Brynn's Funnies - June Edition

• I have no idea where she picked this up, but she's been saying "I'm so excited!"  The funny part is that she MEANS "I'm so excited" but she SAYS "I so much-cited!  I so much-cited!"  At first I couldn't figure out what she was saying and then I said "oh...are you saying you are so excited?"  She says "yeah, I so much-cited!"
• We were at Aldi's and you have to put a quarter in the grocery cart.  When you put the cart away your money pops back out.  The other day we were getting ready to put our cart away when a lady walked up.  (A lot of times people just give their cart to someone walking up and then that person gives them the quarter they would have put in the cart...if that makes sense.  It just is less hassle than having to hook your cart back up and get your money out.)  So I asked the lady if she wanted our cart.  As she takes the cart from us I guess Brynn was "worried' we weren't getting our quarter back.  So Brynn looks right at the lady, holds her hand out and says "I need my money!"  AHHHHH!  The lady started laughing and said "you've taught her well!"  And I could have died!  HA!
• Brynn's prayers have gotten much more complex and have started making so much more sense just in the last few days.  Tonight Ryan and I were trying so hard not to let her see us laugh, but it was hilarious.  Before bed, we always read for about ten minutes and then we say a prayer together...the "now I lay me down to sleep" prayer.  Then I say a quick prayer, Ryan says a quick prayer, and then we let Brynn pray.  For a long time she would just speak jibberish...which was weird because you can pretty much have a "conversation" with her any other time, but when she would pray it would be jargon-sounding.  So we would try to get her to repeat after us..."thank you God for mommy, thank you for Daddy, thank you for my food, thank you for our house, thank you for getting to play outside today, etc."  So the last few days she has really been saying it on her own.  She will say "dear God, thank you for _____, thank you for _____, etc.  Tonight she said "thank you God for Jesus (it always sounds more like "cu-cu God for"), which was so sweet.  But before I had time to really dwell on how special that was, she then thanked God for Cookie Monster, Abbey, and Elmo, and then pulled up Ryan's shirt and said "thank you God for Daddy's bebo (that's what she calls a belly button)...Ryan and I lost it!  It was hilarious.  Then she saw us laughing and opening our eyes so she said "close eyes mommy."  HA!  Then she proceeded to thank God that she goes pee pee in the potty and "no poo poo in my panties."  OH MY!  She is just at such a funny funny stage!
• She is so big into saying "poo poo" these days...I am ready for that to be over.  The other day I was cleaning out her ears and I showed her the end of the q-tip  (it has some yellow wax on it).  She goes "yuck...I got poo poo in my ears!"
• This isn't funny, but it's definitely a stage she is going through.  She LOVES to say "I no want to."  I hope that doesn't last forever.  She usually doesn't like to get her teeth brushed (sorry Brynn, but that's going to happen!), so she always says "I no want to!"  AHHH!  That phrase is a killer!
• She is big into talking on the phone...she picks up pretend phones and has major conversations on them.  The other day she said she was talking to Minnie Mouse and she was saying "Hello? Anybody der?  You got toys?  No?  OH MAN!"  It was so funny to listen to!  
• This happened the other day...I was so surprised (and a little frustrated!) because she rarely draws on anything other than regular paper or a coloring book and SHE KNOWS BETTER!  I came out and she had drawn in ink pen ALL OVER the coffee table/storage thing!  When I asked her what happened she started bawling.  I had no idea what to do, but I finally googled it and rubbing alcohol took it off easily, praise the Lord!

You can kind of see what it looked like before and after the cleaning...I was able to get it all off.
Who knew that rubbing alcohol could clean that off?

Don't get me wrong...she can have moments, but age two hasn't been too bad yet.  (I know I shouldn't say that...this next week will be terrible!  HA!)  She has such a funny spunky little personality and I just find myself falling more and more in love with her everyday, ink pen stains on the furniture and ALL!

"Car-Lit" Turns 2!

This past Tuesday Brynn and I headed to the park to celebrate one of her little best friend's turning 2!  Scarlett (Brynn says it like "Car-Lit") had a Minnie Mouse themed party and it was adorable!  Brynn loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse right now (yes, sometimes she will sit still for almost an entire 20 minute episode!  Praise the Lord!) We even got some cute Minnie Mouse ears, but I forgot to take a picture.  HA!

I asked her if I could take a picture of her hair...she thought she was so funny!

I had a braid in my hair and she said she wanted braids too...she actually sat still pretty well
and we came up with this little hairstyle...it was really cute!

Everyone wanted to help Scarlett (in the blue on the right) open her presents!  

