6 weeks already?

I can't believe that it has been 6 weeks already since Madyson was born. It has been a very eventful  weeks. Our family has adjusted well to being a family of 4 now as well as many other hurdles that life has thrown our way.

Madyson has grown a ton! She was 8lbs 12 oz and 21 1/4 inches at her 1 month check up. She is also already rolling over! We are going to be in big trouble with this little one. Peyton did not roll over until she was almost 6 months old and Madyson did it before she was even a month! She is going to be running by 9 months. LOOK OUT!

Big Sister showing Mady what to do.

See how strong I am!

Successfully rolled by myself!

The newest Braunscheidel!

Hanging with all her Giraffes!!!

First Bath



1 month old



Peyton has really fallen into her role as a big sister too! She is always trying to help us with Mady. She likes to bring Mady her blankets and Binky as well as gives her lots of hugs and kisses and even a bottle! Peyton also loves being outside right now and HAS to have her shoes and socks on at all times. Sometimes she insists on having her jackets on too. But she is really turning into our little tom boy!



Love the smile!




Pig tails and Tonka shirt




Playing in the Garden



feeding Mady her bottle

Welcome Madyson Jodene!!!

We welcomed a new member to our family a week ago! Madyson Jodene was born at 2:52 pm on April 2, 2012 weighing 7 lbs 1 oz and was 19 3/4 inches long. This time around my labor was much, much easier then with Peyton.

I was scheduled to be be induced on Monday April 2. My original due date was Friday April 6th, but we decided on an induction to help ease our minds over making sure we had someone set up to watch Peyton while we were in the hospital. My mother was able to come down for the week to help out with Peyton, which really was a big help to us. So Monday morning, Mike and I left for the hospital at 6:30 am for our 7am check in time.

Well like any good doctor related event the Dr was late getting us started. Mike was already annoyed by 8am when the Dr had not come in to get the induction started. Finally around 10:30am the Dr arrived to start the show! They broke my water and started the Pitocin. When they started the induction I was about 1 cm dilated and 70% effaced already.

Around noon I decided that I was ready for an epidural. The nurse and anesthesiologist came in and gave me my epidural around 12:30. After a couple hours, a new nurse came in to check on me. I asked her when someone was going to check me to see how much I had dilated. She asked me when was the last time I was checked and I said that I had not been since they broke my water and started the Pitocin. She said OK and that she would put in a folly and then come back in an hour to check me.

Well about 5 minutes after she left I called her and said that I was feeling a lot of pressure, so she came back in to check me. Well when she checked me, she was very surprised to find that I was ready to have a baby. She called another nurse in to double check and sure enough, I was ready. They tried to call my Dr, but could not get a hold of her, so they had to bring in another Dr from the practice to come in and deliver me.

When the Dr came in, the nurse told him that with my first I only pushed for 8 minutes. Jokingly the Dr responded with "Well let do this one in only 5 minutes!" Well 5 minutes later Madyson Jodene was born! All the nurses and the Dr were all very surprised that it was so quick and all said that they would gladly deliver my next kid to because I was so easy to deliver!

Mike and his new daughter

Welcome Baby Madyson Jodene

Samantha and Mady

Peyton meets her baby sister

Very curious!



Welcome Home!



Big Sister welcoming Madyson home.

So after 4 1/2 hours of labor and only 5 minutes of pushing Madyson Jodene was a new addition to our family, making us a family of 4! We are very happy to have her as part of our family. Peyton was very excited to have a new sister too! She is very sweet with her little sister and gives her lots of kisses and loves giving her her blankets and Binky!

Time Flies

Wow!! Time is going so fast. I can't believe that Peyton is 17 months old now and that she is going to be a BIG SISTER in only 8 weeks. I don't really know where that past year and a half has gone to. My goal for the new year was to do better at keeping everyone up to date about what is happening with our family and with the girls. So here is a look back and the crazy year and half that has past!

Peyton 1 Year

One month

Two Months

3  months

4 months

5 months



Peyton's normal sleeping position



6 months

7 months



8 months



9 months



10 months



11 months

Peyton's First Birthday Party!!



Peyton's Birthday!!!



Cloth Diaper Adict!

OK so it is official I am blogging about cloth diapers! My husband thinks that I am crazy because I am IN LOVE with my cloth diapers for Little P, but they really are amazing and one of the best decisions I have made so far in my parenting career. But let me tell you a little about my venture into cloth diapering.

