my life, our life

ronnie and i celebrated our anniversary yesterday.

five years.

doesn't seem possible.

 

wasn't just a couple years ago

that ronnie and i made the trip to chicago where he proposed?

i was freaking out, i mean, we had barely begun to date.

who is this guy?

 

graduating from college and moving back home

to be with ronnie wasn't SIX years ago... was it?

 

 

 

 

wasn't it just the other day that we decided to move, buy a house,

fix it up and make it our home?

 

 

aren't my beautiful puppies still puppies?

or are they really old enough to enter kindergarten?

 

 

it doesn't feel like i walked down the aisle

half a decade ago in front of our family and friends

and promised to make my life, our life.

 

 

and now, after five years,

we decided to make our life into her life.

 

 

 

what a crazy, wonderful, blessed five years.

happy anniversary, ronnie ray.

i love you.

 

 

 

dress me up and take me out

brette's very first halloween.

 

it was short and super sweet,

just the way we like it.

it stopped raining

and the sun actually popped out.

unfortunately, it was still pretty chilly.

this meant trick-or-treating only lasted about one block

before the girls were ready to call it a night.

madeline's exact words: i'm done with this.

 

 

but who cares when they're this cute.

am i right?

we had doc mcstuffins and her lamby pal,

along with mommy witch.

then we had two 1950's babes.

brette was more "sandra d" and i was more "rizzo".

(we also had a couple of dads and a grammy)

i think this family shot would have been
a thousand times more adorable if ronaldo
had done his part with jeans, a white t-shirt and a black leather jacket.
dammit, ronnie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

pass me a candybar.

the scare affair

the calendar on my phone went off this morning

making sure i knew that its halloween. all day.

good to know.

 

but my little boo has been dressing the part all week.

 

 

not only does she have her pumpkin jammies

but three others as well.

ghosts, more pumpkins and candy corn.

(thanks grammy!)

 

 

 

 

and tonight?

us girls are dressing up like 50's gals.

poodle skirts and all.

dear ol' daddy was supposed to have a leather jacket

and be a greaser, but as of last night he still wasn't ready, so

i'm pretty sure he is opting out of the costume portion of the program.

loser.

 

 

ps- not only is it all hallow's eve,

but its also 5 year anniversary eve.

time to celebrate.

 

happy halloween! 

parents as teachers

b and i had another meeting with

parents as teachers.

i've been meaning to write about this since last time,

so now i have two sessions to cover.

 

parents as teachers is a free, volunteered-based program

through the school district that comes into your home to play

and check on your child's development.

(you can actually start the program when your pregnant,

but i waited until after brette was born.)

then they give you ideas and tools on how to help

your kiddo progress to the next level...

therefore making the parent the teacher.

get it?  :)

they also provide classes that a parent might like.

i took infant massages a couple months ago

and i'm signed up for baby sign language soon.

 

i love my volunteer.

her name is hillary and she was a kindergarten teacher,

turned stay at home mom. 

she's a couple years older than me and has two girls of her own.

and she makes me feel like i am the best mom with

the smartest little girl in the world.

 

we check brette's neck control,

her head control,

how well she is able to sit up,

reach and grasp for toys,

and follow objects with her eyes.

b is still too little to do actual activities with,

but hillary has books and toys that i don't have,

so i still think she likes it.

 

hillary comes every other month,

so she gives me activities and games i can

play for a five month old and a six month old.

i like it because it helps me track how much

brette grows and learns every month.

 

and here's a little project for mamma's with babies.

the first time  hillary came she suggested a really simple toy

to make and brette loves hers:

a picture box.

all you do is take a kleenex box and tape black and white pictures to every side.

we use ours for tummy time and the contrast of the pictures helps

with brette's vision.

plus you can roll it around to all the different pictures so

it keep brette interested.

 

free toys.  love that.

our little pumkin

brette had her four month well-baby visit on tuesday with our pediatrician.

she weighs 13 lbs 12 oz (50th percentile)

her height is 24 inches (48th percentile)

and her head circumference is 16.5 cm (75th percentile).

 

since birth she has gained 6 lbs 12 oz and grown 4 inches.

go baby, go.
and the doctor thinks she is doing great.
no troubles so far that we should be concerned about.

 

she also got four more shots.

i hated it, but we spent the rest of the day and the day after snuggling.

she isn't really a cuddle bug so when she rests on me, i love it.

 

isn't she adorable?

 my baby pumpkin.

(thanks, gma donna for our new halloween jammies)

family fall day

we had our annual family fall day.

we didn't make applebutter this year,

so it was a full day of eating lots of amazing food,

sitting around the bonfire,

losing in an apple eating contest

and going on a hay ride at dusk.

 

its one of my favorite days of the year.

and brette's first time.
last year, she was "there"
but no one knew yet and i spent the afternoon
trying not to fall down while playing football.
didn't want to hurt my girl.

isn't autumn your favorite?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

dumping zone

i took pictures with ronnie's

phone over the weekend and realized

that he had some photos that i don't have on the blog,

so this makes it a good time for a photo dump.

 

keep in mind that some these date back a several months...

 

first of all.

holy hell.

me, pregnant

at home and then in seattle.

i'm so glad that is over.

 



 

 now jump to the hospital.

ronzo remembered to snap a photo of our white board

the day she was born.

i love it because now i know our room number

and my amazing nurse, annie.

 

then he had a play by play of the first couple minutes after she was born.

thank god, because i was being worked on during all of this

so i didn't get to see any of it.

 

 

 the one and only shot where i think b looks like me.

just minutes after she was born.

 

ronnie has always been obsessed with brette's toes.

he thought it was so weird how she would spread them apart.

and he was especially focused her big toe - - which led to one of her many nicknames: corntoe.

so it makes sense that he had to get a picture of her feet when she was born.

(look at her big toe in the picture above... he's kind of right.  it was long.)

 

cut to our first week home.

this is me bathing her in light to help her bilirubin score. 



 

 

 

 i honestly don't know how old she is in the next three pictures,

but they're adorable so i had to share.

 

and now we're back to present day:

these two are from last week.

 

 

  

sorry for the flashback,

but i just wanted to have all these

photos on here since, in a way,

this is her digital baby book.