never any doubt

my cousin is basically 20 years my junior

and when ronnie and i were picking on him playing with him

a few years back, he called me 2 things:

1 - big eyed freak

2 - big face

 

out of the mouths of babes.

 

so yeah,

my face is round.

always has been.

i own it.
so there is no real shock value to this old pic:

 

however ronnie's face is deceiving.

you would never guess that he started out

as this little chunky monkey.
but yes, lets all take a moment to relish in the fact
the he too is a big face.

 

poor brette.

she never had a chance.

those cheeks were destined to be extra large.
so here we are - - The Three Big Faces.
i'm working on a book deal.

 

 

nothing to do

ronnie and i had big plans to go on an adult weekend to the lake.

we had food.

we had beer.

we had a sitter for this little beauty:

 

i was excited to get out on a boat and drink a few.

and then ronnie came home thursday night and

told me it was actually planned for next weekend.

what. an. idiot.

and just our luck,

we can't go next weekend because i have to work

and my parents (our sitter) will be out of town.

daaaaang it.

this left us with a whole weekend with no plans.

sometimes its nice to have a few days with nothing to do

but in this case, i was just pretty bored.

you know its bad when even ronnie is not doing anything.

this never happens. tater loved it.

 

we had a family birthday dinner on friday night.

washed the car on saturday.

ronnie took b on a few bike rides.

[his new birthday bike...

which then led to a new child carrier.

i swear, ronnie is a professional at spending

money on anything with wheels.]

 

 

i added to brette's gallery wall.

 

and ronnie started working on the landscaping

in our backyard that was torn out over a year ago.

(i am pretty happy he's finally getting around to that.)

 

but yeah,

nothing really cool happened.

and i'm still a little bummed that i'm

not burnt and slightly hungover.

oh well.

done and done

i started this september 2012.

then may 2013,

july 2013

and july 2014. 

my our progression is complete.

 

 

magic

kids are magic.

they learn and adapt and change so fast.

i have to admit,

its a bit frustrating to not have my kiddo

naturally progress on my schedule.

crawling at nine months - - walking at 12 months.

that's the way i had it in my head.

but as you know,

every kid is different.

and every kid goes at their own pace.

i never thought anything was wrong with brette,

i just thought she was either

a- lazy

b- wasn't strong enough

or c- couldn't figure out how to

get herself moving.

but brette has had a magical few weeks.

something clicked when she turned one

and we've watched her learn so much in just the last few weeks.
she said her first word.

ah oh.

every time she drops something.

ah oh.

so stinking cute.

sure, she's been talking for months...

mamma, dada and she now says

mimi and all done.

but i'm not truly counting those because

i don't know if she knows what she's saying

or if she's just repeating what i say.

i think her language skills will be one of her strengths
because she seriously doesn't shut up.

we had her on the phone with ronnie's mom and

they had a full blown conversation.

ronnie's mom was sure that she was speaking in sentences,

she just needed the words.

 

next, and almost more exciting,

she is crawling and getting herself back to sitting!

holy cow, call the president.

this needs to be a national holiday.

a physical therapist came to our house on saturday

and did an evaluation on her.

in order to be qualified for the "first steps" program

you have to have a 6 month delay.

our PT didn't think b would qualify

so she showed me activities, exercises and positions

to help brette naturally learn how to move.

she said that brette has hips that turn outward

instead of forward, which is why her legs frog out

instead of move straight as she would need to crawl.

she suggested i order special shorts called hip helpers and

she said the best thing i could do for her is to keep correcting

her legs and do it over and over and over.

(here's a picture from the internet of the hip helper shorts.)

 

she also said we would need to work on her muscle tone.

so that's what we've been doing and it only took

two days for brette to figure this all out.

i feel [a little] bad that i didn't think to go through the steps with her before.

it seems like such a logical thing to do

and it obviously works. 

i only wish i had been doing this with her for the last three months

and then she probably wouldn't be categorized as "delayed."

even though now i think she was just learning at her own pace.

something i'm sure i'm going to have to get used to.

now?
on to walking!

jaime caught brette crawling this morning at their house:

 

and i made sure to catch her this afternoon.
she is non-stop and i love it!

summertime

i know when its summer

just from all the social events that get piled up.

