Long time No blog!

A lot has happened over the past 7 months! Let's start with the kids... Elizabeth will be 5 in less than a month! How time flies! Here is the latest picture of her
She is doing quite well in school. Of course she is having trouble writing her name, well at least getting the letters in the correct order :) She has recently discovered that if she helps mom and dad that the day tends to go smoother. She has been a BIG help with Austin, now that he is mobile. She loves him so very much, it's quite sweet. Speaking of Austin, he is now almost 10 months old. He started crawling the day before Thanksgiving. The lil booger decided he wanted his sisters poptart that was on a paper plate on the floor clear across the living room. You see, we were running late for school and I forgot all about her breakfast being on the floor, I sat him down by his music table and was doing laundry, when I came back in, he was eating the poptart! He has 8 teeth now and is completely not interested in baby food. He is a growing boy and wants the good stuff.
As for Chris and I, we are doing great! We are managing to keep afloat these days. He is still laid off, 7 months now! Hopefully something comes along soon! I am doing great as well! As of yesterday I have lost a total of 62 lbs since the day I had Austin. 50 of which were gained while pregnant. Christmas was great! Elizabeth loved her 4 wheeler after she got use to the idea of it. The night before she wrote santa a letter telling him she didn't want a 4 wheeler anymore, so her first reaction was not a good one. Austin of course loved all the paper! Life is good for the moment.

A new day

Yesterday my mom, Abby(Jon's girlfriend),my kids and I drove to O'hare airport to pick up Jon. I was nervous that construction traffic would be horrible so we left 2.5 hours before his flight was to land. We were just about to get off at the O'hare oasis to kill some time when Abby got a phone call from a pay phone. It was Jon! He was able to catch an earlier flight and was already at baggage claim. So we continued up the road to O'hare. Anyone that knows me know's that I am horrible with congested traffic. I asked my mom to please pay attention to the signs so I knew where to go. It is hard to keep my eye on my lane, the millions of jerk taxi drivers and limos and read signs! Of course mom was far to excited to hear me or to even understand that I had just looped around the damn airport 3 times! Some how we ended up where the freight goes into the gates... Anyway we finally found hourly parking. We got a close spot to the terminal too! We get to baggage claim where Jon was suppose to be waiting. Oh back track a bit.. Jon gave both my mom and Abby very specific instructions as to where he would be, they could not remember all they got was US airways terminal 1. So we walk all the way down the one end...no Jon... I suggest calling him but he had called from a pay phone, so we started to walk down the other end when Piper spotted Jon... It was a very sweet moment. After he gave all of us big hugs he realized I had the baby with me. He could not get Austin out of his car seat quick enough!! We finally get out of O'hare and on our way back to Minooka. Jon was getting hungry so we stopped in Channahon at Lonestar. Too be honest I don't think he was hungry as much as he was THIRSTY. He ordered 2 Miller lites and his dinner.

We got back to mom's and of course he had to show us pics. Some really nice pics, some very goury pics. He gave us our gifts. Mostly jewlery and perfume. It was very nice. He oogled over Austin and for the first time in a LONG time my brother looked happy and relaxed.




He will leave July 3rd to go back to Afghanistan for a month. His time home I am sure will be very busy and bitter sweet. HOpefully he is able to spend a lot of time with his daughter Piper

oh good grief

This is not going to be a happy go lucky post. Please don't get me wrong, I have a great life, 2 great kids and a wonderful husband.

While I was pregnant I was diagnosed with depression and put on an anti depressant. I took it for 3 months and weaned off so that Austin would not go through withdrawls. I thought "ok, I will have to obviously have to go back on after he is born". I didn't cause I was ok. I was handling having a newborn,a 4 year old, a household,a husband, and was handling the sleep deprevation quite well.
With in the past 2 weeks my depression has crept back and with a vengance. I have anxiety as it is, and couple that with irrational thoughts and feelings I am a NUT CASE! Post Partum Depression is a serious illness and I thought I would never experience it. I always thought that I could handle whatever life threw at me. Boy was I wrong. I have a defiant 4 year old, of course I have bad days, but lately my bad days are everyday. So I have decided that although I am still breastfeeding I will go back on meds. Oh and Chris got laid off too... I think that is what may have caused some of the feelings I am having. So if anyone needs a plumber let me know!lol

On a happier note, my brother is flying in tomorrow from Afghanistan and I am so glad he is coming home if even for 2 weeks.

oh how time flies

It seems like yesterday that I had Austin. Almost 7 weeks has gone by and I am loving every single minute of it. He is growing like crazy, although most people comment on how "small" he is, until they pick him up! He had the newborn look for a nanosecond and now looks like a little man, bald spots and all!
He has started to hold his head up more and have control of it. He has started laughing,smiling,and cooing. Our nieces, Emily and Katelyn are completely enamored with him, it's so very sweet. Katelyn, my little helper, has taken to him as her own. She has even named her baby doll, Baby Austin.
Elizabeth is doing well... as well as a 4 year old with sass can adjust. Yesterday was her last day of school and once I get my scanner out I will scan some pictures. Chris has been off work for almost 2 weeks so that has helped. Right now we are gearing up for Austin's Baptism. My brother will be home so we have a short amount of time to plan it. Hopefully the weather cooperates as my FIL is unable to get the party tent that he partly owns. So we won't have a tent or the tables and chairs. So now I am in a pickle with seating for 60 people!!! Hopefully something comes through for us as our budget is kind of tight. We are having 2 inflatable bouncers, one for the "big" kids and one for the little ones. It should be fun! If it does rain I will just have to deal with wall to wall people in my 1200sq foot house! UGH!!! NIGHTMARE!!!

