The Pollards

Merry Christmas 2011

2011-12-11T21:49:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas everyone! Here is our 2011 year in review: First we moved 2 times this year, once in January and then again in October. Let's just say I will never again do that as long as I live. We like our new house and location though, it is much closer to Justin's work and shopping (Yay for me!). Here is a little bit about each of our girlies: Camryn is turning 1 on Wednesday and I cannot believe that she is not my little baby anymore! She is my little toddler. Some things she likes: Climbing (anything, especially stairs), dancing and music (she won't watch tv but she loves music), mom's android phone (she is obsessed with it), playing peek-a-boo (she says "ba" for boo and it is so cute), walking everywhere (she loves for you to chase her), and meeting new people (she is so friendly she smiles and waves and will go over to just about anyone). She is such a sweet easygoing baby, although her little personality comes out more and more each day.
Some things about Brynlyn: She started preschool in August and has been in heaven! She is so outgoing and loves to be with all the other kids. It has been wonderful for her. She loves: watching her shows on Netflix, playing make believe (she loves to talk to herself), talking (we can't get her to stop - EVER), reading (she is going to be a bookworm like Mom someday), and playing at the park (I think she would live there if I let her). She is such a smartie and she is learning lots in school and at church. She is extremely excited to be a Sunbeam in a few weeks! Something funny she has been saying lately is that we are going to have Christmas and Santa will come and then it will be Jesus' birthday after that. I tell her everyday that Christmas IS Jesus' birthday but for a 3.5 year old it must be pretty hard to reconcile Santa/presents with Jesus' birth. She'll get it :)

And Justin is still at his estimating job and is usually so busy that we don't get to see him until about 8 at night. I have been loving every minute of the adventure of having 2 small kiddos running around. I saw a quote the other day that I am going to hang somewhere in my house: Sorry about the mess, but the children are making memories. I may not be the best at keeping my house spotless (or even getting us all out of our pj's on some days) but I know that my kids will only be little pigs for a while (and then they will be big pigs, but by then they will have chores and allowance to motivate them) and I love everything about this time in our lives, messy house and all. We have had trials (I would like all 4 of us to be well for at least a few days - it's been solid colds or flu since October) but we are still so blessed and grateful for both the blessings and the trials. The Lord lives and I love this time of year when we remember His birth and life. We hope everyone has an awesome Christmas and that 2012 is fantastic!
P.S. We put off having our professional family pictures until January so Bryn can get her cast off. Forgive our cheesy pictures from this afternoon. Neither of us will ever be professional photographers :)

Holy Cow

2011-11-25T12:50:00.000-08:00

Alright, it has been almost 8 months since I have updated here. I am not going to lie, posting things to Facebook is much easier and more convenient. I will try to post a little more often on here though since this is more of a journal for me. Since April we have had a lot happen. We took a trip to CA in June (that's where we took the family picture above) and had a blast visiting with family and going to Disneyland. It was a crowded but very fun day. Then we moved from San Tan Valley to east Mesa near the end of October and that was fun (are you getting the sarcasm here?) (it is more convenient to be closer to shopping though:). Camryn learned to walk at 10 months, has 6 teeth and is learning so much every day! Bryn started preschool and loves it and can almost write her name all by herself! Then on Monday the 21st of November Brynlyn was running, tripped, landed wrong and completely broke her elbow. Poor girlie! She gets her cast on Monday and I feel so bad for her. And it is her right arm which is her more dominant arm too unfortunately :(. Well we had a great Thanksgiving and ate a ton! Then Justin went out and braved the Black Friday crowds and got us a new tv for our bedroom. It is kind of a funny story and completely miraculous that he actually got one so ask me if you want to hear it. And for now I will just finish by posting some pictures from the last 8 months and then I am going to start getting out some Christmas decor!! Easter 2011

Halloween 2011 Cute little Cam in October
I will post again soon because we are going to get professional family pictures taken in December (cast and all) so I will have some more cute pictures to post then.

2011-08-02T19:24:00.001-07:00

Some funny stuff

2011-04-01T15:52:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures I took of Camryn today. She is getting so big! Right now she is watching a Baby Einsteins and it is so cute that she will watch them for a few minutes. I posted the top picture because I still think that it is hilarious that she always has her tongue out. All day I see that pointy little tongue. And here is a funny story about Camryn: On Sunday at church I handed her to her dad and then during the Sacrament (when it was really quite of course) we hear some loud grunting and the sound of poop hitting diaper. I thought, Oh man how embarrassing. But then I started smelling baby poop really strong and that wasn't normal so I looked over and Camryn had shot poop out of her diaper, down her dad's pants, the chair (luckily a metal one) and into a pretty good sized puddle on the floor. It was really gross and all I had to clean with was one thin little blanket and some wipes. I was laughing so hard during the second half of the Sacrament and I felt pretty bad, but it was soooo funny.

Then for a few Bryn tales. She is so silly. She likes to go downstairs with me but she is slower than I am and so she is always telling me to stop and hold her hand. Well the other day she said, look mom I can go fast. So I waited at the top as she proceeded to go down the stairs just as slow as usual but pumping her arms really fast like she was jogging or something. It was hilarious!! Then the other day I went through the BK drive-through and as the lady was running my credit card Bryn yells really loud from the backseat: "Hey little girl! I want some french fries!" I just about died laughing but that lady didn't act like she heard it. Oh the joy of having a 3-year-old.

Here is Bryn on her birthday at the park with some friends. It was a fun day!

And here she is with her Minnie cake at her party. She got so many fun things! And, seriously I do not know how I have a 3 year old already! She starts preschool in the fall and she is ready!

Camryn's blessing

2011-02-22T11:23:00.001-08:00

On Sunday we were able to bless Camryn and it was so beautiful. I am so grateful that I am married to a man who can bless our children. It was a cold and rainy day, but we had fun hanging out with all the family who came! Here are some new pictures:

2011-01-12T20:17:00.000-08:00

I took some more pictures of Camryn on Sunday and I thought some turned out really cute. So far I haven't gotten any of her sleeping, she is wide awake whenever I want to take pictures so here are a few of my faves. I will eventually get around to posting pictures of Bryn from Christmas on here but it might take a little while. We are moving to a different house this Saturday and so I may be busy for a little while with the move. Enjoy the pics!

Camryn pictures

2010-12-22T19:29:00.001-08:00

Ok, here are some pictures finally!! First let me tell the birth story real quick. I went in to be induced at 3am on December 14th. They started the pitocin at 4 and I got my epidural at 5:30. The doctor came in and broke my water at 6:15. At 7:20 I woke up from a light doze and I was shaking pretty badly even though I wasn't cold and so the nurse checked me and Camryn was ready to be born. We then had to wait half an hour for the dr. to finish up with a surgery and then she came and I pushed twice and Camryn Brooke was born! It was so fast!! Nothing like Bryn and for that I am grateful. Camryn has been such a sweetheart so far. She only really cries when she is hungry, she sleeps well in her carseat and she loves to snuggle. She is a great baby and we are so happy she is here. I am trying to adjust to having 2 kiddos and I am not going to lie and say it is easy because it sure isn't. But I love them both and I know that once we get a routine down I will feel better. Expect more pictures after Christmas! We love you all and we will try to get some sort of birth announcement out soon.

Silly Bryn

2010-10-25T10:10:00.000-07:00

So last Saturday we went to go pick out a pumpkin at Walmart and Bryn was so excited. I picked up a few pumpkins and then I found a pretty big one so I picked it up and held it up so that she could look at it. She was standing in the back of the cart and she looked at it and backed up as far as she could go in the cart. I asked her what was wrong and she said: "Mom, it's making me nervous!" I said What!?! And she told me it was because it would hurt her toes. So I put it back and got a different smaller one and she was perfectly fine with that one. Silly kids, sometimes they are so weird, but I sure love 'em!!

Projects

2010-10-19T16:56:00.000-07:00

So I have been nesting lately and I decided to make some matching Christmas dresses. What a pain and I don't think I will attempt this again. Also if this baby turns out to be a boy he will be posing in this dress anyways because it was a lot of work. But I like how they turned out. Fun, we are ready to have this baby, but I still have 9 weeks if I go full term (I am praying that I go early!). The rag quilt I am making should be done soon and I will post that when I finish it. And tomorrow is Justin's birthday and so we are getting ready for that because Bryn loves birthdays, even when they aren't hers. And Halloween is coming up, one of my favorite holidays! Yay for candy.

Quick funny story

2010-09-23T23:24:00.000-07:00

So yesterday Bryn came over to me, poked me and started saying something that sounded like a really bad swear word. I asked her to repeat it which she happily did about 20 times but I still couldn't tell if she was actually saying the naughty word or what. I finally just distracted her since the fastest way to make sure that she remembers and repeats that word is to tell her that it is a naughty word. So then today we were watching Night at the Museum 2 which is her current fave movie and I was half way listening when lo and behold I hear Ben Stiller saying, "I will fork you". In the movie he has a pitchfork and is threatening various bad guys with it and a light bulb went off in my brain. Bryn was trying to say "fork you" but her 'r's are not very good yet. So in the end I learned that 'fork' is not a word that she should say very often and sometimes imitation goes very awry.

2010-09-21T23:34:00.000-07:00

Updates: Nothing much. We have been waiting for the cooler weather and enjoying life. My birthday was fun and I got a foot spa from Justin and I have to say he picked out a really nice one. And someday I will get him to use it on his (disgusting) feet. Bryn did it with me and it was so fun. I got to go to the zoo for a baby shower and even though it was a really hot day it was super fun and Bryn played in the water area and got her clothes soaked but it cooled her off. I was pretty jealous. She is developing the funniest imagination and I love to watch her play now. She was being naughty today so I put her in her crib for time out and then when I went in there to get her out she had arranged all her stuffed animals (20 or so) to be sleeping and so I took a picture of how she arranged everything and she is pretending to sleep too. She is so creative and smart! And I am so humble about it, right?
And in other news she is totally out of diapers except at night and even then she is working on that and her diaper is dry about half the time in the morning. YAY, I will only have 1 in diapers!!! And the pregnancy is going well. I am huge and so I am telling you not to expect any pictures. We will have to do family pictures as soon as it cools off enough so that I can go outside without sweating, but until then I will not be posting any. This little girl is very wiggly and fun though! She has already gotten the hiccups a few times and she is VERY active at night. We have another night own on our hands and all I have to say is that she had better adjust to night sleeping quickly!! Alright I know it isn't going to happen, but I can dream can't I? I can't wait to meet her (although I am not looking forward to the sleepless nights etc)! Only a few months left!!

