Baby Bean

Christmas, Resolutions, and Updates

2012-01-04T13:52:00.000-08:00

This is just one of those posts that has to be done every year, right? Bear with me :-) These are in no particular order of priority.

1. Garage sale (maybe two)
2. Lose weight
3. Continue to organize/go through/get rid of stuff
4. Watch less TV during the day
5. Play outside more often
6. Try to do one family outing per month
7. Go to church more often
8. Get rid of Kaylee's pacifier (getting close to this I think!)
9. Get Brendan out of diapers/pull-ups, even in public (like for grocery store trips and stuff, he's been doing great at MDO!).
10. Take a vacation, maybe two.

I posted on Twitter and Facebook that in 2011 I was saying this year HAS to be better; in 2012 it will be better when I am better. I truly believe that. I have a lot of laziness/discipline issues to work on with myself. Hence the reason for numbers 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7. No excuses this year. None of those will be on the list next year, cause we WILL accomplish them. But enough with the business stuff... on to who you'd rather read about.

Kaylee is a mess right now. She now has four top teeth, two bottom teeth, and four molars (two on top, two on bottom)! I'm chalking it up to that for the most part. The other part is looking like the beginning of terrible twos. Brendan didn't really start that until about 18 months. I'm scared! She acts SO jealous of Brendan all the time. And she pushes and shoves when ANYone is between her and mommy. But she is also very adorable. She's learning new words. She says lights. It's funny cause you have to be looking at her to tell that's what she's saying, but you can see her tongue touch the back of her teeth and she's usually pointing to a light when she says it. We swore we heard her yell Daddy from across the room on Christmas. She sounds like she says a lot more than I think she really is saying. And of course with the dumb pacifier in her mouth, it makes it difficult to understand. She loves giving high fives and laughs when you applaud her afterward. She's starting to get more into books. Although she's perfectly content to flip through one by herself. She had a good Christmas. Got lots of fun toys, including a baby stroller she keeps trying to climb in! Silly girl. She also got clothes which she desperately needed. She's growing fast. We have her 15 month checkup soon. Can't wait to see how big she is now. She's been really funny with food this month. We've introduced sandwiches and chicken nuggets and pizza (you know, her brother's food, lol). And now she's starting to act like she doesn't want her veggies as much. And she's still so weird with fruit. She eats mostly purees of that still. She will eat peaches and bananas though. She makes us laugh a lot. It's exciting to learn her personality. Love this age/stage!

Brendan seems to be getting better from my last post. He is doing great with potty training. Now if I can get braver about taking him out in underwear, we'll be doing even better. He's still wearing pull-ups or diapers for nap and bedtime, mostly because I don't care about training those times right now. I'm sure he'll start asking me to just wear his underwear soon. He's attached to his Star Wars underwear in particular :-) Christmas was awesome with him. I think he opened most of presents by himself. He LOVES the train set we got him and I'm really glad I went with a simple set instead of a big set with table. Because it's on the floor, I think Kaylee messes with it less. Of course she's been distracted by all the toy food and her kitchen. Brendan also got a millennium falcon playset and he is hooked on Star Wars. It's all he can talk about. He even wants to watch the movies. We have to work on the whining with him and trying new foods. We're also gonna work on him picking up the toys. He's been sweet getting stuff out for Kaylee but he ends up getting EVERYTHING out and that's not ok. His language skills are growing more and more every day. He's definitely listening to us too. He said "let's do this" the other day. He is so funny. He's loving mother's day out (I think Kaylee is too). Really hope we can continue to do that for both of them, it's pretty expensive. And our program has a mother's day out side and a preschool side. They make you pay extra for them to stay past noon if you do the preschool. Frustrates me. So he may just stay in mother's day out next year and I'll start going through the preschool workbook with him that I bought at the end of school supply season last year.

Never a dull moment at our house. But we wouldn't trade it for the world :-)

Patience is a virtue

2011-12-02T08:05:00.001-08:00

Goodness. I'm having to repeat that phrase to our son and to myself ALL the time. He is loving pushing EVERY button right now. And it's funny because most of the time he is a perfect angel. He just goes through these phases a couple of times a day that make you just want to scream. The worst recently has been meal times again. About the only thing that he will eat quickly is PB&J. And I swear that's only because that's what he eats at school. He will tell me he wants something else and then whines when I tell him to take a bite.

The other big issue with him recently has been taking toys from Kaylee. Sometimes it's ok cause he'll give her a different toy and she's fine but most of the time she starts crying.

OH, and we had an EPIC meltdown the other day. I'm going to have to stop taking him shopping for a while. We went to Lowe's because we needed a filter for our fridge. But I wanted to look through the Christmas stuff to see if we could find something new for our yard. (Didn't find anything by the way, their selection is pitiful this year!) So we checked out and went to the parking lot and he starts bawling because we left Christmas. Well I needed to go get a prescription and a few other things from the CVS across the street. I found Christmas music on Sunny 99.1 and that seemed to calm him down a little bit. I completely forgot a previous incident in CVS and I wish I had remembered cause I NEVER would've brought him in there. He found a toy instantly that he wanted and started crying again when we didn't get it.

Now I feel bad. Brendan really is having some great moments too. It's just hard to focus on that sometimes. He is getting so much better at communicating. He still has his babbling moments though. Especially when he gets mad or excited. Be ready for an epic tale or tongue-lashing that you won't understand at all. He's getting better with feelings too! He will actually say something hurts now. He is SO excited about Christmas. Now that our decorations are up inside it's all he can talk about. He's also becoming so polite. He says sorry when he bumps into people (even his sister!). He also says please and thank you.

Potty training! We are doing SO much better. He actually prefers the big potty to his Lightning McQueen potty. And I am SO thankful. I hate that thing. He must've heard me complain about it and decided to switch, hehe. I'm still nervous about taking him shopping or sending him to school in underwear. I did take him grocery shopping recently and he did great! We'll see.

Kaylee is so much different than her brother. She keeps us on our toes for sure. But I suppose that's the way it should be. He is super cautious, she is a daredevil. Brendan would sit still on the couch at this age. Kaylee wants to climb. Brendan still plays in the driveway and never goes past the sidewalk. I had to jump up and run Kaylee down the other day cause she was headed for the street. We've never ever thought about putting Brendan on a leash. Wondering if we might have to put Kaylee on one once she gets more sure-footed. Brendan was constantly falling and hurting himself at this age. Kaylee wobbles a lot and falls sometimes but hardly ever hurts herself. And she just reminded me, she also puts stuff in her mouth ALL the time. I never had to pick stuff out of Brendan's mouth. She's trying to make me into a better housekeeper, hehe.

Kaylee is still pretty attached to her pacifier. I've been trying to keep it away from her when she is awake and only give it to her when she starts to get sleepy before naps. She's still taking two naps a day. Shocking. I'm pretty sure Brendan turned 1 and said, nope, only one nap for me! I'd need to look that up though. At least we never had to wean Kaylee from a bottle cause she never got attached to one! In fact she hated them.

Kaylee's teeth... She is a strange one in this regard. She got her two bottom teeth, then got three of her top teeth. I swore the fourth was coming in and then the progress seemed to stop. In the meantime she was still pretty cranky, drooling, chewing on everything, etc. She cut a molar! I had no idea until one day when I was tickling her and she opened her mouth wide. So that fourth tooth up top still looks like it's gonna come in soon but who knows?

Kaylee seems to be picking up words here and there. She LOVES to say uh oh and oh no. We swear we heard her say thank you a few times. She says yeah a lot, usually with a ? at the end. She claps and dances a lot. She cracks me up cause she points a lot.

With eating, we're starting to push her towards table foods more and more. She likes grilled cheese now. Not too crazy about PB&J yet. I also got her to eat eggs again, off of my plate. I think she prefers food off of my plate rather than her own. Fruits have been rather difficult to switch to table versions since she doesn't have the teeth to chew them (the harder fruits anyway like apples and cantaloupe). So I bought some of the Beechnut 4 cups and she seems to like the Apples & Blueberries one. She likes bananas but won't finish a whole one. She sometimes will eat applesauce and peaches but usually won't finish a whole container of those either. Having a toddler and preschooler makes me feel like a very wasteful person.

We're very happy with our family of four. It's funny cause we used to say we were gonna have 3 kids and adopt one cause we truly love kids. But now that we're actually raising kids (not just babysitting them), we're starting to wonder if we're done. No final decisions have been made yet but Kaylee is just 13 (almost 14) months old. We're in no hurry to make that decision. For now we're enjoying the Christmas season and loving having a kiddo who is really into it this year.

This has been a great year for us, we've accomplished a lot. Our house is getting more organized and less cluttered. We might actually be able to unpack the last box sometime next year. I know, we've been in this house for almost 4 years now. I blame the kids. The adorable, wonderful kids :-) This might be the last post for this year. I'll be pretty busy the rest of this month. So Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy New Year!

Our silly children

2011-09-25T13:32:00.001-07:00

Brendan

Oh, Brendan. My fellow mommy bloggers have hit the nail on the head with recent posts. Brendan is a perfect angel at school and then will not listen to a word you say when he gets home. Yes he is very sweet with Kaylee and I couldn't ask for a better relationship between those two. But if I hear him "I said no" one more time, I might spontaneously combust. Seriously, he's been on my last nerve for a month or so. The other point that a fellow mommy made was how it's amazing that these two precious kiddos you love so much can also make you madder than you've ever been. Brendan also has absolutely no interest in potty training and yet we keep trying. So now we're trying to make a push and be more consistent and just grin and bear the accidents. I stole an idea from a friend. I have a jar and poker chips to reward good behavior with and decided 10 was a good number to reach in order to redeem for whatever prize. He's earned one so far. I also put up a poster next to his potty and showed him the stickers he'll get if he goes peepee or poopoo IN the potty. He has zero so far. I started both of these systems today. I'll keep y'all posted.

Kaylee

My great eater! She loves trying new stuff. She actually tried a bite of spaghetti the other night and liked it but then wouldn't take another bite. Hopefully I will make the transition to real food better than I did with Brendan. She actually didn't give up jar food completely. She still eats all of her fruit from jars. And she likes the Beechnut 2.5 foods which have textures and mix a fruit and veggie. Great for when I'm feeling lazy and don't wanna cut up "real" veggies for her. She eats green beans, carrots, squash, mashed potatoes, broccoli, and hot dogs! I did have a temporary lapse in memory as to what she could have last month and gave her a couple of bites of eggs which she loved. Hopefully she'll still like them when she CAN eat them soon. Kaylee is walking more and more. She still prefers crawling for the moment. She is my daredevil! She has climbed up on things a bunch recently. In fact, I'm watching her debate whether to climb up on their little table right now. Kaylee is also getting very attached to me recently. To the point that when Daddy came with me to pick them up from school (for the first time this school year, cause of work) she pitched a fit when he picked her up instead of me. That's the other thing she's recently acquired is the ability to pitch fits. She is good at it too. Been watching her brother. I've even seen her slap her leg when she gets mad (like he still does). She makes the funniest faces. She is so expressive. She still HATES having her feet covered. Which includes shoes and socks. When I take her shoes off after school, she starts rolling her feet. Cracks me up every time. Kaylee is liking school but her poor class is always crying when I drop her off so she almost always cries when I leave too. I think tooth 5 and 6 are about to make their appearances. They're top teeth so she has been chewing on everything and biting. In fact she bit my big toe while I was typing this. I think the phrases I say the most to her are "don't push those buttons" (talking about the TV receiver) and "don't be mean to the kitty". Our poor cat puts up with a LOT of abuse from Kaylee and usually doesn't bite or scratch her. I'm amazed.

We got a visit from Uncle Matthew a couple of weeks ago. So awesome. He brought his girlfriend Julie and one of her daughters, Lilly. Lilly is two so both of the kids had a great time playing with her. But after watching Kaylee with her, I'm wondering who is beating up on her at school. She kept pushing Lilly! Lilly was adorable. She talks circles around Brendan (he's getting better all the time with that) and her favorite word was "Huh?", said in a very high-pitched voice. Too cute. We all went to the zoo one day which was a lot of fun. Brendan's favorite animal that day was the Komodo dragon, or lizard as he kept calling him. Lilly's favorite were the monkeys and we saw lots of those. The Houston zoo has an entire area dedicated to monkeys and then they've just opened an area called The African Forest that has more monkeys. I don't think Kaylee liked the zoo too much. She was just mad that she kept getting left in the stroller. And then when we stopped to play on the playground in the Children's zoo, she fell and cut her head. Poor baby. We also rode the train at Hermann Park next door. That was nice and relaxing. Brendan was really excited but mad that we didn't buy any trains in the gift shop that we had to enter and exit through to get to the train (so dumb!). I was rather perturbed that the price for the train is the same no matter what age you are. I had to pay $3 for each of us.

