Videos!

Mr Bradley has officially found his tongue! He makes the cutest little faces as he sucks in his lips - first upper, then lower. He is constantly drooling lately as he figures out what to do about that tongue in his mouth :) He laughs at anything and everything (like when Daddy calls him Crazy!)and smiles the second he sees his Mommy or Daddy - melts my heart!! Making him happy is the greatest joy I have ever felt - what an amazing little boy he is!!

All by himself!

Mr Bradley has mastered some new skills recently - holding the pacifier all by himself (very handy! Before it would pop out every other second if we weren't holding it in)

and holding his bottle all by himself. He sure thinks those hands are pretty cool things now - helping him do so many things! :)

Nice weather

Now that the weather is finally starting to get nice, Mr Bradley and I love to sit on the deck and hang out. We watch the dogs play, watch the foxes and the birds and enjoy the view :) We've also been taking more and more walks which Mr Bradley loves. If you know me, you know I LOVE animals - all animals. If I saw any wild animal I would be more tempted to walk right up to it and pet it than run away or be scared of it. I have never been scared of a dog, I love dogs, strange dogs, big dogs, all dogs. The other day when I was going for a little walk with Bradley a stray dog came running up to us out of nowhere. Normally I would bend over to pet him and say hi to him, but having Bradley with me, being a Mommy now, I was SO protective of him and felt this overpowering need to shield him from this animal running up to us - such a weird feeling for me! My how motherhood changes someone :) Needless to say, the dog was nice, didn't even really notice Bradley, I said hello to him and he went on his way - but I was just so surprised by the motherly, protective instinct that flooded over me. I'm sure everyone's realized by now, being protective is never going to be my problem, I am going to have to fight myself to not be SO over-bearing and over-protective - seeing that I can't keep Mr Bradley in a bubble and safe from all harm for the rest of his life, that's going to be the problem :)

4th Month

Mr Bradley had a wonderful first Easter. Mom, Tammy, the Townsend family and Bill came over for lunch and an egg hunt and Mr Bradley had so much fun watching everyone!He loves to be in his bouncer and his johnny-jump up. He is studying everything and everyone he sees and learning so many new things everyday. He can now grasp onto objects and pull them to his mouth to suck on them - which I was very impressed by - that takes a lot of coordination and concentration! His favorite is his little Lamby that Aunt Tammy got him :)

Mr Bradley is getting better and better at holding himself up on his tummy. He can roll half way over from front to back but not all the way. When he's on his tummy he scoots along more than rolls back and forth, at his 4 month Dr Appointment she said maybe he'll start crawling before rolling :) His legs are SO strong too! He'll stand (supported) for long periods of time!He is making his fists less and less - the hands are now spread out wide, grasping onto toys, blankets, hair - you name it! Now that his hands aren't grasped together so much he has discovered that fingers are so much more fun to suck on than trying to stick a whole fist in your mouth :) Still no thumb though - the thumb is still tucked under. You can hear him sucking on his fingers and arms a mile away! Sometimes that's what wakes me up in the mornings on the weekends - I love it!!! He went through a phase where instead of the cute little "oooh"s and "aaahhh"s he started grunting at everything (like in the video above) - Kevin thinks it's because they watch Home Improvement every morning together :)We almost went to our first Rockies game but it was way too cold so we had to stay home and give up our seats, but Mr Bradley is ready, he has several Rockies outfits and even a Rockies cap! :) Here's a picture of him in another cap we got him, he loved it! I can't get over how old he looks!When Kevin gives him a bottle in the morning he'll hold onto his hands - it's so cute! He's pretty close to holding onto the bottle all by himself! What a big boy! :) He got to have a play date with his best friend Connor - they were so cute together!! Connor was just fascinated by Mr Bradley - he kept reaching out and trying to pet him :) They are going to be great friends!Mr Bradley was exactly 4 months old in these pictures. For his 4 month appointment he weighed in at 14 pounds 4 ounces and was 23 1/2 inches long.

Posing for the camera :)

3rd Month

Mr Bradley gets more and more fun and entertaining every day! It's amazing how much he's changing! His hair is really starting to grow in, his eyebrows and eyelashes too :) He is much more aware of his surroundings. He "oooos and ahhhs" so much and makes so many facial expressions! He still needs to be swaddled at night to sleep, otherwise his hands wake him up. I don't know how we got this picture of him actually sleeping in the bassinet un-swaddled! We spoil him - which I'm not ashamed of :) He deserves to be spoiled!I love holding him and rocking him to sleep and I love holding him while he sleeps. So he is very used to taking his daily naps in my arms. Sooner or later maybe I will decide that I need to get stuff done during the day, then I'll have to figure something out, but as of now - I enjoy that time together :)