Random Thoughts

2010-08-27T21:06:00.000-07:00

So, let me describe my typical day this last week or so. Bryn wakes me up at about 8:30am, usually by yelling "mama" very loudly until I give up, go in there and get her out of her crib. Then we watch some PBS and Bryn takes off all her clothes so that she can be ready if she has to make it the 3 feet to her potty in the family room. Then every 30 minutes all day I am emptying her potty and making her wash and reassembling the potty. And she has been good about always going in the potty, but especially if her tummy is hurting her I spend a lot of time just being with her while she sits in the bathroom. She also demands that her books go with her and she will sit on her 'throne' and read them. It is cute and exhausting work as well. I still haven't really taken her out into public without a diaper because I really don't want to clean up a huge pee puddle but we will eventually get there. Man, potty training is hard work for moms!! I swear that it will be worth it, but in the meantime it is so draining. And life for us is filled with callings and not much else. I have been craving weird food, but I made an awesome chinese chicken salad yesterday and I just thought I would share the recipe, so here goes. I got it off of cooks.com and here is the link: http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1662,138191-246199,00.html. I changed it a little bit though. I used 1 Tablespoon of regular sugar and I used 1/2 spinach and 1/2 regular salad mix. I also added crunchy chow mein noodles. It was pretty good, I ate a lot of it. Too bad it isn't all that healthy, but at least it tasted really good. This pregnancy has been funny, I have craved mexican and chinese. With Bryn I stuck with pretty bland typical foods and I ate a lot of pumpkin stuff (pie, cookies, ice cream, etc). It is weird how different 2 pregnancies can be! And that is all I can think of for now. Bye!

The news

2010-08-11T14:33:00.001-07:00

Ok, I am a slacker. I have not been into blogging lately and Facebook is just so convenient and I don't have to type out a novel when I post something. So here goes. We found out that we are having another little girl!! Yay, ribbons and bows and curls and diamonds and all that super fun girly stuff. Here is a picture:

And this is Bryn being a ham for the camera because she has decided that it is so much fun to take pictures and she likes to be a little cheeseball. I have about 30 with her just making silly faces.

And then here is my super cool anniversary present! It is a 5 carat green amethyst. (Get it, 5 years, 5 carats) It is pretty big but I really love it. It got here a little late (today) but I am so excited for it. I love how it is really light green, almost clear and it is definitely unique.

Other events this last month:

-I did have to have an overnight stay in the hospital and they found that I have some small gallstones which will cause me pain from time to time and a swollen and barely functioning right kidney. It looks like the problem is fixable after the baby comes and until then I will have some pain that comes and goes. Fun, fun.

- Justin and I had a great anniversary trip to Show Low while Bryn spent the weekend with her grandparents. She did great and it was so nice to get up into the mountains and pine trees and be alone together. We went and did sealings in the Snowflake temple and they let us kiss over the alter which is pretty rare except when you are actually getting sealed for yourself so that was cool. We also had some $30 prime rib at this really good steakhouse and we saw The Other Guys (which was pretty PG-13, but funny). And it rained a lot so we really enjoyed that as well. It was nice and relaxing and I have no pictures because although I brought the camera, it was completely dead and we couldn't even take one picture. And that is all the news!

Silly pictures

2010-07-16T09:48:00.000-07:00

So we had a fun week in St David and here are a few of the silly pictures that we took. Bryn loves Coco and I saw her laying by her and had to snap a picture.

She also loved to wear these goggles and I thought she looked funny!

This is kind of a bad picture but she loved to be in this swing with it pulled over her like this and she called it the cage and asked over and over to go in the cage.

And finally here she is just hanging with Grandpa and eating a banana.

And in other news we get to go have our ultrasound next Wednesday where we will (hopefully, cross your fingers) find out what we are having so make sure and vote in the little poll that I put in the sidebar. I will definitely post more as soon as we have that appointment, even if it is just more pictures!

June Stuff

2010-06-28T22:54:00.000-07:00

Well June has been fun even though I have not been posting. I am finally getting out of the miserable first trimester and so that has been nice. Here are some pictures of when we went to the new Sea Life at Mills mall. It was fun and Bryn loved looking at all the fish and the "sharps" which are sharks. Then we ate lunch at Rainforest Cafe and she was pretty freaked out by all the animals and thunder until halfway through lunch and then she thought it was fun. The third picture is of Bryn with some gummy snake in her mouth that we bought from the gift shop. She had a super fun day!

What a crazy baby. She is getting used to the idea that she will be a big sister but she is a little confused by the baby in mommy's tummy. She lately keeps pulling up her shirt and saying "I have a baby in my tummy" and sometimes she tells me to open my tummy so she can see the new baby. She is silly but she will get used to it as I get bigger I think. And other than that we have just been finding ways to get out of the heat and stay inside. Another interesting thing about Bryn is that her favorite movie right now is the new Alice in Wonderland. We bought it and started watching it one night thinking she was tired and would ignore it like all the other movies that we watch that aren't animated and bore her. But she sat down and was enthralled! She gets so into the story and it is so cute although I was worried about several parts scaring her. They don't seem to anymore but she did think it was cool that the Bandersnatch licks Alice's arm and so she now has to lick my arm or try and get me to lick hers all day long! And I started her in a little dance class once a week. She is the youngest and tends to be a little spaz but she likes it and she gets to learn how to listen! It's cute, they even do some tapping and ballet. Fun, fun and the best part is I get an hour all to myself. It's even better than a nap because I don't have to listen for when she wakes up! I will eventually post a picture of Bryn in her cute dance outfit, I just haven't taken one yet. And that is what we have been up to!

Good news

2010-06-04T12:38:00.000-07:00

Guess what? It's a ................................................................................................................................

..............................................................................................................................................................

..........................................................................................................................................................New Baby! Yay we are finally sharing our good news. I am expecting and the baby looks really good. We found out in April and my first Dr appt. was on May 5th. We did an ultrasound and I was 7 and a half weeks and we could see the baby's heart beating. We have waited to tell everyone until after my second visit which I had yesterday just so we could get past the danger zone for miscarriage. So here is how my visit yesterday went: first they took 5 vials of blood. Geez, I was pretty dizzy and tired the whole rest of the afternoon! Then we tried to listen to the baby's heartbeat with the Doppler device and the doctor couldn't find it. So of course at this point I am so nervous and praying as hard as I can that everything is all right. So we had to do another ultrasound and guess what? The baby is just fine, the placenta was blocking us from hearing the heartbeat but I got to watch the baby squirm and wiggle which was so fun. So we are due on December 17th and we are so excited (except for Bryn who when I tell her that I have a baby in my tummy says 'no' every time - hopefully she will get used to the idea!). Here are the pictures: the first one is when I was 7 weeks and the next one is from yesterday and I am 11 and half weeks now.

Zoo

2010-05-27T15:25:00.000-07:00

OK, I have been a really bad blogger lately! Here is our latest update: We are doing great here in AZ. Even though it is getting hotter there has only been one day so far over 100 degrees and that has been way cooler than last year. We have been enjoying our air conditioner and the pool a lot. We also had a cooler day this last Monday and so we made the trek out to the Wildlife World Zoo with Bryn's G and G Pollard. We had so much fun. The zoo isn't as big as the Phx zoo, or as hilly and they let you get closer to the animals. It was fun watching Bryn finally be interested in animals that she used to not care about. She petted a turtle, goats, deer, a llama, and a starfish. She would NOT touch the crabs or stingray, although she did put her hand in the stingray tank, but when one would swim by us she would yank it back out. It was really fun and we got to see a 3 month old lion cub named Delila and week old Bengal tiger cubs that were so cute and tiny! There is a cool area where you can walk with the kangaroos but they wouldn't come over near us. So we had fun and it was a cool zoo. It is pretty far away and so I don't think I will be going out there a lot but it was pretty fun. Here are some pictures:

2010-05-07T13:01:00.000-07:00

So life has been crazy like usual. Here are some fun pictures. This first one is from today. It is 94 degrees outside and Bryn keeps wrapping herself up in her blanket not because she is cold but because Justin taught her that you can see things that glow in the dark under the blanket and so she has some glow-in-the-dark-flowers that she keeps watching glow. She is silly!
And this is from when Grandma let her play with her makeup last week and Bryn put a ton of blue eyeshadow on her lips. She was having the time of her life! She looks cold.

And other than that we haven't really been up to much! Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms out there!

Easter 2010

2010-04-07T15:04:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I have been really bad about posting and I know this is late, but I just haven't been in the blogging mood for some reason. So anyways here are the pictures from Easter. Bryn loved finding all the eggs and candy and it was nicer that this year wasn't quite as hot as last year.

And this is the cute shirt that I made Bryn. Here is the tutorial. I have been getting into sewing and making things and that has been so fun. I like making things that Bryn can wear/use. So expect more pictures to come of all my crafting!

Random stuff

2010-03-23T22:40:00.001-07:00

Here are a few more pictures of Bryn: Here she just blew out her 2 birthday candles. She did it all by herself too!

Here is at Tucson zoo last Wednesday with Grandma and she fed the giraffe!! She said ouch as soon as the tongue touched her but other than that she did great. It was cute.
And she had a lot of fun just playing in this little tractor. We had to drag her out of it because she didn't want to leave it. Silly girl. She was so spoiled for her birthday and she got tons of cute stuff. Lucky girl.

las fotos del dia

2010-03-04T19:44:00.001-08:00

Here are the pictures I took of Bryn today for her 2 year pictures. She mostly cooperated, but I did have to start a game of tag just to get her to smile and stop picking flowers. She is silly.

And this picture is mainly just to show off her dress, which I (yes, I) sewed!! Un milagro ha pasado!! Seriously I think I did a pretty good job and Bryn loves it because it twirls really good.

