Potty training

My sister is AMAZING. I just have to say that before I post about potty training because she took a week of her summer time to come up and help potty train Carsten. The original idea was to have her help with Grady while I train Carsten, but Grady had decided at that point that he REALLY did not like bottles, so Ashley did basically all the potty training for Carsten. Poor girl. But she did really, really well and someday when she has kiddos of her own I owe her big time. What an amazing blessing she is to our family.

We are sending Carsten to preschool in the fall (hooray!) for two mornings a week and in order to go, he has to be potty trained which is why we tried this summer. Carsten potty trained #1 within about week and #2 is well, still an issue. So far potty training still feels very driven by us meaning that we decide when he has to go, but we're dealing and overall it's ok. Here's hoping it gets better soon!!

Grady's shirt says it all :).

Grady's baptism

Grady was baptized June 9 at Scotia First Reformed Church, and we were blessed to be able to have Andy's parents, my parents, my Grandma and Grandpa Hoogeveen, Ashley, and my cousin Sarah attend the baptism. Amazing, right?! Tom and Bonnie arrived a couple days early to help with preparations and to spend time with us before the whole gang arrived. Everyone else arrived the night before Grady's baptism, and my parents and grandparents stayed for a few days following the baptism so we could spend time with them. We loved seeing everyone and it was incredibly amazing to have so many people at the church with us. This would not have happened in Switzerland :). So yay for being back in the US!

Mom and Dad's first time meeting Grady! 

Almost the whole group :).

Baptism! 

Our pastors

Some Grandma Bonnie time.

Aunt Ashley makes Carsten smile a LOT! Possibly the biggest smile ever for Carsten.

Grandpa and his grandkids.

Mom and Grady!

Grandma and Grandpa Hoogie brought a tee ball set for Carsten and taught him how to use it!

Grandpa Tom taught Carsten a few things too!

So remember the advice most people give about putting the baptism outfit on infants early? Well, we tried. But despite that, Grady still had a blowout with Andy's baptismal outfit, so he was baptized in the extra outfit I had brought along just in case (so glad I remembered this). Actually, he ended up matching Carsten's outfit just by chance so that was really cute :). The baptism itself was really nice and both Carsten and Grady did amazingly well. Grady actually didn't cry at all which we were thankful for since Carsten cried most of his baptism.

My Grandparents and parents were able to stay for a few days after the baptism, and it was wonderful having them around. My Dad was Carsten's playmate and Mom had a ton of fun caring for Grady. We also enjoyed playing cards, and doing a few touristy things in Albany like the NY State Museum and the State Capitol Building. We loved spending time with family! Thanks for coming everyone :).

Dad playing diggers with Carsten.

Carsten had so much fun!

Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Hoogeveen with the boys.

Dad with a sleeping Grady :).

um, I'm back!

I have been busy. Crazy busy. I used to think that I was busy in grad school before we had Carsten, and then once we had Carsten, I realized that I used to have a ton of time on my hands. Well, the same thing happened when Grady arrived. I used to have loads of time when there was only Carsten around, and now that I have two kids, well, I just don't have time for much else except to tend to my children. My last post was when Grady was around two weeks old and he was still sleeping during the day. I should not have written that post because those luxurious naps where Carsten and Grady were both sleeping by themselves no longer happen, and in addition, we found out when Grady was 3 weeks old that our land lady would not be renewing our lease so we had to find somewhere else to move to. This meant that any additional time that I have had available has been spent house hunting, writing papers (I just got another one published!), and trying to clean. Hence, no more blog posts. So, let me see if I can sufficiently summarize the last 3.5 months of Grady's life... 

Grady at 1 months:

-almost smiling

-sleeping ok at night (generally up 1-2 times per night but he has a long stretch in there)

-Carsten started having more fun interacting with Grady and enjoyed playing in the playmat with him

-stopped napping regularly and typically wants to nap on me in the rocking chair which was only ok when Carsten was napping

-we realized around 1 month that Grady had reddish hair

-we switched him into 3 month clothes before he turned 1 month.

My two boys.

My 1 month old Grady.

Grady at 2 months:

-started smiling (baby smiles are amazing!)

-he napped primarily in the swing, carrier, stroller, car seat, or on me since a crib nap was just not done.

-Grady is really quite happy unless he's tired and wants to sleep. This is especially evident at about 5 pm when suddently without warning Grady will just start screaming. We don't remember this happening with Carsten nearly as much. Then again, Carsten typically went to bed around 10-11pm at this time in his life. Grady is typically sleeping by around 6:30-7:00 pm almost every night. This is wonderful :).

-started cooing and making noises back and forth with us

-Grady loves being outside which works out great because Carsten also enjoys playing outside. So we try to go to parks and take lots of walks when the weather cooperates.

-He started wearing 6 months clothes right around his 2 month birthday.

Elusive smile...

Love. Love. Love. And you can definitely tell Grady's hair is red here.

oh the cuteness!

My handsome Grady.

Go Hope!

