Turning One

It is hard to believe it was only a year ago that we brought a helpless little newborn home from the hospital. Now Brynlee has grown into an independent toddler. She has learned so much and grown a lot and we love her so much. Here are just a few things that Brynlee can do.

She can clap, wave, and she points at everything
She can walk everywhere without help
She can stand up without holding onto anything
She can throw a really good temper tantrum
She can say mama, dada (this is still her favorite word), whoa, ba (for ball), book, look, hello, hot, and ahhh (when something feels soft)
She has one tooth on the bottom
She has only a little bit of hair on top of her head but there is quite a bit on the back.
She has slimed down a lot from when she was much tinier. At her two month check-up she was in the 93% for weight and she was above the 95% for height. At her one year check-up she was 20.1 lbs which is in the 33% and she is 29.5 in. which is the 65%.

Brynlee is growing so big, learning new things everyday and we love her so much. 

Weddings and Birthday Parties

On Saturday my sister Heather was married in Boise. This meant we made another trip to see family so we could be at the wedding. Saturday was a beautiful day, Heather looked beautiful and the decorations and food were great. Overall it was a good wedding and we are happy to welcome Randy into the family.

Brynlee loved this swing so much, she even fell asleep in there.

Since we were in Boise, surrounded by my family and Joel's family; we decided it was a great time to celebrate Brynlee's first birthday. Her birthday was only two days away. On Sunday, we all met at my grandma's house for cake and ice cream. Joel made the cake all by himself and I think he did a great job at decorating it. It also tasted really good. I know Brynlee liked it because she ate all of her cake and all of the ice cream. We had to have the cake before dinner which was kind of odd, but no one there complained and Brynlee still ate some of her dinner after the cake.


 Brynlee also got a ton of presents from all of the family that was there. She had no problem opening the gifts. In fact, as we were taking them over to grandma's house, she got a hold of one and opened it in the car. When we got there the paper was shredded all over the back seat. Overall it was a great birthday and a fun weekend. As soon as we finished dinner we had to go back home to Rexburg. Brynlee had lots of new toys to play with in the car and she slept part of the way so it was a good trip. I just can't believe she is already a year old.

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Here is Brynlee showing off all of her presents. Her grandpa (my dad) got Brynlee a tackle box full of all the fishing gear a person could need. He got her a fishing pole the day she was born so naturally she needed a tackle box for her first birthday.

Tooth

Brynlee finally has her first tooth. I first caught a glimpse of it a few weeks ago, the same day Joel was miserable because he had a sore tooth. Joel had to get a crown on his tooth.  Luckily his tooth feels much better now, but for a while he was tempted to pull it out himself. I was never in a hurry for Brynlee to get her teeth but I am glad she has at least one before her first birthday, which is coming up in less than two weeks.

If you look closely you can see the tooth on the bottom. 

Walking

Here is a short video of Brynlee walking to me and to my brother Brian. (Joel took the video) She has gotten really brave and will walk short distances without warning. She is getting so big. 

We went to the Zoo

The weather was actually nice on Saturday so we took advantage of it by going to the zoo in Idaho Falls. Brynlee has started to make some of the animal sounds and spends hours looking at pictures of animals in her books so I thought she would like it. At the zoo, Brynlee pointed at all of the animals she saw and she even growled at a few of them. I think she could have stayed there all day.

First steps and Applesauce

About five days ago Brynlee took her first steps. She has been able to walk well holding onto things for a while and just barely started to be brave and stand alone for a few seconds. She is still real wobbly so I was shocked when she was standing against my bed and just walked right to me. She took about two steps and landed right in my arms. So far she has only gone three steps at the most and most of the time she falls over after one step, but she is well on her way to learning to walk.

On another note, Brynlee loves to eat. A few days ago I put some applesauce in a bowl and tried to feed it to Brynlee. I put the bowl to close to her and she stuck her hand in the bowl. I left to get a paper towel and she managed to reach the bowl.

In no time Brynlee figured out how to eat the applesauce right out of the bowl.

Yeah, she loves applesauce.

Brynlee's path of destruction

Now that Brynlee can speed crawl I spend my days cleaning up messes like this....

                                                                  
                                                            Or like this one

 Good thing I love this girl so much because she really keeps me on my toes. I just can't seem to keep my house clean at all any more. She can have an entire drawer emptied in seconds. Then she just moves to the next room and the entire time she is just as happy as can be.

Happy Easter

This was Brynlee's first Easter. To celebrate we went for a walk to the park on Saturday. We wanted to decorate Easter eggs but we went to three different stores and couldn't find any egg dye. We will have to do better next year. After church yesterday Brynlee had lots of fun playing with all of the Easter grass from her basket. Later that day we went to Joel's brother's house for dinner and Brynlee had fun playing with her cousins. Here our some of the pictures we took of our walk and of Brynlee playing with the grass in her Easter dress.

Happy Easter!

Internships and Vacations

In order for Joel to graduate in December; he had to find an internship to do this summer. We spent all of last semester putting in resumes trying to find a job but it seemed that no one was hiring. At the last minute, after many prayers, Joel was blessed with a job working at BYU-Idaho with the electricians. This is not exactly the job Joel was looking for but we feel blessed to have gotten it. The best thing about this job is that we don't have to move. We have already moved many times in the last few years we have been married, so I am glad we don't have to move for the summer.

Joel started his new job last week and said he has already learned a lot. He also said the job is really laid back and no one seems to be in a hurry, which is not what he is used to. Joel likes to be busy so this has been a challenge for him but I think it will be a good opportunity to learn new things.

Since the winter semester ended on April 8th and Joel didn't have to start work until this week, we had a good week break and we took advantage of it by going to Utah and Boise. We left Friday morning for Utah and got to eat dinner and spend some time at my friend Anna's house. We saw her horses, Brynlee played with her little boy Caleb and we had a really fun visit. Anna made us dinner and her husband and sister Jenna came, as well as my good friend Eugenia and her husband Peter. It was lots of fun. We spent the night at Eugenia's house in Provo and the next day we went to some museums and ate lunch with my friend Meghan and her two kids.

Us with Anna's horse Hank

With Eugenia at the Bean Museum at BYU

The rest of the day we drove to Boise and spent a week at my grandma's house. We had a lot of fun visiting my family and Joel's family. Brynlee saw all three of her new cousins and had a lot of fun playing with my cousins. Joel fixed my grandma's garden, built a fire pit, and set up a place to play horse shoes at my grandma's house. He also fixed my family's trampoline and my sister Alesha's car. He worked harder on his week off than he did at work last week. The weather there was nice so we had a bar-be-que before we left. It was a great week!