Meet Brynne's Best Friend...

Meet Little Jerry the Giraffe (and yes, that is a Seinfeld reference):

Brynne LOVES this thing!! It is fairly small, rattles, and $2 at Walmart (he was a gift though). She loves to smile and laugh at him and give him BIG hugs (that sometimes include biting his face :) ) Little Jerry solves most world problems... If Brynne is upset, all we have to do is show him to her and she'll stop! If that doesn't work then she is REALLY mad, haha!

She likes Little Jerry so much I decided she needed his friends too! I got her Henrietta the Hippo (named by Aunt Allison) and the Monkey (name yet to be determined-the only name I have thought of so far is Mike). I also bought a back-up Jerry! Henrietta the Hippo is Little Jerry's girlfriend, haha!

I hope she always loves cheap toys, haha, but I'm not counting on it!!

Spring in Minnesota...

Two years ago I wrote this post about spring in Tennessee, that was the year of the Good Friday tornado. If I had written a post last year, it would have likely been about the record setting May floods. This year I am experiencing spring in Minnesota!

When we first got here, at the end of March, there was about a foot or so of snow on our balcony!





This picture was taken on April 1st when my mom was here! These snow mounds are a very common site in all of the parking lots here.



Fast forward to April 7th, just a few days later and this is what I was wearing! Sandals and short sleeve shirts. (I should also add that people here were wearing sandals when my mom was here!)

The rest of April was cool for the most part with a few nice days thrown in here and there. It has also rained quite a bit and been really windy (which is normal for here, hence the windmills).

On Easter Sunday the weather was great, sunny and mid 60s!

That Friday the weather was nice again and Chris was off work so we went for a walk along the Mississippi River. As you can see the grass is starting to green up and the horses are out.

And the sun was reflecting off the water. It was a little too windy, but a beautiful day over all.

Green grass starting to pop up along the trail, but the trees still look like winter, no green or even buds yet!

That Sunday, May 1st, we woke up to temps in the mid to upper 20s, 20+ mph winds, and snow flurries! It was awful and made you feel like it was never going to warm up!! As we were leaving church, one guy was yelling "I LOVE Minnesota... I can't wait for our 2 days of summer!!" Not very reassuring for this Tennessean :( I love the summer and I love warm weather.

According to the forcast, the next 10 days are supposed to be at least 58 degrees and there are even a couple of days in the 70s! Unfortunately there is a good chance of rain several of those days! Next week Chris's mom will be here so I hope the weather is at least decent (and NO snow!!)

I have decided that Minnesota is much like Tennessee in the Spring... If you don't like the weather, stick around a day and it just might be MUCH different!

Brynne is 3 Months (and 1 week) Old

Warning: There is some crazy spacing going on between everything... not sure what's up with that!

Brynne is 3 months old!! I can't believe how fast it has gone by... She is no longer considered a newborn :( We weighed her on our scale and she is 15 pounds! I attempted to measure a very wiggly baby and got several different lengths, but we'll go with around 23 1/2 inches long! She doesn't have to go to the doctor until 4 months, so my measurements will have to do :) One thing I don't need a doctor to tell me is that she is big! When I tell people how old she is they always say "oh, she is healthy," haha! Yes, yes she is!!

She is wearing size 2 diapers still, but I don't think I am going to buy any more. I bought some 3s yesterday that I plan on trying, especially at night!

She is wearing anywhere from 3 month to 9 month clothes! The 3 month stuff probably needs to be put away, but there is a LOT of it so it's going to take some work!!

Unfortunately the weather is still crazy here... Warm one day, cold and rainy the next, and snowing the next! That makes it a little difficult on the wardrobe!

Brynne is really enjoying sticking her tongue out these days... This was right after she spit up a little.

In honor of the 3 month mark, I decided to put together Brynne's jumperoo. She seems to have pretty strong legs, so I thought she might enjoy it!

She enjoyed the toys on the top, but couldn't quite reach the ground enough to jump! I added a few books to help :)

She still hasn't rolled over yet, but she is scooting all over the place! I put her down with her head where her butt is and her feet down where the circle is and she scooted and scooted until she ended up like this!!

By the way... Check out those thighs!! They are possibly the biggest I have ever seen :) Appartently my milk is GOOD (which I am very thankful for)!

Since we are on a pretty consistent schedule I want to write it out to refer back to, here it goes:

8:00-Everybody up, change the heaviest diaper on earth (12 hours of pee isn't light!), and nurse 5-6 minutes on each side. Then play for a little while, nap a little while (average of 30-45 minutes), and play a little more! Change out of pjs somewhere in there.

