Pulling Up

Shea is pulling up ALL THE TIME now. In fact, it's pretty much all she wants to do these days. Forget the toys, playing with mom or dad, crawling...it's just pulling up. She stands up by the table, the sofa, on our legs, ANYWHERE. In the last week or so she has also progressed to letting go and trying to balance. She might not be walking quite as early as Lucas, but she is well on her way!

 

 

Bedtime Favorites

The other night, Lucas asked me to lay in bed with him a little while before he went to sleep. Knowing that the days of him wanting me to cuddle will certainly FLY by, I happily obliged and squished myself up into that toddler bed right beside him. He always has a lot to say during the evenings, so that night I took advantage and started asking him about all of his favorite things. I wish I had my video camera, but alas, no!  Here are the questions and answers I can remember...quite a look into his head at 2 years and 10 months old:

What is your favorite...

color? Red
letter? Y (There is a red "y" on his alphabet wall that I'm pretty sure he was staring at...)
game? Wii Golf
book? Green Sheep...I LIKE THAT NEAR SHEEP!!!
food? Chicken
drink? lemonade and milk and juice and Dr. Pepper
baby? Lion and Bear and Hawiley and Bunny and Duck (all the ones on his bed)
thing at school? Mrs. Blaylock and Miss Harris
place to go? swim school and Taco Bueno
mommy? Amy
daddy? Phil
thing to do with mommy? play basketball in my room
thing to do with daddy? ask him if he works with Bill
thing to do with Shea? take a bath
kind of ice cream? white
toy? Cars
Car? Lightening McQueen and Finn
Movie? Cars (sensing a theme here?)
place to take a walk? to the ducks
tv show? Sessie (Sesame Street) and Super Why
person on Sesame? Abby and Donogan and Blog
clothes? Santa jammies
shirt? Go Frogs
friend? Courtney
team? Texas Baseball Rangers

Those are the ones I can remember at the moment. I have planned on starting a birthday interview tradition this year, so we will see what answers change in the next couple of months.

New (Old) Hair

So, for those of you who don't know, my hair went C-R-A-Z-Y after my pregnancy with Shea. I have done all sorts of things to help it out...switch shampoo, cut several inches off, etc. So, I think 8 months later it is finally calming down, and last week, I got new color job. All the highlights are gone, and it is back to its "natural" dark color. I can't remember the last time it has been this dark, but I love it :)

It's...Beef Time!

The other night at dinner, Phil was feeding Shea. He had torn up some little shred of beef for her and, turned to her and said, "Ok, Shea, it's beef time!" When she heard that, Shea did this:

And she did it over and over and over every time someone said BEEF TIME! It was hilarious. We were all dying laughing. Now, we get her to do it with all sorts of things...it's PEAR time...it's DIAPER time...it's SLEEP time. So cute!

Here is Lucas joining in the fun:

And one more pic...just for fun :)

A Day in the Life...

I forgot to share this after Christmas!  Since my parents are getting ready to move into a smaller house in a few months, I was very careful this Christmas not to buy them "stuff". One of the gifts I did for my mom was a photobook of a day in our life. My photographer and bestie (from Two Chicks Pix) came over to spend the day with us and basically just follow us around taking pictures of what we do. I edited everything into black and white, and this is what was born:

Day In The Life Photo Book

I LOVE IT!  I love how it captures the kids just as they were at that particular age, how it chronicles our Saturday morning coffee and sausage trips and pizza making for picnic movie night. Love, love, love.

Pajama Day with the Big Threes

Towards the end of last semester, Lucas's preschool teacher approached us with the idea of moving him to her 3s class for the rest of the year. As we suspected from his unhappiness over school, he was quite a bit older than the other "young twos" and was pretty bored in the class. We happily agreed to the change, knowing that it could only get better from where he was.  I was a little nervous about how he would do with kids a full year older than him. (There is an older twos class, but there were no open slots there). However, I shouldn't have worried...the kid I picked up on the first day of his "Big Threes" class was a TOTALLY different child. He had soooo much to say about school, his new friends, the science guy, everything!  He has been asking when he can go to school again, and is basically back to the social, school-loving kid we knew last year. Yay!  Praise God!  The school has assured us that he can be placed in the older three class for next year, so I think that all will be well going forward.

Here a a couple of pictures I snapped on pajama day last week. Love the cheesy smile :) (And check out my homemade Riley pj pants!  So fun!)

Shea is 8 Months Old

Shea turned 8 months old on January 9th!  After all the chaos of her being sick, I'm just glad I remembered to take pictures on the right day!  She finally had a great smiley shoot, and I only had to take about 10 pictures. There were so many cute ones I could hardly choose! She now smiles like this every time a camera in near her. I am seriously thinking about signing her up to be a baby model!

At 8 months old, Shea has really developed a personality. She is very happy most of the time, and smiles the biggest, heartwarming smiles when you come into her room in the morning or after nap. She loves to "sing" and "talk" at the top of her lungs, especially when someone joins in with her. She is able to crawl, but chooses not to most of the time, which is a little weird. When she does crawl, she makes HUGE arm and leg motions, so it isn't very efficient yet. She is pulling up on everything within reach and sticking anything and everything into her mouth. She has gone on strike from baby foods (anything pureed) for the most part, so we have been having quite the adventure finding foods soft and small enough for her to eat all by herself. (Miss Independent!) She still naps twice a day and sleeps around 10 or 11 hours at night. She will just lay in bed talking to herself in the mornings until someone comes to get her. She still hasn't figured out how to laugh, though it is not for lack of trying. Lucas is usually the most successful, though most of the time it comes out like a cry or yell. She is still enjoying Gymboree, especially the music part. She loves Lucas and the dogs and loves to be cuddled all the time. Sweet girl.

