When I do get some quiet time, I have been reflecting on just the month and a half I have had with Max and our hospital stays.

I really enjoyed my stay at Overlake- in fact I didn't want to leave. I asked them if we could stay another day and they said insurance wouldn't allow it lol. I was really enjoying the amount of food I could get anytime :D We also had a really good experience with all the folks there so it was a rewarding time.

When we were at Children's- Ben and I would come home to see Colin which was always wonderful and hard at the same time because we got to spend some time with him but then we had to say goodbye and he would always cry and that was super hard for Ben and I. Usually when we would get back to the hospital Ben and I would have movie night or game night which would help us not think about much. I do like to think back about the fun we had at the hospital. We had midnight chow, we got to eat out everyday (at least the food was cheap!) and we got Sbux a couple of times so it was nice. For the first part of the stay I was in a wheel chair because if you know children's hospital it is about 2 miles to the cafeteria and I was just sore from surgery so it was fun with Ben pushing me around and he really enjoyed it too....especially going to midnight chow we would race up and down the hallways in the wheelchair because there was no one around and we needed lots of sleep lol!

When it came time to come home (8days later) I had fallen into a reutine...I didn't want to go. I felt safe in my reutine and I told Ben we couldn't leave until we finished our movie...we ended up finishing it at home but it was totally weird not wanting to go....but they had a lot of food too so lol I probably drank their whole supply of OJ while I was there...and the unlimited amount of PB and graham crackers....don't mention the unlimited amount of coffee Ben and I would drink until 3 am....it was fun. So we did have a good experience coming out of it- but it was a very hard time with Max being all hooked up and struggling.

I finally have a routine at home now. We have been blessed by many families with meals and it has been wonderful- I say we are all overwhelmed by the kindness! Again thank you all who have prayed for us and brought us meals!

The move is moving forward. We are mostly unpacked, but we haven't come close to putting everything away yet. The house is very livable however, and so things are really good in that regard.

We would like to thank the families that have been amazing and providing us with dinners over the past several days, and those that have said they will continue to do so. You all are a great blessing and are a huge help. Thank you very very much.

We will keep BabyNyquist.com updated with pictures, videos, and the occasional blog post as the days continue on. Thank you very much for your prayers trough the hospital stay, now we embark on the adventure of raising two boys!

Today is 10/10/10. If you take a moment to think about it, you can realize that 101010 is a valid binary number. If you convert 101010 from binary back into base 10 (which is what we normally count in), you will discover that it is the number 42. As everyone knows (don't believe me, Google It), the number 42 is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. Therefore, today is a good day to ponder the meaning of life.

For a topic a little more on subject, Max and Colin both are doing great. Colin has taken to Max like they have been buds for years. Max is doing everything a newborn should be doing, including keeping us up at night. I don't think I'll ever complain about that again (Max not waking up at night was our first clue that something was wrong). Allison is recovering very well from her surgery, and we are settling into our house as fast as possible. Last night was our 8th night to sleep at our house, even though we have had it since the 15th of September. It has been a crazy several weeks.

Poor Max had a belly bubble last night and didn't go to sleep until 5- I got 3 hours of sleep then later got more sleep when the lab test was done at 8 then I slept until 10:30 so I got 5 hours of sleep and I think Ben got a little more than I did but we are both SO TIRED!!! :D

We have a appt in Pulmonary in about a month to double check (Ben just chimed in and said he got less sleep than I did so lol) on his little heart and chest and I feel better about going to the appt and double checking on that.

But after a 8 day stay and the hospital we get to go home and start being a family!!! Thank you for all the prayers and to those of you who brought us food! You all have been a blessing to us!

At about 3 AM, the nurse came in and gave Max a listen. She felt that the rhythm of his heart was abnormal. She called in the MD, who agreed. They then ran an EKG, had a cardiologist analyse is and then reported back, all before 7 AM. We didn't sleep. It turns out that Max has, or was displaying (depending on how this works, I'm not sure) something called atrial bigeminy. In short, the cardiologist said that this is something that newborns do, and isn't out of the ordinary, or harmful. It just kept us up all night last night. Just to be sure however, the medical team assigned to us ordered an ultrasound of Max's heart which was completed a few minutes ago. The ultrasound is going to be reviewed by the cardiologist, again, just to make sure. It seems to me that Children's runs on the premise that if the technology is available to do a more complete test, then use it. Thank God for insurance :).

