I decided that since we have two little boys sharing the same bathroom, it made sense to turn a very adult room into one that looks more kid-friendly. I mentioned re-doing this room to Trevor and he was horrified at the thought of painting it. “That’s my favorite paint color in the house!” he told me. So, it became clear that this makeover would have to include the same wall color, which is fine, because I like it too. Here is the before:

I changed out the lighting fixtures, mirrors and towel bars in all of our bathrooms, but they still have the *gorgeous* oak vanities and laminate tops. My plan is to repaint all of them white when we repaint the kitchen cabinets. I moved this shower curtain into our bathroom because I am obsessed with it. Love me some giraffe print!!

It’s really hard to take pictures of bathrooms, in case you’ve never tried. Too small of a space! Anyway, here is the after:

"Brush your teeth" and "Wash your hands"

I still need something for right here... my plan is to hang a two-opening frame with cute pictures of the boys in the bathtub.

I got the pirate ship shower curtain from Pottery Barn kids a couple months ago… they discontinued it, so I got it on sale! I wish now that I had gotten the matching hand towels, but oh well! These striped towels are from Kohl’s- I had a huge credit there around Christmas so I bought these for $0 in “real” money. I ordered the “Knox & Brody” print from I Adore Decor on Etsy, and I made the other prints in Photoshop and framed them in super cheap frames from Target ($3.99 maybe?) and added the cheap ($1.50) mats from Wal-Mart. I was really happy with how it turned out, especially since I spent no more than $75 on everything! I feel like the bathroom is so much more appropriate for two little boys, now. I love doing mini-makeovers!

I must say, yesterday was not the most relaxing of Mother’s Days. Knox was a piece of work ALL day long, and injured himself multiple times being by crazy, but the most notable item? He learned how to climb out of his crib. You know what I have to say about that?

Nooooooooo!

Here’s the thing about Knox… he’s hyper. I don’t mean a little bit, either. I mean, full-steam-ahead from sun-up to sun-down. He is constantly running, he does endless laps around our downstairs. He climbs. He jumps. He has turned into a full-fledged little boy. I KNEW the crib days were coming to an end with his newfound love of throwing his leg up on things and scaling them. I was watching him in the monitor at naptime yesterday, doing somersaults in the crib, and the next time I peeked, all I saw was one leg… that’s never a good sign. I ran upstairs, opened the door and was greeted with a loud “HI!!” by a smiling boy. He was so proud of himself. I nearly had a heart attack.

Needless to say, we dismantled the crib last night and attached the toddler rail that came with it. Knox was super excited about this, and proceeded to “fall” dramatically several times into the bed and bounce all around. And yes, each of these pictures are blurry… consider them action shots, if you will.

I knew it was going to be a long night. It’s very hard to get through to Knox, and it takes a long time for him to understand certain things- I think this is part of the language delay. I don’t know if he just doesn’t understand us or if he’s blatantly ignoring us. Regardless, he didn’t want to stay in that bed!

It took all of one minute for him to escape into the hallway after Trevor laid him down in bed. We had to put one of those baby-proofing knob covers on his doorknob to keep him from escaping. He wasn’t very pleased with that addition, so he laid on the floor and mule-kicked the door with both legs. It was very noisy. I went in twice to tell him “we don’t kick our doors!” and finally sat on the bed with him until he calmed down. The second I left the room, he got up again. Trevor went in the second time, rocked him and laid him down. He sat there until he fell asleep about 20 minutes later.

He stayed in the toddler bed for several hours, when I woke up at 4:30 I looked in the monitor and saw him sleeping on the floor. Trevor put him back in bed before he left for work, but Knox was up for the day at about 6:30. I was sure he wouldn’t take a nap today, but his Grandpa texted me a picture of him snoozing away. Granted, his nap was about half its normal length, but still! I was shocked he slept at all.

We’ve decided to go ahead and transition him into a “big boy” bed instead of the toddler bed so we don’t have to buy two sets of bedding. We were going to convert his crib into a full-size bed, but the conversion kit is over $150, and we figured we could buy a twin headboard for that much, twin-sized items (mattress and bedding) are less expensive and it will fit better in his small room. So, we listed his crib on Craigslist, and I went out at lunch and bought a twin mattress, box springs and bed rails. I got an awesome deal on his mattress- it’s a Sealy Posturpedic that is normally $650, but it was a mismatched set (ivory mattress, white box spring… who cares?!) so it was only $229! Yay!

