Catching up....

23 months, 2 weeks

WOW! I just logged on and realized it's been over a month since my last blog update! Sorry folks! It's been a little wacky for us lately.

We officially moved out of our beloved 1st house on April 20th. I knew it would be sad and hard, but I never imagined it would be as hard as it was. I found myself breaking down seeing each room empty. I immediately had flashbacks in movie-montage style running through my head of all the ways each room looked from the day we moved in to now. I was looking back on all the fun memories we had there. All the parties, girls nights, low-key date nights and family nights we had here. This is the home we got married in, and most importantly, the home we brought Brock home to. The hardest part was the last time walking through, getting all the last minute items, when Brock walked in to the living room and pointed by the wall where we used to keep his toys, and said 'where toys go Mama?'. I lost it!

Luckily, he has been the biggest trooper through this entire process. He has been totally relaxed and happy to just go with the flow. Grandma and Grandpa have been kind enough to let us stay in completely invade their home. There are toys everywhere, boxes, clothes, Brock's entire birthday party set up has taken over their dining room. But they have been wonderful in letting us stay there. We have one more week and then it's off to our new house!

Brock has had a blast staying with Tazzy! They have to say good morning to each other each day and Taz just loves him! There is a park right across the street from their house so we've spent a lot of time there and just running around in the backyard. That is, until yesterday, when it was SNOWING ON MAY 2nd. Yes, you read that right. SNOW. IN MAY. RIDICULOUS! It went from 80* on Wednesday to snow on the ground last night. Only in Kansas!

We are getting very excited to move into our new home and to have Brock's big 2nd birthday bash the week after!! I can't believe my sweet baby is almost 2!! It has gone so fast and at the same time, feels like he's been here forever. Some of the 'terrible 2's' have subsided a bit. We aren't hearing as much 'no' and 'I don't likes'. We decided to stop even giving him any attention if he says 'I don't like' for no reason. I think it's helped tone it down to only when applicable.

He is now speaking almost exclusively in full-on sentences and we can easily have conversations with him. We were at the doctor a couple of weeks ago and they had a sign on the wall asking 'does your child does this by this age?'. We were looking under the 2 year old column - he'd already long since mastered all of it and was over half-way done with the 3 year old list!

Now that things are hopefully slowing down, I promise to try and stay more on top of the updates to the good 'ole blog!

Ya gotta take the good with the bad....

22 months exactly!

So, as you can probably tell from the title, the 'terrible twos' I referenced in my last blog entry are not only still present, they are getting more and more prevalent in our household. Now everything is 'mine', 'no' is said at least 100 times a day (by him AND us), sharing is a key item we need to work on and the most recent and horrific episode: 'shut up dada' which was uttered out of my once sweet angel's lips yesterday. We're still trying to track down where he heard that one...

BUT, I have decided 2 things - 1. We are totally getting paid back for how wonderful of a baby he was, 2. He's still the best thing that's ever happened to us and we're taking the few bad things with the infinite good things that come from having him in our lives. So, rather than harp on the negative, this post is dedicated to all the wonderful, funny, and sweet things he does that make our lives complete.

- He LOVES music, just like Nick and I. If there is no music on (or if God forbid a commercial comes on in the car), he starts saying 'song mama, more song'. And as soon as a song comes on, he'll bob his head, pump his fist, kick his feet, whatever dance move he feels at the time. He also LOVES to sing, he sing almost all of 'Twinkle Twinkle' by himself (ok, he doesn't hit EVERY word, but you can totally tell what he's saying) and he'll sing in the car. Some of the current faves are: 'Girl on Fire' by Alicia Keys, he sings 'FIIIYAAAAAAA' and it's adorable; Bruno Mars; fun - he still loves anything they sing.

- He says thank you all the time. 'Thank You Mama', 'Thank you Dada', etc. He also says 'Welcome' if you tell him thank you. We're still working on please - not sure what the hold up is on that one. If you say 'can you say please?' he just nods his head. 'Uh yeah mom, I can say it, just don't want to'. Pretty funny.

- He is speaking in 3-4 word sentences and we have full conversations with him. He tells us 'I don't like it' if he doesn't like something. As always, his communication skills never stop amazing us.