 

 

royals game?

check.

it was ladies night and the girls from the old bank met up.

notice we are at the bar in the outfield? 

that's where we spent 95% of the game.

the other 5% was in the parking lot.

whoops.

 

 

wedding in st. louis?

check.

 

my roommate from college, suzy,

got married and all our sorority sisters gathered for the event.

ronnie stayed at home with brette so i spent

some quality time with my margie.

 

 

fourth of july with the fam?

check.

 

i think we had the best weather in the history of the world on the 4th

  like seriously, perfect.

we went to marceline,

where my aunt lives.

we spent the whole day outside,

except for when we were refilling our plates.

lots of food.

brette fell asleep around 8 so

we headed home and missed the fireworks

but saw tons on the highway.

i can't wait for her to

really experience this holiday.

 

ronnie's big 35th birthday?

check.

my mom made ronnie a blue goose pie.

(blueberries and gooseberries)

what did i do for him?

served up leftovers

with a promise to make it up to him.

 i swear, i'm a good wife.

 

 

lake weekend planned.

check.

 

and so on. and so on. and so on.

so forgive me that i'm mashing all

these events together,

i'll try to be better.

 

hope you're reading this from

the pool

or on vacation

or sitting on the back deck counting fireflies

or eating a popsicle.

somewhere you appreciate that

it. is. summer.

french silk x 2

kelly, my cousin, offered up decorations from

her daughter's party for brette's birthday.

and then she also gave me icing for b's smash cake.

and then her kiddo was my runner during the party.

and then kelly spent over an hour uploading/sending me pictures.

whew.

so i thought just saying thank you wasn't enough.

i decided to make her and her family a pie.

i was watching pioneer woman and she was making a french silk pie.

i had never made it, but it included a key ingredient

that i knew would make it a hit - - chocolate.

 it didn't look too hard,

so i thought i'd give it a whirl.

 

i followed all the directions and it was coming together nicely.

the last part of this pie is mixing in 4 eggs over a 20 minute period.

i had my big kitchen aid mixer going on high

and then i dropped A WHOLE FREAKING EGG in the mixer.

shell and all.

dammit. dammit. dammit.

so close to being done.

so i dug through the filling and picked out

as much shell as i could find.

but i knew i couldn't give that away.

what if someone got a mouthful of shell?

heinous.

i went ahead and finished the pie and let my dad eat it.

if its pie, he's in.

he'll eat anything and never found any shell.

so i remade the pie

(hopefully, it was as good as the first)

and gave that to kelly.

the lesson i learned?

crack your eggs in a bowl instead of the mixer.

at least until you are a way better baker than me

and confident in your egg cracking skills.

 

 

want the recipes?

pie crust

pioneer woman's french silk pie

 

 

 

 

 

say cheese!

ronnie was working when we had brette's newborn pictures taken,

so technically we don't have any family pictures.

i know, so weird.

so i demanded politely asked to get pictures taken when b turned one.

i really wanted some outdoor photos and

the lady who took b's newborn pics only does studio shots.

after some online searching, i found blair and thought

her style and price was juuuuuust right for us.

i got to pick the location and she met us there.

i decided on longview. 

we went into the park to take advantage of their old white picket fences

and their big grassy areas.

then we made our way over to the old pergola.

 

 

 

 

aren't they gorgeous?

i can't get over it.

 

but...

you know the worst part about family pictures?

getting everyone dressed.

we need to coordinate but not too matchy.

and i only had to do three people!

i don't know how a big family does it.

i bought brette a cute little romper from crazy 8

that was navy, coral and aqua. 

we layered her look with a navy cardigan from carter's and

the coral headband is one i had from my baby shower.

we also bought her little gold sandals,

but somehow we forgot to put them on once we got there.

oh well.

ronnie and i picked our outfit colors off of her romper.

ronnie had on a plain aqua t-shirt from gap.

i really like their clothes for pictures because

you don't have to worry about big logos all over.

i borrowed my coral jeans from kassie and

bought a navy short-sleeve sweater from macy's.

i also took a change of clothes for b.

a little coral and navy onesie from target with a navy headband.

 

and i called it done.

i'm really happy how they turned out.

oh sure, i'm making some weird faces in some,

but brette steals the show.

a d o r a b l e