March/April 2010

March and April were busy too! Story of our lives now, I guess :)

Some highlights: Nolan took swimming lessons again, Brad's baseball season started, we celebrated Easter with Brad's family, Nanny came to visit for a weekend, I took a week off from work and stayed home with the boys, we've tried (unsuccessfully) potty training a few times, and had about a million birthdays to celebrate!

April was a big month for Mr. AJ - he got off the nebulizer, had his 6 month check-up, and started crawling!! He and I missed out on a lot of stuff because we were afraid to take him anywhere for fear that he'd get sick again with RSV. At his check-up, he weighed 18 lb. 7 oz. and was 26" long. Whoa! And of course he was in the 92nd percentile for head circumference :) Compared to Nolan at this point, he's about a pound heavier and the exact same length. AJ is still on his medicine for acid reflux, and we're going to continue it until his 9 month check-up. He's such a happy baby and for the most part, sleeps pretty well at night. He is definitely a good eater!

Nolan has just been getting funnier and funnier! The things he says just crack us up. He has his moments of whining and crying and fit-throwing, but we're working through it. Here are some of the hilarious things he says:

• When he sees two things that are the same color or shape, or two trucks, etc., he says, "Look - like the both same!"
• One night after we got home from work/school, we were all in our bedroom and Brad was changing clothes. He didn't have a shirt on and he was holding Nolan. Nolan patted Brad's belly and said, "I like your fat belly, Daddy!" I thought I might pee my pants laughing!!!
• Recently he has started telling people that AJ is "my AJ". Not his brother, his AJ....it's pretty cute :)
• One of Nolan's most used phrases lately is "I want to do it with myself!" instead of 'by myself'. This tries my patience daily. I have to remind myself that not everything has to be done right now, and that I need to let him figure things out on his own sometimes.
• We play baseball in the house. I know, probably not a great idea or a great practice to have started, but it's too late now! Anyway, Brad will pitch the ball underhand to him and he tries to hit it with the bat. Brad told him to keep his eye on the ball and Nolan said, "No, Daddy. I keep my bat on the ball." Not entirely wrong!
• Instead of something falling down or over, it falls off. Like when AJ falls over, Nolan says, "AJ fell off the floor." Or if Nolan falls down when he's running, he says, "I fell off the floor!"
• When I ask Nolan a question, for example, "Why did you bite today?", he usually responds with, "Why?" Like he's the one asking the question! Sometimes he does this when he doesn't know the answer or if he needs some time to process the question before he answers it. We've found that if we give him some time to answer, sometimes he will. But most of the time we ask those kind of questions, we either get the whole question repeated back to us or the popular 'why?' :)
• Apparently Nolan has a thing with alligators. For some reason if he gets scared or hears a weird noise, he says, "There's alligators coming!" Recently though he's added monsters and dinosaurs to the mix.

We have a baby gate in Nolan's bedroom because his room is upstairs and we're downstairs. We've started leaving it open at night and he's done fine with it. He's come downstairs a couple of times - once before we were even in bed and another time at 4am to get in bed with us. He's never liked sleeping with us (which is okay with me!), so we're hoping that trend doesn't continue. We are crossing our fingers that AJ is as good a sleeper at night as Nolan always has been!

Here are some pictures and videos of the boys from the past couple of months - enjoy!

Laughing at Daddy being silly

This was back in early March - you can still see his birthmark over his left eyelid, but it's almost completely gone now (just like Dr. Mary said it would)!

I think we have two of the drooliest kids ever!

Look at those rolls!

Brad and I have no idea where this pink baby doll came from (Brad was a little more worried about it than I was - haha!). We thought maybe Grandma Cindy sent it home with Nolan from her house, but she didn't recognize it either. Hmmm, maybe Cambell or Mylee snuck it home with him ;)

This was about a week before he started crawling - he would get up on all fours like this, and then he would finally lay down and army crawl or roll to where he wanted to go. But once he started crawling, he got going really quick! The dog food bowls have been his favorite so far, of course.

AJ fell asleep at dinner one night - it was so funny because his head kept falling and wake him up!

And then there's Mr. Nolan who has started hiding from the camera. That's why I have a ton of pictures of AJ, but only a few of Nolan.

Mr. Serious.....it was raining that day, so he was watching it out the window from the living room.

Here's the pink baby doll again :)

I really think AJ looks so much like Nolan in this picture. Okay, he looks so much like Nolan most of the time, but especially in this picture!

3/16/10 - AJ talking

4/2/10 - the boys playing





4/19/10 - a week before he crawled for the first time




Bubble wrap!!!

