home sweet home!

Hello again!  Yes, it's been quite a few months since I've written, and I promise I have good reason!  So much has happened and we have been on the go non stop.  Way back in April, we decided it was time to move our little family of 3 out to the suburbs, and back to Katy.  We fell in love with a neighborhood in Fulshear called Cross Creek Ranch and decided on a floor plan to build, a great 1.5 story house that would be perfect for us!  We ran home, cleaned up the townhouse, and put it on the market 2 days later.  We were very lucky to quickly accept an offer, and one that was willing to let us stay through the summer when our new house would be ready.  Things got a little shaky at the end, but luckily it all worked out perfectly and late on July 31st we moved out of the townhouse and into our new home!

Throughout all of this, I knew that it was time for a change in my job.  I found a new school in HISD that was by the Galleria along Westpark, and this was a way better location for living so far out of town.  I was so so excited about the school, principal, and that my best friend from my previous school also was transferring, but I knew I would spend a lot of time driving and not so much time with my little man.  Luckily the stars aligned, and a math job opened up at a junior high in Katy right by our house, which meant I was less than 10 minutes from the new house and Braden's new school - big time score! We just completed the first week of school, and I am definitely teaching in a complete different atmosphere then I've been used to the last 6 years!  I am loving the school and know it will be great, but I also will miss my inner city kids who meant so much to me and truly appreciated everything I did for them.

Matt has been a busy little bee too, getting not one, but two promotions over the last few months!  He is now in charge of the Med Center doing endoscopy sales for Smith & Nephew, and I am proud of his hard work.  His company also asked him to become a trainer, so he will go their headquarters in Andover a few times a year to lead trainings.  He isn't quite loving the drive in to town so far ;) but hopefully he can figure out a good time to leave and not hit major traffic every day.

Braden continues to amaze us - he is one cute little boy and one smart cookie!  He was home with me all summer and was on the verge of walking, but just wasn't seeing enough other little kids to know that he was supposed to do that.  Within a week or so of being back at school, he became a walking pro and is so proud of himself.  He turned ONE this past week, and what was supposed to be a fun weekend with family in town was ruined by the stomach bug.  Poor little guy has been sick sick sick, along with his Dad who has also been sick for a week now, so we haven't had time to really celebrate him turning 1.

This was approximately 1 hour before Braden broke in the new house and barfed everywhere, it will never be the same!  Ha!

Quite the bookworm!

Cheese puffs are yummy :)

Oh yea, I also turned the big 3-0 in July!  My sweet girlfriends took me out to a yummy sushi dinner and surprised me a huge gift card to go shopping - it is sitting in a drawer waiting to be used after Matt goes on a few hunting trips and I get some time to myself!  My parents also kept Braden for a night so Matt and I could celebrate by going to Eddie V's and to see the new Batman - I think this is our new favorite restaurant for a nice meal out, it is so good!

A&M kicks off their season next weekend with ESPN Gameday coming - I couldn't be more excited for football, fall, and yummy drinks returning to Starbucks!  Hope everyone is doing wonderful!

1st Mother's Day pics

 I could kiss this face all day long!

little climber

We have a new trick at 8 months - somewhere, without any help or direction, this little boy learned to crawl up the stairs!  We were at Matt's parents last weekend, and he just climbed over to a few steps and took off climbing up them.  I was shocked because he's never really seen them, besides this one side step that we let him play on, but he was a pro.  There are 2 little steps to his nursery at our house, so today I let him crawl up over and over again, and he had so much fun!  It's all good right now until he notices you can go down them, which I'm definitely not ready for. :)

Braden is still the busiest little bee, and wants to be in all the action, all the time.  It's great that you can just see his wheels turning as he moves from toy to toy, but we don't get much rest at all chasing him around the room all day.  He's unfortunately had 3 back to back ear infections, so he finally has an appointment with an ENT at the end of this month, where I assume we'll end up getting tubes.  Solid food is a struggle, but hopefully one day soon he'll realize it's fun to eat real food.  He's been stuck at 19 lb., 13 oz. for over a month now, and he's turning into a string bean!  People still look at him and tell me he's huge for his age, but he's only in the 55th percentile for weight, so I don't know where their comments are coming from.  We are loving this age and can't wait for him to start talking so we can hear his precious little voice!

 Stairs are f-u-n!

 Window watching

 "I'm sexy and I know it"

8 Month little sweetie - missing his sticker because it's lost in the pantry, oops!

call me crazy

So I did something a little crazy yesterday that one of my (very) nerdy computer friends suggested - I went ahead and secured my 8 month old child a Yahoo email address... and maybe a Gmail... and maybe even a Twitter account too.

That's right, bradenturner15@yahoo.com, bradenturner15@gmail.com, and @bradenturner15 are all locked up for little B to use 10 years down the road when all the basic name email addresses have been taken.  Sounds a little crazy, but the more I think about it, it's a genius move!  Even I haven't changed my email since I got married because anything related to my new last name is taken, and it automatically suggests something crazy with five numbers involved, plus periods and underscores - too much for people to remember.  I can't imagine Yahoo!/Gmail/Twitter not being around 10 years from now, and one day he will thank me for being such a crazy mother and doing this!

Matt asked if I had already made other ones for names of future children we might have - don't worry, I'm not that crazy, but it definitely crossed my mind too before he said it!

my cutie pie

7 month mark!

I couldn't get a decent picture this month - above we have fingers in our mouth scoping out tooth #3 that just popped through, and below we have his lizard tongue that is constantly sticking out now - he is too silly!

