way back wednesday

@ 4 months

@ 21 months.

time is definitely flying by! as you can see, he's a little less prone to letting mommy have her way. i'm sure it's a sign of what's yet to come.

feral child

apparently my child prefers anything dog related. kisses, toys, food, and i'm pretty sure if our dogs barked, avery would be barking as well.

by kisses: he opens his mouth to let the dogs lick inside and out. by toys: he would rather sit and play with their toys then his own. by food: the only baby gate we use upstairs is to prevent him from playing with and eating their food and water.

i've gotten rid of all the raw hides as well, he's decided they are tasty enough to gnaw on. i should have gotten video of his reaction when he got caught in the act. you'd make eye contact with him, i'd chirp something like "un-uh!" he'd keep gnawing, i'd stand up, he'd throw the bone and quickly crawl away, i'd sit back down and he'd go right back after the bone. he's a smart little bugger.

so if you want to get anything for the boy, might i suggest something canine in nature.

he's one!

omg! the boy turned one. where has the time gone? my precious little baby is now a little boy and a smart one at that. cute, loving, inquisitive. his personality is getting bigger by the day. love this boy to death!

i wish i could keep him small forever but i love seeing him grow!

isabella marie

Born July 18th @ 11:19 pm, Isabella Marie Rich!!! She weighed 7 lb. 11.4 oz. and was 19.5" long, a big baby for 37 weeks!

congrats to my brother and sister-in-law and a warm welcome to isabella! we can't wait to meet you!

let's march

watching the Boone parade, if you can call it that. more like the politician parade. we had fun regardless. perfect weather, watermelon and happy baby!

asian baby. anyone? anyone?

seriously, i don't think this kid has an asian trait in him.

bella on board

this past weekend we had irina's baby shower. (she's due august 7th, so baby bella's arrival is just around the corner.) i just wanted to share some of the craftiness i did for the shower.

the invites:
it was decided we'd do a beach-themed shower. (if you couldn't tell by the decor in the first pic.) i was able to find a hibiscus image that sorta seemed girly but not too girly. and since the colors of the invites were brown and pink, my first diaper cake followed suit.

diaper cake:
ideally i would have loved to have used brown hibiscus flowers but i don't think there is such a thing. in the end i had to settle for these gerber daisies. i used about 70 size 2 diapers and one bottle to make the innards of the cake. tissue paper, 2 different ribbons, a feathery boa and gerber daisies contribute to the "icing" on the cake. all in all i was really happy end result of my first diaper cake!

the shower was a great success and my brother and sister-in-law are very well equipped for bella's arrival.

oh petunia

a few months ago, katie's sister asked me if i had heard of the petunia picklebottom diaper bag. (she too has a infant a few months older than avery) she told me they were the cadillac of diaper bags. i had never heard of them and had forgotten about them til we went shopping in charlotte a few weeks later. when i saw them, i was instantly infatuated. yes, i couldn't believe i was ga-ga over a diaper bag either. when i saw the price tag, i cringed. no way was i paying that much for something that's sole purpose was to carry diapers, bottles and anything poopy.

i got home and looked on ebay, hoping i'd find a gently used one in a color/style i liked. i had decided i wanted the glazed boxy backpack in a somewhat gender neutral color. (i did consider aaron might be carrying this thing around) i had set my maximum price i'd be willing to pay...and i pretty much got outbid every single time. i felt like if i was going to spend that kind of money i might as well get exactly what i want. my birthday was coming up, so i decided this was gonna be a great birthday present to myself. my logic...since this was pretty much gonna be my "purse" for the next couple of years, i can indulge. yes, my reasoning is somewhat skewed when it comes to anything avery.

so when my bag arrived, i was surprisingly giddy with excitement. you would have thought it was christmas morning at our house.

now, a few months later, do i regret getting it? heck no! i absolutely love it! i take it with me pretty much everywhere. and it's been perfect for all the traveling we've been doing lately. added bonus: i've gotten so many compliments on it. yes, i love a diaper bag! (the one pictured above is the one i got)

vier monate

he's 14 lbs. 14.5 oz. and still growing.

today we're leaving on his first plane ride. of course, i have a million things to do before we leave and he's not able to entertain himself for one second. so far i've done his laundry, packed his suitcase, fed him, burped him, played with him, rocked him to sleep (slept for half an hour) and now he's mad at me for leaving him on his playmat. how come on the the day i have things to get done he becomes so high maintenance?! ;)

i love it when you call me big papa

since i did progression shots with my pregnancy, i've decided to also capture the first year of avery's life in the same way. here are a few shots from his first photo sessions. i've decided to go ahead and add a watermark since this blog is public and i don't want anyone claiming my little man as their own. i know it's hard to believe but i know of two people who've had this problem. insane, i know!

the picture below is his two month photo. when i showed it to some family members the first thing they said was he looked like notorious b.i.g. and that's exactly what i thought when i was scanning through the pics. i'm sure it's the hat. tomorrow we'll be taking his three month photo. hopefully we get a little sunshine. yes, we actually got more snow yesterday and it stuck! blah. i'm so over winter. spring get and stay here already!

