March 26, 2010

Two-and-a-half!

At the same time Olivia turned 6 months old, Bradshaw turned 2 and a half years old.

He is my awesome little backseat driver. He will see a red light 200 yards away, when I'm already coasting, and he'll yell, "BOP! BOP Mama! Red light!" (He says Bop instead of Stop, even when I have him repeat after me, "s-s-s-stop" he says, "s-s-s-bop") And the instant it turns green he's yelling "Go fast!"

Bradshaw calls Olivia "Baby" all the time. They were both in the bath when I pointed to Olivia and said "what's her name?" Bradshaw: "Baby! .....uh Girl! ....Sister? dunno. Oh! Lila."
(Lila is his version of Olivia.)

Often, when I get Bradshaw up from his nap, he announces, "poo-poos" and pointed to his pants. "Okay, you want me to change your diaper?" In an angry, deep voice, "NO! i' FINE!"

He's my helper when we're doing laundry. He puts the quarters in the machines and each time he takes his dividend of the quaters and tells me the machines need more. If I ask, he laughs and tells me "pockets.....mine." He loves collecting change and bills. At one point I found almost $15 in one of his pockets.

Bradshaw loves talking about emotions. Even to the extent of telling me if the people we pass on the sidewalk/at the grocery store are mad, sad, scared, hurt, 'cited, happy, tired, hungry, thirsty, etc.

If Bradshaw is throwing a tantrum he has a time-out in his room. The door is halfway open and he can come out when he feels better (ie tantrum over.) For him it works very well and he usually comes out smiling and ready to play. The other day he declared he needed a time-out and I went in to check on him because it was so quiet and he had climbed into crib and gone to sleep (for the night).

He is very protective of Olivia. She was crawling over to Dustinn's computer cord (which Bradshaw knows is dangerous for Olivia). He streaks across the room and pivots so they are face-to-face and says "no baby. owie" pointing to the cord. "no touch never ever ever ever!" And he picks up the entire cord and tucks it behind the couch where she can't reach it.
He uses that phrase whenever he wants to be emphatic, "I love you ever ever ever ever."

Bradshaw knows family routines and loves to act them out. (This is about the tantrum thing again. As a disclaimer, he really is a very happy-go-lucky boy and rarely throws a fit.) The other day he looked at me sternly and said, "Mama. sad. crying, [imperatively] room." He took by the hand to his room, guided me to sit down on the floor. Put a toy in front of me and said, "sad. stay. all better." He came back 5 minutes later and said (with shocked/surprised intonation) "Mama happy!!! All better!" and wrapped his arms around me and kissed my face. Then he lead me by the hand out of the room saying, "play?!"

Bradshaw has a great appetite. He finished a Costco-size peanut butter jar in a couple of weeks just by eating spoonfuls of it. He also has eaten a whole bowl of plain tuna while I turned my back. He has eaten 5 servings of brocolli in one sitting. Crazy, right?

Bradshaw often introduces himself as Diego and rescue things around our apartment. He also loves handing us an imaginary object, not telling us what it is, and then laughing when we've swallowed the keys or put the ice cream in our pocket

He's our silly, happy, sweet, fun, affectionate boy and we love him SO much.

March 25, 2010

Let's Celebrate!

(cute shirt from Aunt Erika)
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TODAY marks 6 months since Stefanie placed Olivia in our arms.
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I remember our first family home evening after we returned to Virginia with Olivia. We always start with a children's song Dustinn sang growing up:
.
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This is the night we’ve waited for;
Always a treat we have in store!
We love each other more and more
With ev’ry fam’ly night!
Stories and games for ev’ryone;
Learning the gospel can be fun!
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[then I felt overcome with emotion and couldn't squeak out the next line]
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Father and mother, daughter, son,
Together on fam’ly night!
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What do you call the feeling, when you you suddenly realized that the blessings you've been praying for, wishing for and working towards are here?
(leaning)

March 24, 2010

sweet boy

Tonight I was standing in the kitchen spooning chicken & sauce onto a plate of rice. The plate began tipping and in an effort to catch it I sent the plate clattering to the floor and rice flying everywhere.
Bradshaw's head immediately popped around the corner, "Mama, [you] okay? fine?"
me: "Yeah it's okay. I just dropped something."
him: "Oh. Sah-yee."
him: "oh Bradshaw help. Help mama."

He runs towards me and begins picking grains of rice off my pants and collecting it in his upturned little palm. Being loved like that, feels soooo good. He has such a tender heart.
...........................................................

I haven't blogged much in the last month or two; we've had a lot going on. There was a 7-day period where we heard so much wonderful news followed by so much sad news that we kept finding ourselves with our jaws hanging open thinking, "what's happening?" The sad parts made us wonder if our little family should take cover until this cyclone passed over.


To share the good news: Stefanie & Tayler are engaged!!! They are planning on getting married in the Draper Utah temple in early August. (For anyone who may not know, Stefanie is Olivia's beautiful, wonderful birthmom.) We were lucky enough to meet Tayler in January. Tayler is a good man; who is both good to & good for Stefanie.

Three cheers for the happy couple!

March 15, 2010

Gettin' a little more mobile everyday

March 11, 2010

Sleepin' in the Exersaucer













































Army Crawl

Sneezes



we haven't been feeling too hot 'round here.

In fact, we've been recycling a variation of the same congestion/cough/sore throat through our family for about 12 weeks now. Dustinn's eyes have been so swollen from congestion that he looks like he's been in a fight. We are ready to be done!

It did teach me a lesson how Heavenly Father is aware of our little needs. A friend sat by me in church (even after I told her I was quarantining myself) and followed an impression to offer us her humidifier.

Daddy Kisses

Carrots

1. what is this?





2. oooh yum

March 5, 2010

uh-oh


One of the (many) things we love about our apartment is that it backs up to a 44-acre botanical preserve. It has a waterfall, lake, running trails, an orchard, cool bridges and lots of life. It is because of this preserve that Dustinn & I listen to owls as we fall asleep at night. And I think it's because of the preserve that this was on the grass outside our apartment:You can't tell from the picture--but this hawk is big. Larger than a cat. Much larger than our chickens in Texas.When I got too close he decided to leave. It was actually very funny (but grotesque.) He was feasting on squirrel. It appeared to be caught on his claw, rather than clasped, so he shook his leg unsuccessfully and then hobbled and tripped several steps before taking flight.