TERRIBLE TWOS? or TERRIFIC TWOS?

 Look into these eyes? What do you see? I see two puddles of chocolate staring back at me...

My dear sweet, sweet, SWEET, darling, Little Man, Brady!

Well folks, the twos were great! Until we hit December (2 1/2)...then things began to change. Little Man began to get a little bit of an attitude with his Mommy and Daddy...but you know what? We were waiting for it. It's just been a little harder than we expected it to be. Which when you think about parenting, there is no manual. There are some books that attempt to be user's guides or "What to Expects," but they can't really give you the 100% of what to expect, because EVERY child is different.
Some days with Brady, we feel like we are dealing with Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde because you don't know which one woke up that morning. But aren't we all like that at some points?

At the beginning of January, Brady climbed out of his crib for the first and second times and rather than putting him back in his crib and risking him getting hurt at night trying to climb out, we converted it to a toddler bed. It is February 6th and we are still transitioning. It takes a while, but we have made a lot of progress from the first night of me sleeping on the floor in his room and Chris sleeping on the floor outside his gate on the second night. All we can look for is progress.

Two weekends ago we began Potty Training Boot Camp where Brady goes a whole weekend (minus naps and nighttime) with nothing on from the waist down-no diaper, underwear, pull-ups, pants, etc. He is doing really well with it!  One thing that no parent really tells you prior to beginning potty training is the importance of PATIENCE and not to get upset with your child if he or she has an accident. It's going to happen. It's going to happen when their 2, 3, 4 and maybe even 5 or 6--we had kindergarteners at school that would have occasional accidents. Our goal is to have him potty trained by this spring, definitely by my brother's wedding-we told him he can't wear a diaper with his tux and absolutely definitely by August when he starts preschool--since they don't want parents sending pull-ups to preschool!

When I mentioned before that Brady has been giving us a little bit of a problem in some areas, it has to do with him being bossy, sneaky and in some cases mean-where he can hurt my feelings and Chris's feelings.  I have had days with him home that when Chris has gotten home I have bawled my eyes out over how Brady has been to  me that day. I am sure that some of it is an attention thing-he needs attention and while he gets a ton from us still, he's not getting the 100% that he got prior to Aubrey being born.

In the last six months, the following game changers have happened to our Boo Bear:

He became a Big Brother--and he is the best big brother ever!
He's had to share Mommy and Daddy with Sissy
He climbed out of his bed and had his bed changed to a big bed!
He's had kids through Coney Care Childcare, LLC take over a lot of his toys and "stuff" and he's had to share his Mommy with them
He's being potty trained

While he and we have struggled with some of his recent behaviors, he has started saying the funniest things!

He pointed at a mole on my face and asked me if I had a boo boo and told me that he would kiss it.
He calls his nipples-"buttons"
When we ask him if he has to go poo poo, he says "No, I have gas"
When my Dad (Brady's PaPa) was trying to put him in the car seat one night and it was cold out he said "Close the door PaPa"
Today, I was putting something in the car prior to Chris taking B to school and he said "You take me to school, Mommy?" and when I told him that I couldn't he said "Okay, you close door now."

Bragging on my little guy some more-at 2 1/2 he knows most of his ABC's and can almost count to 20!!!! Something that I wish we could take credit for, but having him in an academic institution from the time he was one has really benefited him. I am so proud of him. So Terrible Twos-while they are very difficult a lot of times, there are a lot of hilarious, terrific moments as well. I LOVE MY LITTLE MAN SO MUCH!

Coney Care Childcare, LLC

It was with a touch of sadness, but a lot of excitement that Chris and I made the decision at the beginning of December for me to resign my assistant teacher position at Andrews Academy, in order to stay home with our own kids. We decided that in order for me to stay home with the kids, that we still would need an additional income coming in to help with the mortgage, bills, etc. When we discussed this, we discussed the idea of me watching other kids in our home, giving birth to the idea of Coney Care Childcare, LLC.

Coney Care Childcare, LLC is my small, clean, insured, four-day a week, curriculum-based,  in-home childcare that I run out of my home in my basement that is set up like a preschool. I am having a lot of fun with the kiddos that I hang out with four days a week. I watch three kiddos on Mondays, one on Tuesdays, three on Wednesdays and two on Fridays. Brady is in school on Mondays and Wednesdays, so it is Aubrey and I three days a week. Thursdays are my "free" days when it is me and my kiddos-which I love!

