Friday O' Fun

We are enjoying a relaxing Friday at home today with two milestone accomplishments to celebrate.
Paxton had his first "play date". You may be wondering with who. 3 friends actually: a zebra, an alligator and an elephant. We have put him in his bouncy chair with his animal friends before and he has never noticed their presence before today. Something clicked inside his little brain today and low and behold he found his animal friends. He even played with them, which consisted of a bunch of punching and swatting of them. We hope we are not teaching him inappropriate social skills. If you are interested you can check out his play date below. (Warning: This may only be interesting for family, particularly grandparents.)


The second milestone to celebrate is the baking of our first French Onion Soup dish. Over the holidays we watched the movie Julie and Julia, the story of Julia Child and a woman who made all her dishes. This inspired Aimee to rent a compilation video of her cooking shows from the library, which in turn inspired Preston to actually make one of her recipes. So Preston spent the morning with The French Chef, via our lap top, following her instructions of how to make French Onion Soup. The end result: divine delight! Below are some pics highlighting his French adventure.
The smell of onions permeated our entire upstairs by 11am.
Preston's quirky inspiration, Julia Child. This is a picture of Julia's cooking show on our lap top as is was playing in our kitchen this morning.
This was the end result; cheesy, bread filled, heavenly French Onion Soup. It really was delicious and we have enough of the broth left over to make a whole other meal.

Little Bear

This was a cute video of Paxton in his new "bear" outfit. He is so much fun each day. We are really loving him and enjoy getting to know his every squeak and grunt!



Grandma was a little burp happy, that's why Pax wanted to claw her eyes out is she burped him again.

What is this thing called silence?

We have officially said good bye to all our family. Our last round of revolving door guests left on Saturday morning. We dropped Preston's Mom, Dad and sister off at the airport, blowing kisses from Paxton from the security check point. Sigh... the absence of family leaves us with mixed emotions. We look forward to returning to a schedule and quiet time, but it pulls at our heart strings to say good bye to our family, unsure of the next time we will see them. Overall, the best part of having family here was seeing them all love Paxton and having him surrounded by family. Preston and I both feel overwhelmingly blessed by how wonderful our families are.
The second best thing about having family here was utilizing their magnificent talents. :) Preston's sister and mom reupholstered a couch I bought at Goodwill for a great deal. Check it out.

The couch originally had a heinous dust ruffle as well but I forgot to snap a picture before they ripped it off. I couldn't be more happy with this little sofa. Aren't they so talented? We look forward to many comfy movies on this sofa. Our goal is to not get Pax spit up on it for at least a month. :)

Turning 4 weeks!

Time has really been flying by. Not so much because of any sort of schedule because with a new born we are quickly learning that he dictates everything! With that said we have been surprised to find that we are able to many of the things we enjoy doing and going, just with more prep time and not always arriving on time.

We just finished a lovely visit with Nana (Aim's mom), Aunt Nancy, Aunt Liz, Cousin Colby, and Cousin Jaclyn this past weekend. It was great to have everyone here to love on little Paxton. Most everyone got to spend quality time with Pax (this usually meant napping with him :) and eating (which it seemed like we ate a whole side of beef while they were here.)

We just got the professional pictures of Paxton (who was almost 3 weeks in the pictures) taken by The Photog. Check them out!

We also had his month checkup yesterday. He is 8lbs and 13 oz (put on 2 lbs since leaving the hospital) and very healthy. We praise and thank god everyday for this little blessing. He is the VERY BEST Christmas Present this year!!!!

Happy Two Weeks!

Tonight at 6:55pm Paxton will be two weeks old! And if you follow our blog you know that means it has been two weeks since we posted anything. It has not been for a lack of news. Instead, an abundance of news which leaves me bewildered as to where to start.
Overall, life in the Tippen household of 3 has been wonderful. For starters we got to bring Paxton home on Thanksgiving day, accompanied by Preston's mom and dad. They ran to the store Thanksgiving afternoon and bought a ton of groceries and whipped up a fantastic Thanksgiving Day meal. (Sans the Turkey since they were all frozen. We were planning on celebrating Thanksgiving at a friend's home so we literally had no food. Preston's dad improvised with a delicious chicken.) We really couldn't of asked for a better first few days of Paxton's life. Preston's parents cooked, cleaned, oogled over Pax, and Preston's dad helped Preston finally completely finish the downstairs bathroom! We were truly sad to see them go, but anticipate their soon return for Christmas. Next on the horizon is the visit of my side of the family. We are so excited!
These last few days have been relatively calm, with lots of laughs over poopy diapers, farts and pee sprays in the face, large belches, funny faces (most likely caused by gas, catching a pattern here?), outfits that say New Born but drown Pax in fabric, cute coos, baby snores, and the slow realization that we are now Mom and Dad not just Preston and Aimee.
I never thought I could worry about someone to the extent I do for this little one. People keep asking the typical question, "Are you getting enough sleep?" My answer is yes, because our little Pax sleeps well for 2-3 hours at a time, but I on the other hand am in a light mode of sleep all night, listening for him and getting up several times to just make sure he is breathing. It really amazes me how quickly my perspective on life changes once giving birth. I haven't woken up one day since he has been born without truly being thankful for the gift of another day; for life. Preston and I keep asking each other when will we get bored with just starring at him. Perhaps the first time he talks back to us. But for now, we are smitten with love.

