Brendan catchup

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

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

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

Oh, and this is the bedding we decided on:

Big boy bed

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

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

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

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

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

Name reveal

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



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

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

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

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

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

Decisions, decisions

So this may be my new finalist for bedding choices:



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

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

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

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

It's a Girl!

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

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






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

Stats Update

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

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

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