2010-02-26T20:30:00.000-08:00

Ok, so here is my weekly update. We have been busy! Last Saturday we had my SIL's baby shower and these 2 pictures of Bryn are from that. She got the Dora stickers from Uncle Kyle and she loved them! She also stuck them all over our family room table and so I had to peel them all off the next day but she had a blast sticking them all over it!
And here is a smile. She loves to smile for the camera if I will turn it around so she can see the picture afterward. And today after we went swimming I was feeling crafty so I looked up how to make some cute bows online and then had a blast making a bunch of different bows. Here they are. I think they turned out super cute. I had tons of ribbon that I bought half off at Hobby Lobby that I haven't been using so I figured I would put it to good use.

And this is my favorite bow, it is Minnie!! I love it and I am going to have to buy Bryn a Minnie outfit now so that she can wear it all the time.

And today at the pool Bryn was so brave. The first time we went swimming last Wednesday she clung to me so tightly the whole time. Then when we went last Thursday she wanted to play on the steps and by herself more and she started to jump out to me. Well today she had her floaties on like normal and she was playing on the steps and then she just pushed herself out to the deeper water and she was floating and staying up and she LOVED it! She didn't even want me to help her at all, but I stayed so close and never took my eyes off of her for a second. I think by the end of this summer I will have a little fish. She asks to go to the pool every day since we went last week and today some clouds came out and covered the sun so that even in the heated water we were shivering and I still couldn't get her out of the water. I kept saying "let's go" and she would say, "no mama, swimming." I sure love my girlie who will be two next Thursday!! What a great 2 years I have had.

Happy V-day Late

2010-02-15T10:36:00.000-08:00

Well here are some random pictures. This is Bryn watching Monsters Inc. She totally conked and it was so cute. The rest of the pictures are from the petting zoo at the 2 Sisters 1 Heart fundraiser this last Saturday.

And this is after I gave Bryn her Valentine's presents (the headband and the tutu). She wouldn't take them off! Later she put the stickers I gave her all over her face.

Earrings!

2010-02-07T19:24:00.000-08:00

Ok, so this picture serves two purposes. One, we finally pierced Bryn's ears!! It was a spur of the moment thing that we did yesterday when we went to the mall and they are so cute! We had the two girls there do both ears at the same time and she sat really still and then they did it and she jumped pretty big and cried, but only for about a minute. Then they gave her a sucker and once she got that in her mouth she was fine. She lets me clean them and twist them and doesn't act like they are hurting her much. Yay! Anyways I also posted this picture because it shows my new really short hair and new glasses. They are the same color as my old ones but a much cuter shape. They were $200 frames that I got pretty cheap and so I was excited! Anyways we are not up to much. Just enjoying the winter storms, the nice walking weather and family!

January

2010-01-23T09:41:00.000-08:00

We have been good this month and we survived the 3 huge storms. I love falling asleep to the sound of rain. In Uruguay we only had a piece of metal (I think aluminum) between us and the sky and so even when it was barely raining it was pretty loud. I used to just lay there and love that sound. It rains more often there than here so I got to hear it more and since I got home I miss it. So this last week it was so nice to have all the rain. Here are a few pictures since it has been a while since I posted any. Bryn has finally started letting me put her super cute bows in her hair. I have been getting and collecting cute bows since she was born but she would never leave them in so all I have to say is FINALLY! And thanks to Heather and Rachelle for giving me some cute bows to use! This is her cheesy smile that she gave me when I said I wanted a picture. I think I have a sarcastic kid on my hands. Payback for all the sarcasm I have dished out I guess.

Snuggling with Grandma during her visit last weekend.

And I cannot seem to break her of the style-your-hair-with-food habit that she has. She is such a goofball.

I got to go see Leap Year last night and it was cute. Man for my 20th wedding anniversary (in 15 years) I want to take a trip there. Then I drove home blasting Juanes, Shakira, La Oreja de Van Gogh, Arbol and Reik and sang at the top of my lungs. It was so fun!! Good times, good times.

Randomness

2010-01-13T10:13:00.000-08:00

Ok, well so far January has been nice. We have been cleaning and organizing like crazy! We had a whole bedroom full of so much junk that you couldn't even go in the room. So we cleaned it out and threw away a TON of stuff and re-organized the garage and everything is much more organized. I always put organizing off but it feels so good to have everything clean and in order. Hey, what do you know the scripture about a house of order is true!! And Bryn is so funny because she has recently become OBSESSED with Blue's Clues. She doesn't even want to watch Dora or Backyardigans anymore. She calls it Clue clues and gets so mad if I don't turn it on when she wants it. She is so funny with the phases that she goes through. And I want to post my goals for the year here so that I can be reminded to accomplish them.
1) Re-read the Book of Mormon and really study it, not just read it.
2) Continue with my quote book which I have been neglecting.
3) Deep clean one room in my house every week
4) Lose 10 lbs. I know everyone sets weight loss as a goal but I am really going to do it. I am drinking slim fast for breakfast and dinner and I am walking 3 days a week and doing wii active the other 2. My goal is to lose the 10lbs by about March since that is when we want to start trying for baby #2 again. We will see how it goes. No pictures this time but I will post more later. See ya!

Poetry

2010-01-03T23:17:00.000-08:00

So, I have for some reason felt like reading poetry lately. This is not a habit, I usually can't stand poetry but I had a book from a class in college and I started reading through it again and realized I like some poetry. Here is a funny poem by Alexander Pope:

Where-e'er you find the cooling Western breeze
In the next Line, it whispers thro' the Trees
If Chrystal Streams with pleasing Murmurs creep
The Reader's threatened (not in vain) with sleep

I thought it was cute, funny and true!

And here is one by Shakespeare:

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.

Apparently I only like humorous poetry, but still. I just thought I would share. That is all.

2010!

2010-01-01T20:14:00.001-08:00

Here are some pictures of us and Bryn at about 8pm. Bryn only made it to about 9:30 and then she was in bed. We stayed up playing Guitar Hero 5 until late because it is so addicting. I gave Bryn her first taste of some sparkling cider and she wasn't too fond of it. She only took 1 sip and then didn't want any more.

The New Year's Kiss!

With Daddy!

Funny stuff

2009-12-31T12:00:00.000-08:00

I got this off of someone else's blog and I think every one applies to me! It's too cute.

-I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.

-Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you're going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you're crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.

-I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

-Is it just me, or are 80% of the people in the "people you may know" feature on Facebook people that I do know, but I deliberately choose not to be friends with?

-Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn't work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ's. We just figured it out. Today's kids are soft.

-There is a great need for sarcasm font. (Seriously)

-I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I'll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone's laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I'm still the only one who really, really gets it. (I always have done this and thought I was just weird)

-How the heck are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

-I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

-Was learning cursive really necessary?

- Lol has gone from meaning, "laugh out loud" to "I have nothing else to say".

- Whenever someone says "I'm not book smart, but I'm street smart", all I hear is "I'm not real smart, but I'm imaginary smart".

- How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?

- Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using 'as in' examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss's last name to an attorney and said "Yes that's G as in...(10 second lapse)..ummm...Goonies" (I would say Yep that's P as in..........Pnuemonia)

- While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it...thanks Mario Kart.

- MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

- Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

-Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

-I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

- I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

- "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this ever.

-I hate being the one with the remote in a room full of people watching TV. There's so much pressure. 'I love this show, but will they judge me if I keep it on? I bet everyone is wishing we weren't watching this. It's only a matter of time before they all get up and leave the room. Will we still be friends after this?'

-I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Dang it!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What'd you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?

- I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

-I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it's on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.

-Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

-I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

-Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I’d bet you anything that everyone can find and push the Snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time every time...

Christmas came... and went!

2009-12-29T20:29:00.000-08:00

Well, here are some pictures from Christmas. I finally got around to posting them. These are before I started feeling nasty, even though I still wasn't feeling great. Not fun getting sick on Christmas Day (but getting the stomach flu anytime sucks!). Here we getting our traditional pj's on Christmas Eve.

Here is the tree after Santa came:

Bryn finding some of her toys.

Justin got some new shoes.

Bryn had fun opening her presents this year, although if there were clothes she immediately threw them behind her.

Because he always gets lost!!

Yay, Dora!!

So we were all spoiled. Justin got me a couple video games that I like (Midnight Club and Cruis'n) and some movies. We got 2 new Guitar Hero games, 5 and Smash Hits so that will be fun to play through those. And I can't believe it will be 2010. My 10 year high school reunion will be next year! Man am I old. Anyways Happy New Year, y que 2010 sea mejor para todos!

A whole lotta stuff

2009-12-22T13:56:00.001-08:00

Ok, so here is the pictoral evidence of our trip to Disneyland. A longer version is in the works, so this is just a few pictures and more will be coming. This is us in the car after the long drive to Anaheim, CA.

This is Bryn meeting Mickey. She wasn't sure of him at first and then finally decided he was ok enough to high five.

This is in Minnie's house, Bryn loved to turn the nob and watch the dishes get washed.

This a picture we took by the castle. That is us standing out on the bridge and I thought it was a cool silhouette shot.

Justin and Bryn riding a dolphin at CA adventure. Bryn loved it and had fun there.

This is me going by myself on a ride called Maliboomer. It shoots you from here (ground level) up over a thousand feet really fast and then lets you freefall down and then back up from about halfway. It was sooooooo fun, I couldn't believe that no one else would go on it with me. (I got to sit next to some Spanish hunk though). And this is a cute picture I took of Brynlyn in the bugs life area, she had a blast there and it was the least crowded area so we walked onto all the little rides. It was nice.

And finally this is the hawk that landed in our yard before we left. It was hurt and I called 5 people before someone said they could help it and would come get it. When we got home it was gone and I didn't see a ton of feathers so I am assuming that it either flew off or someone came and got it. It was a Cooper's Hawk, we looked it up online.

Ok, a longer version will be coming, enjoy the preview!

Winterhaven

2009-12-15T08:19:00.000-08:00

Last weekend we went to Winterhaven in Tucson which if you don't know what that is it's a neighborhood where all the houses go all out with lights and then you go and walk around and it is cold but so pretty! Here are a few pictures from this time.

What a goofball!

And here is Bryn looking so excited to be there. She actually loved it. They have these horse-drawn carriage things going around and she kept yelling horsey when they came by and she loved the lights. It was a fun time.

