Ready, Set, Hike!

Beckett started his first sport this past Saturday! Mr. Four-Year-Old is officially in flag football :) I was hesitant to sign him up for it, afterall, he's still just a baby! But he's been tagging along Reese and all of her activities for years, so I told him when he turned 4 he could pick something. I didn't care if he picked guitar, gymnastics, soccer, whatever he wanted. He picked FOOTBALL and I thought, uh, that wasn't one of the options...

So here he is on his first day of flag football. Before we left that morning, he told Reese he was "going to win the trophy by kicking everyone in the face." Whaaaaat???

We had to be on the field at 8am, so on the way there, we grabbed a box of Munchkins and a hot chocolate from Dunkin' Donuts, had our water bottles and sweatshirts on and were ready to go :)

By 9am, it was already 85° so the sweatshirts were off and I was wanting some ICE for my cooled down hot chocolate, but nevertheless we had a fun morning.

Beckett was hilarious! He was so adorably clueless. Most plays everyone would run and he'd just stand there. Then the coach would yell, "Go! Run!" and he start running..... not necessarily in the direction of the ball and the other kids, but just around.  Then, in down times he'd run and say things to me like, "Can I have a doughnut?" or "There's grass on my mouth guard, can you wipe it off on your shirt for me?" PRICELESS.

Wade was so disappointed he had to work and wasn't able to be there. He told me he'd rather miss all the rest of the Iowa games this season if he could just watch his son play football each week. Awwwww. Lucky for him, this isn't B's varsity year of football, so I'm sure he'll have plenty of games to watch in the next couple years. :)

Beckett, oh how I love you.

{from my camera phone, sorry about the not-so-stellar quality!}

Blowing Bubbles

It was sooooo beautiful out today, I hauled all 4 kids, some blankets, and our lunch outside today for a picnic under a big tree. It was lovely.

After that we played and then decided to blow bubbles. (We were out so I had to quickly make some.) After a bit, I needed a drink of water. When I came back outside I found these two sweet children sitting on the step together blowing bubbles.

Aww... it starts out so cute. :)

The little brother got bored and found something else to do.

Little brother's back and now he wants a turn.

He has a hard time doing it, so his big sister helps him.

But then Big sister decides he's had it long enough and now it's her turn. (Might be my favorite pic! Ha!)

Little brother puts the bubble wand in his mouth. Gross.

Then he starts flicking the bubble solution around. (No wait, this might be my favorite picture.)

Big sister is a little annoyed pretty angry that her little brother got soap in her eye.

And that's where the pictures stopped, so we could go inside and wash the dishsoap out of somebody's eye.

Oh, how I love these two. :)

Oh Beckett...

My brain has felt lopsided the past couple of days since I posted that sweet little post about Reese. When I look back, I notice a lot more posts about her than her little brother. And it's not because I love him less or isn't as cute, it's just he's a wild 18 month old and is nearly impossible to get a cute picture of him. That, and a lot of his cuteness can't really be shown in pictures or stories on a blog. It's his facial expressions, little cheeks, mischeviousness and mumbled words that make him so delicious.

{like how I steal all my pictures from her blog?}

Cannot. Get. Enough. Of. Him!

So here's a few funny tidbits (and one not so funny) of what the little guy's been up to lately.  

He is crazy about 'mo-mo-mos' (translate=motorcycles). Since the weather has warmed up, more people are out on their bikes and I swear he can hear them from a mile away. He gets so excited and points in that direction, looking to catch a glimpse of the speeding motorcycle.

On Thursday, it was a little chilly to go outside and play so I brought out a farm toy that he had gotten for Christmas that I had saved for a rainy day. He LOVED it. It had completely captured his attention for a good 30 minutes (long time for him), that is... until I got out a screwdriver to install the batteries.

After he saw those screwdrivers the farm set became invisible and nothing. else. mattered. He needed to find something to fix! We need to get this kid a little boy tool set so he doesn't have to keep stealing Daddy's. The kid's obsessed with tools. Amazing to me. Such a boy thing.

And here's a few pics from the other day when he so desperately wanted to paint his nails, too. Mostly, I think, he just wanted to unscrew the lids and examine the nail polish a little closer. He ended up with a light purple on his toes this time. (Seriously, you can barely see it...but Wade noticed right away. HA!)

And the last story about my sweet, sweet son involves my phone, a glass of water, and a tired mama on the internet looking up slow cooker recipes. Not cool, Beckett, not cool. We will be heading to Verizon soon to find a new phone!

On a different note, we are so excited that Wade will be home tomorrow! He has worked from 6am to 10pm every day this week (except for one where he saw the kids for about 15 minutes) and tonight it's almost midnight and he's still not home yet. :( It's been 2 weeks of this craziness so far this spring and at least one more.

So here's a shout out to all the wives of farmers or are in the farming business, wives of truckers over the road, wives of husbands who travel a lot, single moms, working moms, and pretty much moms in general, because being a mom is tough stuff!