I don't know how zoo memberships work elsewhere, but at the Houston zoo, you have to have named adults on the membership. So Grandma and Nana can't take the kids (for free) unless they're one of the named adults because they check IDs. There is one level that we're looking at that we might be able to make it to where everyone can take the kiddos. But I gotta call and ask about the wording. The lower levels say "two named adults and 3 or 5 children or grandchildren", the level I'm looking at says "three named adults and up to 7 additional guests". To me, that sounds like I could put me, Grandma, and Nana as the named adults and then whichever combination of Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, aunts, uncles, and kids could also get in. And since Nana and Papaw will have four grandchildren as of the end of next month, this would be nice. Also, I love how I got the membership thinking we could go to one of the fun events like Breakfast with the Animals, only to discover that the tickets were almost as much per person (again no discount for children) as the membership cost! Ridiculous.

Now that I've rambled on forever, I'll stop. The kiddos are doing awesome and I'm loving the opportunity to spend more time with them. And even though they don't always show it, I think they love it too.

9 Month & 3 Year Old Visit

2011-07-13T08:06:00.001-07:00

I was sooooooooo happy when they scheduled this appointment for BOTH kiddos. Makes it so much easier. Brendan was an absolute mess. He is SO sensitive about everything. He whined about taking his shoes off, he cried when the lady pulled down the measuring thing to get his height, he didn't like the blood pressure cuff, and there wasn't much of anything he liked about Dr. Binder checking him out. Poor kid. But between that and saying that I thought that the doctor would probably understand about 50% of what he says.... We've now been asked to do an assessment thing to see if he would qualify for speech therapy. So we'll see how that goes. I think he just moves too fast to think about what he's saying and is super-sensitive. He's really smart and I don't think there's anything wrong with him. It's so hard to put a number on something like someone else's understanding. He is 37.5 inches tall and weighs 33 lbs. It was kind of hectic so I do not remember percentages.

Kaylee was tired by the time the doc came in so she was pretty fussy. Dr. Binder was impressed that she's ahead of the game with pulling up to standing and cruising. He noticed her weight percentile went down and wants me to do 4 formula feedings instead of just 3 (yes, we've weaned now). She is 27 inches and 18 lbs, 2 ounces.

Our trip to Arkansas

2011-06-21T19:14:00.001-07:00

So I was sort of dreading this trip but overall looking forward to it. Kaylee had been really fussy in the car seat just running errands around town. So the thought of an 8 hour drive was not sounding like fun. Both kids were amazing the whole trip. Brendan had one major meltdown that I can think of and the rest of the time was awesome.

Brendan rode with Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Shannon on the way up and the way home. So it was just me, Brent, and Kaylee in the truck. Glad we had the truck cause we had SO much stuff. Probably didn't need all of it, but it was nice to have in case we needed it. Uncle Matthew flew in from Amarillo and was already at the cabins when we got there. It was so awesome to see him. This was his first time to meet Kaylee.

The cabins we stayed in were on the outskirts of Hot Springs on Lake Hamilton. We had gorgeous views on our part of the lake. There were some amazing houses on the cliffs across the lake from our dock. We were able to play in the water a few days while we were there. Brendan had lots of fun. Kaylee had this hilarious expression on her face every time we got in the water. It wasn't a smile and it wasn't a frown but somewhere right in the middle. She mostly enjoyed chewing on her float.

We visited with my Great Aunt Ruby a couple of times. We got to see my Uncle Mitch and his new wife Connie (they got married Friday before we got there, lol). We also got to see my cousin Melissa and her new grandbaby Ty. I was sad we didn't get to see Ty's mommy Amber. Kaylee was absolutely fascinated by Ty. We did have to save him from her a couple of times when she tried to grab him. He's only a few months old. Brendan was a ham for everybody, it was great.

One day we went to the Alligator Farm in the morning and the Midamerica Museum in the afternoon. Both were so much fun. The neat thing about the Alligator Farm is that we now have 3 generations who have visited as kids: my mom, me and my siblings, and our kiddos! We had also visited the Midamerica Museum when we were younger. Not sure if all of the same stuff was there from when we visited. There were TONS of interactive exhibits, so it was really fun for Brendan. Their special exhibit was a Tesla Coil. (I think it was supposed to be one of the biggest? Don't remember.) It was really neat and even though it was loud, Brendan really enjoyed it. The meltdown happened in the gift shop there. Oops. Probably shouldn't have taken him in there. It was sad cause Matthew bought Brendan a dinosaur toy and he started crying when he didn't get him both of the ones they had been playing with. Silly toddler.

Another day we visited a famous BBQ joint in Hot Springs called McClard's. The sauce and spices were really good so we bought a bottle of each. Afterward we went to the Grand Promenade to have a scenic route to bath house row. We went through one of the bath houses. After that we were all so miserably hot, it was time to go back.

The kids went to bed really well each night. Poor Brendan fell off the bed twice. He has NEVER done that at home. And these cabins had wooden floors so it was a loud thud both times and he bruised his elbow. It woke Kaylee up one time. I felt so bad for him.

I think that pretty much covers it. Kaylee didn't nurse very well on the trip but then again, she's been acting like she's ready to wean for a few weeks. So we've started giving her formula at the night-time feeding. She isn't drinking it very well at all (at least not for me, and most nights, I'm her only option). She's actually never finished a bottle of breastmilk or formula. Brendan and Kaylee are SO different. Almost complete opposites. And I still cannot explain why she's so much chubbier than Brendan was. Maybe I'm eating slightly healthier.

Kaylee catchup

2011-05-27T08:27:00.000-07:00

So Kaylee was perfectly comfortable waiting for her scheduled induction date. Induction is not very fun. Because it wasn't "natural" it made it take longer of course. I think total labor was 6 hours this time? I know, still quick. I got an epidural this time. It wore off and by the time I'd discovered that (I had been napping here and there) it was too late to get anything else. I won't get an epidural again. I HATED it. Made me VERY shaky. And since it wore off, it was pretty pointless. Once things got moving, it went VERY fast. Kaylee had the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck but my doc was awesome and she had no complications from that. Also, no episiotomy this time! I tore just a little bit which healed easily. A MUCH better recovery than with Brendan.

Breastfeeding has been so much easier this time. And yet, on this end of it I am so much more frustrated. I've been working from home ever since Kaylee was born. Which I love (and the kids love too). But since that's been the case, we have been terrible about giving her a bottle consistently. And she won't take one from me, at all. So by this age Brendan was staying every Friday night with Nana and Papaw, Kaylee has yet to spend the night :-( I know we'll get there eventually and I know it's great for Kaylee to still be breastfeeding (Brendan was almost done by this age) but it would be nice to have a night off.

About two months after Kaylee was born, I decided to use the Mirena for birth control. That was a HUGE mistake. I got it removed a month ago and I feel like I just woke up. The week I had it removed I felt like I was detoxing. It was awful. But I feel much better now and feel like I need to apologize to everyone, lol. Hopefully no one but Brent (and probably the kids) had to deal with my moods. Poor Brent, he's so awesome to put up with me. I was so anxious all the time.

Okay, enough about me, this is supposed to be Kaylee's post!

She is amazing. Everytime she gains a new skill it seems like she gains 12 at once. She crawled one day and the next she pulled up to standing. Both of which she is very good at now! She's now standing by herself for a few seconds here and there. If she's not walking by 9 months, I'd be shocked! She still has only two teeth but I think more are coming soon.

She's babbling a lot now. She says Da Da Da Da a lot. She LOVES her daddy. She loves me too but she is not near as cuddly as Brendan was with me. She also LOVES our cat. If only the cat loved her back, lol. We're working on not pulling on the cat's fur. Kaylee loves Brendan so much too. She's constantly trying to play with him and his toys. Hopefully Brendan will start sharing better and stop getting upset when she accidentally hits or scratches him. I tell him she doesn't do it on purpose. He doesn't seem to care.

Kaylee is eating all kinds of jar foods now. She loves her NUBY straw sippy cup and especially likes Gerber pear juice. She cracks me up everytime I give her sweet potato puffs cause she attacks her tray to pick them up. She likes veggies more than fruits. There are so many things I keep discovering that she is the exact opposite of Brendan on. Like diapers. With Brendan, we could only use Pampers because of his birthmark and because of leaking issues. Kaylee has probably used every brand of diaper out there. Not sure what brand I'll buy when we run out of our diaper shower diapers.

She smiles and laughs a lot. I am not going to post anything about her sleep habits. I learned my lesson with Brendan on that one! But we do need to be better about a routine with her. Poor kid, I feel like Brendan gets a lot more attention at bedtime. She loves music like her brother.

Kaylee is chubbier than Brendan ever was! I have no idea how that happened. I haven't kept her as scheduled as Brendan was but I still feed her the same number of times per day that I did Brendan. She has the Bean big head like Brendan, but she doesn't bonk it near as often. The last appointment, the doc said her head had plateaued (I think that's how you spell that), which is much sooner than it did with Brendan.

She did end up with a birthmark. Thank God it's not a hemangioma. She has a red mark on the right side of her face that gets bright red when she gets upset. Hopefully it'll fade a little. It's hard to know what to do about vanity things like that. I'm not worried about it right now though. It's not that noticeable.

I think that's all for now. Hopefully I can catch up on pics/videos this afternoon. Then I'll try to be much better about this.

Brendan catchup

2011-05-26T23:11:00.000-07:00

Oh my goodness. I am the worst blogger on the planet. One of my 2011 resolutions is to be better about blogging! So first we'll start with Brendan then move to Kaylee and finally we'll do a photo catchup. Though I probably won't catch up on ALL the photos, I'll do a good summary to give everyone a good idea of what we've been up to.

Brendan had a Cars themed birthday party in 2010. There were 3 "little" kids, 10 "big" kids, the grandparents, and a great-grandparent. Our friend Jamie and her daughter Elly came over. Elly speaks a lot more clearly than Brendan even though she is six weeks younger. She had learned the word "no" and was so funny that day. Brendan got a T-rex from the Toy Story movies and he roars. Everytime we'd make him roar at Elly, she'd say "no" like she was scared of him. Which is hilarious if you've seen the movies cause T-rex is the least scary T-rex ever.

We had cookie cake, ice cream, and punch (just like last year, it's a staple around here). Brendan had some cake but was too busy running around entertaining everyone to have anything else. He got lots of great presents and I was so excited about his wagon. It was very helpful for the 4th of July!

During that time period Brendan was soooooooooo clingy. And whiny :-/ Every little thing broke his heart. This lasted pretty much up till when Kaylee was born and little bit after. He had a weird earlobe thing for a few days where it was really swollen and red. But it went away so we're thinking it was probably a nasty mosquito bite or something.

4th of July was a lot of fun. We went with Grandpa to the Friendswood parade. Brendan really liked the big trucks and all the cars. I was surprised the sirens didn't bother him too much. The biggest problem was trying to get him to sit for that long. But he did great!

In September we took Brendan to the Blue Bell factory. Since ice cream is his most favorite thing, he loved it! We had a lot of fun and there are some good last family pics of the 3 of us before Miss Kaylee arrived.

My mom located our cabbage patch dolls so I brought a couple of mine home to show Brendan. I would put them in the bassinet/playpen and change their clothes. He liked them but would often drag them by one arm and throw them on the ground. I put them away quickly. Didn't want him to do that to Kaylee! Hehe.

So Kaylee decided not to arrive before my scheduled induction. So Brendan spent the night with Grandma and Grandpa on Wednesday October 6th. Kaylee of course didn't get here till the 8th. So he stayed with them the 6th, 7th, and 8th, and with Nana and Papaw on the 9th. Then we got home on the 10th. He came to visit us one time in the hospital but had no idea what was going on.

I knew that I had missed Brendan while we were in the hospital, what I didn't know is how sensitive him and I would both be when we saw each other at home for the first time. So Brent, Kaylee, and I arrived home around lunchtime on Sunday. Nana, Papaw, Great-Mamaw, and cousin Brian (and the Baileys too, I think?) all came over when they dropped off Brendan. They were holding and taking pictures of Kaylee and Brendan was playing. I was doing great until Brendan tripped and fell over something and started crying. He ran straight to me and I lost it. I went back in the bedroom and didn't come back out. And of course Brendan came back there with me. He is so sweet. It took us a little time to adjust to the new dynamic but we're much better now.

He absolutely adores Kaylee. You can tell he misses her when he's at school. He loves to give her kisses. I've even taught him to put her pacifier back in her mouth! And he's such a good helper.

The only things Brendan seems to be struggling with at the moment are language and eating. The things he will eat, he eats very well. I just wish we could get him to eat more. I gotta figure out where I went wrong with him so we don't make the same mistakes with Kaylee.

