Meet the Bronsons

Miller Family Reunion

2012-01-10T23:04:00.000-08:00

My dad planned last year for the whole family to stay out in Palm Desert the week after Christmas. It was the one week when we could all actually be together. We were scattered around the Palm Desert area in three different time shares and it was a blast!

On Monday night we completed Christmas with our $30 gift exchange. This is a family tradition that we started two years ago (I think). Everyone in the family buys a non gender specific awesome $30 Christmas present. We then all get to pick a present following the White Elephant gift exchange rules (I know there's a better term, I just can't think of it now). It is so much fun to see what everyone ends up with and what presents get stolen. This year some of the "hot" items were a huge remote control helicopter, a wet/dry vacuum, games, and movies. But the best gift of all was my dad's remote control giant helium fish; Keri was the big winner with that and she was so excited! Round 2 of this gift exchange is the secret gift. This tradition came to us from Aaron's family. Someone buys a gift and brings it wrapped. Everyone gets to hold the present and ask one yes/no question at a time until the gift is correctly identified. This Keri was a dual big winner because she guessed the mystery gift too! Here are some pics of our fun night:

CJ got to pick the first gift of the night.

Sam looked super excited about this one!

Aaron was so happy because he ended up with the helicopter!

Toni got this cool game, but she was really excited about all of the Twilight movies!

Look at the sheer joy on her face!!

Now she's truly excited to win this awesome ipod speaker/dock...oh Keri!

Our adventure on Tuesday included plans to take the tram up to the top of the mountain to see the snow. We all brought cold weather clothes, but we packed some serious snow gear for the kids. We weren't sure what to expect, but it ended up being my favorite part of the week. My kids had never seen snow before, so Bailey was very excited. I happened to find amazing clearance deals on two pink puffy snow outfits for my girls, so we were ready to go. We all meet in the parking lot around 9:00 and then took the 9:40 tram up to the top. The tram ride itself was an adventure because it was so high and we were moving quite quickly while rotating around to get a complete 360 degree view of the area.

But before we could do any of that, we had to bundle all of the kids and make the tremendous hike up to the tram. It really wasn't that long, it just seemed really long dressed in all those layers. The only downer about this snow excursion is that my mom couldn't take her scooter out in the snow with all of us, so she had to sit at the base of the trail and watch us from afar. But she did her duty of warning everyone who walked by that the last part of the trail was covered in ice and very slippery. Most people didn't listen to her so she got to watch some awesome falls.

I don't think Brooklynn could be wearing anymore pink!

Josi was not too excited about all the clothes.

Brooklynn's first touch ...

and taste of snow. She loved it and bent over to pick it up whenever she could!

My cute, pink, marshmellow baby! She'll only wear this snow puff outfit once, but it was well worth it.

One of the best parts of our snow adventure was that the boys found these two abandoned sleds at the bottom of the mountain by the trash cans. One was breaking, but both of them worked good enough for us. We loaded them up at the top of a small incline and then the boys had to catch them at the bottom before they lost control and ran into a tree. The kids loved it!

CJ even got in on the action with a little snowboarding. I think he's missing Utah a little :)

I snapped a shot of Owen and Bailey as they sped by!

Here's Bailey and Kate picking up some speed.

This might be my favorite picture of the entire trip! I love how Bailey has this wild, crazy, pure joy on her face and tiny Brooklynn is just going along with whatever is happening. Arms straight out to the side--probably not by choice, just the fact that her outfit is so puffy!

Aaron, Toni, and the marshmellow baby

I actually got a turn to hold her a little bit!

Bailey and her Auntie Toni!

You can barely tell, but that's Tera all bundled up with Kate.

Ty and Keri with the broken sled.

She doesn't quite understand what it is, but she just knows that she wants it.

Our snowman--we didn't build it, just posed with it. Bailey thought it was very exciting to see a snowman in real life.

Cousins!!

It was pretty difficult to get a good picture of the four of them.

My dad just kept laughing at Brooklynn in her puffy outfit all day.

Papa and the grandkids

Toni and Aaron

Our girls are pink and we are gray

Bailey is showing us the splinter in her finger and Brooklynn is eating some snow.

Kyle, Sam, and kids

Here's Bailey in action in her first snowball fight. She wasn't too happy to receive the snowball to the face, but she was very excited to throw them at everyone else.

Owen in action

These are our attempts at snow angels. Brooklynn just looks sad in her's. She just looks like she's been left there to take a sad nap in the snow. She didn't like it at all.

Bailey tried to do a snow angel, but she said the snow was too hard and she did not select an ideal location. At least she can say she tried!

This next series of pictures is in the order that they were taken and is reflective of how my girls were feeling while I was trying to get a cute picture:

Picture #1: Brooklynn is again eating snow and Bailey is taking the bandaid off her injured finger to double check if in fact it still hurt.

Picture #2: Bailey has realized that, yes, her finger does still hurt and so she starts to cry. Brooklynn is looking at Bailey like, "I swear you were happy just one second ago. What happened?"

Picture #3: Brooklynn now decides that she should take a turn crying because her sister did. Bailey stops crying for a second to see why Brooklynn is crying.

Picture #4: They both realize that they were crying for no reason, so Brooklynn goes back to finding more snow and Bailey goes back to looking at her finger. Needless to say, I did not get a great shot of the two of them at that moment :)

Here's our group shot before we got on the tram. I love that we look like we're going on an arctic journey! We are such Southern Californians!

Here's the tram that took us up to the top of the mountain.

The rest of the week was filled with lots of swimming, lounging by the pool, movies, dinner, games, and tons of fun! The kids loved being able to wake up, run to each other's room, put their swimsuits on and go swimming for the day. They would have stayed in the pool all day everyday if we let them. Here are some pool shots from the one day I remembered to bring my camera out to the pool:

They did not want to stop swimming to take just one picture.

Bailey did stop walking long enough to take this sweet pose for a shot.

The sun was so bright she needs to wear shades!

On Thursday night we all went to the street fair in Palm Springs. The streets were lined with yummy food, interesting art, music, and lots of interesting people. It was a good night.

We were all getting ready for the night.

Brooklynn just wanted to be left alone to sleep

Bailey's all bundled up in her stylish jacket and hat. The hat lasted about 5 minutes.

I'm not quite sure what was going on in this picture.

Brooklynn was a tiny owl in her cute hat.

We took a break on the curb while Brian waited in line for some delicious food.

Here's mom on her scooter with Owen.

One afternoon we took the kids to this cool fountain to play for a while. It didn't last as long as we thought because the water was pretty cold. We forgot that it was December and winter a lot during this trip because the weather was so wonderful.

To me, this is classic Josi. That girl is a wild child and I love it!

Kate and Bailey in front of fountain

The girls were riding some chickens. It was a very eclectic fountain.

Bailey got brave enough to stand on top for a picture.

I think this picture is hilarious! It looks like Kate is peeing on this pot and it's coming out the hole.

Brooklynn just sat and happily watched the kids play the entire time. She lives up to her name of dream baby! I love this tiny thing!

It was a great week and I'm hoping that we make it an annual event. I have an amazing family and we always have fun when we're all together. It was a wonderful way to end our holiday season. Thanks dad for putting it all together!!

Christmas Day: Phases 1-4

2012-01-09T22:44:00.000-08:00

Christmas morning was finally here!! We woke the girls up a little bit before 7:00 because we needed to get over to my mom and dad's house by 8:00. Both Bailey and Brooklynn woke up happy, so we were off to a great start. We left one of the princesses and a dragon from Bailey's castle on the stairs to see if she would notice. She did notice as we walked downstairs, and when she saw her castle and realized that it was real so jumped up and down for a while. She had to stare at it for a little bit because I don't think she was totally awake yet.

Phase 1:

Here's her moment of shock--is this castle I've been talking about for months finally in my house or am I dreaming?!

She was so happy!!

Thank you Santa!

I love this picture! It might be the first one where they are both genuinely smiling :) I gave Brooklynn an easy present to open with pretty paper to entice her to rip it, but she was not interested at all. She just wanted to watch Bailey for most of the morning.

We opened up stockings and a few other presents before heading over to the other house. She loved her Hello Kitty slippers--a great Black Friday find!

This is what Brooklynn did for most of the morning. She makes the best faces!

This phone was a hit. Look at the next picture to see how Brooklynn was so intrigued by the phone. It makes me laugh.

We filled this box with packing peanuts that she had to dig through to find another wrapped gift inside. She loves the part in Toy Story where there's a box filled with packing peanuts; she always says that she wants some, so we gave some to her.

She loves Jessie

She calls these guys her Up Up doll.

This was her first big girl/imitation American Girl doll. I didn't take a picture of her with the doll, just opening it (my mistake). I thought I'd buy her an imitation doll before the real deal to see if she truly liked it. So far I'm really glad I didn't spend $100 bucks on a doll because she's not too interested it her. I'm thinking maybe next year?

Who needs presents when you have a bottle?

Once we completed Phase 1 of Christmas morning, we headed over to my parents' house for phase 2. I was very proud of ourselves because we made it over to the house a little bit before 8:00. I'm never early anywhere, but we were early on Christmas morning. It was perfect timing too because the cousins had just finished opening up their stockings too. At the house we had our usual present fest!

Phase 2:

CJ, Keri, and the babe

Toni, Aaron, and their child Shorty

Shorty got all dressed up for Christmas!

One bow is cute...

but four bows is better!

My mama! We got her a kindle, but it has still yet to be used. We need to get on that before it becomes a dust collector.

A shot of all the fun

Patiently waiting for her next gift. I'm not so sure it's patience or pure exhaustion :)

A beef stick and a tennis ball collector--items on the top of everyone's list!

Toni and Bailey with her tiny dolly

We got Brooklynn a drum that lights up and she loved it! I gave her a tiny sneak peak of the drum a few days before Christmas and she was so excited, so I knew it would be a success on Christmas morning.

Tera got a super cute purse

I just can't resist kissing her chubby cheeks

All of the sisters in our gorgeous Christmas jammies! They were actually pretty comfy to sleep in too.

Keri is really feeling it in this one!

I love cousins in matching jammies! They are all so cute!

Umbrellas make everything more fun!

My tiny happy baby!

She just needed to relax for a bit and let it all hang out.

After everything was opened, breakfast was eaten, and we were all dressed we went to church. That made up Phase 3 of our Christmas morning. We then packed back into the cars and headed up to Grandma and Grandpa's house. It was so fun for us all to be at Grandma and Grandpa's house because I know that they love it so much!

Phase 4:

The kids loved hanging out in the swing in the back yard. They were all a little bit tired at this point, but they powered through like the troopers that they are.

Smiling, happy people!

Bailey and Owen are staring the camera down!

Kate and Owen sang us a Christmas song that they learned in preschool.

Bailey sang us a lovely song that she made up on the spot! It was entitled Kris Kringle, but the best line was about "the poor baby was named Jesus." I love that girl!

Eric played an amazing song on the guitar.

Just some beautiful shots during the festivities.

Bailey got a cute sweatsuit from Grandma and Grandpa Mosher.

Look at sweet Grandma Mosher!

Wesley took over the Santa duties...

while Grandpa opened his presents.

Grandma and Grandpa with all their great grandkids.

all great grandkids and grandkids

their kids

The Miller Family

We had a wonderfully exhausting day. It was so much fun to be with our family all day long. On our way back home we stopped by Uncle Robert and Aunt Nicky's house (phase 5) and then drove back home (phase 6) to finally fall asleep (phase 7). Christmas was a success and Bailey already can't wait until the next one--she'll be waiting quite a while for that!

Christmas Eve

2012-01-06T10:46:00.000-08:00

We spent Christmas Eve with the crew at the Clouse House. There was delicious food, as always, lots of presents, and tons of fun!

Since it was Brooklynn's first Christmas, she wasn't quite sure what to think.

Bailey on the other hand is a seasoned pro now with Christmas. She could hardly contain her excitement for each present. She even knows to smile while she opens her presents to not waste time looking up at the camera.

Games and crafts = two of Bailey's favorite things.

Emma was excited too, but once she opened her markers she was done with the rest of her presents.

Brooklynn knew as soon as she opened this present that it was a tasty treat. In this picture though, she's using it as a bongo drum.

She didn't quite know what to think about this baby...

but she was super excited about reading her birth certificate...

and even more excited to eat this present!

My girls

A Merry Christmas baby! The entire San Diego county was sold out of all Christmas jammies in the 9 month size, so I had to go with the 6 month size. I think these are pretty cute, especially the reindeer on the butt, but they might look a little boyish.

Bailey's turn with the Santa hat.

Once we got home for the night, Bailey was dead asleep. As soon as I woke her up, she wanted to get out the cookies, milk, and carrots for Santa and his reindeer. This was a much scaled down list of items to leave out; we started with cookies, milk, carrots, fruit snacks, granola bars, and juice boxes, just what every reindeer loves.

She was too tired to hold the plate, so I put the plate on top of her. She thought that was pretty funny.

To make it more exciting, we put Brooklynn on her back too. Brooklynn had no interest in smiling for the picture because she was focused on getting one of those cookies.

Once she got a hold of a cookie, she wasn't too thrilled with the taste.

It was then off to bed for my two Christmas beauties. Bailey went to bed very quickly; she was extremely excited for the next morning. Once the girls were in bed, we (meaning Brian) set to work on building a castle. It had many, many pieces, but he put it together pretty quickly. I think we ended up going to bed a little before midnight, which was right on time for me :)

Pre Christmas Festivities

2012-01-05T00:54:00.000-08:00

I was kind of a slacker this year when it came to putting up my Christmas decorations and tree. We didn't get our tree up until the second week of December, which was sad because I love Christmas decorations so much. Bailey was really into decorating this year. She wanted to help me get every decoration out of the box and put it up immediately. She would have stayed up into the early hours of the morning decorating our house if I let her. It was really cute though because when she came down in the morning after I decorated, she would ooh and aah over every new decoration she spotted.

You can tell in this picture where Bailey likes to hang all of the ornaments :)

She was so excited to put the star on our tree!

Another family tradition that we have with Brian's family is our annual Coronado Christmas. We go down to Coronado Island and check out the Hotel Del. There is a beautiful tree in their lobby and we always look at it and then walk down to the beach. We usually eat lunch on the beach in December and talk about how cold the rest of the country is--hahaha. This year it was slightly raining at our house, so we didn't pack the picnic lunches, but we were wrong. It was the most beautiful weather that we've had down there in the past few years. So instead of a picnic we just took our shoes off and walked around. It was a great day.

