It's Already Been 1 Year?

How can one year fly by so quickly? Does this mean that every year will continue to go quicker? I would really like to feeze time right now because I'm not quite ready for things to progress in every way imaginable. It is so hard to wrap my mind around the fact that my first born baby is already one!

Lane was such a good baby and made being a parent incredibly easy. There wasn't any more strain than normal between Mark and I, Lane slept pretty descent and was a joy to be around (saving all of his fussy episodes when we were home alone), and all in all he was a textbook baby. I can only hope that our next baby (if we're lucky enough) will be as much fun as this little guy has been.

Now on to what this post is actually supposed to be about. The Party!!! We had an amazing day albeit a little windy to have a house full of some of Lane's biggest supporters in life. I really wish that I would've gotten a picture of all the attendees!!!! Put that idea in my mind for future reference. I had BIG plans for decorations and food but only about 1/4 of them successfully happened. Without further adieu here is what went down last Saturday!

The decorations were pretty minimal but we were also tight on space. I

highly doubt many people cared what our house looked like as long as there was a little boy that was crawling around to be the entertainer. The two main decorations were a balloon wreath for the front door and a banner with picture of Lane from the past year. Both done with the help of Pinterest. The instructions for the balloon wreath called for floral pins, 3 bags of 72 balloons and a 16 inch straw wreath. This thing was so easy to make but it did take some time. Two movies and a 4th bag of balloons later it was done. Looks pretty darn good if I say so! It took so long that this sucker is going to come out for everyone's birthday EVERY year. Lane will thoroughly appreciate his birthday wreath when he's 16!!!! I just know it.

The banner was initally going to be quite elaborate but instead the pictures got taped to a Christmas ribbon. In fact, it's still up in our kitchen..I just can't bring myself to take it down yet. Maybe my subconcious is hoping that Lane won't grow up if I keep it hanging.

Now for the main attraction! FOOD. We love food and I love The Pioneer Woman (Ree Drummond) so basically our entire menu came from her delicious recipes. I've been following her blog for about 2-3 years now so I was super excited when she started a Food Network show AND came out with a new cookbook recently. Everyone needs to check her out!! For meat we did her Spicy Dr. Pepper Shredded Pork and Mark also smoked some extra pork butt that we had. I'm proud to say that my pork was a clear favorite! Although ours ended up not very spicy because I couldn't find the canned peppers...instead I used spiced red peppers which aren't nearly as hot.
For potatoes we had potatoes au gratin. I thought they were delicious! Ree's green bean casserole is definately not your average canned beans with cream of mushroom!! It wasn't very popular but I thought it was delicious as well. Then again there was pieces of red and orange pepper that could be seen and my family isn't into 'different' food. The bright colors probably threw them off. Also I made banana pudding & monkey bread (aren't I clever going with the whole monkey theme?) We also had the typical fruit, meat, cheese etc.

What I'm most excited about is the cake! A huge thank you to Adrienne Krantz with Sophisticated Cookiefor the awesome (and delicious) work. It was absolutely amazing!! I recommend her to everyone in the Des Moines area. We had 3 flavors of cupcakes (lemon raspberry, banana pecan caramel and chocolate peanut butter) and Lane's cake was lemon raspberry.

I'll say it again....she's awesome. Look at the detail she went into putting buttons on each cupcake?!?!

My poor little man wasn't too interested in the cake. All he wanted to do was play with the monkey on top and eat the red dots along the sides. After about 10 minutes he was done & ready to get out. Oh well...more cake for me to eat!

The day might not have been as I imagined but it went amazing nonetheless. A huge thank you to the invitees for spending your evening with us and we look forward to many more years sharing these special memories with you!

Labor Pains

There were a lot of ideas running through my head for Lane's birthday blog today. Lane's story about being born won the coveted spot. I don't plan on leaving anything out so be prepared if you really don't want to read about how it all went down(at least what I remember)!

It all started on Thursday, March 10th. That morning I had a Dr. appointment. The little pipsqueak was 2 days overdue and I had high hopes that the Dr. was going to say 'Wow you've made great progress this past week. He should come any day!' What I heard instead was 'You haven't changed at all in the past week. You're dilated only half a fingertip...but anything could happen.' I then went home and proceeded to write an official eviction notice for Lane on Facebook.

Fast forward to 10:36 p.m. I woke up with the wierdest pain but figured it was stomach pain. There was no way that I was going to stay awake so back to sleep I went. Unfortunately I was up every 30-40 minutes with the same uncomfortable feeling. To answer your question...I had no idea I was having contractions so I did what any perfectly rational person would do and went to work Friday morning.

