Our Life

Zoo Day with Daddy

2012-01-27T22:07:00.000-07:00

This morning Matt and Sophia went to the zoo. Yesterday Matt told Sophia that they would go to the zoo today so the first thing Sophia said when I got her up this morning was, "Is it time for me and Daddy to go to the zoo?" She loves going places with her Daddy.

Matt said that while they were in line to feed the giraffes Sophia was very excited to get up to see the them. As you can see, once they were up close Sophia wasn't as thrilled with the giraffes. I think their size was a little overwhelming to her. She did tell me tonight that giraffes don't have teeth. Matt said that this is one of the facts that the lady at the zoo had told them. I guess Sophia was being a good listener because Matt said he never repeated it back to her.

Our little poser.

It sounds like these two had some good Father Daughter bonding time today.

My Little Clothing Diva

2012-01-26T22:00:00.000-07:00

Sophia has started showing a real interest in what clothes she wears. She has been telling us what she does and does not want to wear. Also, after she gets dressed she says she needs to go look in the "rectangle mirror" which is the full length mirror in my room. She will come back after looking in the mirror and say, "Mom, I look beautiful."

The picture above was taken Wednesday morning. I took Sophia to the dentist in the morning. We were getting ready to leave and I asked her to put on her shoes. She said she wanted to wear her shiny shoes but I reminded her that we don't wear shiny shoes to school because they get torn up so she needed to wear her black daycare shoes. She said she really wanted to wear her shiny shoes and I once again reminded her that we don't wear them to daycare. Finally she said, "How about shiny shoes just to the dentist." Seriously?!?! When we got to daycare after her dentist appointment I reminded her about changing her shoes and she said, "Yes, I have to put on my daycare shoes now." I can't believe that we have already started fashion bargaining at age two. :)

We haven't had a very eventful week around here. Wednesday night we had a pretty low key girls' night. Tonight Sophia went with Jenni and I to get pedicures. Sophia didn't get her toes done because I had already painted them, but she was very interested in watching Jenni and I get our nails done. The ladies in the nail salon couldn't believe how big Sophia has gotten and that baby number two is on the way. I have been going to the same nail place forever so they remember me being pregnant with Sophia.

I would write more but I am exhausted tonight. I have been getting so tired by the end of the week these days. I will leave you with my 27 week belly picture. Baby Bryson is still doing great and he or she makes their presence be known at all times with lots of kicking. It can make sleeping very interesting.

The Weekend

2012-01-22T22:38:00.000-07:00

Before I get to the weekend I have to post this cute picture that Matt took on his phone Friday during Sophia's nap. She got this puppy, Little Bing, from Matt's Aunt Marian for Christmas and it is her new best buddy.

Also on Friday, we got our new stove. It was the last thing we needed to get to complete our kitchen remodel. Here is the kitchen with the old stove.

And now with the new. I love it and think it looks so much better.

Earlier today I was looking back at blog posts from this time last year and one of them included my New Year's Resolutions. Here is one of my resolutions:
Operation Home Improvements
There have been a few projects in the condo that Matt and I keep talking about doing but they just haven't gotten finished. We have made a plan for when these projects are going to take place this year. We are going to tile the bathrooms, kitchen and entry way, replace the vanities in the bathrooms, and paint the cabinets in our kitchen. I also have a couple of organization projects up my sleeve.
I am happy to report that we actually completed all of these home improvements and I couldn't be happier with them. A big thanks to Matt for all of his hard work to get these projects done.

Back to the weekend...Matt and I have been talking about getting Sophia into some sort of gymnastics class. Sophia is one clumsy little girl and we were hoping that maybe gymnastics would help her gain some coordination. Saturday morning we decided to go look at a couple of programs. Sophia seemed excited about the classes that we watched. The plan for now is to put her in classes at Arizona Sunrays after we get back from California next month. They also have dance classes there so maybe after a little time in gymnastics we can start her in some dance classes too.

When we got home from our outing, Sophia decided to have a tea party with her kitty.

Later that evening, John, Jen, and Audrey came over to spend the evening. We dined on food from La Grande Orange and visited. Sophia loved having Audrey there to play with. When things would get a little too quite in Sophia's room I would have to go investigate. This is what I found one time.

Sophia wasn't actually all the way in the crib yet but she was close. Silly girls.

We ended the night with Audrey reading Sophia a story.

Today has been a pretty lazy day. Other than a trip to Trader Joe's, Sophia and I didn't leave the house. It was nice to relax and get ready for the week ahead.

Random January Photos

2012-01-18T21:32:00.000-07:00

I had a bunch of random pictures on my camera from the month so far so I thought I would combine them into one post.

Sophia has been loving her glitter crayons and stickers lately. I like how Jake is intently staring at Matt in the background. :)

Sophia and Emma at girls' night a couple weeks ago. I'm sure they were up to something ornery before I took this.

I'm not sure what was going on here but apparently Matt was a little tired.

All ready for winter...but no winter weather here in Phoenix.

This is how Sophia was watching a show on the iPad the other night. Maybe it is some sort of new yoga move.

She knows she is cute.

Princess Ayden and Princess Sophia.

I think Parker liked the princesses.

Movie night on Saturday. Sophia loves Belle but she had never watched the movie Beauty and the Beast. She finally watched it and loved it. Tonight she watched The Little Mermaid and she loved it too. She even said, "Ariel will be in California."

Sophia's Valentine's Day sensory box. She had a great time picking out Valentine's goodies for the box at Michael's. She loves playing in her "crystal box."

Birthday Parties for Addison and Ayden

2012-01-17T00:12:00.001-07:00

Over the past couple of weekends we have helped two cute girls celebrate their birthdays. First we helped Addison celebrate her fourth birthday then we helped Ayden celebrate her third birthday.

Sophia with her water bottle and ready to go to Addison's party.

The party had an Ariel theme. Addison is my friend Rikki's daughter. Rikki's Mom made this cake. A lot of time went into making each of the little stars that make up the cake. I was impressed.

This is the face I got when I asked the birthday girl to smile for a picture. :)

Sophia was so excited to see that they had "twister hoops" that were just her size.

The musical instruments were brought out and a band was formed. Camden (Addison's brother) is second from the left. He is just a few weeks younger than Sophia.

Sophia couldn't wait to get her hands on the drums. She loves playing the drums these days. She got a set of Mickey Mouse instruments for Christmas and she plays them every day...especially the drum.

What can I say...she is a girl of many instruments.

Jeffrey found a friend to help him form an older kids band.

Daniel

Pin the crown on Ariel. Sophia wasn't fond of the blindfold over her eyes so we just had her shut her eyes.

Instead of a pinata that you hit, they had one that you just pull the strings on and there is one string that makes all the candy and toys fall out.

Time to blow out the candles.

Lori, me, and Rikki.

This weekend we helped Ayden celebrate birthday number three. Yikes, if Ayden is already turning three that means that Sophia isn't far behind. :( Here is our little diva posing for a picture before we left for the party. She actually had on another dress before the party but had to change because once she had the other dress on she just didn't like it. I had no idea we were going to start that business so early.

The party was held at PlayGrounds Fun Zone. It is a really cute indoor play space with a full cafe and coffee bar inside. The theme of the party was princesses, specifically Disney Princesses. Sophia, Heidi, and Ayden at the beginning of the party.

So Sophia isn't the most coordinated of children and she also is a little bit of a scaredy cat when it comes to slides. We finally got her to go down the big slide by herself and this is what it looked like.

About halfway down Sophia started going warp speed down the slide, flew backwards and hit her head, and some part of her skin was heard screeching down the slide. Needless to say, she was a little freaked out by the slide then. Ayden, on the other hand, loved going down the slide.

Heidi was nice enough to climb up and go down with Sophia.

Matt got in on the action too. Unfortunately Matt had Sophia go down the slide again by herself a little later and this time she went flying right off the end of the slide. I have no idea what was going on because there were kids half her age going down and I never saw anyone slide off the end. My guess is that the tulle at the end of her shirt was extra slick on the slide and made her go extra fast and that is how she kept picking up so much speed.

The daddies with their daughters.

I think Ayden liked her princess cake.

Parker was being a ham for the camera.

The three little princesses...Ayden, Sophia, and Layla.

The girls were happy to dig into the cake.

Green tongue from the icing. Sophia wouldn't believe me that her tongue was green so I had to take a picture to show her.

A little more play time after cake. Sophia stayed away from the slides this time. :)

The cute play area.

Heidi and I had to take our annual picture with our girls.

Here we are last year at Ayden's second birthday party...

and at Ayden's first birthday party.

12 on the 12th

2012-01-13T22:27:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week Lori mentioned that she was going to take part in a 12 on the 12th project. Basically you take 12 pictures on the 12th of each month. The point is to take a little snapshot of what your day looked like. I had seen lots of people doing the picture a day thing and I had been interested in doing it but was a little overwhelmed by trying to remember to take a picture every day. I thought this would be a little easier and it would be fun to put all of the pictures together into some kind of book at the end of the year to show what we had done throughout the year...our everyday life. Lori sent me a reminder the night before the 12th so I wouldn't forget about the project.

So, here is my first month of 12 on the 12th (you might have to click on the collage to see the pictures well).

Matt and Jake sleeping as I got ready for work; Sophia playing with the iPad in Mommy and Daddy's bed; me during my 3 hour glucose test; one of our regular lunch spots during the work week and the location of my pig out after my glucose test; working away at my desk; the clinic I work at; Sophia in the car; Sophia and Daddy enjoying some popcorn at Target; 25 weeks pregnant; bath time; the new lamp we picked up while at Target; Sophia giving the baby a goodnight kiss...she has been giving the baby lost of hugs and kisses lately :)

The Latest on Baby Bryson

2012-01-12T23:28:00.001-07:00

Wednesday I had my cervical ultrasound. My cervix looked great. Your cervix should be 3-4 centimeters long. If it is less than three then you can be at risk for pre-term labor. The good news is that my cervix measured 4 centimeters. While I was there they went ahead and did the extra measurements that they were going to do in a couple of weeks on the baby's kidneys and took a look at the spine and brain. Everything was great and the baby looked nice and healthy. We didn't know that they were going to do this part of the ultrasound or Matt would have come along so he could see the baby. Luckily they gave me a few pictures to share. They estimate that baby Bryson weighs 1lb. 11oz and he or she is one active little baby.

Today I completed my 3 hour glucose test. That means no food or water all morning, one super sugary drink, and four blood draws. I hate blood draws so I wasn't very happy about the test. I did ask the phlebotomist to use butterfly needles for the blood draws and she dug some out of the back of a cabinet for me so the pokes didn't hurt quite so bad. :) While I was getting the test done I ran into Dr. Chambers a couple of times. She said that she had spoken to the radiologist from Wednesday and had confirmed that everything looked fine. She said that I am on no restrictions and we even talked about my trip to Disneyland that is coming up. She said just to listen to my body and not push it too hard. She did say that she is going to send me for one more ultrasound in about four weeks to get another look at the baby. She said she didn't think I would mind. I love looking at the baby but I always get a little nervous when I go in because I want to make sure that no one spills the beans about the sex of the baby. Anyway, after my test I celebrated it being over with a big Mexican lunch! About two hours after my glucose test I got a call from the phlebotomist at the clinic asking if I could come back over because she had forgotten to draw a cbc...ugh! My veins decided not to cooperate when I went back over so she had to poke me three times to get anything. Needless to say, I was a human pin cushion today.

