What we have been up to October edition

This past month has been nutso with activities.  Gavin has soccer twice a week and then choir on Wednesdays not to mention all of the other activities on the weekend. 

These two pictures were taken by our Children and Families Minster after choir one day and I just love them!!  Gavin takes such good pictures for everyone but me :).

Gavin's school has a Farmer Brown day every year in place of celebrating Halloween.  We were last minute with the costume as usual, Clay and Gavin hit Walmart two nights before.  I thought they did really well.  Gavin adores his boots even if they are 2 sizes too big and fall off every time you pick him up....

Just to show you the difference in the pictures I get and the ones other people get please see below.  The first one was one Mama took and the other three his teachers took... I am really glad they send them to me or I may never have a decent picture of the little rascal!

On the 26th, I slogged/walked my first race since having Wyatt at the St. John's Color Me Wicked.  I now know what my worst time ever will be.  And I was sore for the entire next week.... I definitely have a ways to go...  Gavin and two of his friends joined in after the 5k for the 1 mile run and they absolutely loved getting hit with all the "paint" in fact they went through a couple of the stations more than once which made us the absolute last people to pass the finish line, Ha!

Then of course we stayed after for the carnival where they had some of the most artistic face painting I have ever seen, Gavin was SOOOOOOOOOO proud of his lion face, he wouldn't let us wash it off that night and we only got to take the remnants off the next morning before church with the promise that Clay would paint his face again after church.

On Sunday we had a birthday party for two of the boy's cousins.  Wyatt enjoyed being snuggled by everyone there and Gavin had a blast being chased by all of his girl cousins and blowing bubbles with Uncle Chris. 

They look like the mafia don't they....until you see that Clay's face is painted like a brown lion???  Gavin wanted Daddy's face to be painted too.  He tried to talk Mama into being a pink lion but I had to draw the line somewhere :)

 I just love Gavin's expression in this picture

After the cousin's party we had the fall festival at church, Gavin was Spiderman with a brown tiger face....

We talked sweet Clay into letting Gavin pie him in the face, pretty sure he wins Daddy of the year for that one!

Last Thursday we celebrated Wyatt's first Halloween.  He was his usual laid back self in his Max costume from Where the Wild Things Are.  The thing said it was 0 - 6 months but as big as it was on him I am pretty sure they meant 12 -18 months!

 I just love this picture of them, Gavin is the sweetest big brother ever which is such a sigh of relief because I just knew he would react to Wyatt the way that I reacted to my little brother....which was not sweet at all!

Saturday Gavin got to go on his 1st deer hunt of the season and they saw two deer!  Gavin kept screaming at Clay, "shoot it Daddy, shoot it" needless to say the deer heard them and made his exit quickly :)

2 months for Wyatt

I know it has been many, many moons since I have updated but I didn't have much time while I was on maternity leave and now the prospect of rehashing everything that has happened over the last two months seems truly daunting.  So I'll try for a quick version:

Here is our first introduction to the long awaited Wyatt Holcomb Browning born on August 2, 2013 and weighing a measly 8.0 lbs.

The loves of my life

From then on it was pretty much a blur although I have to say the 2nd c-section recovery went a lot better than the first but that is probably because I was forced into activity by the fact that Wyatt lost 13 ounces of weight and was seriously jaundiced by the time we went for his 3 day check up.  I felt like a SERIOUS failure because Gavin had not lost a single ounce when he went back and had no jaundice whatsoever.  So the next week and a half were spent with extra, extra feedings, pumping in between and somehow managing to fit hospital checkups and getting Gavin to school in between all of that.  Praise the Lord that Wyatt was such a good sleeper so that we could catch 15 - 30 minutes of sleep every 2.5 hours.

