a little progress

I realize this blog has kind of turned into the “henry show”, but it is a record of rytting life, and he’s pretty much what’s going on right now.

last weekend we experienced Henry’s first case of the sickies. we’re still not sure what it was exactly, probably just a sore throat, or a tiny cold, or allergies but being the nervous new mother that I am, I called the dr. at the littlest sign of congestion. the visit to the dr.’s office might have been a little premature, but we learned on our visit that henry is certainly eating well, in fact he gained about 2 pounds since his 2 week old visit. that puts him at a whopping 9 lbs. 5 oz., which makes us oh so happy. I looove his squishy little cheeks and double chin. 

 taking care of a sick babe was a little stressful,  but we survived and feel a little more confident in ourselves as parents. go us! 

so with henry’s added weight he is starting to sleep longer through the night, which is very very appreciated. of course sleeping longer means sleeping 3.5-4 hours at a time instead of 3, but I’ll take what I can get. he actually made it 5 hours last night, a true miracle : )

more sleep equals more playtime with dad.

more progress…I actually finished one of my henry projects from a very long list.

car seat canopy. I like it. it’s far from perfect, but it was quick and so simple (my kind of project) and most importantly its functional! with the nasty weather lately it has definitely been useful.

progress with school. mckay is slowly coming closer to graduation and we are so excited. we’ve been hearing from schools, we’re still waiting to hear from about half. it’s fun to day dream of where we might end up in august. mckay applied to both chemical and nuclear programs, and with what is happening in japan, it might not be the right time to get into the nuclear industry. so that might effect where we end up. in other school news…. the mrs. might be graduating sooner than we thought…. things are still getting worked out, but those who know of my current school situation will understand what a miracle it is.

HENRY’S PARTY

my family had a shower for me and henry this past weekend. it was originally scheduled for February, in fact the invites went out the day I went into labor, oops.  I love playing hostess so I was so happy that my mom let me help. she wasn’t sure on a theme, so we used some books and toys I had ordered from henry on amazon. we made it really bright and colorful. considering we came up with the idea a few days before I think it turned out great if I do say so myself! : )

and my cousin and aunt put together the cutest favors, a cd of lullaby songs for henry! what a good idea. we’ve already put it to good use more than once. it was such a fun day and im so grateful for all the family and friend that came. henry was still a little sicky that day so the plan was to keep him downstairs with mckay. I took him up before people started coming, he had been a little fussy. but the second he came upstairs he was so calm and content, he ended up staying around for a little bit, he loved being surrounded by women! so funny. he is definitely a ladies man.

happy baby

when I was pregnant I had every intention of reading as many books as I could about parenting, babies, etc..  but as I got more pregnant, I tended to fill my time with sleep, instead of reading. I did manage to read two books though and one has proven to be quite a gem.

This book teaches how to handle a crying/colicky baby and while the book got a little repetitive the skills and techniques we learned have been a lifesaver in the rytting house. despite the fact that Henry is an extremely mellow baby he does still tend to have his tantrums.  when he does happen to be throwing a fit, we simply use some of the steps from the book and he quickly (like we’re talking seconds) goes from red faced and screaming uncontrollably to a peaceful, content baby. its seriously amazing, especially when these tantrums come at 3:30 in the morning. so im so grateful that I just so happened to read this book, because it’s definitely been a blessing. right now I’m reading a book on setting up a sleep schedule for the babe, hopefully it is just as helpful.

our babe is 5 weeks old today. he’s starting to stay awake for longer periods of time which is so so fun. we love seeing him alert and so curious.

we’re also keeping track of byu in the tournament. excited to watch the game against gonzaga tomorrow. its been fun watching byu do so well this season, and fun to attend a few of their home games.

mckay took these pictures at the byu v sdsu game. probably one of the most exciting sports event we’ve been to. hopefully they do well this weekend.

recent obsessions

the husband and I have fallen victim to some major obsessions lately. first, these gentlemen:

this obsession has been going on for a few months now. they are wonderful, and we love them so. we’re pretty bummed we missed them perform at the grammy’s. thank you youtube. our bucket list now includes seeing them perform live. we fantasize about eating in an irish pub one day, and having them come out of nowhere and surround our table and play just for us : ). what a party.

next:

Parks and Recreation. thanks to netflix we are quickly making our way through season 2. we can’t go to bed without watching a few episodes first.