So, that is all the news I have. Because I talked to Dr. Chambers today she said that I could cancel my appointment for next Thursday. She will give me the results of my glucose test when I go in for my progesterone injection on Tuesday.

Finally, my 25 week baby bump picture. Wow, that bump is getting pretty big.

Happy New Year

2012-01-12T21:03:00.000-07:00

New Year's Eve day Sophia, Matt, and I drove from Missouri back to my Mom's house in Kansas. When we got there my brother and his family were there. The kids thought it was a good time to celebrate New Year's Eve.

These three are pretty silly when they get together.

As I mentioned earlier, we celebrated Alex's 18th birthday a little early.

Jordan with Mom's dog, Hawthorne (or Popcorn as the kids call him).

A quick belly pic.

Alex just loves taking pictures with his big sis.

Ethan and Eryn joined the fun a little later.

Chocolate cake and popcorn...this girl was in heaven.

Brylee Bean.

Sophia didn't get to stay up until midnight, but her Lady read her some books before bed. These two both love books. I don't even know how many books they read together over the week.

Matt, Mom, Mark, and I stayed up to see the clock strike midnight and then went to bed. The next day it was time for us to head back to Phoenix. :( We were happy to be able to fly home with Jordan, Cammie, Brennen, and Brylee. The kids were occupied with their games while we waited to board the plane.

I sat next to these two cuties on the flight.

They were so cute and played together and watched shows the whole flight.

These two love their snacks.

That wraps up our trip. We had a great time and are now getting back into the swing of things in Phoenix. We are hoping to make another trip back to Kansas this summer...maybe at the end of my maternity leave. We will see.

Another Day in Kansas and Our Missouri Trip

2012-01-12T00:06:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday morning of our Christmas trip, Sophia and I headed to Douglas to spend some time with Alanna, Hadlee, and Harper. We hadn't seen them since May and this was our first time meeting Harper. It was great to see them and Hadlee and Sophia had fun playing together.

These two both love Minnie Mouse and princesses.

Harper is such a doll. She joined the girls for a couple of pictures.

After going back to Mom's house and resting for a little while, we went back to Douglas for dinner at the Triangle with the whole family and then to my Granny and Grandpa's new house. They recently bought a house in town and have been slowly moving stuff into the house from the farm. We loved the new house. The little kids especially loved all the space in the basement that they could run around in.

Mom with Brylee and Sophia.

Me and my Momma.

Amber and me. We begged Granny and Grandpa to leave this furniture at the farm but it got moved to the new house as the basement furniture. We make fun of this furniture as it never seems to go away...but notice where we ended up at the end of the night. :)

Cousins - Drew & his girlfriend, Kayla, Alex, Avery, Mike & Amber, Matt & me, Jordan & Cammie.

The little cousins. The two little girls on the right are my Mom's cousin's daughters.

Thursday we drove to St. Joseph, MO to spend a couple of days with Matt's parents. Sophia was excited to see her Grandma and Grandpa and greeted them with huge hugs. First things first, Sophia opened up a few gifts.

Sophia talked Grandma into joining her band.

I think Grandma and Grandpa were pretty happy to see their little Sophia.

Sophia had been talking about seeing Grandma and Grandpa's horses for days. She was a little leery of them once she got up close.

Matt in a serious manly pose. :)

Sophia didn't want to be put down but she did like brushing the horses.

I'm not sure what was said when Sophia was out looking at the horses the next day but when she came back in she told me, "I have a horse. Sam is my horse." Hmmm...as long as Sam doesn't have to come to the condo we are just fine.

Sophia liked the little elephant rocking chair at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Sophia loves to trace her hands. Anytime she colors she insists on doing it.

Making homemade pizza with Grandma.

Sophia received a couple princess babies for Christmas. She had a lot of fun playing with them. This is really the first time she has shown an interest in baby dolls. She always loves to play with her stuffed animals but hasn't been interested in the dolls. She especially loved giving Baby Ariel her baths. These toys (along with many others) had to be mailed back to Phoenix as we didn't have room in our suitcases. I have a feeling Sophia is going to be very excited when she that box gets here. It will be like Christmas all over again.

Pam had a fun project planned for she and Sophia...marshmallow snowmen. Sophia loved putting them together with the melted chocolate.

Drawing on the faces.

The finished products.

I snapped my 23 week picture while we were in Missouri.

The second day we were in town, Matt's Aunt Marian and Uncle Don came to town from Springfield to visit. They brought Sophia this adorable dog in a cute purse. She loved it. When she took her nap she was hugging the puppy and told me, "He is adorable."

Showing Uncle Don her puppy.

Aunt Marian and Sophia. Sophia was getting a little restless before her nap.

One last concert before we left Grandma and Grandpa's house.

We drove back to Kansas on New Year's Eve day. We were sad to know that we would be going back to Phoenix the next day. In some ways I was ready to get home and get Sophia back in her home environment as she was getting pretty cranky. On the other hand, I was really sad to leave our families. As usual, the trip had just gone to fast.

Next up, my final post from our trip...New Year's.

Christmas at My Dad's House

2012-01-11T17:00:00.001-07:00

Here is a little more of our Christmas trip. The Tuesday after Christmas we headed over to my Dad's house to celebrate Christmas. Sophia got all dressed up in her pink boots for the day.

Sophia and her cousins are definitely into technology. Between the iPads, LeapPads, iXLs, and laptops, these kids were in heaven.

The weather was beautiful while we were in Kansas (50s and 60s) which was a nice change from Christmases of the past. We decided to take advantage of the nice weather and take the kids to the park. Before we left we took our annual family pictures. This was a picture I took while setting up the automatic timer. Brennen and Matt make me laugh.

Grandpa Kent and Grandma Terry with their grandkids. It's hard to believe that next year there will be two more to add to the mix.

The whole family.

The Bryson family.

The Kirk family.

The Sisson family.

Walking to the park. I took the pictures from my spot in the car.

Yes, in Kansas we let our children run on the highway. :)

Sophia still loves the swings. She is always wanting us to push her higher.

Jordan and Cammie showing their playful side.

Hadley

Brennen

Three crazy monkeys.

Jillian was being quite the poser.

More posing for me.

Brylee in action.

Sophia was so excited to see the see-saws. She was too small to push down her side so she had to have a little help from Daddy.

Before I knew it our family had taken over the see-saws.

It was my turn to pose. Brennen's face in this picture makes me laugh.

Brennen, Cammie, and Sophia.

Sophia and Jillian...the cousin twins.

The caged beasts.

Even Jordan was in a posing mood.

When we got back to Dad's house Sophia sang us a few songs on the microphone. I think this little girl might need a karaoke machine for her birthday. Every time she gets around a microphone she has to sing a few tunes.

Snack time.

Dad and Terry are taking us to Disneyland next month so we weren't supposed to exchange gifts. Of course Dad and Terry felt that the kids still needed something to open. Sophia was thrilled with her drum full of instruments. She made all of us participate in her bands the rest of the trip.

Handsome Brennen. He actually let me take his picture quite a few times during this trip.

Double trouble on the drums.

Dad and Terry got Sophia her Minnie Mouse last year for Christmas. She takes Minnie with her everywhere. This year they got her a Mickey doll to complete her set.

After gift opening it was time to relax and let the kids play with their new toys.

I guess Mike was a little bored with us. :)

We have a lot of little princesses in the family. All of the girls had brought their princess dresses with them from home. They wanted Brennen to be their prince but he wasn't interested.

After many attempts, we gave up on getting them to all look at the camera at once.

Two little princesses playing with the iPad before dinner.

We had a really nice Christmas at Dad's house. We are looking forward to seeing he and Terry again next month when we go to Disneyland!

Doctor Appointment Update

2012-01-10T22:14:00.000-07:00

Some of you asked for an update from my doctor appointment today so here it is:

Baby Bryson's heart rate was strong at 134 beats per minute. This little baby is a mover and a shaker and was moving all over the place as usual.

I got my weekly progesterone injection and Dr. Chambers confirmed that it was most likely the injections that caused me to have the terrible back pain that I was having prior to and during Christmas vacation.

I told the doctor about my last week and she thought it would be a good idea to check my cervix again because of the pelvic pressure and contractions that I was having. I am still not dilated but she felt that my cervix might be a little soft. Because of my pre-term labor with Sophia, Dr. Chambers felt that I should get an ultrasound to measure the length of my cervix. I will be having that done tomorrow morning. I will most likely be getting more of these as my pregnancy goes along to see if there are any changes in my cervix.

The results of my glucose test came back at 131 so I will have to do a three hour glucose test on Thursday. Apparently the practice that I go to recently changed their guidelines from a high reading being 140 down to 130. Most practices use 135 or 140 as their cutoffs for needing the three hour test but they are being very conservative in my office and using 130 as the cutoff. This is a bummer for me as I will have to fast the whole morning and have my blood drawn four times that day.

Dr. Chambers was happy to see that I gained 8 pounds in the last four weeks. I thought that was a little drastic but she said that brings me right up to where I should be with a total gain of 16 pounds so far. She said to expect another big weight gain in the next month and then it should taper down to a couple of pounds each visit after that.

That is all the news. When I left Dr. Chambers made sure to tell me that everything is fine and that all of the extra stuff she is doing is just precautionary due to me giving birth at 34 weeks last time. It is going to be a busy week of doctor appointments with the ultrasound tomorrow, glucose test Thursday, injection next Tuesday, and follow up appointment next Thursday.

Happy Birthday Alex & Other Updates

2012-01-09T00:00:00.001-07:00

Today my baby brother turns 18 years old!!!! I just can't believe it. It seems like just yesterday he was being born and interrupting my 16 year old trips to the mall. :) I can't believe that he is officially an adult now! When we were home for Christmas we celebrated Alex's birthday a little early. In fact, last night when I told Sophia that tomorrow was Uncle Alex's birthday she said, "We already had Uncle Alex's birthday."

Mom made Grandma Barrick's chocolate cake for our celebration.

Sophia thought Uncle Alex needed help blowing out his candles.

We celebrated on New Year's Eve hence the hat.

Brennen, Brylee, and Sophia were happy to help their Uncle Alex celebrate.

Love you, little brother! I hope you have a great birthday...and stay out of trouble...you are an adult now. :)

In other news, I am getting closer to getting this blog caught up from Christmas. I have a few posts of pictures ready to go and I just need to add words before I post them. Beware, it is going to be picture overload.

Sophia has been talking in third person the last couple of days and it has been cracking us up (actually it is driving Matt nuts). I don't know why I think it is so funny but when she says things like "Sophia is cold" or "Sophia doesn't want to eat yogurt" it just makes me laugh. She also told me the other night that she didn't want the baby to come out of my belly. I was sitting with her in the chair in her room and when we got up I told her that soon we would rock the baby in that chair and she started whining and saying, "No, I don't want the baby to come out. I want it to stay inside." Luckily yesterday she said that it was ok for the baby to come out. I think Sophia might be in for a rude awakening when Baby Bryson makes his or her appearance.

