Sick.

Well, it's come around again. We're all sick. Brodie not so much, just the cough that he's had. Ben and I, not as bad either, but lots of mucus and coughing.

Naomi, she has bronchiolitis. Ben took her to the doctor's last Friday (the 21st). They diagnosed her with bronchiolitis. He said they had to test her oxygen levels too :( But, she's doing much better!! She still has a runny nose and a cough, but she's in such good spirits!

She's still smiling and wanting to play! She's exploring faces more now too. And oh how she loves her Einstein! The exosaucer thing where she can jump and play with the hanging toys and play music.

They weighed her at the doctor's, 16 lbs 5oz (or somewhere in there, Ben took her so the stats may not be accurate haha) :)

But we're getting better. Hopefully Mother Nature will stop making it snow on us so it can warm up and the snow melts so we can actually go outside and do things/go places. We'll see. :)

Found Naomi's stats from her 4 month check up!

haha, A little late but that's ok!

Height: 25 5/8" 90th percentile
Weight: 14lbs 13 oz 75th percentile
Head Circumference: 16" 50th percentile

Her next appointment will be next month for her six month check up! :)

We reached a milestone...

Brodie walked down our flight of stairs, BY HIMSELF!!!!! OMG! :) All alone, with no assistance or help. He kept hold of the arm rail and just walked his little self downstairs to where I was. :)

Ben was upstairs watching him and I was downstairs with Naomi. I was ready for bed so I called out to Ben to come downstairs. He didn't hear me, so I yelled "come down here".

Next thing I know I hear Brodie at the top of the stairs yelling down to me. I didn't think anything of it. Then I saw the arm rail start jiggling like someone was coming down. I heard Bro's voice a couple times but didn't think anything of it, figured Ben was walking him down.

I look up and there's Brodie, all by himself! Just smiling and jabbering and holding onto the arm rail walking down!! LOL It was SO funny! Once he got off the stairs and off the landing he came running to me with open arms. It was so cute!

Our little Bro boy is growing up, and way too fast :) He's so independent! A little too independent. ;) lol

5 months old... WOW

Naomi Maxine is 5 months old. 7 more months and she'll be a year!! Kind of off subject but 3 more months and Brodie's 2!! Crazy.

Naomi is sick, again, so yesterday I stayed home with her. Congested, runny nose. But, she's in good spirits and happy. There are times where she is not impressed, but that doesn't happen too often :)

She's growing like a weed! The hair on the top of her head is getting longer. She smiles so much more, and she's so sweet about it too. She'll be staring at you, you look over and smile, she'll smile back but then kinda look away like she's shy. Super cute!

She's trying SO hard to crawl. She'll lay there on her belly and move her legs. She kinda moves around that way, not really crawling, but in a circle. She's almost to the point where you can give her the bottle and she'll feed herself.

She's sitting up pretty well! She can't quite do it without any support yet, but she's getting there. She's also rolling around everywhere! You can't not watch her for two seconds otherwise she'll be rolling away!! haha

Still no teeth. But that's ok. She's jabbering so much! She loves to hear her own voice, its so funny. She loves playing in her Einstein jumper thing. Just bounces and plays the piano thing and looks at herself. She loves seeing herself that's for sure. :)

Besides being sick again, she's doing very good. It's so cute to see Brodie and her and their reactions to one another. She loves staring at him and watching him. The other day she was laying on her tummy and Brodie came up to her and laid by her and he was just talking to her and patting her head. They love each other. :)

For those of you on FB, I try to upload pictures from my phone quite a bit so you can see the kids. I haven't been very good at uploading pictures on this site. I got a new laptop and just got pictures off my phone on there so I'll probably be doing quite a bit of photo dumping when I get a chance.

However, here is one gummy-bear smile of little Nomi yesterday (on her 5 month birthday) :)

Out with the old and in with the NEW year... A time to reflect

I cannot believe it is already 2011. Where has the time gone?! A new year, new memories, same smiles, same family love :)

2010 was such an exciting year for us. So many memories were made.

We started last year out finding out we were going to be adding to our Gwinner clan. Brodie wasn't going to be the baby for much longer and he would be getting a little brother or sister. We were scared, nervous, excited, happy.

Four months later we celebrated Brodie's first birthday! How fun was that!! It was great seeing him make a mess with his cake! I remember telling myself not to cry because he reached that milestone, he's no longer a baby but on the road to being a little boy. Though I was very excited to see what the next years had in store for us :)

Four months later we welcomed our little Naomi Maxine into the world. Wow, did she surprise us with her debut! :) Definitely not expecting her to come two weeks before her due date. I guess she was just ready to meet us! She has been such a little blessing in our little family. Brodie LOVES her. We LOVE her. :)

We also celebrated our third wedding anniversary in 2010. I was pregnant, again ;) haha

Christmas 2010 we started new traditions with our family. It was GREAT!! It was wonderful coming downstairs with the kids and see their little faces when seeing what Santa left them. :) Can't wait till they're older and really know what's going on. It's going to be so much fun!

