Movin' and Groovin'

We've had such a busy few weeks! The boys are growing like weeds, learning new things everyday. Damien is doing great and has met all his initial goals in speech therapy and we are so so proud of him. Little Mr. Mason is learning how to walk! He started taking steps last week and every day has gotten a little bit better. I bet in a week he will be running in circles haha. Here's a video of Mason :) Just ignore my "Mommy cheers" haha

Little Choo Choo Boy

Damien goes to Occupational Therapy on Monday mornings and he loves it. All his activities have some underlying way that they help him cope with his sensory issues but he pretty much gets to go and play for 45 minutes in a big open gym full of fun stuff that he doesn't have at home haha. He's doing really great and the combination of speech therapy and O/T has made a huge difference in him and in our life at home. He's really "blossoming" for lack of a less corny word!  Here's a few videos of some of the things he does at O/T....Sorry they're sideways!

Grow Baby, Grow!

Mason had his nine month well-baby check up at the pediatrician on Thursday. I knew he had gotten a little taller, because we had to pack away all his 9mo sized clothing and pull out the 12 month and bigger things, but I had no idea how much he had grown! The first week of October her was 19.9lbs and 27.5 inches, Thursday he was 21.1lbs and 31INCHES! He's grown 3.5 inches in a matter of 3 months, it baffles my mind! He's so healthy, he's in the 75th% for both his heigh and weight. He got and A++ from the doctor :) We went over all the normal well baby check up questions and answer, and the doctor cracked me up. He was overly concerned about us feeding Mason table food. Mason has been eating mostly table food for about two months. He kept insisting that he was going to choke on it haha, right, I'd purposely give my child food he would choke on! ;) Both my boys have preferred real food over mushy baby food, its just how they're wired. Another shocker for me the slip he handed me for blood work. We never had to do blood work for Damien at a year, but Mason has to go to the lab and have a CBC and lead test done. I'm definitely not looking forward to that one, but hopefully its just a toe prick and not a full on blood draw!

Trick or Treat!

Halloween was so much fun! We hit up the trick or treat at the mall first, thinking it would be easier with the kids to be somewhere with lights on, but it was a bust! Damien had fun but it was way overcrowded and we got there only 45 minutes after it started and most of the stores were out of candy already. After that we headed over to our neighborhood and Damien really got the hang of ringing doorbells, saying "Trick or Treat!" and then thank you. He got TONS of candy (yay me! ;)) and literally did it until he was near tears he was so tired. He didn't even want to stop then haha he kept asking to go to the next house! As you can tell by the pictures Mason was less than excited to be in a velour jumpsuit with wings on it haha....

Yogurt Painting!

So where do I even begin? Our house has been crazy the last couple of months, and in a good way :). The baby is growing like a weed(TREE), our 2 year old is busy as ever, summer vacations...makes me tired thinking about everything that has happened!
We recently had a speech evaluation done for Damien, and the SLP (Speech-Language Pathologist) has also referred us to an Occupational therepy to help Damien with some Sensory Integration issues. Thats a lot of big words in one big sentence but all in all, Damien doesn't process sensory input from his world the same way as everyone else. Certain sensory triggers like sight, smell, touch, colors, movement etc set him off because it's very overwhelming for him to try and take all in and sort out. While I think its a fairly mild "case", our main concern is his eating because he's underweight. We've always chalked it up to him being a picky eater, but the pathologist brought to my attention that everything he eats is tan/yellow/bland. Now how did I miss that in the last year?? Anywho, I can now sigh a big ol' sigh of releif that infact I don't have the world's most dramatic picky eater, and that there is something else behind it.
She informed us that it was going to take a few weeks for our insurance approval and referral to go through but prompted me to look for activities that would "gently push him outside his comfort level". This is what brings us to yogurt painting :) I played off an idea I found on an AWESOME blog called Play at Home Mom (http://playathomemom3.blogspot.com/2011/07/edible-paint.html). I didn't have all of the ingrediants I needed for that, or pudding mix, so I dug around in the kitchen and decided to just tint some vanilla yogurt. I split up one yogurt cup into four small cups, then added 1 drop of each color of food coloring to a different cup. I divided it up between the two kids and let them have at it. I figured what a good idea! He eats yogurt (though only a few of the plainer colored ones) so it was easing him into bright colored food with something he already normally eats and also gets him a little messy, perfect!
It was interesting to watch the two of them. My six month old, Mason, dove right in. He was smearing it everywhere, smacking his hands into it, eating it, rubbing it on his face, just having a grand old time. Damien on the other hand refused to touch it (normal for him) and used the different tools I got out for him to "paint" with. They both had a blast though and Damien has been begging all afternoon to do "More yots paint?" :)

Photo 18

Picture of your biggest insecurity

Im changing this to Photo # instead of Day because I don't have enough time to keep up with it on a daily basis!