- He likes us to scratch his back and belly. If he's getting tired and laying down by us, he'll pull up his shirt and say 'scratch mama'. It's so cute I can't help but do it.

- He has started pretending with his toys. The other day I heard him tell his cars to 'be nice'. And we got him a couple toy dinosaurs and he was making them roar at each other.

- He still absolutely LOVES anything and everything Cars. McQueen (pronounced MaaaQueen or just 'queen', Mater - pronounced 'Namer', Finn (from Cars 2) and Mack (from Cars 1) are his favorite characters. He picks up his McQueen cars and says 'ka-chow' just like the movie.

- He is still an amazing sleeper. Goes to bed most nights with no trouble and sleeps all the way through. No matter what else is going on, we are so thankful for that!

- He loves going to see his 'new house' and knows where we are when we turn down the street. He starts saying 'new house! new house!'. He knows (most of the time) which room is his and points it out.

- Nick's favorite new hobby with Brock is throwing around the baseball. He got Brock a small glove last year and Brock puts it on and likes to put his baseball in it. He throws the ball (not very far) and thinks it's so fun. Not long before they are playing full on catch in the backyard!

He makes us smile and laugh every day, and even when we have our moments of frustration, we wouldn't trade one second of it for anything in the world. He is the true joy in our lives and we feel beyond blessed to call him ours.

Cabin Fever

21 months, 1 week

We have had 2 EPIC snow storms come through our little area, less than a week apart! The first one dropped about a foot of snow on a Thursday, and by the following Tuesday morning, we had about 6-8 more inches. They broke records and made the roads just a mess. Businesses completely shut down, stores were running out of food, they were urging people not to drive unless it was an emergency.

All that said, it meant 3 days of working from home for Nick and I, along with Brock having snow days from daycare. I didn't want him in a car on the roads as they were really bad a couple of the days, so the 3 of us, and Oscar, were all cooped up. By the end of yesterday, we were all getting terrible cabin fever.

Brock is just at an age where he's too wild and full of energy to be cooped up all day. Nick and I tried to take turns watching him and playing, but we both still had to be sure we were getting our work done. We took some time yesterday to play in the snow. Brock helped Nick shovel, we started to build a snowman, etc. He loved being outside in the snow, unlike his Mommy!

We also think the terrible 2's are starting to set in a little early. We are hearing a LOT of 'no mommy/daddy', and 'my (fill in the blank here - anything from potato to a certain toy to love you - yes, you say I love you and he says 'no MY love you' but not in the sweet 'I love you more kind of way.)

Meals have become almost dreaded. He has little interest in sitting down to eat a meal. He wants to play with his food, play with his cup, feed the dog, occasionally try and throw his food, etc. It tests our patience big time!

He had his first real 'fit' at the grocery store over the weekend. He saw a Lightning McQueen bubble bath car and wanted it. He kept saying 'Queen! Queen!'. But, we don't want him to get in the habit of getting something every time we go to the store, so we told him we were not getting it. He just LOST IT. Screaming, crying we were totally 'those parents'. Nick took him out to the car while I finished paying for the groceries and avoiding all eye contract with anyone who saw the meltdown.

He's also become a little harder to take places. Now that he's so mobile and independent, he does NOT want to be in a cart and he does not want to be held. He wants to run around like a mad man all over whatever store we happen to be in. It's made the house decisions a little tougher as we decide whether to have someone watch him (and thus scheduling is needed) or try and be brave and roll the dice that he'll cooperate.It's a fine line between risking it to try and get him used to behaving like a human and not a monkey or just going the easy route to get decisions made quickly and get on with our day.

With all that said, he's also getting a lot more loving. He gives full on hugs now where he wraps both his little arms around your neck. And he loves to give kisses. He'll say 'love you or I love you' and if I say 'love you to the moon' he says 'love you moon!' And he likes to check on everyone. If I say 'ouch' or seem sad, he'll say 'you ok mama'? and pat my arm or leg. It just melts my heart everytime. He's so sweet and so wild all wrapped into one little perfect boy.

Every day I look at him and he just looks so much bigger and more grown up. Yesterday, as the cabin fever was taking over and my patience was almost gone, I started to talk myself out of getting frustrated. They are only young like this once. I know as hard as these days can be, I will miss them like crazy in the not too distant future!

