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.

What did you say???

Well the tree is up and packages are beneath it and at the rate time is going; Christmas will be here tomorrow. I love Christmas and this year is truly special because we have a toddler to enjoy the season with us. She is slowwwwwlllly grasping the concept of Santa and who he is although I don't think she will sit on his lap this year and be happy about doing it. (lol) I actually secretly hope she doesn't like him because I think those pictures are so cute and funny when they don't like Santa.

So earlier this week Addison said her first sentence and then they kept on coming.

Addison was over at Grammy's house and she was looking at a picture of John and his dad at the baseball game. So the "conversation" went like this.

Addy: dada, papa, dada, papa (pointing to each of them0)

Grammy: Addy who is that?

Addy: Dat my Papa!!!

(we looked at each other)

Me: Did she just say "that's my papa."

Grammy: Addy who is that in that picture?

Addy: (very matter of fact) DAT MY PAPA!!!

Then later on that night she said "I want Ana" and a day after that we were at the park with cousin Hunter and she had some goldfish crackers that Hunter wanted. He came to get some from her and she pushed him down and said "NO Hunnah dat mine...no..no. She didn't yell or scream but she did get the point across. It was pretty funny. (yes I did explain that pushing someone down wasn't nice at all) AND my absolute favorite is "I love you"

I am feeling great. My hips are starting to spread already. I tried to run down the street the other day and when I stopped I couldn't walk without limping. Boy that was dumb of me. This coming week starts our busy season....so i am sure John will be pretty bored in the evenings considering I will probably be in bed by 7 every night. Poor John.

We decided to change the spelling of Brodie's name to B*R*O*D*Y It seems a little more masculine; or so John says.

Oh.....I almost forgot...I am calling on the assistance of all you experienced parents with toddlers who wake up consistently at night between 12 and 1. You see.....Addy was doing so well and then one night and from that night on it seems she has a nightmare or night terror or whatever and then screams and doesn't stop til one of us gets her. It totally sucks because one of us every night doesn't get sleep because she is up every hour after that. ANY SUGGESTIONS???

I am tired and John is tired and we need sleep especially before another baby comes into our lives. Thank you in advance for your help.

Hair extensions

In the news and In the know....or is it NO!!!!





Addy has officially decided to date Jayce Rivera. She is thrilled to have her first boyfriend. Her daddy however, isn't really all that happy. He doesn't think Addy is really quite ready to date boys yet.


Addy is also this years new spokes kid for every makeup line you can imagine. She informed me this years colors were espresso, cinnamon, and chocolate. She gave me a makeup lesson earlier this week and I had to take pictures of her talent for applying makeup.


And if you thought that was enough.....Addy gave a demonstrative cooking class where we learned the culinary arts of making peanut butter & jelly. We are soooo proud of our little chef.





These days Addy is truly learning what it means to put in "time-out" I swear we say no to her at least 10 times a day. I am really surprised she doesn't say "no" to us, although I am sure her time is to come.


"Addy please don't pull the cat's tail, it hurts!"


"Addy please don't put that cup in the toilet and drink the water"


"Addy get out of the toilet!"





Seriously!!!! totally makes me crazy and totally makes me laugh at the same time.

And LADIES AND GENTLEMEN here is our precious little boy....BRODIE

Pics left to right.....

It's a Boy......His foot........and front of face with mouth open

He's really skinny and there isn't much fat on his face, but you get the idea.

He is measuring 2 days ahead and 13oz. I get more and more excited each day. Every time I get to tell a customer I get even MORE excited. Yes it's possible.

We will keep you posted. Thank you to all of you for your congrats and continued friendships.

Love, Mer and John

Hooray for the Holidays!!!

Super sweet, understanding, kind....I am absolutely IN LOVE with my family

Pretend you are on a roller coaster with really high ups and really little downs. That's MY life and I am really proud of it.

Yes is a word I will always say to Addy as long as she continues to put that little head of hers on my shoulders and hug me. (I cherish those moments)

Challenge and change are two things I look forward too everyday.

How may times do Addison and John make me smile each day? Hmmmm...I can't even count.

Apple is one of Addy's favorite words to say. Of course with a voice inflection like she is asking a question. Ahhh puhl? Really really really cute A little butterfly moving around in my belly is truly one of the most amazing feelings.

John....I couldn't do it without him. He does everything around here and I appreciate every thing he does.

With Thanksgiving around the corner I just wanted to reflect (as I do pretty much every day) how much I really do appreciate the little and BIG things in my life.

Here are the latest pics.....