick, who I worked with for several years and have remained friends with for almost 10 years now is losing his daughter to cancer. She had some sort of uterine-tissue cancer, in which she had a hysterectomy, but unfortunately the cancer spread quickly and aggressively and her year-long battle is coming to an end soon. She was put in Hospice care last Friday. I am so sad for him, as she's only 38 or 39 years old. A very, very sweet woman, who I was lucky to meet a few times. They are such a good, Christian family and I know their faith will get them through this. I've been saying prayers daily for them and will be attending the memorial service and funeral when the time comes. Please say a prayer for them, too.

Our 3rd Anniversary and weighted decisions

2010-10-18T14:36:00.000-05:00

Chris and I celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary on Saturday night. Our actual anniversary was on the 13th, but waited until Saturday night to celebrate so we could stay out a bit later. We dropped Kyle off at Grandma Pat's house and drove to a local casino for dinner and gambling.

I completely forgot that this casino is a dry casino, meaning they serve no alcohol. I had really, really been looking forward to having a glass of wine with dinner seeing as my back and foot were still sore from my injuries the previous weekend. When we sat down to order, I was so disappointed in not being able to have my glass of wine, however dinner and dessert more than made up for it. I ordered a filet with au gratin potatoes and it was fantastic! Followed by almond cheesecake with raspberry sauce - to die for!

After dinner we sat down at a few slot machines and gambled about $60 worth into some nickel machines. I never expect to win, it's more for the fun of it all and we ended up having a really good time.

During our outing came up the question of when/how/if to have another child. This would be a no-brainer if we didn't already have a child with CF, but because of the curve ball we got thrown with Kyle, it's much more complicated.

We initially thought we'd go straight to adoption for our 2nd one, but we just don't think we'll be able to afford adoption after buying a new house. We also realize we will need a new house before we can have another child. We'll need more room, 3 bedrooms on one level and definitely that big yard for them to play in. There is also the issue of our ages. Chris is 38 and will be 39 in April, and he's always said he wants to be done having children before he turns 40. So, as of now, we are going to wait and see how we are sitting financially after we buy a new house next year and how we feel in general.

I'm still on the fence about trying to conceive naturally given the odds of having another child with CF. Although, we have been very, very lucky that Kyle has been so healthy that does not guarantee another child with CF would be so lucky. I just don't know if I could take that chance. I'm so torn on this. I really wish there was an easy answer.

New foods and better sleep

2010-10-12T09:16:00.000-05:00

So, winter is coming, which means extra care for Kyle.

Starting the 2nd week in November he'll start getting his monthly RSV antibody shot again. Luckily this will be his last winter of these shots since after he turns 2 he will build these antibodies naturally. He has already gotten his flu shot.

We have his regular 15 month peds appt next month and then another CF clinic visit in December. They are a little worried about weight right now, since his weight/height ratio has dropped to under the 50th percentile. His actually weight is in the 3-10th percentile. Since he needs the extra weight to help his body keep fighting off infection, weight gain is crucial. Unfortunately his appetite has declined since his 12 month appt with both the peds and CF clinic, however I've found some new foods that he loves.

I've started given him deli sliced hard salami, summer sausage and mashed potatoes. I've also realized that he likes the sweet-salty combo, so I make sure to feed him something sweet along with his salty foods (ie - hard salami and cookies, or french toast sticks and summer sausage). I did this morning with his breakfast and he ate more than usual AND drank all of his super milk (whole milk, whipping cream and instant breakfast).

I breathe a little sigh of relief when he actually eats a full meal and drinks all of his milk.

He's also sleeping better again. We've been letting him cry it out when he wakes up. He only cries for all of 5 minutes and goes back to sleep. Last night he went down at 8:30, woke at 11:30 crying for 5 minutes, then slept until 7:30 this morning. It felt great to wake up this morning after a good night's sleep! Let's hope the rest of the week goes this well.

Night waking

2010-10-07T08:57:00.000-05:00

The one constant in Kyle's life has been change. Nothing ever stays the same with him.

One of the struggles we have dealt with is Kyle's sleep patterns. Up until he was 10 months old, he was still waking and eating every night with only a few nights here and there of sleeping through the night. After taking away his middle of the night feedings after he turned 10 months he finally started sleeping through until morning consistently for all of 2 whole months.

After his 12 month peds/CF clinic visit, after raving to both his pediatrician and CF doctors that Kyle is STTN, he started waking again. At first, I could rock him for all of 5 minutes and put him right back down and he would continue to sleep until morning, but it continues to get worse and worse.

Sometimes he will go 2 or 3 nights of sleeping through with no waking, but for the most part he wakes up each and every night. Last night was no exception with getting up a total of 4 times before I finally brought him into bed with me at 4:00 am. This has been the pattern since Saturday night when he was having a difficult time sleeping due to a runny/stuffy nose (we think due to teething).

His nose hasn't been runny and/or stuffy since Monday, but the night waking and coming into bed with me has continued. Chris' new bed has become the couch.

So, this weekend we are going to try letting him CIO in the middle of the night. I agreed at the first waking to check on him to make sure physically he's ok (no runny nose, not cold, no leaky diaper, etc.), but after that we're going to let him cry. He needs to learn to go back to sleep when waking up in the middle of the night and cannot rely on me to rock him and/or bring him into bed with me to sleep.

Although, I love, love, love cuddling with him, watching him while he sleeps and waking with him in the morning, this really needs to come to an end. For all of our sakes.

MMMM....cookies

2010-10-05T12:49:00.000-05:00

Since Chris forgot to take the car seat out his car yesterday before heading to work, I decided it would be a good day to stay in and make cookies (and play around with the lens I'm renting for my camera).

I'm also loving the Tamron 28-75 and will probably ask Chris for this for my Christmas gift (one and only since it costs about $400). The first few shots I took I was not impressed with until I realized borrowlenses.com put on a crappy filter. I took the filter off and voila! Finally got some nice pictures.

After baking cookies I took Kyle outside to try the lens out on him as well. If only he would look up at the camera once in a while.

I edited these pictures using LightRoom. I'm using it on a 30 day trial version right now and I have to say I am really impressed with it. I may just have to cough up the $200 for this as well. Did I ever mention photography is a very expensive hobby?

14 months

2010-10-01T22:39:00.000-05:00

Well, Chris and I are slowly coming out of our "we lost the house" funk. Thinking of the upcoming holidays is a little rough, though. We had SO many plans for that house for the holidays. What a bummer. Tomorrow we are going to look at 2 new houses that came on the market and our agent's client that's looking for our type of home is still looking and has our house as her top one, so we may still get an offer and get into a new house before winter.

Kyle is 14 months old today and is growing so fast, although his appetite has slowed dramatically. It feels like a little switch went off saying "my meals are strictly 3 bite meals from now on". Oy! Not good for a CF kid, but luckily he gets plenty of calories with the "milk shakes" I make for him at each meal.

Developmentally, he is doing great!

Walking since 11 months and now RUNS all over the place and now walks backwards.
Says MaMa, DaDa, Geen (green), NumNum, NiNi, mumbles other sounds
Loves to play hide-n-seek
Loves to give hugs and kisses, and loves to bite my feet/toes (we're working on correcting this)
Sleeps thru the night for the most part from 8:00 pm to 7:00 am (still is night waking once or twice on occasion)
Completely done with all baby foods
Starting to climb in and on everything
Loves to kick his soccer ball and I have the cutest video of him doing it that I will upload tomorrow

I can't believe how much he grows every day. It seems like every morning when he wakes up it's like he learned how to do something new in his sleep. It gives me something to look forward to every morning as I wonder what will Kyle do today? He is just amazing and we feel so blessed to have him.

So, are we ready to start discussing baby #2?

Kyle Fall 2010

2010-09-27T14:51:00.001-05:00

Took these today on this gorgeous Fall day! 70 degrees and sunny. What more could we ask for?

Back to the drawing board

2010-09-22T13:30:00.000-05:00

We lost the house. The seller got a better offer that was non-contingent and they accepted it. We signed the cancellation last night and we are just plain sad. Our agent told us to look at other houses, but it is hard. It feels like our dreams went up in smoke. We are going to leave our house on the market until the end of October, just in case we happen to get an offer, but without a house to buy it seems pointless.

I feel like just taking it down now and starting over next Spring.

I am going to concentrate on my photography since this is a great time of year to get some beautiful shots. I already gave Chris the name of the new lens I want for Christmas, so something to look forward to.

CF update

2010-09-18T21:20:00.000-05:00

So, I completely forgot to update on Kyle's one month follow up visit to his Annual Check-Up.

The reason we went back was because they wanted to weigh him again to see how much he's gained in a month and I'm happy to report he gained over 1 lb! He was 19 lbs 5 oz at his appointment and was up over 20 lbs and then some this time (I didn't get the exact weight with oz's). I also met with his Nutritionist, who recommended adding dips to his foods like ranch dressing, cheese sauce, etc. We've tried ranch sauce and this didn't go over well, but we'll keep trying. She also recommended pizza rolls, which we tried tonight. He liked the inside ok, but was having a hard time getting through the tough, chewy exterior.

I think the main reason he's gained as much as he has was because of his "super milk" he gets 3 times a day. A cup of whole milk mixed with a tbsp of heavy whipping cream and a packet of instant carnation breakfast. I love the ICB because of all the extra nutrients and protein it provides him. Calorie-wise adding simple syrup like Hershey's actually adds more calories per tbsp, but then he doesn't get the extras. Yes, it's expensive, but you can't put a price on my little man's health.