I also ordered the most amazingly cute bedding for him that matches his room perfectly. It’s Pottery Barn Kids (ie: Trevor will kill me when he sees how much I spent on bedding for a two year-old) Lahaina Collection, and I LOVE it! I got his sham embroidered with his initials… so sweet.

I loved these “Surf Buggy” sheets, but seriously? I’m not spending $100 on sheets for a toddler! I have to draw the line somewhere, right? So, I ordered just one of the cute pillowcases, had it embroidered with his name and will buy t-shirt sheets I saw on clearance at Target for around $15. The pillowcase is the only part of the sheet set you’ll see when his bed is made, anyway!

Basically, the only thing placating me with the fact that my baby is no longer in a crib is that I got to get him new cute bedding! I really hope we can get him sleeping well in this new layout. We’ll be getting a rail from Target that slides under the mattress so he doesn’t roll out, but I am highly concerned he’ll be playing with his toys at 2 a.m. instead of sleeping! Heaven help me… toddlers are a lot of work!

I know I’m not Oprah, but there are a few things I am really loving right now, and I thought I’d share with you guys! Introducing my favorite things for May:

1) Burt’s Bees Refreshing Lip Balm with Grapefruit

I have got the worst lips ever. Seriously, they get so dry and peel and finding good lip stuff is very important. I am in LOVE with this new lip balm! It smells absolutely fantastic, it’s light and incredibly moisturizing. I can’t recommend it more emphatically!

2) Publix brand original Hummus

Holy cannoli, this hummus is awesome! It’s the best pre-packaged variety I’ve ever tried. They have a few different flavors, like roasted red pepper and jalapeno & cilantro. Give it a try, it’s in the refrigerated section near the deli at my store. I literally buy it every single week and eat the whole thing in a few days.

3) Starbucks iPhone app

If you follow me on Facebook or twitter, you know I have a *slight* Starbucks addiction (iced white chocolate mocha, nonfat with no whipped cream, in case you’d like to know) and may go every single morning. They have a new, improved app for the iPhone (the last one kept crashing) where you can pay with your phone, reload your rewards card and keep up with your points. Love it!

4) Shaklee Cleaning Products

Okay, so I just got this stuff this week, but I am already loving it! I am all about using all-natural products, but they have to work just as well as conventional ones. I bought the Shaklee Basic H concentrate (all-natural and non-toxic) with spray bottles and the Scour Off paste. Well. It works up to costing literally pennies per bottle because you add the same concentrate to water, and depending on the cleaner you’re making, it needs only a few drops to just over a teaspoon to make a whole bottle. The Basic H makes glass cleaner (1 cent per bottle), all-purpose cleaner (3 cents per bottle) and a degreaser (15 cents per bottle). I don’t know about you, but I pay a lot more than 3 cents for my normal cleaner, so that was a big savings! The concentrate is only $12, too, so it’s not exorbitantly expensive.

See the concentrate on the far left?? That's AFTER I made three bottles of cleaner. I barely used any of it!! It's going to last me forever and a day.

As for how it works, we’ve had a coffee stain on our *awesome* white laminate counters for a while now that neither Greenworks or Clorox Anywhere Spray could take care of, even if I let it sit on there a while. I whipped out the Scour Off paste and used a teeny tiny amount on a sponge, wiped and presto, it was gone! I was quite thrilled. The all-purpose cleaner seems to work just as well as the Greenworks I’ve been using, and got our kitchen nice and clean, so I was happy with everything. I’ll let you guys know how I like it as I keep using it!

Shaklee is also doing a free membership for the month of May. You don’t have to be a member to buy product, but you get 15% off of all of your purchases for life if you are one. It’s normally $19.95, but this month it’s free which is why I waited to join! Just add items to your cart and click on adding a membership and it’ll compute the freeness for you.

(This link is a referral link, so I get a store credit if you buy anything, but I’m not being paid or compensated to talk about Shaklee, I just like it!!)

5) Target Cinnamon Streusel Jarred Candle

Oh. my. gosh. The only negative thing about the ridiculously awesome smell of this candle is that it makes me want coffee cake every time I smell it. Phenomenal! I should have taken a picture of this, but it’s a white ceramic jar with lid on the candle aisle- I think it was $7.99, and I bought it last weekend.

