The Cutest Six Month Old

It is hard to believe that Elias is already six months old.  He has definitely kept us busy.  He is such a joy and is really starting to develop his sense of humor.  He is a very strong willed little guy and he certainly has a mind of his own.  I love seeing what he likes and what he doesn't.

 He is still a cat napper but I think I've gotten pretty accustomed to it and things have gotten easier.  He is so much fun and we love to play and talk with him.  He loves to spit and blow bubbles while he's talking.  He has his first tooth and we are expecting his second to pop up any day.

We started him on solids and he absolutely loves peaches and pears.  He hates carrots and I think he may be allergic to bananas if the puking in the middle of the night is any indication. 

My sister, Sarah, took some family pictures of us up in the canyon.  They turned out wonderful!

We love our little Elias so much!

Three Months

Elias is now three months old! We have made it to the long hoped for three months.  Everyone told me that once he turned Three Months that life would be a lot easier.  Three months is when babies start producing their own melatonin and sleep more at night, three months is when babies' digestive systems are more mature, and three months is when colic goes away.  When Elias was first born I didn't think I could make it to three months.  The first few weeks were very rough but within 6 weeks he had already started sleeping more through the night and I had figured out that when I ate anything with wheat in it he would cry and act colicky.  I was able to solve most of the things that were making life difficult those first weeks by cutting out wheat.  Now that he is three months old, however, I plan to try eating wheat again to see if he is able to handle it yet.  I am waiting until Saturday and then I am making pancakes for breakfast.  I decided that I want to eat wheat in the morning so that if he has a reaction to it that by mid afternoon it will all be out of my system and his instead of eating it for dinner and dealing with a screaming baby until 3 in the morning.  I also am waiting until Saturday so Eric can help me if it all goes wrong.  I am pretty hopeful that Elias will be okay.  I have been eating chocolate and he hasn't had any problems with that for the last week or so and when I would eat chocolate before the reaction was almost as bad as with wheat, although not as long.  I am really hoping that I will be able to go back to eating things with flour in them.  Eating gluten free is rather expensive and I really miss things like bread. And cookies.  And cake.  All the unhealthy things really.  

Elias has been growing so fast.  He smiles all the time and laughs.  He has started to squeal and act really excited when he sees me.  He loves to play and cuddle.  He still gets bored easily and he has started to yell at me to get my attention if he gets too bored and I don't pick him up soon enough.  He babbles and has conversations with us and he really loves when I whistle.  He also thinks it is a really fun game to have his mouth and face wiped.  I think he spits up and drools on purpose just so I will wipe his mouth.  He has discovered his hands and stares at them or sucks on them nearly all day. 

We had Elias' baby blessing on Sunday.  He was surrounded by his grandpas, uncle, and friends, and Eric gave him a beautiful blessing.  I was only able to get one picture of him in his tuxedo that my mom got for him for the day.  He isn't wearing his jacket and the lighting is terrible but he still looks cute. 

 

 We love our little boy so much and it has been so much fun to watch him grow and learn.  

 We love you Elias and your big beautiful smile!

Penne with Mushrooms and Sausage

I try once a week to have an experiment night for dinner.  I love looking through recipes and cookbooks and deciding what I want to try next.  Last night I made a really good pasta dish from one of my favorite cookbooks, Weeknight Fresh and Fast.  I adapted the recipe a bit for the sake of convenience but I really liked it.  Here is how I made the recipe:

Source and original recipe

Penne with Mushrooms and Sausage

1 Tbs. olive oil
1 Tbs. onion, finely diced
3/4 lb. hot Italian sausage
12 oz. sliced mushrooms
1 tsp. fresh rosemary, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
1/3 c. white wine
1 bay leaf
1 1/2 c. chicken broth
12 oz. penne pasta ( I used gluten free pasta and it turned out great)
1 c. freshly grated parmesan

In a large frying pan heat the olive oil.  Add the onions and saute about 5 minutes.  Remove the casings from the sausages and add to the pan, breaking up into smaller chunks with a fork.  Cook until no longer pink, about 4 minutes.  Spoon out the excess oil, otherwise there will be too much grease.  Add the mushrooms, rosemary, and salt and pepper.  Stir and cook about 5 minutes more.  Add the wine and bay leaf and cook until the liquid has all evaporated, about 4 minutes.  Add the broth and simmer, stirring occasionally until the sauce begins to thicken and becomes syrupy, about 10 minutes.  Meanwhile boil the pasta.  Add the sauce to the pasta and stir to combine.  Stir in the parmesan and serve immediately. 

