Hello Monday....

Monday's just drag for me and this one didn't disappoint. Thankfully Ben got me some Zyrtec D at lunch and by about 3pm I was finally feeling like I might be able to function. Guess my allergies are dragging me down. Ben was feeling "allergic" today as well. Thankfully Bean seemed to have a good day and be in good spirits!

We were back in Eklton this weekend. Ben left early Saturday morning so he could go to a hunting expo in Greenville and then I headed down in the afternoon after I FINALLY GOT OUR GUEST BATHROOM PAINTED!!! We were celebrating Susan's 26th birthday and of course harvest was still going on, so Ben spent the weekend helping dad.

I'm sure by now most of you have seen her roll over video, but if not click HERE to see. We had cupcakes and mom's chocolate ice cream and Susan's favorite, Chicken Pot Pie for dinner.

Sunday Ben spent in the field and I stuck around until about 2:30, after a quick trek to the same eye doctor's office that saw me after "the wedding contact episode." For those who may not know that story or want a refresher, I'll be brief.

I wear contacts, blind as a bat. The night of our wedding Ben and I had our own cabin at Kentucky Lake Resort before we flew out on Sunday around 5pm for our Honeymoon. Our whole family was there at the resort as well. I realize I left my contact solution and contact case in Mom and Dad's cabin so my sister brings me some solution and I dump both contacts in a glass (they were the same prescription then) and stick them by the sink for the next morning.

I don't remember but Ben got up in the middle of the night thirsty, in his sleep induced state, saw the glass by the sink, filled it up with water and drank it down.

The next morning I get up and quickly realize that my contacts are no longer in that glass, nor is anything, it's empty. As I'm looking around at the glass puzzled Ben asks what's wrong....so I tell him about putting my contacts in there last night and now they are gone. Then he gets that blank look and tells me about getting up in the night. Yep, Ben drank my contacts.

It wouldn't have been to big of a deal if I actually had an extra pair, but nope, that was the last ones and my eye doctor was in North Carolina where I had just moved from 3 months before.....

So, Mom called Walmart's eye center, who couldn't fit me in and then called the Dr at Lenscrafters in the Clarksville mall. They could squeeze me in for a quick exam. Thankfully I had my glasses or I would have been in bad shape!! I really can't remember now if they didn't have any in my prescription in but I know I was still in my glasses on the plane. I think they had to overnight some to me in Vegas. Either way I had them quickly and I was saved from having to wear my glasses my entire honeymoon!!

So, yet again, another eye emergency on a Sunday which meant a trip to the mall. I noticed blood in the top of my eye. Looked gross, didn't hurt, wasn't effecting my vision but did kinda of freak me out. I figured it was probably just a blood vessel that burst, but since I'd never had that before, I figured I should get it checked out just in case.

Yep, that was it, he had some fancy name for it, but basically it looks horrible but is no big deal. I did call my Ophthalmologist today to confirm, but yep, nothing I can do and it's probably going to show up in the rest of my eye before it gets better. Nice. Grosses Ben out, LOL!

I set up my Strollometer this weekend. For the most part I really like it. You can read more about my set up and experience this weekend with it HERE. I think I need to tweak it's accuracy on distance, but I think I know how to do that.

Our neighbors probably think we've lost our mind, not that we care. It's that time of year where Ben want's to "get in shape" for hunting season. Which starts this coming weekend by the way....he really plans ahead, LOL! So he decided in order to get used to walking in the woods with his deer stand on his back, we would walk together in the evening, on the road, where everyone driving by can see us. So, just picture me and Mallory in BOB, nothing odd there, with Ben walking behind us with the large metal thing strapped to his back....I'm sure we got some strange looks this evening and I'm sure we will get more, but he's got to get in shape!!

So, that's our humor for now....don't forget, if you want a free 8X8 hard back photo book, I've put one together on her shutterfly page, you can just order the one I put together. The code is in the post from Thursday.

Here's a few pictures from this weekend and where I was playing around with photo shop.

Mallory's Roll Over Video!!

I was finally able to catch her rolling over on video. After many 5 minute videos of nothing but wiggling, we finally caught it last night! This is Roll Over #4 for her and second one yesterday. 1 week and 1 day after I first saw her roll over. Sorry for the talk about the Todd Central football team in the middle of the video!

Friday's Weight

I forgot to weigh her Friday morning so I weighed her before her 7pm bottle Friday night.

