Trevor’s 30th Birthday

For Trevor’s birthday this year we had a little get together at his parents house. I wanted to do something for his birthday but had already done the whole surprise thing before. We went and got wings from buffalos, had a few other snaking foods, and of course an Edgar’s strawberry cake.

Everyone played pool and corn hole and most of the ladies just stayed upstairs with the kiddos. We had a good time and thanks to everyone who came out. I know Trevor appreciated it. Our parties sure have changed over the years since all the children came along. Kind of feels like we are grown ups now. Ha!!

 

                Smiling at the ground, of course.                                               Our little munchkins!

 

                         Savannah and Mary                                                          Hanging out with Aunt Alissa.

                                                                              Pooped from the party!!

Harper at Two Months Old

This month Harper has been so good for all that we have done. He has gone with the flow and traveled twice. He went on his first airplane ride to Mobile for a weekend and drove to Santa Rosa Beach for a week.  I can’t believe how fast he is growing.  On July 18th he had his 2 month check up at the doctor. He was such a big boy. At this appointment he weighed 10lbs 15oz. I couldn’t believe he basically weighed 11lbs. He was in the 80th% for weight and height and 70% for head. It made me feel so good that my milk was making him so big.  Harper did really good getting his shots. He got four, two in each leg. He only cried when they stuck him and then stopped immediately after. At this point I am feeding him only breast milk except one bottle of formula right before he goes to bed at night. He is by far the best sleeper at night for his age. At around 6 weeks he started going to bed between 9 and 10 at night and didn’t wake up until between 5 and 6 in the morning. He still woke up around 3 but I just stuck his paci in and he kept sleeping. After about a week or so he quit waking up at 3 and just slept right through the night. Now he pushes it sometimes until 730 but never any later than that. After he eats he goes right back to sleep and sleeps until 9 or 10. When he wakes up and eats he stays up for around 45 minutes and goes back to sleep in his swing. He usually sleeps around 2 hours at this nap. The rest of the day there is no schedule. He just kind of does whatever. He is still not a huge fan of his bed but I am starting to try to break him of that. At night he still sleeps in the rock and play sleeper by our bed. I am planning to try tot transition him to his room when I start back to work.

The last Friday in July we left to go to Mobile and didn’t come home until that next Tuesday. We flew out around lunch both days. It was pretty amazing to get on a plane at the Shelby County Airport and make it to Mobile in under 40 minutes. I didn’t have to worry about all the germs from a normal airplane because it was only a 6 passenger private jet, not including the two pilates. Bubba had to do his show that morning and he was nice enough to invite us to ride with him on the plane there. We went to Mobile for the sectional tennis tournament. They played multiple southern states and won all there matches. Now they will go to Nationals in Arizona in October. I am so proud of his team. Harper and I only went out to watch him twice because it was too hot for him out there. He did very well when we went though.

After we got home from Mobile on Tuesday around lunch we had to unpack, do laundry, and start packing for the beach. We left that Saturday to go with his family to Santa Rosa Beach.

On a side not we SOLD our HOUSE. We have gone multiple times to look at different houses and haven’t found anything that we love yet. We have to be out of our house in 2 weeks and don’t know where we are going. We even tossed around the idea of building a house. After lots of thinking we are probably just going to rent a place and keep looking a little longer, if we can’t find anything this week.

July 4th

I am way over due updating my blog but I will try to get caught up one day. On July 4th we had a few friends over to grilled out. Trevor made some pretty amazing ribs that he slow cooked all morning. I was impressed. My mom came over a little bit before everyone came over to visit with Harper. They went on a cruise and were gone the 10 days prior to the 4th. It was funny Harper and Carter were watching some Baby Einstein and when they quit watching it and were moved away from the TV all the adults were still watching.  We didn’t take many pictures but here are a few.

These are actually pretty funny…all of our 4oz bottles were dirty so we were using an 8oz.

Our First Month At Home!!