Feeling crafty

2009-12-02T11:18:00.000-08:00

Every Christmas I want to decorate more but I never do. This year I made some things! Yay. I painted the sign on our door and put tons of glitter on it. Glitter makes everything better (but next time I will buy something pre-painted - this took me 2 hours and I had to stand up so that Bryn couldn't get her grubby little fingers on it!). And I made this wreath out of stuff from the dollar store and it cost less than $5. I think it turned out pretty cute for being so dang cheap!
And this is an idea that I saw on Martha Stewart and then I modified it a little. It is an advent calendar, which for those who don't know (like my husband and I had to explain it 5 times before he got it) is a countdown to Christmas. Each number is actually the lid to some paper mache boxes that I got at Hobby Lobby and then glittered. Then I glued some magnets to the backs and stuck them to a magnetic dry erase board. You open a box a day (on Dec 1st you open the "1" box, on the second you open the "2" box and so on). You fill them with little toys, candy, a scripture or something fun. I loved these when I was little. Every day I was so excited to open the next box and find what was in there. So I made my own. This wasn't so cheap of a project but it will last for years. I feel so crafty!

I am then going to glitter the edge of the dry erase board and for the rest of the year it can be a sparkly edition to Bryn's bedroom door.

Thanksgiving 09

2009-11-29T20:40:00.000-08:00

Just some random pictures from Thanksgiving. We had fun and I even got to spend the day with my sister who came up with a friend from Tucson. Bryn had fun playing and throwing oranges like they were balls. Good times. I also cut 3 inches off my hair and I love it. I am just not a fan of long hair. So I am going to keep it short this time because I just hate it once it touches my shoulders. I'll post pictures sometime later. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Naptime

2009-11-22T19:16:00.000-08:00

Bryn has not been napping well and I have finally just given up and she doesn't take a nap anymore. But today we went to go meet some friends to take some pictures and she has a cold. She conked in the car and it was so sweet, her hands were up by her face so I had to snap a picture. We also found the coolest abandoned area for pictures. It has been used for paintball but has a lot of old boxes and just some fun backgrounds. Ask me if you want to know where it is. And in the car on the way home I asked Bryn what color the car next to us was because she knows her colors now and she looked at me and said, "nooo, come on." It was so hilarious!! But we got some really cute family Christmas pictures and I am excited.

2009-11-19T13:20:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone, sorry it has been so long since my last post. Things always just get crazy. Thanksgiving is next week (already!!) and then Christmas not too long after that. I am excited for both. But don't expect any pictures with Bryn on Santa's lap this year because I was at the mall on Monday and Santa is already there. We went up to him because no one else was there and I wanted to see what she would do. She would not go anywhere near him and when I picked her up she was gripping me as hard as she could with both arms and legs. It was hilarious. So we have been telling her that Santa is nice and brings toys and we'll see if that helps at all the next time we see him. And this picture is of Bryn wearing my mom's fuzzy pink slippers this last weekend. She is already such a girly girl!! Love it!

Halloween

2009-11-01T21:15:00.000-08:00

This year Halloween was so fun because Bryn actually understood a little better what was going on. I got her a Rennaissance princessy dress and it looked so cute! Here is one of the first pictures I took. She is saying "cheese".
This is her smiling, but it is a little blurry.

And then later that night (Friday) we went to our ward trunk or treat and had fun. This is Bryn sitting in the trunk. She fit perfectly and her head doesn't even hit the roof. She sat in there and ate her sucker until Justin was able to get there after work and take her around to all the trunks.

Then on Saturday we finally carved our pumpkin. Bryn took one look at the pumpkin and inside and wanted nothing to do with it but we finally convinced her to stick her arm in and then she had fun.

This is our finished pumpkin. Justin broke one of the teeth while carving and so we had a hillbilly pumpkin with a broken fang.

We didn't have many trick or treaters this year and the ones who did come were older kids. But we still sat outside and gave them candy anyways. Bryn went to some houses with Grandma and Grandpa Pollard and had fun. She got lots of candy for mom to eat! She would go up to the houses and say "knock knock" as she knocked and she wouldn't go up to a few houses because they were too "scary". It was a fun holiday!

Fun weekend

2009-10-28T09:23:00.000-07:00

Well this weekend we took a fun trip to St. David for my mom's birthday. It was pretty fun. We went to a small petting zoo on Saturday and Bryn got to feed some goats. She was a little wary, but she did good.

She was feeding them really well and then the goat in the picture nibbled on her hand right after I took this picture and she cried. Then we got some more food and she tried again. Brave girl!
Then on Sunday after church it was time for Mom to open her presents. Bryn helped a lot. She got some fun stuff including a scentsy warmer and some scents, 2 pairs of pretty earrings, a memory book with messages from lots of friends and family, and a cricut expression and a cartridge. She will be busy learning how to use it for a while. Good times. Then we ate some cake.

And this last picture is of Bryn being a princess. She wore that crown for a long time and it was really cute!! She was so excited when she figured out how to turn the light on in the wand.

It was a fun, and cold, trip. Then on Monday we went to the Az Science Museum because it was free. We had fun. Bryn was a little young to really enjoy most of it. We also tried to have her lay on the bed of nails. You lay down and then push a button and the nails come up and as soon as she felt the nails come up she freaked out and sat up so I had to take her off. So I didn't get a picture or anything. It probably felt weird. And I have to say I am enjoying our weather. The high today is 63 or so. That probably isn't that cold to a lot of people but that is a high that we usually see in December not October. I had to buy Bryn some 24 month pants and long sleeved shirts because all 18 month clothes are too short in the arm and leg for her and I didn't have anything that she could wear today. Crazy long baby.

Not so great news, but it's fall!

2009-10-21T13:36:00.000-07:00

Well, just so everyone knows I was hoping that I would have an ultrasound picture of baby #2 to post, but it looks like that is not going to happen for now. While we are very sad that this pregnancy is not going to work out we are very grateful for our daughter that we do have and the Gospel in our lives. Other than that we are doing well and I love this time of year. I decided that fall is my favorite holiday. It has great weather like spring but there are some super fun holidays coming up - Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas which are some of my favorites. Justin's birthday was yesterday and he got Transformers 2 and a massage cushion for his back, which he used the whole 2 and a half hours of Transformers that we had to watch last night. Crazy boy.

Lazy Days

2009-10-13T10:06:00.001-07:00

So I have been horrible at posting lately, but not much has been happening. We are enjoying the cooler days of fall and have had doors and windows open. I love this time of the year. Halloween is such a fun holiday and Bryn is finally old enough to dress up and at least pretend to understand trick-or-treating. This picture is Bryn with Daddy's name tag on, she loves to put it on every night as soon as Justin gets home. And this other picture is of when Bryn has to sit with me up by the computer and color and be really annoying. She is silly.

September is gone

2009-09-30T21:07:00.000-07:00

Ok, sorry that I have been horrible about blogging lately. But here are a few pictures and an update. We are good. We have been busy with work and play and Bryn has learned most of her letters, numbers and colors. She says 'two' for both 1 and 2 and no matter how many times we tell her that 1 is 'one' she won't say it. Silly girl. So anyways we went to the zoo again because it was the last free day and man was it an adventure again. This time it was packed from the second we got there and there was no water due to a water main break so we ended up leaving pretty quickly but we did have fun. We saw the prairie dogs eating and a coyote and 2 sleeping mountain lions. It was interesting. Then we went to San Tan Village and the kids played in the water but it was just barely cold for them once they were wet so we left after we finished eating (Taco Bell - yum). And that has been my last few weeks. I also got to teach Beehives on Sunday and it was funny. They are sweet girls but the lesson was on the benefits of group dating. Yea, important but really early. They got the point though. And Ihave had a cold and my cough is finally going away so I am really glad about that too. Also here is a picture of Bryn on Sunday in Daddy's tie. She had so much fun wearing that thing and I thought the picture was cute. She is so funny.

Trip to the Zoo

2009-09-16T21:12:00.000-07:00

Today we went to the Phoenix Zoo and we had fun. It was hot, the zoo was under construction and half of the animals were not in their cages because of the construction and it was crowded. On the other hand it was free and got us out of the house.This is really the only really good picture that I got of Bryn and it didn't have any animals in it but she would NOT cooperate.

Here is the group. Bryn, and second cousins Makinzie and Trenton.

The giraffes. Poor thing is just standing in the shade trying to stay cool.

Bryn and the fake lion.

We get home and I was hanging up my purse and organizing some stuff and I look over and this is what she was doing. Apparently we wore her out.

After the zoo we went to the Dillard's in Fiesta Mall which is closing and so all their stock is on major clearance. I got 3 dresses that are the cute long (really long - I will have to hem all 3 about 5 inches or I will be tripping all over myself) style dress. The price for all 3 had I paid retail was about $180 and I paid $37. I was so excited! But we had to go through a lot of dresses to find the ones we liked, while trying to not lose hyper kids and then we had to stuff all 5 of us into 1 dressing room because there was a line. Today was an adventure!

Sunday Fun

2009-09-14T23:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we had fun going to a baptism and hanging with some friends. I snapped a few pictures that I thought were funny. Here is Bryn being a cheeseball. I told her to smile and this is the face I got.
And my friend Jamie and I looked up from talking and saw our men all gathered around 2 Nintendo DS's. Men and electronics. It's a curse. I mean I like them too, but, geez I am not this obsessed. Funny men!

A Change (a change)'ll Do You Good

2009-09-12T13:25:00.001-07:00

Ok, well we are back from Tucson where we got to hang with my sister and mom. For those who don't know my sister Bethany does hair, so I had her put some blonde and red streaks in mine. Well the red turned out sooooo bright. Call me crazy but I kind of like it! It is fun to put some color in my drab brown hair, but it is rather attention-catching. Good thing that I have done this before and it fades pretty quickly.

Bryn drove me crazy though! We stayed at Beth's apartment which is close to U of A campus and so there was noises all night, the apartment is not baby-proof and to top it all off Bryn decided that she would be wide awake from 1 to 3:30 am. It was not the best night I have had. So now we are home and yay! Bryn also got her hair trimmed to even it all out and according to my mom to help it grow in thicker. Who knows if that will happen but she needed a little trim. So now her hair is shorter again :(. This is last week when she climbed into the cupboard and then got stuck. She likes to go in there and say 'dark' over and over again.

