3 weeks

meeting for the first time

Introducing Claire Elizabeth

The newest member of the Brueseke family has arrived! Claire Elizabeth was born at 6:59am on Oct 27 weighing 7lbs 10oz and 20.5in long. She is beautiful, with lots of DARK hair - two things I was not expecting! (EDITED: the two things I was not expecting were lots of hair and dark hair - I was of course expecting she would be beautiful - Michael pointed out that this didn't sound quite right!) I just assumed she'd be blonde like her big brother...and I think she has more hair now than I had at 2 yrs old. We're doing wonderful -resting and enjoying our sweet little girl. Here's a few pictures to for now:

naptime adventures, part II

On Thursday afternoon I put Boden down for a nap, after about 30 minutes of not hearing him running around anymore I was certain he was asleep. So, I decided to take a nap myself. About 1 1/2 hrs later I woke up to him screaming "Mama! Get me down!" I ran into his room to find him standing inside the second drawer of his dresser! (this was one moment I wish I had a picture of, but wasn't going to just leave the poor kid in the dresser while I went to find my camera, besides...it didn't look all that safe :) )

After I got him down from the drawer I looked over to his bed....

It's probably hard to tell by the picture, but he has gotten into the changing table and found all kinds of interesting things that I didn't even realize were in there - cortizone cream, tubes of vaseline, tubes of antibiotic ointment, lansinol cream, various thermometers, pacifiers, combs & brushes...and of course some books and stuffed animals too. Looks like he had quite the party while I was napping!

I notice there is quite a strong smell in the room too, and as I take a closer look at Boden I realize he's definitely got something in his hair....
I look a little more closely at the items on the bed and it hits me...

A tub of vicks baby rub. Nice job Boden. He proudly tells me he was fixing his hair for the hockey game. ??? No idea why he thought he was going to a hockey game, or why he thought he needed to fix his hair for said hockey game, but he was VERY proud of himself. Apparently he thought it looked a lot like Daddy's pomade that we sometimes put in his hair.

In case you're wondering - it takes 3 days and approximately 17 washes with various shampoos, dish soaps, and household cleaners to remove vicks rub from ones hair. I seriously considered shaving his head after about 10 washes.

This naptime nonsense is driving me crazy, but how can you stay mad when they're this adorable?

Fall Festival

A couple Saturdays ago Boden and I headed to a nearby park to checkout the local Fall Festival. They had all kinds of fun (FREE) stuff for kids and it was a fairly nice day among all the cold rainy ones we'd been having.

There wasn't a lot of parking, mosltly just street parking along the neighborhoods. While we were trying to find a spot I did get to be entertained while watching a man try to parallel park in a spot that was CLEARLY not big enough for his car. He kept bumping into the car in front of him, then backing up into the one behind him, then bumping the one in front of him....again...and again...until he finally sort-of sqeezed into the spot. It was like something you would see in a movie. What made this even more humorous was the police man who sat there and watched him and waited until he got out of his car and then casually wrote him a ticket.

Boden was a little too shy to get his face painted, but he did get a paw print painted on his hand that he was quite proud of:

We decorated some funny glasses at the Magic House tent:

Got a balloon animal frog:

dug for gold:

and watched the other kids jump in the big bouncy inflatables. He wasn't too interested in getting in there with them though.

sleep update

Thanks everyone for all the great advice you left me here or emailed to me. I know most all parents go through these things, so its encouraging to hear what you've done that works. We're still not "there" yet, but we've had a few good days and a few rough ones. For example, today he's down for a nap without a fight and didn't try to come out of his room once. But, yesterday was a completely different story. It was by far the most entertaining to me (probably because I wasn't home and Michael was dealing with it, but I'm sure Michael will laugh about it one day). Yesterday, Michael put Boden down for a nap around 1:30. By about 2:30 he started coming out of his room throwing his clothes (which he had emptied out of his dresser) into the hallway. Around 3pm he took all the books of his bookshelf and piled them up on his bed. And I think it was around 3:30 that Michael took this photo with his phone when he came into the room:

little stinker had moved his bed across the room, climbed into the crib, and was jumping in the crib (which is pretty unsafe considering I had adjusted the mattress to it's highest position in preparation for the new baby).

My, oh, my - children do make life interesting, don't they?

Parenting Advice Needed!