After we came home from the hospital on Thursday May 31st (my due date) we were scheduled to go see our pediatrician on Saturday. After thinking a lot of who we wanted to use I am so happy we chose Dr Dudgeon at Greenvale Pediatrics. It is downstairs from my office so very convenient and they are open on Saturday and Sunday. Of course your doctor is not always on call but someone is there. For our first visit we saw Dr Stone because he was on call. He was very nice. Harper was not a fan of the doctor. Good thing we packed our diaper bag good. On our first doctors visit we went through like 4 diapers, 2 bibs, and 3 outfits. We were struggling. At the end of our appointment we found out that his billirubin was a high. The doctor told us that it was the day that it is normally peaking so he was okay with it even being 12 but it came back and was 15. He said he would just do nothing since it was in fact the time that it is at its highest but he didn’t want to get us back in the next day to check it in fear it be 24, which would take much longer to get back down.  I knew that everything would be fine and everything but I had a breakdown after the doctor left the room. I did not want to not be able to hold him except to change and feed him while he was on the light. Of course Trevor was super supportive and even though I am the nurse and supposed to be telling him it will be fine the roles were reversed. So…we ended up having to get a nurse to come to the house after we got home to set up the billi light. Harper did pretty good on it during the day. I think I did worse than him. When it came night time he decided he had enough of laying flat on the light. He cried and cried for a long time. Finally after going back in forth we decided to take him out and let him sleep on us for a little while. It wasn't my plan but he ended up sleeping on me for around 3 hours before I put him back in. After that he was fine. The nurse came back on Sunday morning and checked his blood work and weight. He was down to 6lbs 13oz. She told us he would probably be on the light at least one more night.  To both of our surprise, when she called us back with the results they were so much better that she said we no longer had to use it. We were the happiest parents  in the world.

The next week he did pretty well waking up every two to three hours to eat but not sleeping great. I am breastfeeding and my milk had not come in good yet. We were supplementing some with formula after I would feed him, due to him being hungry.  We did his newborn pictures with Michelle Schnader that week. You can see that post HERE. That weekend Trevor left to go to Mobile to play in his state tennis tournament. He left early Friday morning and did not come home until dinner on Sunday night. My mom stayed with me for the weekend and helped out a lot. We went on an outing each day Friday and Saturday. We just went to buybuybaby and Kohl’s one day and Walmart and Target  the other day. It was nice to get out of the house for a couple of hours. He did very good both days on our outings, slept the whole time.

He started getting really fussy all the time during the day the next week. He wasn’t really sleeping at all during the day. If he wasn’t nursing he was screaming. It got pretty rough. After him crying all day that Monday and half a day Tuesday I decided to call the doctor. They wanted us to come in so we brought him in that Wednesday. They said they thought it was colic and reflux. The good thing was, he was doing good on his weight. He was up to 8lbs 4oz a pound up from his birth weight in 2 1/2 weeks. They said they could do testing on him or they could just give him zantac that was safe and see if it would work for him.

After starting the medicine he did well for about 5 days. Trevor’s Aunt and Cousins came in town from Atlanta to see him on this weekend. Harper and I met them at his parents house on Saturday to visit and eat lunch. We really appreciated you guys driving to meet him. On Sunday we went to watch daddy play in the Hoover tennis tournament and he slept the whole time we watched. Apparently he enjoyed sitting in the shade when it was 100 degrees outside. At least we had some company to sit with. His parents came and my friend Lindsey and her daughter Aniston. Lindsey’s husband Jason was Trevor’s tennis partner. After they got finished we went to lunch.

The next Monday he started crying a lot again when not feeding. You could tell he was exhausted just wouldn’t give it up. After doing that for two days I found out that I was not producing the amount of milk he was needing. We would give him pumped milk and he was great but when I would feed him he wasn’t satisfied. After lots of help from two consultants and a friend (thanks Allison) I tried to do a few things to help me produce more.  My life has been consumed with pumping when not feeding him. Not fun but I have tried. We will see how everything works out. Since I have figured that out he has done so well. He is like a normal newborn now.

Over the past few weeks we have had so many sweet visitors and dinners from great friends and family. My mom and Trevor’s mom have been awesome too. They have cleaned our house twice since he has been here. We could not have asked for more love and support. Thank you everyone!!

He wasn't a huge fan of this. Check him out…already reaching for mommy. Ha!!

Our Little Visitor

This past Sunday we had a little visitor come to play with Harper.They only stayed for around an hour due to their sleeping schedules but they had fun watching a little baby einstein. They were so content just watching the movie together but it only lasted a short amount of time before Carter fell over and Harper’s pasey kept falling out.  He was so hungry he was sucking  hard on it and it kept popping out. It was nice to have the company.

 

Thanks for coming to visit. In the coming years their visits will get a lot more fun.