He is using his hands more and more and gets very excited and waves his arms around and kicks his legs and his eyes get so big! He loves his hands, always holding them together or sucking on them. He hasn't really found his thumb yet, it's always tucked under, but he sure loves trying to stick his whole fist in his mouth :)He loves to hold up his fist and wave it around, like he's just ready to punch something - anything! :) Kevin always says it's his way of saying "Baby Power!" :)He had his first somewhat laugh on St Patricks Day - March 17th, but it came and went so quickly we weren't sure if it really happened. But 2 days later when Kevin was holding Mr Bradley and I was coming up to him in the "I'm going to get you" fashion - he let out his first real laugh! It was so much fun, I think we did it for about half an hour, switching him back and forth and taking turns running up to get him and chasing each other around the house - Mr Bradley laughing the whole time! Such a sweet little laugh!! It is so much fun watching him learn everyday, he is just amazing! He makes me so excited to wake up in the morning, I don't know how it's possible but I think I even miss him while I'm sleeping! :) He brings so much joy to our lives. Kevin has stated before that he feels like we just started living when he came into this world. So so blessed...

P.S. It's SO hard to pick out pictures for this blog, there are too many adorable ones from which to chose!

Mr Bradley is exactly 3 months in this picture

And here are his 3 month old pictures we got professionally taken. Mr Bradley was such a stinker! He would smile and smile at all of us and as soon as she took out the camera he'd just stare :) He is stubborn as can be, but it was so much fun and I think the pictures turned out great, we're going to go back to the same place for his 6 month old pictures. We got SO many taken but these are some of my favorites!

2nd Month

By the second month we were able to do "on demand" feeding instead of waking Mr Bradley up every 3 hours on the dot, so we started getting a little more sleep at night and I could let him go a little longer during the day if he wasn't hungry yet - so that was nice :)

I went back to work on February 11th part time from 7-11 am - very hard to leave him! I hadn't left him at all so I decided that I should do a little something outside of the house without him for a couple hours to ease myself into being without him in the mornings, so I went and got a massage. I figured that would be a nice relaxing thing to do and maybe I wouldn't stress out too much. It turns out it was the worst massage I've ever had and I don't know if it was the actual massage itself or just the fact that I couldn't relax :) Oh well :)

We gave Mr Bradley his first pacifier at about 6 weeks old - which I hated. For some reason I got really jealous, which I know sounds silly but it didn't seem right - him sucking on something that wasn't me :) (that really does sound silly!) Then he got his first bottle of breastmilk at 7 weeks, we had to start getting him used to it because Kevin would have to get him to take one bottle every morning while I was at work and I would pump once while at work. He took right to the bottle no problem - what a sweetheart!
He started smiling more and more everyday. He has this little "Elvis smile" where he lifts one side of his mouth into a half smile - very cute! And we started to rejoin the world a little bit, I would take him out more with me to run errands - go to the store, go shopping for clothes, etc. I still was very careful about what time of day we could go out because I didn't want him sleepy or hungry, so the window of opportunity was very small :) Still - every time we went out he was pretty much asleep the whole time in his car seat - so he still wasn't getting much of a view of the outside world yet :)We went for our first walk to try to get out of the house more, but the weather still wasn't cooperating - too cold! Oh well, we got to try out the adorable snow suit! :)

Mr Bradley was exactly 2 months old in this picture! At his 2 month appointment he weighed in at 11 pounds and was 22 inches long!

1st Month

So - first off - I was INSANELY overprotective of Mr Bradley from the second he came out. I didn't feel comfortable with anyone holding him or him being away from me for any amount of time. This got me in a little trouble with some people because they thought that I didn't trust them - of course I trusted them, but I couldn't explain it. He was just so perfect and I wanted so badly to do everything right and not hurt him in anyway. I just wanted him close to me - always and forever! There was no question about the bond that developed the second he was born and layed on my chest. People always say you don't understand it until it happens to you and they're exactly right! After years of anticipating the day I got to meet my baby it still was more emotional, more spiritual, and more amazing than I ever could have imagined. Kevin right away started calling Bradley "Mr Bradley" and the nickname stuck :)

From the first day he was a great sleeper - so much so that I had to wake him up all the time to eat which I hated doing. A couple times I let him sleep a little longer than 3 hours because I felt bad waking him up and then his weight was a little lower than they wanted at his checkup so I couldn't do that anymore :) His first time out of the house was on Christmas morning to go over to Mammy's - but for the first month we mostly just stayed inside! Kevin was able to take off several weeks so we all just stayed home together which was very nice and very needed!

In this picture Mr Bradley is exactly 1 month old!