Our Bundle of Peace

On November 24 at 6:55pm (CST) Paxton Edward Tippen was born weighing in at 7lbs 2 oz and 20in. Mom and baby are doing very well. He's got all 10 fingers and 10 toes and is very healthy. Right now we are loving spending time with him, that we sneak in between visitors and doctor checks. The timing was just perfect;' he came early, with the doctor we wanted, and in enough time for Preston's parents to come over the holiday.

his first pictures here

No Baby yet!

He's not here yet but that's a good thing because we have had many projects to complete before his arrival! Preston's mental "do-it-yourself" (DIY for those who are in the club) capacity is being strained and challenged daily as he lays siege to the basement bathroom remodel. And Aimee's body is strained and challenged by the constant pressure near her birth canal that baby boy is creating.
Today's task was putting the flor in the bathroom. It was much more fun that anticipated after returning the sheet of linoleum that was too small and going with self stick tile! I never thought I'd use my old wreslting knee pads again but they totally saved my knees today. Below are a few pics of the new paint and flooring with the shower base uninstalled (that's next)!

~Preston

A Fabulous Shower

Tuesday was a big day for us. First we had our 36 week Dr.'s appointment. As of Tuesday I am 30% effaced with only a dimple sized dilated. According to my doctor, right on target. Knowing we won't be going into delivery this week was very comforting for us considering Preston flew out at 6am this morning (Friday) for his grandmother's funeral and will return tomorrow night. So here I am sitting cross legged for the night.
In the evening, we had a church wide family shower. I wish we had some video of it to share, but unfortunately we only have a few snap shots. We were so blessed with a wonderful meal with many families, a hysterical skit depicting Preston, Aimee and Baby Boy Tippen (titled "Turbo Charge Tippen") by the Weber Family, a fun kids game that included the kids putting balloons under their shirts like they were pregnant (hysterical!), and then tons and tons of beautiful gifts. It was quite overwhelming in a great kind of way. Now are drawers are full of adorable clothes and our kitchen cabinet full of baby bottles. We are now just waiting on a few online Target shipments and then we still need to place our cloth diaper order.

Tralese as Preston and Sauvell as Aimee

Wendy as Turbo Charge Tippen.The kids shoving balloons under thier shirts.

Opening gifts.Our baby rocker, made by local Amish. A BEAUTIFUL keepsake and perfectly designed for a woman.

life & death

So its too late to be actually writing but after almost falling asleep watching a PBS special on cannabis i hoped on to check the end of the day sports scores and found my mind drifting away about my soon to arrive baby and soon death of my grandma.
I've never really been a person who deal with change very well. I have become better at coping with change as I age but it is big changes are not my forte. I am about to experience two very huge changes. I've had 9 months to prep myself for our first baby, but yet as i get daily updates from my mom on the status of my grandmothers deteriorating condition it seems her death will be harder change. In the back of my mind I've always known that my grandma was going to die (just like us all), but it still weighs heavier on my mind than the huge change that will happen when the baby is born.
I think its because death's adjustment period (grieving) doesn't have anything new, just the lack of something. With the baby everything is new and everything changes, but with death there is just a void.
Now, i love Jesus and believe that our belief in Him holds the promise of life everlasting, but for life on earth this is it. So, I'm left holding a mixed bag of emotions, none too overwhelming, but a jumbled pot of anxiety, excitement, dread, and uncertainty as the two polar opposites on life's cycle converge in the very near future within the Tippen household.
~Preston

36 weeks

We have officially passed the 36 week mark of pregnancy! Just less than one month left, give or take a week or two. We have our now weekly check up this coming Tuesday, so I am sure I will have more to post on the baby's progress after that. Safe to say for now though that I feel as if I can literally feel him getting bigger inside me day by day. Or maybe he is just stretching his limbs. Either way, it is as if every part of my body feels him inside of me.
As he develops more and more, and the days get closer to his arrival we just seem to be falling in love with him more and more. Knowing that he can hear us has us talking to him all the time. I wonder what our voices sound like to him in there... To update you on a few of our ongoing projects see the pics below.

Here is Aimee at 36 weeks.

Here is what used to be a shower in our basement bathroom.
Here is what used to be a toilet, wall papered walls, and linoleum floor.