Introducing Austin Jonah Brown!!!!

On Monday August 22, 2011 at 1:07pm we introduced Austin Jonah Brown or AJ into the world at 9lbs 13oz and 21" long (yes quite a bit smaller than his brother hehe). :) It was such an exciting day and everything went really well. He got to meet his Big Brother Jake at the hospital the next day and while not all together sure about this little guy he is still being really good and even giving AJ kisses...although not wanting to hold him or anything yet...we are giving him time to adjust. :) But we all came home from the hospital on Wednesday night and have loved being a family of 4 since then...with some amazing help from my parents...not sure what we would do without them right now. :D AJ is doing great...if its possible at this point he is even more mellow than Jake was and is a great sleeper and eater. Getting over a little bit of Jauntice right now but seems to be doing well there. Lots of adorable diaper time right now...pictures of that next time. ;) But here are some pictures of our adorable little guy. :D

Jake "pounding it" with his little bro

Ahhhhhhhhh

Coming Home!!! Our first family picture :D

I love this time...and I am healing really well and getting along fine..just can't wait till I am 100% and I can start spending some serious time playing with my boys! :) Austin will be a week old tomorrow...wow so crazy. But we are enjoying every moment. :)

The Sounds of Jake :)

So Jake really has a lot of words right now and always seems to surprise us with new ones...he is even saying "please" more often when we ask him. :D But instead of using them he often chooses to babble in his own language for quite some time. I wanted to get a recording of it but every time I get out my camera he stops. So the other day while he was supposed to be going down for a nap, he "talked" for about 25 minutes straight. hehe...I love hearing it and so recorded it so I could have it for a keepsake. Monitor picture does not really show up on the camera but I really just wanted the sound anyway...so you can listen and try to decipher his language. :)

What is really funny about him talking is that he is so darn serious about it...and if you ask him what he said chances are he is going to repeat it in exactly the same way. I love my little boy so much!!!

In other news :) I am scheduled for my c-section a week from tomorrow (Aug 22) and I can hardly wait. Not only am I ready not to be pregnant anymore but I can hardly wait to meet my little AJ and see what he is like. As for Jake....the boy really needs a playmate too. Lately he wants to play with our dog Piper all the time and when he wears her out and she stops playing, Jake starts to cry. Sooooooo sad. So he may not be too happy when we bring AJ home from the hospital, but he will love him when he is a bit older. :)

Beach Video

Wanted to add this video to the Beach pictures that I just added. When we were at the beach Ryan pointed out to Jake where I was and this is what Jake did. I love my little man so much and these little actions just make a momma feel so loved. :) I love you Jakey Bear!!!! :)

Our 4th of July Beach Bum :)

Hello everyone! :) Well a couple weeks ago we made a last minute decision to go to San Luis Obispo to enjoy the 4th of July with Ryan's parents. We had a really great time and enjoyed just getting away as we knew it was probably our last trip before little AJ is born. So we also wanted to do something special with Jake. We decided to take him one afternoon to the beach and let him play in the water and the sand. It was foggy but we all enjoyed the break from the heat and watching our "little bear" make a mess in the sand. :) Enjoy!!!
Here we are getting to the beach...it was a lot to take in and Jake enjoyed just looking around. And yes that is my tummy...getting quite bigger...a little less than 5 weeks left now. :)

Jake testing out the water...seems to like it.

Walking into the water with his dada...it was a little cold but they ended up going out to Jake's waist with him walking in all by himself.

The boys. :) Jake walking back in with his "dada" and his "pa" which he started calling his grandpa over the weekend.

And we discovered the sand bucket and shovel on this trip...as always very serious about his play. :)

Ryan kept showing him how to make little buildings and then Jake would add his own little bit of sand to them.

Too bad he is not having any fun. :)

This boy LOVES the sand and is not one bit afraid to get dirty. :)

Hehe..I love how serious he gets when he plays sometimes...such concentration. :)

Playing "bury the foot" with his Grandparents...here he just "freed" himself :)

So thank you Wayne and Peggy for letting us come so last minute and have such a wonderful time. Love making these special family memories. :) Soon we will be a family of 4...so crazy to think about. My c-section is scheduled for Aug 22 at 12:30...and then we get to meet little Austin Jonah Brown...can hardly wait to meet him and see what he looks like, what his personality is and what his big brother thinks of him. :) What an adventure we have ahead of us. :)

Have a great week everyone!!!

Swimming Lessons!!!

So about 3 weeks ago we started Jake in Mommy and Me swim lessons. He had not had any lessons yet and we wanted to get him started so that he would be comfortable with the water. Well so far we have accomplished that in spades. To the degree where we are now having to teach him some fear of the water because he will try and jump into the pool NOT where we are waiting in the pool to catch him. But my boy is a fish and he absolutely LOVES it!!!! At Jake's last lesson Ryan was able to take some pictures. As you can see it was a little cool and windy that day...but Jake still had a blast. :)
Coming down the stairs all dressed for his lessons. :)

At Jake's first lesson his teacher had them sit on the side of the pool and fall in towards us...this was cake for Jake.

