The LaBiosa's are back!

Since it's been forever, I just thought I should try and start this blogging thing back up. Things are starting to settle down to where I might be able to squeeze in some blogging time. Just a quick update on what's been going on the past few months.
We sold our house within a month and moved out in 30 days. However, our loan couldn't be processed until we actually closed on our house and the buyer's bank kept messing up so it made things slower. We had moved our things into the new house basement..thanks to the owners, and me and the boys stayed in Raleigh with my parents. Ishmael had to continue to work and bunked up with a buddy. He got to experience the bachelor life again..let's just say, he missed me haha. So after about a month and half, we finally were able to close on our house and move into our new one. What an exciting time!
And for the past month we've just been trying to get settled into our new home and have been enjoying every bit of it. The boys are loving the woodsy back yard, enjoying their new neighbors and they love riding their toys down the long driveway. It's been such a blessing to be able to sell our house so quickly and to find a great home in the county of Appomattox. I do however miss having the convenience of shopping in Lynchburg because I'm so used to being 10 min from everything. It's good for me though...at least my husband thinks so :) We are definitely enjoying the quiet neighborhood and all the space that we have gained. I'll have to post some pics if I can ever find our camera battery charger. For some reason that's the one thing I have misplaced when we moved and it's pretty important too!

We did it!

Well it's official. Our house is on the market! I'm so excited that we finally took the plunge and can't wait for it to sell. Honestly if we hadn't gotten a realtor it probably would have taken us forever to put it up for sale. I've been praying for a long time now that God will just prepare our buyer, whoever it is, that they will come along at the right time and buy our house. The most exciting thing for me is looking for a new house for us to live in. I know it can get aggravating at times b/c you have to be patient. We made a rushed decision the 1st time we bought our house and so we ended up settling on certain things. This time, we know what we want and we are prepared to keep looking until we find that perfect place for us.
So the past 2 weeks have just been crazy for me around the house. I've been trying to declutter and streamline everything. I've cleaned out closets, rearranged bedroom furniture, gave them a makeover (with a very cheap budget) and have put away lots of decorative items. I'm probably much harder on myself than I need to be, but with a decorating background I can't help but just try and make everything perfect. I want everythng to be hidden. Especially toys! I have packed up so much and rearranged lots of their things. The funny thing is, they haven't really noticed that certain toys are missing. That's when you know that they don't need anything else! It's not easy to do all this stuff while taking care of 3 boys but somehow I've managed to get everything almost done. This weekend my parents are taking Ethan and Jayden to NC so that Ish and I can do some final touches to the house without having to be interrupted. And while they are gone, we're planning to have our 1st open house since our house is going to be spotless. We better sell it that day b/c it's not going to be that clean again lol. That's going to be the hardest thing in this process..trying to keep my house clean and orderly while it's on the market. It's hard enough to keep it clean just for myself! So pray for us as we go through this process.

A quick update

Just so you know, I have not given up on blogging. My life is just super busy these days and when I do have time to sit down, I only want to watch TV or catch up on facebook. I actually don't have a lot of time right now to blog but just thought I'd brief you quickly on some new things going on with the LaBiosa's!
Ishmael started a new a job about 3 weeks ago with the Southern Baptist Conservatives of VA working with the Media/production stuff. He works out of our home now so that's a major adjustment and something that we are really enjoying. Because Ish is working from home now, we are in desperate need of some office space for him to actually get some peace and quiet. That is something we lack in our house right now. So with that being said, we are currently trying to get our house ready to sale. It's crazy to me that we are having to sale our house and we've only lived here in 2 1/2 years but I'm ready for a change. So if you could lift our family up in prayers that we will be able to sell our house quickly and find a replacement soon, it would be appreciated!
Well that's all I have time for now and I'll try to keep you all updated on what it's like to have 3 boys under 3!

Sneaky ham & cheese soup

Tonight I decided to use a recipe I had for Ham and cheese soup, but as I was making it I decided to do a little tweaking by sneaking in a little extra veggies to it. It turned out really good and both the boys ate it and was able to get 3 veggies in them without them even knowing :) So here's the recipe if you are interested in doing a little sneaking yourself!

2 Russet Potatoes cut up
1 grated carrot
1 grated zucinni
1/2 cup of fresh spinach chopped in blender
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Boil everything together in 2 cups of water. Melt 1/4 cup of margarine in separate pan. Combine 1/4 cup of flour, 2 cup milk, and 2 cup of shredded cheese and 1 cup of cubed ham until well blended. Comgine other ingredients and boil all together for 10 min and serve!

I had decided to grate the vegetables b/c when I cut up carrots the boys tend to skip over them. Once the soup was done, you couldn't even see the vegetables so my plan worked..even on my husband :)

Our Christmas Gift!

On Christmas Eve we were planning on going to church for their service when my water broke shortly before we were supposed to leave. So instead of heading to church we decided to clean up the house for family that would be coming into town that evening. I wasn't experiencing any contractions so we weren't in any hurry to get to the hospital. I actually was hoping that all the moving around would put me into labor but that didn't happen. Around 7:00 I had one of our good friends come over to stay with the boys while we went to the hospital but because I wasn't having any contractions we didn't get there until about 10:00.

Once we got there and were all settled they decided to start me on petossin around 12 since I wasn't progressing any. After 2 hrs of hard contractions I decided to get the epidural again (which I was trying really hard not to do). Apparently I'm a weakling when it comes to pain. I used to think I had a high tolerance to it but after having contractions for a while..not so much. So once I got the epidural around 2am, I was able to get a couple of hrs of sleep. At 5:13 on Dec. 25, 2010, little Rylan Jack was born weighing 6lbs 13oz and 20 inches long. What a great way to start off Christmas morning!

