Dress Up

For Christmas, Bri sent Brynn a handmade tutu, boa and some gloves that she can play dress up with that belonged to my Great Grandma Lehr (I'm not quite sure what my Great Grandma was thinking... they kind of look like gloves you'd use to clean the bathrooms with!!). Here are a few pictures that we took of her the night she opened the box from Auntie Bri!!

We had a great Christmas this year. Chad and I bought ourselves our new camera and Brynn got a million new toys and clothes. We don't buy her toys very often throughout the year, so we tend to go a little crazy for her birthday and Christmas. Chad called me from the store one night asking if I thought Brynn was big enough for a bike... she's only two and a half!! He was really excited to make her Christmas special this year.

Santa brought Brynn her pack-pack, since she was such a good girl this year!! She opened a few of her presents and then we handed her one from Santa. She was SO EXCITED!! Here are a few pictures from Christmas morning:

Christmas Cookies

This year, I had planned to make a few different types of cookies for Christmas and of course, nothing went as planned.

I ran out of time for everything. I was so wrapped up in work this year, I didn't realize how fast time flew by. I did a lot of my shopping on Christmas Eve and should have spent a lot more time at home with Chad and Brynn over the holidays. I promise I won't let it happen again next year!!

While I was working on my last minute shopping, Chad made the cookies. (Thank you Babe!!) Chad made the awesome sugar cookies first and then attempted chocolate chip cookies. I have no idea what the heck happened with the chocolate chip cookies... I'll just reitterate that the sugar cookies were amazing!!

We all had a blast decorating the cookies, Brynn did about 80% of them herself. She kept putting all of the sprinkles in one spot!!

Santa Cause

Brynn calls him "Santa" or "Santa Cause". This year, she kept telling us that she wanted a "pack-pack" (back pack) for Christmas, so we told her that if she wanted one, and if she was good (meaning that if she was nice and she listened to Mommy, Daddy and Brenda, at daycare), Santa might bring her one. She had to be the one to ask him for it though.

The first time we went to see Santa (at Bass Pro Shops!!), there was a three hour wait, so we left. The next weekend, we went to breakfast with GGMa and GGPa for GGPa's birthday. We invited them to come along with us to try to meet Santa again. We ended up getting to BPS about an hour and a half early, so we colored pictures and stood at the very front of the line while GGMa and GGPa did some shopping.

Brynn did a great job when she finally met him. She seemed a little scared at first, so I held her while she told Santa what she wanted, but I told her that he couldn't hear what she said, so she had to sit on his lap and tell him. She gave him a hug, told him "Merry Kissmas" and said "thanks".

Here are a few pictures that we took that day!!











Maybe next year we can get her to smile for the camera? :)

New Camera - Merry Christmas To Us!!

We bought a new camera tonight as a Christmas gift to ourselves. We've been wanting to get a digital SLR for a long time, so tonight I was really excited that we actually left a store with one. It's AMAZING.

Nikon D5000 with an 18-55 lens that came with the camera and then we also spent the extra money to get an additional lens that is a 55-200.

I am really happy with it. We haven't had much to take pictures of yet, but stay tuned. I swear, I'll be posting more!!

Happy Father's Day!!

Mother's Day

I had a great Mother's Day this year. We met GGMa and GGPa for breakfast at Cracker Barrel and then went to Bass Pro Shops so Brynn could see the fishies again. After that, we all headed home and took a nap. :)

Here are some pictures that GGMa took:

Happy Easter

Um, yeah. Way behind on posting.

We had a nice easter this year, we went to Steph and Brad's house, which has been our tradition for the last several years. This year was a little different because the Casey's, Scott and Connor weren't there... they had a horrible stomach bug.

Here are some pictures from Easter day and the night before, when we were decorating eggs.

Tricycle

A few super cute ones I forgot to post from when we went to California for Thanksgiving...

Brynn And Gramma!!

Christmas 2008

We're back-tracking a little bit here...

Christmas 2008 was pretty low-key. We stayed at home in the morning and then early evening, we headed to TJ and Jenn's house for dinner. Jody (Gramma!) drove in on the 26th from California and then we celebrated Christmas with her, GGMa and GGPa on the 28th at our house. We had some really yummy food and I made an attempt at a sweet potato casserole that turned out great!!

Brynn had a great 2nd Christmas, our families (and Santa) went above and beyond. (Thanks everyone!!) Some of her favorite gifts are a Barbie purse, Barbie cell phone, and two REALLY soft bears. One of the bears is Alpaca (sp?) and the other is lamb's wool. Allie and Mel really liked the bears too. We decided to put some of the wrapped gifts under the tree a few days before Christmas, we came back from the store and the bears were partially unwrapped. I think they liked the scent. Their names are "Bear" and "Baby Bear" - pronounced as "BEEEO" and "Baby BEEEO".

Brynn got a Barbie 4-Wheeler from Santa this year too. When she got on it for the first time, she pretty much drove right into the Christmas tree!!

Overall, it was a pretty good one for all of us!!

Here are some pictures from Christmas:

Happy New Year!!

From The Wests!!

Merry Christmas!!

Taken two weekends ago... I just haven't had much time to post!! Brynn wasn't a fan of the "Big Guy" in person, I think this picture explains it all. ;o)



Brynn loves Santa in all other forms (stuffed, pictures, ornaments, etc.), he just really freaked her out in person. If you ask her what Santa says, she'll tell you "Ho, ho, ho"!!

Have a Merry Christmas!!

Bob - we went BPS, like you did last year!! ;o)

Instead Of Sending Out Cards...

Our friend Brian rocks. He took some pictures of us that we were originally going to send out as Christmas cards.

Well, the budget is tight this year and you're probably just going to throw out the card after the holidays anyway, so we thought we'd just post this instead. (If you REALLY want the picture, you can right click on the picture and save it... or print it out and THEN throw it out after the holidays!!)

Thanks Brian!!

Thanksgiving - A Little Late

I'm behind on everything this month.

We went to California this year for Thanksgiving. This trip, we stayed with Chad's sister Ana and her boyfriend Keith. We had a lot of fun and it actually ended up being a pretty relaxing trip, I think because we had a few more days than what we normally would have. We gave Ana and Keith lots of tips (I'm sure it was a lot more than what they wanted to hear), Ana is pregnant and is due on June 2nd!! We're excited for them, they'll be great parents. Brynn really had a fun time with "Uncle Keith". We're hoping they're going to have a girl, we have plenty of stuff to let them borrow!!

Chad's youngest sister Jami also came home from a two-month trip on her ship the day before we got there. We were really bummed that we weren't able to be there to see them pull in to San Diego (Chad was off work that week, but I wasn't). We did see lots of pictures though, it looked really cool. I got a text message from Jami shortly after she saw everyone and it said "You knew Ana was pregnant and you didn't tell me?!". ;o) I didn't want to ruin Ana's surprise!!

On Thanksgiving Day, we went to Chad's parents' house for a nice meal!! Thanks for everything Jody, Ana and Keith!!

The day after Thanksgiving, Chad, Brynn, Ana and I headed to Big Lots and Toys-R-Us to see if we could find some deals. We didn't get what we wanted at Big Lots (that's what happens when you don't get up super early in the morning, everything is gone!) and we didn't really have anything that we wanted to get from Toys-R-Us but we ended up coming home with a big box... you'll see what it was in a few weeks!!

Here are a few of the pictures from our trip (I have several other posts to do from when we were there!!):















From left to right: Jami, Keith, Ana, Jody, Mike, Me, Chad and Brynn, of course!!