He is SO smart. He counts from 1 to 10 easily, he's starting to recognize letters, and he names so many objects now. It's like he can name everything in the room he just can't talk about it without babbling. He says "okay" or "no" when you ask what food he wants. One of my favorite things that he does is re-enact his movies and shows. He has to have certain toys to watch certain movies. And he'll adapt to toys to act as the things in the movies. For example, our favorite at the moment is Despicable Me. He has a toy syringe he got in a doctor kit for Christmas that he pretends is Gru's rocket. He also has to get a certain ball out to be the moon.

I cannot believe he will be 3 in less than a month. This time has FLOWN by. We're going on a trip to Arkansas next month and then we'll start potty training after that. Pray for us!

Lack of posting

2010-07-28T14:39:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-04T09:04:00.001-07:00

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

2010-05-28T10:54:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-24T11:17:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-05-21T08:08:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-12T07:49:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-27T09:40:00.000-07:00

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 :-)

2010-04-05T20:53:00.001-07:00

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!

2010-02-22T14:42:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-02-16T14:21:00.000-08:00

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 :-)

End of the year rundown

2009-12-30T12:22:00.001-08:00

Okay, my end of year resolution is to get caught up on pictures tomorrow so I don't start the new year behind! I can't believe I haven't posted pics on here since August. Shameful!

So here's some highlights of Baby Bean 1's year:

We started the year with 2 teeth on the bottom and now we're at 14 for sure, possibly 15 and 16. It's tough to get him to let me look to see if the bottom canine teeth came in yet. So that's 4 and 2 molars on bottom for sure and 4, 2 canines, and 2 molars on top for sure. Crazy!

Brendan started out the year crawling, was standing by February, and started walking two days before his birthday in June. Now he's running everywhere. This morning in fact he was playing with one of his new toys at Grandma's house and running all around the big circle her living room, dining room, and kitchen makes with it.

I can't remember if he was clapping at the beginning of the year but I'm pretty sure it was close to it. We've gone from that to talking and now to singing! Here's a list of things he says now in no particular order and hopefully I've remembered them all:
Mama
Dada
Kitty
I got it
It's good
All gone
Say
Sing
Again
Step
Roar (more of a noise than a word)
Mmm (which is when something is good or when he's mooing, lol)
Ice cream
Fishy

He started singing this little song recently that I have no idea what it is. But it goes like this: "Da da da-da-da, Da da da-da-da" and so on. It's absolutely adorable though.

We got rid of the pacifier shortly after Brendan's birthday and the bottle. I was adamant about not wanting real milk in bottles and I think that helped a lot. I also think it helped that Brendan drank out of juice boxes before he would use sippy cups.

We've gone through a lot of sleep ups and downs through the year but the Sleep Lady book has been invaluable as a guide. I still have never read it all the way through but I still need to be reminded of my bad habits from time-to-time and that's really good. The one thing that has remaind consistent is sleeping through the night except when teething. I'm probably gonna regret that statement but oh well. The toughest part has been getting him to go to sleep. It takes forever some nights.

Brendan started Mother's Day Out at the end of August and has had a runny nose, cough, or both ever since. We can't seem to shake it. Doesn't seem to bother him too much though. He loves going to school and coloring and playing with his buddy Brady and singing songs with Ms. Linda. It's been really great for him.

Brendan's cousin was born in November. Brendan loves baby Blake. Now if we can get him to stop stealing his toys and pacifier, we'll be doing better, hehe. It'll be great when they can play together.

Brendan's favorite activities right now are: reading books, singing, running away from people as a game, peekaboo, talking, and watching Mickey Mouse and Handy Manny. His favorite movie is Up. I have never seen a toddler watch an entire movie, it's so weird. His favorite food is grilled cheese I think. His favorite dessert is ice cream (see above word list, lol).

I think that pretty much sums up his year. It has gone by so fast. 6 months to 18 months have been so much fun. We are incredibly blessed with a wonderful little boy.

New Year's Resolutions: Start reintroducing vegetables (oops!) and get back to church.

Edelweiss and a few other things

2009-12-21T13:18:00.000-08:00

So, as promised... I'm gonna do my write-up of how Edelweiss is a perfect metaphor for the relationship between parents and their children. Hope y'all enjoy.

First the lyrics:

Edelweiss, edelweiss,
Every morning you greet me.
Small and white,
Clean and bright,
You look happy to meet me.
Blossom of snow
May you bloom and grow
Bloom and grow forever.
Edelweiss, edelweiss,
Bless my homeland
Forevermore.

(For the record... I know the last line is just "forever" and not "forevermore". Somewhere along the way it got added when I sang it and I like it.)

Now analysis:

The first five lines, I think, are about children waking up in the morning and how every day is a new day for them. The "small and white, clean and bright" part alludes to their purity. The "every morning you greet me" and "you look happy to meet me" part always makes me think of Brendan (at least when he's had a good night's sleep, lol). He will stand up and smile and talk to you the second you walk in his room.

The next three lines are about growing up and education to me. You want your child to grow up, get a good education, a good job, etc. But I think there's more to that. When your child becomes an adult, I think all parents want them to continue to grow through learning and travelling.

Finally, the last three lines are about them moving away. You know they will move away some day, some maybe far off, but some nearby. I think all parents long for their children to come home and "bless their homeland forevermore".

Anyway, that's my 2 cents about why Edelweiss is the perfect lullaby. I always think about that when I sing it too.

Brendan is so funny. He makes us laugh all the time. For example, all the cute things I posted about last time when I read to him at bedtime, he's started doing during the daytime. I'll look over and he's doing the charging motion from the rhinocerous part of his jungle book. So I'll say "he charges fast with his strong horn" and he giggles. And his Papaw taught him to raise his arm up like he's an elephant lifting his trunk up (though it's just him raising his arm straight up for now), it's really cute.

We're also discovering that in a lot of ways the first year is MUCH easier than the second year. There was a Christmas party last Thursday that me, Brent, Nana, Papaw, Aunt Krystal, and Uncle Brandon were all invited to. Brent asked Krystal what she was doing with baby Blake and she said she was bringing him. We got to thinking about the house we were going to and the fact that it was definitely NOT toddler-proof and made arrangements for Brendan with his Grandma and Grandpa. There have been several occasions like that where we have chosen babysitter over possible epic meltdowns. He's turning more and more into a toddler and looking less and less like a baby these days. The biggest toddler thing is throwing fits. Ugh! He's also developed a new noise that's almost like whining that I'm not too fond of. One of the hardest things too, is not laughing at things that, if they continue, will not be funny in the future. Gotta work on that, big time!

Brendan is not eating as well as he used to. Probably due to all these teeth he's been getting! He's getting a little better now. We were looking at his 12 month pics the other day and he has thinned out a lot. Hopefully we won't get a scolding from the pedi at his 18 month appointment. He pretty much has a list of maybe 10 foods we rotate through. Time to reintroduce some veggies I'm thinking. We've also been eating out a LOT recently so it's been mostly chicken nuggets/french fries/quesadillas/grilled cheese/(insert other common kids meal items here). Not good... Partially our fault and hopefully we'll fix it soon (go see post on weight loss blog, lol). The one thing that has been nice is Horizon yogurt that has fruit and veggies in it. And Brendan loves that stuff. I really wish we could get him to eat pasta of any kind. Reminds me of my brother. He hated spaghetti forever. Not sure when he started liking it actually. Pizza is hit and miss for now. Again, probably because of teething. Pizza isn't exactly easy to chew.

I promise to post pics and videos soon to get caught up. This is getting a little ridiculous! At least you can see cute, recent photos on Facebook now and again.

Bedtime Cuteness

2009-12-03T08:04:00.000-08:00

Our bedtime routine has been pretty much the same since I stopped breastfeeding Brendan. So we've done the same stuff for about 9 months now (wow, that's really hard to believe!). I change Brendan's diaper, put on his pajamas, we go upstairs and brush his teeth, we go in his room, he flips through his books while I set up his room (turn off light/turn on lamp and closet light, turn on fan for noise, and plug in vaporizer), we read his books, and then I sing/rock him to sleep.

When I put on his pajamas, he almost always runs over to the stairs. I always have to tell him to go tell Daddy goodnight and give him a kiss. Usually I end up having to take him to Daddy. I let him crawl up the stairs which usually takes forever cause he pauses to wave at Daddy a few times. Now he goes straight to his bathroom when I say let's brush your teeth. I used to have to brush his teeth for him (which is quite a challenge!) but now he does it himself. And he hands the toothbrush to me to rinse off when he's done. It's funny because he really chews on the brush more than actual brushing.

He also now goes straight to his room when I say let's go read your books. This is where the cuteness is adorable. We have about 12 books up there that we rotate through 4 at a time. 4 is a good length and we're talking mostly short board books. I've discovered that when I get bored of a group, Brendan usually is too. I also recently started being a little more interactive when I read his books. There's one book that talks about taking a bath when getting ready for bed and it says "with soap all over, scrub, scrub, scrub" and I'll rub Brendan's belly when I read that part. In the last month or so, Brendan has started doing the motions with me! It's adorable. I think one of my favorites to read to him is a book called In the Jungle. It's a book Brent bought at a book fair they had up at the hospital. There's a different animal on each page and it either tells the sound they make or an action that they do. On one of the pages there is a Rhinocerous and it says "it charges fast with it's strong horn, thuddery thud" and I always make a motion with my arm like I'm running. Brendan started doing that the other night! He really loves that book. Not sure which is his favorite though. Here are the books (that I can remember) that we rotate through:
Goodnight Moon
A book about Thumper... can't remember the name
The Going to Bed Book
Moo, Baa, La La La! (This one and the bedtime one are both by Sandra Boynton whom I highly recommend! We also have her Fifteen Animals book which reminds me very much of Dr. Seuss's Too Many Daves.)
My Dog Clifford (I think that's the name)
The Hungry Catepillar
The Busy Spider (Brendan really hasn't seemed interested in these Eric Carle books.)
In the Jungle
Eight Silly Monkeys (He loves this one too!)
We have another bedtime book that has animals with fur to touch, can't remember the name.
Guess How Much I Love You (Again, not interested at all)
Hey Diddle Diddle (He loves this one, probably cause I sing the song when we get to the last page)

That's all I can remember for now! The Fifteen Animals book I mentioned resides downstairs for daytime reading along with Eating (a free board book we got from the pedi's office), a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse book that's just like the episodes (it has a wheel to turn to choose a Mouseketool), Polar Bear Polar Bear What Do You Hear (another Eric Carle book, but he likes this one), and I'm pretty sure there's one more but I can't remember what it is.

I think Brendan has gotten bored of my lullabies though :-( Last week when I didn't have a voice from being sick, I couldn't sing to him. He seemed to go to sleep much easier when I didn't sing. I don't know why I do everything in fours but I sing 4 lullabies too. Maybe I'm overdoing things?! Lol. I sing All the Pretty Horses, Edelweiss (this was my lullaby, need to do a separate blog post about this song cause I think it really has some neat parent/child symbolism), Down in the Valley (my Daddy used to sing this to us), and Stay Awake (from Mary Poppins). I like to sing Christmas carols instead around this time of year. Songs like Silent Night and Away in a Manger.

I'm starting to think about scaling back the lullabies and books to 2 each. Brendan is really squirmy these days rocking to sleep. I used to be able to put him in his crib after reading to him and he'd fall asleep on his own while I was singing. After starting Mother's Day Out though, that stopped working. Now I have to rock him to sleep. Which they tell you not to do. Oh well. I have also felt really guilty lately. It started out as a forgetful thing but now it's turned into a habit. I've stopped turning on the monitor right after I've put Brendan in bed. Now I usually don't turn it on until right before we go to bed which is usually 3 to 4 hours later... oops!

So I was re-reading this before I posted it to check for grammar or spelling errors. I looked up mouseketool real quick to see if I had spelled it correctly and came across something hilarious. According to Urban Dictionary, the definition of mouseketool is: A musical act that became popular by selling their souls to the Disney music label. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

Sorry!

2009-12-01T09:55:00.001-08:00

I have got to start being better about posting. Even if there aren't any pics to go along with it.

October was a crazy month, so was November. Halloween was fun. Brendan's R2-D2 costume was supposed to be "toddler" sized. However, our son's HUGE head did not fit in the costume without us taking scissors to it. We really should've cut it more than we did, but I was afraid it would rip. So we made him miserable getting him in and out of the costume. We went to a friend's sons' birthday party. That was really fun even though it was really hot outside. Brendan had so much fun watching the older boys run around. We had to quickly move him out of their paths a couple of times! That night we went trick or treating at the parking lot of my parents' church. They called it Trunk or Treat and had cars all decorated and people handing out candy. Poor Brendan couldn't have any of it, but he didn't seem to care. Their church is also where he goes to Mother's Day Out so when we put him down to walk, he sprinted towards his classroom. Silly boy!

