Adventures of the Stay at home Mom of 2 boys...Day 1

So really this would be day 2 because Clay was at home with us last Wednesdsay because there was no school... but this is the first day or the first full week of being home. I dare not mention school with Clay around for awhile as he is pretty attached to his friends. Lots of playdates will need to be planned which is great because then I get to see all of my friends too!

Day 1 has been great....

we woke up and stayed in our jammies for an hour or so while we relaxed and had some breakfast (I am a little sick right now so super daddy took care of the boys first thing this morning- he's AWESOME!)

Clay and I made a craft - you know i love crafts! (see pictures below)

Played with Cullen on the floor... little man is getting so big already! active and opinionated, just how I like em! Love this early stage but really can't wait for him to be more interactive with big brother, i think they are going to be great friends!

got dressed for the day and headed out to run a few errands (shopping carts need to be much bigger to fit a baby in a car seat and a toddler in the seat of the cart - there is NO room for the things you are actually buying)

Thinking Clay would fall asleep in the car and I could get a nap in, we drove the long way home only for clay to stay awake the whole time and want to watch a movie when he got home. We watched 1/2 of robots then headed to bed where my little darling is now asleep. My littlest darling is asleep in his crib as well which means this momma is headed to her own bed for a few minutes of shut eye.

Have a great rest of your day!

1 Month and Still Going Strong

Cullen turned 1 month old yesterday!!! We cannot believe that it has been a month already and at the same time feel like he's been a part of our life for so much longer than that. He is such a sweet little boy and is much more alert these days (when he's awake). He is focusing on objects a lot more and making all the cute baby faces including a smile with dimples to go with it! not sure where the dimples came from in the gene pool but they sure are cute. He is sleeping pretty well and giving us a 5 hour stretch most nights which is awesome! Clay is loving being big brother and is very proud and protective when he gets dropped off at school. He pushes Cullen's stoller up to the doors each day and tells his friends in the classroom that they can look but stay down off the stroller. Very sweet that he is already the little protector.

Pictures as Promised

In NO PARTICULAR ORDER...

First picture together


Trick or Treating fun with our friends the Beiers


Curious George and Hundley


George and the Man in the Yellow Hat (george's daddy according to Clay)


Playing in the leaves - Fall is so much fun!


Meeting Baby Brother for the first time - it was a total success!


Baby Cullen just a few minutes old - so sweet



In a slightly goofy mood waiting to get delivery started


Silly Clay - this about sums up Clay currently, he's pretty funny at 2 1/2


2 weeks old and just so handsome

The first weeks of our New Life

Sorry i haven't posted before now for those of you that have been waiting to see pictures and news about our new little guy Cullen Ian and his big brother Clay!

Ok the stats first...
Cullen was born on Oct. 12th, 2010 at 10:25pm
Weighing in a whopping 6 lbs 10 oz. (one ounce larger than Clay was when he was born :) )
19 1/4 inches long

that morning I dropped clay off at school, pampered myself with a manicure and then I started having some sharp pains late morning of the 12th that were making me rather nervous (did NOT feel like contractions) so i gave the Dr. a call and went into the office to get checked out and make sure that everything was ok in there. Everything was good on the fetal heart rate monitor so they decided to check and see how far along I was and we were almost 1/2 way to where we needed to be. Dr. Bolin made the call to go ahead and get things moving so I headed home to get out bags for the hospital and called brian to let him know it was baby time! A few days earlier than we had planned but we were pretty ready to go. Grandparents and siblings were called, plans for Clay arranged, and then we headed to the hospital around 2:00pm, got all hooked up to everything by around 3:30 and away we went!

The mom's decided to come up to the hospital to say hi and visit for a minute once they were in town around 10:00pm and clay was in bed with grandpa at home to listen for him. about 10 minutes into our visit I had a check by one of the nurses and it was time to have Cullen. Perfect timing for the grandma's to just stay at the hospital until Cullen was born. Dr. Bolin was called into the hospital (we warned the nurses that last time we had to stop pushing because Dr. Bolin wasn't there yet so they decided to wait until she got there to start any pushing). 2 contractions later Cullen was born just as perfect as could be and looking ALOT like big brother Clay. Cullen definately has darker skin and hair (from the swinter side of the genes we think) but has alot of the same cute little features as his brother including those DARK blue eyes right now.