Austin Phillip has made his debut

In the wee hours of the morning on April 17th, Chris and I made our way to Morris hospital. We checked in at 530a.m. The time flew by and by 730a.m. I was walking my way to the O.R. I was a bit nervous to have the spinal, but it went in with out a hitch. It was such a bizarre feeling. My butt went numb before my legs did... it was weird! By the time Chris made his way into the O.R. the doctors had already started the C-section. Next thing I knew the 2 doctors were "violently" pushing on my upper abdomen in effort to get Austin's head out! It was an odd feeling to not feel but know that my entire body was being shook around. I laughed so hard I cried when they did this. I didn't know any other way to express my emotion... So I laughed! Dr. E and T said that was a first! Next thing you know, here came Austin. He came out screaming, my reaction..." OH HE IS PISSED!" the doctors then replied ... " YES HE IS PISSING!" such a great visual I suppose. His apgar was 8 and 9. I am not sure how much time had passed before a nurse came in to tell me how much he weighed.... 9 LBS 7 OZ and was 20 inches long. If I could have felt my legs I would have fallen off the table! I was still having my tubes tied when they came in.

He is such a good baby and my recovery has been great! This time they did not use staples or any stitches on the outside of the incision. So I did not have that discomfort. Well he is starting to stir. I will leave you with one more picture of my beautiful baby boy. Thanks to Jan to made his great hat. I will have to post the link to her Etsy site when I have more time.

what a great baby sprinkle

Today my dear friends Kelly and Ryan threw me a baby sprinkle. I was quite excited about seeing some friends I had not seen in some time. I got ready and out the door Elizabeth and I went. We get to Ryan's and I try to do a 3 pt. turn to back into a parking spot. To my surprise ( and baby brain) the field that I was attempting to do my 3 Pt. turn was very mushy to say the least and my van started to sink... I was STUCK! I called Ryan and her brother came out to see if he could get it out. NO LUCK! If anything he got it stuck worse. I ended up calling a tow truck! Anyway... aside from that the day was great! I am so blessed to have great friends and great family!

We started out by eating, my favorite thing to do these days although eating does not agree with me most days. Followed by the guess the candy in the diaper game. This was hilarious!!! The candy was still warm and mushy and just added to the gross factor! The only request I made when the girls started planning games was no "guess the size of Andrea" game... Guess what, they did it! It was not nearly as bad as I anticipated. The winner of that game.... Elizabeth! But paybacks are a witch! I will post pictures once I get them emailed to me.

It was now time to open gifts! Again I am blessed to have such generous friends and family! Austin is set with summer clothes! YEAH! We now have over 540 size 1 diapers and about 100 Newborn diapers. And my favorite baby item... super soft blankets!!! I also got 2 umbrella strollers. I have a few items that are a need more than a want to purchase, but they are small items. I think it is safe to say that if Austin were born tomorrow we would be prepared. Sure his room is still a mess, the crib is still in the garage, spackle still on the walls, and crap everywhere. But he is rooming in with us until I heal from my section, so I guess it would be ok.

Elizabeth seems to be getting excited about Austin's arrival. She is now interacting with my belly and talking to him. But it could be she saw all the lovely ladies talking to my belly today too...
We are now counting the days til we meet our son. We are very excited and truely blessed.

Sleeping beauty!

What a beautiful day to spend with family! We started out the day with homemade pancakes,a shower, and a little bit of cuddling. We finally got our act together and got out the door. We took 2 cars because Chris wanted to take his truck to get new tires, and instead of waiting he figured we could go out to Menards to get the ceiling fan and blinds for Austin's room. Well... we got to sears and got that all set up and walked around the mall for a bit. I was feeling up to walking around and hell at this point it can't hurt much other than my back! Any how... We came up to the Disney Store, Elizabeth went NUTS! Good thing they had rockin sale! So daddy felt like spoiling her a little bit... she got new Arial flip flops,sunglasses, and a Hannah Montana stationary type kit. It came with all of Elizabeth's favorites, markers, colored pencils,a pad of paper, ruler,pen and pencil sharpener. She was on cloud 9. We then set out to find the Easter Bunny... we finally found him in front of Macy's. There was No line, no kids, no nothing around the darn bunny. We get up there and she says to me..." I don't think I want to sit on it's lap..." so we tried to get her in there to take a picture, no way! I really don't blame her either. He is kind of scary looking. By the time we made it back to Sears the truck was done.Needless to say we never made it to Menards... We then went to his mom's house. Everyone was there, which was nice. All the kids were able to play together and they even were able to go to the park. I stayed back to help with diner. By 6pm, my pant leg was getting tight! holy hell are my legs and feet swollen! It looks like I have elephantitis! We got home around 8 pm and got Elizabeth into bed. I just went in to check on her and could not resist snapping this pic. Don't mind the "rug burn" looking scab on her head. She took a tumble over her handle bars a few days ago....


On that note, I am going to bed as well.