only took me a month...

well, i am back to work and in the swing of things whether i like it or not! its definitely hard to get to the blog updates, but a lot has happened since my last post. work is going ok for me. it has taken a bit to get adjusted to everything for both steve and i. but all in all, it has went pretty well. this past weekend was the first weekend i had to work and that stunk cuz i didn't see zander or steve hardly at all. but i made it!

as far as zander goes...he's 4 months old now!! crazy! he started rolling over pretty consistently last week and he is officially sleeping on his belly now. i had to take the bumper out of his crib...i was driving my self crazy worrying bout it cuz he tends to be right up next to the side of the crib when he rolls over.  so we got a breathable bumper today that is like a mesh material.  hopefully that will still keep him from getting stuck in the slats but yet he can breathe which is a good thing.  i also think he really wants to move..as in crawl, but i'm sure he's got a while for that yet. 

we went back to the doctor today for his 4 month check up.  he weighs 13 lbs 15 oz and is 26 inches long!!  he gained a little over 3 lbs and grew 3 inches!!  everyone has been saying how long he is getting so i guess they were right.  he went from between the 25th to 50th percentile up to between the 75th and 90th percentile for his length.  he's still in the 25th percentile for his weight and 10th for his head!  HA...long, skinny with a tiny head.  but he is developing fine, so the doctor was not worried at all about his head.  

the doc also suggested we start solids since he's skinny and bottle fed. i have kind of thought that he might be getting close to being ready cuz he seems to be pretty interested in our food.  but i didn't want to start too early either.  so since he suggest that we go ahead and start and just be really slow, we did.  tonite was his first taste of cereal. i think he actually liked it. he even opened his mouth when he saw the spoon coming.  it took him a few bites to figure out how to swallow it and then i think he got a little frustrated cuz he was hungry.  so he didn't eat a ton, but i think it will be a pretty easy adjustment for him.  its definitely weird how much he's changing and getting into these new phases.  he will be all grown up before i know it!  :( 

well thats bout all for now. i know that i'm really tired and should not be up still since i have to get up in the morning in time to get myself ready, zander ready, deal with the dogs and still have time left for the 35 minute drive to xenia where i drop off zander at the sitter's and then still have to get to work by 9 (oh yeah...and have time to stop for my fountain pop.)  can you see how my mind works??  sometimes it makes me tired just thinking about my crazy, too-detail oriented mind.  lol!

Our annual visit to the Odle lakehouse

We went to see Jarrad, Misty and the girls last weekend at the lake.  it was a very fun weekend!  they just got a boat so we had a blast just goofing around.  my parents came up on saturday afternoon too so that was nice to see them again.  we tried to do a pic of all three kids and i guess it didn't turn out too bad but i really like the one with my dad and his kiddos.  

on the way home, we had to stop outside of dayton to go to the funeral home for one of steve's cousins.  that was of course a downer, but he got to see some of his family that he hasn't seen for years.  so that also meant that i met a lot of his family that i hadn't met before.  it was great to meet some of his aunts, uncle and cousins and they all loved zander.  

and i posted last week that zander was 12 weeks old...well this wednesday was his official 3 month mark (or as i said on facebook...his 1/4 birthday)  he's started giggling a little now too which i love.  i only have 3 days of my leave left so i'm definitely bummed that its coming to an end!

can you see any similarities??

the top pic is steve at age 1 right before getting his very first haircut.  and then the 2nd pic is me of course.  i was about 3 months i think.  so steve and i keep arguing about who we think zander looks like.  not like it matters, but its kinda funny.  a lot of people see steve and his side in zander but then when i look at my baby pic, i can maybe see a mix of both of us. i know one thing..he's not quite pushing up with his arms yet like i am in my pic.  he's definitely getting stronger, but he still has a bit to go.  i just keep saying that maybe he's a bit slow on the physical side, but that's ok because he's going to my little brain!  HA...guess time will tell.  

