My Favorite 2 1/2 year old

Rockin’ Mommy’s sunglasses

Let’s face it.  This blog has been quiet for a few months and when I do post, it’s very much baby related.  Unfortunately, that’s probably a little representative of how things are going at home.  I’m trying to be very conscious of not talking about Aedan too much and reassuring Brody that he’s still my favorite “big-boy.”  As the end grows nearer, I think he’s getting more and more worried about his attention from his parents.

Yesterday, I dropped him off at daycare and along with begging me to stay longer to play with him, he actually whimpered (not quite crying) when I left.  He hasn’t acted that way in well over a year.  It nearly broke my heart. 

So, the last few weeks, we’ve tried to do some extra-fun activities and have been doing as much “family of three” stuff before that changes.  Our regular babysitters haven’t been happy about this arrangement, but Brody is getting lots of mommy & daddy time! 

Zoo Train

“Driving” a tractor

Snack-time in front of the Badger Game

So here’s a few updates on what Brody is into these days:

-Despite the start of the football season, he’s still obsessed with playing baseball.  Which also means I often have baseballs thrown at me when I’m not looking.  (we’re working on that!)

-He still loves reading books – his favorite lately seems to be “The Big Hungry Bear,” which is funny because we’ve had the book for a long time but he loves it more after reading it with Aubrie on our vacation with them.

-We don’t let him watch that many TV shows, so the few we approve of generally rotate.  The last few weeks though, he’s loving Dora & Diego.  Lately he’s been a bit of a TV addict (asking to watch it all the time), so we’re saying no a lot more often and trying to control that for now. 

-Still as active as ever.  The best days we have with him are when he gets time to run around outside.  It’s better when we go somewhere (like the zoo).  I’m dreading winter-time!

I LOVE the funny things this kid says & does…so here’s a few:

-“I don’t want one brother, I want TWO”

-Randomly singing a Tim McGraw/Kenney Chesney song in the car…when it wasn’t even playing on the radio!

-“Mom you can’t wear boots, it’s not snowing outside!”  (Clearly I’ve stopped taking fashion advice from him)

-“I don’t want to be a big brother, I’m going to be a big sister”

 

6 years and counting

Continuing to look back on the couple months I didn’t post…

Jason and I celebrated 6 years together on August 11th.  It’s amazing how it feels like just yesterday that we got married but at the same time, I feel like he’s always been in my life.  Considering I’ve known him for 14 of my 29 years of life, it makes sense.  He’s been one of my best friends for a very long time.

Celebrating 6 years wasn’t very eventful for us, we spent the day before our anniversary at the State Fair for typical fair stuff & a Barenaked Ladies concert that night (my favorite band of all time). 

I look back on this year though and think that it was probably one of the more challenging years for us.  We’re no strangers to life-stresses (both good and bad).  When I look back at what we’ve gone through together, just as a married couple, it’s a lot.  We’ve lived in 3 states, moved 5 times, bought 3 houses, sold 2 houses, adopted 2 dogs and had a baby.  We’ve lost a friend and a few family members.  We’ve supported each other through several job changes, career changes and the stresses that go along with job promotions. 

This year, even though it seems like it would have been a piece of cake (no moves, no big purchases), had it’s challenges.  A lot of changes at Jason’s work, a job change for myself full of high-expectations combined with the beginning of pregnancy with a 2 year-old requiring a lot more patience, along with all the other craziness, we’ve had to adopt our styles and learn even more about each other.  No matter what we go through, I feel that we’re constantly growing as a couple even as we grow as a family.  As cheesy as it sounds, I know I can get through anything with him by my side.  *even if I am a cranky, hormonal pregnant woman*

I say all of this, as we’re about to embark on life with TWO children.  Yep I said it, we’re going to have TWO kids to look after.  No more two parents > 1 child.  We will have to split up, we will have to learn the style of another baby and learn to communicate even more.  Does this scare me to death?  Yes!  But again, I’m lucky to have someone by my side through it…and if all else fails, we’ll ship them off to their Grandparents.  🙂

Some of the more fun things that happened in our 6th year of marriage?  We traveled to the same country we honeymooned at to see two great friends get married there.  Jason turned 30! (I think that’s fun, he thinks it’s the end of the world) We also took trips to Orlando and New York City.  We watched our little boy turn 2.  Our favorite baseball team won the NLDS and we were able to see a game.  The biggest event this year was obviously finding out that we were expecting our second little man.  And as we embark on our 7th year of marriage, I guarantee there will be no 7-year-itch.  We’re in it for the long-haul.