Mckay’s obsession: lately he has been glued to his phone, playing classic nintendo games like Super Mario World and Zelda. its almost impossible to have a conversation with him while he’s playing.

and finally:

this particular obsession is just mine. I swear I have more cravings now than I did when I was pregnant. mckay wont waste his time with them since  he thinks they’re not a real cookie. but I cant get through my day without one. well three. I only allow myself three a day. and it makes me happy.

hot date.

last night my parents offered to watch henry while me and mckay went out on a date. the first date in quite some time so although we missed the babe (and wondered what he was doing every few minutes) we were grateful for it. we saw this:

which we enjoyed. its pretty hard to find something to complain about in a matt damon movie : ) and the movie made me like emily blunt even more.

then we got dinner here:

since it just so happened to be taco tuesday, our entire meal was under $8. not too shabby. I’ll be honest, we think about their fish taco’s more than we probably should. they’re so tasty, and only $1.25 on tuesdays. wonderful. so there it is, a date night for the ryttings! pretty low key but still delightful. it was nice to get out for a few hours. even nicer to have a sweet little babe to come home to.

3 weeks old and some gratitude

this little gentleman turned three weeks old yesterday.  can hardly believe it. it feels like time has gone by insanely fast, but thinking back to being in the hospital, that feels like forever ago. we are having so much fun with our little man,.and even though I am so looking forward to the day I get more than 2.5 hours of consecutive sleep, we are enjoying every single day.

thinking about all that’s happened the last month we have a. lot. to be grateful for. in fact there’s quite the list, but just to name a few:

grateful that henry is eating well and gaining weight like it was his job. we love the little fat wrinkles he’s getting. in fact we celebrated this week by moving on from newborn clothes and into some 0-3 month duds. still fit a little too big, but that’s okay.

grateful we have no more dr.’s appointments for 6 weeks, getting his blood tested multiple times a week was a little too rough on me.

grateful for my love and the amazing dad that he is. love that he takes such good care of us and rocks at changing diapers. in fact he’s so good, I might just let him takeover all diaper changing duties. forever.

grateful the weather is getting warmer. I cant wait to play in the sun with our little family.

grateful for all the friends and family that have done so much for us the last few weeks.

grateful I get to stay home all day with my sweet boy, which makes me realize I’m also grateful for hulu, I have to stay up on my shows somehow right? I admit I watch a few minutes while henry is eating. which makes me remember I’m also grateful Michelle got sent home on the Bachelor :) ridiculous that I watch I know , but we all have our guilty pleasures. and I’m telling you, she was bad news.

I could go on, and make this post really really long, but I wont. so to myself I will count the rest of our blessings. and once again end this post with some pictures of our chubs. ( a little blurry, hopefully I can get the hang of our new lens)

 

tummy time with dad

also, these lovelies came in the mail recently:

after searching for months for some baby bedding that I liked I finally gave up and decided to make my own. crazy since my sewing skills are so limited, but I fell in love with this cloud 9 fabric. I might be in way over my head. luckily I have a few months before Henry moves from the bassinet to his crib. considering how long it takes me to finish the laundry or even shower lately, I’ll definitely need those months. wish me luck!

henry.

this is henry.  henry is now one week and two days old. it has been quite the week and two days for the rytting family. its amazing how quickly your life can change.  looking back on the last week it seems like some sort of a dream. since he’s arrived he’s completely stolen all our time and attention.  and we wouldn’t have it any other way. we are obsessed, to say the least. we think he’s pretty much the cutest.

as for his arrival story, it was completely unexpected. thursday day (the 10th) I wasn’t feeling quite right. the baby wasn’t moving as much as he normally does and I was having  some major back pain.  I had been having back pain for the last few weeks so I wasn’t too concerned about that. that night the pain was getting worse and I was starting to have feelings similar to cramps. around 1 am we called the dr. just to be safe. he told us to go to labor and delivery just to get checked out and make sure everything was okay with the baby. we drove to the hospital, expecting to be 20 minutes. the nurse checked me and surprise, I was 3 1/2 centimeters dilated and 90 % effaced. we were shocked. apparently I had been in active labor and had no idea. I kept asking, “so I’m not going home tonight…?” over and over. I was two days away from being 36 weeks. we had no bags packed,  very little baby stuff set up at home, hardly anything purchased for that matter. panic.

