Brooks is here!

Brooks Dennis Blodgett was born 11/21/13.

 7 lbs 4 oz 21 inches long 

He is a healthy, happy baby and we love him and all his fun hair!! :) 

Parker loves him so much. It's been an adjustment, but overall, he seems to be fine with baby brother! 

Birth story and more pictures to come! 

Our days

Only 2 days till my due date! And I'm still very much pregnant so I thought it was good timing for a blog post to catch up on things before life gets crazy. 

These are our days lately, in no particular order :) 

       Parker loves to dress up! Which I love. You don't have to have daughters to play dress up ;)

      He is turning into such a big boy. Always climbing and jumping off things. Yes, that is a crib tent over his crib- they stopped making them, but I found one on Craigslist and it has saved our lives! Parker loves going to bed in his "tent" at night. Haha. 

Parker loves going to "school" once a week. It's a co-op some moms do and it's great! It gives me a chance to get some things done and gives Parker a little independence! They make a craft every time and this time was an Indian hat. He thinks it's awesome. 

Parker continues to be our sunshine. I think that's normal since he's our only child. But he'll have to share the lime light once baby boy comes! We're hoping he'll adapt well :)

Halloween 2013 with my little ducky

Halloween was a lot of fun this year~ 

Parker was old enough to understand that people were actually passing out free candy to him, so that made him more excited, which of course made us more excited. 

(especially since we got to reap the rewards of his hard earned trick-or-treating!)

Parker was a duck this year- mainly because when I saw it in the store and saw how cheap it was, I wanted to get it- and also this is still an age where I can suggest to Parker a costume idea and he'll be excited about it. So a cute little duck he was!

I tried to get creative and made myself a pregnant skeleton t-shirt. 

for the cost to make it + the low maintenance of it, it was the perfect costume for me!

We had to do our traditional Pumpkin Patch costume picture of the 4 boy cousins. 

They were pretty darn cute!!

Here's to Halloween 2013! 

Now I just need to detox from the insane amount of Halloween candy I've been eating! :)

From mom or dad??

Here is Parker throwing some brand new tennis balls for my parent's dog, Duncan. He found the balls in their garage and then proceeded to dump them out and was throwing them somewhat haphazardly. (not unusual for him) My mom's a tennis player, so she likes to save the good tennis balls and not let the dog chew on them, or have her grandson lose them in the abyss of ivy. Makes sense. 

When Parker realized that nanna said she wanted to put some of the balls away, look what he did... ALL ON HIS OWN! no ideas from mom...

He threw his body over the balls as a shield from nanna taking them away! Where do they learn these things?? I had never seen him do this! nanna was nice and let him keep some that he was desperately trying to save. When I got home and told Brett about it, he thought Parker totalllllly get's it from me. And I think he get's it from Brett. I guess we'll never know! :)

so much fun

So much fun. Those are the 3 words I would use to describe this age right now. 2 years and 3 months old is so so fun. He's his own little person, but he's still learning and growing and learning so much from us. He's quite the character. 

He's a big "help" at Home Depot

 

Parker and 2 of his cousins are in a play group once a week, and they always seem to end up together. Whether it's snack time, or play time, they always seem to find each other, it's so cute!

He looks so grown up to me here- I can't believe how big he is. 

 He liked his new shirt I got for him. I guess he likes new clothes too, like mother like son ;)

 we are loving our trampoline! It was a steal on Craigslist! I love that it has a net to keep him safe, and it gives him some independence in the backyard, which he loves. Brett & him are constantly playing on it. I usually have to tell them 100 times to come in for dinner :)

 Some of Parker's favorite days are when we babysit these cute 6 year old twins. They play with him so well, and he feels like such a big boy.

This guy...

I need to do a post on Parker and all the things I love about his 26 month old self. He's developing into such a big boy, and I want to document some of the my favorite things so I don't forget!

• He loooooves his dad. If dad's not home he'll be talking about him, asking about him, playing with his things until he gets home. And when dad does get home, forget about mom- it's dad dad dad until bedtime. 
• He's smart- Parker catches onto things so quickly. He picks up things so fast, and he loves to learn new things. 
• He can be extremely stubborn. If he doesn't want to do it- good luck. 
• He talks NONSTOP. for real. you think I'm exaggerating, but I'm not. From the moment he wakes up to the moment his head lies down for bed, he's talking. It's exhausting. But cute. His recent phrases are, "My try?" if he wants to try something. If we're playing a game, he will say "pretend" and then go on and tell me what he wants to pretend to be. "Going mom?" to ask where we're going. And if I don't answer right away he will get louder and louder. He occasionally says things like "dang it!" if something doesn't go right. we think it's hilarious. 
• My mom recently made him a super- man cape, which he wears all the time and runs thru the house yelling, "Super man!" and says he's flying. '
• If you ask him a question and he doesn't know the answer or he can't remember he'll say, "ummm" while he's trying to think about it.
• He loves his blanky. When he wakes up in the morning and comes in our bed, he brings his blanky and just strokes it while he lays next to us. He says, "it's soft"
• He will basically try any foods- there is nothing he won't eat except salad. He gags on the lettuce leaves. (hopefully he'll outgrow that!)
• He always tells us he needs money to buy a "ball hoop" - we're guessing he's thinking of a big basketball hoop- and apparently he thinks he should have one. 
• we recently got 2 kittens, and had to get rid of them because Parker is horribly allergic! so sad. I need to post a picture of him with the kittens. 
• He loves water, being naky and he loves cooking with mom. If I'm in the kitchen cooking, he'll come in, push a chair up to the counter while saying, "What 'er you making mom?" it's adorable. He loves to help me cook anything. 

