Is Spring Here Yet???

Hello everyone! We are officially horrible bloggers. I am going to make a goal to update the blog at least once a week. Cross my heart.

Well, Scott and I survived last semester by the skin of our teeth, and we are SO happy to have started this new semester. We spent Christmas Break in Wisconsin with my family. It was wonderful to be home again after a year and a half. Scott is actually deferring this semester so that I can finish up, and he will start classes again in the summer, while I take one final class online. And then....I'M DONE!!! Finally, after eleven semesters......=)

I am concertmaster of the Symphony Orchestra this semester, and we had our first concerts last week. It was SO much fun! I love being in the Symphony (and being in charge, haha), and I really want to give this last semester all that I have. I'm also taking a cooking class that has been a lot of fun, as well as FA 100 and one last religion class. So far, so good. I'm also trying to prepare for a senior recital this summer, but I'm having a hard time finding the motivation to practice....maybe if Spring would just come already....

Scott has loved having more time at home with Noah. He stays home in the morning while I am at class, and then goes to work in the afternoon. Since our schedules are so much more forgiving, he's been putting in a lot of extra time at work, and recently was promoted to a brand-new position. It's a little confusing to explain, but basically, they took the duties of four or five old positions and put them together into a whole new job. So far, he's loved what he's been doing - much more than just answering the phones. Hopefully the managers will love what he's doing as well, and decide to keep the job around. I'm so proud of him! He really has put so much effort into this. I love you, honey!

Noah is, of course, wonderful =) He wants to crawl - badly - but cannot figure out how to move. He just gets up on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth until he falls down. He's also started to be much more opinionated about things, and has become whiny. Still doesn't really cry, but who's complaining? =) Also, when Noah learns a new thing, he does it all the time. For a while, he was making all sorts of weird noises with his mouth, and that was all we could get out of him. Now, he's learned how to shake his head back and forth, and he does it ALL the time, with his eyes open, and a silly grin on his face. Thankfully, I don't think he understands what it means, yet, but man, is it funny to watch. We love him so much! Every day, we can't believe how lucky we are to have such a perfectly cute baby boy. He's growing up too fast!!!

That's the update for the last few months. We also got family pictures done in the beginning of December. The pictures on this post are just a few of them. Again, how cute is our little boy =) Our photographer was Stephanie Patterson. If you like what you see, check out the link on the right side of our blog. There should be a link to her website on her blog, as well. Well, here's to more happy blogging - see you in a week!

Wow, it's been a while...

After several requests, I've decided it's finally time to update our blog after a 5-month hiatus. We apologize we haven't been more up on things, but this semester has been really insane.

So......where to begin?

The summer went very quickly for us, as I'm sure it does for just about anybody. There was nowhere near enough time for us to play like we wanted to. Just not enough hours in the day, I guess.

I've continued to work at Melaleuca and have now been promoted to Team Lead (assist ant to the supervisor). It's a big step up that I've been waiting for a long time to get. The work load isn't any less, but it's at least different.

Jennie has continued to be a great mommy and loves all the time she can get with Noah. We've truly been blessed to have such a patient baby on our first try. The Lord certainly knew what we needed to get us through.

With this fall semester, we thought we should be able to arrange our schedules so that one of us could always be with the baby while the other was in class. Since Jennie's classes are only available on campus, I opted to take some online courses so I can be at home more often to help with Noah. We started out the semester with Jennie taking 9 credits (including being assistant concert master in the Symphony Orchestra), and me taking 14 (9 of which are online). Little did we know that was just going to be too much. We both ended up dropping one class to lighten the load and we're still busy out our ears. But having plenty to do is better than having nothing to do, right? .........

Noah continues to get stronger every day. He loves his solids, and loves to make a mess of it, too. Since he's started to really go to town on solids, he's making a lot quicker progress. He had a little bit of a late start due to his slightly premature birth (the doctors say he was probably at least two weeks early). He's now a happy, loving, smiling 7 month old who's rolling all over the place and will, hopefully, soon be crawling. Noah's also discovered that the world is a lot more interesting when you can move around to enjoy it. Since he's figured out that he can mobilize, he just doesn't stop.

