I have been feeling really bad lately about not posting anything in a long time.  But, today I was looking at other’s blogs and realized most of my friends are in the same boat so I stopped feeling so bad.  I guess an update is well over due.

Michael is 3.  He knows is ABC’s and can recognize both capital letters and lower case letters.  He can count up to 13 and can recognize up to 10.  He started preschool in March and absolutely loves it.  He rides a bus and every morning he asks if he gets to ride the bus.  He is taking swim lessons this summer, his favorite part is jumping in.  Today he kept getting out of the pool because he wanted to jump in.  Then when it was finally time to jump in he didn’t realize it so it took him a while before he got out.  He is talking a lot better now which is soooo nice.  When Michael was 2 and I complained that he was difficult everyone told me 3’s were worse.  I have to disagree, Michael is so much better now that he is 3!

This is Michael’s Birthday Cake I made him.  It was a lot of fun, and I’m glad it turned out.

Michael’s first day of Preschool

The school bus:

Daniel just turn 1 a little over a week ago.  I can’t believe how fast this past year went by.  He is walking really well, loves to eat, and color.  It is amazing at how fast he catches on to things.  Daniel loves fruit!  This is a huge change, Michael has never like any fruit.  It is amazing at how different our boys are, they even look so different.  People are always telling me that Daniel looks like my side of the family and Michael looks like David.

Pictures of swim lessons and Daniel’s birthday will hopefully be posted soon. I haven’t uploaded them to the computer yet.

We went to the circus a couple weeks ago. Michael was scared out of his mind most of the time. Apparently he doesn’t like clowns. He did enjoy the trapeze artist though. Daniel did really well, he even fell asleep during the show. I have no idea how he could fall asleep with all the noise. We rode the MAX out there and back. It was a long ride, but fun.

We were only able to get a few pictures before a woman came around saying pictures were not aloud.

Here are some random pictures I took of my little boys yesterday. Michael loves to play with Daniel and is getting much better at being gentle.

We gave Daniel solid food for the first time on the 9th. He did so well, he ate it without any problem. He hasn’t done quite as well since then, but still pretty good.

Daniel turned 4 months on November 5. His doctor’s appointment went really well, he cried for a split sec after his second shot. He stopped right as I put his binki in his mouth. Here are his stats:

Weight: 16 lbs 7 oz 80th percentile (he gained 2 pounds in 2 months)
Height: 27 1/4 inches 97th percentile (he grew 3 inches in 2 months)
Head: 17 inches 90th percentile (1 inch bigger)

I can’t believe how big he is. He is as tall as Michael was and weighs more then he did at 6 months. I wonder if he will be bigger then Michael when they are all grown up?

Here is Daniel’s picture with his dog:

Here is Michael and Daniel with the monkey both at 4 months:

I love my little boys!

I feel like a horrible parent, I never found the time to take my boys to the pumpkin patch this year. We have gone every year, so I felt like I needed to take Daniel just like I did Michael, it just never happened. I know he would have no idea of what was going on and won’t remember anything, but still I feel horrible. Despite not going to the pumpkin patch we still had a fun and eventful Halloween week.

It all started the Monday before Halloween with a work party at NVIDIA where David works. We carved pumpkins and ate pizza and candy.

Michael didn’t care too much for the carving he mostly played with the bathroom doors and all the computer chairs that were thrown into a corner. (You can see all the chairs in the picture below)

On Tuesday I spent most of the day making goodies for the people I visit teach and those whom David home teaches. I made ghosts and witches. The witches I gave away had green faced, but I ran out of the green chocolate so I had to use pink for the leftovers.

On Wednesday we went to the Harvest Festival put on by the Reedville Ward youth. Michael did the cupcake walk, went fishing, bowling, ate a doughnut from a string, and went through a haunted maze. He had a blast, but his favorite thing was the the streamers in the door way. What a silly child.

He didn’t roll the ball hard enough so he wasn’t very good at the bowling, but he loves balls so I’m sure he enjoyed it.

He wanted to eat a doughnut but when I lifted him up to eat it he wouldn’t do it. I just ended up taking it off the string and giving it to him. Maybe he will do better next year.

Saturday was the ward Trunk or Treat. Last year Michael was too shy to say anything to the people in their trunks, he wouldn’t even take the candy from them. This year he had no problem, I am sad to say that he was one of those kids who would take multiple candies from the bowl if you left it in front of him. I tried to teach him how to say “Trick or Treat” but he couldn’t do it so he just said please and thank you.

Michael was a monkey this year (if you hadn’t noticed already), Daniel was a banana, and David and I were banana trees. Everyone loved Daniel’s costume, I thought he was pretty cute too.

