Baby Showers!

The girls at church hosted a baby shower for me to celebrate Baby Graham! They went above and beyond, it couldn't have been cuter, from the great food to adorable decorations!

Cupcakes, so fun to see Graham's monogram

Wonderful food, everything was so good!

Diaper Cake, I loved the little animals, they are now decorated Graham's first Christmas tree!

When it was time to open gifts two special guests arrived, via Skype, Lauren and Riley! It was so sweet of Christina to do this! It was so fun getting to see them!

We got so many great gifts! Lots of monogrammed stuff which I love! I was so worried about Graham not having as many special things as Reed, but he may have ended up with more!

Special Blanket that my sister got me! It coordinates with the nursery perfectly! Amy also bought Reed a blanket and it is favorite, his "bye-bye" as he calls it!

For the hostess gift I found a cute idea on Pinterest! I made Christmas ornaments by taking a wooden block and mod podging paper with girl's last name initial on one side, pictures on two sides (that I stole from their Facebook pages) and a bible verse on the 4th side. I thought they turned out so cute, but I didn't take any pictures when I made them so I thought I would share here.

Me and the hostesses!

I love these girls to death and I am so lucky to have them as friends.

Mom & Sister

Gigi & Gran

Halloween 2011

So I decided Reed was too cute in his Halloween costume not to go back and share a few! Our church has a great Fall Festival that we went to and Reed had a blast, but first we tried our best to get a few cute pictures of Mater (Reed's favorite character right now). As you can see Reed is the typical 2 1/2 year old boy and doesn't sit still for anything! I have had to just let go of getting the perfect picture every time!

First Josh took him in the back yard and tried to get a picture!

Then we went to the front!

Then we tried once we got to the church!



You get the point! :) I think they all show see silly, fun personality!

Family Picture

With Gigi

Once we got to the church Reed loved walking around looking at all of the other kids in costume!



Then he spotted the bounce house! The costume came of and he started sliding over and over!

Sliding with Kaleb & Montgomery (they are in class together at school too)

Once we finally got him pulled away from the bounce house Reed decided he wanted to play some games.....once he figured out games = candy, he was all about it!

On Halloween night we took Reed around the neighborhood to about 10 houses and he had a blast. He would get a little shy when the neighbors would come to the door, but he would usually say "Trick-or-Treat" and thank you. Then he would turn around and say can we do more trick or treat! He loved the candy!!

I didn't take any pictures while we were walking, but this is a pictures when we got home! He still ask for a piece of trick or treat candy! All in all we had a great Halloween!

Reed's Big Boy Room

I just realized I never posted Reed's Big Boy Room pictures!

This is the big boy bed I found on craigslist for $100! I got a cheap comforter, so I wouldn't always be stressing about it getting dirty or messed up and then spent a little more on the shams and sheets from pottery barn (which I used debit card points for).

I think the curtains look even better in this room because the window is so much bigger. Tonja also made a bed skirt to match. I think it all tied together great! I love that we got to reuse so much from his nursery. The baseball men I found at Hobby Lobby and I bought a lamp at Target. Besides the bed stuff, those are the only two things I had to buy.

We rehung the bats Josh had made for the nursery and of course the amazing dresser that Josh's Dad made, that I still love to death and now Graham has one too!

This shelf is something we had added to Reed's room before we moved him to help organize toys and books. It fit perfectly on the wall between the door and the closet!

Reed's Tree! I found a star this year, maybe next year I will finally find a tree skirt.

New Cars ornament this year from Gigi, my Mom also got him some Cars ornaments but I didn't get a picture of them.

Reed loves his room and we do too! I think the hardest part was finding a paint color....if you know me you are not surprised. I think we went through 5 colors, but I think we finally found the perfect one.

Pregnancy #2-Graham Scott Baker

Well, we were so excited to find out on March 28th that we were expecting our second baby! We were beyond thrilled and decided to share the news with everyone at Reed's 2nd Birthday Party. We had a family party at our house so it was the perfect time, except that it took everyone forever to notice Reed's Big Bro shirt! In fact I finally had to tell my Dad to read the shirt and he was very shocked and so was everyone else!

