Here Comes Peter Cottontail...

I never got a chance to make an Easter post because I was so busy getting things ready for the arrival of the new baby...which happened just two days after Easter Sunday. Our Easter festivities included trying to take pictures with the Easter bunny (I say trying because Reid WAS NOT having it this year), going to Grayson's school for an Easter egg hunt, dying eggs with all the cousins, and spending Easter Sunday with both sides of our family out at the lake. We ate lots of yummy food - brisket, ham, scalloped potatoes, green bean casserole, turkey and noodles, sugar cookies, and red velvet cupcakes. We had enough food to feed an army but our family LOVES to eat and after we got finished there was no food to be seen!

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This is as close as Reid got to the Easter bunny this year. We were telling him to go take a picture with the bunny and say cheese, so he got out the iPhone and was taking a picture of the bunny from a distance saying, "cheese Easter bunny."

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Easter egg hunt with Grayson at Wewoka Elementary

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Each kid had to have a basket and six eggs with their name on them for the teacher to hide. Everyone had to find all the eggs with their name on them. Aunt Johnna got Reid a basket and even made eggs with his name on them.

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Such a big boy! Snack time with Grayson's class

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Dying Easter eggs at Aunt Glenda's house

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The Easter bunny found Reid...even at the lake!

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Reid and Grayson at church on Easter Sunday

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My sweet little Easter family - and LilliAnn in my tummy!

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Reid and Jett were loving the egg hunt!

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Every time he would find an egg he would have to open it and eat the candy out of it!

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Playing in the sandbox after the egg hunt

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Big and Pregnant on Easter Sunday

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Dad of the Year :)

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Even though my ankles were swollen and I was very uncomfortable it was still a wonderful, relaxing Easter spent with those I love the most!

Letter To My Birthday Boy: 2 Years Old

Dear Reid Walter (yes, your middle name is Jackson on your birth certificate, but everyone calls you Reid Walter - that's your daddy's middle name - and although he was totally against you having the middle name Walter as we sat in the hospital 2 years ago with the birth certificate in front of us, now he wants to legally change it to Reid Walter),

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Rush - that's what we should've named you. Daddy and I always loved that name, and it would've been very fitting for you seeing as how you came a month early. My water broke and I'm just convinced it's because you were trying to kick your way out. Enough of this tight little space, you were ready to see the world. You've been like this ever since...always on the go, never slowing down. I think you've weighed 26 pounds for six months now! You never sit down long enough to eat and I spend most days following you around sticking food in your mouth while you play or feeding you in the bath tub. You are a great eater in the bath tub...weird, i know - but hey, whatever works! You didn't start walking consistently until the day after your first birthday - you realized that you could crawl to your location much faster - super crawler I called you. 

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High-maintenance and strong-willed: these are some of the words I would use to describe you. Since the day you were born you've spent almost every night in bed with us. This is probably my fault, but you wouldn't have it any other way. When you were about 7 months old we put you in your crib and I sat outside your bedroom door to let you "cry it out" as the books recommended. "It only takes a few nights and he'll only cry for a little bit. Every night it gets better," - words I had heard and read. We didn't even make it 45 minutes. You cried...no screamed...for 45 minutes straight and I sat in the kitchen floor and bawled until daddy and I couldn't take it anymore. I felt like you were a lonely animal in a cage, so helpless and afraid. I wanted you by me. I wanted to know you were safe and that you were sleeping well, even if that meant I didn't get any sleep. Most kids would've given up the crying after 10 minutes and fell asleep, but not you. You were going to cry and cry all night long because that was how stubborn you are about getting your way. You're still this way. If you want to go outside and play basketball, you will not leave someone alone until they take you outside to play basketball. Redirection does not work for you. You know what you want and nothing will change your mind. In some ways I think this may be a great quality you have - strong-willed to not give up and to go for your dreams.

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You thrive on attention and words of affirmation (I think you get this from me!). The first time I really remember learning this about you was when you were about 7 or 8 months old. You were at Nana Karen's house in your rainforest jumparoo and you had just learned how to make it bounce up and down really hard. You could bounce so fast and the look of pure joy on your face was priceless. I started clapping my hands and saying, "Go Reid, Go Reid, Go Reid," and you just ate it up! You would smile and giggle and bounce even faster. When you shoot baskets or hit the baseball you love to get right in the middle of the living room so everyone can watch you and play with you. When you make a basket or hit the ball you like everyone to clap and yell saying, "way to go" or "good job Reid!" When you do something good you always look to me to say, "what a big boy," or "yay Reid!" When you poo poo or pee pee in the potty you come to me with your hand up ready for a high five, smiling from ear to ear and saying "I pee peed potty mommy!" Just so I'll say..."Yay! Good job Reid!"