27 years and 18 months

2009-09-04T12:00:00.000-07:00

Well for my birthday and Bryn's 1/2 birthday I took some pictures. I figured it was about time to torture Brynlyn in a dress and make her take some cute pictures. It was hot, but she did pretty good.

This was fun. I set the camera on timer and took a few. We had to run to get there but after the first few Bryn got the game and starting thinking it was funny.

18 months old.

And snuggling on a blanket, I just thought this one looked cute.

Art

2009-08-31T15:11:00.000-07:00

Bryn has discovered the joy of coloring and last Sunday I let her color for a while and when I looked over this is what the wall looked like. It came off really easily but still. What a punk.

This is how she watches Backyardigans now.

And finally I thought she was so cute in her little brown church dress with shoes that I got on clearance forever ago but they just finally fit her. You can't really see in the picture but she has white bows in her hair and she left them in all through church. She is also going to nursery and loves it. Next week Justin won't have to stay with her, she is 18 months on Friday! They get so big so fast.

Bad hair day

2009-08-20T16:18:00.000-07:00

This is for all those of you who don't live close and get to see Bryn very often. She is learning lots of new words and this is one of her favorites. Enjoy. And for all you grandparents out there remember to go to the music player at the bottom of this blog and hit pause before you play the video.

This morning we went swimming and then Bryn had her nap. Well she woke with her hair sticking up all over the place and looks pretty silly so I took a picture of it so when she is 18 I can show it to all her dates. Mwahahahaha.

And lastly here is the picture I took of our girls night last Friday when we made chocolate chip cookies and watched Twilight. Bryn could not wait for the cookies to come out of the oven.
And tomorrow we get to have another girls night! Yay for Redbox and free movie codes. I think I am going to rent Ghost town. Bye!

If you want to be happy, be. ~Leo Tolstoy

2009-08-12T21:48:00.000-07:00

I thought the quote in the post subject was cute. Anyways we are good. Here are just a few random pictures of Bryn. One of her recent developments is that she would brush her teeth for 20 minutes if I would let her keep the toothbrush but hates it when I try to do it. Miss Independent.
She has also developed an obsession with bugs. If she sees one she yells "bug" at the top of her lungs until you kill it and throw it away. She is always finding dead bugs and then I have to pick it up or she will yell at it forever. It is cute though because she can say 'bug' very clearly and usually adds a yucky (complete with spitting and making the yuck sound) in front of it. Tonight she saw me kill a cockroach and when I went to get some toilet paper to throw it away she got my shoe and whacked it about 20 more times.

And finally I have already posted her obsession with nail polish but it was cute last night because she imitated me taking off my nail polish and using the clippers. She is such a good imitator now. Ignore my messy house.

Fun in the Shade

2009-08-06T22:33:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday me and Bryn and some friends went to the water area in San Tan Village and the kids all played in the water. They had so much fun. Bryn loved it because it was like having a big hose to play in. There were lots of kids there and I could see why because all of us parents were dying in the heat even in the shade. Man has it been so hot here. These are just some pictures of Bryn playing in the water. She is so silly.

And finally she played at the park and went down the bug slide like a hundred times. She was pretty good about holding my hand or going down backwards on her tummy like this. She sure had fun though.

We're Baaaaaack!

2009-08-02T21:23:00.001-07:00

So we are back from our exciting RV adventure. We went and saw all of Bryn's Great Granparents on my Dad's side and that was fun. It was so nice in Monticello and we got to see a cool 24th of July parade and we got a ton of candy. Then that night we got to see a cool fireworks show which surprisingly enough didn't phase Bryn at all. She was a little afraid the first few (we were sitting about 800 ft or so from where the were shooting them off from) but then she didn't react at all even with the really loud ones. She was more interested in playing with the glow sticks that we had. We also got rained on at least 4 or 5 times and all night we could hear it on the roof of the RV. It was a nice change. From there we went to Lake McPhee in Colorado and Bryn played in some pretty icy water and had fun until she slipped in and scraped up both knees. She freaked out because the water was so cold too. It was still kinda funny.

This is a stick she found and decided to play with for a while. She was having a blast.

This is in Mesa Verde in Colorado and it was pretty neat. We hiked down to this ruin called the Spruce Tree House. They date from 1200-1300ad. We were allowed to get pretty close to this one so that is cool. The hike kind of sucked though (man am I a wuss).

On Tuesday we spent the day in Farmington NM and we found this tiny little children's science museum. They had some fun stuff for little kids though including a whole section filled with soft toys and slides etc for kids under 5 that Bryn LOVED (in the background of this picture). She could run and climb and not get hurt and she played for an hour and a half and we still had to drag her out of there. One of the exhibits had a wind blower and she thought it was cool.

And here we are at the 4 corners on Wednesday. We walked round and bought some Indian jewelry for way too much money and then ate some hot fry bread. Yum.

And we also went to Canyon de Chelly on Wednesday and camped there. It was nice and rained a lot, but we froze that night. Here we are at one of the overlooks.

And this is the whole group of us at the painted desert/petrified forest on Thursday. It wasn't that cool, but it was nice to see it once.

And on Friday we were in Flagstaff and went to the Riordan mansion. We just walked around and took pictures since I had already been there and taking a 17 month old into a house full of untouchable antiques did not sound fun at all. This is us by an old wheel.
Bryn
And us on a rock. She wouldn't look at the camera though.
We really enjoyed the nice weather and all the rain that we got. On the down side we all had to sleep in the same room basically with Bryn and so we couldn't move and once she was asleep no one could use the bathroom. It was crazy. And by Thursday we were all sick of each other and we were constantly singing the Backyardigans episodes that we watched over and over so Bryn would stop yelling at being stuck in her car seat. Those dang songs are so catchy. It was fun but I don't know that I will be doing it again with a toddler anytime soon.

Toes

2009-07-21T23:50:00.001-07:00

Bryn and I painted our toes and so I took a picture. It is hard to see Bryn's toes but they are sparkly, she was so good and didn't squirm while we waited for them to dry. She can play in my nail polish bag for a 1/2 hour without getting bored. Good times, good times. And we are leaving for a trip to Utah, southern Colorado and southern AZ on Friday. Yay! So it will be a while until I get back, get organized and post again.

2009-07-13T23:36:00.000-07:00

This is a new chair that I got at Wal-Mart today so that Bryn could have her own chair and stop tipping over the one that we had in the living room. As soon as I put it out she climbed in it and if I sit in it she gets so mad and tries to pull me out. What a silly girl.And this is her being silly while I snapped a few pictures. She sure is fun.

Hair

2009-07-10T10:17:00.000-07:00

I finally got some pigtails into Bryn's hair! I am so excited that she finally has hair long enough to do something with. She hasn't let me put a headband on her for 4 months and so she always just has funny hair, but now I can do few more things with it. Yay!

Personality

2009-06-25T16:57:00.000-07:00

I love how as Bryn gets older more and more of her uniqueness comes out. I swear she makes me laugh all day long. What a weirdo. Here she is this morning when she crawled into her toy container and threw all the toys out. This is also a good picture because this is how she drinks and plays with her hair at the same time. She HAS to play with her hair while she drinks and she has done this since she has had hair long enough to. Her dad did the same thing as a baby so apparently this is a hereditary thing.

My monkey. This is why we have childproofed our movie cabinets now.

This is how I found her on Sunday after church when I turned my back for 2 seconds. We have now purchased a baby size table and chairs from Ikea (the best place on earth) to stop this from happening.

And this is her helping me drag the garbage out today. She had so much fun dragging that thing. What a nut!

Summer Fun

2009-06-16T16:10:00.000-07:00

My techno savvy girl turned the computer off 2 times. She really used the mouse and keyboard like she has seen me do it a lot. Oh wait, she has! It was fun and she loved sitting at the kid sized desk and playing with the stuff with Mom not yelling at her. Here are some pictures of Bryn making huge messes while she eats. I go through a lot of wet wipes in this house.

And we got to go to Reid Park Zoo with Grandma and Aunt Bethany and it was fun. It is a lot smaller than the Phoenix Zoo and that was so nice because we got to see everything in a few hours, not days. They had some cool animals and a fun little water area for kids to play in. While Bryn was playing in there we all went in and sat down to wait because there weren't any other kids in there. Well then 2 little girls came and as I was standing up taking a picture of Bryn I heard their Mom say to me, "You're going to get wet" a split second before some water hit me right in the face. I ran out and laughed. The lady said she was sorry and I just wiped off my glasses and made sure my camera still worked (it did). That'll teach me to stand in the water area and not pay attention! Bryn loved it and she is my water baby. We went to an indoor wave pool in Sierra Vista on Saturday and there was a ramp in the pool and she would walk down it until it was about nose level and then we would pull her back. She will put her head underwater and hold her breath too. It is fun but sometimes the fact that she has no fear of the water makes me nervous. Well at least I know what to do with her when she gets bored this summer. And finally we gave her a giant cheeto to eat and she thouroughly enjoyed it after she played in the hose on Grandma's back porch for an hour. She wore her diaper until it got too soggy then just ran around in her birthday suit and enjoyed the heck out of that.

June already?

2009-06-04T15:16:00.000-07:00

Well we have had a pretty good few weeks here. This is the stuff I got this week at Bath and Body Works. They were having a sale and I stocked up all my favorite scents. And Bryn has a nasty cold. Why she has to get sick in June I don't know, but a lot of people have been getting sick too. Yuck. I highly recommend Zicam. It has worked for me twice so far.

So here is Bryn in the bath last night. Look closely and you can see that not all the bubbles in the tub were from the bubble bath. Yea, it was so gross! She has had some huge snot bubbles the last few days.

And finally I am obsessed with So You Think You Can Dance. I hate all reality shows except this one and I even vote on this show, which I have never done before. It is so fun. Bryn loves it too. Last year when she was about 4 months old and it came on she would watch all the dancing. She still does it this year, as soon as she hears the music come on for the dancers she turns and watches it and dances too. I think as soon as she is old enough I am going to have to get her into a dance class. Fun fun.