That’s what I’m loving right now- what are you current favorites?

Here’s what our kitchen looked like when we bought our house in 2007.

Why, yes. We did rip out that wallpaper almost the second we moved in, thanks for asking. Then, we painted and changed out the old microwave and stove that burned everything and added new non-spray-painted hardware… and that’s about it. A kitchen renovation was not in our budget, even though there were some things I really wanted to change. Here’s the kitchen today. I didn’t clean up for you, don’t be offended.

The plan for that room was to rip out our dishwasher, which is a space saving 18” wide model that can basically wash two cups and a fork at the same time. It’s the bain of my existence. Anyway, we wanted to add a full-size dishwasher next to our stove and rebuild the cabinetry where the old model sat. Until we got the quote for it yesterday, which involved moving plumbing and rebuilding the ENTIRE L-shaped section of cabinets off-site. Our good friend gave us the quote, so we know he was doing his very best price-wise. We decided that we didn’t want to spend half of our budget on doing just that, so we’ll live with the little dishwasher! Good thing Trevor has taken over doing the dishes 90% of the time and doesn’t mind sticking with it.

So, here is a visual explanation of the new and improved plan for our kitchen:

YAY! I am a smidge excited about all this change. In case you can’t read all of those things or don’t appreciate my artistic rendering, let’s re-cap the newness, shall we? We are installing new granite countertops on the surrounding kitchen counters, complete with a new undermount, weirdly-placed, corner sink. Our granite guys are offering a free sink with countertop purchase right now, but of course, we have to have the most bizarre sink in all the land and have to special order a non-free one. Bummer.

We are putting in a butcher block countertop on the peninsula/ island. We’ll be driving to Ikea (my first trip… I may die of thrill) to pick that up and will stain/ install it ourselves. Here’s an idea of how that will look with light cabinets and granite otherwise (I’ve been pinning like crazy… forget diamonds, Pinterest is a girl’s best friend!):

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We are also putting in a beadboard backsplash throughout the kitchen, which I am so excited to do. Here are a few of my inspiration pics, including one with open shelves on top of the beadboard, which is our plan, only ours will be white:

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We are doing everything ourselves, aside from the granite install, so this should be a fun/irritating experience, depending on the project! We’ll be getting a new faucet for the sink, and also ripping out the existing off-center cabinet from over the dishwasher. We’ve been trying to figure out how to maximize space in this little kitchen, and we decided to install open shelving across that whole wall for all of our everyday items like plates and bowls. Everything is white, so it should all look nice up there together.

We’ll also be putting some open shelving over our island (where the tiny decorative shelves currently reside) for cookbook storage. After the construction is complete, we are repainting the cabinets- they’ll still be white, but the paint is looking rough in a few spots and is in need of another coat (they were originally a natural oak finish). We’ll put on new hinges since the previous owners, who were super lazy loved to take shortcuts spray-painted them while still on the cabinets… you can see the spray-paint marks, up-close.

Lastly, we’ll tackle the tile floors, which in the spirit of laziness shortcut-edness, were laid on top of linoleum. Theyre cracking and the grout is chipping all over the place, so we plan to replace them with dark, walnut-finished hardwoods, then refinish/stain our existing dining room hardwoods to match.

Here are our current floors, and after that picture, an inspiring picture of what we’d like to end up with:

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Aren’t those floors amazing?! As excited as I am to get rid of the cracking tile/ scuffed up hardwoods, this is the part of the makeover that I am dreading the most. Who looks forward to refinishing hardwoods? Not me!! Well, that’s the first phase of our plan, and I am excited to share our progress with you guys throughout the process! Get ready for lots of pictures and posts about us DIYing… it’s okay to be scared. I know I am! In all seriousness, hopefully we can learn how to do these things as we go and become a more handy couple. We shall see!

So, scratch that whole “we’re selling our house” idea.  We have been on the house selling bandwagon for the past month or so, even though I just shared about it this week. Of course, after I blog about it, we totally change our plans! The more we talked about it, and the longer we thought about it, the more anxious we both got. It would have taken thousands of dollars to get the house ready to sell, then we would have lost tens of thousands of dollars in the sale. Plus, do we really want to live with our parents for almost a year afterwards?? I’ll take “No thank you” for $1000, Alex.

