My Worst Nightmare

I have a lot of fears when it comes to bad things that could possibly happen to my family, especially to Brady. And early this morning one of those fears came true. Around 5:30 this morning I heard Brady stirring in his crib, but he wasn't being that loud so I was hoping he would fall back asleep like he sometimes does. A few seconds later we heard a loud thud followed by skrieking. Normally Rob sleeps through his night wakings, but he sat straight up in bed and said "I think he fell out of his crib". By this time I was already halfway to the door. Sure enough I found him standing against the wall behind the door crying. I checked him over good and there weren't any major bumps or bruises on him, so I rocked him back to sleep. I had the hardest time falling back to sleep after that. I felt so bad that this happened to him. His crib mattresses was on the second to lowest setting, so Rob lowered it to the bottom this morning. It's only about 2 inches lower though. Hopefully it keeps him in because I really don't think he's ready for a toddler bed yet!

The Happiest Place on Earth!

Guess where we're going??? We are so excited! Rob's brother and his wife have invited us to tag along with them in September for a trip to Disney World! We have been wanting to go for a long time, but before we had Brady we weren't sure how much fun it would be for 2 adults. Instead we kept using Rob's vacation time for trips back to Cincy and one nice trip to the Mayan Riviera. After Brady came along there was no point in going with a newborn. But by the time we take this trip he will almost be 2 years old. Still not old enough to remember the trip or recognize any of the characters, but I do think he will enjoy himself.

The only time I've ever been to Disney World was when I was a kid and my parents took our family. We ended up not using one of the days on the tickets that my parents had bought for us, so they saved them because they had been told they were good for a lifetime. My mom called the park last week to verify that they really were still good and they are! The date on the tickets is from November 1991! Can you believe that? They will definitely come in handy since tickets are so expensive. Thank you mom for keeping up with them for the past 18 years and for letting us have them! If anyone has any planning advice or ideas to keep a 23 month old happy please let me know.

Our kitchen floors are done - YAY! And Rob finished the laundry room this morning - YAY! It looks great, but we still need to put down new baseboards, so the edges still look a little unfinished. And I'm trying to find some fabric that I like for some window treatments. I will post pictures soon.

Brady's New Laugh & More Construction

This was taken one night last week. Brady loves it when we jump up and down. He thinks it's so funny!

The flooring project is coming along really well. Of course it has taken a little longer than expected, but that is mostly because our slab had a few variations in height and Rob had to pour leveling compound to even it out. He is going to grout it this morning and hopefully we'll be moving our furniture back in tomorrow morning. We still need to put new baseboards down, but we'll probably wait to do that till the hardwood gets installed in the rest of the house, since those baseboards will be getting replaced as well.

Funny story - Rob & I had gotten some Guthrie's chicken to eat for lunch yesterday and Rob had left his box sitting on the kitchen table (currently in the living room). Later that day I walked into the construction zone to fix Brady something to eat. While I was in there I heard him in the family room rustling around. When I walked back in he was hiding behind the table with Rob's box of food (the leftovers) open eating the french fries and toast! He was even dipping the french fries in the sauce before he ate them. At first it startled me when I saw him shoving stuff in his mouth, then when I realized what it was I burst out laughing. Apparently he was really hungry!

Construction Zone!

We are getting a new kitchen floor this weekend. YIPEE! I am so happy to see the builder's "lovely" vinyl flooring disappear. We have wanted to replace the flooring in our house since the day we moved in 3 years ago. But since we knew from the beginning that we would just be living here for a few years we weren't quite sure if we wanted to make the investment. After listing our house on the market last year and (obviously) having no luck we've come to the realization that we might be staying here a little longer than anticipated and decided to go for it. Thankfully I have an amazing husband who is a do-it-yourselfer and is saving us lots of money!

It looks a little scary right now, but I know the end result will be beautiful. Remember when he tiled our master bathroom and guest bathroom? We loved that tile so much that we are using it again! We were hoping to have the breakfast room, kitchen and laundry completed by the end of the weekend. But due to some issues with the floor not being level and needing to fix that first it's looking as though the laundry room might not get done till Rob's next weekend off (2 weeks). After that Rob is going to try his hand at installing hardwoods in our family room, office, entry and 2 small hallways. Meanwhile I've been trying to keep Brady smiling while having an unusable kitchen and a dining room table and china cabinet taking up half of our living room!

