11 Months Old!!

Baby girl, I can't believe it's been almost a year since we saw your beautiful little face for the first time!! I know I say this every month but you have changed so much!!

This is your favorite face to make, everyone who you show this face to seems to make it right back at you!!:



Your fifth tooth has popped through and there are a few more that are just about ready to make an appearance!!

You are crawling all over the place and you're extremely fast. You still occassionally do your army crawl but when you're on a mission to get something, you're up on your hands and knees!!

Last week when GGMa was watching you, you discovered Allie and Mel's water dish. Apparently you loved it, she said that there was water all over the place!!

You like to hang out with me in the bathroom while I get ready in the morning... you rearrange all of the bathmats and you like it when I blow the hair dryer on you.

Your favorite song is on the "Freecreditreport.com" commercial (the one where the guy is driving the Geo Metro!) - when you hear it, you start to dance!! You love music and you love to play your pianos in the morning.

You are such a talker these days!! You say MaMa, Mom, DaDa, Dad, pups, up, nite nite, and your favorite is AHHHHHHHHHHHH!! OH MY GOODNESS, you are getting noisy!!

You know who Allie and Mel are and if we ask you where they are, you look around the room until your eyes are glued on them. You know that Mel likes to eat your leftovers that you've left for her in your high chair and you've even tried to hand her your snacks. You LOVE IT when Allie gives you kisses, you think it's the funniest thing ever!! (I'll post a video soon!)

You love to tickle everyone, you get so excited when we squirm to avoid your hand!! You, on the other hand, take after your Daddy and are only ticklish when you are in the mood. How fair is that?!

You love food and have tried quite a few new things this month. We think your favorites are rice, refried beans and Gogurt (thanks for the idea Jenn!).

This month has been so much fun!! We love you Brynn!!

Here are a few pictures that you haven't seen yet:

Matt... the fish!

Yesterday morning Chad, Brynn and I all went to watch one of Matt's swim meets!! He did great, he swam three different strokes and ended up with one first place and two second place finishes!! Way to go Matt!!

Here are some pictures that we took, there would have been a whole lot more but I'm a dummy and forgot to put the memory card back in the camera. I had to use the internal memory and it only holds like ten pictures!!

Labels

Just in case you haven't noticed, I'm trying to put a label on each post to make it easier to search for past posts.

So, at the bottom of each post, I'll label it "Pictures" or "Fun Visit", or whatever pertains to that post. If you click on "Pictures", it will bring up any posts that I have labeled as "Pictures". I'm hoping to put a list of each of the labels somewhere on the blog when I'm completely done!!

This is my 243rd post(!). I still have about 200 to label. It's taking me a long time to do it but it's actually been kind of fun to go through my old posts to read what I was thinking a year ago.

I went to Jenn's house tonight for my first game of Pokeeno. We had a lot of fun and there were some really cool ladies there. Somehow we got on the subject of blogging and I brought up my Castor/Castrol Oil blog from last June or July (I don't know how to add that link in here?). I'm hoping to add links to Jenn and Christine's blogs (and Martha if she starts one?) to my sidebar... once they get them up and running!! (Ahem, hopefully soon!!) ;o)

Thanks GGMa!

Today Brynn got to spend the day with GGMa!! She's been a real life saver over the last few months when we've needed a sitter, thanks for watching her for us GGMa!! Unfortunately, GGMa and GGPa are "snowbirds" and leave Arizona for the summer to travel. We're going to miss them for Brynn's first birthday... love you guys!!

Here's a picture that I took this morning before I left for work (I think it was a little too early, Brynn wasn't as smiley as she usually is!!).

I can't believe it!

Can you?

Weird!

Look at who we saw driving on the freeway tonight! Jenn!

Happy Father's Day!!

I think Chad had a pretty good first Father's Day!! It started out with Brynn not waking up until 7:30, which is just amazing because she went to sleep at 5:30 last night!! She's an awesome sleeper!! Brynn gave her Daddy his card and then I gave him his. We hung out for a while and then went to breakfast, where we ran into TJ, Jenn and Matt!! (Oh, speaking of which, I heard that all of my Arizona sisters are wanting to start blogs... so I'll be checking my e-mails frequently for links to them...)

