Beckett at 2 Years

And just like that, Beckett is two years old!  He's so big and talks so well that it's been crazy to call him a one-year-old these past few months, so it's only fitting that he's now officially two!

So what's new with Beckett at this stage?  For one, he's started singing.  It's as cute as you can imagine.  He loves Baa Baa Black Sheep and the alphabet song.  He also loves to dance.  His favorite song to dance to is "Hey Ya" by Outkast, followed by "Shake it Off" by Taylor Swift as a close second.  He can shimmy, jump, shake his booty, and my personal favorite-- squatting down with his hands on his knees and shaking his booty.

He also discovered helping in the kitchen.  This is a game-changer for dinner time.  On the slightly negative side, we can't do ANYTHING in the kitchen without our little helper wanting to pitch in.  He drags a chair over from the kitchen table, hops up on it, and is ready to be a part of whatever is going on.  It slows things down a lot but it's been fun though.  On the positive side, he eats even better than before.  He'll eat veggies raw while we are chopping, etc. and then he seems more interested in the meals in general knowing that he helped make them.

In October I had a big project at work that required me to work nearly full time for a few weeks.  I accrued some time off because of it and took about two weeks off work just before Samuel arrived.  I spent it at home with Beckett just soaking in our last days before our lives both changed.  We went to the zoo together, had play dates with friends, visited Kolby's grandparents, went to a movie, and played a lot at home.  It was a blast.

Obviously the biggest thing to happen to Beckett these past couple months has been becoming a big brother!  A couple weeks before Samuel was born Beckett finally seemed to grasp the concept that there was a baby in my tummy that would be out soon.  We talked about it a lot and when the time came he was really excited to see his brother and very interested in him.  The novelty wore off though, and although he is still very sweet to Samuel he's really not that interested in him these days.  I know that will change as Samuel gets older and more fun to interact with.  He is sometimes helpful in bringing us a diaper or pacifier for Samuel, and we came up with a "helpful boy dance" for when he helps with Samuel (not to be confused with his "happy plate dance" for when he eats all his food and his "smarty pants dance" for when he does or says something clever).  The "helpful boy dance" is a move where he squats down then pumps his fist while saying "alright!" in a really low, husky voice.  I don't know why we do these things but he likes them and they are cute.

Beckett continues to love construction equipment-- seeing the real machines, playing with toy ones, reading books about them, etc.  He still love tractors too.  He has gotten interested in football but only likes to dropkick the ball, so maybe he can be a punter and keep his brain cells intact.  His favorite food these days is tomatoes.  His favorite meal is pasta and his favorite drink is chocolate milk.  He loves the movie Dumbo.  He always wants bubbles in his bath.  He's still sleeping amazing-- usually 8pm to nearly 8am and naps for 2+ hours in the afternoon (a pregnancy lifesaver!).  For this reason we haven't attempted to move him to a big boy bed, although we have a big boy room all set up and ready for him (pictures coming soon).  We have the nursery set up for Samuel but Beckett sleeps in there still.  I'm not sure what our exit strategy is, but for now we are all enjoying his awesome sleep and nap schedule and don't want to throw a wrench in it!

Well that about sums things up lately!  Now, some pictures...

Cheering on Dada at the homecoming parade (his last hoorah has Teacher of the Year!)
 Throwing a fit in a parking lot because his stick wouldn't fit in the key hole of the trunk of my car (?)
 Being a ham at dinner
 We had a family fun day at a bounce house place followed by lunch at Rainforest Cafe.  It was a hit!  
Tagging along for a checkup on baby 
 This kid loves Baylor Bear football
My little makeup helper, making sure my brushes are damp with drool from his chin every time I use them.
 This kid loves to soil the bathtub.  It's a huge pain to clean up.  But he gets attention from it (we throw him in the shower or sink to finish bathing him) so he's learned to save his business for the tub.  Fun!
 Chatting on the "phone"
Beckett's dream came true when a bobcat was IN OUR YARD tearing out our old, cracked and crumbled driveway.  We set up shop for the morning and he loved every second.