The new plan? We’re staying put until at least after I finish nursing school and find a job. It’s occurred to me that our house isn’t really too small- we just have WAY too much junk! It’s just 1600 square feet, but it’s three bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, has a finished room over the garage AND we have a full unfinished walkout basement. It’s time to do some major organizing/ paring down. We are going to be ruthless with our clutter and go through each room, ridding it of anything unnecessary. And all those clothes I’ve been keeping “just in case” I can ever fit back into them? Um, yeah, I’ve had two kids… my new child-birthing hips aren’t ever going back into a size 0 dress pant. EVER. Time to purge!

We figured we could do some DIY improvements and make our current house a lot nicer and more user-friendly, as well. My main beef is with our kitchen. It’s small. I like to cook, and I may have a problem collecting random kitchen items. Maybe. We need more storage in that room, and since we moved in, I have wanted to be rid of our white laminate countertops. I’ll give you guys more details on our first planned projects in the next post, but for now, let’s just say we’re going to need to get really good at using a circular saw… should be interesting!

All-in-all, we both feel relieved and MUCH more comfortable with this plan. The idea of selling a house with a toddler and an infant around is enough to make my hair turn grey all at once. I’m glad we’ll be able to turn our house into something we love and that works for us without displacing everyone and getting stressed out! Here’s hoping that this all works out for the best.

Watch out, house… some big changes are coming your way.

P.S. Our door is definitely not blue anymore. It’s red.

Yesterday, Trevor had to go to the allergist for allergy testing. Knox came to work with me in the morning, while he had that done. It made for an insane morning at work (when did my kid turn crazy?!), but it was totally worth it to 1) spend more time with my boy and 2) get to hear a great story from Trevor when it was all over.

About a month ago (and previously in November of last year) he randomly broke out in huge hives all over- we’re talking hives the size of his palm, it was crazy. Anyway, he had to go in for his first half of allergy testing yesterday to figure out the hives-causer. He got settled into the room, talked to the nurse, and she had him take his shirt off and lay on the table for the test. He did this, she left the room, and then he heard a bunch of giggling in the hallway. I guess the nurse didn’t realize that Trevor could hear everything she was saying from inside the exam room, but long story short, she approved of Trevor’s physique. Bwahaha!

He called me afterwards to tell me about it, and it sounds like every nurse in the place found some excuse to go into his room to “check on him” or look for their “missing chart,” etc. I guess they’re hard-up for fit, young patients in that place! One nurse even looked at his chest and said “those things are nice.” Not very professional, but it made for a very amusing story! I was seriously dying laughing during our conversation, I’m surprised I didn’t start crying. I think it made him really uncomfortable, but he did say that he felt flattered, at least!

Oh, and the poor guy is allergic to practically everything outdoors, which is so sad for such an outdoorsy guy! He said literally every single tree, grass, pollen, etc. they tested him for, he was allergic to. His back was all welted up last night. They wouldn’t even do the arm allergy test because he was having such bad reactions. I’d say some major allergy shots are in his near future!

He’d kill me if he saw this, but (he never reads my blog, so I think I’m safe!) I’m sharing this fantastic picture of him with y’all. He’s doing pull-ups at the fire station with an oxygen tank on his back. Bless that man for loving to work out. Excuse me while I wipe the drool off of my chin. I’m a lucky lady!

In addition to the whole “going back to school” fun that I’m going to be starting in January… we’re also selling our house. Yup. We’re crazy people. To make a very long story short(er), there is a USDA loan program out there for families with “low” incomes. Right now, we’re way over the income limit, BUT when I go back to school full-time, we will qualify for it. Basically, this is a 100% financing loan with much lower payments that will be far more affordable for us when I’m in school and money is tight. The caveat with this loan is that your home has to be in a “rural” area. Lucky for us, five minutes down the road is considered to be rural, so we’d have lots of options for new homes in our area. There are lots of conditions and things involved, but that’s the general idea. I called the local USDA office to make sure we’d qualify once I’m back in school and we sell this house, and we will, so that means our house is going up on the market within the month.

