The results are in...

I've lost 15 pounds!!! Can you believe it? I officially hit my half way mark at Jenny Craig and was rewarded with $50 off my food for the week. What a bonus! I'm still a little dumb founded that I've lost that much. I actually had to go and buy a new pair of capris and Bermuda shorts. I'm almost confident enough to wear actual shorts out of the house, but I'm not quite there yet, the legs still need a little toning. Andy keeps commenting on how skinny I look and I think that's confidence enough to help me keep going. He's thinking about joining the program and I think it'll be a lot easier to lose it if we're doing it together. I'll post some before and after pictures tonight when I can get the hubs to take some.

In other news...Logan rolled over! He's been working on it for awhile. He could get himself up on his side, but the actual roll to the stomach wasn't happening. Finally, last night he gave a valiant effort and made it! I was sad that Andy was grocery shopping and missed the epic roll, but we called him immediately to share the news. When he went to get Logan out of his crib this morning, he found him on his tummy again, head up in the air. He doesn't know how to get back over yet, but I know that will come soon. Watch out, the L man is becoming mobile. This may be the time to start baby proofing the house.

4 month checkup...check!

Today was Logan's 4 month check-up, which means checking the weight, height, activities he can do, and another round of the dreaded shots. Here are the stats:

Weight: 15 lbs. 6 oz (48th percentile, not as chubby as we thought!)
Height: 24 inches
Head Diam.: 17 inches (HUGE head)

He's currently right on track with all of his activities. The Dr. said that if he hasn't rolled completely yet, it should be happening within the next two weeks or so, especially since we've caught him sleeping on his side at night. The doc was pretty impressed with how well and how long Logan is sleeping. He didn't expect him to sleep through the night yet.

We ended our Dr. day with a trip to the mall to help Mommy pick out a new swimsuit. Although I have been losing quite a bit of weight (Down 13 lbs.!), I'm not feeling comfortable with the swimsuit from last year. I think it's true that your body shifts in different ways after a pregnancy. I love the swimsuit I have, but I'll save it for the time when I lose even more weight. We made our way to JC Penney and I ended up buying this lovely garment:

I wasn't too sure about it in the store, but after coming home and showing it to Andy, I think it's growing on me. We'll see this Friday when Logan I go to visit Stefanie and show off our skills in the pool.

The day's festivities ended when we came home, drank some more prune juice to get the poop flowing, and promptly poo-ed on ME. Yes, that's right, Logan pooped on me. He's continuing to have some pooping issues, so the Dr. told me to give him at least one bottle of prune juice a day, maybe two if he hasn't gone. So, I gave him another bottle at night, he loved it, and within an hour, I heard the poo noise. Although it may be gross, I was excited. The poor kid hasn't gone in almost three days! So, I waited a minute so that he could finish his business, got up from the computer where he was sitting on my lap, and started walking to his room. I then felt a wetness running down my leg. It seems that the prune juice worked a little too well and we had yet another pooptastrophe, this time running down my leg. I screamed for Andy, he came and wiped me down, grabbed the boy, and we stripped off his clothes and mine. We then both headed for the bath/shower. Although it may not have happened in the best of circumstances, this crazy adventure resulted in Andy giving Logan a bath by himself for the first time. Thank goodness it was me who had the mess down my leg, I think Andy would have had a fit. I'm so immune to gross baby stuff, I was just happy the little one finally did his business.

So now, here we are: Andy's at hockey, Logan's asleep for the night, and I get to rest and blog. Life is good.

Happy Father's Day

I don't tell him enough, but I'm very thankful to have Andy as Logan's father. Charging full force into parenthood is hard enough, but even more difficult when you don't have the support system of your family close by. I know there have been many nights when we have fought over how many minutes of sleep he had vs. how many I had. There have been times when I couldn't get Logan to sleep, or get him to stop crying. Mix this in with the everyday financial anxiety of how much a baby costs, and you can get end up with a strained marriage and two unhappy parents. Through these last four months Andy has shown he is an amazing father and an amazing husband and I'm glad that both Logan and I were able to give him a big thank you for everything he has done and will continue to do. Thanks Daddio!

My First Father's Day

Today is my first Father's Day and Logan and Rachel got me 2 really cool gifts. The first is a book called Geek Dad. Here is the description from Amazon:

Today's generation of dads grew up more tech-savvy than ever. Rather than joining the Little League team, many grew up playing computer games, Dungeons and Dragons, and watching Star Wars. Now with kids of their own, these digital-age dads are looking for fresh ways to share their love of science and technology, and help their kids develop a passion for learning and discovery.