 Zoo fun!  Feeding a giraffe then checking out the elephants.  The rest of the time was spent at the gorilla exhibit.
 Waking up happy.  When he sleeps until 8am, everyone in the house wakes up happy :)
 Kolby and his sous chef.
At the movie theater and entrhalled... for 15 minutes :) 
Reading with Mimi
 Sweet boy with foxy and monkey.  He's not real creative with names ;)
 Kolby needed to refresh his swaddling skills
Me and my boy on one of our quiet mornings together before Samuel's arrival
 This is a picture taken a few days before I went into labor.  Beckett nearly always asks to be rocked to sleep still and occasionally I give in and on this occasion I had to laugh at how full my lap was.  A full-tern baby in my belly with a 35 pound toddler on top along with his foxy, monkey and blanket.
 Beckett and his best bud William having a picnic lunch.  I love how their feet don't touch the ground.  This was the day I went into labor so I think this is the last picture I have of Beckett before he became a big brother!
First walk as a family of four!
My mom and Beckett getting their jam on.  She stayed with us for a week after Samuel was born and was helpful with a lot, but particularly in keeping Beckett entertained!
 My two dapper boys headed off to church!
One day I was playing football with Beckett in the front yard and he saw a boy down the street and wanted to play football with him.  So we walked down and introduced ourselves, and the boy (who is 8) came to play and they had the best time together.  They've played a few times since and it's the cutest thing in the world.

My boss came by to meet Samuel and she brought this vest and chaps for Beckett.  We put them on him and he immediately ran to his room to get his hat and horse (broom) and ran back in shouting Yee-Haw!

Pushing his brother on the way into school.  It's no easy feat getting two kids out the door in the mornings!  So far our record is just 20 minutes late.  But my goal for 2015 is to be on time at least once :)

 "I hold baby Sammy's hand."
A peek at life outnumbered at home with two little ones
This is my new favorite picture.  Beckett holding Samuel alone for the first time.
Thanksgiving 2014
Reading to our boys
 
On Beckett's birthday we let him pick what he wanted to do and he chose a local museum and dinner at Rainforest Cafe (which he calls "monkeys shake trees").
At his two-year checkup we found out what we already knew--- he's big and healthy!  We are so thankful!
(He decided to show off his muscles)
 

Newborn/Family Pictures

We had a photographer come when Samuel was one week old to take some pictures of Samuel and capture a little of what our life looks like as a new family of four.  I'm so happy to have these to look at now and know they will hold even more meaning years from now.

Here are many of my favorites!

Our sweet little Samuel

And some shots of our big boy
 [for comparison, here is him last year]

Brothers!

And our new family of four :)
This picture about sums up the first few weeks-- the calm of caring for a newborn mixed with the crazy of keeping a toddler entertained!
Some family time together
 [photo credit Megan Williams Photography]

What's in a Name

Samuel Brian

Samuel
We knew we wanted to use a Biblical name.  We loved "Samuel" for both the character of Samuel and also the meaning behind his name.  For anyone unfamiliar, here's a snapshot.

Hannah was barren.  She prayed,
“Lord Almighty, if you will only look on your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life.” 1 Samuel 1:11

Then,
"In the course of time Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, 'Because I asked the Lord for him.'"  1 Samuel 1:20  [Samuel means "heard by God."]

Hannah dedicated Samuel, saying,
"I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him.  So now I give him to the Lord.  For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord.”  1 Samuel 1:27

The story of Hannah holds a lot of meaning for us, for obvious reasons, and I love the meaning of the name Samuel.  Throughout his life, Samuel showed strong allegiance and obedience to God.

So there you have it:  Samuel.

Brian
My dad is the namesake for the middle name we chose for Samuel.  He has the biggest and purest heart of anyone I know.  He's a man of fewer words than many, genuine to his core, generous, humble, and doesn't have a bad word to say about anyone.  He seeks the Lord, and trusts in Him.  He cares very deeply for the people in his life, and cares well for them too.  He values family, helps anyone in any way, and goes out of his way to make others feel like the most important person in the room.  As we raise Samuel (and Beckett too), these are certainly characteristics we hope to instill.   

An added bonus of using "Brian" is that Beckett carries his paternal grandfather's middle name (Miller) and Samuel carries his maternal grandfather's middle name (my dad's first name is Roy but he goes by his middle name).  So there's a cool symmetry there.

Samuel's Birth Story

Samuel's birthday was absolutely perfect, just like Beckett's.  We are so grateful to have had two completely healthy deliveries and two completely healthy boys!

