Jaundice

Unfortunately we didn't escape jaundice again. Bryton's levels had raised since he was in the hospital and we had to do the bili lights for several days. Kolten had jaundice as well and we had a little suitcase looking thing that they brought over and we felt so bad putting him in it. He had to wear the little eye covers, but he did really well. Brytons lights were great! It was a unit that we could put right into his bassinet and lay him in it. It has a little sheet with arm hold that you are supposed to strap them in, but the cover just drowned Bryton. So we covered him up with a light blanket and let him get his tan! He didn't like the lights much and it was difficult to keep him in there all day. They also gave us a bili blanket that we could use when he was out of the bassinet so we were able to hold him a lot too. His levels are still pretty high but low enough that he doesn't need the lights anymore.

This is Kolten in his little suitcase.

Newborn Pictures

I am finally getting around to posting some pictures. Having two kids now is slowing me down a little. These are Bryton's newborn pictures that my wonderful, talented friend did. She is so wonderful! If you are in need of some pictures HERE is her website. She just did our family pictures too (which I will post one of these days) and they look just as fantastic!

Bryton has brought such a wonderful spirit into our home. It is so amazing how much you can love someone SO MUCH that just eats, sleeps, poops and takes away most of my sleep. He is so amazing and so perfect. I could sit and hold him all day long and just stare at him (oh wait, that is what I do and why my house is such a mess). Kolten is so precious with him. He loves to hold him and kiss his head. I love my little boys!

Family of 4!!

Bryton Harrison Bradshaw

09/28/2009

1222 p.m.

7 lbs 12 oz

21.5 inches long

Well we did it!! Bryton came as a big surprise and when least expected. I have been having contractions since I was about 4 months along. On Thursday I went to the doc and was dilated to a 2 and about 50% effaced. Trevor was out of school and so I was walking a ton and doing everything that I could do go into labor. Finally on Sunday afternoon I gave up and decided to rest and relax until Tuesday night so that Trevor didn't have to miss school and he could be there after.

I usually have great plans, but unfortunately Bryton is already disobeying. On Sunday night I was laying in bed watching TV just relaxing as planned. I wasn't even contracting or anything and my water just broke. What a weird feeling! I called downstairs to Trevor and he said "you gotta be kidding me, are you sure?" Since I usually don't go around peeing my pants, I confirmed to him that I was sure. That was around 1130. I called my mom and she came over to stay with Kolten. We went to IMC hospital and they hooked me up to the monitors and checked me. They told me that I was going to be admitted to have the baby. I was only dilated to a 2 still but about 80% effaced. I was starting to get hard contractions, but nothing to bad (little did I know). I figured that it was going to happen fast now that my water had broken (again, I am so uneducated on Labor and Delivery). They kept checking me and at 4:00 am they put me on pitocin. I had heard that if you get an epidural that it can prolong labor and I figured that if I didn't get one until I had to that maybe it would help this little one arrive quicker to Trevor could still go to school. (If he misses 2 days he fails the semester...that's why it was so important to me) The nurse kept asking me if I was ready for my epidural. Contractions were getting painful but I still thought there was a chance. Well soon the contractions started to become very painful, to the point that I didn't care about Trevor and his schooling or anything else at all. I was definitely ready for the epidural. The epidural went fine except when he was inserting the tube and hit a nerve, it sent a huge shock down my leg and it jumped so hard. Not a good feeling or one that I ever want again. Shortly after the epidural I was much more comfortable. He made it so that I could still move my legs and move around a little in bed. At this point, Trevor was sleeping on the couch (so easy for men), and I should have gone to sleep but was just very anxious. I had no idea what was coming or even happening at the time. The doc came in several times to check me and we were progressing!! Around 11:00 am they started having me push. Before pushing the contractions were getting pretty painful, so pushing actually was nice. Well about 90 minutes later he was out and screaming! There is just no way to describe the feeling of hearing your child for the first time. It was so overwhelming. It is such a miracle! Bryton was a whopping 7 lb 12 oz. I was only 37 weeks along, so thank goodness he made his arrival early. He looks so huge in these pictures, he was so swollen and had such a nice conehead from hanging out in the birth canal. We are so thankful that he is so perfect! He looks so much like Kolten did when he was born (once the swelling went down).
Kolten is just loving his little brother. He came just as I was delivering, came into the room once the baby was out and first thing he wanted to do was give the baby a "high five" for making it here!

