Praying for Oklahoma

Praying for Oklahoma. 

My heart is heavy tonight.

I can not begin to even imagine if my child were one of the one's missing.

Such devastation for so many.

Chronicles of the Mommy Diaries: Episode 1

I decided to start blogging once a week about the humorous things that happen during the week. I want to be able to look back and remember all the funny things my kids have done. It's so easy to forget things in this crazy hectic thing called life. 

On our weekly shopping trip to Target this week I decided I HAD to have a box of chewy chocolate chip cookies (along with some sour patch kids and a gallon of ice-cream). Pregnancy is bringing out my inner fatty. E is in that phase of if you are eating it, he wants it. Especially when it pertains to snack food. So I had to secretly eat my cookies during his nap time, in my bed. Yes, in my bed. Being the lazy prego that I am, I just placed them on my night stand when I was done. Fast forward to the next day. How half a day went by without E seeing the cookies on my night stand, I'm not really sure. But when I woke up the next morning I told myself "Self, put those cookies up." Did I do it? NO! E and I had a lunch date with a friend and so our morning was super busy getting E fed and dressed and getting Mommy ready. E's new thing is opening our shower, which he's not allowed in yet. That's a habit I'm not entering into. So I was trying to soap up with one hand and hold the shower door with the other. E would give up and go into our bedroom and grab a toy and come back and sit at the door and then repeat trying to open the door. After about three attempts of breaking into the shower, E rounded the corner with the cookies. And the happiest look on his face. So proud of himself. Two things I thought a. how in the world does he even know what those are, because I've never given him any (the boy's smart) and b. there's no way he can get into them. Wrong. Took two seconds and E was double fisting cookies in front of the shower. There are some things you will just let your kids do just to get yourself ready and this was one of them. For that one hour it takes me to get ready, as long as he's not doing anything to hurt himself I'm game. Lesson of the week: Break those cookies out sooner next time.

Mother's Day 2013

In the complete madness of the past week, I completely forgot to blog about Mother's Day. (Chris has been in class from 8-5 EVERY day, along with working his normal fire department schedule. So he has been home MAYBE a total of nine waking hours.)

Friday I came home to flower beds full of flowers. My usually horrible gift giver of a husband completely surprised me. For the last month I've been talking about how bad I needed to do our beds. There honestly just hasn't been time. And when there is that little sliver of time I'm quite frankly tired. So sitting in the hot sun and digging in the dirt just doesn't sound appealing. Chris found time to run to Home Depot and plant them before I got off at 3:00. Did I mention he was in charge of E that day? I'm sure to some it doesn't sound like much, but goodness E is an all day job. He's at that age of being into everything. You can't take your eyes off of him for one second or he's throwing dog food, or has climbed on top of the bed.  I was highly impressed. 

Saturday I got to spend some quality time with my grandma and mom. We went to the movies. Movie of choice: The Great Gatsby. The reviews on it weren't all that great, but we really enjoyed it. Goes to prove that those people who review the movies have no clue what they're talking about. I wasn't the only one who got a surprise for Mother's Day. My grandmother came home to find that my dementia grandfather had moved her car. I forgot to mention, he's been legally blind for at least the last fifteen years. Scary, I know. His attachment object is his keys, so to be without his keys would seriously send him over the edge. Needless to say, some key switching has been done. No more car keys for Paw. 

Sunday was family day. Lunch was at my mom's house. I tried to coax her into letting me cook, but she  didn't fall for it. Drives me crazy. Either a. she just doesn't like my cooking and isn't trying to hurt my feelings or b. she's just that dang stubborn. I'm leaning towards b. Lunch was great of course and the company was even better. Once Chris got off we headed to the MIL's hacienda. A huge surprise was in store for her. Chase, Chris's younger brother, was making a surprise appearance. Mrs. Carol had no clue. All three of her kiddos would be there. Her expression when she saw him was priceless. I love surprises like that. We had dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. My fav. It was overall a wonderful day spent with some of the most important people in my life. Many of them mothers who I look up to. 

As an added bonus to Mother's Day, I also got an iphone 5. My poor little 4, which I've been rocking for the last two years, was giving out on me. When your phone informs you it can no longer take any more pictures, you know it's bad. And I had deleted every unimportant picture I had. I definitely went up in storage space on my 5. Mama takes a crap ton of pictures and videos. Add another amazing Mother's Day to the books.

Me and my little man

The SIL, MIL, and me

Wonderful mothers to look up to.

I forgot my camera and didn't get any pictures of my side of the family :( 

At least I got one of E and me (compliments of the SIL). 

Scary news

A couple of weeks ago Chris and I got some pretty scary news. We had a doctor's appointment and this was the appointment where they ultrasound and checked to make sure all of the organs were there and growing appropriately. All of the organs were there and everything looked great, EXCEPT, for two "minor" issues- as the doctor described them. Evan had a choroid plexus cyst and an echogenic focus. The cyst is just a small pocket of fluid in the brain that contains cerebral spinal fluid, it has no effect what so ever on any development of the baby. The echogenic focus is a small calcium deposit on the heart, once again has no effect on the heart function. Both generally go away before birth. So what's the big deal? Both are minor markers for Down's syndrome. Off to a specialist we went. 