It is a wonderful career move for me and these kiddos all wear me out! :)

If you, or someone you know, are looking for the above in the fall, please let me know. I will have some openings. Thanks!

Dirty 30!

As much as I love to blog about my kiddos and family life, I am going to take this blog post to write about something that I was fearing for the last year....THE END OF MY 20s! That dreaded "T" word that I had been thinking about for the last year and thought of with such disdain.  Why should I fear turning 30? After all, age is merely a number, right?
 Let's take a look back at all of the wonderful things that I accomplished in my 20s:
Awesome times with CC
Fun times in the DG house and my TU apartment, and partying with Adrienne!
My 21st birthday in Tulsa
Graduating from the University of Tulsa with a B.A. in Communications, minor in English
Getting engaged/married to my best friend in the whole world in 2004 and 2005, respectively
Getting to go on some cool vacations with the aforementioned. :)
Buying our first and second homes in 2005 and 2010.
Getting a crazy puggle puppy in 2006
Buying our first car in 2007
Working at Ladue News and Andrews Academy and making friends with some very cool people.
Giving birth the "original" way(it doesn't happen a lot these days, but all my respect to the women who have to have c-sections, I know my mom had to have two of them!) to two beautiful kiddos-a beautiful baby boy in 2009 and a beautiful baby girl in 2011 with the aforementioned. :)
Being a mom-it is the hardest job in the world, it's hard at the beginning, but I don't think you fully grasp this until you have a toddler...more on that later!
Graduating with a Master's Degree in Education in 2010 (with a 3.97 gpa! Go Me! LOL!) :)
NYE 2012 with The Gersteneckers :)
...and so many more that I am sure I am not thinking of at this moment!

You can kind of see why it was with a tear or two that I said goodbye to my 20s, after all...how can my 30s compare? Well, let's see... My relationship with the aforementioned CC :) aka my amazing hubby is going to continue to grow, we are going to watch our kiddos grow and change, and who knows maybe have another one or two, at some point and eventually we will go on long, fun vacations again, only this time they may have the word Disney attached to them! :)  :) I have already spent the first (almost) month of my thirties laughing and smiling at my kiddos-my Brady says the funniest things and every day I crack up with nearly everything that comes out of his mouth. I think with turning thirty there is an added sense of maturity of knowing who you are and what you want that obviously you don't have when you are going from your teens to your twenties, and I am nearly there. My thirties are going to blow my twenties out of the water!

Now on to my Dirty 30th Birthday Party. Chris (along with my mom and dad) had been planning this since November and I was so surprised! He told me that we were going to go out to dinner at 8:30 that night, which is a little late for us. We dropped the kids off at my parents around 3:30 that afternoon and went to get our nails done (yes, sorry Chris, sometimes Chris likes to get manis and pedis with me!)  After we finished with our nails, it was after 5:00 and he said we should go home and get ready for dinner, so that we could go get a drink and an appetizer. We went home, got ready and headed out for our night on the town, beginning at Milagro Modern Mexican in Webster Groves. While we were at the bar drinking our margs, my brother called me and invited us to Kirkwood Station Brewing to meet him and Meg for a drink. We had just ordered some queso fundido and were waiting to get it, so I told him it would be a little while, but we would only be able to stay for one drink since we had a dinner rez. We finished up and headed out. I thought that it was a little strange that Chris parked so far from the restaurant, but we parked and went in...

"Surprise!" ...and what a wonderful surprise it was-my family and best friends were there to celebrate my thirtieth and it made me feel awesome! "Thank you!" were the first words out of my mouth, when I quickly asked my parents, "Where are my kids?!?!" Apparently when we dropped the kiddos off at my parents, my dad went to pick up three of my cousin's daughters and they babysat at my parents house, while we all celebrated. It was so much fun! Hanging out with my friends that I never get to see since we all are busy with our kiddos and my cousins who I see once or twice a year, if I'm lucky, not to mention my aunts and uncles, brother and sister-in-law and my incredible Mom. My 90+ year old Gram even stayed past midnight! They even had a Johnny Cash-Tom Petty tribute band playing at the bar, appropriately named Petty Cash Junction. There was one special person that was missing, so the night was nearly complete, except for this person not being there. My Dad, part of the planning crew, was there for the "surprise" but was not feeling well and ended up leaving ten minutes into the party. It made me sad that he wasn't there with us, but I know that he would have much rather been there, than sick in bed.

