Brynn's 1 year stats

18 lbs 11oz and
28" tall.

My LITTLE girl is in the 15th% across the board. She is seriously a peanut!

But the DR said she is just perfect and was impressed by how well she is walking (and has been for so long.)
She got 3 shots and got a pretty good fever from them but she is such a trooper.

I can't believe my baby is a year old!!!

Now I just have to decide.... do I wean from breastfeeding now or wait til I'm back in the office full time? Ugh. What to do....

I have some big posts coming up... get excited! ;) (Sneak peak at 1 of the posts...)








xoxo...P

1 Year Old!!!!

One year ago the very minute this blog posted I saw this for the very first time.
...




I fell 100% madly, completely in love. Like nothing I imagined would ever be possible.






Over the last year that love has grown so much it makes me cry if I think about it too much. (I'm not scared to admit it.... I'm sappy and emotional.) Brynn makes me so happy! She is the sweetest thing in the world. I mean seriously so sweet. I haven't ever seen another baby who likes to hug and kiss as much as this little girl does. She does laps around the living room hugging and kissing her toys, her dad and me. We LOVE it! The funny thing is she won't kiss you if you are holding her. She will kiss anyone else though. And hugs... oh they melt my heart over and over again. She loves to pat your arm or back as she is hugging you. If she hugs her dolly or her stuffed Sully she rocks back and forth So.Cute!

But back to how she has grown... She was born at 8lbs 4oz and 20" long at 12:27pm on June 30th. As of June 25th she is about 28" and 18.5 lbs we will see what the DR says at her 1 year appointment next week.

To brag about my little Brynnie a little bit here are all of the fun things she is doing these days...
Walking (getting to be more like running) EVERYWHERE
Playing with all of her fun toys a while ago she figured out her shape sorter and stacker, she loves her stuffed animals and makes them talk to eachother.
Reads - well she makes all her giberish noises while looking through books. It makes my day.
Climbs the stairs
Gets up onto the sofa and divebombs off of it.
Laughs hysterically at the dogs. Especially the littlest dog at my parents house.
Loves wearing her links like a necklace.
Eats or drinks pretty much anything you set on her tray.
She waves and dances when you ask her to.
She dances anytime she hears music. (It basically makes me die laughing.)
She has a pretty good vocabulary for a 1 year old. She says Dada (says that the most), Mama, Dog, Thank You, Car, Good, Done and Hi. Her favorite phrase is Hi Dada! She screams it when he walks in the room.

There are so many other fun things my girl is doing it just blows my mind. I have to go now so I can spend the day with my girl celebrating her life. But what kind of mom would I be if I didn't leave you with some more pictures?! ;) Oh and if you are interested her birth story is in a tab above.

(What do you mean I'm going to be 1 tomorrow?)






Happy Birthday Brynn! I'm am so proud to be your mom. You make all the hard things in life totally worth while. You make all the wonderful things in life even better. I hope you are always the happy, sweet girl that you are now. Daddy and I love you so much we can't wait to watch you grow. Big hugs and kisses.

I love you so much!


xoxo...P

Earth Friendly Baby Stuff #3

And I'm back with a Baby Related Post! :)  

Baby wearing!
So it isn't really earth friendly exactly but alot of earth friendly mamas love it so I figured I would include it. I LOVE to wear Brynnie. It is so convinient and such great bonding for me and my girl.

There are so many different options on how you can wear your baby and I couldn't even tell you how many products are on the market. What I can tell you about are our 3 types of carriers.

When Brynnie was little bittie we used a Moby Wrap. That thing was a godsend when I needed to get things done and she was fussy and wanted to be held. I would vacuum while wearing her and she would fall right asleep. That thing was seriously great.

Well now Brynnie is a bit bigger and I feel like she is a bit too heavy for me to feel safe with her in the Moby so my go to is the Ergo. LOVE LOVE LOVE! It is amazing. The shoulders are padded with memory foam and they way it sits on your body is so comfortable. Plus it is the most ERGOnomically correct carrier for your baby. Similar options (like the Bijorn) aren't very good for babies hips. The Ergo is just great. It can hold a child up to 40 (or 42?) lbs and you can use it as a front carry, a back carry or a side carry. Seriously just LOVE this thing.

And finally we have a sling. I have only used it a couple times because I got it after I got the ERGO and Moby but it seems ok. B is too big now to do some of the carrys with it and just a little too small to do a sitting hip carry.

