7 months

Wow, I cannot believe it's been 7 months since I blogged last.  What a slacker.  Our lives are full of busy, busy days as well as full weekends.  Our house is currently trying to get over sickness while we balance daily life.  I will attempt to catch up these last 7 months to my best ability.

March 5, 2012

Bode Ray Brucker entered our lives and has completely taken us by storm.  He is the happiest baby EVER!  Brad and I were sure we'd be getting payback as Avery was a wonderful baby.  But he has been even better.  I think God knows what you need when you need it and he has blessed us with a wonderful boy.  A mother's love is a strange thing.  I never understood it completely until Bode was born.  How I love my children and my heart has expanded even more for Avery. 

Here is Bode's birth video (no live birth shots! EEK!)

Heading home from the hospital



April 5, 2012

I was at home with Bode for 7 weeks and time was well spent getting into our new life and routine.  He adapted to our home life right from the start dogs and all!  He is definitely a little piggy who loves to eat!

April brought Bode's first holiday and we enjoyed Easter Sunday at our church.  Our first outing as a family of 4!

May 5, 2012

Bode turned 2 months old!  He is sleeping great and eating even better.  He loves to play under his Play Gym and watches the lights closely.  Avery loves Bode and is such a great helper to Brad and I.  She can change diapers, fix bottles and put Bode to sleep. 

My first Mother's Day as a mom of 2 was perfect.  Brad surprised me with 2 James Avery birthstone rings.  (Avery and Bode's birthstones.)  They are beautiful and I wear them stacked everyday.  We then had a delicious lunch at Charleston's and celebrated my mom as well. 

Another one of my Mother's Day gifts was a photo shoot with my 2 precious babes.  We shot down in the Paseo District and the colors turned out so beautiful!

June, July and August to follow....

Home Stretch

Saw my baby doc yesterday and I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel! If Bode does not make an appearance before Monday, it's go time! Induction scheduled for Monday, March 5. I'm hoping the fact that they scheduled me means he will come on his own this weekend. When Avery was born, I was scheduled to be induced on a Monday and she was born on Saturday. I really hope he will be born on March 4th. Several factors have gone into me wanting this date. Our wedding anniversary is March 4th and we will be married for 12 years!  Also like that 3 x 4 = 12 (3/4/12)!  Cool huh?
Bode's room is finally finished and turned out just as I had planned!

I have had some strange cravings these final days of pregnancy and Brad has been awesome about getting them for me:
Sprite without ice (never drink Sprite unless I am sick.  I find it very refreshing.)
Sonic Ice (Brad picked me up 2 bags and I have already gone through 1 bag. In our house it's known as "mom's" ice.)
Fritos Chips (never eat them, weird)
Honey Mustard (On anything I can eat it on!)
Braum's chocolate malts (trying to stay away from them as much as humanly possible, but I have had 2 this week! Figure it's okay since I lost 7 lbs per my doc appt. yesterday.)
Saltine crackers (??? maybe it's the salt?)

Here is to an early delivery!

Busy February!

February is shaping up to be one busy month! We have been crazy with lots of things going on, not to mention a little boy arriving soon!

Avery had her school talent show and did an amazing job playing ukulele and singing! We are so proud of her. Brad and I cannot believe what musical talent God has given her. She has really found her niche! 

We surprised her with flowers. :)

Here is her performance

Both of my showers were the second weekend in February, and of course, prego brain set in and I forgot my camera!  Brad took a few pics with his iPhone, but I have not had him send all of them my way. We have great friends and family and received great items that were definitely needed!

Of course the night before Valentine's Day, Avery reminds me that she needs to make a mailbox for her cards. I was in the middle of making teacher gifts when she reminded me. Avery and I had a lot of fun designing and decorating her mailbox.  What a fun memory we made!

And of course, she won the contest for best mailbox!



The teacher gifts we made turned out great!  I got the idea from another blogger I follow and she gets all the credit: http://joyisathome.blogspot.com/2012/02/bucket-of-sweets-valentines-day-gift.html
Super cute and very easy to make! I was one tired momma after staying up until after 11pm getting everything finished.