Brendan has still been sick pretty much non-stop. I think part of the problem has been teething. He now has a total of 13 teeth! Though now we're wondering if he's having stomach issues because his appetite has been awful the past week or so. I keep thinking this has just been teething but now I'm starting to wonder. He's been miserable too. He cries at the drop of a hat and has had a lot of gas. I'm thinking a low dairy diet might be what we try next. We really do feed him a lot of dairy. Especially when we eat out, which we've been doing a lot recently too. Guess it's time to get more chicken fingers instead of cheese quesadillas, grilled cheese, and cheese pizza, lol. I read that toddlers are only supposed to have 2 - 3 servings of dairy a day.

The Renaissance Fair was awesome as usual. But much more fun since we had a HUGE group who all dressed up! The toddler had fun staying with Nana and Papaw. Probably a good thing because the weather was pretty miserable most of the day. I had started feeling sick Friday before we went on Saturday and by the end of Saturday, I felt really bad. I ended up staying home for the 3-day work week before Thanksgiving.

Me and Aunt Shannon cooked for Thanksgiving (Grandpa and Brent helped too!). And everyone enjoyed it except for Brendan. He didn't get eat much at all cause he was tired and cranky.

So I'm hoping we can fix the poor toddler boy so he can start eating more again. He has been soooooooo fussy. It's sad :-(

Okay, can't end on a sad note. Let's see... Oh! When you ask Brendan "how does Santa go?" he says ho (as in ho ho ho). Too cute! He gives kisses! But now it's become a game. You'll ask him for a kiss and he'll give you a mean look and shake his head no and then he grins real big and gives you a kiss. He really has the coy smile down. It's too adorable. Need to get a pic of it. He even shrugs his shoulders when he does it. Brendan still is not saying a whole lot, at least not where most people understand but every once in a while I'll catch a phrase I say all the time like "I got it" or something like that. Child language is a fascinating thing. Maybe in another life I'll study that. Lol.

15 Month Stats

2009-10-09T09:07:00.000-07:00

Actually, I don't think I blogged the 12 month stats, so now you get both!

12 months:
29.5" (75th%)
23 lbs 8 oz (51st%)

15 months:
32.6" (75th%)
26 lbs 10 oz (75th%)

Brent told me Brendan was in the 10th% at birth, so he's grown a lot!

I forgot to blog about his latest "tricks" yesterday. He will make a gun shape with his fingers when you "ish" or "guns up". "Get your guns up" is a Texas Tech Red Raider thing. He first started saying "ish" when he did it so sometimes that's the "command" word, lol. One of our friends has traveled all over the world during his lifetime because his dad worked for Chevron. Well while they lived in Nigeria they learned the word "ogo" (I have no idea how to spell it). And it's the word for head (I think the back of the head specifically). Anyway, he taught Brendan to point to his head when we say it. It's cute, but we're going to have to work on "head" for that one or he'll be all confused, lol. Brendan can also turn light switches on and off and loves to do so. You can't walk by a switch without him lunging for it. Any time he hears cheers he starts clapping, especially when it's on TV. He also still has an aversion to really loud noises. When we were at a friends house for a couples shower, the lady of the hour walked in and everyone cheered. Brendan immediately buried his head in my chest and stayed that way for like 5 minutes. I can't think of anything else for now.

Summer Update

2009-10-08T13:50:00.000-07:00

So I decided it was time to do another entry. I will eventually get around to getting pics updated but I feel like I've missed lots of Brendan moments to blog about. Forgive the vagueness because this is going to be 3 months worth of memory.

Let's start with July 4th. We had a very small July 4th celebration. Me, Shannon, and Brendan were the only 3 in town that weekend! Brent was working. We went to Friendswood's parade. It was miserably hot and even though I brought water for Brendan I think he was so hot that he didn't even want that. I have some very tired looking pics of him from that day. He did seem to enjoy a couple of parts but I think he'll enjoy it more if I can figure out a way to not keep him confined to the stroller the whole time. I'm still trying to avoid getting a harness for him for now. We went and saw Phantom of the Opera the next weekend (without the bambino) and it was wonderful!

(Haha, having to use Facebook to jog my memory!) I got a new phone in June so there have been lots more updated pics of Brendan on Facebook. My Nokia takes MUCH better pics than my Blackberry every did! Mid-July we were having issues getting him to sleep at night (though once he was asleep he stayed asleep till morning). I think it was mostly due to teething. We had also been leaving his closet light on. One night we had a babysitter and she turned the light off and he went right to sleep. So that's what I've been doing ever since. He also was going through some major separation anxiety. Poor baby. July was also when Brendan was getting better and better at walking but not without some minor incidents. He pulled one of our dining room chairs over on himself and it scared him pretty bad but then he did it again! I think he has to do something twice before he learns, but more on that later. Our lawnmower also broke in July so we have now hired a company to do it for us. Very happy about that! The last weekend in July Brendan got to go to the lake house again with Nana and Papaw even though it was their anniversary! They really love him :-)

On to August! Brendan got 2 more teeth on the bottom to make tooth 7 & 8 so he matched again, lol. Ahh yes, this is probably one of the favorite stories from the summer. So Brent had changed Brendan's diaper and sat back down on the couch while Brendan played. We have an L shaped couch and Brendan was where Brent couldn't see him. Usually not a big deal. All of a sudden Brendan came around and was holding something in both hands. It was his own poop. He had dug in his diaper and pulled it out! I am sooooooooo glad I was at work when this happened! Then we left Brendan with Nana and Papaw for 5 whole days. The longest we'd been away from him. And we missed him a lot! We had a lot of fun in Cancun though. All-inclusive is definitely the way to vacation! We went to a restaurant for Uncle Brandon's birthday and discovered yet another thing you never think about until you're a parent. The bathrooms there did not have a changing table! I had to change the bambino on the floor of the bathroom. Yuck! That weekend I bought a fold-up changing pad that is in the diaper bag at ALL times now. We went to a friend's house to hang out one night and saw once again how much of a flirt our son is! Someone was sitting in the kitchen and he kept running over to her, grinning, then running and giggling back to me, then back again for like 10-15 minutes. It was hilarious! We went over there again in September and he latched on to a girl and cried when we left. She was a good sport about it and held him every time he found her again. At the end of August Brendan started Mother's Day Out at my mom's church. He is having a blast. He even has a friend named Will. But that was also the start of the germ bug. We have still not all gotten over this. It's ridiculous! I just bought him a new toothbrush and replaced the air filter (I think I had changed that one other time since he started school but can't remember). Hopefully it'll help!

On to September. Labor Day weekend was awful! I had been sick during the week but got well by the weekend. Brendan got worse and threw up 3 times on Saturday, once all over me. Ugh! We finally chalked it up to drainage and started giving him Benadryl to clear him up. Brent woke up Saturday night sore all over and running a fever. I couldn't get back to sleep for forever. We had an Astros game to go to on Sunday and Brent was miserable. Long story short, it turns out one of his patients had the swine flu and we're pretty sure that's what he had. He was fine by Wednesday. It was weird too cause lots of our friends and family had flu or stomach flu right around that time and we had been at a party with our friends on Friday night. I was so afraid I was gonna get it but I never did! I also ordered Brendan's Halloween costume. R2-D2! Uncle Matthew will be so proud. Mid-September Brendan's first molar broke through! Definitely explained his grumpiness. I think the second came in right after that. Will try to get a pic when they're fully in. Brendan's learning new words here and there. One morning I took him to my mom's and he walked right over to my dad's hat, picked it up, and said hat. He's so funny how some words are so clear and most of the time he's just babbling. Sometme during the summer we managed to get rid of Brendan's bottle! At the end of September we managed to ditch the pacifier! I'm so proud of our toddler. Mid-day naps are a bit more of a challenge but hopefully he'll get better about that soon.

Brendan is still sick. At this point I am getting frustrated with his pediatrician's office. But at least he gets to go his doc tomorrow and not the affiliated docs. Tomorrow is his 15 month checkup (a week and a half shy of him turning 16 months old, lol).

Brendan is so funny when he gets mad. He stares daggers through you and hits either you or himself or whatever is near him at the time. I have a video because it's so funny. It's hard not to laugh sometimes. The other day he was throwing his blocks and I told him no several times. Finally I grabbed his hand and said NO! He walked over and hugged me and laid his head on me. It was sooooo cute! I just knew he was gonna start throwing them again but he actually stopped. He does have a temper but his cuteness makes up for it most of the time. He definitely throws tantrums already. Starting to wonder what 2 will look like... *shudders*

Oh, almost forgot the other story about how he has to do things twice before he learns. I was putting away his towels in his bathroom and had him with me. He loves to run over to the bathtub and grab the toy that's attached to his bathtub. Well he leaned a little too far and fell in. He didn't hit his head cause he caught himself with his arm and I think it scared him really bad. So that night we're back in there brushing his teeth. He goes over there again and falls in again! Silly boy.

One last story. At my parent's house they have a pool table and Brendan loves to roll the pool balls on the table (sometimes he throws them off though, lol). Well he had been playing with my dad doing that for a while and it was time to go home. Grandpa held him on the way out to the car and I went to take him from him to put him in the car seat. He started bawling, he did NOT want to leave Grandpa. It was really sweet. Usually his Baby Einstein music will calm him down pretty quick in the car but we were almost 5 minutes down the road before he calmed down. Brendan loves his grandparents.

Birthday Post (A little delayed...)

2009-08-25T18:56:00.000-07:00

This is just a random pic in one of his Beatles shirts.

This was on Brendan's birthday. We took him and my friend Jamie's little girl Ellie to Moody Gardens to see the Aquarium Pyramid.

A pic of Brendan, Ellie, Jamie, Shannon, and me.

Brendan and Daddy

I thought this was adorable!

Our sweet kiddos practicing walking.

In case you were curious, Brendan is the same height as a Macaroni Penguin. Of course now I think he's closer to the Gentoo. He's reaching for doorknobs now (yikes!).

This was a little tank that had some coral and stuff. Brendan decided it was his own personal tap dancing floor. Silly boy!

Confined to the strollers again, poor kids!

There's a part in the aquarium where you get to walk through a tunnel and Brent took this amazing picture of the Stingray. So pretty!

"Look at the penguin Mommy"

The penguins were definitely Brendan's favorite. Which is funny, cause if you remember my post from last May when Brent and I went to aquarium when I was still pregnant, Brendan was kicking when we were watching the penguins :-)

That night Nana and Papaw took us to Pappasito's to celebrate. Brendan got dessert to go.

And since it was a Mexican restaurant, we had to take the birthday sombrero picture. It was a little big for him, hehe.

Cute pic in his Old Navy Hawaiian shirt. I love Hawaiian shirts.

The birthday party! Just some pics of the decor.

Cookie cake! Had to start him young. I wanted a Mickey Mouse but a certain cookie cake company can't do Mickey cause he's copyrighted. So we got a froggy instead.

We had enough people invited that we got a second cake just in case. Good thing we did! Though there was plenty for us to enjoy well into my birthday.

The Mickey decor.

Lighted candle!

Tired baby boy. He didn't have a nap all day before the party. So once he got the sugar of the cookie cake and ice cream AND sherbet punch, he started to have a sugar crash.

More sleepy boy.

Gotta love birthday hats!

So it's a tradition, apparently, to let 1 year olds have a cake to smash separate from the cake that everyone eats. So we just bought a litle ready-made cake at Walmart for that.

At first he just kind of looked at it wondering what he was supposed to do. Then, after a little help from Brent's cousin, he started playing with it more.

The aftermath! It took a while to clean him up. But he managed to keep his shirt clean! After clean-up we opened presents and he got sleepier and sleepier but never fussy. When everyone except for the adult-kids (those of us who are grown-ups but not yet 30 so we're not ready to admit it yet) stayed around putting together toys for Brendan. He actually stayed awake through all of that and then when I started feeding him dinner, he fell asleep. He had a great birthday and he loves all of his new toys, books, and clothes!

And if you thought that was all to the birthday week... Sunday was Parent Dedication Sunday because it was also Father's Day. Our church dedicates the new babies on Mother's Day and Father's Day each year. Brendan was born after Father's Day last year so we ended up having the oldest baby this day. He was so cute in his little suit! And just like every good toddler should, he made noises at the appropriate moments to make everyone laugh.

Another picture of the happy family.

So now I should probably change the name of the blog because once Brendan turned 1 the emails I get from BabyCenter.com changed to My Toddler. Hard to believe how fast this year has gone by. It has been a wonderfully fun year and I am so proud of our baby boy!