Then on July 5th, we were able to find out we were expecting our 2nd baby BOY! By the time the day arrived Reed had me convinced that it was a boy because he would only say he was having a baby brother. You could ask him, "Are you having a sister or a sister?" and he would still say brother! We decided it would be fun to have a little reveal party for the family so my sister made some cookies with colored cake balls in the center for everyone to bite into. They turned out so cute and everyone loved finding out together.

We were so excited to see this little profile!

We finally decided on a name in September. I have always loved the name Graham and Josh liked it right away, but there were several other names we considered for a while. We just had a hard time deciding. For some reason it was weird giving him a name, very different from naming Reed when I practically knew all my life that if I had a little boy that's what his name would be. But we finally settled on Graham and Josh wanted to use Scott after his brother's middle name. I think they go great together and I am totally in love with his name now, Graham Scott Baker!

This pregnancy has been VERY different from Reed's. It started off very similar, I didn't show much until 24 weeks or so (I was 25 weeks pregnant when we went to the beach in the previous post), I gained about the same amount of weight, Graham's heartbeat was always around 140 like Reed, and I measured right on track every week. With Reed I had what I would consider mild heartburn and with Graham I had a few days where I could barely eat it was so bad! Then around week 30 once I started getting bigger I started having so much pressure and I knew right away that Graham was head down. Reed was always breech and I never experienced anything like this. I have also had lots of braxton hicks contractions (a couple of nights ago I was able to time them every 2 minutes for 40 minutes) and never had one with Reed. 2 weeks ago during my 36th week I got very sick and was so sick I called the doctor and they wanted to check on dehydration. The nurse practitioner went ahead and did a full appointment and I had lost 4 lbs in 4 days and we had a little scare when she measured Graham at only 34 weeks and 4 days earlier I had measured 36. After an ultrasound everything checked out fine and Graham measured exact to the day! Once I got well, it was like my body held on to everything I ate and I got SO swollen! I did swell with Reed, but I had never seen anything like this! I am happy to report now the swelling as subsided and at least to a stranger my hands and feet look normal. I am feeling great and we are just SO excited to meet our Baby Graham in 4 days!

I can't really decide if my belly is the same size as it was with Reed or maybe a little smaller. Monday at my last appointment I actually only measured 37 weeks and I should have been 38 and 1 day. I want to guess that Graham is going to be a little smaller, but I only gained 1 lb less this pregnancy and it is Thanksgiving week (with no weigh in before delivery.....I couldn't have timed this better)! So I guess everyone will have fun guessing his size!

Here I am at 31 and 37 weeks pregnant. I took them wearing the same outfit to try to compare. I haven't been very good about taking pictures. I had taken several more in the mirror myself but unfortunately I just lost all of my pictures and videos off my phone.


Up next pictures from the 2 wonderful showers we were blessed with and a sneak peak at Graham's nursery! It most likely won't be 100% by the 28th, but it will be very close and will possibly be 100% by the time we come home from the hospital!

Reed at 2 and a 1/2

So once Reed turned two in April, the summer fun began!

The weekend of Memorial Day Reed starting telling us he needed to go to the potty, so we sent him to school in underwear for the first time and that was pretty much it! He had a little trouble for a couple of weeks with #2, but that quickly ended and he was doing great! He also learned quickly that he likes having a book while he goes potty and he didn't like sitting when he went pee-pee so we saw a lot of this.....

and this....

We still have some accidents of course, but 95% of the time they are during nap time and at home he just doesn't want to stop playing to go so we have accidents then too. Around this time he started finally counting to 10 all the way and singing the ABCs to himself, just not for us when we asked him. He started putting on his shoes by himself and this is something he still likes to do and he LOVES shoes!

In June, after showing some fear of water we started Reed in swim lessons! It took several lessons but he finally started loving it and he loved Miss Chelsey his instructor.

This summer Reed finally started watching a little bit of TV. I say that because up until this point Reed would never sit still longer than 5 minutes. I didn't/don't want him watching TV all the time, but it is nice to have him still long enough to get ready to go some where or get dinner started. Reed's first favorite was the movie Cars for about two months he watched it EVERY day after school and sometimes before! Then he started liking the cartoon Olivia, or as he calls it "Piggies." We still watch this cartoon every morning and every afternoon almost! We have a DVR full of every episode.