The morning of Vday, Brad surprised me with my favorite flowers (roses and daisies) and a really funny card. He had been asking me what I was wanted but I told him to save it for my push gift.  ;)

I got Brad tickets to the Thunder game for Valentine's Day evening, courtesy of my awesome work! We had amazing seats and I figured since this was the last time we'd be attending a game for a while, why not!?! We had a blast! We grabbed a hot dog, coke (he didn't even drink one beer since I couldn't) and peanuts. What's a sporting event without peanuts!

 Bode's first Thunder game! (36 1/2 weeks!)

Can you spot us?  We are just to the right of KD's shorts!

Hope you all had an amazing Valentine's Day!  Remember to tell the ones you love how much you love them, not only on this special day, but every day!

9 months

I cannot believe I am in the home stretch of this pregnancy. Time has completely flown by, I barely remember not having this huge baby bump! In a few short weeks we will meet our boy!!! His room is coming together very nicely and we are just waiting on a few more pieces of furniture to arrive. I will update pictures of his room as soon as everything is ready. I have been experiencing awful back pain this week and am getting very uncomfortable, which at 36 weeks is to be expected. I have also had a few Braxton-Hicks contractions which are NOT fun!  At my doctor's appointment yesterday, Brad kept singing "The Final Countdown"! That song always reminds me of Gob from one of our favorite shows, Arrested Development. Other than that, all is well.

I was able to pick out a new ring and it came in today. Thankfully I will not be without a wedding ring when our child is born.  I have 2 baby showers, one on Saturday and one on Monday.  If I can make it through this weekend, I will be on the downhill slide.  I will be packing my hospital bags this weekend, washing the outfit we bought to bring Bode home in and finishing up last minute "nesting" items.  Should be a busy, but fun weekend. I wanted a new outfit for my shower that's tomorrow so I headed to A Pea in the Pod.  (love that store!) Luckily for Brad, I did not find anything I had hoped for. :) So the search shall continue this evening after Avery's talent show. When I got to my car as I was leaving the mall, I realized the truck that parked next to me was uber close. As I got closer to my car, I realized I could not even walk to my driver side door. How do you expect a normal person to get in their car that close, let alone a 9 month prego! I had no clue what to do. I would normally just crawl over the passenger seat, but no way with this belly and my back hurting was that about to happen. I started looking up mall security's phone number on my iphone when I realized someone was waiting on my parking spot.  I could not see who was in the truck waiting. I raised my hands and pointed to the other truck that I could not get to my door and also pointed to my belly. (Like it goes unnoticed!) This nice guy got out of his truck and asked if I needed help. I of course said YES! He attempted first to get to my driver side with no luck either. This is when driving a standard comes in handy.  He was able to roll my car out from the passenger side as I kept watch on the driver side.  I thanked him a million times.  It is so nice to know there are still good people in the world willing to help others.  I hope karma gets the truck's owner though! :) Upon returning to work I promptly ordered these from Vistaprint, hopefully I will not have to use them too often.

Married with Children

You all know the theme song from "Married with Children," right? Well it has been stuck in my head today as I head to shop for a new wedding ring that I do not want. Doesn't make sense, does it? So last year for our 11th wedding anniversary my husband purchased me a big new shiny diamond ring. The ring was gorgeous and I loved it! Since the ring was a solitaire, I had convinced Brad to purchase a wrap for my "push" gift. :)  (The store where he purchased this shall remain unnamed for now.) Around the beginning of Novemeber I was inspecting my ring and realized that a huge hunk of diamond was missing from under one of the prongs. I was devastated, but knew the jeweler would honor that the ring was only 9 months old and replace the diamond. They did honor their guaranty and I waited patiently over 2 months to receive my ring from them. Brad and I went to pick it up and the quality of the diamond was nowhere close to the quality we had previously purchased. I was enraged, and you don't do that to a 8 month pregnant lady. The manager said she could keep looking for a diamond, but the manufacturer was no longer producing the ring and this was the last one in the company. WHA....!?! Our options were to 1.) pay more for a diamond that fit my band (not gonna happen); 2.) pick out a new ring; or 3.) wait to see if the company could locate a diamond. Brad tried to calm me down as I balled as we left the store. I was devastated b/c I don't want another ring, I want MY ring! I'm going to have our child in 3-4 weeks without a wedding ring! Oh yeah, and is Brad now going to get out of the "push" gift!?! All this played over in my mind. We decided our best option was to wait to see if they could locate another diamond. Well... I received a call this week from the manager and there are no more diamonds my size, shape, color, etc. in the company and they will not be able to get one. So now my only option is to pick out a new ring. SUCK! I am going to head to the store today to see if I can find something that is same value, etc.  Please wish me luck!  Oh and say a little prayer too that I don't leave the store crying, my emotions are on overload!!!