well, that's enough gushing over my baby for one day! :) 

23 weeks....

If you haven't heard- we will be adding baby boy #2 to our family November 19th! we are so excited and cannot wait to see Parker as a big brother. He was a little dissapointed, he kept telling us that he wanted a baby sister, but I'm sure once he realizes how much wrestling, kicking and other boy things he can do with this little guy, he'll forgive us ;)

 

 

I'm 23 weeks along and feeling pretty good. I was only sick once or twice in the beginning, but other then that I can't complain. It's fun to feel the baby kick and move now, I forgot what that was like!

It's also been kinda nice how quick this pregnancy is going as compared to when I was pregnant with Parker. Now that I'm chasing him around all day, I don't have as much time to read up on the baby's update every day! :) 

We have had some news that this baby will have some complications- nothing life threatening, but maybe a correctable physical problem- I don't feel like writing all about it now, but I will once we know more. 

Either way, we can't wait to meet this little angel!

The Birthday Boy

 Our little man turned 2 on July 3! Can't believe how big he is. His aunt Denae let him have his Mickey Mouse party at her house- which was awesome with their pool, ping-pong table and trampoline, all the kids were having fun! Thanks again Harlows!

 Extremely simple and not to over the top decor. It was fun how easy it was though!

 Parker loved opening his gifts with the help of his cousins

 7 of his 31 cousins!

 Of course I didn't take many photos- story of my life- but I did manage to snap a couple of my sisters who were visiting!

On Parker's birthday we took him to pizza for lunch- his favorite, and then to the Benicia Parade that evening. He thought the parade, and music and cotton candy were all for his birthday. It works out great that he thinks he has the best mom and dad who would do all that for his birthday! :)

 we love you Parker and cannot wait to see more and more of your little personality develop as you get bigger!

Randomness

 I love the beautiful trails here in Northern Cali- even if I can't run them, because of baby, I still like to walk them!

 Did I mention that Brett left us for 10 days to go to Costa Rica?!?! well, he did! And we were sooo happy when he got home! (especially since that meant I didn't have to sleep with every light on in the house anymore :) 

He went for some training for work. He had a good time, but it was really just work the whole time.

 10 days is a long time to be without dad. we had to to come up with some fun things to do. Washing both cars one day kept Parker thoroughly entertained- although all he wanted to do was spray me with the hose!

 To split up the time we went up to Reno to visit my sister and her 4 girls. It was a blast and Parker loved being surrounded by his girl cousins

 They taught him awesome things like wearing bows in your hair...

 having picnics...

 and even how to wear high heels! (sorry brett)

 we had fun at the park too. Reno is so pretty, just being at the park made me feel like we were camping at Tahoe. The smells from the pine trees and the mountain air are beautiful!

 And of course it wouldn't be the start of summer without Benicia's farmers markets!

 And Parker loves riding his bike, just like papa.

Exciting News!

 Parker making pizza dough- not the exciting news, but just adorable :)

 We celebrated Brett's 27 birthday this year with the family! I made a Neapolitan cake- it was super delicious! And we had a million cupcakes for all the kids- it was so fun.  I am so thankful for Brett and for the amazing man he is. He is such a hard worker, and he is the BEST dad ever, and an amazing husband and best friend. I'm so thankful for him in my life!

 For Brett's Birthday weekend I planned a secret date and kept it a secret for like a week! which is a record for me. usually brett's really good at getting surprises out of me- but I kept him guessing all week long. I loved it. :)

We went to the Dead Fish for dinner. It's a restaurant in Crockett, right on the water. It was delicious. I got some crab pasta and Brett got some shrimp/crab alfredo. I want to go back soon, first because it was so yummy, and second because I want to order a big roasted crab that I get to crack open and eat! it just sounds so fun, and I wish I wouldn't have ordered it that night!
After dinner we went and saw Iron Man 3, super good movie!
Brett was in heaven- he loves seeing movies, and when you have a baby it's a rare occurrence to be able to go! Thank you mom and dad for watching Parker for the night so we could have such a fun date! :)

 The exciting news!!

Parker will be a big brother in November! We are really excited and feel so blessed, especially after I had a miscarriage earlier this year. It makes me so thankful for my healthy pregnancy so far. 

Parker says it's girl- but we'll find out June 25th! 

We are really happy about it!