The Many Expressions of Eden and Kael

This is why he isn't allowed to play in the front yard anymore.

Because I have to chase him down the road.

He is finally tall enough to reach the door bell on his own. I had to hold him up during Halloween. He is growing so fast.

This is how he runs everywhere! It is rediculous... Head down so he can't see what's ahead and arms behind his back. Silly boy.

Always picking dandilions. I love outside time and warm weather and so does Kael. We really will miss St. George when we move this summer.

What's up?!

Still picking those dandilions... Unfortunately the lawn guys came today and mowed our back yard. No more dandilions, but hopefully no more bees. He has been so curious with the bees. He LOVES them. He tries to reach down and grab them or step on them, and I'm terrified and make him come inside. It's hard to be so innocent.

Call me K. ;)

Let me think about that...

Let me think about that some more.
Yup, I don't like this hair bow...

She always has a fist at her mouth. It is too funny. We are getting some pictures taken tomorrow of our sweet girl and I am super excited! Can't wait to see how they turn out.

2 weeks

I think Derek did an awesome job updating this blog when we were at the hospital. So far in the last 30 minutes of me trying to update this blog I've had one child poop in the bath tub and the other scream like a (well there's no comparison, she is a screamer... ) Anyway, I'm hoping to use the blog to stay better updated on how fast my children grow. So beware this is long and about my kids, and here it goes.

Time sure flies when you're having fun. I can't believe our little girl is 2 weeks old today. She is so precious and you can't help, but love this little girl. She is so different from Kael, yet it is fun to see her do something that reminds me of Kael when he was so little.

So far Eden is such a good baby. I think when I get discouraged or think she is too fussy I'm mostly just tired and am having to chase an almost 20 month old around on top of having a newborn. I love every minute and can't imagine life without 2 kids now. She had her first bath today. I think she liked it. She wasn't screaming at me, so I imagine it wasn't too bad for her. I love her dark hair. It is so weird seeing Kael's blonde and then how dark her's is. I imagine in the next couple of months it will fall out a bit and she'll be pretty bald, but that's ok. She handles wearing cute little bows so far pretty well. I mostly have hats on her head at home to keep her head warm, but I love the bows.

It has been so much fun playing dress up. I love getting to pick out a new outfit every day. I'm terrible at cordinating colors and matching, but I figure I have a couple years to get better at it before it really matters.

Eden can't decide if she likes her binky or not yet. Sometimes she can't live without it and others it makes her just so mad. She gets the hiccups everyday just like Kael did. Usually she gets them about 5 times a day. I used to get them everyday until about high school and I imagine my poor children will be the same way.

Eden also is a screamer. She doesn't cry, oh no... She is either perfectly content or screaming/squealing. It is quite terrifying and makes you run to the room to make the aweful noise stop... It does make me laugh though because you wouldn't think that noise is possible from something so precious.

She eats about every 4 hours then is awake for an hour and then sleeps until it's time to eat again. I think Kael was about every 3 hours for the longest time, so this is awesome!

The other night she was doing her squeals in the middle of the night and she has a Moses Basket that Kael slept in until he was 4 months old and Derek reminded me to swing her basket like I did for Kael. I had completely forgotten that I used to swing Kael's basket for like 20 minutes to get him to fall asleep when he was tiny... It had completely left my memory. I can't imagine how though because my arms would get cramps from swinging it so faithfully every night and I wanted to cry to sleep cause my shoulders hurt so bad... It's weird how I forgot that. The old trick worked though and the little girl fell asleep. Unfortunately it was only for about an hour before she woke up. So far she doesn't like sleeping in her bed. She has been sleeping pretty good in her swing at night though and that's ok with me.