We are very hopeful that we will be able to get home tomorrow. I would love to have a couple of days with my family before I have to go back to work. This Sunday is Max's two week mark, and to-date, he has spent two days at home.

Thank you very much for your prayers. Please, keep them coming.

The reason we are still at the hospital is because his blood oxygen level dips lower than normal/acceptable when he sleeps. While he is awake, he is fine, but when he sleeps, he needs supplemental O2 to keep his blood saturation at a normal level. They are not going to discharge us until that sorts itself out.

The current thought by our MD is that the infection, since it is in the lining of the brain, is affecting his neurological functions, and so the little guy forgets to breath deep enough when he sleeps. Her theory is that when he completely kicks this bug, he'll be good to go. We are a one of the best Children's hospitals in the nation however, and so that isn't good enough for them. They have therefore called in pulmonary experts to check him out. One of their doctors has seen him already, and initially has agreed with our MD's opinion about the infection causing things to be out of balance. They are reviewing his tests and will have a more solid opinion in a few hours. 

Thank you for all of your prayers and support. Please keep them coming. Allison and I would like to be able to have our entire family together in one place again. Please keep praying for Max's healing, our peace of mind, and Colin's well being. 

We'll keep the updates coming. 

Well I just feel extremely blessed by all of our friends praying and thanks to those who put us on many prayer lists at various churches! God is so good to work the way He has. I am amazed at the quick progress we have seen in Max and again I feel truly blessed and I have no idea of how to express that...I am just overwhelmed by the love and just how much God cares about my little boy.

Ben and I have been sleeping A LOT. We slept in until 11:30 today... it's bad when it is 9 o clock in the morning and you roll back over to go to sleep! I am not one to fall asleep right away because my brain is constantly on the go but lately I hit the pillow and I am gone! I have been getting up between 3-7 to feed Max so he can still eat. He is a newborn who sleeps through the night....so I am kind of thinking so do I let him sleep and not eat or do I need to get up still and feed him every 3 hours? Mom's I need advice on that!

One last thing- God has blessed us in a huge way by the healing we have seen in Max. I am just amazed God took time out to care for Max...I guess you could say I am a new Christian so my full understanding of why God blesses people and just because he can for any reason is all new to me, so I can't really express things but I know God is good and He is REALLY BIG and he took time to dote on Max and heal him and protect him from anything worse from happening. So I truly believe God will get us through this time. For all my prayer people out there I just ask that you please Pray that Max can get off the oxygen he is on. When he is awake he is stable, it is only that when he sleeps it dips down. So for us to be able to go home he has to be off oxygen for about 24 hours....he is struggling though. I just want to go home and I am not saying that just because I am tired of being in a hospital for a week straight but I am saying it also because Colin is having a really hard time. My heart was broken in half tonight when we were at dinner and were leaving and Colin started crying because he knew we were leaving to go...this is really hard on all of us but for me my mommy strings and being pulled 2 different directions and I HATE being separated from Colin and not being able to be with my 2 children at once. So please pray we will get to go home soon and Max will be good to go soon so we can all be together in our new home. I love you all my friends and thank you for thinking of us.

I feel this experience in the hospital has made me appreciate being a parent more. I just feel I have been so cranky with Colin when I was pregnant, from just being in so much pain and now trying to recover quickly so I can have some energy back so I can play more with Colin, but now I am back in the hospital with my sick baby...these are some trying times for me. I am writing this more to remember this in 20 years or so.

So at about 2:30 I decided to go and stand by Max and pray over him and just to stare at him and just appreciate who he is. I thought back on my pregnancy with him and it was a lot different from Colin's....I call Max a rebel for a reason and this is why...

Max was more of a blessing that God brought us in faster time than we expected :) To me saying a child is a "opps" or "mistake" is not cool in my book. I can say I was a little stressed to find out that I was pregnant so quick after Colin, we still lived in our one bedroom condo and diapers are very expensive! When I found out I was pregnant I spotted at 3 weeks and again at 7. When I went in for the 6 week ultrasound the doctor did not find Max right away and then I thought I miscarried but they did find him very low which tells me that I was already headed into the Previa stage which is low lying placenta and it covers the cervix when the baby gets bigger and it's a huge mess ugh! But at 10 weeks I went in for another ultrasound and found a healthy baby so phew!