My sister was the one who got me on looking into cloth diapers. She was pregnant with her son and had registered for Gdiapers. She received some Gdiaper inserts as a gift and her, my mom, and myself all started discussing the benefits of the Gdiaper system. (Gdiapers are a hybrid diaper that allows the user to have a cloth diaper cover with the options for either a cloth or a biodegradable/flushable disposable insert) Well at this point I had been completely bitten by the baby bug and had been spending time looking at baby stuff on the Internet, so I looked into the Gdiapers. They looked really interesting, so I thought well when I have a baby I will consider using them too. Well about a month later I was pregnant and now had a true reason to research diapering options for my child.

I began researching cloth diapering options. I started with a basic google search on cloth diapers and found a wonderful website http://www.theclothdiaperwhisperer.com/ . This is a wonderful blog that covers all kinds of different topics on cloth diapering, from information about the different types to how to care for them to stories about real life situations with cloth diapers. I spend hours reading posts about diapers and soaking in as much information as I could in regards to cloth diapers and realized that the cloth diapering world is amazing and supportive and ADDICTING! I had decided that I wanted to cloth diaper!

I discussed my wanting to cloth diaper with my husband. At first he was totally against it. He thought that I was going to Hippie on him.  He said that he was not going to wash any diapers and he did not believe that I would want to either. He thought that I was wanting to bite off more than I could chew with having a new baby and not knowing how it was all going to work. He was concerned for me, which sweet and all I of course totally disagreed with him. I told him how we could save money by using cloth diapers in the long run, and how we would be able to use the same diapers on multiple children as well, thus saving even more money. This little bit got him thinking some. I decided to let it be for a while and just let him contemplate it.

A few months went by and I brought it up again. I again mentioned that I wanted to use cloth diapers and this time I have decided that I wanted to use Pocket style diapers. I had found a site to order diapers on and told him that I wanted to get one of a couple different brands of diapers to decide which one I liked the best before buying a whole bunch of them. By this time, he had seen me reading about them and finally realized that he was not going to convince me otherwise and he said OK go ahead and order some. So I did. I went to http://www.kellyscloset.com/  and ordered a sample pack that let me choose which diapers I wanted to try. I ordered a fuzzibunz one size, a bumgenius 4.0 in snap and hook & loop closure, a rumparooz, a happy heiny, a Grovia All-in-one, and a Grovia hybrid.  I was so excited when I got these diapers in the mail, I could not wait to have my baby and be able to use them!

A couple of weeks later we had our baby girl, Little P. We chose not to use the diapers right away because of the meconium poop of a newborn. We started using them when Little P was about 2 weeks old. During this time I decided that my favorite style was the fuzzibunz and the bumgenius. I talked with my husband about buying more diapers. He said go ahead and I went ahead and ordered more! I increased my stash to a total of 36 diapers. I also have two pail liners and two wet bags. I also use cloth wipes and have about 30 or so.

I love my cloth diapers and would not have changed my decision to chose to cloth diaper my child!

4 months old!

Little P turned 4 months old! We had her check up on January 18th. She is growing healthy and everything is going great. Here are her current stats:

Weight: 14 lbs. 11 oz.         78th percentile
Height: 25 1/2 in.                59th percentile
Head: 15 1/2 in.                  10th percentile

The Dr also cleared up a couple of questions we have had. I asked about Peyton's gas issues. She said that there is not a lot that we can really do to help with her gas since I am already off of dairy. She said that most of the time the gas comes from sucking in air while eating, usually with bottles. She is getting more bottles now since she is in daycare, but other then that not all the time. We also asked about when we should start solids. They told us that we can start cereal around 5 months, and then fruits and veggies around 6 months. I told her that I was planning on making all of Peyton's food instead of buying it and asked if there was anything we needed to know in regards to this. She told me that that's fine, but not for the cereal. The store box cereal is iron fortified and we need to use that since she is breastfeeding still.

The last question we asked was about her sleeping. I told the Dr that she has been sleeping through the night, but was just starting to not want to fall asleep if I am nursing her in the chair, she is going falling asleep if I am laying in bed with her. The Dr told us that now is the age that we need to start letting little P cry herself to sleep to help teach her to fall asleep on her own, otherwise we would end up with a spoiled baby.  I nodded my head with her, but was not looking forward to doing this.  After the Dr I discussed all of this with my husband and that night we decided to put her in her crib partly asleep and see how it would work. Well let me tell you that this was the worse thing we have ever done. Peyton just screamed and screamed, and screamed for 2 hours. She did not calm down at all, let along fall asleep. I ended up having to sleep with her in the guest room just so that she would calm down enough to sleep, and let me get some sleep too. I don't know how some parent can let their babies cry themselves to sleep. If you have ever done it, it is the worse feeling in the world. I definitely am not a proponent of this method, but it might work for some.