As for Kael, he is getting use to having a lump around to poke. He just can't help himself. I'm surprised he hasn't taken her binky and put it in his mouth. He always grabs it and just hands it to me. Mostly he just tries to pat her, but doesn't know how to be gentle yet, so Eden gets a good smack here and there. He is curious about her and bugged by her at the same time. He gets a little jealous when he walks in the room and I'm holding the baby, so he tries to sit on my lap, which is holding a baby, so thus the baby gets squished. He really is doing quite wonderful though and I'm so proud of him for being a good big brother. I can't imagine having to be an older sibling and put up with the younger one so to all 6 of my older siblings, thanks for putting up with me. ;)

I love my kids so much and time is going by too fast. I'm enjoying every moment and wish I was better at taking pictures to remember each moment forever. I NEVER want to forget any second with these kids. They are too amazing. I'm so grateful to be their mom and I love my little family so much.

Home Again Home Again

I will continue from the last post....

Sharice was finally able to get a little bit of rest once we were in our new room and everyone was all cleaned up and fed. She felt much better after, puking a bit, having a nap, eating, and was no longer nauseated. Around 6PM I left to go help with Kael, who was being watched by my mom, Kael's Grammy. My mom had driven down from SLC around 2:00PM to take over watching Kael from our neighbors the Copes. Sharice was able to get a long nights rest utilizing the nursery and Eden breastfed really well every 3 or 4 hours through the night. She's a much quicker eater than Kael was, thank goodness for Sharice. Kael had a ton of fun at our neighbors house playing with their little boy who is his same age, but had even more fun with his Grammy at home. At little side story that's rather sad. The afternoon of the day that Sharice's went into labor Kael had been playing very happily outside but managed to trip and face plant it on the sidewalk. He also bit all the way through his lip. I was at school so Sharice called me and I came home and we took him to the doc. We felt really bad for the little guy and he had a rough night with the pain, us leaving to deliver a baby, and not being able to be with his mommy for more than a day, so in the pictures you can see we got him a big popsicle and have been giving him extra attention :-). Anyways, baby story continued.... next morning things had gone well, Sharice was feeling great, minimal bleeding and so we checked out right around lunch. There's a picture of Sharice and Eden finally wearing non-hospital clothes right before we checked out. Kael was way happy to see his Mom! He was a little leary of Eden and her cries but he seems very happy and is going to be a great older brother to Eden. Everyone is home, my Mom is helping out, and things are going really well. We want to thank you all for your prayers and just want to say we love you all! Here are a couple more pics and I will probably get some more posted tomorrow.

Mommy, Eden, and Kael just chilling while watching a movie. Kael was very happy to be with his Mom again!

Eden and Sharice finally out of their hospital gear :-) What a relief to be on our way out!

Kael with his giant popsicle and loving it, nice and cold on his bit through lip

Our little angel Eden Marie!

Eden already being a cutie! It's going to take me a little while to get used to all of this PINK, but still lots of FUN!!!

Eden Marie Bradley

Eden Marie Bradley

Born March 18th 2010 at 12:22 PM

7 lbs 15 oz, 19 inches

The delivery went really well! It took about 11 hours. Sharice tore a little and had to get a few stitches but that was much better than last time. Eden came out really quick and well. She's a little angel and was able to breast feed her very first shot just fine. Sharice is doing well, but very tired and quite nauseated from hormones and drugs so has been throwing up. Overall things went way more smoothly than last time. Kael now has a little sister to take care of! :-)

Baby On the Way

Well everyone . . . . Baby Eden is on the way!

Sharice's water broke at 1:30Am today. This time we had a little better idea of

what to do (time constraints) so Sharice was able to take a shower, we got all packed, got our neighbor buddies to come watch Kael, and then we went to Denny's at 3:30Am, got a quick breakfast! We have been at the hospital since 4:00Am and things are going pretty good. Sharice's veins wouldn't give any blood and they tried doing her IV 6 times, so that really stunk. They blew two veins and one of the IVs was infiltrated (not in the vein) and her arm started to swell. I felt way bad for her cause that was the part she was most nervous about, IVs hurt! I persuaded Sharice to get her epidural a little bit earlier than last time (last time she waited too long in my opinion because she was hyperventilating, had to go on oxygen, and kept jumping every time the anesthesiologist would try to poke her), so she got her epidural at 6:30AM, which went very well better than the IVs for sure, and now she is just resting. She's contracting normally and all is going well so far. We will keep you posted!

