pretty random...

but i've got nothing else interesting to share. I haven't posted in a awhile and oddly don't have any crazy, and usually too long, stories to share. Here are just a few pictures and i'm going to use up one of my bragging moments (us mom's get about 1 million a year, right?)

Braden was 7 weeks and 7 days old (ha, details, details) and he was crying, as usual-i love my boy to death, but man he crys a lot-and anyway, my sister in-law lisa was over for our new thanksgiving morning tradition of "chocolate breakfast" (we made DELICIOUS chocolate waffles and regular pancakes with chocolate chip happy faces and whipped cream, and were planning on hot cocoa but braden was crying and riley wanted in and out of her high chair about 200 times, each time i had to wipe all the chocolate off of her so ya, we didn't do as much as planned because i was going a little crazy, back to the story) braden was crying and we were trying to cook so i stuck him in Lisa's baby's carseat just to set him somewhere. and before you know it Lisa tells me to look and Braden is totally batting at the toy haning from the bar! I was soooo excited, i took pictures, which i didn't post yet...and i took a little video, i am so PROUD! Riley didnt' even try to grab things until she was 3 months haha so i was shocked and ya, here you have it my bragging moment that i was able to turn into one of my infamous "too long stories".

Random Pictures of the past couple weeks:

Above:Lately I find my fridge like this, with any of the magnetic letters or pictures stuck inbetween the door of the fridge and freezer. riley likes to put them there for whatever reason...

This week's message to me. D.O.A.= Dead On Arrival. Is this what she thinks of my cooking?

I did a fun mom thing and as i was putting riley to bed i showed her the rain out of her window and decided to let her play in it before her nap :) She loved it, and was soooo thrilled to wear her rain jacket.

I'm not sure she understood the rain was coming from the sky, if i told her to touch it she would stick her hands int he puddles on the ground...

A little lovin. Man does riley love her brother but i think he loves her more. When he's crying and i ahve things to do i often just let him cry on our easy chair. Nothing stops it but me picking him up or His lovely sister laying next to him, talking to him, singing to him and just cuddling, it's really amazing. He will be full out crying and she just lays next to him and he hushes immediatly and stares at her. It's really sweet to watch :)

a "whoops!" moment

-Josh has been wondering why our grass is getting so brown, i mean it does that a little in the winter, but it hasn't been that cold here lately...well he figured it out yesterday. I turned the sprinklers off on riley's birthday so she could play with her new bounce house outside on the grass. Yep you guessed it, i never turned them back on. It's only been a couple or 3 weeks! whoops :)

-a little comfort that came to me in the car just a week ago and might help comfort other cold weather haters out there. Your carmax chapstick stuff gets super hard in cold weather so when you squeeze it, it doesn't come flying out and get everywhere like it does in the hot summer! At least one good thing about yucky cold weather.

-I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, although the end may still be quite a few miles down the road...braden didn't wake up until 6:30am this morning to eat! He went from about 9:30pm the night before alllllllllllll the way to 6:30. I have SO much energy today it's crazy. Just getting a few consecutive hours-anything over 4- feels FABULOUS.

-Braden smiled for the first time on purpose for his aunt crystina last sunday! It was sooo cute. Now i try allll the time to make him do it. He loves screechy kiss noises right in his open mouth, or if you kind of grab his lower gums and give a little shake :)

-Another feel good thing for cold weather despisers like myself. HOT TUBS. oh ya, nothing feels better than a hot hot hot, hot tub in the winter. awwwwwwwww

-Riley had her 2 yr check up, she is completey healthy thank goodness. funny part is that she is in the 10th percentile for heighth and 25th for weight...our little shrimp!

-Those are all my random thoughts for now, enjoy the pictures!

Now that will brighten up any day i'm having!

My silly boy enjoys looking at josh WAY more than looking at me. He seems to always look right above my hair line...I think he's staring at my halo-that's my best guess ;)

So hard to get the smile on camera, but this is basically it, sometimes it gets bigger. I LOVE IT.

Looks like he's thinking "ok crazy lady, bring it on. I'm not smiling until you are acting COMPLETELY foolish."Riley and Opa (German for Grandpa-what their grandkids call him) in a niceeee hot tub

Our flamingo (thank you to katie!) and our little pumpkin, sort of, just in halloween p.j. thing.

I've been waiting...