AJ laughing

Review: October 2009 - February 2010

So we've been busy. Just a little. And since I've only gotten Brad to make one post in the past 3 years, I'm the only one to blame! So here's a little slide show to review! Create your own free slideshow design Here are some highlights that were included, and some that I wasn't lucky enough to get a picture of or capture on video: My mom got here the day after AJ was born and stayed for a week and a half. I was HAPPY beyond belief that she was here! My dad came for the last few days that she was here. It was really nice because they were able to be here for Nolan's birthday party this year. We were all really sad when they had to leave. :( Nolan had his 2-year well child check-up on October 19. Dr. Mary also took a look at AJ while we were there. Luckily, I didn't have to try and take both of them by myself since Nanny went with us. Nolan weighed 25 lb. 7 oz. and was 32 1/2" long. AJ was up to 7 lb. 1 oz., and Dr. Mary was very impressed that he had gained so much weight from his birth weight! She was also impressed at how well Nolan is progressing. Of course he talks endlessly at home, but wouldn't say a whole lot when we got there. He talked in the car all the way there about seeing Dr. Mary, but then wouldn't talk to her at all! Apparently all I wrote down from AJ's 2-week appointment was his weight: 8 lb., 0 oz. I feel really bad that so far I haven't kept as good of "records" for AJ like I had for Nolan. I do have baby books for both of them though, and a bag/box/specific place that I put keepsakes/notes to go in the baby books. I just don't know if or when the notes will ever actually get jotted down in said baby books. Sigh. We got a little lenient with Nolan's binky when we came home with AJ. We had been doing so well at only giving it to him for naps and bedtime, but it just made things easier on all of us sometimes to just give in. We wondered if he would ever get rid of it. But then, on February 16, 2010, we took the binky away at bedtime as a punishment for biting. He did fine! So we decided it was cold turkey from there on out. And it WORKED! We thought it was going to be such a process, but nope, we have been free from the binky for a whole month now!! I won't lie, there are definitely times when I wish I could just stick one in Nolan's mouth when he's throwing a fit or screaming/crying about something, but I know it's for the best. It's teaching me patience.....sigh. The first two months after AJ joined our family were......a little rough. He got a little bit of a cold when he was 3 weeks old and wouldn't sleep for more than 2 hours at a time, and had to be propped up for him to sleep that much. We were not ready for this....AT ALL! Nolan was such a laid back, easy-going baby that we got spoiled. We just thought this was how it was going to be. So we struggled through it and didn't figure out until his 2-month old doctor appointment that he has acid reflux. (Quick stats at 2 months: 12 lb, 14 oz. - 75th percentile; 21 3/4" - 20th percentile; 41 cm head circumference - 75th percentile) I was kicking myself for not taking him to the doctor sooner just to have him checked out. I guess with the next one, I'll know (not that I'm saying there will be a next one!). So we started him on Zantac twice a day and, even though he hated the medicine at first (it tastes like mint), he got used to it and slept so much better. We finally had a happy little baby! He was like a different kid :) On one of his RSV follow-up visits we switched to Prevacid (yes, the over-the-counter stuff, except it's really EXPENSIVE when you have to buy it for infants!) and it comes in a pill form that can be dissolved in his bottle. Much easier to give him :) We stay in Colorado for Thanksgiving every year and it was pretty low key. We went to Cindy's on Thanksgiving - after the annual flag football game, of course! - and then to Morey's over the weekend. It was nice to just relax and eat way too much. Also nice to have Brad home for an extra day! Every year for Christmas, we go to Pinehurst Country Club with Morey & Sharon. They have a great family room where Santa and Mrs. Claus visit and sing with the kids. They have face painting, a balloon maker, and a train ride outside. Oh, and the food!!! It's a huge buffet that is awesome. Again, we totally stuffed ourselves. Of course, my camera went dead right after we got there, so no cute pictures of everyone dressed up. :( We celebrate Christmas early with Cindy & Kenny since we spend the actual holiday in Indiana with my family. We always have a blast, but this year was so much fun because Nolan was totally into it. THANK YOU Grandma Cindy for getting him a drum set! Every time he plays it early in the morning, we think about calling her so she can hear just how much we love it!!! ;) ;) She had a little rock band of her own with all the grandkids - drums, guitars, microphones, you name it! Too cute. Nolan, AJ, and I left on December 12 for Indiana. Since I was on maternity leave, we stayed there for 2 weeks, and Brad came out for the last week. I was more than nervous about flying with both of them by myself for the first time. Freaked out is more like it. Frontier let Brad come back to the gate with me before we left, which was a huge lifesaver. Nolan didn't even throw a fit when we got on the