My 100th Post!

I know it's been forever, but what do you expect now that I have two babies?! Well, I'm writing now and I'm so excited that I've actually made it to 100 posts! When I first started this blog when I found out I was pregnant with Baby #1, I wasn't sure if I would be able to continue once the baby arrived so I feel very accomplished having written all through my first pregnancy, Beckham's first year and an entire second pregnancy. Speaking of which, Everett is now two months old and doing fabulous! He struggled with colic and acid reflux in the beginning but he is now beginning to grow out of that and is a much happier baby. He is smiling and laughing so much, and I'm having the time of my life watching him grow. There has been many, many sleepless nights and there continues to be, but seeing that little smile in the morning makes it all worth it.

Beckham has been an amazing big brother thus far. In the beginning, he cracked up laughing every time he looked at his new little brother; and as time went on, he grew more and more curious of him. He started with a simple poke here and there and then progressed to patting. He now loves to hug and kiss on Everett, and Everett just adores him. Beckham will not even have to look at Everett but if he's in Everett's view, Everett will smile so big while looking at him. Beckham is also mommy's little helper. He brings me things that he knows are for the baby like bottles and burp clothes, and he even found Everett's pacifier for me when I couldn't. Now whenever he sees a bottle, he says "baby" and tries to stick it in the nearest baby's mouth. Although I never have to worry about him sticking it in his own mouth, I do catch him with Everett's pacifier hanging from his lips now and then.

Beckham is so sweet to his little brother most of the time, but he has recently entered into the "hitting phase". But he doesn't just want to hit Everett, he wants to hit everyone! I even caught him on camera the other day. Check out the pics below. In the first one he was about to throw the bottle at Everett, and in the second one he already did.

When I discipline Beckham, I always start with "look at mommy" before I continue, and the little booger actually faces me with his eyes closed now! He's also figured out how to climb onto the coffee table without having to step on any toys. And hestarted using his activity table as a stool to try to climb onto the pack-n-play and take Everett's things out. My child is a little monkey!

A couple months ago, I finally became brave enough to give Beckham control of his spoon. He did really well but I let him feed himself grits which wasn't very wise. I ended up finding grits everywhere, even on Everett who wasn't in the room!

Here are some other new things Beckham has been doing over the last couple months (some he's been doing even longer but I forgot to mention before):

1. Months ago, Beckham learned to go down our stairs on his own by climbing down them backwards on his hands and knees. I still have to carry him down though because he takes off running into the other rooms when I let him walk on his own.

2. When he finishes taking a sip of his drink, he makes the "refreshed" sound ("aaaaah" ...or something like that).

3. Forever ago, Beckham learned to count to three.... when you would say, "1, 2..." he would say "threeeeeee!". Now when you say "1..." he says, "2......threeeeeee!".

4. Beckham has been learning the alphabet. When you say, "A..." he says, "B" and waits for you to say "C".

5. Beckham LOVES the theme song from "Two and a Half Men". He stops whatever he's doing to listen to it and he sings along "Oooooooooooooooo!" He also stops whatever he's doing to look at the TV when he hears the song "Imagination" from the Willy Wonka movie on the AT&T commercial.

6. Beckham says "Hooray" and makes the arm motion.

7. I've been taking Beckham to the music class on monday mornings for months now and he now sings one of the songs on his own and makes the gesture with his body... he sings, "Tic, Toc, Tic, Toc" and sways his body from side to side.

8. My boogerbutt now tells us "no". We're very unhappy about this because we worked very hard to never use that word with him but rather use sentences to tell him not to do something. Well when he wants to tell us no, he throws his head to the side and says, "Oh!".

9. Beckham says "Shhhh" and puts his finger over his lips."

10. Beckham has now signed Water and Eat in addition to Mommy, Daddy, Bath, Milk, More, and All Done.

11. Beckham loves saying "Uh oh!". He walks around throwing his toys on the floor so he can say it.

12. Beckham used to always throw his bottle when he was done with it and once he moved on to the cup, he did the same thing. But after months of working with him, Donna has taught Beckham to actually place his cup on the table or hand it to someone. I couldn't believe it worked!