The first 2 1/2 weeks have been awesome! Clay loves being a big brother and likes to snuggle up with his baby brother "culky". He shares his toys with him and gives kisses all the time as well as trying to put the paci in baby brother's mouth all the time. Yesterday he even sang songs to Cullen in the car to try to get him to stop crying, sweetest thing ever!

Everyone is doing well, a little sleep deprived but that is to be expected. Other than that just loving our life as a family of 4 and trying to enjoy every minute of it!

Hope you're well and pictures are on their way soon!

The Time is Getting Near!!!

Two weeks from today we are due to have this little boy! I can't believe that it is coming so fast! I still feel great and only today had to ask Brian to help me tie my shoes for school... pretty sure I am going to wear flip flops the rest of the week :) Still in minor denial that we are as close as we are since I feel this good, I should be at least slightly miserable by now but have been blessed and a comfortable and smooth pregnancy once again. I am working through this week then am done for the rest of the year and possibly more than that.
When I saw the OB last week she said that we are moving in the right direction and my mild contractions have been working their magic. We have another appt. this wednesday and will find out if we are getting any closer and get a game plan in place.
Possible you won't hear from us until the next "HE'S HERE" post so stay tuned...

Less than 1 month to go!

Pregnancy has been great so far! I am fortunate enough to have no real complaints other than swollen ankles now and then because I don't stay off my feet. Hello... I am a PE teacher - kind of hard to do! We are down to weekly OB appointments now and I can't believe we are already at this point. My OB even suggested to me last week that since this is our 2nd child we could be i nduced a week early if we want.. WHAT?!? I can't even think about that right now, I told her we would talk again in a couple of weeks. Right now I am feeling so good that I'm not itching to be "unpregnant". Although I am anxious to meet our little boy and cannot wait to see him and hold him, we're just trying to enjoy all of our time with Clay right now before he becomes a big brother.
I have 9 days of teaching to go, then a 1 week break before the due date (oct. 18th!). I keep having dreams he is showing up early though so hopefully I am at least done teaching by then :) That might freak the kids out a little!

I'll keep you updated in the next couple of weeks but until then.. have a great weekend with your families and friends.

Brian Gets Attcked By A Baby Squirrel (and other summer happenings)

We were out for a walk in the park yesterday, such a gorgeous day (75 and sunny with a light breeze). Clay was doing such a great job staying on the trails and having a blast leading us around. We were almost done with our walk and I saw something hopping around in the brush and thought we would stop to take a look and see if we could get a close up of a squirrel for Clay. It happened to be a tiny little baby squirrel, just bigger than a newborn kitten, and oh so cute. This fearless little critter decided he would hop out onto the trail to say hi to us. I had a tight grip on clay's hand so he didn't try to touch it and after telling it hi and bye we headed back on our walk... with a baby squirrel hot on our trail. He followed us for a bit and then caught up and grabbed onto Brian's shoe and attempted to climb his leg! As Brian was trying to gently shake him off without using his hands clay and I just laughed and laughed (and kept a look out for mommy squirrel who at this point we were expecting to attack brian from above very soon for messing with her baby) No mommy squirrel showed up and the poor baby squirrel looked a little sad as we left it standing by itself in the middle of the path, a great wilderness experience no the less and what a great story to tell..."remember when daddy got attacked by the baby squirrel?" I only wish we had our camera with us.

Summer has been a whirlwind! We have been busy raising a 2 year old and getting ready for our new baby boy. He's been growing away in my belly as I seem to be getting bigger by the day. Felling great though!

