The big 5! Oh...

So, three months ago Brady turned five. It was a fun day! I don't want to forget, and I am sure family would like to see what we did!

We started off with our traditional donut breakfast at Shipley's. Yummy!

And messy! As Brady is showing here in his Mama made birthday shirt!

The rest of the day included school, where we took muffins for birthday treat. A picnic at the park with his closest friends. And then moving over to a house so that we could eat cupcakes without getting blown away! It was windy windy that day!

That evening after Natalie got home we finally had birthday dinner and then to the best part...presents! Want a cheap and entertaining gift for a five year old?

Musical greeting cards! Especially one that sings "shake your groove thang". I still hear them dancing in the bedroom to the card every now and then. Both kids love these things!

Work it Brady!

This kid was convinced, CONVINCED, all leading up to his birthday that I was gonna get him the "episode five lego set". Of course, we did. He was over the moon thrilled. He loves Star Wars and he loves Legos. Combine the two? Childhood bliss!

Poor kid only got 4 candles on his cake, but we drew a 5! He didn't care, he got cake and he got to stay up late! It was a good birthday, if low key, and I think he felt how much we love and adore him. He has truly transitioned into 5 with flying colors. No longer is he my soft and squishy 4 year old that will snuggle on my bed with me and watch PBS kids. He plays so wonderfully on his own, creating imaginative scenarios and wonderful stories. He loves art, and is proving to be a very good artist! He is so sensitive and loving, yet isn't afraid to get his cranky on. We love our Brady boy and he will always be my sweet baby!

Blood and Gore

Brady has a habit of coming in to our room in the middle of the night complaining of growing pains. It ranges anywhere from his ankle hurting to his legs to his head or neck. Friday night the kids were a little wild and feeding off of each other so we let Brady start in the spare bed. It's a little taller and a little bigger than his normal bed (can you see where this is headed?).

Sometime in the middle of the night Brady came crying into our room cry-saying, "my head is hot". I put my hand to his forehead and pulled my hand away wet. I was like, this kid is burning up! So out we go to get him out of his hot jammies, maybe get him a drink, and as soon as we get into the dim light of the kitchen I can see that what I thought was sweat was BLOOD. ALL over Brady's face. ALL. OVER.

My initial reaction was bloody nose. He gets them often enough that I figured that's what it was, so I take my gore covered child to the bathroom and we start cleaning it up, all the while keeping his head tipped back to stop the flow. While I am trying to clean the blood that has clotted on his eyelashes and shmeared on his forehead I realized, CRAP. Not a nosebleed. He had a quarter inch gash on his forehead. The kid had fallen off the bed and smacked his forehead on the night stand! Yikes! Apparently he was saying that he hit his head hard, NOT that his head was hot. (I blame sleep deprivation!)

Now I begin flipping out, because there is a visible bump and this gash is wide. I whisper called Keith to come help and together we began cleaning up Brady. Thankfully we had some butterfly bandages because I certainly didn't want to take him in for a stitch or two (which if it would have been Natalie, we would have! Can't have a giant scar on a girl face!). It was actually so bloody and gory that I had to go sit down because I was feeling faint!

Anywho, Brady took it like a champ and never cried after he got me up. Afterwards we found a super heartbreaking blood trail across the house. What a brave boy! How scary to fall out of bed, hit yourself and then feel blood oozing on your face. It breaks my heart to think about it! He is gonna come out of this with a pretty gruesome forehead scar, but hey, chicks dig scars, right? I sure hope so!

All bandaged up. He got lots of attention at church today with this sucker on his head!

 And just because, a current pic of our little Wyatt. He is getting quite chubby, and I absolutely adore it!

Stacie Eldredge Photography

I have this friend. She is amazing! She takes amazing pictures, she has a great eye for soft, natural pictures. She took our family pictures at the beginning of December and I somehow never linked up to them! See them here: Family pictures pre Wyatt.

She also came over (after a serious last minute call from me) to take some newborn pictures of Wyatt. She even came the day before she jetted off to Utah. I am ever so grateful for her coming then. We captured such a sweet age! See Wyatt's newborn pictures here.

And just in case I didn't link to them, you can also see the amazing shots she got of Wyatt in the NICU. I tell ya, she is a great friend (for more reasons that just the pictures, obviously), but these are memories I will cherish forever! NICU pics here.

If you are in the DFW area, I suggest you stop by her blog and check it out. Then schedule your photo session post haste!

One month: 4/22/11

Hopefully I can get a better picture next month! Little monkey wouldn't look at me!

Easter pics

We had such a fun Easter weekend! It was supposed to be the weekend Wyatt arrived, but he was already a month old. Grandma Lori was sick when Wy was born so we planned on her still coming (and spoiling us) for Easter weekend (but that is a whole nother post). I tried somewhat to get our clothes to match. These are the best of the pictures. Brady is in his new, serious. crazy. face. stage. And as you will see below, they are pretty funny, but not so much good for family photos!