And for those of you keeping up with the house, the weather has put a little damper on the progress but we are hoping to really see some changes by the end of this week! They were supposed to be painting and staining this week so we should have some updated pictures soon!

We have a house!!

20 months, 3 weeks

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Barbosa's are heading west! We have a house!! We are so so so happy and excited to be able to share our new home with everyone!

We bought a home out in Olathe (where we always said we would never live), and out west (where we said we'd never go). We broke all of our 'rules' and we are so glad we did! It's a brand new home, which is already built but we get to pick the finishes (paint, carpet, granite, lighting, etc). We are having the basement finished before we move in and Nick designed the perfect layout for our family! We can't wait to see it all finished! It will be in the Kansas City Parade of Homes the last weekend in April and first weekend in May so we won't be able to actually move in until May 10th, but we get to go out there as much as we want between now and then - and trust me, we will be out there a LOT! And we will be in just in time to have Brock's 2nd birthday at the house - perfect timing!

It was quite a stressful week going back and forth on negotiations, but it was well worth it! It made us realize how much we really wanted the house and Nick and I were both on the same page about it the entire time which was awesome! It would have been so tough if one of us was trying to convince the other to keep fighting if they just didn't feel it was right. But we really never waiver'd on the fact that it was 'our' house.

It has everything we EVER said we wanted in a house and then some. There were a few  'dream' items we wanted and didn't think we could find. And this one has it all. On top of that, we are in a neighborhood that is mostly young families like us. They have organized activities for the holidays (Easter egg hunts, Santa sleigh rides, 4th of July parades and more). We feel it is just the perfect fit for our family and are so excited to move in and get settled!

We have been out a few times already and Brock got to see his 'new house' for the first time over the past weekend. We've been talking about it to him a lot and he would hold up the flyer for it and say 'new house'. We showed him the house, his room and even met our backyard neighbors!

So, now for the goods, here is the first picture of the house since it officially become 'ours':

It hasn't been painted yet so that's just the color of the wet stucco. We are meeting this week to pick out paint colors and will keep updates here or on Facebook with the progress!

My favorite words...

20 months, 1 week

Brock started uttering my favorite words I've ever heard him say this weekend 'Love you'. He used to say 'I love you' but it was always only copying someone else and I don't think he knew what it meant. We were leaving Gary and Judy's on Friday and as we always do we said 'Say bye-bye. Say Love You.' Usually he never does...he'll wave and maybe actually say bye-bye when we're already in the car. But sure enough he said 'bye bye. Love you'. It was the cutest, sweetest, most heart-melting moment.

So over the weekend, it just progressed from 'love you' to 'love you mama', 'love you dada' and then 'love you (fill in family member here)'. I got him on video saying 'Love you Poppy. Love you Meme' and sent it to my Dad, I got him saying 'Love you Mia' and sent it to my sister. I got him saying 'Love you Grammie' but since my mom has a phone from 1905, I couldn't send her the video. Luckily, he said it to her OVER the phone so she actually got to hear it.

We were crazy busy with house-related things over the weekend and poor Brock was stuck getting dropped off at one Grandma's after the other while we handled some house business. We think we should have some good news to share soon...but you'll just have to wait and see!

Yesterday we went to the annual Superbowl party at Nick's aunt and uncle's house. Brock was so tired and a little overwhelmed but had a blast playing with his cousin Ryan and all his fun toys! We headed home at halftime right at the start of a full on melt down. We thought he was just tired until we got in the car and realized he was pushing and straining really hard. Like he was stopped up. He cried the ENTIRE 20 minutes back home, which is incredibly rare for him.

It made me realize how lucky we are that we got such an easy baby. I know there are parents who deal with those fits all the time or just have hard to please kiddos that cry a lot. You could definitely feel the tension and nerves in the car while he was wailing away, but we tried to stay calm until we got home. We gave him gas drops, Tylenol and his allergy medicine to try and fix whatever the problem was. I rocked him to sleep but he kept waking up every 30 mins or so crying or fussing. Finally I brought him in bed with us for awhile and I rubbed and pushed on his little tummy to try and work out the gas or whatever it was. It must have helped because he let out a long toot and was a completely different kid almost right away. Poor little guy. There is absolutely nothing worse than seeing your child in pain and not being able to help them! Luckily, he went right to sleep in his bed after that and not a peep for the rest of the night.

