Aventures in Self-Feeding!

Bryce is getting to be such a big boy now. He has been very insistent on feeding himself lately. I forgot how messy this whole process is!! I must have erased it from memory with Gray. In all honesty it has been fun seeing him experience the fun of food. Not too bad... except for tonight. Let's just say that he went straight to the bath!

Snow Day!

So today is the first official SNOW DAY of the year! Yesterday it was coming down pretty hard so they let school out 90 minutes early. I headed out with the bell and grabbed a redbox movie along the way. Then we bundled up the kiddos to play outside and take our Christmas card pics. We got a couple good ones with the great snow background.Now we just need to order the cards. :)

I know that you love the pink cougs hat that Gray picked out. He refused to change it to HIS hat. Awesome. We should have taken a pic of the original hat that he picked out and put on Bryce - Eric's big Carhart one. haha.

The Talker

This past weekend was a laid back, relaxed weekend with NO PLANS!! How rare is that?! We actually don't have another one until next year. The best part of the weekend was Grayson and his talking. Granted, he has been talking for a while now and used complete sentences, but it seems like something has just "clicked" with him in the last few days. Now everything is in complete sentences and he thinks he is soooo smart! (We think he is too!) I can't tell you how many times Eric and I just looked at each other in surprise at something he said over the weekend. It is amazing to see the language development and how much he picks up. I can actually have a conversation with my 2 year old now!!!

Random sentences include:

• "Ok, now go watch Lion King." Which is followed by "Oh no - they bite!"
• Those are yucky clothes. (Dirty clothes in the hamper)
• No bite mommy - I yucky. (When I was pretend biting him on the neck.)
• Look! Its a chameleon! (Cracks me up that he knows chameleon!!)
• No Bryce, no touch please. (One of the most common thing he says!)

I really need to get him on video now. It is just so fun watching him talk and figure out languge. Between the new words and random combinations - I just LOVE it.

Pumpkin Patch 2010

Now that it is nearing Halloween we decided that it was time to head off to the pumpkin patch with the kiddos. This year we went tried out a patch in Kent. No bounce house but it was WAY closer, which was nice. :) The boys were both dressed up in their costumes. This year Gray is a cow and Bryce is a chicken. Both of them had such a fun time at the patch! Gray loved looking at all the pumpkins and ended up picking 2 big pumpkins (which he calls mommy pumkin and daddy pumpkin) and 2 "baby" pumpkins. Even though it was overcast, the pictures turned out great. A perfect day for picking!


Gray liked wandering through the fields. Unfortunately, he found himself in the middle of a muddy area and needed daddy to help him get out. He just kept shouting "Daddy! Help! Daddy! Help!"

Our little family pic from the patch.

Gotta love the boys posing together. Impossible to get them both looking at the camera when there are so many fun thiungs to look at.

Bryce and I on the hay ride.Our pumpkin finalists.

Still Alive?

Yup! As I am sure that you can imagine, life with the two boys is busy!! I haven't posted in a while because I no longer have my school laptop to use while Eric uses our main one for work. So here is what has gone on in the last 3 months:

• Bryce is smiling, cooing, sleeping great!, trying to roll over and just being a great baby!!


• Gray turned 2, is talking more consistently now with literally new words everyday, poops sometimes in the potty, still loves his animals and loves his brother even more!

Here are some pics to sum up the last few months:

• Bryce at 2 weeks old

• Bryce with his signature look of concern... although I would probably be concerned with big brother laying on me like that too!

More on Bryce

Here is one of the first pics of Grayson meeting his brother. He kept pointing at him and saying baby. So cute! :)

Bryce was so awake right after I fed him that we couldn't resist taking a few pics. In the middle of his photo session he flashed his VERY FIRST SMILE! Yes, I realize that he was probably just peeing but I am so happy that we were able to capture this special moment on camera. :)

First the smirk...

Then a full on smile!

Here we are waiting to go home...

Brothers

Bryce William has arrived!

So our newest addition decided to come earlier than expected... still overdue but earlier than we were guessing. My due date was officially Wednesday the 24th. I went to a doctor appt that day and the doctor agreed that most likely we would see each other on the 1st of April because I hadn't started dilating yet. With that in mind, I didn't think anything of the braxton hicks contractions on Thursday night. They lasted for well over six hours but weren't painful and I was able to sleep through them. After school on Friday was a normal day of running errands and trying to get last minute things done before Bryce's arrival (cleaning car, putting in the baby seat, etc). After dinner I gave Gray a bath and cleaned the bathroom at the same time. I noticed that I was getting some good contractions from all the scrubbing, but thought they would go away like the night before.
A few hours later they were coming a little stronger and closer together so I started timing them. Turns out they were 5-6 minutes apart! Interesting. Still, nothing to be alarmed about. It wasn't until 1:30 in the morning that I woke up Eric because I was having to breathe through the contractions now. We called the hospital and asked them what we should do. They told us to come in within the next hour unless we could get them to slow down. I decided to take a shower to relax and see if I could slow things down. Nope. But I did get to have nice clean hair! :) Haha. As I started to get ready Eric was running around like a crazy man packing bags, cleaning, and getting everything nailed down for us to be away for a few days.