Speaking of Baby Bryson, I had a pretty rough week this last week with our little one. On Monday I had felt like I really overdid things because my stomach was really hurting. It was even tender to the touch. By Tuesday I was feeling better and had no pain. I got my progesterone injection and felt great. Wednesday morning when I woke up I started spotting. I called my doctor when I got to work and she said that if the spotting continued I should head up to OB triage and get checked out. Around 4:00pm I was still spotting and decided to go ahead and get checked out. Luckily I work at the hospital I am going to be delivering at so I didn't have far to go. They got me all hooked up and did an exam where they determined that I wasn't dilated, wasn't having any contractions, baby was very active and had a strong heartbeat, and everything looked fine. There wasn't really an explanation for the spotting and they didn't feel that I should be concerned. Thursday I was fine again but by Friday I just didn't feel right. I had a terrible stomach ache and I kept getting light headed/weak and would have to sit down. I left work about 1:00pm and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening on the couch. Once I was home and laying down I noticed that I was having contractions here and there. It wasn't anything consistent and I never had more than two in an hour so I am assuming they are Braxton Hicks contractions. I felt great all weekend. I tried to take it easy as much as I could and I got some extra sleep in. I go back to the doctor on Tuesday so I will be back with an update then. I am definitely going to try to stay off my feet more and get as much extra rest as necessary. We don't need Baby Bryson making an early appearance.

First Days of Christmas Vacation

2012-01-05T00:09:00.000-07:00

Christmas morning we headed to the airport so that we could fly to Kansas. Even though we had celebrated Christmas the day before, Sophia knew that this was actually Christmas day. I didn't want to confuse her if everyone was wishing her a Merry Christmas. We told her that Santa came to our house early because he knew that we were leaving town on Christmas morning. Sophia was a happy traveler and kept busy with the iPad the whole flight. We took a couple of pictures in the airport before we left.

My brother, Bryant, and his kids, Isaak and Maleyah, were just getting to my Mom's house when we pulled up so we spent the evening with them. Of course Sophia had to put her jewels and tutu on as soon as we got there.

Papa with three of his eight Grandkids. Next year there will be 10 Grandkids!

Ready for bed but still sporting the tutu.

Monday morning Matt, Sophia, and I went out to the Veteran's Home to see my Grandpa Sisson. Amber and her family and my Dad and Terry all met us out there. Sophia, Jillian, and Hadley were so happy to see each other. Jillian and Sophia ran right up to each other and hugged when we got there.

Me and Grandpa.

Sophia wanted in on the picture too.

The girls with their Grandpa Kent and Grandma Terry.

My Aunt Ellen and my cousins Carrie and Chris, along with Chris's girlfriend and Carrie's little boy, Benton, came into town from Manhattan. It was the first time we had met Benton and he was such a cutie.

Cousins (Amber, me, Chris, and Carrie).

The little cousins. They were all starting to melt down at this point as it was way past nap/rest time. I told them to make very sad faces and they sure did.

Later that afternoon we began our Christmas celebration at my Mom's house. We opened gifts before dinner. Sophia got the first of two princess babies that she would receive during this trip.

Thanking Jillian for giving her Baby Belle.

I think Maleyah liked her Doodle Bag.

Isaak

My brother Alex and his girlfriend, Loryn. I can't believe my "little" brother will be 18 next week.

Brylee loves wigs so we got her some clip-in hair. I think she liked it.

Brylee let Hadley try on some of her hair.

My sister, Amber, and Mike.

My Mom got Matt this book. It is hilarious. Matt is getting lots of ideas for pictures he can have taken with Jake. :)

These two were so cute together the whole trip. I swear they could be twins. Here they were enjoying a marshmallow snack.

My Mom is always telling us to be good citizens and we are always laughing about her saying it. Matt and I couldn't resist getting her this book when we saw it.

My siblings. It's hard to believe that I am the oldest of this crew.

Cammie and me (with Hawthorne looking in on us from outside).

Me and my hubby.

Cammie and Jordan.

Sophia loved the piano. She would sit up there and play while singing song after song. She would even open up the piano books and say she need to look at the music notes. I think we might have a future musician on our hands.

Brennen was having fun with his legos. At one point Sophia walked up to Jordan while he was putting together some of Brennen's legos, she pointed to the legos, and said, "Princesses don't do that." She says the funniest things.

Brylee and Jillian playing with their new electronics.

My sister, Eryn, and Ethan.

These three little ladies sure like to play dress up. They look a little like ghetto princesses here.

The sassy two year olds.

The piano was popular this night.

I love this picture of all the kids playing the piano.

My Granny and my cousins, Avery and Abby.

My cousin, Drew, and his girlfriend, Kayla.

Granny and Grandpa.

Sophia loves jewelry and was impressed with Lady's necklace.

Love this picture. The Grandkids sure do love their Lady.

That's all I have for tonight. Next up...Christmas at my Dad's house.

We Made It Home

2012-01-02T22:38:00.000-07:00

Yes, we are back in Phoenix as of yesterday. Things have been a little crazy since we got back with unpacking, packing up Christmas decorations (including getting rid of a very very dead Christmas tree), grocery shopping, a trip to Target, trying to find places for all of Sophia's Christmas gifts, etc. Tomorrow Matt and I are back at work. I haven't even had a chance to download the over 300 pictures that I took while I was in Kansas. We had a wonderful trip and loved being able to see all of our family. I am hoping to be back with pictures in the next couple of days. I hope everyone had a great holiday and is enjoying the new year.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T05:00:00.002-07:00

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas! May you remember the reason that we celebrate this great day...Baby Jesus' birthday (as Sophia would say).

I will be taking a little blog break while I am out of town, but I will be back after the new year with lots of pictures and stories from our trip.

Christmas!

2011-12-24T23:15:00.000-07:00

Someone was very excited to see what Santa had brought them this morning.

The Santa goods.

As Sophia would unwrap her presents she would say, "I'm gonna love it." It was so cute. She also wanted to play with each gift after she unwrapped it so it took a couple of hours to open all of the gifts.

The princess loot. Sophia was one happy little girl.

Stocking time.

Showing off her princess earrings. Sophia has been asking about earrings quite a bit lately. She even asked me the other day if she had earring holes in her ears.

This girl loves her notebooks and crayons.

Santa brought me some great stuff in my stocking including perfume, cinnamon bears, and Origins products.

Sophia helped Matt open his stocking gifts.

Our little Belle. Sophia told us that she is ready to go to California to see the princesses at their house. It is going to be a long wait until February.

We had been saving all of the presents that came in the mail which contributed to the two hour present opening.

Pink boots from Daddy. I didn't even know Matt had gotten these for Sophia. She loved them and wanted to put them on right away.

Sophia loves Minnie's Bow-Tique and was thrilled with the Bow-Tique set that Matt's parents sent her.

Me with the fun gifts that my hubby gave me. He is a great gift giver and always picks out wonderful gifts. We also opened our gifts from the Mayo family which is where the cute scarf and headband came from. Aleshia gave Sophia the most adorable horse purse and owl wallet (complete with a $5 bill) that Sophia loved. Aleshia even sent something for the baby...so thoughtful.

Poor Matt...his main gift was an iPhone but his distracted wife didn't get it ordered until a couple of weeks ago so it won't be here until January.

Sophia's great Aunt Beverly sent Sophia her own camera. Sophia snapped pictures all day.

Beverly also sent a purple sequined skirt and a princess flashlight. Sophia was in heaven. When she opened the skirt she said, "That's adorable."

Sophia will definitely not run out of dress up clothes in the near future. At dinner tonight she said, "I got three dresses and four pairs of shoes." It made Matt and I laugh because we hadn't actually counted it up before that and she was right.

Even Jake got in on the gifts. Matt's parents sent him Greenies and a new chew toy.

We took a Christmas morning family picture with my new tripod.

One last picture of our tree.

No, Matt, that isn't your new phone either.

Baby Bryson had a little gift waiting for him/her too...a baby sock monkey.

We were homebodies the rest of the day as we cleaned up and got packed for our trip back to Kansas. We are looking forward to seeing our families soon!

Our Christmas Eve

2011-12-23T23:17:00.000-07:00

Because we are leaving for Kansas on Christmas day, we will be celebrating Christmas as a family tomorrow. That means we had some Christmas Eve fun tonight.

This picture is actually from this morning. I was taking pictures of something and Sophia said that she and Minnie wanted their picture taken. Gotta love those big blue eyes.

After dinner tonight Sophia decorated her gingerbread house. I cheated a little bit on the construction of the house and put it together with hot glue instead of icing.

Building a gingerbread house takes lots of concentration. :)

Sophia was pretty particular about how she decorated her house. She didn't want to take decorating suggestions from anyone.

The final project.

Before bed Sophia opened her Christmas pajamas. She also put out cookies and milk for Santa along with a note that said: Dear Santa, I was a good girl. Please leave me a crown and a dress. Love, Sophia.

We ended the night with Christmas books. Matt and I have never seen Sophia jump into bed as quickly as she did tonight when we told her that Santa was coming while she slept. I am looking forward to tomorrow and all the excitement of our family Christmas.

Visit with Santa

2011-12-23T15:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Lori and I had one more day of Santa at work. Luckily this day was much calmer than the day before. Sophia and Matt even came by to visit Santa. Sophia had been talking about needed to sit on Santa's lap and tell him what she wants for Christmas. She has even warmed up to Buddy (her elf on the shelf) and has been telling him every night if she has been naughty or nice. I was hoping that Sophia wouldn't be too shy to see Santa once she got there.

When it was Sophia's turn to see Santa she jumped right up on his lap and said, "Please can I have a crown and dress please?" She is still asking for a Belle dress, crown, and flower. It was really cute.

The Bryson family with Santa.

If you ask Sophia where Santa is now she will tell you that he went back to the North Pole to get ready for Christmas.

My friend Denise's boyfriend dresses up like Santa for the clinic every year. We always bring Sophia to the clinic the day that he is there. Here she is the last couple of years.

One last picture of our little nugget wearing my Santa hat. She is such a stinker and is really enjoying this holiday season. This morning she said, "I'm excited about everything!"

Mini Cantera Christmas

2011-12-22T05:00:00.001-07:00

Every year we have our Cantera friends over for a Christmas celebration. This holiday season has been crazy busy and time just seemed to have gotten away from us. So this year Jenni, Sophia, and I had our own mini Cantera Christmas party. We had our celebration after work on Tuesday. Jenni picked up dinner from Paradise Bakery for us. After dinner we opened presents.

This little one was excited about opening gifts.

Jenni and I always take pictures with our gifts strategically placed all around us. This year we got Sophia in on the action. She was more than happy to pose with her gifts. I don't know many two year olds who would be excited about getting clothes and headbands as gifts...but Sophia was thrilled.

Jenni always picks out great gifts. I guess you really know what someone likes when you have known them since middle school.

Jenni with her goodies. Don't be jealous of that beautiful portrait in the front. That is Jenni, Sarah, and I in a quality portrait that was taken at the bank that Jenni and Sarah worked at in college. I ran across it when we cleaned out Sophia's closet recently and I just knew I needed to wrap it up for Christmas.

I think Sophia is saying, "What the heck were you guys thinking. Had you ever heard of makeup...jewelry...color?!?" Poor Sophia didn't even recognize Jenni and I in the picture.

Sophia modeling some of her adorable new clothes.

I love this little girl.

I couldn't resist throwing in my belly shot from this week.

Jenni, thanks for a fun mini Cantera Christmas!!

Santa Claus Came to Town

2011-12-21T18:40:00.000-07:00

Today Santa Claus and his elf, Buddy, came to the clinic that I work at. He even brought his sleigh (that white Cadillac in the background).

You may remember that all of our toys were stolen from the clinic in October. Because of the overwhelming support of our community, we were able to have a huge Christmas party today for our patients and their families. We had pictures with Santa, gifts, crafts, cookies, hot chocolate, kettle corn, face painting, and DJ. I think we knew that a lot of families would show up for the party, but we had not idea just how many. The line for Santa was so long that some of our families waited an hour and a half to see Santa. That being said, we never heard one family complain about the wait and the kids were thrilled to see Santa. You can see a short video of the day here.