We also found out he'll be getting the RSV vaccine each month again through March. I'm hoping we get the same nurse as last time and I'm going to request her if I can. I know Kyle will freak out each month, but we'll get through it. At least these shots he gets at home and we don't have to go out anywhere.

We will have several appointments coming up, though. November will be his 15 month check-up, then back to the CF clinic in December and somewhere in there I need to schedule an appointment for upgraded shoes for his clubfoot. He's starting to outgrow his current ones again.

Other than that, health-wise he is doing so well and we keep our fingers crossed this continues.

Still grateful

2010-09-13T15:04:00.000-05:00

So, it's been 30 days since our home came on the market and we have now reduced for the 2nd and last time to our final list price. Even though the buyer that looked last weekend said she would be writing an offer, it never came and we were crushed.

We had an open house on Saturday that not one single person came to. We were supposed to have one on Sunday, but we cancelled it. Our agent is scheduling another one for Sunday, which works out fine since we'll be gone anyway, but I have given up hope that anything is going to change.

I let our agent know if we don't sell in the next 30 days we're taking it off the market, retracting our offer on the new house and starting over next Spring. I'm feeling super bummed about losing the new house, since it would have been just perfect for us, but there will be more houses to look at come Spring. We'll also have more time and a better time of year to sell ours as well. It seems most of the buyers looking at ours are first timers, usually moving from an apartment. Unfortunately, Minnesota apartment complexes typically don't allow move outs during the Winter months, so that's been detrimental to this process for us.

So, we've decided to enjoy the extra cash flow we'll have each month, since we paid off both cars to do this. Might as well save up as much as possible to add to our down payment for when we do finally sell our house and find a new one. Maybe we'll be able to do something special for our Anniversary coming up in October.

I know that whatever happens, it is meant to be. I have my wonderful husband, my beautiful boy and a roof over our heads. It's time to be grateful for what we do have and not dwell on what could have or would have been.

More possibles

2010-09-05T21:45:00.000-05:00

It's been an ok weekend, but my allergies have found me. I'm taking my Claritin, sometimes twice, daily. I get so irritable and cranky when my allergies peak around this time of year. My mood doesn't settle until the first frost, which cannot come soon enough. I'm over Summer. Seriously.

So, yesterday Chris and I were preparing for our showing to arrive at 3:30 pm by cleaning the house well in advance. Around 2:45 pm while Chris was downstairs vacuuming and I was upstairs with Kyle keeping him busy with Winnie the Pooh DVDs and toys, we get a knock at the door. "Sorry, we're 45 minutes early, but we had 4 sellers cancel on us today". Great! Luckily we and the house were ready for them, so off we went with Kyle in his stroller for a quick trip around the neighborhood. 15 minutes later they were still there, so off we went for another trip. 10 minutes later, still there, so we hung out in hiding around the corner until they left. I took this as a great sign. Typically when a buyer likes a home, they linger. If they hate it, they leave within 10 minutes or so.

45 minutes later we get a call from our agent telling us she got a call from the buyer's agent saying they loved it and will be putting in an offer this week. Apparently the buyer has looked at over 100 town homes in over 10 cities and said she finally found one she loves and it's only 5 minutes from her work. Perfect! Let's hope she can finance it and doesn't have a lease to break on an apartment. We are expecting to have the offer in hand by the end of the week if all goes well!

After the showing, I gave Kyle his neb/vest treatment, which he is doing so well with. I am so proud of him for being such a big boy with all he goes through. I keep reminding myself that this is his "normal" and not to make a big deal out of it. A neb/vest treatment should be looked upon like a meal. Just another part of the day and a part of his life...but I digress. After his treatment we packed up and headed to my parents' house to drop off Kyle for our big night out at the fair.

Unfortunately, our big night out was a little bit of a letdown. The concert was great, but the fair was so crowded that it was just not that much fun. The food lines were long, there were people everywhere, and I couldn't find my favorite deep fried pickles (only to find they moved to a new location). After the concert ended we headed back to the bus and by now the place was filled with drunks and loud-mouthed teenagers and all I could think of was that I just wanted to be home with my little boy. We didn't pick him up until 12:30 am where I found my Dad and Kyle fast asleep together in the daybed of their guest room. When they woke my Dad explained that Kyle wasn't sleeping well in the pack-n-play so he laid down with him and they fell asleep together. :) That was quite possibly the best way to end my night. We got home around 1:00 am and put Kyle right back down and he slept through until 7:00 am this morning. Chris and I only got about 6 hours of sleep, which possibly added to my allergy-induced crankiness today. Ok, not possibly, it did.

Drugged up on Claritin, here's hoping tomorrow is a better day!

Welcome!

2010-09-03T12:50:00.000-05:00

So, we made a price reduction on our listing this morning. We had started out at the top of the price range, and while we received quite a few showing, no offers. Our agent feels this reduction will bring us an offer. We already had a call this morning for a showing tomorrow, so yay! Our agent is also calling the other people that have viewed the house to let them know of the reduction. It was quite a significant reduction for our price range, so hopefully it pays off.

We are all set to go to the big Minnesota get together tomorrow night. The State Fair, woo hoo!! The weather is perfectly awesome right now, too. Fall has come and this has been whole heartedly welcomed. It is breezy, dry and cool with a high of only 66 degrees today. I love Fall and everything it brings. Cooler, dryer air. Football. The changing leaves. Kids to go back to school and get out of Target while I'm trying to shop during the day, hee hee. I seriously don't know anyone who doesn't love Fall.

So, welcome, buyers and welcome, Fall! This is turning into the start of a great weekend!

The buyer that wasn't

2010-08-31T08:03:00.000-05:00

So, the buyer who loved our house cannot break her lease on her apartment, so she is not putting in an offer. We are so bummed. We do have a showing on Thursday night, one of our agent's other clients, so we'll see what happens.

We plan to reduce on Friday hoping to stir up some new activity for the weekend (although it is Labor Day weekend), and our agent wants to hold another open house the weekend after.

After being so happy last week, my hopes are starting to crumble slowly, but surely. We have to get a contract on our house by the end of September and close by October in order for us to buy the new house. Time is ticking away and I have a feeling this is not going to work out.

Kyle's New Vest

2010-08-29T09:48:00.000-05:00

The pictures above are Kyle getting his twice daily treatments - nebulizer and the latest and greatest, the Vest. The Vest came on Friday as did our personal trainer to show us how to use it. The vest has a "bladder" inside it that fills up with air and contracts and expands at the rate of 1,000/minute creating a "cough" in his lungs. It literally shakes his entire body while doing it, but he doesn't seem to mind. In fact, yesterday he was actually smiling and giggling his way through it and twice he's fallen asleep while using it. He is such a trooper!

The only downside to his treatments are the lack of space for it all. When we move into the new house we're going to get a special table to house his equipment and call it the "treatment station". It will probably be set up in the upstairs living room where Kyle can watch his cartoons to keep him occupied during the 15 minutes it takes for the machines to run.

Kyle has made some significant developmental advances in the past few weeks. He's now looking at me and saying "Mama", then of course smiling and turning his head away. I can tell when our eyes lock that he knows what he's saying and he gets a kick out of it, too. Chris tries to get him to say "Dada", but Mama always comes out instead. :)

He can also stand up from a sitting position on the floor. He no longer has to crawl to the nearest person or piece of furniture to stand up and walk around. He just started doing this a few days ago. He's getting so big and strong!

He loves to play hide-n-seek! It's his favorite game. He'll run to his room and hide behind the door or wall and peek around the corner waiting for someone to come and find him. He'll also stand behind you if you're sitting on the floor hiding from you waiting for you to "find" him. We'll say "where's Kyle??" and he'll peek around from behind you until you see him, then he giggles and hides again. It's just adorable!

And...he's also been sleeping in lately, too! I can't remember the last time he was up before 7:00 am, but on most days he sleeps until almost 8:00 am. I give credit to the late rising sun and can't wait to see what Fall and Winter bring. He's still going down for the night between 7:30 - 8:00 pm, but most nights he needs to be rocked to sleep. Sometimes he'll go down on his own, but he's having a little bit of separation anxiety. He's only getting up once in the night, if at all now, so that getting up 3-4 times in the night is slowly coming to an end (hopefully).

He is still such a joy to be around! Keeps himself busy and plays independently, but loves to play with whoever is available, too. He's such a laid back little boy. He exceeds all of our expectations that come along with being a parent. We are so blessed. :)

Happy Birthday to me!

2010-08-25T13:09:00.000-05:00

Today is my birthday and I received 2 wonderful birthday gifts last night from our real estate agent.

1st - the sellers on the new house have agreed to do everything we requested on our inspection repair addendum, woo hoo!!! That's about $10K worth of repairs. How awesome. I absolutely love the seller on this house. I plan on having her over for coffee after we move in.

2nd - we are receiving an offer on our house either today or tomorrow!!! Woot, woot! We were taking guesses last night at what we think it could be, but whatever it is we are thrilled!

The sellers still want a tentative closing on the new house for 10/29 and the buyers on our house want to close on 10/27, but will allow us to stay through the following Saturday to give us time to move out. I'm so, so glad we are hiring a moving crew to do this for us, because we are just getting too old to recruit friends and family to move our very large and very heavy furniture for us. We plan on putting in the new carpet the day after we close on the new house and then having the movers move us the next day. Hopefully this all works out as planned.

I prayed lots about this and once again He came through for me. I really don't know how I get so lucky to be so blessed. I know I have quite a few people up there rooting for me, that's for sure!