STEPS!!!!

2009-06-16T21:07:00.000-07:00

So I worked from home today because I had to stay with Brendan. Lol, that made it sound like I didn't want to. Not true! I had a great time today. We've been walking with Brendan while he holds onto one or both of our hands and he's been doing really well. Today I held his hands and then let go and he was taking a step or so but nothing major. I tell Brent this when he gets home and he's like ooh, get down on the floor and let's see if he'll do it again. So we sit on the floor Brent holds Brendan up and lets go... Brendan takes 5 steps! We were so excited. So we try again and again and again and he keeps taking steps between us. Then he got tired the instant we took out the camera to tape him doing it. We call everyone of course. Shannon comes over later and we show her. I got out the camera and here it is ladies and gentlemen... the video of Brendan taking steps! Enjoy!

Oh, and sorry about the switching back and forth from sideways to upright on the video. I was trying to tape and watch and catch the baby boy, hehe.

Aunt Krystal's Wedding and other cuteness

2009-06-14T10:15:00.001-07:00

Our Piano Man, hehe.

I thought I'd let him play in a diaper box and he did this and decided he didn't like boxes.

Playing in the entryway

These next few photos are all ones Brent took of sleepy Brendan

3 generations of Beans in tuxes.

Silly Brendan

Mommy and Brendan

Grandma and Brendan

Brendan has some big shoes to fill!

Brendan was getting sleepy before the wedding started. This is Brent's cousin Brian.

Great Uncle Ronnie brought Papaw a talking birthday card which quickly became Brendan's toy. He kept opening and closing it so we heard the first 2 words over and over and over...

Brendan finally crashed after the ceremony. We had been there since Noon and this was about 3 o'clock.

Uncle Pat is holding Brendan for the garter toss, hehe.

Brendan found a friend.

Then he chased her around the reception hall.

Video 1 is our Piano Man in action, 2 is our little drummer boy, 3 is practicing waving, and 4 is Brendan the Lion Tamer.

Brendan has no desire to walk right now. He does really well when you hold his hands and will sometimes walk when you hold just one hand. He's getting better and standing without support too. And if you push something he can hang onto, he'll walk along. No words yet either but lots of sounds. And he has his first cold right now :-( I hope he gets over it before his party next weekend. I cannot believe a) that he's almost a year old and b) that we almost made it a year without a cold. I'm hoping that means that he got his Daddy's immune system! That's about it for now. I'm hoping to do a post soon to catch up on all of the professional pics.

Warning... this post will be long

2009-05-02T20:59:00.000-07:00

Brendan and his Great-Mamaw.

Brendan with Grandma and me and Grandpa in the background at Brendan's first car show!

A big toothless grin. Man... I really am behind with posting these!

Sitting in a truck with Grandpa.

This was one of the neatest cars we saw that day.

Brendan passed out in his playpen.

Playing with his piano. Which by the way, he's gotten very good at since Uncle Matthew showed him how to play a real one recently!

Playing with Jordan on our new couch (new in January that is). Jordan was not amused.

I thought this was a funny face. We are doing much better without our pacifier these days. He really only needs it for sleeping but if he sees it during the day he grabs for it immediately.

Soon after this picture, I decided to retire this toy. It's really sad... he's getting so big!

Our son likes to lick our walls...

Brendan in another one of Daddy's baby outfits. This one says Little Slugger on it.

I keep trying to get Brendan to swing the bat at his baseball toy. We're almost there!

Too cute. And the blur in the front is Jordan, the kitty.

What did I do?! (I have a feeling this will be the theme of pics of Brendan for the next, oh, 17 years!

I think this was taken in February or March... he can't stand under the table anymore.

Ooo... TV. He was probably watching Mickey.

Brendan's first Easter! Isn't he cute?! I was proud I got us both ready for church since Daddy was working. But Aunt Shannon did spend the night so she helped us out a lot!

Playing at Grandma's house on Easter Sunday.

Another of Daddy's VERY 80's outfits. Actually, this one could've passed for 70's I think.

Another Daddy shirt and a great toothy grin.

Daddy was playing dress-up with Brendan this day... can ya tell? This was one of Daddy's sweaters.

Brendan fell asleep shortly after this was taken.

Playing with his car at Grandma's house. We were cracking up because he'll put both hands on the wheel, he'll play with the "mirrors", put his hand on the gear shift, and talk on his cell phone. The things toys teach our children...

Having fun with Uncle Matthew! The Rockets were playing one night when we were over and Brendan was playing. All of a sudden everyone cheered at something (I wasn't paying attention... not a basketball fan) and Matthew tends to be quite loud when he cheers. It startled Brendan and he just stared at Matthew. He went to pick Brendan up and Brendan started bawling. Poor baby... Uncle Matthew scared him. It was pretty funny though :-)

Okay, now the videos! These first 3 are attempts to show Brendan pulling up to standing. Note that the old couch is there so this is late December or early January. The next video is Brendan laughing histerically at the kitty. He loves animals! And finally, a much more recent video, is Brendan clapping! Our future drum major.

Brendan has 6 teeth now, at least that's all I can see. He is also getting so close to standing without support. He will for a few seconds sometimes but it's usually when he is mad or frustrated or after something he really wants. He's getting his 10 month pictures taken today. I need to post 8 and 9. We counted his pictures with his cousins (once removed? I keep forgetting to check... but my cousin's daughters) as his 9 month ones cause we were VERY busy that month. June is going to be a crazy month. Brent's sister is getting married June 6th, Brendan's birthday is the 18th, mine is the 24th, there's a possible trip to Corpus one weekend, and of course Father's Day is in there too. I will TRY to keep this more up-to-date. Though I would expect the same lack of posts next tax season. When you're working close to 60 hours per week, that's just what happens. I think that's all for now!

Good People Day 2009

2009-04-03T14:02:00.000-07:00

I was gonna post this on my Xanga blog but I think more people read this one, so it's more appropriate here. If you've never heard of Gary Vaynerchuk, I'd be surprised. He is an amazing guy who is passionate about life. Most people know him because of Wine Library TV. Wine Library is his wine store in New Jersey. But like I said, he is passionate about so many other things than just wine. Last year he started this thing called Good People Day. You are supposed to honor someone in a blog post. Not a tweet, not a Facebook note, but a real blog post. He honored his sister this year.

My Good Person for 2009 has got to be someone I've known for a very long time. And that is Janie Henry. Most who read this might not know her but she is amazing. I first worked VBS (Vacation Bible School) with her in the 4 year old class in the summer of 1996 (I have worked with her for a total of 10 VBS's now). Her passion for children is contagious. You can't help but love every single one of those screaming kids when you're around her. Not only that but she makes you feel like a kid again. Every day during VBS she would read the Bible story and there I'd be sitting "indian-style" on the floor with the kids with the same look in my eyes as the kids. That look that shows you know they're paying attention and hanging on every single word. And at the end of the Bible story she would always pray the sweetest, simplest prayers that everyone understood. And when she was done she would say "And the children said..." and the kids would yell AMEN! And she'd tell them "I don't think they heard you down the hall" and the kids would scream as loud as they could AMEN!!!! Janie puts her heart and soul in teaching 4 year olds. She used to tell me that VBS was her Christmas. She saved up money every year to put towards crafts and surprises for the kids. She made VBS so amazing for not just the kids, but the teachers and youth who helped out as well. I help her out every summer that I can. Her joy for Christ is contagious and it really "recharges my battery" when I get to be near her. I don't know if she'll get a chance to see this but if she does I hope she knows that I love her and that I can never thank her enough for all she's done for the kids of our church and for me and my family.

Ugh! Tax Season!

2009-03-23T13:42:00.001-07:00

So I know that I am waaaaaaaaaaay behind in blogging. It's tax season... nuff said!

Just some quick thoughts.

Brendan is so big! I finally got to go to an appointment again for his 9 month checkup. He is 27 inches long, 19.4 pounds, and his head size jumped from the 72nd percentile to the 95th! His pediatrician asked us... do you have big heads? Brent apparently does (after a quick measuring comparison between the doc's head and his) and my mom says big heads run on our side as well. Who knew?

We are chasing Brendan all over the place now. He crawls VERY fast! Especially when he's going after the kitty or a favorite toy. He's babbling all the time now too. We had quite a conversation this morning in fact. Hehe. I can't wait for the first time he calls one of us mommy or daddy. One of Brendan's favorite activities right now is standing next to our ottoman and banging on it like a drum. And when we drum back... he laughs so hard.

So after a month or so with just 2 teeth, Brendan is now working on tooth number 5. He's eating really well and we're gonna start making a push towards "table" food (aka, not the mushy stuff in jars that he's eating currently). His favorite food right is sweet potatoes and anything with fruit. He'll eat meats but he likes them best with sweet potatoes, lol. He also loves the Gerber Graduate puffs (sweet potato, of course, and apple cinnamon). You have to be careful about how many you put on his tray though. If you put 10 down, he'll try to pick up all 10 and shove them all in his mouth at once!

Since he's "talking" to me now... he said he's excited about meeting his 2nd (? I can never remember... time to go look it up on the family tree website again) cousins from Israel. I can't wait either!

Pics, videos, and ramblings

2009-01-27T20:16:00.000-08:00

Enjoy these adorable pictures and the videos. The videos are taking forever to load!!! But I'll post some more when I get a chance. It's tax season now so posting will get even more sporadic I'm afraid. Oh, and yes... in one of the pics above, you'll notice a little bit of me on the side. They had me sit there in case Brendan fell over, lol.

The first video is just us hanging out and playing with Grandma. The second is Brendan opening up his Christmas pajamas from Aunt Shannon with my help. The third is opening Christmas Eve presents at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Grandma wrapped his presents in blankets so he wouldn't eat the paper... it didn't stop him from grabbing our paper, tissue, ribbon, etc. and playing with it!

Brendan is growing so much. I can't believe how big he is. He's eating so much food now and we had to start supplementing with formula cause I just wasn't giving him enough. But it's okay cause he doesn't seem to have even noticed. We've even switched to Parent's Choice formula from Similac Advanced and he didn't notice. One of our friends told us (after she did a ton of research) that it's the exact same stuff and it's soooooooooooo much cheaper. Gotta love Walmart brands!

Brendan is crawling but he prefers to pull up to standing or sit and play in his playpen. That is until the kitty comes walking by... then he zooms after her. He loves playing with Jordan! Though the other day I had to take him away from her cause he was getting a little too rough and she started nipping at him. We still just have the two bottom teeth. It seems like more are gonna come in any day now but who knows? Brendan will be 8 months old tomorrow!

Registration for Children's Day Out (Miriam: kinda like SRoch's gan I'm guessing?) started this week. We're debating if we're gonna enroll Brendan. It meets one or two days a week, you get to choose how many days. It starts in August. I hate that I have to make this decision now since who knows what life is gonna be like then but I really like the idea of him getting some social interaction with other kids. His life up till now has revolved around adults, poor baby. Our Sunday School class has started doing play dates but I can't convince Brent that it's okay for Dads to go to play dates, lol. Maybe they'll do a Saturday one this summer and I'll go. Ahh... the joys of being a working Mom! That's all for now, I think!

7 Months

2009-01-22T20:08:00.000-08:00

The lighting is so awesome in our living room at this time of day.... just don't ask me what time it was, can't remember!

Cute look.

Brent and I dressed up for my office Christmas party.

Brendan and Grandma

"I got your beard Grandpa!"

2 teeth! And that's still all we have for now.

Brendan really liked the pajamas that Aunt Shannon gave him!

Brendan in the adorable hat that Grandma gave him. It has a matching jacket. Grandpa gave him that tissue paper to play with and there is a video of him playing with it.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

Notice our Santa plate and mug. Santa gets fudge and hot chocolate at our house.

Brendan's walker/jumper car! He loves it.

Grinning behind the wheel of his new ride.

Max enjoying his Christmas presents.

Nana and Brendan

Aunt Krystal and Brendan

I liked this... "Daddy, what is this?"

Brent's Mom found this shirt at a garage sale and couldn't resist buying it.

Brendan playing with ribbon from one the packages.

Enjoying his new swing at Grandma and Grandpa's house. They're the only ones who have trees low enough to hang one from.

Family pic of the Beans. Top row L to R is Great Uncle Ronnie, Cousin Brian, Cousin Chris, Brent, Brandon (Aunt Krystal's boyfriend), Papaw, and Angel (Nana and Papaw's dog). 2nd row L to R is Brenda (Ronnie's wife), Victoria (Brian's fiancee), Shannon (Chris's wife), Aunt Krystal, Bosco (Aunt Krystal's dog), and Nana. And the 3rd row is Great Mamaw, Brendan, and me. I had to run in to the picture cause I was in charge of setting up the camera. Not bad, huh?

