Oh What a Week!!! My Baby is 2....

So this week April, 6 our little Addison turned 2. I never thought I would be sad on happy occasions but I was sad to see my baby turn 2. We can't believe she has been with us already for 2 YEARS!!! Gosh the time has flown by.

So we started the week on Sunday with a family birthday party and then celebrated on Monday by going to the zoo, and then we had a party at school on Tuesday. Needless to say that Addy now thinks everyday is a "Happy Birthday" It's really cute actually. Everyday at some point in the day she says, "hap birday" and we say yep happy birthday Addy. :) Above are pictures from her school party and from our house party. She loves Elmo and she's kissing her new Elmo party. Oh and btw (by the way) my cupcakes were "Martha" worthy if I do say so myself.

So on Thursday they had an Easter Egg dying party and an egg hunt. The kids had a blast. What kid wouldn't right? Even my little miss priss didn't mind getting dye on her hands.

Friday was pretty mild and Saturday I got to be introduced to pooping on the potty and the joys that come with this great feat. The story goes like this. I noticed Addy was laying on her tummy in the room grunting. (tale tell sign she needs to go number 2) So I picked her up and took her to the potty and told her to go. I left the bathroom to give her the privacy I thought she needed and moments later we hear crash, boom, bang. So I go into the bathroom and there she was low and behol putting her poo poo in the "big" potty with her bare hands. lol She had dropped one of her lumps on the floor and was pointing to it saying ICKY. I said she was right and that she needed to let mommy clean up the potty from now on. LESSON LEARNED....don't leave your kid on the potty alone cause.................SHIT HAPPENS. :)

We also got to see Brody's first smiles today. Here are a few pics below.

Monkey See Monkey Do.....

Can you guess what Addy is doing??? lol For those of you not lucky enough to experience the joys of engorgement and having to use a breast pump, I will enlighten you and YEP that's exactly what Addison is holding. Well...it's a part of the whole pumping system, but it's the part that goes on "duh boobuhs" (as Addy likes to say) :) I pause and ask myself. "is it totally wrong that I insisted on posting these pics? Is it wrong that I picked up the camera in the first place to take the pictures? Is it wrong that I find my child copying me completely hilarious? YES IT IS and I don't care. In fact I'm laughing now. The third picture down is a bra you can use to hold "da boobuh" parts in place and aparently she know where it goes too. ( he he he)

Below you see our little sports super star. I love photoshop and I thought I was pretty creative with the pic too.

7 lbs 10 oz 50% Head 50% Height 20 3/4 " 90%

Second Bath (yes he peed on me)

Tiny Prints

Completely Candid (She told him to go "night night")

And we're off..........

So far so good in the Spychaj household. Do I dare to be cliche and say that I can't even imagine life before my two little blessings from God? Yes I do dare go there. I can't believe how in love I am with my family. To be truly in love is the most amazing feeling in the world. It brings together a whole slew of feelings.

Happiness/ blissfulness/ joy: All I have to do is think about my husband and children and I guarantee you can't get the smile off my face.

Guilt: I constantly wonder: am I doing enough for everyone? Is everyone getting the attention they deserve? Am I stimulating and nurturing growth in my children enough? The questions are endless and I sure the guilt a mother caries with her never ends. It a part of being in love.

Sadness: I actually am sad when John leaves the house. It's fun to hang out and watch t.v. together or just sit and talk. I get a little teary eyed thinking about my daughter becoming a wife some day or my son becoming a husband.

BUT most of all I choose to be happy. Again....I love my family. No one can take away the bond you have with your partner and your kids. It's something special.

Daddy's Hands

Brody is HERE!!!

We are sooo excited to shout from the rooftops that our sweet baby boy BRODY is here. He joined our family Friday March 6, 2009 and 3:40am 7lbs 20.5". (My dad wants to know why I always have to do these "middle of the night things") he he he

We got to come home on Monday and we (Brody and I) are so happy to not have anyone poking and prodding at us. So here is how it began including the middle and the end.

Thurdsay March 5th was our anniversary. I had been having contractions on and off for at least a month. Anyway we went to go see a movie and afterwards I told John that I think we would probably be having our baby that day. So he suggested that we go to the hospital, but I knew that as soon as you get admitted to the hospital you don't get ANYTHING to eat. So I decided it would be a better ideal for us to go to Tommy Bahamas. So we ate lunch and THEN went to the mall to buy a battery charger and then to the hospital.

