Logan is 4

My first born turned 4 on 4-4! He is such a big kid now.

WHY does he look so BIG here?! 

We blew up some balloons and put them in his room and he got to open up his present.  The movie Big Hero 6.  He loves Baymax and was very excited!

Since the next day was Easter, we decided to have his Super Hero party (per his request on the theme!) a few weeks later.  Saturday was all about Logan and we let him pick all the meals that day.


Breakfast: Pancakes.  This boy would eat pancakes everyday is we let him.

Lunch:  Chi-Fil-A! That's right.  He pronounces it without the "ck" at the end of "chick" and his favorite are the "bumpy" nuggets.  I have no idea why he calls them bumpy nuggets.

Dinner:  Pizza.  Nothing better  cheaper than a $5 Hot N Ready!

I made him a Funfetti cake which he "helped" me make.  Needless to say, we did not eat great on Saturday, but Logan felt special.

Daddy took him to a car show that night, he had fun.  That little boy loves him some race cars.

Logan is the funniest kid.  This is by far my most favorite age.  He is so imaginative and loving.  But stubborn and knows how to push his boundaries as well!
He loves to watch movies.  He loves his little brother.  He loves to play with his trucks and reading books.  He loves to "help" me clean.  He does not want our help with anything, wants to do everything himself.  He is not a risk taker.  It takes him a while to warm up to strangers and new situations.

Food: He still loves all "kid food" Hot dogs, corn dogs, chicken nuggets, peanut butter and jelly and macaroni and cheese. He likes "square cheese", poptarts, eggs, bacon, golfish crackers, fruit cups.  He has also expanded his pallet to grilled chicken,sausage, beans (some), and still no green ANYTHING. His all time favorite breakfast is pancakes.  He requests it every morning.  And I think the kid would eat bacon at every meal.  We are going to try really hard this year to get him to eat more veggies or at least try them.  We will see how that goes.  His favorite places to eat are: Chick-fil-A, Whataburger and McDonald's (which he calls "Old Macdonalds).  He will always say he wants a happy meal, not a sad meal from that place.

We headed to the doctor for his 4 year check up.  He has NEVER been a fan of the doctor.  He was in and out of there so much when he was little.  At his 3 year check up, he was better, but still leery.  He got no "owies" at that appointment so that was great.  However, not the case when they turn 4.  We did not tell him he was getting shots either.  He would have had a full blown meltdown.  He weighed 38 pounds and is 3 ft, 6 inches tall.  He is going to be a tall boy! They checked his hearing and vision which was perfect, he thought it was fun to put the headphones on.  He did very well talking to the doctor.  Then she left and the nurse came in and he knew what was happening.  He cried of course, but all was well in the world when the nurse came in and gave him a sucker and a superman sticker.  Then afterwards we let him pick where we would go eat lunch.  He picked "water-burger" and got his favorite, a bacon cheeseburger!

I really cannot believe he is 4.  One more year at daycare, then he goes to kinder! Which we have to figure out soon.  I have some schools in mind that I want him to go to and it is not the one we are zoned to.  So we might be putting our house up for sale like the end of this year.  Fun.  But that is another blog post some other time.

Logan, buddy, you are such a sweet and caring, yet stubborn and silly boy! We love you so much!
Super-hero party is on for this weekend! Can't wait to hang out and celebrate with friends and family. We will be taking him to see a Monster Truck jam in Austin next weekend, so that will be fun!

Mason is 4 months!

Ok seriously time needs to slow down!

Our roly poly man is already 4 months old! We went to the doctor with the 2 kids in tow, Logan for his 4 year and Mason for his 4 month check up and shots.  Mason weighs in at 14 pounds, 9 ounces and is a strong healthy boy! He does have a flat spot on one side of his head, just from laying in the same spot and not liking tummy time.  The doctor assured us it would round out.  We try to move his head while he is asleep to the other side, but nope, he will move it back.  Working on more tummy time and putting him in the jump up will help as well. He took his shots like a champ! Cried for just a bit and then was over it and back to smiling!

Eating: 5 ounces of breast milk every 3-4 hours. Sometimes he will take 6 or 7 ounces on occasion. My goal was to pump for 4 months! YAY! Now on to my next goal of 6 months, I can do it! We gave him rice cereal the other day and he was pretty much over it and was like give me my bottle already! So I am going to send some to school and see if he will take it there.  And the rolls.  They go on for days! I love all his chubbiness!