At 12 weeks we went in to get the Nuchal Transcleuncy done. This is what made the pregnancy VERY stressful...and I have not told more than a handful of people because I just did not want people asking me a million questions ALL the time...but Max's test came back as elevated for Down Syndrome. For my age it was 1 in 300 women to have a Downs baby, I was 1 in 300 but my number was 307 so it was slightly elevated...so that was stressful. We then had a 20 week ultrasound to see if he had Downs. The doctor told me they would look at his insides and tell us if there are indicators of Downs. I did not was the amniocentesis, at that point the rate of miscarriage from that was higher than my baby having Downs. So everything looked PERFECT heart, brain everything- but they still said he may have Downs so I was totally frustrated with these people. Then they wanted me to do all these tests and I refused. My doctor said I need to do these tests and I asked why and she said abortion over 22 weeks of pregnancy is not allowed or something and she had mentioned "my options" earlier and I finally told her in FIRM terms to NEVER bring up "my options" again- this baby WILL be born as it was meant to be. She never mentioned it again :)

My hip pain happened early on- It was much worse with Max than Colin. I used crutches a lot and refused a wheelchair. I had a lot of help and it was wonderful. I so hated being in so much pain and not being able to do much but it was just impossible. The pain would get so bad my hip in the joint would seize up and would not move at all so I couldn't walk because of it. Then my body just got stiff and I couldn't even get dressed without help so it was a very hard last 15 weeks.

I also had real labor with Max! I did not with Colin so it was hard to pinpoint what was real or not. So on a Thursday I felt like I was coming down with the flu, I had soreness like I had the flu, I was nauseated, I was having a ton of contractions that I noticed and I had trouble walking. My feet were so swollen and so were my hands. Friday was better, I got out of the house and got my nails done then Saturday was fine but I was still in a lot of contraction discomfort but I really thought it was nothing. Then Sunday morning was a different story. It started when I woke up, contractions were more than noticible. I was quiz mastering in JBQ and had to stop a couple of times to catch my breath because of contracting- Ben had no idea and he was in the same room. I didn't want to freak him out plus Dinesh was speaking so I wanted to hear him HA! Then when church was over everything started getting worse. I felt like I did 500,000 situps it hurt so bad when Max would kick and the contractions were furious. So I went to the hospital and they had me walk around to try and get me dialating but it did not work and that was the most painful 30 minutes of my life. My placenta had covered the cervix so I had full on labor for 6 hours and no dialating!  So I am glad I chose to do c-section because I would of been in labor for a very long time and I am handling the recovery period better I am not in so much pain. 

So last night thinking about all of this- I cried, I prayed for my little boy. He is so sweet and to see him all tangled up in all the wired he was hooked up to broke my heart. I feel God heard a mother praying for her child and he listened and answered my prayer for Max. I am so in love with Max- I just love to hold him and just look at him, he is so amazing to me and he is only 4 days old! 

Please continue to pray for Max just health wise and that he recovers 100%. I am so blessed to have my wonderful friends and family- thank you all so much for having Max added to prayer chains and also taking time out in your day to think about all of us here and praying for my family. Thank you.

It turns out that the nurse last night was mistaken, they never had ruled out meningitis. The question that we didn't have an answer to was the cause of the infection. We knew that it was viral, but we didn't know if it was a common cold like bug, or if it was the herpes virus. If it was the cold bug (a virus with a name I can't pronounce, and certainly cannot spell), then his immune system would deal with it on its own in a couple of days and he would be alright. If it was the herpes virus, then it would require two to three weeks of hospitalization and constant anti-viral medications. They ran a test that they called a PCR if I remember right, that identifies the DNA of the virus that was found in Max's spinal fluid, and were able to tell that it was for sure the cold type bug. God is Good.

Please keep praying for us. We are specifically asking for prayer for comfort and peace for our family, that Max continues to hear nothing but good news, and that there are no other complications along the way.

Thank you everyone for your prayers, support, and phone calls. We are truly blessed to have such a wonderful group of friends.

The cool thing about the Internet and BabyNyquist.com in particular is that this website allows me to tap into a vast army of prayer warriors. For those of you who are reading this that don't know me personally, I am a strong believer in the power of prayer. The ability to post a Daddy's Corner of this type and know that there are dozens of people that are praying for my family is extremely encouraging. Knowing that those prayers are being heard by my son's Creator is awe inspiring. I would like to ask for prayer now though. We need prayer specifically for Max's healing, Colin's understanding, and peace for Allison and I. Having just had a 48 hour stay in the hospital for the birth of Max, followed by another 48 hour stay for this bug, in the middle of a house full of unpacked moving boxes is very trying for us all. Colin is a trooper, but the uncertainty is starting to get to him, and Allison and I are nearing complete emotional exhaustion. We needs God's hand in our family. 