Since we've been home things have been really good with Rylan. He is such a good baby. He hardly ever cries and picked up on breastfeeding really quickly. Some nights he does really well sleeping and then there are other nights he seems like he can't get settled unless I'm holding him. I love cuddling with him and just holding him while he sleeps. He's so precious. 

Ethan and Jayden have been handling our new addition really well. I say that meaning they are really nice to him and Ethan loves to hold him. But on the other hand the boys have been running wild for the past 2 weeks it seems. Thankfully Ish was able to take a week off from work and has been playing and taking care of the boys so that I could take care of Rylan. It's been so nice to have him around all the time. I definitely got spoiled this week and I'm not looking forward to being on my own starting next week. I'm sure it'll be fine but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous!
More beautiful pics of Rylan Jack soon to come!

"I did it! I go potty!"

The past 2 weeks have been crazy here at the LaBiosa household.  And when I say crazy, I mean me. Both boys were sick w/ ear infections and Ethan had a light case of pneumonia and then a couple of days later I got a cold. And when your prego, your cold seems to be more miserable then ever, plus it lasts so much longer! Last week I went through a lot of restless nights and was up alot in the middle of the night. Of course waking up so often at night plays a toll on you during the day. Thankfully I was able to squeeze a nap in every now and then (when Ethan cooperated) Thankfully the boys got over their sickness rather quickly and were back to their normal sleeping schedules. On top of all that, I had planned on starting potty training Ethan last week and then when we all got sick I had to take the lazy approach to potty training. It started off well in the beginning b/c I was too tired to even push it and he did it all on his own. However, toward the end of the week, he lost interest and I couldn't get him to even "practice" so he was back in diapers over the weekend. On Monday I decided that I was going to buckle down and just do it and get it over with! I really wasn't looking forward to fighting him b/c he can be pretty stubborn, so I did a lot of praying before I started so that I wouldn't lose my mind lol. My new rule was no more diapers and no pull ups unless he went to sleep. He fought me a little on the diaper thing but after using one of his friends as an example of being a big boy and wearing big boy pants, he gave in and wore his training pants. For the rest of that day he showed interest, went to the potty on his own and only had 2 accidents. He did so well and I was so happy!
Today was a new day and I knew the next step was getting him to do #2 in the potty. This was going to be a challenge for sure. All morning I kept watching him and whenever he'd try and run off by himself I'd catch him and try and get him to go to the potty. He fought me on this alot and so a couple of times I just gave up and left him alone. I kept explaining to him what he needed to do and just hoped that maybe he'd go on his own. I even gave him his video learning game and had him sit on the potty and I shut the door to see if it would give him the privacy he wanted lol..didn't work but at least he sat on it for a while. Just when I decided to take a break and make lunch, we all headed downstairs and w/i 5 min he told me he had to go pee, so we headed back upstairs. Then he told me he couldn't do it after t;rying after a min or so. I told him to just wait a little longer and I walked out of the bathroom and shut the door to see what he'd do. Shortly after I heard his potty song going off and then he comes running out yelling "I did it, I pooped!" haha It was exciting and gross all at the same time! So we ended up having another successful potty training day. I only hope he continues to get better and doesn't backslide. So far so good! 

37 weeks

37 week update

How far along? 37 weeks


Weight gain? Total 35 and I think that's my limit! Unfortunatley I will probably be gaining a 1lb a week from this point on.  

 

Maternity clothes: Yep and the jeans are getting tighter lol. Socks and shoes are getting much harder to put on.

 

Sleep: This week has not been good. I've gotten up about ever 2 hrs to pee and I've been having cramping in my stomach for 2 days now which makes it difficult to get comfortable.

 

Best moment of this week: A friend of ours let us borrow her daughters potty training doll a while back and Ethan came across it the other day. He recently just had his 1st Christmas play in preschool and can sing Away in the Manger..so cute. Well he was playing with the baby doll and told me that it was baby Jesus. He held the doll and pretended to feed him gold fish lol. It was the cutest thing. I hope this is a sign that he is going to be sweet to Baby Rylan :)

 

Movement: Baby is head down at this point and I feel him move all the time. At one point I literally felt his tiny hand just tickle across my belly. It was freaky and cool at the same time haha.

 

Food cravings: Not a whole lot. Maybe more water and coke for some reason.

 

What I'm looking forward to: Meeting this little guy and being able to move at a normal pace!

 

My worries and frustrations: I'm hoping that it'll be an easy adjustment for Jayden when we put Rylan in his room. I'm also hoping that the baby video monitor will help me see Rylan wake up before he starts to cry and wake up Jayden. We'll see!

 

"Your baby is now considered "full term," even though your due date is three weeks away. If you go into labor now, his lungs will likely be mature enough to fully adjust to life outside the womb. (Some babies need a bit more time, though. So if you're planning to have a repeat c-section, for example, your practitioner will schedule it for no earlier than 39 weeks unless there's a medical reason to intervene earlier.)
Your baby weighs 6 1/3 pounds and measures a bit over 19 inches, head to heel (like a stalk of Swiss chard). Many babies have a full head of hair at birth, with locks from 1/2 inch to 1 1/2 inches long. But don't be surprised if your baby's hair isn't the same color as yours. Dark-haired couples are sometimes thrown for a loop when their children come out as blonds or redheads, and fair-haired couples have been surprised by Elvis look-alikes. And then, of course, some babies sport only peach fuzz."

http://www.babycenter.com/