13 lbs 3 oz, or at least best I could tell, she was wiggling around so much the scale was reading from 13 lb 1 oz to 13 lb 5 oz, but 13 3 seemed to pop up the most, so we will go with that!

We are having a nice peaceful morning today before we head down to Elkton to celebrate Susan's birthday tonight.

Quick Update

Just a quicky post...

I just uploaded the past month or so worth of pictures to Mallory's Shutterfly account, again, you can reach that the the right of the blog or click to the link HERE.

If you are interested in a photo book, the are running a promo where you can get an 8X8 free hard back photo book when you use promo code 8PBA91 between now and Sept 1st, so there's no excuse! They are easy to make, it's dummy proof, just go to her above Shutterfly account, choose to make an 8X8 photo book, follow the steps and use the promo code at the end. It's a $29 value for free, you just pay shipping. I'll be putting mine together this weekend and I guess if anyone want the one I put together just let me know and I'll post it on her site and then you can use the promo code to order it without actually having to put it together.

EDIT: I have put together the photo book and ordered mine. If you want the one I put together, just click on the above link, you will see photo books to the right of the screen, and you can order that one. Use the code and it's like $8 for shipping.

5K training is going well, finished up W7D2 today with Bean in BOB. Again, for anyone interested, more details of my training can be found in my other blog: New Momma Jogger

We had Roll Over #2 earlier this week, so Friday nights roll over was not a fluke! She's not doing it often, but she is doing it.

I'll weigh her tomorrow and post the weight this weekend, I'm guessing she's over 13 pounds now easily.

Hope everyone got to get the chance to get out and enjoy this great weather!!

Oh, and I'm also 1/2 way to my fund raising goal for the Susan B Komen 5K, so if you haven't donated yet but want to, click HERE, you have until Sept 24th.

Here's a quick picture of Bean I snapped this morning. Since it was actually a tad cool, I put her in her hoody....too freaking cute!!

Roll Over, Roll Over

Yep, she finally rolled over for the first time.

Friday night after I got to Mom and Dad's I had her on the floor doing some tummy time and it was like in slow motion, not one fluid motion, but she went from her tummy to her back! She hasn't done it again since but she tries! It was so cute, I'm hoping I can get it on video soon.

Corn Harvest has started in West KY, so Ben and Dad were hard at it all weekend. It's just so dry! Way too early to be in the middle of corn harvest. Here's a few pictures from harvest this weekend.




Bean and I wrapped up the weekend in Elkton with our first official outing in BOB....since the other time the tires had no air in them....we did a 2 mile walk Sunday morning, and although it was heating up fast, it was great and Mallory snoozed through it all! Here's a couple pictures after our trek.




We got to visit with good friends this weekend, not as long as I would have liked but Mallory and I got to see Stefanie and Zaylei and then Saturday night, John, Paula, Greg and his son Colin all came over to mom and dad's.....just needed more time with all of them.

Mallory went for her first professional photos today, I think they will be cute, girly, but cute. Now I have to just sit tight and wait 2-3 weeks before I get to see the proofs.

Prayers going out to "the other" Rhonda at work. She found out that she has breast cancer and will determine her course of treatment in the next week or so. So, I will add her to my "in honor of" that I'm running the Susan B Komen 5K for and sending her prayers and well wishes on a quick battle and recovery.

I'm on Ceaser #2 for the night, which will be my last, (a Ceaser is North Dakota's beyond yummy version of the Bloody Mary) so I'll leave it at that and post another update later in the week!

Neonatal Follow Up and BOB

After much deliberation and researching, I decided to buy the BOB SUS D’Lux Jogging stroller. Thankfully it only cost me $49 because those things are expensive!!! It came in yesterday and I’m so excited!! I got everything put together but will need Ben to adjust the front brake caliper before I can take it out.

Here’s a picture of Bean all hooked in. She was a little crabby when I was trying to snap the photo last night, but I think it will work well. I’ve got to put in her head support thingy and then we should be good to go.



Here she is after our first walk today....sound asleep!



I ordered it from Amazon and oh how great they are for impatient people like me, I ordered it Monday and it was sitting by my garage door on Wednesday afternoon!