 So thankful for a fun morning with friends (even though preggo was sweating it out in the 90 degree heat!) and so blessed to have a fun group of mama's with kiddos around the same age!!  It is so nice to be able to swap parenting stories or get advice about things and to just have a girl's night out with them!

Anniversary Trip in iPhone pics

This past weekend Ryan and I went to St. Louis for a couple of nights just to have a mini-getaway before the baby comes and to celebrate our birthdays and anniversary (both of our birthdays and our anniversary occur within ten days!)

So Saturday morning we packed up some of Brynn's stuff, dropped her off at my parents house, and headed for St. Louis.  We didn't have much on the agenda except to relax and shop, and see a Cardinals game, which we hadn't bought tickets for yet.  Saturday night's game was almost sold out, and bleachers and standing room only were going for $40-$70 (crazy!) so we decided we'd just try to scalp tickets or figure out something there...on the way we found this deal online called "First Pitch Tickets".  Basically, the morning of every game at 9 am you can go to a certain gate at the stadium, and the first 275 people can buy a PAIR of tickets for only $11.20!  It's sponsored by the Cardinals radio station KMOX 1120, which is why that's the price...isn't that crazy!  TWO TICKETS for $11.20.  The kicker is that you don't know where your seats will be...they could be really good, or they could be standing room only.  Since it was just me and Ryan, we could care less where we sat...we just wanted to go to the game!  (You have to go to a certain gate 15 minutes before game time to pick up your tickets...they give them to you in a sealed envelope...you open them and find out where you are sitting!)  Since we didn't know about this before we left, we didn't get to the stadium until almost 11:30, and figured they'd be sold out for Saturday night's game...but to our surprise and excitement we got one of the last 15 pair of tickets!  WOOHOO!
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Ryan came back to the car with this cool little piece of paper and our receipt...
I have NEVER been to a Cardinal's game that cheap!

We left the stadium and headed to the Galleria to do a little shopping and because we wanted to eat lunch at Cheesecake Factory...that is one of our favorite restaurants!  We decided to shop a little first, and right across from Cheesecake Factory is Anthropologie!  I LOVE that store, but I don't buy much there because it's so expensive.  Well, they were having their annual BIG summer sale so we headed in.  I love to go in there and window shop anyway...and they always have their back sale room I like to look in.  =)  I found a couple of cute shirts that were on MAJOR sale, and I think they will work as maternity or NOT maternity.  Ryan followed me toward the dressing room and was in heaven when he saw cupcakes and food and drinks!  He goes "I LOVE this store...you need to shop here more often!"  HA!  I said "I'd love to, but go pick me out a couple of cute dresses and check the price-tags on them!"  We saw several ADORABLE dresses and then I showed him that they were $178 apiece!   HA!  He was like "oh...gotcha!"  But I'm thinking that next time I'm in St. Louis shopping by myself I may just have to splurge and buy something and then tell him "oh, but it came from your favorite store!"

I am BAD about shopping by myself...I HAVE to have my sister with me,
and since she wasn't, I had to send her pictures of everything and say, "should
I get this?"  HA!

He may look serious and like he isn't having fun, but he kept looking at me
 and saying "this is awesome!"

I kept looking out my dressing room and seeing this...

• He was such a trooper and went with me to several stores!  Then we had lunch at Cheesecake Factory and met Jason and Sarah there, because they were in St. Louis for their anniversary too!  After some more shopping things started to go downhill...HA!
• We stopped at a Target and when we came out this guy was like "do you guys know you have a big nail sticking out of your back tire?"  GREAT...
• We then drove (on the nail tire) to check in to our hotel.  We had used Hot Wire to book a hotel room for Saturday and Sunday night.  Ryan wanted to just book a Drury, but I said "oh, it's an adventure...we'll just get the Hampton and that will be fine."  (Note to self...don't try to save money on a hotel ever again!)  We got a Days Inn instead of some of the nicer ones that were on the same "star rating" list and when we got there it was TERRIBLE.  There was no mattress pad, you could see through the thin sheets to the mattress, the air conditioner had been turned off and our room was about 85 degrees (not real fun for this preggo) and so it smelled musty and gross, the bathroom was nasty, etc.  I'm not usually super picky about stuff like that, but I could NOT SEE MYSELF relaxing and enjoying our anniversary trip in that room.  So even though Hot Wire is supposed to be non-refundable, Ryan called and was really nice to the lady and she was very nice back and refunded our money.  She asked if she could help us find a different room and we naively (it was about 5 pm on a Saturday night) said that we would just find one ourselves.  Mistake...
• We drove to the Cardinals game, but it started pouring.  We ran through the rain to get to the stadium and get our tickets...guess what?  Standing room only!  YAY!  (Not...)  But at $11.20 I couldn't really complain...we ran up to the very top of the stadium to wait out the rain delay.
• We started calling a bunch of places to book a room for that night and it was the most bizarre thing ever...we couldn't find a room to SAVE OUR LIVES.   We spend the entire hour and a half rain delay calling every drury, hampton, hilton, etc. within a 30 mile radius of St. Louis.   The poor people sitting in front of us probably thought we were CRAZY because all they could hear was us saying "do you have any availability for tonight?" like 500 times.  At one point a lady told me she found a hotel, but it was $300 for ONE night and we weren't doing that.  I kid you not, I was looking up hotels in Edwardsville, IL (45 minutes from St. Louis) because we were so desperate.  It started out funny and then we would look at each other and be like "this is getting serious, huh?"  HA!
• FINALLY (during the National Anthem no less) this guy found a Pear Tree Inn at Union Station (right near downtown)...I seriously think God opened that up because I think they had just had a cancellation!  We enjoyed the game (and delicious hot dogs and stadium nachos!) and even ran into one of our best friends from college and his wife (who live in Springfield!).  

