Yay!

We've had two successes in potty training today, been accident free all day, and even were able to go out to the store with Brayden only wearing his big boy undies under his pants, no diaper! Loving the progress he is making and the fact that in just two weeks or so since we tried it last time, he seems so much more excited about it this time, and wanting to do it. Rewards seem to be working for now, though I know we cant bribe him with small toys and candy for forever, its a good start to getting him to understand what a good thing he is doing. Today he got a happy meal toy and a box of conversation hearts for his successes.  As he gets better at it, I think we might switch to a sticker chart so it spaces out the "prizes" and then eventually wean it down to just going because he is supposed to and is a big boy. This morning he sat down for maybe 2 minutes and went immediately, and then this afternoon, he sat for about 20-30 minutes, watching a cartoon and then went. Both time he totally got that he had gone and was so excited to tell us :). The second time, we didnt have a prize for him, so Mike encouraged me to take Bray to the store to get him a little treat which he was so excited to come home and show, and share with Daddy (his conversation hearts)!

The Big Sibling

In just 5 short months, Brayden will be a big brother! He will have enjoyed 3 years of being the baby and the only child (he will always be my baby, as will baby #2) but now is moving on to bigger and better things. Something I have been thinking about, and am planning on taking advantage of, is Brayden's desire to be a helper. I love that at a young age he really does have a servants heart (much like his Daddy) and loves to help around the house. Whether its helping unload the dishwasher, moving stuff from the washer to the dryer, putting his clothes in the laundry basket, helping me wipe things down with a wet rag, getting us things we ask for, etc. he just loves to help and gets such satisfaction in being needed. I really see that being a plus for him becoming a big sibling. I know he will love being able to bring me diapers, help give the baby baths, eventually help "feed" the baby, help put the babies clothes in the laundry, play with the baby, be concerned when the baby is upset, and a long list of other things. I also know he will love having things he can do that the baby cant do yet, like sitting in a big person chair, walking instead of having to be in a stroller, and hopefully going potty on the toilet. I am having so much fun thinking of ideas to really encourage and promote what a "big boy" and great big brother he is and will be to this next babe.

Something I have been cherishing over the last couple of weeks is Brayden loving on the baby. I still dont think he quite understands it just yet, but jumps on the opportunity to hug, pat, and kiss my belly and tell the baby he loves it. Though at times he will try to kiss Daddy's belly in confusion ;-). I know as mine continues to grow Brayden will understand more the concept that a baby is in there but I am so happy with how he is catching onto it now! I'm really excited he gets to come with us to our ultrasound on Tuesday and am hoping he really enjoys being able to see the baby on the screen!

Pregnancy, Week 18 and 5 days

I know, I know, it's about time :)

Pregnancy: 18 weeks and 5 days. Will be 19 weeks on Friday the 28th!

 

Weight Gain: Around 7 pounds which I am pretty happy with!

Sleep: Weird! I'm not big, though I'm not offended when people can tell that I am preggo already, but sleep is already really difficult. Besides having to pee a lot in the middle of the night, I get leg cramps, side cramps, and weird aches and pains. Nothing major but still makes getting a good solid night of sleep a wee bit difficult!

 

Gender: We will be finding out in the coming weeks! Really looking forward to knowing!  When we have a date picked out for the ultrasound I will play the guessing game with everyone about what you all think we are having this time around! A healthy baby is my only request :)

Name: Well, I am really hoping to get my way on this, and I would like to keep said name for either a boy or girl a secret until we have him/her. Daddy is the deciding factor in this of course, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he'll let us go for it! We already have a girl name for SURE picked out, and a boy name, we're way undecided on!

Feeling: knock on wood....GREAT! I really for the most part, honestly dont feel pregnant. Besides wearing maternity clothes (and I am right at the awkward stage of not fitting into regular clothes and not yet fitting into my maternity stuff), having a bit of a belly, and the occasional pelvic pain and contraction, I feel amazing! Really looking forward to telling this one how "kind" they were to Mommy, but letting both our kids know that I would have gone through everything I went through with Brayden and much much worse to have two healthy kiddos!

Health: Great!

 

Belly: There! Lopsided at times which is always really fun. I have not felt baby yet, at least not convincingly enough for me :), but I have heard that if you are underweight to begin with, you can feel the baby even later...we shall see!

 

What I am looking forward to: too many things to count, another ultrasound, finding out the baby's sex, Brayden catching on more (now he will kiss my belly when I ask him where the baby is), decorating, nesting, etc :)

 

What I miss: not a whole lot :)

Milestones: Nothing yet!

 

Movement: Nothing yet!

Cravings: Nothing really. I'm happy eating, making, cooking, baking just about everything! Though, I do use my pregnant status to encourage my husband to make late night gas station runs for me, and he obliges being the awesome hubby that he is!

