Auggie is Getting SO Big!

Tuesday and Wednesday were both good days. Nothing too eventful happened so this will mostly be a picture post.

I did, however, meet up with some other moms in Bryan/College Station. We had dinner at Cheddars. There were only 7 of us but it was nice to get out and hang out with girls. I'm looking forward to getting together with them when Auggie is able to meet other kids.

And now onto the pictures...

Auggie all dressed up for the walk on Sunday Feb 13

In his carseat.. Auggie was not happy with us Feb 13

Walking to Brother's Pond Park: He was asleep by the time I was out of the house! Feb 13

Auggie passed out after having a rough early morning Feb 16

Watching the fan and being WIDE awake for sleepy Mommy

SMILE Feb 14

Sleepy time before our walk to the post office and Sonic FEb 16

Looking like a big boy! Auggie definitely has his Daddy's proportions...  I couldn't button up the back of his shirt because his neck was too big Feb 15

Sleeping at Sonic Feb 16

Beautiful Weekend= One Happy Mommy!

I don't know how this weekend could have been any better! Have I said I can't wait til it gets warm? Warm weather will definitely improve these darned moods I've been in lately. The warm weather not only made me happy but it also meant Auggie got to venture outside! All you Facebook people got to hear about what we did so you'll have to bear with me.

Saturday was full of clear skies and rugby.. and a little bit of work for Tim. He used the morning to go out and meet a landowner. He was supposed to take Aussie & Charley to get their rabies shots in Bryan but his meeting took longer than he expected. We had Subway for lunch when he came back and then went to the A&M campus to watch a rugby game. It was Auggie's first rugby game and really, his first time to be outside for a while! We don't have a cap that is big enough to shade his head properly so we used a bucket hat (or booney hat, if you're Tim) from Jane & Sherwin. Auggie was not a fan of the hat.. and who could blame him, if it wasn't in the perfect spot, it covered his whole face. A&M was winning 38-13 when we left. They ended up scoring two more tries against Sam Houston before the end of the game. A&M was controlling the game but I wasn't too impressed with their play (and I hardly know much about rugby so you know what that means!). It seemed like they played down to Sam's level.

Tim holding Auggie at the Texas A&M v. Sam Houston game

Auggie ended up not liking his hat

He spent most of the game snuggled up close to Mommy

After the rugby game, we came home and watched some of the 7's tournament at Las Vegas on ABC. Then Stephanie, Tim's sister, came up to babysit Auggie for the evening. Tim & I went out to celebrate our sixth Valentine's Day together! It was a nice evening for just the two of us. We ate at Olive Garden and then went to see The King's Speech. It was a great movie. I would recommend it! I can see how it is nominated for a bunch of awards. I really enjoyed our date night and we both really appreciated Stephanie coming up just to babysit! Thank you, Stephanie!!

Sunday was an equally as nice. Tim spent most of it outside and started prepping a tree in the backyard for decimation. Eventually, Tim and someone else (hopefully) will be chopping it down. It has been wearing some of the shingles on our roof off.  Tim had rugby practice at 2 and I took Auggie for his first walk around 3. Stephanie was able to bring up Jessica’s stroller on Saturday. YAY! Thank you, Jessica!! Auggie's carseat fits right in the stroller which made it really easy to use! I took my usual route down to Brother's Pond Park and waited for rugby practice to be over to see Tim. Auggie slept the whole time we were walking- even on the really bumpy gravel. He is so good in his carseat... Man, I hope that doesn't change!

Sleeping with his elephant (one of many) 2/14

Monday was a normal day for Auggie and me. I tried to organize my craft supplies (since they're all over the place now) while Auggie slept. I didn't get very far because I want to do too many things at once- organize my craft supplies, do laundry, do the dishes, fold clothes, organize living room.... So things got half done. I need to make sure things get all the way done this afternoon! Tim came home from work with my Valentine's DAy gift- a poem! I love when he writes poems. I only have three or four but they're SO nice!! I gave him a card Saturday night. I'll have to post it later this week on 52 Fridays.

Auggie posing with the elephant Gramma sent him for Valentine's Day 2/10

We took Aussie & Charley for a walk. Auggie enjoyed the stroller ride again. He was up all the way down to the school and then slept for the rest of the way. While he was awake, he kept following the tree branches as we walked under them. I hope he grows up to enjoy nature just like Tim! We ended the night by watching Public Enemies with Johnny Depp, Christian Bale and so many other recognizable actors. Emlie de Raven (from Lost & Roswell), Leelee Sobieski (Joy Ride), David Wenham (Lord of the Rings), Channing Tatum (She's the Man, Step Up) and a bunch of others had some small roles. I'd see actors I recognized and was like "huh, I didn't know they were in this!" It was an okay movie... nothing spectacular but it was entertaining. It continued our tradition of watching ooey gooey romantic movies on Valentine's Day... not! The first Valentine's Day movie we saw together was Smokin' Aces... definitely not a romantic movie!