After that life slowed down considerably for...2 weeks until we packed up the new family and headed to Virginia to visit La-la.  As crazy as it seems and believe me I thought I had lost my ever loving mind, the trip went spectacularly Wyatt and Gavin were angels on the driving trip that took 2 days and we all managed to get a decent amount of sleep while all staying in the same room!  The Lord was most definitely at work!!

The three weeks after that passed by quicker than I thought humanly possible and on the day before Wyatt turned 8 weeks old, I returned to work.

Oh and we managed to fit in a newborn/family session with the super talented Ramsey Revell Photography and some of my favorites are below:

So.... last week Wyatt turned 2 months old and I can hardly believe it.  He has fit into our family almost seamlessly.  Don't get me wrong, trying to get two kids out the door is much more difficult than one but having two sweet boys to love on everyday has more than made up for the extra chaos.  Of course the poor lady who cleans our house may not agree :).

Anyway I digress.  At two months Wyatt is smiling a lot, cooing up a storm and has slept through the night from 8:30 to 6 since September 26th.  Although this week he has been waking up at 4 again.  He is eating 6 ounces of mixed breast milk and formula at  6 am, 10 am, 2 pm, 6 pm and 8 pm.

He had his 2 month checkup with shots :-( yesterday which we all survived, barely....  And his stats are as follows:

Weight - 11 lbs 11 oz 50th percentile
Length - 23 1/4 in 50th percentile
Head - 14 in 20th percentile

He is SOOO much smaller than Gavin it isn't even funny!  Gavin's stats at his 2 month check up were:
Weight - 14 lbs - 90th percentile
Length - 24 in - 75th percentile
Head Circumference - 16 in - 50th percentile
 And this is a picture of Gavin

Proud and Thankful Mama

Gavin is 1000% boy and every bit a toddler but sometimes he just floors me with his thoughtfulness that seems so unlike most adults much less a toddler.  Two examples:

Every night when we get home I ask Clay how his day or afternoon was depending on if we ate lunch together and he tells me and we usually start to discuss that.  Well the other day, Gavin looks at me during a lull in the conversation and says, "How was your day Mama?" It was so sweet just melted my heart.  I can't even remember how my day had been but I can promise you it took a definite turn for the better at that point!

And then this morning: Clay had gotten up before Gavin and I and had scrambled some eggs for us.  Well Gavin wanted waffles and I decided to have one with my eggs so Clay put them in the toaster.  Well mine came out kind of yucky because the timer for the toaster on the side I used wasn't up high enough to defrost and toast the waffle so I had to put it back in.  Well Gavin was asking me why it was yucky and I explained it was just cold and mushy and he looked at me and said, "I'll eat the yucky one Mama"  and then looked at Clay and said "Daddy, give me the yucky one"  I almost fell over from my heart exploding with the love I felt at that moment for that sweet little boy!!!  I mean seriously I don't know a lot of people with that level of selflessness especially at that age.  I know it was just a silly waffle but the act behind it meant so much.  I certainly praised the Lord because I can take no credit for that!

Sleep issues

Every once in a while Gavin goes through these periods of waking up a lot at night. The difference this time is that he is no longer in a crib and can figure out how to maneuver around the baby gate, so that makes, letting him cry it out dang near impossible.  It started about 2 months ago with him genuinely being scared of something, I think..., but has now morphed into let's try any and every excuse UNDER THE SUN, to not only not go to sleep at night but to also get up a million times during the middle of the night.  He has gone from sleeping in a pitch black room with the door closed to this

And this won't work tonight because we will pick up Doug our dog from the vet this afternoon and he will insist on giving Gavin lots of kisses.  Gavin has always been SO easy to put down at night, but the past month or two he has gotten progressively worse until now it averages between 1 and 2 hours of nightmarish screaming and hollering, coupled with getting up 3 or 4 times between 10 and 4.  He usually starts out with the "there is something in my room" line and then moves on to "I need more hugs and kisses" x3000, then "I need to go potty" for the 12th time or "I need more milk" or "cover me up" because it is only 12,000 degrees in here and I need 100 blankets.

