Monday, July 26, 2010

A Year of Firsts

**Warning**This post is VERY picture heavy


To My Sweet Baby Brinna:

Now that you're a year old, it's time for Mommy to get a little sentimental and look at all of your "firsts." It amazes me how much you've grown and changed in 12 short months.

The first time I saw you. You cried and cried and cried, until they brought you over to me.


The first time you officially met your big sister. She loved you immediately and couldn't wait to hold you.


Your first bath was NOT a success. In fact you hated it.


Your first real smile. Your little grin still makes Mommy's heart melt.


Your first family nap.


The first time you sucked your thumb.


Your first Halloween.


Your first Christmas.


The first time you sat up all by yourself.


Crawling for the first time.


The first time you stood.


Your first Easter.


Our first vacation to Kalahari.


The first time you decided you were a monkey instead of a baby.


And finally....

Your first 4th of July.


I love you, my sweet baby girl! I can't wait to see what the next year brings!

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Brinna's 1 year pictures

Brinna turns 1 on Sunday and we had her pictures taken at JC Penny Portrait Studios. We've always had Adelae's pictures taken there and they do such a fabulous job. These are a few of my favorites.







These are just the thumbnail pictures off of the JC Penny website, so they're not the greatest quality, but they're so darn cute I couldn't help but pass them along! I should note that I only put my blog stamp on them because I don't want them stolen off of my blog and used for evil. All of the credit goes to the fabulous staff at JC Penny.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Why am I always LATE?

So, before I had kids I was always a pretty punctual person (unless it was work, then I seemed to be a little more of the "Thank goodness I made it on time" person). If I was going to a movie, I made sure I was at least 20 minutes early. If I was meeting people for dinner, I was almost always the first one there. Doctors appointments? Always early.
Then we had Adelae. I went from being 15-20 minutes early to being about 5 minutes early. As she got older and I had less stuff to pack, I started showing up early to places again.
Then we had Brinna. I don't know why, but I can NOT seem to get out of the house on time. We are always showing up to places right on time or late. I hate being late. It makes me anxious. I feel like I've inconvenienced the people I'm suppose to meet or the staff. When we're barely on time to church, I feel like we're making a big commotion when we come in with our two kids.
Now, we're not usually more than a few minutes late, but I still feel like it's rude. I hate it when someone tells me they're going to show up at 12:00 and they show up late with no phone call to explain the reason. Yeah..I'm kind of weird like that!
In order to map out the reason we're always late, I decided to log our timeline when we were getting ready for church last week. Church starts at 10:00 and we need to leave by 9:45 to be there on time.

7:30 Everyone wakes up. We play in bed until about 8:00
8:00-8:15 Change Brinna's diaper, Adelae's pull up, make coffee
8:15-8:45 Breakfast for everyone (except me. I just enjoy my coffee)
8:45 I turn on the computer while Ben entertains the girls. And this is where it all goes downhill. I wind up spending way more time on the computer than I planned. I get lost in cyberspace for at least 30 minutes.
9:15 "OH CRAP! Why didn't you tell me what time it is? The kids are still in their pajamas. I have to get ready. Ben, you have to get ready. Crap!"
Theoretically we should have plenty of time to get ready. I mean, there's two of us to dress the kids and get them ready. I usually have the girls clothes picked out the night before, so all they have to do is put them on.
The next 30 minutes goes a little like this
Me; "Ben, can you please dress the girls while I get ready?"
Ben; "Sure. Where are the clothes?"
Me; "on the couch."
Ben; "Ok."
I proceed to the bathroom to put my makeup on and try to do something with my hair.
I come out and the kids are still in their pjs.
Me; "BEN! I thought you were going to get the girls dressed!"
Ben; "I couldn't find the clothes."
Me; "Um..They're RIGHT here!"
Ben; "Oh, can you get them dressed if you're done?"
Me; "UGH! Yes, it's fine." (said in a very sarcastic tone)
Ben; "Ok. I'll go get dressed now."
From this point on it's a flurry of activity and a lot of me saying "COME ON! We're LATE! Let's GO!"
I can usually push us out the door by 9:45. That's on time right? Nope! Because once we get in the car it's Ben saying "Oh, I forgot my wallet." And me saying "Oh, I forgot Brinna's bottle." Or "Whoops we didn't bring any snacks." Or other things that are similar. So, in reality we don't usually head out of the driveway till 9:50 or 9:55.
I can hear what you're thinking. "Hey, just don't turn on the computer!" I mean, that's 30 whole minutes! Yeah, tried that. I wind up watching morning news shows and not doing anything any way. It's like when I had kids, I lost all my motivation to be on time. I WANT to be on time, I just have a MUCH harder time actually DOING it. I keep trying to convince myself that I'm not the only one that has this problem. Other people are late right?
Ben thinks that I make too much of an ordeal about us being late. I was raised that it's rude and disrespectful. Is it really? Are we really late if we're just 5 minutes late? And if not, what's late? Is it 10 minutes? 15 minutes? At what point do you say "Oh, just forget it. We're late. I'm not going?"

