Flashback Friday

Alexa - 2 days old

Braden - 2 weeks old

My Little Animals

I love coming home to my little caged animals!

I'm sure they sit here all day just waiting for me to walk in the door. :)

Wordless Wednesday

Everyone Loves Somes Pictures

I love this picture so much.....now that I look at it, it doesn't look all that great but they way they were looking at each other was SO precious!

Braden has become obsessed with his feet and pulling his socks off

Poor little Alexa was so tired she fell asleep while reading in bed. A couple nights later she did the same thing except the book was laying over her face!

Braden just being his adorable self.

Alexa dancing like a princess, too busy to stop for a picture.

Mom's Hard Work Down the Drain

So I have been secretly working with Braden for the past several weeks on saying ma ma. I have to admit, it wasn't going so well and we hadn't made very much progress on it. I thought, Alexa said da da first, this time I am determined to get ma ma out of Braden. After all I deserved it, right? I am the one who was pregnant for 9 months, the one who has to give birth to these babies, the one up at night feeding them, the one who worries constantly day in and day out that everything is perfect for them and that they are as safe as possible.

This past week I could feel it coming I knew he was about to break out and just SAY SOMETHING already.

Well, he did, loud and clear....DA DA.

Not once or twice but basically that's all that has been coming out of his mouth for the last like 5 days.

How could this happen? I know Matt wasn't secretly working with him too, was he? Didn't he know how much I really wanted him to say ma ma first?

Then I realized that Matt deserved it just as much as I thought I did. He loves them just as much as I do and he is a wonderful daddy. Besides it sounds pretty dang cute when Braden says "da da da da" all day and it was cute how excited Matt was to hear it!

Wordless Wednesday

Building with Daddy

Alexa's busy Saturday morning started off with swimming, which she is always SO excited for. I think she would live in the water sometimes if she could, between swimming and baths and always telling us she wants to go back to Hawaii to swim there too! This week Grampa and Gramma came to watch and she was very happy to see them and show off all the new things she was doing. After that it was off to breakfast and then to Lowe's for some building. I FINALLY got there with them so I could get pictures. I'm not sure who has more fun, Alexa or Daddy....they are too cute!

And here's the finished product....a jewelry box!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone!!

Here's Braden eating one of his cards...

...and the envelope. :)

Oh yeah...

When I got to work I opened my email and this is what I found....

Too cute, it made my day! Thanks Gramma! :)

Back to Work

My first week back to work went pretty well. I am SO happy that I am only back for 3 days a week because that was long enough! Tuesday and Wednesday the kids got to stay at our house with Gramma so that helped all of us out a lot, I got to call as much as I wanted and talk to them, which I did of course. Thursday was Braden's first day at daycare and it also went very well. He got to meet lots of new friends and play with lots of new stuff. I made sure to peek in on him as much as I could on the cameras and he always seemed to be rolling around doing something different. After 2 phones calls and hearing him talking in the background, I knew he was in good hands. I forgot how fun it was to end a work day and be able to go get them and have a best part of the day. I obviously love being home with them but the smiles and hugs you get when you pick them up after not seeing them all day is so great! Of course I get tons of kisses and hugs all day when I'm home which I miss on those days but picking up Alexa and hearing her say "My girl, I missed you!" and Braden grabbing my face and giving me huge smiles....it's the best! Being a stay at home mom as been wonderful but I am happy to have a little time away to miss them and appreciate them so much more!! And it's even better that I get to have nice long 4 days weekends!

Now I can get excited to come home to this.....

And this...

And this.
Oh, I love them so much!

Time Outs and Hair Dos

What did we do this weekend? A whole lot of nothing. Actually that's not true. Actually that's not true at all, we had a pretty busy weekend. Here is Alexa starting the weekend out in timeout. Normally we don't have to use that much, but the past week or two she has just been a crazy girl and definitely testing mom and dad. We are hoping this is a short phase and we can have our sweet little girl back. Actually she IS a very sweet girl, she is constantly kissing all of us and says the cutest things like "I so glad to see you" and "I love you so much" but she has her moments throughout the day when she just flips out. I guess we are lucky it's only for a couple minutes at a time and normally after a warning or a timeout she is over it and back to her sweet self. Anyway, short phase...is that possible? Maybe, but then we probably just move to another phase of some sort.