About a month ago, I made a boo boo... I locked my babies in the car! Don't worry, the air conditioner was on and they were fine. Everett slept the whole time, and I played "peek-a-boo" with Beckham through the window so he stayed calm. One of the handymen on the base ended up getting it unlocked for me, but it was a very long 20 minutes.

As usual, we've been having tons of playdates. We had one at the zoo recently and so it was Everett's first time going. He just slept in his carrier the whole time but Beckham had a blast with his friends.

We also had a playdate at our house a few weeks ago. We had a bunch of kiddies over for a baby swim party but Beckham wanted to spend most of his time outside of the pool.

Everett also got to go to the aquarium for the first time. Joshua and I took the boys one Saturday about a month ago. Beckham loved running around the play area. Joshie was pooped after chasing him all over!

Joshua's sister and her husband came in town from San Diego last week to see Everett for the first time. Their time here went by too fast as it always does, but Gene got tons of photos to remind us of how wonderful it was while it lasted. Time will continue to fly by so I know we'll be seeing them again before we know it.

My little sister Cherie' (or Myshie as Beckham calls her) has been spending a lot of time with us. She sleeps over and Beckham loves it. She's his audience and he puts on a show for her the entire time she's here. She spent the night last week and Beckham cried his little eyes out when we brought her back home. It was so sad that Joshua and I were seriously about to cry. This week, she spent a couple nights and I'm hoping she'll stay even longer next week for him. He sits next to her with his head on her shoulder and pats her leg, and it melts my heart! Myshie is Beckham's buddy :).

Beckham may be ready to be potty trained! Last weekend, he was swimming in the backyard naked. When he was done, he was walking around the yard being a silly boy, and then he started squatting and saying, "poo poo". Everyone started yelling, "No poo poo!" so he stopped and started walking around again until eventually he did it again. Before we knew it, plop plop! There were turds dropping on the cement! Haha!

Now that I caught everyone up on Beckham, here are some pictures that were taken by my friend Laura Emerson who is also a photographer. She came by when Everett was three weeks old and took these lovely pictures for us!

Everett is getting so BIG! He is so much fatter than Beckham was (and whiter too! ...LOL). I've been taking him to the "Snuggles and Struggles" baby group every Tuesday morning like I used to take Beckham so I've been able to weigh him every week. This week he weighed 11lbs 6oz. He gained 2lbs just over the last few weeks! I'm so happy to have some cheeks to squeeze!

Everett is doing much better now but during his first five weeks of life, he had already seen the doctor four times. With his colic and acid reflux, we kept finding ourselves back with the pediatrician trying to figure out what we were going to try next. First, we began adding cereal to his bottles to help thicken the fluid to keep it down. When his colic continued to get worse, we switched his formula to gentle ease but after two days, he showed no sign of change so we then switched him to soy. The soy showed some improvement but it was so much thinner than the regular formula that his acid reflux began acting up again. After weighing out the pros and cons of each, we ended up going back to the regular formula and Everett was put on meds to help with the colic. He is now off the meds and although he's much better, he still struggles with gas here and there. I've never heard a baby fart as much as he does! And Everett is seriously addicted to his pacifier. He must have it in his mouth at all times, especially at night. This is a serious problem for me because I'm constantly having to put it back in his mouth. Something is going to have to change before Mommy becomes a zombie.

Some edited pics of the babies!

Mobile picture time!

Video time!

All of these videos were taken a month ago. The first is a short video of Everett at 7 weeks old smiling. The second is a video of Beckham saying his cousin, Judah's name over and over. Once he said it for the first time, it became his new favorite word. It says it constantly... when he's playing with his toys, talking to other people and even in his sleep! The third video is of Beckham saying lots of other words and playing with Daddy.

Last, here's a pic of Beckham with his cousin, Theresa who, by the way, just turned 9 months old and is already taking steps!!