We arrived at the hospital and went to the triage room where we were greeted by our crazy nurse who will remain nameless (cause I don't like her). She hooks me up to the monitors and tells Me to tell Her when I have a contraction because she wanted to feel them because, "the monitors don't really know when I (or anyone else) am/is having a contraction. (UGH OK) Then she asks what doctor Crowder had said I was dilated too and I said a 3 and effaced 80 to 90% to which she replied, "Oh you are at a 2 and only 40 to 50 effaced. Doctors always blow these things out of proportion" (Doctor Crowder doesn't "blow things out of proportion" The man is absolutely brilliant and has been delivering babies for decades. (I hold him on a pedestal can you tell) Anyway then the nurse proceeds to tell me about her life and how she's had 8 kids all naturally and she's glad she's only working a 4 hour shift cause she wants to go home and yadda yadda flipping yadda.

We get to the delivery room and Crowder breaks my water at 7:30 and I go into hard labor about midnight. At 2:30 I tell the nurse I feel ALOT of pressure and she checks and says we will wait another hour. At 3 I tell her NO and that the baby is coming. She calls Crowder and tells me not to push. So yes I do have an epidural, but the drugs just aren't working. I finally tell the nurse (oh yeah this one I really like by the way) that she has one more contraction for me to hold this baby in and she better get Crowder on the phone and tell him to run. He finally makes it into the room. Throws on the gloves and the cover shirt and in like 5 or 6 pushes BRODY was born. 3:40am.

The NICU is standing by in the room. They let me hold Brody for about 5 second and then take him away to the NICU. I am not really told anything at this point. All I know is that my baby is in the NICU and I am exauhsted. The rest is a but fuzzy but here is how I remember it. I remember a lady coming in an updating John, but I was too tired and out of it to hear. I had a bad reaction to the epidural and I was throwing up. Then later my parents came to visit and the chaplin comes in to say a prayer. I don't even know why he there cause I thought it would be just like Addison. Where he would spend a couple of hours in the NICU and then be ready to come home. So the chaplin says a prayer and I go into internal freakout mode. I don't think I let anyone know how much I am truly fraking out at this point. So I go to the NICU and there is my baby boy with an oxygen hood over him and he's hooked up to all these monitors. I learn that he's not grunting but that his respitory rate is elevated, but once they can get that under control he can come to the room. So they get his Res Rate under control, but then tell me he is hypoglycemic and can't come to the room. They have to put him on a feeding tube and I have to pump. I hate the pump, it's so not natural. So it's now Satuday night and they tell me once my milk comes in I can exclusively breastfeed with suplementation. So I finally got to nurse about 2 am on Sunday and then got to nurse thereafter. He got to come to the room Sunday around 11am and we finally got some bonding time. They still monitored his sugar levels but said we couldn't go home because he was jaundiced. UGH WHAT NEXT?!??!!? So they brought a bilirubin light blanket in for him to lie on just to bring his bilirubin levels down and Monday they checked his sugar and bilirubin levels and we were discharged by Dr Rivas the NICU doc. who is by the way absolutely awesome. So we got home Monday evening and it has been great.

Addison absolutely loves Brody. She wants to hold him all the time and feed him. It's so nice to write that because I really thought we were going to have trouble with her, but she has been so great. Brody is eating every 3 hours and weighed in yesterday at 6lbs 13oz. It's normal for them to lose a little weight when they come home.

So that's our story and here are some pics.

Update....

John's MRI came back negative. Thank goodness. So now he goes to do a sleep study. I told John the other day that if he gets down to 200 lbs(50 lbs less than what he weighs now) he can get his lasik surgery. I also said I would put that in writing so I thought our blog was a good place to document that commitment.

I went to the doctor on Monday and I am dilated to a 3. So I was sooo excited because I thought oh that means any day now. Much to my chagrin I found out I could be a 3 for weeks before anything happens. UGH. I kinda feel like something is going to happen soon because I got that burst of energy yesterday and cleaned the entire back part of store and came home and got my bedroom all picked up and the bathroom spotless. I called to nurse to ask her exactly when I should go in and she told me I needed to have good contractions (that I can't talk through) for an hour. Actually she said I needed to have contractions that I couldn't "talk through" and then said I could probably "talk through anything" so disregard what she said and wait til they are painful. :) Even the nurse knows me well. LOL Doc Crowder said 30 min. So I was having consistent contractions the other night but decided not to go in and thank goodness because they probably would have sent me home. I wish there was just some sort of definitive answer as to when we are going to go into labor. It sucks sitting here day after day wondering "is it going to be today???" I did get some sort of definitive answer from Doc Crowder. He said that if I haven't had Brody by the 16th then we are going to induce that morning. WOO HOO!!! Finally an answer. Of course we all know me....I don't want to wait that long. However having him early means I get to have a beer at the Chadie Crawfish Party. :) Yummy.