Matt and I also got to get out AGAIN for like the 3rd time in the past 4 weeks, we have felt so spoiled thanks to Gramma and Auntie Alaina! On Friday night we got together with our friends Brain and Sarah who just got engaged! YAY, congratulations! So we went the Shout House in Minneapolis, such a fun place to go we would totally recommend it. It's an sing along, interactive, dueling piano bar. They have a small menu but what we had was good and you don't have to actually do any interacting if you don't want to, but would be a fun place for a group to go for a birthday party or bachelorette party. Very cool, check it out if you haven't been there before. http://www.theshouthouse.com/

Saturday we woke up and did the usual: breakfast, swimming lessons and a trip to the grocery store. Then much of the rest of the day was spent doing a lot of cleaning and organizing, we are doing some rearranging and the house is a mess and we wanted to get as much done before I went back to work this week. Yes, I am finally being forced back into the work world. :( Fortunately I am able to go back to my old job and even better is that I get to go back part time. It's been a tough week for me thinking about going back but it will be nice to shower and get out of the house a few days a week and I will also still get lots of time home with the kids. I keep telling myself this hoping it helps but man am I going to miss my babies on those days!

Speaking of my babies, aren't they adorable?

Braden had some REAL solid food this weekend. We tried a piece of Zwieback toast which he really liked but then he actually got a chunk off so that was the end of that and we moved on to baby fruit puffs which he is now in love with!

Braden also got his first hair do this weekend. I have been dying to get some gel in his hair and spike it up and I finally did it.....and he looked so cute. Here he is with Daddy showing his hair off, it's kind of hard to see.

It must have been a busy weekend because Alexa crawled up on Matt's lap Sunday night and cuddled and almost feel asleep which she never does anymore. Matt was in heaven! :)

Braden - 6 Months

This past Thursday I brought Braden in for his 6 month check-up (yes, all by myself for the very first time, can you believe it?) This is only because it was a very busy week at 3M and there was NO possible way for Matt to go in late or leave early. So I put on my bravest Mommy face and brought him in, it worked out well with Alexa being in school that day. Anyway things went great, besides the fact that we were sitting in our tiny little room for about 1 1/2 hours. I always try to make our appointments for as early as we can to avoid the waiting and back-ups which has always worked until this time. Braden did very well and waited oh so patiently, well for the first 45 minutes. After that we were getting very close to nap time and he was getting completely bored with the one toy I brought with. Our doctor finally came in and we once again had a happy baby while he played with him. Everything check out great, right on track developmentally and no problems. YAY, that's what every parent wants to hear, well that and "The nurse will be right back in to give the shots." Once again we were pacing the 10 foot long room back and forth for a good half hour, finally Braden stopped complaining and fell asleep on my shoulder....of course just in time for the nurse to actually come back in. Don't these people know who I am? Every second that passes I get more worked up about the shots, I debated on making another nurse come in and help hold Braden. When the time came I laid him on the table and actually held his little arms and buried my face in his neck. I know, amazing huh? What is more surprising is that he cried for about a whole 4 seconds and I think that was more because he got woken up than anything.

And here is where our little (BIG) boy falls on the growth charts:

Height - 27 inches (81 percentile)
Weight - 23 pounds 1 ounce (99 percentile)
Head Circ. - 18.25 inches (98 percentile)

Yup, he's a big boy....and gets cuter by the day too!

Our Back Yard Friends

Yesterday Alexa and I got out on a little play date all by ourselves. We went to the MOA for Toddler Tuesdays and Alexa was very excited because this week was called 'Breakfast with the Backyardigans' and boy does she love them! We got to sit and have oatmeal and juice and listen to some songs then we got in line to actually meet 3 of the Backyardigans, Tyrone, Pablo and Alexa's personal favorite, Uniqua. (She's the pink one of course.) She was very excited and waited very patiently in line until it was our turn. It was kind of cool because each kid got to go in one at a time and give them hugs, high fives, kisses and take a few pictures. It was so adorable watching some of the kids when they finally had their turn, I think it was the highlight of their short little lives. So anyway, we finally get up to the front of the line and the girl came over and said that it was our turn to go say HI and Alexa FREAKS out. There was no way she was going to go touch them. How did I know this was going to happen?! For anyone who followed our website you saw this happen several other times, the horse ride, santa, etc. She gets so excited and says Yes Yes Yes I DO want to go do this or that then when the time comes or we actually get close she totally refuses. The Backyardigan "helpers" were very nice about it though, they let us kind of just move to the side and watch another girl go and see if Alexa wanted one more try. I finally told her that this was the last chance and if she wanted to say HI then she has to go now and take her turn. I asked if she wanted me to come too and she said she would go if she could sit on my lap. So we finally got to see Uniqua and give them all high fives and we even got a couple pictures too. It was very cute, all she could talk about on our way out was how cool it was to see them. After the MOA we stopped at IKEA to grab a couple things and have lunch. By the time I got of the parking area she was fast asleep and after sleeping the whole way home she STILL took another 2 hour nap. Those Backyardigans, they sure do wear a kid out!

