A Peek at Life as a Natic

Check out our photo gallery to see our family pictures or click here.

Last Sunday morning we went with Kara, Lin, and Alisha’s mom up to The Original Pancake House.  Although this place is a chain, I have only eaten at one once before.  Holy COW is it good!  They try to use healthier ingredients, not to say it is “healthy” in the least.  Their food is just flat out incredible!  I had bacon pancakes, yes bacon pancakes, and holy CRAP are they good!!  I added a side of delicious home fries and Alisha had a waffle and some eggs.  If you have never been to one you have to go.  To my local readers, the only one I know of in the area is on Windward. 

After breakfast we made a quick stop at Babies R Us and then headed off to Ryan and Andrea’s house.  We hung around for a bit and then headed to Andrea’s neighborhood parks to take some pictures outside.  Some of those are in the photo gallery and can be seen by clicking the link above.  It was very sunny (yeah i know…. hard to believe) so many of the shots were of me squinting and ruining the shots LOL. 

Later on, Nathan and Sarah came over with their two lovely children for dinner and to hang out.  It was a great night chilling with the DiRocco’s as always.  It was good so see them again.  Unfortunately their moving habits have us about an hour apart now .

Thanks Andrea for taking the pics!

Last Saturday we had a busy day.  We woke up a little late and scrambled around to head to a neighbor’s child’s birthday party.  We were about 30 minutes or so late, but hey, better late than never right?  We had a good time eating some food and just chilling to celebrate Gabby’s first birthday.

Afterwards, we headed over to Hector and Reagan’s house to hang out with them for a while.  They were busy painting the nursery so we decided to swing by.  While we were there Geni showed up with pizza from Ray’s which hit the spot!  After Hector finished the nursery we just chilled and hung out for a while before heading out to dinner at Marlows Tavern.  We met Ashley, Kevin, Jason, and Amber at the one in Alpharetta for some grub.  I had been to one before in Duluth, but noone else had been to one.  Just like the Duluth location, it was a crammed restaraunt but for a good reason.  They have great food and a nice atmosphere.  We had a great dinner before heading back to the house to relax for the rest of the night.

Friday night we went with Dan, Bobby, and Kara to Gordon Biersch down in Buckhead.  Gordon Biersch is a brewpub / restaurant chain that has a few locations in the Atlanta area.  I had been wanting to try it out for quite some time but my fear of lagers has kept me away.  Well I was wrong.  I should have gone there years ago.

I am a big ale person and love my dark, bold, thick beers.  Since most of the American popular beers are lagers, I have built up a large amount of hate for this type of beer.  I should have opened up sooner.  These beers at Gordon Biersch were quite good!  They are not as heavy or as bold as the stouts that I typically like, but they were still quite tasty smooth and flavorfull.  I am a fan and will be sure to give more lagers a shot when out drinking at Taco Mac or similar bars.  I will certainly look for ales first, but I will not turn my head to the lagers anymore.  Well most of them that is.  I still dont care for the typical American Lager, but the darker more complex styles were good. 

The food there was also very good.  We had some hiccups with our order but they were polite and very quick to resolve them with no questions asked.  The management staff came by to make sure all was corrected as well which was nice.  Without a doubt, I would return to Gordon Biersch.  I really enjoyed it!

I would certainly recommend you give them a shot!  We loved it!

Check out our photo gallery to see Pictures of Preston or click here.

We uploaded some more pics of Preston for you to browse through.  He is now showing so many more facial expressions and reactions to things!  It is crazy to watch it all happen.

Daddy's Little Boy

He is a great baby!  He sleeps anywhere from 4-6 hours at first at night, then wakes up to eat, and then back down for another few hours.  His little tummy is much better now and he is all in all a happy baby.  The only time he is really fussy is in the morning.  He seems to need to poop in the morning and gets fussy and restless.

Check out our photo gallery to see Pictures of Waking Preston or click here.

Such a yawn lol

Preston is a total trip!  LOL  If you try to wake him while he sleeps he makes the funniest of noises and resists.  It is so cute and so funny.  Sassy little thing!  The link above has some pics of us waking him up.  The video below is of us getting him to make his little noises.  They are even better when he is completely asleep but he still did it a little bit here.  Make sure you turn your speakers up as the volume isnt very loud. 

Check out our photo gallery to see Preston and Kaitlyn’s Playdate or click here.

On Friday Alisha and Preston headed over to Mike and Aubree’s house to hang out for the day.  I met them over there after work to chill and grab dinner with them.  Apparently Kaitlyn loved Preston.  It was cute!

Kaitlyn kissing Preston

We had a great time hanging out with Mike, Aubree, Kaitlyn, and Jessika out in Canton.  Another start to a great weekend!

Preston had been doing quite a bit better recently.  He was back to being a happy little boy but we could certainly tell when we were nearing the 4th hour from the last time that he had his medication.  He would get a little fussy and you could tell he was starting to feel pain a little bit.  We called the Dr and they decided to move him from his current prescription of Zantac over to a medicine called Prevacid.  The first night that he got the Prevacid was not a good one.  He began to get fussy and we gave him his first dosage of Prevacid – things went way downhill and unfortunately we had no way to tell if it was the medication he was given, the adjustment that he had earlier, or just pure coincidence.  He was miserable yet again for about 3 hours or more. 

