Brayden

I'm so behind on posting this but on July 18th, 2011 at 10:53pm we were blessed with the arrival of Brayden Lyle Brigham. I had a doctor appointment earlier in the day and when I went I was dilated to 5 so I was sent to the hospital. It was a boring labor, painless too so I'm thanksful for that, right up until the end when it was about time to push, then it was not painless or boring at all! He is the sweetest little baby and we all love him so much. It was the first time that as soon as the baby was placed in my arms I was overwhelmed with love. I loved my other 2 children of course, but the bond was instant with this little guy and I felt as if I had known him forever. Maybe because I had been saying since Jacob was born that I knew I had another son was out there waiting for me. Whatever the reason it was wonderful. I'm so blessed to be able to have this little guy, another healthy baby, and I dont take it for granted ever.

Just 10 days before Brayden was born Josh's father had a massive heart attack and died. It was a total shock, he was a pretty healthy man, and of course this was devastating to Josh. I had said that I was not going to have the baby until after the memorial service and it was less than 24 hours that I went into labor so we were both very thankful for that. A little miracle I believe since I had been dilated to 4 for 3 weeks and I had never made it to 39 weeks before. Josh likes to say it was half Gods will and half my stubborness. The baby shares a middle name with Josh's father, something we decided after he passed away as a little tribute to him. He had actually suggested the name but we were going to go with something else. I hope he is happy that we changed it for him. So July was a crazy emotional month for us but life has gone on and we are enjoying our family of 5.

Emma's 6th birthday

Emma is now 6 years old! She was one of the only kids in her class who was still 5 at the end of the year so she was really happy to "catch up" to the other kids. On her birthday her Auntie Melly and Carter came with me to get her ears pierced. I had told her whenever she wanted to do it she could but was honest about the fact it would hurt a little. Last year she said she would never do it, but a few weeks ago she said she was ready. She was a champ, said it hurt but there were no tears or anything and she loved the results!

She hadn't had a birthday party since she was 3 so we had promised her this year she could have one. Not the best thing to plan and put on when you're 9 mos pregnant, but it turned out well and she had a blast with all her friends.

Hormonal

I am super hormonal these last few days, maybe because I'm 36 weeks pregnant now and I know I'm about to meet my son and hold him and kiss him and give him lots of love. Okay now I'm crying, see like I said.. SUPER hormonal!

I am overwhelmed with how grateful I am that I made it this far (at 34 weeks found out I was dilated to 2 and that frightened me), and that I made it past Emma's birthday which was June 22nd and her birthday party which was June 25th. I'm grateful that despite a few problems here and there with my other 2 pregnancies I had fullterm healthy babies. The last 10 years I have worked with babies who were born weighing 1 or 2lbs and spent months in the hospital, or had some really bad syndromes that will affect them the rest of their lives so I know how lucky I am. I'm grateful that I have never had to deal with any fertility issues or miscarriages or anything of that nature that so many of my friends have had to deal with. I have been reminded this last month how I shouldn't take it for granted after another friend suffered a loss. I am grateful that I have a husband who without complaining takes over household chores and preparing meals and giving kids baths because he knows I need to be off my feet and resting as much as possible. He tells me all the time to sit down and relax even when I say I'm fine. I'm grateful for great insight, over the last 6 years we have made financial decisions that have allowed me to barely work so that I can be home with the kids. And once again my husband has supported me in that, understanding how it benefits the kids. I am so in love with family, I couldn't be happier. I'm going to really try and enjoy every minute of this baby, even during middle of the night feedings. Easier said than done perhaps, but I am going to try! And I am going to try really hard to get my patience back, because I lost it during this pregnancy.

Hormones are a crazy thing, they can be good, like now when I'm feeling all happy and grateful, but they can be a bad thing like when I see a pregnant person who is 2 weeks ahead of me and she's way smaller. That happened today in the doctors office, and it ended up being a co-worker of Josh, which made it even worse. But at least today I was dilated to 3, so the end isn't too far off and I can get back to a more normal size and wear normal clothes again and not feel like a whale!

