Our Walks Seen Through Nathan's Eyes

One day Nathan decided to bring his new camera along with him on our daily walk through the neighborhood. You will see that Nathan is fascinated with sprinklers and trees. Enjoy the walk through his point of view!

Starting the walk out. Nathan is walking alongside the stroller.





Sprinklers!




The Stroller and Lucy!




The sidewalk before the street and a close-up of the grass and a sprinkler



A real close-up of the sprinkler and a street view



More sprinklers!



Right foot, left foot



Grass and rocks



A plant and Nathan's shadow in the grass



Nathan with some trash on the ground and another street view



One last foot and sprinkler picture and a tree! Nathan likes to hug the trees on the walks.



I hope that you enjoyed the walk through Nathan's eyes!

Two months and Resolutions

Anderson had his two month check-up and he is a big boy! He weighed in at 13lbs 7 oz (75th-90th percentile) and already weighs more than what Nathan did at four months. He was 23" long (50th percentile) and his head measured in the 50th percentile. The only issue that we are now having is that Anderson has green poop that has trace amounts of blood in it. Since it is most likely a food sensitivity I have cut out all dairy from my diet since dairy is usually the biggest culprit. We see a GI doctor in January to see what may be causing it. Although, there is this issue Anderson is still a pretty great baby and isn't very fussy. I on the otherhand am very fussy because I am not eating dairy. I really miss my cheese and butter! It was very hard to not have mashed potatoes, stuffing, and cookies during Christmas because of the butter that was in them! At least I didn't gain any extra weight from the cookies I would have eaten!

**Since I wrote this post about a month ago and never posted it (took me forever to get the photos and videos uploaded) some things have happened! We went to the GI doctor and he said that he thinks that Anderson most likely has lymphoid hyperplasia. Basically the lymph nodes in Anderson's small colon are being irritated and causing the bleeding. The cause of the irritation would be from all of the colds that the poor kid has had since his birth. I think that he has been sick-free for about two-three weeks since his birth. We take some more poop samples next week and if they have blood in them then we go from there. One of the options to try and figure out what is going on is to restrict my diet even further. Right now I am not eating any diary or nuts and it is HARD! I really would just like to have some cheese! We don't think it is an allergy issue because there is still trace amounts of blood in his poop and it should have been gone by now since I have been dairy free for seven weeks and nut free for four weeks. Another option is to put Anderson on an allergy free formula and see what happens. The last option is to do a baby colonoscopy (I can't remember what the actual name for it is). Hopefully, it is just the colds that are causing his bowels to be irritated and I can go back to eating whatever :)! We also hope that we can shake off the colds and all get better!**

Anderson also had his newborn hearing finally done! And he hears just fine. While we were at the hearing place Nathan was the highlight for everyone there. He was not shy at all and made friends with some older people (the patients all seemed to be over 70).

Anderson smiles all the time now, but especially when we are around. When you talk to him he "talks" back to you by cooing and it is the cutest! Anderson has laughed, but it has only been in his sleep, which is funny to me. When we were up at my parents he woke himself up by laughing in his sleep. I am looking forward to when we can get him to laugh when he is awake.

Anderson has discovered his hands and it is fun to watch him stare at them. His hands must be so fascinating to him. He now reaches for stuff that you put within his grasp. He will sometimes grab a hold of the item and hold onto it real tight. His neck is getting much stronger and he is able to hold his head up off the floor pretty well sometimes.

Nathan is doing awesome! He cracks Christopher and me up all of the time with stuff that he says. Of course, I can't think of specifics right now, but he is funny. He does have his terrible two moments, but overall he is a pretty good toddler.