ACCEPTED

Why do we now have a reason to pick between BYU and U of U?








DEREK GOT ACCEPTED TO...

We just became Ute fans!!!!!!!!

Derek will start medical school in August, and we are SO SO SO excited! Can you tell by the exclamation points? No baby yet, 2 more weeks, but that is SO ok with me. :)

Pregnant me, and Derek's Motorcycle

Eden: 36 wk 4 days
Kael: 37 weeks

This is suppose to be a post about Derek, but I'm throwing in pregnant pictures to get them out of the way. It will hopefully be the last one for a LONG while. Just wanted to show a comparison from Kael and Eden. I think I carry Eden a lot lower than Kael. Kael was always in my ribs, but Eden is always on my bladder. Can't decide which is worse...


Some of you know Derek got a motorcycle, Kawasaki Ninja, a year ago in January. Well it was very useful on saving gas etc. However, Derek said when he got on the freeway it felt like the wind was going to blow him over because of its high center of gravity. In my mind, NOT cool and not safe. So, we sold the Ninja and we looked around for a while and found a lower riding motorcycle. This is Derek on his new motorcycle that we bought around August if I remember right... It is a Kawasaki Vulcan Drifter for anyone more technical than me. :) I'm glad we were able to find something that he felt safer on. It is a lot heavier bike than the last motorcycle he had and it runs great and saves us gas money and miles on our car. Depending on where we go to medical school we will probably end up selling it because of snow. It works great here in St. George where it snows once or twice a year, but we won't be here much longer. So if you know anyone wanting a motorcycle somtime in the summer let us know. It runs AWESOME.

The Nursery Boy

Love love love this kid. He needs to slow down on the growing up though, it is going by too fast.

Nursery

Kael went to nursery for the first time today. Whoa. Big. Scary. Awesome. Don't know what to do with myself. I decided last night that I should at least meet his teachers and see how many kids were in his class today. Scope it out, see how he might do. Well, turns out that both Kael and I did pretty good. He has 2 amazing, awesome sisters who teach his class. There are normally about 7 kids in the class and can be up to about 10 max. Today there were only 5 kids. I went in and the teachers were so nice and so reasurring that he would do great. I really needed the reasurrance for me. As soon as Kael saw toys he took off immediately and didn't need me at all. Weird. All the kids were right about 18 mo just like Kael. I stayed with them for about 10 minutes. Kael just did his own thing and played and had fun. It didn't even phase him when I left, he just kept right on playing. I thought I'll just leave him for the first hour and see how he does. Of course I peeked in the door once to see him playing away happily. After the first hour I went in and everything was still good. I changed his diaper and he was soo excited and wiggly. When he went back to class they were getting snacks ready and I just waved and said bye and off Kael went. I stayed peeking through the window and Kael looks up at me and just waves and smiles and off he goes again. I checked on him one more time after that and he had a cracker in hand and was busy.

Silly Mom... He was having so much fun. The teachers said he had this toy egg he wouldn't let go of, and became pocessive of, and that it was quite funny. No need to worry about this little boy. Whew. I had no idea what to do with myself through 2 whole hours of church. I guess I should start bringing my scriptures again now that I have my hands free. It was a bizarre day for me. Probably a bigger day for me than Kael, and I'm glad we both had a great time.

Hopefully, next week will be just as great. I'll probably be just as worried though. I'm certain I'll get used to it, hopefully by the time this new baby gets here. What a day.