Thank you all for your prayers and love. We will keep you posted on the website. Sign up for the email notifications if you have not so that you get the news when we post it.

So the pain got so bad when I walked I figured this was just not normal. It wasn't like hip pain it was Colin coming and I thought I was prob right but I didn't have any regular contractions or labor pain with Colin so I was afraid of going into the hospital and being turned away again but I went anyway. The contractions were coming fast and furious but the time I was there my body refused to dialate past 3 and I know my contractions were of that of someone prob at 7 or 8 cm dilated. I felt strong ones like that with Colin when my epidural fell out. The nurse was going to tell me to go home because I was not dilating- I was not going to go home...My doctor was on call and so she came in and checked my contraction papers and she said woa.....ummm these are strong I don't think your going home- she set the nurse straight which was awesome hehe! The thing I waited for was the ultrasound- Dr Te wanted to know how big he was so she and I could determine to go ahead with C-section or vaginal. She said if he is over 81/2 pounds on ultrasound we would do C-section if not I would have to wait it out and do vaginal, which I was ok with but I was already doing 6 hours of hard labor.

So the wait was on. Dr. Te went home due to she was working all day and she said she would come back if I needed a c-section. After she left I asked Ben to help me up to go to the bathroom. I couldn't move because of everything going on and when he pulled me up he did it way too fast and for SOME odd reason my contraction pain doubled and from there on out I had severe contractions that were VERY easy to see on the monitor. I did have 3 huge contractions in 5 minutes that lasted about 45 seconds each which was WOW. Dr. Te must of got some wind of it because she called right as I was being pulled up by Ben and in so much pain. She asked me do you want to do C-section and when I could breath and speak again I said YES! I was so frustrated- 5/6 hours of hard labor and no dialating- I was done.

So from saying the OK to surgery, in 30 minutes I was all hooked up to monitors, had my block in and ready to go. I was very nervous and scared, it was my first major surgery and it was really strange. I won't go into details about the surgery :D but pretty much it went so smooth and it was amazing how easy it seemed...from Colin and 26 hours of labor, no food and extreme amounts of pain afterwards this seemed like a piece of cake. 

Come to find out the reason why I was not dilating was my placenta moved back down and was blocking the cervix, and Max was trying to go through it- reason why I was in so much pain. So I had made the right choice about C-section and they also had to still come down- 2 doctors- had to come down and pull Max out- I have no idea why my kids keep getting stuck lol but when they did get him out all of the nurses and Doctors were amazed at how HUGE my baby was....I was like holy cow he was huge when I saw him! The nurses swore he was 11 pounds but he weighed in at 9 pounds 7 ounces, which is still pretty amazing for being TWO WEEKS EARLY!!!!!!!!! Imagine if I had gone to 40 weeks...but even my body said no 38 weeks is far enough!

Well I will write more about the hospital stay and adventures with nurses and labor and much more with feeding Max and so on and his first night at home. Max says its breakfast time. Sorry if this journal is a little chaotic I have people talking and babies yelling for me which is fun :D but a lot of stuff may not make sense lol so ask me questions later!

First visits can be between 2-4pm today (Monday) or for the folks getting off late 5-8. 

I am in room G625 in the Childbirth center which you will need to park in the West tower parking and come up to the 5th or 6th floor- there are signs because ya my brain is fuzzy lol 

Call my cell please if you have any questions- if you don't have my cell call Ben or the room (425) 688-5725

Birthdate: September 26th, 8:38 PM
Weight: 9lbs 7oz
Length: 21 inches

 

With Max's due date fast approaching, our house being prepped for us to live in, and life moving forward as a crazy pace, it seems that things are all working out well. It feels, very frequently, that we are moving so fast that we are going to come apart, but we have been blessed beyond reason and have everything we need. I am very thankful to God for his grace and desire to look out for us. I am also very thankful to my parents for their amazing willingness to let us crash in their house with a noisy baby and a crazy schedule for the past six weeks. With blessings and family like this, I have everything I need.

Now, bring on Max!