For Christmas we went up to my parent's house and had a great time. The drive there was 11 hours, with stops, and both kids did really well. Christopher and I were so proud of Nathan for doing as great as he did. He was so well behaved and he was able to keep himself entertained without any TV or DVDs! We did have to play the song "The Journey Home From Grandpas" (it goes with a book he has) about a million times though! Nathan got to play in the snow and he loved it! We told Nathan that you couldn't eat the snow because it was dirty, but that any new snow that fell he could eat. On the third day that we were there it snowed and the first thing Nathan said when he woke up was "eat clean snow." He really doesn't forget a thing. He played outside in the snow for hours. He would have stayed out there all day and night if he had his way. He did some sledding and really liked that. Christopher, Nathan, and Lucy went on a walk where there was a couple feet of snow and Nathan didn't care for that deep of snow. We found this cool hazmat looking suit that is a rain suit and we used it for the snow and it kept him bone dry. Here is a video with Nathan and his cousin Joseph sledding in the snow.

Christmas was a little more fun this year because Nathan was more into it and he was able to open up presents by himself. He still doesn't get the whole Santa concept because we haven't really talked to him about it and I was too paranoid to take the boys to see Santa in fear that they would catch a cold from all the germs on Santa. I think that next year he will understand. My brother, his girlfriend, and son were there and it was nice having them around. My nephew Joseph is super cute!

I don't think that much else is going on with us. Christopher and I are on a reading frenzy. We got Kindles and reading has become so much easier to do and we have been reading like crazy. Christopher finishes a book every few days it seems.

For New Years I do have some resolutions and here they are:

-Nathan will be potty trained!!!!

-We will get rid of the paci for Nathan

-Anderson will sleep through the night by four months (this is wishful thinking!)

-We will finally get our new windows put in

-Christopher and I will start exercising again (we have to since we signed up to run a 1/2 marathon in July)

-I will do a much better job at keeping up with this blog...:)

**Funny to see those resolutions a month later. Nathan still isn't potty trained and still sleeps with his paci, but we FINALLY got him sleeping in his bedroom by himself. Since we had Anderson things were a little out of whack with Nathan's sleeping schedule and he needed one of us to sleep with him every time he was laying down. Then if he woke up in the middle of the night and realized we weren't there he would come into our room and want to sleep with us or we would have to go in his room and sleep with him. Since things have settled down we decided that it was time for Nathan to sleep on his own. The first day was a little rough, but now it is smooth sailing! It is so easy to get him down and he stays in bed the whole night and during nap time! Our next mission will be to get Anderson to sleep more!

We are getting our windows put in!!!! It is pretty exciting to have new windows that look really nice. They should also help in saving us money in the long run with the heating and cooling of our house. By next week the windows should all be installed.

There was an opening in the Waldorf preschool in January and we were told that Nathan could join. We tried it out for a week and it wasn't working for Nathan. He wasn't enjoying it at all and both the teacher and us decided that right now wasn't a good time for Nathan to join. So, he will start preschool for the next school year.

We had our friends, the Stones, visit us the first week in January and it was so nice having them. Nathan really enjoyed the company of Ziah and it made me realize that he needs more kid interaction than what he is getting. The Stones live in the Czech Republic (we plan to visit there next year for their wedding!) and Ziah taught Nathan how to count to three in Czech. They would count to three while standing on the couch and then jump off onto the orange pouf chair that we have. Now that Ziah is gone Nathan has forgotten what "one" in Czech is so he starts at "two" and then for "three" it has morphed into "gorilla, monkey, big TREE." We have no idea where that came from!

Lastly, Nathan is a funny little kid. He has this obsession with stepping on sprinklers when we go on walks. He loves looking for the sprinklers that didn't go back down after they were on so that he can step on them and make them go down. He has to check out all the sprinklers and it makes the walks longer than usual. He also likes to hug trees on the walk. I have no idea where he picked up both of those habits because we didn't teach him that.

-Heather

Enjoy the pictures!

Two sleepy boys!


So peaceful!


HUG!


Nathan was sharing his favorite blanket and monkey with Anderson :)


Nathan painting some egg cartons for X-Mas gifts


Nathan helping me make a cake for Aunt Sandra's birthday


Nathan on Christmas Day


Anderson all bundled up


Anderson!


Tummy time and happy!

Introducing Anderson Thomas Aedo!!!!

Okay, so I am about nine weeks late in doing this introduction but I figured that I would still get it done. Time is just flying by!

