Since we've been home....

Since we've been home, I have been trying to get into a routine. Currently, I have things staggered throughout the day to help me get through it with the least amount of disruption.

Ava usually wakes up first and we play for about a half hour to an hour.

At 7 am, I wake Noah for his first feeding. Patty, my step mom is here for another 2 weeks and will either play with her if she is in a "good" mood or we put Barney on for her to watch.

After Noah is fed, burped and dressed, we get Ava started with breakfast. During this time, Noah is usually good for his awake time. I usually have to put him in his bouncy to get everything done, but he just looks around.

After breakfast, we have been letting Ava watch a lot of TV. I am hoping that I can cut down on that once I get settled, but it does help with getting things done. Noah usually naps around 8:30 until his next feeding at 10 am and then usually goes back to sleep until 12 or 1pm to eat again. This is the time I get to spend with my princess. We eat lunch and run around the backyard. Ava goes down for her nap at noon and sleeps about 1 1/2 hours-2 hours.

We play the rest of the afternoon until dinner around 4:30 and then baths start at 5pm for Noah and 5:30 for Ava. We try to wake Noah from 5 until bedtime at 7pm, but easier said than done with a newborn.  Then it is off to bed with Ava by 7pm. At this point, we hope Noah is tired and goes to bed.

The nights with him have been rough lately. He will wake up about an hour after I finally get him down because of gas or to poop. Then once I finally get him back down, it is about an hour before he wakes to eat. So basically, we get about an hour sometimes 2 if we are lucky before we are up with him again. Ava never did that. She would at least sleep until the next feed. He makes lots of noises too, so i hear them all thinking he is going to wake up and pull my leg out from under the covers to rock his pac'n'play. Yes, I am too tired to do anything else. I am hoping it is just a phase and am trying so hard to get this kid to burp after eating, but he is not a burper. That is what is causing all this gas... I just want 3 hours of sleep at one time.

Ava has been adjusting to Noah better than I expected. She is now more interested in him and always wants to pat his head and she will even give him kisses. She had a rough couple of days last week because of everything going on, but I think we might be back on track.

Here are some pictures as of late...

Kissing her little brother

Lining things up. After she does it she calls for someone and says "I did it"

Just being cute! She started letting us put barrettes in her hair.

Learning that if she puts the stool up to the counter, she can reach stuff..

Thinking it is cool to pour water from one cup to another.

Checking out her brother..

And Noah...

Who's that?



Ava has acquired many stuffed animals and dolls over the past 2 years. We have named a majority of them and she calls them by their name. Here are the ones that we have named...

Here are all the animals. They are of course lined up as that is Ava's thing to do!

Left to Right: Brian the giraffe, Nick the Alligator, Mike the Hippo, and Todd the Elephant

Left to Right: Baby Sophia, Baby Jane.

Left to Right : Bunny 2.0, Fifi, Pat the Bunny, Pearl

Left to Right: Lashes, Jake and Belle  (Noah gave Ava Lashes when he was born)

Left to Right: Judy, Buster, Bo-Bo

Left to Right: Susan, Cassidy (Cassidy is from the sticks, missing teeth and 3 ponytails to hold her hair up), lambchop

And Bubba!

I think that I got them all! We have fun finding them all.She has many more animals,but they have yet to be named.





Noah's Homecoming

This is our first car ride home with Noah. He had scratched his face right before we left.

Our first bath. He cried the entire time, but that was expected. Ava didn't like all the crying, so I was left to finish with my mom. She just wanted Mike to hold her. By his second bath, we had it figured out and put Barney on for Ava to watch while we gave Noah his bath.

This is Noah's first trip to the Doctor's office. We had a good visit. He had lost almost a pound in 4 days. He was at 8 lbs 5 oz by Thursday. She had us do a jaundice test for him the following day because of the weight loss and he was looking a little yellow. My memories of Ava on the photo light came rushing back.  Fortunatley the results came back fine. Phew!! We go back on Wednesday and are hoping he will be back up to his birth weight.