Believe it or not my adorable little 2 year old can be quite stubborn sometimes. Over the past several weeks he's become more and more stubborn and demanding about getting his way regarding snacks, toys, cartoons etc. He will argue with me that he wants to watch a certain cartoon when it isn't even on at that time, and throw a tantrum because he wants to watch it NOW. Two days ago we were driving down the highway and he kept trying to pull the handle on the door open because, as he told me "I want to drive in MY OWN car!" I had never checked to make sure the child lock was set on the door before, but it sure is now! I realize that all these things are just him trying to assert his independence and find out what he does and does not have control over, and while it's driving me crazy, I can handle it.

But, this new thing he has started has me at a complete loss on what to do. The past few nights he has refused to go to bed. He's been in his toddler bed for several weeks now, and doing just fine, but suddenly he won't stay in bed, or in his room (he recently learned how to open doors). He keeps running out of his room and asking me to cover him back up. Thursday night it took probably an hour and a half of taking him back to bed every 5 minutes before he finally went to sleep. Last night we started around 8:30 and finally all went to bed, in our bed, after 11pm and he was up bright and early at 6:30am. Then today, at naptime it took an hour and a half to get him to stay in his room. He's in there now, and I think he's sleeping, but I'm not totally sure.

I realize we probably did the worst possible thing by letting him fall asleep in our bed last night, but honestly, we've had a rough week, were physically and emotionally exhausted and we just couldn't handle it anymore, so we caved.

I've tried encouraging him that if he stays in his room during naptime/at bedtime that he can have a sticker/special treat when he gets up, which worked when we first put him in the toddler bed. I've tried just putting him back in bed without talking to him. I've tried leaving a night light on (at bedtime). I've prayed over him. Michael has prayed over him. We've prayed over him together. I've tried warning him that he'll get a spanking if he comes out of his room again - which isn't working at all because he doesn't seem to care (well, he gets upset when I spank him, but he does the same thing 2 minutes later).

So - all you parents who've been here before...what did you find that works? doesn't work? ideas? I fully expected him to act out a little after the baby arrived, but if he's already acting this way before she gets here, what should I be expecting in a few weeks?!

More Sewing

I spent some time last week working on the bedding for the baby's crib. I'm still not completely finished - I want to make some curtains for the room, sheets for Boden's toddler bed and a few other little things, but I've got the big stuff out of the way.

Before:


During:


(I could entertain Boden for hours just putting pins in the pin cushion!)

After:

And now it matches Boden's toddler bed with the quilt I made this summer:


And here's one of the new bookshelves we got at IKEA - Boden loves it, he can take the books on and off all by himself...and he does...mostly during naptime :) (notice how it's a bit of a disaster right now)

my new baby carrier

I've been wanting one of these mei tai carriers since I had Boden, but never could bring myself to spend the $80-$100 for one, or decide on what color/print I wanted. This time I decided to make my own - I found a basic mei tai pattern online and adapted it to fit my size and made some adjustments to make it more what I wanted. I'm so excited and can't wait to use it with our little girl in just a few months!

I made it so I could change out the panels - so far I've only made 2 panels but I'm sure I'll be making many more. I get bored of prints easily. (Which is why its hard to decorate my house...about a month after I get done I'm ready to do something different.)

Since I currently look like this:

(no, Michael was not standing on the couch to take this photo - he's just that much taller than me!)

...and don't yet have a baby to put in the carrier to model it for you (I thought about trying it out with Boden, but I think he's a little big), so here's a couple photos from the babyhawk website of this type of carrier:

So, it should look something like that...I hope. And the bonus is that i didn't have to settle on just one print, and it didn't cost me anywhere near $80.

I've actually been doing a lot of sewing lately. I made a new nursing cover for myself out of the same polka dot fabric I used for one of the carrier panels, made a nursing cover for a friend who just had a baby, and I'm working on finishing up the rest of the bedding for the crib. Every time I go to the fabric store I find more fabric that I love and want to use to make something - I just need about 10 more hours in a day and I could do it all! :)

What have the Brueseke's been up to?

This is gonna be a long one! August was a busy month for us. We're happy to be moved in and getting more and more settled into our house each day. A few weeks ago, Michael and I made the trek to Chicago to go to IKEA and get "a few" things for the new house.

I had so much fun and could have stayed there and shopped for days. Luckily for Michael we were on a time schedule and didn't get to just browse. We were on a mission. Not that we could have fit anything else in the Durango anyway :). We made a quick stop at the Crate & Barrell outlet while there too (another place I could have spent and entire day!) and found a great rug. We also got to spend a little time with our friends Andy & Kasia and their new puppy while in Chicago.

Here's just one of my many favorite purchases from IKEA (thank you Molly & John for helping me put it together!) This big shelf is going to provide lots of storage for toys, games, books, and who knows what else in the playroom side of our new living room. I can't wait to fill it all up and get organized!

