Brotherly Love

Carson is almost 2 months old and it seems as if life didn't exist without him! Bowdy loves his brother and occasionally will babble to him, it is the cutest thing because he is trying to have a conversation. Bowdy loves to come up to Carson and rub his head gently, and just when I think he understands what it means to be nice to his brother he rubs Carson's head, but finishes the "petting" off with a little hair pull... When he isn't pulling his hair he is usually finding a way to get close enough to Carson to steal his paci. I can't wait until they can entertain each other. I caught Bowdy laying on the floor playing with Carson so I snapped a few photos, they aren't great because I had only a few seconds to capture a sweet moment!

family...

Sometimes I take for granted all the family that lives around me, we are so grateful that both my sisters, their families, and my mom and dad all live in McKinleyville. I know most people aren't as lucky to have their families so close. Not only do we all live close, but we all get along great, yes we do argue, but usually one sister is the peacemaker(usually Janelle:)) and we quickly get over whatever the argument was. If we can't figure it out between the sisters, we all try to beat each other to call mom and get her on "our side" you would think by now we would figure out that she doesn't take sides, just tells us to get over it and move on.

Last night we had all the family over for dinner and it got me thinking how close we all are. All of us were planning on making our own dinners at our own houses, but how boring, right? Everyone just brought what they were going to make and we cooked it all at our house and had a feast and lots of fun. It is always a hoot to see all the kids play together and it makes the nights go by so much faster when they are entertaining each other. None them really fight, once in a while we have to make sure that they aren't being too big of daredevils!

Loving Life

So I made it through my first week with two little boys, and honestly it was much easier than anticipated. Bowdy has been on the very consistent schedule since birth, so I had the same plan with Carson. My only struggle with Carson was trying to plan how I wanted his schedule to be because I needed it to work with Bowdys so I wasn't running around crazy trying to please two children, I need some mom time as well!

Bowdy's schedule is:

8 am -Wake up... Milk and Breakfast

10 am-12 pm: Nap

12pm: Lunch

12:30-2:00: Playtime

2-4: Nap

4:snack

5:30: dinner

6:30: Bath

7:30:Bed Time

Carson's Schedule:

8am:Wake... Feed

9-11:Sleep

11:00: Feed and Wake time

12-2: Sleep

2:00 Feed and Wake time

3-5:Sleep

5:00:Feed and Wake time

6-8:Sleep

8:00:Feed and straight back to bed

11:00:Feed and straight back to bed

4:00 am: Feed and straight back to bed

8:00 am: Start it all over!

As you can see Carson pretty much sleeps and eats and when he has wake time it usually only last 30 minutes or so. I'm pretty happy with how both of their schedules align, but having them both wake up at 8 am is a little tricky, Bowdy usually sleeps till 8:15 or 8:30 so that gives me enough time to get Carson fed. I might have to start waking Carson up at 7:30 when I go back to work so I can get out of the house at a decent hour!

Anyway... I want to thank my sister Danielle for introducing us all to babywise, without her testing this philosophy out on her own children I probably would be going insane having two babies at home!

Carson Robert Hicks

We welcomed Carson Robert Hicks on March 24, 2011 at 8:05 am. He is absolutely perfect, he was 7 lbs 5 ozs and was 20 inches long. He seems so small to me, I forgot how fragile newborns were until I held him. He was born with a full head and body of black hair! We are all in love with him, I don't think Bowdy quite understands that Carson is here to stay. I did catch him looking into his bassinet yesterday laughing at him. I know they will be best of friends!

So Many Blessings

Wow, has it really been 8 months since I lasted blogged? Where does all the time go? Anyway so much has happened in the last 8 months and honestly I don't think I could have imagined my life any better. Bowdy turned 1 year on December 10th and I can't believe how big he is getting. At his one year appointment he weighed 19lbs, that is incredible to me because it seemed like yesterday I was packing around a 4 pounder! He is a pretty happy baby, as long as he has taken all his naps and isn't sick. He is such a joy to be around and he has a smile that can light up the room. He definitely knows when to turn on the charm, I know most parents like to stay home when their kids are cranky, but honestly when Bowdy test my patience, I usually load him in the car and do errands like go grocery shopping. He is such a ham and a people watcher that he behaves he best when he is out and about. I can always count on getting stopped at least twice in the store for people to play with him and admire his smile... I know a little bragging, but he does have a "million dollar" smile! Bowdy has his favorite people at certain times.... in the morning he will not let his dad put him down, even if Clay needs to get dressed and he wants nothing to do with me, when we are at work he only wants Janelle to be with him and is always fighting Luke for a position on her lap, but at night time I'm his number one gal, he is quite the cuddler when he stops moving for a few minutes. He lights up when he sees his cousins and when Uncle Mikey and Uncle Travis come in the office. He is completely smitten by my dad, who people say he looks just like!

Bowdy's 1 year update:
Eats 4 bottles a day every 4 hours.
Eats 3 small meals and he loves baby food
Speed Crawls, no walking yet!
Loves his paci
10 percent in weight
Takes two- two hr. naps
Sleeps from 730 pm- 8 am
Says dada and mama

Oyster Fest 2010

This was my first year to attend Oyster Fest. It was a blast, the sun was shining for the most part and the people watching was great. Over the past years I have started to like Oysters, as long as they are the baby ones and I don't have to chew! There are so many different ones to choose from, but I think my favorite one was a cucumber lime salsa Oyster. Here are some pictures from that weekend.

A new start-Day 2

So again last night I tried to figure out Bowdy's sleep issue! He did great all day taking all his naps and eating good. Last night he did much better than the night before, but I guess anything wold be an improvement from waking up every hour or so.... Last night went a little like this:

• 8 pm to bed
• 12 woke up crying, I gave him his paci and he fell asleep
• 1 am he woke up again and I went in there to comfort him after 5 minutes of crying and then 10 minutes later he was still crying so I gave him a pillow, wrapped him up and he went straight to bed till 6:30 this morning.
• At 630 I went in and gave him his paci, he slept till I woke him up at 7:30

Over all I felt like last night was much better than Wednesday night so I know we are on a good start. Hopefully tonight gets better not worse:)