Public speaking is easily my biggest insecurity!

Day 17

A picture of something that has impacted your life lately.

Day 16

A picture of someone who inspires you



My own Mommy! My brothers and I were the luckiest kids to have such an amazing Mom. She is now my best friend and I wish I saw her more. If I can manage to become half the Mother that she was and is to me then I will feel like I succeeded. Now on top of being such a great Mom she is an equally awesome Grandma to my boys. Love you so much Mom!

Day 15

A picture of something you want to do before you die.





Take my husband back to Greece (sans children) and spend two weeks in Chalkidi... Laying on the beach, having drinks (and giant donuts!) at the beach bars, eating delicious Greek food and visiting with my Aunt! Shes the best tour guide!

Day 14

A picture of someone you could never imagine your life without. ...How could I pick just one of them? :)

Day 13

A picture of y0ur favorite band

Day 12

A picture of something you love

Day 11

A picture of something you hate.
















A hot pillow! I can NOT fall asleep on a warm pillow it has to be cool to the touch haha. I will flip my pillow over and over and over again until I fall asleep!

Day 10

Bad bad week. Don't ask. But I'm going to start this back up...

A picture of the person you do the most ****** up things with...



We may not hang out much anymore but our lives are just in different places! We have gotten into WAY too much trouble together!!!

Day 9

A picture of the person who has gotten you through the most.


Love him with my whole heart. We've had rough times and patches but we truly are made for each other. Perfect balance of up tight and laid back, neat freak and messy, adventurous and shy. He helped me get my head on straight and learn good work ethic, pushed me to go after what i wanted, taught me to drive, held my hand through the birth of our first, held my hand and dragged me through months of terrible post partum depression and never made me feel bad about it, held my hand through the birth of our second son and is still holding my hand. Things are not perfect, sometimes they are not even good, but we are going to grow old together. He is my best friend.

Day 8

A picture that makes you laugh...



Fell asleep but didn't let go of his donut haha...

Day 7

A picture of your most treasured item:

day 6

A person you'd most like to trade places with for the day



I dont know who this kid is....but I want to be him!

Gotta love diaper giveaways!

I'm reposting this for another entry for a 12pack of cloth diapers :) Go check it out!
http://babyhalfoff.com/blog/?p=3131&cpage=6#comment-50035

Day Five: A Picture of your favorite memory

WARNING: Some may find this graphic, its a picture of live birth. While nothing is showing, I still need to warn haha.




This is a picture of Mason in his first seconds of life. The doctor delivered his head, then I got to reach down, grab him, and pull him out the rest of the way. It was......indescribable. I was the first person to hold my baby, not some doctor :) He felt me first. I delivered my baby.

Day Four: A picture of your night

For some reason this didn't save! I tried to post it from my phone and I guess I wasn't tech savvy enough to pull it off haha












I spent that night cutting up 4 yards of tulle into 3x18 inch strips! This tutu is for my beautiful little Goddaughter Brooklyn for her 3 month photo shoot. :)

Day Three

Day 3: A picture of the cast from your favorite show.




Sucks me in. And...right now, they're being horribly evil and there is a 3 week break in the show on a huge cliffhanger! Shoot me.

Day Two

A Picture of you and the person you've been closest with the longest.










Lindsey and I! I've had friends for longer, but her and I are actually still close. She's one of the only friends who didn't completely desert me when Damien came to be, and she's great to both my boys. Love you Linds!

Facebook 30 day challenge **Day One***

There is this big Facebook picture challenge that everyone is doing, so I'm going to do it on here instead :)

Day One: A Picture of Yourself and Five Facts....










1. I love being pregnant, hence the picture, its a time when I feel my most beautiful and womanly.

2. I'm the only girl in a family of all brothers. I don't understand females and their antics and I tend to get along with few of them. I'm also secretly (at least was secrectly) excited that I have two boys and by probability rates will continue to have boys, I know what to do with them.

3. I'm married to a beautiful, fabulous man and have two beautiful, fabulous little boys.

4. My dream is to be an R.N. and to eventually work in the NICU. This was my dream before I had kids and despite what anyone says, I still want to do it. Having kids doesn't make it harder, I think it will just make me a more compassionate nurse in that field.

5. I have naturally curly hair and I straighten it almost every day. I love it but I hate it!

Random thoughts...

