9 months and almost 3!

In honor of William's 9 month birthday (yesterday) a blog post! I didn't even realize it was his 9 month birthday until Great-Grammy reminded me. That's right, I'm Mother of the Year.

The last few days ever last one of the Brahm men have been sick with a cold/sore throat thing. Well, Bob the dog hasn't, or at least if he is, I don't know it. He seems happy enough to me.

This month....let's see....this month William has learned to recognize his name, and his brother's name, which has been useful since that kid gets in to everything. At least he stops what he's doing for a second when I say "William!." When he's asked where Noah is, he'll look around until he finds him, and then usually gets a big smile. It's fun having them like each other.

I almost always feed William in his room in the rocking chair because he's the world most easily distracted baby and there's not a whole lot in there for him to get distracted by. A few days ago I was feeding him, and Noah was out in the hallway talking. William heard him, sat straight up, and started talking back to Noah. They had a little conversation. I have no idea what they were saying, but there was some sort of happy back and forth going on there.

William's trying more and more to let go of whatever he's pulled himself up on and stand on his own- sometimes in the worst places. He had his very first bath today in the big bathtub, (he has been in the kitchen sink, but both boys desperately needed a bath so I decided we'd do a joint bath) and he tried to stand on his own in the bathtub. That kid's gonna give me a heart attack someday.

He's perfected going up and down the stair that goes into our now empty living room...bonus room...den, whatever.....and has fallen many times in the perfecting process. I'm pretty sure that kid is a super baby or something. He very rarely cries when he falls. He falls flat on his face, nothin'. He gets his fingers smashed by big brother in the toy box, nothin'. Rolls off the stair, nothin'. Tough kid.

I've decided that girls will either really like William, or be intimidated by him. He looks into people eyes forever and ever without breaking eye contact. So, either they'll feel special that someone wants to look in to their eyes like that, or they'll feel like he's reading their soul and be intimidated.

Noah will be turning 3 in just under a month. THREE!?! I think this is the first year that he'll understand what's going on when he has his birthday. Every time I mention that he's gonna have a birthday soon he starts singing the Blue's Clues birthday song and pretends to blow out candles. He's also asked for an icecream cake. Well, an "ice goop cake" were his actual words. :)

Our current endeavors are learning our ABC's, and counting to 10. Right now we're working on A, B, and C. He's learning to say them, what sound they make, and how to write them. "'A' says 'aaaaaaaahhhh,' like 'apple,' 'B' says 'buh,' like 'Bob,' and 'C' says 'ka' like 'cat.'" Problem is, that now he's walks around calling our dog, Bob, "buh. Bob." Oh well, at least he entertains me. :)

He's recently had a little bit of interest in potty training. We put on the big boy underwears, and he'll sit on the potty, but the problem is, that he tells me after he goes pee-pee and not when he needs to go pee-pee, so we have yet to be successful. At least he's trying though, right?

Our other problem in the potty area, is that he doesn't want to keep his diaper on. When he's supposed to be taking a nap, I'll go in to check on him, 'cause he's really bad at keeping quiet, and he'll have taken off his diaper. A few times we've sent him to his room to calm down and stop whining, and when we go to "have a talk" he's taken his diaper off. A few times he's peed his bed because of it. Anyone have any ideas on how to fix this?

The Three Rules and Kiddie Pools

Yesterday was William's 6 month physical. The little Beef Cake is weighed in at 20lbs, and measures 28.5" tall. I knew that his pants were suddenly too short, but geeze, almost 2.5 inches in a month?! Dr. showed me a tooth that's about to come in, and also tested him for anemia. Test came back positive, so William will be on an iron supplement at least until his 9 month appointment. I guess 25% of babies are anemic, and bigger babies tend to get the short short stick. That'll teach 'em.

Believe it or not, Noah was a bigger baby, but he was never tested for anemia. For all I know he was anemic and we never even knew it.