My little animal

2009-05-23T11:25:00.000-07:00

Bryn has started being able to make some animal sounds so I recorded her doing it. We also have a new computer that has Windows Vista on it and I really like it. I finally figured out how to convert files from our sony camera into a file that will work on youtube, so I posted this and linked to it here. I hope everyone enjoys it!

Gross!!

2009-05-16T09:27:00.001-07:00

Well, this morning as I was on the phone with Justin I wasn't paying strict attention to Bryn. I could hear her playing and figured, hey she's OK. Then I remembered that the laundry room door was open and I had just fed the cat her wet food. So of course I ran over and what did I find? Bryn with cat food smeared all over her face and hands. This is the best picture she let me take, but she probably got a good mouthful before I found her. Sick!!! Why do kids eat animal food? It sure smells grody to me. Oh well, it's not toxic, just disgusting.

Quirky

2009-05-11T22:55:00.000-07:00

So I had to document the fact that Justin actually got me flowers! He rarely does this so here is the proof. They are so pretty and they won't die because they are in the planter. Yay!
And here are a few pics of Bryn's little quirks that she has. First she climbed into an old shoe box she has been playing with lately and thought it was so funny. She sat in there for 20 minutes.

And next she has this obsession with wanting us to put things over her face so she can't see and then she tries to walk and bumps into things. She will drag a blanket over and yell until you throw it over her head. And then it will fall off and she will yell until you do it again. I have finally resorted to hiding all blankets or anything that can be used in this way. She is SOOOO weird sometimes. But this is a mesh laundry bag that she found somewhere and we put it on her so she was entirely inside it and she loved it. Man are kids so dang unique or what. I guess I know what she will be for Halloween this year: a ghost!

Same old, same old

2009-05-04T11:03:00.000-07:00

Well we didn't have a very eventful week, but here are a few highlights. Justin got better and Bryn and I stayed healthy! Yay! I saw Ghosts of Girlfriends Past and it was pretty cute and funny. Bryn decided that she likes Mtn. Dew, or at least the can but I thought it was funny cause I love that stuff. And Bella decided that she should sit in our desk. What a weird cat. Other than that we enjoyed our time together as a family and I read some more books by Patricia Briggs. Good stuff. Also I don't know if anybody else watched Dollhouse, but if you don't you need to. If you do, wasn't Friday's show AWESOME! Sorry, it turns out that anything that Joss Wheedon does, I love and Dollhouse is my new favorite show. If Fox cancels it I am going to boycott them, Fringe or no Fringe. And Bryn is 14 months old today. I can tell that the next time I blink I will be 60 surrounded by grand kids the way time has been flying lately. And I better go because I can tell from the ripping sounds behind me that another of my old magazines has been sent to wherever it is that old magazines go after they are destroyed.

Busy week

2009-04-28T09:42:00.001-07:00

Well my sister-in-law Steph is officially married. It was a beautiful ceremony and now she is a married woman! Here are a few pics my dad took at the temple of our family. Of course Bryn didn't smile at all. And in other news Justin was totally sick since last Wednesday and that has been miserable for him. Also I got to see my sister Bethany and she put highlights in my hair again! It is so nice to not have plain old brown hair anymore. Enjoy the pics!

This picture I edited to look like an oil painting.

At the reception hall.

Fun with photoshop

2009-04-19T15:00:00.000-07:00

So I downloaded a free photoshop program called paint.net and I was playing around with it. Justin bought a new tree for the backyard yesterday and it has these pretty orange flowers on it so we took some pics of Bryn with one behind her ear. She wouldn't look at me or smile so here are the best ones we got.

Pencil sketch

These 2 have been modified to look like an oil painting. I thought it looked pretty cool but you can hardly tell the difference.

Happy Easter

2009-04-12T21:59:00.000-07:00

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

I love having a holiday that helps me really think about the Atonement and how powerful it is (or should be) in my life. I really love my Savior and I KNOW that He lives!! I hope that everyone had a great day!

13 months

2009-04-07T10:02:00.000-07:00

Bryn is now 13 months old. Here are some of the things she can do at this age:

-she can sign 'more' and 'all done' and shake her head no.

- she can say 4 words consistently, da-da, ma-ma, tickle-tickle and yea.

- she can point to her nose, eyes, ears, hair, tongue, tummy, bellybutton, and toes.

-she can clap, wave her arms, splash, kick her legs, blow/give kisses, and tickle (usually herself) on command.

-she loves music and will dance whenever she hears it

-she eats everything that I give her as long as she can self-feed. Anything that I have to feed her she will spit out.

-she loves to point to herself if you say "where's the baby?"

- she likes to watch Elmo's world, Your Baby can read videos and Baby Einsteins.

- she has become a mamas girlie and I have to sit on the floor so she can climb into my lap whenever she wants. And if I sit on the couch she cries until I pick her up and then she tries to climb onto the back of the couch.

- she likes to pull all the books off of 1 specific shelf in our office and no matter what I block it with she still gets back there and yanks all the books off over and over. I have given up on picking them up- I only do it about once every few weeks now.

- she has decided that when I am at the store she can walk for herself and so I have to hold her hand and basically drag her everywhere since where she wants to go is usually not where I need to go. And I have to push the cart one handed.

- she drinks a ton!! Can we say camel? She drinks 18 oz of milk and 30 oz of watered down juice a day. Her dad drinks a ton too - must be one of those hereditary things.

-she sleeps all night and never wakes up but has decided that naps are much better when Mom is holding her. She will go to sleep in her crib just fine then wake up crying after 45 min and the second I pick her up she just snuggles in and goes back to sleep. Bad habit!

- she moos when she sees her cow toys or a picture of a cow.

- she can both click pens and take lids off and if she finds one we accidentally leave where she can get it she writes on herself.

- she is obsessed with water bottles and she will carry empty ones around for fun.
- she will let any girl pick her up but she won't let any guy (except Dad and Grandpas) pick her up. If they do, she screams.

-and finally she loves to give kisses and she will give mom a kiss, then dad, then mom and keep going until she gets distracted by something else.

I sure love her, even when my butt hurts from sitting on the floor all day and I got no work done because she made me hold her during her nap!

Unique

2009-03-31T23:31:00.001-07:00

So Bryn had a funny day last Friday. She wore her floaties for the pool all day at home. It was so funny looking but she refused to take them off. Then she decided that she wanted her stuffed kitty and koala to be on her shoulders and I had to put them back on every time they fell off for at least 20 minutes. Where do these kids come up with these weird things!?!

Crazy! And in other news Justin and I had our first dinner and a movie 'date' since Bryn was born. Man I forgot what that was like to just go out and not be worried the whole time about diapers, sippy cups, etc. What a nice treat!

Some fun pictures

2009-03-27T15:22:00.000-07:00

Picking flowers.

With Justin as her dad I think this type of picture is inevitable. But cute too.

1st Sunburn

2009-03-22T15:11:00.000-07:00

So there are a few new things to post. With the nice weather Bryn and I have been swimming and then my parents came and visited us and so we went swimming for an hour and a half yesterday. Well, we got burned. I put sunscreen on Bryn but not on me because I thought, I am so pasty I need the sun. Well we roasted. Here are some pics. It is rather painful for me but Bryn hasn't acted like hers hurts at all so that is good.

And here I am after I made Justin rub aloe vera all over it. He thought it was so funny he had to take a picture.

And I also wanted to let everyone know that I found a website that can make sunglasses with your prescription for about 40 bucks. Just go to eyebuydirect.com and to make it even cheaper do a search for coupon codes. They aren't the best quality but for sunglasses I don't really care as long as I can use them while driving or taking walks in the afternoon. And these ones are pretty cute I think! And I look really pasty here so apparently the burn did nothing for making me any tanner.Finally I had to post this picture on here. Justin's sister Steph is engaged and I helped out taking some engagement pics and thought this one turned out cool. I am pretty sure they won't use this one for their invites so I wanted to post it. I love silhouette pics. And we ended up hiking about a mile up San Tan Mountain to get the background we wanted and we saw a rattlesnake! We thought it was dead because it was just laying there sunning itself and not moving at all. And we walked right by it without noticing it. Then on the way back it was gone so it must have been alive! It was pretty freaky.

I love spring

2009-03-19T14:28:00.000-07:00

I am so glad that it is finally warming up! I wish it would stay like this all year long dang it! Well the last week or so has been kinda crazy. At least we are all well! So anyways Justin got a speeding ticket - I've been telling him it was going to happen for a while now and it finally did. So now he has traffic school even though he really wants to fight it, but I made it clear that we are not going to risk our insurance going up just for his pride. And I have been working out like crazy in this nicer weather. This is a picture of Bryn trying to water our plant. I did it first and she watched and then I was doing something else and looked over and she had grabbed the hose and was standing like this. It was cute. Happy first day of spring tomorrow!

Troublemaker

2009-03-10T15:41:00.000-07:00

Well we went to the doctor today and here are Bryn's stats at 12 months:

Weight: 20.6 lbs Percentile:44th

Height: 30.5 in Percentile: 90th

She is healthy and happy, but she did have to get 3 shots and 2 were in her arms this time. Not fun at all. But she only cried a little bit. Right now she is conked out in her carseat in the garage since I was afraid she would wake up if I moved her. Here she is playing with our Guitar Hero guitar. She won't leave those things alone!

And in other news I took my eyes off of her for 2 seconds on Sunday night and she got ahold of my only pair of prescription sunglasses and broke both sides completely off. They are dead and I am going to have to replace them completely. The little mischief maker! I did pay for coverage so I only have to pay a small amount to get a brand new pair but still what a pain in my neck!

1 year old

2009-03-04T20:32:00.000-08:00

Here she is in all her 1 year old glory. Happy Birthday Bryn!! Last year on this day I was so glad to meet the little girlie that kicked me and squirmed around for 9 long uncomfortable months! And now she is my big walking and getting into mischief girlie! Good times, good times.

Brynlyn's Birthday Party

2009-02-28T20:52:00.000-08:00

Bryn isn't officially 1 until Wednesday, but we had her party earlier today. It was so fun and thanks to all the family and friends who came! Here are some picture highlights. Bryn loved being the center of attention and she sure loved her b-day cupcake! First here we are and these are my new frames.

