Brynn Quotes

Brynn is at the age where she says and does so many quirky little things...I don't want to forget any of them, so I'm keeping this post in my drafts for a month or so and anytime she says or does something I don't want to forget, I"ll write it here.

• She is into her shadow lately.  She loves to watch it and loves to wave at it.  The other day we were all walking and she said about her shadow "there's my girl" and then said "where daddy's boy?"  It was so funny to hear her call them boys and girls!
• She has been calling me "my mommy" so she will say "sit here my mommy" or "hold you my mommy" or "read this my mommy" or "push me my daddy" (on the swings)...I have no idea why she started doing that, but it is a hoot!  
• The other day before lunch we were gettting ready to pray.  She can NEVER wait for a bite to eat...she always grabs a couple of bites before we pray.  We said "okay, we need to pray for our food."  She says so seriously "I no wanna pray, I wanna eat!"  Ryan and I bust out laughing!
• My dad got back from his "civil war camping trip" and she hadn't seen him in about a week.  I told her that grandpa was back from his camping trip and we were going to go see him.  She says "I won (wanna) go camping wif my boy."  I started laughing and I said "who is your boy?"  (honestly thinking about when she called the shadows "boys and girls.")  She said "grandpa my boy."  "Won go camping wif my boy!"  HAHA!  
• She's really been into calling herself a "big girl" lately.  Anytime I ask if she needs help with something she will usually say "I do it, I big gul (girl) now."  She put on her little velcro Nike shoes the other day all by herself (I was pretty shocked she did it...although they were on the wrong feet!) and then said "see, I do it, I big gul!"  Or if there is something she says "mommy hep (help) me" she will say "when I big gul I do it."
• We went to Ansley's pre-school program in May and Brynn was SO EXCITED to watch Ansley.  She kept waving and clapping, and SHOUTING LOUDLY in the middle of the program "ANNIE...HI!  ANNIE...HI!"  Clearly from the picture you can see she was excited to be with the "big girls."

It's Getting Crazy Around Here..

Oh my goodness...where to even begin.  Our house is becoming a disaster zone!  HA!  

As I've mentioned on here before, once we found out the gender of Baby 2, it was like my brain went into overdrive.  I wanted to get started on the room and try to get some things accomplished ASAP.  This past weekend we (and by we I mean Ryan, my parents, and my in-laws...and me a little bit...I can't do any painting or heavy lifting obviously) started working on Emory's room.  

The PROBLEM this time around is that we aren't moving a baby into an empty room...we are moving a baby into a room that has served as a guest room, Ryan's closet, and has turned little by little into a junk room.  So..needless to say, before any painting could be done or any furniture could be put together, I had some major cleaning out to do.

The dresser that Ryan kept a TON of his stuff in is being painting and used as Emory's
changing table/dresser...so I had to clean all the drawers of Ryan's junk out.
And all of his clothes are moving downstairs into his own "closet" in the laundry room downstairs.

Baby stuff waiting to be moved in...

Five years of junk collected in these drawers...AHHH!
(The top of this did NOT look like this...this was after I cleaned out the drawers)...
Ryan had some stuff to look through.

Bye bye guest bed...

Saturday morning everyone was coming at 9 to help move old furniture out, help paint the walls, put the crib together, and help repaint the furniture.  And here is what Brynn was doing...she was OUT...I had all the lights on and she didn't even move!

Below is the color palette for the baby room.  The walls are a light gray, the furniture is bright white, and the bedding has different shades of purple.  We are getting Brynn's old rocker reupholstered in a lavender geometric print, and using some of these other fabrics in different places around the room.

Getting started...

Here is the dresser before...my dad is painting it bright white.
Ryan's mom used this as HIS changing table when he was a baby!

 I went ahead and woke Brynn up and she wanted to help...she tried to help put painter's tape on the walls!  HA!

Sorry Ryan is always in his skivvies...
this was after the walls were painted a light gray.  =)

 Somebody has been wanting to play in "Emmy's" room.  We let her get in the bed ONE time and she totally reverted to acting like a baby.  I could definitely see what people are talking about when they say it is normal for your first child to act like a baby when the new baby comes...it made me a little nervous.  We've been having lots of talks about how she is the big girl!

And since we had to move a bunch of Ryan's stuff to the basement so we could work on Emory's room, it has started this crazy chain reaction.  We are going to re-organize the laundry room so he can put lots of his hanging clothes and stuff in there, but we don't want to hang up all his stuff until that room is organized, which means we are working on cleaning that room out, along with our other storage rooms.  To make a LONG story short, our basement is a DISASTER area!

My skin is crawling just looking at these pictures, and THIS is the reality just one floor below me as I'm typing this right now!  HA!  I know it will take a couple of weeks for us to just get things cleaned out, thrown away, donated, etc. but it is driving me crazy!  And in turn I know I'm driving my husband crazy!  HA!  Oh well...thankfully in a couple of weeks maybe ALL the storage rooms will be more organized than ever before.  That would make it worth it.

In the meantime, pray for my sanity!  