So, these clothes are a little on the big side but it was cold outside and this was really warm.

My cousin Micah gave Brendan this t-shirt. Everyone loves it! If you can't see it, it says "That's how I roll" with a picture of a stroller.

Brendan kept playing with the remote so Brent gave it to him and I caught him at the perfect moment. Looks like he's about to change it to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse... his favorite cartoon.

7 months is an incredible age. I'll probably find myself saying this again, but this is my favorite age so far. Brendan is crawling, sitting up on his own, and giggling. Our kitty was found by Pearland Animal Control after 2 months of being gone! And Brendan loves her! Of course his affection is grabbing big chunks of her fur and skin and laughing. She doesn't like it but she keeps coming back for more. She even rubbed up against his feet tonight when I had him sitting in my lap on the floor. We'll work on learning to pet the kitty instead of grabbing her or hitting her. Brendan has also learned to pull himself up to standing. He greets us in the morning either on his knees or standing in his crib and grinning mid-cry, lol. Thanks to the recommendation of my wonderful cousin Miriam... we bought the book Goodnight, Sleep Tight. Brendan is doing much better with sleeping and I haven't even used the sleep lady shuffle yet. I've just used some basic sleep tips she gives in the first few chapters. I have it on standby just in case I need the sleep lady method later. Brendan is eating like a champ. We have quite a repertoire of food now and soon we'll be starting him on Gerber 2nd foods which include meats. I was kinda shocked to learn these include such things as veal and lamb.

Tomorrow if I get a chance, I'll post some videos and Brendan's 7 month pics. (We finally went some place where we got the CD again.) Brendan "heard" me typing about his sleeping well... he's fussing so I better go. Enjoy all the new pictures!

Picture Tag

2009-01-13T11:47:00.000-08:00

I was tagged in the picture game. The object of the picture tag is to:

1) Choose the 4th folder where you store your pictures on your computer.

2) Select the 4th picture in the folder.

3) Explain the picture.

4) Tag 4 people to do the same.

No cheating (cropping, editing, etc.) Have fun!!!

So this is our 4th picture in our 4th folder. This is a pic from an Astros game we went to in April of 2008. I had given Brent some tickets for his birthday. So this was Brendan's "first" game, lol. I was still pregnant with him at the time. This is a picture of Taveras (of the Rockies) and Matsui talking before the game. Taveras used to play for us and wore number 3 and now Matsui wears that number. We thought it was funny to see them talking to each other.

Don't worry, there will be a new post sometime this week. Gotta sort through all of the Christmas photos and videos.

I'm tagging the Vandervorts, the Druyans, and the Griffins.

I have been corrected... Taveras wore number 1 for the Astros. Oops.

Snow, Santa, and 6th month stats!

2008-12-20T06:30:00.000-08:00

Brendan crawled backwards under his playpen!

Another shot of the backwards wonder.

A cute smile.

Touching his toes. The onesie says "Just hand me the cookies and no one gets hurt"

I love this picture! He was watching Windows Media Player while listening to a Baby Einstein CD and actually ended up falling asleep like this.

After a bath wrapped up in his Texas Tech towel.

Cartoons one Saturday morning. He loves Mickey Mouse!

Watching something on Papaw's iPhone.

Playing with the new baby gates Mommy bought. Don't worry, I was right there to catch him when he fell shortly thereafter (and before he bonked his head).

Dressed up for the 5 month pictures. (More like 5.5 month but whatever.)

Peeking at Brendan.

Yum rice cereal!

Fell asleep while watching Daddy play video games.

Sitting in the Bumbo seat.

I finally caught him on all fours for a picture. I'm shocked he hasn't crawled yet.

Snow! In Pearland, TX! I'm glad we saw it this time. In 2004 it snowed and we were on our honeymoon and missed all of it!

Mommy and Brendan in front of our house.

Daddy and Brendan with the Christmas decorations.

Brendan likes our snowman.

These next few I took in the first hour of snow.

Our street.

Neighbor's house across the street... this was for a roof shot... sorry it's so dark.

Brent was at the mall when it all started and picked up a mini-cookie cake from Great American Cookie Company to celebrate. It was very good!

This is the second hour. Our little Texas Tech gnome was covered!

Compare our cars to the previous shot to see how much snow we got!

Our front yard

Trying to get a shot of our Christmas tree inside the house.

Our snowman covered with actual snow!

This had to be taken... a palm tree covered in snow!

Our backyard. Those are our grape vines we've been growing since Spring 2007. This may have killed them... we'll see.

A fire in our fireplace. The stockings, in order from left to right, are Brent's, mine, a Texas Tech one, Brendan's, and our dog Max's. We were sad to not hang one for our kitty Jordan. I hope some family is taking good care of her.

Santa! Brendan was probably one of the happiest babies we saw there. The photographers (and Santa I'm sure) were glad to see a happy baby.

Video 1 is eating carrots, video 2 is showing how far he crawled backwards, and video 3 is enjoying his Baby Einstein CD.

Brendan went for his 6th month shots on the 19th. He is now 14 lbs, 4 oz and 25.5 inches. 10th and 20th percentile. So tall and skinny like his Daddy! On the 18th I noticed Brendan's 2nd tooth has broken through. Now he has two teeth on the bottom. We have tried carrots, green beans, sweet potatoes, white grape juice, and apple rice cereal. So far he only like carrots and sweet potatoes. Apparently he only like orange foods, hehe. I was shocked he didn't like the juice or apple rice cereal. I dunno if the fruit is just too tart for him or what.

The 19th was a busy day. We took Brendan for our family Christmas photos at Sears (by the way they charge waaaaaaaaaay too much) and then waited for 2 hours for a photo with Santa. He did really great for both. We constantly get to hear what a good baby he is for pictures. Photographers love him! He's gotten to the point when he hears our camera turn on he starts smiling. Think we've taken too many photos?!

Speaking of photos... I'm sure you have noticed the lack of professional photos. Due to technical difficulties our printer has not been hooked up for a while. When this gets fixed I can scan the ones we haven't been getting on CD so we can catch you all up on the chronicling of his adorableness!

A tooth! And other screaming...

2008-12-03T15:48:00.000-08:00

So sorry for the delay in posting! It hasn't been a boring month but at the same time there hasn't been a lot of new and exciting things happening until recently. But here are some updates on the boy. Pictures will come in another post... hopefully sooner this time!

Brendan had been spitting up frequently for a while and I finally decided to call the doc about 2 or 3 weeks ago. It turns out that I was overfeeding the poor baby! Of course anyone you talk to who's seen him would laugh at that cause he's so skinny. But it also turns out that he didn't show any signs of wanting to stop eating whether it was with a bottle or breastfeeding. So now after cutting back, he's doing much better.

He found his toes! Brendan loves his toes. He will reach down and grab his foot to pull his toe to his mouth and he loves to suck on his big toe. One time when we had been out running errands he fell asleep sucking on his toe. When I was getting him out of the car his leg was up by his head with his hand still holding it there, lol.

He loves to scream! He'll start screaming for no reason at all. Stupidly I've gotten in a few back and forth screaming matches with him cause it's funny. I'm probably gonna stop that though cause I really don't want him to think it's okay to be loud and screamy all the time.

I've been thinking for about a month at least that he was teething. We've had a few incidents where he would just start screaming for some reason and wouldn't stop till I gave him Tylenol. So yesterday he was sucking on my finger and I got excited because I felt a sharp tooth! His first tooth has broken through. And I think the second one is very close behind. We'll see. When it comes all the way in, I'll try to get a picture of it.

Laughing! Brendan has also started laughing at us. So we've been trying all sorts of goofy things to make him laugh. So much fun!

Videos

2008-11-10T23:09:00.000-08:00

The first video is of Brendan's first taste of rice cereal. He's doing much better with eating the cereal now. He even opens his mouth every time I show him the spoon. Now I just have to be better about not forgetting to give him cereal!

The second video is Brendan rolling! He does this really well and the past few days he's started getting up on all fours when he's on his tummy. He's even "crawled" backwards a couple of times. Any day now my vacuum will be a full time appliance!

The third video is us talking to Brendan and him being cute and adorable on Halloween.

We went and got his 4 month pics taken the other day... this time at Walmart so we spent much less this time! Get this... you can buy the portrait CD from Walmart (with the 6 poses they take) for $99. Yeah, you read that right. I could could go to Portrait Innovations and buy a huge package of different poses and get the CD for that price. They said it's that expensive cause they give you the copyrights. Dumb! Needless to say, we didn't get the CD. But the Halloween costume pic is absolutely adorable!

Sad news for the Beans... we think our cat ran away. She accidentally got out 2 nights ago and we haven't seen her since. Brent's cell phone number is on her tag so we're hoping somebody will find her and call. It's been really weird not hearing her collar jingle around the house. I didn't realize how used to it I had gotten. We've had her for 5 years now so we really miss her :-(

Oh, but also happy news. As of November 9th, Brent and I have been together for 11 years and next month we'll be celebrating our 4 year wedding anniversary!

4 Month Old Stats

2008-10-20T10:02:00.000-07:00

We have a healthy 4 month old baby boy!

He is now 24 inches long (20th percentile) and 12 lbs, 11 ozs (10th percentile).

His shots made his little legs knot up more this time so we had a very fussy weekend after his appointment. I could tell he wasn't feeling well Friday night and Saturday cause it was so easy to get him to sleep. Saturday (Oct 18th) Brendan had his first taste of rice cereal and didn't like it at all (yes, there is video of it!). He's gotten better now but I'm not sure if his little tummy likes it cause we've had a few fussy days. But who knows... that could probably be from any number of reasons.

We trick-or-treated to Gringo's with Brent's parents and to my parents' house for Halloween. The pictures of our little bean are too cute!

Saturday November 1st Texas Tech beat the number 1 Longhorns!!!! We discovered during that game (and the next day at the Renaissance Festival) that Brendan does not like loud noises. He got scared and started crying a few times when we were yelling/cheering at the TV, lol. So we don't know if Brendan likes fireworks yet or not. We were going to try to stay for the fireworks at the Ren Fest but the yelling of the crowd beforehand upset him... so I'm guessing he doesn't like fireworks yet. We'll see on his first July 4th in 2009... or at least first one to celebrate.

Hurricane Ike and 3 months old!

2008-10-11T06:54:00.000-07:00

Well, we survived the hurricane with very little damage. We had part of our fence knocked down and a cedar tree in the backyard fell but didn't hit anything. Sorry for the delay in posting but after the hurricane we were without power until the 23rd of September and then we've just been busy. So here are tons of pictures and a couple of videos.

These pictures are from when we took Brendan to the Discovery Green park in downtown Houston. Brendan was sleepy when we first got there.

Posing in front of a fountainPeeking at Brendan through the stroller handle

I love taking pictures in Sepia... they turn out so good!

I love this picture. "Daddy, what are you doing?" Lol.

Gotta love these laughs!

"Now Brendan..."Playing with Aunt Shannon

Brent caught me and Brendan napping on the couch when he got home from work one day

This is the light pole that fell at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Luckily it didn't hit anything.

I love this picture of Grandma and Brendan!

Bundled up on the one cold morning after the hurricane

Playing with Daddy

I love his smile!Watching football with PapawCuddling with TiggerThis and the pic above are from Brendan's first play date with our friend Jamie's daughter Elly.

I hadn't taken any pictures of Brendan in his crib so since he was wearing baseball stuff this day I decided it was time.

Okay, so this isn't of Brendan but I was proud of Brent and Pat. They won their second softball championship out at Big League Dreams. They've been playing there since 2006.

These pics are from Brendan's first trip to the lake house. We had a fun time relaxing and it wasn't too hot but we brought a fan outside for Brendan anyways.

The lake house got a new paint job since the last time we visited.

The lake was really low this time. I don't think we've ever seen it that low.

We were a little bit crowded with Brendan's playpen there but it actually fit better than I thought it would.

Brendan "The Thinker" Bean

Brendan's old man pants, lol.3 month-old pics... once again we spent too much but less than both the previous months. Maybe next month we'll behave... maybe.

The first video is Brendan sucking on his thumb/fist. The second is one I took the morning after the hurricane.

Brendan is so much fun. Each day brings something new. Recently he's started rolling over from his stomach to back. He usually does it while he's sleeping though and he ends up crying cause he hates sleeping on his back. So in his crib I've started putting those two pillows (that are in the crib picture above) next to his side so he can't roll over because one night I had to put him back to sleep twice cause he had rolled over. Brendan's started playing on his stomach longer now too. He's not crawling yet but he does a really good imitation of an inch worm. He likes to inch around in a circle and sometimes he'll go forward.

The next checkup is on Friday so I'll update with Brendan's latest stats after that.