My favorite song as of late:

“Our differences they do a lot to teach us how to use the tools and gifts. 
We got yeah we got a lot at stake
…
We had to learn, how to bend without the world caving in
I had to learn what I got, and what I’m not and who I am.
I won’t give up on us even if the skies get rough
i’m giving you all my love” – Jason Mraz

23 Weeks

Instead of a bump picture, I’m posting our preview pic from our family pictures.  Amanda took a few maternity pictures, so once she gets them edited and sent over – I’ll post more.

How far along? 23 weeks – time flies when you’re having fun!

Total weight gain/loss: Not sure – didn’t weigh myself this week. Can you tell I care a lot less about it this time around??  Honestly, I’ve barely eaten dinner twice this week and haven’t had time for snacks at work because we’re so busy – that I can’t imagine I’ve gained much non-baby weight.

Maternity clothes: Ordered a swimsuit online and I look like a blimp.  So I need to find a new one in the next couple of days before we leave for our weekend at a waterpark!

Sleep: When Brody doesn’t wake me up in the middle of the night, or when the dogs don’t bark because we have our windows open and they heard some random noise – then I actually am sleeping okay.  But that might be because I’m so exhaused for all reasons mentioned above!

Best moment this week: Family pictures.  I never did maternity pictures with Brody and even though that wasn’t the purpose of the pictures this week – it was nice to get a couple of Brody laying on my bump.  And in extra cuteness, when Mandi asked Brody to kiss my belly, he wanted to lift up my shirt or “open it” as he said.  Apparently kissing his baby brother through my shirt wasn’t good enough for him. 
Food cravings: Still eating pop-tarts a lot this week. And thinking about heading back for a doughnut soon…something about sweet breakfast treats really get me craving I guess!

Gender: Boy oh boy.

Labor Signs: Nope

What I miss: So many things.  Really could have used a nice glass of wine last night…

What I am looking forward to: Spending my birthday weekend with my favorite 2.5 boys.

Milestones: Nothing major this week – Jason felt Aedan kick again which I love.  I was sitting across his lap with my big belly against his stomach and Aedan gave him a swift kick.  Clearly Jason was invading his space.

Differences between 1&2:  I never felt overwhelmed by the thought of having Brody.  Scared of labor – yes.  But I always knew that we were ready for a baby and would be a great family.  With Aedan, I’m not scared of physically delivering him, but instead about actually being a mom of 2.  Somedays Brody is a handful by himself, I am overwhelmed by the idea of dealing with a newborn on top of it!  I know it will be perfectly fine, but you know – overly emotional pregnant women can get worked up by this stuff!

Picking out a name

Picking out a name is always the hardest part for us.  I have two girl names that have been picked out for quite awhile.  While we may never be able to use them (or maybe we will…depends on how crazy two kids drive me), we still have them in our back pocket.  I picked out both of our girl options and Jason agreed with them.

Naming a boy though?  So much harder!  We had a hard time agreeing on Brody’s name.  We argued so much during the early pregnancy, that we stopped talking about boy names until we knew for sure.  Then Brody was the first name we liked, so we picked it and stuck with it.

I figured it would be the same way again.  We discussed two names at great length.  Jason had his top name and I had mine.  We truly couldn’t compromise on either.

Jay’s top name: Mitchell
Kellie’s top name: Liam

Then, there was a name that has been in the back of my head for a really really long time.  I come from a strong Irish heritage (my Dad is a full-bred Irishman), so I’ve always really like celtic boy names (hence Brody and Liam).  So there was a name I read in a book that took place in Ireland that I really liked.