Anderson Thomas Aedo was born on Tuesday 10/12/10 at 5:44 am. He weighed 7lbs 6 oz and was 21" long. He was born at home and to hear about the exciting birth story you can check out my other blog with that story! Home Birth Story

It took us three days to name Anderson and even longer for us to get used to the name :) Anderson doesn't look a lot like Nathan. They have the same nose, but I think that is about it. I think that Anderson looks more like me when I looked like a baby, but we will see when he gets older if that changes. He is one of the calmest babies I have ever encountered! For about the first four weeks of his life he slept so much and would hardly ever cry. We woke him up every three hours to eat and then he would go 4-5 hours during the night between feedings. I felt like something had to be wrong for a baby to be this calm and sleep so much and my midwife told me to count my blessings! He has definitely discovered his lungs now and will belt out a loud cry here and there, but it still isn't much. He is still sleeping great at night and he has even gone for a six hour stretch of sleeping! We are having some breastfeeding problems that we are working on, but he is getting enough to eat because at seven weeks he was weighed and was 11 lbs 15 oz! That is 4 1/2 pounds since birth, which is a lot. To me he doesn't look so much like a newborn because he has gotten so much bigger and is more alert. He has started to smile a little bit and those smiles make my day! I am completely in love with the little guy!

I have recovered from the birth, but I am still adjusting to being a mom of two. Aunt Sandra (Christopher's sister) has been helping me out around the house and with the boys since Christopher went back to work and it has been a huge relief to have her around. One of these days I will have to do it all on my own though! I am looking forward to start exercising again, but I am a little sad that I don't have the excuse of eating whatever I want because the baby in my belly wants it :) Below is the progression of my belly from 4 weeks until birth. It is fun to look back on it!


Nathan didn't take too well to having a new little one in the house at first, but it is getting much better! There are times when I am feeding Anderson or holding him and Nathan wants me to put him down so that I can hang out with Nathan. I love it when Nathan pats or pets Anderson and when he is being really loving towards him. Nathan also calls Anderson "Anserson," which is so cute!

Our household has been one sick one! A couple days before Anderson's birth Nathan and I were both sick. Anderson arrived 8 days early and I was really hoping that he would come after we were feeling better, but he had other plans. On day two of Anderson's birth he got a cold. It was heartbreaking for me to see because he got so congested and the breathing wasn't the easiest for him. Luckily, it never got too severe and he got over it along with Nathan and myself. Then I got another cold! Christopher got a cold soon after me and we were both hoping that the boys wouldn't get it, but after two weeks they did. Then I got sick again and Christopher and Nathan got the stomach flu :( I am hoping that everyone is done with colds for the season!

Here are some of our pictures of Anderson and Nathan. I will post more in the next blog post :) If you want to see our full gallery send me a message and I will send you the link!













-Heather

Bellies, Sickness, Roosters, and other things

Let's start out with the first topic of Bellies! I had thought that since this is my last pregnancy I wanted to do some stuff that I didn't do the first time around. I thought that having my belly painted would be fun and the one person I would want to do it would be Amber. Amber is a good friend of mine from when we were little who is really artistic and very talented! She is also a great face painter and I figured that she would come up with some cool design to do. She came over on a Sunday and painted my big belly! She did an AMAZING job and I was very happy with the results and it was nice catching up with her. Below are some of the pictures from that day.







I also got some maternity photos taken by my friend Ashley. She took some great shots that I was really happy about. Her company is Love Always Photography and her website is www.lovealwaysphoto.com You can go to her Facebook page and see some of the pictures.

Next topic: Sickness :(!
I had been feeling like I was catching a cold, but with some Emergen-C I was able to hold the cold off...or at least I thought so. I ended up getting sick, but it was my first cold of the year! Not too bad and it was tolerable for me. The unfortunate one was Nathan. He had a fever for about four days that would not break! We were keeping him dosed up on Tylenol and Motrin, keeping his clothes off, and making sure that he wasn't doing anything to make himself more hot. We were completely puzzled by this fever because he was acting normal and eating, drinking, peeing, and pooping normally. His temperature at some points would go up to 104 and I was very nervous of him having another febrile seizure; luckily, that did not happen! After four days his fever finally broke and then he got a rash on his back, chest, neck, and face (see the pictures below). We did some research and talked to our Pediatrician and Nathan had Roseola. Not sure where he got it from, but all of the symptoms were exactly what he had. During this whole week Nathan was the grumpiest I have ever seen him! He was not a joy to be around and both Christopher and I were really hoping that this wasn't a new aspect of his personality! Thank goodness he has started to be less grumpy and return to his normal self because I don't think that I could handle a grumpy Nathan with a new baby!