We're a house full of sickos. Josh has a flu-like thing, Noah's got a bad cold, and William has a cold too, but that might just be the typical teething cold, I don't know. Either way, everyone's sick. Except for me. I mentioned this to Dr. Miller, and he said, "You know what the three rules are that you agreed to when you got married, right?" "Uh...no." "Rule number 1- When the husband gets sick, you take care of him and make him better. Rule number 2- When kids get sick, you take care of them and make them better. Rule number 3- When you get sick, you're terminated. So don't get sick." Hehe...sounds about right. Luckly, I only get sick about 1 day a year, so we're usually all good.

So that this post isn't all about William, I thought I'd throw in the token cute kid picture. We recently bought Noah a kiddie pool so that we'd have a way to cool off during these miserable summers. I'm telling you, kiddie pools are awesome now. Ours is TWO pools, with a slide, palm trees, sprinklers that spray out of the palm trees, and a ring toss. And the best part? It was on clearance at Target. Noah obviously has the most fun with it since he's able to play on the little slide, but William likes to splash around in it too. So without further adieu, here is little brown boy #1.

Happy summer, everyone!

My baby boy is growing up

It seems that this week, William has suddenly aged. I think it started with the haircut. I finally broke down and trimmed it up a little. He's needed it cut for the last two months, but I couldn't bring myself to give him his first haircut at only 4 months old. Noah was 14 months when he had his first haircut but William has more hair now that Noah ever did. Poor Noah- he got Momma's hair. Anyways, that's when he started to look just a little older. Then he started sitting up really well. Well enough that I can plop him on the floor, go do something, and he's still sitting. ....and then he started playing. Like, with toys. And my face. Playing with my face is one of his favorite pass times. He'll just sit in his chair, or lie on the floor, and play with stuff. He'll hold his key ring, and go through and look at each of the keys, giving each one a good looking over, and a good chew, or he'll play with the toy cell phone pushing all the buttons. Or the activity table that I brought out of Noah's room. He loves that thing.

After the playing, came the rolling/scooting/trying to crawling to get to the thing to play with. Or thing to chew on. That kid is a very efficient roller. I went to go check on him a few days ago, and he'd pulled his knees up under himself and was rocking back and forth like he was getting ready to take off.

He's into EVERYTHING. I think this one's gonna be a handful once he starts moving around more. He's so curious about everything that could possibly be in his reach (or in his mouth). It's impossible to burp the kid because he's always squirming to try to get something off the table next to us, or trying to get down on the floor, or get his chubby little hands on something on the couch. I can just see it now....William will find something to get into, and call Noah over to see if he can take it apart for him. I think our house better watch out for these two.

A quick update on William

As some of you know, William has been spitting up like nobody's business since about 2 weeks after he was born. At first I just thought it was normal, but then realized that he spits up more than any kid I've ever seen, and is really fussy during most feedings. I mentioned it at his last pediatric appointment, (4 month check-up) and Dr. Miller told us it was really likely that he has acid reflux, especially since it runs in my family. (Sorry, kiddo.) He ordered an upper GI test over at Valley Children's Hospital, and then once we got the results from those, he sent us over to see the same GI specialist that we saw about Noah last year. It's amazing how much faster you can get an appointment with a specialist when they mark your referral as "urgent."

We had that appointment yesterday, and we found out that he does have acid reflux, and that even though 60% of kids grow out of it by the time they're 6 months old, William is not likely to be one of those- He'll probably have it at least until he's a year. The Dr. also noticed in his x-ray that part of his intestine is twisted. They only checked down so far during the upper GI test, so she doesn't know if it's also twisted farther down, of if it's just in that one spot. So, right now the plan is to instead of exposing him to more radiation right now, we're going to see if he responds to the medication, and acts like most the other refluxers and grows out of it around a year. If he doesn't we'll have to go back and get a second test done and check out the rest of his intestines.

William!

I guess it's about time for an update since we've got our new little addition. William David was born the morning of December 22nd. 7lbs 14oz, and 20.5" long. Not nearly as compact as Noah's 8lbs 5oz and 18.5" long. Maybe William will be built more like Daddy. He's definitely got Daddy's hair. Well, for now anyways.

Thankfully the c-section was uneventful with the exception of me apparently being crooked even while sitting up perfectly straight while I was supposed to be getting my spinal. While the doc-doo's were stapling me back together Josh looked at me and said "you've officially had a normal pregnancy." Third time's the charm, right?