The next step was jumping into the pool so that we would catch them in the water. This he LOVES!!! At the last lesson I was even going further away from him so he would jump in and then, while holding his breath, he will kick under water to come towards me. Can't pop his head up yet...but we are working on that. :)

Working on being on his back and kicking with his swim teacher...not his favorite thing to do but Jake is getting so much better at it.

If you look at Jake's face you can see there is pure joy. This is after we kicked it up a notch and his teacher will have him go underwater as he pushes him toward me...this is when he just came out of the water. Too bad he does not like it. ;)

Kick, kick, kick...splash, splash, splash

My happy little fish!!!

Hope you are all enjoying a wonderful 4th of July weekend!!

Trip to the Aquarium

On Friday we took Jake to the aquarium in Long Beach, what was great was that morning after we all were ready Ryan asked Jake if he was ready to "car go" (Jake's phrase which we have adopted) and Jake looked at him and said "ish" which is one of Jake's ways of saying fish...he knew what was coming. :) He then said it MANY more times before we even got the car moving. :D Once there he definitely had his favorite fish...but mostly he just enjoyed running around the place and exploring...which we allowed as it was his day. :)
Jake the Boat Captain. :) They had this play area outside which Jake LOVED.

Ahoy there Jakey!!!

And the sharks....Jake really loved the sharks and he watched them longer than any of the other fish.

Too cute.

I love this picture because if you look at his reflection you can see that he is waving to the shark.

Woooo...that's a big one.

Jake loved the little Baby "Nemos" :) big surprise there :)

Checking out some "ishies" as Jake calls them with his Dada

Ooohhhh...at times the hat had to be backwards so he could get close enough to the glass...something that on the normal day he will not put up with. :)

Leaving the aquarium and walking around the harbor...I think Jake had a good time. :)

Yesterday we took him to the pool for the first time since last summer. He starts his Mommy and Me classes on Monday and so we wanted to get him reintroduced. At first he held onto us really tight and was a bit afraid. But by the end of the time he was loving being thrown up and down by dada in the pool, "swimming" to each of us while we held onto him under his tummy, jumping to Ryan from the steps and even getting in and out by holding onto Ryan's hand. Many times while I held him he told me "down"...but I had to explain to him that he could not swim on his own yet. :) That's my boy...no fear. :) So I guess taking him to see sharks one day and the pool the next did not backfire on us. hehe

So that has been our weekend so far. We have had a blast and so has Jake...its nice to give him these times before he has a little brother dividing the attention. Have a great week everyone and enjoy the warm weather.

Jake's Move to a Big Bed :)

Hello there my friends. I have no idea why this is underlining but as I have now uploaded all of these pictures twice I am just going to go with it. :) Well a few weeks ago we decided to move Jake to a big boy bed. Not only this but we moved Jake to a new room. We decided to try and make him an awesome new cars room so that he might want to switch and then we could leave the nursery as it is for his baby brother. :) It worked out so well and Jake absolutely loves his new room as you will see now. :) Enjoy
First though here is an adorable picture of Jake...yes he is using the blanket as a pillow and the pillow as a blanket....what can I say. :) But as you can see he was badly in the need of a haircut so......

we asked our dear friend Linda (who watches Jake while I am at work) if she would mind giving him a hair cut again. Doesn't he look like an adorable big boy. :D

So at this point Jake taught us a lesson and that is.... when can you tell your child would like a pillow? When he starts using his stuffed animals as pillows. :) This pic was closest we could get of it happening. :)

So this is Jake's first night with a pillow. lol..you can tell he is still figuring it out. :) But you should have seen the look on his face when we gave it to him at bedtime...he was so excited!!!

The next night he got it. :D Isn't he so cute!!!

And he we are...the big boy room. Ryan and I kept the door closed as we were working on it so Jake did not see it until we were done. :)

Checking it out....

I think he likes it :D

Yeah he likes it. :D

This cracked me up...as you can see before I put some extra stuffed animals in his room that I knew he would not want to share with his little brother when he gets here. And I just put his three bears in his bed that he sleeps with...well this was not good enough. Jake soon put them all in his bed...which is where they have stayed. :) He still sleeps with all of them 3 weeks later. :)

I think he just realized that his new bed is like his toy car. :)

Yes!!! We had no idea how Jake would sleep in his big boy bed and he did great!!! This is Jake sleeping in his bed for the first time for a nap. And I only had to go up there 4 times and tell him to get back in bed. :) We were so happy. The crazy thing is that he stays in his bed until we go and get him. Not sure how long that will last...but we are enjoying it :)

And that is us. On the baby brother front, for those who did not see my announcement on Facebook we finally decided on a name for Squid (sorry Melissa I could not help myself hehe), he will be Austin Jonah Brown or AJ as a nickname. Everything is going really well with the pregnancy so far and we are getting really excited to meet him. I am 28 weeks along which means only 11 weeks left since it will be a scheduled c-section. Wow...that is not that long. So for now we are enjoying being a family of 3. We are taking Jake to an aquarium this weekend as he loves fish and we want to do some special things with him before his little brother arrives.

Well I should get going but have a good week everyone. :)