8 weeks old

Baby Jack at 8 weeks old in his awesome baby gap outfit.

So we are now 8 weeks into this parenting thing and I must say it is the hardest thing I have ever done and loved the most. I have heard people say it's the hardest job you'll ever love and I think that is totally true. This week has been composed of attempting to get on a semi schedule. I am not a huge fan of a strict schedule for a baby because I just don't think it's practical, but after a night when Jack decided to wake up every 2 hours I figured I needed to try something new, so I went to the library to get all of the books I could on sleep training, and a couple of friends had suggested Babywise, so I got that one, The baby whisperer and teaching your child healthy sleep habits.

So this week we have been trying the babywise schedule thing, we eat, then have play/awake time and then nap time. The first few days did not go as mommy wanted, and mommy had a mini meltdown, but since Monday the schedule has really worked well. It makes for a happier baby in the evening which is nice for Jake and it has helped at night too.

So our normal day now looks like this

up around 7-8, eat, play then nap for about 45 minutes in his crib

up around 10, then eat, play, and either walk, errands, or nap in crib for about 1.5-2 hours

then around 1 eat, play, then walk/errands for another 1.5-2 hour nap

around 4 we eat, play, and then most of the time daddy gets home so daddy time and then nap in the swing while mommy makes dinner and works out.

then 7 eat, play, and try to stay awake/cat nap until bath time

then bedtime consists of bath, eat, and Baby Jack goes to bed.

So far this is actually working quite well. I am learning to know my little man, some days are happier than others and the crib napping doesn't always work well and with errands and walking napping is often taking place in his carrier, but we are figuring it out.

Overall we consider ourselves very blessed because Jack is such a happy little man. Very little upsets him. He goes down to sleep pretty well and even though I definitely think kids can cry it out at times he is not too much of a crier.

It is so hard to know what is best for a child, and in the end that is what you want, you want them to be loved, happy, and cared for.

It is so crazy to love another little person so much. The capacity to love that God gives you when you have a child is amazing. Well, I hope you enjoyed a look into the days of Hillary and Jack, I'm sure it will change soon, but for right now we are off to eat and play :)


I am terrible and can't figure out how to turn this picture, but this is his awesome rock star outfit with kangle hat at 7 weeks

Jack and daddy. or Jake and his little clone.

5 Weeks old

Merry Christmas from the Sweatlands
This is our picture from Christmas Eve. We were in Winona Lake and left baby Jack in the nursery for the first time, he did very well, so they told us. We had a great time in Winona Lake, we went to see Christmas lights, spent time with grandma and grandpa and met great grandparents, great aunts and cousins/2nd cousins. Baby Jack traveled very well and overall the traveling was really good, we were gone a total of 10 days and by the end we were ready to come home.


Touring the Christmas lights at Center Lake



Baby Jack's playtime mat.

So today Baby Jack is officially 5 weeks old, he is getting so much bigger and so advanced, when he was first home he loved to be cuddled really close and holding him tight would calm him, now he is getting much more independent. He likes his mat time, tummy time, just stretching and being free. He is starting to almost smile. I don't have any good pics of that, but it is cute, we'll try to get one this week.

One of his favorite things that he makes the best faces to is kisses here is Daddy giving kisses.



We had a very nice new years with Dave and Holly from down here and our friends Cory and Melonie and their son Jackson who came down for a couple of nights. We went to a turkey fry for the Rose Bowl at some nieghbors and then on Saturday we were able to meet Adam and Laura Bennett in Louisville for lunch, we hadn't seen each other in over a year, how fast time flies. Today baby Jack is 5 weeks old. We skipped church today because we are having our first episode with a really upset stomach, last night we experienced a new pitch of crying we think due to gas. So mommy is going to need to watch what she eats a little more closely now. But today we are all feeling better and getting ready to go to Bible study. Jessi, Carrie, and Kim, I will try to keep up a little better now that we have more mat and swing time and mommy can get to her computer. :)

Laura and me and Jack, who looks very big in this picture I think...

