Pre-Father's Day thoughts :)

I just wanted to let everyone know what a great husband I have :). He never toots his own horn - so I'm doing it for him! :) He is such a great guy and I think a lot of people don't give him credit for everything that he's done and everything that he is. He is the smartest man you'll ever meet. He tackles any project with no doubt in his mind about if he can do it, just how he's going to do it. He teaches himself how to do so many things that I would never even know where to start. He's a dreamer, he loves thinking about the future and what we're going to be able to do and how full our lives are going to be. He started his own business about 6 or 7 years ago and never doubted himself. Now it's a well known name, it seems like everyone has heard of him and no one has ever heard anything bad. He gets most of his business from referrals because everyone loves him so much - not only his skills but his personality. We have a wonderful life and it's all because of him :) I'm a lucky girl!

These are many of the reasons why I love him so much, but the biggest reason is his heart! I personally am not a hunter and don't agree with hunting - I understand the reasons why many people do hunt, I have many friends that are hunters, but I could never be a hunter, and I've always said that I never could have married a hunter. Kevin is not only a non-hunter but he has a love of animals that matches my own, which I think is hard to come by. Which leads me to the Snake story -

On Bradley's 5 month old birthday, I had just gotten home from work, Kevin left for work and Bradley and I went out to sit on the back deck for a while. As soon as I got out there, I sat down and called the dogs over and saw that Snickers wasn't coming because he was messing with something in the grass - it was a snake. I called him and made them stay on the deck, I put Bradley inside in his jumpy and I was going to get a stick and toss the snake over the fence. Let me just say first - I am an animal lover - but I am not the biggest fan of snakes :) I'll take a snake any day over a spider, but lets just say snakes aren't my favoritist of all creatures :) So I went over to the snake and saw that it was barely moving - Snickers must have hurt it. It looked ok other than one puncture wound near the middle. I felt really bad that it was suffering and I called Kevin.

"Honey, can you come home and kill a snake for me, it's hurt and dying and suffering" I guess at that time, work had to trump killing a snake for wife :) He said he would be home as soon as possible but he needed to get some stuff done first. So, being the wuss I am and not being able to deal with it myself, I put the dogs in the dog run so they wouldn't mess with it anymore and went inside. Now - jump to several hours later, me having checked on the snake every 10 minutes to see if it was dead yet - snake still alive, snake still suffering :( Heidi sad! I felt so terrible and guilty that I wasn't able to put it out of it's misery. But I just couldn't do it.

Finally Kevin was able to come home and he went straight to the snake to check out the situation. It was definitely dying, it hadn't moved barely a foot all day long and was pretty unresponsive. So he said he would kill it so it would stop suffering, I couldn't watch so I went inside - then peered around the curtains to watch him. Which brings me back to his big heart! He's such a sweetheart, it took him about 10 minutes to be able to go through with it. He had a shovel and he'd get ready to hit it and then he'd stop and look at it, then look back at the house and look around, then try again and stop again. He did this several times, finally I stopped watching him and distracted myself with playing with Mr Bradley. When he came in he looked so sad. He said it was really hard for him, he kept thinking "well, maybe he can survive" but then realized that he couldn't. He is such a sweetheart! He doesn't particularly like snakes either but it was so hard for him to kill something, anything - I LOVE HIM :) Not very many guys would have a problem killing a snake.

I'm so glad that Bradley gets to grow up with a Daddy like Kevin, he's going to be a good man - just like his Daddy. It's true what they say about falling in love with your husband all over again once you have kids. I love seeing him with Bradley, he has way exceeded all of my expectations that come with parenting. He is a good man and I'm lucky to have him :)

P.S. By the way - he'd kill me if he knew that I posted that picture of him in his hard hat :) I made him let me take it because he looked so cute! :)

Walks

I'm so happy that the weather is nice! We've been going on daily walks to get the mail, we don't go far but Mr Bradley sure likes being outside and he looks so big in his stroller now! This was right after his 5 month old birthday, I'm pretty sure he's in the 16 pound range now! He just has so much personality! Look at his face - doesn't he just look like so much fun?! And the pictures don't even do him justice :)

Bradley's 5 Months!

Mr Bradley is 5 months! My how time flies! He's getting to be such a big boy! I took these pictures on his 5 Month Old Birthday. He's so funny, I think he's getting used to my little photo shoots :) This top picture is my favorite - but I had no idea how hard he was sucking on his arm! After I took this picture, I picked him up and he had this huge hickey on his arm! It lasted a long time and now I am very paranoid - when I see him sucking on his arm, I make sure he doesn't have a high power suction going on :) He's so funny :) He loves his feet now, he can't quite get his feet to his mouth but he sure tries, he pulls and pulls and opens his mouth to get ready to suck on them but they don't quite make it! Look at the concentration (and the hickey on his left arm)! Sweet baby boy!

Mother's Day

I had an absolutely wonderful first Mother's Day. It has to be one of my favorite new holiday's because being a mother is the most rewarding, important thing I have ever done in my life. I am so very blessed, I don't know what I did to deserve such a wonderful little boy and husband and family. I thank God every day for all the countless blessings in my life. I pray that I can be the best mother I can be, and I have a wonderful example to follow in my Mother. I am so blessed to be able to see my Mom and talk to her every day. I am so very close to her and love spending time with her. I appreciate her now more than ever and I strive to be as giving, caring, and loving as my Mom has always been. I love you Mommy!

Thank you Kevin for a wonderful day, all the wonderful gifts - and of course the best gift of all - Mr Bradley!! :)

Peek-A-Boo

Bradley has discovered Peek-A-Boo. If we sit him up on the couch or lay him down on his blanket and put his burp rag close to him it doesn't take long for him to grab ahold and get it over his face - and then drop it there, leave it and wait for someone to notice. A couple weeks ago we were playing games in the basement and we look over and Mr Bradley had the rag over his face and was just kicking and giggling to himself in anticipation - not knowing who was going to all the sudden appear and when :) It is very funny! He somehow thinks it's much more entertaining when he puts it there himself and surprises us.

Proud Parents

We sure love our little boy!! We could kiss him and cuddle him all day long! I love how he can reach out to us now and he'll hold your face when you go to kiss him. He sure is a little angel! We love you Mr Bradley, more than you'll ever know! :)

Naps

So it was about 3 weeks ago that I mastered the nap! Finally! Before this point anytime Bradley would fall asleep in the afternoon I would hold him, and sit on the couch, not wanting to move and wake him up - and truthfully, just not wanting to put him down because I love cuddling with him. But it did get to the point where I guess I needed to actually do stuff around the house. Mr Bradley still needs to be swaddled at night otherwise he'll wake himself up with his flailing arms. For some reason I thought that we shouldn't swaddle him during the day because I didn't want him to get confused between nap time and going to bed for all night. But after talking to our doctor about it, she said swaddling him during the day for naps is fine - sleeping is sleeping she said. So we started swaddling him for his naps - once in the morning with Kevin for a couple hours and once in the afternoon with me for a couple hours.
So we have our routine going where I'll feed him, bring him upstairs, close the curtains, turn on the fan, swaddle him, walk him around for a couple minutes, put him down in his bassinet, and he's out. Of course at first it was more like 20 minutes of walking :) but now that he knows the routine it really takes no time at all for him to fall asleep. I can tell when this started because that's when I was actually able to start posting on here :)

I get so excited for him to wake up so I can hang out with him again! I love how happy he is after a nice long nap, here are some pictures of me waking him up, first I unswaddled him and he stayed in the cutest position forever :)

then opened his eyes, stretched and smiled!

Just makes my day!