It was an extremely long day and thankfully Matt is home tonight so I can get some rest before we do day two of Santa tomorrow. It shouldn't be quite as hectic tomorrow since we won't have the huge party, just pictures with Santa and gifts.

I snapped a picture with Santa before he left for the day.

Lori and I happy that we survived the day.

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

2011-12-20T21:30:00.000-07:00

Sophia has been belting this out the last few days. The last line really cracks me up.

Psych/Social Christmas Party

2011-12-18T01:02:00.001-07:00

Last night we went to a Christmas party for the psych/social team that I work with. The team includes Psychology, Psychiatry, Child Life, Social Work, and Patient Advocacy. We had the party at the home of one of our Psychologists, Matt.

Sophia, Caulder, and Emmerson. Sophia goes to daycare with Caulder so she ran right up to him when we got there. Emerson (or Zsa Zsa as she likes to be called) is Caulder's older sister.

Emerson, Sophia, and Meredith.

This picture of my co-worker Jen's kids totally cracks me up.

The Bryson family.

Sophia was being her social self and making friends with everyone.

Lori and the adorable Daniel.

Our hostess (Matt) and his son Nate. Nate is definitely Matt's mini me.

The Child Life team.

It is pretty rare that I can catch Jeffrey smiling in a picture so I was surprised I got this one.

Matt and his wife, Adriana.

My new favorite family picture. Everyone is smiling and looking at the camera...that is hard for us to do.

Lori, me, Jen, and Felisa.

Most of our team.

Matt with his favorite Child Life Specialists.

After the party we drove around and looked at Christmas lights. Sophia loves Christmas lights. She also loves singing along with Christmas carols. Matt and I were laughing listening her sing along to Elmo Wants a Hippopotamus for Christmas. It was a fun evening.

Aleshia's Visit

2011-12-17T23:08:00.003-07:00

Last weekend was a weekend I had been looking forward to ever since it was planned. Aleshia came to visit us! She came alone so we could have some girl time together. I have to give a shout out to our amazing husbands who helped make this weekend possible. Craig was home with Connor and Evan and Matt took on all things Sophia so Aleshia and I could relax.

Sophia always wanted to be wherever Aleshia was. We had Aleshia stay in Sophia's room so even when Sophia was watching a show on the iPad she wanted to be in her room with Aleshia.

Aleshia brought Sophia Alamo cookies (or Elmo cookies as Sophia calls them) and these maracas from San Antonio. Sophia was in heaven.

Aleshia and I ready for our first day of shopping, eating, and pampering. Of course Sophia insisted on being in the picture.

I even snuck in a belly shot. It looks like Sophia is going to be a permanent fixture in the belly shots. It is probably appropriate since she is very into the baby lately. She is always asking to kiss the baby, and she is now insisting that it is a girl baby and we will call her Charlotte.

After shopping at Frances, Smeeks, and a few stores at the Biltmore we had lunch at True Food and then got pedicures. It was great. Here we are getting our feet beautified.

After pedicures and a stop at Old Navy we picked up Sophia and Matt and headed to Chelsea's Kitchen for dinner. Apparently this was the only picture taken at dinner.

After dinner we had some fun playing the Wii. I will save the adults any humiliation and only show pictures of Sophia actually playing.

Jake modeling Sophia's mini crown.

Sunday morning I gave Sophia the advent calendar I had bought for her the day before. We were a little behind so we had to catch up. It is an Olive, the other reindeer calendar. Sophia calls it her little village. Please notice Sophia's outfit...these days if she isn't dressed up like a princess she is dressed up like a Tennessee cheerleader.

Each day a new figurine is added to the scene.

Sophia loved combing Aleshia's hair. Aleshia was a great sport with Sophia the whole weekend.

Sophia joined Aleshia and I for a little shopping before her nap time. She got dressed up in Christmas gear for the trip.

The matching coats we bought. I think mine is about to burst at the seams from being buttoned up.

We have many fun times with smiles/mustaches/beards on a stick. Aleshia brought me this sucker Santa beard.

Sophia wanted in on the fun too.

One last picture to share from our weekend. We had our picture taken in the photo booth at Smeeks. Aleshia and I are both still on the lookout for the photo booth pictures we took when we were in middle school so we can compare them.

We had such a fun weekend and it was just the break I needed. Thanks again, Aleshia, for coming out and visiting us!

Baby Bryson/Big Girl Princess Updates

2011-12-16T23:01:00.000-07:00

Wow, it has been quite the week around here. Work has been insane and and Matt worked his four nights in a row this week. By the time I would get Sophia home, fed, and bathed, I had just enough time to get a few Christmas things done before I fell asleep on the couch. All I can say is that I am so glad it is Friday. I am looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow before I go out to finish up my Christmas shopping.

I had a doctor appointment to check on Baby Bryson this week. Everything looked good. Baby's heartbeat was strong at 154. Today I felt Baby move more than usual and I even felt it from the outside. Of course I was at work when it happened and we couldn't get Baby to move around again tonight so Matt hasn't gotten to feel anything yet. Hopefully this weekend he will get his chance. I am still craving Mexican food but my pickle craving has decreased a little. Basically I just feel like I am hungry all the time these days. I am 21 weeks along and so far I have gained 8 pounds.

Sophia (or Big Girl Princess as she likes to be called) has been a little under the weather this week. She started coughing again on Tuesday. Tuesday night she was up in the middle of the night with that croup sounding cough and lots of wheezing. We got her on some steroids Wednesday and the cough has definitely gotten better since then. Of course during the day you would never know she isn't feeling well with all of the running around she has been doing. Sophia also has her last four molars all coming in right now. I'm sure that can't be feeling great.

Hopefully this weekend I will be able to update with the pictures from Aleshia's visit (we had a blast) and a few other pictures from the week.

This and That

2011-12-07T20:15:00.000-07:00

Today Sophia had her one year follow up for her ears. We had the tubes placed last August but had been back in for a couple of infections right after she got the tubes. I was anxious to see if the tubes were even still in there. She hadn't had any infections in a year so I had a feeling they were still in place. We got good news because her hearing was perfect, her tubes were still in place, and her ears looked wonderful...yea!!! Sophia did great at the appointment. She ran right into the room to have her hearing tested and she wanted to sit in the chair in the exam room by herself while she had her ears looked at. She sat perfectly still for the exam. When Dr. Milligan walked in the room she said, "Where's your otoscope?" Dr. Milligan thought it was pretty funny and then he taught her to say otolaryngologist. It was cute. We will go back in a year for another check up.

Like I have said in previous posts...tutus are worn all the time around our house. This was Sophia before bed the other night. She was on the phone with Matt telling him goodnight because he was at work.

We must always accessorize our tutus too.

I thought I would include my belly shots from the last couple of weeks. Baby Bryson is really popping out there these days.

As you can see, everyone wanted to join my picture tonight.

I still can't believe that I am halfway through my pregnancy. I have my next appointment with my doctor on Monday. I have been taking my injections for three weeks and they have been going well. I seem to have reacted a little at the injection site from my shot last week but I called the office today and they didn't seem very concerned. This pregnancy has been exactly like my pregnancy with Sophia so I am guessing that Baby Bryson is a girl, but we will see. Any guesses out there? I am glad that I finally have some energy back and am starting to feel more like nesting.

I'm not sure I have talked about it here on the blog or not but my sister is expecting again too!!! We are very excited for the growing Kirk family. I am excited to be pregnant with Amber again. This time our babies won't be born quite so close together (Sophia and Jillian are only a week apart) as she is due July 10th. Amber has had a pretty hard time with not feeling well so far in this pregnancy. Hopefully she will start feeling better very soon.

I will probably be taking a blogging break until the beginning of next week. Aleshia is coming to town on Friday to stay for the weekend and I don't see myself blogging while she is here. I am so excited for her to get here. I have lots of shopping, pampering, and relaxing planned for us. I am definitely looking forward to some good girl time. Sophia was a little concerned that Evan and Connor weren't coming with Aleshia but I think she has accepted it now. :)

Girls' Night Christmas

2011-12-06T22:32:00.003-07:00

Monday night we had our second annual girls' night Christmas party. As you can see, Sophia was very excited for our friends to come over.

Emma and Kari were our first guests to arrive.

It wasn't long before Sophia insisted in changing into full princess gear. This has become the norm around our house. I think the only time that crown leaves her head is for bed and daycare.

Our little ladies. Emma, Ayden, and Sophia.

The crazy faces in this picture make me laugh. :)

The little guys. Eli and Parker.

Eli is one mobile little guy. He even showed us one of his new tricks...taking steps!

Everyone brought a dish to the party so we had enough food to feed an army. Jamie made these adorable doughnut snowmen. Sophia and I love doughnuts so we were in heaven.

Eli and Cassie.

Group picture time.

I had to include this outtake because the kids' faces crack me up.

For gifts we have a book exchange for the kids and an ornament exchange for the adults. The little girls did great with taking turns opening their books.

Parker chose the book that Sophia brought...Charlie the Ranch Dog.

Princess Sophia chose the book that Emma brought, Boogie Monster. She has the book Tickle Monster by the same author and loves it so she was excited to get this book. She calls it her other Tickle Monster book.

Eli's 1st birthday is on Wednesday. I won't be able to go to the party this weekend so we went ahead and gave Eli his gift that a few of us went in on.

Eli loves Sophia's Rody so we thought it was time he had his own.

Sophia came over with the pump and was insisting that we pump up Rody right away.

The Ross family.

Sophia and Ayden were playing in Sophia's room and when I went in there they were just being crazy...singing and dancing. These two always seem to be singing.

Oh, and Sophia was eating as usual.

Heidi and I showing off our ornaments from the ornament exchange.

Jenni, Kari, Jamie, and Cassie.

Cassie's birthday was last week so we also celebrated her. It was quite a night of celebrations.

Jamie made a pie for Cassie's birthday.

I love how the three kids are all eyeing the pie.

It was a really fun night. A little chaotic...but a lot of fun. :)

Visit with Friends

2011-12-04T10:00:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I am so late putting up this post. A couple of weeks ago we had some special guests at girls' night. Our friend Lisa was in town from Washington and she and her daughter, Paige, came over to hang out with us. Paige is just a few months younger than Sophia. She is such a sweet little girl.

Our group was kind of small the night Lisa and Paige visited. Paige, Eli, and Sophia were the only little ones. We couldn't not take a kids on the couch picture. As usual, no one was really interested in looking at the camera. I'm pretty sure I had bribed Sophia with something (probably candy) which is why she is saying cheese in every picture.

It's a miracle...they are all looking the direction of the camera.

Eli, Cassie, and Lisa. Jamie stopped by later but I guess I didn't get a picture of her.

Lisa is also pregnant with baby #2. They recently found out they are having another girl. Here we are showing our 18 and 25 week bellies.

The girls enjoyed a little time on the iPads.

Lisa and Paige, thanks for spending the evening with us. It was so nice to catch up with you.

Ready to Walk

2011-12-03T22:57:00.000-07:00

This morning Sophia and I participated in the 5K Walk for Food Allergy that was put on by The Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network. Kari put together a team in Emma's name as Emma has a peanut allergy. It was a pretty cold morning but we were just happy that the rain held out until this afternoon.

Emma and Sophia modeling our team t-shirts. Kari even made the girls cute hair bows to match the shirts.

I don't know what these two are smiling about but I thought the picture was really cute.

