Lack of posting

This is a notice that is fairly obvious. There has been an epic lack of posting recently especially of the picture kind. This will continue until September probably. I am taking all four parts of the CPA exam between tomorrow and August 31st. After that I might have a life again.

The only thing I will be contributing during this time is keeping up with housework and gathering addresses for my baby shower. So prayers would be appreciated for tomorrow (July 29th), August 9th, August 17th, and August 31st. Nothing like being pregnant to motivate you to study. (If only that had happened last pregnancy... but I digress.) Also you'll notice some new links on the side to baby girl's registries. Exciting! You'll also notice that I did include a few pink things. Be proud of me :-)

Oh, and this is the bedding we decided on:

Big boy bed

Well Brendan LOVES his new room. We put him in there Saturday night for the first time and he did beautifully that night and every night since then. That is until last night. His room is at the front of the house so it's a much lighter room than the nursery was. At 8:00 it was still light outside last night (until about 8:30 or so). Brendan did not want to lay down and kept crying as soon as I'd walk towards the door. Finally I just left and let him cry cause I knew he was tired. He had been completely still and quiet while I sang to him. We bought the valance that matches his car set but we didn't buy the drapes. I'm thinking we need to. Of course it may have had a little to do with the fact that he went to bed close to 10:00 the night before. I'm honestly trying to remember why it was that late and that thought has completely escaped me. Pregmentia strikes again!

I also discovered Sunday that our gate (that still hasn't been installed at the top of the stairs, ugh) fits in the opening right before the hallway with the bedrooms. So we may not put it at the stairs at all. I had put the childproof doorknob cover on the inside of Brendan's door but I think I'll take it off now and just put the gate up each night. He doesn't know how to open round doorknobs at the moment so I was just using the cover as an extra precaution. He's actually decided he doesn't know how to open lever handled doors anymore for some silly reason.

Brendan is going to be 2 in 2 weeks! Ahhhhhhh! The time has flown. We are most definitely doing a Cars-themed party. I actually read a guideline that said you should only have as many guests as how old they are. I laughed histerically at that. Maybe once they're 5 and 6, that's how many of their friends you invite. Since we live within 20 mintues of both sets of grandparents and both aunts, there is no way our parties will be small. Not so mention all of Brendan's honorary aunts and uncles. He's loved :-)

So, I almost had a crying moment a little bit ago. One of my very good friends from high school died tragically on October 2, 2006. Well. Miss Kaylee is due October 14th. But I will be 38 weeks the weekend of the 4th anniversary of my friend's death. Her name was Mindy Rae Medlin. If Kaylee ends up being born that weekend (Brendan, remember, was born at 38.5 weeks) then I am very seriously considering making her full name Kaylee Rae Halon Bean. Has a nice southern twang to it, don't ya think?

That's all that's going on for now!

Name reveal

First off, I would like to start this post by saying that Linens N Things is a horrible store and I will never be using them again. They closed most of their physical locations a couple (?) of years ago but they recently have re-opened online. So that's where I ordered Brendan's quilt from. When I didn't get a shipping email, I went to check out the status online. It had been cancelled. I emailed them Monday to ask them why they would cancel an order without notifying me and have yet to hear from them. I then discovered that most places said the twin size was out of stock or backordered. So we decided to get a different set.



It's adorable and we love it. Plus it had a beanbag shaped like a car! So his room is almost completely ready for move-in now. He's staying with his Nana and Papaw tonight so I was a little sad after putting him in his crib last night :-( He's growing up fast!

Brendan is adding new words all the time. I hope I can keep up! This morning he said tall. He's also started saying flower although it sounds more like fwow right now. Baby is another new one.

And now... the revealing of baby sister's name...
Kaylee Halon

I looked up the meaning of Kaylee and of course the names Kay and Lee form it. Kay is the short form of Katherine which is English (feminine) and means "pure". Lee is English (masculine & feminine) and means "meadow". I thought that was sweet. I've never been able to locate a meaning of the name Halon but I found a Welsh (masculine) name Heilyn and the meaning of it is "winebearer". So I thought it was funny that I'm (possibly) "Fair Winebearer" and Kaylee will be "Pure Meadow Winebearer". Like mother, like daughter? Lol. Another name close to Halon was Heulwen and it's also Welsh (feminine) and means "sunshine". Another close one is Halina which is the Polish form of Galina which is the Russian and Bulgarian form of Galen or Galenos which means "calm". These all came from www.behindthename.com in case you're curious.

That's all I've got for now. Hope everyone has a relaxing or productive holiday weekend (whichever you prefer)! I hope to have a combination of the two.

Decisions, decisions

So this may be my new finalist for bedding choices:



I think I've decided Brendan doesn't need a bed rail. All the ones I keep seeing attach under the mattress and that won't work for the bunk bed we have cause the mattress sits in the frame. We're just using the bottom bunk bed (and storing the rest somewhere?!) so it's very low to the ground. I'll probably shove one side of the bed next to the wall so he can only roll off one way.