This Little Boy

This little boy has stolen my heart.

Elias has kept me quite busy.  On a good day I get the dishes done.  I like to think that as long as we have food to eat at meal times, dishes to eat them on, clean clothes to wear, and Elias taken care of and happy that my days are pretty successful.  The house is far from clean and it is beginning to bother me more and more.  Thankfully I am getting more energy and Elias has been letting me sleep more at night, sometimes for 4 hours at a time.  He does still remind me that he is the boss every once in a while at night by waking up more frequently than he had been.

Things have continued to go smoother and smoother as we learn how to be parents.  The first few weeks were really difficult though.  Elias would cry and scream from around 10-2 in the day and 10-2 at night.  I knew that he was in pain but there was nothing that I could do to relieve it.  I just had to watch him suffer.  It was very hard.  People kept telling us that by 3 months life would be a lot easier and all I could think was that I wasn't even going to make it to 3 weeks.  I started to try to take different foods out of my diet thinking that may be the cause of his discomfort.  I started with dairy, as that is the most common problem for babies.  It didn't seems to make much of a difference so I stayed away from chocolate, garlic, onions, peppers, spicy foods, citrus, cauliflower, and broccoli.  Still nothing helped.  We talked with our pediatrician and he told us that it may be wheat that is causing the problems, especially if we have relatives that have wheat allergies. Lucky for me, my mom, sister, and brother are all allergic to wheat.  So I took wheat out of my diet.  Miraculously, Elias was much happier and didn't have any scream fits, until I ate Twizzlers, which have wheat as a second ingredient...  That was not a good night.  I was only able to eat meat, some vegetables without butter, some fruits, and rice, again with no butter.  I was pretty miserable but it was worth it to not have Elias in so much pain each night. Another nice bonus was I lost all my baby weight and then some, nearly 30 pounds.  Slowly I started adding foods back into my diet.  Right now I'm only staying away from wheat and chocolate.  It is a lot easier but I really miss a lot of foods like cookies...  We are going to try introducing wheat again in about a month.  I really hope that his digestive system has developed enough that he can handle it.

Bright eyed and bushy tailed, when I try to get him to take a nap.

Elias has grown so much in the last two months.  I can hardly believe it.  Elias is such a curious guy.  He loves to look around and see everything.  He gets bored easily because there are just so many new and interesting things to see.  He won't nap any longer than a half an hour between his feedings, which are every two hours, no matter how I try to get him to sleep or when.  If he doesn't want to sleep he really lets you know.  He cries and struggles and sweats and tries to out-stubborn me.  My days are filled with cuddles and playing and moving him around to see different things.  I worry that he isn't sleeping enough and I continue to try to get him to sleep more but I really don't mind the extra sleep I'm getting at night, almost 6 hours a night now. (any tips on napping would be much appreciated.) During the day when Elias is taking his little cat naps I race to shower or do laundry or dishes or dinner.

 

Rare moments from naps.

Elias has turned into quite the little giggler.  He smiles and laughs and coos and it is just the cutest thing in the world.  Some of his favorite things to look at and laugh at are the mobile I made for him

 and the lamp and tree.

 These things are fascinating to him and he stares and giggles and smiles.

Eric took a really cute video of Elias before church last Sunday.  It is nearly two minutes long of Elias flirting and giggling and having an all around great time. 

 It is hard to believe that it has already been two months since he was born but at the same time it feels like he's always been with us.  We love our little boy so much and he brings so much joy to our lives.

Elias Eric Hutchison

     

