It's definitely winter!

Snow on the ground, lots of hot chocolate in the pantry and muddy boots on the porch. Yep, winter is here! Normally, I would be all excited to go out and play in the snow with my little man, but the big ol' belly makes it less than enjoyable. Luckily, I married a good Canadian man who has no problems with being out in the cold! :)

Brody does love the winter. He wants to put his coat, boots, gloves, and hat on and go digging in the snow with his backhoe or excavator. And he has to be forcibly brought back inside somedays! I don't know how he stands it out there for so long. He must get it from his dad.

He4 is also very into Handy Manny lately. It is nice in the morning (like right now). I can drink some coffee, do some cleaning (yeah, right), or just play on the computer for a bit while he watched Manny and the tools do their thing. However, during the rest of the day, I have to work to find something else to entertain him. He would honestly sit and watch that darn show all day is I let him (and I will be honest and admit there has been a day or 2 when I have let him watch more than I should, but I am 32 weeks pregnant and somedays I don't want to do much, so there!).

Yesterday, Mike and I took Brody to wenatchee for his first teeth cleaning. He has been going to the dentist since he was about 18 months for regular checkups but this was his first "official" appointment. He did SO WELL! I was very impressed with him. He sat completely still while they did the x-rays and lay there like a champ when he had his teeth cleaned. He goes to the best children's dentist there is, I think. Dr. Shroeder in Wenatchee, in case you are looking for someone!

The house is coming along. I will be glad when it's finally done, if for no other reason than to have a less stressed out husband. I need to hop on over to the house blog and update it soon.

Downtown Halloween

Last night we did trick-or-treated downtown with all the cousins. That's five kids ages 2-7. Four adults though, so we kept them corralled pretty well. Brody absolutely loved it! He pretty much enjoys any activity that lets him hang out with his cousins. He knew to say "trick-or-treat" and made sure to thank everyone. He did run away from us a couple of times, but that is why Mike was there, my waddling couldn't chase him very well. We came home with a 3 year old on a major sugar high and had the worst time getting him into bed. He was finally asleep around 10:30. He woke up at 5:30 this morning, which is unheard of for him. Normally, he sleeps in like a tiny little teenager. I had to stay with him until he was asleep again around 6:30. I think all the sugar gave him a bad dream or something, he seemed a little freaked out. I had a hard time going back to sleep and of course, once I was deep in REM mode, the little stinker was up again for the day! If only I could go buy a huge coffee or something.

September

I am skipping July and August. Those months are a blur of nausea and extreme fatigue. I don't want to relive it.

September was much more fun and memorable! I was finally feeling somewhat human again and Brody was getting ready to turn 3! I also had a birthday but we don't have to talk about that. :)

Brody decided he wanted a Spongebob birthday. The kid loves Spongebob. I've watched, and I do not get it. Anyway, here are some pictures from his party:

The cake LeeAnne made:


With Opa and Oma, who came down from Ontario, Canada to visit and stayed to be here for B's birthday:

Enjoying his cake (don't mind the boogers):

Opening one of his presents (Spongebob Matchbox cars):

Opening more presents:

I had many more pictures to include, including a few of B playing outside in the sun during our short summer, but or some reason I was only allowed these. I guess they take up too much room. I'll figure it out eventually.

June

On June 3rd, I was scheduled to go in for my first OB appointment. I was so excited! I had to watch Maddy for a bit in the morning and then in the afternoon, Mike, Brody, and I were going to go to Moses Lake. Then the morning turned awful. Maddy and Brody were playing in his room and they were arguing over some toy or other. I was in the kitchen making pancakes for them. Brody suddenly came out of his room with his hand on his chest whimpering for me. At first, I thought he was just upset over whatever Maddy had that he wanted. I picked him up and realized his lips were turning blue. He started to pass out and I yelled at Mike to call 9-1-1. While he was on the phone, I did the ultimate no-no and stuck my finger down Brody's throat thinking he might be choking on something. It made him gag and he started breathing again. Mike told the dispatcher to send someone anyway to check Brody out. The ambulance showed up about five minutes later and checked all of his vitals, which were fine. I called our pediatrician and made the decision to go to the walk-in in ML to have him checked out a little more thoroughly. The doctor there said he thought it sounded like B had a small seizure. This of course did not make me feel any better about the situation. He did a blood draw and everything was fine there. I went upstairs and made an appointment with our pediatrician for the following week because I needed a second opinion. At that appointment, Dr. L said she thought it sounded more like B got overly upset about something and had a breath-holding spell. I guess it can be fairly common among little boys. At least that is what I was told. It hasn't happened again since then, but I still worry it will.

As for my OB appt. everything looked great! We saw the flickering little heartbeat on the u/s monitor and I felt much better about the day. I was told my due date would be January 25, but since I will be having a c-section, the baby will be here a week or so earlier.

In the middle of the month, I started feeling the effects of early pregnancy. I gotta say, it was much easier to feel like crap when there were no other kids to take care of. This time, I had to stay awake and mobile no matter how badly I wanted to lay in bed and groan about the nausea. Luckily, Brody was a good sport when it got really bad and would watch Imagination Movers or Spongebob while I rested in the recliner. And it helped that the weather was nice. We could go outside and I would watch him play while I sat there hoping I wouldn't throw up (which I never did).