Jennie had the Halloween concert all last week (which was a big success - Superheroes!), so we didn't have a chance to really take Noah anywhere for Halloween, but we still wanted him to have a costume. We decided to save money and make one, so here's our adorable little solar system!

Things are chaotic, but as there isn't really an end in sight, we're just taking one day at a time, helping each other along, and loving Noah more and more each day. Life is busy, but it sure is sweet!

Two Month Pictures!

Hello everyone! It's been quite a while since we've updated the blog, and since I finally know
how to do it, here goes!

Noah is doing wonderfully. He's turning into quite the little chunk (compared to what he was before) and is getting bigger every day! At his two-month visit on Tuesday, he was 10 lbs 10 oz. He's a very mellow kid - never really cries for anything, and is very patient with our poking and prodding =) We've had to wake him up at night, and watch the clock during the day, in order to feed him since he wouldn't cry for us. But he's finally starting to let us know when he is upset or hungry.

For anyone who's interested (hope I'm not crossing any boundries here), Noah has been taking a bottle, but luckily, I've been able to pump enough breast-milk that we've only had to supplement with formula a bit. We tried breast-feeding, but Noah doesn't really have the strong sucking muscles needed to breast-feed. We've also been taking him to a physical therapist to help strengthen those muscles, and while it's helped him with the bottle (he had a lot of problems in the beginning), breast-feeding just hasn't worked out for us. But, the important part is that he's getting what he needs and is getting good and fat =)

Over Memorial Day weekend, we had his first pictures taken, and they are adorable! We have the cutest baby in the world! Of course, we aren't biased at all =) He's starting to smile here and there, but we couldn't really coax one out of him that day.

Otherwise, life is pretty basic right now. Scott is still working at Melaleuca, and niether of us are in school right now, so we have a lot of time on our hands to love our perfect little boy. Summertime is the best, and we are excited for what it will be bringing!

Welcome Noah George Ostermiller

After a completely insane week, Jennie and I are ecstatic to introduce to the world our newborn son, Noah George Ostermiller.

I'll explain everything that went down.

My grandfather, George Ostermiller, was admitted to the hospital on Sunday night with some fever and aches that he'd had all week. By Monday afternoon, he'd been diagnosed with Leukemia that should be treatable by medication. By Tuesday morning, the condition was labeled as acute progressive Leukemia that would take his life. At 3:15 am Thursday he was gone. I was able to enjoy a few tender moments with him on Wednesday night before he passed.

Wednesday, April 1, was our due date. I skipped a couple of my classes in order to go to our final doctor's appointment with my wife. During the appointment, the doctor told us that something just didn't feel quite right. So, we went in to do a sonogram and found out that Noah was breech. Not only was he breech, he was completely sideways in the womb. Instead of trying to do aversion, where they re-position the baby inside the womb, we decided to do a C-section the next day.

Jennie was happy because she would be able to play her concert that night and not have to worry about the baby. I spent some time at the hospital with my family for my grandpa.

The next morning, we woke up at 4:30 to get ready to be at the hospital at 5:30. When we got there, we prepped for surgery and entered the OR at about 7:40. At 7:54, Noah was born. He weighed 6 lbs 9 oz and was 19 1/2 inches long.

After spending the day with us and being visited by family and friends alike, our little guy was taken away from us by the on-call pediatrician to be taken down to the Special Care Nursery. He apparently wasn't eating well (which was amazing to me that they would think that), and they were concerned about his ability to gain weight.

I was furious. Both of us needed our baby to be there with us. Jennie didn't get to see him for nearly a full day because she was stuck in our suite on the other end of the hospital.

At any rate, we got Noah back after he proved that he could eat well enough. But there was a constant fear that they would come back and take him away again at the first sign of trouble. Needless to say, we were both a bit anxious about it.

Originally, we'd planned on naming him Noah Scott. But as soon as he was born, I knew what his name was. Given the date he was born and everything that we'd been through as a family, I knew his name was going to be Noah George Ostermiller.

Another reason we decided on the name was the message that he sent us soon after he was born. My grandfather had a certain mannerism about him where his lower lip was always out just a bit more than his upper lip. I'm certain that on the other side, Grandpa held our little boy and taught him a few things, including this thing with his lip. He hasn't really done it since, but it spoke to our Ostermiller side of the family as a sign from Grandpa saying that he was alright.