I don’t know when I became such a gadget person, I guess I’ve always been a gadget person to a degree, but I think marrying Ben has just made it worse, we are both gadget people…..so, when I found the Strollometer, I knew I had to have one. Basically it’s this neat little device that measures your distance and mph when using the jogging stroller. The only problem was every store and website in the US is sold out of them. So, not taking NO for an answer, I email the company that makes them. Yep, everyone in the US is sold out but she gave me the link to 2 websites overseas that sell them, the same ones that are in the US. After realizing the first website was in Dutch and not wanting to fool with that, the second one, www.fit4mum.com was out of England, so yes, the website was in ENGLISH! They weren’t set up to ship to the US on their site though, so with a few other emails to them, they reconfigured their site so I could order for shipment to the US. Yeah, now I have the Strollometer being shipped to me as we speak……from England!

We had Mallory’s first Neonatologist follow up this morning. They come to Owensboro every 3 months so we and others don’t have to make the trip back to Louisville. Overall they were very happy with her progress, developmentally she seems right on track. I found it funny that when they weighed her there, they have the exact same baby scale that I bought for home. Little chunk has put on 10 oz since this past Friday, she’s up to 12 lb 13.5 oz!! She’s also up to 23 ¼ inches, which is up ¾ of an inch from the 5th of August! Also on her head, I don’t remember the measurement, but she is in the 25-50% percentile for that, so that’s excellent…..smart girl we have!! Their only concern is that her head is a little flat on one side because she very much favors that side. We’ve known this and had it under decent control when she slept in her bassinet because I could easily prop her head towards the other direction. Now that she’s in her crib, there’s no keeping the little wiggle worm in one spot, so she’s sleeping on that side all the time again. They gave us a few more ideas but we were pretty much doing everything they wanted us to do anyway. Worse case scenario is that she has to have a helmet, I hope we can avoid that, so I’m going to do everything I can to keep her off that side as much as possible.

They also want us to switch back to Neosure formula instead of Soy. So, we will give that a go. I think when we switched in the hospital, she was probably having trouble keeping it down because of her reflux and drainage, not being sensitive to it, so we will switch back and see how that goes.

Only other thing is that they don’t want her to use exersaucers, walkers or jumperoo things. Something to do with preemies and their muscle tone and they are highly toned in one aspect and the other is weaker and the exersaucers only build the muscles that are already high toned and hurt their strengthening of the others, so none of those can be used. I didn’t explain it well, but whatever the dr says.

We go back in November and I’m hoping I can get her head straight by then because I really want to avoid a helmet, and I think they cost like $2500 that insurance doesn’t typically cover.

On a side note, I want to wish Ben’s Parents a Happy Anniversary today and my parent’s anniversary was yesterday. How neat is it that they were both married on the same weekend 38 years ago!

I’ve also opted to keep a secondary blog just for work out stuff…hoping that keeps me motivated and not having to bore you with some of the stuff I’m doing on this site. That blog, and I’ll put a link to it on the side of this one, is: www.newmommajogger.blogspot.com. My training schedules, play lists, gadget links and reviews, etc I’ll primarily post over there and just give a brief update on this blog.

Looks like we are off to farm in Elkton this weekend and it sounds like Mallory may get her first ride in the combine this weekend. Here are a few other pictures from the week:

Friday's Weigh In

I weighed Mallory Friday morning like always, but just forgot to post it with everything that's been going on this weekend.

On Friday morning Mallory was up to 12 lb 3.5 oz.

I got Bean her first Baby Einstein video this week, Baby Noah's Animals or something like that. I don't imagine she's "learning" anything, but for the times when she is in front of the TV at least it's friendly and somewhat educational stuff.

We also got quite a few more books at TJ Maxx this weekend too....can never have too many books!

Mallory also now fits into her IH onesie that we got for her at the Farm Machinery Show, which I paired with her new cow print leg warmers....just too cute. Here's a few more pictures from the past few days.

Mallory and I like to "chat" now!

Wow, this week has just flown right by!

I’ve been super busy at work, Ben’s been out of town all week in South Dakota and I had my AgriBusiness Association of Kentucky meeting this week as well, so it’s been crazy!

This should be the last full week Ben has to be out of town for a while. A few nights here and there in the next couple months, but no more week long trips for a while.

We ended up down at Mom and Dad’s this past weekend. I was just going to meet Mom and Susan for some shopping in Bowling Green on Saturday, but Dad was ready to get to working on the Combine, Augers, and other stuff that had to be done to get ready for harvest, so Ben went down too to help Dad all weekend.