Sleeping: Like a champ! He HAS to be swaddled though.  Our routine is bath, bottle, bed.  Sometimes this means he is swaddled in the crib at 7:30pm.  He does still wake up around 4:30am, (he wriggles out of his swaddle) and I put him in the bed with us.  Sometimes he goes right back to sleep.  Other times, he is hungry.

Likes:  He likes to be held still and rocked.  I love it, but sometime we have to put him down and he hates it.  We have had a few "cry it out" nights and boy does that hurt my heart! He eventually calms down, but that boy has some lungs on him! He likes mirrors, as all babies do.  He will smile so big if he is looking at a mirror.  He loves big brother.  Logan is usually the one that can get him smiling big. He is smiling ALL the time! He has been dubbed by Bryan as our "smiley guy" We would hardly get any smiles out of Logan at that age. He will coo and make noises and blow bubbles and we have heard a few giggles but no laughing out loud just yet.  He enjoys his bath and kicks and splashes.  He likes the swing when he is sleepy.  He likes to pull his blankie up right by his face.  He also has a little bear he has grown pretty found of when he is sleepy.

Dislikes:  Being put down on his back.  He always wants to be sitting up like a big boy.  He still has a love hate relationship with his pacifier.  It will sooth him, but if he looses grip....his world has ended and he lets us know about it! He does not seem to enjoy the bumbo at home, but they tell me at school, he likes it.

Mason, Buggie boy, you have completed our little family! We love you more every day, keep growing!

Mason is 3 months!

This happy chubby baby is 3 months old!

Doing:
SMILES! He has been giving us the biggest smiles and it melts my heart! "Taking" more and more, little coos and noises here and there.  I am waiting for him to laugh, it is coming soon, I can tell! Holding his head up pretty good, but it is hard work.   We put him in the bumbo chair to see, but he did not last very long.

Likes:
He loves when we change his diaper because we have a mirror over the changing table.  He loves laying there and smiles big.  Eating! He is still eating every 3-4 hours, 5oz. I am still exclusively pumping (I honestly do not know how I have made it this far!) so I have to keep up with his demanding eating habits. But so far, we have not supplemented any formula.   He is now sleeping through the night.  And by that I mean we can feed him at 11pm and he will sleep until 5:30am.  The other morning he woke up VERY hungry and gulped down 7 oz! My big boy! He loves riding in the car. He has a little mirror and he will just look at it and make funny faces and stick out his tongue.  Logan laughs all the time at his "silly face" brother!

Dislikes:
Not a fan of tummy time.  We try, and he can stand it for a while, then gets mad.  Sleep.  I mean he likes to sleep, but when we put him down at night, he will fight it. We have swaddled him a few nights and that seems to work. He will wake up around 3am and be fussy, so he snuggles with Mommy.  He is also in a love-hate relationship with the paci.  It seems to soothe him, unless it falls out, then his world has ended! He gets so worked up about it that it is very hard to put back in his mouth.  So maybe Mommy and Daddy have a love-hate relationship with the paci!


We put away all the 3 month clothes and have moved up to 6 month ones.  He seems to be growing very fast! We think he maybe weighs about 14 pounds. He is still in a size 2 diaper.  His hair has all fallen out, except for the back part (which just looks like old man hair!) and it seems to be coming back in, but very light, peach-fuzz.  So we have another little "baldy" and that is ok with us! He looks more and more like Logan everyday, just more round and rolly. He got a nasty cough this month from big brother of course and all the nasty daycare germs I am sure.  Other than him coughing, he is pretty happy!

He is getting so big so quick, we love you Buggie!

The Name Game

A few days ago an article came out about the most popular baby names of 2015.
Top baby names of 2015

I was shocked to see both my boy's names in the TOP 5! We never wanted to name our babies "popular" names, but, yep, there they were.  Mason at number 3 and Logan number 5.  I guess I will have to come to terms with there will probably be kids in their class named the same as them. However, in 2011, Logan was #10 on the list and in 2014, Mason was #6.  Still in the top ten.  
People probably assumed we got their names from a baby name website, but we didn't.