2010 was a great year for us. 2011 will only be better!! No more babies for us though! :)

In a few months we'll celebrate Brodie's 2nd birthday and then a few months later celebrate Naomi's first! So so exciting. I already have some ideas for Nomi's first birthday, not really any for Brodie. But I'm sure I'll think of something ;)

Looking forward to everything this year will bring us. Hope everyone had a happy new year! :)

Our Christmas weekend :)

We hope everyone enjoyed their holiday as much as we did! This was probably one of our best Christmas's yet! It was a lot of fun! The kids, especially Brodie, had a wonderful time!! We missed some family and maybe next year everyone can come up for Christmas :)

The kids got SO many gifts, our living room looks like Christmas exploded. haha! :) Christmas Eve we didn't have a chance to bake any cookies and leave some out for Santa. Brodie was up until about 1am so we had to hide the gifts "Santa" left for them until he really went to bed. He also opened three gifts on Christmas Eve, we caved ;)

Christmas morning Ben and I dressed the kids and brought them downstairs. They both looked so cute in their Christmas outfits!!



We passed out all the gifts to everyone. Ben and Auntie Eden helped Brodie open his gifts and Nana helped Naomi. The kids got SO much, it's incredible!!

We also made a nice meal for everyone--turkey, ribs, potato casserole, mac & cheese, cornbread, deviled eggs, and homemade Sangria! It was SO good!!

We watched Christmas shows and the Disney Christmas parade. It was very nice and relaxing.

Sunday, Nana's birthday, Nana, Grandpa, and Auntie Eden had to go back. Both Grandpa & Auntie Eden were sick and throwing up. They may have caught our bug or caught a different one. We were able to give Nana her birthday gift though.

When they left my mom, sister & her partner came over. They spent the day at the house with us. They brought gifts for the kids to open. Bro was asleep when they got there, so Nomi opened her gifts first :)

Later that afternoon my sister, mom, and I went shopping. Got some good deals on some of the items we got. It was nice spending time with them.

The whole weekend was a lot of fun! My heart is very full of love and happiness. Seeing how much our children our loved makes me so extremely happy. We have been blessed with awesome kids and amazing family.

Love love love :)

Christmas time is upon us :)

Well, from the last post Nana stayed for a week to take care of us. Which we appreciate more than we could ever express.

She left Tuesday morning and dropped the kids off at daycare with Ben. She'll be back (hopefully) tomorrow with Grandpa and Auntie Eden for Christmas.

We've been OK without her, but you don't realize how nice of a "break" it is sometimes with an extra person around helping out. Got too spoiled I think ;)

Anyway, so the Christmas shopping and wrapping and preparing is pretty much done!! We still need to go grocery shopping for our Christmas feast Saturday. We'll probably do that tonight. Very excited to cook for our family and to bake cookies tomorrow night for Santa!!

Speaking of Santa, the kids went and visited him last night! There were no tears only smiles. We went to Bass Pro and they had a Wonderland all set up. It was wonderful!! There were little stations to keep the kids entertained while we waited to see Santa. There was a coloring station (which we were at for awhile), a station to play with a race car, a station to play with a remote control monster truck, and some shooting stations. Great-Aunt Rita was there working too so it was great seeing her too!

At the coloring station we wrote a "Dear Santa" letter and colored a picture for Aunt Rita. :)

Then, FINALLY, it was time to see Santa. Brodie was SO excited!! He would look at Santa with a big smile on his face and then he'd point at the display around Santa and smile. It was very cute! Naomi, she's still too young to really know what's going on. I was VERY proud of both our babies and how they didn't cry. Santa then gave Brodie a mini-candy cane :) It was SO fun!! Ben had to work last night so Auntie Tuyen met us there and helped me wrangle the two little ones. :)

Here's the kids' picture with Santa Claus. I love it, even if Brodie is making a silly face ;) hehe



We are SO excited to start our own traditions this year with the kids. Tomorrow night we're going to bake and leave out some cookies for Santa, with a glass of milk and carrots for the reindeer. Then Christmas we'll bring the kids down and see what Santa left them. I cannot wait to see Brodie's little face Christmas morning! Then we'll feast and relax.

We hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!! We love you all and cannot wait to share the pictures with you! :)