Enter supergeek, and father of two, Ken Denmead. An engineer and editor of the incredibly popular GeekDad blog on wired.com, Ken has created the ultimate, idea-packed guide guaranteed to help dads and kids alike enjoy the magic of playtime together and tap into the infinite possibility of their imagination. With illustrations throughout, this book offers projects for all ages to suit any timeframe or budget. With Denmead's expert guidance, you and your child can:

•Fly a night-time kite ablaze with lights or launch a video camera with balloons
•Construct the "Best Slip n' Slide Ever," a guaranteed thrill ride
•Build a working lamp with LEGO bricks and CDs
•Create a customized comic strip or your own board game
•Transform any room into a spaceship
•Make geeky crafts like cyborg jack-o'-lanterns or Ethernet cuff links

Brimming with endlessly fun and futuristic tidbits on everything from gaming to gadgets, GeekDad helps every tech-savvy father unleash his inner kid-and bond with the next generation of brainiacs.

I've only read the intro so far but he built a UAV out of an RC plane and Lego Mindstorms.

My other gift is a T-Shirt from ThinkGeek.com that spells out a word in binary.

This seems like the perfect time to teach anyone who reads this (our family) how to convert binary sequences to letters. Each line in the image above is 1 byte. A byte is made up of 8 bits which themselves are a 0 or a 1.

Ok, so to convert a byte to a normal number, you start from the right side. Each bit is worth 2^N, where N is how places you are from the right side. So the first slot is worth 2^0 which is 1. The next slot is 2^1 = 2, 2^2 = 4, 2^3 = 8, and so on. You only count the slot if it has a 1 in it. Then you add all the numbers together.

So for our first line, we have a 1 in the 2^2 slot and the 2^6. That's 4 + 64 = 68. The second line is 2^6 + 2^0 = 65 and the third line is just a repeat of the first. So we have 68, 65, and 68.

The way computers translate numbers into letters is through the ASCII chart. You take the numbers we got earlier and look them up to see what letter they match to. Hint: It's related to today!

Now you can tell people you speak another language and be the life of any party!

Happy Birthday!

Today is my Mommy's birthday! Happy Birthday Mommy! It's always days like today that I wish we could be back in Michigan with our families. It also doesn't help that there is a pure Michigan commercial on every 10 minutes on the TV. It's as if they're beckoning me to come back. Alas, we are here in 104 degree weather.

Today also marks another special day. One year ago today Andy and I found out that we were pregnant with the most amazing baby boy. I still remember how I had everything planned out in case I was pregnant. We were going to send a present to our parents with some goodies about being grandparents and let them figure it out that way. Instead, my mom called just as I was getting ready to check the pee stick and I started screaming from excitement. Whoops, surprise was blown. And, since I told my mom first, I figured I shouldn't wait to tell Andy like I had planned, and told him when he came home from work. He somehow thought that I was playing a joke on him and had found a fake positive pregnancy test. Silly Andy. It seems like such a long time ago that our amazing adventure began. And now we have a little roly poly man that is the center of our worlds. It's true that there are things you give up when you have a baby. This summer I don't get to go home on my annual summer trip. Andy and I don't get to have a mini vacation for our anniversary. Most importantly, we don't get to sleep in past 6 am. Still, it's true how everyone says it's worth it. I love waking up and seeing my little man smile wide at me when he recognizes my face. I love having him giggle at his Daddy when Andy comes home from work and nuzzling his head into my neck. I even love comforting him when he's screaming his head off. So, happy one year conception birthday Logan!

Crisis averted...

No need for the Dr.'s office, Logan is more than making up from all those days in which he missed a poo. I must say, he's much happier now! I love hearing his squeals and giggles as he discovers new things or is simply having fun. It's contagious!

Pooptastrophe!

Poop has been the topic of discussion in our house lately. I have noticed that when one becomes a parent, the topic of poop comes up quite often. It's really amazing how much information a bowel movement can tell you about the small human in your house. For example, I know that Logan has one poop a day. If he misses a poop, something is wrong. If he has more than one poo, we might want to pay a little more attention to him. This week we've dealt with the non-pooping spectrum of Logan. Non-pooping Logan is no fun. He is fussy. He does not sleep well. He is not happy. We've dealt with this before and have simply changed his formula or given him some apple juice. We started with the apple juice and thought we had a victory, in fact, we had a bit of a pooptastrophe. As I was napping so soundly downstairs I heard Andy screaming for help one night. I run upstairs thinking that he has dropped Logan, but instead see him holding our son's feet high in the air and yelling for help with the diaper change. I looked and saw that we were not only going to have to change the diaper, but also change his clothes, the changing cover, and give him a bath. I won't go into details. It was gross and I will most likely tell stories to his girlfriends about it when he's older. He laughed the entire time he was getting changed. Hilarious. But alas, the non-pooping Logan continues to rear his ugly head our way. We're moving onto prune juice. If this nasty stuff doesn't work, we may be on our way to the Dr.'s office. Finger's crossed!

Almost forgot: Here's the 4 month shot of the little fella. Man he's getting big! Notice how his hands are moving everywhere because he's so excited!