I want to write out Samuel's birth story, and my apologies in advance for how long I'm sure it'll get!

It was Saturday, November 15 and I had spent the day at home with Beckett and his best bud, William, while Kolby helped William's parents (our good friends) move to an apartment pretty near us.  I had felt fine all day but at the very end I started feeling kind of flu-ish-- fevery, achy, etc.  It died down after an hour or so but it stuck in my mind because our childbirth class (when we were pregnant with Beckett) talked about how this can often be an early sign of labor.

We headed over to Kolby's parents' house that evening for a family dinner.  While we were there I started feeling very uncomfortable.  It felt like the baby had moved down and I'll leave it at that.  I couldn't get comfortable sitting or standing-- something I didn't experience with Beckett.  I told Kolby about it and while I didn't necessarily think it meant labor was imminent, I knew I couldn't go on like that for another two weeks until our due date.

I started having contractions after dinner, which wasn't too unusual, but by the time we were driving home I started to suspect this could be something different than the irregular contractions I'd had on several occasions before.  This kind of freaked us both out, because we weren't ready in the same way we were for Beckett.  With Beckett, mainly since he waited until a few days after his due date to arrive, we had the house totally clean, both of us had all our ducks in a row at work in preparation for our maternity/paternity leave, and we were literally just sitting around waiting to go into labor.  Thankfully I had experienced a major nesting binge the prior week, so the nursery was ready and the house was mostly in order.  As soon as we pulled in the driveway from dinner (around 9pm) we went in to action mode... Kolby got Beckett to bed and I zipped through the house tidying up so that when my parents came to stay at our house while we were at the hospital they wouldn't have to walk into a huge mess (remember, there were two toddlers playing at the house all day).  Then I took a bath to see if that would calm the contractions and help signal either a false alarm or the real deal.  Kolby frantically worked to get things in order for his classes, for a sub.  Thankfully in a matter of a couple hours we were able to feel much more settled and ready, and started to get excited about the prospect of an early arrival.

The contractions continued, but just like with Beckett, it wasn't the kind of thing that was easy to time.  It again was really hard to tell when I was having a contraction, since the pain was largely in my back.  We sent word to my parents (who live two hours away) and to Kolby's mom (who was out of town, several hours away) letting them know that this could be nothing but could be labor, and said we'd follow up when we knew more.  A couple hours passed and it was still really unclear which it was.  Finally we decided to go ahead and go to the hospital and find out for sure, since we certainly weren't getting any sleep at home anyway and also we wanted to make sure we gave family enough notice to hit the road and make it in time, if this was really labor.  We called our good friends from church and they came over around 1:45am to stay with Beckett and sleep on our couches (so thankful for them!).

Kolby loaded the car and I snuck into Beckett's room and rocked him for awhile.  I cried and cried.  If this was labor, things were about to change a whole lot and that made me really sad.  Really  happy too, but in a very bittersweet way for him.  It was a strange mix of emotions, plus several really painful contractions with a 35 lb toddler smooshing my belly.  I kissed him about a million times then Kolby laid him back in his crib and we hit the road for the hospital.

A few minutes into the drive I started feeling exactly like I did when we drove to the hospital in labor with Beckett, and I was sure this was in fact the real thing.  Contractions were painful and about five minutes apart, and the bumps on the road were excruciating.  Just like last time, I had a couple contractions on the short walk from the car to Labor & Delivery and had to stop and hunch over and grab the wall like you see in TV sitcoms.  We got to our room and the doctor checked me and wanted to wait an hour then check again before officially admitting us.  They monitored the baby, we walked around, I took a couple of baths (warm water is amazing) and an hour later I had made enough progress that it was official-- it was baby day!  This was about 4am.

Labor was awful.  Good grief it was so painful.  The baby's heart rate was really fast-- which was concerning but not terribly concerning, but meant I had to stay on the monitor and couldn't move around.  That sure didn't help the pain thing.  It was back labor all over again and that was a bummer to say the least.  I had no break from the pain.  Zero.  Not the usual story they tell you about in childbirth class where you survive a contraction then get some downtime before the next one.  No sir.  My mom arrived around 6am and I just started crying when I told her it was back labor again.  She and I had both really hoped that was a one-time thing (she had it too with Brad, but not me or Russell).