Smiles and more!

2008-09-03T20:22:00.000-07:00

Our little guy is growing like a weed. I put him in the baby papazan tonight and was shocked at how much better he fit in it. It's been at least a month or more since I've seen him in it. He's able to focus on toys now. It is so much fun to watch him play in his rainforest gym. I can spin the butterflies at the top of it and watch him grin at them. Since he's enjoying looking at everything more now that he can focus on things, we've decided to take him to the park this weekend. I've been craving some just us family time and I think the Discovery Green park in Houston is the perfect place to do that. I just hope it won't be too hot!

And of course here are some great pictures and videos!

1. I took this pic before work one day... I couldn't resist, they were too cute!

2. Adorable shot of Brendan resting from tummy time on his boppy pillow.

3. Another great outfit! His 3-month outfits fit him lengthwise but not quite widthwise!

4. Brendan in the hood, lol. I love these hooded outfits!

5. This is the outfit that cousin Micah gave us.

6. Papaw and Brendan in the mirror in our dining room.

7. Nana and Brendan

8. This was the day after Brendan's shots. He felt like he was running a fever and was fussy, so I let him hang out in just his diaper and that seemed to make him feel better.

9. I call this pic "Chillin with Dad". Too adorable.

10. Look at that grin!

11. Brendan has started sucking on anything you put in front of his mouth.

12. Cuddling with his Tigger. He loves Tigger! He even bathes him sometimes (see above caption), lol.

13. Playing in the rainforest gym.

14. Our "All American Boy".

Video 1: "Talking" with Daddy. I love this video!

Video 2: See caption 11...

So to sum up... Brendan has really started entertaining us instead of us just entertaining him all the time. Next time we'll have to post a video of his "dancing" (Shh... don't tell all the Baptists we know!).

2 Months Old!

2008-08-23T18:40:00.000-07:00

So the boy went to the doctor for his first round of vaccines. We decided Daddy should take him, lol. Daddy said Brendan's face turned bright red and he screamed at the top of his lungs but after holding him, he was fine again. Brendan now weighs 9 lbs, 15 ozs. and is 22 and 1/4 inches long. This puts him in the 11th percentile for weight and 20th percentile for height. He's fitting lengthwise into his 3 month outfits but they're a little big around his little waist.

Today we took him to get his 2 month old pictures. We actually ended up spending more this time but got like 4 times the pictures. So here are a few of the 74 poses we took. We got some family photos this time.

I added this last picture because I want you all to feel sorry for us. That lip is going to be the kiss of death for us if he doesn't lose it before learning how to talk. That lip is Brendan's ticket to get whatever he wants.

Back to work

2008-08-14T13:13:00.000-07:00

So I had to go back to work on Wednesday the 6th. :-( Lol. It hasn't been too bad. I've been a little tired though. Grandma and Brent have been taking care of Brendan. The first day when I got home he was ready to eat and usually while I'm feeding him he'll kind of look up at me. That day he stared straight ahead the entire time. I think maybe he was mad that I left... but he forgave me before the next time he ate. So here are some pics of his adorableness.

1. This is a pic of Brendan in the same outfit that we brought him home from the hospital in. He fits in it a lot better now!

2. Jordan (the cat) was babysitting Brendan on our bed, lol. So cute!

3. This is from my first day back to work.

4. Notice his new onesie we bought... it's Dopey and it says "Bald is Beautiful". It's okay cause his Daddy was bald until he was 2 years old!

5. Grandma and Brendan making faces at each other. We're not sure why Brent was making a face in the background.

6. Brendan in his "Little Bean" onesie and hat. I bought it for Brent for Father's Day (along with some other non-baby related gifts). www.gagagoods.com is where I found it... in case anyone was interested.

7. This is the first of the outfits that Nana gave us that Brent wore when he was a baby. Isn't this one adorable?

8. The second Daddy outfit. The straps are a little big but still so cute.

9. Brendan having tummy time on Daddy and showing off his muscles.

10. Isn't that the cutest face ever?!

11. The third Daddy outfit. Can you tell this one was from the eighties? Lol. He's definitely our #1 son!

12. And to finish... Brendan was spitting out his pacifier and Brent caught it on film in mid-spitout, lol.

Clarification

2008-08-05T07:56:00.000-07:00

This blog is to clarify the post my wife last made. The title is relevent because the full title should have been "I am the walrus. Coo Coo Cachu". It is relevent because our son has started cooing and being really cute. If you really wanted to tie it in he makes the cachu noise when he sneezes.....That is all. :)

I am the walrus

2008-08-01T19:01:00.000-07:00

Lol, we couldn't think of a relevant title so we decided that a Beatles tribute was fitting.

Our prince continues to do wonderful adorable things. This first video is Brendan's reaction to his Daddy's kisses.

This video shows Brendan "crawling" to the top of his crib:

And now some more adorable pics:

One Month

2008-07-20T07:20:00.000-07:00

Can you believe Brendan is already one month old? As every good first time mommy should, I took him to Babies R Us to have his one month old pictures taken. They turned out great but next time we will be taking pictures at Walmart because they were not cheap! Here are the pics:

Aren't they adorable?! I love them. I was so proud of him for being so good. And those are my hands in the last picture. I think that's my favorite.

Oh, we took Brendan to the doctor this week cause he has a birthmark on his bottom that started bleeding. Not a big deal but now we have to put vaseline on it every time we change his diaper. They weighed him while we were there and he is now 7 lbs, 15 ozs which puts him in the 11th percentile. So I think we'll be out of the newborn diapers soon. We've learned that Huggies newborn and Pampers newborn are two different sizes, lol (Huggies are bigger). We love Pampers!

We've noticed this past week that Brendan has new cries. He definitely has one for when he's mad. He also has a cute "pay attention to me" cry. I've also discovered that one of my favorite things is holding him on my shoulder because I can feel his breath on my cheek. Baby's breath is one of the sweetest things in the whole world.

That's it for now!

More pictures!

2008-07-06T10:30:00.000-07:00

So here are some more great photos of the adorable new Bean. I even managed to upload a video! We ended up not going to the parade yesterday. I woke up feeling bad but I'm doing much better now. We went over to my parents house and watched fireworks on TV and outside. Other than that we don't have any exciting news right now. Enjoy the pictures!

About Brendan

2008-07-03T07:18:00.000-07:00

Now that we've shown some pictures of him, I figured it was time to tell everyone about his personality a bit. Well, you already know that either he's impatient or likes to do things fast and in his own way since he came out in only 3 hours! That seems to have translated into things like
"I'm crying because I want to be fed now!" or "I don't care if it's midnight, I don't want to sleep right now." He is a very alert baby. He looks around all the time. He makes the cutest faces too. One time when my Dad was holding him he got this frown on his face and just stared at him like that for the longest time. Every once in a while Brendan will make a face that looks like he's saying "ooh!" with eyes opened really wide. He also yawns, sneezes, and hiccups. He's definitely a boy (and Brent says definitely my son) cause he's given us some very loud burps!

So now for stat updates. He was 7 lbs 1 oz and 20.5 inches in the hospital. His first doctor's visit (June 23rd) he was 6 lbs 9 oz and 19 inches. You read that correctly... either the hospital was too busy to measure correctly or our son shrunk in a few days time. Actually I heard a similar scenario from a lady at church except that her granddaughter gained 3 inches in the same amount of time, lol. So then this week's visit he was 7 lbs 3 oz and 19.25 inches. He also had to get his first prescription cause he has Conjuctivitis. The only thing we can figure is that he got it from the restaurant we went to last Friday night. But he has his gel and his eye looks much better.

Brendan made his first church appearance last night. There was a wedding shower for the wife-to-be of a guy who grew up in our church. I didn't bring Brendan with me and I didn't have any pictures with me either and all the ladies were very upset with me. So I had Brent drop him off on his way home from his parents house. Everyone loved him, of course. I've been nervous to bring him for a service cause of all the germs he'll come in contact with. The doctor made me nervous about that at the first appointment because of the Group B Strep stuff. The doc said if Brendan runs a fever they'll probably send him to the hospital because of it. So as hard as it's been, I'm trying to limit exposure.

That being said, we're taking Brendan to his first 4th of July parade tomorrow! I'm so excited. We bought some baby sunscreen at Walmart the other day. We told my Mom about it and I said, it's even a spray and it's tear free. She immediately said, "Don't spray it in his face!". I rolled my eyes and said, "Like I would do that!".

We have been having lots of fun with Prince Brendan (Prince is what his name means in Welsh) in between our sometimes rough nights. He is too adorable. I'll try to log on later tonight to add more pictures!

Hospital Pictures!

2008-06-22T20:43:00.001-07:00

Okay, so these are tons of pics from the hospital. The top one is the last one taken before we took Brendan home. There are tons more but my husband made me use discretion... even though I vetoed some naked baby pictures too. More to come tomorrow but it's late and Brendan is hungry. Oh, and my favorite is the one with Brent and the pacifier, too cute!

He's here!!!!

2008-06-21T07:41:00.000-07:00

So I'm sure some know by now... it definitely was my water breaking. So that was at 10:15 pm on June 17th. Brendan Daniel Bean came into the world at 1:25 am on June 18, 2008. It was crazy! I didn't get to have ANY pain medication at all cause it went so quickly. Not the way I would've chosen to give birth to my first but it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. Plus now everyone keeps telling me how amazing I am :-) I have broken blood vessels in both eyes to prove just how tough I was, lol. So if you see some creepy pictures of me, that's what that is. Brendan was 7 lbs, 1 oz and 20.5 inches long. He is absolutely adorable!

We came home yesterday after what seemed like the longest discharge process ever! We're all very tired but enjoying seeing lots of family and friends. Brent is doing great and is such a proud Daddy. He's taking good care of me and Brendan. I'm experiencing the joys (and pains) of breastfeeding. And Brendan is doing his best to not let us sleep at night. We're all learning from each other and while it is very tiring, it's been an amazing experience so far.

Water Broke?!?

2008-06-17T20:54:00.000-07:00

We think the water just broke....We are going to the ER to check.....more updates to come...maybe. lol

At most 1 more week!

2008-06-16T09:11:00.000-07:00

Our appointment went well today. We told the doc that I had been having more cramps/upper uterus pain in the past couple of days. And I am 90% effaced and 1 cm dilated! I can't believe it jumped that much again. So I went from 0% to 50% to 60% to 90%. The other news is that if Brendan decides to stay in just one more week, we are going to induce next Tuesday. And those who know me well enough to know my birthday... that's next Tuesday. Some people would say "aww, that's exciting!" but since I am a middle child and love to get attention when I can, I say "but that's MY birthday!". I told Brent that if our son loves me, he won't want me to be in the pains of labor on my birthday, lol. But I also noted that most of the major dates in my life have occurred on even numbered months, days, and years. Though Brent quickly reminded me that we started dating on an odd month, day, and year. So who knows? What we do know is that I am definitely close to having labor start naturally and that we hope that's what happens but if not... we'll have a baby by next Tuesday (or Wednesday). My guess is that it will happen before next Tuesday honestly. So I'm really glad Mom, Brent, and I worked really hard this past week to get things washed and put away in the baby's room. Now we just need to catch up the rest of the house!

1 week left?!

2008-06-10T07:12:00.000-07:00

Monday's appointment went well. I am now 60% effaced and a little less than 1 cm dilated. My doc said he thinks I'm only going to carry this baby for another week! Crazy! So I went ahead and decided that I needed a day to organize the baby room and wash and that I needed my wonderful mother to help me. So that's what we're doing tomorrow. I told her and Brent that knowing me, as soon as I get that done (and our bag for the hospital packed) I'll probably relax and then the baby will come, lol. Brent told me I should've made today the organizing/cleaning day so the baby would come tomorrow. Tomorrow is Brent's dad's birthday.

The church shower was wonderful! We got so many presents! I went through all of the clothes that we got from all 4 showers to see how many we had in each size. We definitely have plenty in the 3 month, 6 month, and 3-6 month size. And the majority of what we got were onesies. Which will be good for this summer. I'm also excited cause we have 3 outfits to choose from for Brendan to wear on the 4th of July. Which I guess we can take him to the festivities? We'll probably see how we're all doing first. I'll have to invest in some sunscreen for the babe too, cause since he's our child, he'll be a fried bean if we don't protect him from the sun!

I think that's all for now. So I'm hoping that I continue to get as good a night's sleep each night as last night up until the little bean decides to pop out! We will keep you updated!

Exciting gift news!