Grady at 3 months:

-we realized that Grady was losing his reddish hair and now his blonde layer underneath is all that's left

-Grady found his hands around 3 months and found his toes around 3.5 months. 

-Grady started sleeping through the night pretty routinely (6:30 pm - 5:00 am)

-Grady started looking different from Carsten's baby photos (probably the loss of his darker hair is helping).

-his eyes are quite blue

-Carsten and Grady have really started interacting. Grady loves to watch Carsten and actually during supper Grady will make noise until Carsten notices him and then they both laugh back and forth at each other. Simply hilarious :).

-During this month we gave up on giving Grady bottles. The timing never worked out that well for Andy to give him a bottle and anytime that it did just ended in a screamfest. So, once again, I have an infant who won't take a bottle. This will probably be an issue when I teach labs in the fall at Union. Sigh.

Handsome Grady.

Look at those baby blues!

My Carsten.

My two boys.

Carsten reads to Grady on occasion. Love it!

Grady 4 months:

-he likes to use your hands to pull himself up to the sitting position

-sleeping well at night (generally sleeps from 6:30 pm - 5:30ish am)

-he is pretty good at grabbing toys now (or your hands or anything) to put into his mouth. Probably his favorite thing to suck on is a burp cloth.

-Grady rolled over from his tummy to his back twice (he was propped up on his elbows so it was easier, but hey - he still did it!). 

-Grady's eyes are still quite blue.

-Grady started screaming/screeching for fun when he's having play time. We're not a huge fan of this - hopefully it's a phase.

-Grady continued sleeping well at night and we reached cat-nap (30 min) status for crib naps in the morning. Both Carsten and Grady it turns out are cat-nappers as infants - just means more work for me...

-Grady started wearing 9 months clothes right before he turned 4 months. My boys really do grow up fast...

Probably my favorite photo ever of Grady. 

Our little Swiss baby. Thanks Kai and Vanessa for the onesie! 

Our little Grady baby.

All my boys. :)

Ok, so that's a summary on Grady. I'm still WAY behind so we'll see how I can do catching up this week... :)

Huis-mini-men newborn facts

Grady had an appointment last week for his 2 week checkup (2 weeks and 2 days), and he weighed in at 9 lbs 8 oz. This means he's had great growth (8 lbs leaving the hospital and 8 lbs 6 oz at birth)! Our doctor recommended that we still wake him up every 3 hrs at night (not sure why?), but we have chosen to ignore this advice in lieu of getting everyone much better rest especially since Grady eats much better when he wakes us up on his own (otherwise it's just a struggle). So currently he wakes up 2xs per night which is just perfect for us right now. Here's a couple newborn shots of Grady from the hospital photographer.

Newborn photos at the hospital. Isn't he darling :).

Love. Love. Love.

I'm often left alone to my thoughts when I'm nursing Grady (especially when Andy is home!) and it lets me think about both of my boys as newborns. So I'd like to record some of these thoughts while they are still fresh and especially because I didn't start blogging until Carsten was 4 months so I didn't write about him as a newborn. Please excuse the random nature of this post - I'm perpetually tired these days :).

During pregnancy:

-Carsten punched my bladder like nobody's business and that's actually how he broke my water the day he was born. 

-Grady turned and rotated SO much during the entire pregnancy and it made me feel pretty ill when he was doing it. During the last trimester Grady's knees and elbows were often in really uncomfortable positions so I spent a lot of time poking at him trying to get him to move them.

-Grady often reacted very strongly to Carsten when he was having fun rough-housing with Andy and I; he basically started having dance parties in my belly.

-My water ending up breaking for both boys before going to the hospital although with Carsten it was much more dramatic. I'll try to post more on this later.

-I didn't feel sick with either pregnancy and was able to pretty much continue as normal throughout both pregnancies. Hey, I even did an international move during Grady's :).

As newborns:

-Grady burps ALL the time. Basically he swallows air while nursing and is often in need of burping. We spend a lot of time burping Grady because the gas actually does bother him a lot. Carsten on the other hand rarely burped and actually after about the couple of months we stopped burping him and it never seemed to bother him.

-I love baby smiles when they are sleeping and I can't wait for the real thing!

-Both boys are unusually strong and gain head control pretty early. This makes it difficult to nurse on occasion. Also, both boys don't seem to mind tummy time as newborns.

-They look so similar! Sometimes I find myself calling Grady Carsten just because they look so much alike to me as newborns. I'm sure more differences will appear as Grady grows older, but for now they really do look a lot alike.

-I think Grady wins the loudest baby contest. As of late, he's either sleeping, eating, or screaming and there are very few happy moments and I know this will get better. He tends to scream when he's cold, hungry, or tired. I don't remember Carsten doing this quite as much; Carsten just didn't sleep - EVER.

