My Bradley

Has it really been three whole months since my last post? With everything going on, I've lost track of time. And while sometimes it seems like time is flying, like my baby boy is already 11 weeks old (!), other times it feels like the whole world has completely slowed down.

I truly have so much to fill you in on, I think I'm going to just take it one event at a time and try to catch-up. We'll see how this all works out.

So let's start with the beginning. What made my whole world get rearranged and turned upside down. The birth of my second baby boy, my Bradley.

My original due date, as you might remember, was February 22nd; however, thanks to my 11 week ultrasound where my little man was measuring a little bigger, they bumped my due date to February 16th. Silly doctors, though. Clearly February 22nd was right from the get-go, as that was the day my Bradley made his grand entrance.

It all started at 1230am on February 22nd, when I had my first contraction. Fortunately, I was able to fall back asleep until 130am, when I had my second contraction. The next contraction came at 215am, then 245am, then 255am, then 305am. With my contractions now 10 minutes apart I decided it was time to wake up Matt and fill him in. Then from 3am until about 6am my contractions continued at about 10 minutes apart, with me falling back to sleep in between them. By 7am my contractions were about 7 minutes apart so we started to make our way to the hospital.

That was the fun part. The part where I couldn't walk from the pain, the part where I was crying on the bathroom floor, the part where I was screaming in agony and already begging for an epidural (the same epidural I had convinced myself I would not have this time around, mind you). That was the part where my amazing husband carried me, both physically and emotionally. The part where he literally held me up. The part where he convinced me I was strong enough.

By 730am we arrived to the hospital. The timeline starts to really blur for me at this point, but once I made it to the delivery room and was examined, I was 9 cm dilated. Shortly after being examined, my water broke and a few pushes later, at 845am, my Bradley was here. He weighed 8 lbs and was 21 inches long and he was perfect. I had done it, I had given birth without any pain medication. It was physically the hardest thing I had ever done in my life, but it was so completely worth every painful minute.

78 degrees in February? Yes, please!

It was gorgeous this past weekend. Like, seriously, gorgeous. I never saw 80 degrees, but I saw 79 degrees and in February, I will totally take that and be happy! So to appreciate all the warmth, we went to the zoo, played outside, washed my car and went to the golf range so Matt could hit some balls. Pretty much any excuse to stay outside was good enough for us! :)

Ethan's first time at the golf range :)

Lemurs, tigers and bears... oh my!

We went to the Hillcrest Park Zoo for the first time this past weekend. Having just come from Albuquerque, which has an awesome zoo, we tried to keep our expectations in check realizing this zoo wasn't going to be as awesome, but we were actually pleasantly surprised. They didn't have polar bears, elephants or lions, but they did have a tiger, a pair of brown bears and some very active monkeys. It took us somewhere between an hour and a half and two hours to wander through the whole thing, which was perfect for Ethan. By the end he was done, but he had fun while we were there. It was also pretty cheap costing only $7 for all three of us. So yay for finding something new and different to do in Clovis and yay for it actually being fun to do!

Our little butterfly, lol :)

Donkeys - heehaw!

We were seriously worried about this guy at first, but then we saw his ears moving, so we figured he was okay...

Lemurs!

38 weeks and 5 days with the monkeys

Crazy monkeys

Sooner the tiger

A bald eagle! America!

Our not-so-date date night

Since we don't know a lot of people around here yet, we've actually asked our babysitter to be our on-call person to watch Ethan when Baby Boy #2 decides to make his grand entrance. She is an awesome person and Ethan loves every time she watches him, so it was an easy decision for us. Now, in an effort to make Ethan even more comfortable with her, we had her come over and watch him Saturday night. She got here a little earlier than normal with the goal being for them to spend time together to include dinner and bedtime.

So around 530pm or so, Matt and I left the house for dinner with plans to see a movie afterward. We didn't really know where we were going for dinner. At first we stopped at the Cotton Patch Cafe (an American chain restaurant), because, why not? Well, I'll tell you why not. They don't serve alcohol at the Cotton Patch Cafe. When asked if they did (because from the hostess stand you could see the drink area where there was no liquor and no beer taps) we were told it was a "family restaurant." Lol. Evidently beer and family environments don't mix. Noted.