2008-06-04T12:10:00.000-07:00

I just heard about an exciting gift to buy for yourself, grandparents, father's day gift, etc. from a fellow mommy-to-be. At her hospital they offer a kit from Build-A-Bear to record the baby's heartbeat so you can then take it to Build-A-Bear and forever immortalize your child in a bear (or whatever stuffed animal you choose). I don't know yet if my hospital offers this and yours may not either but not to worry! In doing a few quick searches I discovered that people have been doing this for a long time without the hospital's help and that it was a hospital in the northeast that actually started this $30 kit idea. They offer the sound recording and like a hospital t-shirt or something like that. So the cheap and easy way to do this is to go to Build-A-Bear and buy their "Build-A-Sound" kit for $8 and take it to your next appointment to record the baby's heartbeat. And then of course go back to put it in a stuffed animal.

Anyways, I thought this was one of the cutest and most unique ideas I'd heard of so I thought I'd pass it along.

Things are progressing nicely

2008-06-03T19:17:00.001-07:00

So yesterday we had another appointment. The doctor said that I am 50% effaced now. Last week I was 0% so I guess the kid is getting impatient, lol. I also got the results of the Strep B test and it was positive. All that means is that I am a carrier and so I'll have to have antibiotics during labor so I don't pass it on to our son. It's no big deal and is actually fairly common.

We asked the doctor to clarify what he had said last week about the due date. He explained the due date to us being like an airport. You are scheduled to land on the due date but you might sit on the runway for a while or circle the airport a few times, etc. But he still thinks the baby is going to come early. He said since he's probably about 7 pounds now that the closer we get to the due date the bigger the numbers are going to get. He said we'll probably talk in a couple of weeks and see what options we have. He did say that obviously the best way to give birth is naturally and that you can deliver an 8 pounder but there are options and we'll just decide what's best for me and the baby at that point.

In the meantime I'm starting to feel a lot more pressure, especially when I stand up after sitting for a while. I finally asked about taking Zantac and the doctor said that was fine. I finally slept through the night last night without having to wake up and eat Tums 1 or 2 times. That's the first time that's happened since around week 27 or so... I honestly can't remember when it was but I know it's been a while!

I just realized that I have yet to put the poor child's name on our blog! It's not like we've been keeping it a secret but it's just not been published anywhere (with the exception of shower invitations). His name is going to be Brendan Daniel. The only story behind the name is that Brendan is a name I read in the Lois Duncan book A Gift of Magic when I was in Junior High and it's stuck with me ever since. I actually discovered when I went looking through the book that it's spelled differently in there but I like it better this way. And Daniel is Brent's middle name. My dad and I both have looked up the meaning of Brendan and we came up with two different things. Dad found that it was derived from the Welsh word meaning "prince". When I looked it up I found that it was Irish and meant "little raven". I just looked it up again and in England it means "sword". I think "prince" is our favorite so far. It fits since he's the first grandchild on both sides of the family and will be spoiled rotten, lol.

Maybe less than 4.5 weeks?!

2008-05-27T14:33:00.001-07:00

We went to the doctor for a checkup and ultrasound today. We got the mean ultrasound tech again. She did the first one so I guess it was fitting for her to do the last one. But we don't like her at all! She's very technically-minded so she doesn't have a very good bedside manner. The other lady will actually listen to Brent when he asks a million questions (cause he's very curious since he's a nurse), this lady doesn't. But anyway. So we came away with one picture from the ultrasound that all you can see pretty much is a nose. I'll post it later.

This ultrasound was to measure things and determine how big the baby is (or at least their best guesstimate). He's 6 lbs 8 ozs right now! And I technically have 4.5 weeks left! The doctor said that he thinks we're talking mid-June now. We didn't get a chance to ask him exactly what he meant by that (adjustment of due date or meaning he wants to induce) but we'll definitely ask Monday when we go back! Personally, either way is fine by me! This appointment was also to get the Strep swab/culture. So I guess we'll find out about that on Monday too.

So we're getting down to the wire here it sounds like. I'll try to give more frequent updates as we get closer. All I know is that I need him to hold out till after June 7th! (The date of the church shower, lol.) Papaw Bean is hoping that he's born on June 11th which is his birthday. I'm just hoping he doesn't try to come out on June 13th cause it's Friday the 13th! Ahh! Though Brent would love that cause 13 is his favorite number, lol.

5 and 1/2 weeks

2008-05-19T22:01:00.000-07:00

FIVE AND A HALF WEEKS!!!! This is daddy Bean writting in because basically i haven't written in a while. Well we are gathering more and more baby items and they are some how magically fitting in the nursery. My work just threw me a diaper shower and we now have over 1600 diapers in the house....and yes before it is said....I do know that we will use every single one of them and more. Well the baby seems to be warm and happy at the moment. He seems to be punishing Jennifers right side...making it nice and tender. He is getting to the point that you can actually see his kicks instead of just feel and say "I think that was a kick". We just keep going day by day waiting for our little screaming crying bundle of joy to appear. I seem to be sleeping longer and longer on my days off trying to store up sleep but as I have been told by many professional and non professional personel that this does not work and will not help. I am enjoying the sleep and I do not feel the least bit guilty. Well that about it from the baby front. Sorry my blogs are not as nicely sprinkled with pictures like my wife but she seems to get to the camera first. Well until next time....Bye.

11 weeks to go!

2008-04-13T12:49:00.000-07:00

Can you believe it? 11 more weeks and there will be another Bean in the world! Thank goodness tax season is over so I can concentrate on 2 upcoming showers and getting the little Bean's room ready (and clothes and bedding washed) and choosing a pediatrician! Amongst a million other things left to do. I'm exhausted just thinking about it, lol. Speaking of showers... we're registered at Babies R Us and Target. Here's the theme for the baby's room. And as soon as I actually get it washed and set up in the actual room, I'll post another pic.

And as promised... I have finally found our camera cables and you can enjoy beautiful prego pics of me! Lol. These are from Easter. Sorry for the blurriness... we got this camera for Christmas and we obviously haven't figured it out quite yet!

I almost forgot to add a comment about the glucose screening test. First off everything I read about the drink they give you said it was horrible. Well, honestly, I liked it. Maybe it's cause I have a gigantic sweet tooth! When my doc went over the results with me he said that I get a gold star. Apparently 130 is the cutoff and I was at 121. So I passed! Whew. So, yeah, he's still using that P word (perfect).

So my first shower is the first weekend in May and we're having it here at our house. So hopefully that means I'll get everything unpacked before then and I can take lots of pics of the house to share on my Xanga blog! I'll post a few here too since some will be baby-related.

Drumroll, if you please

2008-02-17T21:05:00.001-08:00

So, working our way from the top... the first picture is the stomach (the black dot). The next picture shows us... IT'S A BOY!!!! Thank you all for participating in our poll and I'm sorry if your guess was incorrect. We are so stinking excited!!!! We both wanted a boy. So the next two pictures, we think anyways, are our son's attempt at signing "I love you" and getting his guns up for Texas Tech. Lol. Actually, the second one looks more like number 1 than the guns up sign, but we'll take what we can get right now!

And these are the 3D ultrasound pics that they took at our doctor's office! We were stoked about these. We were actually planning a trip to a place downtown that would've put a bunch of these on a DVD with music for like $200, so we were really glad that they did them as a normal part of the ultrasound. The first 2 pics we refer to as the "Linus" pics. I can already tell we'll have a blanket-toting son. And the last two, I think anyways, show that he has my cheekbones and Brent's nose! Of course, we'll still have to wait to see if he gets Brent's brown eyes or my blue eyes.

Sorry for the long delay in posting! I was hoping to find the cords to the new camera we got for Christmas so that I could upload pics of me and not just the baby, lol. But alas, they're in a box somewhere. That, and the very proud Daddy of the baby has been showing off the pics at work. So I couldn't scan them until tonight.

I'm still doing great. The doctor keeps using that "perfect" word. He said the baby is in the 71st percentile for his size. I'm hoping he doesn't get any bigger for my sake, lol! Tax season is keeping me busy at the moment so I don't know when the next blog entry will be, but I'll try to update sooner next time. Oh, and one more pic for the road. This is the crib we've decided on:

We were having a difficult time finding a crib that would match the furniture that we already had from my childhood cause it's antique white. But this crib from Target was as near to perfect as we could get! I can't wait to set it up! We're still deciding on a theme for the nursery.

That's all for now!

3rd Ultrasound Update

2008-01-09T20:11:00.000-08:00

It turns out that my doc is not in the office on Valentines Day so the ultrasound is now scheduled for the 15th of February. I don't know why they let me schedule these appointments knowing he wasn't going to be in the office to see me after the ultrasounds. Do they think I have all the time in the world to live in the doctor's office?!

2nd Ultrasound

2007-12-19T21:10:00.000-08:00

So sorry to keep everyone waiting for so long for the update on the baby! We've been super busy trying to pack up our itty bitty house (which holds way too much it seems) to move to our bigger house.

The appointment went very well. We got to see our very active baby from many different angles. Here are the pics:

The first picture is our baby lying on it's back. The second picture shows the nasal bone and other facial features. The third picture is the creepy skeleton picture but it's the baby's face. (Brent speaking now: The baby is not creepy, it is cute.) Back to Jennifer: Seriously, it creeps me out. The fourth picture shows the baby's fingers. I wonder if he (oops, there I go again) is sucking his thumb?

We got to hear the heartbeat too! How fun is that? It was beating pretty fast. The doctor is still using that P word (perfect). Lol. He said everything still looks good. All the bloodwork that they've done so far has had good results. In January I go for more bloodwork. And the next time we get to see the bundle of joy again (and hopefully answer the question of boy or girl) is February 14th!

Number one question that I've been asked in the past month: Have you been sick? And everyone hates me for not being sick. Since when did not being sick become a bad thing? Lol.

That's it for now!

Daddy's take on the appointment

2007-11-24T19:51:00.001-08:00

I was about to write a long post telling about Jen's appointment but then I realized she had already done that. Well now on to waiting till December 14th till the baby is bigger and then will really start to look like daddy. :) Till the next bit of news. c-ya

Yesterday's Appointment

2007-11-21T07:49:00.000-08:00

I had another checkup. My doc said that everything looked good and everything was growing correctly. We also tried to hear the baby's heartbeat with a little doppler gizmo, but the baby was not cooperating. I think it's cause he (oop, there I go again calling it a he) was waiting for Daddy to hear it :-) I think it could also be because of the freezing cold waiting room they stuck me in for over half an hour, the poor thing was probably thawing out, lol! I would've been sad if I got to hear the heartbeat without Brent, so I'm glad we didn't hear it.

Next checkup is the 14th, though I found out my doc won't be in on the 14th so I had to make a different appointment to see him. I might call and see if I can consolidate the two on the 17th. We'll see.

Hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!

Jennifer's Post

2007-11-15T21:25:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! I finally get to do a post! Hehe, I've been really busy with work and what not. But I finally managed to get my official Month 2 belly shot. Isn't it beautiful? Well if not, this is sure to make you smile:

For those who are new to this whole baby thing... on the right hand side of that big black area... is our baby! It's feet are touching the right-hand side. And there's a little black circle underneath it and that's the yolk sack... so I'm told. They told us that in this picture (which was taken on 11/5/07 by the way) the baby is as long as two nickels stacked together. Can you believe that?! It's so tiny. We were looking at a poster in the doctor's office and the difference in size between now and the one we'll take December 14th is amazing. It's actually making me kinda nervous... cause that weekend is the musical at the church... and I don't think the pants of the costume (uniform, whatever you wanna call it) are gonna fit me! But anyways, enjoy the picture of our little teeny tiny baby! By the way... everyone thinks it's going to be a boy. We all just have a feeling. I keep calling it a "he" too.

Boy or Girl

2007-11-09T20:08:00.000-08:00

Well we found out the other day that we will be finding the gender of the baby on...........ready for this.....Valentines Day. How cool is that. We are both really excited and wish it would get here sooner but alas. The next time our baby goes in for his/her close up will be on December 14th. That will mean Jen is 12 weeks along.

The Ultrasound

2007-11-06T07:44:00.000-08:00

Everything looks perfect. We went and got the ultrasounds, saw the blob which will be our beautiful baby and saw his/her heartbeat. It was amazing. We have pictures and are showing everyone like good proud parents should. (ex "Here, look at my blob. Isn't it the most beautiful blob you've ever seen.") The doctor said it was attached at the right spot, the right size (6 mm. the width of 2 nickles stacked together) and looking perfect. Couldn't ask for more. I will try and get the picture of our blob up for all the world to admire and comment on how cute it is. :) I'm sure my very smart wife could figure it out but until then....it is just me rambling.

JENNIFER'S PREGNANT

2007-11-02T17:17:00.001-07:00

Wow. Thats all we can really say. A baby Bean is about to come into the world and this is where you can find all the up-to-date info about all that is Bean. Were going for our first ultrasound on Monday November 5th so we are very excited. Well that is all for now. More updates to come.