Our little graduate

I seriously can not believe that Emma is done with kindergarten!! I so clearly remember posting about her first day! It has been a great year, she has met some really awesome new friends, and I have become friends with a couple of their moms. She has learned so much, she's reading books to us now, and Jacob often goes to her to be read to. She has super math skills and impresses me daily with some of things she can do now. She really loves school and learning and I want to encourage that so it continues for many more years. Kindergarten sounds so sweet and young, but now she's a big first grader and she's so excited about that. I myself have always had issues with change, but luckily at her school they keep their teacher and class for 2 years, so the only thing that will change is her grade. I am really excited to have her home for 8 whole weeks, with about half of that being before the baby is born and the other half afterwards. It gives me time to hang out with her and Jacob and give them lots of attention, and then time for her to be around the baby and get to know him before going back to school. I am so proud that Emma is my daughter, I love her so much!!

Why I can't sleep.

I am very very tired!! Not sleeping is part of being pregnant, especially towards the end when you are up using the bathroom anywhere from 2-4x a night, and trying to use a dozen pillows to find a comfortable position because you are sore and have aches and pains everywhere. And having Jacob decide 2 or 3x a week to come in our room at 1:45am (always the same time) and try and come snuggle with me doesn't help. But most of all what keeps me from sleeping is shown is this video.

Yes I am grateful for this miracle of life, and having a little one moving inside you can be neat at times (mostly earlier on when the baby is smaller and much more gentle with your organs), but it can also be sorta annoying I hate to say and very very uncomfortable too when they are doing somersaults. But I will try to enjoy these last few weeks because I never plan to do this again.

milestones

In the last 2 days there have been a couple of milestones hit by the Brigham children. Sunday morning I woke and found that the baby had hiccups for the first time. Josh and the kids took turn feeling them, and the kids thought it was really neat. Even though this is my 3rd pregnancy and I've felt them 100x before, feeling them with this little guy is just as special. And then Sunday evening Emma lost her first tooth. I knew it was about to fall out and told her to work on it throughout the day so it didn't come out the next day when she was at school, and that night with a gentle pull from Josh it came out easily, no bleeding and no pain, it was definetly ready. Emma of course was super excited about it. For some reason it made me sad and I actually teared up. Just another sign of her getting older and a reminder of how fast they grow up. The toothfairy came and brought Emma a dollar (alot more than I got as a child, but I guess with inflation it makes sense), along with a "First lost tooth" certificate. Then after breakfast as Emma was brushing her teeth she came running to me that her bottom teeth were bleeding. Both are loose and I thought "Oh great, another is going to fall out??", but instead to my surprise I found that a new tooth had popped up behind one of the baby teeth. So she loses one on top Sun at 7pm, and then 12 hours later she has a new one but not where she's lost one of course. Both my kids teethed early, and got a whole bunch at the same time, so I guess that's what's going to happen with the permanent ones too. At least Emma is thrilled with all of this, it's big deal in kindergarten and she couldn't wait to go to school this morning. And not to leave Jacob out of course, he did get his 3 year old pictures taken by a friend from highschool who is starting a photo side buisness. I've seen one picture and it was really cute, so I cant wait to see all the rest next week. I'll post them as soon as I get them. We never did 2 year pictures because he kept getting bumps and scratches on his face, so where we hang the current pictures of the kids, his 1 year picture still hangs.

Jacob turns 3

I can't believe my baby has turned 3!! He was so excited about turning 3, been talking about it since Christmas. It's been over a week and he still likes to tell people "I'm not two anymore, I'm three now." We didn't do anything big this year, had some close friends and family over for cake and ice cream and he got to open his presents of course. He's still very much into Thomas the Train and so he received a couple more of those, they keep coming up with new ones so it seems as though his collection will never be complete. My dad, "Papa Kim", came over the night before and gave him a Thomas scooter and he totally loves it! My dad has tried explaining to him several times that his middle name is Thomas because my dad and brother's middle name is Thomas, but Jacob insists that he's named after Thomas the Train.