Here are some pictures of our little man......

Overall he has been a good baby. He sleeps alot, which is expected. We are trying to keep him awake during the day as the first 2 nights we spent 4-5 hours in a row up with him. The last 2 nights he just had a hard time going back to bed after his feedings. Again, it is to be expected and it is only about a total of an hour and a half to two hours that we are up from wake, feed and back to sleep. I have been with less sleep, so I am not as tired anymore. Sometimes we have to wake him to feed, others he wakes on his own. I am hoping to be able to let him sleep until he wakes as he is now getting good feeds in during the day.

He is alert for a little bit here and there and I know that will come with time. For the most part, he only cries/fusses if he has to burp or has gas and sometimes cries if hungry. He has a great demeanor. Again, only time will tell what type of personality he has... We are so in love with him and he already has many nicknames...bubba, bubba boo, buddy, and Noah. I can't remember Ava being this little and am going to cherish every moment I have. Even though it is hard to give him the attention needed, I try to give as much as I can to him without forgetting about my Ava. I love them both and can't wait for them to grow up together. Daddy and mama love you Noah, more than you can every imagine. We are so blessed to have you in our life and are excited to watch you grow!!

Our Noah!!!

What happened to my little girl!!!!

I cannot believe how much she has grown up. It as if we went into the hospital and came home to a different girl. She aged 6 months while we were gone.She seems bigger and more mature. I can't tell if she seems so big because Noah is so small or if she grew while we were gone. Let's go back a minute to the first day home from the hospital.  It was not like you see it in the movies, that's for sure. We came home from the hospital while Ava was down napping and made sure that Mike and I went into her bedroom to wake her up. We played a little bit and then had my mom bring him out to see her. As soon as she saw him out of the corner of her eye, she melted down. It was to be expected, but still heartbreaking, nonetheless. Should I have expected something different? She only wanted to be with my mom and nothing to do with Mike or I. Again, not unexpected. I get it. My mom was the only thing constant for her over the past couple of days and Mike and I changed the equation. Needless to say, hormones took over me and I started balling. I took her into the other room and played with her, just mama and Ava. I couldn't stop crying though. We kept Noah out of her way for the rest of the evening. She needed her time to adjust and when she was ready, she will come to see Noah. And that is exactly what happened. Over the course of the next couple of days, she warmed up to him. We didn't push him on her, we didn't make her come over to him and love on him, we let her do it in her own time and she did. Friday was the first day she held him. She loved it and didn't want to let him go. Here is a picture and it says a thousand words...(me kissing Ava, kissing Noah)

I will forever cherish this photo! Brings tears to my eyes as I look at it. And ever since, she has been gentle and loving towards her brother. And that love will only grow, until he takes her favorite toy right out of her hand!!

Now, as I mentioned, she has changed so much in the past couple of days. She is saying 2-3 word syllables and 2-3 word sentences. Some examples are: I did it, good girl, help me, Mee-sha (she was only calling my mom's dog, mee), I can do it, come see, you and daddy, oh my gosh, and many more.She just keeps talking until she gets her story out. She is so expressive. She is learning to say Noah. It is now No-wow instead of No. She was going around saying A-B-C and will say the entire ABC's after you. She will tell a story of what she sees and does, whether in 1,2 or 3 word sentences.

She learned how to jump with 2 feet off the ground and does it all the time now. She was still just leaping before we went into the hospital.

She takes a book and starts naming everything that she sees. It is as if she is readiing.

She is independent and really entering the terrible 2's now. Need I say more, you all know what that means. Loud cries of "nooooo" annd "no way". 

She hates to have her hair washed and it has become a battle now to do it. In fact, before we get into the bath, she says with sadness, Hair? meaning, I don't want to wash my hair. As soon as she feels the water on the back of her hair, she starts to cry and stand up in the bath and say "all done". We have tried distraction and we even wash one of her animals while we do it, but it is an all out meltdown. We have resorted to washing her hair once a week. I know, gross, but she was so afraid to even get in the bath after this had started that we have to work hair washing in slowly. We will work on it one day at a time!