     It has been a whirlwind around here this last week.  Our sweet boy Elias was born on Thursday the 11th at 8:21 pm after 8 hours of labor.  The whole thing was amazing from start to finish. I would like to share my birth story.
     I decided early on that I wanted to have a natural childbirth, no medications, and hopefully, no hospital.  I had researched quite a bit before making my decision, I do things like that for fun, and Eric and I had been going to a birthing center in Pleasant Grove run by his cousin who is the midwife there. Going with Birthing Your Way has been a wonderful experience for us and we had all of our prenatal appointments there.  We had the option of having the birth at the birthing center or at our home and we finally decided on having the baby at our house.  We had been slowly compiling all that we would need to make the birth as comfortable and easily cleaned up after as possible.
     I had my appointment for my 39 week check up at 5:15 on Thursday with Eric.  Eric had been driving the car to work every day that week instead of carpooling so he could come home if I went into labor but on Thursday, because I had my appointment, we decided he should carpool and I would pick him up after work and we would drive to my appointment together because I had no indication that I would be having the baby any time soon.  The one day he didn't have the car I went into labor.
     The contractions began around 1:00 pm after I had eaten lunch.  They were not too painful, not any worse than an average period cramp for me but they were rather frequent and regular being about 10 minutes apart.  I decided to take a nap to see if this was just false labor or the real thing, if the contractions went away.  They did not go away, they just got a bit more intense. I had called Eric before my nap to let him know that my contractions were pretty regular and he told me to call him back if anything changed, even though he would be in a meeting.  When I woke up I decided to take a shower  because I was still having increasingly strong contractions and when I went to the bathroom there was blood.  I panicked, just a little, I couldn't seem to remember that blood was ok.  I called Eric and interrupted his meeting to tell him that I was bleeding.  He was great and calmed me down, reminding me that that was normal.  At that point it was about 3:00 in the afternoon.  My contractions began to pick up in frequency and intensity to the point that at around 3:45 I called Eric to see if I could come get him from work.  Luckily a coworker of his offered to take him home and he got home around 4:00. 
     At this point my contractions were about three minutes apart and had gotten to the point that they were a bit worse than any period cramps I had had. We called our doula and midwife to see if they thought I should still come in for my appointment.  They both felt that I should still come in, first time moms don't usually have so short a labor, if I had only been contracting since 1:00.  We left for our appointment and I'm pretty sure that is when I moved into transition.  These contractions were terrible and that car ride was the longest ten minutes of my life.  When I arrived they hurried me into the prenatal room and checked to see how dilated I was.  I was already dilated to 9 centimeters.  I think we were all surprised that I was pretty much ready to have the baby right then and there. 
     Heather, our midwife and Eric's cousin, asked me if I would like to go home and they would meet me there for the home birth.  But after that intense car ride I decided that there was no way I was getting back in that car and that I was just fine having the baby there at the birthing center.  Heather and her assistants worked incredibly quickly to get the birthing pool ready for me and after only a few minutes I was in the tub and trying to keep calm through the contractions.  I think I only had a few more contractions until I was dilated to 10 centimeters. 
     I was suddenly overcome with the urge to push and I pushed for about an hour and a half in the tub.  It was a lot of work and very exhausting.  Everyone there at the birth was very helpful and supportive.  Eric was amazing and helped me keep focused when I would begin to feel overwhelmed. 
     After about an hour and a half of pushing I hadn't made the most progress.  He had moved down but I couldn't seem to get him out.  I moved from the water onto a birth stool and things seemed to become more intense and progressive after that.  Another hour of very intense pushing and he began to crown.  That was probably the most painful.  I wanted to take a break because it was hard and I was extremely tired but the pressure was too intense so I just kept pushing and he shot out. 
     While I was pregnant and we were preparing for the birth I told Eric that I wanted him to catch Elias but Eric was very nervous about this, thinking the baby would shoot out and what if he missed.  I told him he was ridiculous, that usually the head comes out, then you have a little break and then I would push the rest of the body out, it wouldn't be difficult.  But Eric was right, that little boy of ours came shooting out with no pause at all.  Heather was the one who caught Elias because there was no time for Eric to even know that he needed to be in position to catch him. 
     As soon as that baby was out the relief was instantaneous.  They brought him to my chest immediately and I got to hold him as they checked him and me and I have no idea what everyone really did around me, I was too busy looking at my baby boy and attempting to nurse. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. 
     Eric and I had decided to wait to cut the cord until all the blood had flowed back into Elias.  I birthed the placenta, which was relatively easy, I just didn't want to push any more, and then we cut the cord. 
     We cuddled that sweet baby and had our families come in to see him for about a half an hour or so before Eric went with Elias to get him weighed and measured and all that while I got stitched up.  I had decided against an episiotomy and let myself tear naturally.  Heather stitched me up very easily, but that was definitely a painful few minutes.  I talked with my doula about food and cooking to try to distract myself from the pain.  I handled the labor and birthing pains much better than the stitching pains.  I'm not sure why, maybe because the labor pains were coming from me and I could predict them a little better than having the pain be inflicted on me by someone else. 
     After all of that we rested for a while and then drove home at around 1:00 in the morning.  It was wonderful to be home with our new baby boy and we spent the rest of that night trying to figure out how to get him to eat and sleep.  It has now been a week and we are still sometimes trying to figure out how to get him to eat and sleep but things are calming down as we get more and more into a rhythm with him and our new lives. We love him so much. 