For the past couple of days I have been thinking on some things. I am so ready to get back to school! I am almost done! 45 credits to go! I love learning and I feel blessed that my husband has given me the opportunity to go to school, just to get my major. Who knows if I will ever work because of being a stay at home mom and also I will be home schooling so I am blessed! 

I am not one to adapt to change very well....i guess...but I can say I miss my little condo. It was so small and I knew every inch of it. Now I am going to have to learn my new house and get use to it. So I have been a little stressed about that, but sitting on the couch today reading my magazine, looking out my huge window watching it rain, and having some quiet relax time really helped. There are little things about the house that make me think God put that there for me...little things like the window in my kitchen, extra storage, wind chimes, and even down to the little hook outside the kitchen window for the hummingbird feeder. The house may be old and the old appliances scary looking but wow I am blessed! 

Colin B had his appt for 15 month check up and he is a healthy boy! 25 pounds a little over 32 inches WOW! He also got 3 shots, ugh I know they are for his own good and health but I don't like watching him get poked, yes I watch Ben does not lol. 

I also went to the hospital the other night because I was having contractions with back pain every 7 minutes. Although I was sent home I was glad I went! All that work and I dilated to 1 cm! I am happy about that it's progress. With Colin I did not have regular contractions or back pain with contractions so I was a little nervous on how far it would go...even the doc was like come in to the hospital and get monitored!!! Some mom's see this as the "Walk of Shame" but ya know it is embarrassing and I felt kind of dumb but I rather of went that to all of a sudden be 15 minutes out from the hospital and something really happen!!

I am very excited for Max Dillon to get here! He is a very active little boy and I think he is going to be long like Colin. He stretches and stretches and yikes it will be nice to have my body back! I can't believe I am 2 1/2 weeks out!!

I have these memories of growing up that stand out in my mind in much more detail than most others. Usually, these are events that I found extremely important, or embarrassing at the time they happened, so I replayed them over the years until they are giant milestones in my life's timeline. One of these milestones is the day that Marshall came to our front door. Marshall was a carrier manager for the Journal American. Our neighborhood did not have a delivery person for his paper, and he was going door to door to see if anyone was interested in the job. I was 11, Dan was 8. I begged Mom to let me do it. Marshall was skeptical about my age, but desperate for someone to take the job. Mom, with a decision that still surprises me today, said yes. My newspaper route consisted of 24 deliveries in a route that had approx. 75 houses. It was just our neighborhood. The papers were delivered everyday to our house in a bundle around 4:30 in the morning. I had to have them distributed to my customers no later than 6 AM (7 on the weekends).

I'll condense the rest of the story down to this. Dan and I delivered papers on that route until I started High-School. The Journal American became the Eastside Journal. The Eastside Journal then eliminated all of their small routes and Dan and I were laid off. After removing the great service that the hundreds of local carriers provided in that move, the Eastside Journal went out of business not too long after that. In the years we were delivering papers though, Dan and I got to know all of the people on our route. We were their local paper boys, and we lived in their neighborhoods. We knew their names, they knew ours, and we would often talk in the streets during those years. Still today, I can walk through the neighborhood and name most of the families that live in those 24 houses, many of them are still there.

It has been 16 years since I started that paper route. Nearly every morning for 4 years I walked that street delivering papers. Sun, Dark, Rain, Snow, it didn't matter. In all of those hundreds of trips around the neighborhood, I never once though that I would be living in one of those houses.

The house that we are moving into wasn't one of my paper route customers. As a result, I didn't know the Broze family, who own it. Even if I did, their boys would have been grown and gone when I moved into the neighborhood way back when anyway. But I walked by the house, and If you asked me about it, I would know exactly who you were talking about. It is really kind of fun to be able to look back and wonder what I would have thought had I known that one day I would be living in that house.

...I have to inturrupt this regularly scheduled Daddy's corner to go pull Colin out the bathroom. I found him excitedly splashing in the toilet. He just discovered that there is a puddle of water at the bottom. Parenting is always exciting! Now back to our program...

Greg and George offered us the house early on, before they were ready to rent, or even knew how much they wanted to rent it out for. They knew our family as Dan and I grew up here, and they wanted to have folks living there that would take care of the house. Allison and I were praying and asking anyone who would listen to pray for the price of the house to be in our budget. When they stated their price, it was the exact number we were asking for! God is good!

The house is great. It is a small four bedroom house with an unfinished (read painted concrete walls and ceiling) basement that runs the entire length of the home. It has a workshop, storage, and a 3/4 bath down there! We are so excited.