The picture says it all

Thankfully he did well after about midnight and he slept for Alisha.  In the morning we debated giving him the Prevacid but we needed to know what was going on by ruling out some possible causes.  We didn’t know if it was the Prevacid or not, but we decided to keep giving it to him to determine if that was the cause or not.  Fortunately we found that it was not the cause as he had a very good day the next day.  We still to this day dint know the cause and can only say that maybe it is a coincidence.  It just seems to be quite a bit more frequent lately that he is bothered by his little tummy.

Preston is currently taking Zantac (for only a few more days), Prevacid (going forward), gripe water, and hycosamine for his poor little tummy.  It kills me to see him in pain when he is, and makes me wonder what in the heck else could cause all of this…. is it really just acid reflux????  ugh.  All in all he is a good baby and a happy baby… but when he has his miserable times it is heart wrenching.

So Alisha has been trying to come up with ways to keep Preston awake during the day so that he will sleep at night a little better.  Here are a few pictures of her setting up a few things to play with.

Last Saturday we made plans to leave the kiddos at home and head out for an adult dinner at Maggianos in Buckhead.  Alisha’s birthday and Ryan’s birthday are only a day apart and we always make an annual trip to Maggianos – and this year was no exception.

In the afternoon I had tried to get all of the guys together for a good game of football.  We had about 10 people that were in but most of them backed out due to a little rain.  Four of us showed up and we said “screw it, lets play”.  We played for a while just as a QB and one receiver taking turns trying to make it into the end zone.  It was fun on its own, kept us active, and made for a good time.  We were soaked, but it was still so worth it.  Afterwards, we headed over to Taco Mac for a quick beer and then headed home to get ready for dinner later in the evening.

We made plans to leave little Preston with Alisha’s mom and head out with friends.  Bobby and Courtney came over to our house and we headed out to Buckhead to meet up with Mike, Aubree, Ryan and Andrea.  We had an excellent dinner and had a great time.  It was very nice to see everyone again and as always the food was spot on.

You know us… always need to be doing something, so on Friday I decided to make a run up to Dahlonega to try out a few places that I have not been to.  Since I wanted to head up to try out a beer, I made sure to call Bobby up and see if he wanted to join us.  He of course decided to come along.  On the way up we took a few minutes to show Bobby the NGCSU campus and then headed off to grab dinner and drinks.

We were told about an Irish Pub just off of the square in Dahlonega called Shananigans.  It was in the basement of a house that was turned into a restaurant / pub which was pretty cool.  The place was quite full (not very large though) and had a great vibe to it.  Everyone was kinda seated close to each other and the decor was like you would expect for an Irish Pub.  The food was quite delicious and the wait staff was on point as well.  Everyone there seemed to know each other and the friendly table next to us occasionally carried on a nice conversation about everything from food to beer to Preston.  It was great.

After we ate we headed over to Caruso’s to try out the stout that they brewed for the season.  On the way out the friendly table next to us warned us about the beer but we did not take their advise and shrugged it off.  Holy crap were they right!  We headed over to Caruso’s and ordered just the beer.  It was the worst beer to ever touch my lips.  When I say it was bad I mean it was TERRIBLE!  The beer had a very distinct sour taste to it and was just freaking awful!  I would rather drink Bud Light by far… hell, I’d drink a keg of Bud Light to not drink that again.  While we were sittingn there just looking around, Alisha spotted a rediculous painting of Dale Earnheart.  It was a picture of him above his car about to be spun into the wall that killed him… all in the middle of an Italian restaurant next to a nice mural.  WTF?!?!  Bobby and I left a full glass of terrible beer on the table, got our checks, and got the hell out of there.  UGH!

Check out our photo gallery to see Preston’s one month pics or click here.

I can’t believe that our sweet little boy is already 1 month old!  He has already gotten so big!  I remember when we were in the hospital, I would just hold him in my arm like a football.  Yeah… not anymore.  He is already out of most of his newborn clothes and weighs somewhere around 10 lbs.  Jeez.  His facial features have changed so much.  He moves so much more, and has many more expressions.  He feels much more solid and has quite impressive head control.  He is no longer the limp baby that we took home from the hospital. 

This month has been tough from getting used to the lack of sleep and constant care to the issues with his poor little tummy.  Everytime we think we make some headway on that situation it seems to rear its head yet again.  Man… we HAVE to find out what the heck is causing him so much discomfort and / or pain at times.  It is heart wrenching to see him like that.  He is so young, but already dealing with things like that.  He is currently taking Zantac (not for much longer), Prevacid, gripe water, and a tummy relaxer.  It is like he is an old man already – jeez! 

Even through the tummy issues it has been such a great month and we love our little boy so much.  We cannot wait to see how much he changes in the coming months!  While I am away I just want to rush home and hold him as he sits so contently in my arms.