 My favorite picture: Eric holding Elias, not that you can see Eric very well

The lighting makes him look very concerned

 

Sleeping after being fed.  Also, the red on his eye runs in my family and goes away after a while.  I sent this picture to Eric and he asked me if Elias had a black eye. 

All bundled up

The Nursery

We have just about finished getting the baby's room all ready.  Even though he is going to be sleeping in our room for a while we still wanted to get it finished and ready.  We had a really hard time deciding on what colors to paint the room and how we wanted it to look.  We finally decided to do a really beautiful technique called lazuring.  But we did not do it exactly how you are supposed to.  The technique calls for mixing your own pigments and using hard bristled brushes.  We just bought paint from Home Depot and used large sponges.  The outcome of the room looks great, in our opinion.  It looks like water color and has very different textures throughout.  I wouldn't say it looks like true lazuring done by a professional but that's ok.  As long as we love it.  The final colors turned out more vibrant than I thought they would and the room looks like a sunset.  We really like it. Eric did a beautiful job.  He did the room almost completely by himself.  He had a friend come over and help for a while and then I tried to help.  But I nearly ruined it so I fired myself from the painting crew so he could fix it. 

 

Eric working hard.

 

We also found an awesome sun light fixture at Ikea the day after we painted.  It was meant to be. 

 

The final paint product and the cradle that my dad built when my mom was pregnant with me.  All my siblings and I slept in it and I'm excited that my baby gets to sleep in it as well.

I am now at 38 weeks and I am trying to get everything ready for the baby.  I am finished working, as it is spring break now and I guess this guy could come any day.  I have a feeling that I'm in for a bit of a longer wait though.

Our House Now

So I said, about a month and a half ago, that I would post some pictures of our house within a few days.  I kept forgetting to take pictures, so I took a bunch today.  They are really poor quality but they will have to do because I doubt I will ever take any more.  At least not within a reasonable period of time.  Also, our plans to tear out the carpet and put down new flooring have been put on the back burner because really, new flooring isn't at the top of the to do list.  We still have so much to do in getting ready for the baby and buying baby things are expensive.  We'll just have to see when we actually get around to changing the carpet.  At this point in time, I can live with it. Anyway, here are some pictures of what the house is looking like now, starting at the top.

Master Bedroom, with Nim sitting cutely

Second bedroom for guests, I suppose

The baby's room, slowly coming together

The awesomely carpeted bathroom, which I have tried to cover with bathmats

Our living room

The dining room

The kitchen

And half of the basement, that isn't just shelves with boxes on them, and Nim, who decided to follow me as I took pictures.

And finally here is a picture of what I am looking like these days.  The mirror I tried to take the picture in was extremely blurry so this is a terrible picture.  

32 weeks

Our House

Eric and I have been living in our home for almost two months now and we have been loving it.  It's been a lot of work but we haven't even scratched the surface. 

When Eric and I first heard about this house in July we walked through and, even though the house was full of stuff, we could see the potential and really liked it.  I took pictures on my phone back in July of the house and I thought I would share them on here. To show what we've been dealing with.

Look how beautiful and green everything is.  I really don't enjoy all the heat of summer but living in the middle of these ice cold temperatures I catch myself wishing it was summer and green. 

Here are some more pictures of the yard.  The yard is my favorite part of the house, it's on a half acre and has a little offshoot where we plan to fence off and have chickens and maybe other animals.  We'll have to see how long those dreams take to come to fruition. The yard really seems bigger than a half acre.  We thought about buying a different home that was on a half acre and it seemed much smaller than this yard but I haven't done any measuring so I really have no clue.

Partial view of the back yard

the offshoot

As I said, the house was full.  The woman who lived here before we did had been moved into a rest home three years previously and the parts of the house looked like she had just left and other parts looked like she was getting ready to move out.

Livingroom

Kitchen

Diningroom

Beautifully carpeted bathroom (grosses me out. a lot.)

bedroom

master bedroom

bedroom that we're planning to be the nursery

half of the basement

That basement has been really hard to get clean.  The previous owner didn't use the basement after her husband died in the eighties except as storage.  We were cleaning up 30 year old dust and cobwebs and it took a lot of work.  But things are looking more like a home and I'll post some pictures in a few days (mostly as motivation to blog again).

We are planning to tear out some of the awesome carpet in the house and put down tile and wood and repaint some rooms in the next month or so.  I think new paint and flooring will really change how the house look.  Hopefully we'll be able to get things done before the baby comes.  We are officially in the double digits with 99 days left.  He is coming soon and I am not prepared.