Our family pic in front of the tree--not our greatest, but that was as good as it got.

Matthew, Vanessa, Emma, and Hanneka

Adam & Teryn

All the grandkids on the Bronson side

A beautiful sunny December day

Brooklynn is cheering in this picture

A much better family picture :)

They have all these new Dr. Suess statues outside the hotel. This one Bailey recognized as the Grinch!

One night we decided to go down to the San Diego temple to see all the pretty lights. It was a great night with just us. Bailey really got into the nativity scenes--literally she ran up into the scene and wanted to ride the animals...oops! It was just a quick trip, but well worth it. I think we may do it every year. I heard we need to add on the Mormon Battalion next year to hear the singing.

Bailey wanted to pose with this donkey.

I put Brooklynn in this cute snow baby bear outfit so she wouldn't get cold.

It was adorable!

They have this smaller nativity scene near the entrance that was very pretty.

Besides taking pictures with the baby Jesus, it was a nice opportunity to talk to Bailey about whey we celebrate Christmas. From that night on in her prayers at night, she would ask that Jesus would have a nice birthday party for Christmas. She's getting better :)

The lights truly were beautiful!

This is when she literally got into the nativity scene and I had to take a picture. She wanted to hold Mary's hands.

Since Bailey wasn't leaving, I had to run and put Brooklynn in the picture too. Bailey really does love playing with all nativity sets and talks about baby Jesus a lot lately.

Even though I had to teach through December 21st, we tried to plan fun festive activities for us to do as a family to put us in the holiday spirit. It was hard working that close to Christmas, but we did have fun.

October-December in Fast Forward

2011-12-20T23:41:00.000-08:00

Here's our life (in part) from October to December just so I can say I did:

October

Baby pirates

A trip to Sea World for some trick or treating.

For a while Bailey thought she had to be a pirate every year for Halloween since that's what she was last year.

They had lots of weird Halloweenish people walking around the park

Cookie Monster is always a favorite.

This is to prove that she was at least attempting to crawl for things--not anymore she just wants to sit.

Pumpking guts!

The best/cleanest/easiest pumpkins ever

The trick or treating crew: Thomas, Jordyn, Hailey, Bailey

Brooklynn and Chloe didn't get candy, but they sure looked cute.

And they're off!!

My dream baby chilled in the stroller

They sprinted up to each door and were very good at saying Trick or treat! and thank you--compared to last year.

Not smiling, but focusing on the candy

November:

Even though it was only November, Christmas decorations were out everywhere.

Another fun trip to Sea World

Such a cutie

All bundled up

Our Santa pictures with cousins

The candy cane is Bailey's motivation for everything

cousins!!!

A day at the park

We like to call her marshmellow baby since she's so fluffy

Thanksgiving hats (Bailey was too tired and needed a nap)

This is Brooklynn's favorite thing--jumping! She gets so high and loves it. She thinks that if she's standing, she can now jump on anything.

We decorated cookies and Grammy was able to help/watch even with her broken ankle

This is why I live in Southern California: I can go to the beach in November and not freeze to death!

The water was cold, but the kids loved it!

Her belly is lookin nice and tight in that bathing suit.

December:

I was "sick" a day and took the girls to Disneyland with Becky, Hailey, and Chloe. It was so much fun and not that crowded at all. I loved it!

We visited with Mrs. Clause while Santa was on his lunch break.

We actually saw more characters than we'd ever seen before without waiting in any lines. We just had really good timing that day. We saw Ariel--the little mermaid. I couldn't find Bailey for one second; I looked up and she had cut in front of everyone. I quickly called her back and waited in line again to see her.

We saw Mickey and Minnie Mouse at CA Adventure

And their dog Pluto too.

There's my quick catch up for the past three months! I have one more day of school and four more days until Christmas. I can't wait for both!! Merry Christmas to everyone!!

December is Here!

2011-12-04T15:20:00.000-08:00

My girls with Santa!

So I'm not going to lament about how dreadfully behind I am on posting pictures and events on my blog--my sisters do that enough for me:)

December is here, so let the fun begin!!! I'll put more pictures up once I get my camera from my mom's house. I hope everyone (and anyone who still checks my highly outdated blog) is enjoying a wonderful holiday season!

I Love October!

2011-10-15T11:51:00.000-07:00

October truly is the best month of the year. Besides it being my birthday month, you have Halloween, it's kind of fallish weather, you can still go to the beach, it stays light late, and there are just so many fun things to do. Here's what we've been doing the first half of this month:

#1: Taking pictures of cute Brooklynn in her adorable Sunday outfits--

She's getting so big!

This one is awesome because you can see a big drool hanging down.

This is the dress that I first showed self control and didn't buy, but then I went back a month later and bought it. Great decision--don't you agree? I love this cute little smile.

I think she's trying to make a heart sign to say I love you! She's always playing with her hands; I kind of love this stage of baby this time around.

#2: It's field hockey season! My girls have been doing great. I always love picture day with my two girls in their matching field hockey uniforms.

#3: Bates Nut Farm! This year instead of going on one of the last Saturdays of the month, we went on October 1st. It was quite hot--especially since I dressed the girls in black, but we had a fun time as always.

Bailey wanted to pose with this spooky monster.

Brooklynn picked her pumpkin.

Here's my two pumpkins! It's so hard to get a picture of both of them smiling. I need to hire a personal assistant.

This one was very risky. Bailey is literally holding Brooklynn up on that pumpkin. Brian wasn't there at the moment to catch them if they fell.

It was at this point that Bailey told me she's done taking pictures. Little did she know that she had just begun!

I love this one of Brian and the girls

Bailey always performs super human feats of strength picking up her pumpkin. Look at that determination on her face. On a side note--also notice the cute flower in her hair. This was the last photo taken with it in; we sadly lost that flower at the pumpkin patch. I didn't notice it until it was too late. I just hope that it was found by someone who will love it as much as me :(

Brooklynn loved her pumpkin!

Bailey turned her smiles back on when we went into the petting zoo place. She would have sat and held this tiny bunny all day.

Feeding the baby goats

She also got to ride a pony named Cowboy. She was one happy camper!

#4: Going to the beach! We still have nice weather here in October. So when Keri and CJ made a quick trip down last weekend, we went to the beach. Since Brooklynn can sit up on her own now, she had her first taste of sand--and she loved it!

This is one of the only shots where she's looking up at me...

she was fascinated with the sand.

She loved to dig it and then try to transfer it from hand to hand.

Eventually, she found her way to her mouth...

and then she went to town! She ate so much sand, and as the good mom that I am, I let her eat it up.

Who cares if she's standing, she won't stop eating the sand.

Then I let her get down and dirty on her tummy.

Me and my sand bearded baby!

Bailey took full advantage of Uncle CJ being at the beach. She had him dig a hole, bury her in it, and then turn it into a castle.

She was in heaven!

#5: Family picture day:

My friend Sara took our family pictures and I love them! There are some adorable ones that she posted of the girls on her blog. I can't wait to see them all.

Patriot's Day

2011-09-11T13:51:00.000-07:00

This past week, I've been kind of obsessed with watching 9/11 shows. I know that I've probably seen them all before, but I just feel drawn to watching them. Especially since this is the 10th anniversary of the attacks it feels even more important to remember everything. I was there in NYC two months after the Twin Towers collapsed; my friend Tami and I went on a trip and stayed with my cousin Dani. We were even able to help out a tiny bit by serving lunch to all of the people that were working at Ground Zero one day when we went to look at everything. So that's my small contribution and connection to this event. To honor and remember this day, we all dressed a little patriotically for church.

Brooklynn was super smiley for this photo session, but extremely wobbly.

I had Bailey hold Brooklynn in her lap; it seemed less dangerous.

This was Brooklynn's favorite pose--standing up. I had Bailey hold her, which was pretty risky, but it paid off. Look at those cheeks!!

Bailey got a little bit too excited for this one, but Brooklynn liked it.

Me and my girls

Brooklynn, Bailey, and Brian

It's fairly obvious by my lack of posts the last month that I am back in school :( It will be one month this week and I think we're in our groove. It's not so tragic every day when we get ready and go; I actually do like my job, it's just a hard transition from having 5 months off. So here's a much needed update of the past month:

We squeezed in one last trip to Sea World before school started--

Bailey is showing Cookie Monster her ballet moves.

Even though Sesame Street is not her favorite show anymore, she still loves these guys!

She would love to take these giant stuffed penguins home. I always feel bad for those parents who win them and them have to lug them around for the rest of the day.

We tried to get Brooklynn to stand with the penguins, but there was too much for her to look at.

I, of course, spent my last day of summer at the beach with my girls. It was a cloudy day, but we loved it!

Big smiles!

She's thinking, "My mama is number 1!"

Cute Bailey--notice that she's not playing with the huge bag of toys I bring to the beach, but an empty water bottle that someone left. I guess I can downsize my bag of beach toys for next year.

She really is a beach kid--thank goodness!

Her favorite thing to do this summer is to dig a giant hole (even better if the hole is already there and we don't have to dig it)and then wait for the water to come up and make her a private swimming pool.

To kick off our Labor Day weekend, we went to a Padres' game. Me, Brian, my mom, Tera, and Brooklynn all watched the Padres lose, but it was a fun night. Brooklynn loved looking at all the bright lights and she got to taste her first pickle. Since she's related to me, I'm pretty sure pickles will be one of her favorite foods.

On Labor Day weekend, we had crazy weather. It rained and was hot and humid. The beach was out, but we did get a really pretty sunset one night.

You can kind of see the arc of the rainbow in the upper right hand corner of this picture--and we threw Brooklynn in there too :) It was actually a double rainbow, but the second one was very faint.

A dark picture of all the girls, but a pretty sunset in the back.

Toni and Aaron came down for the weekend, so it's always fun to spend time with them.

Brooklynn is getting so big! She grabs things now--especially faces.

Bailey did not want to get left out of the photo session.

It may be hard to believe, but we even survived the Blackout of 2011! All electricity in San Diego, Riverside, Yuma, AZ, and parts of Orange County was out for 12 hours. It went out Thursday after school, and didn't come back on until around 2:00 in the morning on Friday. It lasted just long enough for school to be cancelled on Friday!!! I thoroughly enjoyed our mini blackout. We enjoyed our family dinner at my parents' house on the driveway lit by the moon and our fire pit. Bailey thought it was the greatest thing and is looking forward to doing it again. (I didn't have my camera with me, so I documented the night with my phone.)

Here's Bailey by our fire pit while we roasted marshmellows.

She was in her bathing suit because it was so hot earlier in the day and it was quite nice outside while we ate.(The flash on my camera is bright, so she closed her eyes.)

On our power outage day off on Friday, we went to the beach. It was a great day! Brooklynn is so big; she tries to sit up all day. I made her a little chair/bed in the sand so she couldn't roll around.

She is always either sucking on her bottom lip or playing with her tongue. She was a dream baby at the beach and took a two hour nap!

While Brooklynn was napping, Bailey and I got to play. We found this baby crab on a piece of seaweed. It was her pet for the day--I hope he survived.

Rice Cereal

2011-08-09T22:19:00.000-07:00

Sunday was Brooklynn's first time trying rice cereal. I'll just let the pictures do the talking to tell you how it went:

I had my crew ready: Brian on video and Tera on camera to capture every moment. She has no idea what was coming!

First taste--not so hot!

That bite went right back where it came from.

You expect me to eat what?!

A beautiful rice cereal beard.

I love this picture because it truly captures this experience!

Here's she's had enough and is doing the backbend move. I also think it's funny how hopeful I was at making that rather large bowl of rice cereal. I'm pretty sure she didn't get one spoonful down.

In the end, even the spoon couldn't cheer her up.

It was a funny night! We'll try again, and again, and again, and hopefully she'll start to eat it. I'm not a big fan of waking up at 5am!! I'm crossing my fingers that a big bowl of rice cereal before bed will help to tide her over until at least 6am.

My Long Skinny Green Bean!

2011-08-05T18:15:00.000-07:00

Today was Brooklynn's 4 month check up. It was slightly late and almost to her 5 month date, but oh well. Here are her stats:

Weight: 13.3 pounds
Height: 24.8 inches
Head: 42cm (I think that's right, but could be way off)

She's pretty tall and skinny, so looks like I have another long skinny green bean baby!

I love it when babies are two feet tall! For some reason I think it's so fun to say. Brooklynn did so well at the doctor's today. I asked about starting rice cereal so my dream baby can go back to sleeping all the way through the night. She is still sleeping a good amount of time, but this mommy does not like waking up between 4 and 5 am for a little snack and then asleep again. After our appointment, I went straight to the store and bought a box of delicious rice cereal. We're going to try it out tonight! I wanted to buy the yummier flavors like bananas or oatmeal with fruit, but I figured we'd start out with the basics and then go from there. I can't remember the order on introducing food or for how long, so I'll be pulling out the old books again tonight.

Her newest skill is rolling over from her stomach to her back. Good thing is that she can roll, bad thing is that she now never lies on her stomach. Her flip is pretty instant, but she'll get enough tummy time eventually. She can get half way from her back to her stomach, but then she just chills out on her side. When she's laying on her back, she is always doing baby crunches trying to sit up and see the world. This girl will have rock hard abs at a young age. She is still grabbing everything in slow motion in the center and then pulling it to her mouth. She wants to laugh, but it comes out more like a grunt/pain/confused sound. She just doesn't know what to do with all that emotion! She is a very happy baby and that makes me happy too!

After the doctor was done checking out Brooklynn, she gave Bailey some much needed attention for a while. Here's their conversation:

Dr. Berg: What's your favorite thing to learn?
Bailey: I like to learn puzzles!
Dr. Berg: Wow! That must mean you're smart.
Bailey: Yup!
Dr. Berg: What's you're favorite thing to play with?
Bailey: My Brooklynn!

That's when my heart just melted. Bailey truly does love her baby sister with all of her heart! She is so kind and sweet and she can be a great help when she wants to. I've had such a fun summer with my two girls. Here are a few random summer pics:

At the Farmer's Marker last Saturday, Brian bought this 4 foot long squash thing. It was taller than Bailey!

She's such a smiley baby, even when she's had some shots.