We wanted to give it a while to sell since this market is awful abysmal less than favorable. We’ll be able to apply for the loan in January IF our house has sold by then. The tricky part is that since we bought our house with 100% financing and have refinanced twice, we have nearly nothing in equity. Which means unless we sell it for what we bought it for (highly doubtful) we’ll be in the hole. Which means we’ll have house debt to repay… which means we’re totally living with our parents for a few months after we sell to recoup whatever we lose. Yeah, not looking forward to it. Having our own space is not something I take for granted! BUT we know it’s the most responsible thing to do and that it’ll only be temporary.

We have so many little house projects to do before we can list, which we’re trying to get done in May since it’s house-buying season right now. Lots of painting, little repairs, prettying up, but we’re not going overboard since we’ll be essentially throwing whatever money we spend into black hole from which there’s no return. Our house is already way more updated than all of the others for sale in our neighborhood, but the selling prices are so low that it brings down the value of our house, regardless. That’s what’s so frustrating!

We’re hoping and praying that we have some good luck since things are still selling in our area in our price range. Oh, and to add another element of fun to this whole thing, we’re doing “For Sale By Owner.” I’m not super scared, since I have my real estate license, and we’re paying to put it up on the MLS and will still offer a 3% commission to the buyer’s agent. If we don’t have any luck in a couple months, we’ll hire an agent.

I’m dreading this whole process, especially with two little kids aka messer-uppers in the house, but I know that it’s going to be worth it in the long run to be in a house with lower payments and a better layout. Gosh, I hope this works! I’ll keep you guys updated on our progress/ process.

There are some big changes on the horizon. I’ve been trying to figure out, for a while, what I should do career-wise. My current job has been a good one, but it’s not where I want to be long-term. I’m so grateful that I’ve been able to bring my babies to work with me, and that’s why I’ve stayed as long as I have. I am just not all that interested in real estate and life is too short to not do what you love. The only problem has been figuring out what it is that I love!

You guys know that about a year ago, I applied to seminary but had to withdraw because the workload was WAY too much for me with working full-time/being pregnant/etc. The more I thought about it, the more I felt like it wasn’t right for me to do. Don’t get me wrong, if finances were no object, I’d go just because I want to learn more about God. I’d do it for me, but I don’t think that’s the reason you go to seminary. I think you need to have a calling to reach out to touch others and spread the gospel. I don’t know if I’m really called to do that or if it was just me trying to further my own knowledge and walk with the Lord. That’s not wrong, of course, but I don’t think I can justify spending tens of thousands of dollars and putting us into major debt in order to learn more. I have gotten a lot more involved in our church, including several women’s groups, since then, and I have to say that I feel much more fulfilled and knowledgeable since doing so. That’s probably more along the lines of how I should fill that need in my life as opposed to going to seminary.

So what else is there? What else do I feel strongly about and want to do for the rest of my life? Besides being a mom and wife, I couldn’t figure it out. After a lot of thinking and soul-searching, I realized that I am passionate about the things I started this blog for in the first place. Infertility. Pregnancy. Labor. Delivery. Babies. In January, I’m going to go back to school to become a Labor and Delivery/ maternity nurse.

I am really excited about this (aside from having to take Chemistry and Microbiology… that scares the pants off of me. Thank goodness my almost-doctor little brother is a genius and can tutor me) new path, and I think that it’s really right for me. I’m waiting until January because Brody will be close to a year old by that point, and I want to breastfeed until he’s at least one. This way, I can keep him with me during the day until then and wont have to pump for as long. I know pumping would wear on me after a while, and I don’t want to sabotage our nursing situation and quit out of sheer pump hatred. When he turns one, we’ll go to cow’s milk during the day and I’ll nurse him in the morning and night until he’s ready to stop.

My plan is to go to a technical college for the first semester or two to take as many classes as I can (because it’s WAY cheaper!!), then I’ll transfer back to USC (where my PR degree is from) and get my BSN in Nursing from there. I was going to get an ADN (associate’s degree), but after talking to a friend of mine that’s a Nurse Practitioner, she convinced me to go the BSN route. Both routes end in being an RN, but I chose that way mainly in case I decide to go back again to be a Nurse Practitioner or a Midwife. If you have experience as a nurse, feel free to let me know if you think this is a bad idea-  I like feedback!!