I don’t remember the exact timing, but things progressed pretty fast. in what seemed like no time at all I was far enough along to have the epidural, which was lovely. my water was broken and things went even faster after that.  the hardest part of labor was how sick I felt. I was throwing up constantly. other than that I feel extremely lucky with the way labor went. contractions felt more like mild cramps and I only pushed for about 30 minutes.  baby boy was born at 11:59 am on Friday, February 11, 2011.  he weighed 6 lbs 7 oz and was 19 inches long.

because he was early,  he is considered “late pre-term”, he couldn’t stay with us for very long. we both (me and the baby) had a fever and he was taken away to the special care nursery. he was put on an iv, antibiotics and oxygen. they started running tests to check for infections. he also was having a hard time maintaining his temperature so they had him under a heat lamp. he was strapped to so many wires and had iv’s in his hands and his heels were bandaged from where they drew blood. it was so heartbreaking to see him like that. it was such a helpless feeling knowing that your baby was so uncomfortable and struggling and not being able to do anything.

the dr. let us know that he would have to stay in special care for a while, 5-10 days. on saturday we named him henry. he didn’t look like a nixon or a william, which was our second choice. henry had come up on our list of options when we first found out it was a boy, but mckay wasn’t too sure about it. but he was a henry. the name just fit.

we were discharged on sunday and left the hospital without him. this was the hardest thing. it was so strange to go home after the hospital and not have our baby. we weren’t really sure what to do with ourselves.  while we were waiting for his blood tests to come back we started working on weaning him off the iv. with every good feeding they were able to lower the amount of fluid from the iv. every 2-3 hours, day and night, we drove from home to the hospital to feed him. luckily we live about 7 minutes from the hospital. this was such a stressful and exhausting time but every time we left for the hospital we were so excited to see our guy. slowly he got better at eating, late pre term babies struggle with eating, and often fall asleep while eating, they also limited us to 30 minute feedings in special care. not knowing if he was getting enough to eat was so stressful and I felt guilt and anxiety constantly. he soon was able to maintain his temperature and no longer needed to be on oxygen. two steps forward. then he developed jaundice and high blood pressure. two steps back.   the jaundice and the blood pressure postponed him leaving the hospital even more. he was put under lights for his jaundice. trying to improve his eating was difficult considering we were dealing with so many tubes and wires, etc. and the lights were making him very agitated. the tests came back clear of infection which was wonderful news. now we had the jaundice and the high blood pressure to worry about. we were told we would be able to take him home tuesday. we took care of all the necessary discharge stuff and were so excited that our baby was healthy enough to finally come home. tuesday morning we got to the hospital early only to have the dr. tell us he still wasn’t ready to go home. we weren’t expecting to hear that. we had the diaper bag, the car seat, all the nurses had sounded so optimistic. we had to leave again without our boy and start another day of back and forth for feedings. wednesday came, and the dr. wanted him to stay under the lights until the afternoon but he was almost certain we would be able to take him home that day. in between feedings we ran errands to make sure we had everything we needed. that afternoon we were finally able to take him home. it was an amazing feeling. our  little family was finally together :).

(newborn clothes fit a little too big)

since bringing him home we have been in heaven. a very sleepy, sleepy heaven… its amazing how one can live on such little sleep. we’ve had dr’s appointments the last few days to check on his billiruben level (jaundice) and to check his weight, he had lost quite a bit while he was in the hospital. 

henry is doing great, we’re working on fattening him up. already he has such a personality. he is so mellow and pleasant. he’ll cry every once in awhile but it never lasts long, it seems like he’s only crying because he thinks he’s supposed to, but he calms down almost instantly. he is incredibly strong. the nurses nicknamed him squirrel because he was so wiggly and he would push himself out of his bed with his skinny little chicken legs.

sorry this is so long, but I don’t have time to write this down anywhere else. being the proud mama that I am I have to share some pictures of our sweet boy. we love him more than we can say.

he did not love his bath.

but loved the warm towel after.

8 weeks and counting….

a few recent noteworthy events for us Ryttings:

{1} Mckay completed 12 Graduate School Applications. yes 12. We probably could have done half that, but we like the idea of having options. Well, hopefully we’ll have options. Our top two choices are Berkeley and University of Washington in Seattle, we just feel like we could adapt to West Coast life pretty easily.