But…within a year or so, this became a super popular name.  Since my name is Kellie and we already have a common last name, I was trying to stay away from something too popular.  But then when I fell in love with Liam and realized it was also on the top 10 list, I no longer had an argument against picking a popular name. 

Despite having a popular name, I enjoy the fact that most Kellie’s are spelled Kelly.  Therefore, the fact that we decided to go with a more traditional Gaelic spelling instead of the modern spelling, would set our son apart (slightly) from the many boys that will inevitably have the same name as him

So, without further rambling, in September we will be welcoming…

Aedan Andrew

…to the world.

I also love that to honor another family member, we’ve chosen another one of our brothers for the middle name.  Brody being named after my younger brother Daniel, Aedan will be named after Jason’s younger brother Andy.

Goodbye 2011!

2011 was a great year for our family, but more than anything, it was the year without any major changes!! It felt good. (OK, Jason was promoted to VP and I was promoted to Manager, but I am not counting those as major changes since we stayed in the same jobs, just added responsibility)

I look back at our lives since we got engaged. Basically, Jason put the ring on my finger and we took off running:

*2005 – Engaged, graduated, moved to Kansas City, started a new job (also the year Jason and I got back together after a 1 year hiatus)

*2006 – Jason moved to Kansas City / started a new job, married, bought a house

*2007 – Sold our first house, moved to Cincinnati, adopted two doggies, Jason started a new job

*2008 – Sold our second house, moved back to Wisconsin, started new jobs

*2009 – Pregnant!! Bought our third house.

*2010 – Brody! A fun, but exhausting year…

*2011 – Time to breathe….

2011 really was the year of travel. I love vacations, big or small. I don’t like to sit still, so getting out of town every chance we got, was really fun. We had big vacations (NYC & Punta Cana) and we had a ton of smaller vacations (Michigan, Indiana, Kansas, couple of Wisconsin getaways).

Without the big changes, 2011 was really a great year. It had it’s ups and downs, but we really had fun and grew as a family this year. Taking Brody on a plane for the first time was probably the highlight of the year as well as an entire week with my husband and friends without children. While I love Brody to death, it’s refreshing to spend a little time on ourselves.

I look forward to 2012 and everything that it will bring, hoping for an equally low-stress year.

But look at how far we’ve come…

Dec 2010

Summer 2011

December 2011

Christmas Day

Today Santa will have brought Brody wonderful gifts placed underneath the tree. He will likely get bored from opening gifts and end up distracted by the ones he’s already opened. Jason and I will exchange gifts (I really think he’ll love what I bought him!!)…and we’ll enjoy the not so quiet Christmas morning with a toddler.

Then our crew will come over. Our immediate family on my Dad’s side consists of 7 children, 2 parents, 1 spouse, 1 boyfriend, 1 grandchild…and that’s how we became the Brady Bunch…

It will be noisy, it will be fun, and we’ll love every minute of it. Again, Brody will be a spoiled little man, as he loves it when all of his aunts come over.

Brody’s GG (Great-Grandma) & Great Aunt Molly will join us later in the morning before we do nap-time and head over to my step-mom’s parents house. The rest of the day hasn’t been decided yet, but there will definitely be a Packer Game and quiet time. With all fingers crossed that Brody is in bed by kick-off.

At the end of it all, we’ll be exhausted, but I’ll wonder how it came and went so fast.

I love the holidays.

Merry Christmas Eve!

Today we will head to my Nana’s house to open gifts, eat food, drink wine and love. Brody will be super spoiled and I will un-successfully try to keep him on a normal food/sleep schedule.

Then we will head to church with Jason’s family. Likely, Brody will not have napped, but he will love the attention he will get from his cousins at church. Afterwards we’ll head back to my in-laws house for food, gifts and family. Again, Brody will be spoiled with love and attention and enjoy every minute of it.