If we weren't outside playing or at the park, Reed loved playing play-doh and legos. He also still loved his trucks! He could tell us all the different trucks in books and when we were in the car! He would scream out dump truck, garage truck, gas truck, car truck and then he learned his farm equipment. Then he would yell out excavator, digger, backhoe! We were amazed how quickly he learned and how he could tell the difference.

Shortly after turning two the conversations began! Each month his vocabulary and understanding of what was going on around him just continued to grow! He would amaze us week after week with the things he would say, remember and do. We laughed on a daily basis at the things he would say!

Reed continued to not have much of an appetite or want to try new foods. Pretty much all he ate was chicken nuggets and occasionally turkey dogs, spaghetti or poppy seed chicken or some kind of chicken casserole. However, Reed is like his Mommy and loves his sweets. He would beg every day and still does for candy or popsicles! He also loves to drink anything instead of eating! milk, juice and sprite are his favorites.

In July, the "WHY" questions started! Everything was and still is WHY! It can be exhausting at times but we know he is learning and we have just learned to make a game out of it most of the time. Also this month while Josh traveled to Haiti I started putting Reed to bed awake. Up until this point Reed would fall asleep sitting on the couch with us and then we would put him to bed. We had taken his crib front off a month or so ago and I knew he was ready to start being able to fall asleep by himself. He did it every day at school and it was taking him forever to fall asleep watching TV every night. It took a couple of nights but by the third night there were no tears and he fell right to sleep. We would say our prayers together and Reed would go to sleep. Then on Labor Day weekend Reed got to move to a big boy bed in his new room (I need to do a whole post showing off his new room, we love how it turned out)! We had a couple of nights where Reed would show up in our room in the middle of the night, but we would just take him back to his room and he would go right back to sleep.

In August, we went to the beach and Reed loved it! We had so much fun, it was our last trip as a family of 3! We also got a new car and Reed quickly became attached to watching movies in the car. At school Reed is one of the youngest in his class and he missed moving up to a new room with the rest of his friends. So we went through a period where he didn't like going to school. In September, he was finally allowed to move up a little before turning 2 1/2 and he was back to normal. He loves his friends at school and we love his school. It is a Christian Daycare and I love him coming home singing Bible songs and seeing the bible verses they learn each week.

Lately, Reed is still very into playing with trucks, legos and his race cars and race track. He loves all things deer hunting, due to his Daddy. He loves to wear his deer camp pants, orange shirt (which happens to say Trick or Treat) and deer camp boots (camo rain boots). He has a small play 4-wheeler that he loves and plays with all the time. His favorite things to watch are still Cars, Olivia and Clifford. He still only eats chicken nuggets 90% of the time and loves his juice and milk. He is doing great in his big boy bed and lately I have been having to wake him up for school at 7:15. When he wakes up he drinks his milk and watches "Piggies" every day! He goes to bed around 8. After he drinks his milk we lay in bed with him and read a book or two, say prayers and he goes to sleep. I have to mention that Reed is STILL very much attached to his blanket that he calls his "Bye-Bye." At this point he may go to college with it! :) At school, Reed has been having quite a few accidents during nap time, so we have been encouraging him to go in the potty and allowing him to get a prize for going. He loves stopping at the gas station to pick out a treat or going to Sonic to get a drink.

Over the last few weeks we have really been trying to prepare Reed to become a big brother! We talk about Graham constantly and Reed really seems to understand that a baby is going to come out of my belly (it helps having friends with baby brothers and sisters too). His favorite thing to say is that he is going to change poopy diapers. I think he is going to be a great helper. I have a feeling we will have a little bit of jealousy but overall I think he will be very protective and love him to death. A couple of weeks ago I was going through tubs from the attic and found a lovey that had Reed's name on it and he immediately wanted it and started calling it his baby. He even wanted a bottle to feed it. He doesn't have to have it all the time, but he will occasionally ask for his "Baby" and sleep with it or carry it around. So I think we are all caught up with the life of Reed! We love this kid to death and just can't get enough of him! I will try to get a post done on his big boy room soon!