1 month old and going strong

Nothing consumes your time like a newborn right? Amazing how fast someone else eating, sleeping, pooping and crying can pass the hours.
I can't believe he is already 1 month old. Everyone says the time will fly by and it has. But I'm looking forward to seeing facial expressions he purposefully makes and him being able to recognize us with his eyes.
He's spent this past month visiting with a lot family and friends, going on walks and even one disc golf outing. He's made it to church twice and gone on a few shopping trips with me.
This weekend we are heading to the Grandparents, it's a 3 hour drive. It's a nice test of traveling with Josiah, here's hoping he'll sleep the whole time!!

Happy Mother's Day to Me!!!!!

I am officially a Mom as of April 28!!! And am learning to type with one hand as I hold J!!
This is how things happened the weekend before he arrived...
Friday night we get last minute tickets to the theater to see A Midsummer Night's Dream from a friend. We took them figuring this might be the last chance we get to do something like this. We rush to get there just as its starting, so there's a lot of fast walking and stairs involved. The next day we do some more unpacking and get things put away. That evening we go visit our friends who just had their baby that Thurs. Going home that evening, Mike calls his mom and tells her we're leaving the hospital just to tease her. Off and on during that day I feel things happening but not too sure if they're contractions. Sunday the things happening get more severe and frequent. So we stayed home from church and Mike was running on adrenaline getting last minute things done. We go shopping for stuff we have to have before baby arrives. Sometime that weekend we finally decided on a boy name and girl name plus middle names. Monday comes and I'm not having fun. I had been having contractions starting some on Sat and getting worse. My next appointment wasn't until Thurs and I did not want to wait until then to see what was going on. So I called the Dr office, I went in and was dilated at a 3. So they gave me something to help me sleep while I could and said the baby's probably coming in a few days! (before Sat, the due date) Mike stayed home the rest of the day just in case. Around 8 that evening the contractions were getting worse but not always that frequent so I paged the midwife and they told us to head to the hospital to get checked out. We got there at 9pm, I was dilated to a 6 and they said the baby was coming tonight!! It took about an hour to fill the tub and for the midwife to show up. At 10:15pm I got in the tub and at 11:30 J was born!!
I had him by water birth without any drugs and it was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Towards the end I asked about it being too late for drugs and the nurse and midwife kind of laughed saying the baby would be out before they could get me the drugs. Mike thought I was joking....
Mike was great during the whole thing and he got to cut the cord. It all happened so fast, I can still see them pulling J out of the water and handing him to me but I had to ask Mike if he cried. I couldn't remember any of the sounds. He didn't cry but just lifted his head up and looked around with eyes wide open. It was amazing!!
He's a healthy little guy and the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Mike's family has been here to visit and my mom and sister are here right now. My aunt and cousins stopped by for a short visit and my dad and grandmother are heading up here next week.
Tomorrow will be our first trip out as a family and I'm anxious to see how he will do. We're just going to church but I'm excited to show him off and to see our other friend's newborn, a boy J also. He was due two weeks before my J, but ended up being born only 4 days apart!!
I added a link on the side bar to a photo album the will be updated as we get more pics, enjoy!!

Even the little things help...

Little things we do:

• recycle all the paper products, glass and plastic that the city picks up here, this cuts down a lot on the amount of trash we produce
  
• try to buy items with less packaging, but not necessarily in bulk (due to storage space)
  
• Mike bakes bread and I've found recipes for taco seasoning mix and Bisquick mix, this goes with less packaging but also I'm sure is healthier than store bought. We've cut down on buying boxed food with tons of sodium and have been using make from scratch recipes. Allrecipes.com has been a huge help with this!
• switched to cleaners from concentrate that do a little bit of everything, and also earth friendly dish detergent that the verdict is still out on. I can't tell if it's the detergent or our half-size, hard-to-fit-dishes-into apartment dish washer. Sometimes it's less frustrating just to wash by hand!
• with all our new necessities coming up with the baby, we've been able to buy/get all the big stuff second hand. We have a hard time buying new when there is used still in perfectly good shape. Don't worry, we've haven't put the baby's safety in jeopardy by doing this.
• we will also go the cloth diapering route once baby is here, we have diapers ready but can't really comment on them until after we've used them. I'll definitely be posting about this later along with our reasons to go this route. You'd be surprised and overwhelmed by all the options available now.
  
• I've been getting a lot use from the public libraries everywhere we've lived. Why buy a book that you'll only read once when you can get it at the library?
• Mike bikes to work and we only have one car, granted this one car doesn't get good gas mileage but we will drive it until it drops then get a used more efficient option.
  

Much of these little things may not stand out as being better for the earth but are. Less consumption and production puts less stress on our resources. Which also leads to less trash and junk being thrown out.
We don't consider ourselves extremist and obviously there are many things we aren't doing that we could and need to work on. But we want to make a specific effort to take care of and use wisely all that God has given us whether it be natural resources or the financial and physical blessings we've received.
So if all you do is change one little thing at a time, that will eventually make an impact.