Friday, July 2, 2010

Letters of Intent

Foursons


Dear Contacts:

I don't understand you. I take care of you. I change you every 30 days(give or take a few), I don't sleep in you, I make sure to clean you each and every night. Why oh why do you insist on sticking to my eyeball like you were put in with super glue? Why? Why do you insist on making most of my days miserable. Why? I don't understand. According to my eye doctor, you're the best on the market. I'm contemplating just going back to wearing my glasses. And I really really hate my glasses. I'll give you one more opportunity before I chuck you forever. Please oh please oh please don't make me go back to wearing my glasses. Please?

Sincerely,
One who does not look good in glasses.


Dear adorable 3 year old daughter,

I love you very much. You'll always be my first born and my baby. Always. Now, let's talk about the hunger strike you're apparently on. I just want you to eat. You don't have to eat very much, just enough to survive. I would really appreciate it if you would do it with no tears and screaming. The crying and screaming are getting REALLY old. Really. I don't have much sanity left and you're stealing it meal by meal. I'm pretty sure if this continues, Mommy's going to wind up in the loony bin saying "Just eat your food. Please. Just eat your darn food! If you don't eat, you're going to bed." Over and over and over.

Sincerely,
Mommy's about to snap

Wait...what's that? Hmm...apparently I already say that over and over again. Well, now I'm wondering, do you think I could nap in the loony bin? And I bet they don't make you cook or clean either right? And my family could probably come visit once in awhile right? So, in reality it's like a vacation. Maybe I could even afford one of those fancy spa places. Ya know..where the celebs go to "rest." Actually, it's sounding better and better............

Thursday, July 1, 2010

The Trip That Had It All

We recently decided to embark on a camping adventure. In my infinite wisdom, I picked a camp ground close to home, ya know..so if things went wrong we could leave. **Ahem**
Well, the trip was..um...eventful..yeah..that's the word...eventful. We woke on Thursday morning armed with lists and hopeful attitudes. Unfortunately, Adelae also woke with a horrible stomach bug. I won't go into details, but let's just say we changed panties a lot before we left the house and packed a few extra diapers. That should have been my first clue that maybe we should stay home. But, nope! Ben insisted that we go ahead with our plans. So, we did!

Thankfully the kids slept most the hour drive.




I should mention that an hour isn't nearly long enough for a sick preschooler to nap.



Brinna was really excited to be at the campground.




Thankfully, Adelae's stomach bug was fairly short lived (if you can consider 10 hours, 5 of which were at a camp ground short lived). She was able to play at the playground and make Twizzler mustaches by the campfire.




The rest of Thursday was pretty uneventful. The air mattress didn't deflate, the tent didn't come crashing down on us and no bears ate us. (Not that there are bears there, but ya know...kind of a concern when sleeping in the woods.) We did see a raccoon, but he was pretty friendly. At least that what I was telling myself when he was about 2 feet from me. I would have taken a picture, but I was too scared to move. I hate raccoons.

Friday was an absolutely gorgeous, if hot, day. We hit the beach, thinking the kids would LOVE to cool off. Other than Adelae screaming like we were trying to drown her, it was fun.


We even rented a paddle boat! The scenery on the lake was just gorgeous and so peaceful. I could have floated all day.


Given the start to our trip, I should have known that something bad was about to happen. Should have just KNOWN. Friday night the sky got REALLY dark and we started to hear thunder. I checked the weather radar on my phone and sure enough there was a HUGE thunderstorm approaching. After much talking (Me: We need to go home. Ben: no we'll be fine. Me: no, seriously..let's go home. Ben: No, seriously we'll be fine.) we decided to ride out the storm in the car. It wasn't a big deal. We got a lot of wind, a lot of rain and couple of lightening strikes. Ben and I had a couple of beers, we cranked some fantastic 80's rock and made the most of the storm.

Little did I know, there was another huge storm coming. I woke up at about 1:00 in the morning to lightening so close it made the hairs on my arms stand up and thunder so loud I thought it was the end of the world. The wind was blowing so hard that I was convinced our tent was going to take flight. Everyone slept through it but me. I kept thinking "Whose bright idea was it to put our tent underneath of two trees. Oh yeah..mine..." Luckily, we escaped the storm with no major damage. The tree that was 15 ft from our camp sight..not so much




All in all, we still had a lot of fun. We learned a few things like 1)don't go camping with a sick preschooler 2)don't forget the sand toys 3)take Brinna's walker 2)leave if the radar says there are severe thunderstorms. We'll definitely go camping again...next year.