Miss Brynn at 3 Months

My, my how they grow! I can't wait til her 4 month check up to see how much she weighs. She is a little chunk with all the cute little baby rolls you could ask for. I just had to post a few pics of them and a few things she loves.




This is her Bumbo that she loves because she loves to be sitting up and looking around her new world.
She also loves bath time! She even tries to drink the water.
An update on an earlier post...She is sleeping in her bed at night! And is in her swing in her room at nap time. She goes right to bed at night almost always without a fuss. She can even soothe herself to sleep (at night that is) which is probably one of the hardest things to teach a baby!

Birds and Grills Don't Mix...

What? You may be asking yourself. What do birds and grills have to do with each other? Well, I'll tell ya. This may be a lengthy post cause I got a lot to say about the subject.

It all started last spring when I kept finding long branches and twigs hanging out the side of our grill. "Quit putting branches in the grill!!" I told Logan. He promised me that him and his buddies were Not putting these there. They seemed to be just as confused as I was. Well I determined it had to be a bird trying to build a nest. I cleaned out the mess and bought a grill cover. The grill cover kept blowing off and one day it was just gone.

This spring rolls around and there are the branches. AGAIN!! This stinkin' bird is determined to make a home in my grill. I am very frustrated at this point. So I go out and buy a more expensive grill cover hoping this time it will stay on. I open the grill to clean out the branches and there are 6 EGGS. 6 EGGS people! This is just ludicrous. So it's either gently move the nest and try not to disturb the eggs but this will kill them anyways b/c their parents will abandon them, or start the grill and have scrambled eggs (I kid. I kid. Don't call PETA.) or let those grill stealin you know whats stay there and hatch.

Well we opted for the last option. By this time I am so antsy to have a grill out it's not even funny. This is what we do in the summer. We GRILL!! Anyways, when it appears they are old enough to fly we open the grill and off they go. Josh tells me it will be fine. We'll just pressure wash the grill and everything will be fine.

He finally decides to attempt this about a week later and there are 4 MORE EGGS!! What is this? It's the animal conspiracy I tell ya. They are trying to take us over. (If you listen to Bob and Tom you'll know what I speak of.)

Well, that was it for me and the grill. No pressure washing was gonna get all that crud out for me to be fine eatin off the grill. I had birthday money left and decided to buy a new grill.

Here is what I would find sticking out of the grill:

Here are the first set of hatched birds:

And here is our new grill:

OFF WITH THE BIRDS!

Yeeeaaa Plants!

Our yard pre-landscaping

Well it's about time I say! We have been in SERIOUS need of some front yard landscaping for ummmm about 3 years now. I finally enlisted my dad's help in this project seeing as how Josh and I have more like greenish brown thumbs. I just hope these plants make it because I can't wait to watch them grow! They are like my new children. I can almost hear them saying "Thank You ThankYou" and doing a little dance when I water them.

Logan and his dad hard at work

Pop
These will be red daylilies (sp?). I see a little bud sprouting down there!

Happy 7th Birthday Logan!!

I can not believe he is already 7!! OK, I just have to elaborate on this. I had a very hard time when he started Kindergarten. My lil buddy was growing up and he was gonna have outside influences in his life now that I couldn't control. Yeah, I know, it was only kindergarten but, just thinking of the school years to come still makes me tear up. I literally cried for 2 weeks everyday that I had to drop him off at school. One day there was a man walking his, what looked to be, 12 year old son to school and that was it for me!! Logan would be there in 5 Short Years!!! Well, I've been ok since then but it hit me again on his birthday this year. Me and Brynn were watching Josh help Logan practice riding without training wheels and I saw him ride down the street. He got started, took off and stayed steady the whole time!! He was riding with his back to me and I just pictured him in those 5 short years to come riding away. Why is it that when you have children time passes sooooo much faster!! Theses are the times it should really slow down. I'm trying to enjoy all the time I have while these kids are still little. They grow sooo fast!

OK, now I've got that off my chest. Logan is very into anything Mario at the moment so I made him Mario invitations and thankyou cards because there is absolutely nothing out there related to Mario for birthdays! I had to get creative for this one. Here were his Thank You cards which he absolutely looooved!

I also made Mario coloring books for favors.

We had family over for dinner and cake Friday night. Last year I realized attempting to do one big party with family and friends would no longer work. Especially now that he's inviting school friends. We had so much fun just hanging out and playing in the backyard with the kids. Luckily Logan has lots of little cousins to play with. Here are a few pics:





The next day we went to Steve's Fantastic FunZone with friends.




It was a fun-filled weekend!

A Soccer Game and a Girl in Her Dress

Logan started soccer back this past weekend and he improves every season! He's really learning how to follow the ball. He also played goalie for the first time since he was 4! He was on top of his game.


This is the dress that Brynn was supposed to wear for Easter. However, she looked kinda funny in it being a newborn and all. Plus, we end up just laying low this year and didn't go anywhere for her to wear it. I looooove the dress so I had to get pics of it anyways. She's filling it out much better now!

A girls first bow:
Mother & Daughter

She loves it when I give her kisses. Brynn is very sociable. Just talk to her and give her attention and she is usually happy. Just a smilin' and a talkin' right back!!

Operation: "Get Brynn to Sleep in Her Bed"...

Is officially in full swing! So far, she has been sleeping in our room on my chest most of the night. During the day she's either been in her swing or her bouncy seat to sleep. This past Friday night I realized this was no longer going to work out for our family.

We attempted to have some of the people from Josh's work over and it didn't work out so well. I was not able to relax and conversate with adults while trying to get Brynn to sleep. The very next day I began trying to work on a naptime/bedtime routine. I thrive on these schedules and babies do too. Plus it makes it easier for people to watch them if they know what to do and I feel better knowing she'll be ok with out me for a bit. I realized that if I wanted to enjoy the summer and our usual grill outs something had to be done.

With Logan I didn't even attempt to get him in his own bed til he was 5 Months! How did I do that!?

So how did we fair you ask? Well I started with her first nap Sunday morning and within about 15 minutes of squirming she had put herself to sleep ! For a whole hour! I'm trying to establish a naptime routine so that she knows when we sit down to read in her rocking chair she's about to take a nap. Second nap went even better...slept for an hour and a half! Last 2 naps...not so good. The end of the day is usually her fussy time anyways and I think that played a role in it being more difficult. Finally got her down around 7 and she stayed in her crib til 5:30 AM!!! Waking up twice to eat and then right back to bed!! I am so proud of her! I, however, did not sleep as well because I was staring at the monitor all night making sure the little red dots weren't moving.


The second day started out ok but by that evening at 8 I had given up! She slept on my chest again. This is her not wanting to sleep!

Today has been much better. Thank Goodness!! She's in her crib right now and has been for an hour and a half! Only squirmed for about 20 minutes.

Hopefully I will continue to have good news to report and I'll get used to not having her in our room.

2 Peas in a Pod

Some people didn't think Brynn looked like Logan when he was a baby. There are definite similarities, especially in some of their expressions. Both of these were taken the day after they were born. So what's your take? I, personally think they look almost identical except for the hair and their coloring.

Both look like Josh when they were babies but, Logan I'm told is starting to favor me more. So interesting to see how they grow and change. Can't wait to see how Miss Brynn will change!