Party City was having this clearance sale last week. I stopped by just to check it out. They had two tables filled with Halloween costumes from last year for $5-$15 bucks. I ended up buying just two of them, but I did have about 5 in my basket at one point. I let Toni talk me out of buying all 5, but now I kind of wish I had bought all of them. Bailey loves playing dress up and you can't go wrong with a new $5 dollar costume. I don't know if either of these will make the Halloween cut this year, but they will get plenty of use on an everyday basis. I bought Alice in Wonderland and this little sailor costume below.

Do you think this costume could be an adorable Shirley Temple sailor ensemble or does it just look like a baby slutty sailor costume? I want to try putting her hair in curlers to turn her into Shirley Temple. I just need to add a pair of knee highs and some shiny black church shoes. I love a good deal!

The PB & J Life

2011-07-31T23:43:00.000-07:00

The PB & J life is what I've been living for the past almost five months. The PB & J life is what I want to live all the time, but I can't. What is the PB & J life you might be asking yourself. Let me explain...it's when most days include packing some sort of sandwich lunch (our sandwich of choice this summer was PB&J since Bailey can now eat peanut butter freely)and heading out to do something. We did just about everything that I could think of this summer--BEACH, pool, Disneyland, Legoland, Sea World, fair, field hockey, mall, parks galore, family fun, friends, movies, parties, or just hanging out at home doing nothing. I loved hanging out with my girls everyday. Yes, there were days when Bailey drove me a little crazy or Brooklynn didn't feel like taking a nap, but I still loved every second. The PB & J life is my ultimate goal! I'm afraid I have to just enjoy it temporarily, but a girl can still dream.

If I sound sad, it's because I am. I have to go back to school in two weeks and I feel absolutely sick about it. I'm pretty sure you could read similar posts to this one every August since Bailey has been born. Yes, I know I've been so lucky to have five months off. And yes, I know I'm lucky that I get so many weeks off every year since I'm a teacher. I know all of those things you're thinking, but I'm still sad. I know that I'll be better in about a month, but right now I'm no. I'm completely up for suggestions on how I can make money and stay at home or maybe I should start buying lottery tickets. My bet is with the lottery tickets.

So enough wallowing in my own pity...here are some recent pics from our awesome PB&J life (I just figured out how to load pics from my phone which is why it's taken me a while):

Bailey and Hailey took swim lessons for much of the summer. Can either of them truly swim yet? Nope, but they sure did have fun. The funny/scary thing is that Bailey thinks she can swim, but really she just does a real nice glide/sink to the bottom of the pool. She is getting better since we've just been swimming in our pool a lot.

Brooklynn is getting so big! This bottle hold is completely accidental and very temporary, but I can get her to do it every once in a while. Being able to hold her own bottle is one of those life changing skills. That means that I wouldn't have to sit and just feed her. But I'm willing to wait if that means she'll stay my tiny baby :)

Here's one of our stay at home and do nothing days--equally fun as the rest.

This was Brooklynn's picture day. She did so well! I will scan the pictures and post them later because she looked adorable! I tried to get a good sister picture of the two of them, but they weren't as successful.

Here's one of our many beach days. I wish I would have kept track to see exactly how many times we went to the beach this year. Judging by the amount of sun screen that we used, we went a lot.

We have also been doing a lot of pool days lately. Here's my tiny bathing beauty!

Bailey loves the sand, which is a good thing because after times like this it stays in her hair for a while. When she starts doing this, it usually means it's time to pack up.

Sandy monster!

One day she found a gigantic seaweed pod that floated up to shore. It was her seaweed baby.

It entertained her for quite some time. As soon as she was done with it, the boys next to us picked it up and cracked it open. I was glad that she didn't notice because she probably would have started crying.

Good til the very last drop...not just a slogan for coffee these days. Bailey did not want to miss out on any of her frozen yogurt, but I can't blame her. They did have delicious flavors.

My angel baby! I went downstairs to make her a bottle; when I came back up she was sound asleep. I love this tiny munchkin so much!!

We spent a couple of days at a time share in San Juan Capistrano with the fam. My dad rented one of these awesome bikes and we went for a ride. Bailey was so excited to ride in front and wear the helmet. We kept telling her to wave like she was in a parad.

I strapped Brooklynn in the back between me and Toni. She feel right asleep to the rhythm of our pedaling.

She's ready for some big wheels.

I took this picture for two reasons: 1--so you could maybe see all of her hives; she's had hives for almost a week but I think they're on their way out. 2--to see the extreme difference between her tan, summer legs and her glowing, white belly. She is a beach bum, but no bikini beach bum! Her stomach and legs look like they're two separate people. That's how much we've been to the beach.

I still have two weeks left and I plan on jamming them full of fun. If you want to join in on the fun, just let me know. (Sorry that these pictures are kind of fuzzy; most of them were taken with my phone.)

Summer Days

2011-07-19T17:35:00.000-07:00

We've just been packing our days full of fun lately. I only have one month left of freedom, so I'm going to make the most of it. Here are just a few fun events that we've had:

On Brooklynn's blessing day, she wasn't feeling very smiley in her pretty dress. I wanted to have another photo session of her in her dress to get some smiley pictures, so I finally did it last week. She did great and I got some very cute pictures.

I posted this one because last week she was really into sucking her bottom lip. She's kind of already over it, but at least I have it documented. It was funny because she would suck her lip so hard she looked like an old toothless lady.

This is a classic Brooklynn smile

She still loves her hands

I think she was so happy to have so much fabric to grab and chew.

This smile is ultimate happiness--I love this little girl!

Last Friday night I decided to braid Bailey's hair so she would have super curly hair the next day. She sat remarkably still as I did the three french braids--thanks to the Little Einstiens show. She was so excited to see her hair curly in the morning. We woke up the next morning to see if the plan had worked. It did! I undid the braids and let it go free. You could tell by the way she walked around that she felt beautiful; it was really cute. She wanted to look at her curly hair in the mirror and she said, "Look! I have curly hair like Hailey!"

Here's Bailey with her braids in what I call the J Lo stage. (There's some old movie with Jennifer Lopez in it where she had her hair in three braids like this.)

Here's her curly hair in all its glory! It turned out so big I loved it.

Here's her fro from the front. Look at her pose you can tel she loves it.

The finished product complete with sparkly headband.

Last Saturday Adam and Teryn were married! It was a really fun wedding. They're both so happy! And we're happy to have Teryn a part of the family. Here are some pictures from their big day:

The ceremony was outside at a golf course in Fallbrook. It was a beautiful day for a wedding.

Here's Brian, of course, cheesing it up for the camera.

Here's their first dance. Teryn looked so beautiful in her dress.

I never get pictures of both of us, but since we were kid free I had time to remember.

The past month Aunt Nancy and Uncle Patrick have been in town for the wedding. They live in Michigan so we don't get to see them that often. It was fun to be able to hang out with them and for them to be able to see the girls.

Patrick was kind of like the baby whisperer with Brooklynn.

Aunt Nancy with Brooklynn

Bailey and Nance in coordinating outfits and sippy.

Brian's dad and sister Lauren came in town for the wedding too. It was their first time meeting Brooklynn.

Being 3

2011-07-13T17:05:00.000-07:00

Today in the car on the way to the beach, I had a classic conversation with Bailey. I just had to write it down so I don't forget it:

We were talking about something fun (I can't remember exactly) and Bailey started arguing with me. This is her new thing--arguing. She'll disagree with you no matter what you say, just for the sake of being contradictory. I asked her, "Bailey are you arguing with me?"

She responded, "No mom! I'm just freaking out!" Which she then proceeded to do. I let the freak out happen and then moved on with our conversation.

Most of our awesome conversations take place in the car. There are days when I either feel like cranking up the music to drown her voice out or just turning on a DVD so she'll zone out. I have nothing against movies in the car, but I only use them on long trips. I don't want to miss out on such "precious" moments like this because she was quiet and tuned in to her show. I actually would like to miss out on some of them, but I'm just not going to give in. We do have some really good learning moments and some great sing alongs in the car, but she likes to keep me on my toes and throw in one of these every once in a while. So I'm just hoping that this too is a phase that she'll quickly grow out of--or at least by the time she's 4 :) (I've heard that 4 is the magical age where they become nice again--right?) Here's to being 3!!

Another Awesome Week!

2011-07-11T23:33:00.000-07:00

Last week Keri and CJ came down for a visit. We had so much fun and were so incredibly busy everyday. I decided tonight that they need to live much closer :)

Brooklynn and the Birthday Girl

Keri's birthday is on the 4th of July, so every year (for as long as I can remember)we've celebrated her birthday at the beach. This year was one of the best beach birthday celebrations yet! We decided to try a new location for our all day hang out; we went to Carlsbad instead of Oceanside. We switched because Oceanside was getting a little bit ghetto, they got really strict with their parking rules on the 4th, and I usually see students at the Oceanside beach and in my bathing suit is definitely one place that I don't want to see my students. Carlsbad beach was awesome!! I wish we had switched there a lot sooner, but at least now we know. We had always claimed a huge territory to fight off the huge crowds at Oceanside, but this year it was totally unecessary. We did have a huge amount of beach front property, but we had the whole place to ourselves. We decided that they are just way less aggressive in Carlsbad and that suits us just fine. So we had an awesome day at the beach. Brooklynn slept for most of the day just like the little dream baby that she is. It was perfect beach weather and almost all of the family was there so that made it a fabulous day! We ended the night watching fireworks in the Big O Tire parking lot; we've been doing that for the past few years and I think it may be one of those super classy family traditions now.

I couldn't resist buying the bathing suit for the 4th

Happy 4th of July to everyone!

Birthday girl, Bailey, and Toni

Ty, Dad, and Keri hanging out in the back part of our large beach territory.

Brooklynn was a 4th of July kiddo too! (as far as her outfit goes)

family photo

First task of the day for the boys--dig a large hole

Bailey became the little mermaid

Brooklynn's first time in a bathing suit and first time on the sand.

She had no clue that she was lying in the sand, but she was totally covered in sand after this mini photo session.

Brooklynn and her Papa!

She's one cool chick!

Here's most of the crew at the end of the day

This was Bailey's seat for the fireworks show.

The rest of the week was filled with beach (we went every single day!), shopping, tennis, family volleyball, Wii dance games, delicious food, and tons of fun. Keri and CJ are just two people who always like to be on the go, so we joined in on the fun. My life would be perfect if I could go to the beach everyday, so last week was kind of a dream come true. I brought my camera along to all of our outings, but I didn't take many pictures since we were just too busy having fun. I must also mention that it was awesome that Toni was down for the whole week and Aaron came down on the weekends.

We came over after church on Sunday to see Keri and CJ one more time before they left.

My girls and Auntie Keri

Here are some pics that I stole from Keri's blog taken during the week:

I love this picture! After one of our late night volleyball sessions, we came home and Bailey was asleep on the couch like this. My dad watched her while we all played. Bailey didn't want to go to bed, but she feel asleep right here. She looked so peaceful.

On Wednesday we all went up to Irvine Spectrum to shop and eat. We took some lovely pictures on our way out. Tera and Ty were already on their way to the car, which is why they don't have a lovely photo here too.

So once again, I love my family and I'm so glad we can hang out and have fun. I just wish that it could be all the time and not only a few times a year. So until next time when we're all together again--December!

Here are a few pictures from when we went to the Del Mar Fair before Keri and CJ came into town:

Bailey's whole purpose of going to the fair is to feed the animals. She would stay in here all day if she could. The only animal she didn't want to feed was this four-horned devil goat. I couldn't get a good picture of it, but it really did have four horns.

This is Bailey's Rapunzel picture. It's not a tall tower, but a short silo.

Bailey got to pick one ride and it truly made me sick. It was this spinning ride that is 1000 times worse than the teacups as Disneyland.

Me and my girls

I know this flower is a little large, but I thought it looked so cute! I heard some lady say look at that head ornament on that child. I still think it was adorable.

Sisters

2011-06-28T09:10:00.000-07:00

I think that Brooklynn looks a lot like Bailey. Yesterday I put Brooklynn in this adorable outfit that Bailey wore. I knew that I had a picture of Bailey wearing it too, so it was just a matter of finding it. I found it rather quickly this morning! Now realize that Bailey is around 8 months old in this picture and Brooklynn is 3 months. Here are the two pictures, you be the judge:

Brooklynn

Bailey

Every Sunday I try to get a good picture of the girls in their cute dresses. This past Sunday's was a struggle--mostly for Bailey. I was making crazy noises and holding up toys to get Brooklynn's attention, but Bailey kept looking up too. So Bailey was either looking up way too high or when I'd tell her to look down, I'd get her old lady librarian look over the glasses...

so by the end this is what we got.

Pretty in Pink

Posing for the camera

I also always try to get a good one of me with the girls, but I have yet to accomplish that. My hair is looking sweet. I need a haircut any suggestions?

Have You Ever. . .

2011-06-25T15:04:00.000-07:00

...wondered if your child really does have some weird disease that makes her scream and cry when you cut her fingernails? It drives me nuts how Bailey cries and runs away whenever I have to cut her nails. The other day I was wrangling down her foot to cut her nails and I thought, "Well, maybe she does have some super freaky thing where she can feel pain in her nails as I cut them." Most likely not, but you would think she did! Due to this, I have become the world's greatest and fastest nail cutter in the world! This is also the reason that sometimes her nails go unchecked and rather long. I promise I do look at them, but sometimes it's just not worth the fight.

...heard of a "daycation?" Bailey has officially coined the phrase. I'm thinking of taking a patent out on it. For some reason, Bailey pronounces her "v" sounds and "d" sounds. So whenever she says the word very, it comes out dery (sounds like dairy). Sometimes I correct her when I say it back, but usually I just let it go. Lately, everyday she talks about how it's going to be a dery special day with a dery special daycation. I love it! We have vacations, staycations, and now daycations. It's when you do something very special, according to Bailey, all in one day. Bailey has had many daycations--in fact, her life is filled with daycations every day. She'll wake up in the morning and ask, "What's the plan?" I've always given her plans for our events of the day and now she uses it too. When she was tired and super grumpy the other day she was crying, "I need a plan!" So if you aren't going on a fun summer vacation this year, just plan a fun and short daycation.