This was right after we FINALLY found a hotel room! Thank you Lord!

After the game we drove to the hotel and it was SO NICE...I can't even tell you the difference between that and the other hotel!

We could even see the Arch from our eleventh floor window!

Sunday morning (our SIX YEAR ANNIVERSARY)  we woke up and got a couple of cute pictures from my parents, who were getting ready to take Brynn to church.  Clearly she was having the time of her life, and wasn't missing us a bit...and we wouldn't have it any other way!  I love knowing that when we are gone, she is so loved and cared for and having such a blast...I think my parents took her swimming in their neighbors pool about four times in two days!



After breakfast we decided to pick up the $11.20 Cardinals tickets again for that night...how could we pass that up?  Then we went shopping at Babies R Us, to the mall to look at maternity clothes and some sporting/cycling stuff for Ryan, and then met his parents (and Jason and Sarah again) at lunch...how bizarre that we were all in St. Louis the same day?   His parents were in town for one of their friends surprise birthday parties later that day.

We went back to the hotel that afternoon and relaxed and read, and then headed to a fun anniversary dinner at LoRusso's Italian (on the hill).  It was AWESOME...and I would highly recommend it!

I love CARBS and they brought out this basket with three different kinds of bread!
My kind of place!

It wasn't really even supposed to rain that day, but when we left to go to the Cardinals game it was POURING...like a torrential downpour!  So we headed to Ted Drewes which was right nearby and got some custard for the drive back to the hotel.


We had filled up the tire with air a couple of times, but it had to be changed before we could keep driving on it, so since we had plenty of time before the game (there ended up being a 3 hour rain delay) we hung out in the parking garage and I got a tutorial on how to change a tire.  HA!  Can I just say I was pretty proud of myself for being a trooper and hanging out with Ryan while he did this...I really wanted to go up and lay in the hotel bed but I pushed through!

He wasn't a bad view...

Seriously, where do guys learn this stuff?

I didn't think the game was going to happen because the weather looked so bad...but they FINALLY announced that the game would start at 10.  Since Ryan's birthday was the next day, I figured it would be fun to ring in his 31st birthday at the ballpark.  So we headed to the stadium at 10 pm!  It's really funny what you do without kids around!

Ryan was SO EXCITED when they announced the game was ON...he struck this
pose for me to send to Lindsey and Curt (who we had been talking to).

Our tickets were AWESOME for this game!

Yes, I look a little tired..this was about 12:15 when we realized it was Ryan's birthday!

Despite all these crazy things, we had an ABSOLUTE blast during the entire weekend.  We just rolled with everything, and laughed through it all.  I am so thankful to be celebrating 6 wonderful years with Ryan and am so blessed that God put us together!

26 Weeks

This past Sunday I was officially 26 weeks pregnant!

For the record...I took these pictures on Sunday evening after I had washed my face and gotten ready for bed...don't judge!  HA!

At my last doctor's appointment (25 weeks) I had gained a total of about 15 pounds...that would be okay with me...except that 7 of those pounds had happened since my last appointment 4 weeks ago!  WHOOPS! (Our scale stopped working a month ago and I was surprised to hear that I had a big jump!  HA!)  I didn't think I was eating that differently, but then I started thinking about all the peanut butter and M&M's I was eating for a snack, or the strawberry shortcake I would make myself each night before bed! HA!  I am definitely not going to cut back too much, but I have tried to eat more fresh fruit for snacks and I'm trying not to eat too much junk before bed.  (But listen...Monday nights when I watch the Bachelorette, it just isn't the same without a big bowl of brownies and ice cream...can I get an amen?)