Max right now is at about 31 weeks 4 days and he measured 32 1/2 along so he is a big boy!

My doc said she is not going to let me go over 39 weeks because of how big Colin was, so I am doing a size ultrasound at 38 weeks to see how big he is. If he seems bigger than 9 pounds she is going to induce me at 39 weeks. If he is bigger than 10 pounds I am going to have a C-section at 39 weeks. So things are moving a little quicker!

Max is healthy and kicking. He is super active and I am happy about that....until bed time. So yay for big healthy babies!

Colin is doing good but he is a crank. He is all out of sorts so his fits have increased. Nap times are more frequent but I am making sure he is held a lot but I am super tired trying to make sure he is some what happy. But Colin is SO cute! When his little friend Cora comes over he hugs her and holds on to her tight! And so it starts ;D I am going to have to keep my eye on him!

But all in all everything is working out! We plan on looking at a house for rent in about a week and I am so hoping it is in our price range because the location is perfect and it is 3 doors down from Lee and Lavonne and they just got a hottub :D

So I am having an ultrasound done next Tuesday to see if I have Previa or a low lying Placenta but I am thinking everything is ok because I have had no bleeding. So I will keep you updated!

G-Ma was watching Colin today as he would have really liked to help us pack and move. We came to their house this evening to find him walking all over the yard. He doesn't like grass at all, and walking for more than a few minutes at a time is unusual for him. Apparently however, G-Ma inspired him!

Please keep praying for us. We need to find a place to live, now that we are out of our condo. We are not worried and know that God has things under control. We just are praying and requesting prayer that He keep things progressing, and we keep focused on his will.

As you know, Max means "the greatest, the most, or well, the maximum". Google says that it is Latin. We just like the name. We will have a Colin B and a Max D in our house. Things should be fun!

We found a renter praise GOD! I don't know how I was going to do 2 babies in one bedroom...I was very stressed for a while and in a bad mood all the time. We found a renter who is a nice person and I got a good feeling from her. She is a cat lover so we get along great. But having a renter when we were in a time crunch to get someone is such a relief and literally it feels like my heart is lighter.

I can now relax and enjoy the little things.

Colin has this new thing of throwing fits....it is so annoying and I give him a good one time swat on the bottom and he cries more....ugh....so I ignore him when he throws fits....works sometimes......he always wants me to pick him up which is a challenge right now because I have this huge belly! But when I put him down he throws a fit or if I take something he is not suppose to have he throws a fit. This is stressful but I will get through it!

August 17 I have an ultrasound. The ultrasound will determine how big Max is and also if I will have a C-Section or not. I can't remember if I mentioned it in the last post but my Placenta is riding low so I can't give birth naturally if it is still low in a couple of weeks, due to the risk of Max not being able to make his way out. So at least I will know regardless and I will know for sure when I will get induced or when the C-section will happen.

Anyway it is late! Thanks for your prayers in finding a renter....now I need prayer to make it through the next 10 weeks!! I am in a lot of pain with my hips. It gets bad to where I can't walk or my hip seizes up to where I can't move and it is painful!!! And I can't afford Physical Therapy which is really crappy because it would help!! But I only have 10 weeks so I will make it but the pain makes it seem slower.....but it is all worth it in the end....I can't wait to hold Max!

This front page has been used as the bulletin board for our family for the past couple of weeks as we have been announcing rapid fire the events in our family. Hopefully, things will settle down for a bit. We are moving our posts back into the Daddy's Corner and Allison's Journals where they belong.

If you haven't been into the photo gallery lately, make sure to stop by, especially in the July album. We have been quietly posting pictures all month. If you subscribe to the RSS feed, you will be notified whenever new photos are available.

In the words of Billy Currington, "God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy". Enjoy!

I have posted a new website to advertise our condo for rent. I am hoping that this will be a good tool in allowing people to help spread the word about our home and help find someone who would like to rent it from us at a great price! The website is at http://NewcastleCondo.net. Also, as Craig's list only holds a post for a week, I have reposted our rental on Craigslist.org.

Thanks for all of your support and prayers towards helping us find a renter for our home. Please keep them both coming!

Look out world, Colin B is on the move!