Jump Party

Just after the New Year, Lucas got to go to a birthday party for some church friends at an indoor bounce house place. Phil took him since Shea was still contagious. All reports were that he had an AWESOME time once he warmed up to the idea. He especially loved getting to play with his big buddy Ally!  Her mom had twins a few months ago, so we haven't gotten to see as much of her lately! This is definitely on the list for a future party for Lucas. In the meantime, we are glad to have so many great church friends with kids about the same age as ours!  Happy birthday to Annie and Emily!

 

How is this Comfortable?!?

Shea has been sleeping like this. HOW IS THIS COMFORTABLE?!?!

Scary Time for Shea

New Year's Eve was our last full day in North Carolina. We were all sitting around that afternoon watching the kids play when Lucas knocked Shea over (a daily occurrence at our house, so nothing to worry about). I picked her up and comforted her on my lap for a few seconds. About a minute later I looked down at her and she wasn't breathing. I yelled to everyone that something was wrong, as I was running to the other room with her, she started having a seizure. It was so scary!  I can't even tell you how many thoughts rushed through my head at that moment...mostly just, PLEASE DON'T LET HER DIE!  PLEASE HELP HER BREATHE!

Phil kept his head and called 911, and the paramedics thankfully arrived very quickly. She was breathing and stable by the time they got there. They did some tests, preliminarily diagnosed her with a febrile seizure, and we took her in the ambulance to Duke Medical Center. We were here for about 5 hours...she was very brave during all the tests and even fell asleep a couple of times. They sent us home that night with a diagnosis of "breath holding spell", which seemed weird (and a little scary) to us, but whatever!  We were so happy and thankful to be going home with a well baby girl!

The next day, her general health majorly deteriorated, and by the time we arrived home, she looked awful!!!  Our follow up with our pediatrician revealed that the poor girl had RSV, pink eye, and two ear infections. Seriously?!?  She was SOOOO good on the plane for someone that sick! Our doctor confirmed our suspicion that is was probably a febrile seizure, since she was carrying all those germs and the time and was ripe for a fever anyway. If she has another one, we may have to revisit the idea of breath holding, but until then, we are in the clear. PRAISE GOD!  Obviously, I wasn't in a situation to take many pictures, but I did get these of our sad little one doing a breathing treatment.

 

 

 

 

We love you, Shea and are so glad that you are now feeling all better. No more scares like that in the future, ok?

Dominos

My family are big game players, so whenever we are at my parents, we bust out the cards or dominoes as soon as the kids are in bed. Lucas saw us playing Mexican Train one day and wanted to join in the fun. Now he is SOOO into the dominoes. He loves to match up the colors and make big, long trains. Then, we have to make the little plastic trains drive on the "tracks"...I'll take what I can get :)

Here we are playing in NC. I hope he still loves to play games with everyone as he gets bigger!

Let's Go Duke!

While we were in NC, we got to make another trip to Cameron Indoor to watch a Duke Basketball game. I love that my dad is able to get us tickets to these special events, and I am so glad that I will be able to tell my kids they have been there when they are older. Here's hoping my dad will still know some people with connections in about 10 years when Lucas and Shea will actually remember it!

Before the (noon) game, my dad treated us to brunch at his hotel. The kids were great at the fancy restaurant. Lucas loved having his own juice. Shea ate so much we thought she might explode!!!  She had an entire croissant, some of Phil's waffles, fruit, yogurt, and oatmeal. Yeesh!


Anyway...this year, we had three separate pairs of tickets, so my dad and sister sat down on the floor, Phil and Mom sat with Shea on one side, and Lucas and I sat on the other.

Here we are posing in our Duke gear before the game:

Lucas had a great time cheering for the players. He cheered every time ANYONE made a basket...it was cute.

 

I took a picture of Phil, Mimi and Shea from our seats on the other side:

Here are some better shots my mom took of our littlest Dukie :)

Shea left with Mimi during halftime, so Phil came over to sit in an empty seat near us. Lucas petered out after his halftime snack of popcorn, and spent part of the last half like this:

I think this was the first time he has fallen asleep out anywhere in public since he was a baby. So tired! A couple more pics and then it was goodbye to Cameron...probably for several years. SAD!

Christmas in North Carolina

Well, we finally made it to North Carolina, just a mere two days after we were originally scheduled to do so. The kids did great on the plane - Lucas watched his Cars movie for the majority of the flight, and Shea took a good nap and made friends with everyone around her when she wasn't sleeping. The best news was, in order to get us all sitting together on our new flight, they HAD to put us in first class. Sad, I know. (Spoiled kids...it was Shea's first flight!)

A couple hours after we arrived and settled in, we had our Bressler family Christmas. It's always fun to open presents with my mom, dad, and sister...even if it is two days after Christmas. I got a sweatsuit and a gorgeous new watch, Phil got Aggies gear (just in time for the Cotton Bowl!) and a Blu Ray player (what? I have to learn new technology?). Lucas got...surprise...Cars stuff and a new lamp that he is obsessed with. And Shea got books and clothes and toys galore. (Isn't it fun to be the baby!)

Here are some pics from the gift exchange and some other fun candids from the trip:



Lucas was so excited!  He got a battleship, train, tugboat, and spy plane from Cars 2!



Be jealous of my wrapping job...no time to do cute wrapping on shipped packages :)



The boys still trying to get those toys out of the box.



Who needs toys when Mimi has this tray for me to play with.



It's cold after bath at Mimi and Papa's!



Shea crawled under this table and got stuck several times.



Playing with Papa.



And Mimi!



Candyland! Game 1 of 3 million on the trip.