Janice Tagged Me

The rules are: Post 10 honest confessions about yourself, then tag 5 people to do the same.
1. I also am not a fan of chocolate. I can eat a little tiny bit occasionally, however, I can't even finish a candy bar usually.
2. Derek was my first kiss. He knew that and he wanted it to be special for me and refused to kiss me. About a day after he found out that I wanted to kiss him, I made sure he couldn't wait any longer. ;) Love ya babe!
3. I have a terrible habit of putting my fingers in my mouth and just sucking on them. And I touch my face way too much. Gross I know.
4. My personality changes quite frequently... Meaning, sometimes I'm way shy, but most of the time I'm bubbly. It's weird I know. I'm usually always happy inside though, whether my face shows it or not.
5. I LOVE starbursts, skittles, sour patch kids, Mike and Ikes, sour patch straws, and anything that is simply sugar. Mmmmm.
6. That candy makes my teeth hurt.
7. I hate talking on the telephone. It is a REAL phobia. I'm ok with it now, but in high school I thought having to talk on the phone was the end of the world.
8. I am not a morning person, however, since having Kael, going into his room and seeing his smile has made me a morning person. I LOVE mornings, I still don't like getting up, but I now know it is SO worth it.
9. I wanted to be a pediatric emergency room doctor since the 9th grade after watching ER and seeing my mom work. After volunteering in the emergency room at 17, confirmed I loved it, but now being a stay-at-home mom is who I am and want to be more than anything! Maybe someday in the far future I'll help Derek as a doctor in some way, but I have no desire right now anymore. I absolutely LOVE being able to stay home with my kiddo.
10. I have an awesome family who supports me and my family anyway they can. Huge thanks to my brothers who let me work at home so Derek can get ready for medical school. I wouldn't be where I am today without my family, and as odd as we are 7 red headed kids, and 2 crazy red headed parents, I'm so grateful to be a part of this family, and now to have my own crazy little family has made me realize how grateful I am to family, how important the family is, and how I want to be the best wife, mom, sister, friend etc.

I tag my brothers: Joshua, Jacob, Jerris, Jonathan, and my brother-in-laws Dwayne, and Brian.
(I'm curious...)

Crafts, Flowers, and The Boy

Crafts:

First, I want to say thank you so so much to all of my family who have given me things for this little girl. Whether it is hand me downs, hand made stuff, etc. I am SO VERY appreciative, and can't wait to see her use the stuff she has!

This first picture is the necklace and flower my sister-in-law Janice made for Eden's blessing. I can't wait until the blessing to show it off because I'm too excited. This is the first piece of jewelry the little girl will have. LOVE IT.

Janice also made this super cute holder for all of the flowers and clips. Janice made like 5 flowers on there and I made 4. There are small clips on there too.

Flowers: My wonderful husband got me these for Valentines Day. He spoils me even though it is his birthday...

The Boy:

Kael got his 2nd hair cut yesterday. Before

After

I just love his face! He is ALWAYS drooling. He has been drooling since he was 2 months old. Kael had a fever of 103 for the past 3 days. Today is it is finally running around in the 99's, but he is still really struggling. I think he had some bug and now is teething... Poor kid can't catch a break. He still tries to be happy even though he is miserable, which makes it more sad when he is sick. I can't believe he is 18 months old. We haven't been to nursery yet with baby blessings, out of town, and sickness, so hopefully we can get him used to it soon. Some of his favorite things are bubbles, balls, and all the Ice Age movies. This last weekend we have watched a LOT of Ice Age at our house from him being sick.

I am now 35 weeks and start my weekly doctor's appointments next Monday. Wahoo! I think I'm about ready for this girl now. I have everything washed and ready I think. I still need to organize quite a few things and pack a hospital bag, but other than that I can't wait to see what she looks like.

Diapers.com

Gotta love a good deal! Just saved $11.50 on pampers swaddlers at diapers.com. I'm way excited, which is why I'm posting this on my blog.

Use this referal code (SHAR0611) and you can get money off. Spend $50.00 and you get free shipping.

Referral Code is SHAR0611. Any new customers who enter your code (or your email address) when placing their first order at Diapers.com will get $10 off their first diaper order (*$49 minimum).

You can even use your manufacturers coupons on the site for extra discounts.

http://www.diapers.com

I know anyone with a kid in diapers could use a good deal, and I hope this helps someone out there. I'm nervous for 2 kids in diapers, so it was nice to get started off right.

