Beautiful Days!

We are staying busy around here!!  Most days that I am not working the boys and I play outside, go to the park, Monkey Treehouse, or the zoo.  We have had several showings of our house lately so once the house is spotless and clean we leave!  I literally finish cleaning, get the boys up from their naps, and take them straight to the car. With Sutton crawling so fast, and Cohen being two, the house gets so messy, so fast!




Sutton Henry's first time in a swing




Cohen loves brushing the goats again this year!
He sat right next to this guy and just brushed him.





This is Cohen and his friends Duke and Liam. Duke and Liam are
the two boys that go to Miss Lily's with Cohen and Sutton.
Miss Lily sends us pics of the boys all day. I love this one!



Cohen is such an animal lover.

Loving My 3 Boys!

Ramblings

Several times throughout any given day I talk to God. I was a "say your prayers at bedtime" kinda gal until I got pregnant with Cohen in June of 2009 and that went out the window as the first trimester sleepiness took over. Since then I literally fall asleep within one minute of laying down. 
I have decided I am now a "talk to God all the time like he is sitting right beside me" kinda gal. I like this better. I talk to my Father all the time in my car, when I am in the shower, and when I am awake at night with Sutton.  I feel like this has strengthed our relationship. I think you should try it too:)

Speaking of being awake with Sutton at night. I have a confession....
I don't let him cry it out anymore when he wakes up at night. I happily get up to nurse him and cuddle him, no matter what time at night it is. I have realized with my second child how fleeting those middle-of-the-night-feedings are. I only wished Co woke up at night and wanted me to hold him and soothe him to sleep. So I will continue to nurse Sutton at 2am as long as he wants too....and I may even nurse him until he is 2.....and I don't care what anyone says about it!

I have also been getting Cohen out of his bed and moving him to our bed a couple of nights a week. I love it when he sleeps between Chad and I, and Chad enjoys it too. Cohen likes to hold our hands, fingers interlocked:)  My heart cries,
"Oh, dear Father, how you fill our hearts up with so much love and praise to You! We are not worthy."

Hope you have a great weekend!

Kelly

Potty Time

Cohen is such an awesome kiddo.  I think he is such a smart boy.  Our babysitter Miss Lily has been teaching him to use the potty for about 6 weeks now.  He has 0 desire to use the potty at our house, but goes 75% of the time at Lily's.  He always poops in the potty at her house....at home he says, "No potty!" and screams.  But, I am in no hurry to potty train him right now, so I'm going to wait until he tells us he has to go.

He is such a kind-hearted child, yet is super-prone to meltdowns recently.  Everything is a big deal to him after 5pm. These tantrums don't help well as I am trying to wean off the Prozac. When he has these extreme meltdowns, it really challenges me and makes me feel like I have no parenting skills.  Now that our house is for sale we never leave without it being spic and span.  This is where his toddler tantrums become very stressful.  Having to clean and straighten the house while also dealing with a typical 2 year old really stresses me out.  But I must remember, this too shall pass.

But in the meantime if any one has any parenting books or skills related to dealing with 2 year old meltdowns, I'd love to hear about them.

Here are some pictures of our wild, crazy, but oh-so-loving big boy Cohen Michael.

We went "Krogering" and he had to share his stickers.

Glad Sutton doesn't have any hair.

This is his new favorite thing to do:)

Oh, Cohen, how we love you so!! Words cannot express how richly blessed we are.

7 months!!

Our sweet baby boy is 7 months now!  Wow!  It is so hard to believe.  Sutton is full of smiles and is such a lover.  He loves his Mommy more than I can explain.  When Cohen was his age, he would coo and talk and smile at me, and it just melted my heart.  However, Sutton is different.  He really just stares at me like I am the most wonderful, beautiful thing he has ever seen.  Numerous times while nursing he just stops and smiles at me like he cannot get enough of his Mommy.  I hope this lasts a long time.

Tonight I asked Chad if we could call him "Henry" instead of Sutton because I love "Henry" so much.  He, of course, said "No, I think Sutton is such a cool name." I love Sutton, but I also love Henry.  I feel like I used 2 perfect names on one child.  So we are going to be struggling for more boy names when we decide we are ready for #3.

Sutton is still an extreme spitter.  He is trying out for the Olympic Team, actually.  And we think he has a great chance:)  I hate it when people say their child has "projectile vomit" when it really just goes a couple of inches from their mouth.  I will never misuse that term myself again after having our little Sutton Henry.  He is really impressive about 24 times per day.  He throws up at least a half an ounce after each feeding, sometimes more like an ounce and a half.  (Being a nurse, these amounts aren't merely estimates.....nurses can tell you how many milliliters they pee each time they go to the bathroom just because we always have to be right on with our measurements:))  And when he throws up, it will go, on average, 1 foot away, sometimes 2.  I can tell when he does if I am not around because Cohen says, "Uh-oh, Sut-TON!!"

