our sons' pics :o)

Yesterday, we did a quick photo shoot of the boys together and it was so sweet! Below are a few bunch of our fav pics.

Things here are going so, so well! Life is just so precious! In the last 20 minutes, Jasper has kissed Brody 19 times and keeps saying, "I wuv 'oo, wiitle wuv bug." ( I've always called Jasper my "little love bug" and I call brody my "tiny love bug" and it just melts my heart to hear Jasper saying it, too). I picked "Brody" to be our 2nd son's name because it means "brother" and from the moment we found out we were having a 2nd boy, it has been my fervent and constant prayer that these boys would be the best of friends, brothers with an unshakable love and bond and that they would be each other's "go-to person". Over the past 9 months, I've spent countless hours awake at night, praying for the brother's love for each other and for God and it is just amazing to see God's instant answer to prayer! It just makes me so thankful and humbled and it completely melts my heart.

Anyway, here are the pics! Enjoy! :o)

PS unfortunately, Andrew was the man behind the camera, so he wasn't in any of the pics. But don't worry. We will remedy that soon.

PPS Lest you think I'm a controlling wife who chooses our sons' names without letting Andrew participate, I'll tell you about our deal. About 1.5 years ago, we made the deal that for the rest of our lives, whenever we need a new car, Andrew can choose any car he wants, no questions asked, no input from me whatsoever. In turn, for the rest of our lives, I get to name all children and pets, no questions asked, no input from Andrew whatsoever (although I would never choose a name that Andrew hates). He loves the deal, I love the deal, we both feel like it's a win-win situation. :o) Hence, I picked Brody's name. :o)

photo bomb :o)

So please forgive me, but I'm just going to post a lot of random pictures from the past 6 days. I don't have time to edit them, but I really wanted to post them just in case our computer crashes or something, then at least they'll be saved via the blog.

The last week has been so sweet and incredibly precious!!! I could never have imagined how precious life could be. I didn't really think anything was missing from our life pre-Brody, but now that Brody is here, it feels so complete and so perfect and like, "This is what we've been waiting for!!" Jasper just loves loves love brody (he tells him so often!) and gets a little emotionally distressed whenever he has to be separated from him (it completely melts my heart!) J loves to help with b, loves to show B his tricks and his clothes and his snow suit, etc. Jasper seems much more "complete" now that he has a brother and so far there haven't been any jealousy issues whatsoever. Life is just so sweet!!!

leaving for the hospital (with mom, too) at 5:10 am

getting prepped for surgery! I'm so incredibly thankful mom was with us! 

heading into the OR. These nurses were great!

my 1st glimpse of Brody bug! :o) Instantly so in love.

Andrew getting to hold him!

getting cleaned up a bit.

chunker!! No wonder I had so much back pain! :o)

1st time together as a family of 4! So precious!

the boys! :o)

father and son. melt my heart!

Our favorite nurse, Yvonne.

coming home from the hospital

 taking Brody to his 4 day check-up

at B's check-up. Everything looks great!

brothers :o)

Andrew and J headed out to shovel the driveway

SOOO excited

Only 36 hours till our newest little treasure joins our family, Lord willing, and we CAN'T wait!!! We are so, so, so very excited and are just about to burst!!!

Tonight was our last "normal" night as a family of 3 (my parents will be here with us tomorrow night and then the baby will be here!) and we treasured it and spent much of the evening dancing to my new music. :o)

We can't wait!!!!! I'm literally shaking with excitement as I type this!! Stay tuned for news of the baby's arrival. (we'll prob send texts and put it on fb as that's the easiest way to spread bulk news)

from start to finish

We're nearing the end of this pregnancy now! Only 1 week to go and little B will be in our arms, Lord willing! :o) It's so exciting and I find myself so eager with anticipation to meet our newest little guy. We've been very busy in preparation, but I think everything is ready now. Jasper and Andrew and I are all ready, the house is ready, the car is ready, the bags are packed, B "bought" gifts to give to J in the hospital, I have tons of meals frozen, we bought snacks for Andrew for in the hospital, child care arranged, the laundry is caught up, etc.

