Christmas 2008

Here are a few photos from grandma's camera.

Happy Birthday Jake!
Sorry it's a day late.

Sick, Sick, Sick

Well it's that time of year that everyone starts getting sick. Little Nathan is no exception. He's already had an ear infection, which does not bode well for the remaining winter season. He started getting sick with the sniffles on Sunday. Took him to the doctor on Monday. She said he has a cold and bring him in if he gets any worse, which he did. We took him on Wednesday because he could hardly eat because he had such a hard time breathing. They gave him a breathing treatment in the office, which seemed to help, and sent us home and gave us stuff to give him breathing treatments every 4 hours. We made a follow up appt. for Thursday morning. The physicians asst. listened to him and gave him a breathing treatment. She called a doctor in afterwards and they both listened to him and said they would like to admit him just for observation to make sure he was getting enough oxygen. They thought he had the RSV virus, which in adults and older kids is just a cold, but in babies it inflames the lungs, which results in the wheezing and all that good stuff. They did a chest x-ray which was negative for pneumonia and in order to test for the RSV virus they had to stick this little tube up his nose to get some mucus. He really didn't like that to much. Luckily he was eating enough that he was having wet diapers so he didn't have to be hooked up to an IV. They did hook him up to a monitor to so they could watch his oxygen level and pulse and some other stuff. He has lost a little bit of weight. He weighed 12lbs on Monday and at the hospital he weighed 11 lbs. 9 oz. They said it could take a couple of weeks until he is better. Now I want to say this to all who read this. Do not touch Nathan if you are sick!!!! And even if your not sick wash your hands before you touch him!!!!! He obviously can't handle it. And if you don't wash your hands be prepared for me to yell at you. I'm going to turn everyone who's around my son into Howard Hughes. Like I promised in the last post here is a video of Zach singing at church for his school.

Christmas Programs

Zach had two Christmas programs the past couple of days. On Sunday the 3 year old class and the 4 year old and TK classes sang during the church service. I will post a video of that later because I don't have the camera with me now. Today his class had their X-Mas program. They sang songs, danced and receited poems. Zach had a lot of fun.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Who Me?

I thought that these were some good pictures of Nate. Doesn't his hair look red? I think it's the quilt.

Catching Up

It's been awhile since I have posted anything. Nathan had his 2 month check up today. He is 10# 12 oz and 23 inches long. I looked at Zach's baby book to compare and Zach was 12# and 22 1/2 inches long. Nate had to get 2 shots and 1 vaccine orally. He actually did pretty well. I thought he would cry a lot longer. He only cried for maybe a minute. We went to camp over the weekend and we had about 2 feet of snow. Zach got to go play outside. He tried to sled ride but he just sunk down in the snow. Daimien also had his birthday party the other weekend. Everyone went ice skating. It was Zach's first time and he did OK. He can't wait to go again. We did Thanksgiving at my parents house on Sunday and I took a picture of the 4 boys. Nathan is wearing his Thanksgiving bib but I don't know how well you can see it. He wasn't all that happy he had to get his picture taken.

Circus

Last week we went to the circus with the Bechdel family. Everybody had a good time. On another note last week with Nathan was fun, NOT! He went to the Dr's on Tuesday and had his stool tested and it showed he was not allergic to his formula. Yeah! They took him off the Zantac and prescribed him Previcid (which is $30 for 11 pills!!!). He then begins to projectile vomit over the next couple of days along with a 6 hour cry fest that really lasted 6 hours minus a 20 min feeding. Took him to the Dr. on Thursday and they sent him to the hospital to have a ultrasound and an upper GI. Everything came back fine. Yeah! We took him to Children's Hospital in Oakland on Friday and talked with Dr's there and they said he is just a fussy baby. You've got to be kidding me. Hopefully the older he gets the less fussy he will be.

Trick or Treat

Trick or Treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat! Zach had his Halloween party at school yesterday. He came home with all kinds of goodies. Then we went trick or treating last night with his cousins, Daimien, Jake & Brody. Daimien was a ninja and Jake & Brod were mummies. I'm a bad Aunt because I forgot my camera and did't get their pictures. Here are pics of Zach & Nate dressed up plus a pic of Nate laughing.

1 month

Yesterday, Nathan was 4 weeks old. It has been a crazy month to say the least. We have changed his formula 3 times because he was allergic to the milk and soy based formulas. He is now on alimentum, which is supposed to be a hypoallergenic formula. He went to the doctors yesterday because he has been projectile vomiting and they found traces of blood in his stool which means he is allergic to this formula. The doctor said to keep him on this formula for a couple more weeks to make sure all the proteins from the other formulas are out of his system. So he might not be allergic to alimentum. Lets hope he's not. The doctor also thinks he has acid reflux and put him on zantac. So not only is the poor thing allergic to his formula but he has acid reflux. Who knew babies could have acid reflux? The good news is despite all his feeding issues, he has been gaining weight very well. He is now up to 9 lbs 11 oz. As much as he throws up its a miracle he's gained anything. Here are a couple pics I took last week.