His face in the below picture? Priceless. Funny enough to allow the picture to be posted, even with my triple chin!

Keith and my genes mix really, really well. Love this beatiful girl!

And a few fun jumpy pictures!

Surprise!!!

*I started this post in the hospital, and yes, it has taken me a month to sit down and finish. Such is life with a new baby, no?*

The best laid plans, right? All throughout my pregnancy I have been telling everyone that I wanted to wait to go into labor instead of scheduling a C section. I knew I was gonna have a C, but I wanted to wait to do it until Wyatt was ready to come out. Little did I know...

So Monday night (the 21st) after a long day Keith and I settled into bed pretty early due to a pretty big lineup of repair men and doctors appointments and carting kids to this school and that for the following day. Basically I was dreading Tuesday like no other. I think lights were off before 10 for sure. I  woke up around 12:30 and had to use the bathroom, but didn't want to because that meant traipsing through the house to go potty, seeing as how our toilet was ripped out of the floor the day before for repairs! As I laid in bed trying to talk myself into getting up I felt myself go a little bit. My first thought? Sweet. Pregnant lady wets the bed. *sigh* But, I couldn't stop it. And it happened a little bit more. FINE body. I am getting up. Sheesh.

So I waddled myself into my bathroom to check out the damage and clean up and as soon as the clothes started to come down, the liquid did too. Whoa nellie. Wasn't expecting that. Took me all of a half a millisecond to realize something big was happening. My. Water. Just. Broke. and broke and broke and broke. Seriously so much waters! (Which makes sense seeing as how at every doctors appointment they told me baby had plenty of cushion!) And it took me about five minutes to calm down long enough to realize..."hey, instead of letting my water break all over the floor, maybe I should get IN the shower." Ha! Had a good chuckle at that one.

So, since I was completely unprepared for what had happened, and Keith and I were pretty much out of it (seeing as how I woke him by yelling, "Um Keith?? I am pretty sure my water just broke!!") , the first thing I thought to do was call my friend Danielle. She is seriously my maternity whisperer. So she told me what to do (call the doctor, duh) calmed me down, and assured me she would take the kids. Ok, we can do this. Basically the next 30 minutes were spent cleaning up, packing the rest of my hospital bag (or at least what we could find and think of!) and waking the kids. It was crazy. And all during this I was still gushing. Eventually, through all the madness, we got everything packed, and together and in the car and on the way. Only thing we forgot was my pillow and clothes to wear after the birth, I even remembered my blankie!

Oh, and I should pause to mention that the kids were such troopers! We had to wake them up, and pack them in the car in the middle of the night. Brady was so sweet, once he realized what was happening he said, "Wyatt is coming tonight!!" They were very cooperative, especially since we seriously hadn't talked about what we were going to do when the baby came AT. ALL. They had no prep! In all of our minds Wy wasn't coming for another month!

After we dropped the kids off at Danielle's (serious. life. saver.), we headed over to the hospital, they took us straight up to triage and there I got all settled while they got in touch with the on call doc (who told me, "oh, I remember your call! I was hoping you would just come in, because your message cut off" Not surprising since I was probably freaking out while leaving the message!) . Oh, and all through this I was still draining! (SUCH a weird feeling. Like someone turned a faucet on inside of me)

So much happened the next three hours. I finally finished draining, which brought on contractions (not so much fun, those) which prompted the doc to go ahead and do my C then (instead of waiting for a more reasonable hour of the day). I was surprisingly calm the whole time, probably somewhat of a chatterbox because I was in such shock! The worst pain was the IV (3 tries this time), and then they wheeled me into the operating room, sat me up for my spinal (way less freaky this time) and soon it was time to take him out! I honestly love the pressure that you feel when they are moving the baby out, because you are so numb you can't feel anything else! I asked Keith if he was watching and he said he started too, but since it was 3 in the morning and he had no food in his belly, he thought it best to look away as they cut his wife's stomach open (sounds like a good plan).

At 3:37 am on Tuesday, March 22nd our little baby, Wyatt Ernest Bowers was born! He was 5 lbs. 4.6 oz, 18 inches long. And seriously amazing! What an unexpected, amazing adventure that night turned out to be!

Woot!

We finally have Internet in the house! I have so much, so very very much to write about! Crazy things have happened since we have moved into the house. Not the least of which is that we had Wyatt one month early!

So soon, be on the look out for posts about the new place, the new babe, and all the stress that has accompanied those things.

It's been a wild and wonderful last few weeks, that is for sure!