...put one child down for a nap the same instant that the other one wakes up? This has happened to me a lot lately. I'll put Brooklynn down and seriously the second I do, Bailey opens her door and wakes up from her nap. So much for getting anything done! I just need to be better at keeping Bailey up until Brooklynn is ready to sleep. The days when the dual naps happen are quite magical. It's fun too when they don't nap together because then I get alone time with each of them, but sometimes mommy needs alone time too. I'm just trying to soak up and enjoy each day since I don't have to work! I think I'm doing a pretty good job of it too!

...looked into the eyes of your kids and wondered how you can love someone so much? I love my little girls!! I took Brooklynn to get pictures taken yesterday. The first half turned out awesome; the second half not so much. I pick them up next Friday and I'll scan them and post them right away. When we got back home and after naps, I took this pic:

Not so coordinating, but Bailey loved it! I will have to go back again in a couple of weeks to try round two for pictures. I had Brooklynn in this adorable outfit and Bailey was wearing a matching pink tutu. By that point in the session, Brooklynn was done with pictures. I finally became a member of JCPenneys so now I'm going to go all the time--or at least that's the plan.

Those are my random musings for the day. And yes, both the girls are sleeping right now so this is how I use my time :)

Happy Anniversary to me and Brian today--6 years!

Feeling Domestic

2011-06-21T16:22:00.000-07:00

Typically, I write about our life on the go. Today I'm going to write about our time spent at home. Bailey woke up sick Monday, so it's slightly forced time at home but it's been quite nice. She started antibiotics yesterday so she's already feeling much better.

Today I decided to make spiders for lunch. I told Bailey this and she was very concerned. "Mama are they real ones?" she asked me. "Nope just fun ones that you can eat!" I replied. Our lunch menu came from a picture that Keri sent me. You're first reaction is going to be gross, but then secretly you'll decide that you want to try it too. There's no better way to tell you about cooking spiders for lunch than through the pictures:

You start out by cutting the hot dogs (turkey dogs) into large chunks. Don't worry, her hands were washed and the cutting was supervised :)

Then we stuck thin spaghetti noodles (wheat ones so it can count as "healthy") through the hot dogs for the legs.

Added bonus to make it educational we talked about how many legs spiders have and counted the noodles as we put them in. Bailey did break quite a few noodles, but she learned to slow down and they didn't break.

Here's our plate of spiders.

Brooklynn watched everything happen. By the time we were done, she had worn herself out and her head was sagging down.

We sang the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" as we put our spiders into the pot of boiling water. It just made it a little bit more fun.

Once the noodles were done, bon apetite! We ate our delicious spiders. I made Bailey also eat spider food--yogurt and peaches--so the spiders would have some food to eat in her tummy. She probably thinks I'm crazy, but she did have fun.

I've also been looking up fun and easy crafts for us to make this summer. Bailey loves making crafts thanks to Trisha! So she asks me all the time to make crafts; I love that I have a crafty little girl.

Another one of my domestic ventures was for Father's Day. My dad loves cinnamon rolls, so I made him some from scratch. I used to make bread and rolls all the time, but I haven't for quite a long time. I pulled out the old recipe book on Sunday and went to work. It was not hard at all and they were delicious! I took a picture of them cooked, but before the cream cheese frosting.

A tiny bite of heaven (once the frosting is on)!

Here's the girls on Father's Day. They are wearing some of my latest and greatest headbands that I made. I've been making them late at night while I'm up waiting to feed Brooklynn. I love how cute they look--my girls and the headbands!

Brooklynn is such a slobber monster. Look closely to see how much of her dress is soaked with slobber.

This is where most of her slobber comes from. She chews on her hands all day long and often will try the double fisted move.

So that's the tale of my domestic adventures. I'll be attempting lots more. We'll see how they turn out!

Dance Fever

2011-06-16T23:27:00.000-07:00

So we're just a little bit behind the trends here. I know that everyone has been playing this game for a while, but my family just got the Just Dance game for the Wii. Sunday, after Brooklynn's blessing and brunch, we decided to give the dance game a try. Can I just say that we played it the rest of the day and night and that many of us were sore the next day?! My family is just slightly competitive, so we really got into it. We all took turns and even got my dad to dance too. It was so much fun and a serious workout (partially because we are really intense and partially because we (I'm) also really out of shape)! We will be dancing it up for the rest of the summer. If you're ever looking for a dancing partner, just stop by.

Here are some pics of our very own So You Think You Can Dance:

This was Brian's one and only appearance for the night. I love that Brian and Kyle (and Kate) are all doing totally differnet moves. Which one do you think is right?

In perfect sync!

Ty & Tera breaking a sweat. Ty thinks he's the reigning champ in the house, but I propose a challenge!

Here's Dad and Kyle doing Viva Las Vegas. It's kind of a blurry picture, but I love that they are right in step with one another.

I think Toni looks like a real pro dancer with this sweet move!

Half way through the day we started doing duets--they were hilarious!

I have no idea what this song was, but they both look great.

Even the kids can play. They only score a few hundred points if they're lucky, but they loved it. Notice how Kate is quietly dancing in the background of most of the other pictures. She was doing really well and won the award for most coordinated kid dancer.

Keri and CJ you guys better be practicing for when you guys come down. I know you think you're so great, but we are ready for the challenge!! I'm going to go buy the Michael Jackson one this weekend and be ready to have a major dance off. I can't wait because I know the two of you are just a little intense :)

3 Months Old Today

2011-06-15T18:09:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that it's already been three months since Brooklynn was born. It just seems like she's been with us forever. She truly is my dream baby! She is an excellent sleeper both day and night. I always say that she's a great #2 baby because she is really good on the go, and we're on the go all the time. At three months old, her skills, likes, accomplishments, and milestones are few, but she does have some.

She loves to: stare at the fan, listen to me sing (she just stares and smiles), eat (I think she would eat all day if she could), get bundled up and go to sleep, chew on her hands, and sneak a peek at the TV any chance she can. She is smiling more and more each day and I swear she laughed a little bit today. I just bundled her up to go to bed and I looked down at her smiling face. I said, "Ohhhh" and she had a little chuckle. I kept making that sound and it must be an inside joke with her because she kept laughing (just a tiny bit). I can't wait until she can actually laugh for real at things. She is really strong and loves to hold up her head. She's so grown up that she now likes to be held facing out. I put her in the Bumbo the other day and she is almost ready to sit up and join the real world. She does not like tummy time or being hungry. I love my little Brooklynn and I'm so glad she's a part of our family!

On Sunday we blessed her in church. It was such a great day. All of the family was here--even my Grandma and Grandpa Mosher drove down for the special day. She wore the beautiful blessing dress that my Grandma Miller made for me when I was blessed. The dress has now been worn 7 of us--me, Tera, Toni, Keri, Kate, Bailey, Josi, and Brooklynn. I love it because I feel like Grandma Miller is there with us on the special day. I sent Brian up with a bottle for the blessing just in case. As soon as he was in front of the chapel, she started to cry but quickly stopped when she had her bottle. Brian gave a great blessing, but he sounded a little bit like Darth Vader. It was a horrible microphone.

After the first hour of church, we headed back to my parents' house for a yummy brunch. We had a photo session with Brooklynn in her dress, but she was more interested in her hands than she was at smiling. I'm going to have to do a take two and try again to get some smiling pictures. It was a wonderful day and so much fun to spend it with our families.

Here's the day through pictures:

Here's the whole crew.

Bailey was not a fan of taking pictures after church.

Our family with Grandma & Grandpa Mosher

Cute coordinating family pic of Kyle & Sam's family.

with my Mom

Handsome Owen & Ty

Aaron and Josi showing off her new trick of pointing or saying how old she is.

with Roxann and Dan

Here she is in her angel baby dress that my Grandma Miller made for me.

This picture captures how she felt during her photo session. All she wanted to do was chew on her delicious hand--no smiles...

until the dress came off, but she's still chewing on her hands

This was the best smile we got

But she quickly turned back into focusing on those hands.

Here's half of the table at our lovely brunch.

Brooklynn was just talking away to Grandma Mosher. Grandma said that she was telling her all her secrets.

Grandma & Grandpa Mosher with the two newest members of their ever-growing family. We had an early birthday party for Josi since she's turing one at the end of this month.

The Best Week Ever! (as Bailey would say)

2011-06-15T00:00:00.000-07:00

Last week Kyle, Sam, and the kids were in town for a vacation. They recently moved up to Oregon, so it was so much fun to hang out with them. We packed the 10 days with fun activities for everyone; we were on the go the entire time. We didn't realize it until yesterday before they were going to leave that the kids got along perfectly. Last time Kate, Owen, and Bailey were together for a long time there was a lot of fighting, crying, screaming, and other fun stuff. This time it was pretty peaceful with very little fighting. I guess it's because they're all getting so much older and wiser!

Best Buds: this is right before they left to go home.

This morning when Bailey woke up she asked when we could go play with her cousins today. When I proceeded to tell her that they went home last night, and that their home is far away, she began to bawl her eyes out. She was truly heart broken that her cousins weren't there to play all day long. I'm so sad that they live to far away, but we aren't going to let the distance keep these kids apart. It's important to us that they stay close friends forever. We had so much fun hanging out everyday and I can't wait until Christmas when we can all be together again.

Here's our fun filled week in review:

They got in Saturday afternoon, so we just hung out at the house and played games. Sunday was a regular church day. I had to post these pictures of Bailey and Brooklynn because they looked so cute.

Bailey was a little patriotic in her dress.

Brooklynn was a tiny ballerina.

Tuesday was Legoland day. None of us had ever been before, so we didn't know what to expect. My mom was a chaperone with her school for the day, but really she chaperoned all of us. It was great because she was able to buy tickets for all of us through her school for a true bargain. It was slightly crowded because of all the schools that were there, but it was still fun.

Here's most of us--Tera, Kyle, Ty, Owen, Kate, Mom, and Bailey. Toni, Sam, Josi, Brooklynn, and I weren't in the picture, but we were there.

The rides were pretty slow, but the kids loved them. They rode planes, helipcopters, and cars.

Brooklynn was a dream baby and slept in the carrier for a really long time. We couldn't resist a picture of her adorable sleeping face. Later in the day an lady came up and moved her hat because it was covering her face. I said, "Yes, because she's sleeping, or should I say was sleeping." I wasn't very happy with her.

This is a classic Josi face!

The kids really did love all the legos.

They had an entire Star Wars land made of legos. We had to pose with Chewy and R2D2. (This picture is for Trisha!)

This was my favorite ride. The kids were all able to drive a car around a mini track all by themselves. The worker girl asked each of the kids how old they were to make sure that none of them were too young or old. The kids are the ulitmate lie detectors! We weren't sure how they were going to do, but I was sure excited to find out.

Here's Bailey and Kate on the straight away. This was a rare moment when Bailey wasn't crashed into the side of the track. If I had to rank them, Owen would come in first, followed by Kate, and finally Bailey. We were cracking up the entire time at their driving skills.

After their time on the track was over, they each got a driver's license.

They were all excited, despite these slightly solemn faces.

Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were all beach days. The first two days were great weather; the second two beach days were cold and even misty! Kids don't care about the weather, they just want to enjoy the beach, sand, and water. They were all great beach kids and lasted many hours all four days. It was great because after we were done with the beach, we'd simply walk up to the Carlsbad Inn (where Kyle and Sam were staying)and jump into the pool to swim and clean off.

This was a sunny day. Bailey could not be bothered to even look at the camera--much better things to do.

Josi is one cool chick!

This is Toni's favorite picture to prove that Josi actually liked her. Josi was hesitant all week to jump into anyone's arms, except for Ty. She loved Ty! So all week we all tried to be her friend, but she didn't truly give in until the last day. We know that deep down she loves all of us.

This was moments after my mom was teaching Owen one of the finer skills in life--going to the bathroom at the beach. She was trying to get him to just go while sitting on the sand and none of us were paying attention to the waves. Right at the wrong moment, a wave came up and kind of crashed on Owen. The water went right up to his face! He survived, but might possibly be scarred for life from this experience.

Josi loved looking at all of the birds at the beach.

Twinners!!

This was one of our cold and cloudy days, but they didn't care. They ran and played all day.

Brooklynn got all dressed up for the beach--such a beach beauty!

Saturday we had a big BBQ at my parents' house. It was for fun, for Josi's birthday, and because we had a big jumpy. This thing was awesome!! It had three slides, a bball hoop, a pool area at the bottom, and it sprayed water. All of the kids that were over played on it for at least an hour. I kind of want to buy one from Costco. If I had a big yard, I probably would, so I guess it's a good thing that I don't have a yard. They played until they were worn out for the day.

Aaron was able to come down Saturday afternoon. What a good uncle!

Bailey wore herself out--not only from the day but the entire week.

Throughout the week we also squeezed in: Xmen movie, Sushi lunch, Padres game, Super 8, lunch at Harbor Fish, shopping, and lots of games. It was such a fun week with almost the whole family together (Toni stayed down the entire week!). I'm so glad that Kyle and Sam were willing to make the super long drive. I truly am already looking forward to Christmas when we'll all be together again. I feel so lucky to have such a wonderful family who actually enjoy spending time together!!

Livin' the Life

2011-06-03T23:57:00.000-07:00

I love my life! I love being home with my two girls every day. You won't find us home much of the time, but at least it's an option if we want it. Our days are filled with beach, swim lessons, Disneyland, play dates at the park, shopping, or whatever we want to do. I even cleaned my floors yesterday! Because we've been so busy, I haven't been posting much at all.
I don't know why, but right after Brooklynn was born we bought these 2 day Disneyland passes. Those two days quickly turned into annual passes and every Wednesday has been Disney day! We pick up Toni on the way up there and then meet Becky, Hailey, and Chloe. Most of the days we even stayed until close--my girls are troopers! It does make it a lot easier that Toni is able to come with us. Brooklynn usually just sleeps and eats the day away. Bailey has been able to ride the tru big kid rides. A couple of weeks ago, Toni and Aaron took her on Tower or Terror and Big Thunder Mountain. She said it was scary, but fun and she talks about it all the time. She is 39 1/2 inches tall and you have to be 40 inches. We have been stuffing folded up napkins in her shoes, but this last time Toni just bought her some flip flops with enough height to make it work. This last week was the best Disney day yet! We went on the sneak peak of the new Little Mermaid ride. It was a very cute ride. I wish that Disney Wednesday could last all year long, but we didn't have enough money for those passes. We still have one more chance to go this summer, but it may be too crowded even for us.

