Big Boy Bed

this is how we started...
this is how we ended up...


We decided it was time to put Hayden in a big boy bed. The first time was at nap time and he did surprisingly well. I gave him the music box from his crib, but didn't think about giving him his binki. He got down a few times but after I gave him all his ties and his binky he was just fine. He gets down sometimes when he's going to bed and he has fallen out a few times but he's adjusting and now it's torture to have to go back to the crib.

little lady

Our little lady is growing so fast! Here are a few cute pictures of her.

5 weeks old

3 weeks old

10 days old

5 1/2 weeks old

MOM

My Mom is awesome in every way! I love her and I loved having her here to help after I had Brinley. Because Brinley un-expectantly came a month early my Mom switched her ticket and was here the day I came home from the hospital. It was so nice having her here she took care of everything. Cleaning, laundry, food, Teton, the Kids, Us, and everything in between. Mom you are awesome and I couldn't have done it without you! I hope that I'm half the Mom that you are! Love ya!!

you can't always have what you want
even if you do have a stool!

BIG little Helper

Hayden is at such a fun age! He is right at my feet most days wanting to help with everything. He gets me new diapers for Brinley, and in the process pulls them all out and names all of the sesame street characters on them. He likes to take all of the dirty diapers to the garbage {he has done this for months}. He likes to help me unload the dishwasher. Sometimes he's a little too helpful, but his job is to help me unload the silverware. He takes them out and hands them to me and I put them in the drawer. He likes to pull all the laundry out of the dryer into a basket so I can fold it. He helps his Dad make smoothies. He drops everything into the blender one by one. And then he gets to have some in his monkey cup. He is obsessed with blankets. He calls them ties because lots of them are tied quilts and he likes to play with the ties so I started saying "here are your ties" when I put him in bed and it just stuck! Anyway if he sees one lying around the house he thinks Brinley needs it. It doesn't matter where she is or what she's doing he will go running to her yelling "TIES TIES" and put it on her, or by her. This usually wakes her up. When Brinley cries he says "Baby sad" "Baby sad." If her binky is within his reach he will take it to her and try to shove it into her mouth making her cry even harder. He's such a cutie and is just trying to help so I try not to let it upset me. We love our little helper!

Some other funny things Hayden does are:
Dance to any music anywhere, but ALWAYS in the car. He will say MAMA, DADA until we dance too.

We are Chipotle fans and when we pull into the parking lot where Chipotle is, whether we are going to target or any other store there he says "mmm, PO PO" The other morning he woke up and was hungry so he said, "EAT PO PO"

He loves to get into the fridge. Sometimes this is a disaster but most of the time he finds something he wants. His milk or cheese are usually his #1 choices.

It doesn't matter where we are or what we are doing he can spot ELMO anywhere! Most of the time if we are in the store and he shouts "ELMO" it takes me a minute to find anything Elmo near us.

He LOVES playing with Josh when Josh comes home. They run around the house chasing each other, play hide and go seek, read books, ride daddy the horse, get tickled, gobbled and anything else loud and crazy. One night after playing loud and rough for a while Josh said, "we've been pretty crazy we should probably settle down" and Hayden said "More kazies"

One night when Josh was going upstairs to study he was trying to get Hayden to come to me so I could give him a bath, but Hayden didn't want to leave Daddy so as Josh was trying to hand him to me Hayden said, "No MaMa, More DaDa." Good thing he's so cute!

We love ya little man!

Babies

This is a picture of all the pregnant people in our ward in the order of due date. Minus me and Krystal. We took a picture like this when I was pregnant with Hayden so I wanted to have this one too. I would have been 4th in the picture, but I ended up having my baby first. CRAZY! I'm sure they were all cursing me!