-Both boys have cool birthdates, but they are even cooler in Europe because they switch the month and day there. So, 8/9/10 for Carsten and 31/3/13 for Grady. Awesome, right?! :)

-Grady wins the sleeping contest. He is a much better sleeper at night and was already doing longer stretches in the first week than we got from Carsten by his 1st month. Also, Grady will take naps during the day and although sometimes I get frustrated because I cannot lay him down on occasion (typically I can), I could NEVER lay Carsten down and still expect him to stay sleeping. Carsten was and is still an extremely light sleeper. Grady so far seems to be a better sleeper and we are very grateful. Both boys generally refuse to sleep in the swing, bouncer, rock n play, and car seat (unless we're in the car/stroller); this begs the question of why do I have all this baby stuff that doesn't work for getting them to sleep?! I will say that with Grady once you lose a nap cycle with him during the day the rest of the day is very difficult, so I'm trying really hard to make sure we're getting into a good routine so we can all have a happy day. Also, I can honestly say that I never expected both boys to be napping at the same time, which does happen about every 2 out of 3 days, and I'm very grateful for this time that I get to spend napping, relaxing, or cleaning. Carsten took a really long time to get to sleep at night and for the first month I don't think we ever got him to sleep before 10 pm and it routinely took until 11 pm - 12 am to get him down for the night; Grady is typically asleep somewhere around 7:30 pm (+/- 30 min) and this has been such a blessing for us. This generally allows us to get both boys to bed at the same time and then we can get chores done and still go to bed early. Again, we didn't think this would happen, but we feel so blessed that it happens on most nights (and we try not to get frustrated when it doesn't happen!). Also, we are currently sleeping on an air mattress in Grady's room so that way it's easier to care for Grady at night and hopefully we won't wake Carsten that way. All I can say is that my husband loves me :). 

-Both boys on general principles object to the bottle. We will win this battle with Grady as I do not want another infant who refuses the bottle. Thank goodness for Andy who will help me with this!

That's all I can think of for now! We love being a family of four and Carsten is adjusting beautifully to being a loving older brother.

Grady's newborn photos

Mom Huisman helped me take Grady to get his photos taken by iSmile photography as a 9 day old newborn. They are simply adorable! Thanks to Dad Huisman for watching Carsten while we got the photos for Grady!

My sweet Grady.

Furrowed eyebrows in response to the camera flashes.

Long Huisman toes.

We love Hope College!

Simply adorable :). The studio actually asked to use this one as advertising for their store. Yep, he's that cute :).

Love this baby. :)

Brothers

In case you're wondering, our two boys look quite a bit alike and this includes the 'furrowed eyebrows' that characterized Carsten and now Grady. Both of them look like they spend a lot of time studying the world which doesn't necessarily make sense :). I happen to love this about both of them.

They look pretty similar right now!

My cuties :)

Grady Henry Huisman

One week ago, we welcomed Grady Henry Huisman into our arms at 6:25 am on Easter morning. His arrival was much anticipated and it makes Easter even more special for us. We thank the Lord that he is healthy and we have had a wonderful week getting to know our newest boy.

Grady weighed in at 8 lbs 6 oz and was 19.5 inches long. We had a good stay in the hospital and went home in the afternoon on April 2 (his due date). He's been an amazing baby so far and it's hard not to make comparisons to Carsten in this respect. Andy and I do not remember Carsten sleeping so long and so well, and honestly Grady is quite a bit more relaxed in personality so far. He rarely cries; the only time he consistently cries is when he screams during diaper changes. Nursing him has gone much smoother than it did with Carsten, but this is probably because I'm more experienced. Grady has been a champion sleeper every night (typically sleeping ~11 hrs with a 4-5 hr stretch and two 2-3 hr stretches. He's also been typically taking an amazing nap in the afternoon (4-5 hrs) which has allowed me to get some good rest in the afternoon. I'm hoping this will continue since Carsten also takes a nap during that time. We have been extremely blessed to have Mom and Dad Huisman to take care of us during this last week; they have been cooking, cleaning, and caring for all of us, especially Carsten, as needed. Carsten has had a bit of adjusting to do, and we've noticed that his behavior is not quite as good as normal - we think he's been missing his 'mommy time' since he now has to share me quite a bit now. Luckily, Grandma and Grandpa have been keeping him very occupied with playing outside, making cookies, and other fun activities (thanks Mom and Dad!). I'm honestly not sure how we would have survived the week without Mom and Dad since Andy needed to be back teaching on April 3. Here's photos from Grady's first week:

First family photo a couple of hours after Grady's birth.

1 day old.

Grandma, Grandpa, and Grady!

Aunt Ashley and Grady!

Headed home!

Relaxing at home on Daddy's knees.

Making cookies!

Carsten is a good helper!

Sidewalk chalk!

Reading a new book with Grandma!

Grady smiles in his sleep :)

Carsten is a good older brother :).

First family walk!

 Since we missed Easter, we dressed up and had our Easter photos today. We're a good looking group!

Family photo!

Everyone!

Lovely :)

Two of my handsome boys.

In case you're wondering, Carsten is wearing a size 4 suit. How did he get SO big?!

We've had an amazing first week and our hearts are bursting with joy and love. We look forward to every day we get to share with our handsome boys.