The Tale of Two Brothers

Hey this is fun sitting up here watching a movie with my big brother!

Well, whatcha watching there big bro?

Wait, I can't see!

Come on, bring it closer to me.

Why are you blowing me off?

 I won't give up.

I give up.

Rhodes is Seven Months

Rhodes is seven months old today, February 19, 2013.

• We went to the doctor today on his 7 month birthday, so we got stats taken.  Rhodes is 18 lb 4 oz and 27.5" long.  And he also has another ear infection.
• Wearing size 3 diapers.
• 9-12 month pj's, 9 month clothing.
• 2 bottom teeth but seems to be cutting more this past week.
• Same amount of hair, really hasn't grown any since birth.
• His eyes have recently started to change from blue to more of a green/brown.
• Didn't get sick until 6 months old and in the past month he has had bronchiolitis and two ear infections.
• He has a great personality, it doesn't take much to make him laugh, and I mean belly laugh.
• Takes six 6 oz bottles a day and eats baby food 3 times a day.  At this point he's having either a container of stage 2 gerber foods or about 3 "cubes" of homemade food.
• I have been weaning him of breast milk so most of his bottles are half formula half breast milk (I still have several weeks worth of frozen milk and then we will be done with that).
• Just yesterday he mastered a sippy cup of juice.
• He takes a two hour nap in the mornings and a one hour nap in the afternoons, usually 9:30-11:30 and 2:00-3:00.
• At night he goes to sleep between 7-7:30 and wakes up anywhere from 6:30-7:30 a.m.
• Says da da and does a lot of talking in his own language, "oohhhhhh waaaaa heeeeee"
• He can't hold his bottle real good by himself yet, or either he's just really spoiled.

• He rolls around all over the floor, I think we've outgrown the jungle gym.

Upon hearing the news this morning of his second ear infection in 3 weeks.

This weekend we went to Madison's 4th birthday party in Vaughan.

Then we did some t-ball practicing since we had Mr. Baseball himself in town.

Practice makes perfect.

It was a long day with no nap so we hit the road.  Ryder was not, I repeat "NOT tired and not ready to go."  30 seconds down the road :)

Can you guess who can't get enough of all this lounging around during the week?

As comfy as he looks, he doesn't get away without doing school work each day.  Last blog I mentioned that he was having a hard time writing the "e" in his name, I am proud to say that as of this week he has perfected it!

He can also write numbers 1-11 except for the 5.  The 3 is a little rough and half the time he does the 6 backwards.  But still.

 Love my snuggle bug

Me and Rhodes did a little grocery shopping while Ryder was at school.  I sure had an easy shopping buddy!

Ryder likes my glasses and has mentioned several times that he needs his glasses to see the tv.

Since Rhodes is seven months, that's about Brittany time to start thinking about a birthday party.  I just have fun looking up cute invitations and fun foods and decor.  I love having something to look forward to, so I decided start thinking about what kind of party I wanted for Rhodes' first.  As I was rocking him the other night I looked over at his nightstand and there sat Beatrix Potter's Nursery Rhyme Book and my old Peter Rabbit piggy bank that I had as a baby.  So Rhodes is going to have a Peter Rabbit birthday party.  I have to do something sweet and babyish while I can because before I know it they will be wanting all kind of crazy themes for their parties.

My grandparents gave me the book when I was one, you can see where they signed it: To Brittany, our precious granddaughter.  Love, Nana and Papa, 1985.

I love the whimsical feel of Peter Rabbit and I am excited about planning this sweet party!  And of course these two inspirations will be a part of the day.  How special!

Growing Up

Ryder has found his go-to spot in the new house.  Our house is going to be one story, but we have a bonus room above the garage that will serve as a playroom.   And so therefore there are stairs that lead you up to the room.  Ryder loves stairs like no other. 

I wonder if he thinks they are as cool as I thought they were as a young child.  I remember blogging about my stair story a couple years ago and I went back and found that blog entry and copy and pasted what I wrote below.  
When I was younger, I thought it was really cool to have stairs in your house. Our first house had stairs, but I was too young to know how cool they were. Our second house didn't. I'm not real clear on the specifics of this babysitter situation, but I remember when I was either in kindergarten or first grade, a girl would drop me off at my house. Actually, she may have even babysat us so that means she had been inside our house.  I remember like it was yesterday, the first time she dropped me off I decided on the way home that I wanted her to think we had stairs. So, assuming she was still watching from outside to make sure I got in (like any good babysitter would), when I went inside the front door I squatted to the ground and did a fake stairstep. Like I crouched real low and walked myself higher and higher. I haven't thought about that in a long time, but it crossed my mind not too long ago and I thought it was really funny.


I posted that blog back in August 2011.  Good stuff.

In other news...