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But what I really want you to know if how much I love you. I never ever imagined that I could love someone this much. I've loved you since the morning I walked into the bathroom and got your daddy out of the shower to show him the positive pregnancy test. As he hugged me and said, "we did it," I thought to myself, yes we did - and I love the baby so much already! I wanted to provide you with all the "best" and set you up with a solid foundation. I did all the things a new mom does - no caffeine, drugs, or alcohol during pregnancy, I didn't miss one day of prenatal vitamins and even took the ones with DHA, I breastfed you for 13 months, fed you organic rice cereal, organic baby food, and organic juice, bought juice with less sugar and no high fructose corn syrup, I read and researched on vitamins, nutrition, and immunizations, I bought you educational toys and Baby Einstein videos, classic books and Discovery toys, took you to get pictures every month for your first year of life and took thousands of pictures of you myself, I took you to church and made sure you spent lots of time with family....I did all of this because I love you. And what I've realized is that even if I wouldn't have done any of this you would still love me....just because I'm your mommy. And ever time I rock you, or sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star or Muffin Man to you, or play baseball or basketball with you, or you say "hold you mommy" and I pick you up and I see how happy it makes you, I love you even more - and I really don't know how that's possible. 

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A little bit about Reid

Things you like:

• baseball, basketball, any type of ball!
• Tickle Monster book
• singing, especially Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Muffin Man
• sausage
• pretzels
• cheese
• Nana's chicken and dumplings
• fruit, especially oranges, kiwi, strawberries, and grapes
• motorcycles
• riding the Gator
• Barney movies
• Thomas the Train
• Wee Sing movies
• playing ouside, especially in the sandbox
• going down slides
• iPhones and your iTouch
• helping sweep and pushing the buttons on the washer and dryer
• taking baths
• puzzles
• popsicles
• watching Kassidy Cook play baseball
• drawing "R, D" - you always say "I wanna draw RD" when you want to write
• for mommy to "hold you" 
• dancing, especially doing the Jerk with Uncle Kass
• swimming, especially in the hot tub
• shoes, especially boots of any kind
• playing with Jaxon (and Chloe when we're at the lake)

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Things you don't like:

• washing your hair
• laying down to go to bed
• yogurt, and you're not a big fan of icecream
• mashed potatoes
• playing by yourself
• wet diapers
• putting something on that you did not want to wear!

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Happy 2nd Birthday to my little boy - I love you more than you'll ever know!  Mommy

Showered with Love

I had a wonderful baby shower just nine days before LilliAnn was born! The shower was supposed to be a surprise, but because of the predicted ice and snow storm that was supposed to hit us on the weekend of the shower date it was moved to the next weekend so the word sort of "leaked out" (Aunt Johnna!). I kind of suspected I was having a shower when my mom told me that I needed to get a dress to wear "just in case" someone was to give me a shower. No one had really mentioned giving me a shower, besides the one I had a work, and I just figured that I really didn't need a shower for my second baby - even though it was a different sex. The shower was at my parents' house and my mom, Suzanne, Blair, my cousin Mica, and my Aunt Johnna stayed up until 4 am the night before to decorate and make sure that everything looked just perfect for my baby girl shower!

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Love the invitation!

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LilliAnn is named after my great-grandmother, Lillian McKenzie, so they decorated with some of Grandma McKenzie's things.

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This is a picture that grandma had drawn and she loved scrabble so they used some of her old scrabble pieces.

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A picture of Lillian and her pink telephone

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My very best friend, Kari

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Mica and Stacey enjoying their pink champagne

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Time to open gifts!

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Lovin' all this cute girl stuff!

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This is a little table that my cousin/sister-in-law, Lacee, painted for LilliAnn

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Reid even helped me open gifts

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With my mother-in-law, Missy

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Kelli Ann - 9 months pregnant, Lacee - 4 months pregnant

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Look at that belly!

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Mom got me a little package with inspirational motherly quotes in it...she read one to me every day until LilliAnn was born.

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The Decorators - Suzanne and Blair Brown

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The hand-made smocked gown and bonnet that my Aunt Gayla made for LilliAnn

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The Fabulous Four - Julie, Kelli Ann, Kari, & Logan

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Girls and their boys...Julie & Cash, Kelli Ann & Reid, Sassy & Crewe

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The Girls...Lacee, Mica, Kelli Ann, Logan, Kari, Stacey, & Sassy

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So many cute clothes

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I couldn't have asked for a more perfect baby shower. I was truly showered with so much love!