Art Show Was A Success!

This year Michael and I both entered the student art show at school. There were over 80 artists that submitted over 200 works of art. In total, 73 artists were selected and 130ish pieces were selected to be displayed. And yes, you guessed it, we both got in. Michael had his one submission...

And I had my 3...

Although we didn't win any awards, it was great to be recognized for all the hard work we did this year.

Now that the school year is just about over (in 3 days!!!) we are looking forward to the summer. Michael is getting a much deserved break from school and I am taking summer classes. But before all that starts we'll be celebrating Xander's 1st birthday on the 14th! We are in awe of how much he has grown since we brought him home. He amazes us everyday!

It's been so long!

There's nothing like waiting almost a year before making a new post. Things have been busy since the last one. For starters, we moved and then we moved again. Hopefully that is done for a while. We like the little house we're in now. It may not be much but it's ours and the boy has lots of space to move.

Speaking of our boy...he is so big now! He is a month out from his 1st birthday!!! Oh how the time flies. I can't believe it's been almost a year already. It just doesn't seem possible.

He's only 11 months but he can walk (almost run), has 5 teeth with 2 more about to pop out, and has what we think are 4-5 words in his vocab. We think there may be more but of course we can't understand them. All in all he just amazes us every single day.

This month we also celebrated Michael's 30th bday. We were so grateful to everyone who came out to celebrate with us. He had a blast and I can finaly stop feeling like an old woman!

And of course as most of you know, I started school this spring. It has been an adjustment to say the least but I am really enjoying it. I've learned a lot so far and I have gotten to do some cool art projects. The most recent was making my face out of masking tape. Sounds funny I know but it turned out great. The project will be part of the Spring Into Arts program here in BC and will hang up in the windows at 17 W. Michigan through most of the summer.

Michael and I have also submitted to KCC Student Art Show. We'll let you know how that turns out!

Oh How We Love The Hospital

The weeks since the arrival of our precious little boy have been filled with new learning experiences and lots of surprises. One of those surprises has been finding out that I have a blood clot in my left leg. OH MY!!! After the swelling started going away after the birth I noticed that my left leg was still slightly swollen and it was in a lot of pain most days. At my first check-up the docs thought all was well and weren't worried. However, when the pain did not go away and only seemed to get worse, I made another appointment and this time they sent me for a doplar (sp?) on my leg to rule out a clot. They really didn't think I had one. I guess the joke was on them! This meant being admitted to the hospital and the possibility of having to stay 3-7 days. UGH! I can't begin to tell you how much this idea did not sit well with me and frankly is still not. So here I am getting pumped full of blood thinners and waiting until they say my blood levels are where they need to be so that they can send me home. Right now it's looking like Sunday is the magic day and we're hoping they stick with that. Michael has been great though and I have been able to see, hold, feed and change Xander while I've been here. Michael's family have also been great helping us to take care of him while Michael is at work and at night so Michael can get some sleep. All I can really say though is I miss my boys and I just want to go home.

Home

I just realized that we forgot to update this thing and let everyone know that we're home. I got to come home on Friday which was great and not so great at the same time because we had to leave little Xander at the hospital. The encouraging part was that before we left they had taken him off of the IV since he was able to start maintaining his sugar on his own. The only thing left was 24 hrs of observation and we'd be able to bring him. And we did! By 6pm on Saturday we had him home and feeding on his first bottle. Since then everything has been great. He's really a pretty mellow baby and easy to make happy. But like most babies he pretty much just eats and sleeps so there's not really much to report. As for Mom and Dad, we're adjusting. Amazing though is that it hasn't really been that hard. Michael went back to work on Sunday so he's soaking up all the time he can with his little man. I am still recovering but doing better everyday. I can't wait for the swelling and ligament pain to be gone so I can get this little one in a stroller and get outside for more than 5 minutes at a time.

Wow! Did I do that?

First off I want to thank my most wonderful husband for trying to keep everyone updated on what was going on throughout the day yesterday. And I want to thank everyone who has sent us their well wishes and congrats. We find ourselves to be very blessed today!

So what's been going on? Well, I'm still not sleeping much. Since about 1pm on Tuesday I think I've had about 3 hrs of sleep. I'm not sure how much better this is going to get since I'm in the hospital and we all know how comfortable that is! It turns out that we will be staying a little longer than planned. Without going into too much detail, I lost a lot of blood during the birthing process so they're going to hold on to me until Fri. or Sat. Xander was going to have to stay at least 48 hours for observation because of strep b anyway so I'm actually kind of happy I get to stay with him. The peds dr just came to talk to us to let us know that the little one has been having some trouble keeping his sugars up so they were putting him on an iv for probably the next 24 hrs. He told us not to worry, it was kind of typical for a baby who was so big and went through such a stressful birth. The downside is that he has to stay in the nursery as long as he's on the iv and I am in no kind of shape to head down there at this time. But! I tell myself this is all temporary and soon the 3 of us wil all be home.

I think that about takes care of it for now. We'll make sure to keep everyone updated and we definitely promise to post pics soon!

Thanks Again!
Kristan

The time has arrived....so as Xander

Well everyone, it's now 3am and we have finally finished what we started 40 weeks ago.
May 14, 2009 @ 1:09am EST. Xander Lee Rudd was born. 21" long and weighing in at
8lbs. 15oz. We would like to thank everyone for all the well wishes and support through this time. We would also like to thank Dr. Eric Ebner and everyone on the staff that assisted Kristan and I during this wonderful day. Be on the look out for post alittle later, there has been talk of "Meet the baby lunches" we will keep everyone posted on those events. Also we do have a lot of pics, however I do not currently have the correct cord to upload them right now.(even if I did, We have been here for 19hrs, Kristan hasn't slept in 3 days and I have had 3 hours of sleep in the last 2 days. So everyone would just have to wait anyway!)

Thank you everyone for your support, we love you all and thank you for joining us in this journey and we hope you'll be part of our future endevors.

Michael, Kristan and Baby Xander

Just about there

Here we are, it's 7:45pm Kristan is currently 9cm. Dialated and we are about 15mins from getting the epidural turn down just alittle and then we should be about 30mins away from beginning all the fun stuff!!....With any luck Kristan will begin the pushing about 8:30 and then if Xander isn't as stubborn as me yet he should be here between 9:00pm-9:30pm. Unless something changes, the next post will be after he is here and we will have all his stats and hopefully some photos as well. We will also be getting a baby webpage through the hospital and will be posting the link to his page so everyone can see the little guy and leave comments. Thank you all for joining us on this wonderful journey.

See you after the delivery.
Michael and Kristan (and soon to be here Xander Lee)