Jacob is such a sweet boy, I cant imagine my life without him. He has the best smile, and loves to make people laugh. He's always very concerned with our feelings, will give us hugs and kisses if he thinks we look sad, and then will say 'You're not sad, you're happy now." I feel so blessed to have such caring son, and hope that his little brother will take after him in that way.

And it's a.......

BOY!!! Woo-hoo, I'm soooo excited!! I knew since the day I brought Jacob home from the hospital that I was going to have another son after him. I have dreamt of this baby boy for 2 years now, so it's like I a lready know him, although funny thing is when I got pregnant I thought it was a girl for some reason. Poor sweet Emma was not very happy though. I told the girl doing the sonogram to please not say what it was, just to show us. When she brought up the money shot I gasped and said 'I can't believe I was wrong", and then asked Emma if she could see what the baby was. Emma stared for a second and then said "It's a boy?" with a confused look on her face. She then sunk back into her seat and began to silently cry. She cried all the way home too. I then started crying because I knew she wanted a sister really bad. She has been praying asking for a sister since Jacob's first birthday, so I felt like I kinda let her down in a way, even though it was never up to me. Later she went shopping with me for some mother daughter time and brought over to me this really soft blue and brown blanket and she wanted to buy it for the baby. I had to get it of course, even though I kinda have this rule about not buying anything until I'm at least 24 weeks, but she was being so sweet I couldn't say no. Since then she has told me she loves the baby and is glad he's a boy, but just really wants me to try and make her sister after he's born. She knows I have no plans of doing this again, but says maybe I'll get pregnant on accident and it will be a surprise. Little does she know putting that thought into my head pushes me closer and closer to making it medically official! But anyways we're all really excited and seeing that little face of his has made me fall in love with him already. I feel truly blessed!

Oh and I also feel alot better, thank goodness for that too!!!

Party of Five

Ok so I'm so overdue on posting about this but I haven't been in the mood really. Not that I'm not super excitied but when you feel like crud all the time it's hard to act all cheery. Well I guess it's no surprise to anyone who would be reading this, since everyone knows by now, but yes we soon will be hearing "Brigham Family, party of five". I'm 14 weeks pregnant, baby #3 is due this July. I am very thankful for the gift of another chld and do not take it granted because I know so many others who struggle with ferility issues, my mom was one of them, so I know I'm very lucky in this department. But this does not stop me from feeling sorry for myself (which for the next several minutes I am going to do by having a whine fest so feel free to skip ahead, but it's my blog and I'll cry if I want too) when I'm throwing up everyday and walking around feeling like I'm falling short if being a mom to the 2 childen already here because there are days where I just dont function right. I of course knew it was a possibility to be this sick since I was with Emma, and I knew it was a possibility for it to go past the first trimester cause it did with Jacob, but when I got both the worst sickness ever (ok not worst ever, some people are hospitilized for months due to dehydration from their sickness, I know 2 people personally who went through this but whatever it's my complaining time) and it going on and on with no end in sight so far, I was not prepared. But still it's totally worth it in the end, and I would do it over to have the awesome kids I have been blessed with. But I do hope if I get the crazy idea in a couple of years to do this again, that I read this first and remember the daily throw up sessions, the constant headaches that Tylenol just doesn't cure and of course there's the indegestion and digestive issues that don't need going into. But once again I am very happy and can't wait to meet this little one. I think it's a girl but we'll see because my mom and a few others who are usually right at predicting baby's genders seem to think it's a boy. Jacob seems convinved it's s girl, and my friend's son who is usually right says it's a girl so it's all so confusing. With Emma and Jacob everyone was on the same page and we were all right so this is just strange! And no it's not twins, the doctor has looked around and after 3 sonograms in the first trimester we're certain there's just one! Well we'll find out in 2 weeks, and who knows maybe I'll be feeling better then. To be continued.......

