6 months

SIX MONTHS!!! cont'd

Well...we are finally moved!!!

We had originally planned to move on Friday, Dec 1st...but there was just a small blizzard that tossed that plan out the window. It was funny. I called the movers the night before and asked if they wanted to reschedule. The lady told me "no, we never cancel due to weather." Well the next morning Rob and I got up bright and early and lets just say it was pretty scary looking outside....I called the movers again and left a message asking at least for a later start time so that the snow would have time to taper off and some serious plowing could begin. Shortly after that, the movers called asking to cancel due to the weather and to reschedule for the next day. Very amusing! Unfortunately that totally threw off our plans. We were trapped in pretty much an empty house with little to nothing to eat. Rob trudged through the snow to the nearest gas station and brought back watery cappacino and packaged muffins and donuts. YUM! Then we unpacked a few boxes that actuallyhad games in them and played. We received over 12 inches in less than 12 hours and the wind was just plain nasty!

The snow gave us a chance to break out the new snowblower and see how it worked. It was fun. Well moving day went smoothly with exception of robby locking the keys in the running vehicle. The move took a total of 8 hours, maybe less --not including travel time. The following week we had a goal of unpacking one room a day--which actually worked our pretty well. At this point the house is mostly unpacked with exception of the basement and the office. Things that can wait with the Holidays.

The closing of our old house was unfortunately also delayed due to the blizzard. We wasted a whole day in Milwaukee waiting for the postponed closing only to find out that it would not happen until two days later. ARGH. But all went well, and within days the new people has moved in. They got a great place. We did a lot to that house. And now we have lots to do to the new house.

So lets get to the important stuff...Kylan.

My boy just continues to grow by leaps and bounds. He is eating all types of food. I am experimenting with making his baby food and it is actually going very well. I steam his veggies, put them in the blender and then fill ice cube trays with the food and freeze it, then put the cubes of food in plastic baggies. Each cube is about one serving. I take it out in the morning to let it thaw and he has his food for the day. And talk about much cheaper. I bought a bag of carrots for 60 cents. This bag of carrots made 18 ice cubes of carrots...which is equivalent to 18 stage 1 jars of carrots which would have cost me around $9/$10 to buy. MUCH MUCH smarter to make your own food. Unfortunately there are some veggies that I cannot do myself because I cannot puree them fine enough--like peas and corn.

Well anyway back to Kylan. The kid babbles. All sorts of stuff comes out of his mouth. He is also sitting on his own. He can sit easily for 10 + minutes on his own. He also rolls back and forth, stomach to back, back to stomach. And lately he is getting up on his knees. A couple of times I could of swore he was going to crawl. I think it may happen any day now. Which really has me worried. We are still organizing the house and are not prepared for a mobile child. He is also very coordinated with his hands now. You really have to be careful when shopping with him. He snatches things here and there--and of course they go right to his mouth. And lately he has figured out how to shake his head "no". He looks really weird doing it. It is a very exaggerated motion. He is also making kissing sounds with his mouth now too...He just has to figure out how to give you a kiss instead of drool on your cheek...

Kylan is also the happiest baby --everyone tells us that...oh yeah and that he looks like a cabbage patch doll. Yeah that one I don't think he will ever live down. HE LOVES PEOPLE. The best thing I can do with Kylan is take him out. For example, the other day he got his flu shot. We walked into the clinic, the receptionists cooed, ooh'ed and ahh'ed. Then he went in to get his flu shot, where the nurses coo'ed, he cried for 2 seconds, when the nurse began to coo and away went the tears and a big smile took over his face. Then we went back out the waiting room, but a nurse came and asked if she could show him off to some coworkers. I said fine by me..and off she went with him (with me tagging along behind.) It was a long time until I was able to leave.

He also love cameras...he will stop crying just to smile for a camera. He loves having his picture taken.

So Kylan had his six month birthday. He celebrated by eating his pureed carrots and rice cereal. YUM YUM!!! Kylan won't have his six month appointment until early January due to the move. However, I did have him weighed with all his clothes on Shortly after his six month birthday and he weighed almost 22 pounds with all his clothes on. He is a big boy to be lugging

cell phone number is still the same...and I am not sure I feel comfortable putting our landline number on the web. That's all for now....Expect Christmas pics next blog entry.

5 1/2 months

ARGH!!! blogger has cut off my ability to add pics again...i have more...oh well...

Always new things in the life of Kylan. Kylan now gives kisses --well actually he has been for about a month now...but now he does it a lot more often--and if you ask for one. He will open his mouth and basically drool on your cheek. If you are lucky he will lick you. It sounds gross, but coming from him, it is very cute. Kylan also sits up on his own very well now. He still tumbles from time to time, but for the most part he does well. He also crawls on his back. He will be laying on his back and will arch it and use his feet to scoot backwards. Luckily with this method he is unable to travel too fast. Ohhh..and Kylan is now officially ticklish. You can tickle him and he will laugh and squirm. Lots of fun!