She loves to jump in her crib- thanks to daddy. I am just waiting for the post of us going to the hospital. You would think I would learn since I got stitches at 2 from jumping on a bed.

She still loves the park. Here are some pictures of her at the park with daddy from the other day...

She loves to swing and always says "high", she loves to go high..

she is climbing up these things- thanks to her daddy!

Going down the slide...

Now up the slide...

riding around on her sesame street car from nana. She loves it except the music that plays on the front.

And just being plain silly!!

I love my little princess, sweet pea, gracies, grumper, love bug and daughter to death. She is the light of my life and I don't know what life would be without her. She brings such joy to us daily. Ava, Daddy and Mama love you more than you will ever know!

Happy Birthday Noah Adam Leptuch

Noah Adam Leptuch was born on January 9th, 2011 at 5:44am. He weighed 9 lbs, 2 oz's and was 22" long.

Here is my story.....

At 9 pm on 1/8/2011, my mom started having contractions. They were coming about every 10-12 minutes. She knew that it was going to be a long night. After 2 hours of counting contractions, she told daddy that she had been having contractions and wasn't sure what to do. The excitement and nervousness grew in both of them. By 1am, her contractions were about 4-6 minutes apart, but not very strong. She was told that if she had contractions for more than 2 hours, she should go and get checked out, so that is what her and daddy decided to do.  She called my aunt Jackie to come over to watch my big sister and off they went. They hooked mommy up to the monitors and watched my heart rate and her contractions for about an hour. After an hour of contractions that were 4-6 minutes apart, the nurse did an examination. Mommy was only a 1/2 centimeter dilated. She was not happy. She thought that they were going to send her home. The nurse said that they would monitor mommy for another hour and check her cervix again and if there was a cervical change, then they would move forward with my delivery. After an hour, the contractions were getting stronger and mommy dilated to 1 1/2 cm. The doctor said, prep her for surgery, we will have this baby at 8 am. Why 8 am? Well, around midnight before mommy came into the hospital, mommy had 4 saltine crackers and because of that, they wanted to wait 8 hours before she had surgery. The only thing that would change that time would be if her contractions got stronger and her pain level to a 9. They don't want the contractions to get too strong for a repeat c-section because of the scar. After getting the information that we were going in at 8 am, mommy's contractions were a 9, so they prepped her for surgery. Yay! I was getting ready to meet my mom and dad!! And that is my story..... Here are some pictures from the OR...



When the nurses put me on this table, I thought I would greet them by peeing all over everyone. He!he!he!



Daddy cutting the cord



My first family portrait

 This was a repeat c-section for me, as you can plainly see! I don't remember a lot of how it all went down from Ava's birth because I was so tired by the time I had the c-section I didn't care about the pain. Plus, they don't call it pregnancy brain for nothing (that means that you forget a lot of what happens to you before, during and after delivery, so that you will have more children!) So I wasn't really prepared for the events ahead. The spinal hurt and the delivery hurt. I don't remember that from Ava. Now at this point, I had not slept since I woke up on the morning of 1/8/11 at 6 am, therefore I had now been up for 24 hours. That is why I look so puffy and tired. After surgery, I went to recovery for about an hour and then off to our room. We got a really nice big room off in the corner, so it has been nice and quiet. I am recovering nice this time around. I was able to get up and walk around on the first try. With Ava, I could only sit up in the bed and it wasn't until day 2 that I started walking. It took me a little bit longer to get rid of the nausea and be able to eat solid foods this time around, but I am up and moving really good.