12 weeks old...

well in about 5 minutes, zander will be 12 weeks old.  i can't believe that i have been off of work and at home with my new little guy for that long!!  i am sooo NOT ready to go back to work, but then there are definitely times that i crave the sense of accomplishment that i get out of a good day at work. so i guess it is bittersweet.  its just going to be very odd to go from spending pretty much every minute of my  daytime with zander to not seeing him except for tuesdays and most weekends i guess.  i really wish that i didnt have to work 10 hour days. oh well, i guess the real world is about to slap me in the face in about 1.5 weeks.  i'm also hoping that it all works out ok with steve and his schedule.  he will be in charge of zander a lot more and it could get harry with his sleep/work schedule.  so we are praying that all works out well.   i will cherish my tuesdays off with zander for sure!!  it will also be weird because i wont see steve near as much either.  it has been awesome to spend quite a bit of time with him.  so i may go through double withdraw....less time with both of my men!  

and speaking of accomplishment...we still only have 1 working car BUT our garage is looking soo much better!  for those of you who didn't see it in the beginning, it was full of piles and piles of stuff/junk!  we have a 3 car garage and until we had car problems, it didn't house any cars.  so steve's car has been in it now while he has been working on it but we still had stuff in a large part of the rest of the garage.  steve and i have worked very hard the last few weeks to clean out and relocate stuff in order to get our garage into garage status!  woohoo.  go us!  :)  it only took about 3 or 4 months after moving in.  we'll just use zander as our excuse. 

our work in progress...the landscaping!

we are blessed that our house has some land-

scaping already when we moved in, but it was in need of some TLC too.  they had put really random things in really odd spots and some of the stuff had totally taken over the beds.  so steve has been working very hard on trying to get the beds to be more presentable.  we have bought a few perennials to try to add some color and dimension, so we'll see what happens.  it will still be a work in progress of course and it will take a year or two to see what we think. this first pic is of the bed in the front of the house and it looks so much better since steve yanked out some of the stuff that seemed to be overtaking everything else. and then we planted these cool perennial pictured in the 2nd pic (can't remember what they are called right now...maybe like black eyed susans???) and i love the colors!!

we are excited to have the outside stuff looking better than before. our neighbors have even complimented steve's hard work!  the lawn is shaping up very nicely too.  its been fun to look at different flowers etc to figure out what we want to gradually do.  i guess maybe i have a bit of the odle traits of wanting the landscaping to look nice but its nice that i have my husband to do the work!  :)  he's soo good at it, so i dont want to hinder that!

zander's 2nd pool day

i was sooo excited to get this little outfit for zander.  i have been watching it at gymboree all season and waiting for it to go on clearance.  so i went in there the other day and it was on sale AND they still had his size.  so i couldn't resist.  these are like the only swim trunks that come close to fitting him right now (he has no butt) and they have a really nice diaper cover/liner thing inside which some of them dont have.  and the shirt is awesome cuz it has a spf of like 50 which means not having to cover him in sunscreen.  so anyway..i was very excited about the stinking cute swim outfit and then look at him...he was even smiling!  i'm sure it was cuz he knew that his mommy was loving him in his little outfit!  :)  we are hoping to go to jarrad and misty's lake house soon, so now he's all set.  

so today at the pool, i got him in the water a bit more and he seemed ok with it.  i'm hoping that he likes the water sooner rather than later, so i'm trying it a little by little.  i think more than anything, he doesn't like being cold and then he HATES the wind.  when it blows, its like it takes his breath away and he can't breathe. funny.  i hope he gets over that soon!

A bear near our area???

check out this link...i guess there have been a few sightings of black bears really near where we live.  that's kinda weird!  there's also a you tube video of it, so i totally believe it!  

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/dayton-news/black-bear-spotted-in-warren-county-156776.html

i'm getting so good at this posting thing!  there's going to be so many updates that you all wont be able to keep up!  :)  i'm sure once i go back to work, the postings will slow down again.  but then again maybe not, its kinda fun keepin you all in the loop of our lives here in the exciting state of ohio.