This is when we were hanging out on the side area. Alexa was checking things out and making sure it really was okay to go over. I think seeing that little girl give them big hugs helped a little! :)

We finally got the picture.....then she didn't want to leave. :)

Down with the Sickness

My poor sweet baby boy Braden has gotten his first real illness. Not that this is the first time he has had a cough or runny nose but he has spent the first almost 6 months of his life pretty healthy, that is until now. Thursday night he went to bed seemingly perfectly fine and then woke up about 11pm and could barley breath he was so stuffed up. And since then it really hasn't gotten any better and by Saturday he was almost losing his voice so that's when I decided that I would bring him into the doctor this morning. I knew I would probably be told that it was just a cold and we had to let it "run it's course" but the poor little thing has been so miserable that I wanted to make sure there was nothing else along with it like an ear infection or something like that. I had to put my own mind at ease if anything. So after a few minutes of poking and looking and listening we were given the diagnosis....just a case of RSV. From the sound of things our more than wonderful (have I mentioned how much we love our pediatrician? I can't help it, he's great) doctor said that he should only be getting better from now on. I'm hoping he's feeling much better by the weekend, with a little Tylenol and a ton of mommy love he should be good as new pretty soon. What amazes me is as sick as the little guy sounds he still is full of smiles!

2 things we got out of this whole thing are:

1.) Life changes drastically from child number one to child number two. Matt and I realized that this was our first trip to the doctor with Braden that wasn't a regular check-up. Amazing, I think so! By the time Alexa was 6 months old we had not only made several unexpected trips to our regular doctor but also urgent care, the ER and even a trip to the hospital in Hawaii. I'm not saying that there was nothing wrong with her at all these visits, however a couple of them could have possibly been avoided....maybe. Anyway we thought the fact that we haven't brought Braden in before today was pretty impressive. I must say though, I think things have been so different because I have been home with the kids since Braden was born and he hasn't been subjected to the nasty world of germs at a daycare. This is a good and bad thing I guess, someday when he has to go out into the real world he could be in for a rude awakening.

2.) Matt says I can no longer visit and type of medical internet website, ever again. He has actually been saying this for some time but apparently now he's serious. I do tend to go to the extreme when anything seems to be wrong with anyone. The second someone starts coughing, finds a bump or something hurts I am online trying to find out what is wrong. The problem with this is that all these sites tell you the simplest thing that could be happening all the way to the most extreme thing. And being that I tend to worry WAY too much about everything I usually go right for the worst case scenario. So every other week someone in our house is close to dying from some sort of disease that no one can even pronunciate. I am working on this and trying not to worry too much before we actually find out what is wrong, but man is it hard! Until then I am not going to give up my medical websites but I am only going to use them for informative reasons not for an actual diagnosis.

Playing in the Snow

What a beautiful weekend it was and we actually had time to get out and enjoy it! Alexa was very excited to make a snowman with Daddy, but the snow wasn't wet enough to form but they still had lots of fun playing anyway!

Here's the attempt to make snowman, or something, or ANYTHING.

There are some really big drifts between our house and the neighbors, in some places the snow was up to her waist, but she loved it.

But there was lots of this.....

Daddy to the rescue again.

Braden wasn't left out, he also got out to get some sun and fresh air.

Lounging Around

Braden in his swing....now that he actually has a bed to nap in he pretty much just likes to sit in here every once in awhile and play. I think he knows he's out of harms way in it when Alexa is running around like a crazy girl.

Here's Alexa with HER (aka Gramma's) little lamb. Doesn't look like she's going to give it up to easily.

The four of us just hanging out on the floor playing. The funny thing is we were actually all laying this close together it's not just for the picture.