I’m not going to lie, as excited as I am, I’m that much or even more terrified… primarily because of the money issue. I’ll be quitting my full-time job and going to school full-time. I will be working part-time as much as I can, probably at my current job, until I get enough into nursing where I can get a part-time job within that field until I graduate. The thought of paying back student loans makes me want to cry. Neither Trevor nor I had any to deal with after college- I was on scholarship and Trevor’s parents took care of his, so I ended up with a whopping $1250 in student loan debt which has long since been paid for. We’re trying to get OUT of debt, not into more, so that part is kind of stressful. Okay, very stressful. Also, I am super freaked-out by intravenous needles, so hopefully I don’t embarrass myself by passing out. Let’s hope that I reserve my fainting only for when I get stuck! Everyone tells me that using needles on someone else is an entirely different situation from having them used on you.

There are more changes a-coming with this one, but I’ll talk about that next time because this sucker is getting lengthy! Anyway, that’s what’s been going on in my head for quite a while, just so you know!

I am so proud of Knox. The past couple weeks have been great ones for him in terms of speech and development. His speech therapist and his interventionist each come once a week, and they’ve both noted a change in Knox. He is more attentive, interactive and seems to be doing so much better. He is saying more words, in general, and is also more willing to try to say things than he has been. I honestly think he just had zero interest in speech, whether from his own mouth or from ours, and I don’t think he paid enough attention to us to learn it. He has been so stubborn and so independent, and it’s very different to see him branching out from his previous “ways.”

In his sweet argyle vest on Easter... love that face!

Before, if he couldn’t do something, say open something, he’d get irritated and move on to something else. Heaven forbid if we tried to help- he’d totally ignore us or get really mad about it. Now, he’ll bring it to us to help him. If I see him struggling with something, I’ll ask him “Knox, do you want Mommy to help you?” and nine times out of ten, he’ll bring me the offending item or allow me to assist him.

He’s also letting us know when he wants something. He’ll take us by the hand or get behind us and push us over to whatever it is then point to let us know he wants it. He’s also started to tell us when he’s hungry (which he’s never done) by saying “eat!” He really enunciates that “t” so it sounds like “eeee-tuh!” If we go to a restaurant, the second he sees the waitress with food in-hand, he starts telling us “eee-tuh, ee-tuh!”

He insisted that he "eee-tuh" this bread!

It’s so nice to know , now, when he wants a snack! He’s also taken to pulling bananas off of the counter to eat… it’s worth mentioning that Mr. Picky hadn’t eaten a banana in over six months until this week. He ate one so fast yesterday that he gagged himself and threw up. He was unphased by this, allowed me to wipe the banana puke off of his mouth, then proceeded to climb into a chair and bury himself in the pillows (his favorite game).

Kind of spotty for my taste, but he didn't seem to mind!

He said almost the whole alphabet by himself yesterday, he is getting very into the ABCs, counting and songs. His all-time favorite show, VeggieTales, has inspired him to start singing (and occasionally dancing). He hums along with the tuba at the beginning and mumbles some of the words, clearly saying “gotta be” and trying SO hard to say “broccoli.” He still loves for us to sing along, and sometimes looks at me smiling so that I’ll start to sing it to him.

His favorite thing to do right now is wrestle with Trevor. He is a major Daddy’s boy, and they have  the best time roughhousing and flipping all over the place. Trevor is awesome with him, and he always has time to play with his biggest boy. Staying home with Trevor has been great for Knox, and I am so glad that they’re getting that bonding time together. Trevor’s dad is helping us out on the days Trevor works (usually just once a week since I have Fridays off), and Knox has started to call his best buddy by name “Gee pa!” Grandpa always wears a hat, and Knox’s favorite thing to do (he has a lot of favorite things, as you can see!) is to pull his hat off and throw it on the floor. Then, Gee-Pa exclaims “don’t throw my hat! Oh no! Not my hat!” Knox laughs, they pick it up, then start all over again. He tried to play this game with my mom last week, exclaiming “Gee pa!” as he threw the item on the floor. He was really trying to tell her that this was Gee-Pa’s game and that she needed to play it with him. My mom played a few rounds of this and informed me that “Gee-pa’s game really sucks.” Ha ha! Sorry, Gigi!

Drawing on Gigi's receipt at lunch... he LOVES to draw!