Thankfully William and I were both cleared to come home the afternoon of Christmas Eve, so we were able to all be together on Christmas morning.

Somehow I lucked out and got 2 easy babies in a row. William pretty much only cries when he's hungry, or when his diaper's dirty. I thought for sure I'd be getting Devil Child since Noah was such a good baby. William even slept over 7.5 hours a couple nights ago, but typically wakes up about every 4 hours at night. Not bad, eh? After a very thorough examination a few days after his birth, Dr. Miller says that "Prince William" is perfect and we need to find him a Kate.

Noah's doing really well with the whole not being an only child thing. He wants to hold Baby whenever he gets a chance and loves to "help" me change William's diapers and burp him, etc. Josh and I have both been making it a priority to spend time with Noah so that he doesn't feel replaced or something, so that might be helping a little, but he's pretty much the perfect big brother. Well, as perfect of a big brother as a 2-year-old can be. :) On Christmas morning he wanted to hold William before he even opened his presents. Now that's love. ;)

My mom came out from GA on the 18th so that she could help before William came, and then watch Noah while I was in the hospital, and then help with the baby after he came home and while I recovered from my surgery. Noah seemed to really like her, and warmed up to her right away. Thats saying something with how shy he typically is. He seemed to have fun and was really good for her while Josh and I were gone.

Josh's mom came out from GA the day after Christmas. Well, she was supposed to get here Christmas day, but had some uh..."flight drama" and got stuck in AZ for the night. Fun in the sun. Noah also warmed up to her pretty quickly, which I was also impressed with. He seems to be doing a lot better lately when it comes to new people. Anyways, she stayed and helped with the babies until the 31st. Our mom's were so much help while they were here that I was kinda freaking out that I'd be in over my head after they left, but so far so good.

Here's a few more pictures from the last few weeks.

Sleepy Momma...and baby. Such a flattering picture.

Noah time.

Noah introducing William to his favorite TV show, Blue's Clues.

My three men.

And now the reveal....

Today I finally finished William's room. Down to getting all the baseboards/door frames repainted. I realized yesterday that almost everything in there was done on the cheap, so I'll fill you all in on that as we go. The theme is Paddington Bear, whom I thought everyone had heard of. Apparently not. Paddington is a British storybook character and it was later made into a tv show on BBC. I've never seen the show, but I liked the books when I was a kid.

First is the crib. I managed to get this crib from Walmart on sale (more than $75 off) for $115 including shipping. For those of you who are pregnant and will have to buy a crib, Walmart by far has the best prices, and they have awesome sales.

The whole Paddington Bear theme came to be when I ran across this crib bumper at Goodwill for a whole dollar. I couldn't pass it up. I made the crib blanket and crib skirt to match, bought some sheets at Target, and whalla- crib bedding set.

Next is the mobile. This, I found on ebay. I could only find one anywhere on the internet. I think I paid $3.75 for it. They had a buy it now on there for about $15, but I bid on it instead, and got it WAY cheaper.

And here is the kite and clouds. The perspective is off in this picture, but you get the general idea. I made this to match the kites on the crib bumper. I spend about $2 at Michaels to make this. A couple of dowel rods, 4 sheets of styrofoam, some ribbon out of the discount bin, and some yarn that I found at Goodwill. Oh, and I used some paint to paint the long string onto the wall since I didn't want to use an actual string and cause a choking hazard. It's harder than you would think to paint a string onto a wall...especially when it's textured. The clouds I painted on with some watered down acrylic paint, and a sponge. Oh, the mobile is hanging by a rope I made from leftover ribbon from the kite. Everything matches perfectly.

This is the dresser/changing table. The dresser I found a thrift store, and repainted. It took me awhile to figure out exactly how I wanted it, but I'm happy with how it came out. The changing pad and cover came from a childrens consignment store...the wipe warmer, hamper, and diaper pail I did get new. Wipe warmer and hamper were just the cheapest I could find, and the diaper pail is the same one Noah has which I highly recommend. It's the Diaper Dekor Plus. I has its own refill bags that you're supposed to use, but a tall kitchen trash bag fits it just fine and they're a whole lot cheaper. We're had some pretty nasty diapers put in there, and once that little flap closes, we don't smell anything.