The stress of it all

2010-08-23T08:25:00.000-05:00

I have been feeling a little stressed and overwhelmed these days. Trying to sell your house, while purchasing a new one with a teething toddler is not an easy task.

We had our home inspection completed on Friday on the new place and there is quite the laundry list of items that will need to be addressed by the seller. The major ones are the electrical panel and windows. The electrical panel is made by a company that went out of business due to law suits, etc. because of the high failure rates and electrical fires. We requested this be replaced, which will cost the seller between $3,000 and $5,000. The windows are hit or miss in that house, given it was built in 1976 and most of the windows are original. Some of the windows don't open, some are missing hardware and some are rotted or broken. We requested at least 5 windows be replaced and that all windows are made to be fully functional with working hardware. The rest of the items were pretty small and could probably be done by a handy man for $1,000 or so, but overall we're looking at about $10,000 worth of repairs. The seller has 2 days to respond, so we should know by Wednesday.

We also had a showing on Friday night and held an open house yesterday. Only one, ONE, couple came through, but our agent said that is to be expected given the market. But, luckily, the feedback from both couples is good. Both are older couples looking to downgrade from where they are now. They want something updated, that they will have little work to do on and of course, no yard work. The couple that came through the open said they are just working on their financing.

We discussed a price reduction with our agent, which we will do this weekend if we don't see anymore activity. A price reduction will put us into a new price bracket and will hopefully motivate the ones that came to see it to put in an offer. The one advantage we have over the other town homes on the market is our yard. We have a huge corner lot with a wooded backyard. It really is a nice property.

So, we went to my Dad's while our agent held the open and Kyle ended up getting sick and puking all over me and him. I think his lunch was just a bit too rich for him - hot dogs, cheese and chocolate milk. Usually he tolerates this pretty well, but not yesterday. I had to borrow a t-shirt from my dad and I just smelled "pukey" the rest of the day. When we got home, Kyle took a bath and ate an eggo and seemed to be in good spirits the rest of the night. So, luckily it wasn't a virus or anything. I was just telling Chris not that long ago how it's been nice having a toddler that can hold his food down and we're past the spit-up/puke phase. Oh well! It won't be the last time he pukes, I'm sure.

Today I need to make several phone calls. One to the vest company for Kyle's new vest and one to the appraiser that our agent lined up on our house. We also need to get groceries and do some laundry (to clean the puke clothes from yesterday). Always something to be done. Better get to it!

CF Annual Review

2010-08-19T17:12:00.000-05:00

Kyle had his annual review with the CF team yesterday and it went really well.

He started off with a chest x-ray, which Chris and I both had to hold him down for. He cried and screamed through the entire thing, but it was over quick and we got the results from our doctor right away. His lungs are all clear, yay!!!!

We discussed his weight for quite a while and his doctor said I'm doing just about everything I can be doing and to just keep at it. She wants to see him back in a month to see how is weight is doing. She said to keep adding butter, whipping cream, whole milk, etc. to everything he eats. Hopefully the lbs will pack on again soon.

After our regular meeting, we met with his pulmonologist and Kyle got fitted for the vest. We actually tried it on him and turned it on and low and behold...he fell asleep during it. We'll get Kyle's vest and machine in the next few weeks once everything is run by insurance. Hopefully they will cover a lot of the cost since it runs about $16,000. Luckily it's just a one-time fee and there are no other costs for the rest of his lifetime. All vest and tube replacements are free after that.

Kyle ended up taking a few naps at the clinic, plus another one on the way home. Last night was another rough night with sleeping for him, though. It was a little warm in here and Kyle had a hard time going down, so we turned the a/c on and that helped. But, he was up again at 11:00 and 5:00 and then slept until 7:00. I'm not sure if it's teething or separation anxiety or what?!? I would love for him to start going down easier again and sleeping through the night, too. That only lasted 2 months before we hit this wall. :(

We have our home inspection on the new house tomorrow and we have our first scheduled showing on our house on Sunday. We are also having an open house on Sunday, too. There is a broker's open for about an hour tomorrow as well. Hopefully after this weekend, there will peak some interest and we'll get an offer! We are a bit frustrated with our agent right now. She got a copy of the signed purchase agreement last Friday and didn't get us our copy until last night (5 days later). We had to rush to find an inspector to do the inspection tomorrow since our 5 day contingency technically started on Monday and we didn't know it until last night when our agent called. She really dropped the ball....let's hope she doesn't do it again, or she will end up fired for sure. I'm still praying this all works out and we'll be in the new house by the end of October.

Keep praying!

Rough nights ahead...

2010-08-13T21:33:00.000-05:00

Well, it was inevitable. Kyle is teething again. This time it's the molars.

His Ped confirmed at his 12 month check-up that they were coming in and boy are they ever. Overall during the day, he does pretty well. Yesterday was a great nap day with Kyle taking 2 1.5 hour naps, which was heaven for me considering I had to get the house ready for pictures today for our listing. But, last night was horrible. Kyle got up at midnight and kept both he and I up until 2:00 am. I finally had to bring him into bed with me where he tossed and turned while asleep for an hour before I returned him to his crib. I got a couple hours of good sleep until he woke up again at 5:30 am and came back into bed with me (Chris was asleep on the couch the whole time). I barely got any sleep after that, however Kyle did and that made me happy. He finally woke for the day at his usual time at 6:30 am.

Surprisingly, I didn't wake up feeling tired. I actually felt well-rested, but I think it was the adrenaline kicking in. I knew my agent and the photographer were coming out to photograph the house for our listing, so I was in a little bit of a frantic mode all morning. Luckily I was able to get everything cleaned and staged before they got there and it all went fast and smooth. Our listing went live today!!

I have been feeling a bit stressed out lately. I worry so much about Kyle's weight, or lack thereof. The chocolate carnation instant breakfast has been giving Kyle the runs, so we're going to try the strawberry flavor instead. Yesterday he had about 6 poopy diapers and luckily today he only had 2. I also increased his enzymes from 5 to 6, so that may have helped, too. Unfortunately, Kyle will not drink his milk all by itself, it has to be flavored, so he's still getting the chocolate stuff, but a little less of it. I also went back to using real butter, not the spreadable kind, because real butter has more calories. I started using a butter dish to keep it soft so it's ready to spread at all times. We go through so much of it that it doesn't really have time to sit and get rancid, so I'm not too worried about that.

He does have his yearly CF clinic visit next week on Wednesday, which I'm kind of not looking forward to. The appointment will be really long starting with a chest x-ray, then our visit with the team and then our regular appointment with his doctor. I know they are going to say something about his weight tapering off, but hopefully they will have some helpful suggestions. One more thing we're going to start doing is making him "super milk", which is half-n-half mixed with his whole milk, also mixed with his flavored powder...so basically a milk shake. :)

And some pics...Kyle in his Costa-Rica t-shirt from his Auntie Ann.

He loves sitting on our couch. He thinks he's a big boy when he does!

Finally, an accepted offer!

2010-08-10T20:18:00.000-05:00

After going back and forth for over a week with the sellers they finally agreed upon our offer, yay!!!

Hurdle one - check!

Now onto the next hurdle. Getting our house on the market and getting it SOLD. We can't list until pictures are taken and we can't take pictures until our HOA comes and paints our new windows to match the rest of the trim on the house. They said they would be here by the end of this week, so I'm hoping to get listed by early next week.

If all works out the way it should, we'll be in our new house by the end of October. Just in time for the holidays!

12 Month Peds Appointment

2010-08-07T22:28:00.000-05:00

Well, Kyle's appointment yesterday left me feeling a tiny bit helpless. I feel like we are doing everything we can to pump as many calories into this little boy, only for his weight to have fallen to the 5th-10th percentile. His height is at 29 inches, so his BMI or height to weight ratio is still in the 25th-50th percentile, but still. It has dropped.

His Ped said this would happen eventually given the fact he was an early walker and early walkers tend to have an earlier weight recession. She suggested a few things to boost up the calories such as adding Pediasure to his snacks instead of just whole milk and continue to use butter and whipping cream in everything we feed him. Other than his weight, he's still doing quite well. He did get 4 shots yesterday, though, and man was that hard on both of us. I just cannot stand to see my little man cry. He has enough to go through in his life without adding the additional pain that just comes to us all naturally.

On a good note, though, he no longer has a bottle. All beverages are with his sippy cup. He's been doing great with it for a while now. No more bottle warmer. No more bottle drying rack. No more Dr. Brown's pain in the ass parts. No more formula. Woo hoo!!!!!!

So, speaking of Kyle's food, this is what his diet looks like on any given day:

6:30 am - 8 oz of whole milk (now being substituted with whole milk and instant carnation breakfast)
9:30 am - breakfast/snack - 1/2 eggo with 1 tbsp butter plus one packet of icing from a toaster strudel, 1 container of level 2 fruit and oatmeal mixed with 1 tbsp whipping cream, plus whatever he'll drink of whole milk
12:30 - lunch - 1 grilled cheese plus 1 container of level 2 fruit mixed with whipping cream. Whole milk to drink.
4:00 - snack - yogurt, pudding, ice cream, milk/carnation mix - anything fattening really just to get in some extra calories
6:30 - dinner - hot dog and level 2 fruit mixed with whipping cream, whole milk

My Mom suggested I make a high fat version of french toast, so I'm going to try that as well as scrambled eggs (again). I've tried a few noodle-type dishes with him and he doesn't like noodles, he's more of a bread/dough kind of kid. The french toast I'll make will have eggs, whipping cream and loads of butter.