Kindergarten!!!

I have cried the last 2 nights about this, but luckily not today as I dropped Emma off for her first day of kindergarten. I have purposely not blogged about this before because it would have been through tears and would have been over the top emotional. I never saw myself as a parent who would cry over this. Preschool was exciting and I was never sad about that, but that's probably because it was voluntary, and it was just 3 half days a week. Emma will be in school from 8am-3pm, 7 hours each day, that's more than I have ever been gone from her. Emma got into River Oaks Charter School (ROCS) which is an Aspire school. There were almost 300 applicants and there were just 32 spots left since there were 28 siblings of kids already at the school and they get first priority. So basically we got very lucky that Emma's name was pulled during the lottery. This mean Jacob is automatically in when it comes his turn. The drop off went well this morning. Emma did make the comment that there were alot of kids on the playground, but I told her that she will only have recess with the Kindergarteners and 1st graders. It ended up not mattering to her, she went and played with no problem. I was a good mommy too, and only stayed until the whistle blew to line up, and after she was assigned a seat in class I left. There were several parents crowding the hall so I felt proud that I was able to leave in a timely manner! Probably the fact that I love Emma's teacher had a lot to do with it. I had several parents tell me she was really good, and I instantly felt comfortable with her when I met her, so I know my Emma is in good hands. And because these schools do what's called "looping" kids keep their teachers for 2 years. I love that!

Aspire's motto is "College For Certain" so they go by the kids college graduation date, instead of the highschool graduation date. So 2027 is Emma's college graduation date, in case you wondering.

One thing I am looking forward to is having some time with Jacob. The 2nd kid doesn't get nearly the attention the first does, so I feel it's long over due for him. Now I will have to remember how to entertain a 2 year old all day. Having an older child is great because they do all the entertaining, and honestly I think Jakey would rather play with Emma.

Not the best picture of Jakey perhaps, but I had to wake him up and rush him around so he was a little out of sorts. Holding his trains always brings his comfort though, he wouldn't take this picture without them.

Emma's 5th birthday

I know I say this every year, but I can't believe another year has gone by. It still amazes me every birthday one of my kids has that time is going so quickly and that I'm losing the precious time I have with them, the time when they are little and actually want to hang out with me. It can drive me to tears in an instant so lets move on before I lose it. Emma has been talking about being 5 for a few months now and how she will be so much older and she will be much better behaved. She would say when she got in trouble "I'm only 4, but when I'm 5 I won't do that anymore" I don't know where she comes up with some of these things. This year we let her pick 2 friends and we went to dinner at Chuck E Cheese. It was actually a present from my mom, and it was Emma's favorite by far! Her birthday was on a Tuesday so we missed the crowds, we will never go on a Friday or Saturday, we've made that mistake once before.





The kids all had fun, and after we had cupcakes at our house. Emma was very happy with her gifts, she's pretty easy to please so it's always fun shopping for her. Boy do I love having a little girl! Just like last year most of her gifts had a princess theme. Even the bat and ball we got her had princesses on it.




I feel like I really hit the jackpot when I got Emma. She is the sweetest little thing in the world. She's kind to animals, has a huge heart for them just like both her parents. She's the best big sister ever, she is a 2nd mommy to Jakey really. She is very affectionate and gives us all hugs and kisses all the time. She is very smart, picks up on new skills easily and is good at memorizing things such as our phone numbers and our address (which came in handy this week, I'll post about that later). She is very inquisitive too. She's really into knowing how our bodies works, and the functions of bones, skin, blood, muscle, etc... If we are flipping through channels and come across a show where they are doing a surgery, she wants to watch (yuck I know!) Many people have told us she'll probably be a nurse or a doctor. She loves to sing and dance. We often will put music on and just dance around the house. In the car we have our favorite songs that we like to sing together. Even Jacob has been joining in lately, and asking for Lady Gaga when we get in the car and Emma includes him without having to be asked. She's kind to others, we've had teachers tell us stories of how she was kind to children in both church classes and preschool. Emma brings so much joy into our lives and I can't believe that I spent the first 26 years of my life without her. She is like the sun to me, she's radiant and brings warmth and light into my life. Happy Birthday Emma, I love you so much!!