He has started singing along to songs in the car and it is the cutest ever! He usually only pick up words he knows 'yeah' 'oh', etc. It's pretty funny!

He has almost started to grow out of his 2T clothes! Looks like it might be about time for a wardrobe upgrade!

Movin' on up?!

20 months, 1 week

Wow, a couple more weeks have somehow flown past us yet again and I didn't have a chance to blog! Luckily, that is because we've had a lot of exciting things going on at home!!

We officially put our house on the market this week and are happy to say, we are already under contract! We put our FSBO sign in the front yard last Friday and had 2 showings just off of that. Then we listed it on MLS on Tuesday afternoon and had another 10 showings by Wednesday night. We had a few more showings on Thursday and then a bidding war began between 2 interested buyers and we accepted an offer for more than our asking price!! We still have the inspection period to get through and we don't close until the end of April, but if all goes according to plan, we should be in a new house by May 1st! (Now we just need to FIND one).

We've spent the last month getting our house ready to sell/stage so we were really glad we had already bought tickets to Sesame Street Live for Brock last Saturday. He has been the biggest trooper through all the prepping the house and has probably felt a little confused by all the changes so we were happy to just get to spend an afternoon doing something we thought he would love.

Unfortunately, when we bought the tickets a few months ago, he was taking his nap around 11 am. So we bought tickets for the 2 pm show thinking he'd be done with his nap. Well, nowadays he doesn't even go down until after lunch so we were playing with fire. We went to lunch and could tell he was getting a little crabby/tired but we hoped seeing Elmo and Ernie would perk him up.

We had talked all week and all morning about seeing Elmo and giving him a hug. So when we got inside, he just took off running yelling 'Elmo....see Elmo'. We found a cardboard cut out Elmo and he looked over and said 'hug?' and so he gave Elmo a hug. Then we found an area where they had some of the characters come out before the show to sing and dance. Bert, Ernie and Zoe came out and Brock was just in awe. They high-fived him and he thought it was so cool!

We bought him his token toy and found our awesome seats right on the floor by the stage! The show started and Brock's eyes were just bugging out! He hung in there as long as he could until he finally just passed out on my shoulder about halfway through the first part. We debated leaving at intermission to let him get a full nap in, but we waited it out and are so glad we did. He got about a 30 min power nap (a good chunk of it during intermission) and woke up just in time for the 2nd half. This time he was much more focused and even got to high five The Count when he walked by. He seemed to love it and we will definitely go again!

It's so crazy how much he is turning into such a little man. He has started becoming more aware of when he's going to the bathroom and sometimes goes to have some 'privacy' in the corner. Last weekend I noticed he wasn't in the room with me anymore and I found him in his room. I asked him what he was doing and he looked up at me and very sweetly and almost a little confusedly said 'get out'. He almost said it like a question like he wasn't sure what he was saying. And I just stopped and couldn't believe it! But I could tell he was working on something so I let him have his space. I came back a few minutes later and sure enough, he had filled his diaper and just wanted a few minutes to himself. It was so cute I couldn't be mad, but it also was scary that he's getting old enough to tell us these things!

He is definitely getting more wild and loves to run and dance and even sometimes screech when he gets excited. We're working on that last one because he can get pretty loud! With our house being staged, we took some furniture out to make things more open and he's had a blast running wild in the basement.

Some of our favorite words he says right now:
feffast (breakfast)
fuffin (muffin)
namer (Mater from cars)
ah-kee (Osci)
Dilla (quesadilla)
dip (he loves to dip his food in everything, ketchup, salsa, cheese, whatever is close)

Things will probably stay pretty busy for the next few months for us so I will try and keep on these blogs to keep everyone updated!

Holiday 2012 wrap-up

19 months, 2 weeks

As you can probably tell from the lack of posts, this last few weeks have been just crazy for us! Good crazy, but crazy nonetheless.

Christmas started with a little drama for us. We woke up Friday morning (before Christmas) with plans of heading to Wichita that afternoon for round 1 of Christmas celebrations. However, Brock had a low grade fever and had thrown up in his crib over night. I immediately had flashbacks to this EXACT time and trip last year where Brock had the stomach flu, which we thought was teething, and ended up spreading it to my ENTIRE family.