Me, Sophia, Jenni, Kari, and Emma.

Neither of the girls were too fond of Baxter the Bobcat (the Diamondbacks mascot).

Our team.

Once we started walking we warmed up and it was a nice walk. Jenni was my stroller partner and helped me out with Sophia when I started getting really tired. I think this mama needs to start exercising a little bit more. I could definitely tell that my lung capacity is not what it used to be. I am 20 weeks along today. I can't believe I am already halfway through my pregnancy. It has really flown by so far.

After the walk we all went out and got some lunch. I took a few more pictures of the two silly girls.

Saying Goodbye...Sort Of

2011-12-03T19:40:00.001-07:00

A couple of weeks ago we had a CRS going away party for Jenni Schroeder. Jenni recently took another position in the hospital outside of our clinic. I was so sad to see Jenni go. We have worked closely together since I started at the clinic six and a half years ago and we have become great friends. Even though we see each other outside of work and we still carpool, it is sad not having her in the clinic. We decided to have a happy hour at Postino to wish Jenni well with her new job. It was a fun night.

Heather, Noreen, Felisa, and Jenni.

Me, Arika, and Cori. We are three of the eleven girls that are pregnant at the clinic right now. If you come to the clinic and you don't want to get pregnant...please don't drink the water.

Lori, Dr. Amato, Mary, and Brittany.

Felisa and Lori.

Me with the guest of honor.

Maggie and Lupita.

Heather and Cristina (another one of the pregnant ladies...we actually have the same due date.

Dr. Aleck and Jenni.

Crazy Day and If You Give a Pig a Party

2011-12-01T21:17:00.000-07:00

Wow, the last two days have been a whirlwind. These two stories tell it all:

http://www.stjosephs-phx.org/Who_We_Are/Press_Center/212834

http://www.azcentral.com/12news/news/articles/2011/11/30/20111130phoenix-hospital-toy-donations-stolen-worth.html#ixzz1fIXLJzK5

Basically all of the toys at the clinic that I work at were stolen last month. Our storage unit was broken into and every toy we had for our patients for Christmas were taken. Our patients have chronic illnesses and disabilities and many of them are low income families. Every year we have Santa come to the clinic for two days and all of our patients and their families are welcome to come and visit Santa. The kids are given a picture with Santa and a gift. You would not believe how many families come in just to see Santa. Many of them cannot afford to go to the mall to see Santa and/or have disabilities that prevent them from standing in the long lines or being around such large crowds. We not only use these toys for Christmas but also throughout the year for prizes for patients who have to have to have procedures, children celebrating birthdays, etc. Yesterday our hospital sent out a press release about the break in and within an hour we had four new stations on their way to the clinic and three radio stations requesting interviews. Let's just say that Lori and I have done a crazy amount of tv and radio interviews over the last few days. The good news is that with the toy donations and monetary donations we have received today we were able to replace everything that was stolen and then some. It really says a lot for the Phoenix community and their generosity. It was heart warming to see so many people wanting to give back to the kids. Tomorrow we will wrap up our week of donations with our clinic being decorated by the staff of the Diamondbacks and a huge donation delivery from the toy drive put on by Channel 12. Needless to say, we are exhausted, but it is for a great reason.

I thought I would do a little more catch up from last weekend before I fell asleep. Last Saturday Matt and I took Sophia to see If You Give a Pig a Party at the Phoenix Theatre's Cookie Company Theater. Sophia and I had seen this play when we were in San Antonio but I figured she would enjoy seeing it again. We met up with Kari, Emma, and Kari's Mom (Connie) for the show.

Before the show they had activities for the kids outside.

Sophia really liked the real pigs.

Our attempt at a picture of the girls together before the show started.

The show was really cute and Sophia talked about it for days. She also enjoyed the cookies and milk they served after the show. I think we will definitely be going back to the Cookie Company for shows in the future.

After the show and lunch we did a little bit of shopping. We let Sophia pick out a new Christmas ornament at the Hallmark store. We were not surprised at all when she chose a Belle ornament. Belle is her favorite princess these days.

We also went to Michael's so we could pick out items for Sophia's Christmas sensory box.

This box contains white beans, foam squiggles, green and red crystals, small and large Christmas ornaments, jingle bells, a glittery "S", and a cup, tongs, and a ladle.

Another purchase we made was an Elf on the Shelf.

We read the book about the elf on Saturday night. Matt and I were very excited for Sophia to get up Sunday morning and see her elf. When Sophia and I got up I asked her if she wanted to look for her elf. She got very nervous and said, "No, no, we will do my elf later." I just let it go and we waited for Matt to get up. When he got up and asked Sophia about the elf she said the same thing to him. When we finally pointed out where the elf was Sophia ran into my arms and wouldn't let go. Apparently we made the elf seem a little too real and Sophia was totally freaked out by the little man hanging around our living room. She was so scared that she wouldn't go into the living room alone and she wouldn't sit on her couch because it was too close to the elf.

Even though she was freaked out by the elf, Sophia did manage to give him a name...Buddy. Buddy eventually had to be moved into my bedroom so that Sophia would stop being freaked out by him. I am happy to report that Sophia seems to be warming up to Buddy a little bit. She will tell you that he is Santa's helper and she will get a little closer to him, but she still wants him to stay in our room. Hopefully by next week Buddy will be able to come out of our room and explore the other rooms of the house.

Sunday Sophia and I went to dinner with Jenni, Janelle, and Jim. Jenni brought over some cookie ornaments for Sophia to hang on the tree. Cookies and ornaments are two of Sophia's favorite things so she was in heaven with the combination of the two.

Enjoying one of her favorite books before bedtime.

Well I am almost caught up from the last week. Only a couple more posts to go. I can barely keep my eyes open now so it will be off to bed early for me tonight.

Daddy's Little Girl

2011-11-30T21:20:00.000-07:00

I am really tired tonight so I am going to keep this post short and sweet. I just had to share this picture of Sophia wearing a sticker that her Daddy gave her (you might have to click on the picture to enlarge it).

Decorating for Christmas

2011-11-29T22:26:00.000-07:00

Friday I decided that it was time for us to decorate for Christmas. We don't usually decorate this early but I was really in the mood to do it and I decided since we had the long weekend it was the perfect time. I also knew that this year Sophia would be excited about the decorations. That evening we headed to the Christmas tree lot to pick out our tree. It had been a few years since Matt and I had put a big tree out, but in the past we always bought our trees from this same Boy Scout lot.

Sophia loved looking at all the trees.

Doing a little price checking. :)

Sophia loves all the decorations. She especially loves having her nativity scene out. Grandma Pam and Grandpa Lawrence gave this to her last year. When she saw it out she said, "That's my favorite toy."

My little ornament hanging helper.

This was my favorite ornament growing up. I thought it would be fun to have Sophia hang it for me.

The finished product. I am glad we decided to put up a big tree again this year. I think we found the perfect tree and it smells great.

Just a few other decorations.

A Healthy Baby Bryson

2011-11-28T22:33:00.000-07:00

We had our big ultrasound this morning. I was a little stressed about it going in and I am afraid that my poor husband had to witness a little bit of my pregnancy craziness. When we went in for Sophia's ultrasound at this stage we were told about her hydronephrosis and had to start having more frequent ultrasounds and deal with all of that. Even though it ended up not really being a big deal it was still hard to hear that your baby had something going on that isn't quite right. Today was great and we were told that baby Bryson looks very healthy. We had the same ultrasound tech that we had for Sophia's many ultrasounds and she even remembered us. Everything measured right on and all of the vital parts looked great. Baby was being a little uncooperative and not really wanting to give us good shots so the tech and the radiologist had to work pretty hard to get all the shots they wanted. The radiologist does want me to go back and have another ultrasound at 28 weeks just to look at the kidneys one more time because of Sophia's history. Luckily no one let the sex of the baby out so we are still going to get our big surprise at delivery.

We saw the doctor after the ultrasound and everything with baby is right on track. I gained another two pounds so I have gained five or six pounds so far. I got my second progesterone injection today too. This one was definitely more painful than the last one but it was ok. The soreness afterwards seems to be worse than the injections though. The soreness from the last injection just wore off Saturday evening and then it was time to get another one today. Oh well, it is definitely worth it if the shots help keep baby cooking for a little while longer than last time.

I am really behind on blog posts. I have a few posts with pictures downloaded that I just need to add words to and hopefully I will get them up in the next few days. I have posts from girls' night when we had a couple of extra guests, Christmas decorating, our Give a Pig a Party day, etc. I will also be sharing the story of how my daughter is now terrified of the Elf on the Shelf...good times.

One last thing, tonight in the car Sophia told me this was the most wonderful time of the year. I guess she has been listening to too many Elmo Christmas carols. :)

Our Thanksgiving

2011-11-25T14:05:00.000-07:00

We had a great day yesterday even though it wasn't really a traditional Thanksgiving day filled with lots of family. We started the day by getting up and going over to Jenni Schroeder's house. Jenni was making my favorite corn casserole and since we were just having dinner with just a few of us, and Matt doesn't like corn casserole, Jenni said she would make an extra side for me. We were also going over to see Jenni's daughter, Janelle, who was in town from Chicago for Thanksgiving. Janelle agreed to take a quick family picture for us so I could put together a Christmas card.

Sophia was already hamming it up for the camera as we were leaving the house.

Jenni's yard was full of fall leaves so it was the perfect setting for a Thanksgiving picture. I won't share the picture that we are using for our card but here is an outtake from our little photo shoot. It is hard to get the dog and a toddler to look at the camera at the same time.

Sophia LOVED the leaves. I think she would have stayed there all day playing in them if we had let her.

Janelle, thanks again for taking our picture and an extra thanks for sharing some of your Garrett Popcorn with us. I actually had to hide it from Sophia so she wouldn't eat it all. Maybe I should be thanking your Mom for being willing to part with the popcorn once it was in the house. :)

Janelle's dog, Peanut, was also home for Thanksgiving. Normally he and Jake want nothing to do with each other but yesterday they were running around everywhere together. I could never get a still shot of them so here is an action shot.

Sophia attempting to climb the tree.

After we came home and ate lunch Matt and Sophia took naps while I ordered Christmas cards and caught up on some reality tv. We didn't have dinner until around 5:00pm so we took our time getting the meal ready. I should really say that Matt took his time since I didn't cook one thing for the dinner. I did clean up afterward though. :) Here is our table all set and ready for dinner.

When Sophia woke up from her nap she said she didn't want to get out of bed because she was taking a family picture with Minnie. She even put a headband in Minnie's hair for the picture. After I took this picture I finally coaxed her out of bed.

Matt's delicious dinner of pork tenderloin (no big turkey this year), stuffing, gravy, green bean casserole, corn casserole (thanks again Jenni...it was great), twice baked potatoes, cheesy broccoli (Brad's contribution), and rolls. Brad also made us a pecan pie for dessert.

The family before dinner. Yes, Sophia is still in her pjs from nap time. If you could see the bottom half of my body you would see that I am also in lounging pants. It was definitely a relaxed Thanksgiving at our house.

Brad and Jake. Poor Jake just wants a taste of the pork tenderloin.

Sophia said the prayer for us.

After dinner there was more football watching. It was a nice day and we had plenty to be thankful for.

Today we have been lounging in our pjs for most of the day again. I see a theme for the weekend. :) I am listening to Christmas music and Matt just went to storage and got our Christmas decorations out so I can decorate. We will go and get our Christmas tree from the Boy Scouts when their booth opens this evening. It just doesn't seem right to be decorating for Christmas with the windows and doors open.