Kylan has his first thanksgiving. He ate sweet potatoes for the first time. The top pic shows his reaction to that. A new food with lots of fun faces. But Kylan loves food and ate a whole lot of sweet potatoes on thanksgiving. He had thanksgiving brunch with Nana, Grandma Jan and her family. He was very sociable and looked smashing in his suit coat that Aunt Liz and Uncle Adam sent him. I have to say he was the best dressed. At thanksgiving at Grandpa and Grandma Debi's, Ky got to meet Aunt Steph for the first time. He also ate more sweet potatoes. The boy was in heaven.

So this coming week is a very big week. We are almost done packing. On Wednesday we close on the new house and begin to clean. On Thursday we finish cleaning and packing. On Friday we move. On Saturday we unpack. On Sunday we return to our old house and clean. And on Monday we close on the old house. A VERY BUSY TIME!!! So hopefully I update this again before the holidays....But I am not stressing about it. It will all work out. Kylan is also expecting a new cousin shortly after we close on the old house. He is very excited (or I should say that we tell him that he is very excited) for a new playmate.

Well that is all for this blog....The next entry will be from the new house. Tootles....

Five MONTHS!!!

Blogger has cut me off...It only allows me to add so many pics at a time--and well, I have a lot of entries to make up for....

So November 7th was a very big day. First of all it was Grandma's b'day. Secondly it was Ky's 5 month b'day. And lastly it was voting day. Kylan was very anxious about heading to the polls for his first voting day. I wish I had taken my camera along. I would have taken pictures of him in the voting booth. But alas, I forgot.

Lots of new stuff in the world of Kylan. First of all, Kylan has begun to sleep better at night. On Oct. 18th I woke up at 4:30 in the morning. I was in shock. Kylan had not woken me up yet...But I was sure he was going to wake me up soon. He had slept 5.5 hours and for sure would not go much longer. WEll I was up until 6:30 waiting for him to wake up. I even went to check on him several times, just to make sure he was okay. But there he was in his crib sleeping soundly...and here I was not able to sleep because he was sleeping. (Ironic..) So at 6:30 I woke him up to feed him so I could go back to sleep. Who knows how much longer he could have gone. So he slept 7.5 hours. Since then we have had at least three other nights where he has slept 7+ hours. Otherwise he has been sleeping at least 5 -6 hours before waking. I have so much more energy now. It's great.

Observations of Kylan in the last several weeks--

He knows his name. You can say his name and he will turn to you expectantly. He now outstretches his arms pretty regulary when he wants to be picked up. He has begun some serious giggling. He started laughing in September, but then it turned into shrieks, but now it is back to giggling. We think Kylan is going to be a singer--Axel Rose style. Every night when we go to prepare him for bed he makes these shrill noises. I don't know how to explain them, but you have to think he is hurting his voicebox. Ky loves to razz. He does it ALL the time. Unfortuantely this includes a lot of spit. Ky gave me kisses the other day. I was giving him kisses and he turned and slobbered on my cheek. It was very cute in a baby drool kind of way.
Ky is obsessed with food and drink. The boy trembles--yes TREMBLES with excitement when he sees us with food or a glass. He just prays that we are going to give him a taste.

So for Halloween, Ky went as a baby. Yes, we are not very imaginitive. But he did play in the leaves. He had fun. We dragged him on the tarp with the leaves from the back yard to the curb.

hMM...I think that wraps up the latest Kylan update. On Thanksgiving we are planning to feed him sweet potato. It should be an exciting time. That's all my thoughts for now...as random as they are.

home sweet home

Well..the Lord works in mysterious ways. After several offers on houses that fell apart we finally have one that worked for the best. The above pictures are of our new house as of November 29th. It is a 3 bedroom colonial with a family room on the main level, lots of beautiful gardens and even a playhouse in the backyard. It is located on a cul de sac, where I met another stay at home mom who is also a teacher. This house is 4 miles from Rob's work and is less than a mile to most stores, the mall, the gym, etc...talk about ideal location.

We got this house a week after it went on the market and for a fair amount less than asking. During the inspection, the roof was discovered to have problems, so the owners have agreed to put on a brand new roof before closing. They are a good christian couple (older) and ironically both graduated from Valpo (Rob and my alma mater.)