Daddy and Clay playing at the sprinkler park


We were fortunate enough to spend a couple of weekends at the Miller lake house (Brian's grandparents place just a little over an hour away from here). Brian and his brothers grew up spending their summer weekends there and its always fun to watch him share that with Clay- its a pretty special place. Clay was so much better in the lake water this summer and even enjoyed cruising around in his lifejacket and jumping off the boat to daddy. And of course, driving the boat! it doesn't matter who's in the driver's seat, they know they will have to share the job with Clay.

Land HO!


Throw me higher Daddy


Had a great 4th of July back here in Zionsville. Went down to the village festival in the park and watched all the kids run around (including Clay) We didn't make it long enough to see the fire works but maybe next year. It was blazin hot out that weekend which made for a bit of a cranky little guy after awhile but it was nothing a little dairy queen ice cream run couldn't solve.
Happy 4th of July (we look sweaty gross)


U-S-A


We headed to French Lick, Indiana for our own family vacation early in the summer and had a great time. It was nice to head out just the three of us and spend some time doing whatever we wanted to do. We stopped at Oliver Winery on the way down (one of our favorite places) and Brian got to have a tasting (Clay and I helped with the grape juice) and we brought home a case of our usual favorites - beanblossom cider- I will see you in October! We stayed at a hotel with an indoor waterpark which was perfect for Clay. Although I couldn't really go down the slides or anything I did have fun playing photographer as Clay and Brian took what must have been 100 trips down from the top. He really loves the water! We took a look around the 2 big resorts in town, played in their gardens, and topped it all off with Clay's first horseback ride on the last day. I don't remember what the horse's name really was because Clay decided that it was bullseye from the second he saw it (he calls all horses bullseye after seeing toy story 2 so many times).

Starting at an early age (thank goodness they serve grape juice too!)


Gardens of West Baden - follow me guys, I know where I'm going!


After seeing mommy and daddy taking pictures, I think I want to look cute for the camera too


Suppose we ought to have a belly pic on here somewhere


Old time shoe shine at West Baden


Yeah Waterpark! Let's go down the slide again daddy!


Taking a break on the front porch at the French Lick Resort


Ride like the wind Bullseye!


All summer long we spent time with our friends from school. 9 kids, 7 moms, and 1 dad. twice a week we got together at someone's house or out around town somewhere and let the kids play and run a muck while the adults laughed and enjoyed some social time. The kids always had a blast, even with the several time outs needed for some of them each time (Clay being one of the usual suspects). You would have thought that with all the time spent together during the summer, the transition back to school would have been easy... WRONG! The first week or two was awful for I think all of us. Trying to get back into your classroom and actually do work and teach kids is hard when your morning starts out with a toddler trying to climb your legs and crying his little eyes out because he knows you are about to leave him. Luckily, about 5 minutes after the awfulness they usually calm down (so their teachers say) Thank the lord for Miss Sue and Miss Sara who are still having to console my little man about 1/2 the mornings we drop off.

Mr. Cool


Back to school has been fun and challenging to balance with the end of pregnancy tiredness and taking care of the family. The first day of school was 1 of 40 that I will teach this school year. I think we are down to about 25 teaching days left before I bow out 10 days before our due date. Oct. 8th will start the "I better rest up now before I don't get to sleep anymore" phase of pregnancy :) We are all getting excited about the little man's arrive in less than 2 months, even Clay! He kisses baby brother in my belly and already has a nickname for him and even whispers "I love you baby brother" to my belly occasionally. If you haven't seen Clay in while- you'd be amazed at how big he seems and I know he is going to seem even that much bigger when the baby comes. He talks up a storm (and will try to say anything you ask him to), has such a personality, and big time opinions on everything. Let's hope he is ready to show baby brother how to be a good boy when he arrives.

Hope all is well with you and yours!

Clay Pictures and Exciting News

Here are some pictures from Clay's birthday and his party last weekend, which was just so much fun:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2209714&id=27302920&l=c24204968b

Also, some exciting news on baby #2 as you can tell by Clay's reaction:

http://www.facebook.com/v/647953244614

(For non-Facebook people, don't worry, you can still view these)

Happy Birthday Clay!!!