living mobile

if you're a friend of mine via facebook then you've probably already seen these pics. the first three months of avery's life, i've pretty much had to do everything via my cell phone. lucky for me, my cell phone can just about do anything. i haven't had the time to figure out if i can update the blog through my phone so that's why posts have been few and far between. little bugger is now entertaining himself on his playmat so i have a second to update the blog. still a short post but with lots of personality. yep, little man is getting to be so big!

a conversation between two friends

neglected, i know. with the weather being the way it has, (got another 4 inches of snow yesterday.) avery and i have become big-time home bodies. what's the best way to cure cabin fever? fill your days with lots of activities. one of those activities has been our countless photo sessions. although most of the time avery is an indifferent participant.

i've been gravitating towards black and white lately. no particular reason. just love how it captures the moment, particularly the one below. i think if it was in color it'd be a cluttered mess.

"happy chaos"

avery mark westphal

avery mark westphal arrived december 24, 2009 at 6:26 pm. little man came in at a whopping 8 lbs. 15 oz. and measured 20.5" long.

shortened birth story: at around midnight the previous evening, i started having consistent contractions about 7 minutes apart. then aaron and i went to the hospital around 3 a.m. when the contractions started coming closer together. when we arrived at the hospital i was only 2 cm which was what i was at my appointment earlier that morning. my contractions were about 3-4 minutes apart so i decided to labor naturally til the doctor arrived to check the next morning. she arrived around 9 a.m. and checked and i had only progressed to 3 cm. she then broke my water and the baby had a bowel movement while in utereo. since his heart rate was good she wasn't too concerned. i decided then to go ahead and get an epidural and that's when we decided to add pitocin to help progress the dilation. around 4 p.m. the nurse came in and asked if i shifted positions cause the baby's heart rate had dropped. she started shifting me around to find a position the baby would like. unfortunately it was difficult to do. the doctor checked again and i was only 4 cm by this time. she thought maybe since my contractions were coming so close together it was causing the baby stress. she also said the baby was still riding high and if i didn't progess much in the next few hours we'd have to consider a c-section. at my final check, barely any progress had been made and with that and the meconium in the amniotic fluid we decided it was best to do a c-section. we went in at 6 p.m. and 26 minutes later i could hear the cry of our little big man. "no wonder you weren't making much progress," the doc said, "he's huge!" after getting a clean bill of health we were soon holding avery in our arms.

so our lives have been pretty hectic the last few weeks. hopefully with a little down time i can update the blog fully. i'll try and post daily til i can get updated. lots of pics and news to come. stay tuned.

baby on board

just one baby on board. as much as i would have loved to have two, my body is thankful it's only one. so here's a pic of our little rice crispy. (the nickname is a reference to it's size) we were also able to hear it's heartbeat on tuesday. it was 151 bpm. it's insane to think something so small even has a heartbeat.

the baby measured at 7 weeks and 3 days. which was two days before my ivf calculated due date of december 24. baby westphal is due december 22, my dad's birthday. so looks like we're going to have a christmas baby!

everything looked good and i was released to my ob/gyn. no more treks to hickory or charlotte for medical care. i had to laugh, my RE gave me a little pregnancy care package that included a onesie that said, "made in charlotte" and technically it's true.

as far as symptoms go. i've been lucky and haven't had any morning sickness. just very burpy or vurpy and mild heartburn. some minor cramping and just tired all the time. one of the main reasons blog posts are short and far between. hopefully that will change in the upcoming weeks. we'll be documenting this pregnancy and with that will come the obligatory belly shots. right now there isn't much to see.

yes, it's gonna be very interesting to see what happens to my tattoo. maybe that's the real thing we'll be following. lol!

a little cuteness on a monday afternoon

from time to time i'll try and post some of my favorite etsy sellers. today it's lou and lee. they make the cutest things for baby. mostly of the girl persuasion or for the little boy who wants some flair! diego?!? ;)

things are starting to get busy around here. we've decided to finish our basement. the walls need to be drylocked, which we've decided to do ourselves. once aaron started i think he quickly changed his mind. the stuff is super thick and we've already gone through a five gallons of it and only finished one coat on half the basement. he knocked out a quarter of it saturday and i chipped in last night and we got halfway done before running out. it definitely went faster with two of us working. i'll probably be spending most of wednesday finishing up so they can start construction. at least my blisters will get one day of rest before they multiple and enlarge!

tonight we're heading down to charlotte again. we've got reservations at the melting pot tonight. i think the last time we went was when i first got my braces on, about three years ago. so the westphals do do fondue. tomorrow we're hitting up carowinds. hopefully we'll have less of a crowd with kids back in school and the weather will be a little cooler. 88 degrees. which sounds tolerable. i can't wait.

i'll be posting pics from last week (went to a johnson city cardinals game and visited another waterfall in blowing rock.) and pics from tomorrow hopefully on wednesday. i've been bit of slacker when it comes to blogging. need to get back into the swing of things soon.