Tuesday, November 29, 2011

bri baby

its been awhile since i have bragged/updated on my little girl.
she is almost a year! can you believe it?!?
we seriously cannot.

remember when she was born and she looked like this?
cute as a button.
december 17, 2010

 now she is basically a grown-up.
check it out.

enjoying her snacks with her cheesy grin.
 she drinks out of a straw now and everything.
she is an awesome little eater and thinks she needs to be enjoying whatever we are having.

this is why my house is always messy.
 my girl knows exactly where her toys are and thinks they need to be spread out for her to have access to them all the times.
she will have had nothing to do with them for an hour but as soon as i start to put them away she has to get them back out.

cheesy grin.
sometimes when i tell her to smile she gives me the funniest faces. 
she cracks us up so much!!
ps...i made that bag. its my new diaperbag and i love it so much and am super proud of it. 
hence the picture. 

it is not unusual at our house to walk around with a little brielle attached to our leg.
 she wants to know everything that we are doing and really wants to help.
and she really loves her daddy.
you should see her light up when he comes home from work.
and you should also see her daddy light up when she lights up. 
its my favorite part of the day. :)

she loves emptying things. LOVES IT!
 she empties everything in our house. 
her drawers, our drawers, kitchen drawers, bathroom drawers, the dishwasher, the diaper bag, her toy bin, the list goes on and on.
this keeps her occupied for most of the day.
also she loves kneeling and squatting right now and i love that!

she loves getting herself in precarious situations.
 she is always getting stuck somewhere. 
usually because she is trying to get somewhere she is not supposed to be.
and she is also always shutting herself in rooms. haha.
she loves opening and closing doors, but gets really cranky when she closes it all the way and cant open it again. frustrating, right?

bahahahahahah!
 emptying another drawer.
she makes her mom and dad laugh alot.

filling up a drawer. these clothes all used to be in a basket waiting to get folded and put away. where is that girls mother? honestly.
bri will walk with you while you hold her hand, but she has absolutely no desire to do it on her own yet. and she is a good little walker too. but as soon as you let go, she lowers herself right to the ground.
she is stubborn like her dad.
she also talks constantly.
no actual words yet, but something is always coming out of her mouth.
when bobby and i get separated in the store, we can always find each other cause whoever doesnt have brielle can hear her gabbing.

she claps.
waves goodbye,
dances,
and blows kisses.

and in the past couple of weeks we have also been working on bri learning to go to bed by herself.
ever since the day she was born i have rocked that girl to sleep.
im sure some people are judging me right now, but im okay with that. 
i have reasons for doing this, like living in an apartment and not wanting to disturb neighbors by letting her cry herself to sleep.
but mostly it was because my girl is a snuggler. i loved it.

now she goes to bed all by herself. doesnt even cry. 
bobby makes fun of me because i secretly kind of hate it.
she is getting too big.

brielle is the greatest adventure of our lives so far.
and if i could do it all again, i would pick this adventure every single time.
:)

Saturday, November 26, 2011

turkey day

this year we celebrated our first thanksgiving by ourselves and while we had a great time with our friends the judys, we missed our families this thanksgiving.
other than that though, our turkey day was a complete success!
if we couldnt be with our families, the next best thing was sharing the day with our 'rexburg family' :)
we had so much fun watching football, preparing dinner, playing cards, and feasting with mallory and lane and mal's brother jared! 

carmel apple turkey.....yum! :)

all of our yummy snacks.

dominating at phase 10

making the traditional oreo turkeys

bri was really happy when she got frosting on her fingers :)

the whole thanksgiving gang! thanks go to mrs. judy's kindergarten skills for our sweet pilgrim hats! 

carving the bird

our little pilgrim
 and what better way to end thanksgiving than with a little black friday shopping. luckily most of the stuff we wanted to get started at 10 so the boys and bri  went home while mal and i hit up idaho falls for a late night party. good times!

love her.
we have so much to be thankful for this year!
 
our amazing families
our wonderful friends
our daughters crazy first year
the gospel in our lives and the blessings that it brings
bobby's job and upcoming graduation
our time here in rexburg
and the list could go on and on!
 
i am especially grateful for bobby and brielle this year. 
bobby keeps me sane and always laughing and all i have to do is look at my daughter to remember how lucky i am!
we hope that everyone's thanksgiving was as wonderful as ours!

happy thanksgiving from our little family to yours!


Tuesday, November 22, 2011

'to boldly go where no man has gone before...'

we just got back from a fun week in Illinois/Iowa visiting bobbys family. because of bobbys work schedule we spent the week before thanksgiving there and it was awesome. we had such a great time!
iowa is a land of many hidden treasures and bobbys parents always take us to visit some of the many cool sites.
we have been to antique archeology (american pickers store), adventureland, and state fairs. 

this year we ventured to riverside, iowa.
the future birthplace of captain james t. kirk
you know, the captain of the u.s.s. enterprise.
yes. we are that cool.

but really it was a really fun little trip. they had a fun little museum and a 'birthstone', and we got to stop at a cool cheese factory in the Amish town nearby.
and lets face it.....i love stuff like that. 
i may not be a trekky, but how fun is it that we can say that we have been there, right?? :)

outside the museum

bobby paying his respects haha. you cant see his flower very well.

proof of just how cool we are.

love this one.
 we had a great week of relaxing, hanging out, playing cards, and we even had a fun 'mini thanksgiving'.
plus, as usual, brielle got spoiled by her grandma and grandpa wolfe.

newest iowa hawkeye fan!

my two favorite hawkeyes :)

daddy and bri having fun at the park!
 we got to visit with alot of other family too.
we love playing cards with aunt granny, pappy, and alta.
and bri loves playing with her cousin a.j.!

these two are pretty funny kiddos.

a.j. was such a nice big cousin to bri! and also that is one of grandma wolfes puppies and bri loves them soooo much!
 the only downside to the whole trip was that brielle got her first 'learning to walk battle wound'.
she loves walking while we are holding her hand but wont dare attempt it by herself yet. 
but she almost gave herself a black eye but trying to sit down next to the piano bench too quickly when trying to chase the puppies.
luckily it didnt swell as much as expected.

we think it makes her look tough.

unfortunately this isnt a very good picture, her bruise was much darker than this.
we had such a great time visiting with everyone!
our next adventure is going to be having our first thanksgiving on our own here in rexburg.
luckily, we will be celebrating with our good friends the judys so we will basically be with family. 
wish us luck with our turkey cooking!! :)

Thursday, November 3, 2011

no trick. just treat.

halloween has come and gone quickly.
i cant believe that it is already november.
we had a great end of october!
here is a picture overload of our halloween activities!
our 2nd annual trip to the straw maze. it was way better having brielle with us instead of in my belly!

they both crack me up.


she kind of looks like an 80's pop star. and that makes me smile.
 i made bobby dress up for our ward party and he liked it.
its always a good time hanging out with our friends the judys.
my two favorite nerds.

we decided to just show our true selves for halloween.

bri kept her glasses on all night. it was awesome.
 on halloween night we just relaxed.
we watched casper and hocus pocus and carved pumpkins while waiting for trick or treaters.
great night. :)

bri helping pass out the candy to our trick or treaters.

she wasnt super interested in carving pumpkins this year. 

and she is a such a girlie girl and hated touching the guts.

so cute. :)
halloween was awesome.
bring on thanksgiving and christmas!!!
i love this time of year!! :)