wow baby

Baby Jack's first trip to the grocery
I haven't blogged in a long time because we have had some very exciting events happen. Jackson Connor Sweatland was born 11-29-09 at 0240. He arrived at 8 lbs 5 oz 20.5 inches long. He was a week early. No one tells you that you can be in early labor for 2 weeks, but that is what happened with me. I was 4 cm dilated for 2 weeks, we kept walking and jumping but he was not interested in coming out until the 29th. I was in labor for 5.5 hours and did things naturally until 9 cm, I got a spinal at that point and my contractions essentially stopped so after an hour they came to give me a little pitocin to get the little guy out and his heart rate dropped to the 60's. So they told me to push him out now or I would get a C-section. So 10 minutes later he arrived with the help of a vacuum and my wonderful midwife. He gave us quite a scare, and once he was out he didn't cry right away, so I was very scared, but Daddy could see him and kept telling me he was moving. He pinked up right away and was completely perfect. Our first family shot is at the bottom of the page.
After the birth we spent 2 nights in the hospital, we were all very excited to come home. Jack is a good sleeper and has been sleeping about 4 hours at a time at night since he came home. We then started having a lot of visitors. My mom and dad, jake's mom and dad, scott and rob peters, my grandma and cousin, friends from post here. It was great to show off our little guy, and helped to prepare us for Christmas.

We feel so blessed to have our little boy here. He is such a joy. He is a very mellow baby and has been a real pleasure. I am so thankful for modern medicine without which our little guy may not have been doing so well. We are also thankful for our families and their excitement and enjoyment of little Jack.

One of the other things we are very thankful for is for the birth of our friends' Jessi and Mike Burns twins. They were born the 30th of November and we have had fun comparing and talking about our new experiences, one of my favorite things is looking at how little her babies look compared to Jack. especially in the godfather onesie picture. Jack was never able to wear newborn clothes and his 0-3 month outfits are getting snug. We are so glad little Nora and Holden are here.

Well my next blog will be with new Christmas pictures, we hope you all had a great new year.







Giant baby in godfather J outfit.




Our first family picture

34 weeks and counting

Pumpkins from the weekend with Kim and Jordan, see below for story.

So this blog will be an update on our lives. I am going to write a seperate blog about my two baby showers and will post some pics from those later.

This is our crib, all ready for baby Jack. We are getting really excited. The next two pictures were taken by Kelsi Rea, my best friend since the second grade who is now an excellent photographer, these are at 34 weeks.

So I have had many questions about why do people get maternity pictures taken? I would say for me, I really want to remember what I looked like at this time. Most pictures are not very flattering, but I want to have a picture documentation of the whole experience, and it's fun to get really good pictures taken after getting makeup and hair done (something that doesn't happen all that often for me because I am in my house alot). I did get a haircut prior to these pictures, short, like it used to be, much easier and mom like :)

What else has happened, we went home for my birthday weekend, and then we got our household goods and moving definitely pooped me out, being on my feet for all day bending and lifting made me super tired, but my husband was soo helpful and we made pretty short work of it (if you know us we both can't stand clutter so about 3 days of boxes was all we could tolerate). After the move I hosted a coffee for our Army wives group and it went really well. There are lots of very nice wives here and our social events have been alot of fun. We have made some new friends here and have had some of them over and been to their houses. Then we had a great visit from Kim and Jordan Howell where we went to see Dracula the play and carved pumpkins. (pic above). It was great to see them and I personally think the friends you make in the Army for life are the best part, no matter where you live you are connected to them. After that weekend I went home for the better part of a week to see my extended family and had a great time.

When we traveled home for my birthday weekend and after 2 weeks of car trouble decided it was time to get rid of our car, and we recently acquired a Santa Fe. It is very nice, much more spacious and AWD which was very important to daddy for this winter.

Jake's school is going well and it is a great time in the Army for us. I have managed to stay quite busy. My average week involves

Monday: walk usually and phone date with Jessi

Tuesday: Swim early and friend time or down time/grocery shopping

Wednesday: Walk usually and getting paperwork type of things done

Thursday: Bible study in the AM and swim in the afternoon

Friday: Walk and Jake usually gets off early so cleaning the house prior to the weekend and then getting ready for weekend fun

Being a housewife has been nice for me and I can't imagine working and getting ready for a baby and moving all at once...

