Friday, April 25, 2008

A Much Needed Date Night!!

My dear husband has been putting in uncalled for hours(ok, so its called for, but its crazy hours:)). He had been working nights and 7 days a week...well, we got a little break in the schedule. Nick now works 4 days on two days off with his 4 days rotating between nights and days. So this past Monday was a day off (along with Tuesday) and so Monday night Nick said I didn't have to cook and we could go out to eat. I was so thrilled. Now if you have even been to knoxville you know that there are oodles of places to eat and most of which are "new" restaurants to me. When we go out to eat here we always go someplace we have never been. (restaurants we have never heard of type of thing). So we decided to try Lakeside Tavern Restaurant. It was FABULOUS! We had heard great things about it, but it far above met our expectations(except for the lack of liquids in our drinking glasses). The boys came with us and they were great boys. We ate out on the patio that overlooks the lake and it was so beautiful and peaceful out we couldn't have picked a better night. Pretty romantic even with two kids in tow:)
Here are some pictures from our night.



This was taken right by our table where the boys could feed the ducks that wondered up to our table.

Thanks honey for a great night and for suggesting we go out to eat....we don't eat out much can you tell:) since Im posting about eating out one night.
We walked down by the water and of course the boys just had to get wet :) If elijah does something you are bound to find caden doing the same....monkey see monkey do!!!

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Tennessee Weather

Well the Tennessee weather has been so enjoyable that we have been able to enjoy a bit of summer activity. This past week we were able to go out on the lake for the second time this season already. We had so much fun and look forward to doing a bit more this summer. Here are some pictures of our fun afternoon in the sun.

Thats right...nick is in the water and getting ready to ski. We tested the temperature of the water and I think it was 67 degree's. BURRRRR.

After nick was done skiing the boys thought it was their turn at the water...so we blew up the tube and Elijah hoped on with excitment. This was his first time tubing without an adult on the tube. He did a great job. We were NOT planning to get into the water so the boys actually had on their clothes. We just plopped them onto the tube and when they were done we pulled the tube up to the boat and pulled the boys off so they didn't really even get wet, but they sure had fun.

We had invited our neighbor Gina and her son Dylan to join us for the afternoon. They had a blast and it was Dylan's first time on a boat period, and he even got out there and tubed too. This is Dylan and Elijah below.After Elijah and Dylan were done tubing little caden came to me and said "me turn". I didn't think he meant it, but he gladly jumped out onto the tube and had a great time. I held onto the rope so that it didn't go out very far, but I was so proud of my little boy being so BRAVE!!!

Friday, April 18, 2008

This is for you Mom!!

When we were home visiting last, Caden left his little dog at Grandma Gutwein's. We knew he had left it there, but when it was time to come back to TN we could not find the dog anywhere!!! Thankfully Grandma was able to find it and she graciously shipped it to us. The first response was better than the video I have attatched below as it was so precious when he pulled his dog out of the bag in the mail. He was giggling with delight and excitment. I decided it was to cute and tried to have him show his joy of seeing his dog all over again so I could tape it this time around. So here it is and sorry its sideways...I don't know how to make it upright.....

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Labor Story

Ok, so inspired by Mindy's blog I decided to tell a bit about my first labor story and maybe throw in a bit of my second labor story at the end. I thought it was enjoyable to read mindy's and if some of you thought it wasn't so enjoyable....sorry for the post.
Well almost 6 years ago(wow...has it been that long??) on May 10th, 2002 my dear husband and I decided since we had two weeks and four days left before the baby was to arrive we would get in one last date. We got up that morning, did a few things around the appt., and then decided to get ready for our date. We headed out the door(we lived in Cinci, OH) and drove to a nearby putt putt place. We were enjoying our time and we had gotten to hole 9 (which was on this bridge overlooking the entire putt putt place). I was standing on this bridge and I mentioned to nick that I was not feeling good and was cramping up(figured Id done to much swinging of the club:)). I said "im not sure I'll be able to finish it, but I'll walk with you while you finish it". Needless to say I did play the remainder of the 9 holes and did TERRIBLE on the last half. We got back to the car and were headed to Bahama Breeze Restaurant to enjoy a nice relaxing meal. (at this point i was in the front seat with the seat laying back as far as it would go). I told nick Id just stay in the car and he could go in and get the beeper thing and come back to the car to sit with me, cause I was not about to sit inside feeling like this. Can you tell I was determined to finish our date??? While nick was inside getting the beeper/pager I called my mom and asked her what she thought of how I was feeling. She asked me to time the pains....(oh yeah, I forgot about that:)). Well it was about 5 minutes apart, but seemed that when the hardest pain left I still felt sick. Mom said I should at least go to the hospital to rule it out:). So when nick returned with the pager I told him to just take it back in and forget about eating out...we needed to get to the hospital. So we drove back to our apt., got our stuff(I had it packed thankfully this early in the game), and drove to the hospital. They wheeled me up to check on my contractions and said "indeed this was contractions, but that I was only dialated to 3cm". They got me a room(8pm) and my contractions continued for another 3 hours, but nothing seriously painful and no dialating. I fell asleep for the night(laying on my side) and in the morning the nurse came in and asked how I was feeling. I said great and that I never woke once with contractions. She looked at the paper which was monitoring my contractions and said "yeah they must have stopped....you need not lay on your side so that we can see if the contractions will start back up"...but in the meantime I'll get the doc in here to check on your dialation. He came in about 7:30am and checked and I was dialated to a 7 cm!!!!!(it was great that I had not felt contractions from 3cm-7cm dialating). HALLALUJAH!! He then decided to return to break my water at 8am to get these contrations started again and to start a drip of pitocin to help get the contractions on a role. The nurse walked to the side of my bed, started the drip and walked back to the other side of my bed and I said "ummmm, I think they have already started!!!!" I was instantly in pain!!! I don't think she believed me cause she didn't rush around nor did she go call our doctor. I told her its hereditary for my family to go fast and so she marched back over to stop the pitocin(as the doctor had still not been called to come in yet). Well, to late to call the doc..I was ready to push at 8:18!!!! So quickly they called in a resident and several nurses that had delivered before and my pushing began with a bit of a snip snip and 50 minutes later a healthy little boy named Elijah Andrew Waibel was born on May 11th, 2002 at 8:58am weighing 6 lbs 15.2 oz, 19 3/4 inches long and with a head full of BLACK hair!! Praise to God he was healthy and he came 2 weeks and 3 days early:)
As for Caden....it was pretty much the same, except I was induced with pitocin(which I'll never do again if I don't have to) and he was born 1hour and 15 minutes after my contractions started (after the pitocin kicked in). Im telling you pitocin makes for a much more painful delivery and I hope never to have to use it again. I think I'll just do the all natural thing....IN GOD'S TIMING NOT MINE:)

Have a blessed day.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

OPRAH!!!

Ok, so I use to watch Oprah on a daily basis, but since moving to TN, I have actually never watched a single show(yeah for me, its been 2.5 years). After receiving this email and reading some info on her, I am SO glad that I decided to stop watching her long ago. What a scary scary thing she has going!!! I know she has a show out called BIG GIVE AWAY or something like that; Ive never seen it, but Id encourage anyone that is into that show to think twice before supporting her. Just my opinion of course:) Here is a link to what I thought was a very interesting video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW4LLwkgmqA

Have a great day!! Tell me if Im wrong about all this:)!!!