I think that no room is complete unless there is something on the walls. Wall art however, is expensive. Picture books, are not. I found a Paddington picture book online for $8. That's more than I would typically want to pay for a book, but I really wanted pictures for the walls, and just ONE actual Paddington print was at least $30. So, $8 for a whole bunch of pictures was worth it. I have to admit, I felt like I was doing something wrong when I was cutting up that book...

The pictures came out really cute. The picture frames are all from thrift stores, or I already had them, and repainted them to match the room.

These are what I'm using to put diapers in, and hide stuff that isn't so pretty...like noise machines. I got them at Michaels for a few bucks each, but still used a coupon. I painted them, and beat them up (Noah helped with that part) and then made the little kites out of leftover big kite materials to tie them into the room a little more. Josh says the boxes look like they've been sitting in a barn for 20 years. That was the goal. :)

This is one of my favorites. At the beginning of the Paddington books, he has just arrived in London from "Darkest Peru" and he's found by the Brown family sitting in Paddington train station, on his suitcase, with a tag that says "Please look after this bear." I wanted to use the travel part of the story somehow in the room. Making an end table out of an old-style suitcase is how I decided to do that. I found the suitcase in an antique store here in Old Town Clovis, bought some table legs, braces, and spray paint at Lowes, and an endtable was born.

The lamp was another Goodwill find, and the lampshade was on clearance at Ross.

The glider was Noah's and moved into William's room. The name on the wall was kind of an afterthought because I decided this wall was too bare. It's one of my favorite things about the room now. They sell wooden letters at various craft stores, but why would I want to go buy them when I could make them?

I cut the letters out of a big piece of cardboard, from the box the crib came in, and then covered them with burlap. Lots of staples were involved. Then I used the kite yarn from Goodwill to make the hangers, and some macrame cord, which I also had bought at Goodwill to hang the letters from, and to make the little bows at the top.

I found this on ebay. I think it was $1.75. Cute, eh?

The light fixture that was here when we moved in was awful, and I decided that it had to go. So, I ran down to Walmart and found this. It's the cheapest one they had, but it works really well in the room. I put it up all by myself. ;)

Lastly, is the little trike. My grandpa made this many moons ago, and I managed to get my mom to let me have it. It really has nothing to do with Paddington, but it's antique-y looking, and that's just the perfect sized spot for it, so that's its new home.

Hope you've enjoyed the tour. I had a lot of fun making everything, even though it took a heck of a lot of time. Totally worth it. :)

Sewing and house progress

When I was pregnant with Noah, I really wanted to sew things for him, but we never got a sewing machine in time, and I didn't want to do it badly enough to do everything by hand. Since then, I've gotten a sewing machine, so I've been able to actually make stuff for the new baby. Yay! Here's some of what I've done so far.

The blanket and crib skirt I made, and I found the bumper at Goodwill.

The sheet and crib is Noah's.

The extra special Starbucks and Harry Potter hats.

The Christmas outfit.

Some crocheted hats.

William is going to have a warm little head.

In other news, the house stuff is all going well. I heard from Mr. Mortgage today, and our loan has gone through, and we're *gasp* ahead of schedule. He said we should be able to close before the end of the month. That means, that we'll be doing our big moving weekend on my birthday weekend. This'll be the third time I've moved on my birthday. Thankfully, it'll be the last time for awhile.

William has a birthday....

...unless he comes early, that is. My c-section is scheduled for December 22nd, which is also my sister's birthday. What are the chances? Well, I guess it would be 1 in 365...unless it's a leap year, which it's not. 7:30am. Mi madre booked her plane ticket today, so she's officially coming out. First time she'll have been here since we moved here 2.5 years ago.