It's so strange how we learn as adults to try to eat so healthy. I could name and list a million recipes that are low-fat, low-cal, but when it comes to adding calories to my kid's diet, this I struggle with.

Onward!

2010-08-04T21:15:00.000-05:00

We didn't get the house. We are $12,000 apart and we just cannot afford to go any higher. We are going to re-evaluate once we put ours on the market and see what kind of offers we get, if any. We decided if we end up getting more than our bottom line on our house now, we may go back to that house (if it's still listed) and go in $5,000 higher. And of course, we'll keep on searching for other homes, too.

I'm pretty bummed, but in a way I feel sort of blah about it. As I hold Kyle and look over to my husband, I realize it's just a house. Home is where they are, so whether we stay where we are or do end up finding something, as long as I have my boys I'll be just fine.

The fraud situation has not ended quite yet. Apparently the "seller" isn't aware that they are being caught on to and are actually trying to milk it for more money. At the same time, the report is being filled out on the FBI's website as well as some research from home. Chris is working on it as well, and we were able to get the name, address and phone for the original ad on e-bay. It could be the ad the scammer duplicated to rope in our buyer, but we'll find out for sure once these people are called and confronted. We still believe this scammer is out of the country, though. The time stamp on his e-mails are always way ahead of the current time, sometimes even a full day.

Birthdays and Offers and Fraud...Oh My!

2010-08-02T21:55:00.000-05:00

I will start off by saying Kyle's 1st Birthday was very nice and I got some really cute pictures, just haven't had time to upload them and post them, but will soon. Everyone loved the appetizer lunch and cake. Kyle got some new clothes and toys from his grandparents and even got a nap in while everyone was here. It was a lot of work for just having the grandparents over and I can't imagine what this will be like when he has little friends coming over, too.

After Kyle's "party" we went to meet our agent for our scheduled showing at the "hill house" as I like to call it, so that our parents could see it and help us decide if it was worth putting an offer in. Of course, everyone loved it and said yes to it, so Chris, Kyle, our agent and me came back to our house to write up the offer. We started pretty low given the fact that both siding and windows are original, and it needs ~~some~~ a lot of cosmetic updating (I'm pretty sure every room has wallpaper). We love the location, the floor plan and all the bonuses this house has to offer, so we're keeping our fingers crossed. We also submitted all of the paperwork for the listing to our agent as well and we go live on 8/13! This is all feeling very real and very scary...I just hope it all works out.

Ok, so on to Fraud. Devastating news for our family. One of my family members has become a victim to a fraudulent scam on a well known bidding website and is out close to $8000. This "transaction" has been taking place for a couple of weeks now and came to fruition last night when a customer service rep informed them that they had been involved in a fraudulent transaction. Retracing steps and discovering a computer virus put on the computer by the scam artists confirmed everything. The police were called to the house this morning and a report was written. The FBI are also being made aware. A few banks are involved as well, but more than likely this person or people will not get caught and the $8000 will never be seen again. From what we can tell this person resides and probably does his business from overseas, possibly somewhere in Europe.

My entire family is just sick and saddened by this news. It's a very devastating blow. Our family has never been victim to any sort of crime and knowing there will be no court hearing to see this person pay for what they did is just so disheartening. They will get away with luring an innocent person in, taking them for all they have, and walking away scott-free. It's just not right.

Happy 1st Birthday, Kyle!

2010-07-31T20:30:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow is Kyle's 1st Birthday. Wow, what a year it has been. This has by far been the most stressful and most joyous year of my life. If I would have known how much joy being a Mother would bring me, I would have done this a LONG time ago. Ha ha! Not really. The timing in every way, shape and form was perfect. I wouldn't have changed a single thing.

I just finished baking his cake and will frost and decorate it after it cools. Originally, I was going to get a free cake from a local bakery here that does free 8 inch rounds for 1st Birthdays, but something about that felt cheap and easy. I wanted to make my son his cake for his birthday. Something I plan on doing every year for him. Taking the time to make a cake just feels right. My Mom always did this for me every year and it always felt special to me.

We are not throwing a big lavish birthday party for Kyle, but just having both sets of parents and Chris' Grandmother over for an appetizer lunch, followed by cake and ice cream, followed by a showing at, what will hopefully be, our future home.

Chris and I have emotionally and mentally moved into this house. We have already imagined where our Christmas Tree will go. Imagined sledding with Kyle and possible future siblings on the hill in the backyard. Imagined drinking wine at dusk while watching the sun set over the Autumn trees from the floor-to-ceiling window view in our 4-season porch. Imagined turning the lower kitchen into a bar area where the guys will hang out while watching football. We've already starting creating memories in that house. Dangerous, I know. Hopes are floating high, which is another reason we are keeping an open mind and expecting the worst.

We are planning to put in an offer tomorrow. Scary, but exciting. :)

House update

2010-07-28T21:03:00.000-05:00

Our agent went and saw the house yesterday and while she said it is very, VERY outdated, it's in great condition and the updating that's needed is mostly wallpaper removal (fun stuff), painting, carpet replacement in the living room and one bedroom and light fixture replacement in almost every room. The rest is livable for the time being and we agreed we could tackle one big project each year with our tax return (ie - updating the 3 bathrooms and kitchen).

I am trying not to get my hopes up on this, though. I don't want to get overly excited only to be disappointed. I am preparing myself for the worst. Either our offer will be rejected right from the start due to our contingency or we will get bumped with a better offer. We did decide to go $20K higher than we originally planned, though. We freed up some of our monthly payments by paying off my car, which I did yesterday, Chris is quitting the gym because he only goes maybe 4 times/month and he also plans on paying off his car as well. We figure it's better to pay off 2 car loans and apply those payments to our new mortgage instead.

Our agent said townhouses are taking longer to sell than single family homes - up to 120 days. We are going to be very aggressive with our pricing because we really do want it to sell fast and time is not on our side. With August being right around the corner we've got maybe 2 more months of summer when the house shows its best and I definitely do not want to move in the winter.

It doesn't appear that there is any interest on this house outside of our own. It's been several days since the open house (at which only 4 couples came) and no one has made an offer yet, that we know of, so I'm taking that as a good sign.

Regardless of if we get this home or not, we are going to get ours listed in the event we do find another house we like we'll have a stronger offer assuming we'll have an offer on our townhouse. Ugh...if only we didn't have this one to sell.

Where's our money tree?

2010-07-26T07:42:00.000-05:00

We found a house we really, really like this weekend at an open house. It has a gorgeous backyard and the entire lot is a little less than an acre. Chris said it felt like the views he had living in the bluffs when he was younger. The only problem is that it's very outdated, but clean, and unfortunately just a tad out of our price range. We are still going to give it a go and have our agent look at it and give us her opinion on pricing. We are ready to make an offer on it and get ours on the market.

We found out from the listing agent it's a little old lady, a widower, that lives there alone, which is why it's so outdated and clean. If only we had about $20K more at our disposal, we'd probably have no problems getting into it, but we don't. We're going to put in an offer as our "best and final" and see what happens. We know what our max limit is and that's what we're going to offer on it. We feel like we at least need to try and if the offer is rejected, than we can walk away and say it's not meant to be. I don't want to not make an offer and then always wonder "what if...".

We still have a bit of work left to do on ours before we can list. Our downstairs bathroom shower started leaking at the corners, so my dad is going to fix that and then repair the wall damage and we still need to fix the ceiling in our upstairs bathroom where condensation from the exhaust fan made the ceiling bubble and peel off. Then the stair railing going to the basement needs to be put on the wall for safety code reasons. Other than that, we are ready! We are still waiting for the window guy to come and replace our windows, but that should be done by the time we list.

I hope everything works out so we're able to sell quickly and buy that house, but I have a feeling it won't happen. Whatever is meant to be, will be.

Walking to Running

2010-07-22T09:44:00.000-05:00

Since Kyle has now mastered walking, he has decided it would be a good idea to kick it up a notch and try running. It is too funny to see those little feet and legs move so quickly. Of course, after a few steps he takes a dive head first into anything he's running towards. Ouch. It doesn't seem to bother him, though, he gets right back up and starts walking fast and then attempting to run all over again.

His favorite thing, or person I should say, to run towards and away from is his Daddy. Chris comes home from work each day and plays with Kyle while I make dinner. All I hear from the living room, hallway, etc. are giggles coming from both of them. Kyle just adores Chris. I think he gets a little bored with me during the day and needs someone new to see and play with by the time Chris gets home. It's a welcome change for both of us.

Today we are heading to my parents for our weekly Thursday visit with them and my nieces. Too bad it's cloudy, rainy and cooler today. I bought swim trunks for Kyle at Target yesterday since my parents bought a kiddie pool. We had planned on having the kids play in the pool, but not today. :( Tomorrow I'm having a Mommy and me play date with my friend Jill, her daughter, Bella, her neighbor Kelly and her son Ben, who's just one month older than Kyle. Jill is making everyone lunch and we're going to have the kids play outside on Bella's slip-n-slide. We'll see how Kyle does with this. Apparently Ben loves it, so hopefully Kyle will, too. I'm looking forward to some adult interaction!!

This weekend we are going to look at another house. Not getting my hopes up, since nothing seems to be panning out. I really think we're ready to meet with a builder and have a home built to our liking. It seems like the most logical thing to do since we can't find a pre-existing home that meets our needs/wants and is in our price range. I found a builder that builds just west of where we live now, in our price range and my Mom said they are reputable (she used to work with them, too). So....I think after seeing the house this weekend, I'm going to give the builder a call and schedule a meeting with them.