A Rare Sight

Rob was very excited to be able to use his ice scraper again. It was 18 degrees this morning when we woke up! Brrrr! I know everyone up north is laughing at us, but we're not used to the cold weather anymore. Also, the pipes going to our master bathroom toilet froze overnight - at least we're hoping that's what's wrong with it, since it won't fill up with water. We'll find out for sure later when the temp gets warmer!

I can't believe I'm actually getting around to doing something I said I'd do! Here are some of the pictures/items I found while cleaning out Brady's closet this weekend.....

In the beginning..................

Brady had a buddy. Or at least what could have become a buddy. I can't even begin to imagine how much more chaotic those first few months would have been if there had been 2 of him!

That tiny little blurb up there eventually turned into this big chunk of love...

Brady's Hospital Pic.

And I sent out these

And President and Mrs. Bush sent him this

Then when Brady was 6 weeks old my sister came to town to visit and we took him to Portrait Innovations for some pics. Let me stop right here and say something about these places. Yes, they are convenient AND cheap. But they seriously lack some creativity. The people working the cameras pretty much have ZERO photography skills. They simply know how to operate the cameras/computers/lighting system that stays in the same place all year long. Now I'm not saying I look down on people who take their kids to these places. I don't at all. As you'll see, I've done it myself and I'm sure I will continue to do it periodically until my kids are grown. But these are definitely not my favorite type of photographs. Real photographers are VERY expensive and I don't know of anyone who can actually afford to take their kids to one multiple times a year. Hence, the reason why these cheap photo places are so popular. But I am making it my goal to get REAL family and child photographs done with an actual talented photographer once/year. After my terrible experience with our wedding photographer I realized just how important it is to have certain memories preserved. And I think having good yearly photographs of your family is worth it. So now that I've lectured you here are the pics....

Brady at 6 weeks

And 2 Christmas pics we had taken on the same visit

At 3 months old Rob and I took Brady to JC Penny's for some more cheap and convenient pictures. Some of his facial expressions are the cutest I've ever seen.

See what I mean?

I was so mad though when the lady working there started pressuring me & Rob to be in the pictures with him. She kept making me feel like I was such a terrible mom since I didn't want any pictures of all of us together. Ummm, HELLO I wasn't planning on having my picture taken that day. I was in the throws of total sleep deprivation from nursing Brady 5x/night. And living on about 3 hours of sleep per day. I wasn't even wearing any makeup that particular day. I should have stuck to my guns, but instead we ended up with these lovely pictures. Although, looking back I am glad I have them. I look at my pitiful self and smile, knowing how far we've come!

Then when Brady was about 5 months old I took him (all by myself) on his 1st plane ride to Cincinnati to attend my niece, Macy's 1st birthday party! While we were there we had some pics taken of the two of them. This one makes me smile!

And lastly, this year's Santa picture. We didn't get one with Santa last year because Brady was a newborn and I was pretty convinced that the mall Santa would be covered in germs from all the other nasty little children coughing and sneezing on him. This year we found a clean Santa at the Junior League's Christmas Jubilee.

As I was cleaning I also came across all the cards I received at my baby showers and after Brady was born. My sweet bible study teacher gave me a card and had wrote this verse in it. How encouraging for us moms!

Hope you enjoyed my little trip down memory lane!

My Morning

This morning I've been cleaning out Brady's closet. IT. WAS. A. MESS. Seriously. For about the past 9 months whenever he would outgrow something I would just open the closet door and toss whatever it was into an old diaper box and think to myself someday I'll sort this all out and properly store it. Well, the day finally came today. In an effort to turn our house into a well-organized, smoothly run and operated HOME I decided something needed to be done with the piles of clothes, burp cloths, pacis, bottles, and breast pump that were suffocating his closet space. I almost shed a tear as I was going through it all. WHY did I not enjoy him more when he was that little? Oh, it makes me so sad. I think it may have had something to do with the lack of sleep, but how I would love to go back and snuggle with him one more time.