plane and Brad didn't. This was his first time flying with his own seat - we took his car seat with us. Both the boys were complete angels. I couldn't have asked for a better flight. God must have known that I couldn't handle it by myself if they were out of control!! Like always though, I was ecstatic to see my parents at the airport when we got there. A weight was literally lifted off of me - I was holding AJ in the carrier on front of me and Nanny grabbed him up right away! We had a blast in Indiana. We are so lucky that both the boys adjust to the time change pretty well for naps and bedtime. We got to spend a lot of time with my family, got together with my friends Sarabeth and Suz from college (and their cute kids!!), had the Buell family Christmas (complete with pictures of everyone - which I have to say was my idea!), and had the 2nd Annual Booe Cousins Get Together. And I just have to add that we had a mean game of SPOONS going at the Booe get together.....and I was the winner!! Katrina, maybe next year.....bahahaha! We agreed a long time ago, before we even had kids, that we would spend Christmas in Indiana every year. Now that we have kids, a lot of people ask us what we'll tell them about Santa Claus. We tell them that Santa knows they're at Nanny & Papa's on Christmas, but that he knows when we get back home too and makes a special stop at our house that night. They'll never know anything different, so I think it will work out just fine. Just like this past Christmas - "Santa" was up pretty late putting together Nolan's work bench and wrapping both his and AJ's presents after flying home from Indiana ;) Oh, January.....what a long month! Pretty uneventful until the day before I was supposed to go back to work after being home for 3 1/2 months. Of course, isn't that it always works? AJ got bronchiolitis/RSV and we made our first visit to the ER. Poor little guy was so good about the whole thing. Even though his oxygen levels were lower than they should be, he was still just as happy as could be. Dr. Mary sent us straight over to the ER after checking his oxygen. I am a pretty emotional person, but I found out that when I really need to pull it together, I can. Brad was at work and I had AJ at the ER by myself. He was hooked up to oxygen for awhile and things were kind of rough, but I didn't cry or fall apart once! Until Brad got there, then I finally let it out, but just for a second. I knew he would be okay and that it could have been a LOT worse. It was just really scary since it was his breathing that was questionable. There were hundreds of RSV cases this winter, and it's hardest on the little bitty guys. We were sent home with oxygen. Let me tell you, that was an experience! AJ was back in our room so we could hear him at night and we said goodbye to sleeping through the night for awhile :) His oxygen levels came back up enough to quit the home-oxygen after a week. We were more than relieved! I ended up going back to work 3 days late, so not a big deal. I jumped right into busy season, which was good and bad. Good because at least I wasn't just sitting there with nothing to do, but bad because I was thrown back into being so busy that I needed to take work home for the first couple of weeks. It was kind of nice to get back into the social aspect of work though ;) Just when we thought AJ was all better and over his sickness, he started with the coughing and wheezing again. It was almost a month after the first round of RSV. So we went back to see Dr. Mary and it was like a repeat performance. Back to the ER, this time twice, and back with the home-oxygen. But this time we were like old pros!! Same thing, oxygen for another week, just to be safe. I think with all the ER and follow-up doctor visits we ended up paying around $500 in co-pays. And the actual medical bills have just started to roll in. Good thing for health insurance! With the second round of RSV, we started doing albuterol nebulizer treatments - the same steroid used in inhalers. We are still doing the neb treatments every night, now it's just a different steroid, and they seem to be helping quite a bit. There was no wheezing at his follow-up/well-child visit last week - woo hoo!! Last weekend was really the first time we took AJ anywhere other than daycare. He and I missed out on a lot of events, but it was worth it for him not to get sick again. I keep telling Brad it's all his fault that AJ is wheezing because he has mild asthma and it's genetic. haha Nanny and Papa came to visit at the end of February, which ended up being perfect timing since AJ was sick and had to stay home. It was good that neither of us had to take days off from work, plus the fact that I felt really comfortable leaving sick little AJ home with Nurse Polly to give him his neb treatments. So there's our "quick" recap of events for 4 months!! If you're still with me at this point, sorry it was so long and drawn out! I know I left out a lot of things because I can't remember all the details - how will I ever remember anything to tell Nolan and AJ when they're all grown up?????? Here are a couple of cute videos though: the first one is Nolan playing cars (I think he's inherited his Mommy's OCD) and the second one is Nolan playing "soccer ball" with Papa. Papa kept telling him that he need to take a time out from the game.... :)

