Annual Girls' Weekend 2011

***Warning...this may be a repeat if you follow any of my friends' blogs! Oh well!***

This past weekend Brylee and I drove south of Houston to meet up with my best college girl friends for our annual Girls' Weekend. For the last 5+ years since we graduated from ACU, we have gotten together annually to spend some good, quality girlfriend time together.  We don't plan many activities for these weekends.  It is so nice just to be together and laugh, cry, and pray.  This year was especially fun, yet different, because we multiplied with babies over the last year!

 Kathrine, Wendi, Allison, Jenny, Brittnie, Jamie, Ashley

 Emma (2 years-Ashley), Brylee (10 months-Jamie), Madelynn (5 months-Jenny), Jake (3 months-Wendi), London (2 months-Kathrine)

 My child is having a hard time sitting still these days, so when we take a group kid picture on the couch, I had to lunge and keep her from falling a few times.

 Like I said...on this particular trip, we didn't do or plan much because we were all trying to keep up with our children. We stayed at Wendi 's & Brittnie's houses, and all arrived some time Friday.  We had dinner in, and spent most of the evening catching up. Saturday morning, we casually got ready, went for a walk to the nearby park, and then let the babies take morning naps. We did venture out to the mall for lunch and a 5-baby-wide stroller walk.

 Brylee did her fair share of making a mess on Wendi's floor.  I never realized how much of a help our dog Paisley is at cleaning up Brylee's mess until my daughter eats at someone else's house without a dog. I spent more time than usually cleaning up the floor!

 Kathrine's sweetie, London, did so well for being so young! I'll brag on her for a minute to say she has the softest, most olive skin you have ever seen! (The complete opposite from Brylee's fair and very dry skin!  We'll blame her daddy!)

 Wendi and Jake were such good hosts this weekend

 Jenny is the only one who has two children so far, although she left her oldest, Jude, at home with his daddy. But it just must not have felt right for Jenny to have one arm free, hence both arms full of babies!

 Emma is such a good little toddler, although her shyness may be beginning to shine

 And my sweet Brylee had such a good weekend, did amazing on our car ride down there, and spent her time exploring Wendi's floors!

 Alli & Britt did their best at keeping us all sane, especially during the moments when all 5 babies happened to be screaming at the same time.  Luckily, this only happened about once or twice the entire weekend!

 

 London and Brylee are about 8 months apart, and boy what a difference 8 months can make! It's hard for me to even remember that phase!

We had such a good time just being "family." I can't wait to continue 'growing old' with these girls and watching our kids become friends. Thank you, Lord, for blessing me with these life long friendships!

Ten Months

On Friday Brylee turned 10 months old.  We were out of town this weekend, but I had really good intentions of getting her picture and starting this post before now.  Oh well!

 Our big milestone this month...MOBILITY!

Brylee started showing good signs of crawling right after she turned 9 months, but really took off about two weeks ago.  In the last two weeks she has discovered she can crawl all over the house, pull up on everything, and has learned to sit up and pull up in her crib. Life is so different, but so much fun! I love it now that she can crawl.

She has also really started talking so much more.  She can say Mama and Dada, and has a word she uses for our dog Paisley (although it does not sound like "Paisley", but I have no idea how to type it).  I am pretty sure she understands the words "No", "Cookie", "All done", and "Bath". She talks constantly in a lot of combinations of "Ya-ya, da-da, ma-ma, ga-ga, ba-ba." She also is very good at blowing raspberries with her mouth and spitting with her tongue.

 She loves reading and exploring books by trying to turn the pages on her own, although she has a hard time sitting still long enough for me to read a book to her. She loves going for walks either in her stroller or in the shopping cart at the store.  We have been feeding the ducks in our neighborhood recently, and she recently saw her first horse. She is really acknowledging other animals and objects around her lately.