New Shoes

2010-07-18T10:01:00.000-05:00

We bought Kyle some cute new shoes at Target yesterday. One size 3 and a size 4. The size 3 shoes are little sandals and the size 4's are more like a tennis shoe that he can wear this fall/winter.

We went to another showing yesterday on a foreclosed on home. While the home had some good potential, it would cost way too much to fix up. The whole deck needed to come down and be replaced, all the windows were cheap, the carpet was filthy (we didn't even take our shoes off), and all of the bathrooms needed to be gutted because of the mold/filth. It was a nice size, nice neighborhood, but just too much needed to be done.

We are going to 4 open houses today and having Chris' Mom watch Kyle for us. He just gets too exhausted from all the running around, in and out of the car seat, not being able to walk/crawl around, etc. So, it will be easier to have her watch him so he can play, eat, nap, etc. at her house. Although, I love taking him with us because he's SO darn good when we go out, I know it's just too much for him. He's due for a little Grandma Pat time anyway. She can finally see him walk!

We had quite the storm come thru last night. Winds were high and tornadoes were breaking out. The sirens went off so we headed down to the basement. I had to get Kyle out of his crib after he had fallen asleep, but he just slept in my arms in our recliner in the basement while we watched the storm pass on TV. Some of our siding came off and there are large branches in the streets and in the yards around us, but other than that it left us with nothing but a dryer and cooler day today, yay!

Well, Kyle will up shortly from his nap....time for eggos, his favorite! :)

More action shots

2010-07-16T09:36:00.000-05:00

He would not sit down after we got home from my parents yesterday...only to take the occasional break laying down and resting on the floor. I need to remember to buy him some shoes today, too.

He's one tired little boy by the end of the day! :) I love him.

Holy Cats, he's walking!

2010-07-15T20:39:00.000-05:00

Wow. That didn't take long at all. Kyle now walks everywhere. He does not stop. When he falls, he crawls to the nearest piece of furniture or wall, and up and away he goes. He had no interest in playing with his toys today over at my parents' house either. All he wanted to do was walk, walk, walk. I think he likes life from this new angle. :)

Walking is really tiring him out, too, which means he's probably burning off a lot more calories these days. I found a new food that he loves - blueberry ego waffles. He's eating about 2-3 per day now. I tried making him some scrambled eggs since we ran out of eggos and he had no interest in them. I then tried giving him some banana bread and what a holy mess that was!

He now refuses to eat any jarred baby food, he actually cries and gets mad when I bring the jar over by him, so it's big people food from now on...and bottles. He still won't drink from the sippy cup, unless the lid is off and I hold it for him. Errrrrr..... He did eat some french fries with me the other day at lunch...just need to find some more finger foods for him to eat. We'll be heading out to buy groceries in the morning.

I just can't believe how it seemed like overnight that my little baby is now feeding himself and walking. When did my little baby turn into a toddler?

Walk, walk, walk!

2010-07-13T07:23:00.000-05:00

My big walker! He's starting to take steps all by himself, even without us provoking him. He'll stand next to a wall and push himself away and then take a few steps before falling. He will definitely have this down before his 1st birthday. We keep practicing every day!

We'll have a walker soon!

2010-07-09T13:31:00.000-05:00

Kyle is getting very daring with his walking. Today he pushed himself away from the furniture and took 3-4 steps all by himself. Once he crawled over to the patio door, I knelt down in front of him and said "walk to mama" and he took another couple of steps right into my arms. The look on his face was priceless. A little bit of shock along with pure joy. He'll definitely be walking before he hits 1.

In house news...we are going to see 2 homes on Saturday and then we're going to take a look at what we call the "Cobblestone House" on Sunday. This will be our 2nd showing to the Cobblestone House. We initially saw this house a few months ago and really, really liked it at first. When we looked at other homes and realized what this house didn't have and couldn't be changed, we striked it from our list and moved on...sort of. For some reason we are both still drawn to this house. We love the location, the neighborhood, the layout, the backyard, the basement, etc., etc. There are a few things we don't like, but are soon realizing we could probably live with, especially since the house is listed quite low. It's actually lower than what we had budgeted for.

We're asking my dad and Chris' mom to come with us to take a look. They are both very opinionated and well, picky, when it comes to houses. We trust if they do not like this house, then we can finally move on from it. If they like it, I have a feeling we will be writing an offer contingent on the closing of our townhouse. We still have work to do on ours and Chris doesn't feel comfortable listing until those items are complete and we have a house picked out and have written an offer.

My hope is we have sold our home and have moved into a new one by this Fall.

Daddy and Kyle

2010-07-05T21:32:00.000-05:00

We had a pleasant weekend. Chris was off on Friday and Monday, so we had 4 whole days with him. I took some pics of Kyle and Chris on Saturday. They are by far my favorite subjects to photograph. Kyle just loves his daddy. This is clearly evident by the look on his face and his body language. Such cute boys. How did I get so lucky??

We ended up having a nice 4th of July visiting with some out-of-town friends. They were staying at their SIL's house off Lake Minnetonka. They also had a pool, so Chris took Kyle swimming for the first time, too. I forgot my camera, but our friends caught it and will send us the pictures once they get home.

We also went and saw the house we were thinking about putting an offer in with our parents and I'm really glad we did. They pointed out things in the house that we wouldn't have seen or even thought of and both of our parents said they wouldn't buy it, especially for the amount of money we would be spending. They said we'd be better off buying brand new. So...another house bites the dust. We do have 2 showings scheduled on Saturday and my Dad is coming with us. So, we'll see what happens. I've learned now to go into this with very low expectations. I keep getting my hopes up with each house we see thinking "this could be the one!" only to be disappointed. It's a very frustrating process.

On a good note, we got our spare bedroom in the basement all cleaned out, painted and staged. It looks very nice and cozy now and doesn't look like a "junk room" like it did before. While we were cleaning the windows we discovered one of them had rotted out, so we are now replacing the master and spare bedroom windows, so now all the bedrooms will have new windows.

I'm keeping our fingers crossed we'll get out of this house without sinking another dime into it....easier said than done.

11 months

2010-07-01T22:21:00.000-05:00

Kyle turned 11 months old today. I cannot believe how fast this time is going by.

It felt like time stood still after he was first born and that each day and night dragged on and on. Those first few months with him were so, so hard on me both emotionally and physically (if not a little mentally, too). I really feel like this awesome little boy I have now is my reward for going through all those hard times in the beginning. I truly am blessed.

Kyle continues to crawl and cruise around like crazy. He has taken steps here and there (he took 3 at once on Father's Day), but usually sticks to cruising along the furniture and the walls when he wants to get around.
He's become a very fussy eater lately. Sadly, when I can't get him to eat food, I resort to a bottle just so he can get his nutrients and calories in. My main concern is him getting those calories in and not so much how. Sometimes we even have to put on Tigger and Poo on ondemand and then feed him. When he's tuned into his cartoons, he'll eat anything. Such a bad habit, but when you have a child with CF, you do what you gotta do.

He still won't take much from his sippy cup, although I offer it to him all day long. I usually put water in it, but the other day I tried diluted juice again and he didn't care for it. I have even put his formula in hoping it would click for him, but no such luck. Gotta keep trying, though, because my goal is to have him off the bottle when he turns 1.

He has officially graduated to the convertible car seat. I went with the Evenflo Advance because it was highest rated by Consumer Reports and was cheapest on Amazon. It came today, so I took Kyle out to the garage with me and installed it. It was very, very easy. I can't wait for our first car ride, although, we are going to need something to entertain him with. His carrier toy won't work with this new seat...

He has started to say some words with meaning. He says "ni ni ni ni" when he's tired. He always says it right around his nap times and sometimes before bed for the night. He's still saying "dada", but hasn't said "mama" in a long time now.

We are on a sort of nap schedule. Since he's up for the day at 6:00 am, his first nap time is usually between 7:30 and 8:30. 2nd nap is around 12:00 and 3rd nap is around 3:00. He still goes down between 7:30-8:00 with no crying or fussing at all. He just knows it's bedtime and he's goes down without a fight. It's been lovely!

Chris and I both have realized how much Kyle needs a yard to play in. We don't want him playing in our townhouse yard, since it's technically not ours and too many people and animals walk thru it. We found half a dead bunny in it the other day because some stray cat left it there. Not exactly the place I want Kyle playing. Yucky!

Busy, busy!

2010-06-28T20:41:00.000-05:00

It has been crazy busy around our house lately.

We are almost ready to list! Our agent is coming over on Wednesday morning to take pictures and measurements of the rooms. Although these won't be the professional pictures posted to the MLS, I still want the house to look its best. I've been cleaning like a madwoman and finally getting around to doing the cleaning that I've been putting off for way too long. I'm hoping to get to the living room windows tomorrow as they need a good cleaning inside and out. I also need to dust and clean the bathtub and tile grout in our upstairs bathroom. While Chris is usually responsible for the cleaning of the basement, since this is his area, I will also be taking care of that tomorrow as well. Carpets need vacuuming, his bathroom will need a wipe down and the patio door needs to be vacuumed out and windows washed (inside and out).

And...we also found a house that we love, too! We decided to hit up a few open houses on Sunday along with one showing with our agent. The showing didn't go so well, the house was just too small and the layout of the yard was awkward, but 2 of the open houses we attended definitely made "the list" of houses we would consider putting offers on.

