Pics

Just before tube surgery

After a buggy ride at daycare

Climbing into off-road truck

Eating grass

Busy, busy, bees

Last Monday was Jillian's first birthday. I can't believe it's been a year with as quickly as she has grown and changed in so many ways. For her birthday, Garrett bought her a little John Deere handheld tractor that plays a couple of sounds. She opened that along with a few other gifts we received in the mail. She loved everything! We are still working through reading all of her new books. Sadly, after she ate dinner and opened gifts, she was not feeling well due to side effects from her antibiotic for her ear infection so we postponed the cake until Tuesday night. She enjoyed it and was completely wound with energy for a over an hour. Then she crashed with exhaustion.

The business my Bio department has right now has slowed quite a bit over the past couple of months. I've stayed busy with a couple projects but a number of others have struggled, working on random tasks like repainting mass spec shelving and doing other odd jobs to stay busy. Last week I was informed that myself along with two other coworkers have been selected to work full time for at least a month, probably longer, for the Pharm Analysis group in our company starting November 1. They signed a big contract for a project that requires more staff than what they currently have. They have a separate lab and do things very differently than what I do in my Bio department. I was a little nervous about this change. Then, my perspective became a bit more enthusiastic after Monday afternoon. Three people were let go from the Bio group. It's always hard to see that happen and again, I am very thankful to still have my job. Today I have started training for this new challenge. They are offering weekend work with compensation that I am tempted to go for. After talking with some people this morning, it looks like I will be doing this work through at least the end of the calendar year. It will be a big change and feel fortunate they have chosen me to help.

Jillian had tubes put in her ears yesterday morning. By the end of the day she was back to her normal energetic, happy self and slept relatively well last night. I sure hope they help keep her ears clear. We really don't like that she's been on antibiotics almost constantly since July. She has six teeth now, working on the seventh. Her bottom four incisors have broken through and the outside two incisors (not K9s) on the top. She looks a bit like a vampire. For the past week I could see one of her top front incisors trying to break through and it's taking a while and I believe causing her a good bit of discomfort. All the rest have come in without much complaint. She's on whole milk now and doing very well with it. She's also eating up a storm. I didn't grab the cable to connect my phone or camera to the the computer so I'll try to get that done soon and share more photos.

Take care.

Big Day!!

Today is a big day! It's Jillian's first birthday! I can't believe how quickly the time has passed. It's also her first official day in the toddler room at daycare. She began transitioning two weeks ago, with spending as little or as much time with the big kids as she could handle. She had a couple of days that she became slightly overwhelmed, but never full out crying. She is playing very well with the other kids and loves going outside to the playground or for buggy rides. I made her a birthday cake this weekend and it turned out bigger than I planned. I'll post photos before, during and after the demolition.

Jillian saw an ear, nose, throat doctor last week and is scheduled to get tubes in her ears next Tuesday. She had the beginning of her seventh infection at the appointment so they prescribed antibiotics again. I don't think they are helping as she continues to dig in her ears and be fussy off and on. She also has horrible diaper rash that I just can't get to be any better. I'm calling the ENT today because the infection has to be gone before she gets tubes and I'm afraid we may have to have the antibiotic shots again. Poor baby. We are all ready for her to have relief from the infections and severe rash. She continues to be a happy, active girl regardless of feeling lousy.

Jillian is starting to say distinct "words" to describe things. Her words refer to the cat, dog, outside, mom, dad, and tractor. The corn around our house was harvested last Sunday so we took her outside so she could watch the combine. She loved it! She jabbered and jabbered to it, pointed her fingers and flapped her arms. Now when she hears a loud vehicle coming down our road she says her tractor word. She has begun asking to go outside by pointing and saying her word for outside. She loves it and it's easier on us because there are fewer things outside that we need to redirect her from than there are inside the house. She's our outdoor girl!

I continue to feel pretty good with this pregnancy. The little guy goes through spurts where for a few days he is very squirmy and gives me good jabs that are quite uncomfortable, then there are days where he doesn't move around much. With being so active with Jillian, I haven't gained as much weight as I did with Jillian. I am gaining exactly if not a little under what I need to but the doctors aren't concerned since I began at a decent weight. I've been eating, and eating, and eating it seems. I suppose I should enjoy it while it lasts.

Garrett continues to work a little in the garage. Mainly trying to get things organized so we can put the cars in the garage with the cold weather approaching. We're getting ready to install the heater so he's been doing a few things in preparation of that. Otherwise, we're going with the flow of keeping up with Jillian and housework.

I'll get some new photos posted soon. Until next time....