We made it back from Chicago just in time to go to a Cardinals game. Boden LOVES baseball and can sit still and watch it much longer than I can. This game was extra special because Boden finally got to meet Fredbird!!!

We also got to spend some time with out-of-town family this month. Michael's step-sister Lauren came to visit with her little boy, Austin. Austin is 4 months old (well, 5 now) and such a happy baby! Boden loved playing with him and he even helped feed him a bottle.

Boden and I also made a weekend trip to Nebraska to see some of my family. Unfortunately, Boden got a stomach bug while we were there and we didn't get to see everyone we had hoped to. I still got to see some family at my cousin Michelle's wedding shower, and we hung out with my parents and sisters. Before he got sick, Boden helped blow some bubbles with Aunt Caela, help Poppa build a fire in the fire pit, and even played some guitar with Casey.

When Boden was feeling a little better, he found the energy to help water some flowers...in his underwear. (When a little kid has been throwing up on and off you eventually just quit putting clothes on them - it's just easier that way. lol.)

We've also been busy this month playing at the neighborhood playground....


and of course, eating lots of watermelon.

oh, and just 8 MORE WEEKS til our little girl is due to arrive!! Yikes! I go back and forth with being really excited and feeling completely unprepared. This pregnancy has gone by SO fast!

Hope you all are enjoying the tail end of your summer too!

our little musician

boden got a guitar for his birthday from auntie caela & uncle casey and he LOVES it! he's always running around singing, but rarely will he do it for the camera. this morning i caught him in a rare mood and he was willing to perform:

questionable

sometimes Boden's fashion sense is a little questionable...

exhibit A:


exhibit B:

hmmm...what do you think?

home at last

We're still here! Well, technically we're in O'Fallon, MO now. We've been very busy with buying a house and moving lately. I've been meaning to blog about it, but honestly it was such a messy process that if I had written about it when we were going through it, it probably would have been a bunch of whining and complaining and who really wants to hear that?

We were originally scheduled to close on July 24th, but that got delayed a week, and then another week. The sellers live out of the US (in 2 different countries) and there was also a relocation company involved so there seemed to be a lot of mis-communication or communication errors through the process. Thankfully, our apartment manager was generous enough to let us extend our lease by 1 week so we didn't have to move out to a temporary location. My mom was in town for the whole week when we were supposed to move to help with all the cleaning and packing, but unfortunately had to head back home to start school before we could get into the house. :( Hopefully they'll be able to come visit soon and see the house.

We've learned and grown a lot through the process though. We had to rely on God to show us if we were supposed to continue the process even with all the struggles we encountered and we really learned some lessons on patience and trusting His timing and His plan through all of this. As frustrating as the whole thing was, we were both filled with a peace from the moment we saw the house that never left us, we knew that this was the place God had intended for us. We also were overwhelmed with love from friends and family who offered to help us during this transition time. We had offers from so many people that we could stay with them if we had to be out of our apartment before we could get into the house, a crew of about 8 guys helping us move, a generous donation of restaurant gift cards to help us out while our kitchen was packed away, a group of girlfriends helping me paint, and a wonderful home-cooked dinner provided for all of our moving help on moving day. Not to mention all the people who prayed with us and for us through the processes. Thank you everyone! God has shown us His amazing love through all of you.

So -we are finally in the house - and we LOVE it! We're not completely unpacked and there are still a few walls to paint, but we are taking our time. This 6 mo. pregnant lady can only do so much in a day. The kitchen and bedrooms are put together, which is most important. The rest will come together soon.

Here's a couple photos of the new house (even if it is still a little messy):





I love having a big, open kitchen


Boden even helped me paint a little bit


These were a nice bonus that came with the house - however no one told me that HE washers on the second floor of a house can spin so fast that it shakes the room below it. The first time I did a load I was in the kitchen when it started the spin cycle and I thought we were having a small earthquake! We bought some shake pads at Lowes the other day so hopefully that will help. Other than that minor detail - I love these things!








Boden's new "big boy" bed with the quilt my mom and I made. I'm making matching crib bedding and curtains for the room too...one of these days.


The subdivision playground that is just a short walk away - one of the things I LOVE about this neighborhood. There's a pool too -thats an even shorter walk!


We're starting to get used to O'Fallon and learning where everything is. It's a really nice town and I think we're going to love it here. Although Michael has a little bit longer of a drive to his office now, we're much closer to the O'Fallon church and excited about getting to know our community and the people out here...and eventually Michael will likely have an office out here too. We are so excited about what God is doing here! Come visit us! :)