Sophia has spent most of the morning playing dress up with her Minnie doll. Before lunch she and Minnie both had tutus and necklaces on and Sophia had on her high heal dress up shoes. I told Sophia that we should probably get her another pair of dress up shoes for when her friends come over. She said she wanted yellow shoes like Belle. We decided to look them up online. While we were looking Sophia said, "Maybe Santa will bring me the shoes for Christmas. He brings gifts to good boys and girls." I think it is time for us to get an Elf on the Shelf so we can reiterate the good boys and girls concept daily with our sassy little toddler. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T00:00:00.001-07:00

We are looking forward to a quite Thanksgiving at home with just the three of us. We aren't going to fix a turkey this year but we are going to make a pork tenderloin and all the traditional Thanksgiving side dishes. I think Brad will probably join us for dinner. I am looking forward to some relaxing family time. We have so much to be thankful for this year. I do wish we were going to be near our family, but we are hoping to webcam everyone so that we can feel like we were part of their get togethers.

Here I am with my 18 week turkey in my belly.

Just a few more shots of our "big girl princess" Sophia (as she likes to call herself).

I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Random Thoughts

2011-11-21T22:07:00.000-07:00

Just a few things that have been going on around here the last couple of days:

Sophia has been a little on the sick side. Saturday night she started coughing and it was definitely a croup cough. It continued throughout the night. I think I was more freaked out about it than Sophia was. I would go in and say, "Do you need anything. Are you ok?" She would roll over and say, "I'm sleeping." Ok...I get the hint. We decided to lay low on Sunday and just take it easy. She would lose her voice a little and cough throughout the day, but the cough was always worse when she would lay down. We kept Sophia home from daycare today just to be on the safe side but she is definitely doing much better now. See for yourself.

She still has a little bit of a cough, but everything that I have read says that that can stick around for awhile. We were lucky that Sophia seemed to have gotten the mild end of the croup.

I have had some major pregnancy cravings going on the last couple of weeks. I don't know if I mentioned it before, but last week I was having a major pickle craving. It got a little extreme with me eating five or so pickles at a time. This week my craving has been olives. Thank goodness for the olive bar at Safeway. Apparently I have a thing for salt these days.

One last thing, I have been having crazy crazy pregnancy dreams. I have been having lots of dreams that we are having a baby boy. Last night I had one of the craziest dreams. I want to preface this story with the fact that I watched a couple of episodes of Sister Wives before I went to bed. In my dream I was having my big ultrasound and the husband from Sister Wives (Kody) was the one doing it. He had some sort of crazy ultrasound where he could reach through my stomach and hold the baby. He held up the baby and I kept telling him that I didn't want to know what we were having but he didn't cover up the boy parts in time. Then he asked me if I wanted to touch the baby but I was too afraid to because I didn't want to get any germs on it. I told him to just put the baby back in my stomach so we could be done. Weird!!

Night at the Ross House

2011-11-20T23:40:00.000-07:00

We had a great time spending the evening with Heidi, Eric, Ayden, and Parker last night. The girls were so happy to see each other. They even agreed to let me take their picture together.

Sophia found the guitar and asked to play it. When I gave it to her she said she was just like Music John (he comes to her daycare on Mondays and sings to the kids).

Ayden wanted in on the fun too. She used the guitar stand as a microphone and the two of them sang songs. It was adorable!!!!

I took this little video. It is super dark (especially after I downloaded it onto the blog) but I just couldn't pass up getting these two on video. At least you can hear them singing.

After dinner we made smores by the fire. Here are the ladies relaxing with their daddies.

Smores time.

This is the only picture I have of Sophia eating her marshmallows, because shortly after this she decided they were a little too messy for her and she wanted to go wash her hands. She ate plain graham crackers the rest of the night. :)

We got the girls in their pjs and they wanted to get into Ayden's bed. I told them to act like they were sleeping and this is what they did. I guess they had to be nose to nose to pretend they were sleeping.

I just realized that I got no pictures of Parker last night. He was there but somehow he escaped my camera. It was a fun night. Thanks again to the Ross family for having us over.

We Have Movement

2011-11-19T15:56:00.000-07:00

I am happy to say that yesterday I felt Baby Bryson move for the first time. I was really excited because for the last two weeks I have been anticipating feeling the little nugget. I didn't feel Sophia move until 19 weeks but I was sure that I would feel this one a little earlier. I was right...17 weeks and the little nugget was moving all around. I was talking to Matt on the phone when I felt the baby move and we both got very excited. I was at work and I had called Matt to chat for a minute. Today I am 18 weeks along and we were supposed to have our big ultrasound next week, but unfortunately all of the doctors in the ultrasound department are off next week for the Thanksgiving holiday. The same thing happened to us when we had Sophia's big ultrasound, though it was Christmas that time. So, we will be having our ultrasound on the 28th.

I don't have any pictures to share with this post. I wasn't very good with taking pictures this week. We are having dinner with the Ross family tonight so maybe I will break out the camera for a few shots of the kids. Sophia is so excited to go and play with Ayden. They have a great time together.

Cousins and a Bump Pic

2011-11-14T00:10:00.000-07:00

Thursday night Cammie, Brennen, and Brylee came to visit us. Brennen's birthday was this week. I still can't believe that he is already seven years old! He is growing up way too fast. I was so excited that Cammie and the kids came by on their way to visit Cammie's Grandma. Sophia was excited too. When I picked her up from daycare and told her that her cousins were coming over so we needed to hurry home she said, "Yea, I get to play with Brylee Bean!" She just loves playing with Brylee. Probably because they both love dressing up and being crazy together.

I was completely surprised when these three all agreed to have their picture taken together before dinner.

After dinner the crazies were on the loose.

Brennen was totally into his Jumpstart game. We bought him a membership to the site for his birthday and he was inseparable from the screen. Brennen likes us to be near while he is playing so he can show us everything he is doing. Not exactly the most exciting thing to watch, but Sophia really liked watching him play.

I think Jake enjoyed playing with his cousins too.

More wackiness from these two.

I thought I would end with a belly shot from this weekend. My belly seems to have really popped out this week.

Princess Time

2011-11-13T17:11:00.000-07:00

Sophia's talk of being a princess has gotten a little out of control lately. When I hug her I like to tell her that she is Mama's baby. Now she corrects me and says, "No, I am a big girl princess." The other night I told her that I had bought her a new skirts and she said, "A princess skirt." I don't think it helps that Ms. Rosemary at daycare always calls Sophia a princess. Tuesday night Sophia and Emma pulled out this pink dress that Amber and her family gave Sophia for her birthday. I think Sophia had forgotten about it because every day since Tuesday she has asked to wear her "princess dress." Usually it is first think in the morning when she asks.

Emma and Sophia had to take turns with the dress on Tuesday. When one was wearing the dress the other had a few tutus to choose from.

That is Kari's arm tickling Emma to make her smile.

The two princesses playing Ring Around the Rosie.

All cuddled in with their blankets and watching a show after dinner.

Quick Baby Update

2011-11-07T23:05:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to give a quick update about my doctor appointment this morning. I am now 16 weeks along. Baby Bryson's heartbeat was between 130 and 140. I am thinking that I should be able to feel this little one moving around soon. I didn't feel Sophia move until 19 weeks but I was hoping to feel this baby a little earlier. I will start my progesterone injections in the next week or so. We are just waiting for the compounding pharmacy to get the medication ready. I was happy to not have to get my first injection today but I did have to get my Tdap injection so I didn't get away shot free. I will go in for my big ultrasound on November 28th. We are anxious to check on Baby Bryson's kidneys...and all of the other body parts too. Sorry, we still aren't planning to find out the sex of the baby.

I was hoping to end this post with a picture of Sophia, but I don't seem to have any new pictures of her on my camera. I will leave you with a little something that they said about her in daycare today. When I went to pick her up there was a new aid in her room helping out. She said that all of the teachers had told her that if she needed to know anything about the class she should just ask Sophia. The aid said this had come in handy when she had a hard time remembering a couple of the kids' names. Maybe we should ask for a discount if Sophia is going to help teach the class. :)

One more thing....when I saw this little owl hat model in the Anthropologie catalog tonight I couldn't help but smile at her little chipped tooth like Sophia.
http://www.anthropologie.com/anthro/catalog/productdetail.jsp?id=23416753&catId=CLOTHES-KIDS&pushId=CLOTHES-KIDS&popId=CLOTHES&navCount=84&color=008&isProduct=true&fromCategoryPage=true&templateType=D

Spooks and Apple Pie

2011-11-06T23:15:00.001-07:00

As usual, I have been a terrible blogger again this week. I guess that is just going to have to be the norm for awhile. I can't see it getting much better once another little one is in the house so this just may have to be how my blogging is from now on. We'll see.

First, I never shared my work pictures from Halloween. Last year Lori and I said that we were going to be garden gnomes this year. I seem to remember people thinking this was a good idea but when we brought it up again this year no one really wanted to do it with us. We decided that we were going to do it anyway and eventually we had other takers in the group. Here are Lori and I in our costumes.

I had planned to wear a belt or some sort of suspenders, but when I was coming up with the outfit the night before I realized that the fact that my skirt would not button did not lend well to either a belt or suspenders. So I guess I was the awkwardly pregnant gnome. Oh and a big thank you to Jenni for basically supplying every piece of my outfit.

The girls in radiology just had to be rebels and dress as the bad gnomes. Love the creativity!

Because not everyone in the clinic wanted to be gnomes, there were some mixed themes going on throughout the staff. One of the themes was superheroes. Christie and Heather were great at Wonder-woman and Robin.

Ginger is known for her amazing desserts so her Super Betty Crocker costume was very fitting. Her husband had even made her a theme song that she played during our lunch potluck.

Hanging with my fellow gnomes.

This is what one tired pregnant gnome and her 2 year old who is hyped up on treats look like at the end of the day. Boy was I glad that we had already done our trick-or-treating on the weekend and didn't have to go out that evening.

Skipping ahead a week....Friday night Jenni S. had her annual apple pie party. This was the sixth annual party. As usual we had a blast and the food was delicious. You can see the posts of past parties here, here, and here. They also explain the details of the party if you haven't heard of it before.

Jenni (our amazing hostess), Lori, and me.

Maggie, Mary, and Ginger who are all nurses at the clinic I work at.

I didn't take many pictures of the details as I have lots from the previous parties. I also didn't bring my big camera so I was having issues with color.

One of my favorite parts of the party...the brie, apple, and honey appetizers.

I somehow forgot to take a picture of my pie. I have to say that my pie didn't look the best this year. I think I was losing energy by the end of the party. That's ok, I'm sure it will be delicious.

Saturday morning Jenni, Jamie, and I went to the Believe Boutique in Chandler. We went in hopes of getting some Christmas shopping done and I have to say that we were pretty successful. It was a great boutique and I would definitely recommend it. We ended our trip with lunch at Paradise Bakery. It was a fun little girls trip, and aside from being the victims of a little bit of road rage, it was a relaxing time. :)

The rest of the weekend was pretty relaxing too and I am feeling good as we head into another week. Tomorrow I have a doctor appointment in the morning. I will report back with details. I am a little nervous as I may have to start progesterone injections tomorrow...ouch.