{2} baby and I hit our 32 week mark. cant believe we’ll actually have a sweet baby boy at the end of all this. 8 weeks is going to be here before we know it. speaking of the babe, the last month or so has been filled with almost non stop movement, which is so unbelievable. Its amazing for Mckay to be able to feel so much. so weird to look down and watch my stomach being kicked around. The non-stop kicking and pushing can get a little tiring and uncomfortable at times. We found out that speakers on my belly calms him down for a little bit. little man likes brahms.  at 32 weeks:

I’m feeling ginormous. The tummy is getting in the way of things , especially at work and I’m starting to waddle. 2 more months to go, lets hope I can make it. 

I’m also a little worried that I won’t get through the long list of baby crafts/projects I was hoping to have finished before the mr. got here. Hopefully once I’m done working I’ll be able to get some things done. I did do a few appliqued onesies, so that’s something at least. cant wait till he can actually wear these.

festivities

Well December came and went, much too fast I think, and its time for a little update. Better late than never.  Once again, there aren’t many pictures of our Holidays, we didn’t really feel like hauling the camera around with us, something I would regret  more if I was a lot skinnier and tanner right now.

Our month was a busy one, with both Rytting parents working in the music world we are pretty spoiled with all the Christmas concerts and shows we get to go to. We went to the Utah Valley Symphony Christmas Concert, they played music from Home Alone, which sounded so amazing and festive, among other great Christmas classics.  The Nutcracker, which is always a must. We also  made the trek up to the Cathedral Madeline for the Children’s Choir concert, which was once again, one of our favorites.

Not the best picture of us, we look a little too tired and chubby. Well I do, so ignore that fact and direct your eyes to Mckay’s chest hair. This is just one of the only pictures we got of us during the entire month so I felt like I should use it.

We also made a stop at the Christmas tree at Gateway. Just a little nerd fact for you ( I know this because I married one) but that tree was named “the Brightest Tree in America”.  This didn’t really make sense to us, but, since the tree was only 48 feet tall and used 90,000 lights made it have more lights per branch than any other tree in the country. Compared to the Rockefeller tree which was I think close to 100 feet tall and only used somewhere around a third that many lights, that’s pretty impressive.  also impressive is the fact that the Gateway tree used a lot less power than the most of the other trees that made the top 10.  the end.

Christmas break is also time for my favorite Jacobs tradition, the Salt Lake weekend. We always stay at Little America, which is always decorated so amazing for Christmas.  We shopped at Gateway, saw Tron, ate at Stone Ground and Tucano’s (a pregnant girls paradise), went swimming, watched the Jazz game, and finished the weekend off with the Christmas Brunch with Santa, too perfect.

This is the only good picture from that weekend. didn’t even get one of the entire family : (

With this potentially being our last Christmas break living in Utah we tried to spend as much time with each of our families as possible, and since our families live 20 minutes apart we spent a lot of time driving back and forth. Our break was full of family time, movies, games, puzzles, amazing food, relaxing, shopping. It was heaven.  We seriously got spoiled by both families this Christmas but I have to mention a couple gifts that completely thrilled us. Mckay got a bike trainer so he can ride his road bike in the house during the winter, so great. I got some new lenses for our camera, soooo excited, and just in time for the little man, I have a feeling Im going to be one of those annoying moms that takes pictures of anything and everything their baby is doing. I also got the most dreamy diaper bag:

I just have to say I have had my eye on Petunia Pickle Bottom bags since even before I was ever pregnant. Embarrassing I know, but just imagine how thrilling  it is to finally be the proud owner of one. Its beautiful.

December also meant our last month with our beloved Primary Class. We’re now teaching the 8 year olds, which is a lot less crazy, but we loved and miss our wild little class. We made them some Christmas goodies for their last day with us:

These little pretzel bites were so easy and fun to make and we were surprised that something so simple was oh so addicting. The white ones are Hershey’s Kisses, fudge filled I think, and the others are Rolo’s. You stack mini pretzels (the square window shaped ones work the best) with the chocolate and stick them in a 200 degree oven for 3 1/2 to 4 minutes pull them out and press an M & M into the top. I think I might have to make these every year.

and Melted Snowman Cookies.  I got this idea online. I  only wish I was creative enough to come up with something like this on my own.

Anyways, wonderful, busy, fun month. Next year, Christmas with the babe, I think that might easily top this year.