2

LOVE the look on Hayden's face, but I wish you could see Brinley better

I'm not going to lie having 2 kids has been an adjustment. Not a bad one, but an adjustment none the less. There are certain times of the day that they both need something at the same time and someone has to wait, and that waiting isn't always pleasant. Hayden has watched more TV then ever before in his life. I feel kind of bad about it, but it isn't all the time, or really that much compared to other kids and I'm sure he won't die from it. I try to give both kids the love and attention they need, but sometimes I feel like someone is neglected, I just hope it's in my head and they don't feel that way. I forgot how much fun it is to have a little one to snuggle again. I also forgot how it feels to get such broken sleep. And I forgot how good little newborns smell...ya know that just after the bath, baby lotion smell. Love it! I also love it when Brinley holds my finger. She has such a strong grip and it's so cute how her entire hand goes around my finger! I didn't know how Hayden would react to having another little one in the house, but he has done surprisingly well. There are times when he throws his toys {he's never done that before}...and it has stopped now. It was off and on just for the first few weeks after we had Brinley. Sometimes he touches Brinley roughly after I have asked him not to, but for the most part he waits patiently when he has to, and he is very concerned about his sister. When I tell him to get his coat and shoes so we can go bye bye he says "BABY?" in a concerned voice like he is asking if we are going to bring her too. Josh's mom pointed out that we do leave the dog behind so it's a valid concern...never thought about that! I don't know why I ever wondered if I could love another child like I do Hayden, Brinley has totally captivated my heart! I wondered what it would be like to go out with 2 children by myself, I mean how do you go to the grocery store with one adult, 2 kids and have anywhere to put the food?! I started out by going to Target and after we pretty much mastered that I thought that we probably needed some food so I went to the grocery store. Our grocery store has the carts where the kids can sit in the bottom of the very front so they feel like they are driving the cart so I put Hayden in that and Brinley in her carseat on the top. The only problem with that is that I feel like I'm driving a bus. Not to mention that I can't see over the top very well. Anyway we made it through the grocery store and I thought we did pretty well. The only problem with those carts is that the kids that are driving are really low to the ground making it easy to get out and easy to reach everything low. While I was loading the grocerys onto the conveyor belt Hayden kept grabbing candy and I kept telling him that we were not getting any so he needed to put it back, which he did. Then I pushed him past all the candy and waited to pay. A nice lady that worked there walked passed the front of the cart and said,
"Did you know he has candy in his mouth?"
"NO"
"I just didn't want him to choke"
"I don't really want to steal it either"
I went to the front of the cart and Hayden had a fruity mentos package in his hand. Both ends had been opened and were soggy and he was spitting out what he had in his mouth just as I got to him. I told him {for the millionth time} that until we buy things they are not ours and we can't eat them. Then I bought the candy.
Even though there are crazy times we love our two little munchkins and feel so blessed to have them in our family.

One Month

photos taken March 11, 2010

a few days before Brinley was a month old she weighed 8lbs 14oz.
she does not really like her swing. she'll sit in it for a few minutes but prefers her bouncie chair.
she likes to be swaddled but will also sleep well with her hands by her face
she likes to be bounced in our hands
she gives us cute little smiles in her sleep

I can't believe a month has passed already! I just want to stop time because now I know how fast kids grow!
Brinley you seriously are a joy to have in our lives. We love you!

Elmo's Party

On February 20th we took Hayden to Elmo's Birthday party at Boarders. He LOVED it! He colored a picture of Elmo, Made Elmo a birthday card, played games, and read Elmo books.

Where is Hayden?

If I ever wonder where Hayden is I can usually find him in his room playing with his blocks, or in front of the bookshelf reading his books. Don't worry life is not always that perfect for us. Silence sometimes means he is upstairs doing things to the computer that we still don't know how to fix, or pulling everything out of the fridge!

I asked him to smile for me and this is what I got!