Loosbrock Current Events

I remember back in social studies class each week we had to read the newspaper and present a current event to the class. Well this is similar but I didn't have to read the newspaper to find the events:

Baby news: Everything is going right on schedule and I'm officially in the 9th month!! After having an ultrasound today that my mom got to sit in on, the baby is healthy although a little on the small side. So that means I will be pounding the water, food and getting more rest.
House-hunting news: We've had our eye on a particular house for a few months. We'd go back and forth on deciding if it's too much work or not and how cheap is cheap enough. So with some family advice we've cut it loose. It probably will get cheaper but not what we need in the long run. We kept our eyes open for 2 br apartments just in case we didn't do this house thing and found a much bigger place for a smidgen more than what we are paying now. It's a complete God thing since the owner is a Christian, the location is better, and we can move in now. Now is imperative since Baby will be coming within a few weeks. One great thing about the new place is it's across the street from a public swimming beach on a nice lake. One potentially hazardous thing is across the street from this beach is a DQ, which means it's basically at the end of our driveway!!! Thankfully it's not open year around or I'd not be loosing my baby weight!!
So all that to say we will be making our annual move but not cross-country, more like 5 miles to east. How do you even pack for a 5 mile move?? Will paper bags work instead of boxes?

Family news: Mike's dad has made it back safely from his second and final tour in Iraq. We were able to meet him at the airport and spend a relaxing weekend with him.
My mom has made it back safely from Kenya and Philippines. She has been up here this week visiting before Baby comes and helping clean the new place.

And now for the weather: Whoever came up with April showers bring May flowers, I hope was talking about MN. We still have some sort of snow falling even though it isn't sticking and nothing budding or blooming!! And did you know it can be snowing during a thunder and lightning storm?

I was NOT dreaming of a White Easter!

When we lived in Idaho, I was amazed that it snowed during Easter! We helped hide eggs in couches and house plants.
Here in Minnesota, it started snowing Friday night and didn't let up until yesterday afternoon. Forget wearing any cute Easter dresses and white shoes! Some kids down the street made a huge snow Easter egg and even decorated it! If it's still there I'll try to get a picture. We also saw a few snowmen/families decorated in spring colors and hats instead of gloves and scarves.
My sister came for a visit this weekend and I had been telling her it should be nice, no more snow. Shows how much I know about Minnesota winters!!!

7 Random Things About Me

I've been tagged by fellow blogger Kecia to write about 7 random things about me.
Here it goes:

1. Even though I am right-handed, I've always brushed my teeth with my left-hand. I've tried to use my right-hand but it's not as smooth.

2. I have scoliosis, but it was never severe enough to have a brace. Dr. thought playing sports throughout high school probably helped it not get so bad. To go along with that, my left leg is about 3/4 inch shorter than my right leg, so that throws my hips off. With being pregnant, I thought my back would really be killing me on top of normal pregnancy back pain. So far it's not been terrible, just different types of pain through different stages.

3. I had my tonsils taken out when I was 4 or 5. I remember being taken into a room with my doll and the nurse put the gas mask on my doll like she would do with me. Since that was the last thing I remembered, I always thought they had just sucked my tonsils right out. I don't think I learned the truth until middle school.

4. My college career was spent at four different schools and I was only in for 4 1/2 years. It took me a little while to figure out what I really wanted to do. I quickly found out marine biology wasn't for me when I wasn't doing well in the basic bio classes only to learn I'd have to take bio chem and other higher level biology. So I ended up doing Outdoor Leadership Ministries which has provided me with many amazing experiences and adventures.

5. I cannot stand eating beans of any type except green beans. It's a texture thing that also keeps me from eating oatmeal. My husband keeps thinking he can get me to like oatmeal and beans. I have tried and eaten them, and not enjoyed it at all!! I also eat my cereal dry with milk in a glass! This will be interesting to see which way our kids will go, my way or the highw...Mike's way.

6. I refuse to call any kind of carbonated beverage "pop" as the midwesterners do up here. I will still call it coke or Dr. Pepper. Our kids will grow up being bi-lingual, midwestern and Texan!

7. I taught water sports for four summers at camp during college. I never really picked up water skiing even though I could teach others how to. I just stuck with wakeboarding.

Now I'm supposed to tag 7 other bloggers to do a 7 random things about them. But I will just tag anyone who reads this and wants to play. Have fun!!

Could it be?

Is spring really coming??? Today our high was at least 42 which is the highest it's been since November!! Yea!!!!! I even opened our sliding glass door for a little bit while the sun was shining in. I don't think I've ever been more ready for spring!
I was worried about not having enough warm weather maternity clothes, HA! I'll be lucky if I can wear my chacos before baby comes. I may have to pull out the sock and chaco combo after all the snow and slush have gone.

This week starts month 8! Most people don't believe me, but we'll see if I'm on target as far as weight and such is concerned. Tomorrow is my last four week visit, from here it's 2 two week visits and then down to every week. We can't believe it's come this fast and probably should really work on the whole name thing!!!