We made a trip into the doctor who tested him for influenza and strep throat - negative on both counts. She said to watch him throughout the day and then make the call from there about going out of town. Well, after much debate, we decided to go ahead with our trip. He hadn't thrown up and seemed to be his normal, wild, happy self. He still had a mild fever but he had 2 molars coming in so we thought we were fine. BIG  MISTAKE - about halfway on the drive, he just started getting fussy and his little cheeks were flushed. We got there and he was burning up! We stripped him down and tried to cool him off, thinking the car was just hot because it was crowded. He started to perk up (or so we thought), then started shivering. I was running errands with my dad and got the call that Nick was taking him to Urgent Care. We headed straight there and once we got back to be seen, his temperature had spiked to 104*! Needless to say, Nick and I were a little freaked since he's never had a fever like this.

They concluded it was some sort of virus, nothing they could do to cure it, so they gave him some Tylenol and within an hour, he was bouncing around the room. He started eating and drinking and his fever was gone in no time. We were on high alert all night and the next day but his fever never came back and he was his crazy self for Christmas with the Cole Family! It was an awesome day and trip and he was spoiled! At first, he didn't really 'get' the wrapping paper idea, but he was super pumped about every toy he got and wanted them all out of the box immediately!

We came home Sunday and had a million errands to run to get ready for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Christmas Eve we spent at Gary/Judy's with all the brothers (and their ladies) and the Hoyle clan. Brock and Joey were finally old enough to really play with each other. They had a BLAST! They were just running, screaming (well BROCK was screaming) and chasing each other around the house! It was adorable and Brock was asleep before we got off their street to head home.

Christmas morning was just our little family and it was perfect. We had unwrapped and put together all his toys so he could play with them right away. He was a little confused at first but quickly got over it and dove into all his toys. Then my mom and sister came over for lunch and we had round 4 of Christmas. Once again, this kid was spoiled beyond belief! He is one blessed little man! We ended the night at Great Grandma Elsie's with the entire Barbosa clan! By this one (Christmas #5), he had the whole wrapping paper gig alllll figured out!

I had to head back to work Wednesday, but since daycare was closed, Brock and Daddy got to spend lots of quality time together! He even bonded with Osci. They spent some of their time snuggled up on the couch together.

We started the process of getting our house ready to put on the market so we were really busy with that over the weekend and on New Years' Eve/New Years' Day. We're getting very close and hope to have it listed next month!

Brock has just started communicating with us so much more. As you know if you follow this, he's always been incredibly verbal. But now, he really speaks with a lot more meaning, not just repeating things. He is even on to 3 word sentences (sometimes 2 sentences in a row). Last week I hurt myself and he said 'uh oh Mommy. You ok?'
Some of the main sentences:
'I love you'
'I'll get it'
'Where Mommy go'
'What is it'
Those are just a few of the faves. We've also entered the phase of 'no'. You ask him a question, the answer is 'no'. Not a mean 'NO', it's actually kind of a cute 'no'. Just this week it seems like he knows the difference between yes and no, so he's started putting 'yes' in when it involves food or milk. :)

He also says 'bless you' when you sneeze and is super giving with kisses for Mommy. He'll even ask for them sometimes and it's so cute. He got a little spoiled when he was sick at the ER with sleeping on Mommy's chest so he's started wanting to do that more and more. I know it's a bad habit to start so I try and do it sparingly, but when your baby wants you to hold him, how do you say no? He's also started waking up (sometimes crying) yelling for Mommy or asking 'where mommy go?'. It's heartbreaking and no matter how early it is, it totally works. I go in there and scoop him up and if it's too early, just bring him back in bed with us.

He has become my little buddy and helper. I was cleaning the fridge out and he was in there with me, handing me things to put back (or sometimes taking them back out) and helping me wipe down the fridge. He just loves to help!

He's really into 'colors' (his word for coloring) so he got lots of crayons and paper for Christmas, along with a picnic table to color on at home. I think we're slowly moving past the 'Puss in Boots' phase and he wants to watch Cars now. He always has a car of some sort in his hand. He finally learned out to say 'Queen' for Lightning McQueen and he still knows his Mater or 'namer' as he sometimes calls him.

Lots to catch up on so I apologize for the crazy long post!