Thank you Mom and Dad for a fun party! Your selfless nature never fails and you guys are the best! I love you both very much.

Now onto my main man:
This night would not have happened without the slyness and awesome party planning skills of my hubby! I was completely clueless! Well, okay, maybe not completely...I kind of thought we had a party bus that we were going to be meeting up with people on. I did think something was going on, but didn't know anything about the party! Chris did a wonderful job with the party and he is the best hubby in the world!! I love him so much. :)





         

 Cheers to the next 30 with this guy! :)

Christmas 2011

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Christmas was great, as always! Everyone always says how special it is to see Christmas through the eyes of a child and this was the first year that we really got to experience it! While Brady was less than thrilled about sitting on Santa's lap this year, he was very excited about the idea of Santa bringing him presents and Santa did exactly that. First, let me back up a little bit and introduce "Jingle Bells." "Jingle Bells" is our resident Elf on the Shelf, who was introduced on Thanksgiving Day when we were in Easton. Brady LOVES "Jingle Bells" and every day would look for him throughout the house. He was so excited whenever he found him. He was old every day that "Jingle Bells" was watching for Brady to be a good boy or a bad boy and either way would report back every night to Santa in the North Pole. Brady was always telling "Jingle Bells" that he wanted a train table!! Did I mention that Brady LOVES "Jingle Bells." Even after Christmas Brady would ask where J.B. was and we told him that he would have to wait until Thanksgiving to see him again. He was a little sad.

The night before Christmas, Brady helped us put out milk and cookies (and beer) for Santa and carrots for Rudolph!

Santa and Rudolph devoured the cookies, milk, carrots and beer, too!

Christmas morning we woke up and Brady was still asleep, probably one of the last years that he will sleep later than we did! Chris ran downstairs and made coffee and we turned on the Christmas tree lights.  When Brady woke up he kept saying "presents, I open presents? Today?"

We all went downstairs where the house smelled like freshly brewed coffee and cinnamon and pomegranate from the candle that we had burning and the tree was aglow and sat down with our Little Man and our Sugar Baby. Brady didn't know what to open first! He would open a toy and then ask us to open it and we told him we were going to wait to open it until after we were all finished. He enjoyed opening his sister's presents too!

At the finale of Brady's gift opening, we went over to the fireplace-where there was a note from Santa to Brady:

We headed downstairs to Brady's final present and low and behold there was Brady's favorite thing!

A TRAIN TABLE!! :)

I hope that everyone had a MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Thanksgiving 2011

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Aubrey's first flight was on November 22nd and she was awesome! She slept almost the whole way. We really lucked out with not getting a seat for her, because since the flight was not completely sold out--they ended up letting her have her own seat! :)

We spent a wonderful extended Thanksgiving weekend with Mimi and Gramps and had a lot of fun. The food was wonderful and the wine was flowing, as always. Brady has had some sleep problems and we tried to transition him to his big boy bed, prior to Aubrey's arrival (we tried more than two months out, to give him some time), but he was not interested. He wanted nothing to do with the crib on this trip and ended up sleeping on the floor in our room, sometimes ending up partially under the bed! He moves A LOT when he sleeps!  He did seem to sleep better when he was near us, though.

Aubrey was very happy, with limited colicky moments when we were in Easton. She's a very relaxed baby, which is awesome...I think she sees her funny (crazy) brother and lets him take over. :) It will be very interesting to see how she is when she's Brady's age-since he was a very calm baby as well.

On Saturday, we went to an event called "Candy Cane Lane" that is a part of their local "Festival of Trees". Brady had a wonderful time watching the trains on the big train table and making a bell necklace, bird seed and peanut butter covered pine cone for Mike and Cheryl's tree and personalized ornaments. They also had several games that he was able to participate in! It was a lot of fun!

Life changes so much in three months...

I apologize, once again, to all of my blogger friends! Having two kiddos two and a half and under, a husband and a full time job leaves me little free time these days! This is all about to change in the next month (I will update you on this in a few.)