Shopping was fun. I don’t think I’ve really been shopping in a mall since I can’t even remember now, well before I ended up in the hospital. Ben and I had made a few quick trips to a couple of the malls in Louisville while Bean was in the NICU, but you can’t really “shop” with the hubby, LOL! I was on a quest to find Mallory another sleep sack like one we had gotten at one of our showers but to no avail. Did get some more super cute leg warmers. I’m really on this leg warmer kick…..like she really needs leg warmers right now in 100 degree weather, but you know, you sacrifice for style right?

Here's Bean in her Sleep Sack!



So we had a nice trip down to Elkton for the weekend and then I headed back up after lunch on Sunday so I could get some things done before Ben headed out to SD on Monday.

Tuesday and Wednesday was our AgriBusiness Association of Kentucky meeting and since I’m the current President of the organization, I kinda needed to be there! Since Ben was out of town, Mom came over Tuesday afternoon so she could keep Mallory while I went to our Board Meeting and then our Dinner, all in Bowling Green. We had Senator David Givens and Representative Tom McKee talk with us, they are big AG proponents and both chair the Ag Committees in the Senate and House. I really enjoy the whole legislative process and we’ve had some good bills passed this past session that are Ag friendly….and working to keep HSUS out of Kentucky!

I’m currently shopping for jogging strollers….I’ve been eyeing Craigs List but haven’t quite found what I’m looking for yet. I think I’m just going to give up and buy new. I get a $300/year Health and Fitness allowance from work and I think I’ll just use that towards the Jogging Stroller…..I’m leaning towards a Bob but can’t decide if I want the Revolution or the SUV….I need to see if I can actually go somewhere that has both so I can “test” them prior to buying. If anyone has any comments or recommendations on Joggers, let me know. I’m also looking at the Jeeps….

I think Mallory just gets cuter and cuter every day! Of course, as her mom, I would think so! Every evening we sit down and have a good “chat.” This consists of her facing me on my lap and I oooohhhh at her and then she oooohhhh’s back at me! So freaking cute! I’m trying to get it on video but the camera distracts her conversation!

She seems to be back into sleeping pretty much all night again, so I’m quite happy about that. 3 am wake ups were not something I was enjoying!

I just finished up Day 2 of Week 5 on my Couch to 5 K today. I was so busy this past week I didn’t get to run as much as I wanted, but I’m still chugging along pretty well and looking forward to the Elkton 5K and the Susan B Komen 5K. DON’T FORGET, I’D APPRECIATE IF YOU WOULD HELP SPONSOR ME FOR THE SUSAN B KOMEN RACE!!! No pressure, or anything, LOL!

I also finished up Eat, Pray, Love on Audio Book, I really enjoyed it and now must move on to the next book, which I haven’t totally decided on yet. I should probably get caught up on some of my podcasts next….

And one last side note, we've been using her Angel Care Monitor fully now that we got her crib set up in our bedroom, and It's amazing to me how it works but it does! We've had a couple false alarms, I think when she scoots to one far side of the bed, but overall, very few false alarms and it just works great, and easier than dealing with the apnea monitor but getting the same piece of mind! So, I highly recommend it!

Ben’s parents are heading to Owensboro for the weekend, so we will have another full weekend!

Here you can see she's starting to grip stuff like her rattle!







Here we were trying to show where Mallory looks just like my dad....which I look just like my dad too....she wouldn't quite cooperate during the picture, but she looks like daddy!



Here's Cody, my parents Blue Heeler who is now 15 years old and still going strong!



And here's a few more pictures from the past week:

4 Months Old!

Sorry I didn't get this up yesterday, it's been a crazy week at work, which is good, but it seems like that has spilled over into home and I just haven't had time the past few nights to do an update.



Our AgriBusiness Association of KY Summer meeting is next week in Bowling Green and we announce our scholarship winners there and I didn't realize until I grabbed the binder of scholarship applicants to review yesterday (which of course had been laying in my office for 2 weeks) that our conference call to determine the winner would be today! That gave me last night and a little while this morning to get them all reviewed (3 essays on each scholarship), score them, etc. I enjoy reading their essays on why they are majoring in agriculture, where they see the future of agriculture going and then how this scholarship can impact them, but we had a really good turn out of applications this year and it took a while!



But, Mallory was 4 months old yesterday!! We had her doctor's appointment yesterday morning and we got her all weighed and measured. I weighed her before we left at home and got 11 lb 14.5 oz and that's what they got at the Doctors office too, so my scale is right on! That's the 25th percentile for her ACTUAL age, which is up from the 10th percentile on weight, which is where she was at 2 months.