By 6:15am I'd survived all I could and we talked to the doctor about an epidural.  She felt good about how my labor was progressing and was confident an epidural wouldn't stall or slow things down at that point.  The anesthesiologist put an epidural in soon after and it was as glorious as I had remembered.  Seriously amazing.

Kolby and I took some time to rest for awhile, then about 8am his dad had arrived with breakfast tacos so he went to the waiting room for a bit.  My mom came in and we chatted for a few minutes then I called the nurse in because she had told me to call her when I started to feel pressure.  Having an epidural, I couldn't really tell what I was feeling--and with Beckett I couldn't feel anything at all--but I thought I could feel something this time so I went ahead and called her.  The nurse checked me and said it was time to push!  She left and paged our doctor and my mom went to the waiting room to tell Kolby.

Here's where the story takes a bit of a crazy turn.  Samuel clearly wanted his birth to be one that we'd always remember!

So I'm in the room by myself for a few minutes.  And I'm feeling something but again it's hard to tell exactly what because of the epidural.  All I can say is it felt kinda like I imagine it would feel if you were numb but also had a baby making its way into the world.  I pressed the call button for the nurse and in walks Kolby.  I told him I was feeling something and had called the nurse.  He said, "Yeah, your mom told me.  It's time to push!  That's crazy!"  I told him, no, that I'd called the nurse AGAIN.  Something was going on.  The nurse walks in and is putting gloves on when she lifts up the sheet and matter-of-factly says, "the baby's here" while pressing a code pink button which triggers an influx of nurses and doctors into the room.  Apparently Samuel had gone ahead and delivered himself just past his shoulders, and then the nurse pulled him out the rest of the way with just one hand because she didn't have a chance to put her second glove on.

That's right, folks.  So much for the pushing.  Apparently having 9 pound, 98th percentile head size U.S.S. Beckett paved the way and Samuel just followed the signs.

I guess my mom must have walked in with the nurse and somehow had the presence of mind to get out her phone, because we have almost the whole thing on video and it's as funny as it is surreal.  Kolby is half laughing half crying, and my mom is telling me that everything is fine and also laughing.  I wasn't nervous but was definitely eager to hear the baby cry before hopping on the "isn't this so crazy/funny" bandwagon.  Thankfully as soon as the nurse rubbed his back he let out a big cry, and all the nurses who had flooded in started wishing us congratulations-- and I immediately felt at peace and ready to hold our little one.  The nurse held him up to Kolby and asked, "What is this?  What do we have?!?" and he looks then turns to me and says, "It's a boy, it's a little baby boy!"  The gender surprise thing was a little anti-climactic because we were both absolutely certain it was a boy (me because my pregnancy was so similar to Beckett's, and Kolby because he wanted another boy) and also because we kinda blew right past that traditional moment of "OK, it's time to push.  We're about to find out if it's a boy or a girl!"  But the birth was plenty exciting as it was, and we were both thrilled to have a second baby boy in our arms!

Everything from that point on was dreamy.  The nurse placed Samuel on my chest and he was totally calm and totally alert and just looked up at me for the longest time with his eyes wide open.  The nurse kept asking if we'd like her to clean him up and weigh him and I kept saying no, wanting to freeze that moment as long as possible.  I felt so good-- completely different from the anemic la-la land I experienced after Beckett's birth.  Kolby and I just stared at him for the longest time.  How amazing it was to have brought another little boy into our family!

And now, some pictures!

This is a screen capture of the video my mom took and is a picture I'll cherish forever because the look on Kolby's face pretty much sums up the whole birth story.
Samuel looks like a gunky newborn here but I also love this picture because I got to enjoy this moment of us looking at each other for a really long time and loved every second.  He was so alert!

First posed picture :)
Beckett meeting his little brother! 
Samuel meeting his grandparents
Spending some brother time together
Family of four!
Proud parents!
 I love this picture of them sleeping because it captures a lot of what a caring dad Kolby is.  He has Samuel strapped to him with a blanket so he won't budge if he doses off, is holding the swaddling blanket down so it won't block Samuel's face, and has the nose sucker bulb thing at the ready.
Me and my boys!
Beckett was our best little hospital visitor
We left the hospital after just one day because we were all feeling great!  Some last pics before peacing out.
***
Welcome to our family, sweet Samuel!
 
SITE DESIGN BY DESIGNER BLOGS