They are both about the same size, same style, same finishes, etc., except one if a little further out than we want to be, but $30K cheaper. We really didn't want to go over our budget, but it's the first rule of real estate....location, location, location! The 2nd house is in a better location, on a pond with a gorgeous large backyard, 4 bedrooms, 4 baths, a screened in porch, 3 season porch, 2 wood burning fire places and deck off the master suite. We instantly fell in love and asked our agent to find out what she thought a fair offer would be and if the sellers are accepting contingencies. If not, we'll need to sell ours quickly and then make an offer.

We also found out from Chris' Mom that they are giving us $10K towards our purchase, which means we can afford to go over our budget to get the house we really want. Both of our parents said not to settle and to hold out until we find something we love. We both felt that we couldn't find anything we didn't like about the pond house. It needs very little updating, but we'll do that as we go.

I adore you

2010-06-24T06:58:00.000-05:00

I am absolutely loving this age that Kyle is at right now. I have always said that I love the 10 month old age, but for having a kid myself, I mean it even more.

At 10 months old, actually, before that, Kyle started sleeping through the whole night without waking. It has been heaven. I forgot what it was like to wake up in the morning and the last thing I remembered was going to sleep, but I do now. I feel so rested in the mornings now and I actually end up waking up before both Kyle and Chris sometimes.

Kyle goes down for bed at 7:30 pm each night with no crying or fussing. It has helped that he has attached himself to his "lovey" Ellie the Elephant rattle. I received this as part of a gift basket from a friend at my shower and up until about 2 weeks ago, Kyle would have cared less about it. But now he LOVES it and can't sleep without it. He carries it around with him everywhere he goes and holds onto it while he sleeps, too. It's so adorable. He was even hanging on to it while he was eating yesterday.

Kyle wakes up at the same time each morning - 6:00 am - 6:30 am. Again, loving this. I wish it was more like 7:00 am, but given the earlier bedtime, this is plenty of sleep for him at night. We still are not on any sort of nap schedule, but he goes down fairly easily for these now, too. I rock with him in the rocking chair, which is our "cuddle time" and then he falls asleep.

He's also becoming more and more independent. He wants to feed himself at every chance he gets now, so we'll be moving to just solids here soon, I think. I have tried a few things out on him and he does well. I've made scrambled eggs, chicken nuggets, cut up fruit, deli sliced turkey, and of course his puffs. He hardly ever drops food on the floor and does really well at getting it all in his mouth. Sometimes too much. He'll stuff his mouth with puffs if I don't watch him.

He also has started hugging his stuffed animals and me, too. :) I'll ask him for a hug and he'll lean in and grab my neck. I love this! There is no better feeling than the reciprocation of affection from your child. I love this kid so much that I tear up at the thought of how happy I am he is mine. My little boy. I couldn't have hoped, dreamed or prayed for anything else.

Happy Father's Day!

2010-06-20T20:43:00.005-05:00

We had a very busy and semi-stressful weekend. Getting ready to sell a house and purchasing a new one is very stressful.

Chris took Friday off to get our living room ready to be painted on Saturday with some help from my Dad. I tried to keep busy with Kyle to keep him out of the way, so we went on a long walk around the neighborhood, came back for him to eat and nap, then I took him out shopping with me and once we got home, they were done prepping the walls, but the living room was now nowhere near babyproofed. Errrrrr....

Saturday was hectic to say the least. Chris was trying to get ready to paint while I was trying to get Kyle ready with our normal routine, however it was abnormal due to the living room being in total disarray. I had to rush to get ready and get Kyle out the door to get out of Chris' hair. We got into a fight that morning, but we were both fine by the end of the day.

I got to my Mom's around 8:30 am and we just hung out until 11:00 am when we brought my Dad and Chris lunch. We then went back to her house, hung out, then went and saw a house that Chris and I were interested in. The house was disgusting, but I really liked the agent and will probably end up working with her on both our home finding and home sale. Luckily Kyle slept along the way on both car rides. Unfortunately, when we got back to her house we couldn't get in because the keyless entry for the garage door stopped working, so we got back into the car and headed back to my house to get the garage door opener from my Dad. We left again and got back to her house, hung out and then ordered up a few pizzas to pick up and bring back to the guys for dinner. Lots of round trips between my house and their house!!

Thankfully they were all done painting by the time we got there. It was going on 7:30 pm and Kyle needed to be put down for bed. We finally got him down around 8:30 and then Chris and I put our living room, kitchen, etc. back together since we had to have everything cleaned up and ready for Father's Day lunch at our house on Sunday. We went to bed around 11:00, slept for an hour before Kyle woke up crying at midnight. He ended up having a night terror, which he hasn't had in quite a few months. I think it was from all the running around we did with him that day. Poor guy.

So...Sunday ended up being a nice success after 2 stressful days. We had both sets of parents over for Father's Day. We grilled steaks, chicken, shrimp, corn on the cob and also had an oriental salad to go along with it. Chris even made a dessert pizza that morning between running to Target and Lowe's.

After everyone left we had a nice quiet afternoon together, just the three of us. We took Kyle for a long walk outside, Chris took a nap on the couch while Kyle and I played until we put him down for the night. I gave Chris a card from Kyle and 2 pictures framed from our family session with our photographer. He now has some pictures to put on his desk at work. I also gave Chris a nice long back rub before bed...well, it was Father's Day after all. :)

What is that smell?

2010-06-18T17:25:00.005-05:00

For the past few days I've noticed this pungent odor in Kyle's room. At first I thought it was his full and stinky diaper pail, so I pulled the liner out and sprayed the can inside and out with Lysol. I opened his window and gave it a few hours to air out and finally the smell subsided.

For Kyle's nap I always shut the window, turn on his fan and shut the door while he naps. After an hour long nap in his room like this the smell returned.

Next in line was replacing his changing table cover and sheet in his bed, and washing his mattress liner and window curtains. While his curtain was down I vacuumed out his window sill and washed his window. Again, leaving the window open to air it out. The smell disappeared.

At night we always turn on the a/c so it can cool down in here before we all go to bed since none of us can sleep when it's too hot. With the a/c on and windows shut, the smell returned.

After 3 days of this, my Dad came over and literally "sniffed it out". The smell was coming from the carpet under Kyle's crib. We knew exactly what it was once we got down close. Cat pee. The freakin' cat (one of the three) either peed or sprayed a spot under Kyle's crib.

The smell was in the carpet, on the baseboard and on the wall. Chris tried just cleaning the carpet, but the smell had penetrated too deep to get it all out. So...up came the carpet to also discover...mouse droppings under the baseboard and mold growing on the tack strip. Absolutely disgusting. One thing I fail to mention is that Kyle's room butts up against the garage attic, so our suspicion is that this is where the mouse droppings came from.

Chris is now in the process of replacing the tack strip and carpet padding, disinfecting the baseboard and wall, and deep cleaning the carpet (again).

This is just one more strike against the cats. Cats that I would already love to drop off in a field somewhere and say "so long!". They are wearing on my last nerve and wearing out their welcome relatively quickly. I have a sneaking suspicion that they might get "lost" somewhere along the way when we move...

Almost ready to list, but still searching

2010-06-16T21:05:00.004-05:00

We are inching closer and closer to putting our house on the market, however we have yet to find a suitable house to purchase.

I was talking to my Mom this morning and she said not to settle and to wait it out and find our perfect dream house. As of now, there is only one or two houses that we like, but feel like we would be settling for if we bought them.

One has most everything we want on the inside, except it has 2 very small bedrooms on the main floor plus the master. It also has a small kitchen, not much bigger than what we have now and a small yard. The upside is the neighborhood is very high-end, the location is ideal, the layout is perfect and the basement is a dream. But could we live with the cons?

House 2 has a huge yard, 4 season porch, large kitchen/dining room, good size bedrooms, but does not have a master bath, which we really, really want. Mostly so we can use it without waking Kyle after he goes down for the night, and well, just for privacy.

So, we keep looking...we won't be able to do much this weekend. Chris and my Dad are painting our living room, hallway and entry way, plus installing 2 new ceiling fans and then Sunday we are having both sets of parents over for Father's Day.

Open Houses

2010-06-13T08:43:00.003-05:00

We're going to go look at a few open houses today. A few homes are a bit out of our price range, but we're going to look at them and keep an eye on them for price reductions.

In the meantime, we are planning on finishing our painting next weekend along with installing the new ceiling fans. I still don't feel comfortable listing our home without having at least a few homes to choose from to make offers on. Unless we find something that isn't a foreclosure or short sale, we could make a contingent offer on the sale of our home, but risk losing it should someone else come along with a non-contingent offer. Ugh, I think I liked the process of buying and selling from my cozy office chair at my old job. I'm glad I have my real estate background for this, though. It makes my comfort level with the whole process that much higher.

They reduced my dream home on the busy streets by $10K. Knife to the heart. :( I loved that house.

House hunting woes

2010-06-08T21:13:00.002-05:00

And we haven't even been searching for that long!

Sunday we attended an open house and absolutely fell in love with the house. The problem was the lot it was on. Although it was on 1.3 acres, it was surrounded on 3 sides by busy streets. Totally sucky for a family. If there was any way we could pick that house up and plop it someplace else, I would have. Chris and I left feeling really bummed out, like we were driving away from our dream home. I was almost in tears that night, but managed to pull myself together.

I have to keep reminded myself that we are not being forced to move, this is a move up for us. We want to take advantage of the "down market" and the incredibly low interest rates and get into a new home by Fall, or even possibly next Spring or Summer. We really are in no rush. We are just getting really irritated by the lack of space and yard we have with our current home.