11:00-Ditto (minus clothes change)

2:00-Ditto

5:00-Ditto, but throw in a little play time with dad and the occasional bath (shoot for every 2-3 days or whenever she starts to stink :) )

Between 7:45 and 8:00-Change diaper and into pjs, nurse 6-7 minutes each side and off to bed.

10:00 or 10:30-Mommy pumps

Somewhere between 4:00 and 6:00 a.m.-Midnight snack... Sometimes for baby AND mommy!

Throw in a few more diaper changes here and there and a possible second clothes change (if a major blow out or spit up happens) and that's Brynne's day! The play time is split between the bouncy seat (which she still loves... so much that I think she broke the vibration part because she kicks it so hard!), the jumperoo, two different play mats (you know the ones that have toys that hang over baby-see last pic), bumbo or boppy, tummy time (which she is not a fan of), and of course MOMMY!! Diaper changes also usually take 5-10 minutes because she LOVES to lay on the changing table and play with the pillow propped up behind it (I'll try to get a picture of it) and stare at the sprinkler and smoke detector on the wall above it, haha!

I am really enjoying our schedule!

Easter 2011

Brynne's first Easter was fairly low key. Friday we spent ALL day working on laundry, trying to catch up from our trip. Brynne helped me sort the clothes :)


We had to take a break so I could get her picture in her bunny shirt and her new red bow from granny!

Chris had to work on Sunday, so he was gone before either of us got up. Here is Brynne with her Easter basket when she first woke up... Notice how happy she is again (and always)!

Checking out the goods... She was really probably wondering why that thing was in her bed and why mommy was taking picture so early, haha!

How does a chaplain/former preacher's child not have a Bible?!? I remedied that and put one in her basket!

Brynne and I got ready and went to church. I didn't get to hear much because shortly after the sermon began we made our way to the "cry" room... Brynne wasn't crying, but she doesn't like to be held a lot so she was getting a little too wiggly!

After church we came home and I (re)ironed her dress (haha) so I could take some pictures. We definitely didn't have time before church and after two rides in the car seat her dress was a wrinkled mess! I wanted to make sure and get lots of pictures because the dress she wore was my mom's when she was a baby. My grandmother saved it and a few others and gave them to my sister and I as baby shower gifts. I LOVE the color of this dress! I like Brynne in pink, but I also like her in more non-traditional girl colors too!!

I think this picture is funny... It's like "are we done yet??" Nope, many more to come :)

I love the look on her face here, so sweet!

I know I'm incredibly partial, but I think she is beautiful in this picture :)

I think this face is hilarious! She sticks her tongue out when she laughs, haha!

Please ignore the bumbo, the bumbo tray, and whatever else you may see in the background :)

That night before we gave her a bath we put her bunny ears on... My little buddha bunny!

I wish we could have spent the day as a family, but I'm glad Chris was able to do what he loves and minister to the veterans!

Water Baby

**WARNING~Picture Overload!**

While in South Dakota we took Brynne swimming for the first time! I knew the trip was coming up and that she needed a bathing suit. After not having luck finding any stores that carried one small enough, I got this super cute one (size 3-6 months) from Once Upon a Child. 3-6 months should fit my child that isn't even three months old right?!

WRONG!! As you can tell from the picture, her eyes are red and puffy from crying while I tried to squeeze her into it! I kept thinking that if I just got it all the way on that it would fit... Again, wrong!

It squeezed her pretty tight... baby back fat!

I decided it was best to take it back, thank goodness they had a good return policy! I found two different ones (both 6-9 months) and couldn't decide between the two, so I got both! Total of $8, the beauty of second hand!! Oh, and there is no sales tax on clothes (or food) in MN so what you see is what you pay! I'm definitely a fan (we'll see if I'm still a fan after we have to pay a state income tax!)

This is one of the bathing suits... As you can tell she was much happier because she could actually breathe :)

Brynne loves taking a bath so I hoped she would feel the same way about the pool. She wasn't overly thrilled (she's not usually overly thrilled about much that late in the afternoon), but I think she liked it!! She never cried so that's a success in my book!

I think her hair has a major red tint to it in this picture! My mom might get THREE redheaded grandbabies! Sometimes it looks blond (who knew it didn't have an 'e' on the end?!), sometimes red, and other times as dark as mine!

Not a huge fan of this pic, but I don't have many of us together so I'll take it!

There's a little smile!!

All done and dried off! I can't wait to take her swimming more this summer!!

Next up... Easter!

For those of you who get to my blog from Allison's, there is another post below that you probably haven't seen! For some reason it never showed up on her blog!