"Pat"

The sex of this baby:
"To find out or not find out??" - that is the question

Or should we just have another "Pat" like we did with Breeson?
Hmm...

Christmas 2010

Here is our we spent our Christmas...

Christmas Eve - Our attempt at doing a family photo right before we headed to the Christmas Eve Service at church. We basically went to church, then to a friends' house for dinner. We didn't stay too long after their kids went to bed. After we got home, we didn't open any presents. We put B to bed and then watched It's a Wonderful Life. Hopefully next year we can do more "traditional" things as a family b/c B will be a little older and may understand more.

Christmas Day - Even though Breeson didn't understand it was Christmas morning, he still got up early. Funny thing is, both Jamie and I said we didn't sleep too well. I think we were excited for him!! We started off by Jamie reading the Christmas story (which is why we celebrate CHRISTmas anyways!!). Breeson and I "assembled the scene" as Jamie read. About 1/2 way through, he kept indicating he was ready to eat breakfast. So it was a quick version this time!
We were able to convince him to prolong eating when he realized he got to finally open the presents that had been sitting under the tree!! (I didn't post any of those pic's b/c I didn't want to bore you with a thousand pic's of him opening the same gift(s)!! I know how parents can be!! :)
Breeson got a Lego set (from G&G Claassen), $$ from Granny, books from church, and Tickle Me Elmo, Elmo potty book, car, movie and new toothbrush from me and Jamie. We didn't even wrap all of his gifts. Kids get too overwhelmed and then don't even play with 1/2 of them. I decided to keep some back for a "rainy day".
Jamie got power tools, Broncos hat, candy, and a jacketI got this purse, sewing machine, gift cards, address book, broche/pin, and socks.

We had invited 2 couples over for Christmas brunch, because they too do not have family living here in Colorado (Clint & Theresa and Jason & Christina). We had egg casserole, candied grapefruit, fruit, waffles, sausage & bacon and mimosa's. We ate, and ate, and ate some more!! Here's Oliver and Breeson at their table. (Oliver belongs to Jason & Christina)
Since Jamie and I didn't go to any "Ugly Christmas Sweater Parties" this year, we decided to drag them out for Christmas day. Sadly enough, I've had compliments on mine from older ladies saying they have the same one. Oops!! Sorry.

It was just us as a family, so we just laid around (belly up!) and watched Christmas movies. Sadly enough, they didn't play much on TV that day. Is that normal!?!?
Later that evening, we had steak, shrimp, salad, cheesy potatoe casserole, orange jello, and the best Oreo Cheesecake!! ;)

In all, we had a great Christmas. No, it's not the same when you're with family and extended family, but since we couldn't afford to fly to either KS or MS, we just had to make do with our friends here. It was a quiet and relaxing Christmas season. I'm blessed to have my own family to start our new traditions and celebrate this wonderful holiday with.

Life as we know it...

Well, as most of you know, I had a pretty poopy day yesterday. I'm so thankful God gives us new mercies everyday and that He carries us through, even on the rotten days. Even though I hate those low valleys in life, that's when I have to depend on Him even more.

Some have attributed my "moodiness" to my pregnancy...and it could very well be true. But so much has happened in our lives in the last year (ahem, 3 years of marriage) that I think that also plays a part. We feel like we're just kind of in a "rut" right now and we're not sure what the next step in life is. But I guess, who does?!
Plus, it doesn't help that my A-type personality carries with it high and low emotions. I too wonder at times if this pregnancy is bringing out the best/worst of those in me.
With Breeson I was pretty steady. Jamie once told me that I was "nice" during B's pregnancy. He meant it in good taste! So...we'll see how the sex of the baby plays a role!!

Anyways...on a much lighter note. Here was our family Christmas photo. We actually did it in November. We were at the mall one day and since there was no line, we jumped on the chance. It was funny though b/c Santa was dozing off as we pulled up. Breeson wasn't about to climb on his lap though this year. Maybe next year?! I actually thought it would've been funny if Jamie sat on his lap, but I think he would have broke Santa's legs!! He seemed pretty fragile.

I thought I'd give a quick run down of our highlights and lowlights of 2010 as a...

Family:

• Bought our first house in June
  
• Adopted Sadie from the Rocky Mtn Lab Rescue
• Found out we are prego with kid #2
  

Jamie:

• Finished his Graduate Certificate at Denver Seminary
• Started working at Chic-fil-A part time to help bring in income - after only a few months he got promoted and is "in training" for a really good position (still not disclosed to some employees, so I can't say what it is). Thus he is now there full time (50 + hrs/week)
• Worked 20 hrs/week at our church - but has recently stepped down due to the amount of hrs at CFA
• Had his first case of Shingles - hopefully it will be his last
• Ironically lost 20 lbs while working at a fast food place!! (I can say that b/c guys don't care!)