Painting Fun

Still trying to figure out how to manually focus my camera for pictures, I had thought I did a good job when I was looking at these shots on my camera, but now that I am looking closer, maybe not so much. Argh! Still, here's a cute boy with his painting fun!

#1 or #2?

Funny/Gross title, but its finally time to start potty training the B-ray. He's demonstrated an overall better comprehension lately of his bodily functions, and with a 3 day weekend in front of us and whats looking like more time at home, I felt like it was a good time to start trying. Mike went ahead and jumped on the band wagon and worked with Brayden all afternoon with some final success! He had Brayden call me at work to tell me he had gone potty and seemed pretty proud of himself! We bought him some cars underwear last weekend and hopefully that will help be an incentive for him to stay dry and go on the potty. Here goes nothing!

It's a Bray in a Box

watching Toy Story :)

Baby Belly Pic

Baby and Baby Belly at 16 weeks 1 day

And no...

I haven't forgotten about Brayden, or pictures for that matter. It's that Brayden and pictures don't mesh so well these days, as soon as he sees the camera he runs and says "no cheese". It's pretty funny, and yet not so funny when I am trying to get pictures of him to share with everyone. Especially the other night when he was wearing his adorable monkey feetie pajamas and his fuzzy bear snow cap, too cute for words but all the shots I got are either blurry, over exposed, or butt shots of him running :-). Coming soon!

Meal Time

I love finding recipes online and through family and friends. It's a desperate measure for me to actually open a cookbook and look for a recipe that I dont know and no one has recommended to me.  That being said, I'm trying to help us eat better and stay more organized by doing a 2 week dinner meal plan.  We try to grocery shop only every 2 weeks, so twice a month, and Mike and I both felt we weren't planning well enough to get us through meal wise the entire 2 weeks. For someone who isn't the best cook, it was a bit daunting to sit down and try to think of 12-14 dinner meals all at once, but with Mike's help we came up with a meal plan and have been implementing it for the last week or so. So far, success, minus the chicken manicotti with crunchy noodles that I served night before last (yuck!).

But, I've shared a couple recipes on our blog in the past, and have really enjoyed getting recipes from other women's  blogs, especially http://www.cookingupfaith.com/, whose Slow Cooker Tex Mex I tried a few days back and was a huge hit with me and Mike. Well, last night I took a leap of faith on a recipe I found in a magazine that appealed to me because one, its mexican food, yum, and two, because it is a make one freeze one meal and actually makes two meals in one. This particular meal actually took time and effort, unlike a lot of the easier, throw everything together recipes that I have, and I was SO worried after the crunchy noodle flop the night before that it would be another epic fail.  I had to wait to find out until almost 9 when Mike finally got home, and I usually dont eat that late, but had to try it with him, and.....it was AWESOME! Yay, jump for joy, grin on the face, awesome.

Hoping it would be food, and inspired by cookingupfaith, I took pictures throughout the cooking of the meal that I will hopefully get to share tonight along with the scanned recipe. Knowing there are leftover's in the fridge is making me hungry for lunchtime right now!

Propane New Year

I woke up this morning earlier than Mike and Brayden, cranked up the heater, and went about my morning. Then I realized that the heater wasn't working. Weird. For some reason, my mind went right away to our propane tank even though I knew we had just checked it recently and should have had more than enough in there. After getting dressed, not being able to find a shovel so digging out the top of the tank with a metal serving spoon (it was quite a sight, hair up in a towel and everything), my suspiscions were found correct, and we were out of propane. That's never happened to us before as you are supposed to call at around 20 percent to make sure you dont run out, and I was so dumbfounded since we had just checked it and had more than enough....So inside I went, got Brayden up, fed him breakfast, and called Amerigas.
How interesting that our town is one that does not have service, even specialty service, on the weekends. I didnt understand how thats possible because propane is essential in our part of the woods where most people, like us, dont have heat, hot water, or even cooking abilities, without it. With the reminder that I usually give up on things too easily fresh in my mind, I decide, I am going to take care of this without waking Mike up.  So, I use my connections! I call a high schooler of ours, who points me to another high schooler whose Mom works for Amerigas. My lifeline. I call her and she is sweet as can be on her day off that is also a holiday. Within an hour, we have an Amerigas driver filling up our tank.  But, because this was a special case, he decided to check real quick before he left for a leak. Mike had said he had smelled propane when he came home from work last night, but the Amerigas employee didn't think we should worry since apparently that happens when you are running low. I was so glad he checked anyways and checked as thouroughly as he did because sure enough, the numebrs started dropping ever so slightly.  He thought the stove was the culprit, and long story short, it was. After tightening somet things and moving some things around he was able to completely fix the leak.

I was so bummed this morning that we would have to get a special call for propane, on the weekend, to fill our tank up, worrying that we would get a special service charge to our bill which can be extra pricey. And instead, God totally blessed us by providing awesome protection for our family in this situation. I am so grateful it wasn't worse!!