From there, we gave up and headed to Chili's because, well, we know what to expect when we go to Chili's. It might not be anything amazing, but it's somewhat reliable. And they serve alcohol. After Chili's we headed to the movie theater where we planned to see American Sniper. Well, of course, the movie was sold out (the 645pm show) and there was absolutely nothing else we wanted to watch. The options were to either see the 945pm show or see nothing. So we saw nothing, because let's be real, we can not stay awake long enough to see a movie that starts at 945pm.

That's when things went downhill fast. We literally just started driving around aimlessly. It was too early to go home (Ethan wasn't even in bed yet), but we had nothing to do. We'd even already been bowling with Ethan earlier that day, so hitting up the bowling alley again just seemed pitiful. There are movies on base, which we debated, but by the time we thought of it we would've arrived 15 minutes late (and no, they don't show 15 minutes worth of previews on base, I know this, because I called and asked, just in case). So where did we end up? The local self-serve frozen yogurt shop, Yo Tea Go. Which was, fine. From there, we hit up the closest Redbox for a movie to take home with us. Which, of course, didn't have the movie we wanted, so we had to go to the next closest Redbox.

Are you bored yet just hearing about our date night? Lol. It was bad. I mean, we had a babysitter, we had hours to do whatever we wanted without a child, probably for the last time in awhile. And what did we do? We went to Chili's, got frozen yogurt, picked up a Redbox movie and went back home. It was one of the first times we really missed living in a city with - ya know - stuff to do. Lol.

Just a few more years, right? ;)

Tim and Jess Visit

I know I'm a little behind in posting this, but for the long Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday weekend, we were lucky enough to have Matt's brother, Tim, and his girlfriend Jess come visit us. It's always awesome to have family in town, even if we really haven't figured out a lot of "fun" things to do with our guests. Visiting us here is more of a relaxing, chill sort of thing, which I guess isn't necessarily a bad thing. :) So while I wish I had a list of exciting adventures we went on while Tim and Jess were here, the real highlights of their whole trip were bowling, dinner out and going to the playground with Ethan, haha.

Bowling!

Dinner at the only brewery in town, Roosevelt Brewing Company

At the playground

My happy not-so-baby baby boy <3

Digging with Uncle Tim

Matt, Ethan and Tim :)

I don't know why, but I love this picture of him running - so happy and free :)

Like I said, though, no matter what we do, it really is always wonderful to have friends and family visit us. So we're definitely looking forward to all the upcoming guests that are going to start rolling in right after Baby #2's arrival. :)

Home is where your heart is

One year ago today Ethan and I packed up our lives on the East Coast and moved to New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment. Hard to believe it's been a whole year. I've missed so much about Maryland and DC, but I have loved all the new experiences and adventures, and the independence that come with moving away from home. And while February 26, 2006 is the day I started on this crazy military journey and September 10, 2011 is the day I became a military spouse, I think January 8, 2014 will always be important to me because it was the day the military took me away from home.

But what is home?

We never really know where the Air Force might send us next or when they may choose to send us. Heck, we don't even know what nights Matt will be home for dinner next week. But what I do know is this, home is where your heart is, and what the Air Force has taught me is that my heart doesn't have to be in only one place. Because while my heart is absolutely here with Matt and Ethan and this new little baby boy who is going to come out to meet us in the upcoming weeks, my heart is also in Maryland where I spent the first 25 years of my life and DC where I married the man of my dreams and brought our first precious baby boy home. And both Maryland and DC will always have pieces of my heart. Maybe as we move across the world on this crazy adventure little pieces of my heart will be spread even more. Who knows? All I know is, for now, my heart is here, in New Mexico.

Our first snowfall of 2015

It snowed a little earlier in the week, but it was barely enough to cover the grass. Then yesterday it started snowing around 4pm and didn't stop until the wee hours of the morning. The end result was at least 7 inches of beautiful white snow covering everything. :)

The snow falling at 8pm last night

The view out our front window around 11pm last night

Our backyard at 9am this morning

7 inches!

Playing in the snow! 

Everything is still going fine... 

And then he realized his hands were wet, and he was cold, and it went downhill fast...

Daddy to the rescue!

Then Matt showed him how to pull icicles off the roof and throw them in the snow and he was in heaven. Seriously. 

 

33 weeks and 5 days... but who's counting? ;)

From the backyard and throwing icicles, we headed to the front yard where evidently the snow kept blowing in Ethan's eyes, so he asked for his sunglasses. Smart kid. :) 

Because a lawn mower in 7 inches of snow totally makes sense. ;)