Nothing seems to be working and Clay and I are bone weary.  We also only have about 8 weeks until we welcome a new non-sleeper into our home, baby Wyatt.  So we need prayer desperately and welcome any advice for someone who has been through this.

3 year checkup

It is so nice to only have to take Gavin in for checkups annually now, I know in a couple of months I will be back to the monthly for awhile so I might as well enjoy it!

He had his vision and hearing tested along with getting weighed and measured.  He passed his hearing test and the PA said she had never seen a 3 year old with 20/20 vision before!

His stats:

	Birth	1 yr	2 yr	3 yr
Weight	9.5	26.5	32	36.875
Height	21.75	30.5	34.75	36.5
Head	15		20	20.25

I think the thing that has changed the most dramatically over the past year is his speech and language.  99% of the time he is completely understandable by almost everyone.  He does get shy sometimes and mumbles but he has the sentence structure and length of an adult.  His Aunt 'Pril says he talks better than most of her kindergartners.

He loves to sing and he and his Daddy sing about 50 songs before bed EVERY night. When its Mamma's turn to tuck in we limit it to 2 or 3 cause I just don't have that kind of patience :-).  He loves cartoon movies and his current favorite is Cars although the Lorax, Turtle Tails and all of the Land Before Time movies probably come in a really close second.

He is happiest when he is outside especially if it is at Wild Adventures or the beach.  At his checkup yesterday he had to get a finger pricked so when he starts crying he looks at me and says, "Mamma, we need to go to beach, it'll make me feel better" I cracked up

His current favorite things are:
Tractors
Trains
Slides
Coloring
Books
Riding his bike
Playing in the bath with Daddy, until it's time to wash hair, then the screaming starts.

His favorite foods are:
**Peanut butter and honey sandwiches**
Baked beans
Granola bars
Chocolate (pretty much in any form)
Most all fruits
Green peas/beans

He is very open with his emotions and most of the time is quickly and completely repentant when he does wrong.  He is currently going through an AWFUL bedtime/nighttime phase where he gets up 1 million times before falling asleep and then another half dozen during the middle of the night.  For such a normally good sleeper and for parents who are used to and expect a full nights sleep, this is getting super old and all I can do is hope and pray that this ends quickly because in less than 3 months we will have a newborn and I am here to tell you I can't handle two kids not sleeping!!

Other than that though he is super well behaved and one of the sweetest kids I know AND he loves to snuggle which I LOVE except for during the wee hours of the morning :-)!

His birthday party this year was supposed to consist of us and my parents, brother and his girlfriend going to Wild Adventures.  I just didn't have the energy or time to plan a party and it was bring a friend day so we invited them.  Well my brother had a couple of medical hiccups that day related to the brain tumor he was diagnosed with a couple of weeks ago so it ended up that I got almost zero pictures and a very shortened trip to Wild Adventures.  Amazingly enough Gavin didn't complain a bit other than sobbing when we left Wild Adventures and seemed to have really enjoyed his birthday and all that went with it.

Gavin on his new big-boy bike

Eating his requested birthday dinner of Peanut butter and honey sandwiches after our trip to Splash Island and Wild Adventures.  I swear that boy would eat PB&H sandwiches 3 meals a day every day if we would let him!

Playing with the new bubble gun Dave and 'Pril got him.  (I promise he does wear pants... on occasion)

 his party at school:

Riding his new bike

He is having trouble pedaling all of the way around, he keeps trying to pedal backwards for some reason.

This has been a super fun and wild year and I can't even imagine what the next year will hold.  I can only hope that I will be better at blogging so I can remember some of it after it passes....

Picture comparison

I've been perusing my old blog posts from before and right after Gavin was born today and noticed a striking similarity between Gavin at 3 months and at 3 years.  Look at that smile!!!



And This one from 3 days ago

Isn't he the most adorable thing EVER!!!