When I was little, I used to play with a little girl down the street from us named Lindsey.  She had the cutest, blonde, blue-eyed baby brother named Logan. He was seriously the cutest baby ever. I mean up until I had my babies, of course.   I made up my mind right then (I think I was 6 years old!) that if I became a mommy to a boy, his name would be Logan.  Fast forward to the year 2010 and we found out we were pregnant.  In my heart, I knew it was a boy and so did Bryan.  We were eating at a restaurant and I wanted to have names picked out.  I told him I liked the name Logan and he agreed. He also liked it because that is the name of Wolverine (and if you ask Bryan, he will tell you we named him after Wolverine....NOT true.) We decided it would be Logan.
Not long after that, we went out of town to Houston.  We saw the "Mason Rd" exit. I immediately said, that I liked the name Mason too.  Bryan did too.  But we liked Logan a little bit better.  But we both agreed if we ever had another little boy, his name would be Mason.

So there you have it, that is how we came up with the names of our boys.

We never had any girl names picked out that we could agree on.  We tossed around a few:
Victoria--Bryan;s favorite, I did not like it.
Katelynn
Vivian
Lillian
Madelyn
Ellison
Karleigh
Kamryn
Cora
Bella
Quinn--this is my absolute favorite.  If I EVER have a girl (yes, we are SAYING we are done having kids, but things can change!) this would be her name.  Now getting the husband to agree on it would be a different story.

Adjusting

Wow, I have not blogged in quite a while.  Not that I have been busy or anything....

We are adjusting to life as a family of four and it is going great! We finally have a routine down and Logan is helping us so much with little brother.
Speaking of Logan, he still is pretty obsessed with his little brother.  It melts my heart to see him so excited to see his brother.  He always wanted to hug him or kiss him.  I am crossing my fingers that will last for as long as possible.  Logan has never gotten annoyed or angry when Mason cries he will just rush over to him and try to soothe him.  Logan loves his big brother status and wants to tell the world about his little brother.  I was not sure how my heart could make more room to love another one, but it filled up quick!

Mason is 2 months old! How did that happen?  He is a lot more rolly than Logan was.  I just love all his chubbiness....even his lack of a neck.  We went to the doctor and Mason weighed 12 pounds, 3 oz. and was deemed "perfect" by the doctor. He got his shots and screamed for a while, but calmed down pretty quick.  When Logan was that age, we would be driving home and Logan would still be screaming.  He is my diva child. Mason has started to smile too! So sweet...even if it is just gas! Mason has been eating 4 oz every 2-3 hours since he was 4 weeks old.  He is finally starting to sleep in longer stretches.  We will feed him 6 oz (yikes) around 9:30pm and he will sleep until 2am.  Then he will take 4 oz at 2am, then sleep until around 6am when we are getting up for work.

Can you find my neck? 

Speaking of work, I am back! It feels good to be back. Just playing catch up and remembering what I am doing! My brain has been on "baby mode" the last 9 weeks, so I needed to retrain my brain to get into "work mode". It was nice being home with him for those 2 months, but reality is, we need money, so back to work I go!  I knew dropping of Mason at daycare would be hard and I would cry (which I did all the way to work) but it is better now and I am only a week in! And I am proud to say, for the most part, I have dropped off 2 kids and I have gotten to work on time.

First day of daycare for Buggie 

With 2 kids, I come home to a messy house.  There are pacifiers in every nook and cranny, Logan's dump trucks fill the living room, bottles and sippy cups are on the coffee tables.  While the OCD in me wants to fix all this, I don't.  I think after you have second kid, you are a little more relaxed when it comes to "that stuff can wait".  I want to, just for the moment, hold both my boys in my arms, because I know, all too soon, they will not fit in my lap. They won't need me anymore.  So I am hanging on to these moments.  And our life as a family of four completes us.  

Mason is here!

I am typing this while my husband is snuggling with our 3 week old baby boy.  I cannot believe he is finally here! The last few weeks of pregnancy were tough on me emotionally and physically. But he arrived at 37 weeks, 2 days on December 11, 2014.  Here is his story:

36 week appointment my doctor ordered me to bed rest because he thought Mason would be coming way earlier than scheduled.  So I stayed at home.  Talk about boring! Props to people who have to be on bed rest for months at a time.   The week came and went.  No baby.  Every night I went to bed thinking, tonight is the night, I just feel it. 

37 week appointment.  Not much change, still sitting at a 3.5 and about 80% effaced. Not enough to induce me.  He did tell me to come back in 2 days to see if I had any progress.  What progress am I going to have in 2 days? We went back and I was at a 4 and 100% effaced and he told me to go check in the hospital because Mason was coming out today!