Every now and again I check the stats on my blog.  I can't see who reads my blog personally, but sometimes it shows links from different blogs, well heck, I don't' know, don't let me try to talk like I'm a website expert, but none of this is really the point.  The point is this - somehow the David Tutera's wedding blog (the show on TLC) found my blog and posted one of my pictures on their blog.  Here is a screen shot of the blog post.  The whole post had something to do with being pregnant as a bridesmaid so I guess that is how they found my picture.  I'm not real sure.  I kind of like that we are pictured right above a photo of the Kardashian's.  Are we famous?

Weird...

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Friday after John Michael got off work we had to go meet the guy who is wiring our TVs, speakers, etc.  Here's the house as of Friday. 

On the way out there I was looking on Facebook and saw something about the gala that night. Awhile back we had planned to go to our Hearts of Gold Gala but realized we couldn't go because it was on Saturday and we had my cousins engagement party that night.  On the way out to the house that night I said to JM, oh shoot, the gala is tonight, not tomorrow night.  He said, well let's go.  I said, are you kidding me?  no.  I am white as a ghost, we have 2 kids we have to figure out what we are going to do with, I don't have a cocktail dress, and it starts in two hours.  After about two minutes of talking about it I called my mom and she said she was happy to keep them.  We got home from the house around 6.  I dug around and found a decent dress, I packed the kids bags, we fed them and then my mom got here at 6:30.  This has got to be the most last minute, spontaneous thing we have done since we had kids.  This wouldn't be such a fuss if we didn't have kids to take care of, but it's no easy task to pack up children last minute, especially one who is still taking bottles.  I am glad we went, we had a great time and enjoyed time for just the two of us.

Casper and John Michael

We stayed at the Old Capitol Inn that night and it's just the cutest little place to stay.  Loved our room and enjoyed the balcony and a delicious breakfast downstairs the next morning.

Saturday morning we got the kids bright and early.  When I got there Ryder asked me not to get him yet because he was finishing his coffee (orange juice).

He just couldn't part ways with that coffee cup.

Then we took Ryder to sign up for t-ball.  He's going to be the youngest on the team but that's okay, he'll figure it all out.  He is growing up so much it's hard to believe.  It's so much fun but it's all happening way too fast.

It was a pretty day so we drove out to the house again after signups.  This is half of the living room and half of the breakfast area looking out into the backyard.

This is facing the fireplace and mantle and then our bedroom is over to the right and there are two other bedrooms to the left which will be the boys rooms.

Three man pile-up

Bless Ryder.  We have been trying to teach him how to dress himself.  His undies are backwards.

The sweetest smile

Hope Rhodes loves books like his brother does.

Night sugars

On Sunday we went and got Ryder some t-ball paraphernalia.

And Nanni and Grandaddy came over and helped Ryder practice with his new stuff.  Rhodes just slept like a sweet boy.

Then he woke up and did some practicing of his own.

Ryder is starting to get the hang of writing his name.  He has a hard time with the "e."  This morning I asked him to write Wilson.  We've never gone over Wilson, just Ryder 100 times.  He knew how to write Wilson better than Ryder.  I was a bit surprised over that.  Again, my baby is growing up!!!

Allyn Ann came over to visit and brought Georgia Claire over to play.  She's such a sweet baby and can hold her own against Rhodes!

Last night I went to Jaco's Taco's with some girlfriends to celebrate Ashlea's birthday and also as a going away party before she moves to South Carolina.

And today is Valentine's Day and it's been a great day.  John Michael got me a bracelet and a cute piece of decor for our new house.  We took Ryder to his favorite lunch spot.

And tonight I cooked dinner and we just hung out here.  Once again Ryder got crazy with my camera while I was in there cooking.

A Warm Welcome

Sunday after church the four of us packed up a picnic and went out to the house to eat and enjoy sitting outside in the sunshine.  Ryder played around in the dirt and Rhodes and I sat in the chair watching John Michael burn a bunch of limbs.  Rhodes was getting antsy so I told JM it was time to go home.  He said that was fine, but that he would just drop us off at home and he would come back and wait until the fire went down. 

Thirty minutes after he dropped us off I got his picture text:

As soon as he pulled into the neighborhood he said he saw a huge smoke cloud and he just knew it was our house.  He zoomed as fast as he could to our house to find several of our neighbors with their water hoses trying to put the fire out before it made it to their property line.

It was quite a warm welcome to the neighborhood...

In the photo below, the truck on the far right is JM's, the rest are vehicles belonging to the volunteer fire department.  We aren't in the city limits so when they called 911 (yes they called 911), the volunteers came out in herds.

This fire truck drove on around the house into the backyard where the fire was.

Here is a view of our nice burnt yard.  In happier news, look how much has been done on our house there in the background!

Well, what better ice breaker to meet the neighbors?

Moving on.  Many have inquired about my first week home as a stay at home mom.  Or as I like to call it, a "mom who doesn't work outside the home."  Because we all know what the real definition of a SAHM is.