I was exhausted and had no idea labor had started so I went about my normal day. It took until 10:30 a.m. for the idea of contractions to pop into my head. The timing between them were anywhere from 20-35 minutes so enough where the 'idea' of contractions was pretty fleeting and left my mind as quickly as it arrived. Mark and a co-worker of his came into the bank at 11:30 a.m. to drop off Mark's paycheck (Mark later informed me that Justin told him 'I bet you have a baby this weekend. She looks horrible!') The day keeps truckin along and the pain keeps getting a little stronger. Work's done so I headed home and thought I should probably inform Mark what was going on. So I told him 'I've been having this wierd pain off and on all day.' Mark asked what they felt like then proceeded to get the labor/delivery book from our birthing class to read up on how they explained labor pain. What do ya know??!?! It matched up but the contractions were still about 20 minutes apart and I was told to not call until it was 5-7 minutes. The pain started to intensify enough where I had to stop moving. That didn't work very well when I was trying to do laundry and clean up the house! At around 9 p.m. I decided to try to sleep but that wasn't going to happen. I curled up into a ball every time a contraction came so I knew that Mark wasn't sleeping well with me in bed. At 10:30 p.m. I decided to lay in the recliner in the living room because the contraction time went down to 7-10 minutes. Friday night included NO sleep whatsoever.

Saturday morning at 6 a.m. Mark wakes up for work and asks 'Should I go to work or not?' So I call First Nurse for their opinion and they tell me 'It sounds like they are contractions and you can go to the hospital if you want buuuut we really suggest that you stay home until 5-7 minutes. You'll be much more comfortable at home.' I tell Mark to head to work and I'll call him if something crazy happens. While Mark is at work I walk to get the mail and the weather was not ideal. 40 mph winds and about 40 degrees. Under normal circumstances, I would've never walked outside but I was determined that walking would help me feel better. It didn't. During this time my mom also called and asked how I was doing. My response 'Oh I'm fine. The doctor told me that nothing has changed.' All the while trying to talk through contractions. Some people might call me crazy but my goal was to not call anyone until we were checked into the hospital and knew for a fact that a baby was coming. Mark finally gets home about 12:30 p.m. and the contractions keep getting a little stronger but the timing is still 7-10 minutes :( I try to lay down at 10 p.m. and at this point I can't tell if the contractions are getting longer or they're getting closer together. I swore that they lasted at least 90 seconds long and at 10:20 I finally call First Nurse and say that I'm at the 7 minute mark and think that I need to head to the hospital. We talk some more and she is about to put me on hold to talk to the labor/deliver floor at the hospital when I tell her that it's a 25 minute drive for us to the hospital. Her response 'Oh!! Well then you need to leave now. I'll take care of everything else.' So off we went.

Hospital check-in took forever. We got there at 11 p.m. and everything was finished at about 12:15 a.m. The nurse informed me that my contractions were 2-5 minutes apart, my water hadn't broken but it was ready to pop and there was no way that they were going to send me home. The nurse we had was amazing and got the epidural in at 12:30 a.m. The anesthesiologist was going to head into surgery so my epidural had to happen right away (it was a good thing too because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get it). Wow it felt amazing. We were then told to relax, the pitocin would help push things along and to let them know when I felt the need to push. The midwife broke my water at 2 a.m. because they needed to insert Lane's monitor directly since the outer one wasn't working very well. Fast forward (literally) and hour because of daylight savings time so a minute later the time is really 3 a.m. At 4:15 I tell Mark to get them because I can't take this much longer. They come in saying that they were just getting ready to check on me because the monitors showed a major shift in Lane. The midwife takes a look and all she said is 'Oh wow his head is right there so you can push whenever you want.'

Then the time comes and the midwife tells the nurse to grab one leg and Mark to grab the other. Yup you read that right. Mark wasn't a spectator...he was a participant! I push a few times then feel the sharpest pain I'd felt in a long time. I must've winced really, really bad because she asked 'Did you feel that?' 'Hell yes I did!!!' Come to find out she gave me an episiotomy (which Mark informed me later that she literally took a razor and cut me open). 'Oh I'm so sorry, you're narcotic pain killer must not've kicked in yet.' I pushed for 7 minutes and Lane arrived at 4:55 a.m. I think God gave me a quick delivery since I had contractions for 49 hours before heading to the hospital. Time to stitch me up...at a later point Mark also informed me that I was stitched up with literally a huge fish hook!

Next is really a blur. It was almost as though everything was moving really fast and in slow motion at the same time. All I remember is the midwife pushing on my stomach to make sure everything is out and then having Lane put on my chest. The only specific thing I remember is Lane sucking on his thumb literally within 30 seconds of being put on my chest...this kid was destined to be a strong sucker. Oh and that Lane came out with the umbilical cord wrapped around his arm and head. Within 1 hour I was walked to the bathroom and also specifically remember peeing so much that I asked the nurse if something was wrong. It had been months since that much liquid came out of my bladder :)

The end result was the birth of my proudest moment so far in my life. Mark was so proud that within 4 hours of Lane being born he said 'I could have more.' Slow down buddy, slow down. You didn't just push a 6 lb. 13.5 oz. kid out of your vagina.