So we feel very blessed, we have been going to on post chapel here and enjoying it, but we especially miss our Hawaii church family on Sundays.

Well it is Tuesday night and SYTYCD is on so I have to get going, but I hope this is a good update. I can't believe that I only have 6 more weeks of being pregnant.

Pictures from the weekends

Jake and Jordan after cleaning up the dishes, what a couple of good guys.

Kristen and I in Cincinatti after eating candy by the aquarium

Jake and Josh, who did wear almost identical outfits.

Catching up

Okay, so I know that I have not been very good at blogging so far, but I am now going to catch everyone up on our lives since our last blog.

I am officially 30 weeks + 1 days pregnant, into my last 8-10 weeks, it is hard to believe. I am posting a couple of pictures here, one is of Kim and I when I was about 27 weeks and one is from last weekend with Kara at 29 weeks, I can tell that I have grown alot the last 2 weeks. My 28 week visit I measured at 30 cm which could be because I am short, or because this is going to be one big Jake sized baby.

So what have we been doing?

Well after leaving Hawaii, which was very hard to do we flew to Seattle and roadtripped across America. We went to Seattle, Spokane, WA, Glacier National Park, Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore, the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD, Wisconsin, then up to the UP of Michigan, Mackinac Island and then down to Indiana to see family.

We had a great time, camping and driving, the car did great and it was a wonderful vacation. Our pictures are posted on facebook if you want to see them. Yellowstone was probably our favorite, it was amazing.

So after visiting family we came down to Kentucky and God was watching out for us because we got into a house within 2 days and not just a house, but a temporarily furnished house from which they will remove the furniture when our stuff gets here in mid-October...this was a huge blessing because we thought we would be in a hotel (ughh) or in the house with an airmattress (double ughh). So me and my very pregnant belly are happy about the whole situation.

After getting to Kentucy we have been to visit the Howells and the Jack Daniels distillery

We also visited Kara and Seth Ray in Cincinnatti and got to see Jake's brother Josh and his wife Kristen who were in town for a wedding. We had some car issues, but we were able to spend an afternoon together, which was great since they live in Orlando, Jake hadn't seen his brother in over 2 years, so that was a treat.

Since then we have come back to Ft. Knox where Jake's classes are underway and I am enjoying my role as a housewife. My main taks are composed of making sandwiches for lunch, making dinner, and taking pregnancy walks. We are getting ready to head to Winona Lake next weekend for my birthday and baby shower. After that I can get ready to nest in preparation for the baby.

Okay, I hope you have enjoyed my blog, I promise to be better about updates from now on :)

My first blog

So my friends have been telling me that I need to blog for a long time now, but I haven't really felt the need because I saw them all the time and so I would just tell them all about me in person, but then my friends started to move away and I decided that they still need to know about me, so I will now begin to blog. Even though Jake thinks we don't really have anything too thrilling to say, I think that some people will keep up with it...

So us.

We are currently expecting a little boy. I am 22 weeks plus some change into my pregnancy. I feel fine, just big. I think this is going to be a Jake sized baby. The other news is that we leave Hawaii in 16 days, which does not feel real at all. I am totally in denial, but for good reason, I still have 7 days of school left. But those last 9 days I am going to jam all I can of Hawaii into my brain.

I will finish my masters degree and finally be able to call myself a nurse practitioner. I love my new line of work and I will be very excited to get my new job in North Carolina eventually.

So we will soon be off on our trek across the country, then to Fort Knox until about March/April 2010, then onto Fort Bragg, NC. My goal is keep the blog updated with posts about us and the baby when he gets here.

Okay,

Well, this may be a boring blog, but I will try to make them more exciting later on. I am now going to try to attach a picture.

Today was Jake's last day of official work, so we are off to Chili's for... chicken wings of course.