New baby things

March 1, 2011

I am beginning the 23rd week of pregnancy this week. I can feel the baby moving around like crazy. He is an active one!! I keep saying that I hope this one is a calm, laid-back baby so I'll have a bit of sanity since Noah is such a fireball. BUT, I have a feeling I'm just going to have 2 crazy kiddos. That's alright with me. I already know how to deal with it...I've had a lot of experience already with Matt, Noah, and now another one. In case you're wondering...they get it from Matt :)

This baby is also very very low just like Noah was, which means that I can breathe great but I have to go the bathroom every 2 seconds again. It doesn't sound like a big deal but it really is annoying and takes a ton of time out of the day. Also, long trips in the car are out for now. I feel for people that deal with this all of the time.

Here are some belly pics (I had to take them myself so I couldn't get everything in one shot - Matt took some but they were pretty terrible looking so these will work)

So, I've been thinking about what all we need to get for this baby (which thankfully isn't much since it's a boy and his birthday will be right next to Noah's). The problem is that everything we need is something expensive. We have to have another video monitor. I can't even imagine how people manage without one. I thought about just moving Noah's over and getting him a sound one but we are about to move him to a toddler bed so I need to see if he's actually staying in it. We are also going to need a new stroller for 2 babies. Noah can't walk by himself yet (he can but he doesn't pay attention) and I can't push 2 strollers. We take a lot of walks and go to the park all the time. We have to have one. The rest is just a few new decorations for the nursery and a ceiling fan. Other than that we are good. Noah stuff is in great shape and we always had so much stuff with him that a lot of it barely got used. I can't wait to unpack it all and get it out for the new baby!

We are planning on decorating the nursery with old fashioned war-type airplanes. The inspiration was from this picture that Matt has had for along time but I never liked anywhere else in our house. It's actually really perfect! I made some bedding to go along with it that turned out great! I spent $20 on fabric and made a bumper pad, bed skirt, curtains, and some other random stuff out of it. It is SO much cuter than anything we could've bought and I had fun doing it. Here are some pics (more when the room is finished):

Picture

Bumper Pad

Bedskirt

Don't Say...

February 25, 2011

...bath, pee-pee, vacuum, or outside in front of Noah or you will pay! Especially bath. If you don't intend to immediately put in him the bathtub he will let you know he is NOT happy. This includes even saying bathroom. Like "I'm going to the bathroom" - that is a big no-no at our house right now. He loves to take a bath and will stay in there until he is forced out. It's nice that he likes it so much but it's always a fight trying to get him out and back into some clothes.

Pee-pee --- like I said in a previous blog we are working on getting Noah familiar with using the toilet so I have always said "Do you need to pee-pee?" So now pee-pee is an automatic command to go...no matter where he is. If he doesn't have a diaper on, you better watch what you say. I made that mistake while he was laying on the bed naked. I ask him if he needed to go pee-pee and apparently he did. He immediately peed all over the bed. Like I said, it's a slow process.

Vacuum --- this is the worst obsession he has right now. All we do all day is go back and forth about getting the vacuum out for him to play with. The problem is that he cries most of the time it's out anyway so it's really a no win situation. He wants to take it here or there or plug it in or pour something on the floor to clean it up. Lots of stuff he's not allowed to do. So we've banned the word. Noah says a version of vacuum that sounds a lot like bath. I don't know.. but I DO know which one he means so I have to be careful. Both are dangerous words!

Outside --- this wouldn't be so much of a problem if it would just get warm and stay warm. If we have a nice day I let Noah spend most of it playing outside. However, he wants to go out all the time. At night, when it's freezing, just whatever is fine with him. He doesn't even notice the cold. However, I notice it and I don't like it. I say no Noah it's cold outside. And he says, "burrrr" and shivers. It's pretty cute but then he stills wants to go out. I have to be careful about saying outside because if I do he thinks we are going out and gets mad if we don't.

He's also all about saying uh-oh and yes right now. He answers everything with a very enthusiastic "yes". I'll say, "Noah, do you want to go to time out?" I get, "YES!" with a head nod and big smile. It's funny. The uh-oh is out of control though. If he sees anything, and I mean ANYTHING, out of place he sets there, points at it, and yells "uh-oh!" over and over and over until I either fix it or convince him that it's okay. Matt and I moved a few things around in the living room and he about lost it. He also does it when his videos are over and he sees words on the screen and he doesn't stop until you either start it over or turn it off. Also when he drops (throws) anything on the floor.