Happy Halloween!

Last year, we "accidentally" started a Halloween tradition with our neighbors, The Bell's. After doing a little trick-or-treating of our own with them, we gave out all the candy at their house. We decided to do the same thing this year, except Renee, AJ, and I stayed back and gave out candy while Phil and Brad took Delaney, Nolan, and Kennedy door to door for a couple of blocks. We had so much fun! Next year, it's at our house!

Nolan was a horse (a yard sale special - only $4!) and I don't think he was too crazy about it. I figured this was the last year I could get away with picking his costume out for him, so next year will be so much more fun for him I'm sure! It was pretty chilly this year, so I think he figured out that his ears would stay warm if he kept his hood up. But as soon as they walked in the door, he wanted the whole thing off! :)

Nolan, and Delaney as Dorothy

AJ's first Halloween - pretty uneventful! His shirt says 'Boo!' which, in my family, is pretty cute ;)

Nolan was happy to dig into the chocolate and candy as soon as he got his costume off. I'm not gonna lie, so were his parents!!!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Nolan!

Our little man turned 2 on October 18, 2009....it flew by so fast! I'm just glad that he and his brother have separate birthdays. I was extremely worried about that before AJ got here. That, and the fact that I didn't want AJ to have to share a birthday with me either!!

Since AJ was due on Nolan's birthday, we weren't sure when to plan the party. It ended up being about a week after Nolan's actual birthday, so everything worked out. I'm not sure what I was thinking though, inviting 40 people (yes, that is not a typo) over to my house 10 days after giving birth! I wouldn't have been able to do it without Brad, and my parents who were visiting to help out with AJ. I was exhausted afterward, but I definitely wanted to make sure Nolan had 'his' day :)

We went with a Hot Wheels theme, and I even made the cake myself. I was so proud of myself! Nolan loved the cars on the top.


We are so blessed and lucky to have such great family and friends that love Nolan so much! He definitely had a wonderful 2nd birthday!

Here he is with one of his many Hot Wheels/Matchbox cars. He actually squealed when he opened a couple of them....it was hysterical!

Another typical boy birthday gift that has gotten lots of miles around our house - the dumptruck!

Nolan is not a shy kid, but when he looked up and saw that many people staring at him, he got a little bashful :)

This has to be one of the best pictures. We have so many friends with kids, we just had to try and get them all in one picture. We are only missing two boys that got a little camera shy, so I think we did a pretty good job!


Left to Right: Mylee holding Jacob (or Jackson), Max holding AJ, Cambell holding Rylann, Kennedy, Grayson holding Jackson (or Jacob), Evan, Delaney "holding" Nolan

We had a lot of fun and Nolan got a ton of cool stuff for his birthday. What a sweet, loving, funny, outgoing little man we have....can't wait to see what his 3rd birthday is like!!

Nolan & AJ pictures

Here are Nolan's 2 year old pictures, with a few of AJ too :) Thanks to Jessica Maliszewski for taking such great pictures of the boys!

Pumpkin Patch

Last Sunday Brad and I took Nolan to the pumpkin patch. AJ decided to stay home with Nanny :)

Nolan had so much fun this year - he got to go for a pony ride and run around in circles for a little bit. He's grown so much since last year at this time!!

He's Here!

I'm a little late with this post, and most of you already know about our new addition, but just to make it official:

Andrew James Engle arrived on October 13, 2009 at 3:21 am. He weighed 6 lbs. 15 oz. and was 19 inches long. Here is a picture right after he was born and then one when he was 3 days old. What a difference!!

AJ is a really good eater and most nights, not a bad sleeper. When we left the hospital, he had dropped in weight to 6 lbs. 3 oz. By the following Monday (6 days old), he was back up to 7 lbs. 1 oz. We went back to the pediatrician on Tuesday (2 weeks old) and he was already up to 8 lbs.!! I tried nursing and he seemed to be doing great while we were at the hospital, but once we got home it was like he completely forgot what he was doing. So I'm pumping now like I did with Nolan so he at least gets the breast milk. It's a little more difficult since Nolan doesn't completely understand what's going on, and that he always chooses the time when I'm pumping to do something he's not supposed to. But I feel good that AJ is getting breast milk instead of formula for now, at least while I'm not working.

AJ does NOT like to be swaddled. This is so different from Nolan because he absolutely loved it and would go right to sleep once he was wrapped up good and tight. AJ just wants to be toasty warm with a couple of blankets and he's good to go. He goes back to sleep relatively easy, so that's nice for me when I'm up with him in the middle of the night :)

He also hasn't seemed quite as attached to the binky like Nolan was already at this point. Maybe that's a good thing???

AJ's hospital pictures look pretty close to Nolan's, but I think he's got a little more Booe boy in him than Nolan does. Maybe I won't have two little mini-Brad's running around after all!!

Here is the link to AJ's newborn pictures from the hospital:

http://www.our365.com/newbornportraits/babydetail.aspx?BirthId=31e4ca9b-b154-4251-aaec-48f1e074c5af

We are just thrilled with our new little man and can't wait to see more of his personality. So far he is definitely very mellow, which Mommy appreciates every day ;)