Joy:

• Ironically gained 20 lbs since finding out I am prego w/ kid #2!!
  
• Lost my job at DFN due to them moving headquarters to D.C. But am working at a great Oncology/Hematology Office in which I enjoy my work and coworkers
• Ran the Boulder Bolder in my goal time - but was lazy and didn't do any other races the rest of the year

Breeson:

• Celebrated the big 1 year!
  
• Started going to day care
• Reached a ton of milestones in the last 12 months that it'd be crazy to list on here

And the award goes to...

I'd have to say the "Worst Mother Award" goes to...drum roll please...ME!!!
It's 12:15 in the afternoon and I'm still in my PJ's. I've yelled at Breeson, and I've spent most of my morning crying on the couch and doing nothing.
I'm an AWESOME mom!!!!

Oh wait...more crying has just begun. Guess I better get back to my couch.

I HATE FEELING THIS WAY!!!!!!!!!

My only Christmas project

My only Christmas project I did this year was making a new wreath. Depending on the wreath, I feel like they need to be replaced every year. Although I have one that I've had since we were married. But when I put it up this year, I noticed it was starting to slowly fall apart, so we'll see if it makes another year. It's made of red plastic cranberries. Anyways...I saw this wreath and decided to make a variation of it. And of course, there are more ideas on this on Etsy.com
So I ran to JoAnn Fabric and got these...
Then got to cutting...
Wrapped it around, and hot glued it...
Then I just took a few scraps of fabric and some buttons and this is what I have...

It probly would've been cuter to do the whole thing w/ the scraps and buttons...but I don't have time, nor the desire. Maybe it'll be a year long project that'll be done for next Christmas?
Yeah, right!!

**also see new post below...

His first "I love you"

This melts our heart!!

15 weeks

This is a 2 for 1 deal: baby bump pic w/ our awesome Christmas tree. I know you were all sitting on the edge of your seat for this!! :)

November in a nutshell

Well, I'm doing pretty good. I think I'm averaging 1 post a month now!?!? Ugh. I'm going to try and get better.
This last month has been busy. We've had a LOT of sickness. Jamie had shingles and food poisoning - not at the same time thankfully. And Breeson and I've had our share of colds, of course alternating back and forth - when I'm sick, he's well and vice versa. Right now we're all well (knock on wood, I know) - hopefully we'll stay that way for a while.

A few weeks ago my parents flew out for a weekend. It was short but sweet. Breeson had a great time with them and we got a lot done!!
sorry this is small. ?? Here's what our arch was before...
and here it is after. And if you can't tell what we did...we widened it. When we first moved in, we barely got some of the furniture in the back rooms (to the left and right)
We had a good Thanksgiving. Even though it was very anti-climactic. We had another couple, Kandyce and her husband Jon. Kandyce and I worked together at DFN. Both of their families also live out of state. It was nice having a simple Thanksgiving - although it was just different. Usually when you're with family, you spend the whole day together eating, playing games, eating leftovers, etc. Our guests came, ate lunch, stayed for a little while then left. After they left it was like - Oh, Thanksgiving is over. And done. So that was that. I'm not complaining...it was just different this year.

I put up some Christmas decorations after Thanksgiving. I'm not gonna lie...Christmas is hard to decorate when you don't have a fireplace mantle. :( I miss having one. So I just had to make do. We're hopefully putting up the tree tonight...pic's to come. (I know you can barely wait for that) :)
I've been super excited about this. I bought this set a while ago from church. (I didn't include the rest of the set in the pic). They are hand carved stone from Africa.
These are of course OFF-LIMITS to the little man. I need to find a kids Nativity set for B to play with. I realized when I was putting up the Christmas stuff that I don't have anything for him to play with that I don't care if it gets broken or hurt. So when we were out shopping I bought him this plastic snowglobe that plays (extra loud) music. :( He seems to be content.

Otherwise...in other news:

Jamie:

• is working hard in his "new" position at work; putting in around 50 hrs a week. So needless to say, some weeks we barely see him depending on his schedule of when he's working
• just started the process of ordination

Breeson:

• went for his 18 mo check up. Instead of the 90%tile for height, he's now in the 95%tile. I hope he's always tall. When he stands next to kids that are 2 or 3, he's pretty close in height, thus everyone always guesses he's older.
  
• just got his big boy potty - although he doesn't want to go potty in it yet. But after (almost) every time he pees or poops, he let us know. So we're getting somewhere...
• still cries EVERY SINGLE TIME we drop him off at day care - he's now been there a month
• vocabulary is getting bigger and stronger. He likes to count...but only does "1, 2, 1, 2..." or "3, 4, 3, 4..." in repetition.
  