Holy cow!  Preston is now in his first 0-3 month clothes, wearing size 1 diapers and is 4 weeks old!  My goodness!!

Click here to check out his pics from tonight.

 So this past week has been kinda tough on us, especially with us being new, first time parents.  We took Preston in for a well visit last Friday.  Everything seemed to be doing well and our little munchkin had made it to a whopping 7 lbs 15.5 oz!!!!  My little guy is growing so fast.  While we were there we brought up the fact that we noticed that his little tummy seemed to be bothering him a little bit.  Almost like he was slightly uncomfortable.  They stated that it happens sometimes and gave us some meds that would calm his tummy down a little bit. 

On Tuesday we noticed that his stomach was not getting any better at all and was in fact getting quite worse.  He began to grunt throughout the day and while nursing which was heart wrenching to watch.  He is such a tough little guy and never really screamed or cried much.  You would just see him wince and cringe in pain as he would grunt and kick his little legs or bring them up and then back down.  We could definitely tell that he was not feeling very well.  They stated that it is most likely something called Silent Reflux and prescribed a medication called Zantac.  In short, silent reflux is the acid coming back up from him stomach due to an immature digestive system.  Many babies spit up (reflux) but in this case, the acids just reach his throat and it burns it.  Over long periods of time this could cause permanent damage. 

Preston's first time in the snow!

We have a family friend who is a chiropractor and told us about newborn adjustments.  We decided to take him in, as anything that will make him better we are in for.  The adjustments are very subtle and Preston seemed to not even care in the least.  He was relaxed and quiet and did very well.  I don’t know enough about the details of how this works, but many say that it would prevent or fix colic as well as keep him healthier in general. 

After putting him on the Zantac and taking him off of the other medication things got much more noticeable.  He didn’t really sleep all night.  Every time he nursed he would wince and pull off in pain, again never really crying, just in VERY noticeable pain.  We reached out to our pediatrician and they did not get back to us before the end of the day.  From the sounds of it, there was a mix-up at the office about returning our call.  We decided that we could not watch or listen to it anymore.  He was not comfortable and we could not let it continue without trying to do something about it.  In addition I wanted to get tests done that would show that it definitely was acid reflux or wasn’t so that we knew how to approach medicating and comforting him. 

We took him up to Scottish Rite in Atlanta last night to have him checked out.  While we were there we did not get much accomplished.  The dr was quite quick to write the whole thing off as collic (which I am finding is as often diagnosed as ADD is) and sent us home.  Even though I asked and asked to have test run, they would not do so.  The only plus that really came out of this whole run to Scottish Rite was that they told us that we were able to give him the Zantac as well as his other belly meds around the same time. 

We got home at about 11:00 last night and headed off to bed.  For the “colic” Alisha’s mom bought a product called gripe water which is basically purified water with herbs known to relax digestive issues.  This stuff has been used in the UK forever and is finally making its way to the States.  Like all other colic remedies, it either works wonders or not much at all.  I guess we will find out which is true soon.  After getting his belly meds, gripe water, and Zantac he had a great night sleep. 

Preston's first time in his stroller

He still occasionally has times where you can tell his little tummy is hurting him, but he is MUCH better than he was yesterday.  We had an appt to follow up with the pediatrician this morning and although he seemed much better we wanted to see what they had to say and what they thought.  We saw Dr. Carter this time and he still thinks that the symptoms are pointing to reflux and wants to continue with the Zantac.  Preston has occasionally started to spit up after eating prooving that there is some reflux.  It is never projectile or anything but just a little bit.  We had Preston weighed today and he weighed in at 9lbs 2 oz!  Damn he just keeps jumping by leaps and bounds.  After the dr, we headed up to my office to get some stuff done and then back to Watts Chiropractic in Cumming to have him adjusted again per Forrest’s advice.

This evening has gone quite well and it is very obvious that he is feeling much better.  We are hoping that he continues to stay happy.  Thanks for everyone that thought about us during all of this.  We can’t thank you enough!

I have added a few more pics of little Preston on our photo gallery.

Envy holding Preston

Click here to take a peek!

On Sunday we planned to hang out with Andrea and Ryan for the Atlanta Home Show.  Since we got back from Athens on Saturday night rather late we knew getting up early for lunch with Andrea and Ryan would be tough.  In addition Andrea had mentioned that Nico may not be feeling well so we sort of banked on lunch not happening – apparently this was a bad idea LOL.

I got a text on Sunday morning from Andrea that said something along the lines of No Mas lunch at 11:00?  I didn’t realize that No Mas is a restaurant LOL – I thought that she was saying no more lunch at 11:00 – sorry guys!  We would have loved to do lunch but we would have needed to make it a little later.  ha ha.

We had a good time checking out the home show.  It was not quite what we had hoped that it would be but we still got to spend time just hanging out.  We checked out the show and grabbed some coffee afterwards before heading home for the night.  It was great seeing them again and we are looking forward to Maggianos next weekend for Alisha and Ryan’s birthday!