Can you believe our little guy is 2 already? We can't! Its only 2:30 and we have had a full day of birthday fun already. We woke up and watched a little clifford while we had juice and breakfast then off to Mavericks house for a morning play date and coffee (can I mention how nice it is that summer is here and school is out, oh how I have missed morning coffee with Sawyer!) It was off to have lunch with daddy at red robin after that and we were far to busy looking at everything and wanting to play with the claw machine to eat (and asking "Buzz are you?" since he is in the claw machine in toy story). A quick trip to Menard to get a new watering can and run around in the garden center was next then off to the book store to pick out a birthday book. We were there for close to an hour as clay found a train set to play with and had no interest in picking out a book, so mommy got to choose for him. On the drive back home the little guy was already so tuckered out that he zonked out in the car and up to his bed he went for a nap.

Being 2 is exhausting! and there is still more to come!

The line up for tonight...
chicken nuggets, tater tots, and broccoli for dinner (clay's favorites) maybe a little cake, some presents with mommy and daddy and who knows what else! Maybe toy story 2 since he will open it later today :)

Hope you are having a wonderful day, I'm off to rest before this birthday boy wakes up with more energy than I will ever have!

Spring!

Hello everyone!

We hope this lengthy post finds you well. Life is busy with an almost 2 year old in the house, as if i had to tell any of you that, but we have been having a wonderful time.

Our little boy is not so little anymore and is trying to talk "ALL THE TIME"! He has started repeating words the best he can and gets quite a few of them out correctly and can even put 2 words together to tell you what he wants. Among his favorites right now are "purple (he answer for every what color is this question), turtle, kitty no, cracker more, pee pee (telling us he needs a new diaper), juice, bunny, mavi (he friend's name), bubble bath, clifford dog, and of course the good old mommy and daddy, usually said together as an attempt to get the attention of whoever is listening. There are many many more words coming out of his mouth but it seems we hear these ones most often.

Clay has become quite the entertainer too and loves when there are people other than mommy and daddy to entertain. He especially loves it if you tell him he is a silly boy and then continues to do things that he thinks are extra silly. We've got a ham on our hands! He'll pretend he is shy occasionally but it only last about 2 minutes before the showing off begins.

Easter was a blast this year. Our neighborhood social committee put on an easter egg hunt the week before for all the kiddos so we headed down the street for our first big hunt. There were tons of little kids there and they had it separated for the 3 and unders and the older kiddos. Clay caught on pretty fast but had a hard time keeping it to 10 eggs. How to you tell a 20 month old that they have enough eggs when they see more sitting in the grass? After it was all finished clay got to pick out some prizes as the left over eggs got gathered up into a pile in the yard. Clay decided this was his perfect opportunity to sneak over the the pile and try to take more eggs, he even used his "sneaky walk". He thought he was really getting away with something.

Brian, Clay, and I were blessed to be able to join Grammy and Papa is Cabo the week of spring break. There were 9 of us in all including Brad, Adam, Ashley, and Ryan. Clay, although remaining awake for all the flights, did a great job. Taking his car seat and straping in the airplane seat ended up being the best decision ever. He is so used to sitting still in that seat that he didn't even think twice about wanting to get up and run around. Several movies, tons of snacks, and a hundred or so stickers got us through it smoothly. The place we stayed in Cabo was just beautiful! Brian, Clay, and I didn't venture out too much. We were content to relax in the condo and just take it easy. With our own pool to play in on the back porch, who really needed to go anywhere! As much as Clay enjoyed the pool, I think we are going to have a fish on our hands this summer :)

For you devoted readers who made it all the way to the end of this post you've made it to the exciting news! We are expecting our second little baby blessing due on Oct. 18th!! We don't know what it will be yet but should be finding out in June sometime. We are so excited and the pregnancy has been going really well again. We are starting our 2nd trimester already (hard to believe it is going that fast) but when you have another little guy to run around after the days go pretty quick. I will get some belly pictures posted when I start showing a little more. Right now, I just look a little pudgy so its not very cute yet, just enough to make the waistband in my pants a bit uncomfortable :)

Here's some pictures from our various activities over the last couple months: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2201565&id=27302920&l=d337e81371

Have a wonderful week and hopefully we'll see you all soon!