Here we are on the Buzz Lightyear ride. I love the look on all of our faces. Also notice my super high score--baby and all!

In addition to all of our fun adventures, Bailey has been saying some super awesome stuff lately. Two nights ago, she said the best dinner prayer I've ever heard. It went a little something like this:

"Bless that daddy will give me blessings and keep the monsters away so they don't come in our house; bless Brooklynn so she won't throw up; bless mommy will be safe." There was more, but that was the best part. I kept looking at her in amazement because her prayers usually just bless the food and amen.

That night when I went into her room before I went to bed, I noticed that she had her field hockey stick next to her. In the morning I asked her why. She said, "To bash the monsters with!" I don't know why she is kind of obsessed with monsters lately, but if her field hockey stick keeps her safe that's great. She has a great imagination and uses it often. She will just play with her toys and make up beautiful songs and funny stories. And on most days lately, being three isn't that bad.

She's also in swim lessons and, finally, loving it! The first three lessons she cried and tried to grab onto her teacher for dear life. I don't know why she was so scared. I think it was because she usually had one big intake of water through her nose. I am not above bribing her to do things, so we started getting kids cones from McDonalds if she did good. Both lessons this week were awesome! She is doing so well and she might even start learning how to actually swim. I'll bring my camera next week to take a pic of Bailey and Hailey at swim.

Brooklynn has been such an angel baby. The past couple of nights she goes down around 8:00ish, then I waker her up to eat around 11-12 and then she's down for the night. She wakes up between 7-7:30! It truly is amazing!! She smiles so much more now and really wants to be able to talk. She makes adorable little sounds if you talk to her. I don't know if it's because there's so much less stress with Brooklynn compared to Bailey, but I'm enjoying this stage so much more.

Other family news:

1. My sister Tera graduated with her Masters. Yeah for Master Miller! I'm so excited for her that she never has to write another paper again. I'm glad that we were all able to help her celebrate her big day.

I love this picture of Tera! She looks so cute!

I agree with Brooklynn that graduations are a little boring. The only exciting part is screaming as loud as you can for the person who is graduating. I'd like to think that our family is always the loudest. Our screaming did wake Brooklynn up.

Mom & Dad enjoying the cermony

Hmm, what should I major in?

Toni & Aaron

Tera and her friends

A sugar addict at such a young age. Look closely and you'll see that she's hugging a candy bar.

2. Toni got a job. I don't know if I should celebrate or cry. I'm happy for her to finally end her search for a job. But I'm sad that we won't be able to hang out all the time. It's been so much fun to have Toni around. I will be sad and Bailey will be sadder :(

3. Kyle, Sam, Kate, Owen, and Josi are on their way here!! They'll be here for about 10 days! I can't wait to see them--especially baby Josi who is almost 1 year old. We'll have almost the whole family together for a week and I can't wait!

Bubbles, Rainboots, & S'mores

2011-05-16T23:28:00.000-07:00

Brooklynn was 2 months old yesterday! It's kind of crazy how quickly two months have flown by. My philosophy is since I'm not working, I'm going to take full advantage of my time off--even with a tiny baby! Thank goodness that Brooklynn is an angel baby and sleeps magically most days.

Blowing bubbles is one of her favorite activities.

Last week we took Brooklynn to see the GI specialist again. The good news--she's up past her birth weight! She officially weighs 9 pounds 12 ounces. So in her first two months of life, it took her one month to lose a pound and another month to gain it back and add one more. Her official diagnosis is: idiopathic neonatal hepatitis. Try to say that quickly! In a really fancy way it means that some babies get hepatitis and they don't know why. Don't let the term hepatitis scare you; it simply means that her liver is inflammed and hepatitis is the technical medical term for that. The doctor said that it will go away within the first year and that there are no permanent side effects or damage because of it. That's all I wanted to hear. We still have to monitor this for a while with regular lab work and weight checks, but she's a tough little girl who can handle it.

She loves her right hand and she's getting pretty good at getting it to her mouth.

At two months old, here are her list of likes: the ceiling fan in our room will occupy her time for a while, eating all day long, any song that I sing to her (she thinks I'm the greatest singer that ever lived), taking naps, her right fist (it finds its way to her mouth quite often), being held, this crazy sound I make to get her to smile, and any machine that makes loud noises (vacuum, car, hair dryer, etc.).

Some more bubbles and a smile!

We also made a trip to Disneyland last week. We bought those two day SoCal passes a while ago and they had to be used by last Saturday. Brian couldn't take a day off of work, so I brought Tera with us. We picked up Toni along the way and met Becky, Hailey, and Chloe there. Bailey loved having all of her favorite people there. It was so fun to watch Bailey and Hailey run around and talk about Disneyland all day. Around 2:00 we left to meet up with my parents and grandparents for lunch and the Sullivans left for the day. We had a wonderful late Mother's Day lunch with the family and then headed back for more fun.

We saw the scary Queen of Hearts on our way into Disneyland. Bailey couldn't decide if she was scared or happy to see her, but she was brave enough to take the picture.

It was so much fun having Tera with us and the girls loved it!

They loved the teacups. It was practically impossible to get a picture with both of them smiling and looking at the camera. There was just so much for them to look at.

Happily waiting in line, as Bailey would say, "This is the best day ever!"

We went to California Adventure on our return trip. Since it was getting a bit chilly, Toni put Bailey's rainboots in the stroller just in case her feet got cold. (Don't ask why her boots were in the car, but I ended up being really happy they were.) Toni watched the girls so Tera and I could go on the Tower of Terror; it was an awesome ride. Then we walked over to the other side of the park to ride the giant Ferris wheel. This ride surprised all of us and was lots of fun. We then continued to walk around the carnival rides to see what Bailey could ride; she was just a little bit too short for most of them. Then we had a brilliant idea--put on the rainboots to make her tall enough! The idea worked!! Bailey was able to ride any ride with a 40 inch minimum requirement. (It reminded me of when I was little and my mom shoved empty cups into the heels of my tennis shoes to make me tall enough to go on a ride at Magic Mountain. I learned so many useful parenting tips from my mother!) Due to her new found height, Bailey was even able to go on Soaring Over California. She loved it! She said that she was flying like a bird and wasn't scared one bit. Bailey is a fearless kid. So now when we go to Disneyland (which will be more often since I bought us passes)we'll always pack the rainboots whether or not it's raining.

Posing peacefully on the giant Ferris wheel, before...

the fun part! She's such a big girl that she didn't want me to hold on to her, but I was afraid she would fall out of her seat if I didn't.

My sistas!

This was the first ride wearing the rainboots.

This is the height requirement sign outside of Soaring Over California. Her head just barely skimmed the bottom of the 40 inch post. She was so excited that she could ride it with us. It was fun to watch her on the ride; she wasn't scared at all.

There is a commercial on TV for Hershey's chocolate that has been making me want s'mores. Every time I see it, I instantly crave s'mores. I finally gave into my cravings and bought s'mores supplies last week. On Saturday, we brought the outdoors in and made s'mores on our stove. Bailey was really excited about all the delicious ingredients--graham crackers, chocolate, and marshmellows. Those three things are definitely in her list of top ten foods, but s'mores probably won't make the cut. She took a baby bite and then the messiness of it all scared her away. She ended up eating just a plain, old, roasted marshmellow. It was a fun family activity. And you better believe that I'll be having more s'mores later this week!

Bailey's first bite of s'mores

She loved her plain marshmellow the most. I kept asking her all night, "Do you like Flock of Seagulls?" Her day old hairdo reminded me of the movie The Wedding Singer and that guy with the crazy hair.

Happy Muda's Day!

2011-05-09T22:28:00.000-07:00

Me and my girls

Happy Mother's Day!! In the title I spelled it "muda" because that's how Bailey says it. All of her "th" sounds come out sounding more like a "d" when they're in the middle of a word. It's so adorable when she says it, so I had her saying it all day.

It was a wonderful Mother's Day weekend. Toni came down on Saturday so we (me, Toni, and Tera)took our mom to get pedicures. We love a good pedicure! Then we met the rest of the family for a lovely lunch at BJ's. The grand finale to the day was that me, Toni, mom, and dad, went to the movies!! We saw Water for Elephants. I really liked it; plus, I haven't seen a movie in a while so it was fun. The only downside was that we were still so full from lunch, that we didn't get popcorn. The big bonus of the movie was that Brian stayed home with Bailey and Brooklynn! Since Brooklynn eats formula, she can stay home with dad for a while. That's the beauty of a baby to takes a bottle!

On Sunday Brian and Bailey made me a yummy breakfast in bed. It was waffles, strawberries, bacon, and OJ--all of my favorites. I was able to sleep in as much as Brooklynn slept in, which, sadly, wasn't much at all. Bailey made me a beautiful card and Brian got me a cute, new diaper backpack. I have been wanting a back pack because it's easier to hold with two kiddos. We then all got dressed and went to church. After church we headed to the beach for a lunch with Roxann. Despite the fact that it was freezing cold, we had a fun picnic at the beach. From the beach we went to my parents' house for a Mother's Day dinner. My dad and Brian cooked a wonderful feast for all of the ladies in the house.

It was a wonderful weekend! I'm so thankful for the moms in my life. My mom is such a great friend and example to me of what a mother should be. I'm also thankful that I can be a mother to my two little girls! Being a mom is hard work, but so much fun!! Happy Mother's Day to all moms!

Direct Quotes

2011-05-07T23:09:00.000-07:00

Bailey as the Pink Ninja

Three year olds say awesome things! I have to write some of them down before I forget. Bailey and I have been having some really fun/funny conversations lately; they often remind me that being 3 is not the worst thing on the planet.

Kids:
The other day we were stopped at a stoplight and there was a lady walking in the cross walk.
Bailey asked,"Mom, why doesn't she have a kid?"
I said, "Not everybody has kids."
"Why?" she asked in utter amazement.
"Well, not everybody has kids with them all the time," was my plain response.
"Why not mom? Kids are so much fun!" she exclaimed.
I thought, you're right Bailey--especially when she has such great insight on the world.

She was the Pink Ninja and I was the yellow one. I had to teach her a few ninja moves so she could fight off the bad guys.

Clothes:
One of the fun things, for me at least, about having girls is dressing them up in adorable outfits. If you know me, you know that Bailey has more clothes than any one little girl needs. I've always picked out her clothes, but lately she's been wanting to pick out her own. She usually wants to wear a "pretty dress" or an "adorable skirt." Last week I was trying to get Bailey ready in time to go to Brooklynn's doctor's appointment. Bailey wanted to wear a nice church dress, but I persuaded her to wear a different play dress. I can usually convince her to wear something more suitable, as long as I give her a few options. This process is not the quickest thing, but at least she feels like she got some input in the decision.

When she was finally dressed and marching down the stairs, she was chanting, "I'm gonna wear everything that I wanna wear!" It was not a defiant chant, but one of pure happiness in her outfit for the day--a purple, flowered play dress and her pink polka dot Hello Kitty rainboots. She had to make sure that she had a coordinating purple headband to match--of course! I would have taken a picture of her ensemble, but I didn't want to be late for Brooklynn's appointment.

Other Favorites:
"Brooklynn's following asleep" instead of falling asleep.

"Do you want to see my big surprise?" she'll ask anyone while holding anything behind her back. The big surprise could be a sticker, her shoes, a piece of paper, or even a piece of trash. Everything is exciting as long as it's described as a big surprise.

"This is the best ______(day, food, present, show, etc.) in my life ever!" I love this one because she is so sincere and does feel at that moment that whatever it is is the greatest thing she's experienced in her life.

She also loves "big kid games" (any game that's in a box), movies (she's truly obsessed), anything described as "special," and her baby sister.

Family Fun:
Last Sunday we ate dinner at the beach with my family. We had a family favorite--tin foil dinners. I didn't put a bathing suit on Bailey, but as you can see she went in anyway. She was in heaven! She was finally able to fly her ladybug kite and loved it.

Check out that air!!

Here's when she stopped trying to stay dry and just went for it.

Bailey's favorite play date any time and any place--Toni!

My Tiny Little Nugget

2011-04-29T22:47:00.000-07:00

Brooklynn has been smiling more and more each day. She usually is all smiles in the morning, so I brought my camera upstairs this week. A big smile had still eluded me all week long, until yesterday. Right before she went down for another nap, she was real happy and I caught it on camera.

I love her big, toothless smile!

I would like to say she was smiling at me, but Justin Timberlake was on Ellen. I think she likes him as much as I do!

Her pensive side

She's thinking about being sad.

Not only does she have the cutest smile, but she also makes the BEST sad faces I've ever seen!

She just pouts that bottom lip out and has the saddest sounding cry.

Here she's done with the photo shoot and ready to sleep.

I just love this tiny, little girl!! She's such a good baby!

Potty Training Tales

2011-04-29T22:34:00.000-07:00

I'd like to say that we're almost done with potty training here, but when can you ever truly think that? When you make it through a nap without a pull up? or when you make it through the night with a dry diaper? or when kindergarten starts? Just when I think Bailey is doing great, we have a day like today--pooping in the pool with friends and then peeing twice in a pull up.

You could say that I like potty training just as much as I like being pregnant--I'm not a big fan of either. I really love the outcome of both items, but just wish that I could magically fast forward to the end result for both. These are two instances in my life where I don't enjoy the journey at all. Despite all the frustration with potty training, there are some rather funny moments:

Peanut Butter Ice Cream:
Last week I wanted two things with all my heart--Bailey to stop pooping in her big girl panties and frozen yogurt. Bailey had had a few bad days in a row in regards to doing #2 in her big girl panties and I was sick of it. I am all about bribing her to go potty, so I told her that if she went poop in the potty we could go get ice cream (frozen yogurt) after dinner. She thought about it for a moment, and then quietly asked from her car seat, "Peanut butter ice cream?" I quickly thought about it and said, "Sure!"

Now why is this a big deal? It is because we have been telling Bailey her whole life that she's allergic to peanuts. Brian is allergic to peanuts so we were just being really cautious because allergic reactions to peanuts can be pretty severe. She had an allergy test earlier in the year, and everything came back clear but we were still waiting on peanuts. So Bailey knew that asking for and eating peanut butter ice cream would be a momentous occasion in her life. It also shows what a little negotiator she is! If I had known that all it would take was peanut butter to get her potty trained, it would have happened a long time ago!

