HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY

Time has serious flown by. It seems like just a few months ago that we were bringing our little baby bundle home from the hospital and yet Brynlee just celebrated her first birthday. It's truly amazing how much children grow in their first year. I'm hoping she'll slow down a little so I can soak up her babyhood. But at the same time I am excited to see what she'll discover next.

Brynlee babbles and walks/runs all over the house. She enjoys chasing the animals to "love on them" and her favorite quiet time activity is reading. She will sit (when confined to a limited space) with her board books for the longest time and flip through the pages over and over again. She dances to music. . . well she bounces to it . . . and sings along - especially in the car. We play all different genres for variety and it's fun to see how she'll react. Just the other day we were listening to classic rock while driving around and Pink Floyd's song Money came on. In the review mirror I see Brynlee waving her arms and kicking her feet along with the music. During the guitar riff in the middle she stopped wiggling around and just nodded her head like she was groovin' with the beat. It was HILARIOUS! I wish I could have recorded it.

To celebrate her first birthday we had a small family gathering and let her cake-dive. Brynlee received many fabulous gifts. Which actually double as gifts for me since I now have new things to entertain her with. Thank you everyone for your love and support. Here are some pictures of the festivities and other events/milestones hat have come to pass since my last post.

Testing out the cake

I think she likes it, no?

Yeah, I'd say she likes it.

We had professional photos done
(which I will post later)
but here is the birthday girl
in her fancy birthday dress.
Aaawwwww.

After putting up with her dress for so long
it was time to run free in her diaper.
Threw on a tutu for giggles.
Super cute ballerina girl.

FIRST CHRISTMAS

We had a wonderful Christmas with Brynlee even though the only gift Chris & I gave each other was a new furnace (the old one died and we figured a warm house was going to be a pretty important thing to have). Brynlee wasn't quite sure what was going on and probably thought it was a little silly to have a tree in the house. She never really bothered it though and was more fascinated by the bows and tissue paper-filled gift bags.
The grandparents spoiled her as grandparents do. Thanks to all for the wonderful and thoughtful gifts. We also had a great visit with Drew, Laura and their 3 boys between the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Thanks for spending so much time with us y'all. We met Ian and Bryce (Caleb's twin brothers) for the first time and we already can't wait to cuddle them again! Caleb was so cute playing with Brynlee. He's a great cousin to her and we are excited to watch their interactions as all the kids grow.
Here's a few pictures from all the festivities. I tried to put together a slide show but many have said they can't get it to load so my apologies for the long string of photos. Enjoy!

Bryce and Ian
I love how they link arms when they lay by each other

Chris had to hold Brynlee in place
She was a bit restless

Cheesy family photo

Our Christmas princess
Thanks for the dress Grandpa John

Brynlee and dad

Brynlee and mom

Bryn was a lamb in the family nativity.
Nice yoda ears baby.

She did quite well with Santa

Even though she couldn't figure out
who this strange guy was