I'm feeling pretty good...I've been walking at the gym about 3 mornings a week...I walk for about 30 or 40 minutes.  I drink a TON of water everyday, which consequently means I use the bathroom a LOT!  I haven't been napping as much during Brynn's naps, and as we've gotten more relaxed over the summer about going to bed later, I seem to go to sleep about 11 instead of 10...which is a little crazy for me!  HA!

We've been working in the baby room and I can't wait to get a few more little projects done before I post some pictures.  Since our basement is a wreck, we've brought up some of Brynn's toys and poor Emory's room is now her favorite playroom.  We've washed some of Brynn's old newborn clothes and started putting those away, and then been doing a few little things here and there.

SO THANKFUL for a healthy 26 weeks so far, and praying the next few weeks go by as quickly and as well!

Jordan's Wedding

On Sunday evening we headed to Deerfield to watch a family friend get married.  It was a tad HOT, but the ceremony was beautiful and the reception was great!  I didn't take any pictures during the wedding, but somebody was HAMMING IT UP after the wedding was over!  After dinner, there were horses nearby, so Brynn asked my mom, then Ryan's dad, and then my dad take her outside to see the horses!  (And they all did!)  Then she headed outside to where the wedding had been...we were looking out the window and saw her and my dad having a mock ceremony and singing and dancing!  It was hilarious!

Then Pamaw took her to get some yummy wedding cake!

My dad seriously asked me if I curled her hair...I'm like "no...look at her Daddy's hair!!"
She gets natural ringlets, but they get super curly with all the humidity!

The DJ was playing music and no one was really dancing...so Brynn and I went out to the dance floor and she was OBSESSED with the sparkles from this neon disco ball thing.  It was almost like she was playing that game "Dance, Dance, Revolution" because she was trying to tap her toes on all the colored sparkles as they were moving around!  Ryan came out and got in on the dancing action too.  We had so much fun watching her dance her little heart out!

I had to pull my hair up into a ponytail because I got so hot during the wedding!  HA!

On the way out, Brynn wanted to see the horses again!  She even took them some carrots from the buffet and fed them to the horses!

Congratulations Jordan and DeAnna on your wedding!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!

 Wishing a VERY HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to all the amazing and wonderful men in my life!  God blessed me with the most amazing dad ever!  He has taught me so much about life, has instilled in me a love for all things sports and history, and is just such a joy to be around.  I am also so thankful to have a strong Christian grandpa...some of my favorite things with my grandpa are playing cards and games together, and watching him love on Brynn!  And of course watching my husband become a daddy has been one of the most incredible things ever...I couldn't ask for a better daddy for our growing family.  His dad, my father-in-law Rick is such a wise and Godly man, and I am so thankful for the way he raised Ryan and the Papaw he is to Brynn.  So thankful that God has placed all these incredible men in my life!

On Sunday morning Ryan went to run, and when he came home I had some of his stuff sitting out.  

He requested a fried egg sandwich...I don't normally make eggs like this, but I gave it a try, and I think they turned out pretty good!

We had breakfast together, then got ready for church.  Then we got Brynn up and ready and let her help Daddy open his presents before we headed out the door.

We printed off a picture of Brynn and I and put it in a frame he could take to work.

Well everyone...I FOLLOWED THROUGH...I told Ryan after my mother's day skillet "incident" that I would get him something similar for Father's Day...so I seriously got him a Dirt Devil little vacuum cleaner he can use to help him when he cleans up the floor after Brynn makes a mess after eating!  He was hilarious...he said he loved it and couldn't wait to use it!  OH MY..

I wasn't going to get him anything else, but I felt bad, so when I saw this cute shirt, I figured we'd be nice and get him something beside the Dirt Devil...he always loves a good Mizzou shirt.  =)

We had taken Ryan's dad out to dinner on Friday night because his brother was in town, but I didn't take any pictures...whoops!  So on Sunday after church we headed to Oran to my grandparents house to celebrate with my side of the family.

Paw-paw (my grandpa) and Grandpa (my dad) opening their cards and little gifts.

THIS IS SO SPECIAL TO ME!

My grandpa is an excellent gardener, so we had to go check out his garden!  Brynn loves to go look at it, but we have to keep reminding her that she CAN'T pick anything yet!

Someday I want to have a garden like this!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!