How is Ava doing? Well, she has been staying at home with grammie (my mom). She came to the hospital on Sunday afternoon and did as I expected. She was excited to see the baby. She just kept saying "baby". She happened to walk in when I was trying to get up and walk for the first time. Now, remember, I was tired and puffy and there were a lot of IV's etc. hooked up to me, so I believe it scared her. She sat down next to me in the bed, but really didn't get close. Here is our first family picture...




Ava is holding Lashes, the bunny that Noah gave to her.

Ava came back on Monday as well, and this time, she didn't really want anything to do with me. I had anticipated this, but it still didn't make it any easier. She sat next to me, but wouldn't look at me or talk to me. It is heartbreaking, but I am not taking it personal.  We decided to not have her come down today.  I am trying to get discharged today. There shouldn't be a problem with it. We just have to get Noah circumcised and then we can hopefully go (after an hour or so of observation). So far, he doesn't have jaundice, but it is only 7:30 on day 2. Last night he was borderline and because he didn't feed too much, it might have put him over the edge. Speaking of feeding, Noah has done as good as can be expected. He has been really tired, so trying to get him up to feed is hard. Last night, he went on a power feed of an HOUR, yes an hour of breastfeeding and then didn't feed too much last night. I thought for sure, he was going to cluster feed, but he didn't.

Here are some pictures from our stay so far....

Not sure if you can see, but Noah has the LONGEST toes I have ever seen.

S.L.E.E.P is just a 5 letter word

That is how I feel these days, that sleep is just a 5 letter word and nothing else. Sleep in this family over the past couple of weeks has been tragic to say the least. Here is how it has been:

Me: I usually sleep for about 3-4 hours and then wake up for about 3 hours and then fall in and out of sleep until about 4 or 4:30am..Then I just lay in bed, usually get on my phone and play around and wait for the alarm to go off to get up. Some nights are filled with contractions during my 3 hours up. Last Thursday night, I woke up around 10:30 ish and started having contractions, so I grabbed my phone and started counting them. They were coming about every 5-8 minutes. I let it go on for over 2 hours, because in the past, usually the 3rd hour, they let up. They did not. At that point they were 8 minutes apart, consistently. In the back of my mind, I thought we should go in, but I didn't want to go in and have them send me home. They were somewhat painful, but not fall to the ground painful and they weren't getting closer together. I thought I would wait it out and see if they got closer together. At about 4 am, Mike and I decided to get up and get everything ready for Ava for the day (meals, food, instructions out etc..) just in case. I got in the shower and had a small breakfast. At that point, they stopped. WHAT!?! I thought. I was soooo ready in my mind to meet Noah, so I was a bit disappointed. Anyway, for me bedtime isn't something I look forward to because I know I will have a block of hours wide awake. Oh and on top of this, my nose is so stuffed up, a lot of time I am up because I can't breathe. I guess this is just getting me ready for Noah to be here. I mean, there are some days I am going off of 4 hours of sleep.

Ava: Where to begin. Since she got "sick" in the beginning of December, her sleep has been tragic. I guess, I shouldn't be surprised, she has never been a great sleeper anyway. She has nights, more often than I would like, where she wakes up for 3 hours at a time (hence, some of the reason I am awake for 3 hours in the middle of the night). Because she has been sick, we can't just let her cry, because she ends up choking and then gets so upset from choking, so we go in a million times to reassure her and sometimes sit by her crib. She started this thing where she doesn't want to go down for her naps too. Yesterday, she slept for 10 minutes, woke up choking on her phlegm and then never went back to sleep, despite an hour worth of us trying. I know that a lot has to do with being sick and some has to do with all the change that has been going on. I can only hope that she gets better before Noah comes. I know she will still wake in the middle of the night, but hopefully we can get that down to a minimum. She had been waking around 4:30-5am every morning and some mornings we could go in and settle her for another half hour or so and others, she was just up!

Mike: Mike has been busy trying to get ahead at work, so after Ava goes to bed at 7pm, he goes into the office to work. He may work until 10 or 11 some nights and then come to bed. There have been nights where he will get in bed and then Ava decides to wake up for 3 hours and he then doesn't get to bed until 1 or 2 and then we get up around 5.  Sometimes, he will come to be earlier and Ava wakes up and then by the time she gets settled, he can't fall back asleep, so he will get up and work.