And the last decision I have to make is about my chair in Brendan's current room. Brendan LOVES sitting in that chair with me to read and let me sing to him before he goes to sleep. The problem is I will want the chair for baby girl too. We don't really have another area we could put the chair so I could read/sing to one and nurse/sing to the other before bedtime. I could put the chair in the game room area, but that would require A) some cleaning up and B) no guests over during bedtime (especially once baby girl gets here). So I'm contemplating visiting my favorite furniture store in the universe: IKEA! This time I would probably get the black/brown wood frame with the red cushion for his room. The other thing that concerns me is that there is a built-in desk in Brendan's new room. I'm afraid he'll try to push the chair over there to climb up it.

If everything comes in on time, our plan is to set up Brendan's room and have him start sleeping in there this weekend, since it's a 3 day weekend. If not... I may wait until his birthday weekend. We'll see.

Oh, now for some Brendan cuteness. He wakes up almost every morning ready to start vrooming like a car. It's soooooo cute. We also cannot get in the car until he touches the tires on my car. He loves to lay down on the floor and look at the wheels on his car and lawnmower toys. There is no denying his boy-ness!

It's a Girl!

So, I'm sure you've heard by now that we will be adding a baby girl to our family in October. We're not going to be able to watch any movie or show about a teenage girl dating without Brent cringing. He was already doing that last night when we were watching Castle! And he keeps joking about getting a gun. I, on the other hand, know that she will be the girliest girl possible because I was such a tomboy. And now I'm freaking out about having to fix her hair! I've worn my hair basically the same way for almost 28 years. Ugh. I can safely say we're a little more overwhelmed about the prospect of having a girl versus having a boy.

I'm sure we'll be fine, it'll just take a little while to get used to. In the meantime... I'm trying to find bedding sets that I like for her (now that we found the bedding set for Brendan's big boy room). These are the 4 I like best so far.






Favorites are hard to choose, but I think I like the dragonfly (red and green) and deer ones the best.

Stats Update

Okay, so Brendan had his checkup today. He lasted almost the full year in Mother's Day Out without antibiotics (and almost 2 years of life without them). For that I am eternally grateful! We have our first ear infection. The doc said it's very mild and probably just cause of his current cold. I was shocked when Brent told me that he only has to take it once daily. It seems like every medication I had when I was little was 4 times a day.

Developmentally, Brendan is where boys typically are at his age. The doctor was really impressed that he likes "reading" to himself. Brendan now weighs 30 lbs (60th percentile) and is 34 1/4" tall (80th percentile). I've heard that whatever height kids are at 2, if you double that, that's how tall they will be. So, it already looks like Brendan will be taller than me! As if there were any doubt of that. Now I'm wondering if he'll pass up Brent cause the doc said he has plateaued for now in growth. Only time will tell! His head is still over the 100th percentile, lol. I think it was 55 cm? He even said we could switch to 2% milk. Yeah for more room in the refrigerator!

I realized after my last post that I had forgotten Brendan's favorite new word. Car! He loves cars and will say the word 100 times when we're in a parking lot. Even cuter than that though... he'll point to a car's tires and say shoes! He's so smart :-) So the bedspread we're going to get him for his big boy bed will be this:

Behind on Brendan News

We got a new camera recently and it is amazing and takes much better pics of our active toddler. So there will be new pics and video ASAP.

Brendan got his first haircut this weekend. Brent was on call on Saturday and we've been wanting to take him, so we decided there was no time like the present. People had recommended Cool Cuts to us and their website looked fun and they take walk-ins. I will NEVER recommend this place to anyone. It was awful. First off, the lady who waited on us had a thick hispanic accent (that we could barely understand) and looked pissed off from the moment we walked in. She definitely did not look excited and even though we told her it was Brendan's first haircut, she made no fuss about it and did not try to calm him or reassure him at all. I might be slightly exaggerating, but I'm frustrated. They have cars for the little kids to sit in and the car he was in had a huge rust spot on it. The place did look a little run down. They have little TVs for the kids to watch movies on too. Well she put in the one we picked and didn't fast forward past the previews so he cried through the previews and then finally calmed down once the movie came on. I would write the company an email but they'd probably just offer free haircuts and I don't ever want to use them again.

He looks handsome and we got through it ($18 dollars later, grr). Should've held out for Disney World! Maybe with the next kiddo.

On to cuter news. Brendan continues to have whole conversations with the air, with his toys, and even sometimes with us that we don't understand! It is adorable though. And you can tell that he's starting to pretend more too. He likes pretty much any Disney or Pixar movie you put in for him to watch. Cars is definitely his favorite right now though. One of his new favorite words is stand. Which he will proclaim loudly with his index finger raised high in the air when he is standing on the couch or bed. I'm trying to think of other new words. He loves to read his books to himself. You can tell he's really been paying attention too. Especially with books where there are animals and I've made the sounds. The cutest one is The Very Busy Spider.