Please let me sleep for the love of GOD!

I am channeling my inner Chris Farley this week! 

This little boy inside my belly is making me very uncomfortable. When I was pregnant with Avery I never remember being in this kind of pain, I guess that is my age catching up to me. :) Apparently he has both feet under my right rib cage and it hurts! I swear I thought he was going to break a rib the other night. This pain has been on going for several weeks now accompanied with daily acid reflux.  Just this week I've been having sharp lower back pain.  (I'm guessing he is on my sciatic nerve.) So needless to say, I have not been getting much sleep. I am so tired! I just want to sleep, but when I lay down in bed I can only lay on one side for a few minutes without having to turn to the other side.  Then sometimes my reflux is so bad I feel as though I may throw up at any moment. (only while laying down.) I have even tried counting sheep and singing Mr. Sandman, okay not really but I just want to SLEEP! Last night I was about to lose my mind.  I finally gave up and headed for the living room.  Oh leather couch, how I love you...seriously.  I am not sure if it is the firmness, the support it gives my back or the way my head can rest slightly elevated, but I slept great!  I told Brad that it looks like I will be sleeping on the couch for the next 4 weeks.  He was not too thrilled because he can't sleep if I'm not there.  Good thing we have 2 full size couches!  Looks like there will be a lot of couch sleeping going on in our house.

There is nothing like a great couch, iPad2 and a snuggle dog!

So no news on a birth date yet, boo! I had my first NST (non stress test) yesterday at the hospital and all is looking great!
Our chair and ottoman came in this past weekend!  The room is coming together exactly as I had planned!  YAY!  As you know, I am a self-admitted Pinterest addict.  I found a couple of cubbies I liked but none with plans to build.  I love having a handyman husband!  I gave him 2 pictures and he made the exact piece I wanted, love it!  All the antique pieces I have been collecting fit great.  Waiting on the leather football helmet to come in and a few more items and that piece will be finished!

It's been a while...

Christmas flew by and it seems that time is flying by even faster for Bode's arrival.  I saw my prenatal high-risk doctor this past Monday and Bode is measuring ahead of schedule.  Figures!  Brad and I wanted to get through the holiday season before starting to work on his room, big mistake!  We ordered all his furniture on January 7th thinking that would be plenty of time for delivery and set up, WRONG!  While the chair and ottoman I ordered should be here this weekend it looks like the crib and dresser have a few more weeks.  A bassinet purchase may be in our future.  :)  From what my prenatal doctor said he is now 34 weeks, not 33.  That means tomorrow I will be 35 weeks!  Here are a few prego pics!

We bought an antique football jersey for his room, seemed like a good time for a pic since I was 33 weeks!

Below are a few before and middle stage pictures of his room.  I wanted to paint his room, but there is a vaulted ceiling and if you don't paint the entire room, ceiling included, it looks funny.  (We discovered this with the painting of Avery's room.)  I decided that since his bedding will match the khaki to just paint a rugby stripe around the room.  I think it turned out perfect and Brad was happy that was all he had to paint!

Taping off for the rugby stripe

Painting complete, curtains ironed and hung and rug down :)

I have an appt. with my OB today so we will see if he will set Bode's birthday date!  Next week I will start having 2 non-stress tests a week, yuk!  Not looking forward to that, but my doctors are requiring it because of my Addison's Disease.  My high risk doc wants me to be under no stress what-so-ever.  Sure like that's gonna happen with a full time job and full time family! Here's to hoping my next blog post will be about a scheduled birth date!  :)