Dear Brody, 7 months...

Dear Brody,

You turned 7 months old yesterday.  And as always, I am in shock that another month has passed and you are getting so much bigger.  I had a realization while planning your sister's birthday party the other day, that once her party is over, it'll be time to start planning your 1st birthday.  That is crazy to me.  You were just born, how can I already be thinking of planning your 1st birthday?  But here we are.  I should know by now how fast time flys when you have a baby, but it seems like your first year is going by way faster than your sister's did.  Anyway, here is what you have been up to.

• You continue to tease us with your sleeping habits.  For instance, last night you slept through the night beautifully.  (Meaning, I only had to go in once and give you your paci at around 8pm b/c your sister woke you up while screaming in the bathtub, but thats not your fault).  However, the past week or so, you have been waking up and talking to yourself between midnight-2am.  It has been exhausting considering nothing puts you back to sleep until you wear yourself out again.  So, we'll see how tonight goes, but I don't think we have turned the corner yet. 
•  You can roll over back to stomach and stomach to back.  
• You can push yourself up with your little hiney up in the air. 
• You sleep on your tummy now.
• You refuse to sit up because you'd rather stand.  This is exhausting for Mommy and Daddy because we have to hold you up.  Although, we know you can sit, you are capable of it and do it here and there, but its not consistent.  
• You LOVE to jump.  Especially on the bed with your sister.  You squeal and laugh like crazy when we do that.
• You have no teeth yet.
• Your reflux may finally be gone.  I forgot to give you your meds this morning and you were fine.
• Daddy weighed you the other day on our home scale and you were 18.6lbs.  
• You smile constantly. At everyone. All the time.  Everyone loves it.
• You love other people, and you let other people hold you, which is something your sister didn't do until she was like 18 months old.  Needless to say, that makes your Aunties and your Grammy, Poppop and Grandad very happy. 
• You fell asleep in my arms yesterday for the first time in a long time.  It was heavenly.  And while I had to put you down because I knew you wouldn't stay that way long, it was so sweet while it lasted.   

This has turned into a long post, buddy.  So i'll end it here.  As always, you are a joy and even when you are grumpy, I love you so so so much.  You are such a sweet little boy.  And thank you for being such an angel on our stroller jogs so Mommy can work out!  You are my sweetie pie.  I love you!!

XOXOX

Love, 

Mommy

I'm exhausted

Because i've stopped being such a couch potato.  I have been pretty disgusted with my post-Brody body.  It's gross.  After giving birth Brenna, I weighed less than I did when I got pregnant.  I attribute that to serious morning sickness followed up by gestational diabetes.  I didn't really get to eat what I wanted to eat through the entire pregnancy.  And I am a person that loves food.

My pregnancy with Brody was different.  Not as bad morning sickness, and no GD.  So I ate, and ate, and ate.  I only gained 22 pounds with him, which is pretty normal so I figured it would be the same deal as Brenna.  WRONG.  I lost almost nothing when he was born.  Literally.  I may have lost his birth weight, which was a whopping 6 lbs and change).  I feel like I retained all the water weight and everything else.  So let's just say now, I am in the upper 100's and its not cool.  Especially because I am short so I show all my weight.

I've finally had enough.  Its going to be getting hot soon, the kids are going to want to play in the pool and I am going to have to wear a bathing suit.  I tried one on at Old Navy recently and there is no way I can subject other human beings to what I look like in a bathing suit right now.  Even a one piece.  So I started running again.  I ran track in high school (like for one season) but I haven't run in ages.  My friend Andrea (who you can visit here and who also has two of the cutest little girls ever) and I have decided we are going to just sign up for a 5k so that we have to train.  So far so good.  For both of us.  I haven't missed a day since Saturday.  That being said, my running is shameful.  It almost doesn't count as running.  But im working on it.  Im slowly working on my endurance and distance.  And I am trying not to worry about time for a good while.  Or possibly ever.  Even on my days off I try to go for at least a mile run/walk just to get in some movement.  And I am afraid that if I do skip a day, I won't start again.  Oh, and I have also not had any drink other than water (ok, and a coffee in the morning) for about 3 weeks.  So thats something.  I hope I can keep it up.  I already feel a lot better.  I hope it starts to show soon.

And some days, I get two pretty cute personal trainers...

Well hello there...nice to see you again

I feel like its been forever since my last post.  We have been busy busy busy.  We are still putting the finishing touches on our kitchen reno (but that's another post entirely) and we decided to take on the task of having Brenna's 3rd birthday party (what?!?) at our house instead of my grandparents house like we usually do.

Um, yea...lets just say our yard is not "party ready".  It's a disaster.  First of all, we have almost no grass in our yard.  Its pretty much made up of weeds, sand and dirt.  Of course, we have tried to grow grass in the past but if Bailey could laugh, he would have laughed in our faces when we attempted that.  He has literally killed every patch of grass we've ever grown.  Just with his giganticness (I know thats not a word).  So we have been taking advantage of the gorgeous weather we have been having and trying our best to get our yard ready.  Our plan is to attempt some grass seed (haha) and see what happens.  We have eliminated some gardens and put up a swingset and slide so we may or may not try to just mulch around that.  We are going to plant some new flowers in the gardens we have (and try to keep them alive for more than just the month of May).  And we are going to plant our vegetable and herb garden, but that wont happen until around Mother's Day weekend.  We spent this past weekend raking the rest of the leaves (yes we still had leaves from last fall in our yard, but we have an excuse and he goes by the name Brody, we were busy in the fall) and digging up old plants that we are going to replace.  Our yard already looks 100% better.  But we still have a long way to go.

Speaking of Brenna's party, I kept asking her what kind of party she wanted.  She told me "a flower party".  I asked what kind of flower party and she said "yellow flower party".  So a yellow party it is.  I finished designing and ordering her invitations over the weekend.  I have a dress picked out for her and now I am looking for some kind of cute embellishment for her dress that possible has a 3 on it.  And can we talk about that for a minute?  She going to be 3!  When did that happen?  She just turned 1!  No, I mean, she was just born wasn't she?  How did she get so big?  As much as I love watching her grow and learn new things, boy do I miss my baby.  Just look at this little face!

Where did this baby go?

Anyway, in other news, we finally got new family pictures done this past week.  The last time we had family pictures done they looked like this:

Aaron Riddle Photography

Overdue much?  I think yes.  So on Thursday, we went to a park and Stacey (who did Brody's newborn pics) took some family pics for us.  The previews that she's shown me so far are amazing.  I can't wait to see the rest.  Here is a sneak peak (even though anybody reading this blog has probably already seen them, but oh well)

StaceyLee Photography

StaceyLee Photography

I think I'll save the rest of my updates for another post. I'll try not to wait so long next time.