All Myself, Potty Woes & Grandma!

We are pretty settled in here at home with two kiddos now. Blake is still hitting the terrible twos pretty hard, and she has to do everything, "ALL MYSELF". Anyone who knew Lauren as a child is probably laughing hysterically at this point since Lauren was known to have to do everything all by herself, too ;) On top of the terrible twos, Blake has had a major relapse on her potty training. She was going potty without any accidents and going poopy some, and now she's rarely even making it to the potty to pee. We knew the introduction of Wyatt would likely cause something like this, but it's still frustrating. At any rate Lauren has learned that the more she asks Blake if she wants to go potty the more Blake refuses. So, it's probably just another thing that Blake's going to have to do, "ALL MYSELF". Here's a few pics from last week:

Wyatt getting bundled up to go out in our steamy 8 degree weather


Blake taking a break after throwing a fit. Lauren asked her to put her Crocs on the correct feet. As you can see in the picture, Lauren lost this battle.
a closeup of our sweet baby boy
Wyatt sporting Grampy's colors
Grandma got to come visit us for this week, so Blake is taking full advantage of having a third person to ask things of if the other two don't give her the answer she wants. We are happy to have the help, but poor Grandma is having to put up with our single digit temps and snow. Hopefully, the time with the kiddos is worth it to her.

Grandma snuggling a sleepy Blake
Grandma & Blake attempting a nap together
Blake decided that she needed to take a bath in the sink. She's getting a little big for this.
Wyatt's still a tiny little bugger - most of his clothes are still pretty baggy
Wyatt's bath time
Hope everyone is staying warm!

Swimming with Friends

Jess, Kyle, Natalie & Beckett were in Billings to do some shopping and spend the night. So Suzi, Claire, Gracie, Blake, Wyatt & Lauren all crashed their hotel pool to let the kids swim. Lauren wasn't going to swim since she still had little Wyatt to watch, so we were a little worried that Blake would be really shy and not actually swim. We were right. But, she seemed perfectly content to splash her feet in the water. And she did sit on one of the steps in the pool once...being the daring child that she is ;) What was really funny was that Lauren was talking to Blake before they left the house about wether or not she would let Kyle, Jess or Suzi take her swimming. Blake kept telling Lauren, "Momma, I not shy".

Anyway, here are some of the pics that we got.

Natalie & Blake hanging by the hot tub
Mr. Beckett
Gracie & Claire
Lauren just thinks this is the cutest pic of Claire, Blake & Gracie
Blake splashing her feet in the pool
Natalie & Beckett
Gracie & Blake
Little Miss Gracie
Beckett, Claire, Natalie & Blake enjoying some goldfish on the bed after swimming
It was so good to get to see best friends from college and their kiddos. Blake, Beckett and Gracie were all born within 4 months of each other, so it's always nice for Blake to get to play with some kiddos her own age. And, Suzi is due to have a baby boy in March, so Wyatt and new baby Smith will be really close in age too. Hope all is well with everyone - we're still enjoying our sweet baby boy!

More Pics

We went in for Wyatt's first well baby check and he is doing fine. He weighs in at 6 lbs. 4 oz. and is now 19 1/4" long (guess he shrunk). He is in the 25th percentile for both height & weight. More importantly, his bili levels were fine! So, no more heel pricks for those stupid blood tests - YAY!

Well, Lauren just LOVES taking pics of our babies, so here are some of the most recent pics:

Grandma cuddling Wyatt

Sleepy Wyatt
Wyatt sporting some striped jammies
Our little guy sacked out in his bouncy seat thingy
TOUCHDOWN!!!
Blake & Wyatt trying to nap together
Bob and the babes
Blake wanted to go for a walk today, so we got all bundled up and took a short walk around our block. It was pretty windy, so we didn't stay out long. It was nice to get out in the fresh air though. Poor Wyatt was pretty bundled up in his infant carrier.
Needless to say, there is a tad bit of sleep deprivation at our house. Blake just crashed sitting up on the couch this evening. She's been watching Lauren constantly partially undress to feed Wyatt, so she's decided she didn't need a shirt. And heck, if you're not gonna wear a shirt why bother with the pants, right?! What a goofy kiddo.
Finally, here is one of Lauren's newest favorite pics of little Wyatt. What a beautiful little man!
Hope this finds everyone getting more sleep than we are...but probably not as much fun ;)

Wyatt Louis

Well, Wyatt turned out to be somewhat of a repeat of what had happened when little miss Blake was born. Lauren's blood pressure started to creep up a little over a week ago. So last Wednesday when the bottom number was over 100, Lauren's doctor told her that he was going to induce labor. We went in to the hospital at 8 p.m. on the 19th, and Wyatt Louis made his entrance into the world at 12:39 p.m. on Thursday, January 20th at 6 lbs. 11 oz. and 19 3/4 inches long. Here's a pic of daddy holding Wyatt right after delivery.

And here's a not-so-flattering one of mommy and Wyatt

Little Wyatt all bundled up

Lauren's mom caught a flight up to help us out over the weekend. She was able to fly in early on the 21st. Grandma has had plenty of opportunities to hang with BOTH Wyatt and proud big sister, Blake. Here they are on the couch in the hospital room. Blake is saying, "CHEESE!"

Blake, Grandma & Wyatt watching TV in the hospital room

Blake getting kisses from Grandma

Blake sneaking a sip of Grandma's ice tea jug that Bob brought up to the hospital for her.