Training... Father's Day... and a question...

What am I training for?

My very first 5K. I don't know what I'm thinking but I'm going to do it.

I'm doing a variation of the Couch to 5K program and went on my first run/walk yesterday. Though maybe I should have called it my first walk/run because there was for sure more walking than there was running at this point. But that is to be expected and how the plan works.

I was out for about 1/2 hour and went approx. 2.2 miles.

I'm so proud of me. :)

The 5K is September 25th at the zoo.

Wish me luck everyone.



Now onto Father's Day.
Brynn and I are so greatful to her dad. J is just amazing with her and he loves her so so so much it is the best thing to watch them together. One of the best things for me to see is the way that girl lights up and yells (and I do mean yells) "hi dada" when he walks in the room. It is awesome.

For Father's Day J wanted to spend most of the day just chilling out with us so we did just that. All 3 of us even took a nap. About 3:30 that afternoon we took a drive to the place we got married. Starved Rock State Park. We love it there and they have delish food. So we ate dinner and I may or may not have snuck into a wedding because the DJs that did our wedding were there. :) It was great to see them.

J hasn't gotten all of his present yet because it isn't here yet but when it gets here I will show you. It is way cute. One of my friends Heather inspired me. :)

Here are some pics we took. I was shocked but I accidentally left my camera at home so they are cell phone pics. :( (Still cute though!)


This picture of the 2 of them melt my heart. <3!


And my question is simply this....

HOW IS MY GIRL GOING TO BE A YEAR OLD ONE WEEK FROM TODAY?!!

Here are some other cute pics we took recently - also cell phone pics because I haven't taken pics off my camera recently.
First pigtails!


I just loved this outfit!

How can you not love this face?!


xoxo.... P.

Life...

is getting in the way of blogging. :) Not that that is a bad thing. All the time anyway.

We have been crazy since I last posted. We have been fighting with GM... my car is, well was, a 2008 Chevy Equinox. NOT ANYMORE! It had just over 50,000 miles on it and within the last month and a half has had 2 new motors put in it. Clearly at that point I decided heck no I'm not driving it anymore. It isn't reliable and I don't want my precious little girl in it. Sooooo after some long drawn out bargaining with GM (ending with GM, not us, getting the better end of the deal) and figuring out some things on our end we are the proud owners of a brand new 2011 Chevy 2500 Silverado.

Pretty huh?! (Don't ever tell J I called the big manly truck pretty!)

So you might be asking yourself... your going to drive that all the time? Well no. We are getting rid of Jeff's old truck and planning on getting me a Jetta TDI wagon. :)

People crack up seeing me in the truck though. I have had more than one person comment on how little I look driving it. To them I say you think I'm little? Check this out...






**Disclaimer These photos were taken in our yard driving through our grass. We were not on a road being reckless. And the photo of her in the bed of the truck is while the truck is in park. We were using it as a "play pen"! haha**

In other news we have been working around the house constantly trying to get things better organized and make improvements since we are stuck in this house for a while.

And.... I have been planning B's 1st Birthday party! My girl is almost 1!!!! How how how did that happen?
For some completely bizarre reason I can't get a picture of her invite to post but I will figure out a way after her party.

I have some great little decorations all set ready to go and her outfit is soooo cute! I can't wait to see her in it. I have adorable plans for her cakes so lets just hope they turn out ok. haha. I can't wait for her party but the day of her actual birthday I think I will probably cry.

I can't believe the little girl my baby has turned into. She amazes me more and more every day. I just adore her.

I promise the next post will not be so far off. Things have just been crazy.

xoxo... P

Earth Friendly Baby Stuff #2

Now after the last post you may be asking yourself what is baby led weaning? Well in one word it is AWESOME! 


Originally my plan was simply to make B's food. Using things we grew in our garden. Then I heard about BLW. Here is a good website to use if you are interested in learning more than I tell you about it.


I was intrigued from the minute I heard about it. I bought the BLW book and I knew that it was for us. The simplest explanation I can give you is that basically you don't give your baby purees. (ala Gerber) Here is a good quote from the website I linked above.


"You just hand them the food in a suitably-sized piece and if they like it they eat it and if they don’t they won’t. (But they do, really they do… check out the baby with the pork chop).


That’s the essence of Baby Led Weaning. No purees, no ice cube trays, no food processor, no potato masher, no baby rice, no weird fruit and veg combos… just you and your child, eating food that you enjoy with you and your family."