Brinley's Story

The night of February 10 I had some lower back pain. I had been seriously uncomfortable for weeks, and I hadn't been able to sleep well since about 30 weeks . While we were watching LOST online and I had some sharp pain below my belly. I started to look at the clock every time it happened and it was about every 15 to 20 min. It wasn't unbearable pain, like contractions were with Hayden, so I wasn't sure exactly what was going on. I decided to go to bed and see if it continued. It didn't, but like most nights I wasn't able to sleep very well. The next morning I still had pain in my lower back. Josh and I talked about going to the the hospital, but it wasn't unbearable pain it was just constant. I didn't want to be one of those people that goes to the hospital and then gets sent home, especially since this was my second kid. After having Hayden I thought now I know what it's like to be in labor, I won't ever have to wonder again. WRONG.
Josh went to school and said he would call me after every class to see what I wanted to do. I ran a few errands and every time he called to ask what I wanted to do I would say " I don't know, the pain is the same." I called my friend Melissa to see if she would be able to take Hayden if we decided to go to the hospital. She reminded me it could be back labor, and that she didn't think it was the real deal when she went in with #2 and it was. I decided that I would put Hayden down for a nap and after he woke up Josh would be done, or almost done, with classes for the day so then we would go. Well Hayden didn't want to take a nap. He fought it so I decided to go get Josh and we could take Hayden to Melissa's and then go in.
Driving to the hospital Josh and I talked about what we thought was going to happen. Josh thought we should go in because in his words, "you are in pain and you are pregnant" but he didn't think that they would admit me. I thought the same thing. I was convinced that they would laugh and send me home, but at least I would know something. When we got to the hospital at 1pm they hooked me up to the monitors and just watched them for about an hour and a half. The contractions monitor wasn't picking up any strong contractions the numbers were in the 20's. When I was checked I was told I was a 3 on my way to a 4 and 70% effaced. WHAT?! I was was surprised since I was convinced this was nothing and I would be going back home. They wanted to monitor me for a little longer and then check me again to make sure I was progressing on my own. Because I was only 36 weeks and 3 days they didn't want to help progress anything without knowing for sure that my body was doing it on it's own. At about 5pm, after another hour and a half on the monitors, my Dr. came to check me. He was on at the hospital that night, how convenient. He laughed when he came into my room, since he had tried to convince me at my appointment 4 days earlier that I would not have the baby while he was on vacation the next week, he was sure that I would make it until the end of February! He checked me and said I was almost a 5 and 100% effaced, so they admitted me and started an IV. I asked the nurse when the point of no return was for the epidural not because I was in an unbearable amount of pain at that point, but because I didn't want to be! She said they could give it right up to the end. She told me that if I wanted it to let them know before I REALLY wanted it because it would take a while to get some stuff through my IV and whatever else they had to do. I assured her that I was going to want it. She said she would let the next nurse know. At this point I was uncomfortable, but it wasn't too painful. The contractions were going up into the 40's on the monitor. We called our families to let them know we were in the hospital. Needless to say they were surprised!
While waiting we talked about names again. We had talked about them before but hadn't decided on a specific name. We had our list and our top name was Jenna. Since we hadn't really talked about it again I was pretty sure that's what her name would be. While waiting Josh said let's just look at names again. So we looked online and made another list. Josh found the name Brinley and we both like it so we added it to our list along with some other names, but we still didn't make a decision.
Somewhere during all of the waiting Josh said " when do you think she'll come. I want to meet my little girl" I thought this was so cute!
At about 7pm the next nurse, who should NOT be a labor and delivery nurse, brought pitocin to put in my IV to get things going. I told her I wanted to have an epidural. She asked if I wanted it now. I told her I wasn't in unbearable pain, but the other nurse told me it would "take a while" and with Hayden I asked for it for an hour and a half before it came so if it was going to be that long then yeah I wanted it "now." She said the anesthesiologist was not busy and it would only take about 30 min to get some stuff through my IV, but she recommended I get it now if I wanted it. At 8pm I got the epidural. At 8:30 my Dr. broke my water. And from there things really started to progress and get more painful. I started to worry that because she was so early something would be wrong. I assumed that she would be in the 5lb range. Hayden was born at 37 weeks and 2 days and he was 5lbs 11oz and had to be in the NICU for 10 days, so you can imagine the things that were going through my head. At 9:30 I was really uncomfortable and could really tell when I was having a contraction. At 9:50 I made someone come check me. They said I was a 7. WHAT? 5 min later I said I know someone just checked me, but I'm REALLY pretty sure that they should check me again. The nurse checked me and said I was a 10 and 100% effaced. I had been sick the week before with a cold and cough so while pushing I would have coughing attacks and even threw up. It was lovely! I pushed for about 40 min. and our little girl was born at 10:47pm.
I was shocked when they said she was 7lbs 6.5oz. They thought that she might need to go to the NICU for some observation but told us she could stay with us for an hour and then they would see how she was doing. After an hour she was doing well so they said she could stay with us for another hour. After that hour they said she was doing well and would go to the regular nursery instead of the NICU. She didn't need any oxygen and was doing great. We were so glad!

Happy Birthday Joshy!

Happy 29th Birthday BABE! Love Ya!