I finally found a way to keep Addison from running into the street when we are outside. She loves to "cuhluh" (color) outside and sometimes she gets sidetracked and runs down the sidewalk and then into the street. Timeout doesn't work and neither does a light smack on the booty....so I told her cars were scary. he he he So now when we are outside she sees a car go by and says, "Mommy dat car is scawry" It works for now and everyone is happy.

Hope all is well with everyone.

Sooooo big!!!

Addison started school. She is doing great. It's really cool how the school is set up. And for all you skeptics out there...NO...it isn't daycare. She actually comes home with a daily progress report. The report is divided into 8 different categories. Cognitive Development, Motor Skills, Language Skills, Social Studies and so on. It's really cool to pick her up at the end of the day and see what all she has done. It's fun to have a conversation (although limited) about her day. I'm grinning from ear to ear thinking about it.

I would like to take a moment and vent my frustrations about the man I saw at HEB who parked in a front parking spot and DID NOT return his cart to the store or put it in a designated cart park. I would also like to tell the 20 something guy (with no kids) off who decided it was OK to park in the parking with kids (also in the front)While I had to walk my happy pregnant ass with Addison from the back of the parking lot in the sprinkling rain to the front of the parking lot where he was getting in his 2 seater car with one bag of groceries. Those people really tick me off. How hard is it to park in your own spot and how hard is it to return your cart to it's appropriate place. Ugh!!! I do feel better now. :)

Of course all this seems small and stupid compared to our week. Last week John had a headache in the same apot for over a week and he still continues to suffer from said headache. I say suffer because the guy NEVER complains about anything (pain wise)so he decided to go to the doctor on Monday and with two opinions they decided he needs an MRI. The MRI is Saturday afternoon and we should know the results on Monday. Hopefully it's nothing.

Other than this week life seems to be pretty normal. We have entered our 34th week of pregnancy and the fatigue is back. C'est la vie. Brody is WAY different than Addy in that he shifts his feet around so much that it seems his feet are going to push through my skin. Addison never did that. She just elbowed me and kneed (spell???) Kinda freaky seeing a hump stick out my side.

That's all for now. I hope everyone had a great Valentine's.

Christmas and Disney....and getting older

I know....I know....I am probably the world's worst blog updater. :( ugh. I won't even bother with my excuses. Sooooo here are some updates on the family.

Of course I will start with my precious Addison. She is doing absolutely wonderful. She got more toys than any almost two year old should, but she's worth it right??? Uncle FO FO (Forest) spent Christmas with us and Addison absolutely love playing with him and all her toys. She loves her FO FO. I must say she took to her toys much better this year than last.

Some of you know we took Addison and my parents to Disney World the second week of January. We stayed in the Animal Kingdom and we got to see giraffes (yes McHam they are real) and Zebras and other animals each morning. It was really neat to see Addy interact with all the Disney characters and ride the rides. She rand right up to Mickey and gave him a huge hug. It's funny how the whole theme of Disney is to feel like a kid again and to remain a kid. I saw my daughter grow up more in one week than I have in a month. She came home saying 3 and 4 word sentences and way more words. I guess it was all the stimulation. As for meltdowns or temper tantrums.....Addy had ZERO. No naps and NO tantrums. We were absolutely amazed. We love Disney World. Thanks Walt for building such a great place for parent and kids to bond and have lots and lots of fun.

John is doing great. There really isn't much to tell. He helped so much at the store this year during Christmas and we just got a HUGE shipment of plush toys and such at the store and he put together a big display rack and unloaded 70 boxes. You all should see the store...it looks like a petting zoo. I will post pics later.

I am doing ok. Pregnancy is going well...except for a few different things. I won't go into detail.e had to go to the doctor yesterday because I started having contractions (not Braxdton Hicks) real contractions. Dr. Crowder said I was not softening and I wasn't dialating...Whew. I was crying when he walked in the room and told him how I couldn't have Brody now and that it was just too early. He agreed and checked Brody's heart beat and gave me hug and said they were preperatory contractions and everything was going to be fine. I love that about Dr. Crowder....he has such a calming effect. We are almost 31 weeks along. I feel like Brody will come early. Hopefully not too early, but Addison came at 36 weeks soooo...if history repeats itself...we shall see. We did our 3d/4d pictures last week. Look below for pics.

All in all we are doing well. Here are some pics of Christmas, Disney and Brody.