Walk-N-Roll

2011-11-01T21:39:00.000-07:00

Saturday Sophia and I participated in the Walk-N-Roll for Spina Bifida. This walk raises money for programs and services to benefit those with Spina Bifida. I work with the Spina Bifida population at the clinic so I was our team captain. We were excited that Kari, Emma, Connie, and Shelly also joined our team. Unfortunately our team was a little smaller than past years because the walk fell on the same day as a breast cancer walk that our hospital is very involved in. It was a perfect day for a walk even though it did get a little hot towards the end of the walk.

The CRS team.

Kari and I with our little ladies.

Co-workers (Mary, Christie, Jen, me, and Ginger). Jen's son jumped in last minute too.

My little diva.

The girls being silly after the walk.

Happy Halloween

2011-10-31T00:01:00.000-07:00

We celebrated Halloween a little early this year in the Bryson household. Matt has to work today and he had to miss out on trick-or-treating last year so we decided to do some weekend celebrating instead.

Friday was the Trunk or Treat event at our church. We invited the Ross family to come along. Like I have said before, this is Sophia and Ayden's third Halloween and they have trick-or-treated together every year. The girls had a little playtime before dinner. When I got home they were both in their high heels running around together. They were quite the hams when I asked to take their picture.

Love these ladies.

Matt carved this pumpkin for Sophia.

After dinner it was time to get dressed up and head out for some fun. I wasn't sure if we were going to get Sophia into her cheerleading outfit. She had decided that she wanted to be a princess and was throwing a little fit about it. We finally told her she could be a cheerleader princess and she was fine with that. Sophia and Ayden are such posers.

Making her Daddy proud.

Ayden and Parker.

I don't think there are any pictures, but Sophia also had a megaphone to go with her outfit. She cheered and sang songs into her megaphone the whole way to the church. It was quite entertaining. Kari, Emma, and Kari's Mom (Connie) also met us to go to the church. They had gone to an event earlier in the night that hadn't lasted as long as they had thought it would so they joined us, and we were glad to have them come along. I attempted to get a picture of the three girls together but getting them to all look in my direction proved to be impossible.

The girls had fun going around to all of the decorated cars and getting treats.

You had to walk the plank to get to the candy at this car. I was surprised Sophia wanted to do it but she jumped right up there. That pirate is actually Sophia's Sunday school teacher, Miss. Mindy, but I don't think Sophia recognized her.

Family picture time.

We also ran into Lori and her family. Isn't Daniel the cutest gnome? I love that serious face.

Jeffrey as Captain Rex.

The girls were totally fascinated by a beetle at the end of the night. It was funny how into it they were.

Cinderella Ayden even chased it around with a stick. :)

The Ross family. I guess Parker didn't think we were too exciting because he fell asleep.

Sophia checking out her loot when we came home.

Minnie all lit up.

Saturday we had Jake try on his costume. Doesn't he look thrilled to be eaten by the shark.

Saturday night, the Methodist church that we live next door to had their Trunk or Treat event. We decided to walk over and check it out. Sophia was happy to get into her cheerleading outfit this time. She had actually had it on for a little while while she was watching the game with Matt.

She kept cheering "Go Vols" but it sound more like "Go Balls."

Sophia was thrilled at the opportunity to get more treats. She was especially excited about the pink notebook this woman gave to her. She carried it around all day Sunday drawing in it.

Sophia also had fun playing the games they had set up.

It was a fun Halloween weekend for sure. Today we are dressing up at the clinic and Sophia will be having a Halloween celebration at daycare that she is looking forward to. They had their pumpkin patch at daycare last week complete with face painting, special snacks, and picking out a pumpkin. Speaking of the pumpkin patch, when Sophia came home her daily sheet said that they had a special treat outside. Matt asked Sophia what their treat was and she said popcorn. Then she said, "We had a drink called juice." Matt and I couldn't help but start laughing because she acted like it was something that we had never heard of before. Then she added, "It was so yummy." Our poor little juice deprived daughter. :) We never really have juice around and Sophia loves milk and water so juice just isn't something that we have ever done.

I hope everyone has a Happy Halloween. I'm sure I will be back soon with pictures from the clinic celebration.

Pumpkin Party

2011-10-29T19:36:00.000-07:00

Tuesday night Cassie and Jamie hosted their annual pumpkin party. This year they decided to incorporate it with Girls' night. Sophia and Jake were little scaredy cats while I vacuumed before people came over. They end up on the couch together every time the vacuum comes out.

Our group ended up being a little smaller than usual, but those of us that were there were hungry and made a good dent in all of the pumpkin treats.

We had apples with pumpkin dip, cake pops, pumpkin tarts, and cupcakes with pumpkin frosting.

These two were too busy eating to stop for pictures.

Our wonderful hostesses, Cassie and Jamie.

Jenni and me. No, Jenni doesn't have a little pumpkin growing in her belly like me. This is more of a comparison in the size of our stomaches right now. :)

Pumpkin cornbread and chili.

After dinner we thought it would be fun to get a picture of Eli and Sophia holding the mini pumpkins. Of course this didn't go quite as planned, but I thought the pictures were still cute.

Cassie and Jamie, thanks for a fun pumpkin party. Everything was delicious!

Tucson Trip

2011-10-28T22:33:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we traveled to Tucson to spend time with some of my family. I will just warn you that this post is really really long with lots of pictures. :)

Sophia was excited to see her Grandpa Kent and Grandma Terry when we got to the hotel in Tucson.

We spent the evening at my brother and Cammie's house. Grandma Terry brought crafts for the kids.

Matt helped Brennen with some of his homework.

Sophia and Brylee are two peas in a pod. They both love princesses, dressing up, putting on pretend makeup, etc. It is so cute to watch them play together. Cammie got out makeup brushes so the girls could get each other ready.

Saturday we went to a pumpkin patch. It was my only request of the trip. Brylee was the only one brave enough to have her picture taken with the skeleton.

Sophia needed some help from Grandpa to reach.

There was a little petting zoo. Sophia wasn't really sure about the animals at first but after she warmed up she loved them.

Every morning when Sophia would wake up she would say, "I need to see my cousins." She loves Brennen and Brylee.

Headed out to the pumpkin patch.

The Sisson family searching for the perfect pumpkin.

Sophia was set on finding the "golden pumpkin" from Jake and the Neverland Pirates.

She claimed this was the golden pumpkin.

Dad and Terry with a couple of our pumpkins...and Sophia's sippy cup and my purse. :)

It was pretty hot outside so after we picked out our pumpkins we decided to go get some lunch. After lunch we went to the Children's Museum.

Dad wanted his picture in front of the Kentrosaurus but I don't think Sophia was quite sure about the dinos.

Driving the submarine.

Future police officers...

or firefighters. We have no idea where that little boy in the middle came from. He just showed up and kept smiling for the camera. :)

Sophia talks about her shadow all the time so she loved this light wall.

Bunny ears courtesy of Daddy.

Everyone liked the music room. Sophia was entertaining us all with her singing. This girl is constantly singing.

When we got up on Sunday morning and got Sophia dressed she said, "I look like a princess, and Daddy is my prince." This made Matt's day.

Saying goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa as they headed off to Vegas.

Me and my Dad.

Before we headed back to Phoenix we spent a little more time with Jordan and his family. These little divas enjoyed some more play time.

We had a great weekend. It is always wonderful to see family. Jordan and Cammie, thanks for letting us come and invade your space for the weekend.

One last picture...these are the pumpkins we picked at the patch.

Girls Night plus Parker

2011-10-27T23:11:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago we moved girls' night to Wednesday so that Heidi, Ayden, and Parker could join us. Sophia and Ayden were happy to see each other. Unfortunately about an hour later Ayden started feeling sick and they ended up having to leave because Ayden was running a fever.

Me with adorable baby Parker. He turned three months old today. Doesn't he look like a little man?

We didn't have dinner planned that night and we were having a hard time deciding what to order. Jenni saved the day with an assortment of random food that she and Kent had at their house. Here are Jamie and Jenni showing off part of the smorgasbord.

Emma.

Kari has been trying to master Kent's bread recipe so Kent same up to give a short lesson. Of courser the little girls wanted to help out.

Sophia showing Jenni her new boots. She is ready for the fall weather so she can wear her boots more often.

Tomorrow night we are going to get Sophia dressed up in her Halloween costume and are going to the Trunk or Treat event at our church. Matt has to work on Monday so this was the only way he would be able to trick-or-treating with Sophia. The Ross family is also going to go with us. We have trick-or-treated with them every year since the girls were born. It should be a great time.

Belly Pics

2011-10-26T23:16:00.000-07:00

So I am about a week behind on blogging and I have tons to share from the last week. I am hoping to get all caught up in the next couple of days. I thought I would start with a couple belly pics as I have gotten some request.

First, here is a before picture. I took it when I was five weeks pregnant. The color is terrible because I was taking it myself in my bathroom which has absolutely no natural light. Yes, that is Sophia's head in the bottom left of the picture...she is sitting on her potty chair. :)

This was taken last Thursday so I was 13 weeks pregnant. It was the first time that I felt like I actually had a little belly. I have to say that over the last two days I really feel pregnant. I will have to take another picture to show that my belly has grown even more since last week.

My belly is definitely starting to pop out there earlier than when I was pregnant with Sophia. I was closer to 19 weeks before I showed with her. According to my weekly emails, that baby is now the size of a lemon. I am finally starting to get some energy back which is great. My next doctor appointment is in a couple of weeks. At that appointment we will schedule our big ultrasound. I am a little anxious about it and ready for it to get here so we can see how our little one is doing. I have talked to Sophia's urologist and he said there is around a 30% chance that this little one will have the kidney issues that Sophia had. I am actually not super nervous about the kidneys, I just want to make sure everything else is fine.

That's all for now. I will be back soon.

The Weekend

2011-10-20T20:22:00.001-07:00

I guess since it is almost the weekend again, I should probably post about last weekend. Matt and I kicked off the weekend Friday night when we celebrated our anniversary by going to dinner at FnB.

It was nice to go on a dinner date...even if our reservation wasn't until 8:00pm. I was a little afraid that I wouldn't be able to stay awake for dinner, but I survived. :) Our food was delicious. They try and use as many local farmers and vendors as they can and their ingredients are seasonal so their menu is different every time. I don't think we have ever had a bad dish there.

Saturday afternoon we took Sophia to see Dora at the Valley Youth Theatre.

The show was Dora's Pirate Adventure so we had to have an honorary pirate face.

Sophia loved the show and all of the music. She was dancing in my lap by the end of the show. I think we will be going back for more shows in the future.

Sunday morning Sophia decided that she wanted to put on her hula outfit. My Dad and Terry brought it back for Sophia from their trip to Hawaii but she had never showed an interest in it. This day she wanted to put it on and once it was on Sophia had a blast dancing around in it.

We even captured a little video. (Apparently only part of the video downloaded...but you get the idea)

With no diaper to help hold the skirt up she kept dancing right out of it.

Hula time.

Those were the highlights of the weekend. This weekend we will be heading to Tucson. My Dad and Terry are in town so we are going to Jordan and Cammie's house so we can all get together. We are planning a pumpkin patch trip among other things. Sophia has been talking about getting to see everyone...especially Brylee and Brennen.

Jamie's Birthday

2011-10-19T22:45:00.000-07:00

Last week we celebrated Jamie's birthday during girls' night. We thought a group picture was in order.

The Bryson girls with the birthday girl.

Jamie with all of her birthday loot.

