Do you even recognize him?

It's Brady with his big boy haircut. No more curls!=(
Brady had his first haircut on Saturday. The girl just trimmed his hair so it was still kind of long. Olivia and I didn't like it. He looked like an elf. Tyler liked it. I was hoping the haircut would grow on me. (No pun intended.) Well, it didn't. I still miss his curls, but both Olivia and I like this haircut much better.

We miss Daddy!

We are going on our 8th week (or 9th?!) of Tyler working in Minnesota and commuting home on the weekends. I am not going to lie, the kids are having a real hard time with this. Sunday evenings are a bear. Olivia cries for a good half an hour and remembers everything she did with Daddy over the weekend. ("Mommy, remember how Daddy took care of my hurt finger? Remember how he helped me with my mittens? Daddy made the best snowman. WAAAAAAAAH!!) Luke gets a little naughty and when reprimanded, yells (I mean yells!) for Daddy. At one point last night, they were both crying so loud, Brady and I looked at each other and wondered if we should start crying or laughing! Well, soon this madness is going to end. We are closing on a house in Rochester on December 30. It is a beautiful home with a small city lot. (It will be a big adjustment from the 1 acre we have now!) As everyone knows, the housing market is horrible! It bit us in the a** here in Wisconsin, but we got an incredible steal on a house in Rochester.

Anyways, here's to Daddy!

Brady's Birthday Party

Brady is soooo....BIG!

Grandpa Tim let Brady dig into his cake. As you can guess, Brady loved it!

Oops! We don't have a bib on!

Brady getting ready to open presents. He got a lot of toys and 10 board books between St. Nick's Day and his birthday! Brady loves books!

Great Grandma spending some quality time with the birthday boy.

The second round of Brady's birthday. We ended up having birthday cake twice so both sides of our family could be their to witness the event!

I love this picture!

Brady ended his festive day with a bottle given by his godmother, Aunt Kimmy.

We went to the doctor today for his check-up. He is 20 lbs 2 oz. (10th-15th percentile). His height is 29 inches (25th-50th percentile). So Brady is a little on the light side, but that has been consistent since birth. The doctor also checked out his ears because he has a horrible cold. It turns out that he has an infection around his tube in his ear. (He had tubes put in at 6 months.) So he is on antibiotics and ear drops for the time being. Another good report is his soft spot has receded nicely. It is still larger than a "normal" baby. (This is just one of the symptoms of having congenital hypothyroidism.)

Wow! That was quite the detailed report. Hope everyone is feeling well!

Brady is one!

Well, after a long day at daycare celebrating the big day and sleeping in a sleeping bag for the first time, Brady passed out on the car ride home.


Olivia and Luke were excited to spend time and open presents with their little brother.


Sorry about the red eye. I need to work on fixing that! Anyways this picture should go later. This is a happy Brady after his cake. (Notice messy face!)



This is a not so happy Brady. He hated, I mean hated the sound of the wrapping paper.

What is this poor guy going to do? We still have a big party on Saturday for him and Christmas!

Thank goodness we are almost done with the presents!

Tonight it was just Olivia, Luke, Brady and me. We had a real sweet time together. Probably the greatest memory of his birthday night was when the three of us were singing "Happy
Birthday" to him. (Tyler is in Minnesota until the weekend.) Olivia came over by Brady and me and put her arms around us. Luke then did the same thing. We were in a little huddle surrounding the cake while we sang the traditional song. The three of us were so happy looking at Brady and singing to him. Of course, Brady was smiling back at us! It was just one of those special moments that as a Mom, it touches your heart. (Sorry, to get so mushy.)

Luke is not a fan of cake frosting, but he sure likes the ice cream part!

I know this is a Brady post, but I couldn't help but put this picture on the blog. This is how I found the exhausted Luke when I checked on him tonight.

Good night!

I can't believe it has been a year!

Wow!! Brady is officially "one year-old" on Wednesday, December 3. The year has truly gone fast. It seems like only a couple of months ago, that we traveled through his adventurous start to life. These pictures were taken after 5 or 6 days in the NICU. At this point he was off of the ventilator. I can't remember if he still had a chest tube in or not. The whole 12 day stay in the NICU was a little blurry. What I do remember is that I was scared when I went into labor 4 weeks early. I knew it was too early. When he was born, he was a blueish color and they had to "bag him" right there in the operating room. They thought the little guy (all 5 pounds 12 ounces) was stable, but they did have to give him more oxygen in the nursery and monitor him closely. I finally got to hold Brady when he was about 12 hours old. A couple of hours after that, he took a turn for the worse. His breathing was very labored. The nurses were feeding him through a feeding tube, but they were concerned about all the energy it was taking him to breathe. Children's Hospital was called and an ambulance was being sent to transport Brady. In the mean time a clergy member came as well as Tyler and my mom. It was difficult for them to see Brady so labored with his breathing. (They had been with him earlier in the evening and he was doing OK at that time. That was probably only the second time in 14 years that I saw Tyler cry. )Once the transport team came and put the ventilator in him, I felt a huge wave of relief wash over me. While it wasn't pretty to see our baby with a big hose down his mouth, he looked restful. I also had complete confidence in the staff at Children's Hospital. I truly felt that Brady was going to be just fine while he was in there care. During the course of his stay, he had a chest tube put in for a collapsed lung, several rounds of antibiotics to fight a pneumonia-like infection, a pic line and feeding tube put in. He was a sick baby, but look at him now! He has had absolutely no problems with his lungs to date!

Tomorrow I will post current pictures of Brady and our small celebration for him.