As you can see, a good night sleep is needed by all. I do have to say that after Thursday nights/Friday's nap, we all needed a good nights rest last night and that is exactly what we got. We put Ava down by 6:30pm and Mike and I went to bed as well, and everyone slept until 6 the next morning. Ahhhhhh, it felt so good!

Sorry for the lack of pictures, we have packed up our camera in preparation for Noah. I don't know if I have mentioned that I now think all my predictions of him coming early is going to make it so he comes on his scheduled day (jan14th). I REALLY hope not!!

11 Resolutions for 2011

Happy New Year! Bring it on 2011. This will be an exciting year for us and life as we know it today will not be the same with the arrival of Noah! I am anxiously awaiting for him to come. I know that I have a scheduled C-Section, but I have hopes that he will come early. I hope my water will break before the contractions get started and we go in and have our baby boy delivered. He can come anytime now. Well, actually this Thursday or Friday would be best. Ava is trying to get over a cold or stuffy/running nose from teeth. Not sure which it is, but she hasn't been able to sleep well because of it. We have endured 2 days of 45 minute naps because she wakes up choking on all the phlegm. I hope we can kick it in the next couple of days and then baby Noah can come.

Here are my 11 New Years Resolutions for 2011:
1. To be able to do 25 real push ups. Not the girly ones, but real push ups. It was actually my New Years Resolution from last year, but I had the pregnancy clause in there. (That was, if I got pregnant, all bets were off and as you all know, I got preggers!).
2.  To get back to my post baby weight
3.  To learn the art of patience.
4.  To be the best Director of the Leptuch Household. As you all know, I am out of work, so I will care for our family until I find work, whenever that may be.
5.  To find ways to cut our daily/monthly expenses and be able to take some of that money to donate to Phoenix's Children's Hospital. One would think that this would be necessary anyway because we will only have one income, but I will look for more ways to save. We did an excellent job of it in 2010.
6.  Get involved with other mommies. This will make me get out of my comfort zone, but I think I will go stir crazy if I don't have other people to talk to and for the kids to play with.
7.  Take Ava and Noah somewhere new each month.
8.  To make one new meal a month. More if I can find the time.
9.  Start some family traditions.
10.  Make sure to take time for myself and stop feeling so guilty all the time when I do.
11.  To be present in life and enjoy every moment, good or bad, with my two amazing kids and my most amazing husband.

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This morning, this is what Ava wanted to do.....She loves her stickers and she had to find somewhere to put them. I guess my leg was the best spot!!

Today is Mike's last day off vacation until Noah comes. I have enjoyed having him around to help out. I think Ava will be the most upset when he has to go back to work. She has been waking up and calling his name instead of mine and wanting to play with him a lot. She loves her daddy, there is no mistake there!

We didn't really do much while he was off in terms of going to new places, but we crossed so much off our to do list. We tended to our stuffy/running nose daughter, organized all the Christmas presents that Ava got, and finished getting organized for Noah. Our living room has turned into Ava's playroom. With no other rooms in the house, this is now what it looks like.....

This is her new kitchen set with a bin of all her plastic food, little people and cars and trains. **Note.. you can still detect the adult presence in this room with the wine fridge :)

This is her coloring table. She loves to color. Next to it is her magnet board that we bought at IKEA. She LOVES magnets and they are always on the floor by the refrigerator, so I made Mike go buy this and we are going to hang it up. It has been so nice to have the magnets somewhere other than the kitchen floor. And lastly, her tent that she got for Christmas.

You can't see this side of the room as much, but we bought a cubby shelf from IKEA to store the rest of her toys. We have a bigger one in our family room and I love it because you can buy bins and put everything in there so you don't have to look at it.

Here's hoping for a great 2011!