her day

we had a little shindig over the weekend

to celebrate brette's big first birthday.

it was perfect.

well, not perfect, but pretty freaking great.

i was running around all week preparing.

cooking, baking, decorating, cleaning.

i think brette appreciated all the man-hours.

no, not really.

but she did appreciate the hot air balloon theme.

my girl loves balloons.

 

she ate a little breakfast,

had so much fun opening gifts,

chowed down on some cake,

and hung out with all her favorite people.

she is definitely loved.
thank you to all our framily (near and far) that helped celebrate.
it. was. awesome.
wanna see?

first, some pics of the party: 

the dessert table.

 

 

 cloud cookies i bought from a local bakery.

so good.

 

peanut butter cup hot air balloon cookies.

i stole this recipe from the pioneer woman.

very very easy to make.

 

i made brette's smash cake using my mom's sheet cake recipe

and the icing was leftover from my cousin's bday and she offered up the rest.

um, yes please.

then i just made a hot air balloon out of a reese's cup and a chinese lantern.

 

next stop, the food table.

i made breakfast casserole and french toast casserole.

then i just cut up some fruit, my mom brought mini muffins

and sat out some juice and chocolate milk.

 

 

 

besides the food, the party was outside.

 

 

 

we moved brette's highchair out there

so she could have breakfast and

get crazy with her smash cake without messing up my entire kitchen.

 

i tied huge balloons to her highchair.

it was supposed to be her very own "hot air balloon."

 

  

next it was time to open presents.

 we sat her in the grass so everyone could see.

 

 

 

ronnie and i tagged teamed the gifts so

it went faster to hold her attention.

it seemed to work.

 

and then, the grand finale of a first birthday.

her big ol' cake.

i had no doubt that brette would love it.

she even made sure to get most of it in her mouth

instead of all over.

(even though i stripped her down to save her outfit.)

no way she was going to waste it.

 

 



 

 

 

 

did brette have a good first birthday?

yes, i think so.

 

brette: 12 months

 

 

growth:

i have no idea what brette weighs

or how tall she is,

but we have our one year check-up this week, so stay tuned.

she went up a size in diapers and is now a size 4.

she is wearing 12 month clothing and a size 2 or 3 in shoes.

she keeps getting more and more teeth.

she has four teeth up top,

three on the bottom and one molar.

i'm pretty sure she's cutting her other molar this week.
her hair is so cute right now.

lots of curls in the back and a little lighter.

still waiting on the front the get some length.

she is not crawling or walking,

but i see lots of improvement.

she is taking steps now if hold her hands,

so we might skip crawling all together.
hopefully, she'll figure it out soon.
she's getting too heavy for me to carry her everywhere.

 

sleeps:

our sleep schedule is like clockwork.

she goes to bed every night at 8:00

and wakes up at 6:30.

her first nap is around 9:30

where she sleeps about 1.5 hours.

her second nap is at 2:00

and sleeps another 1.5 hours.

i love that napping is no longer a battle for us.

i finally feel like we're in an easy stage.
   

  

eats:

brette obviously has no trouble in the food department.

she has quite the little appetite.

although, she is getting a little bit more picky.

she is now throwing what she doesn't like on the ground.

its not fun for me.

if its green, she's not a fan,

so i'm now blending vegetables with fruit to help get all her veggies in.

but she is a huge fan of meat.

she loves turkey, chicken, bbq, fish, hotdogs - - all of it.

she's still a big fan of beans and corn,

but she also loves dill pickles and sausage.

she stopped nursing last month and

she stopped taking formula the day after her birthday.

that week i started mixing formula with milk

and just added a little bit more milk and less formula until it was all milk.
it only took me four days to get her converted.

now she's taking 2% milk and

shows no sign of noticing any change.

i'm so happy that we're not buying formula anymore.

  

talks:
  she talks a lot.

yelling, pointing, babbling.

i wonder what she thinks she's saying.

she does say mama and dada,

but not consistently.

you cannot drink around her.

if you do, she signs that she also needs a drink.

(same with food.)

my mom and i are pretty sure she is also signing "all done."

we've been working on that so its nice that she's picking it up.

we're going to start working on "more" "please" and "eat."

   

plays:

the cutest thing brette does right now is play hide-n-go seek.

if she has a blanket in front of her she'll pull it up over her face,

and i'll say "where's brette?"

then she drops the blanket and smiles.

we do it over and over and over.

she loves it and i think its adorable.

she also loves balloons.

she always points and wants one at the grocery store.

i ended up blowing some up at our house

and put her on the floor with them.

its a good exercise for her to chase the balloons around the floor.

  

 

firsts:
  she had her first BIRTHDAY!

what's more important than that?

 

 

my little one year old.

watch her grow:

 

one month

two months

three months

four months

 

five months

 

six months

 

seven months

 

eight months

 

nine months

 

ten months

 

eleven months

 

 ONE YEAR

 

 

 

our photo shoot was a little rough.

brette figured out that the chair rocked so

getting her to sit still was impossible.

i have s e v e r a l  pictures that look like this:

 

 

 

she was also distracted by leia

 

but believe me.

she's a cutie.

 

 

happy birthday, brette!