May

I do remember that in May we finally got the news we'd been waiting for for 9 months. I was pregnant! I of course have no patience for waiting to hear this kind of thing and took a test 4 days early. It was positive! Still, I told Mike we were not to tell anyone until I took a test a week later. Then I blabbed it to my neighbor that evening during a BBQ. In my defense, she kept trying to make me a margarita and I couldn't find a good enough reason to say no. So the next morning I had to call and tell my mom so I wouldn't feel guilty for breaking the news to someone else first. A week later, I took another test and of course it was positive too. I called and made an appointment with yet another different OB/GYN (they keep moving away on me!). I had to wait until June 3rd for my first appointment.

Mike celebrated his 33rd birthday on May 13. We had family and the neighbors (who may as well be family) over to BBQ. It was a fun night with kids running around and being crazy. Here is my littlest niece, Keilee stealing one of Brody's blankets:

Brody playing on the swingset:

My 4 year old niece, Madyx. She's a little weird and I love it!

My 5 year old niece, Keirsten.

And speaking of weird, here is my kid wearing the belt to my bathrobe as a headband. Gotta love him!

April

Alright, here's the plan. I will do a quick update for each month I did not post anything. As for the new house, I am going to start a whole new blog to keep anyone who cares updated.

So, April. Can't remember a whole lot about that month (it was 6 months ago, and I have pregnancy brain). I do remember that LeeAnne and I took her two girls and Brody to Smallwood's Harvest in Peshastin. That place is such a blast, but I recommend going in the fall. There is lots more to do then. Still we had fun feeding the animals and playing on the toys and LeeAnne and I enjoyed spending money on some stuff in the store. Here is a picture of Brody sort of enjoying himself while there:





One of Brody's favorite things to do is follow his dad around. I think this is true of most little boys. Dad is his hero. Here they are mowing the lawn. Brody follows along with his little toy mower.

And here they are hauling the cut grass out to the field in their wheelbarrows.

This picture was just for fun. My cat loves to hide under this bush and attack birds or feet or whatever else comes her way. Can you spot her? I feel kind of bad for her because Mike ripped the bush out a few months ago. And while it looks so much better, poor Lucy has lost her hide out.

I know April was probably more exciting than that, but like I said, it was 6 months ago and this is all you get!

I'm terrible.

So many new things to blog about! Pregnancy, new home FINALLY getting underway, Brody turning 3, etc. Maybe I should start over from scratch? ;)

To Opa and Oma's house we go!

I am not doing a very good job keeping up with this here blog.

In February we went to Ontario to spend some time with Brody's Opa and Oma (Mike's mom and dad). The flight down was okay once we realized that Brody needed to be sitting on my lap during the ENTIRE ride! I'd like to apologize to the people who had to listen to the screaming before we figured that out.

The first day or two Brody was great! Then he started acting like a little stinker and was so clingy with me. We finally decided his ears were bothering him when he wouldn't stop rubbing them. On about teh 4th or 5th day there, he had a really high fever, how high I am not sure since Opa and Oma didn't have a kid friendly thermometer and Mike and I forgot to bring one. I could tell by touching him it had to be at least 103/104. So I gave him some tylenol and laid down with him. As he was sleeping (and unable to stop me) I looked more closely at his ears and noticed the right one was draining something nasty out of it. I'll spare the details. Long story short, we took him to a walk-in and got some antibiotics and loaded him up on drugs for the flight home.

Anyway, we did manage to have some fun with him despite the ear problems. Before it got bad, we went to Niagara Falls and stayed in a hotel that was connected to N. America's largest indoor waterpark. My husband is like a giant kid in an indoor waterpark, and I admit, I am a bit of a fan myself. Brody had so much fun! They had a tiny tots splash area that was just a bunch of toys that squirted water and the water was pretty warm, so he stayed there most of the time. There were also a couple of slides that didn't land in a pool of water so he liked those as well.


A few pictures:

Happy New Year! Better late than never...

Well, Christmas has coma and gone. Typically, the ending of the holiday season fills me with a feeling of sadness. I usually feel so sad to see the festive decorations get boxed up until next year, but this year has been different. This year, I relished putting away the intrusive tree, with it's wide branches that hid the bottom left corner of the TV screen. I enjoyed sealing the ornaments into their respective Ziploc bags and I felt relief when all the holiday clutter was packed away once again. Maybe it is because our house is getting ever smaller as our child gets bigger and accumulates more toys. And for some reason, his toys keep getting bigger also. Where before, he happily played with a matchbox car or two, he now drags out tents, ride on vehicles and other crap that serves no purpose other than to make his mother crazy! Now, I am not a neat freak by any stretch of the imagination, but even I have my limits! I keep telling myself by this time next year, a new house will be built for us, with so much more space! This little two bedroom shoebox will be a thing of the past! Of course, by that time there will be another child (God willing) with more crap to leave all over the place. But such are the joys of parenthood, I suppose! And now, for the viewing pleasure of the 3 or 4 people who will read this, some pictures of my little man:

this is typical morning behavior. dry cereal and cartoons, life doesn't get much better

a common sight after bathtime, until the towel slips off, then a little naked man runs wild through the house

being silly with dad and his tent

playing with his new toy from Santa