Houston... We Have a Problem!

I decided to start Brynne on cereal yesterday, the doctor gave us the go ahead so I figured why not! I had originally planned to wait until closer to six months, but he said she needed to be pretty good at it by then because she would no longer be getting enough iron from breastmilk alone. Since most babies take a while to get it down pat, I thought I would start now. I also realized it had been about six weeks since I had given Brynne a bottle... Oops! So I thawed some milk I had frozen and used part of it to make the cereal and had Chris try and give her a bottle. This is where the problem comes in... She would NOT take it!! She wasn't crying or anything, but she would not really latch on and get choked on the milk that came out. I didn't push it very hard and just nursed her (and poured the "liquid gold" down the drain!). Whitney and Brooke didn't care much for milk that had been frozen, so I decided to pump some fresh last night to try today (which is how she has always done it in the past). Still nothing... She pretty much just chewed on the nipple the whole time and had this look on her face of what the heck is this thing?! I thought once a little came out and she swallowed it that she would realize it was milk and drink it... Nope, she just pushed it out with her tongue! So I guess we have a new project to work on :) I know it's not the end of the world if she doesn't take a bottle (and she probably would if she got hungry enough), but it would be nice to know she would if something happened and needed one every now and then.

Here's our little cutie... Happily taking a bottle back on April 11!

Today's bottle, which also went down the drain!

The look of disgust!!

Chewing on it... And for the record I didn't pull the camera out until AFTER I knew she wasn't going to take it :)

I know she could refuse to eat period or many other worse things, so I am thankful this is the only "problem" we have!

I'm sure you are wondering about the cereal... That post is coming soon!

Mimi came to town!

Chris' mom came for a visit a couple weeks ago! She was our first visitor since my mom left the first of April. She got to spend lots of time with Brynne and I think Brynne enjoyed having someone else to look at :)

Here she is with Brynne at the airport... the first time she tried to go home! MSP (Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport) thought she needed one more day with Brynne and canceled her flight! There turned out to be a major power outage at the airport and they had to cancel lots of flights. There was some bad weather that day, but they didn't say whether the outage was from that or something else.



Chris, Mimi, and Brynne-I should have put Brynne in blue so they could have all coordinated!



So we came home and on Sunday we went to church and made our way to the airport. Turns out part of the interstate was closed (the part we needed of course!) and I had no clue where I was going and the GPS just kept trying to turn me around to get me to the part that was closed, ha! Eventually I just ignored it and kept driving far enough away from that point and the GPS finally recalculated a different route and we made it (only about 30 minutes later than planned!)

Overall we had a great time with Mimi in town and look forward to having future visitors!! And I promise not to get lost when coming to/from the airport :)

4 Months!

{Once again this post is really spaced out... Grrr Blogger!}



Brynne is 4 months old today! I can't believe it!







We went to the doctor on Tuesday for her 4 month check-up and shots :( This was our first visit to her new doctor here in Minnesota and Chris and I both liked him pretty well! Brynne wasn't much of a fan... Could be because she needed a nap badly! She weighed 16 pounds 8 ounces and was 25 1/2 inches long! Basically she's huge, but we already knew that!! The mean old nurses gave her both shots at the same time! By this time she was tired AND hungry so you can imagine how she took it!!







Her cute (and very large) legs with her Charlie Brown Bandaids.











Brynne still continues to be a morning person! She is SO happy in the morning, if she wakes up before it's time to get up she will just lay in her bed and jabber (really loud I might add). Sometimes she will talk herself back to sleep, other times she just talks until it's time to get up. This smiling face is what I'm greeted with every morning!! She looks like she could just jump right out of the bed with excitement!

She had to remind us this month how hot natured she is... I had been putting her in sleepers, because Hello, we ARE in Minnesota where it's cold! But she started waking up earlier in the night and sometimes more often, that's when I realized when I was picking her up she was pretty hot (not fever hot though). So we went back to onesies and socks for bedtime and she went right back to her normal sleep! Crazy!

This is her today... I thought she looked so cute! (just like she does every other day :) ) We spend a lot of time playing on this quilt a lady I work with made for her, it's the perfect size! I lay her is the middle with toys ALL around her in hopes she may decide to roll over and get one... Not happening any time soon! She is pretty content just laying there!! She has rolled to her side a few times but that's it. She does manage to get some of the toys but scooting on her back! She is very good at that.

We have been working a lot more on tummy time too! She is still not the biggest fan of it, but I have learned to trick her into it!! I usually start her out on her tummy on the boppy, then I pull the boppy out from under her and she doesn't mind it for quite a while. She will also do it if the TV is on. Chris was watching the news one night and I thought she was going to break her back trying to look up high enough to see it!

Although it's blurry, I thought this picture was too cute not to post! She started leaning as soon as I snapped.

The biggest problem with tummy time is that she likes to put her arms down beside her and "fly" instead of prop herself up, which would make it a little easier. I can put them back under her time after time after time and she will just keep putting them down! Stubborn girl!

I see this face a lot... It's her "I want to chew on someting face!" She chews on her hands/fingers ALL day and still sucks her thumb. I have tried giving her different things to chew on (because I expect that to start hurting once she gets teeth) but she would rather have her hands!! I rarely ever give her a pacifier, sometimes during church or if we go out to eat.

She is really trying to sit up a lot now. If I lay her on my lap she immediately starts trying to pull up and sit! Unfortunately her legs get stuck pretty easily in the Bumbo, so I don't put her in it very much. She does pretty well in the boppy (for a 4 month old... that isn't Colin :) ).

I was trying to get her to sit still for just a minute and this is what she kept doing... She was throwing her arms back and using her legs to scootch (is that a word?!?) herself down. It was funny!

Me and my girl :)

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!