I've officially blown up. I now have a watermelon in there. A very active watermelon. I gained a whopping 9 pounds this last month. My head just about exploded right there in the dr's office. Dr's not worried though since I hadn't really gained anything until now, as long as I don't start gaining 9 pounds EVERY month. Apparently it's not uncommon for "smaller people" to not gain anything or even show for a long time and then pop overnight and have a huge spike in weight gain. I've calmed down since the initial shock of gaining the weight of a newborn in a month. I'm just going to try to keep exercising most days to keep the weight gain at a healthy rate.

Noah and I went out to look at houses again today. We found one that I liked, but it needs a some work done on it. It's a foreclosure, but it's still priced higher than I want to pay for the amount of work that it needs. It was just put on the market today though, so there's a decent chance that no one will make an offer on it, and it'll come down in price. So, I plan on keeping an eye on it for now, and keep looking for other ones. We're also making an offer on a house that's already in escrow, but there's always a chance that it'll fall out of escrow and we want to be ready if that happens. It's a smaller house, but I absolutely love it. Since it's smaller, it's also cheaper, which is always a plus in my book. I could totally see us living there. So anyways, it's not likely, but we'll be ready just in case.

That's all for now. Adios amigos!

Some actual updates this time

We've got quite a few updates this time around. At least I don't feel like I'm writing about nothing. :)

Update #1- We found out we're expecting another little boy. Provided we don't change our minds when he decides to be born, we're planning on naming him William David Brahm. Hopefully next time we have a baby, it'll be a girl, 'cause I don't know if we can agree on another boys name. *grin* So, Noah will have a little brother to harass. Although, he's so easy-going that it might be the other way around depending on William's personality.

Update #2- We've found a church that it looks like we're going to stay at. Since we've been married (4 1/2 years) we haven't really been very involved in a church. It's pretty pathetic... We started out going to a church after we got married and moved to Gwinnett, GA, but then a bunch of stuff happened there and we ended up planting a new church with some of the people from the messed up one. Josh was pretty involved in that, but I wasn't really. We were there for a year before we moved to Fresno. After moving to CA, Josh's job requires him to be speaking at Catholic churches for the first three months of so of the year, and we're not Catholic, so that limited our church hunting. Then after that, I got pregnant with Noah and was pretty sick for about 4 months. Then.....we hunted for a little while and found New Covenant. We've been there for about a year and a half, but we never really got involved in anything except for Josh is on the band sometimes. We just decided recently that neither one of us are really growing there, so it's time to find somewhere else. So, now it looks looks like we're joining a small church plant, called Free Grace Church. After visiting there one week we already "know" more people there than we ever did at New Cov after being there for well over a year. I think it's something we'll both be able to get involved in pretty quickly. So, it's gonna be a little strange being involved in a church again, but it'll be good.

Update #3- We plan on starting to look for our first house in the next couple weeks. Our apartment lease is up November 30th, so until today I thought that our goal would be to close on a house around mid-November so we could have a couple weeks to get things painted and move in. I also knew that we might end up finding the perfect house a couple months early and need to break our lease, or possibly not find anything until January or so and have to go month-to-month on our rent. Today when I took our rent check over to the office I asked them what would happen in each of those situations. Turns out, because of when we originally signed our lease, we wouldn't get any penalties at all for breaking our lease early, we just have to give a written 30 day notice, and if we have to go month-to-month on our rent, it stays the same amount as it is now. It couldn't have worked out any better! So, it looks like whenever we find a house we like, we can go ahead and make an offer and not have to wait until November. That will especially be nice because it would be a lot easier to move before I'm 8 months pregnant. I've done that once and I don't really want to have to do that again. I know I can do it, it just makes the whole moving process more miserable than it already is. We've already been approved for the loan we want, and we contacted a Realtor today. I'm expecting a call this afternoon to talk to her about what we're looking for. That worked out really well too....turns out we know a Realtor, and didn't even know that's what she did until recently. Then today I get online and find out that she specializes in being a Buyers Agent, and in doing short sales, both of which are a plus. It all seems a little more real now that it's not necessarily months away from happening.

So, that's all of our updates. Adios!