So I will document my first week below, day by day:

My first day home, Monday, Rhodes woke up burning up.  When I took his temp it was 102.1.  My first thought was ear infection because he wasn't taking his bottle good and he wasn't sleeping good.  Believe me when I say I know the signs of an ear infection since Ryder had ten of them before he got tubes.  We got an appointment and when we got there they took his temp.  My heavens, I thought the temp reader would never stop, it got all the way up to 103.7 and I thought we were headed straight for the ER.  Apparently this temp is not that extreme because the nurse didn't seem real concerned.  Mother's intuition was right, he had an ear infection.  This was Monday.  Today is Friday.  I feel like I have a one week old again.  He's up all night, mainly hungry because he is only taking 2-4 oz bottles a couple times a day.  Then miraculously at midnight, 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. his ears don't hurt anymore and he is hungry.  After little sleep on Monday night and Tuesday night, here is a lovely photo I found on my camera roll Wednesday.  John Michael clearly got ahold of my camera while I was - umm - catching up on sleep.

Oh, I forgot to mention that Ryder doesn't sleep anymore either.  So around 6:30 a.m. JM had to get ready for work so he plopped them both in bed with me so I could "keep an eye on them" while he got in the shower.  Oops.  The sleepless nights got the best of me.  But it looks like they were enjoying their show and doing just fine without my supervision.

After I woke up and got a few sips of coffee in my system, I pulled out the school work.

And I've been able to stay on top of cooking and us eating at home for lunch and dinner.  I believe this is the first week in the history of our marriage that we have eaten at home for every meal this week.

Monday night we had sloppy joe muffins, hashbrown casserole and fresh corn on the cob.

On Tuesday we woke up and did day two of school work.  I had to run a couple of errands and after we got home and ate lunch both boys took 3 hour naps (again this is because Rhodes is sick, he normally takes about 45 minute naps).  This gave me time to clean and cook because we were hosting small group that night at our house.  We had BBQ chicken sandwiches, homemade mac and cheese and baked beans.

One of Rhodes' rare happy moments this week.  I no longer have my happy baby, but a sweet little crier who wants to be held 24/7 :)  I'm sure much of this is due to the ear infection, but whooo weeee!!!

If Rhodes could talk I bet he would say, "I'm going to give you to the count of three to get out of my Nap Nanny!  One... Two..."

Wednesday is my crazy day.  I took Ryder to Mother's Day Out at 9, then drove Rhodes to my mom's and made it to my women's Bible study by 9:30.  We are doing a 12 week Beth Moore study on Daniel.  We meet until 11:30 and then have five nights of homework each week.  It's going to be a commitment but I am going to try really hard to give it 100%.

At 11:30 when that was over, I killed some time for about 30 minutes and then picked Ryder up from MDO.  Then I took him over to my mom's and I hung out there until 1:45 when it's time for me to go teach my TOT class in Jackson.  While I was gone my mom kept both the boys until I got back around 4:30.  This will be my Wednesday routine until the middle of May when MDO lets out for the summer.

On Thursday we woke up and piddled around the house until 11:00 and then it was time for me to take Ryder to his TOT class at FBC.  He does that until 12:15, so I picked him up and then we went out to the house to meet with the electrician and show him where we would need outlets and light fixtures.  We got home from there at 2:00 and then I put both boys down for a nap.

Around 4 they both woke up and we strolled over to the park and played until daddy got home.

I asked him to come home a little early so I could go play tennis!  A couple of my friends were going to play together and neither really know the rules, they just have racquets, so they asked me to come and give them a few pointers :)  We are going to try to make it a weekly date.

I've been looking forward to this moment for 6 months.

I tried to introduce Rhodes to some juice.  He was screaming.  I tried to take a sip of it to see what the deal was and nothing was coming out.

So I put it in a bottle.  He didn't like it from the bottle either.  At this point I'm trying anything to get his stomach full so he can sleep at night!

I got Ryder a big bag of "previously owned" mega blocks.  I wanted to wash them so I put them in the sink full of hot soapy water.  Then I went about my business while they were soaking.  I was vacuuming so I couldn't hear anything.  When I turned it off I saw that Ryder couldn't wait any longer. He pulled his chair into the kitchen and had rinsed all the blocks and put them on a rag to dry.

This must have been fun to him because next he asked me if he could wash dishes.  He might be perfect.

So here we are on Friday afternoon and I'm wrapping up my first week at home.  Rhodes had yet another rough night, I was up feeding him two different times.  He slept until 7:30 so that was nice.  This morning I dropped Ryder off at MDO and then Rhodes and I went to pick out our plumbing fixtures for the house.  It's 1:30 now and I just finished day 2 of my "homework" for my Bible study and Rhodes is napping.  I'm about to go wake him up so we can pick up Ryder by 2:00.

I have to say it's been a great week despite the sickness.  I have asked myself several times why I didn't do this a long time ago!