For the day i felt over whelmed beyond measure with LOVE for Braden. When he was born and i first saw him i felt unconditional love but i knew there was more room in my heart for him and i just had to wait for that to be filled up. It takes me longer then most people i guess, or at least friends i've talked to. With Riley, i specifically remember on day 3 of her life i had this moment where she just became undescribably perfect to me. I love my kids with all my might from moment one but for some reason to feel it completely it takes me awhile...well with Braden, it was when he was 5 weeks old. Quite a long time! I wasn't nervous, i knew it would come, but that was a long wait. I tried to think of reasons for this...maybe because he only let me sleep in about 2 hr intervals, and we are just now at 3 some nights! (no sleep makes it hard to be emotional in a good way and to get attached to something, it makes it easy to be grumpy though!)I know he only wakes up to eat-not his fault and something i love to provide for him but after a few weeks of no more than 3 hr of consecutive sleep i think my body goes into survival mode :) Maybe because i already have a child and so it was hard to sit and hold and talk and bond with braden when i have Riley to also take care of and love on and execute her demands. Who knows what it was but it's over. I looked at him one day last week and couldn't stop looking. I finally took the time to not care about the 100 million different toys scattered around the entire house(just typing that makes my skin crawl...ocd my friends...), about the dirty kitchen and laundry that has been in the washer for two days. I sat and held and stared into his sleepy eyes. A leaned to josh and said "Babe, i finally fell completely in love" aww what an amazing feeling...

The rest of braden's photo shoot

Just got the pictures back and wanted to share them with you all!

No Pumpkin Patch....

But a complete pumpkin patch experience. We visited a pumpkin patch near by but not only did we get to pick out pumpkins we went through a corn maze, fed some crazy goats and Riley got her very first pony ride.

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Feeding the feisty goats. I was more scared than riley, they were jumping on us..not cool. I got out of there with Braden asap and left Riley and josh to battle the beasts!

The super fun corn maze

Carving pumpkins at russel and Katie's house

Josh working on his skull pumpkin

And his brother ben working on his pirate ship pumpkin

feeling the guts, forcing riley to, she was not diggin' it

ewwww

She doesn't know what's coming...

Very first pony ride! She was nervous to get on but i forced her and then she LOVED it! She kept saying "giddy-up!"

Week at Loma Linda

Poor, poor Braden. When he was one week old riley got sick. (refer to the urgent care post a few back) Well, a few days after that i got a sore throat and josh followed a couple days after that. We all tried to keep riley away from braden, told her to kiss him on the feet or top of the head, etc but it was basically impossible since she is in love with her brother. I didn't kiss him on the lips at all and was quite sad about this but didn't want him to get my HORRIBLE sore throat.
Friday night (a week after the urgent care fiasco) braden's tummy and back were burning up but his head felt totally normal. I took his temp. (in his arm pit, which you have to then add a degree to get the real temp) and it was 99.4 so i wasn't sure what was going on. The next morning the same thing, super hot tummy and back, normal head, so i called the nurse advise line and she said to call her back if his temp reached 100 degrees, rectally. So a few hours later it did get to 100.3, when i called back she hung up with me and called the on call dr at the redland's ER to see what he would have us do. He told us to bring Braden in to have him evaluated. Josh took Riley to pick out stuff for her b-day cake because we had been talking about it all morning and i felt horrible to have to tell her that it wasnt' going to happen now, so i told them to go ahead and i'd take braden in.
At the er they took his vitals and all was good except his fever so the dr or PA (not sure what she was) told me how much tylenol to give him and sent us on our way, luckily i asked at what point would i need to come back if the fever persisted, she didn't give a straight answer but said they would need to run tests if the fever didn't go away.
By monday my poor little guy still had a fever. I was giving him tylenol every 4 hours and it only dropped it down to 99.9 at the lowest. Monday morning rolls around and i called his pediatrician at 8am, as soon as the office opened and asked what to do. They said to bring him in to be evaluated. I got an appt around noon. His normal dr was booked but we saw another dr that riley used to see (and i swithed because she became a little to "cold" i felt, especially working with kids) but was i glad to have her that day! She sort of has a bold, go getter, attitude and little room to play around. She was furious that they didn't run tests when i had him in the er and said that was unacceptable. She said she knew the director there and was going to call him and let him know that happened and make him take care of it.
She then checked out braden and was verrryy concerned with his fever, being only 3 weeks old, and said it looked like he had double ear infections on top of it. She debated sending him home on antibiotics with a follow up the next day or sending him to be admitted the hospital. She talked to Braden's normal dr and they both decided he needed to be admitted asap. She said to go to Loma Linda ER, she sent me with a note and told me not to sit in the waiting room more than 15 min. SHe told me not to stop anywhere on the way there and said we'd be there at least 48-72 hours.
I get there and of course have to wait, they were SLAMMED. 15 min rolls around and i sheepishly, but with a sick baby in my arms, tell the nurse that i'm not to wait anymore, give her the dr's note and she says"he's only 3 weeks?! yes we will see him next!" They take his vitals and get us into an isolation room in the er. We then stay there the next 24 hours because they didn't have an isolation room on the ped's floor. They brought a crib in for him and i slept on the gurney.
As soon as we are in the room the nurse comes and starts an i.v. in braden-poor guy-and the residents start coming through asking all sorts of questions trying to get to the bottom of his fever. They collect blood, urine, mucous and did a spinal tap. They ended up having to do a 2nd spinal tap the next day because they couldn't get any fluid from the first. Poor braden was hooked up to so many monitors, it was very hard to hold him with out pulling off cords etc. He had the stuffiest nose, gunkiest eyes and just was feeling sick.
They started him on antibiotics in the er and we were moved up to the ped's floor the next day. They were still running all the tests. Riley stayed at my mother in-law's during the day and with josh at home at night. I missed her like crazy.
It's pretty incredible, but i only had one major break-down. It was when i came back in the room after braden's 2nd spinal tap. My phone was dead, i wanted to talk to riley, or call anyone, and he was just laying there limp with exhaustion. I could only imagine the pain he went through (they wouldn't let me stay for the procedure) and i just started bawling looking at my poor innocent baby, with no way to help him.
The first night upstairs josh and his dad came and gave braden a blessing. It was amazing the calm that washed over me and braden even stopped squirming under their hands. (side note:every since the blessing he didnt' have a single fever)
It was soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo hard to be away from riley, Josh would come visit every night so that was great but riley wasn't allowed, it really hurt my heart being away from her. The nurse was able to get me a pump so josh watched him a few hours one night so i could go shower and see riley and then on her b-day My mom in law watched braden and i took riley to the park. That helped but she cried when i had to leave again :(
Upstairs we started to find out after a couple days that one test result was back, he had para influenza virus. A lower respiratory cold virus that would be like any other cold for an adult but b/c of his age was very serious and needed monitoring. they said it was most likely what was going around at our house. We still had to stay at the hospital to keep giving him i.v. anitbiotics and to let the spinal tap culture for a few more days to be absolutely sure nothing else was going on in braden.
On the fifth day they let us go home. I could tell braden was feeling much better, he was awake more, no gunky eyes and just better, you could tell!
SO GLAD to be home. But two great things came out of this, besides braden being healthy again. 1.i had soo much time to bond with him that i wasn't getting/making time for at home. I got to hold him for 5 straight days. and 2.i realized how much i miss and LOVE medicine. I decided i'm going back to get my RN.
I hope we all stay healthy for a long time but am so glad to have such a great hospital near by.