After breakfast, we headed over to the money pit (a.k.a. Home Depot). We had to get some paint so we could work on Brynn's new toybox. Chad's dad made it for Brynn but Chad wanted to decorate it for her. Chad put a Pepto Bismol colored primer on it but then when we went to the money pit, we changed our minds and went with purple. We also came home with an evap cooler for the garage, because it gets so hot out there while he's working. It's about a million degrees out there even if you're not working. I'd say he's a pretty lucky Daddy because not many others would have came home with something like that for Father's Day. Brynn's also lucky to have such a fun and awesome Daddy!

After dinner tonight, Chad and I played Wii... and I kicked his butt at bowling AND boxing! I had to throw that in there, normally I stink at video games!! (And yes, just for his sake, he kicked my butt at tennis and Mario Kart!)

Here's a picture of Brynn sitting on the toy box, we're not done with it yet but it looks pretty good so far!! It barely fits all of her stuffed animals and it's 4' x 2' x 2'! Grandpa put a music box and a secret compartment in it, she's not allowed to open it until she's 13.



This afternoon Chad and Brynn spent some fun time together, here are a few pictures!!









Yesterday, we met GGPa and GGMa for an early Father's Day lunch!! They live here but they're snowbirds and are going to be leaving for about three months. Brynn had fun making goofy faces at GGPa and she ate cucumbers for the first time too! She loved the insides but not the edges.











Happy Father's Day to my Dad too!! It sounded like he had a fun day today, he had a really good seat at the Indians game!! That's one of my best memories from jr high and high school, we would go to a million Indians games!! Grampie, here are some of the cute faces Brynn was making this afternoon while we were talking!!

Go get a fire extinguisher for your car... and have some common sense.

A long one.



Today we went to Jared's to have some of our jewelry cleaned and as we were pulling onto the little side street off of the main road to get in to the parking lot, we saw a conversion van on the side of the road. We looked closer and noticed that the van had just started to catch on fire as we passed them. Chad got out his phone and we called 911. We parked at Jared's and Chad backed in the van (in a parking spot out of the way) so he could keep an eye on everything that was going on. I let the people who were standing around the van know that we called 911 and that they were on their way, I asked if everyone was ok and if they needed anything and they said no, they were ok, thanks. In the meantime, one of the guys that was in the van grabbed a big 5 gallon water jug and tried to put the fire out. It didn't work. The fire started to spread fast. Another guy was pulling stuff out of the van (a lawn mower and other landscaping tools) and Chad yelled "Get the hell out of there!!". The guy didn't realize how fast the fire was spreading.



I went inside to drop off my jewelry but as I walked in the front door, everyone that was working in the store that wasn't already with a customer started hovering at the front windows and doors of the store. I heard one of the ladies that works there say "Yeah, they've been broken down for atleast an hour out there!!" One of the ladies that was at the maintenance/repair customer service desk where I needed to drop the jewelry off saw me walk up to the counter, made eye contact with me and then went to the window to watch. What the hell?! What kind of crappy customer service is that?!?! Seriously about a minute later, a manager walked by as he was looking out the window, and I asked him if I could get some help. The eye-contact girl came out, still gawking at the fire and didn't say anything. I told her because they were so busy watching the fire, I would be right back. I went to check on Chad to make sure that everything was ok and then I checked on the people who were in the van again to see if they wanted any water or anything. They said that they were ok. NO ONE that works inside that damn store went to check to see if they were ok. The only employee that went outside was one who needed to move her car!



Chad said that he saw the coolest thing while I was in finally getting the jewelry taken care of (after I went back into the store)... he said some random lady pulled over and gave one of the guys standing by the van a hug. How neat is that? There were also lots of other "Looky-Lou's"... like you'll see in the video that Chad took. The lady in the black outfit was the Jared's employee who was going to move her car.







I'm just annoyed that no one even talked to these people to make sure that they were ok besides me. Seriously, I was watching!



After I came back out from the store, we headed to WalMart and we picked up some fire extinguishers for our cars. Better safe than sorry.



This is the second car fire that I've seen, (the first was in Ohio) and about the 12th time I've called 911 since I've lived in Arizona.

Jami's exciting news!!

Chad got a call from his sister Jami, who is in the Navy, on Thursday afternoon. She finally got her orders of where she's going to be stationed next and she's headed to Hawaii!! Woo hoo!!

We're so excited for her! Started out at bootcamp in Chicago (she graduated exactly a year before Chad and I got married!), then was stationed in Virginia (she drove to Ohio to surprise Chad while we were there at Christmas!), then was just in Florida doing some training and now she's headed to Hawaii! How cool is that?!

I don't have many details yet, she and Chad are playing phone tag. I'll update this post when we have more info!