Other new things that he's doing are pointing and labeling everything he sees...this is mostly when he is watching a video. He points at the screens and says the name of whatever happens to be on it. Most of the time he gets it right, a few times he has no idea what it is but makes up a name anyway. He has also started doing a few new animal sounds on his own. The best is elephant. He puts his arm up in front of his face and makes it go up and down like a trunk and makes this high pitched squealing sound. He also does tiger, bear, and duck pretty well now.

He also loves to wave at everyone, everywhere we go. He's always been super friendly and now that he can say "hi" and "bye" and wave, he does. He waves at every car that drives by our house if we are outside. He waves at every person and car that we pass walking into Wal-Mart or where ever. He waves to everything - TV's, dogs, cats, himself in the mirror, and he waves night-night to daddy, Zoe, and Max. He also says either hi or bye to everyone along with the wave. We meet a lot of new people everywhere we go thanks to Noah.

Making a huge mess with his noodles

Trying to decide what to watch - he knows exactly what to do.

Video of Noah picking out a DVD, putting in it, and starting it:

Happy Valentine's Day!

February 20, 2011

We had a little bit of a crazy Valentine's Day...with all the snow storms we didn't get to celebrate on the actual day but we improvised. Matt was stuck at work and I was stuck at home so we celebrated a little late but Noah did finally get some chocolate. I bought him and Matt a little thing of chocolate to share BUT Noah ate the entire thing in about 3 minutes before Matt ever saw it. I should've known better...Noah loves his candy. Even after it was gone, he wouldn't forget about it. He keep getting the thing out of the trash and saying "more, more, more". He wouldn't even let me have a piece. I let him do whatever he wanted with the candy. I mean, he doesn't ever get candy and he loves it and it was Valentine's Day. He had a lot of fun eating it needless to say... Finally, Matt got home and we were able to celebrate a little bit. I did have to go buy Matt more candy though.

Playing with Mommy's make-up (one of his favorite activities) There has to be SOMETHING he enjoys doing while I get ready ;)

It's a Boy!!!

February 17, 2011

So we finally got some pictures of the new baby. Yea! We had our first ultrasound on Feb. 17 to check everything and find out what the sex was. We both sort of had a feeling that it was a boy and sure enough it was! We are very excited to have another little boy around the house and I know Noah will be a great big brother. He loves on Max and Zoe so much that he drives them crazy. I'm sure I'll be pulling him off of the baby constantly but only because he will want to cuddle with him all the time. My new due date is officially July 3 (which is Kelsey's b-day) so now I am about 21 weeks pregnant. A little over half way there! Time is flying already and I can't wait to meet him!

Everything has been going great so far. I'm huge but not really with a lot of weight gain but just my stomach. I can't really tell how much bigger I am this time around but I have a feeling it's quite a bit. I'm just happy that I'm no longer sick and that the baby is healthy and growing good. We haven't gotten anywhere on names yet so I'll keep you posted on that. Enjoy the new baby pics!

Arm and Hand

It's a boy!

Sweet baby profile! Looks quite a bit like Noah to me already...

Baby foot

20 Months Old

February 12, 2011

It seems like I have a lot of Noah pictures that include an extremely messy face with either peanut butter or nutella. But, I love this picture because you can really see how huge his eyes are. Everywhere we go people just can't get over his eyes. I agree...they are beautiful!

Noah just turned 20 months old and is really starting to improve in the talking area. His favorite words: more(which I hear one million times a day and kind of wish he didn't know), zoe, max, daddy, noodles, outside, vacuum, dog, bird, plane, ball, elmo, water, bowl, bath, choo choo, car, open, show, fan, and light. They are probably a lot more that he doesn't say as often, I just can't think of them. He is getting good at repeating what I'm saying and you can actually understand what he is saying now. I love that he can talk more BUT he can ask for more stuff now. Which usually leads to me saying no more, and therefore more fits on the floor. However, I'm extremely proud of him and really can't wait for him to learn one more thing...the meaning of "hold on a minute Noah, Mommy is busy". We will celebrate on that day...

Another thing we have been sort of working on is potty training. I don't really know what started it but he loves it. He will sit on the big toilet and go. Even if he doesn't need to go, he will try really hard to squeeze some out. He has even let me know that he has to go "pee-pee" in public and gone to the bathroom instead of the diaper. He got a Thomas the train toilet seat to set on and loves it. Sometimes he does get distracted by the trains though and starts pointing at them and saying "choo-choo" and forgets all about peeing. We are taking it really really slowly but so far so go. Keep you posted on that...