Our precious Pretty Chicky, Sugar Cone, Miss Aubrey is growing and growing and growing some more. Today we celebrated her three month birthday by hanging out as a little family of four! :) It was a laid back, relaxing Sunday of pretty much nothing--which was wonderful!  So what has happened for us in the last month? On October 23rd we celebrated Aubrey's Baptism at Ladue Chapel with family and friends. Chris's   parents and sister and brother-in-law came in town for the weekend to celebrate the wonderful occasion. Following the ceremony, we had a fiesta in honor of our little nina and Brady's hermana. :) It was a wonderful thing to witness our little girl as she became a part of the church family and to witness not only us as Aubrey's parents, but her Godparents, Megan Stephens and Michael Foster, family and the entire congregation commit to raising Aubrey in the church. God Bless our beautiful little girl!

In terms of Aubrey's eating trends these days. She is on a schedule of eating around every three hours and she is on soy formula, along with two ounces of prune juice a day to help alleviate constipation which is a side effect of the soy formula. She still sleeps a good portion of the day, but she is so alert and her smiles are continuing to get bigger and bigger and her coos are the sweetest sound in the entire world!

Our little guy, Brady, is the sweetest little guy in the whole world. He is hilarious, extremely athletic, energetic and continues to be such a mama's boy--which I love. His fascination continues with little cars-Hot Wheels, MatchBox or just miniature versions of Cars from the movie. We watched Cars for the first time this weekend and he LOVED it! I actually took him to see Cars 2 over the summer and his attention span just wasn't quite there. All we have heard him talk about this weekend is "McQueen" as in "Lightning McQueen"-the main character from the movie. He is also starting to really like "Thomas the Train." I find it very interesting that little boys have this internal chip that tells them to like cars and trains, I'm sure it's the same little chip that tells little girls to play with dolls and tea sets.

Life is wonderful at the Cone house...We are preparing for the holidays and will be leaving in a little over a week to head to Easton, Maryland to spend Thanksgiving with Chris's parents. I am very nervous about flying with a small infant and almost two and a half year old; especially when we are getting into flu season and you never know what is wrong with the coughing/sneezing person sitting behind or in front of you on the airplane. The whole logistics of going anywhere these days with two so young is very tricky, especially when you can't just pack up the car and drive. We'll manage though.

Finally, there has been a change beginning in 2012 for the Cones. While it concerns both of us, it probably concerns me a little more. Beginning in January, I will have the amazing opportunity to be home with my kiddos. I will be watching a couple of families' children during the week, in addition to my own. We have decided to keep Brady going to school two days a week, to continue encouraging his academic growth. HE LOVES SCHOOL and as an educator, I would be very upset with myself if I took this away from him!!! I am so thankful that I have been given this wonderful opportunity and will never regret it.  I am very excited to hang out with these children and to encourage them to love learning as much as I do!

As I wrap up this post, I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving full of family, friends, love and warmth. I am thankful for each and every one of you.

xxxx
S

Slacking Sarah

My apologies to all of my readers, I have been slacking in my blog posts for the last three weeks! A big reason for my slacking was that we have been without a functioning computer. This problem has now been resolved, thanks to an early Christmas present. :) So what has been going on in the Cone family over the last few weeks?

Thanks to the constant change in weather--one day cold, the next hot--both kiddos have had colds! We have gotten used to Brady having allergies and colds over the past two plus years, but having an infant with a cold is a different story. When you hear the nasal congestion in a little one whose only way to breathe is through their nose, it is very scary! Immediately, I get concerned about RSV-which Brady had when he was six months old. On Tuesday, I took Aubrey to the pediatrician and she checked out fine--just congested and she told us to use the bulb syringe and saline nasal drops. She is up to a whopping 9 lbs, 13 ozs.! I take her next Monday for her two month check-up and the fun shots that go along with it...poor baby! She still has her fussy time at night around dinner time, but I think the reflux has gotten under control.

We are continuing to go back and forth with the potty training for Brady. We have not been overly consistent about it, but he does use the potty almost every night before his bath! I know that boys take a lot longer to PT, so we are taking our time with it.

I head back to work a week from this Wednesday (October 19th) and I am very sad about leaving my little girl behind. It is going to be very hard for me to say goodbye to her (and Brady) when the time comes to go back to work. I am excited to see all of my friends at school, but am not ready to have such little time at home with my kiddos in the evenings and weekends. I hate to think about missing any smiles and future giggles. I love my kids very much and wish that I could be home with them all the time, but I also want to be able to give them the world and it takes two incomes to do that.

I would like to give a special shout-out to my friend and fellow blogger, Kristen, who is due to have her baby girl any time. KVH-I wish you the best of luck and cannot wait to meet Baby MVH. You are going to be an awesome Mommy! <3