Cole & Bradley

Two kids is definitely different than one! With Cole, missing some sleep at night wasn't so bad because I could make it up with him the next day. But with two, making up the missed sleep has to be coordinated between two kids. Cole was already on a pretty decent schedule so we've been trying to keep that going for when I head back to work.  There have been some pretty stressful times but for the most part it's been pretty sweet. Double smiles, double love, double cuddling and who can complain about that?! 

I read an article recently by a mother that basically said to enjoy "someone needing you" because there will come a time when that's not constant. I can already see that with Cole (I know, I know, he's only three).  He can go potty by himself, can dress himself, grabs a blanket if he's chilly, strips if he's hot, and the list goes on and on.  I can't imagine what things will be like in 3 more years! So for right now I'm enjoying "someone needing me" (actually two someones) and life sure is sweet!

Cole Turns 3!

It's hard to believe that Cole is already 3! He is such a great guy and the last three years have just flown by! He loves cooking, Legos, coloring, reading and playing pretend.  And the newest description to add to his resume is great big brother! The transition was a little rough at first but now he is a pro at being a big brother!

We celebrated his birthday with a party at a bowling alley, it was a blast! We joke between his birthday and Christmas he is so confused about why he keeps getting gifts, but he keeps asking if we can go to Christmas, haha.

Bradley Brooks Rickett is here!!!

Bradley was supposed to be a scheduled c section on January 5. Plenty of time to organize all the baby stuff, decorate his room, take care of Christmas, Cole's bday party and hopefully catch up on sleep.  Apparently, God had a better plan. 

On December 4 I was up wrapping Christmas gifts and Ryan was still at the office (it was around 930).  I'm walking back to wrapping central (aka, the dining room table) and suddenly my water breaks!  I immediately call the doctor's office and they said I should head on in.  I call Ryan and tell him he should probably head home, we have a baby on the way.  At some point Cole gets out of bed and makes his own assumptions about what is going on, when Ryan walks in the door Cole boldly tells him "Mom peed in my closet". Hmm, we can straighten that out later.  My parents and sister meet us at the hospital and about this time it is 1030ish.  Because of ebola, we had to go to the er, then we get to go to prenatal triage, meet with a nurse, fill out some paperwork and get hooked up to machines.  At about 11, they come in and tell me we will head to the operating room at midnight, yikes!  Just two hours ago I was thinking of going to bed and suddenly we will become a family of 4, it was very overwhelming!

Bradley Brooks was born at 12:18 am and was 6 lbs 3 oz and 19 in.  When he was first born I could not believe how much he looked like Cole!  Before we went in there they told us there were three options about where Bradley would go: 1)back to my room with me and Ryan, 2)the nicu, or 3) a transition area where they take some more time assessing him before determining if he can go with me or if he needs to go to the nicu.

After a short while they decided he needed to go to the transition area.  After about an hour and a half there they decided he needed to be moved to the nicu.  His lungs weren't developed enough and he was lacking the surfactant necessary that would prevent his lungs from sticking to themselves when he tried to inhale.  This was causing him to take very rapid, shallow breaths and he was basically wearing himself out. It was devastating going back to my room without a baby and knowing that we were powerless to help our baby.

We were very fortunate because even though Bradley's breathing rate was too high, his oxygen levels, heart rate and blood pressure were where they needed to be. It was very shocking to learn that we really shouldn't do anything to overstimulate him, like talk to him, spend time loving on him, all the things you would normally do with a new baby.  Add to that we had 4 monitors on his body, an iv in his tiny little hand, a feeding tube (which wasn't initially being used) and a cpap machine pumping air in his lungs (to help keep them open), December 5 was a very sobering day.

Bradley was quite the little fighter!  They initially told us we could be there til his due date, then it was a couple weeks, then a week and a half and shocker, we came home at 6 days! Just in time to come home for Cole's 3rd birthday!

We had several wonderful doctors and nurses that really did a wonderful job explaining everything to us (even multiple times, and I'm still not sure if we got it all right:)) and reassuring us. We were so blessed to be in and out and there are so many babies in there who have been in the nicu for several weeks and will be for the foreseeable future. There is nothing that makes you realize your blessing like spending the night in the nicu and hearing constant beeping, an occasional baby cry and alarms going off.