Congratulations Jami, we're all so proud of you!! Love ya!!

Holy CRAP

Literally. Happy Friday the 13th. Try to top this...

I got a call at like 4:20 this afternoon from Chad while I was still at work.

Me: Hey you, how was your da...
Chad: HEY, WHAT DID YOU FEED THE DOGS THIS MORNING?!
Me: Um, nothing other than their regular food - why?!
Chad: (FREAKING OUT!) BECAUSE I WALKED INTO THE HOUSE AND IT SMELLED LIKE POOP. I WALKED INTO THE OFFICE AND JUST STOOD THERE IN SHOCK. MEL POOPED ALL OVER HER CAGE AND GOT IT ALL OVER THE CARPET, THE WALL, THE BOOKCASE, THE FAN AND HERSELF!!! Allie pooped in her cage but she was ok. I GOTTA GO FIGURE OUT WHAT THE HELL I'M GOING TO DO, THEY'RE STILL IN THEIR CAGES AND I HAVE BRYNN! Love you, bye. Click.

On Monday, we had just worked on the yard and Chad basically chopped down two bougainvillas. What didn't fit into our recycle trash bin thing went in a big pile in our side yard. The only thing that I can think of is that they ate some of it this morning while I was getting ready for work. We're keeping an eye on them, they seem to be doing ok and I really hope they learned their lesson.

By the time I got home, Chad had everything all cleaned up. He said that Mel was such a mess, he just stood there trying to figure out how to get her out of her cage without getting poop all over the place, and himself. He laid a big towel down on the ground and then had Mel stand on it. Then, he wrapped her up in a bigger towel and carried her into the tub. Let me tell ya, Mel's a big dog and Chad has a HORRIBLY sensitive stomach. Not a good combination. You won't get any more details than that.

It's 10:22pm and the house still smells like poop.

Like I said, top that. Here's a picture of them from last year, Allie's on the left and Mel's on the right.

HOT HOT HOT

It's supposed to be 110 DEGREES THIS WEEKEND.

Family time

On Saturday night, we grilled out and got to spend some time with Chad's sister Ana, her boyfriend Keith (aww, aren't they so cute?!), Jody and Mike. Brynn wasn't too sure what to think of Keith at first, he has some pretty spikey hair compared to her Daddy's!! After a little while of Keith trying to play with her, she got used to him and ended up having a lot of fun!! Here are some pictures from our fun "family night"... as well as a few others from the rest of the trip!!

Hard Rock and Hollywood

Chad and I always try to go to a Hard Rock Cafe when we're on vacation, so we went to the one in Universal City, CA on Saturday. So far, we've been to the ones in Cleveland, Puerto Vallarta, Denver, Phoenix and Universal City. (I've been to the one in Cancun too but we won't "count" that one.) What was ridiculous about this one was that we had to pay $20 just to park... plus food! (Thanks for lunch Jody!!)





Here's one with Brynn too, see her? She looks teeny tiny!!



After lunch, we headed to Hollywood Blvd to see some of the stars. Didn't see anyone famous, just the stars on the sidewalk. Here's one I took of Jody squishing Michelle Pfeiffer's star. They went to school together and at one point were pretty close friends. Then, Michelle turned into a b****. So, I told Jody she should squish her.



Here's Ryan Seacrest's star, I'm a fan.



OH, then we saw this guy and we had to take a picture of him for Brenda. He was a big jerk of an Elmo and wouldn't turn and face me, I'm guessing unless he saw I had money in my hand for a tip (which I didn't), so this is the best I could do. It was the thought that counted... Brenda, I think your costume's in much better shape than this guy's.





I think it would have been really cool to go on one of those tours that show you where all of the stars live but we didn't have a whole lot of time. We had a pretty fun day but that day made me realize that I never want to live anywhere around LA, ever. There was way too much traffic and it was pretty dirty compared to what I thought it would be.

Brynn was even scared!!



Hee hee... just kidding!! (You can see her two top teeth in this one!!)

Beach Baby!!

On Friday, Gramma, Chad and I took Brynn on her first trip to see the ocean!! She wasn't too sure about the sand at first but then she seemed to like wiggling her little toes in it. She absolutely hated the water at first because it was so cold. As soon as the first wave came up and touched her feet, she picked her feet right up in the air!!

Chad picked up some handfuls of sand that had baby crabs in it and Brynn thought those were pretty neat, she even touched them!!

Here are some pictures from our fun first trip to the beach.