Sagging!

Steph and her new fiancé (and no it isn't spelled wrong - that is how you spell it correctly when the person to whom you are referring is male) Kyle. How exciting! And can you see Bryn's first small pony? I was so happy that I could even get that much hair!

New toys!!

And the cupcake eating:

It was so fun!! The next year is probably going to fly by too, but I sure love my Brynlyn!

I really hate winter

2009-02-22T20:48:00.000-08:00

Well, as a family we have spent most of the month of February sick! Bryn and I have new infections of some sort in the sinus/eye regions and Justin has been sick to his stomach all day. I cannot wait for winter and the germ season to end! And we have been really working to get the house ready for Bryn's party on Saturday and it is not fun trying to do everything when you just feel like curling up on the couch and reading or something. But, I finally finished Bryn's surf clock for her room. Here it is:

Not bad huh? And I took some more pics of Bryn just for fun. Here are a few of my faves:

Fun fun. And I got new glasses so I was really excited. I will post a picture soon, once I take one. See ya!

Happy V-Day late!

2009-02-15T21:07:00.000-08:00

I hope that everyone had a good Valentine's Day! We had fun with our family, here is a self portrait we took. Doesn't Brynlyn look just ecstatic to have that camera in front of her face again? We went out to eat at Sonic and we typically like that place but yesterday it was gross! It was almost not even edible. So romantic huh.? Well my only other news besides the fact that I am mostly well is that I found a new series of books that are awesome. I am sharing on here because I know a lot of people who read my blog liked Twilight. These books I actually like a little bit better than the Twilight series. (I know, I know that is borderline blasphemous, but still.) They are called the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs. There are 4 out so far. The first one is Moon Called, then Blood Bound, then Iron Kissed, and finally Bone Crossed. They are some of the best books I've read in a while. They have werewolves and vampires and other magic in them and I really love books like that. The reason that I like these ones better than the Twilight books is that Bella always kind of annoyed me, and the main character in these books, Mercy, is much more relatable and I just like her better. Also, I was never a huge fan of either Jacob OR Edward, neither was my "type". And the guys in this series are yummy. Anyways when you have a few spare dollars and time READ THESE BOOKS!!! They have minimal cussing (the d word and only a few times) no immoral stuff and I read all 4 books in 2 days because I couldn't put them down. Just some friendly advice if you wanted a good read. See ya!

The Shortest Ending

2009-02-11T16:46:00.000-08:00

Well this week has gone by fast mainly because I was sick all week. I got Bryn's cold and I had it bad. Justin had to come home from work early yesterday to help with Bryn cause I was so exhausted. But today I woke up feeling a little better. At least well enough to move and not just lay around. So anyways, I just did this on Facebook and thought it was so funny so I decided to do it again on here. You should do it too, it is really weird the songs that come up!

1. Put your music library on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!
4. Tag at least 10 friends who might enjoy doing this as well as the person you got this from.

IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY", YOU SAY?
Somewhere Over the Rainbow - Aselin Debison

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
Sunrise - Norah Jones

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
Empires - 10 years

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
Hands Held High - Linkin Park

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
Life Ain't Always Beautiful - Gary Allan

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
So Cold - Crossfade

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
The Day That I Die - Good Charlotte

WHAT IS 2+2?
Get It Faster - Jimmy Eat World

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Tu Corazon - Alejandro Sanz

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Top of the World - The All American Rejects

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
I wish I was a baller - Too short

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Eclipsed - Evans Blue

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Say It Ain't So - Weezer

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Back Home - Yellowcard

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
The Promise and the Threat - Evans Blue

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Slave - TRUSTcompany

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
La Camisa negra - Juanes

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
Blood on the Ground - Incubus

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
Hurricane - Something Corporate

WHAT'S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
Lessons Learned - Carrie Underwood

HOW WILL YOU DIE?
Listen to your Heart - DHT

WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
Rock The Party - POD

WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
Vaseline - STP

WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?
Praise - Sevendust

DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
Are You With Me? - Vaux

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
Life of a Salesman - Yellowcard

WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
Now or Never - Three Days Grace

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
The Shortest Ending - Nonpoint

11 months

2009-02-05T11:45:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone! My baby turned 11 months yesterday! She is such a good sport with taking

pictures even when she still has a cold.

She sure makes me happy and is learning new things every day. Right now she is learning how to shake her bum when she dances instead of just headbanging and it is SO cute. She also loves to walk all over the place and she is discovering that banging things together makes a lot of noise and she likes that. She also likes to sit next to you on the couch, she thinks she is such a big girl. Fun fun. And in a few short weeks I will have a 1 year old. Cool! Well I just have to mention that I watched Bridge to Terabithia this morning and I cried my eyes out. Good movie, but extremely sad! Well anyways the next picture on here I took on Tuesday when Bryn still was feeling pretty bad. Poor baby, she looks so pathetic.

Growing up so fast!

2009-01-26T11:47:00.000-08:00

So Bryn found one of my old bras on Saturday and thought it was so fun to play with. I thought it was hilarious!! Se here is a picture of Bryn and my bra. Hopefully she doesn't grow up that fast!! Anyways things in the Pollard house are good. We had a good Saturday and the missionaries came over for dinner. They are fun, usually we have weird ones but right now they are pretty normal. And other than that we have had a good week. It is nice to have a semi-cold day today though too. I do not want summer coming that soon already!! And right now Bryn is refusing to take her nap! She is already trying to transition from 2 naps to 1 and I am resisting, but I think that resistance is futile. And this second picture is Bryn's favorite expression right now which I call the scrunchy face:

2009-01-19T11:51:00.000-08:00

This weekend we got to go see The Lion King at Gammage. Justin's sister Steph gave us tickets for Christmas and we all went. It was really fun and man the sets and costumes were really cool. I had a lot of fun, but they wouldn't let us take pictures so I don't have any to post. And here I took another cute picture that I had to post.

And she apparently did not like the tulip that I gave her and I have about 5 pictures with this face:

Misc. Stuff

2009-01-12T08:32:00.001-08:00

This weekend I was able to finish a bunch of projects around the house and put some quotes on boards finally. This one turned out pretty cool. I had these pictures from an old calendar that I cut up and I think it turned out cool.

And here is Brynlyn after she stuck her face in her bath bubbles trying to eat them. She does this every night. Crazy girlie!

Brynlyn's 10 month pictures

2009-01-09T12:47:00.000-08:00

...which she did not want to pose for. She is walking so good now, she rarely has to hold on to anything. She is my healthy happy active baby!

And lastly here she is laughing at Dad after her nightly bath. She is so funny and look at her silly top tooth. The other top tooth still hasn't come in so she just has that 1.

Later!

Cami's wedding

2009-01-03T10:07:00.001-08:00

Yesterday my step-sister Camille got married! How exciting. She was really pretty and it was a beautiful sealing ceremony. Here is a picture I took of them. Cute huh?

And since all of the Jones/Hansen family was there we took some family pictures. Here is the one that turned out the best on my camera. We are in birth order from right to left. It sure was fun seeing everyone and being able to be in the Temple together again.And here are a few more fun pics. Oh and Bryn can take about 10 steps by herself now before she falls. I can't believe my baby is pretty much walking!!
These next two are Bryn with her Great Grandma and Grandpa Jones.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T10:02:00.000-08:00

Well we had a nice relaxing evening last night. Holly came over and brought her new Cricut and we made some vinyl stuff to practice and talked and it was fun. Justin played Gran Turismo for 2 hours. Then we talked some more and watched the ball drop and then went to bed. It was fun. Here are some pics of Bryn. This is her new table that she loves.

This is her hair do that she gave herself with her sticky hands at lunch yesterday.

Have a great 2009 everybody!

Christmas and Snow

2008-12-29T19:13:00.000-08:00

I finally have 2 seconds to sit and post again! I love the Holidays but man talk about being busy! So here are some pics of Bryn on Christmas morning. She had way more fun ripping the bows off of all the presents so we opened hers for her. Here she is holding one of the movies we got her, I think Prince Caspian. She also got Kung Fu Panda and Wall-E.And here she is looking at the cool blocks I got her that now I think I want to wait until she is older to actually let her play with. Right now she doesn't appreciate them but they are sooo cute!

And the big news is that it snowed all day on the 26th in St. David!!! It was so weird to see snow again and man was it cold, but it was really pretty. Here are a few pictures of the scenery.

And finally we were so spoiled this year. We got Guitar Hero 3 and a bunch of blu-ray movies (including The Dark Knight - our fave) and I got Justin a digital picture frame and he got me a Dyson and a really cool clock! And that sounds funny on here like he got me what?!? but I really wanted the clock and the Dyson so he did really good! He also got me Heroes seasons 1 & 2 on HD and Blu-ray. He hid the Dyson at his parents house and didn't give it to me until last night and I had no idea he had done that! It is pink and I am so excited because with Bryn eating everything she can find on the floor this will be nice. Bryn was the most spoiled of all and now I can't even find room for all her cool new toys and stuff that she got, including a stuffed Stitch (from Lilo and Stitch) that is bigger than she is!. Spoiled baby! Well now on to 2009, can you believe it? See you in the new year!

Christmas newsletter

2008-12-17T17:00:00.000-08:00

Here is our 2008 year in review! This is our Christmas newsletter this year so enjoy! We love you all!

Santa Clause

2008-12-14T12:43:00.000-08:00

Our ward had a Christmas activity where Santa read a story and then the kids got to take pictures. Well the first one came out ok, and Brynlyn seemed to be doing fine.

Then out came the quivering lip and she decided that Santa did not come in peace or something and she really started crying. It was funny cause I didn't know if she would freak or not, but she has a fear of men and, apparently, Santa Clause as well. But I got a few pics out of it. It was really cute.

Anyways, that is our holiday update for the week.

2008-12-12T16:25:00.000-08:00

Test to see if I am left or right brained. Kind of a weird test but interesting. Enjoy and you should do the test and post it too!

You Are 40% Left Brained, 60% Right Brained

The left side of your brain controls verbal ability, attention to detail, and reasoning.

Left brained people are good at communication and persuading others.

If you're left brained, you are likely good at math and logic.

Your left brain prefers dogs, reading, and quiet.