February Fun

Its been nice and snowy around indianapolis (and most everywhere) during this month which means were were able to get out and play in the snow. Clay really likes the snow and has already figured out that he likes to eat it. His beach toys have come out once again and he loves to shovel the snow into his little bucket. Sledding was another story. Clay is not quite sure what to think about sledding especially when he falls over sideways while still buckled in. Don't worry we were only in our yard on a tiny little hill and not going fast.
This past week Grammy was here for a visit and Clay got to play hookie from school. They had a lot of fun together. It was a very short week for mommy and clay at school with a snow day on tuesday, a 2 hour snow delay on wednesday, Clay got sent hom from school sick on Thursday with a fever, and we stayed home friday because he still wasn't feeling well. Thank goodness for great substitute teachers in our district who are willing to teach rollerskating in the gym while I am gone :) Clay is still a little under the weather but I think the fever is gone. 7 out of the 10 kids in his class were gone on Friday due to fevers so it must be going around. We are a little bit of a cranky pants this weekend without a lot of good sleep the last couple nights but hopefully we're back on track tonight..
Clay took his first nap by himself in his big boy bed yesterday! He has not been a happy sleeper in his crib lately so we thought we would give the big boy bed a try and it seems to be working. He sleeps a little better in there which is awesome. Our only worry is that he will somehow fall over the bed rail when he tries to get out of bed (it only comes up to his waist when he stands up). I'm sure he'll be fine.
Happy Valentines Day to everyone. We have a low key night planned at home with just the 3 of us and I couldn't be happier. Lasagna is on the menu for tonight (Brian always says that I make it for everyone else and never for him). Hopefully it lives up to all the hype. Have a wonderful day/night with your loved ones!

COLTS!

Super Bowl here we come

Clay Pictures - The Camera Is His Friend

As promised, a few recent pictures of the little man. He's definitely getting taller but staying the same skinny self (wonder where he gets that from?)

Big Boy

Who knew toddlers were so busy!? Only every parent that ever raised one. We are to the stage now where Clay must be doing something every second of the day only stopping to rest when forced to and putting up quite a protest when that time comes. Our little boy is 19 months! Can you believe it?!? Brian and I were just looking through some pictures to print some off for frames and he doesn't even look like the same little boy that graced us with his presence over a year and a half ago. Our little man in the making has an opinion on everything (including what he wants to eat) an agenda that has only to do with what he wants and is just fine letting everyone know about it, sometimes in a very loud manner. What he ate seconds of the night before is today something that he will not let even touch his lips, thank goodness that peanut butter and cheese make the world go round or he would never eat anything. I love that he already knows what he wants and where he wants to go (upstairs then down, the up again 20 times in a row) and is becoming so independent, but of course part of me wishes that he would be little forever.

Clay has been a really good boy though. We had a great christmas with everyone (the girl who cleans our house asked how he got in so well with santa, i think she noticed the ridiculous amount of toys around the house) Back at school Clay is doing great in his classroom. The 4 women that teach in his room are such a blessing! Clay loves them all but definitely has a special attachment to a couple of them and he just lights up when we get in the classroom and Miss Jennifer says his name and scoops him up to say hello. They all call him "peanut" in the classroom because he is still so small. He's not the youngest but sure looks like he could be.

Clay has been helping with the cleaning around the house and loves to use the swiffer duster. His favorite thing is the vacuum. Makes it a little tough to clean the carpets when there is a toddler trying to play with the vacuum at the same time. Clay loves dumping things out and picking them back up. He is very meticulous about making sure every little piece is back in its container.

Clay has also been jabbering a TON lately. We knew that full words would be on there way soon and just this past week they have been coming out at a steady pace. New words include... bubble, melmo (elmo), ball, cheese, up, down, as well as many others. I love hearing what he has to say, and believe me, he has ALOT to say.

Well thats all for now, we'll get some pictures and videos uploaded soon. Hope all is well with you and yours!