Once we got home she promptly went poop in the potty and so we all were rewarded with frozen yogurt. Bailey ate a big bowl of it with tons of toppings and loved every last drop. The next day she even ate her very first PB&J sandwhich for lunch. Since then she has kind of come a peanut butter fanatic. I might just start offering spoonfuls of peanut butter for rewards, but I worry she might turn into one of those huge kids on the Maury Povich show who eat ribs for dinner with baby bottles filled with soda.

Isn't it Ironic?:
One of the big rewards that I had posted for Bailey was a date to see the movie HOP. I printed out a picture of it and taped it to the bathroom wall. I told her that when she was totally done wearing diapers, we could go see the movie. Last week was a pretty good week and Brian was home from work, so we took her to see the movie on Friday. She was so excited to see it!! She wanted her own drink and a tiny popcorn. We sat in those front seats at the bottom of the stadium seating. She laughed and danced through the whole movie. She even asked to go to the bathroom during the movie. Brian took her out, since I had Brooklynn asleep in my arms. I was so proud of her!

On the way out of the movie theater, she had a meltdown because of all the candy that she couldn't have. It was also well past her nap time, so we were in dangerous territory. Bailey is not one of those kids who you can just put in her crib and let her cry it out until she eventually calms down. When she cries and is upset, it quickly escalates and spirals out of control rapidly. In the car she continued to cry for the candy that she couldn't eat. After about 10 minutes, she quieted down but was still very upset. As we drove home I reached back to hold her hand, but she wouldn't give me her hand. She always gives me her hand, so I asked her what was wrong. When I looked back she had THAT look on her face. She had, in fact, peed her pants on the way home from her potty training reward. Isn't that irony for you! That is what Alanis Morissette should have sung about in her song. I do take partial blame for the accident since we did push through her nap time. But I guess accidents will happen no matter what the occasion.

Highlights: She did make it through an entire day at Trisha's house with dry big girl panties! She even made it through a nap without a pull up. That means that she remembered to go potty even though she was playing with friends all day long. I do feel like we're very close to being done, but I should just keep an extra outift in my car for a while. She asks to go on her own all the time and doesn't even expect a reward. She can do this! We can do this!

What a Week!

2011-04-25T23:37:00.000-07:00

Last week was such a fun week and what a wonderful way to end it yesterday with Easter. Brian was able to take the past two weeks off from work and it was awesome! The first week we just did stuff around the house and tried to get things checked off our to do list. Last week we went out on the town with two kids; we really did something fun everyday. It was nice to be so adventurous so soon, because I'm still not brave enough to do these things on my own. So here's our week in review:
Monday: We went to Sea World. I was a little off my game because I didn't even bring my camera. Bailey loves Sea World! She loves the animals and all the Sesame Street characters there. We wanted to see the new dolphin show Blue Horizon, so we planned our time around that. The show was very cool and Bailey loved it. She was laughing hysterically at the dophins jumping and all the acrobatic people flying around the stage. I used my Baby Bjorn front carrier thing for most of the day and loved it. I only used it once with Bailey when she was big enough to face out and I hated it. Brooklynn is still small enough that she just snuggles up in a little ball and falls asleep. Bailey did notice a slight weakness in that I can't run as fast with it on or climb things. She took full advantage of the opportunity and sprinted to a staircase for employees only that she thought would lead her to a ride. I ran after her as fast as I could and then did my best mad mom voice and froze her in her tracks. After that, we headed into meltdown mode and home.

Tuesday: We headed up to Grandma and Grandpa Mosher's house so they could meet Brooklynn. Brooklynn had an appointment in the morning (where she weighed 8 pounds 12 ounces!) we then picked up Tera and headed up to Pasadena. We met Toni there around noon. They were so excited to meet Brooklynn and Bailey was thrilled to spend the afternoon at their house. I just loved watching them hold Brooklynn! Bailey is kind of obsessed with Grandma Mosher. The entire time she wanted Grandma to watch her do this, play with her, go feed the turtles, or just have her undivided attention. All of her sentences began with an adorable, long, drawn out, "Graaaaandmaaaa Moooosheeer!" And Grandma loved every minute of it! She is so patient and loving with her. We ate a yummy lunch from our favorite pizza place and then headed home in time to avoide the traffic.

Bailey did not want to leave Grandma's side all afternoon.

It was fun to have Toni meet us there. She doesn't pass up an opportunity to hang out with Bailey and Brooklynn.

An added bonus--Wesley was able to stop by to hang out for a while. He is such a great cousin!

Grandpa's magic touch--he has always been able to calm all babies down with it.

When Bailey wasn't with Grandma, she was playing with Grandpa.

Grandpa let her pick two of his beautiful roses to take home.

Grandma was so happy to meet Brooklynn and Brooklynn was so comfy and cozy in her arms.

Bailey and Tera

Grandma and the girls

Wednesday: This was our day of relaxation and running errands.

Thursday: We went to Disneyland! We picked up Toni in the morning and headed off to the happiest place on earth. It was super crowded, but we still had fun. The first half of the day we went on Dumbo, walked around Toon Town, and hung out with in Princessland. Bailey was not in the mood to wait in any more lines and on the verge of melting down after dancing with the princesses, so we went to Toni's house for a halftime nap. Toni made a little bed for Bailey and she took a great nap and woke up ready for round two. It was fun to hang out at Toni and Aaron's house. When we went back after naptime, we went straight to California Adventure. We didn't know what to expect, but ended up having a lot of fun. We were able to walk right on a couple of rides since everyone was waiting to get a good spot for the World of Color show. We were just going to eat and then go to Disneyland to watch the fireworks, but we were able to watch part of the World of Color show. It was from a distance looking around some palm trees, but it was an amazing show. We left that show early to go watch the fireworks at Disneyland. We watched those for a while and then went back to go home around 10:00ish. Bailey did awesome during the second half of the day and Brooklynn was a little dream baby all day long! I have yet to experience a dream day at Disneyland where there are no crowds and you walk right on to everything, but it was a wonderful family day.

Bailey almost lost her mind waiting in line for Dumbo. Every time the ride would start up again, she would get so mad. She did not quite grasp the concept of waiting in line for a long time. Once we were on the ride, she was happy as could be.

We're all giving Brian a peace sign as we flew by.

Bailey is showing off her extreme strength.

She looks like she might be singing I'm a Little Teapot, but it's just one of her classic poses. She makes me laugh.

Family photo with tiny Brooklynn.

We are Toy Story toys trapped in the box.

Bailey and Brian riding seahorses on the merry go round.

Me and my girls--we had a great day.

Friday: We took a quick trip down to the temple (which Bailey loved) and then we saw the movie HOP. It was a funny movie and we all liked it. There is a really funny story about this outing, but I'll write about it in my next post.

Saturday: We had our family Easter celebration a day early. The day started out with a family tennis session. I haven't played tennis in a long time, since I was pregnant, so I was a little rusty, but still had fun. The next item on the agenda was to decorate eggs. We all made some beautiful eggs. Brian spent most of the day preparing our gourmet Easter feast of lobster and bacon macaroni and cheese and some sort of delicious berry cake. The food was well worth the wait! Later in the afternoon we had an egg hunt and then we ate until we couldn't eat anymore.

Here are our beautiful eggs; the cool colorful ones are Aaron's. He won the decorating contest with his Jackson Pollock inspired egg.

He is so good with Bailey--even when she turns into a beast!

Bailey loved decorating the eggs.

She was quite disappointed to discover that there wasn't candy inside the boiled eggs. I had to peel one to show her that it was just an egg.

This is Toni's masterpiece

Dad loves holding Brooklynn--until she starts crying. She's such a good baby that he can actually play with her for a long time.

So cute!

Best Friends--Bailey and Hailey. We had the Sullivans over for the Easter party. It's a lot more fun to have an egg hunt with more than one kid; a solo egg hunt is just kind of boring. The two of them get along so well these days and it's really fun to watch them play and listen to their profound conversations.

She's one happy girl with two baskets filled with eggs.

She didn't know what to think about this egg. Toni and my mom hid all of the eggs and candy about 30 minutes before Bailey woke up from her nap. During those 30 minutes, the birds ate several eggs and two bags of fruit snacks! It was the craziest thing! This was one of the eggs that the birds had poked into, but didn't eat it. Bailey was so concerned about what had happened to this egg.

The highlight of the girls' day was playing with the bubbles in the elephant fountain. We're not quite sure how the bubbles got in there, but the girls loved it. They entertained themselves out here for a long time. We didn't really mind because it kept them occupied and clean at the same time.

Easter Sunday: The Easter bunny brought Bailey some cute bunny slippers. I also hid her basked and wrote/drew clues for her to find it. She had a fun time looking for her basket and loved everything inside it. I also had a fun time hiding everything and attempting to draw pictures that Bailey could understand. My favorite part of the day was the fact that my girls were twinners at church! It was my first, of many, sister matching moments! Brooklynn's dress was huge on her and slightly scandalous with the sleeves falling off the shoulders for most of the day. They looked absolutely adorable! We even made it through all three hours of church! After church we went to Roxann and Dan's house for an Easter dinner. It was fun to hang out with them since they've been in Kentucky for two weeks. Adam and Teryn came too, so it was a fun family celebration.

Here's Bailey with her bunny slippers

This was the best shot we could get of the girls. I had to take the picture after church sicne we were running behind schedule in the morning. I'll have to attempt another photo session the next time they wear these dresses to church. Hopefully, both of them will be in a good mood next time.

I had a more successful photo session with Brooklynn after she ate and slept. She is starting to smile a little bit each day. I haven't been able to capture her huge smiles, but this is a tiny almost smile.

One Month Old!

2011-04-17T11:09:00.000-07:00

On tax day, April 15th, Brooklynn was one month old--and what a month it's been! I am glad to announce that she's finally gaining some weight, but it took a three day stay in the hospital to put some meat on her bones. Here's the story of our lovely hospital stay:

Last Friday, I took Brooklynn back to the doctor's office to weigh her in again. I was nervous, but felt positive that she had to have gained at least one ounce since Monday. When the nurse put her on the scale, I gasped because she had not gained anything and might have even dropped a little. I went back to the exam room to wait for the doctor. When she came in, I was surprised to see that it was a completely new doctor that I had never seen before. She looked at the chart on the computer and then told me that she thought Brooklynn might need to go back to the hospital. I was so shocked because it never crossed my mind that that would be her suggestion. I was expecting her to suggest tons of formula and to give up on nursing completely. I asked her why and she said that she was afraid we had waited too long to take action. Too long for what?! She then left the room to consult with the other doctors; I then immediately started to cry and called Brian, my mom, and my sisters.

When she came back in, it didn't get any better. She said that everyone agreed a hospital stay was necessary and that we should go immediately. She thought her eyes looked sunken in (even though she had never seen Brooklynn before) and was very concerned about her blood sugar levels. I asked if I could just go home and give her tons of formula, but she said no. (If you can't tell, I am not a big fan of this doctor or her reactions.) I sadly went home and prepared to go back to the hospital. Luckily, Toni and Keri were down for the week and could take care of Bailey. Brian left work early and we drove down to San Diego.

Once we checked in we met with a really nice doctor who didn't freak out and clearly explained everything and answered all of Brian's questions. They took Brooklynn and took a bunch of blood--from her hand, both arms, and the worst one was from her head. Their main concern was that at 24 days old she still had not gotten back up to her birth weight. They had me nursing her every 2 1/2 hours and then supplementing with formula. I had to write down how long she nursed and how much formula she ate, to measure her intake; they also weighed each diaper to measure her output. I was so nervous and stressed because it reminded me too much of when Bailey was in the NICU for two months. I was not up to another two month stay in the hospital.

It was a long first night in the hospital by myself on the world's worst excuse for a bed/chair. By Saturday morning some of her test results were back and the only abnormal thing was her liver enzyme count. The doctor said that it was 2 1/2 times higher than it should be. Because of the liver test, they now had to run a million other tests to make sure that it wasn't some weird virus or that her liver was shutting down or many other horrific scenarios that played out in my head. I can kind of be a worst case scenario girl some of the time.

Saturday my mom came and spent the day with me and Brooklynn, while my sisters took care of Bailey and Brian flew to Kentucky for his Pop's funeral. They continued to run tests on her all day in between her very frequent feeding schedule. She was eating a ton of food and loving it! I felt like everything with Brooklynn was going to be just fine and that her liver count was up simply because she had been starving for the first 24 days of her life. Knowing that your child has been starving and it's only because of you, it can kind of make a mom feel bad. By Saturday night, I was about to lose my mind and had decided that we really needed to go home tomorrow.

Sunday morning I met with the GI specialist and the dietician and they felt like we would probably go home today. I was so excited to leave the hospital and be able to be comfortable back in our house and able to sleep in my wonderful bed. Later that morning the really nice Dr. Suarez came back to talk with us and she said they had to run more tests and should probably stay until Monday. I know that I probably looked like the world was about to end when she said that we might have to stay another day. My mom was there for that meeting, so she asked a lot of questions to try to see if there was any way that we could leave today as long as Brooklynn was gaining weight. Bottom line is that she had gained weight (because she was eating a ton) and we were able to come home. She now just has to get more blood tests done every week and frequent doctor's visits to make sure she's chunking up. I had to write this to get it out of my head, but it made me stressed just thinking about it. To prove how much I hated it and stressed I was, I did not even bring my camera to take any pics during our entire stay. I'm glad it's over and so glad we're home and can be normal again. At her last appointment, she was up to almost 8.8 and the liver tests were looking much better.

Now for some cute pics not related to the hospital:

Photo session with Toni :)

So glad that Keri came down to meet Brooklynn and then was able to help watch Bailey while we had our hospital stay.

Keri and the girls

I just love her cute little face in this picture. I might use this for her announcement because she looks so adorable.

Bailey and Grammy--thank goodness for my family being able to help out with everything. Bailey didn't miss me for one second because she was always having fun.

This look is why I think she and Bailey might be twins. This is a classic Bailey look that she still uses today and Brooklynn has it too.

Bailey and Keri in her sweet 80's wind breaker!

Another photo session with Toni. Notice the lovely stick on earrings.

I couldn't leave out Doby and Shorty; they were so happy to be reunited.

Ty came down for a few days this past week for a training at the YMCA and he was able to meet Brooklynn. She was so happy that she even smiled for the picture!

Am I Creating a Monster?