We still haven't ruled out the 2nd home we looked at on Saturday. We keep thinking it would be a very nice home and the things we don't like, well some of it could possibly be changed. The neighborhood is high end, near a lake and the backyard backs to a park reserve that spreads over 2 cities. It really is the ideal location for us.

We are meeting with our lender tomorrow to see exactly what we qualify for. We have a rough idea, but would like something in writing also guaranteeing the interest rate. I can't believe they are less than 5%. This definitely helps us in getting into a much bigger home.

So, the search continues!

On a side note...Kyle is going on night 5 of sleeping through the whole night. Not waking once. I am in heaven!

Sleepy Baby

2010-06-05T21:47:00.004-05:00

The other day after Kyle had a meal, I gave him a bottle and put him in his "bug chair". While I was in the kitchen cleaning up and talking to Kyle, I peeked in on him to find him like this:

Tonight, I gave Kyle his last bottle before bedtime and while Chris and I were chatting about houses we went and saw today and new ones we want to see tomorrow, I looked down to find Kyle sound asleep in his chair again:

I think I see a pattern...

In other news, we met with a real estate agent today and went and saw 2 houses. One house we didn't like at all. The quality of the work done to it was horrendous. Coming from a house of perfection where I grew up with a contractor for a dad, this was way below subpar. The 2nd house was much nicer, although the kitchen was a little too small for what I want long term. If this is the house we will live in and continue to raise our family in for the next 20+ years, I don't want to settle. It also didn't have the full master bath like we want, but the basement was amazing. Fireplace, completely wired for a surround sound theatre room, wetbar, large bedroom with a bathroom connected to it, plus it has a walkout, which we really, really want.

So, we're going to attend an open house our agent has listed that has a very large kitchen and a little bit of acreage, too. It's a bit further out than we had planned on going, but we'll see. It only has a 2 car garage, not a 3 car, like we also want, but if the land is big and we like the house, we could always add on. Gotta think long term!

Boys and their toys

2010-06-04T06:44:00.008-05:00

10 Months

2010-06-02T21:33:00.002-05:00

Wow, I can't believe my little man is 10 months old now. He has officially hit double digits, which he will only enjoy for all of 2 more months when he hits the big one YEAR.

A year. I still can't fathom it.

So, at 10 months Kyle is doing quite well.

- All 4 top teeth and 2 bottom teeth have come through.
- He's been crawling since 4/6 (Chris' birthday)
- He can stand alone for several seconds before falling
- Cruises everywhere and on everything! He now walks behind a push toy, too.
- Waves "hi" and "good-bye", but also waves both hands when he wants to be picked up
- Is eating 3 meals per day plus 2 full 8 oz bottles
- Sleeps through the WHOLE night with no bottles or diaper changes. Goes to bed at 7:30 and wakes up at 6:00.
- Is in size 9-12 month clothes on top, 6-9 month on the bottom. He has short legs.
- Is in the 50th percentile for both head size and height; 25th for weight.
- Is now taking "big boy baths" in the bathtub. No more baby tub!

Kyle's favorite cartoon is Special Agent Oso. His favorite food is sweet potatoes and anything fruity. He loves to crawl around in just a diaper, it's his favorite pre-bedtime activity. He's still not a great napper, but takes anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours depending on what time he got up and what time he last ate.

I can't think of any more fun facts about Kyle, but just that he is such a good baby and such a blessing. I never imagined Motherhood would be this great. The other night I asked Chris if Fatherhood is everything he thought it would be and he said no, it's even better. It truly is. Thank you, baby boy.

Memorial Weekend, blah

2010-05-31T08:58:00.003-05:00

That is the recap to our weekend. Blah.

This weekend is just another reminder that we do not have any friends with kids. The ones we do have either had to work, or had plans to go up north with their families. We didn't plan anything with either of our families because my Mom had to work and Chris' Mom and Dad didn't really have anything going on, I guess.

Chris and I grilled out on Saturday, yesterday we did house projects since it was raining here and there, and today we might go to the lake/beach after running some errands this morning. It's supposed to be a beautiful day today, so I'm hoping we'll try to make the most of it.

These are the times I really wish we had a bigger house, a deck and a backyard for us to invite people over for grilling out and lawn games. When you have a kid it's so much easier to have people over than it is to go out. We have what we need here - bottles in the fridge, food in the fridge, diapers/changing table, etc. When you go to someone's house you have to lug everything with you and decide where you're going to change diapers, etc. I also wish I was able to just go outside with Kyle and play in our own yard instead of it always having to be a stroller ride just to go outside. Ugh, we keep looking for a house and I'm just really hoping that by this time next year we will have a new one.

Randomness

2010-05-28T07:43:00.004-05:00

Just some random thoughts today...

Kyle will be 10 months old on Tuesday. Where has the time gone? He is sooooo close to walking. He's sleeping through the night from 8:00 to 6:00 only needing to be rocked once back to sleep. I love it and feel so much better getting more sleep these days.

Baby proofing never seems to end. We got our new media cabinet, but the lock for the sliding doors won't be here until next week. The lazy susan cabinet locks came this week along with the new bath mat and spout cover.

I realized I had several points saved up in my WF bank account, so I ordered a $100 Amazon gift card, which I'll use towards my new Speedlight for my camera.

I have placed at least 10 ordered using Amazon prime this year already, which has paid for the membership. Chris has also used it several times as well, including when he just purchased our new TV. The new TV is an LED that only weighs 35 lbs. It literally hangs on the wall like a picture. Crazy.

We are still looking for a new house to buy. On Chris' next day off we're going to go back to the bank to see what we qualify for on Chris' income alone. We'll have plenty to put down once we sell the townhouse, but we'll still need to know what our max mortgage will be. Can't wait to get a house with a nice big backyard for Kyle to play in! We found one we really, really like and we may go for a showing on it.

I'm kind of sad after all the upgrading we did to this house that we'll have to leave it, but in the end it will help us sell this and someone else will be able to enjoy it.

Kyle is so much fun these days. He laughs at everything and loves when we play the "chase you" game. He is so laid back and easy, it's such a difference from his newborn phase. The only times he's ever cranky are when he's hungry or tired, both easy fixes. He's been going down for naps and nighttime wide awake and doesn't even cry much anymore, if at all.

I found out yesterday that Kyle does NOT like sitting on grass. He freaked out when we sat on it with my nieces when we were playing outside.

I'm excited for our next date night. We are finally going to this pizza place I wanted to go to the day Kyle was born. We had made plans to meet my brother for lunch that day, but Kyle broke our plans on that one. :)

New teeth and night weaning

2010-05-21T21:51:00.004-05:00

Kyle's teeth are coming in at a rapid pace. His top 2 teeth are now in as well as his left lateral incisor (yes, I had to look that one up). :)

His night weaning has gone much more smoothly than I thought it would, although I knew he was ready I just didn't anticipate this being so easy. I would say in the past week or so, I've only had to give Kyle a bottle in the middle of the night 3 times. We have gone 2 nights in a row without needing a bottle and I'm hoping tonight will make night 3. This doesn't mean he hasn't woken up crying, but when he does I simply go in and rock him quickly and put him right back down. He only does this once in the night and he then continues to sleep through until the morning, which for him means 6:00 a.m. It's a trade-off I'm willing to take at this point. I still feel like I get a good nights rest, or I should say, a better nights rest than what I was getting before.

He's eating really well these days, too. I can really tell he's making up for the calories that he isn't getting at night anymore. His daily feedings go like this:

6:30 am - 6 oz bottle
9:30 am - 1 jar food mixed with 1 tbsp butter and 2 tbsp cereal, 3-4 oz formula
12:30 pm - 1 jar food, butter, cereal, 2-3 oz formula
3:30 pm - 1 jar food, butter, cereal, 2-3 oz formula
6:30 pm - 8 oz bottle

We're still on level 2 foods and are now introducing him to solid pieces. I keep giving him little bites of turkey, but he's not a fan yet. I have also tried one of the level 3 jars of food and he didn't like it. It could have been it was one of the level 2's he didn't like either (mixed veggies with chicken). He gets the funniest face whenever I give it to him, almost like he's eating a lime or something. Obviously there is something in it he doesn't care for. We'll keep plugging away until we find one he likes.

Run, run, run!

2010-05-17T14:16:00.004-05:00

Kyle still has his runny nose and up until last night was sleeping in bed with me. Chris finally vetoed my decision to bring Kyle into bed with me, so we let Kyle sleep all night in his crib and he did just fine. As a matter of fact, he got up twice and both times I was able to rock him back to sleep in less than 5 minutes and without a bottle, yay!

His nose isn't quite as runny as it was a few days ago, but it's still running and very crusty every morning. No cough, no sneezing, just runny. It's all clear, so at this point I'm not going to worry about it.

The night weaning worked out in perfect timing with him getting this runny nose, though. Since I was bringing him into bed with me he wouldn't wake up crying in the night needing to be put back down with a bottle. We did a few times, but would only do it after 3:00 a.m. and only if he wouldn't just go back to sleep on his own. And it's true that he's definitely making up for the calories during the day. He went from drinking 6 oz to 8 oz bottles at his "bottle only" feedings. He's also taking a whole jar of baby food, 1 tbsp butter and 2 tbsp of cereal at his solid food feedings, too. Sometimes he'll even top it off with 3-4 oz of formula. Still from the bottle, not the sippy cup. Errrr....baby steps.