First Random thought is that I am majorly sucking at this whole blog thing. That last thing I want to do at night is sit and try to un-jumble the thoughts in my head and write them out so another human being can actually understand them haha. So a forum post a friend made earlier sparked this "Random Thoughts" post... (Thanks Christa)

To start it off is my new favorite song... I've heard it before, but watching it put with Grey's Anatomy during the most recent new episode that was a musical really made me love it! I was sobbing five minutes in haha. Brandi Carlisle - The Story. LOVE it. It really got me thinking listening to it closely... It really reminds me of the past five years that I've been through with my husband. We've only been married for the past two, but were together the previous three before that. The lines "I crossed all the lines and I broke all the rules But baby I broke them all for you" really tell it all. Anyone who has known me closely for any length of time knows what happened between him and I in 2007. I'm not going to hash out all the nasty details but in the cliff notes version... we were engaged, he disappeared, smashed my world to smithereens, came back, left again and smashed my last shred of dignity, then came back again. EVERY SINGLE person in my life told me I was mentally insane for taking him back. I "broke all the rules" and as I sit in my quiet house with one beautiful sleeping baby on the couch next to me and my other beautiful sleeping child in bed with one beautiful man who I'm lucky to call my husband... I'm glad I did.


Random thought #2. Sex and the City 2 sucked.... Just watched it tonight for the first time. Enough said.

Random thought #3: All this "The World is Ending" talk that has been sparked by the quake and tsunami in Japan REALLY stressed me out for about a week. I started thinking about the possibility, and that it wouldn't be fair for my kids to be cheated of living a full long life. Then I started really thinking about it and reminded myself that A) if it did end up happening soon, there is absolutely nothing I could do to stop it, so I need to chill out and enjoy my life, and B) if it does happen, Big Man upstairs is going to come and call us all home, so it doesn't matter....


which leads to...
Random Thought # 4: Let go and let God. That, and, "Oh well, its not my problem"...those are my new years resolutions for 2011 ha ha. Previously I've had a problem with involving myself in other peoples problems, and it takes too much of me away from, well, myself... and my family too. Granted there are things that are not "my problem" but that I will still involve myself with because I love the people that the said problem is revolving around, but I have learned to separate myself from issues that are petty. All I have to say is it's made a huge difference and I'm a way happier person. Sometimes there just isn't anything you can do and sometimes the drama just isn't worth it.

Random thought #5: I miss dancing, who wants to watch my boys Monday and Wednesday from 2-3:20PM next semester? I must. I need to Plie, arabesque, echappe, battement tendu and get loosy goosy again. I think if I tried to do a grand plie right now my hip bones would probably snap right out of the socket. pathetic. I wonder if I could even do it after two babies haha.

Random thought #6: Its 1am and Mason has usually eaten about an hour ago and he will NOT wake up to eat haha. I am so tired and I want to go to bed for good. If I go to sleep now I know he will wake up the minute I drift off so I feel like death when i wake up. Come on Kid!

Okay no more random thoughts, so here's that song

He's here!!

Well I guess the fact that I'm posting this 11 days AFTER he was actually born is a true testament to "what comes with two under two"...I am B-U-S-Y.


Mason James Koszalka came into this world on January 16th, 2011 at 10:32pm. After just a short 6 hours of labor from first contraction to in my arms (literally in my arms, I delivered him myself...coolest thing ever) he came SCREAMING HIS HEAD OFF at a nice robust 8lbs 2oz and 21inches long. First thing out of both Mommy&Daddy's mouths were "You look like Damien!!". Guess what, he really does look like his brother haha. If you compare them in real time, they have big differences, but as I look back through Damien's pictures from when he was a newborn they're almost identical...Mason is just a lot chubbier. He's quite the dream baby I can't complain. He is a champion eater, prefers to sleep in the quiet of our bedroom in his crib, and is easy peasy. We just don't mess with his eating haha, when he wants it you better get it and get it fast!

So the biggest question I keep getting, "How is it with two?" Its interesting. Pretty much everything having to do with Mason is easier this time around, I'm not that neurotic, paranoid first time mother who is looking up every little cry and rash in her books or googling "Is this Normal" or calling the pediatrician at 2am because the poop is a weird color.... So in a way, I suppose it is definitely easier in that aspect. However, I now have a very jealous 22 month old who, finally, after a week has gone by has realized that this little being is not leaving any time soon. I am catching myself saying things like "No no Damien, Mason doesn't eat cookies", "Damien we don't poke brother in the face", "Damien stop turning off the bouncy chair", "Damien get out of Mason's crib!"....You get the idea. But in all he's been good, I'd say he's 75% curious and 25% jealous, I'll take it. I have to remind myself that as much attention as Mason needs right now I need to be giving Damien as well. That, and I definitely still need to nap with them haha.

37 Weeks!

Two words for ya...


FULL TERM!!!

:)

I see my OB/Gyn tomorrow so we shall see how things are brewing but we are officially at 21 days or less (Or, if he's REALLY stubborn 28 days) from meeting our baby boy. This has flown by!