After Eric was able to shoo me into the car we drove down to Tacoma to drop off Grayson at my parents house. Here is the last pic of us as a family of 3.
Then we were off to the hospital. I was put on a monitor to check on the timing of contractions. Turns out they were coming every 5 minutes (which was surprising because they had slowed down a bit when I was laying in bed to 7-8 minutes apart). Then they checked me and it turns out I was dilated to a 3! I was shocked!! Couldn't believe that I really WAS in labor. In any case, with me entering into active labor they decided to do the c-section right away. At this point it was 5 am. By the time they assembled their team, prepped me, and started, Bryce was born at 6:16 am.

So that is the story of Bryce's arrival. As you can see above Bryce was a hefty 9 lb 4 oz. More that I was expecting! :) Oh - and he was 21.5 inches long.

Pre-Baby Crazies

So it has been quite a while since I last posted. The little man is actually due tomorrow and Eric and I are almost ready. There is no way that nesting lasts this long so I don't know why I have been driving Eric crazy with to-do lists but he has been willingly putting up with it. Gotta love him. The last few things on my list include cleaning the rest of the bathrooms, organizing our desk, packing a bag for the hispital and putting the car seat in the car. (Yes, I realize that being due in 1 day I probably should have done the last 2 a bit sooner... but we are not expecting him to be on-time.)

Our expectations for how things are going to go - C-section at St. Jo's in Tacoma at 10 am on April 1st. If I go into labor before I am 8 days overdue then we are heading up to Seattle. Like I said though, Eric and I are betting that I won't go into labor before then. We would be very surprised... but very happy.

Other than the obvious scurrying around and getting last minute things before the baby arrives both Eric and Gray are fighting nasty colds right now. (This is yet another reason we are hoping that the baby takes his time in arriving.) It would be great if they are both able to kick the cough and runny noses by next week. Oh - and also hoping that I don't catch it - but I normally don't get sick.

Well, I should probably get back to my classes now. Students and staff are all watching me like a ticking time bomb at this point. Analyzing my every move and thinging that I had the baby if I am not 5 minutes early for a meeting. It is definitely exciting working up to the last minute and I am enjoying it ... oddly enough. :) Keeps my mind busy.

Cousin Zach's 2nd Birthday

Love this pic of the littlest ones in the Haukaas family. From left:

Grayson - 19 months

Zachary - 24 months

Brooklyn - 29 months

There is a 5 month difference between them but they are all the same size. Actually, I think Brooklyn is the smallest - but definitely the most talkative!

At first they were not so sure about posing together.

As soon as we started clapping, everything is just peachy.

My 30th!

For my 30th birthday I asked to go out to Italian for dinner. (Yummy pasta!) Maybe next year we will have a wild and crazy night out...

Gray was very curious about Parker but also really wanted to play with his toys. Later on he decided that putting ketchup in mommy's water was yummy. Really we let him do whatever he wanted at this point because it was over an hour past his bedtime. We chose a place close to Kari's house in Puyallup so that once dinner was finished we could run over and put Gray to bed. Then it was cake time! Eric surprised me with a WONDERFUL cake. He said that if I couldn't enjoy all the wine like everyone else then I should at least have something yummy as a treat. One of the many reasons I love him!!Here is little Parker getting spoiled by my mom and Grandma. Its not that easy to reason with grandmas about not feeding babies frosting. As you can see, it was a losing battle... (Parker didn't seem to mind though.)

Pump it UP!

We went to a great birthday party at a place called Pump It Up. Basically it is a large warehouse filled with inflatables. Grayson had a wonderful time once he figured it all out.

Cleaning up the leaves... finally

When we packed up all the Christmas decorations the leaves in the yard also made an exit. Gray had a great time helping to clean up all the leaves. He likes picking up leaves anyways, so any excuse to play with them is wonderful. Turns out he is a pretty good helper. :)

Loving this picture because Gray has plumber's crack! haha!

The Trouble with Cups

I needed to buck up and clean out our pantry. While I was in the middle of the process, Gray decided to help out with the cups. Unfortunately, there were just a few too many for him to handle at any one time. This "game" went on for over 20 minutes. I do give him credit for never getting frustrated though. :) Love it.

Almost Ready!

With Christmas coming to a close we were finally able to turn our focus back to the nursery. I had to first finish cutting in around the new moulding. Once that was done we headed off to Ikea to pick up the dresser and bookcase. We put everything together and the nursery is almost ready for a baby... except that we don't have a crib yet! Oops!

Gray really wanted to help out on the step-stool and didn't understand why I wouldn't share. Not the most flattering pic of myself, but I was painting! Give me a break.

Here is the mostly finished nursery.

I am planning on decorating the frames above the changer. Pretty excited to get crafty with those!

Last but not least, Gray is tired of helping out. Preparing for a little brother is a lot of work!!