Bye-bye preschool

I seriously can't believe that Emma is done with preschool, I feel like she just started and I was just posting about her first day. She loved going to Snells and made friends, which was what I was always worried about. I was afraid she wouldn't have any friends and would be playing alone. I don't know why I thought that but luckily that didn't happen. Emma has been very sad because she became very close with a little girl named Alexis. They were best friends and were inseparable there. They wont be at the same school, but hopefully we can get a play-date scheduled. The last week of school the kids put on a presentation for the parents. At one point it was Emma's turn to be "on stage" and after a minute or so she announced 'I need to go potty" and was led off. We got that on video and look forward to showing her and whoever she may be dating later on in life. Just kidding..... maybe.

March 27th Nick and Julie's wedding

Our good friends Nick and Julie got married on March 27th in Lake Tahoe. Josh was a groomsmen and Emma was the flower girl. The wedding was beautiful and we had a great time. Emma loved being the flowergirl and did an awesome job. She danced the night away, and people would go on the dance floor just to watch her. She asked lots of people to dance during the slow songs, and for the fast ones she showed off her break dancing skills. Jacob borrowed a suit from his good friend Carter and boy did he looked adorable, just melted mommy's heart!

Jacob's 2nd birthday

March has been a busy month so far for our family. The biggest and best thing about March is Jacob's birthday. He turned 2 years old on March 13th and we celebrated with a party. We had a lot of friends come over and the kids seemed to have a good time in the bounce house we rented for the day, which was our big present to Jacob. Unfortunately he doesn't understand the concept of "renting" so when the people came to take it down he was not pleased to the say the least! This birthday was a hard one for me because 2 is not a baby anymore, which means I'm baby-less right now! When Emma turned 2 we were trying for another baby so it was exiting to see our little girl get older and know at the same time we'd have another baby soon. But with Jacob, since we are going to wait awhile before trying for another, I was a little sad. The month before his birthday I would be upset when someone referred to him as being 2. I would say "Not yet, he's only 23 months!" Jacob has been calling himself 4 for awhile because it would upset Emma. He says "Emma's 2, Jacob's 4" just to upset her, and it works. Already he knows how to push her buttons. Well anyways the party went well, the kids ate pizza and cupcakes and played outside with toys and in the bounce house. Jacob received his favorite things, Thomas the Train stuff, cars, and sports stuff. About half way through his gifts he opened a Thomas the train engine given to him by his friend Ayson. He was so thrilled with his "Green Thomas" that he got up and walked away from his gifts leaving me to open the rest without him. He loves his "Green Thomas" and sleeps with it every night and brings it in the car wherever we go. It has now become my goal to give a gift a child loves so much they lose interest in opening the rest of their gifts. I will aim for this at the next birthday party we are at. Thanks Janie for setting the standard! Luckily later on Jacob went back and looked through his gifts and was very happy with what he found. He spent the rest of the day playing with his new stuff, but Green Thomas was with him at all times of course. I know Jacob will never remember this party, but he had fun and I love having kids his age over to play. I was very happy that once again on his birthday the weather was nice, because March can go either way. After the party Jacob's new bed was delivered. With Emma I waited until she was 2 1/2 and needed the crib for Jacob, but since Jacob has crawled in and out of his crib so many times, and nearly broke one side of it, and the fact he's been saying he wanted a bed every time he's in Emma's room, we decided to just go ahead and get him one. We did the same thing that we did for Emma and went straight to a twin bed. We put the guard rail up of course so he doesn't fall out in the middle of the night, and told him that he wasn't allowed to get out of it. He listened and had no problem making the transition. He sleeps through the night and takes naps in it and he loves his new bed, so for him this was a good decision. I still recommend waiting as long as you can before taking a child out of a crib, but when they're ready they're ready. The crib now lays sadly in the spare bedroom all taken apart, and just sits there with all the other outgrown baby toys and clothes. Hopefully one day they will all be used again. Jacob had his 2 year old doctor visit a few days after his birthday. He's 30lbs and 37" tall which put him in the 75th percentile for weight and 97th percentile for height. His estimated height as an adult (which you figure out by timing the 2 year old height by 2) is 6'2". This is not a surprise at all since he is built very much like my brother who is 6'4". I was told to keep him fed well, so to Jacob's delight I have added in another snack during the day for him, which has made him very happy! Melanie, AKA Auntie Melly, nicknamed him "moochers" because he was always mooching food even right he had eaten, so maybe this will help cut down on that. Probably not though :-)