Last night I was thinking about the differences in the pregnancies between the boys and I was marveling at how everything about them is pretty different, from start to finish. For example:
- my health during the pregnancies is night-and-day opposite (felt pretty great the whole time I was preggo with Jasper, feel really bad the whole time with Brody)
- my blood pressure is opposite (horrible blood pressure with Jasper, perfect blood pressure with Brody)
- my weight gain is opposite (gained 66 lbs with J and only 30 with B)
- my home preparation is opposite (not very prepared with J for some reason that completely baffles me, completely and totally and obsessively prepared for B)
- had no idea what to expect with Jasper, I feel more prepared with Brody.
- thought I'd be having a natural birth with Jasper. Having a planned c-section with Brody.
- The day Jasper was born, it was 88 degrees and humid. The forecast for next thur is -30 with the windchill.

The few similarities between the boys' pregnancies:
- we prayed and prayed and prayed and begged God for both pregnancies
- with both boys, we found out we were pregnant with them the day we got home from a vacation (we had just got home from Louisville when we found out about J, just got home from Mexico when we found out about B). I keep thinking that if this trend continues in our life, we should plan our vacations accordingly. :o)

It was fun for me to see the differences and I found myself dreaming about what Brody will or will not be like. Will he be the spitting image of his daddy like Jasper is? Will he have red hair like Jasper did or black hair like I did or baldish like Andrew was as a baby? Will he be a non-stop talked and mover like Jasper is or will he be more chilled? Will he be skinny and tall like J or short and chubby and rolly polly? I am so eager to meet B and find out all these details about our newest son! Thankfully, we only have 7 more days until the dream becomes a reality! :o)

A few pics from the 2 pregnancies.

The day we found out we were pregnant with:
 Jasper (September 6th, 2010)

Brody (June 2nd, 2013)

The day we found out the genders of our babies (we were 14 weeks along with both) 

 Jasper (November 2010)

Brody (July 2013)

20 weeks pregnant with:

Jasper

Brody 

The boys' rooms

38 weeks preggo with the boys.

Jasper (taken on Mother's Day, 2011)

Brody (taken 5 days ago :o))

A few pics from Jasper's birth:

During the csection

Jasper's 1st second on earth

Getting weighed and measured

.

First pic as a family of 3

the day after the section and so in love.

Ugg.

Have you ever had one of those weeks?

You know, the kind of week that just. won't. end.

Where nothing goes right? In fact, everything goes WRONG. Very, very wrong. As in, "2 babysitters canceling, 17 unanswered phone calls, 5 un-returned texts, walking out in the middle of a dinner, horrible wooden benches, getting lost late at night in the downtown because I can't see through the cascade of tears" type of wrong.

The week where nothing's easy or fun? In fact, everything is HARD. Super, duper, crazy hard.

Where you almost deck a complete stranger just because she cut in line for the elevator at COSI?

The kind of week where your child is a terror and the best you can muster is to keep silent.? In fact, you count it a major victory that you kept quiet. Because you know that if you opened your mouth, all the ugliness in your heart would spill out on not only your child but also on the surrounding tri-state area?

The kind of week where your husband is from Venus and you're from Mars? No, no... that's not right. We're not even from the same solar system this week. Forget Venus and Mars. This week, my husband is from... oh say Jupiter. And I'm from... the mothership that abducted the aliens and took them to a galaxy far, far, far away with Luke Skywalker and the Avitars and the hobbits..

The kind of week that when you realize that it's Thursday and not Friday like you thought, you sit down and bawl for an hour.

The kind of week where you have pancakes for breakfast, waffles for lunch, chocolate truffles for snack, and wine for dinner?

Yup. I'm having one of those weeks.

Constant, horrible, excruciating back pain that keeps me up at night and miserable every minute of every day doesn't help with the horrible, no-good, awful, never-ending week.

BUT.... I still do have so many things to be thankful for.

1. My mom. Let me say it again. My mom. I sent her an SOS "I'm mad at the world and the world is mad at me" text today and she responded so utterly perfectly that it brought tears to my eyes.
2. My husband and his humility.
3. I won a silly little Scentsy contest today and it made me so utterly happy, you woulda thought that I won the lottery.