A few weeks before this house went on the market, Rob and I had decided that we were going to bite the bullet and just buy a house without selling ours. We knew it was going to be rough, however we were not going to deal with a winter of Rob's daily driving back and forth. After we put in an offer on this house, two days later we received an offer on our house. We know this was God. Perhaps this was a test of our faith. Us, taking the plunge, and trusting God to see us through and then we received the offer.

The offer was not the greatest offer, but it was enough. Actually it was the lowest price we had agreed to take for it (prior to the offer). We also felt somewhat insulted by some things the buyers wrote on their offer. We know we shouldn't feel insulted, but these people really have some issues. But God bless them and our old and new house. I will miss our current house. We have put a lot of work into it. But I am so glad to move on...

This is also why I have gotten so behind in the blog entries....Sorry for those who have noticed, but I imagine I will not be up to speed on blogging for at least a month with the impending move.
PEACE!!

week 17 & 18

okay..so I am once again behind in my blogs...but I have not forgotten. I will be explained soon...I promise.

So my baby boy is such a big guy now. At the beginning of week 18 he had his four month appointment. Our little (HA!) guy now weighs 17 pounds 13.5 ounces, and is 25 inches long. He is in the 92 % for his weight and 60 % for his height. The doctor also told us that he is teething and we should expect to see his two bottom teeth in 2-3 days. Well it has been over a week since she has said that and we have yet to see his teeth pop through--but he does have all the other signs of teething. Also at the doc, she told us that Kylan is doing very well. She said he is doing a lot of things that baby's don't normally do until around six months. She also suggested that a lot of his advancement probably comes with the extra care he gets at home. This made me feel good about my decision--though Kylan often makes me feel good about my decision.

So what is new with Kylan. He is a very "HANDS-ON" boy now. He reaches and grabs everything. He is especially fascinated with mouths, so if he can he will put his hand in your mouth. We also have begun to sit him in the high chair. He has seriously outgrown the bouncy chair---You put him in the bouncy chair and it becomes a bouncy bed. So it is not good for feeding him rice cereal. I have begun to use his high chair a lot. I put him there when i make dinner and give him toys to play with. It was in his highchair that he began reaching out for me with both arms, showing he wanted to be held. Very cute, but I didn't fall for it. He likes to be held ALL THE TIME!!! Let's see. OH YEAH--I should explain the picture of Rob's arm. Well, when Kylan is hungry he latches on to anything that is around him. Rob received two hickey's on his arm from Kylan. He's a leech!

So the other picture is of Kylan's first bath in the big people's tub. He loved it. He splashed around and chased the rubber ducky's. It was fun to watch him. We also let him float in the tub and swim. Did you know that infants younger than six months have a swimming reflex? When you move them towards water and put them in it, they will actually swim. This is why it is fairly easy to teach infants to swim. (They just have to really learn the breathing part.)

Speaking of reflexes. I don't have any pics...I forgot my camera., But Ky helped out a class at Concordia University. He showed a group of students all the reflexes that infants develop early on or are born with. The kids had a great time playing with him. And he loved all the attention. He was the only baby there that did not cry. (Isn't it scary that I called the college students "KIDS", boy am i old.

So last week, we went to Madison to meet up with Jules our friend from Colorado. IT was great to see her and hang out with her. Plus we got to show Kylan his future stomping grounds. We drank beer at the terrace---Well not all of us, but Kylan watched us drink beer. We then walked state street and took pics next to the capitol building. After that we went back to Becky's and ate the best pizza ever--Glass Nickel. It was the first time Kylan got to meet Becky. We all had a good time.

Well bigger updates for the Schnake family (most likely) next week.

week 16

My little man is getting bigger and bigger every day. Kylan now will pick things up with his hands and study them. He also rolls over fairly often when he is on his tummy--though never on purpose. He has rolled over from his back, but he has yet to repeat it. He often rolls to his side though in effort to pick up a toy. At this point we have also let Kylan drink from a glass and taste lots of different big people foods. He loves it! Especially drinking from a glass. Sometimes he will get upset if you pull it away. Now when we eat or drink he ogles are food/glass. Sitting with him at dinner has also become quite a chore, since now he tries to grab things on the table.

October 1st, Nanna had "Welcome To The World" party for Kylan. He got to meet a lot of important peopl in her and Robby's life. It was a fun party and Kylan loved all the attention.

Downsides (did I mention this in my last post?), we are still working to get Kylan to sleep better at night. I dream of the day I can sleep 6 hours straight without him waking up. Or only getting up with him once at night. He is just not a very good sleeper. Also--I know I mentioned this in my last blog, but I have to reiterate Kylan's need for attention. If I leave the room for a minute, he cries. If I am in the room and not focused on him or next to him, he cries. I love my boy--but he needs more independence. I am hoping this phase passes quickly.