Sunday we had some friends over for dinner. We carved pumpkins again. I didn’t take any pictures, sorry.

Finally on Halloween we had dinner at my parent’s house then raced home not to miss any trick or treaters at our house. I took Michael and Daniel around to a few houses. Again, I didn’t take any pictures, my hands were full. I think overall it was a fun week.

My baby’s newborn pictures are here! They are so cute and I love them. Thanks Courtney! http://courtneybphotography.blogspot.com/ (Some of these were taken by a different photographer.)

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My little (or not so little) baby is 3 months old!! I can’t believe how fast the time has gone. I told David that I love the baby stage, I never want them to grow up. I then started talking about when we will have the next one. He told me that I just had a baby I should be happy with that. I am extremely happy, I just know that I’m not done having children and am already planning my future, my distant future that is. He also told me that he is worried that I’m never going to want to stop having children, he is afraid we will have a million kids. I told him that I’m sure my body won’t allow that. Anyway, enough rambling here are some pictures of my big three month old. By they way, 2 people this week have asked if he is 6 months.

He was sleeping like this, I don’t think it looks very comfy.

He loves taking baths. He is such a happy baby!

We have been blessed with a baby who loves to sleep. He has been sleeping through the night for about 2 months now, and he is only 3 months old today! Lately he has been sleeping 10 or 11 hours straight. Our toddler, on the other hand, has never been a great sleeper during the night. He was close to a year old before he consistently slept through the night and that was only because we let him cry. Recently he has been waking up during the night again. Two nights ago he woke up at 3 in the morning and came into our room, I let him climb in bed with us. This was the first time he slept in our bed, may have been a big mistake. Last night he woke up at 4 and didn’t go back to sleep until 7ish, we did not let him get in our bed, he had to stay in his own room. So I am wondering if he is waking up because he isn’t tired enough to sleep through the night or if there is some other reason. He still takes a nap during the day, but I have to put him in the pack and play. If I put him in his room he just plays and never goes to sleep. The days when he naps it takes him a couple hours to fall asleep at night, but the days when he doesn’t nap he falls asleep quickly. So what do you think we should do. Give up with the naps? Or do 2 year olds still need naps?

Daniel is finally here, and I am finally updating the blog. He was born Tuesday, July 5, 2011. Here is the story:

My doctor decided to induce me on the 5th if the baby didn’t come sooner because we are going out of town soon. So I called the hospital Tuesday morning to make sure they had room for me and they told me that I wasn’t on the schedule so I might not be able to be induced that day I might have to wait until Wednesday but they would call me back and let me know. Needless to say, I wasn’t very happy. A short time later I got a call back from the hospital and they told me to come on in, I was shocked. It turned out there was another Stephanie Reed who delivered the previous week, so when they looked through the schedule and saw my induction they thought it was her’s and cancelled it.

I got to the hospital about 8 in the morning and the doctor told me that she was a little worried that the induction won’t work because I had been 1 cm dilated for the last 3 weeks, if I hadn’t changed then it probably wouldn’t work. So, she checked me and I was a 2! That was very exciting news. They put me on pitocin and let me sit for 4 hours. I still wasn’t having any real contractions so the doctor checked again and I was a 4, she then decided to break my water. 45 min later, I was having very painful contractions and told the nurse I was ready for an epidural. They gave it to me and then decided to check me again. I was an 8. In 45 min I had dilated 4 cm.

After I got the epidural my blood pressure dropped, which is normal (but kind of funny because with Michael my blood pressure was really high.) The bad part was it made Daniel’s heart rate drop into the 70’s. I got really scared, the nurse was having a hard time finding his heart rate so she called in another nurse. They put me on oxygen, found Daniel’s heart rate and it stabilized. About half an hour later I was fully dilated and fully effaced we just had to wait for the baby to get low enough. Around 6:28 pm I started to push and at 6:38 pm Daniel Darrell Reed was born. That is right I only had to push for 10 min (another huge change from Michael, with him I pushed for 2 hours and 45 min I think.) He weighed 8 lbs 7 oz and was 20.5 inches long. None of us could believe he weighed that much (Michael was only 7 lb 4 oz.)

Michael is doing such a good job with Daniel. He loves him very much and always wants to give him hugs and kisses. On the down side, Michael is not used to having someone else take his attention away so he is acting out. I hope this doesn’t last too long. I try to give him as much attention as I can.

I am so glad Daniel is here and a part of our family. With Michael everyone always said he looks like David, I’m not going to lie, I got a little jealous. Now with Daniel people tell me he looks like me, that makes me very happy! I love both of my little boys very much. By the way, Darrell is my father’s name, we decided to name Daniel after him.