This doesn't have to do with being sick, but Christopher made Nathan his very own big-boy fort bed! He got the idea from Knock-Off Wood and made it all himself for about half the price that Ikea sells it for! Nathan loves his new bed and likes to go and just hang out in it...oh, I forgot to mention that our "boarder" Amber moved out and we finally moved Nathan into his own room! He really likes having his own room and so do we! We have some other plans of what we want to make and do for Nathan's room and hopefully some of them will get done before baby #2 comes!

Roosters:
About 15 weeks ago I had ordered 8 female baby chicks. I paid a little extra to have them sexed and was told that there was a 90% guarantee that they would be sexed correctly. Out of the eight chicks I gave three to my friend Rhonda and then we kept the other five. Rhonda discovered that she had a rooster when it was about 10-11 weeks old. Her chicken started crowing and there was no mistaking that it was a rooster. We felt bad and were glad that we didn't have a rooster...Fast forward a few weeks and I notice that one of our hens is looking very rooster like. She has a big comb and waddle that is bright red, the shape of her feathers are starting to look like roosters' feathers, and she is much bigger than the other chickens. I am not a chicken sexing expert so I was doing a lot of searching on the internet to see if it could be a rooster. I was about 80% sure that we had a rooster, but I was still holding out hope that we just had a masculine hen. Then about a week ago our "hen" started crowing and we knew for sure that we had a rooster :(. The crowing continued every day and it would start at about 6:30 in the morning. The rooster was also getting better at crowing (louder and longer). We knew that we had to get rid of him fast! We placed an ad on Craigslist and called around to see if anyone could take a rooster and we didn't get any good news. We looked into having him butchered, but it looked like we would have to do that ourselves, which we didn't want to do. Finally, on our very last attempt we called a feed store and they said that they couldn't take him, but to try their sister store. We called them and they could take him!!!! Christopher took our dear Shadow to the store, where hopefully he will have a nice new home soon! Now we just have to wait 3-5 more weeks to get some eggs and hope that no other hen turns out to be a rooster!

Lastly, I wrote the above post awhile back, but it took me a little bit longer than I expected to upload some photos, so more has happened since then.

Nathan and Christopher went to "Indianana" for a wedding. That is how Nathan pronounces it. They were gone for four days and although I missed them it was so nice to have that time off and to myself! They had a ton of fun and got to see family that they haven't seen in a really long time.

I am 10 days away from my due date and I am thinking that I will be having the baby around my due date. I have everything ready to go for the birth and now it is just the wait, which I don't mind! Christopher and I have not agreed on any names and I have a feeling that this baby will be called Baby Aedo for at least a couple of days. If you have not done our baby pool you should! It closes this Wednesday. Go to Our Baby Pool and put in your guess!

That is about it for now. The next post should be the introduction of our newest family member :)

-Heather

New Look

Can you believe that I have done about three new posts in a week! I am on top of it :) I just wanted to let everyone know that I changed up the look of our blog and that you are at the right blog! Don't forget to do our baby pool!
Here is the link: http://bebepool.com/babyaedo2

-Heather

P.S. Nathan got his hair cut today and did such a great job! He is one very cute, good, and happy child!

Baby Pool

We decided that we would start a baby pool and have our friends and family try and guess the details of baby #2! We don't have a "prize" for the winner, but I was thinking that they would get the honor of naming our baby since we have no names! Just kidding! Perhaps, if you are the winner you will be the first one notified of the birth and the details.

Here is the link: http://bebepool.com/babyaedo2

Happy Guessing!

Heather

This Baby Is A Mover!