We've had a ton of snow lately (finally!) and Noah loved every second of it. All he wanted to do was go play outside. It was WAY to cold for outside so we would go in the garage to get snow and bring it inside to play with. So now, he wants to get a "bowl" and "spoon" and then heads to the garage door to get more "snow". It's become a problem. I'll have to break him of that now. Here are some pictures from the 5 days that Noah and I were trapped in the house together:

Snuggling with Max on the bed after several hours of snow cooking

Okay, so Noah is obsessed with shoes these days. At least once a day, he goes to his closet and pulls out all his shoes (or mine or Matt's) to try on and stomp around in for a few minutes. Here are a couple of his favorites - Mommy's boots and his black dress shoes:

Finally Daddy made it home from work and they built a snow dog in the front yard. I think Noah tried to tear it down about as fast as Matt could build it but he finally succeeded in making this pretty impressive dog:

A Lot To Be Thankful For...

January 25, 2011

So, I mentioned in the last blog that we have a lot to be thankful for this year and. for those of you who don't know yet, Baby Bradshaw #2 is on the way! I guess I'll have to change the name of the blog soon...

Anyway, we found out that we were going to have another one in November and we were very excited. Noah has been such a blessing and wonderful addition to our family. We know that the next one will add even more excitement and joy to our lives. This pregnancy has been pretty much the same as with Noah. Lots of being sick for the first 3 months. Now, I am finally starting to feel a little better. At this time, I am about 16 weeks along and the due date is July 10, 2011. Exactly one month after Noah turns two. A little nervous about having a newborn and a toddler but very excited!

The only real problem I've had with this one is that I am HUGE already. I already look like I did when I was 6 months pregnant with Noah. It's really not fair but I have a lot to be thankful for so I'm trying not to complain about it. I know people that can't have kids would love to be huge with a new baby on the way. So, I'm sure that by the end of this one I'm going to have a big challenge with losing the one ton of weight that I gained.

We are finding out what the sex is on February 17 so I'll be letting you know! We can't wait to find out and will be thrilled either way.

Happy New Year!

January 15, 2010

Happy 2011 everyone! We are having a great year so far. Lots of things to be thankful for already. Noah just turned 19 months old on the 8th and is going strong. Now that we've survived Christmas, we are enjoying just hanging out with Noah and watching all the funny things he does every day. One of his new favorite activities is building tents out of blankets in the living room. This is my fault --- I started it because I thought he would like it. He did! Now it's all he wants to do. He'll drag out all the blankets and chairs, then point to them and look at me like, "Get busy and build this thing so I can play!" Here's some shots of him chillin and drinking his morning coffee in the tent:

Of course, he still loves to clean which mostly consists of him making messes then going to the cleaning closet and screaming until I get the vacuum out for him. He doesn't always win but this day he did:

Another thing we've been doing a lot of these days is painting. He loves to draw and color but always ends up eating the crayons. So I had a bright idea of switching to painting because kids don't eat watercolor paint right? Wrong! He ate it. His entire mouth was black and blue for hours after the first try so now I watch him a little closer while he has the paints out. I find this very strange since he refuses to eat food but whatever. The kid loves to eat disgusting stuff. Typical boy.

I'm going to try not to get too boring but still catch up on everything he's doing these days so I hope this doesn't sound too much like a grocery list. Here goes:

He loves to play with his big lego blocks now and is constantly dragging them out to play. When Daddy is home that's all he wants to do. Matt will stack them up as high as he can then Noah will charge it and knock it down and crack up. He'll stack them up too but it usually doesn't get very far before the urge to knock them everywhere takes over. He also loves to drive his car around and drags it to the front door everyday to go outside for a ride. He talks on the phone all the time now and everyone loves to talk to him. He gets really serious and just talks and talks. The problem is that he doesn't really say any words yet. Just a bunch of nonsense. It's really funny. Sometimes you will hear an actual "hi" "bye" "grandma" or "dada" but that's about it. He's getting better at talking but he just doesn't show much interest in it yet. I'm still hoping...

He's been going to stay with my parents for a weekend here and there lately and he's picked up some new habits. One of my "favorite" is spitting. I guess Grandpa spits a lot so now Noah spits a lot. He spits in the sink, spits on the carpet, and pretty much anytime he looks in the mirror he will spit just to watch it run down his face. Luckily, he doesn't spit on people so I guess it's okay. He just imitates everything we do these days. He's into pretend shaving like Daddy but the other day he got ahold of an actual razor and nicked his chin before I even realized he had it. He loves to drink coffee and beer. I know that sounds awful but he is obsessed with them so sometimes I'll let him have a little coffee or Matt will let him taste the beer. I thought at first he wouldn't like it so he would stop begging for a drink. But no. He loves them both.

Anyway, I'll guess I'll stop for now so this doesn't get too long and boring.

Trying to open the oven door with the can opener. Genius!

Eating peanut butter and loving it!

Video of Noah counting to three and jumping off the chair repeatedly: