Boys will be Boys

Having a little boy is so much fun! However I find myself saying this statement all the time "He is such a boy!"  I love it that he digs in the dirt, gets into everything, and can find water anywhere.  I try and embrace this and so the other day it had been raining all morning and it finally cleared up in the afternoon.  It was very wet outside and plenty of puddles for him to splash in.  It was chilly so I knew we wouldn't have a ton of time but I wanted him to have some fun.  I think he did and here is the proof:

It first started out with him running through the mud, splashing and laughing.

Then the digging started.  by the time he was done he was sitting in the mud and throwing it at Kiara.

We ended our time outside rinsing off his little swimming pool that was full again thanks to the morning rain.

I think he had a great time outside! Boys are so much fun.

That being said I am very excited to have a baby girl.  I know some girls love dirt and water too and I hope mine does but it will also be fun to have an afternoon where we can paint our nails!

Our Precious Little Girl

I have been debating for quite a while if I should even write a post about this but, since I want this blog to be like a journal that our kids can look back on and read about our family I decided this needed to be in here.

Let me start back at the beginning I had my 20 week ultrasound where there were a few things that we were concerned about: 1) There was something that didn't look right with the skull, there was and extra line that they were not sure what it was.  2) The kidneys were dilated at the upper limit of normal.  3) The bowels were a little bright.  This lead us to get another ultrasound with a specialist 4 days later.  This ultrasound went a little better, we found out that there is nothing wrong with her head it was just the view that was distorted earlier.  The kidneys also looked and measured normal.  The bowels were the only issue and there were not echogenic but very close.  We were given a lot of options but we chose to just check on everything again in 2 weeks.  That next appointment the bowels looked brighter and qualified to be echogenic so we set up an appointment with a genetic councilor to get some blood work done. 

It was going to take up to 3 weeks to get all of our results back and so we were ready for a long wait, however a week later all of our results were back.  Everything came back normal except for the test checking for chromosomal abnormalities, it was positive for trisomy 21, Down Syndrome.  It was a big shock for everyone and something that we really didn't want to have to deal with but it was the situation we were in.  I think the emotional aspect is an entire different post.

Since we have found out I have had ultrasounds every 2 weeks along with our regular OB appointments and normal tests.  So that means I go to the doctors about once a week.

Our latest appointment with specialists was Monday and we went to go get an echo of her heart.  There was a 40% chance of her having a heart problem but everything looked great.  We also had an ultrasound with our OB specialist and everything is still the same as it was at 20 weeks, the bowels are really the only issue but things are not changing so that is a plus.  I get to go 3 weeks before I go back because things have not changed much.

This little girl has added a little more stress into our lives and some challenges but I'm sure adding another child always does.  We have grown to love her more and more every time we get to see her and we are very excited for her to be apart of our family.

Mobile Snapshops #6

Playing in the rain/Cuddle time on the couch/My ring got re-plated and it was so shiny when I got it back

Bronco's first game/New ways to play with his toys/ Every morning with Kiara

Our hardwood floors

Playtime outside/Bomb-fire with wood from our pool deck

Playing with the camera

All about Blaiden

There have been a few changes with Blaiden and I wanted to do an update on these changes.

We have been refinishing the floors in the kids' bedrooms.  Fred did all the work of tearing out the old carpet, prepared the floor, sanding, staining, and polyurethane.  All the work took 2-3 days but the hard part was waiting at least a week for the floors to cure before we moved the furniture back in.  We did the babies room first and then 2 weeks later we moved Blaiden into her room to work on his floor.  Blaiden did not like not being in his own room and we had a week and a half of being tired because no one in the house was getting a good night sleep. Blaiden is back in his room and sleeping much better.

Blaiden is now in a big boy bed!  It all started on August 28th when he was just sleeping in it at nap time.  This went really well, he would stay in bed and sleep his normal time.  A week and a half later we took the crib out and he was going to be in his bed the full time.  The first few nights went perfect.  He would go to sleep easy, didn't get out of the bed, and slept through the night.  After about 5 nights he started waking up and getting a little scared and would get out of bed.  I would have to go in and rock him and read stories to calm him down before he would go back to sleep.  Then we moved him into the babies room to do his floor and the sleeping just got worse.  The entire week and a half  he was in there he was waking up 3+ times a night.  He would not go back to sleep so we ended up watching cartoons in the middle of the night, reading an endless amount of books, and drying tons of tears.  When we moved him back into his bedroom it got a little better, we had to work at it but for the most part we are back to normal and sleeping through the night most of the time.
  
In the beginning I was against switching him into a toddler bed.  He was sleeping so well which meant I was sleeping.  Fred thought it was a good idea to get him in there before the baby came so we could use the same crib, I would have just bought another one.  Now that a month has passed I can say that Fred was probably right and we saved a bit of money reusing the crib we have.

Another big deal for Blaiden (not really, just a big deal for me) is he had a babysitter for an entire day!  Okay, Okay, it wasn't an entire day it was from about 10:30 to 3:45.   I have only been away from Blaiden for that long 1 other time but it was at night and so he didn't really know I was gone that long.  I had a few doctor appointments that were all scheduled on the same day.  It was going to be hard for Blaiden to come and spend so much time in a hospital and the doctors had said it would be best if he wasn't there so Fred and I could pay attention to what was going on.  We had a friend come over to the house.  When we left Blaiden didn't even get that sad which made it a little easier on me.  They had a great day and when we came home Blaiden was happy to see us but still just wanted to play.

This gets me thinking how when i have the baby I am going to be away from Blaiden for about 2 days! Again I am not sure he will mind it much but it is going to be so hard for me!!

And just because I love to share photos her are a few of Blaiden:

Yard Sale

About a month ago we had a yard sale.  This post is a little late, I actually didn't plan on writing a post about it because it was not that eventful, but when I was looking at my pictures from this last month I have some great ones I wanted to share.  First lets talk about our yard sale.  During the move we found that we had a ton of stuff that we didn't want anymore.  I would have just given it all away but Fred talked me into having a yard sale.  We asked around and found another family that wanted to add some stuff so we had enough to make it worth while. The week before Fred and I were pricing and setting up every night after Blaiden went to bed, and some nights before.  We set everything up in the garage and sun room so I wouldn't have to do much when I opened each day.  We held it Thursday thru Saturday and there were 2 other houses on our street that were doing the same thing, I think this really helped out with getting traffic.  We got rid of almost all of our stuff, made some extra money, and cleaned out our house.  Now here are the pictures:

 Blaiden was having so much fun while Fred was cleaning out the grill we were selling. 

 

 Fred was there to help on Friday afternoon and Saturday so we moved stuff out into the driveway.

 

Apple Picking

A friend of mine asked if we wanted to go apple picking with her and her kids.  It sounded so fun so Blaiden and I went.  The day was a little overcast and we were worried that it might start raining on us but it turned out to be a great day for apple picking.  Blaiden had a blast running around, I could hardly keep up with him.  He was so excited to just touch everything.  When he started picking apples he was grabbing with both hands, it was so cute.  After a few he found an apple he liked and started to chow down, I had to finish filling up our bag because he was to busy eating.
 

We ended up with an entire bag of apples for $4!  Blaiden had fun which was really the only goal and now I can't wait to make this a yearly occurrence.  Maybe even more frequent then once a year.