Now we are excited and scared to see how having a toddler and baby will be. :)

Trevor and I arriving at the hospital! So excited and anxious. (we obviously had no clue how long or painful of a process this was going to be.)

Our wonderful little boy with his conehead. Thank goodness they don't stay like that for long.

7lb 12 oz! Looks so chubby!

This is our only hospital family picture because Kolten went with family to be taken care of shortly after. I of course am just babbling away while the boys are admiring the new baby.

Trevor is such a good father!

So precious!

Thanks to all of our family members for your help throughout this process! We seriously have the best families!

30 weeks!

OK, so here it is! The dreaded belly pic. I am now 30 weeks preggo. I am starting to get to the uncomfortable stage. I am really nervous since I have already gained 25 lbs and still have 10 weeks to go. Unfortunately I have yet to hear of a 25 lb baby being born (OUCH!). I am having a ton of contractions every day with this pregnancy. I didn't have them until I almost had Kolten and so it has been a little weird. I still have to get up about 5-6 times a night to pee (TMI) and since I am a belly sleeper I have a really hard time getting comfortable at night. Kolten was breech the whole time and this baby is already head down and so I feel a ton of pressure and sometimes feel like he might just fall out! All that pressure gets really uncomfortable at times, but at least I know he is already following directions well, unlike Kolten!
I have been craving a ton of fruit this pregnancy. I already love fruit in the summer, but it seems like that is all that I want. I eat a ton and swear that I eat enough for triplets, but I just can't stop, thus the 25lbs. They laugh at me at work because I am always snacking or eating on something.

We are so excited for this little one to come. Kolten has decided on the name "Clifford" for his baby brother and I think that we are going to have a hard time talking him out of it. As for Trevor and I, we have yet to agree on a name. As Trevor was taking this dreadful picture, Kolten needed his belly photographed too. His baby's name is T-Bone! What a character :)

I absolutely love being a mom and remember how nervous I was before I had Kolten. There are a million things that I have learned since then about being a mom that I just wanted to jot down so I don't forget.

• I learned how much you can love a child. I never knew that magnitude of love until I had my own. I knew parents loved their children, but never knew it was this magnificent!
• I learned that sleep is very precious when you have a newborn and take it any chance you can. I don't know how I am going to do this with 2, but we'll see.
• Boys will be boys!
• A closet can only fit so many clothes and when it's full I should probably stop shopping :)
• Babies are a little more resilient than I originally thought.
• Kids will grow at their own rate and as long as they are healthy otherwise you shouldn't worry.
• Your childs smile and googly eyes can get them almost anything!
• Kids say the darndest things! In fact today I was telling Kolten that he might have to give up his crib for a big boy bed and he replies "ok, whatever mom."
• Boys aren't too bad to potty train. (Kolten is now there and only had about 5 accidents!)
• Grandparents really don't care what mom and dad say, they will still spoil these little ones!
• It is hard to ever leave your child and when you do, they are all that you think about.
• Reading daily to your child is so important. We have read to Kolten since he was about 8 months old and still do every single day for about 30-60 minutes and he loves it! It is such a bonding time for us.
• Trevor is a wonderful father and really can take care of a kid. I used to worry so much and put out a list of things for him to do and what time they had to be done. I now know that Kolten will still survive and be happy even if I'm not right there!
• Diapers are expensive.
• Aim the pee-pee down when putting on a new diaper.....had to have that happen a couple of times for me to understand.
• Kids will cuddle less and less as they get busier and busier, ENJOY EVERY MOMENT!!
• You will never stop worrying about your child.