We're hanging in there. :)

THIS KID.

Sometimes I have NO WORDS for this kid.

We did NOT have this issue with Reese. But today, he did it again. After a massive dirty diaper, I decided a bath would be the easiest way to clean him up. He hates being dried off and wiggles until he can get away. I swear, he was undiapered for less than 2 minutes! TWO MINUTES!! It's like he loves being naked and runs around like a crazy person, laughing and swinging his stuff around.

Not cool, buddy. Not cool.

Pee on the floor once, shame on you. Pee on the floor twice, shame on me.

Parenting Advice

 

Do not let young children (especially boys) run around without clothes or a diaper, no matter how cute they look after they take a bath!

This is Hard

I am still nursing Beckett.

But I think it might be time to start weaning him.

And he's not too happy about that.

He loves it. And to be honest, I really enjoy it too.

Which is why I'm so torn.

Because I feel this pressure that now that he's one, he needs to be done with breastfeeding.

But this breaks my heart. He just doesn't seem ready.
Knowing that he is so upset and I have the ability to comfort him and make my baby feel better but I choose not to feels wrong to me.
I just wish this was easier.

Beckett's ONE!

Dear Beckett,

It seems impossible to me that you are already a year old. How did this past year go by so fast!? My sweet, snuggly baby is turning into a little boy who plays with cars on the floor and prefers his daddy over me. This year has been such a wonderful year. I've grown as a mom, and learned to trust my instincts more and the "experts" less.

Oh, Becky. How I love your soft little curls and your cute little bottom. You eat way more than your big sister and you've got the belly to show for it. Your favorite foods are sweet potatoes, avocados and yogurt. Your not a big fan of baths, bottles, or strange people.

I know you will grow up to do big things. I won't tell you any of the dreams I have for you because I want you to figure them out yourself. And you will. This world is better because your in it, little guy. We love you more than I could possily ever explain to you.

Happy First Birthday, Little Guy. We think you're pretty awesome.

Sleepin' with my babies

As you know, I babysit a darling little 6 month old girl during the day, but I am also going to watch another sweet baby starting in August. The plan is that she will be here from about 6:30am 'til about 3:30pm. Yes, that's right, 6:30!!!!! Therefore, in the next couple of months I am going to try to enjoy as much cuddle time in the morning as possible.

As of right now, we roll outta bed whenever we feel like it. And I love that. (Wade is usually up by 4:30 to work out, so he misses out on all the morning love.)

Typically, Beckett will wake up around 6ish and I'll bring him in our bed to nurse and cuddle with him. Then, around 7ish, Reese will come hop in bed with us, too. She usually sleeps a little more or snuggles with me on which ever side Beckett's not on. But of course, being 2, she eventually gets restless and starts trying to play with Beckett and bouncing all over the place.

So around 8ish, we begin our morning routine of getting dressed and eating breakfast. Lexi Lou doesn't usually come until 9:30, so we can take our time. But man, I can't tell you how much I love those precious moments in the mornings. I am also so grateful of the 7 months that I got to sleep with Beckett right by my side the entire night. I miss that already. :( Hmm.... I'll just have to have more kids....

Beckett's Baptism

Beckett was baptised today!



It's a gorgeous Fall day, my husband is in the living room watching football, both my babies are asleep, I have nothing important to do, and I feel extremely blessed right now! *close my eyes, sigh and smile*

Smiles :)

Last weekend, since my brother Gregory wasn't able to go, I got the chance to go with Allison and Mitchell to go see the comedian Jim Gaffigan in Omaha. It was REALLY funny, as we knew it would be. After the first 5 minutes my eyes were tearing up, and after about 15 minutes my face hurt from laughing so much. Afterwards, we stayed to meet him and get our picture taken w/ him. Fun! If you haven't seen or heard of him, I'd highly reccommend that you check him out! :)





And speaking of smiles, Mr. Beckett started smiling this week. He's right on track, since he's 6 weeks old today! Here are a couple of his first smiles that I tried to capture on camera. The first one doesn't really look like he's smiling, but I promise he is. And the second, yeah, I know he looks a little funny...





And while I was on ChaCha this week, someone asked me this question: Rae has $5.70 in quarters and dimes. She has 6 more quarters than dimes. How many of each coin does she have?
I am TERRIBLE at math! It took me over 5 minutes and lots of scribbling to figure it out, and in his head, it took Wade less than 30 seconds. How long did it take you???

Beckett- 1 month old

With Reese being gone for a few days, Rachel reminded me that I have no excuse to not put up some new pictures of Beckett (also known as "Little Becky" to his mama). I'm still working on a slideshow of pics from his birth, so hopefully that will be up soon, too!

Song: I'm Yours by Jason Mraz

Fantastic song, love love LOVE him!!

http://www.myspace.com/jasonmraz

The Beginning of Beckett...