Trying to eat the elephant's trunk 2/10

Trying to smile for the camera 2/10

So we'll see how the next couple of days go. I'm sure I'll be outside with Auggie on a couple more walks. I'm slowly starting to get out more and more and it seems to help me be optimistic... I am so tired of being a pessimist/unhappy. Thursday night I went out on a limb and met up with a mom and tots group I found through Meet Up.com. There's about two dozen moms on the group and they just started getting together. They have a few events planned for all the moms and kids to get together and I am really looking forward to getting the okay from Auggie's doctors so we can join in the festivities. Thursday night, I met with one of the moms, M, at Muldoon's (a coffee shop). She was really nice. I'm hoping we can be friends.. at least hang out on occasion. Hopefully the Meet Up group will lead to Tim & I meeting a few people to really get to know. Since Tim can get out and play rugby with the guys, I'll hopefully be able to get out with the mom's group and another group I found- College Station Crafters. I'll keep you updated.

Until Thursday!

52 Fridays- Sneak Peak

Since the cards I have recently made are still in the mail, I can't reveal them to you. So you'll have to make do with a few teaser photos. Hope you enjoy!

I'll make a special post once all the cards are handed out to their recipients. So stay tuned for those!

It's Cold AGAIN!

Have I said I'm ready for warmer weather? Oh, man! It's supposed to be 25 degrees at 8 a.m. this morning. I am ready for those really nice days when it's t shirt weather in the sun and jacket weather in the shade. I can only hope we'll have a lot of those nice in between days.

Tuesday was an alright day for me at least. Auggie was up all day and didn't really take a nap. He was good for the most part. :)  We had an appointment with a dietician from ECI (Early Childhood Intervention). She was very happy with Auggie's eating habits. On the 5 day average, he's eating 26 ounces a day- which is right in line with the average baby (22-30 oz). She was impressed he didn't have any problems with a cleft lip or anything. She weighed and measured Auggie- 12.2 lbs and 23.75 inches long! He's moving on up! He's at the 25 percentile with his weight and in between the 25 and 50 percentile with height. The dietician will be back on March 1 just to make sure things are continuing to go well.

Wednesday was a good day. Auggie had slept for a straight 5 hours Tuesday night! We were surprised and we didn't even know he had slept through until he woke us up. Auggie napped throughout the day... nothing too long, of course. He wanted to be held most of the time- especially after our little photo shoot. I wasn't able to get anything done until Tim came home at 3. I was able to work on some cards while Tim played with Auggie.

While Auggie took one of his short naps, I took some photos of the birds that were hanging out in the backyard.

Fluffy Mourning Dove on the back fence

House Sparrow on a chair in the backyard

When Auggie woke up, I figured it was time to take his 3 month pictures... Maybe his 4 month pictures will be the good ones. I put him on his tummy to see if he'd smile once but he got really upset the moment I turned him over.

Starting out Auggie's photo shoot 

Just missed a smile 

Just looking at Mommy to see what she's doing

Tummy pictures are still a no go

And that was the end of our photo shoot

Auggie slept the rest of the day. Tim tried waking him up to keep him up so we weren't up with him for the whole night (I write these out Wednesday night so we'll see how it turns out!). He only woke up to eat. He also kind of woke up just to cry for a few seconds and then would fall back asleep.

Daddy & Auggie

Getting ready for the Super Bowl

Sporting my football shoes

So until next Tuesday! We'll see how this weekend goes!

Super Bowl Weekend

It's amazing how things changed! This time last year, Tim was living in College Station while I was finishing up school in Nacogdoches. He was able to come home for the weekend and we actually had snow-almost 6 inches of it- in Nacogdoches. Valentine's Day weekend was a colddd one and we were lucky enough to drive up to Krum to see Nathan for his birthday. 

And here we are a year later, Auggie is 3 months old, we had snow on Friday and Tim & I are finally established in College Station. 

We had about 1.5 inches of snow on Friday. It wasn't much but I was glad we got it. Tim stayed home from work for a little bit so we could get a picture. Yep, that's right one picture. Last year, I woke up at 5 a.m. and spent a couple hours walking around and taking pictures of the snow... This year, I slept late and we ran out and took one family picture. Just one. We didn't want to keep Auggie out too long, even all bundled up. I did take a little time to take a couple pictures outside around the house. There was a yellow-bellied sapsucker pecking away at a pecan tree near our house that I tried to get pictures of. Too bad some of the neighborhood kids scared him away. :( There's a nature photo contest in April that Tim & I are going to enter. My cardinal picture is nothing spectacular but I just love cardinals in the winter.

Cardinal at winter time

Our weekend was pretty uneventful again. Tim took Aussie and Charlie for a walk after his run. I'm sure they enjoyed their walk. I've been slacking in the walking department... I think its the cold weather. Jane, Sherwin, Jacob, Jessica & Ben stopped by Saturday evening. They stayed for about an hour while Ben and Jacob played in the backyard. 

Our big boy has graduated to 3 month + nipples!

I hate having to keep Auggie away from all his cousins. It's a good thing we have been, though. Cole & Drake ended up being sick last week- Cole wanted to meet Auggie while we were in La Porte so I stayed in the house while he stood at the door step. 

Saturday night, Tim & I started to watch The Boondock Saint 2... yeaaa, I couldn't get past 15 minutes and Tim lasted about 30. We ended up watching Lock, Stock & 2 Smoking Barrels. It was good! I was surprised. Tim had already seen it so he wasn't too into it.

and then Sunday, Auggie & I took it easy while Tim went to rugby practice down the road. Hopefully in March, Auggie & I will be able to go with him since its right down the road. We just need to buy a stroller! We've put that off since we don't go anywhere. Who knows, by the time we can go out, Auggie might be able to use the umbrella stroller my grandparents gave us. For the Super Bowl game, we went to our friends' (BIlly & Julie) house. It was nice getting out of the house.

That's about it in the super exciting life of the Siegmunds! Thursday, I'll have Auggie's 3 month pictures and a lot more every day pictures of him. I haven't uploaded my phone pictures yet.

52 Fridays- M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

Thanks to this nasty cold weather, I didn't make it out to Hobby Lobby or Michael's this week. I have no desire to share the roads with college students who tend to freak out when we have bad weather.

I'll hopefully be making it out later today or maybe tomorrow. I have 10 (yes, 10!) card orders to mail out by next Thursday in time for Valentine's Day.

This week instead of cleaning around the house, I've been working on using the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator. I got used to it when I worked at Campus Rec at SFA but I was able to use a tablet there. Using a mouse is so much different than a pen!

I made a simple 4x6 invitation for Nathan's birthday. He'll be 2 on February 12 so my sister is having a Mickey themed party. You should see him wanting to watch Mickey! Here's a link to a video of him doing his numbers and letters- My nephew is so smart!

So onto the Mickey Invitation. I used a picture of the Mickey Park entrance and used the pen tool to draw it on the computer. Then I used to Live Paint tool to "paint" it.

I'm still working on some designs for my Etsy shop so I've also been getting some practice with that. and speaking of my Etsy shop- I made my first sell! I am very excited about it! Hopefully I'll have a few more designs up soon so I can sell some more!

Are you frozen yet?

Tuesday morning we headed to Austin... yep- that's right... we drove as the front came through central Texas. Luckily, we left just as the rain was leaving the area but the wind was crazy! We had to be in Austin at 8 am for Auggie's genetics appointment. We left College Station with plenty of time but we ended up being 10 minutes late because of traffic.

Test Results: The geneticist said Auggie's tests showed an insertion in his DNA profile. That means there's an extra base pair added into the DNA sequence. In a gene there are certain regions that code for development of features and some areas that are filler. In Auggie's case, an extra base pair caused a shift   in the function of the proteins that help in the development of Auggie's features. This lead to the abnormal growth of his cheek. The insertion of the extra base pair occurred in exon 23 of TCOF1 gene which is located on the 5th chromosome. Currently there are 50 known mutations and Auggie's is one that has been previously documented. There's no link between type of mutation and the physical characteristics of the person affected. They don't know why it is sometimes worse from parents to children when it is inherited even when the mutation is in the same location.


We also talked about what our options are when we're ready to have more children. Tim & I can both be tested to see if we're carriers of TCS. If one of us is a carrier, then we'll have a 50% chance of passing TCS onto another child. If neither of us are carriers, then our chances are just a little over 2% of passing it on since we already have a child with TCS. Before we talked with the geneticist, we were sure we were going to get tested. The geneticist said she would be surprised if one of us had TCS because of our features. She pointed out Tim's asymmetry of his face (neither one of us know what she's talking about *shrugs*) so she suggested if we do the test then have Tim get tested before I get tested. Since the geneticist was confident about neither one of us having the test done, we decided not to do the test for right now. If we don't get tested, we have a few options for when we want to get pregnant again.

1. Amniocentesis/ Chorionic Villus sampling (CVS): Analysis of DNA extracted from fetal cells performed at 15-18 weeks' gestation or 10-12 weeks' gestation, respectively. This won't tell the severity of TCS the child will but only identify the TCOF1 gene. This option would just prepare us for the birth of the baby and not leave us wondering for 9 months.
2. Selective in vitro fertilization- Once an egg is fertilized in a lab, it can be tested for the TCOF1 gene. If the test comes back negative, we can choose to implant it. This option is really expensive, though.
3. Testing sex cells- Apparently, they can test the egg and sperm individually to see if they are positive for the TCOF1 gene. The geneticist said sometimes there are bad batches of sex cells that can have mutations but the rest can be fine. 

So there are a few options for us when we decide we want another child. We do know we'll be waiting a lot longer to have another one so we can deal with everything Auggie needs. We originally planned to have kids close together but things do change! I want to be there for Auggie when he goes through certain stages and it'd be a lot easier if my attention didn't have to be divided.

That's about all we learned from the geneticist appointment. Our opinion of her changed significantly with this visit. Maybe it was because she was sick that we didn't think too highly of her during the first consult... or maybe it was the $660 we were charged for a 20 minute visit where we were given the same exact information we looked up on the internet... thank goodness for Tim's insurance!

Auggie has been doing great this week... He rolled over twice Tuesday morning before we left for Austin! He had rolled over for me once but he got his arm trapped under his body so it wasn't a complete roll. Tuesday morning he rolled over in front of Tim and got both arms out! We are so proud of our little Auggie Bear! He's been getting better at cooing at us and keeping his head up and in control more and more. Some times he sounds like he's crying but if you look, he's just making noise. I am so glad he's found his voice. 

Aussie & Charley snoozing on their mats in the living room

Wednesday, Auggie & I stayed warm in the house. It was pretty cold outside! We let Aussie & Charley in Tuesday night since it was supposed to be 0 degrees through the night. When Tim left for work in the morning, he let them out. I woke up to Aussie rolling around their water dish. It was still full of water- frozen water! What a lovely introduction to February!

Here are a few pictures I took Wednesday afternoon. The ladies at ECI recommended letting Auggie get used to having things on his head since he'll be wearing his hearing aid head band in a few months. We let him wear a hat most of the evening Tuesday through last night.

And I'll leave you with some good news- Auggie is 12 weeks old today! I'm sure you're looking forward to his 3 month pictures next week! ;) Tomorrow on my 52 Fridays- I'll have a few scapbook layouts to show you, maybe. I'm still debating what I'll be showing you!

Auggie Meet La Porte... La Porte Meet Auggie!!

August made his first trip to Gramma & Grandpa's house! It was our first trip away from College Station with just the two of us. Tim had to work Saturday morning so he wasn't able to go to La Porte with us.  Auggie was great in the car- he slept the whole 2 hours to and from. He was great the whole time we were in La Porte. My mom babysat him Friday night and Saturday afternoon while I went out to eat and then to a high school friend's baby shower. After the shower, Auggie got to meet a few of my friends- Cynthia, Katrine, and Katrine's mom- and then he was able to see Shannon and Sydelle again. Sunday morning he met a high school soccer friend, Sarah, and then our neighbor, Jeanice, came over. It was so nice being able to show him off! I am so ready for the warm weather!

The diaper cake I made for Katrine

Shannon, Cynthia, Katrine, Sydelle & Me
Katrine only has 4 more weeks until little Liam arrives!

Auggie was great for Gramma while I was at the baby shower

Being a wide-eyed little man

Gramma scared Auggie with the flash on her iPhone.

He was a happy little guy once she turned off the flash!

Monday afternoon, our coordinator from ECI (Early Childhood Intervention) came by with a speech therapist to assess Auggie. From their long chart of growth, he seems to be right on track... the only thing lacking is keeping his hands open for more than 50% of the time and of course, hearing things. He was well behaved for them even when he was on his tummy. He proved us wrong after we told them he hated tummy time! He just laid there and even fell asleep. We were assured all the noises Auggie makes are actually him cooing at us. He's been really vocal in the past couple of weeks.

This is from a couple weeks ago but I just love how Auggie's sticking out his tongue

This morning we have our appointment with the geneticist to get Auggie's test results. They already told us he has the Treacher-Collins mutation so we're not too sure what this appointment will be about. We'll let you know all about that on Thursday!

Hope everyone stays safe in all this crazy weather!