Since this appointment we have been battling with Little P to sleep at night for more than an hour at a time.  We have tried everything that we can think of to help her sleep. We have started a regular bedtime routine consisting of a bath, baby massage, change into her night-time diaper and pajamas, followed by a bedtime story and then nursing. This seems to work some with helping her fall asleep initially, but does not keep her down. We have started to put her down on her belly too, which I know you are not suppose to do, but it seems to have helped with her naps during the day as well as sleeping longer stretches at night. We decided to do this because she would startle herself every time we went to put her down in her crib on her back. This just was not working for us anymore.

We also thought that maybe she had an ear infection because she had been extremely fussy when normally she is not, but the Dr said no. So we discussed that maybe she is starting to teeth, even though there are no visible tooth buds yet on her gums.  The Dr also recommended that we start giving her a little cereal at night to help fill her up during the night. So last night we gave her some cereal for the first time. Well as most first time parents know the first time you feed your baby food, more ends up all over them then actually in their mouths. But we tried again this morning and Little P definitely ate more this morning and opened her mouth for the spoon too. So we will see how this works, and if it helps with her sleeping at night.

Back to Work

Last week was my first week back at work after having Peyton. It was really tough selecting a daycare provider, but I like who we selected. We chose a home daycare. It is two Hispanic ladies. There are a total of six kids, which makes the ratio of kids to adults nice and low. The also happened to be the cheapest of all the places I looked into. Plus they allow me to use my cloth diapers!!!
Going back to work has not been to bad. I started the school year off doing behavioral observations of student, now I am back to being an instructional assistant again. However I don’t really care anymore about work. Ky priorities have completely changed. I am more concerned about taking care of Peyton and being a good wife that work has just fallen way down the list. It is nice though because I don’t come home all stressed, and if there is anything I can do well its behavior management in a classroom.

November 29th, 2010

Thanksgiving was a great holiday this year. It was spent with loving family and friends. Mike and I traveled to NY to visit family. We spent a couple days at my parents house and then a couple up at his parents. It was really nice to be home for a while. Peyton had a great first Turkey day experience. She had many people willing to hold her and get their fix of baby P.
Peyton was baptized on Saturday. It was a great event. Mike and I are both very thankful for Marissa and Mike for being Peyton’s godparents! We love you both very much. After the baptism at the church we went back to the house for a nice party. Mom surprised Mike and I by getting the cake from Reeds Food Barn! We got out cake from there for our wedding, and we had the same on for the baptisim party. For anyone who has never gotten cake from there before it is the best cake I have ever had! They have really great cookies too!!! Peyton did a great job at the party however. She was passed from person to person without any problem. She is such a great baby! Even after all the excitment she still slept good that night too.
We drove back down to VA last night. It was one of the worst drives we have every had. To start it took us over 10 hours to get back home when it normally takes 7. Also because it too so long Peyton did not travel very well. We had to stop 4 times on the way down because it took so long and Peyton cried a lot in the car too because it was not moving at a fast enough pace to make her fall asleep. Reason number 1000 that I hate traffic and living down in VA. Mike and I both decied that we will never make that drive again. Next year if we are still in VA we are either leaving super early on Sunday morning or Saturday night. It was a long ride.
Today I went back to work. I was not really happy with having to go back to work, but unfortunaly I did not have much of a choice. If only there was a way to stay at home and be with Peyton and still get payed. One can only wish. Peyton went to daycare today too. We found an in home daycare not far from the house. It is two hispanic ladies who are super nice. When I dropped Peyton off today it was not too bad. I only cried a little bit on my way to work. And it was a blessing today that when I got to work I was covering the classroom for an IA that was out and that classroom is crazy. I was in and out of the classroom with different students acting up all day. It was great for keeping my mind off of having left Peyton at daycare and not being able to stay at home with her. I hope that things keep going as smoothly. Mary and Patrica (the daycare ladies) reported back to me today that Peyton is a greeat eater and a great sleeper… as if we didn’t already know that!