I have so many more things to be thankful for, but to be honest, I'm still just stuck on that mothership.

too quiet

I just went to the basement to start a load of laundry.

Lost in thought about the things I need to do before little B arrives, I didn't notice that the house was quiet.

Maybe a little too quiet.

I didn't notice until I was climbing the basement steps and coming up to the kitchen.

Fear, dread, and an overall sense of foreboding filled me.

I quickly went in search of Jasper and found him. Stark naked (definitely NOT the way I left him). Sitting in the bathroom sink. With water gushing all over. Smiling proudly and saying,

"Wook mommy!! I's a swimmin'!!!"

Water cascading all over, the bathroom floor flooding, a clean pile of laundry that I had left in the bathroom now soaked and ruined, and all I can do is cry laugh and grab the camera.

fyi- I did turn the faucet off before grabbing the camera. Hence, you don't get the joy of seeing waterfalls of water flooding my bathroom.

Jasper understands... sorta

Poor Jasper.

He understands some things, but not others.

For example, something he understands- Christmas.

In fact, he understands Christmas really, really well. In his limited understanding, Christmas is when he says "Happy birddday, Jesus!!" a lot, gets tons and tons of really awesome presents, and eats a boat load of sugar.

Something he doesn't understand- the concept of time.

So the poor guy has no idea when the next Christmas is. It's quite adorable, as every morning for the last 2 weeks when I get him up out of bed, he says, "Gowd mornin', momma!! Is it Mismas (aka Christmas) tuuday???!" and he says it was such hope and enthusiasm and expectation. Poor guy. :o)

I always respond, "No buddy. I'm so sorry. It's not Christmas today."

Jas- "Maybe Mismas is 'morrow?"

me- "no, honey. Christmas isn't tomorrow, either. Christmas is a looooong time away. We have a lot of things we need to do before the next Christmas, such as having Brody come out of my tummy, going swimming this summer, lots and lots of play dates, going to the library lots and lots of times. Lots of things need to happen before we have the next Christmas."

Jasper, however, is not daunted.

"Maybe itsa 'morrow."

me, "no, baby, it's not tomorrow."

Jasper perseveres, though. "Maybe yes, maybe no."

me, laughing, "definitely no, honey."

Seeing that he gets nowhere with this line of questions, Jasper always switches tactics.

J- "Maybe bor (for) da next Mismas momma cin buy Baber some purple snow."

me, laughing, "Maybe, buddy. I'll talk to Daddy about it."

at this point, I can see the wheels turning in his little head, trying to think of things that I can buy him for the next Christmas.

J- "Maybe bor da next Mismas, momma cin buy Baber a huuuuuuuuuuge beeeeeeeeeg esabator (aka excavator) wid da beeeeeg dinosaurs in it and Baber and da dinosaurs cin sit in da esabator an' dig an' dig an' dig an' dig awwwwll day wong and dig a huuuuge bwoo swimming pool."

me, laughing some more, "For the next Christmas, you want me to buy you a big, huge excavator with dinosaurs in it and you guys can dig all day long and dig a huge blue swimming pool?"

J- "Oh yes!"

me, chuckling, "Umm.. I'll talk to daddy about it."

J- "or maybe bor da next Mismas, momma cin buy Baber a weguwar cockwoach?"

me- "For next Christmas you want a regular cockroach?"

J- "Oh yes pwease!!"

me- "What kind of cockroach is not a regular one?"

J- "a cwazy cockwoach!!! Sillwy momma!!"

me, laughing- "So you want a regular cockroach, not a crazy cockroach, for next Christmas?"

J- "yes pwease!!"

me, laughing, "Maybe. I'll talk to Daddy about it."

J- "Or maybe da guy cin buy it bor me."

me, laughing, "Maybe the guy will buy it for you, but probably not."

J- "maybe yes, maybe no."

me, laughing, shaking my head. But, oh, he's not done yet.

J- "maybe bor da next Mismas, momma cin buy Baber a howse."

me- "You want a horse? Like a real, live, horse?"

J- "yes please!"

me- "no, buddy, I'm not buying you a horse."

J- "Momma, maybe yoo shoulda talk to Dadda 'bout it."

And that, my friends, is when I lost it and just started laughing and laughing.

This kid is smart.