 

 

 

on the eve of a year

i just laid brette down for bed and i was thinking about

what we were doing last year on this night.



and now 

she will be my one year old tomorrow.

our little brette annaleigh.

so crazy.

it went very fast.

and i'm a little nervous that all the years will fly by like this

and all of a sudden she'll be grown.

collectively, us mammas need to invent some sort of

slow-down-time machine.

am i right?

or at least make it to where we have the best memory

in the world and can recall every small moment with our kid.

when brette was four months old

i went to st. louis to visit marge and she said that she

couldn't remember what the milestones were

for a four month old.

i remember thinking that was kind of sad,

that we forget the stages of our kids.

and now, here i sit reminiscing about our year

and i can't remember what brette was like at every month.

in fact, if i was handed a newborn tomorrow,

i would probably be just as scared.

oh sure, i feel more confident in

my skills today than i did a year ago,

but still, a lot of this year was

trial and error and guessing my way through.

which i'm assuming is mostly what everyone does.

that, and call their parents for advice.

thank god for all of my helpers.

seriously, thank you.

ronnie and i survived and brette thrived,

better than i could have hoped.

when ronaldo and i were walking into the hospital

last year at exactly this time, i was scared.

[mostly about the birth, but i'm sure i was also

thinking about raising a kid forever and ever, amen.]

luckily, this little life-changing, perfect piece of forever

was the best thing we ever did.

 

our little brette annaleigh.

 

 

 

downtown days

 

 

 

lee's summit had its annual downtown days.

we go every year.

i cannot say no to the bbq, concerts, funnel cakes, rides,

face painting and petting zoo.

i still love all that stuff and brette loved

riding around in her stroller seeing all the people.

 

i took her friday night by myself since ronnie had to work late.

and then we made it back saturday evening so ronnie could go too.

then i made him do this: 

hilarious.

 

 

they forgot ronnie's wrinkles,

but still looks pretty cute.

brette loved sitting there waving and laughing at

all the people walking by.

she is such a ham.

 

 

we're currently excitedly preparing

for her big first birthday over here.

more on that soon.

 

 

 

dirty thirty - - again

i mentioned that i went to my friend's 30th birthday party last saturday.

the year that everyone turns 30 is a lot like the year everyone turned 21.

there are some serious parties.

only this time we are in a bit of mourning instead of celebrating.

a minor detail.

shannon, my friend from high school and

college roommate of four years,

is one of the last ones to take the plunge into her third decade.

(only lindsay is left and she only has a

couple more weeks to live it up in her 20's)

we all met at our local winery where this happened:

yeah right.

i would be crawling, not walking.

and my eyes would be pointed in two different directions. 

that's what you get for trying to be nice

and clearing the table.

but it was a fun afternoon and our

other college roommate, margie, made it down from st. louis.

(aka - katie, but we call her marge because

of her uncanny resemblance to marge simpson.)

 

 

 

brad and ronnie missed out because they were both

volunteered to watch the kids.

but lucky for me, marge wanted to see brette while she was in town

so ronnie brought her up and met us for dinner.

 

 

 

 

a fun day outside

with my best friends.

love them.

 

happy birthday, shannie!

 

how may i help you?

i started my new job last friday

and it's a really good schedule for me.

the first weekend was a bit rough.

i worked all day friday,

then worked a half day on saturday.

i came home for an hour and saw brette,

then had to turn around and leave for

my friends 30th birthday party.

saw brette all day sunday,

but went back to work for a full 10 hour day on monday.

so in the first four days,

i only had one full day with b.

i was thinking - um no, i just want to stay home with my kid.

but now that i had tuesday,

wednesday and thursday off,

i'm feeling much better about life.

i get 5 out of the 7 days with brette,

and i still have time to run errands,

grocery shop, cook a few meals and

catch up on some laundry/housework.

i even managed to take brette swimming,

have a play date, made it to storytime and

go to the movies with ronnie's sister and her kiddos.

i get to do all the things i want to do AND work.

(insert fist pump)

i'm really thankful for my trip to mexico the week

before i started back at my job.

it made leaving brette with my mom so easy.

especially since i knew i would see her over lunch

and that night.

 i think once i get into a routine,

it will be a total win/win for me and brette.

 

two bonuses of working and having my mom watch brette:

1- i get to wear all my "work" clothes that haven't

been touched in almost two years.

oh yeah.

 nine months of pregnancy and one year off,

left the majority of my wardrobe just hanging. literally.  

 

2- my mom doesn't watch can't work the tv

so while brette sleeps she feels the need to keep busy.

so far my closet has been reorganized,

my drawers have been refolded

and oven has been cleaned. 

seriously amazing.

i go back to the ol' j-o-b tomorrow

and i'm feeling totally comfortable with it.

yesssssss.

 

 (this was brette yesterday looking all sorts of 80's fabulous)

 



bikini babes

some of my friends were none too pleased

that a bikini picture made the cut on my last post from cancun.

(even though they all look damn good)

so to make it up to them,

i'm posting this hottie in her suit.

see?

it's all good.

leg rolls never looked better.

 

ps - if you need me, i'll most likely be at the pool

with jaime and our girls.