ONE FOR YOU AND ONE FOR ME

This video is too cute. We had a fun visit with Jon and Janice the other day and Kael LOVED playing with his cousin Kaylee. I really need to set up more play dates for him, so if anyone with kids his age wants to play with Kael let's get together!

Flower and Vermont

Ok here is my finished project. I didn't know I could make a flower. It was super easy and I love it! It could actually be this huge 3 layers, but I made it my own, and I'm happy with it.I'm really going to love crocheting a lot more stuff now that I've figured out a little.

Derek left this morning for his medical school interview in Vermont. I know he is going to do great, but I can't help but be nervous. His flight is loading right now, so already that is better than his flight to Virginia. Any prayers our way would be appreciated. I'm excited, but I will feel better when he is home and all of this interviewing is done!

March will be a HUGE month for us. We will find out where we are accepted to medical school and get a baby girl. Whew. Can't wait.

31 weeks and my little cheezer

My latest projects. I have finished 3 burp cloths, and crocheted this super cute hat! Thanks so much Kim for the pattern, and thanks Shannon for getting me started over the phone! I ordered some cloth diapers today. Can you tell I'm a little nervous she is going to spit up as much as Kael?.... ;) Kael spit up until he was 12 months old after every feeding and SO MUCH. I'm getting prepared early. Also, I'm going to sew cute pink ribbon onto the cloth diapers to use for burp cloth and make them cuter. I'm excited!

The bump at 31 weeks... Here you go family who live far away.

And this is my little cheezer. He is so stinkin cute! He always tries to grab the camera when I want to take his picture so I have to hide it until the last second. He will be 18 months in February and I am way nervous, yet excited to start nursery... In our ward we have 7, YES 7 nursery classes. It will be interesting.

Nesting

I feel totally behind in preparing for Eden to get here. However, I KNOW I am not and that I have lots of time. So, I am considering myself officially in some sort of nesting stage of pregnancy.

-I'm cleaning my house better than I usually do.

-Creating lists upon lists. (Most of the stuff I want to do is not neccessary at this point. I mean I have 10 weeks left!)
-Starting fun projects.

I recently got a sewing machine (which I love so far!), and I might mention I haven't used one by myself since my 7th grade home ec class. A little scary, but a fun adventure!

I have also started crocheting again.

I just know that this little girl is going to be bald. I was bald till I was about 2 probably and I really want to be able to make my little girl look like a little girl... Any help out there will be appreciated!

I am going to be making her head bands, crocheted hats, and looking into jewelry.

Here is what I've done so far. I have crocheted around a receiving blanket, one head band done, and started crocheting around some burp cloths.

December Videos

December pictures

Busy Month / Good bye 2009 / Welcome 2010

BIG UPDATE: Sorry to bore those who don't care, but this is kind of like a journal for me, so I put on pictures and videos above this. =)

To start off, isn't it crazy that it is 2010 tomorrow? I mean, I remember as a kid not being able to imagine 2003 when I would graduate high school, and now it's 2010. Crazy crazy!

December has been a super busy month for us. Derek's calling at church is the activities director and he planned the ward Christmas party, which was December 5th. The party turned out to be a success and had a HUGE turn out. Santa even showed up, unfortunately Kael and I missed it, but maybe next year Kael will get to meet Santa.

My grandma had surgery on a broken arm again the day before Thanksgiving so I went to Phoenix to help out for the first week in December. My sister Shannon watched Kael during the day while I helped out at my Grandma's. My brother Jacob set it up so I could work from my Grandma's house and I think everything turned out pretty good. Kael and I even got to see my Mom during that week who took some time off the mission to help out too. Stupid me, didn't bring the camera and didn't get any pictures. I'm glad my Grandma is recovering well and am glad I was able to visit, but next time we decided it would be under better circumstances.

While down in Phoenix my sister Shannon and I had lots of fun! I watched her kids one night while her husband took her flying over Phoenix. Then we had lots of girl nights. One night we watched Twilight and then the next night we went to see New Moon! It was awesome! We got to the theatre right as it was starting and it was EMPTY! All you people who went to the midnight showing should know I think it was worth the wait! Seats to ourselves and no wait! The only sad part was I wished Derek was there the whole time. Oh well. We went to a Relief Society Christmas dinner one night too. Another night we waxed eyebrows and tinted them, and yes I have the blondest of blonde eyelashes and I dye them. So worth it, but super scary doing it on your own!