2011-04-16T17:09:00.000-07:00

We are now heading into week four of potty training with Bailey. I'll admit the timing is not the best since we do have a tiny, little baby at home, but it is what it is. Part of it is nice since we just stay at home all day and can fully committ to this potty training. The bad part is that I spend 4-5 hours a day feeding Brooklynn so that's time that Bailey can roam free. Bailey is also three now and very opinionated and likes to negotiate every part of her life; this often means that going to the bathroom is brokering some sort of deal with her.

Week one she seemed to be doing pretty good, but this past week has been kind of a disaster. I thought we had the pee thing under control, but on Tuesday she peed twice and pooped once. At that point I realized that we needed to overhaul something. My mom suggested that I revamp the treats and put them out in the open to see all day. Together we created the bathroom wall of treats!

I went to WalMart and bought a bucket of cheap treats--stickers, rings, stamps, fruit snacks, and of course candy. I put some in an egg, for an element of surprise, and the rest in a bag so she could see them. During her nap I taped them all up on the bathroom door. When she woke up I told her I had something to show her. She walked downstairs and then ran over to the bathroom. She could hardly contain herself when she saw all the prizes. She quickly went to the bathroom and picked her first prize. Five minutes later she went again, and then again, and then again. During the next hour she probably went 5-6 times; I don't know for sure becaus I lost track. The new treats seemed to reenergize her enthusiasm for going in the potty, but it has yet to deliver a poop in the potty.

On day two the rule was now that the eggs were only for poop. I even have bigger prizes inside the bathroom for when she keeps her panties dry and clean all day. There's even a big picture of the movie HOP inside because I told her I'd take her there when she was totally done with diapers. My worry is that this will take so long that the movie won't be in the movie theater! So now my question is, when do the treats stop? When will this just happen on its own and when can I stop asking every 10 minutes? We have gone to the park, the store, and even to my school without having an accident, so I think that's pretty good. It also helps that my mom has a wall of treats in her bathroom too. Bailey had to check out all the bathrooms at my mom and dad's house to see if all bathrooms now had a wall of treats. I love the way her brain works--two bathrooms have treats, so why not all of them?

Today has been a good day for potty training, I just have to see if we can make it through the night without a #2 happening in the big girl panties. So any thoughts and suggestions or just good luck wishes are greatly appreciated in this major undertaking at our house.

Getting Older--but not much Bigger

2011-04-08T00:54:00.000-07:00

Brooklynn was 3 weeks old on Tuesday! We had to take her in for an appointment on Monday. I was feeling so good because I drove there and I got all of us--Bailey, Brooklynn, and myself--dressed and ready to go and out the door on time. I was feeling quite accomplished, but it was very short lived. At the appointment, we found out that Brooklynn has still not gained any weight; she had even lost an ounce or two since the last visit. I was instantly crushed because all she does is eat all day long! I could not believe that she hadn't put any more meat on her bones. Just when I was feeling like I could actually do this, I was quickly reminded that I wasn't doing so hot.

The good news is that the doctor was not worried about Brooklynn at all. She looked good and was very alert. She poops, pees, and eats all day, so the doctor was confused about what was happening. So I now just have to keep record of everything that she does and go back in to weigh her again on Friday. I've also started to feed her some formula, if she wants it. The problem is that she usually falls fast asleep after she eats and does not want to open her mouth for anything else. So everyone needs to think good and chunky thoughts for Friday that she'll start gaining weight.

In other exciting news, Bailey is doing great on the potty training front. We are going on week two and she's doing good. When she plays she forgets that she is supposed to focus on going to the bathroom, but since we mostly sit at home all day she's doing good. I'm not quite sure how long this entire process will take, but the attention has been good for Bailey. It was not the time table that I would have picked to do this, but the very first day we started I could see how she loved the attention. It kind of calmed her down a little bit because we were focusing on her too. So I might not be able to leave my house without a backup outfit for both Bailey and Brooklynn, but I guess that's what diaper bags are for.

Here's where you'll find Bailey most of the day. Her tiny baby is sitting on her tiny potty too--that trick lasted for about a day.

This was Bailey after her weekend get away with Toni and Aaron; she was as happy as could be!

Here's Brooklynn all dressed up and no where to go--of course complete with a bow!

Brooklynn's belly button thing finally fell off, so we gave her her first bath. It was quite the family affair. Bailey wanted to jump in there with her, Toni was there to document the occasion, and Tera was there for back up assistance with the towel.

She did not like it so much!

And she wasn't too happy with us afterwards, but look at how cute she is even when she cries.

Last week Toni came down, the weather was nice, so we went to the beach. Bailey was showing some crack all day since she doesn't wear a diaper anymore. I did not think of this when I bought her bathing suits for this summer, so I might have to buy another one or just put sun screen where the sun don't shine.

Brooklynn did really well on her first few beach outings. I forgot that I will have to go back to bringing the umbrella to the beach this summer. I'm already strategizing how I'll be able to beach it this summer. Any suggestions for the beach with two kids is greatly welcome!

She's really a peaceful baby most of the time.

Here's Bailey loving life! She is a great beach kid and will need to train her sister to follow in her footsteps.

Meet Brooklynn!

2011-03-25T17:40:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a long 38.6 weeks, but the wait is finally over. I'm going to write the whole story so I don't forget it. If you just want to bypass the story and scroll down to all the adorable pictures, that's fine too.

The last month of my pregnancy was pretty tough. I ended up getting really sick and missing an entire week of school. Those were sick days that I was trying to save for after the baby. I tried to power through one day of school, after laying in bed for four days straight. As I was walking to my classroom that Wednesday morning, I quickly realized that I was pushing it way too much. That was the most that I had walked, from the parking lot to my room, in five days!! I really thought I was going to pass out. I took the rest of the week off. As a result of being sick, I then strained some muscles in my ribs or tore something--either way super painful. After powering through for a couple of weeks being sick and in pain, I went to the doctor and he said that I was done. It was official: March 10th was my last day of work. At first, I was really sad and cried for the rest of the afternoon. I really do like my kids this year and I felt as if I was abandoning them. But after laying bed on Friday and taking some good medicine, I realized that my doctor was right. Resting and laying in bed was the best thing that I could do. At my appointment, he said that he should have written this letter 10 days ago. I'm glad that I lasted a few more days :) One more awesome sidenote that I must include is that the medicine my doctor put me on for my ribs, made my body itch like a crazy person. I seriously could not stop scratching all over; I thought I was going to lose my mind! Just when I thought I was getting better, I started itching--if it wasn't one thing, it was something else.

Since I was now going to be at home until the baby came, I called Toni to see if she wanted to come down for a couple days to hang out and help me get stuff done. Being the awesome sister that she is, she said yes! On Monday, our first item of business was to take Bailey to get her 3 year pictures done at the mall. I really wanted to take them before Brooklynn came because I knew it wouldn't get done for quite some time. We spent the day at the mall, doing laundry, and hanging out with Bailey. That night I organized a lot of things that had to get done on Tuesday--lesson plans for my sub, field hockey stuff, going to the bank, mailing things at the post office.

I woke up Tuesday morning, ready to be productive. I dropped Bailey off at Christy's and headed over to get Toni. Our first stop was to Target--my favorite place. I needed to get some baby stuff, things for me, and Bailey and Brooklynn's Easter basket stuff. While at Target, I had really bad pains in my lower stomach region. I was trying to to make a big deal about it because I had one week left and I was pretty sure that is wasn't going to be a very pleasant week. I walked around Target holding my large belly. As we were checking out the check out lady asked if I was okay. I told her I might have my baby right here in Target. She didn't think that was funny, but I was just kidding. Toni was pretty sure I was going into labor, but I told her we must press on. After Target, we then went to lunch with my dad, the bank, the post office, and then home to do more baby laundry. Overall, it was a very successful day and I felt awesome!

My mom wanted Toni and I to get pedicures on Tuesday, since I couldn't paint my own toes, or more importantly take the polish off from Toni's wedding. It was to be one last gift before Brooklynn came. We decided to wait until later in the afternoon when my mom could come with us. Once we were back at my mom and dad's house, we decided to just hang out for the rest of the night and get the pedicures tomorrow. Around 7:00 we ate delicious taco salad for dinner. After dinner, I quickly retired to the couch because I was having pains again. I sat there for a while, apparently looking like I was in pain because my dad asked me if I was having the baby. Again, I just thought this was the usual unpleasantness of being pregnant...until 8:00.

At 8:00, I started to get up because I felt like I was going to the bathroom and I announced, "I think my water is breaking!" I rushed to the bathroom to confirm that yes, my water was breaking or had broken. Little Brooklynn was not going to wait to come on her dad's birthday, she was going to come tonight! My family sprang into action! One of the first things that my mom said was that we should have gotten our toes done! She knew Brooklynn wasn't going to wait one more week to come. My mom organized the troops, Tera brought me some new pants to wear, my dad was now in charge of Bailey, and Brian found the car keys. My mom, Brian, and I hustled to the car. Tera and Toni were going to run to our house to pack some sort of bag for me, but not until they had stopped at Target to buy some cute outfits for Brooklynn (don't I have the best sisters).

As we were driving down to Zion Hospital (at a rather rapid speed) I was busy calling Kaiser. After about 10 minutes of being on hold, I informed them that I was on my way to have a baby. They said to come on down! When we got there, after a mere 20 minutes of driving, my mom and I hobbled into the hospital while Brian parked the car. I was having pains the entire time, but I wasn't sure if they were contractions or just pain--remember I know nothing about having a baby because Bailey was an emergency C section and they put me to sleep to get her out. The nurse that greeted us was very nice, but tired because they had just delivered 6 babies before we got there. She showed us to a small examination room and had me put on a lovely hospital gown. By that point Brian arrived in the tiny room and a doctor was close behind him. He asked me some questions, and I was sure to tell him that I was scheduled to have a Csection next week and would still like one tonight. He then proceeded to do a rather painful check and then a waterfall of water came quickly after the exam. He said I was dialated to a 2, so I had much further to go.

Here's where I got nervous. He told me that since I had last eaten at 7:00 and it was currently close to 9:00, that I might need to wait 7-8 hours to have the Csection until my stomach was empty. They only way they would proceed was if breaking my water again (or whatever he did) put me into regular contractions and labor and then they would forget about the empty stomach and just get the baby out. I was not happy thinking that I would have to sit in this tiny room feeling rather uncomfortable for 8 more hours!! Luckily, I guess, I started having regular contractions. They moved me to a slightly larger room to get ready for the Csection. The whole time I just kept thinking, isn't the main reason for having a Csection to avoid all this pain? Through this brief two hour experience, I discovered that contractions are not a lot of fun, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't even having major ones just ones that were big enough to hurt. I was trying to do some good breathing techniques to get through the pain, you know like what you see in the movies since I never took one of those breathing/birthing classes.

Around 10:30ish a doctor came in and said that we'd have the baby out in 15 minutes since I was clearly in labor. I gave a worried glance at Brian and told him to go tell my mom and sisters that this was it! About 30-40 minutes later, all the doctors came in and said that this time it was for real! We had to wait after the last announcement because another mom and come in in labor and they had to check her out too. The nurse had me walk down to the operating room to get prepped. I thought that Brian would be in with me when they stuck the dagger into my back, but I guess he wasn't allowed in for that part. I was really nervous that it was going to be really painful or that I would cough or sneeze just as the needle was going in and cause some serious trouble. The part that hurt was the numbing shot; the rest of the time it just felt like the doctor was pushing my back. I try not to think of what he was really doing because it freaks me out! Once he had it done I immediately became a limp, rag doll. It kind of scared me because it was instantaneous and I wasn't expecting that.

After I was immobilized, they brought Brian in and started with the procedure right away. I thought something was wrong, but they told me they just want to make sure they get it done before the spinal wears out--good idea. The spinal made me really tired and cold, but it was slightly like an out of body experience. For some reason, my brain started thinking that if I gave into my sleep I would die. I know that was completely illogical, but I think I was a little bit nervous. I could not think about what was going on on the other side of the blue sheet or I'm pretty sure I would have puked or freaked out. Brian was brave and watched the entire thing; I warned him not to pass out because I didn't want to do it alone. I haven't had him tell me about it yet, because it hasn't been long enough and I'm not sure I want to hear all the details about my guts being displayed so publically. I was squeezing his hand so hard, I thought I might break a bone. At one point they told me to expect to feel a lot of pushing and then Brooklynn would be out. I did feel weird pushing and then I heard a rather loud baby crying. I was glad to hear the crying because I know that means good things. It took longer than I expected for them to show me Brooklynn, but I knew that Brian was with her so it was okay.

When they went to weigh her, that was the first time I saw my chunky little nugget. My first thoughts, for quite a while, were I can't believe she is so big!!! She weighed in at a whopping 8 pounds 14 ounces and was 21 1/2 inches long! I couldn't believe it! I knew she felt big in my tummy, but I had no idea how big. The nurses bundled her up and gave her to Brian to then show me. She just looked like this cube of a baby with these big, squishy, adorable cheeks. After that it kind of all blends together. They put me back together, wheeled me into the recovery room and finally gave me my little bundle to hold. We were in the hospital until Friday afternoon, when I had had enough and was ready to go home. So that's how our baby Brooklynn made her grand entrance into this world!

Now just enjoy the adorable pics:

I guess this one is not adorable, but this is me ready and waiting to go.

Brian on his way to the operating room. When Bailey saw this picture she said, "Look my dad is a doctor!" She was quite excited at that thought.

Here's the dedicated crew that came and waited all morning for Brooklynn's arrival.

Toni with my bag that she and Tera packed for me. Side note: despite having two kids, I have yet to pack a hospital bag for myself.

This is what she looked like the first time I saw her. Like a little cube of a baby all bundled up and these huge cheeks.

Here's Brooklynn the next morning with her first bow--a big moment in any girl's life.

There aren't a whole lot of pictures that I can post of myself where I don't look naked or horrific. This one is pretty good--as far as hospital pics go.

One proud papa!

Toni brought Bailey down on Wednesday night to meet her baby sister.

She was so excited and proud to finally be a big sister! She wanted to hold her all night, or at least for five minutes and then her attention was on to something else.

She has been wearing big sister shirts almost everyday since Brooklynn came. I love this smile because it just shows how truly excited she is.

Me and my girls!

This is how Brooklynn would have liked to lay the entire time in the hospital. All curled up in a ball, nice a snuggly.