We had a playdate with my friend Jill and her daughter Bella this morning. We hung out here for a bit and then went to the park. It really got Kyle tuckered out as he's taking one of his longer naps right now. He's been down for about an hour and a half now, so I'm sure he'll be up soon. Jill and I made a tentative dinner date on the next Friday Bella has her gymnastics class, so we can finally get a night out with another couple. Chris and Mark (Jill's hubby) get along pretty well, too, so it should be fun!

Not much else going on right now. We're working on projects around our house. Our new media cabinet came today so we'll finally have an enclosed case that Kyle can't get into. Chris is ordering the new TV soon and we finally have a paint color picked out for our living room. We're also dropping off the queen size bed from our guest room at the recycling center on Saturday to make room for the new daybed we're replacing it with. The queen is just too big and we really want to make use of that room for other things like my home studio I want to set up.

The weather is beautiful and I can't believe it's not even summer yet! Life is pretty good at the moment. :)

9 Month check-up

2010-05-10T15:19:00.003-05:00

Kyle had his 9 month check-up today. He has a runny nose, but his pediatrician wasn't worried since his lungs and ears are clear. She thinks it will run its course and be done with in a few days. Until then he'll continue to sleep with me so he can actually breathe and get some sleep. Poor baby.

Other than the runny nose, he's doing well. 50th percentile for height at 28 inches and 25th percentile for weight at 18.8 lbs. 25th-50th for height/weight ratio. He's doing so well, yay! We talked about his diet and she wants me to incorporate another meal into his day. Right now he gets 2 and bottles for the others, but she wants to start reducing his bottles and get him onto a 3 meal/day 2 snack/day plan. The meals should be a balance of meats, veggies and fruits. She said I could start introducing luncheon meats to him as well. She said to skip the jarred baby food meats as most babies don't like them.

Along with reducing bottles during the day she wants me to wean him completely off night feedings. She said there is no reason Kyle should be getting up once or twice a night for a feeding. Thank God! He's just getting way to heavy for me to hold while I give him the enzymes before his bottles, plus it's just getting to be a pain in the butt getting up every night. Last night he was up at 11:00 and 5:00 for a bottle. She said to wait until he gets over this cold, then start the weaning process. I'm so ready to give up these night feedings. I was worried about the calorie intake, but she said he'll make up for it.

When we got back from the doctor's office, Kyle continued to sleep in his car seat for an hour and a half. He ended up eating an entire jar of mixed veggies along with his TBSP of butter and 2 TBSPs of rice cereal. I gave him some water in a sippy cup to drink. No more bottles with meals - she said only sippy cups with either water or formula.

It's hard to imagine that in just 3 short months he'll be one year old. No more bottles, no more formula (yay!) and he'll probably be walking. This year has really gone by so much faster than I ever thought it would. He has come SO far since his days of colic and castings!

Mother's Day

2010-05-09T11:04:00.002-05:00

Happy Mother's Day to all of my fellow mommy bloggers.

I sure wish mine had started out better. Kyle was up every 30-60 minutes last night due to a stuffy nose, which we think is his first cold. :( Kyle ended up coming into bed with me at 1:00 am and Chris went out on the couch to sleep. He slept better once in bed with me with his head elevated, but wow is he a squirmy sleeper!

I got hit in the face numerous times by little arms and hands that kept me up half the night. I woke up with a headache and feeling very drowsy and dizzy. Thankfully Chris said I could take the day off and he would take care of Kyle for me today. He's at Target with him right now. Hopefully the day gets better as it goes.

9 Months

2010-05-03T09:13:00.003-05:00

Kyle turned 9 months old on Saturday. He is coming into his own every day and becoming such a big boy. We also noticed his top 2 teeth are coming in now, too. The right one popped yesterday and it's just a matter of time before the left one pops through. I will no longer see a gummy little smile in just a few short weeks. :(

It's amazing how fast time really does go by after you have a baby. I cannot believe it's been 9 months already and he is growing up so darn fast. He's crawling and cruising around like crazy. I know he's going to be an early walker. I wouldn't doubt if he's walking before he hits one year old. I do want to buy him some push toys so he can practice. He's definitely outgrowing his current toys and I find he's getting bored rather easily. It's times like these I really wish we had a yard for him to play in. I know I'm going to really, really wish we had this when he starts walking. The small open townhouse backyard just doesn't cut it. I want a big fenced in backyard for him to run around to his heart's desire in. Someday...

My dad and I got into a heated argument last week regarding me taking Kyle to a park near my house that is a bit secluded from the public. I happened to be there with Kyle last week, and it's the one park near our house that has a bucket swing, and wouldn't you know it two creepy looking guys came around looking to go fishing (it's right by a lake). So, my Mommy instincts kicked in and Kyle and I left. End of story, right? Wrong. I posted on Facebook about how it's a shame that 2 creepy guys can ruin a nice afternoon at the park with my son. Well, my dad was mad I didn't tell him about it and he had to find out about it on Facebook and then he proceeds to tell me that I shouldn't have gone there in the first place and I'm not being "smart enough" about where I'm taking my son. What?!? I take my son to a park, in the middle of the day, a block away from my house and somehow I'm irresponsible and IF something had happened it would have been MY fault? I just don't get that logic.

So, I steamed over this for 2 days and finally got over it for the most part yesterday, but it completely ruined my weekend. I talked to my Mom about it and she doesn't understand why my Dad's making such a big deal about this. Chris doesn't think it's a big deal and frankly, neither do I. Am I going to stop bringing Kyle to that park? No. Am I going to stop telling my Dad about the things that I do? Yes. I'm tired of him treating me like I'm some 10 year old little girl. I wish he would realize I'm a 32 year old married woman with a child. I have my own family to worry about and sure as hell don't need him telling me what to do or giving me his opinions on my choices.

My Mom gave me a pat on the back for telling me my instincts were right, but my dad reprimands me. It just doesn't make sense. He's starting to wear on my nerves and it's far more than just this argument we had. His comments about where Chris and I live and how much money we have erks me, too. He also questions me on how much money I'm spending on my photography gear when it's really none of his business. I wish he would just butt out and realize when he does this he just drives a wedge between us. It makes me regret asking them to go with us this weekend to a movie and to dinner. This might just be the last time.

Date Night Scheduled

2010-04-29T21:13:00.003-05:00

Well, just like I figured Kyle is now back to waking up twice each night again. First time is always around midnight, second time is anywhere between 4:00 and 5:30. The past couple of days he's been waking at 6:30, but luckily this morning he woke at 5:30, had his mini-bottle and slept until 7:00. His 9 month peds appt is scheduled for the 11th, so we'll see what she has to say about weaning him.

We had a great day at my parents today. Kyle only took a 20 minute nap the entire time we were there, but was really good and generally really happy. He just adores his cousins, Autumn and Meadow. He doesn't get much interaction with other kids, so when he sees other kids he just lights up! I do want to get involved in some ECFE classes so he can interact with other kids since he doesn't go to daycare. I'll have to look into these soon.

Chris and I have our next date night scheduled and we're actually double-dating with my parents. Yes, we actually double-date with my parents. We don't have any other friends that are couples that we hang out with regularly. Chris isn't exactly a social butterfly, which was hard to adjust to. Every guy I dated before him had a boatload of friends that we always hung out with on the weekends and we always had another couple to have dinner with, bonfires with, etc. We used to go out with my friend, Marsha, and whoever she was dating at the time, but she moved back to Hawaii. I wish Chris had an interest in making new friends and/or hanging out with my other friends and their significant others, but he just doesn't. If my brother had a girlfriend I could see us hanging out with them, but he's single and will be moving away soon for his job. It's a good thing we like hanging out with my parents!

I'm still struggling a bit with not having any close friends anymore. I don't have a "best friend" that I talk to, hang out with, go shopping with, etc. The closest thing I have to a best friend is my Mom. She's always been my "go to" person. She's the one I enjoy talking to, shopping with and hanging out with the most. We like the same movies, books, food, etc. Eh, who needs a best friend when you've got the best Mom?

Weekend Recap

2010-04-26T21:11:00.004-05:00

Chris, Kyle and I had a very good weekend. On Friday, Kyle slept most of the night for us from 7:30-4:30, got up once and then slept until 7:30. Since that night he has only gotten up once each night and I sure do hope this is the start of a new trend. I have gone down to making just 4 oz bottles for his night feedings since about 2 weeks ago he decided he didn't need a full one anymore at night. It's been working out great and I only have to change his diaper once instead of twice since he's not drinking as much and not peeing as much. This makes for a much happier Mommy.

Saturday Chris and I had our date night. We dropped Kyle off at Chris' Mom's (we're tying to get his parents to spend more time with Kyle) and went and saw a movie and then went out for dinner. It was a nice night out and much needed! Even though we were only gone for 4 hours I still missed my baby like crazy. It's kind of sad/scary how attached I am to him. Being without him is like being without my purse. It just feels like something is missing...

Sunday we didn't do much since it was pretty rainy all weekend, and a bit chilly. We all stayed in our PJ's until late in the day and just played and hung out with Kyle mostly.

Today Kyle and I got to get outside and took a long walk around the neighborhood. I was delighted to discover that a park near our house has a bucket swing and the view is awesome, too, since it's right near the lake. It's the closest park to us and all this time I had no idea it had bucket swings. It sort of sits below the street so I could never see the swings until I walked thru the parking lot and looked below. Woo hoo was I excited! I got right down there and put Kyle in the swing and started shooting. Here are some pics I got below:

Hope everyone has a great week!