So this is just a few of the many things I have learned while being a mom. There are so many more that I realize daily! I love Kolten so much and can't wait for us to be a family of 4!

Discovery Gateway!

On Thursday Trevor and I took Kolten to the Discovery Gateway museum. It was so much fun! They have all of these activity stations for the kids to play in with fun, fun things. It was nice to just let Kolten play and play and not have to worry that he was going to break or ruin anything. He absolutely loved everything about it. We had to bribe him with ice cream just to get him out.

If you have kids, I highly suggest going there. It is a little pricey, but I think it's worth it.

Kolten is a couple of the different dress-up outfits at the different stations.

Kolten absolutely loved the grocery store area. He played there for quite a while just filling his carts and having them scanned and then putting it away! It was fun to watch him really enjoy it.

Sorry, I put the pics in the wrong order, but here is some more grocery store fun!

They have a life flight helicopter there for the kids to play in. Kolten thought that it was pretty cool.

Overall we had such a great time and Kolten was extremely exhausted after all that playing!

Coupon Shopper!

So for the last 6 months or so I have been trying to save coupons and do my shopping with them. Every Sunday I get 4 papers (only $4 at 7-11 for all 4) and take all of the coupons and use them when things go on sale. I use a bunch of different websites and have got some amazing deals. I have been meaning to get a picture of them and post it but always get everything put away before I remember. This time, I was able to get everything that you see here for $17.53!! It would have been better, but had to get some bread and a treat for Kolten! It is so fun to get such great deals! Sometimes it is a pain because the checkers act like it is their money that you are taking from them, but besides that I have became addicted to it!

Overnight Camping Trip!

Trevor had a couple of days off of school and I didn't have to work those same days and so we decided to go camping. We have done very little tent camping since we have been married. I absolutely love camping and was always camping while growing up. Trevor would much prefer a trailer but was still game! We went up to Mirror Lake. We thought that it would be pretty warm outside, but it was actually a little cool up there. Around 65 during the day and into the 40's at night. I don't think that Kolten really knew what to expect. He thought buying a camo sleeping bag was pretty cool, but didn't understand that we were going to sleep in the tent. It was such a blast to go, even though we only went one night, we tried to pack in as much fun as we could!

Kolten laying on his new camo sleeping bag. He was such a great camper. He slept really well that night and actually stayed in his sleeping bag the entire night!

We definitely fit in a bunch of fishing. Fishing at Mirror Lake was great! There were several times we reeled in two fish at the same time. Trevor was constantly rebaiting and recasting the poles for me and Kolten to reel them in. Kolten would be reeling them in and kept saying "It's fighting me!" Although it took him several minutes to reel in some small fish, he did very well!

Two fish on the same pole!

These pics are kind of out of order, but we had banana boats on Wednesday night and so we didn't make our smores. You can't go camping without Smores so we made them after breakfast on Thursday!

Do you think he was having fun or what?

Helping out with dinner preparations. I love camping food! We had tinfoil dinners that were amazing and also corn on the cob cooked in the fire, YUM! Trevor cooked up the fish that we caught in tinfoil and it was fantastic as well. Overall we were stuffed after dinner......well we are never too stuffed for dessert!

Eating our banana boats! I used to always have these as a kid and so I was so excited to have Trevor and Kolten try them! They are sooooo good.

Kolten didn't understand how to roast a marshmallow nor did he have the patience to really wait for it to brown. He would just hold his stick over the fire for about 5 seconds and then say it was done and eat the marshmallow, which then resulted in this......

He kept insisting that we take his picture with marshmallow all over him. He had us take one of the marshmallow on his fingers (each finger got its own seperate picture) and also on his pants. We won't bore you with all those, just imagine the mess.

THE PERFECT MARSHMALLOW!! YUMMMMMMMM!