We may or may not get him to bed on time. Such is life with a toddler at the holidays.

But all in all, it will be fun, we will be with those we love and we will enjoy every minute of our toddler’s Christmas.

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Working Mom Struggles

As I mentioned before, the end of our summer got a little crazy at work. For a few months I was working crazy hours. At least 6 weeks of it Jason was basically a single parent, when I never even left town! I easily thought about quiting my job daily. (OK not really since I knew it was only temporary and I love my job).

I’ve gone through busy periods in my career and had jobs that never seemed to not been in a busy time. Everytime that happened though, there was only one person I was leaving at home. When it was just Jason and me, he was very understanding when I had to work late. Sure I’d get the occasional complaint, but at the end of the day, he understood that I enjoyed my job and sometimes that required a lot of hours.

Ever since Brody was born, I’ve been in a job where we have busy times, but that really only amounted to 50 hours a week. And I’ve been very lucky where I can work at home at night instead of staying at the office late.

Then we had an unexpected thing come up at work (it was accounting related, so I won’t bore you with the details), that not only did I have to work late and work weekends, it wasn’t optional. For the first time in my career, I was told that I had to work all weekend. We were here for 15 hour days for over 10 days straight. Which = not seeing Brody for most of those days.

Things I learned:
1. There is a reason I work where I do…this was a rare situation, where other career paths I could have taken would expect this on a regular basis.

2. I’m not emotionally capable of handling being absent from my family for long periods of time. There were a lot of tears shed… (Also, working 90-100 hours in a week is exhausting)

3. I have the BEST HUSBAND IN THE WORLD! Ok, I already knew that, but, he’s always been there for me when I needed it and this time was no exception. I normally take Brody to daycare every day. But in order for me to get home before 10pm at night, I had to start coming in earlier than daycare opened. So he had to go to work late a couple days a week, just so I could be in at 6am. His job is important to him too, so it wasn’t easy to have to balance that as well as taking on Brody full-time.

On the weekends when I was at work, Jason didn’t just sit at home with Brody staring at the TV, he actually took him out to do things. Our zoo passes were awesome because they would just head out to the zoo for a few hours and then head home when they got bored. He really is a great father.

4. We have a great family. Again, I already knew this, but we had a few people have to come and babysit last minute because I couldn’t get out of work. It’s a huge help having them around and knowing Jason wasn’t in it alone.

5. I do really work for a great company. There were many people who had to go above and beyond this summer and they made sure to recognize everyone.

Family Vacation

Every summer, my Dad, Stepmom and as many children that can make it, head to Grand Haven, MI for a family vacation. Between my Dad and Sara, they have 7 children, 2 extended children (Jason & my step-sisters long-time boyfriend) and 1 grandchild. So we end up with quite the crowd (all pictured above).

Last year, when Brody was about 6 months old, we took him for the first time. It was fun to bring him along, but there were a lot of things we couldn’t do with him. He was barely eating solids and couldn’t even crawl yet. So, this year, we had a lot of things we were excited for him to do.

First, we decided we were going to take a ferry across Lake Michigan, instead of making the drive around. We had to take a 6am ferry there and an 11pm ferry back to get the best deal, but it seemed worth it to save on sitting in a car for 6 hours. We were wrong…

The ferry ride to MI was great. Despite getting up early, Brody was happy and unlike an airplane, you could actually move around. It was rocky of course, but he was able to walk around and we even went on the top of the boat to get some fresh air and check out the water.

The ferry ride home? Awful! I’ll spare you the details, but it was stormy and the lake was choppy. Needless to say, it was 11pm at night, Brody was tired and seasick and I was on my own in taking care of him since everyone else on the boat wasn’t doing so well either. I’m never complaining about the 6 hour car ride again!!

Aside from the ride home, the rest of the trip was a blast.

There are several traditions we have for this annual trip. One tradition involves ice cream at a place in town that has a huge variety of yummy flavors. So, despite the fact that I generally don’t give Brody much for dessert, he had to have ice cream with everyone else. I did make the mistake of getting his in a bowl when everyone else got a cone. He ended up finishing my ice cream cone instead and I had to eat out of the bowl!