Post-appointment update

Today I had my 15 week appointment and also scheduled my anatomical ultrasound where we'll find out the gender. (YAY!!) The lucky day is July 27th. Twenty days away. I'm just a tad bit excited. :)

It was the typical appointment and everything looks good. I gained a pound, which is not as much as I'm supposed to have gained, but she said she wouldn't complain as long as I didn't lose anything. I got a little lecture for not drinking enough water, as usual, and we found out once again, that Baby is uncooperative. Well, I had a small part in it. Apparently I have an over-powering heart beat, and Baby doesn't like to hold still, so we couldn't get its heart beat with the Doppler. They do however, have a brand new shiny ultrasound machine across the hallway so we just hopped over there to take a look and make sure everything was still going okay. So, I got an unexpected visit with Baby. It's a very active little kid, which I'm sure I'll be feeling the affects of. Actually, I felt baby yesterday, so I guess I'm already feeling the affects of our little dancer. I got to see the teeny tiny little fingers that will be used to harass big brother, and its little legs straight up in the air. Baby did cooperate enough to give us a profile view, so it must have been feeling especially considerate today.

I'm still not really showing. I look a little thicker, but most people probably couldn't tell unless I pointed it out, and I'm not really sure anyone but me could tell then either. All this time I've heard that you show about a month earlier with your second kid, and here I am on the same track as I was with Noah. I have a picture of my baby belly at 17 weeks with Noah, and it's way bigger than what I have now at 15 weeks. Maybe I'll just pop all of the sudden. I'm kinda hoping it can wait a little bit longer because I bought a dress for a wedding I'm going to and it fits me perfectly. The wedding is about a week and a half away, so it's soon, but I kept the receipt just in case. The dress would probably be fine if my tummy got a little bigger, but not by a whole lot. So, ya hear that kiddo? Stay back my Momma's spine for another week or so. Then you can pop out all you want.

The promised picture

Here's an ultrasound picture taken last week at my appointment. They sent me 4 of them but they all kinda look the same so once you've seen one, you pretty much get the idea. The li'l peanut wouldn't uncurl so it's in the fetal position. Of course it is, right? It also didn't want to give us a good profile picture. Are all babies this uncooperative, or just mine?

Baby, baby, baby!

So as some of you may have seen on my facebook, we're expecting a little Christmas bun. My due date is December 29th, but since I have to have a c-section, we'll likely meet out new little addition around the 22nd or so. The 22nd also happens to be my little sister's birthday, so she's extra excited. Happy 15th birthday to Chloe!

We've been trying to get pregnant since last October when Noah turned one, and after 6 months of trying, it happened. I found out very early, only 3 weeks LMP, so we've known for awhile. I even got to celebrate Mother's Day being a mommy to 2 babies. :) It's been slightly hard to keep the secret, especially for Josh 'cause one of his favorite parts of this whole pregnancy thing is telling everyone that he gets to be a daddy, and in this case, a daddy again.

I've had 2 Dr. appointments, and 3 ultrasounds (one because of a minor freakout. Thankfully everything was just peachy,) and everything looks good. I even got to see the little peanut dance today at my appointment. It wouldn't cooperate though and didn't want to stretch out so the Dr. could take its measurements- Just like big brother Noah was.

It'll be uh...interesting to see how Noah does with a baby around. He LOVES babies, but he's never really had to share Mommy before, and he's definitely a momma's boy. He's been spending more time with Daddy lately so hopefully he'll be a little more comfortable hanging out with Daddy while Mom is busy with the new little one.

So far this pregnancy hasn't been too hard on me. I feel nauseous a lot, although that seems to have gotten a little better in the last 2 weeks with only a few rough days lately. I haven't lost any weight like I did with Noah, so that's a plus. I also haven't gained any, but I'm sure I'll make up for that later. :)

In the next few days the dr. is supposed to e-mail me my ultrasound pictures so I'll be able to post them then in case for some reason anyone has any interest in seeing them.

I've definitely had cravings this time around. I didn't really have that with Noah. Tonight I wanted iced coffee, decaf of course, and then once it was made, I took a sip and didn't want it anymore. Grr. It sounded so good at the time.

This has been a really boring post. Oh well. Someday it'll be interesting for me to go back and read it. :)

Oh, by the way, today I'm 11 weeks, for those who didn't want to try to figure it out on their own. I know I wouldn't want to. :)