Siding

Below are some photos of the siding finished on the garage. Great job to G and our friends that helped. This plant started growing where we'd had a large tree taken out last summer. I thought it was squash until a pumpkin showed up! This is quite far from our garden so not sure how a seed landed there but it's been fun to watch it. Probably an animal but we didn't even plant pumpkins this year. So the hummingbirds had flown south for the winter, so we thought. I had not seen any for about a month and hadn't taken down the feeder yet. I thought the leftover sugar water was just evaporating. Turns out, we still have a hummer!

Walking Outside

It's a Boy!!

This one is just for Daniel:

We found out we have a little boy on the way!! The due date is estimated to be Feb. 14, 2012 per the ultrasound. We are super excited that we'll have one of each. I went through Jillian's clothes up until now and pulled out the pieces of clothing that he will be able to wear. I went to the secondhand children's clothing store this weekend and found him a pair of long-sleeved onesies in the 0-3 month size. One is olive green with a fuzzy bear on the front and the other is olive green and brown striped thermal. They had plenty of other cute boy clothes but I resisted. For now.

Garrett started working on the siding of our garage this weekend. He is taking today and maybe tomorrow off to continue working on it while the weather is perfect. A friend of ours came out and showed us how to get started on it and he will hopefully be coming back out to help install some of it. I'm really excited about it and it's going to look so nice.

Jillian is in full walking mode. She gets excited and tries to start running but her feet aren't ready for that just yet. We are having lots of spills and tumbles but then she just starts laughing. She has two more teeth coming in around her bottom two incisors. It looks like she has skipped the top two incisors for now so she'll look extra cute until the top ones come through. She'll be extra cute anyway, just saying. She has taken to mouthing rocks. When we walk onto our driveway she leans way over while we're holding her to look down at them. If we're in the yard, she cruises over to the gravel. She is keeping us very busy.

That's about all for now. Enjoy some photos. The swing photos are of her first time in a swing. She liked it. She gets into her old bouncer and bounces on it. She typically stands on it, holds on to the back and bounces with her legs. She's a funny girl.

Soon

The one thing that has come to mind all week is that our ultrasound is tomorrow. I'm so excited and can hardly wait. I've noticed the baby becoming very active in the past week with lots of jabs. It kept me awake for a little while the other night because it was so active. It's been fun feeling that little life inside me wiggling around. I had really missed that after having Jillian. I've been feeling good. Everything is stretching out again. My cesarean incision hasn't been achy but the round ligaments are lengthening, which makes it hard to hold Jillian's hands half way bent over while she walks. Yes!! She's walking!!

Jillian cruises along if she's holding our hands or pushing her little car around the house. She loves walking! She gets a look on her face like she is on a mission and very determined. The most steps she's taken at once without holding anything is 13, two nights ago. The gate is going up at the stairs as she has become an expert at crawling up them. The crawling, scooting down them will take some time as right now she just turns around and starts heading down them without getting her footing. She has good balance, just needs to get her confidence up a bit and she'll be running. I'm happy she's walking because that means I won't have to carry her everywhere with the expanding belly, but I'm also sad because that means she's growing up. While walking down the stairs last week I didn't see one of the cats on the step and I stepped right on him and nearly fell while holding Jillian. It scared us all but I caught myself by bracing against the sides of the stairwell. My back muscles were cramped up for a few days afterwards but got through it just fine.

Jillian went through a phase where she was hitting our faces and swiping her food across her highchair tray. She has stopped hitting but continues the food swiping occasionally. With some good advice, we figured out how to redirect her actions and saw almost an immediate result. She is continuing to struggle with ear infections. We are getting over #4 in 3 months. The timeline is 6 within 6 months so she is well on the way to getting tubes, especially coming into cooler weather seasons. She was on one antibiotic that wasn't helping at all, only giving her unpleasant side effects but we didn't know it until she ran a fever of 102 and vomitted. When we took her back to the doc last week they switched her to a previous antibiotic and it seems to be helping for now. I caught something last week also and had a sore throat for the week and ran a fever for a day. Last night my throat became very sore again so hopefully it's nothing.

Garrett's work seems to be getting busier while mine is slowing down. It's normal for mine to start slowing this time of year but it is really slow and looks like it will be that way for a few months. Good for you, because I may have more time to post on the blog! Garrett's busy with his Stryker project and now they are talking about making his wind turbine setup bigger. That will be quite the job. He continues to work hard on the garage. I'm not sure of the last thing I mentioned about that but he has all of the insulation up, walls and ceiling, and is starting to install the drywall. In two days we was able to get the east wall and corners completed. It's really looking nice. We have a friend coming out to the house possibly tomorrow evening to give us (well, Garrett) tips on putting up the siding. We really need it up soon due to weather. Once it's done he continue work on the inside.

That's about all I have at the moment. Happy Autumn!