Braden has been keeping our pediatrician busy the last few weeks with first an ear infection, then stomach virus, then another ear infection this week - poor thing!  He was sent home from daycare yesterday with a 102.8 temperature, so I had to stay home with the little bug today.  It's amazing that thru all his different sicknesses, he is usually still SO happy!  I just got these 2 pics of him exploring around the living room.  We've definitely had to start baby-proofing the house because he is interested in every little thing on the floor or plugged into the wall.  I feel like my arms are getting stronger every day too carrying him around - he's right at 19 lbs., 14 ounces, and can't seem to tip over 20 lb. mark!

big boy

 Decided to pull up 1 day before his 7 month birthday!

 "Mom, that flash is TOO bright!"

(Does he not look SO SO big in this pic?!)

 Hello world!

 Stretching?  Headstand?  Downward dog?

 Do I have something on my face?

Hmmm, how did he get up here?!

pedialyte, popsicles, and pecan pies

It's been a yucky few days at the Turner house!  Thursday night Braden came down with his first stomach virus, and it was a nasty one.  He was sick during winter off and on for probably three months, but this was the first time he was realllyyy sick and couldn't keep anything down.  I talked to our nurse Friday morning, who said there was indeed a terrible virus going around, and that I needed to start giving him Pedialyte every 10 minutes for the rest of the day, increasing the number of tablespoons each hour that went on.  Ohhh my, it was a long day, with a sad little boy, and although we got his vomiting to stop, he's still not 100% better and I know his poor little tummy is so upset.

Can we say pathetic??  Poor little Chubbs :/

Luckily my Mom was already coming in town to babysit Saturday night, so we got some time off to attend the wedding of one of my most favorite friends, Amanda Cleghorn!  She and her fiancé Peter had the most perfect wedding out in Fulshear, at a great place called Ray's Grill.  This picture does not do it justice, but she had the most beautiful arrangements, and so many cute touches that she really put a lot of thought into.  For the Grooms cake, she made homemade mini pecans pies, that were oh so cute and mighty delicious!  Everything had sort of an outdoorsy feel, and cute little rustic touches along with lots of lavender through out.  I'm pretty jealous, as they are heading to Iceland for their Honeymoon - how cool is that?!

Fast forward to this morning around 3 AM - Matt and I were both tossing and turning, and I said "I don't feel good", and he said the exact same thing back to me, and bam, Braden's bug had now hit both of us.  Matt got it much worse than I did, and literally has not been out of the bedroom all day, and now has a 101 temp too.  I spent the whole day running popsicles and Gatorade up to him, and trying to entice Braden to keep drinking Pedialyte, which he is not a fan of anymore, so it's been one crazy day.  Hoping tomorrow both of my boys will be feeling better and back to their chipper self's!

First Foods

Braden had his 6 month appointment a few weeks back, and was *only* 18 lb., 10 oz., which was a few pounds less than what we thought!  He is still a chunky monkey, and his chubby thighs barely fit into his Polo outfits for this summer, so that is creating a little problem in his wardrobe selection.  He's really surprised us lately, and is sitting up, can roll over and sit up, crawling (for real!), and pulling up too - where did my baby go?!  It's exciting to see him discover all these new things, but we're having a hard time getting him to sleep because all he wants to do is sit up and move all over his crib!  He just started eating solid food last week, and it's been interesting so far.  He really seems to understand the spoon, and looooves avocado, but everything else he is a little weary of.  I really want him to be a non-picky eater, so I'm going to have to re-vamp my sweet potato recipe per the video below!

Do you think he likes sweet potatoes?? ;)

Luckily avocado and banana went a little better.  Love this boy so much!

then and now

I pulled out my Flip camera to start using more, and I found a few videos from the hospital that I didn't even know about!  It's pretty funny that Braden looks bigger the day he was born than he is right now.  Listen carefully to hear Matt's 'hot wings and mexican food' comment... good thing I didn't hear that in the hospital or he would have been immediately slapped!

Here's a little peek of him at 5 months!  Tooth #2 officially arrived today - or most likely at 3 AM when we were both up with him and couldn't get him to eat without shrieking and crying - poor little guy!

My 5 month little man!

We've reached quite a few milestones this month, some good, some bad!  Braden has been battling a really bad chest congestion off and on for almost 2 months now.  We've had multiple RSV tests, but they always come back negative, so we've been told 'it'll go away soon.'  Well, not so much the case.  We were at the doctor twice in the last week and FINALLY after all these visits and being diagnosed with bronchiolitis, we were able to start breathing treatments at home to hopefully give him some relief.  We also discovered his third ear infection at one of the appointments - I don't think there's any doubt tubes are in his future!

Through it all, Braden has really been a trooper - he is still so happy and smiley, and I just love every day with him.  5 months is such a great age - he's definitely changing interests in what he likes to play with, but is also content just laying on the floor and rolling around.  He started sleeping on his stomach over the last few weeks, which almost gave me a heart attack.  The first 10 days or so I got NO sleep, as I would get up 20+ times a nigh to check on him.  Luckily I became so sleep deprived that I was too tired to even get up one night, and realized he's ok and I should just let him be!  We still haven't gotten him to really sleep through the night - a few times here and there, but I feel like we're finally getting close, fingers crossed.  His first tooth - bottom left side - popped through right on his 5 month birthday, and we can see the next one starting to peep through as well!

What else is happening at 5 months...

- eating 6 oz. every 3.5-4 hours (I need this solely for me to remember down the road!)
- weighs 17 lb., 10 oz.
- is rolling back to front only
- scooting a little, but seems less interested in trying to crawl than he was a few weeks ago
- drooling, teething, eating his feet or anything in sight!
- sleeps on his right side or stomach

- wakes up between 6 and 7 AM, goes to bed by 7:30 PM, getting up once a night

- laughs, smiles, laughs, smiles, etc. etc. etc!

We love you little man!!!