I have taken this week off of work in order to recover and get some down time away from the office, but instead Allison and I have found ourselves packing like crazy to get our house ready for a renter. We don't have a place to go yet, and we don't have a renter yet. We are moving on faith at the moment, and praying very hard. We are looking for both someone who would be willing to rent our condo from us as a very good price, a place we can rent and move into that is larger than our condo, and most of all, prayers for God's hand and timing in this. If you can help with any of the above, we would be very grateful!

I'll keep updates online so you can follow our progress. If you haven't seen the latest Colin photos, make sure to bounce over to the photo gallery before you leave!

When I went in for the 20 weeks ultrasound one of the first things they said to me was your baby is healthy and HUGE.....I still got 20 weeks of baking to do and he is huge! He kicks and kicks and I am getting bigger! I need more pants because even my maternity pants don't fit anymore so I am now the sweatpants queen!

I just finished school! I am 10 credits away from being a Senior and I am thrilled! I am starting to look at my life from the outside. Ben has been telling me how amazing I am with all the things I do. I am like um what do you mean? He says I clean, cook, your a mom, a student, and you're pregnant! I do lots. I also have to remind him that he works harder with his two jobs, and coming home to a clean house with dinner on the table is what he deserves! But as I was looking at my life- I figured oh I don't do much, I am a wife and I am suppose to do all this stuff- then I became a student- then I became a mother, and I started appreciating myself a little more. I do a lot of things and that makes me proud and feel good that I am able to accomplish life. I got my first B+ EVER in math. Math has never been a good subject for me because I missed so much of it in school since I was thrown into special programs at school- thats another story lol but I got through Statistics with a B+ pregnant and being a mom and wife! This has really lifted my spirits! I feel amazing and I feel I can accomplish more than I think I can! I am smart yay! I did get shut down by my Psychology teacher after telling her I was wanting to take fall semester classes. She said you are having a baby in October...you need to take care of yourself, you will graduate regardless if you take fall or not. SO I am not taking fall after much debate. I get restless when I am not in school- I love school and I am kind of lost when I am not doing it, but she is very right in taking care of myself- going to school with a newborn would not be easy. SO I have no idea what I was thinking in going to school in the fall.

Colin is almost a year....I can't say this out loud because I will become a pool of water on the floor! He is so amazing and he is super smart! I can now saw he got that from me HA! We play and play all day. Since I realized wow I don't have school until January I am needing to get some down time reading done. Colin "allows" me to read. I read and he plays, then I take breaks and play with him, he shouldn't play by himself all the time! Sometimes I get into my book and I forget to put it down- I think he knows this or he just thinks I have read enough, and he brings me one of his books, which I try to read to him but he ends up eating it! So I have so much fun playing with him. We play toss- passing the ball back and forth- we vacuum the house. His first word/babble is Ba ba- Ball or bottle which ever I am holding! He has said Hi but that is super rare of him to say. He waves, claps, blows kisses- he is amazing. I am so proud of him and I am so happy I can devote all my time to him over the summer and not be cranky with homework and tired all the time. It is so nice to be with him all day and not feel burnt out.

I am pretty excited about Colin's little birthday party we are throwing him. It's a small party at the Nyquist's house  I am looking forward to getting to meet a cousin as I secretly call her ;D Brandie. I think the last time she saw me I was only a couple of days old. We both have facebook and we talk all the time- see facebook is good for something folks! Oh and family feud ;)

Well speaking of playing Colin is complaining all my attentions are on the computer and I think he is ready for a nap- until next time! :D

Over all, the boy has been good. He slept until six this morning. His belly has been giving him trouble and he has been running a high fever, so he hasn't been eating as much as usual. He woke up hungry, took some medicine and a bottle and I was able to put him back to bed. He stayed there until nine and I was able to get some things done around the house. He got up in a great mood, so I got him fed and changed just in time for him to have a blow out. Into the bath and into new clothes for him to throw-up all over them! "And it's only Monday Mr. Mom". He is so precious though. He is back in bed, now. He hasn't had a fever yet today, so I'm really hopeful that has passed. If you could keep him in your prayers though, that would be wonderful.

For those of you that don't know what an RSS feed is, it is a simple way to keep up on all of the articles that a website or blog like BabyNyquist.com posts. The RSS is an automated way for you to see if there is any new content on the site without having to rely on the BabyNyquist.com email notifications.

This is the first time that I have built an RSS feed, and because BabyNyquist.com is a custom blog, the RSS feed is also custom built. If you find that you are having troubles with it, or if you have any questions at all, you know where to find me!