Here I am slightly more presentable after a shower. And here's Brooklynn in her first real outfit. The pants were hilariously big and baggy. It was funny because I thought she was so big, until the we tried the pants on her.

One big yawn since she didn't sleep a whole lot during the night.

Going home Friday afternoon to get some peace and rest from the hospital.

On Saturday she got all dressed up for her first family get together to cheer BYU onto a victory. Of course I put a headband on her. Look at those chubby cheeks!

Aaron and Toni came down and did a photo shoot with Brooklynn.

Here she is in her cuddly, pink carseat. It just makes me realize how small she is when I see her in her carseat.

I have to thank my awesome family for all that they have done to help me out so far. Both my mom and my sister Toni spent a night with me in the hospital and I know it wasn't pleasant. Tera took time out of her crazy schedule to come down to the hospital a couple of days and hang out with me. Bailey has had numerous slumber parties at my mom and dad's house and even a few days of fun up at Toni and Aaron's house. Go to Toni's blog to see some fun pictures of her special time with Bailey and some funny stories. I'm just so glad that she's here and healthy and happy (most of the time). I've also been seriously happy that I wasn't pregnant for one more week--I'm not a great pregnant person. So welcome the newest member of our family--Brooklynn Kay Bronson!!

It's Her Party and She'll Cry if She Wants To

2011-03-03T13:01:00.000-08:00

It's official--Bailey is 3!! I can't believe it! I am the mom of a three-year-old; that thought kind of blows my mind and makes me sad all at the same time. Her birthday was on Saturday, February 19, so it was a perfect day for her party...at least that's what we thought.

She woke up in the morning and we had a mini celebration before the big party. I put Grandma Mosher's present in her bedroom the night before, so she woke up saying, "Mommy, what's that? Who's that for?" It's so fun to surprise kids.

We got her these cool wooden cupcakes that you can decorate with a dry erase marker. We sang Happy Birthday, she blew out the candles, and then quickly got to work decorating her cupcakes.

She has known the date of her birthday for quite some time and we'd been talking about her party for a while too. All she cared about was that her cousins and Hailey were there, she would have cupcakes, and make a craft. We had planned on having Brian bring a jumpy from his work, but the disastrous weather (that never really was) cancelled that nice and easy plan. The party was going to start around 2:00ish. The plan was to eat yummy BBQ, make a craft, open presents, decorate cupcakes, eat cake, and I even had an additional craft for an art show that Bailey wanted last minute if the kids were up for it.

Around 2:45ish everyone was there so I started to gather the kids around the table for craft time. We were going to make bead bracelets and necklaces. I was telling all the kids to sit down so I could show them what they were going to do when, BAM--a 5 second disaster struck! Kate went to sit on the table and it must have been off-balanced because the glass table top popped up and then somehow landed on Bailey's right pointer finger and crushed it. It happened so quickly, I wasn't really quite sure what had happened. I was Bailey was crying so I went over to her and immediately saw her huge finger. By the look of it--huge, purple, and crooked--I thought for sure it was broken. Kids fingers are so tiny I don't imagine that it takes much to break one. I brought her into the kitchen and just let the grandmas take over. I was really bummed because we hadn't started anything at all and we were already off to a rough start.

Here's the sad birthday girl moments after the finger injury.

It took all of us to try to distract her from hef finger and have some fun. This is our sad attempt to get her to make a necklace.

The other kids had tons of fun making the craft :)

Cute Owen loved it!

From crafts, we quickly moved onto presents--you can see how well that went! Bailey was just a bit dramatic about all of it.

I told Ty that I'd pay him $5 if he got her to smile. My dad jumped in and put a box on his head to make her laugh. I love my family!

She was kind of like a crazy kid going from happyish to sad in the blink of an eye.

Here's her sad swollen finger.

This was her face for most of the day.

I got the rest of the kids doing the craft because someone might as well enjoy it. Eventually we coaxed Bailey into the room with a bag of ice on her hand and her paci in her mouth! So please don't think that she walks around with her paci all day and she's three!! We were looking for anything to get her to calm down and the paci kind of did it. (side note: for the next week she requested her paci all the time like when she was a little baby; it was a rough week because she didn't understand it was for emergency use only) So the rest of the party, Bailey was one-handed. She held that little hand curled up against her chest, but still attempted to do everything. There are some seriously sad pictures from the party, but she did have fun.

Because of the accident, the party schedule was thrown way off. The goal now was to do whatever would get Bailey to stop crying. We did beads for a while, but that didn't work well. We quickly tried presents to distract her. That worked, but again only temporarily. The one thing that definitely did the trick was decorating the cupcakes. That should have been my first guess with Bailey because she is so driven by sugar. After cake we sat around and talked and let the kids play.

Here's a smile while decorating/eating cupcakes.

I think this was everyone's favorite part

Here's Kate's funny face--she does make the best faces.

Here's Owen and his meticulously decorated cupcake.

Another one of our as good as it gets family photos. At least we tried.

Now we're having fun!

Caught in action trying to blow out her candles. Being the nice mom that I am, I bought the candles that are supposed to light back up after you blow them out. They didn't quite work as quickly as I wanted them to; maybe that's why they were on clearance.

Trying to get a picture of the four of them was hilarious! None of them wanted to pay attention or smile. Owen had to be forced by Kyle to sit there nicely, so he was sad. Kate is posing, and Hailey was into something else that caught her attention. This was the only one with Bailey smiling, so it was the winner.

Uncle Ty Ty and Aunt Toni got Bailey this awesome art center.

Brian and I had decided to hold off on the ER until the next day because we didn't feel like hanging out in the ER for hours on end--I know we are great parents! Instead, we made a lovely homemade splint out of a popsicle stick and athletic tape. When we did take her in the next morning, the nurse commented on what a great job we did with the homemade splint and I'm pretty sure he was serious. There ended up being no broken bones, thank goodness, but she did get to wear an awesome splint for the whole week. Bailey's favorite part was that she got about 10 stickers while at the doctor's office.

Here she is with her awesome pirate hook splint.

It ended up being a very dramatic entrance to the threes, but I hope it's not a sign of what the year ahead will be like. Bailey had fun, there was yummy food, and we were surrounded by family and friends--that's what I shall choose to remember :)

Here's what Bailey got for her birthday (I'm only listing it so I can remember what to get a three-year-old next time I have one):
Big kid games (Candyland and Cooties) and princess blanket from Grammy &Papa
Beauty & the Beast dolls from cousins
Cute outfit from Aunt Harriet and Uncle Fred
Adorable dress, coloring book, and sticker book from G&G Mosher
Shopping cart filled with goodies from Hailey
A dress, wooden puzzle, and Oh La La dolls from Grandma & Grandpa Dan
Cupcakes, puzzles, tea party set, and dress up dolls from me & Brian
Art center from Ty & Toni
Way more than any one little girl needs--thanks to everyone!!

Happy Birthday to my big girl Bailey! We love you so much and are amazed everyday at what you know and learn. You bring so much joy to our family. And I know you're going to be a great big sister!

Fine, I'll do it...

2011-02-13T22:28:00.000-08:00

but I won't be happy about it! So I'm not a big fan of taking pictures of me being pregnant. I guess I should want to capture the moment and make the memories last, but I'm fine if they just fly by. So my mom took this picture of me large and in charge because she said that Keri made her do it. I made Bailey come in the shot so at least it wasn't me all big and awkward.

So this is me prego at 34 weeks and 2 days.

This stomach and baby of mine have been growing exponentially the past three weeks. It was like my body knew when Toni's wedding was done and waited to explode until after. I should be thankful that at least it waited until after the wedding. I just feel huge and I hate all of my clothes. Other than that, life is great.

I did have a small miracle on Friday night, I slept for almost 7 hours straight! I was pretty much a zombie at school on Friday since my lovely students got me sick. But I can't take a sick day to actually be sick!! Who would do that? On Saturday I woke up for the first time at 5:45 and it felt like noon to me. I know I shouldn't get used to it because in 5 weeks all sleep will be quickly forgotten. But don't worry, I was up my usual 3-4 times last night and I'm sure I'll be up tonight too.

I also think I've maybe started some early nesting things. Friday night, while Brian was at work and Bailey was sleeping, I made a three page To Do list. It includes everything that I could possibly think of that I need/want to accomplish before Brooklynn comes. It ranges from cleaning, to organizing, to decorating and crafting, and finding a middle name. So this weekend, I was able to cross one thing off the list. I'm thinking I need to pick up the pace a little bit. I can halfway cross off several more items, but almost only counts in a game of horseshoes.

Besides being pregnant, the other big news around the house is: Bailey is turning 3 on Saturday!! I can't believe it! She is such a big kid it kind of makes me sad when I think about it. We've been talking about her party for a few weeks because she knows that her birthday is on February 19th. She is pretty consistent about a few things at her party: decorating cupcakes, cousins coming to play, and making a craft. Other things like--the color of her cake, what food she wants, what she wants for her birthday--change from day to day. Her latest obsession is going to pick out the color of her plates, knives, forks, and spoons for her birthday. We'll be making a trip to Party City to see what rainbow of colors she picks out. It's really funny that she's so into picking out the plates. I can only guess that it's from picking out all the colors and plates for Toni's bridal shower and wedding. I'm pretty sure that she also has fond memories of that store since half of it is candy.

I'm going to try to fill this week with fun Valentine's, party planning, anything else that's fun to distract me from work. I only have to make it through four days and then I have a four day weekend! I had a doctor's appointment on Thursday and I was slightly hoping that he'd put me on bed rest just for a few days--maybe even every Friday. My wish was not granted, but everything else looks good (except for my left elephantitis foot and leg).

Early Happy Valentine's Day to all!!

Toni & Aaron's Wedding

2011-02-06T15:16:00.000-08:00

Toni & Aaron got married on January 8th. It was such a fun day and everything was perfect! It's only taken me about a month to post about the big day, but I've had a few technical difficulties. Today, I finally just purchased more storage space for my blog because it kept telling me I had no space left. It made no sense, but I was sick of waiting for it to fix itself. So without out further ado, here are some snapshots of Toni and Aaron's big day:

It was a perfectly cloudy day at the temple which makes for great pictures. Here's my attempt at an artistic, pretty picture of the temple.

This was the only family shot of the three of us on that day. It was probably due to the fact that I'm not a big fan of pictures these days because of my size. Although compared to the size of my belly right now, I should have taken tons of pictures that day.

Bailey and Brian :) Shelly made all the little girls mini bouquets. Bailey had to have her's all day long. She loved it! And don't you just love their outfits? They were adorable.

Here are the beautiful bridesmaides: Rania, Alish, and my sista Keri.

Bailey and Papa. She was so excited for Toni's big wedding party. She talked about it everyday for a couple of months. She couldn't wait to see Toni in her princess dress.

A cute family photo!

Once Toni and Aaron finally came out, the kids were so excited to see them. They all wanted to help Toni with her princess dress walk over to the site of our photo session.

All of the siblings from both sides

Keri, Emily, and Ty

Dad, Mom, Toni, and Aaron

The entire Miller Gang!

I didn't get a great one at the temple of just the two of them, but you can still tell how happy they both are.

Both families joining together: Thomas & Miller

Bodie & Tyler--we were so glad that a lot of the Francis family was able to come down. Shelly is our family's designated florist and we are forever grateful for her crafty eye. It was even more fun because the boys came down too this time.

Bailey enjoyed her twirlly dress

Flying high in the sky!

This picture was a good as we could get of Mom and all the grandkids. At this point, we were bribing them with whatever we had to smile.

As you can see from the next picture, the bribes weren't really working anymore.

SISTERS!!

Ty, Kyle, and Keri

Cute Josie

This was Bailey after 5 minutes in the car. She was out like a light.

As soon as we got home from the temple, we headed back over to the barn to finish setting up for the reception. Toni had done such a fabulous job at planning everything for the wedding that it wasn't that hard. She had a map with detailed information about where everything went. I didn't take a ton of pics of the barn, but trust me--it was beautiful.

One thing that Toni and I worked on a lot for the wedding, was her sweets table. We had so much fun ordering all of the yummy candy that we wanted! Everybody loved the table. We kind of over bought on the candy, but at least we didn't run out. You can't see it that well in this picture, but there was even a mini chocolte fountain at one end of the table. There was so much sugar at this wedding; it was so sweet!

Another thing that Toni wanted was a wall with lots of their engagement pics. A last minute addition was the banners with their names. I had so much fun making it with my cricut! I always feel so accomplished when I'm crafty. It turned out really nice and added an extra special touch to the barn.

Toni also wanted a ring ceremony to start off the reception. The best part of the ring ceremony was the kids! We had Bailey and Kate as flower girls and Owen was the ring bearer. We had basket of petals for Shylie too, but I think she was just a little bit too young for it.

Here's Bailey with her big basket of petals. We had some last minute instructing to do with the girls to show them what to do.

The two of them looked almost like twins. Despite the 11 months that separate them, they are the same height, the same hair color, and same cute hair cut. They both felt really special that they could play a part in the wedding party.

Both Kate and Bailey in deep concentration performing their task of dropping petals.

The newly-married happy couple: Aaron and Toni Thomas!

Bailey wanted to use her entire basket of petals, so once she was in her spot she just dumped them all out. It was hilarious!

Bailey wanted to take pictures with Toni, the princess, all night long. She loves her Auntie Toni!

The Daddy-Daughter dance

Here's the beautiful cake, thanks to Shelly who saved the day and covered up the disastrous attempt at a lace cake made with fondant.

I love how the both of them are cutting the cake ready to eat--open wide!

The garter belt thing

This was a classic moment of the night. Toni never really wanted to do the bouquet toss, but we convinced her because it was such a good photo op. On her first attempt, she threw the bouquet into the wagon wheel chandilier. On her second attempt, once we got the bouqet down, she threw the bouquet up on top of the lighting fixture that you can see on either side of the wagon wheel. She's just so strong! So the bouquet toss did end up making for some great pictures, just not what we were imagining.

Once everything was done, the real party started--on the dance floor! The kids truely danced their hearts out. They danced for about an hour and never got tired.

They were so delerious and on a great sugar high, that much of their dancing took place literally on the floor. This was Bailey doing a sort of back stroke dance move.

By the end of the night, Bailey was done. It was such a fun day! I'd do it all over again, and it wasn't even my wedding. Welcome to the family Aaron!!