This time around I decided that I would talk about baby #2 first and leave Nathan for the second half. I really don't know how the time gets away from me, but it does. I am almost 34 weeks, which means only 6 weeks until my due date!!!!!! We are not close to being ready for the baby, but luckily we have most everything from Nathan and we just have to clean some stuff up. We still don't know the sex, but I recently went to a chiropractor for some pelvic pain I have been having and she predicted by my pulse that I would be having a boy. We shall see! For those that don't know or forgot, I am having a home birth and I have started to prepare for that. I took some childbirth classes that focused on natural childbirth and I started a hypnosis program that will also hopefully help me during labor and delivery. I have started to get all of the supplies ready that I need. By 36 weeks (2 more weeks) I need to have everything ready including the "pool" that I am going to deliver in. I am excited about the baby, but still wouldn't mind a couple extra months preparation :)!

This baby is quite the mover! He/she moves around so much and much more than Nathan ever did. Of course, food makes it move around a ton but it just seems to move around a lot. I do enjoy the feeling of the baby moving around inside my belly and there are only a few times when the baby completely stretches out and it is uncomfortable for me. I don't know if it means that this baby will be a super active baby once they are born. I took some video of the baby moving in my belly one night after dinner and all of these movements are pretty common!

Lastly, At week 32 I reached my pre-pregnancy weight!!! That was very exciting to know that at 32 weeks pregnant I weighed the same as 1 week pregnant with Nathan. I definitely feel much better this time around and a lot of people say that I look great. I have also been told that I look small for 7.5 months pregnant, but my belly is measuring on target and is just a tad smaller than what it was with Nathan.



Now onto the cutest member of our family....NATHAN!

Well, here are some swim pictures that I promised I would blog about, but I didn't.

This is Nathan swimming in his summer clothes for lessons. He wanted to wear his sunglasses! I also didn't realize that he needed his swim diaper on too (he was wearing a regular diaper) so I had to put it on over his clothes. Also, Crocs are great shoes to help you float!


Here is Nathan swimming in his winter clothes. This was much harder to do!


Nathan on graduation day! He was swimming from his teacher Jessica to Christopher.


After swim lessons Nathan decided that he didn't really want to swim in our pool, only in Jessica's pool. So, he mostly plays on the steps in our pool and occasionally we can get him to swim to us or the steps of the pool! I really thought that he would be a little fish because he did so well with Jessica...maybe he doesn't trust us enough :)!

Nathan and I took a summer class and that was a lot of fun. In about a week we start back up with our Waldorf class and our other class and I am really looking forward to that!

We went up to my parent's house for a week and we had a ton of fun. Nathan's favorite thing to do was play with Papa's sprinklers. He could spend hours and hours playing with them (he liked jumping on the hose to the sprinklers to get water out). He seemed to have a fun time there and we really enjoyed the break. We didn't know it, but we planned it out perfectly because the week that we left ended up being the hottest week in LA this summer! Here are some pictures.

Nathan with frosting all over his face. This is from his cousin Joseph's first birthday party.


Here is Joseph, Deziree, and a little view of my brother


Nathan playing with the sprinklers!


When we have to cross the street or need to hold Nathan's hand he immediately puts his hands in his pocket so that we can't hold his hand. It is pretty funny.


Here is Nathan sniffing a log because Lucy was sniffing it!


Here is Christopher and Nathan on a hike up in Graeagle


Here is Nathan helping his Nana water the plants


Nathan, Papa, and me waiting for a train to come by


Christopher's sister Karen and her daughter Natalie were just here for the week and it was SOOOO nice having them here. They kept Nathan entertained most of the time and I got a lot of free time, which I loved. We were sad to see them go, but they will be back soon after the baby is born. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures right now of that trip :(.

Lastly, my veggie plants are dying off and I am happy about it! I was getting way too much squash and I am glad that the plants are at the end of their life. I got some green beans, some canteloupe, and three big pumpkins and two little ones, and some tomatoes. Our chickens are doing great! They are almost full grown, but still have about two months until they start laying eggs. We let them roam outside a lot and Lucy does great with them, which is great for us!

I hope to do another blog post or two before the baby comes, but we shall see!

-Heather