It's time

As I sit here at the computer, giving my hips a brief rest, and fighting off tears, I realized...I am gonna miss this house. I really am! So much has happened, and so much growth has taken place inside these walls. It was our first house. I clearly remember the excitement of moving out of an apartment to a place with our very own yard! and garage! and 3 bedrooms! and bookcases as far as the eye can see!

It's quiet now. The house is pretty much a shell filled with boxes and furniture. Keith is gone taking a van load of odds and ends to the new place. The kids are both fast asleep, in their naked rooms, ready to wake up early and play at a friends. Not really grasping that this is it. The last night in their special rooms, their first rooms. That the dinner so lovingly prepared by a friend was the last dinner. That tomorrow it will all be gone, whisked away by friends and family off to a new place. With new beginnings.

Natalie told me that she already misses this house, that the new place doesn't feel safe. That it's...different. I told her it would become safe when we are in it. We will make it comfortable and turn into into a HOME and not just an empty shell of a house. But I get exactly what she means. We have a routine here. It's all we've known for 2 years. Pretty much all Brady really knows at all. It will be hard to leave. Harder than I thought it would be.

I know that soon the sad feelings will pass. When the boxes start getting unloaded and the walls filled with pictures. But right now I wonder why, with every new and exciting thing, does there always seem to be a bit of sadness mixed in? I assume part of it is my maternity hormones kicking in to full speed, but I know that a part of it is the moving on. Growing up we moved a lot. A LOT. And every time it was hard. Hard to leave friends, and familiar streets. Hard to meet new people, and be the "new kid" again. I am so grateful, so very very grateful my kids don't have to change schools. That would be too much. I don't know how I ever did that so many times as a child.

I guess this post has no real point. But I want to remember how I felt. That I did love it here. This house was good to me, and good to my family. And now we get to move to a house of our very own, and I hope it will treat us just as well.

today

5:30 am: get awoken by Natalie saying she is hungry and can we get up now.
5:31 am: tell her to go back to her room and DO NOT come out until at least 6. for. the. love.
6:00 am: go get Natalie and head to the kitchen to cook my food and start getting everyone up and ready for the day, lunch packed, hair done, clothes put on, check blogs and fb, etc.
6:45-7:15am: proceed to melt down with tears and general hysterics over the rude responses and mean looks being exchanged between kids and directed at me. Make the kids sad because I am sad. Meh. Maybe seeing Mom cry over their meaness will make it stop? One can only hope.
7:15 am: kneel down for family prayer, asking for patience and kindess and obedience and the like. Can't we all just get along?
7:20 am: out the door and off to take Nat to school.
8:00 am: arrive back, send Brady to his room to play, hop in the shower.
8:15-8:45: rush around frantically trying to get B dressed, myself dressed, my hair actually dried and styled(a sure cure for some morning blues) and out the door for preschool.
9:00 am: drop Brady off for preschool, head to Target for prescription pickup, a few things for the baby, a gift for a birthday girl, a 12 pack of Diet DP.
9:45 am: off to first Doc appt. of the day. *sigh*
10:15 am: pee in a cup, get to see the baby, listen to the nutritionist tell me how to read the labels, listen to the doc tell me that my blood pressure is a bit high (first time ever for that) and that I need to cut down on activity. ha. hahahaha. ha.
11:15 am: head to Home Depot to set up an appointment for a window guy to come and measure our windows for an estimate.
11:30 am: Talk to very nice man about our options for window coverings.
11:45 am: Cry a little inside at the guesstimate costs of putting shutters and/or blinds on all of our windows.
12:00-12: 30 pm: fill out paperwork, blah blah blah. (wonder if we really NEED window treatments, I mean, who cares if the neighbors can see our every waking and sleeping move...)
12:40 pm: Leave store with an arm full of temporary shades and a slightly lighter pocketbook.
1:00 pm: pick up Brady from preschool, rush home to get him some food, use the bathroom for the 20th time today, and sit down for a few seconds.

and here I am. Still to come?

2:15 pm: Second doc appt, this time with OB. The last of the in and out appointments. Next week? Pelvic exams begin. Yay.
3:00 pm: pick up Natalie from school.
3:30 pm: plop kids in front of the boob tube and curl up in my bed for some rest (see previous mention of cutting down my activity)
5:00 pm: prepare dinner...oh man. Dinner! What on Earth are we gonna eat for dinner....
6:30 pm: kids in bed. or. else. Seriously.
7:00 pm: turn on MY boob tube shows and hopefully start chipping away at packing the kitchen.
8:00 pm: glance up to welcome Keith home. Maybe a hug, if he's lucky.

We shall see how late I last.

*sigh*

Oh yeah, and I still need to unload/load the dishwasher and fold the whites sitting in the dryer. There's time for that, right?

seven.