We did go to the zoo on Friday, and that was a great experience! Knox is SO much more observant and was able to spot the animals in the exhibits and recognize them. He loves giraffes (bordering on obsessed with them), and he watched them walk around for a while. The elephant thrilled him, and he really tried hard to climb into the exhibit with him. Pretty sure he would have regretted that decision, had he made it inside!!

But Mom... I really want to ride that elephant!

When we saw the monkeys, he exclaimed “ooh ahh ahh!” (monkey sound) without prompting. Then, in the aquarium, I pointed out the clown fish to him calling it “Nemo” and he was so excited and said “NEMO!!!” He loved to touch the glass and sit super close to it- he was hard to keep upright because he kept rolling in the floor- such a boy!!

He also loved the penguins and once he noticed them swimming in the water, he would chase them, nearly bowling people over in his path!

Come to me, all the penguins!!

We also rode a carousel together, for the first time. He was hesitant at first, so I put him on one of the stationary giraffes, and once it started, he stared at the gears making the animals move up and down the whole time. I really think he may be an engineer when he grows up with his fascination for how things work. He had a wonderful time!

Knox is getting more interested in Brody, holding his hand or touching his head. We’re working on being gentle, though that’s a tough concept for a two year-old boy! Brody adores Knox, and if he even catches sight of his big brother for a second, he’ll grin from ear to ear. I can’t wait until they’re best friends one day! I am so, so proud of my biggest boy, and I am so happy to watch him progress. Hopefully things will continue and he’ll be caught up soon- God is great and has definitely been answering our prayers for Knox!

Closest I've gotten to a picture with both boys. Hey, cut me some slack- my two year-old is in a perpetual state of motion.

Brody turned two months old last week, and I have conflicting emotions on this milestone. On the one hand I think, “where did the time go? How is he already two months old?” Then again, I think “that was the longest two months of my entire life.” Because let’s be honest- the kid cried… a LOT. And I was stressed… a LOT. And I needed Zoloft… a LOT. Needless to say, we are in a much better place two months in than we were at one month. Brody is like a whole new boy, and I am like a whole new lady! I feel worlds better, and so does he. In short, we are happy. Thank goodness!!

At two months old, Brody:

- Is massive. He’s over 12 pounds- as of last weigh in, he was 11 lbs 11 ounces, but that was over a week ago.

- Is now wearing size 3-6 months. I tell you, he’s really big.

- Wears a size 1 diaper (starting cloth as soon as we run out of disposables… probably next week!)

- Eats every two hours. Hence the hugeness. He only waits that long because I make him, per the lactation consultant’s orders. He’d eat every five minutes if I let him.

- Is definitely going to have brown eyes!

- Is still taking Prevacid, though I have dropped him to half a pill. It has done great things for him and his demeanor!

- Loves his room, particularly his changing area. He smiles like crazy when he’s up there!

- Obviously, from the above statement, he’s smiling. I get the majority of his smiles (that’s retribution for all that screaming!), but even the sound of Knox’s voice makes Brody grin.

- Likes bathtime. It’s his happiest time of day when I get him lotioned up and dressed after his bath.

- Has had a rash all over his face that I thought was baby acne. Turns out, it’s the same thing that causes cradle cap and the doctor said to wash him with Head & Shoulders twice a week to help- it’s definitely working and looks much better.

- Has rolled over from belly to back several times (the first of which, I think he was two weeks old) only because he despises tummy time and has zero desire to be in that position.

- Loves his swing, particularly the mobile that spins around. He will stare at it for a LONG time.

- Wants to be held… almost all the time. We tried out the Moby this week, and I think it’s going to help!

- Chest to chest is is favorite position to be held in.

-LOVES to be bounced and jostled. Staying still is not an option, neither is sitting down- you MUST stand up!

- Starts the night swaddled in his bassinet (this is a new occurrence) and ends it co-sleeping in our bed. He is not a great sleeper, generally only going three hour stretches before he wants to eat again. Everything leads back to to the fact that he thinks he’s starving all the time.

- Is getting better at riding in the car. At first he screamed the whole time, but now he’s starting to nap more. But heaven help you if that car stops moving! Traffic jams are abysmal.

- He likes his Soothie pacifier sometimes, but not when he’s hysterical. Then, only the real thing will calm him down.

- He is very cute. He has the fluffiest little cheeks ever and is covered in rolls. I love it!

Cheeks!! Love.

This huge smile is for Knox's voice... how sweet is that?!

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