The right side of your brain is all about creativity and flexibility.

Daring and intuitive, right brained people see the world in their unique way.

If you're right brained, you likely have a talent for creative writing and art.

Your right brain prefers day dreaming, philosophy, and sports.

Are You Right or Left Brained?

What Bryn was doing...

2008-12-10T16:22:00.000-08:00

...while I just posted about her. What a little stinker. She threw all my books on the floor. Kids are so funny.

Bryn update

2008-12-10T15:45:00.000-08:00

Well we went to the Dr on Monday and Bryn now weighs 20 lbs. 3 oz. That actually puts her in the 73rd percentile (she was in the 90th last time) so that is good. She is 28.25 inches long and she wears 12 mo. clothes with no problem now. Crazy huh. And she is starting to stand on her own without holding on to anything. She does try to take steps but she just falls, however, I know that walking is only a week or two away. And, finally, her first top tooth just popped through today! It is her right front tooth and that thing has been trying to come through for 2 months so yay!!

Elliptical

2008-12-07T13:22:00.000-08:00

Allright so we FINALLY got the elliptical that Justin got me for my B-day on Friday. Yea a little late right? Well anyways it is here and I finally was able to work out on Saturday. It felt so good. This is the box:

And here it is all put together which is how Justin and I spent our Friday night:

And Bryn turned 9 months old on Thursday so we of course took some more pictures. Man I am running our of poses! But here are the cute ones that I took:

Fun huh. She automatically starts posing anytime I get the camera out. Apparently I trained her well. Also speaking of pictures my Mom gave me my Dad's old 35mm manual camera and I am learning how to use it and take some old fashioned pictures with a camera and film. I know, it's like I am back in the Dark Ages but I think it will be cool to learn and take some pics that aren't digital. Later!

Christmas pics

2008-12-04T12:27:00.000-08:00

So I decided to put Bryn in her cute Christmas dress and take a few pics. This one turned out cute so I thought I would post it early. Good times, good times. Later!

Thanksgiving pictures

2008-12-01T12:57:00.000-08:00

Ok, it has been forever since I posted but the holidays make it so hard to get anything done! First, seeing Beth again was fun and made me realize how fast time flies. It is good to see how much Beth has grown in the last year and a half. I ended up not seeing Twilight though and I am ok with that since I have really only heard negative things about it. And then we spent Thanksgiving with Justin's family and that was fun. This first picture is Bryn making a huge mess at G & G Pollard's house while we were cooking. What a pill!This is her first Thanksgiving meal -she had some chicken and some potatoes and loved it!
This is her in her cute outfit before we left.

And finally I thought this one turned out so cute. It is a little statue in the garden of the house we were at.
We had a good Thanksgiving and ate sooo much! Isn't that the best/worst feeling? The food tasted so good but feeling that full makes me feel so bloated and tired. So that has been our last few weeks and I feel like I have just been going everywhere and not getting anything done. Oh well, I guess that is life with a 9 month old. And now on to Christmas! We just put our tree up for FHE and Bryn has decided that the tree is too pokey and she doesn't like touching it. I think she will keep trying though so I have to really watch her until we take it back down. Oh well it is worth it, I love this time of the year. Happy shopping everyone!!

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-26T09:17:00.001-08:00

Make a Smilebox greeting

Life

2008-11-16T15:36:00.000-08:00

So no exciting news or anything just life. Last week I had a good week and worked and played with Bryn. Nothing really exciting, we are still having to baby-proof the house. And I cleaned out our office and that is about all that happened. But this coming week should be funner. On Wednesday I am headed down to the Tucson airport because my lil sis Bethany is coming home from her mission in Detroit!! I am so excited for her, from her letters she had a great mission and has changed a lot. It will be so fun to see her again. This picture is of her and 2 comps. She is the one on the right. This is the only picture I have of her on her mish. But anyways she was/is an awesome missionary - she always has been a talker and would talk to anybody and everybody - the mission just focused the conversation more towards Gospel principles. So I am proud of her and excited to see her again and have her meet Brynlyn. Also on Thursday night my sisters Elise, Nat , Beth and I are going to go see the midnight showing of Twilight which I know is not going to be anywhere near as good as the book but worth the admission price to see it once. I don't know why people have to take a perfectly good book and make a very mediocre movie with so-so acting and expect that readers will love it. I have never liked a movie better than a book I have read except Jurassic Park and that was because the book was too complicated. But we'll give Twilight the movie a shot. And hey if nothing else there are some rather attractive males in the movie so I will just ogle them and ignore the complete thrashing they do to the plot. I'll post again after I get back (and give you my honest opinion of the movie too).

8 months!!

2008-11-06T10:57:00.000-08:00

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Here is the project I made of her 8 month pictures. Enjoy it!

what's up with us

2008-11-03T09:47:00.000-08:00

Hey all - so here is a funny picture of Bryn sleeping last week during a nap. Doesn't look comfy to me but she was so out that she didn't even flinch when I took the picture. What a silly girl. Well anyways the big news from us is that Bryn started crawling last Tuesday and has been a terror ever since. Just kidding she is actually really good, she just loves to open cabinets that have lots of off limit stuff in them. So I am getting my exercise now. She loves to be able to go where she wants so that is nice. And last week I was working really hard on making some stuff for a craft boutique this Saturday. Here is the flyer for it. There is going to be tons of cute stuff so feel free to come if you want to get some cool stuff for Christmas presents.

Here are a few pictures of what I made. They are magnet boards to put misc. stuff on. And if you can't come to the boutique I am taking custom orders so just email me and I can get what you want and make it for you.

The pictures don't look nearly as good as the boards look in real life. If you are interested then just let me know and I can e-mail you more pictures. If you have some scrapbooking pages you like I just need 2 of the 12x12 size for the bigger section and 1 12x12 for the smaller. I am charging $30.00 per board and I can have them done by Christmas. They make great gifts! Ok, I will stop selling stuff. I actually have a blast making them and they always turn out so cute. I love having a craft to work on. So that is all from me!

Halloween slideshow I made

2008-11-01T15:46:00.001-07:00

Make a Smilebox greeting

Fairy

2008-10-27T11:01:00.000-07:00

Ok so our ward had our annual trunk-or-treat on Saturday night and Justin took Brynlyn. I know Halloween isn't until Friday but I took these super cute pictures of Brynlyn and couldn't wait to post them. She is a little fairy this year. I made her a tutu and bought some wings. It was the cheapest homemade costume ever but I think it turned out dang cute! She is such a little doll! This is her clapping which she does all the time now and if you look closely at this one you can see her teeth.

So those are pictures of Brynlyn. And why did I not go with them you ask? Well that would be because Justin had me chasing down some speakers for our house in north Scottsdale. Oh yes, we got a smoking deal on the last 2 rear speakers for our surround sound system because they were discontinued. So because they were discontinued the only Best Buy in the valley that had any left was at the 101 and Frank Lloyd Wright Blvd. And the 101 was closed down to 1 lane pretty much the whole way out there. It was lame, but hey we got both of our speakers for half of what 1 used to cost. We've been saving up and waiting for a sale plus we had a bunch of money on gift cards that we wanted to use so it turns out that we spent nothing out of pocket on them and still have a bunch of moula left on the cards. And then Justin spent all day yesterday drilling holes in our walls and running speaker wire so that they work. What a hassle but we're done and they sound awesome and we saved a ton of money. So that is our good news and what we've been up to. At least we haven't had any more scorpions!

It finally happened!

2008-10-23T15:00:00.000-07:00

Yes, that is a picture of a scorpion. In my house. I was not happy about it. All summer with Bryn I have been thinking that after 3 years of no scorpion we would probably finally get one and guess what - we did. It was almost in our kitchen and when I found it I had no shoes on and it was 10:30 at night. It was pretty freaky. Justin smashed it with a shoe and it is now in a baggie and hanging from our corkboard. But this is a 2 in. scorpion and I am just so glad that no one was stung. So we now own a blacklight and Justin will be checking the house and yard every once in a while. Gross!

She did it!

2008-10-17T15:57:00.000-07:00

Ok so while I was checking my email this afternoon I had Bryn in here with me playing on the floor. I felt her playing with my chair, but she always does that. Well, I finally looked over and she had pulled herself totally up and was standing. So I grabbed the camera and snapped a few pics. The one of her looking to the side I put on here because you can see that she does indeed have hair. It is so blond and fine you can hardly see it, but it IS there. And it almost looks like a mohawk in the picture and I thought it was funny. Also this morning when I went in to get her out of her crib she was almost standing, so I guess it is time to lower the mattress. Crazy monkey! On a side note while watching conference they kept advertising ldsjournal.com and so I went and checked it out and it is pretty rad. I have been copying my blogs into it because they let you add footnotes (pictures, scriptures, links, whatever) and they are going to add a print it as a book feature and that is easier than the blog slurp thing which I have previously used to organize my blog into a book. So check it out if you are interested.

Cold weather

2008-10-14T14:06:00.000-07:00

Another week has gone by and we finally had some nicer weather! I love fall/Halloween time!! We took a walk on Saturday and here is Bryn in a super cute coat that she inherited from cousin Makinzie. Don't you just love the little bear ears? She was adorable. And in other news we had my mom come visit since last Friday and that has been fun. Yesterday we went to Hobby Lobby and got some fun stuff. And other than that Bryn has been getting in her top teeth and she is having the worst time. Especially at night she just can't sleep; so neither can I. But last night she slept for 11 hours so she must have finally tired herself out. And she can get from her stomach to a sitting position and back down now so that is good. She is going to be mobile before I know it!! Anyways that's all she wrote!

7 months!

2008-10-05T11:38:00.001-07:00

Here are Bryn's 7 month pictures. She wouldn't let me take any cute ones but while I was getting her food she grabbed an ad and started playing with it and I thought she looked cute.

And these other ones are from her playing with a box in the den while I was working the other day. It was pretty cute and she was having a blast.

I still can't believe she is 7 months old. I say that every month but man it's crazy. It reminds me of Presidnt Monson's talk today about change and how much she changes and learns every day and how fast her babyhood is going to fly by and soon she will be starting school. It makes me want to just hold her all the time and not let her grow any more! But that's life and I can't stop it. Anyways I sure do love her so much!