Fun at the cabin

Josh's father has a cabin in Arnold that we dont take advantage of enough. It's only an hour and 15 minutes away, and it's free, so you'd think we go often but we don't, only about 2x a year. Whenever we are there we always say we need to come more often, because it's nice sometimes to just get away. We went with The Rodriguez family in January so the kids could play in the snow. Of course being the city girl that I am, after about 15 minutes of sledding and building a snowman I'd had my fill and was ready to go back to the cabin where it was warm and cozy. Lucky for Melanie and me the guys were fine with it and so we drove to a nice spot where we could look out at the mountains and feed the kids a snack. One of my favorite things about this mini-vacation was putting Jacob in a snowsuit. From the moment he was born he looked older than he was because of how big he was. I have often said I got jipped out of the newborn phase because of his size. But this weekend when Jacob was wearing the snowsuit he looked like a baby and I LOVED it!!! I think all kids look cute in snow clothes actually. I don't know what it is about it, but it's just a cute look.


My goal is to go to the cabin every January. It has always been a depressing month for me, because Christmas is over and it's rainy and cold, but this gave me something to look forward to. So thank you Rodriguez family for encouraging us to go!

Christmas

Christmas as always was really fun, and really exhausting. With 4 separate parents to see we are very very busy, but Emma loves it because she gets to open presents again and again. Every year it gets more fun though when it comes to the magic of Christmas. At 4 1/2 Emma totally understands the true meaning of Christmas and can tell the whole nativity story. She also is into the magic of Santa Claus and on her own this year reminded us to make cookies for him and leave something out for the reindeer. I totally get now why my mom always told us it was more fun for her than it was for us. Emma also knows most Christmas songs, even ones that kids don't usually know, and would sing from the moment she got up until she went to bed. She now carries the nickname I did as a child, "Our little Christmas spirit. I always get a little sad on Christmas though because I love the spirit of Christmas and to know it's come to an end and I have to put all my decorations down that I love so much is a little depressing, but luckily it comes back around so fast. Okay and also I love wrapping presents and making bows for them all and having them arranged just perfectly under the tree and to see them destroyed so quickly is a little hard, but that's just my "OCD" talking. We had a fun day though. We did the traditional Christmas morning with just the 4 of us in our PJ's. Making sure Santa ate the cookies and drank the milk. The kids LOVED their Santa present, a huge train table with a huge track and 3 trains. Good thing because it took 4 1/2 hours for Santa to put it together, just to find out it was too big to get in the house so it was another 90 min of taking some apart to get it in and then re-assembling it. All worth it of course. Then my mom and brother came over for presents. Then we had our annual brunch with a lot of our family. Then we opened presents with my dad. Then we went to Josh's mom's house to open presents, and then stayed for dinner where my mom and brother joined us. See what I mean, it's little crazy, but it's a lot of fun too and I love spending time with the people I love. I wouldn't want to go a Christmas without any of them!. I'm so thankful that we are able to have such a nice Christmas because not everyone can, so I tried to remember how lucky we are anytime I started feeling a little overwhelmed. So goodbye Christmas, but we'll see you next year.