B's first food was a slice of avocado. We then moved onto sweet potatoes (which she isn't a big fan of) carrots, squash, green beans, apples, pears, bananas, peaches, breads, pasta, chicken, steak and lord knows what else she has tried at this point. haha. We started out steaming everything (except things that were soft to begin with). We no longer steam everything now that she has the chewing thing down - even though she still only uses her gums. (I do still steam quite a bit of it though.)


It was slow going at first but before a baby gets their "pincher grip" start out with foods shaped like fries so they can grab hold of it. Once they get that pincher grip down you can offer foods in smaller pieces (make sure they are small enough they can't choke.) I know you are probably thinking what if my baby doesn't have teeth yet? Well B didn't when she started eating. It sure didn't stop her! She still only has 6 teeth (all in the front) and girlfriend eats like I will never feed her again once you put food down in front of her. And now that I mentioned the choking thing you are probably wondering about that as well. Never once have I had to get food out of B's mouth. Some babies gag a bit a time or 2 (or 3 or 4 or 5) but that's typically all they are doing. The gag reflex in babies is much farther forward on their tongues so they gag and push the food back forward before it gets too far back to choke them.


Oh and you you may be asking why this is earth friendly well lets think about all those glass jars and plastic tubs we aren't wasting by using store bought foods! :)


Here are some pictures of my B enjoying many many different foods:
Christmas Eve and her very first piece of avocado

Her first "wagon wheel"

Carrots

Green Beans

She wasn't sure about bananas at first but now she loves them.



First time with blueberries






Yes they can get messy eating like this but seeing her learn and enjoy food is worth any mess! I hope that if you decide to try this method that your baby doesn't mind wearing bibs!

Next up on this list will be baby wearing. :)

xoxo...P

Earth Friendly Baby Stuff

A week ago was Earth Day. In honor of that I decided to do a few posts about what J, B and I do to help the environment. Yes I know I'm starting this way late but I have a teething daughter and I'm working from home. That makes it difficult to blog.  :) What we do may not be much to some people but every little bit helps.

First and foremost we Cloth Diaper. I have mentioned it a few times but never really our reasons for doing so.

1. CDs are soooooo much better for my girls little tushie. CDs cut down on diaper rash like crazy!

2. The price! Holy Savings!!! Did you know that the average cost for 1 child in diapers until 2.5 years old is approx. $3-4,000! Yes that's right THOUSAND! To CD Brynn with our 24 diapers it has cost us Less than $500! And these diapers will be used for any future children as well. So lets say we have 3 kids (not that I am planning on 3 it just gives good numbers) Disposable diapers on the cheap end of things $9,000! Cloth Diapers $500! Now yes you will add in detergent cost but that is so minimal that I don't take it much into consideration.

3. Sooooo much better for the environment! They say that every.single.diaper that has EVER(!!!) been used is still in a landfill somewhere. It takes over 100 years for a diaper to decompose. That is sick!  

4. They are sooooo cute. Here is a pic of B's cute little tushie while she was doing the "mowgli" as a good friend calls it.


And a flashback to her newborn photoshoot. Soooo teeny!


We get our cloth diapers from our local store Cutie Poops and Bottoms. There are several (hundred) places you can get diapers from online but we like to support local small businesses plus if we only go to the store when we are in the area it saves on fuel cost for shipping. It also saves on packaging.

I'm going to go off on a little tangent quickly because it was so cool. In honor of Earth Day there was a World Wide Great Cloth Diaper Change last Saturday. Cutie Poops hosted one of these events and world wide there were 10,000 people changing a cloth diaper all at the same time. This was done to raise awareness about the awesomeness of CDs. And to hopefully teach people about what a long way they have come since my generation (and before) were CDd. It also was done to set a Guinness World Record. Cutie Poops put on an awesome event with tons of raffles (sadly we didn't win anything. haha). They also had the Easter bunny for photos. Their was a fire truck and someone doing car seat inspections. They go all out when they host events.
It was so cool to be a part of something bigger than us and to see all these people who do similar things that we do as parents.

Oh and since I know you will be wondering where it is ... ;) B's pictures with the bunny! (And from the event all together)




Me & my girl by the firetruck.

Waiting for the whistle to blow to start the diaper change.

Waiting for her diaper change. :)




Next up: Making your own baby food (and following baby led weaning.)

xoxo... P