Joy:

• I'm now 15 weeks - but according to pic's compared to being pregnant w/ B, I look like I'm almost 20 weeks.
  
• I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel w/ my sickness. I still have some bad days here and there. I mainly have to stay on top of my eating otherwise I get super gaggy. It's a tough job, but someone's gotta do it!!
• works going well. Although, since I work at an Oncology office, I'm beginning to see how hard it can be. We really do make some strong relationships w/ some of our patients, so when they die, you can see how it affects the office.
  

"play time"

We've started enforcing a new thing called "play time" at our house. Thanks to this super mom who babysat B one afternoon. Seriously, in a matter of a 30 minute conversation w/ this woman, I think I learned more things from her than I have thus far since being a mom. She had so many great rules and ideas and the way she taught her kids was amazing. And no, she's not old and wise. Well, definitely wise! But she may be my age, if not younger. ?? Anyways...she gave me the idea of this "play time" for her kids she said it especially helped when she had her 2nd child.

She started off every morning after breakfast telling her young (then less than a year old) son that it was "play time". She would take him to his room and put the baby gate up. She would set the timer (starting at 15 minutes) and made him play by himself. At first he cried at the gate and only wanted out. But she knew he could handle crying for 15 minutes. Every day it got better and soon she would say "play time" and he would run off to his room to play. She began increasing the time by 5 minutes as time went on. Soon, the timer would go off after 3o min and he would continue playing on his own. Eventually (he's almost 3 now), she got to the point where she could tell him it was "play time" and she didn't even need to put up the gate.

Basically what this does is it teaches your child to play and entertain his/herself for a certain period of time.
This is something that really helped her when she had her 2nd child. She could tell her son to go to "play time" so that she could get rest herself and/or just concentrate on the baby and not be disturbed.

Well needless to say, I LOVED this idea and began to implement it right away. Yes, B did cry at first, but it really did not take but a few days for him to understand what it meant. Just a few minutes ago, before I sat down to write this, I told him it's "play time" and he went straight to his room and didn't fuss/cry at all. He even loves to "help" me put up the baby gate to his room. He is now almost up to 30 minutes already on playing on his own.
**He still goes to the gate and talks to me to make sure I'm still out her, but regardless I just talk back so he doesn't think I'm not there and that he's alone. Then off he goes back to playing...

One thing I do suggest, if you're reading this and decide to do it, is don't make it a bad thing. Make it sound exciting that they get to have "play time". It's NOT a time out. Even when Breeson would be crying at the door the first few days, I would go to his door, and say excitedly (maybe a little too much!) how it's fun to play with toys and remind him of how much time was left (even if he doesn't understand time yet).
We decided to try this right as he was beginning to start day care (3 days/week), so I was worried that since we weren't doing it consistently every day, he would be thrown off. But so far he hasn't been. We only implement it when we're home - even on Sunday mornings. Last Sunday, it got really quiet and we went to see if he was okay...he had fallen asleep on the floor playing in his room.

If I only knew this before...

Wow - I did it!! An update...

Ok, so since everyone and their mom (or should I say everyone's mom) is posting pic's of their kids in their halloween get-up, guess I would jump on the band wagon. This year I was super lazy (mainly b/c I'm so sick in the evenings and don't feel like shopping or making anything), so 3 days before Halloween, I stopped by Target and got whatever costume was in B's size (eh hem, and on sale!). So, he was a puppy. Which is pretty fitting b/c he loves dogs right now. He got to choose 1 piece of candy - which of course was a sucker.





















While shopping at Target, I found these slippers...

He's a big fan of Elmo right now. Or as B says,
"melmo". I couldn't resist. He loves them too.
He's all over the house in them.





This was super long ago, but I figured I finally put some pic's up. We went to a huge pumpkin patch between Denver and Boulder. There was lots to do there. Fun family day...even with me gagging a lot.

**funny thing: Our pumpkins didn't last long. A squirrel that has a grudge against Jamie, ate the face off of his pumpkin - literally. And then my leaf just withered away.

Pregnancy news. I'm 10 1/2 weeks. Still sick. I'll go a few days without throwing up (sorry if that's TMI), but am constantly nauseas/gaggy in the evenings. Believe me, I'm counting down the days 'til 1st trimester is over with. Although I realize it may not be done with then, but I at least need something to look forward too.

Finally, Breeson started Day Care yesterday. He'll be going regularly 3 days a week. He did cry when I dropped him off yesterday, but that's not surprising since he still cries for babysitters when we first leave. They said he clung to one of the ladies yesterday and wouldn't leave her side. Nap time for them is 2 1/2 hours and they said he only slept for a half hour. :( I'm sure it'll get better in time...