Fun in the Sun

While Jim was gone for work a few weeks ago Brody and I had a photo shoot while he was playing outside. It seems like forever since I have just taken pictures of him being himself - it was a lot of fun to see the results.

We lucked out that night and the ice cream truck came by our house before bedtime. It was so much fun to take Brody up and let him pick out whatever he wanted. He was EXCITED to see that they had Shrek ice cream!

When Jim got home we took Brody to downtown Rockford to feed the ducks. We hadn't been yet this year and ended up going twice in one week! Brody had so much fun tossing the bread and watching the ducks race to get it.

Baby Raguckas Update: I had my 18 week appointment today and the baby's heart rate was 146. So I am making my official prediction that we are having another baby boy. When we were in the hospital to have Brody the doctor asked me if we knew what we were having - After I said that we didn't know, he looked at the monitor and the heart rate was 146 - he then predicted a boy and was right! We will have to wait another 20+ weeks to see if I'm right this time!

Goodbye Great Grandma!

My grandmother passed away on Monday, July 5th at the age of 97! She had a great life and I am so grateful that she had the opportunity to get to know Brody. He loved to visit her and go and see the fish at her facility. I am also thankful that she got to know about the baby that we are expecting in January. We know that she is in a better place now and is happy to be spending some long awaited time with my Grandpa again!

Over the 4th of July we camped with my good friend from home, Barb and her family. She has two little girls, Skylar (5) and Sydney (2). Brody had so much fun playing with them, especially his "girlfriend" Sydney. This was the first year he made it late enough to watch the fireworks and he seemed to like them for about the first 5 minutes. We also went to a parade, but he wasn't as interested in collecting the candy as the girls (only the tootsie rolls).

The next weekend we went camping at the Yogi Bear Campground in Fremont, Indiana. Brody once again had a lot of fun playing with the other kids and swimming in the pool. It was a hot weekend with a little rain, but we still had a great time!

We were at my parents for the majority of the week following my Grandmother's passing. During that time Brody was able to swim in their pool and even jump off the diving board! He has made a lot of progress since last year and seems to love the water.

Baby Raguckas Update: Everything is going well. We are at 15 weeks and the heartbeat was 152 at the last appointment. It will be another 5-7 weeks before we have the ultrasound where we can see the little peanut. I am starting to feel better but still have some bad days. Brody says that we are either going to name the baby Joe Pa (thanks to Jim) or Beckham (mom's favorite) - but of course that would only work if it was another boy!

Long Awaited Update

I know I have been AWFUL in updating the blog for the last TWO months! I think as you read on you will be able to understand what kept me from the updates. There is just so much to update you on! We had a great Mother's Day this year! Jim once again took Brody to Hallmark to pick me out my present. He stuck with last year's theme and bought me an angel holding a bird. We were able to spend the afternoon with my family and Grandma. The one gift I didn't know about that day was that I was carrying a new little Raguckas!

The newest addition to our family is the main reason for no blog updates. This one is giving me a run for my money and testing all of my will power to make it through. I was extremely sick from about when I found out at week 6 until last week (week 10). It got so bad that I was put on medication and that still didn't help stop the nausea and vomiting! So I didn't really feel like doing much of anything after I made it through a day of work and got Brody to bed.

Brody is very excited about being Big Brother and we were lucky enough to get to tell both of our families about the new baby in person. We made a trip to Pennsylvania at the beginning of June to surprise Jim's youngest sister, Chrissy, by attending her Medical School Graduation Party. We had such a great time and it was exciting to get to surprise the whole family with our news.

A few weekends ago Rockford had their annual Summer Celebration festival. They bring in some carnival rides and have games for the kids. Brody had a great time on the rides and fishing for ducks! They even had a parade on Saturday where he was able to see the fire trucks (one of his favorites).

Last weekend we spent Father's Day camping at Pentwater State Park. It was just the three of us and we had a great time. The Park is located about 2 blocks from town and less than 1 block from Lake Michigan. This year Brody was so excited about the water and on our first night was jumping in the lake with his clothes on. We will definitely have to keep our eyes on him now - he seems to be a daredevil!

I am going to try my best to keep up on the blog (at least get to it every month)! Hope everyone is enjoying their summer!

We've Been Busy!

Brody has grown up a lot in the last couple weeks. It has been amazing to watch how independent he has started to become after moving to the preschool class.

He moved in to his big boy bed two weeks ago. We have been holding on to the crib because he never tried to climb out of it....but figured it was time to let him grow up. He really loves his "Queen" (Lightning McQueen) bed!

A few weeks ago Brody went to stay with my parents for the weekend. They were able to take him to the Michigan State University's Small Animal Day. My mom has been planning this since last year (I'm not sure who enjoyed it more).

Last Wednesday was Brody's second time "performing" in front of a crowd. His daycare has started hosting "galas" for the kids to sing songs and read stories for their families. Last January Brody wouldn't even look into the audience and clung to his teacher. This time he waved and smiled at Jim, my parents and I. What a change!

About a month ago Jim and I took a day off together to research swing sets for Brody. After all of our waiting it finally arrived last Friday. It was so much fun to watch Brody discover it in the backyard. He is proving to be quite the daredevil climbing the rock wall already!

Last Saturday morning Brody was playing a little too quietly his toy room. When I went to check on him this is what I found! This one is for you nanny! All of the spiderman stickers you sent him for Easter were on the front and back of his shirt! He was so proud!

Here he is saying "SPIDERMAN"!
The highlight of Brody's weekend was visiting Uncle Neal and his airplanes. It was so much fun to watch him explore and "drive" the planes with Bobo and Uncle Neal! How lucky he is to have the opportunity to see them up close and personal. Thanks Uncle Neal - you are the coolest!