Mentally I prepared myself for the worst, our baby would have Down's. It's by no means a death sentence. It could be so much worse. God would just give us a special baby that would need a little extra loving. Granted, everybody wants a perfect baby, nobody wants to be told something might be wrong with this tiny miracle growing inside of them. But God never gives us more than we can handle. And I knew he had a plan for me and I was ready for it. So for a week I worried, panicked, questioned, googled, and pretty much just needed an immediate answer. A little piece of the impatient person I was before E came along came back. I had one breakdown, tears and all, but I knew everything would be okay. The only thing I could think was how other people would treat my child. I knew I loved Evan no matter what, but it was how others would treat him that bothered me most. 

Skip forward a week later, time for a visit to the specialist. The specialist made us feel so much better. He said he didn't really even think the echogenic focus was an echogenic focus, rather part of the leaflet of the valve opening and closing. As far as the cysts, he said lots of kids have them (his middle child did). And they usually disappear at 26-30 weeks. He reconfirmed that there were no other ultrasound markers to be concerned with, and offered a blood test for Down's that takes the baby's DNA from the mom's blood. The test is 99% accurate. Unlike the quad screening that was offered early in pregnancy to test for Down's, which we refused because many times it comes back false positive. The test usually took two weeks to come back. Ahhhhh another sit and wait game. The bright side is the doctor made us feel so much better, so my anxiety level was a lot less. 

Today we got the call from our blood test results and it came back NEGATIVE. :) All that worrying and fretting and what ifs for nothing. 

When E came into this world he came in full force. Everything I had planned didn't quite go as so. No vaginal delivery, no breast feeding, no three month old sleeping through the night. Well it looks like this go round Evan is starting a little earlier than E. Just a pleasant reminder that I am NOT in control. One of the many life lessons I have learned through parenting. 

Gender Reveal Party: What will it bee?

Our "theme" was What will it bee? We had such a great time. All of our close friends and family were able to attend (with the exception of the out of town people- completely understandable). Thank goodness for FaceTime! I am so thankful we have such amazing people in our lives. 

Future BIG brother

Ultrasound pictures

I covered the doodle with bee stickers.

The Old Wives Tales predicted a girl. 

Winner on guest's predictions is a she. 

Won by a landslide. j

I found the picture of the bee online and just printed them off and cut them out. 

Each of the little bees had the name of the person who voted. 

The amazing cake my mother made. 

Super talented lady.

Most important part: food!

Chicken spaghetti/salad/ and bread was on the menu. 

The chicken spaghetti has a whole story behind it. I was tripling the recipe and thought "Oh it will be easy, boil some noodles and chicken and whooola." Wrong I was up until 12:30 just preparing it to heat for the next day. Next time I will take the help offered to me. :)

Reveal time. 

We revealed with blowing up balloons. Whoever blew theirs up, that's what the sex was. 

I decided to be a trickster (in typical Brandi fashion) and started blowing mine up first. 

Everybody was yelling I knew it, little did they know I would quickly be deflating mine.

Little Evan it is. 

Finding great humor in my trickery. 

My blessings. 

Back in the game

After a two month hiatus I am back in the game. I've completely neglected the blogasphere. Life has just been WAY too busy. A one year old is no joke. All day long we go, go, go. I seriously can't take my off the little bugga. I have a ton of stuff to post about, but instead of flooding this one post with it I'm going to split it up. Here's just a sneak peak: we know the sex of our sweet baby and we have a name, we had a super fun gender reveal party to share with all of our close friends and family- pictures coming soon, baby room planning has begun, E has learned to hit and throw toys (in the process of correcting this behavior), hard to believe with my previous statement, BUT, E is at a super fun stage right now, E's already a little ballpark boy- got to get them started at an early age, E is completely obsessed with cars, and that's just some of the fun we've been having.

So to my first order of business:

We are having a boy!!!! And we are beyond excited. Chris is a little scared, because he thinks since it's not a girl I'm going to want to have a third. I hate to tell him, but the sex of the baby has no effect on whether I want more :) To be 100% honest, if all I had was little boys I'd be A okay. They will always love their mommys. I think I'm kind of partial since my first was a boy. I just don't know if I'll be done at two. Chris has informed me that come October (opening of hunting season) when the boys get older I'm going to be all alone because they'll be at the deer camp until December. I informed him I will tagging along. I love the fact that boys play in dirt and bring home frogs and worms. Little boys don't care about what they wear, throw an old ratty shirt and some shorts on and call it good. There's no pinning them down and putting bows in their hair or screaming while your brushing the tangles out of their hair. Oh what fun we're going to have!

Second order of business: name. Evan Reid it is. I stuck with E's because I think it's cute. This name was definitely a little bit harder than the first to pick. It kind of started out like Ethan's did. We had a middle name we liked, just had to find a first name that was the perfect fit. As every day passes I get more and more excited to meet this little guy. Will he be wild and outgoing like E? Or will he be shy and introverted? Will he be serious? Or will he be full of laughs like E? Will him and E be best buds or will they hate each other until they're eighteen? Hopefully the first. At least if their mommy has anything to do with it.

Stay tuned for more of what's been going on in this household of E's.

*Please keep my sweet little family in your prayers.