As for height, well, she's up 2 inches to 22 1/2 inches, which is good and they are happy with, so that's the 3rd percentile for ACTUAL, so she's growing up at a steady pace. I don't remember her head circumference, but it must have been fine or they would have mentioned it.



I asked about her not wanting to sleep all the way through the night as frequently since we switched to soy formula, which had less calories in it than her previous preemie formula, and he said we could try adding a couple teaspoons of rice cereal in her bottle at night for some extra calories to get her through the night. We tried it last night but her schedule was a little off and she was a tad crabby last night from shots, so she ate at like 8:30 pm and was then up at 2....but for me personally I can handle 2 better than 3 for whatever reason. Hopefully tonight we will be on a more normal schedule and hopefully get her to sleep until at least 5:30 again!



For Ben and I, we've been busy with work this week and I'm looking very forward to the weekend again. Thankfully it went by quickly because I was ready for Friday on Monday : ) Ben's off to South Dakota again next week for his last week of Raven Precision Ag training, so it will just be me, Bean and Tuck next week.



Ben got his new bow this week, his birthday/Christmas/fathers day and probably a couple other holidays thrown in there, present to himself. He seems happy with it, looks like a fancy bow to me, but I told him I hope he used it to fill up the freezer again with meat as opposed to adding to the "art" on the wall. He replied he plans on doing both, goodie....sarcasim....LOL!



With all this dry weather harvest is going to start sooner than later. Last year we were doing all we could, even mom driving the combine, to get harvest in so we could leave for Las Vegas for Thanksgiving, this year we could be done way before the end of September, at least for the corn! Oh how every year is different!



Here's some pictures of Bean for everyone's Bean Fix!

Looking forward to Fall!

This heat is just crazy. I am more than ready for some Fall weather and Football! I just don’t even want to take Mallory outside in this heat and I’m getting tired of being inside all the time! I’m looking to get a jogging stroller sometime in the next couple months so when it does cool down we might can go for some treks on the Greenway after work.

I'm also more than ready for Football to start back and for Junior League to get going again, I feel like i've been gone from it forever, so Sept is our first meeting again after Summer break!

We had a good weekend. I cleaned out my part of our Master Bedroom Closet which wasn’t exactly fun but needed to be done. Bean was great, I just sat her in her bouncer in the bathroom with me and she was happy as could be just sitting there! I made a huge pile to donate for the Junior League Rummage sale in Nov, boxed up other things that don’t fit at the moment and just overall made more room in the closet. Now I need to do the same with Ben’s stuff but he needs to be present for that to happen!

Here's Bean helping sort through clothes!



Ben helped out with Jakes Day at the Daviess Co Fish and Game Club on Saturday morning. It’s something the National Wild Turkey Federation does to get kids out in the outdoors and learn to shoot guns and bows in a safe environment. We hadn’t been to the Fish and Game Club before so Ben took me back out there on Sunday. Really neat place to camp, fish, hike, etc so memberships are cheap, so I think we are going to join so we have a quick place to go camping without having to go too far since it doesn’t look like the camper is going to sell anytime soon! Even though I thought I was done with camping after living in our camper for a month while Mallory was in the NICU, I’m about ready to do some camping again.

We also got Bean all set up to sleep in her big crib now. We did put it in our room, neither of us are quite ready to put her in her own room yet. We also got the full angel care monitor set up and so far so good, I've been really happy with it. There was one beeping issue when she wasn't in her bed that was annoying, but thankfully a friend on my preemie board knew the fix, so we are all good to go!

Aunt Sue came up to spend a little time with Bean on Saturday afternoon and then Saturday night we actually ventured out to Olive Garden. I didn’t want to arrive until 8 pm though after the rush because I still don’t want her to be in close proximity to random people but we were immediately able to be seated and had a nice dinner out for once. Didn’t hear a peep out of Bean, she slept most of the time.

I also dug out Mallory's leg warmers that Aunt Sue had gotten for us at one of the showers....so cute, I must buy more!! Ben thinks they are stupid, but I like them : )



Finished up Week 4 of my Couch 2 5K plan today at the gym, 5 more weeks of training left and then off to the Elkton 5K and the Susan B Komen 5K Race for the Cure in Evansville. Hopefully by the time I wrap up my training it will be cool enough to do some runs outside because 3 Miles on the treadmill get’s boring and once I wrap up 5K training, take several weeks to work on the 3 mile distance it’s off to 10K training!

I also got Mallory's photo session set up for the afternoon of Aug 23rd, so I can't wait, should be fun!!

Have a good week everyone!!