Zoo Day Tuesday

This Tuesday we took Brynn to the St. Louis Zoo!  My parents like to take her in the fall and spring, and so this Tuesday was IT!  YAY!  My dad couldn't go because he's off on a "civil war camping trip" (he is in heaven!) so me, Ryan, my mom, and Brynn loaded up and headed off for the zoo. 

We dropped Ryan and Brynn off around 10, and my mom and I made a quick run to Pottery Barn Kids to pick up Emory's BEDDING! (My mom's baby gift for her!  THANKS MOM!)  (And Ryan let me get a "big girl" chair for Brynn since we are moving the rocker into the baby room).  Then we headed back to the zoo to meet up with them...they were at the elephants.  We finished up seeing some animals and then had lunch, before heading off to see more animals and ride the train!

This is an interesting smile...HA!

The baby elephant didn't want to get in the water with the mommy elephant, and she
kept saying "Get in water, baby!"

My mom packed an AMAZING lunch...and we got to sit outside in the shade right by a big pond.  It was (in the word's of Rene'...and I know I'm becoming more and more like her every day!) GLORIOUS!

Brynn was dressing Ryan up and I think he left this hat on the rest of the day!  HA!

We got this Safari Pass thing that gave us free entry into the Stingray's, the Children's Petting Zoo area, unlimited rides on the carousel (that was worth the $10 price by itself!), and the Train!

We knew she'd LOVE the train and the carousel, but I was surprised how much she LOVED petting the goats...she was hilarious!  "Hi Goat!"  "He fuzzy" "tickle tickle goat!"

Some of these had their eyes closed so she kept saying "WAKE UP GOAT!"
"OPEN EYES GOAT!"

I guess we didn't take ONE picture of us riding the "choo choo train" but she LOVES that!  Then after a couple of stops, we got off where the carousel was.  She was SO EXCITED!  And of course we had to find an animal that had a purple saddle.  After a couple of rides I was dizzy!  HA!  But she wanted to keep riding...she loves that thing!  I'm thinking this coming year at the fair she is going to need one of those unlimited wrist bands because riding that thing only one time will be OUT of the question!

And what animal had the purple saddle that she insisted on riding EVERY time?
The Somali Wild Ass!  HA!
And I rode behind her on the hippo...I thought that was pretty fitting since that's what
I felt like! HA!

I told Ryan I thought he would look pretty cute if I got him a hat...
just one that is his own size and not a pink and purple striped one from Children's Place!

We left about 3, when she could hardly keep her eyes open anymore.  (But of course once we got in the car, she was wide awake and even made us stop about 15 minutes down the highway because she needed to pee pee!  HA!)  I honestly started getting worried that she was just going to watch her little DVD player and never sleep on the way home, but she finally conked out about 45 minutes from home.

After supper we headed to the hospital to see our friend Ashley's new baby, little Lynley!  Brynn LOVES babies (although I know she doesn't know what it will be like to have one LIVING at our house full time...ha!) and she was so excited to help hold Lynley.  She wanted to touch her hair, her feet, her nose, etc.  It definitely made me excited for September!

LOOK AT THAT SMILE!
She was SO excited!

It was a busy Tuesday, but full of FUN!  Lots of special memories!!!

Gardening/Herb Project

I had been feeling a little crafty lately...so Brynn and I decided to paint and garden all in one project.  We painted some pots and planted some herbs and tried not to get too messy!

I had some old blue paint and found some old chalkboard paint...thought they turned out
pretty cute!

Then Ryan got home from work and got to get in on the fun!
Brynn wanted to plant some purple flowers in her flowerpot.

I have no idea if I'll get my herbs to grow, but I planted some basil, rosemary, mint, cilantro, and chives.  I really hope they work!



After supper I was cleaning up the dishes while Ryan and Brynn headed outside to play.  They planted some of the purple petunias in the little flower boxes on the swing-set.  This is seriously the BEST view while I'm doing dishes..I love to watch them playing out there!

I am NOT much of a gardener (Ryan usually plants and does everything with our garden) but I love to reap the benefits!  I would LOVE to make some homemade pesto with my fresh basil!  Keeping my fingers crossed that I keep them alive!  HA!

Mom's iPhone pics

Here are few pics my mom took on her phone while we were in Memphis.  They did a LOT of playing outside, eating outside, and gardening outside!  I love getting her texts with pictures, but maybe even better than that are her play by plays of what they do.   If you know my mom she is NOTORIOUS for writing LONG emails that detail her day (I kid you not, one day a couple of years ago she sent me an email about her day that was three paragraphs long...one paragraph being SOLELY about how nice and smooth the grocery carts were at Schnucks!!  And then at the end of the email she says "Now I can't even remember what I was emailing you about...oh well!)  So her texts are no different...I took a picture of one of them, but of course you can't see the whole thing...HILARIOUS!

It went on and on...HAHA!  Thanks Mom!

-

Getting ice cream down by the river...

Getting ready for church on Sunday.

And then one more from MY phone from running errands the other day (when we got stuff to do our "gardening/herb" project.)

So thankful for grandparents who love Brynn SO MUCH!  (And send crazy detailed texts about all the fun things they are doing with her! HA!)  Love you Mom!