We have been home a little over two weeks and we are adjusting to having as many children as adults. Cole is absolutely smitten with his baby :). I cannot believe how many times I have said Cole instead of Bradley, whoops! Life is good!

Bowling, Cooking and Snow!

A few weeks ago we took Cole on his first trip to the bowling alley.  We all had a great time!  Cole loved trying out all the different colored bowling balls on his ramp and even beat me on our first game!

 

 

Cole has always been a fan of cooking and baking so we made and decorated several mini cakes a few weeks ago.  Cole loved picking out which dye to use on the frosting and selecting from our sprinkles.

 

 

We got our first snow two weeks and of course Cole had to play in it.  Unfortunately, it really was not a lot of snow, but Cole was really impressed! He kept walking around saying "snow, snow".  Maybe one day he can see a lot of snow and really be impressed.

 

 

  

Halloween

Cole had an absolute blast this Halloween! This is the first year he has understood he was dressing up as something, that other people will be playing pretend also and that saying "trick or treat" will get him candy.

Even though he has never seen a show or any of the movies Cole is very into the Ninja Turtles.  We've had a couple ninja turtle paper masks, stickers, shirts and he got his face painted like a ninja turtle over the summer and loved it so I decided to go ahead and just order a whole costume!  I ordered it from zulily back in July (because their stuff normally takes FOREVER to get delivered) and it came in pretty quick, so Cole had plenty of time to try out the costume and decide he loved it!

When the week of Halloween finally arrived Cole was a pro at wearing his costume, mask and all!  A couple days before Halloween we headed out to Lake Arcadia to visit Storybook Forest. We debated between this and trick or treating at the zoo and we are so glad we did this!  Lake Arcadia is a state park and at one of the trailheads they set up a Halloween celebration for kids, complete with several campfires and food to cook over the fire!  Then you could walk the trail where they had scenes from SEVERAL children's stories set up along the path with actors handing out candy.  It was very well thought out, Cole particularly enjoyed Humpty Dumpty  (since he learned the whole song at kindermusik!), the swing in the yard of the Old Lady Who Lived In A Shoe and the Sword in the Stone!  At one point Cole lifted his mask to let some other kids know "hey, it's just me".

After the trail you could head to a clearing where they had carnival games set up and a hayride.  The lines were sooo long we decided to skip those activities and head to dinner.

For actual Halloween Ryan was in New Orleans for a bachelor party so Stevie joined up with Cole and me for some trick or treating.  We went over to a neighbor's house for chili, grilled cheese, socializing and then trick or treating.  Unfortunately, I did not get any pictures of all the kiddos but it was pretty adorable.  I'm really looking forward to Halloween next year with two kiddos!

Cole & Pen

While in Montana we were able to visit our friends Mike, Chelsea and Penelope.  The last time we saw all three of them they came to visit and we got almost no pictures, so this trip we made sure to get some good ones!  Just two weeks later they came to OKC for a visit!  Pen is on the verge of walking and Cole got to put his sharing skills to the test. 

We got a couple great pics of Cole and Pen being sweet and we also had a couple meltdowns over some toys.  Sharing is rough :(

We got a couple nice meals together and got to enjoy the great weather eating outside.

Trip to Montana

In October we headed to Montana for a 10 day vacation. We spent some time in Billings, Malta, Glendive, Miles City and then back to Billings.

We spent lots of time catching up with family and friends and it was great seeing everyone! It had been a little over a year since the last time we headed North so this trip was long overdue.

This was my first time to go to Malta.  It is very far North and basically in the middle of nowhere, haha.  This was the first time I recall driving somewhere and not running into at least a small town every 20 or so miles!  We went to Malta for a wedding so Cole got to try out his dancing skills again and spend some quality time with his cousin Bentley.  They hadn't seen each other since they were about 18 months but the first thing they did when they saw each other was tackle each other and start rough housing.  We also got to meet our newest neice, Kynnlee!  She is such a sweetie and I seriously considered kidnapping her :).

While in Malta we went to the dinosaur museum, it was very informative and the gal working there was extremely knowledgeable! Cole enjoyed it but I think he preferred the multicolored dino statues out front.