When Kael and I got back to St. George the next day we recovered and had family pictures taken! I am so excited to have pictures of Kael finally! I neglected getting 1 yr pictures, and I am glad I did it! He is getting so big!

Derek had finals a week later and did AWESOME! Straight A's! Not bad for having to miss school for interviews and being SUPER busy! I'm so proud of him! We took a break and just relaxed as a family for a while, still worked unfortunately, but it was just nice to have some time with just Derek and Kael.

We spent Christmas in SLC with Derek's family. We had a super nice time and got really spoiled. Kael was visited by Santa Clause and this was probably my favorite Christmas of all time just seeing his face on Christmas morning.
Derek grew up getting one special gift from Santa Clause that is sitting in the open waiting for you, and the rest were from parents, friends, and family all wrapped up. I totally LOVE this idea. It turned out great. Kael got a dump truck he can sit on and makes noise that came with big legos. He ran straight to his presents Christmas morning and bypassed everything else!!! He even got to play in the snow one day, which was so funny!

We got home and got back to the groove of working again and spending tons of time tickling Kael!

2009 has been full of blessings, and we are on to the new year and are so excited to see what is in store for us. We are getting more and more excited to meet little miss Eden in March. It seems like time sure is flying and she will be here sooner than I can imagine, but that is ok because I can't wait to see what she looks like!

For those who didn't receive one, here is our 2009 Christmas letter to friends and family:

Dear Friends and Family,

It is very exciting to sit and write about our year! I love being able to look back and see the joy and changes in our lives.

In January Derek started a rigorous school schedule of 24 credits and studying for the MCAT in April. He was able to maintain A’s in all of his classes and do very well on the MCAT. He has been working very hard for our family to make sure he gets accepted into medical school. He took several classes over the summer as well and submitted his medical school application. He has had a couple of interviews and hopefully by March we should have an idea where we will be moving to for the next several years. This semester as well as the next will continue to be very rigorous for him so that he can graduate with a bachelor in Biology in May. On top of all of his schooling Derek has been cleaning at the Callahan Clinic every morning and tutoring at the schools tutoring center and on the side as well. This has been such a learning experience for us, but through it all we can see the joy of following what Heavenly Father wants us to do, and it has blessed our lives so much! I’m so proud of how hard Derek works to keep good grades and provide for our family.

In July we moved from Bloomington over to Washington. Not too far, but it was a good move for us financially. This was the first move of many for our family. I’m certain I will never get used to it!

As for myself, I started working from home off of my computer in the mornings for my brothers. We are so blessed to have such wonderful families who help us anyway they can. This has really helped so that Derek can focus on school completely.

We are very excited to announce that we are expecting a baby girl due March 29th. We are thrilled to have one of each in our home. Her name is Eden Marie Bradley. I know Kael will be an amazing big brother.

Kael has been doing his job of growing every day! He is such a joy and radiates his love in our home! If anyone needs a smile feel welcome at our home and this boy will cheer you up! As of Christmas he will be 16 ½ months old. He started walking consistently at 15 months and started running around the next day. He loves his Dad and they are best friends. If Kael ever gets sad, just show him a picture of his Dad and a smile instantly comes on his face. Kael has been watching Signing Time and can now sign several words: eat, apple, banana, grass, tree, dad, up, all done, airplane, and milk. He can say a few words as well, such as dad, up, ball, bubble, thank you, apple, and all done. However, they sound more like da, uh, eh, and ah done. We love him more and more each day and he continues to surprise us.

We are so grateful for all of our friends and family! We love and miss you all so much! We think of you often and pray for your well being. We want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Love,
The Bradley Family
Derek, Sharice, Kael, and baby Eden

Another Invitation to Interview

January 28th