I don't think Brendan has any idea that he's gonna be a big brother. I just don't think he has any reference point to know what that means for him. Poor baby, it's probably gonna rock his world at first. He's really good with his cousin Blake even though he tries to pick him up, lol. We're getting closer to putting him in his big boy bed. I'm looking forward to that but also nervous about the freedom he'll have without the crib. We just need to find a bedding set and a dresser and he'll be good to go. I'll probably move everything into his new room one Saturday when he's at Nana and Papaw's and go get him before naptime. That way I can put him in there when I get him to sleep and he'll wake up in his big boy bed.

The other thing I keep debating about is if I want to keep a monitor in his new room. Tough decision since his room is upstairs and we're downstairs most of the time. He can't open doorknobs yet (at least at our house) and he does wake up at pretty much the same time every day.

That's it for now.

Baby is taking care of me :-)

Well, I had a cold a few weeks ago and have been battling nausea ever since. At least I haven't succumbed to the nausea that much. But the week I was sick, I lost 6 pounds and ever since I've been eating very lightly. I keep telling Brent that even though I started overweight this time, I feel healthier this pregnancy. It's really weird. So when I went in for my appointment they were shocked that my weight was like 12 pounds lower than the last time. They understood but wanted to make sure I wasn't dehydrated. I've been drinking plenty of fluids so not to worry.

Baby was not very cooperative today. The ultrasound tech kept jiggling my belly I guess to get the baby moving. It didn't work very well. Here are the ultrasound pics from March 5th and today.

New doctor, new procedures, better informed!

I love my new doctor. I seriously don't think I can say that enough. I got a call this afternoon and they let me know that from my tests they discovered that I was positive for the Group B Strep stuff again. Brownie Point #1 because my previous doctor didn't do that test until I was almost 36 weeks, it may have been a little bit earlier than that but definitely not this early. Then they said that they are going to call in an antibiotics prescription for me to take now and then I'll have more via IV during labor. Brownie Point #2 because even though I tested positive for it last time, my labor went so fast that I never got antibiotics so little baby Brendan was at risk for catching colds big time in those first 6 weeks of life. And finally, they told me that my progesterone level was 28 and that 12 means a healthy pregnancy so I'm really healthy! Brownie Point #3 because I was lucky at my last doc to have my blood pressure reading read back to me. I like being an informed patient especially since I have a nurse for a husband who can explain anything to me I don't understand.

So everything is looking good. I'm feeling good even though I'm exhausted! And our first ultrasound will be March 5th. Now we're just trying to find time to work on Brendan's "big boy" room and decide whether to buy a bed for him or use the bottom part of the bunk bed I had as a kid. The bed we have is white and the chests that go with it are in the baby room where they will stay, so we'll have to buy that stuff anyway. Tough to decide. Cause then you have to choose between fun race car beds or something more practical that he might take to college with him or for his future house.

Brendan's going to be a big brother!

So I haven't decided yet if I'm going to start a babybean2 blog, but probably not since I barely keep up with this one!

But yes, it's true, we are expecting Baby Bean #2 on October 18, 2010. At least I'm fairly certain of that date. I couldn't remember THE date the docs needed to calculate. I had it written down and forgot to look before my appt on Friday. But babycenter.com has the same calculator they use and October 18 is what it came up with. So we're kinda hoping this baby decides to come early so we can have a 10/10/10 baby! I just hope the baby isn't 10 lbs 10 ozs, ouch! Wouldn't that be crazy though? Whichever kids is born at 10:10 (am or pm) is gonna be famous too.

At first I really wasn't thinking "this is a boy" or "this is a girl", I was just thinking, I feel different from last time. In the last day or so though I've started thinking boy. Last time I knew from the beginning. I won't reveal any potential names yet, even though Brent has told all of our Houston area friends exactly what the boy's name will be. Lol. We've actually talked about some girl names. And one that I really liked won't really work with Halon as a middle name and Bean as a last name. It ends up with too many n's in it. I would love to pass down my middle name and even though it was a man's first name a long time ago, I'm not sure I want to give it to a son. The Bean family has mostly boys in it. In fact my sister-in-law is the only blood-related girl in it! (To my knowledge anyway, lol.) We've also discovered that our grandparents have twins in their line. The two boy names we really like would be soooooo cute as twins but I'm really not sure I could handle that! And I think we might lose a babysitter or two if that happened!

On to Brendan news...

He is adorable. Recently getting him to sleep has been so much easier and nicer and completely against what the Sleep Lady book would recommend. Lol. But he wakes up so much happier, usually.

His word list continues to grow too:
Balloon
Ball
Cheese
Lala (not a word but it means The Lorax, lol)
Up (this just means the movie right now, not the direction)
Mickey

He's still loving his Mother's Day Out program. He now has 6 kids in his class including 1 girl. Poor thing, hope those boys aren't beating up on her! Brendan keeps making beautiful art projects for us (with lots of help from Ms. Linda I'm sure!).

And now, finally, here is a slideshow to catch up on some 2009 pictures. I am going to do a separate post to catch up on the professional pics. A slide show just wouldn't do them justice :-)