Wyatt, Grandma and Blake reading (Wyatt's hiding underneath that recieving blanket)

Our little man hasn't quite grown into his clothes just yet, but he sure looks cute in those baggy jammies :)

Wyatt all snuggled up - HOME AT LAST!!!

Even though we were discharged from the hospital this afternoon, we have to go back in for a bilirubin test in the morning. As some of you may remember, Blake was jaundice and had to spend a few extra days in the pediatrics unit getting photo therapy. It looks like Lauren's blood type just isn't too compatable with our babes which causes antibodies to attack the red blood cells which creates high bilirubin levels - hence jaundice. Wyatt actually seems to be doing better than where Blake was when we had to go back into the hospital, but we'll just have to wait for the test in the morning to see if we'll have to do the photo therapy or not. So for now, Lauren has to feed every 2 hours through the night to help our little boy fight this off. The bilirubin is excreated as bile through the intestines (they poop it out), so we're hoping for tons of poop this evening and praying that all is well by the test in the morning. The good news is that the blog got updated pretty quickly with new pics since it'll likely be a long night for us ;)

Potty Time!

It has been pretty chilly up this direction. We had a nice week or so in there of somewhere around 30 degree weather, but we're getting geared up for another week of sub-zero temps...ugh! Here's a picture from a couple weeks ago. You know it's cold when you have to dress up like this just to go to Wal-Mart.

Blake has been potty training, and she's been doing pretty darn good. She went the first three days with zero success, but then that forth day she only had one accident all day long! She is really good at letting us know when she needs to go, so hopefully that keeps up - fingers crossed. She's still struggling with going poopy in the potty...surely she'll catch on soon ;)

For the sake of adding an extra picture, here's one from last week - good morning!


Blake's been sick again the last couple weeks. She had a pretty high fever for a few days, and then she ran a low grade fever with super gunky eyes, runny nose and cough. As she was slowly getting better, she got a little bit of a rash on each side of her mouth which we really didn't think much of since she tends to get dry skin this time of year anyway. Well, then one morning she woke up with this on her finger.

This massive blister just kept swelling until finally Lauren poked a little hole in it to drain while Blake was napping one day. She's still battling this stupid blister, but it's looking much better. It did move down her finger though - WEIRD! When Lauren called the nurse, they mentioned that it could be hand foot mouth disease. Lauren didn't really think much of that since it was just one blister. BUT after mentioning it her obstetrician today, Lauren is thinking that it may have very well been hand foot mouth. Lauren's doctor pulled up several pictures of what it looks like and confirmed that it can be extremely mild to the point where you don't even realize your child had it. We never really connected the mouth rash with the blister, but it sure looks A LOT like the pictures that the doctor showed Lauren. The good news is that she's probably over it now, and it's nothing Lauren has to worry about affecting the pregnancy. Speaking of, Lauren still seems to be on track with little Wyatt Louis (name stands as long as it really is a boy - Lauren still has her doubts). Lauren will be 38 weeks this Sunday and most everything is looking good. Lauren was induced with Blake due to high blood pressure about 9 days before Blake's due date. It looks like Lauren's blood pressure is starting to creep up again with this pregnancy, so we may have a repeat. For now, we just wait until the next appointment on the 19th when they check the BP again. Otherwise, things are going well in that department.

This post is getting a little wordy, but we've got to share this Blake story:
Blake is just tall enough with her crocs on to turn on the living room light. She was whining yesterday that she wanted the light on, so Lauren told her that if she put her crocs on she would be able to reach the light. Blake walked over and grabbed one croc in her hand and used it to turn the light on - show off!

Merry Christmas!

Merry, merry Christmas to everyone! We woke up this morning, and we all must have been on the "nice list" because Santa had stopped by and left us some goodies. Here's Blake playing with her snowman snow globe.
Even Copa & Maddie had their stockings stuffed. Copa was particularly excited to get to go through all the goodies in her stocking. Maddie hardly ever gets too excited about anything, and today was no different. They each got a life jacket from Santa. Those will come in really handy this summer on the boat. Here's Maddie modeling hers.
Copa in her life jacket
Both the girls humoring Mom for a nice holiday picture ;)
Well since we are quite a ways away from most of the family, we took some video of Christmas morning. It starts off in Blake's room (the light wasn't on) right when she got out of bed this morning. We've had issues with Blake leaking through her diaper overnight again, so we had to change her right away - hence the wardrobe change in the video. After we were all finished opening up Santa's gifts and going through our stockings, Blake ran up to Lauren and hugged her legs whining, "Santa!" Lauren asked her what was wrong and Blake cried, "Santa go home". I guess she thought he should stick around and play or something :)

Christmas Eve

It's been a Brune tradition to open up gifts from family on the evening of Christmas Eve. We were going to continue that tradtion and probably will when the kiddos get a little older. But, we decided to let Blake open gifts in the morning, so she would have plenty to keep her busy for the day. Plus, we didn't really want to try to adjust nap time, bath time, etc. for the gift opening ordeal just to have her go to bed right after opening presents. Here she is opening some of her loot.
So much fun!!!
Blake & Mom playing with some of the trains that Blake got from Mom & Dad.
Daddy got Blake the coolest little guitar book set with the characters from the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Blake was JAMMIN!
Opening up all those gifts was a lot of work!
Right before we went to bed, Blake got really wide eyed and was peeking into the kitchen. She could hear voices from the TV that we had left on in the bedroom. Lauren explained to her that it was just the TV. Blake said, "oh...not Santa?!"