Gloves, gown and mask was the get up because braden was in isolation. Most nurses didn't force this on me. There was NO way i was going to wear that 24 hr./day for 5 days. BUt some nurses did force it, i would where it about 10 min before the mask came off, then another five before the gown, never put the gloves on. Come on, if i was going to be nursing him, holding him kissing him, what's the point? It's not like i was meandering in the cafeteria spreading all the germs. I lived in that room.

Enjoying some cuddle time with my boy.

Passed out from all the tests, poking and prodding

Doing better, new i.v. each day, took up his whole arm

All hooked up, such a sad sight.

Riley's 2nd Birthday!

I can't believe my "baby" is now 2 years old. Josh and i are so proud of her. She is such a smart, cute, sweet and crazy little girl. I don't know what life would be like without her anymore. She truely is loved by Josh, me, and the rest of her enormous family. I can make a list a few miles long of all the things she can do and that we are so proud to show off, but being a mom of two now has completely exhuasted me, i hate to admit, so instead of a super long list i'm going to share just a few things that she's done lately that has impressed and cracked us up!
this morning she came in to wake me up-after letting me sleep in an extra 30 min :) and i sat up in bed to feed braden. She said "don't take a nap mommy" aww-i must sleep too much for her likeing.
I drew a picture of a pumpkin and she kept saying "apple" and i kept politely correcting her and she finally said "say apple mommy" so i did and she said "yes, you are right" haha!
too bad, my brain is fried right now! she says so much funny stuff and i can't think of a darn thing.

Awesome chalk board, dry erase on the opposit side, from my dad and his wife. What a great gift!
Josh made this incredible cake! We asked riley what kind of cake she wanted the day of her party and she came up with a "cinderella cake" somehow, so daddy built one!

My brother absolutely SPOILS riley every chance he gets-past presents: barbie quad and jump and spin horse thing...he really does keep setting the bar higher and higher for himself. This year he got her a BOUNCE HOUSE! ya like the ones people rent out for parties, but smaller. i can just barely fit it in our front entry way, so it's perfect for days i don't want to take it outisde.

This is my brother, the spoiler, Matt, first time holding Braden :)

Close up of the amazing cake!