He'll be three weeks old tomorrow, so I've got to hurry up and write this before I forget it all!!! It's already getting hard to remember the little details of Reese's birth, so I want to make sure and record it this time. It's pretty long, sorry!

My entire pregnancy went great w/ him. I gained 33 pounds total and stayed relatively comfortable up until the last few days. I was due on Monday, September 1st, and I had my 40 week check up on Wednesday, Sept. 3rd. I was dialated to 3 cm. but not having any contractions. I wanted to go as natural as possible, including no stripping of the membranes, breaking my water, pitosin, and epidural. My midwife, Kim, told me it was fine that I wanted to wait it out, but she wanted to let me know that she was going to be out of town that weekend visiting family, so if I had the baby on Sat or Sun, she wouldn't be able to be there. I really wanted her to deliver him, so I decided to go ahead and get the ball rolling and have her strip my membranes. She gave me a hug and told me to call her if I was having contractions 3-5 minutes apart. We scheduled a follow-up appointment on Friday morning just in case nothing happened.

I definitely started something, because the rest of the day I had irregular contractions, but I tried to stay busy to keep them coming. My sister was bored in Ames so she came up to hang out w/ us while we waited. We went for a walk, played frisbee, I baked banana bread and it was looking pretty promising. They were getting closer together, and increasingly stronger, but not horrible. We had everything ready to go and called a friend of ours in case we needed to drop off Reese in the middle of the night. So we went to bed, but when I woke up Thursday morning, the contractions were gone and I felt fine again. I was so dissapointed!

They slowly started coming again in the afternoon, and were getting pretty bad by the time it was time to go to bed. Wade fell right to sleep, but I knew there was no way I would be able to. They were coming 8 minutes apart the entire night. And I didn't sleep at all. It hurt too much to lay still, so every 8 minutes I had to get up on my hands and knees, or jump out of bed and sway back and forth. It was miserable and I was so tired. I kept waiting for them to get closer together before I woke Wade up or called my midwife, but they stayed at 8 minutes the whole night. In the morning, Wade decided to go to my appointment with me, just in case. I told him we'd better bring the bags. On the way there, I got really emotional and began crying because I felt like we were on our way to replace Reese w/ a new baby. I knew it was silly, but the tears came anyway. Once we were there, Kim checked me and told us that I was dialated to 9 cm. and needed to go directly to the hospital! I was confused that I could be at 9 and still feel okay and be up walking around like normal.

So we checked into the hospital a little after 9 am, I stayed in my regular clothes and pretty much went through the same thing that I had all night. In between the contractions I was smiling and happy, then I'd pause for 30 seconds, then be fine again. Around 11am, Kim told me I was almost a 10, so she broke my water. Then it got ugly, and I knew it would. I labored in intense pain for about 2 hours. No drugs, no gown, no IV. I was able to change positions and move around, which was so much better than being stuck in a bed with tubes coming out of me. Around 1pm, I told her I felt the urge to push, and she told me to do whatever my body felt like doing. She was still putting on her gloves and stuff when the nurse told her she needed to come a little quicker. After about 5 minutes of pushing, at 1:07 pm, Mr. Beckett Leo was born! It was amazing and I'm so glad I was able to do it completely natural. It went so much better than Reese's birth, but it was so different too.

After having one child drug-free, and one with the drugs, I am more confused as ever on my opinion about it. If everyone's labor was like Beckett's, I can understand why people can do it w/o epidurals. It was hard, but not that hard. And I completely do not regret getting one w/ Reese. Next time, if the labor is long like the first time, I can easily see myself getting the epidural. I've done it w/o now, so I have had that experience in my life, I don't know if I need to go through it again. Hmm... it'll be awhile though, so I guess I've got plenty of time to think about it!!

FINALLY BACK!!!

Wow! It's already September 17th. I'm sorry that it took me so long to finally get back to the blog! My intention was that people could check this soon after Beckett was born and get some info, but so much for that! It seems like every time I try to sit down to write something, the phone rings, the baby wakes up, or there's unusual thuds coming from Reese's room that need to be addressed. That, or I just don't feel like it, and laying on the couch watching Oprah sounds much more appealing at the moment!

Things have been going really well! Beckett is now 12 days old and doing great. He goes in again for his 2 week check up on Friday. He is a GREAT little sleeper, and so far seems like a pretty calm baby. In fact, Wade and I wonder if it's normal for a baby to sleep so much. And with Reese, we wondered if it was normal for a baby to cry so much and worried that she wasn't getting enough sleep!! Reese loves giving him TONS of kisses and sometimes just likes to nuzzle his soft little head. It hasn't been too bad with two, the hardest part has been when I'm feeding him and Reese needs to go potty, but she still needs a little help.

We are trying to get back into the swing of things, creating a new routine for this fall. I feel like I have a lot to blog about, including our trip to the Amanas, Reese's new gymnastics class, and I'll try to sqeeze in Beckett's birth story in there somewhere too.

I have a ton more, but here's a couple pics...