Pumpkin Patch

Last Tuesday Zach went on a school field trip to a pumpkin patch. He went on a hayride and picked a pumpkin from the fields. He also went through a corn maze, jumped in straw and went through the spooky barn. He also got to pet some of the animals. Here are some pictures we took and a picture of Nathan's first bath.

Happy Day 2

Happy Birthday Brody!

Happy Days

Happy Birthday Lee!

Congratulations John & Caitlin! We wish you the best of luck on your wedding day!

WE'RE HOME!!

Yeah, we're home. We came home Wed. the 24th. Sorry for the delay in posting anything but it has been quite a transition. Thanks to Jen for posting pics so people wouldn't have to wait so long to see Nathan. Nathan is completely different from Zach when he was a baby. For example, our first night home Nathan cried from midnight until 5:00am. He has had a couple of good nights where he will cry when he's hungry and go back to sleep shortly after, but for the most part he cries most nights. I think he might be a colicky baby. If he is I'm not sure how we will survive on 3 hours sleep a night. I am having somewhat of a difficult time recovering. I don't remember being in pain this long after I had Zach. Hopefully all will be well soon.

Nathan Edward Schwarz

I'm writing a post for Lee and Sarah since they are busy getting to know their new little man. Nathan Edward was born this morning (Sept. 22nd) at 5:39am. He weighed 8 lbs 2 oz and was 20 1/4 inches long. Sarah will be home on Wednesday so I'm sure she will have much more too share. Until then, keep them in your prayers and enjoy the pictures. Check out the excited new big brother! :o)

(Sorry, Eli and I are in this picture. Like I said, Sarah will have more when she gets home.)

Baby Update

Well the countdown is on. There are officially 9 more days unitl I'm due. I had an appointment yesterday. The good news is that I was 1cm dilated and I didn't gain any weight. The bad news.... the doctor said women usually follow their previous pregnancies. So that means since Zach was late there is a good possibility that this baby could be late. I really didn't want to hear that because I really just want to get this over with. The doctor said that if I go past my due date that they have some kind of gel that they can insert that might help get labor started. Maybe this baby is holding out for Oct 5, so he and dad can have the same birthday. Or possibly the 6th so he can share his birthday with his cousin Brody. I wanted to do a poll on when people think I will go, but I'm not really sure on how to do it with this blog site. I'll have to ask my computer specialist.

Baby Update

I have been slacking on my baby updates. Last week was my last two week appt. I gained 5 lbs in those two weeks. How is that possible? Anyway today was to have been my first weekly appt. but an hour before they called to cancel due to emergency surgery. So my appt isn't until Monday. I hate to say I was looking forward to it (because it was an internal) but I wanted to see if any progress has been made. This past week I've been extremely tired and having a lot of lower back pain and waking up with cramps in the middle of the night. Hopefully something is going on!!!

Baby's Room

Well, the baby's room is almost done. We just have a few finishing touches. Lee worked really hard painting the room and stripping all the woodwork and restaining it. For those of you who haven't been in our house, the baby's room used to be our "walk-in" closet because the room is so small. It really was an all purpose storage room as you will see by the before photos. We will post more pics when it is all completed.

Update

I had another 2 week appointment yesterday. I am about 34 weeks. 6 more weeks to go. That sounds like forever! I have one more 2 week appt. and then will switch to weekly appointments. He is moving all around and kicking me and it is becoming pretty uncomfortable. I will give an update in two more weeks!

Cheer!

Morgan had cheering pictures today. Too bad she is wearing the wrong colors.

King's Island

We arrived home yesterday from our last vacation of the summer, I think. We went to Kings Island in Ohio and everyone had a good time. Lee and I stayed in Nickelodeon land for most of the trip with Zach while the others went and rode the "big people rides". Poor Daimien rode the Vortex, which is a big coaster with loops, and threw up at the end. He then joined us in kiddie land and was gun shy about riding the coasters there too. Who can blame him? The first day we were there some of the coasters were down because of an electrical problem, but were up and running the second day. Zach showed no fear when riding his rides. His first coaster was a little one called "Little Bill's Giggle Coaster". Poor dad had trouble fitting into the seat and mom couldn't ride anything. His next coaster was a biggie in kiddie land. We called it "The Raptor" but that's not the correct name. The video posted is of Zach on that ride. The other coaster he rode was "Fairly Oddparents", which is a typical wooden coaster but for the kids. We went to the water park on the second day and Zach got to ride a big water slide. I think like five people could sit in this raft and go down this slide. Lets just say I don't think I would have done it, but he seemed to enjoy it. Zach got to meet some of the characters around the park and took some pics with them. The last night there we went over to the "big people side" and the kids played all kinds of games. Zach came home with a batman pillow, an elephant, a care bear, scooby doo, a frog, and a dog. I just took stuffed animals to the good will and I come home with all this. The only bad thing about this trip, beside the long car ride, was the walk from the shuttle drop off to the park entrance. It must have been a half mile and I had a lot of trouble with it. By the last night I had tears streaming down my face because I was in pain trying to walk to the shuttle. All in all it was a good time and hopefully when the new baby is Zach's age we will go again.