 She is a pretty happy baby, and has the best giggle. We can make her laugh by tickling her, chasing her crawling, playing with Paisley, or tipping her upside down.  She can make use laugh by almost anything she does!

She can be a little diva sometimes. She has started this high pitch scream...not a cry, but a scream...when she wants something she's not getting. I am getting a little nervous that my child may be a tad strong willed and may require more discipline than a simple request to do or not do something.

 For the record:

• She wears some of her 6-9 month clothes, but mostly has switched to 12 month size recently
• She wears size 3 diapers
• She goes to bed around 8:30 pm and wakes up at 7:30 am (but can be flexible if we are out late, and usually will sleep in the next day)
• She takes 2 naps, one from about 10:30-11:30 am, and the second from 3-4:30 pm
• She eats 3 meals a day, with five bottles total.  She is eating a combination of home made and store bought baby foods and "big people" table foods
• She loves: watermelon, cantaloupe, banana, vanilla wafers, animal crackers, both Greek & regular yogurt, applesauce, beans, eggs, pancakes

This not so little girl is so much fun, and I'm looking forward to watching her learn and grow as she approaches her first birthday!

Ten Months Old

September 23, 2011

Impromptu Photo Shoot - 9 Months

Our good friend, Tara, gave us a surprise group of pictures of Brylee at about 9 months old. Tara is a great photographer, who also happened to babysit Brylee for the last several months. One morning a few weeks ago, Tara decided to take the girls (her daughter included), down the street to a nearby park and have an impromptu photo shoot. I had pulled out the first thing I grabbed from the closet that morning, and quickly wished I had picked a non-pink outfit (if you know me, you know pink is not my favorite color) or had put a bow in her hair.  But after looking at these pictures, I absolutely LOVE how natural they look, and how good the colors work together. 

Go check her out at Tara Edwards Photography.

 Tara did a great job capturing some of Brylee's great expressions!

 So serious!

 She gives Bryan and me this face a lot when she's note quite sure what we are doing!

 "Does any one see me?..."

 "I don't think I'm supposed to be doing this..."

 What a cutie!

 "Ooohhh....fun..."

 "Come have fun with me..."

 "Look... I can stand up, too!"

 "I'm not having fun any more!" (I LOVE this one!)

Thanks, Tara! Can't wait to get some of our family when Brylee is ONE!

Purple, White...Fight, Fight, Fight!

This past Saturday, ACU played football against the University of North Alabama at the Cowboy's Stadium. Bryan, being a huge ACU football fan, and as a family, being enthusiastic ACU alumni, we headed to the stadium to cheer on our Wildcats. We got there about an hour and a half early for an indoor pre-game party hosted by ACU on the very upper deck of the stadium.

 We went with our good friends, and fellow ACU die-hards, the Garretts

 We ate and talked with other friends we ran into while an earlier game was finishing

 As a non-neat-freak, I let Brylee crawl on the floor nearby, which she enjoyed much more than being held, and left both of my hands free to eat.  It is sometimes a rare occasion these days to get to eat a meal with both of my hands! Ha!

 The game started at 4, and we arrived at about 2:15, which meant Brylee was going to miss her afternoon nap all together.  I was slightly worried I was going to have a zombie-child on my hands, but to my pleasant surprise, Brylee behaved so well while in our seats, then zonked out for about a 45 minute nap on my lap! She never does this!

 Besides getting hot and sweaty, this nap absolutely saved the rest of our evening at the game!

 When she woke up, her and I found a cozy seating area of backless couches, and spent part of the 3rd quarter eating her dinner.

 We returned to the stands a happy camper, and tried our best to cheer the Wildcats on to a victory.

 I did my best to get a few pictures of her purple and white outfit, bow included...

 ...but about 10 seconds after I put the bow on her head, she takes it right off...

 ...and we're back to this! Oh, well.

 Unfortunately, ACU lost, but we had a good time and a great experience in such a big arena.

We sat with these good friends, and are thankful for such a great college experience like we had at ACU!