Dirt and Worms - he is a BOY!

We had a great morning planting flowers. Brody has started to enjoy watching the flowers grow outside, so we decided to plant a few to watch inside.

We have had a lot of worms at our house recently. There are so many that they coat the driveway and even crawl up our garage door! Brody has been very interested in them, but scared to get too close to them...until today!

I was so proud of him when he decided to pick up a worm with his work gloves on. Then he decided to pull a HUGE worm out of the ground with his bare hands! We had to get a picture of that!

We have been blessed with nice weather for the past 2 weekends. Jim and I bought new bikes last week and took a ride on the White Pine trail in Rockford. It was a great time and even took us by a nice playground. Brody is getting very brave - going up and down slides and climbing all over the place!

Last Saturday night we went to a friends house to watch the MSU vs. Butler basketball game. My mom dressed Brody in MSU gear, but as you can see Jim would not let there be proof of it in pictures!

Brody got to ride on the tractor with Dad today and finished out the evening with a ride in my car back to the garage after helping change the oil. He LOVES sunglasses - especially mine!

Easter Egg Fun

We headed towards Detroit last weekend to visit with my friend Barb's Family. Brody was especially excited to see Skylar and Sydney, Barb's two little girls.

I forgot Brody's sunglasses at home, so he had to borrow mine for the ride!

He had so much fun playing with Sydney. She is 6 months younger than him, but they are about the same size. They had so much fun playing together; here they were riding in her car together on their way to a picnic!

Barb and Kory hosted an Easter Egg hunt for they neighbors and friends. Unfortunately, it ended up being a little cold and rainy on Sunday. However, that didn't stop the 38 kids from having a great time finding all 1200+ eggs! Brody had so much fun finding all of the eggs, although he could have done without seeing the Easter Bunny! We had such a great time, we are already looking forward to warmer weather for next year's hunt!

We hope everyone has a great Easter!

Spring Time is Here!...maybe?

We had a great time playing outside last week! The weather was sunny and in the mid 50s to 60s! I was beginning to believe that Spring Time was here...and then came the snow on Saturday! We probably ended up with about an inch, but luckily by Sunday the sun was back and the snow was gone!

On Saturday we decided that it would be a great opportunity to take Brody to see all of the Butterflies at Fredrick Meijer Gardens. While this seemed like a great opportunity for Brody, it meant that I was facing one of my biggest fears! I know many people think this sounds crazy, but I am so afraid of those flying creatures! The only way I can try to rationalize it is to say they are just so unpredictable and I can't control them (or run from them!). I have to say that I think I did a great job! I focused on taking my pictures and didn't swat at any of them!

One of the funniest things Brody has done happened on the way home from the gardens. He was sitting in the backseat with our neighbor, Jennie and threw a toy car towards her. I turned around and told him that he needed to say he was sorry. As soon as I got the words out of my mouth he closed his eyes and laid his head to the side (to pretend he was sleeping!). Jim and Jennie were doing everything they could to hold back their laughter and I just couldn't believe my eyes! After saying that I was going to have to put him in bed when we got home since he was sleeping, he opened his eyes and apologized! Oh what are we going to do with him???

I hope the warm weather is finding all of you!

Our First Snowman!

Surprise! Another post already!

We decided to tackle building a snowman yesterday since it was somewhat warm (34 degrees) and we had recently gotten a few inches of new snow. It was great packing snow for making our creation, but I don't think it is going to last long!

Brody didn't have much interest in helping with the building, but thought it was pretty fun to just walk around the yard while Jim and I worked on the snowman!

He did have some interest in adding the final touches. Jim and I struggled to find items to use for our snowman's features - so it turned out to be an interesting snowman/woman!

I thought the dried hydrangeas would be like "earmuffs" but instead our neighbors asked if this was a Princess Leah snowman!

Brody has been trying to help with the shoveling all winter. We finally got him a shovel that is more his size and he loves it!

Having a snowball fight with dad!

Brody decided that the snowman was an easier target!
I looked at our forecast for the next week and we should be in the 40s by next weekend! Maybe winter is on the way out!

Making Cookies!

We had a great time baking cookies together tonight. This is the first time that Brody has participated in the whole process. He really enjoyed getting all of the ingredients around, mixing and then putting the dough on the cookie sheets. The best part was eating the finished product of course!

I have come to realize that I don't take nearly as many pictures in the winter time - therefore I don't have much to add on to the blog! So it is probably time to accept that getting posts twice a month is pretty good for the winter months!

We have also been learning how to interact with Brody as he continues to push the limits to figure out who he is! Some days he leaves me ready to pull my hair out and other days he is just so darn cute that all I can do is laugh! My favorite moment in the last few weeks was both one of the scariest and funniest moments we have experienced. Jim had gotten Brody out of the car and I turned to see him halfway down our driveway (luckily we do not live on a very busy road). I told Brody to stop and come back towards us, but instead Brody looked back at me with devilish eyes and took off running towards the road. I started to yell with fear in my voice for him to stop and Jim took off running after him. Brody didn't stop before he got down to the road and Jim picked him up just as his feet hit the pavement. Brody instantly started crying and I asked him what was wrong. His answer was "I got hit by a car". I did my best to suppress my laughter as I looked at Jim and all we could say was "that is why you shouldn't run in the road". He is something else!

We are still progressing with the potty training. He doesn't ask to go to the bathroom, but does commonly use the potty at daycare and also when he gets up in the morning and before bed. The Worst part for me is that he insists on standing at the potty...which means a lot of floor mopping!

I hope everyone is enjoying their winter! Hopefully we will see spring soon!

Happy Valentine's Day!

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