Second tradition is a place called “Pronto Pups.” They batter and fry corn dogs in a stand on the road and while completely awful for you, they taste great! Brody’s first experience with fried food was a good one of course.

We stay at a home a block away from Lake Michigan, so there is a lot of beach time while we’re there. Last year, Brody freaked out when we tried to expose him to the lake. The water was even relatively warm and he wouldn’t go near it. So we were a little unsure how he would do this year, especially when I wouldn’t go in because it was too cold (and this was in the middle of August!!)
So we walked him to the water….

He checked it out…

And within minutes he was laughing like crazy and loved running into the waves. This is the kid the can’t handle it if his bath is lower than 98 degrees. Yet he went running into a freezing cold lake with no problem. What a crazy guy.

We knew the sand would be his favorite part and it definitely was. He even let Jason bury him in it. All was fun, until he ended up with sand in his eyes…

The best part about vacations with the entire family is not only the fun we have together, it’s also a huge help when you have a little guy. Everyone there is more than willing to help take care of him and keep him entertained. And since we stay in a house, it’s easy for him to adapt to a “home away from home” atmosphere. It’s by far the easiest vacation with a toddler. And next year he’ll be able to do even more!

We survived!

I’m happy to report that our first vacation with a toddler was very sucessful! After a couple in-town stops (including my necessary Starbucks run) we were on the road by 7am. Since we woke up Brody around 5:30, he was sleepy enough to pass out within 10 minutes of the drive. He woke up for the last half an hour of the drive but I sat in the back seat with him and he was happy as a clam. We watched our nephew’s basketball team shortly after arriving and like usual, Brody loved watching them play. Unfortunately they lost but the boys played hard! The girls team from their school was still in the tournament, so we came back Saturday night to see them play. And this is when we started to get way off of Brody’s normal schedule.

Normal nap time at our house is around 12:30, last weekend, Brody finally got a chance for a nap around 3:30. Then he ate a late snack since he didn’t actually get dinner until almost 8pm that night. And if you know Brody, you know that he’s usually long in bed by 7pm. I anticipated a major meltdown at some point during dinner. Aside from his sleepy eyes, there was no meltdown and he was amazing.

The next morning we decided to take him in the hotel pool. He hasn’t had any pool experience, so I was really excited to see how he’d react. Well….he cried. He loves warm baths so a 75 degree pool was apparently too cold for him. So he was one unhappy kid. We comforted him and tried to get him used to the water without giving up right away. He quickly got used to the water and started having fun. Luckily we had the pool to ourselves so it was fun to play with him.

After we watched another basketball game Sunday morning, we headed back on the road. Since we left after lunch, Brody was able to get his afternoon nap in the car. And so did his mommy!

As for all my concerns, I think they worked out well. And I learned a lot about traveling in the process. We were always able to find relatively healthy meals for Brody despite what we ate. Continental breakfast in the hotel was great and also allowed us to grab fruit for later! I will say I was a little dissapointed in the kids menu at the restaurant we went to Saturday night. There was mostly fried food options or burgers. We went with mac & cheese. Then for side dishes they offered cole slaw or fries. Really?!? No veggies?! So we asked to substitute veggies instead of fries. Not only did we pay extra for the vegetables but were charged for a glass of milk since we asked for that instead of soda. Apparently healthier choices will cost you! But we feel pretty strongly about getting Brody healthy options as much as possible and I’m willing to pay for it.

As for the hotel — while not completely baby-proof, Brody managed to stay safe and entertained just fine. Though as we’re planning our trip to New York in the fall, I’m definitely looking at an apartment style hotel room to give us more space. Not only to give him room to move around but to keep him separated from us when he’s sleeping. It’s hard for him to fall asleep when he can see us right next to him — wide awake.

It was a fantastic weekend & I’m so glad that Brody handled all the change and disruptions so well. He truly goes with the flow and it makes it so easy on all of us.