Newborn Pictures with Michelle Schnader Photography

When Harper was 9 days old we took him to Michelle’s house (with Michelle Schnader Photography) and did his newborn pictures. We had planned on doing them when he was only 6 days old but we had a really bad fussy night that night before so we rescheduled. Unlike most newborns Harper is not big on being messed with when he is sleeping.  Every time I would feed him and he would fall asleep as soon as we started positioning him for the pictures he would wake up…so most of the pictures he was awake for. Most people like newborn pictures when the baby is asleep but most of my favorite pictures he was awake in. I knew Michelle was a good photographer but she exceeded my expectations and was so patient with him. I decided to frame a bunch of them to put over Harper’s bed.  I was really happy with the way it turned out.

 

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the day….

 

I hope you guys like them as much as we do. I have all of them on my facebook profile so you can go there if you would like to see the rest of them.

Labor and Delivery With Baby Harper

On Tuesday May 29, 2012, we planned on inducing. Just two days before my due date with still not much discomfort from pregnancy at that point just swelling hands and feet. Up to this point I had still been sleeping pretty good but I knew I was anxious about the delivery and excited so I went ahead and took one Tylenol PM to make sure I got a few hours of sleep the night before. I made Trevor take some too so he would get some rest as well. We only took half a dose because I was scared that knowing our luck after we both took something to sleep that my water would break or something. All I could think of was Father of The Bride II, if anyone has seen that! We went to bed around 9 or 9:30 Memorial Day night. Trevor slept until the alarm went off at 4:30 but I of woke up at 2AM ready to go. I knew it was probably going to be a long day ahead but I was wide awake. After Trevor woke up we got ready to go to the hospital.

 

I was told to be there between 5 and 6AM. We got there around 5:15. As soon as we got there we were taken to our room L&D #7. They basically walked us to our room did some paperwork while I was changing and my IV with Pit was started by 6AM. Everything started so fast. I was one of 4 inductions that day. I was the first one there besides a scheduled c-section that they had already started on, so they were trying to get everything with me started before the other ones came in.

We got settled in the room and my parents got there around 7. Trevor’s parents went in to work to get everything opened and started up and they came to the hospital around 10 with his brother, Justin.

The week before at my appointment I was 3 cm dilated so I was thinking that everything would progress faster due to that but I was wrong! The doctor came in between 7:30 and 8 to break my water. Even after that I still was in no real pain. Dr Simmons came back in around 10 and there was no change. He came in again around 12 and I had only dilated 1 more cm. Part of the reason it was taking so long was every time they would increase my pit drip the way it was supposed to be (which is doubling it every time they increase it) my body didn’t like it that much. My nurse came in after she got it to 8 and had to bump it back down. Instead of it making my contractions stronger it was just making them closer together. It was almost like I was continuously contracting, which is not good. So every time she would turn it up a little later she would come back in and cut it back down. I went ahead and got my epidural around 11:30 not because there was a lot of pain just some pressure that was annoying. I knew that if it was going to take a while then I wanted to be somewhat comfortable. After my epidural the only complaint I had was I was starving. I only ate two pieces of toast that morning and they wore off long  ago. Finally around 1 that afternoon I started progressing about a cm an hour and the pitocin quit making my contractions crazy and they called me in active labor at this point. The doctor came and checked me about every two hours. Dr. Simmons got finished seeing patients at 5 that afternoon so Trevor and I were already preparing ourselves for him not being there when the baby was born. He came in around 5:15 and I was 8 cm by then.   He said he would be back to check me right after 6 then hopefully we could get this show on the road. It meant so much to us that he was sticking around to deliver baby Harper. At 6 he came back in and I was 10cm. He left out of the room and the nurse came in to set everything up. I started pushing around 6:30 and at 7:13 Harper Benjamin Lobdell made his appearance.

He weighed 7lbs 4oz and 20 inches long.

Trevor did so good. He really impressed me. So many of his friends were making bets that he would pass out because he is not good with blood at all. He stood beside me the whole time and held my hand. He even watched a little. As soon as the doctor said here he comes, Trevor  will tell you he might have gone a little overboard with all the pictures that he took. But I would never say that about pictures. There are so many more pictures from the day but I will just put them on facebook. 

The day after Harper was born my preacher Brother Mike came and prayed with us. Trevor hated he missed him but he had just ran home to shower and let the dog out….

On my due date May 31st we got discharged around 11AM. It was a little scary leaving the hospital with him but we managed. His outfit swallowed him but we still put it on him. We had to loose the hat though because it was ridiculously big.

                            First car ride. He did good!                              First of many diaper change at home!

The cake my parents had waiting on us at home

We are so overwhelmed with joy having him home with us. Thank you to all the visitors and sweet meals we have received since being home. Pretty sure we have only cooked one time in the last two weeks, which is amazing. We are so in love with our new addition.