Sutton,
You are such a sweet, happy boy!  You cackle at your brother every day.  I hope you boys always remain very close.  I will be one happy Mommy if you love Jesus, love your brother, and love and respect your parents. You are meeting your milestones very quickly...."overachiever!!"  You got your bottom two teeth at six months.
You started sitting unassisted at 6 months and 2 weeks.   By 6 months and three weeks you were crawling. This makes my life a little more difficult! You can get across the room very quickly! But as long as your brother is close by, you don't go too far:)  You have started to "talk" and say "babababa" often. Cohen copies you. I wonder if you guys are speaking in code sometimes. Cohen gets really bothered if someone he doesn't know tries to talk to you or look at you.  He runs over to you in your stroller or carseat and puts his hand over you and says "Sut-TON!" in a whiny voice.  He is very protective of you.
We love you to the heavens and back!!
Mommy, Daddy, and Cohen

Moving On...Hopefully

We are putting our townhome up for sale!

We have lived in our home since a few months after we got married in 2006.  After being blessed with two precious children, we have outgrown our house!  And since it is spring and we have nothing to loose, we are selling.  Hopefully!!  As far as where we are going when it sells, all we know is we are staying in Brentwood.  Or should I say, "moving to the real Brentwood where we are actually in Williamson County."  I love moving.  I think that comes from growing up with a contractor as a dad. He built every house we ever lived in, and I have fond memories of weekly trips to Home Depot to get supplies.
So if you know of anyone that is interested in a 3 bedroom townhome with awesome neighbors, and Starbucks, Publix, Walgreens, Kroger, Las Palmas, and Sweet Cece's all within walking distance...

Send them to Kyle Felts

Crossing our fingers for a quick sale!

Kelly

I have a secret...

I am not exactly sure who this blog audience consists of, but I would venture to guess that most people who read this regularly know me personally. Most of you probably know what I am about to tell you, so forgive me if you do. I am telling this because it is cathartic for me.

My family has a pretty strong history of depression. I have never really struggled with depression, and I somewhat prided myself on that. To me depression was something you had control over. As in, "quit being so stinkin' sad and realize how blessed you are." It annoyed me greatly when someone told me they were depressed.
All that changed on July 4, 2010. I woke up that morning with a very strong feeling of apathy. I was totally indifferent to my 5 month old, my husband, my job, everything. It literally happened over night. It was not even scary to me, because I truly didn't care about anything. I didn't even care that I didn't care. I remember just praying to my wonderful Father while I showered that morning. I was praying for Him to take those feelings away, or lack thereof. I knew I had no reason to be apathetic, yet I was. The next few days went by in a fog. I only can recall that I constantly prayed that I would care about my family and feel connected to them. A few days later, I called my OB's office and left a message for the on-call nurse. She must have sensed urgency in my voice, because I had the on-call doc stop me at the nurses' station at work later that day and ask me what was going on. She told me that she had the same feelings after her twins were born years earlier, and that I would feel normal again. She gave me a prescription for Prozac.

Later that day, another doctor that I work with, a male doctor, stopped me and asked me if I was "okay" because I seemed depressed. I was shocked that he noticed. That was a sign that I needed to take the Prozac. Chad was very worried throughout these dark weeks. He didn't understand what I had to be "sad" about, and neither did I.
I got the prescription filled that day.
The pharmacist advised me not to breastfeed while taking Prozac, so I quit taking it after 2 weeks because I was worried what it was doing to my baby. I got a prescription for Effexor and an estrogen patch, both of which are to help depression subside. Neither worked for me, probably because I was once again worried about the effects of the drug on Cohen, so I quit taking the Effexor after a few weeks.
Slowly I came out of the funk and started to feel normal again when Cohen was 10 months.
I was extremely worried I would have this problem again with my second child. I dreaded it. I was so scared that I had felt so un-connected to my family and the world around me and was desperate to avoid it this time.
My doctor gave me a script for Prozac on the day I was discharged from the hospital after having Sutton. I filled it immediately and began taking it the next day. I consulted with the lactation nurses, several OB docs, a few friends, and my friend Katie who is a pharmacist...all who agreed that the benefits far outweigh the risks to Sutton through breastmilk. I have been taking it ever since.
It is typical to wean of the Prozac at 6 months postpartum. So I am starting to do that now, although I am a little apprehensive. Okay, a lot. Maybe totally terrified is more like it. We'll see how it goes.

Hoping for lots of bright days!
Kelly

Family Pictures

We had Cohen's 2 year and Sutton's 6 month pictures taken last weekend. My fabulous sister-in-law normally  takes our pictures but she is such an amazing photographer that she is always booked with either weddings or family shoots that it's difficult for us to coordinate our schedules. So...our friend and neighbor Tiffany Sharpe took some great pictures. You can find her, or my sister in law Mollie Cochrane on Facebook:)

In all of our family pictures someone was either having a meltdown or closing their eyes:/

This makes me smile!

Daddy and his baby boy!

Daddy and his big boy!
Chad looks super "studly" in this picture!

Hahaha!!!

I am SO glad I am not the type to pay several hundred dollars for pictures of my kids. Why? Because since Cohen has turned 2, the camera-loving, cooperative child has vanished and has been replaced with a tantrum-throwing toddler. Tiffany was a trooper because Cohen did not want to cooperate AT ALL, yet she still got a few smiles.