Here is the mountain of baby goods that will soon be taken up to the attic. There's another mountain that is waiting to be packed up and taken to Goodwill also.

I also stumbled upon a few old pictures of him taken when he was between 0-3 months old that really made me just about want to cry. I am going to try and scan some of them on to the computer later tonight so I can post them here. Seriously, going through this stuff made my ovaries ache. I want another baby so bad, but I remember how HARD it was in the beginning with Brady and I'm terrified to go through it again while living so far away from our family and having a toddler to care for as well. Oh, but the rewards would be so worth it! And as I've learned already the hard part won't last forever. Soon enough I'd be packing up their clothes for storage and be wanting a third!

Brady's closet is now nearly empty and I'm really quite jealous of all the space he has. I'm not quite sure what to put in there. He really doesn't use his closet - I keep almost everything of his in his dresser/changing table area so that I can have quick access to it. I might just move some of my clothes in there, since our closet is teeny tiny and Rob hogs all the space!

EDITED : See what I mean....click on this link and cry with me please! Can we please go back in time for just one more day???

Learning to Crawl

Please Excuse My Absence!

Well, I'm back. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year's. We had a wonderful time spent with family and friends. Here are a million and one of my favorite pictures from the last month and a half (sorry, but if you're my friend on Facebook, then you've already seen these!) I never really meant to take a bloggy break, but between being crazy with the holidays and chasing Brady all over the house (he's been walking for a little over a month) I didn't really have time. Then my lovely husband told me he thinks I spend too much time traveling through internet land everyday. Unfortunately, he's right. I get drawn in to so many fabulous blogs and I love reading about how perfect everyone else's families seem to be, that I tend to sometimes neglect my own :( So I decided to stay away for a little while. (Don't worry - I still jumped online to read a few select blogs/check email/facebook during naptimes and when the internet nazi wasn't looking)!

This leads me to my next topic - my 2010 focus. I used to write out lengthy resolutions every year, but it always quickly became apparent I wasn't going to keep any of them by the 2nd week in January. So now I don't even bother. Instead I know of a few people/bloggers that choose a word or area of their life to focus on. This year I am choosing FAMILY. Rob was absolutely right when he said that I spend too much time online. Since he pointed it out I started paying more attention to my habits and I must confess they are terrible! I've decided to put the laptop back in the office where it belongs and only bring it out at naptime or after Brady has gone to bed. I need to spend more time focusing on him and on Rob. We've also been making more of an effort to keep the TV off as well. AND I LOVE IT!

I've been thinking a lot lately about how quickly time goes by and how I only have this short while to spend with this amazing family God has given me. Also, I'm fairly traditional/conservative in my beliefs about my role in our family and I must confess I haven't been living up to my own expectations and serving my family the way I think I should. So in focusing on my FAMILY I am also going to be focusing on my HOME. We moved into our house over 3 years ago and aside from painting and purchasing some new furniture I really haven't done much to create a warm inviting atmosphere for my family. This is something that needs to change ASAP. I want my home to be a welcoming, loving, safe and peaceful haven for Rob & Brady. I want them to LOVE being here. So I am committing myself to make this happen. I already have some great ideas of things I want to change and I'm setting a small amount of money aside in our budget every month to allow me to make these changes. BUT, the changes will come slowly at first because we are about to replace the flooring in all the main living areas of our house which will equal chaos once it gets started. Our house is about to be a construction zone for awhile. But I'm pretty sure it's going to look great when it's done!

Rob got me a new lens for my camera for Christmas (50mm), and as you can see from the photos above I've been enjoying it. Maybe some day I will have the time to take a real photography class and actually learn what on earth I am doing! Until then I am having fun taking 1000+ pictures and praying that I get lucky and 10 actually turn out.

I don't remember where I found this quote, but I love it. It makes me smile every time I read it. Hope you enjoy as much as I do.

The beauty of the house is Order,

The blessing of the house is Contentment,

The glory of the house is Hospitality,

The crown of the house is Godliness.

Author Unknown