Smarter(er)?

One of my earlier blogs was about this website that I'm a member of, Bzzagent.com. Basically you answer surveys and manufacturers choose people to test their products.

A month ago I was asked to try out this new website called Smarterer. I wasn't sure if I wanted to do it but ended up accepting the invitation. More or less this website is full of different types of quizzes on a HUGE range of topics.

The first quiz that I did was about Bzzagent which I was completely bored with and kept wondering when I was going to be done. To say the least I didn't try it again until yesterday when I decided to give some fun topics a try. Beer and Twilight. Odd combination...I know but I like beer and I also like Twilight. I thought that maybe if I did some quizzes on items that I was interested in than I'd like the website better. I'll admit that it did peak my interest a little but only a little.

Honestly, I don't know if I'll ever go to the website again. If I'm bored out of my mind and can't find anything else to do (yeah right...like that'll happen with a 1 yr old running around) than I might try it again...buuuuut I'm still leaning towards no.

Thanks BzzAgent and Smarterer for letting me give it a try but it just wasn't for me!

Life's a Changin'

Our house has had a pretty eventful couple of weeks. The blog title probably makes it seem much more drastic than it really is but it's the only catchy title I could think of! So sorry to dissapoint if the rest of what I write doesn't live up to your expectations but at least I got you to take a look!

Mark started off everything with informing me that he was taking a new job. Talk about a system shocker! I'm so happy for him and I love seeing how excited he is about the new venture. There are some logistic things that we'll need to figure out like the new daycare drop off/pick up schedule and most important.....the morning routine. Lane and I have our routine down to a science. While it will be nice to have Mark around to help get Lane ready, especially as he gets older, I love how quiet the house is after Mark leaves and Lane is still sleeping. I leave for work more stressed on the mornings that Mark is home. It just throws a little wrench into how I do everything.

Now for Lanes big news and no it's not a brother or sister. Houston, we finally have teeth! Lane's finally getting the teeth that I never thought would come. I was about 7 months old when my teeth came in and Mark was a year so I shouldn't have been surprised that it took this long. Cold symptoms also arrived within 24 hours of noticing the teeth so our baby has been a tad more irritable than normal.

I happen to be the most excited about some of the things I've done! First and foremost, I have actually gotten out of the house WITHOUT Mark or Lane and did things with some friends. I do get out of the house once and awhile to do errands but I rarely ever do anything fun that is just for me. That dang child of mine is like a leech and seems to be wherever I go :) There are only 6 instances that I can think of in the past year and 3 of those are with family. The three friends that I spent time with deserve some recognition! Jen Arnold for the Kenny Chesney concert when Lane was only a week old, and just this last week was Shana Lancaster for our chinese buffet dinner and Amy Johnston for a movie. Love you ladies and thank you for helping with my sanity!! Now I might have missed a time or two and I apologize in advance if so. Thank you to Patty, Nichole and Kathy for some girl time at Wicked, dinner and pedicures too!

Granted this also has to do with the fact that I am no longer pumping. Did you read that?!?!?!?!?! I understand that most of the people that read this could really care less but holy cow I am excited. Not having to sit in the bathroom and pump at work is quite the accomplishment and I'm sure my coworkers are happy about it too. I honestly didn't think I would make it this long but I just kept telling myself, 'This is such a small amount of time in the grand scheme of things.' that and it turned into a competition. How long could I go?? I'm not done breastfeeding by any means but at least I no longer have to carry around that stupid backpack. You other breastfeeding/pumping moms know what I'm talking about.

I have pumped in some of the strangest places. The bathroom at a Kenny Chesney concert (which I will NEVER do again), the security office at Wells Fargo arena during the Kenny Chesney concert (much better choice), the car while tailgating at an ISU football game (talk about awkward when a random college kid walked by and looked in), in the parking ramp in Des Moines before our anniversary dinner and going down the highway while heading to my birthday celebration at Prairie Meadows (no I wasn't driving).

Lastly for the most exciting news that I know my brothers and nephew will absolutely love to hear.....I put on one of my old bras (before I had to go up a size & eventually changed to nursing bras) this morning, looked in the mirror and was so happy to see my boobs look normal again. No saggy look from having to wear nursing bras/tanks!!!!!!!!

As you can tell we have had an interesting couple of weeks and it will keep getting more fun with the infamous 1st Birthday in a week!