Went and checked in and got into our room and they started things right away.  I told the nurse that my labor would probably be really quick since it was with Logan.  Our L&D nurse was AWESOME by the way.  My parents were there with us and my Dad of course had all the nurses laughing. They started the pitocin and I asked to get my epidural right away.  I was in no pain, but WHY would I want to wait until I was in pain to get one?! I was already dialated enough so they gave me an the epidural around 10am.  The doctor came and broke my water around 11:30am. I was having contractions but not feeling much just some pressure here and there.  Around 12:30pm, my parents and Bryan went to get something to eat (of course I could not eat, but with the medicine you never want to eat anyways).  I started to feel some major contractions around 1:30pm.  The nurse came in and checked me and I was at an 8! I kept feeling the urge to push so we kept calling the nurse in.  She checked me around 2:30pm and I was at a 10 and it was time to push!
Call me crazy, but I was a little more nervous this time around.  I knew what to expect I guess and with Logan I was just kind of in a haze.  I started pushing and it did not take long for them to call my doctor. I do not care what people say, even though I had the drugs.....it still freakin hurt!!!  They call him and all I hear the nurse say is: He did not answer.  I looked at Bryan and told him that he was going to have to deliver this baby! He was ready! The doctor rushed in and told the nurse he knew it was time so he just ran over from his office (in the same building). 
At 2:57pm and about 10 pushes, he was out!!

The first thing we heard was his super MAD cry! I remember Logan crying but Mason seemed really mad! The nursed called him "Mad Mason".  They placed him on my chest and the first thing me and Bryan both said was that he looked just like Logan, but with hair!
Our little Mason Bruce was perfect.  7 pounds, 5 oz, 19 3/4 inches long.   We were in love again.

After a 2 night stay in the hospital, we were released.  Mason had a little jaundice, but got all better with the next few days.   We recently took him to his 2 week check up and he weighed in at 8 pounds, 3 oz! That breast milk must be doing some good!
Logan has been pretty good adjusting to little brother.  Wanting to give him hugs and kisses all the time. 
When we came home from the hospital, Logan had a cough.  Then he gave it to me.  He got better and I am just now getting over it.  I thought for sure Mason would get it to, but thankfully did not.  Being sick and adjusting to having a newborn was ROUGH.  My poor husband.  I am feeling better though. 
Life has been a little crazy adjusting to having 2 kids and the regular newborn schedule of up every 2 hours and us getting by on not much sleep, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel....I think. 
We are beyond blessed to have this little man, or "Buggie" as I call him, join our family. 
We love you so much Mason!

Celebrate the good this season.

Christmas is upon us yet again.  All the lights.  All the excitement.  All the food. All the Elf on the Shelf on my Facebook feed.  All of the shopping.  All of the annoying commercials over and over.  I swear if I see the Target commercial one more time....Oh and all the gifts to buy.
Time to drain the savings account.

Oh and do not get me started on this place.  http://www.santas-wonderland.com/
We are so ANTI Santa's Wonderland, nope not going to happen.  There are plenty of places to go and do fun things together and not have to spend so much money. Like let's spend over $75 to go look at lights and drink some hot chocolate...ummm no thanks.  I can load my kid in the car and make some Swiss Miss and drive around the neighborhood.

Anytime he sees those annoying Target commercials with all the toys he proceeds to demand to us to GET HIM THAT.  I think that it has become so commercialized, that is all kids know.   Will he get gifts?  Of course.  But that does not mean we will spend $500 or more (people, this is completely normal in some families!) If that is important to you, go for it.  It is just not for us.  I never want our kids to see Christmas as just getting things.  Sometimes I feel the pressure of getting so many gifts and in January our bank account is drained. Wouldn't it be nice if Christmas just meant time to be together with family and friends? I digress.

We want to celebrate the good this Christmas season.  It is about family.  Being together.  Making memories. One of my most favorite quotes that sums this up is from the Grinch.

"Maybe Christmas",  he thought, "does not come from a store."
"Maybe Christmas.....perhaps....means a little bit more!"

This is making me sound like I hate Christmas.  I do not.  It is the most wonderful time of the year! And this year, we will get to celebrate as a family of 4!

I want Logan  to understand this.  It is not about getting, it is about giving and most important, it is about Jesus Christ.  Not Santa.  Not toys.

Our 2014 family ornament and the one Logan picked out, Daddy was proud! 

As we get into the spirit of the holidays, let's try to remember what it really means, because that is the best gift.