The funniest part of the night was watching Jamie try to open her gifts with a couple of two-year-olds trying to help her. :) Jamie, I know this is a little late but "Happy Birthday!" I'm glad we were able to help you celebrate your day.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-10-19T00:00:00.001-07:00

Suri's Birthday

2011-10-18T22:42:00.000-07:00

Finally, I am starting to catch up a little bit with my blog. On the 8th, Sophia and I attended Suri's first birthday party. Shannon decided to do an open house and I think it was a great idea. There was lots of yummy food, a bounce house, and crafts for the kids to do.

Sophia loved all the balloons at the entrance of Shannon and Suri's house and asked to have her picture taken with them.

Sophia with the birthday girl. Could Suri's outfit be any cuter? The party had an owl theme and in true Shannon form, everything was perfect. Somehow I didn't get any pictures of the adorable decorations or desserts. You can see them here on Shannon's blog.

Daniel and Sophia had the bounce house to themselves for a little while and they loved it. This is what Daniel did when I asked him to look at me for a picture. :)

I guess Sophia felt the same way.

Suri was adorable with her smash cake. Unfortunately the original smash cake did not get delivered in time for the party. Never fear, after a quick trip to the store this cake was ready to go. I like how you can see Sophia's reflection in the window behind Suri. Sophia loves to sing Happy Birthday to people.

Suri with her Mommy and Daddy.

She dug right into the cake.

Sophia had fun painting an owl.

Sophia also loved playing in Suri's playroom. This week we got the Fisher Price catalog in the mail. Sophia pointed out a couple of toys in the catalog and told me that Suri had those toys. I'm glad someone in this house has a good memory.

Shannon, thanks for inviting us to be a part of Suri's special day. You threw a wonderful party. Happy Birthday to your nuggs from my little nugget. :)

I Guess We are Ready for Halloween

2011-10-17T22:57:00.000-07:00

I didn't even notice that I was wearing Halloween colors until I got to work and someone commented on my outfit. I guess we are just ready for Halloween around here. We had Jenni snap this picture of us when we got home tonight.

Sophia being her silly self. Sophia insisted that I buy her this pumpkin at the grocery store on Saturday and it has gone with us everywhere since then. She even got in the car yesterday and said, "Awww, such a good pumpkin." That's my crazy girl.

The Funny Things She Says

2011-10-16T22:00:00.000-07:00

As promised...here are a few funny things that Sophia has said lately about the baby.

-As I am laying on the couch, "This baby is making you very tired, Mom."

-When I picked up Sophia one day from daycare we got in the car and she was looking at her progress sheet from the day. She said, "Let's see what this says. Mama looks tired." Thanks Sophia. :)

-One day I asked Sophia if she wanted a grilled cheese sandwich and she said, "Yes, our baby likes grilled cheese."

-I have been talking to Sophia about how the baby is going to be born around her birthday so the baby will be here when she has her third birthday. Sophia always says, "I'm going to share my birthday cake with our baby." I hope the sweetness towards the baby sticks around.

-Our plan is to not find out the sex of the baby until he/she is born. When we ask Sophia what she thinks we are having she goes back and forth, but most of the time she says, "A baby girl. A sister." It will be interesting to see if she is right. When I was pregnant with Sophia it seemed like the kids in the clinic were always guessing that I was having a girl while the parents thought I was having a boy. We didn't tell anyone what we were having so I thought it was interesting that the kids were usually right.

Five Years

2011-10-14T00:00:00.000-07:00

Today Matt and I are celebrating our five year wedding anniversary. Who knew that on our fifth anniversary we would have a two year old, a baby on the way, and a cute (though mischievous) little Jake. I love our little family. Happy Anniversary, Matt. Thank you for being a great parter, an amazing husband, and my best friend.

Matt's Boys' Trip

2011-10-13T19:18:00.000-07:00

I am so behind on blogging these days. I still need to post about Suri's birthday party, Jamie's birthday celebration, and a few other random things. Hopefully I can get caught up soon...though I'm not holding my breath. :)

Matt went to Boulder to visit his friend Chris a couple of weeks ago. They try to take a boys trip every October. Their friend Scott is usually there too but he had to sit this year out as he and their wife just had their second little boy. Here are the pictures that were on the camera when Matt got home.

I am not so sure what is going on here.

A Journey/Foreigner concert was on the agenda.

Chris and Kimberly.

These two look like trouble.

The guys did a lot of fly fishing. One of Chris's friends went with them a couple of times. Matt said he was a great fisherman.

It sounds like the guys had a really great time. I think the next trip is going to be in Arizona which will be a good thing since we will have a little one around the house again at that time.

Happy Columbus Day...and other news

2011-10-10T22:00:00.000-07:00

Today Sophia celebrated Columbus Day at daycare. They asked that the kids dress in red, white, and blue and they had a parade around the school. Sophia was still wearing her headband from the parade when I picked her up. They had also made shakers and she was carrying it around too. Love the pirate smile in this picture.

They have the parade every year. When I saw Sophia this afternoon it reminded me of this picture from Columbus Day two years ago.

It was impossible to get a normal smile out of this little one.

Admiring her shaker.

In other Sophia news...I hate to jinx it, but I think Sophia might be potty trained. We haven't been pushing her and have just had her in pull-ups and encouraging her to go for the past month or so. This weekend Matt was ready to go full force. While I was at work on Friday he decided it was time for potty training. He put Sophia in underwear and they headed to the children's museum (brave man). Sophia had one accident at the museum but Matt just changed her clothes and they carried on. I had no idea that potty training was going to begin so I was pretty surprised when I came home from work Friday night and Sophia was wearing her big girl underwear. We decided it was all or nothing and we would just stick with underwear the rest of the weekend. I was a little nervous about this, especially when I took Sophia to Suri's first birthday party, but Matt insisted it was time. The good news is that Sophia has had no accidents since that one on Friday morning...yea!! I was pretty scheduled about taking her to the potty all weekend and never gave Sophia much of a chance to tell me when she needed to go. I was a little worried about daycare today but Ms. Rosemary was excited to see Sophia in underwear and reported that stayed dry all day and even told her when she needed to go at least one time. Sophia has also woken up from all of her naps and bedtimes dry. I know that there will be accidents in the future, but we are so proud of our little nugget and how great she is doing.

In Baby Bryson news...we had our 12 week appointment this morning. Matt was able to go to this appointment with me. I was excited to be able to hear baby's heartbeat today. Unfortunately, Dr. Chambers had a hard time picking up the heartbeat on the doppler. It was hard to find Sophia's heartbeat at this stage too. The good news about not being able to find the heartbeat was that we got to go ahead and have an ultrasound. Dr. Chambers thought that baby must have known that Matt was here this time and wanted to take a peek. The ultrasound revealed why it was so hard to find the heartbeat...the baby was moving around like crazy. It made us laugh how much the legs were kicking around. I am pretty sure our baby was dancing. :) Everything looked great. We talked about progesterone injections a little more and we decided that I am going to go ahead and get them as an added precaution to try and prevent having another premature baby. So I will get the shots weekly from week 16 to week 36. I am not a huge fan of needles so this isn't something I am looking forward to but it is definitely worth the pain. I just might have a few Child Life injection tricks up my sleeve too. :)

Ok, that's all for now. Hopefully I will get the pictures of Suri's birthday party up soon. We had a little bit of a sleepless night around here last night so I am off to bed early tonight.

Open House

2011-10-09T00:00:00.001-07:00

Thursday night was open house at Sophia's daycare. They had a pizza party and then all of the rooms had different crafts for the kids to do and displayed the kids' artwork from the past couple of months. It is always fun to catch up with the parents of Sophia's classmates and see all of her past teachers.

Matt and I got to the school a little early so we hung out on the playground with Sophia.

Sophia loves to swing!

Max was swinging too and was happy to flash me a smile.

Love these cuties

We ate dinner with Juan's family. Juan's Mom is also pregnant and is due in February. Juan and Sophia have been in the same classes since Sophia was four months old and Juan was two months old. It looks like their siblings will be doing the same.

Doing crafts in Ms. Rosemary's room.

We love Sophia's school and all of the teachers. It was fun to go into the infant room and hear that the teachers in there are excited to have baby Bryson in their room next summer.

Little Ladies

2011-10-08T21:08:00.000-07:00

I feel like I don't get my camera out much anymore at girls' night. I guess I have been a little on the tired side. :) A couple of weeks ago when Emma and Kari got to our house we noticed that Sophia and Emma had almost the exact same outfits on. I decided a few pictures were in order and it was a nice evening (we are finally starting to get a little cooler weather around here) so the girls didn't mind being outside.

Hug time.

I have noticed lately that Sophia has been calling Ayden and Emma her cousins. I think it might be because we talk to and about Hadley and Jillian a lot and how they are Sophia's cousins. There has also been a lot of talk about brothers and sisters around here so we had to have a discussion about how Sophia came out of mommy's tummy and and that is where her brother or sister will come from too. I think she might just have it figured out now. :)

If our Baby is a Boy, this is what he will look like...

2011-10-05T21:52:00.001-07:00

Well, maybe minus the snaggletooth. :)

Sensory Tub Number Two

2011-10-02T22:18:00.000-07:00

Back in August I talked about making a Sensory Tub for Sophia. She loved the bathtub themed tub and called it her "crystal box" because it had blue crystals in it that she loved to pick out. I thought it was probably time for us to change up the tub since it is fall now and Halloween will be here soon. Sophia and I needed to pick up some things at Target and Michael's today so I thought it would be fun to pick out the tub items together. Sophia had a blast picking out all of the fall/Halloween accessories. She did get a little confused, though, at Michael's when we walked past all the Christmas decorations. She said, "Christmas trees! It must be Christmas time." Well, not quite. :)

Here is the tub after we put it together tonight. We may have gone a little overboard on the accessories.

It includes black beans, orange crystals, acrylic pumpkins, styrofoam pumpkins, googly eyes, foam spirals, orange pom poms, and rubber skeletons. There is also a cup, tongs (or tweezers as Sophia says, she says she likes to tweeze), and a ladle to scoop and fill up.

Sophia dug right in before bed.

It is fun to see Sophia counting the pumpkins, exploring new textures, working on fine motor skills, and asking lots of questions while playing with her tubs. I am loving these tubs and am already thinking of ideas for our next one.

Changes in the Bryson Household

2011-10-01T00:00:00.003-07:00

Sophia has a little announcement to make...

Ok, I guess that is more like a big announcement. :) That's right, another Baby Bryson will be joining our family in April. April 22nd to be exact. Yes, that is four days before Sophia's third birthday! We are so excited for the new addition to our family. Sophia loves to talk about the baby. I am going to do a whole other post of all the funny things she has said.

So I am eleven weeks along now. I was going to wait a little longer to make the announcement official online, but this baby has decided to start "popping" out a little sooner than Sophia did and I had more than one person at work last week ask me if I was pregnant. I decided that it was probably time to spill the beans. We had already told our parents and brothers and sisters by sending them cards with the pictures above on them. It was fun to get all of their phone calls when they received the cards.

Here is the story of how we found out we were pregnant. When we got home from our trip to California I knew that I would be able to take a pregnancy test if I was late. We got home on Saturday and I took a pregnancy test on Sunday but it was negative. I was super disappointed because I was sure it was going to be positive. My Mom was in town so I tried to just move on and enjoy my time with her. By Thursday I still hadn't started and we were going to a beer tasting with some of my co-workers that night so I thought I should maybe take another test just in case. I took the test and it was immediately positive. Matt didn't even know I was taking it so he was pretty surprised when I called him back to the bedroom and told him. Next I told my Mom who was also thrilled. We were supposed to leave for the beer tasting/dinner about 10 minutes later so we went ahead and went and I just took sips of the beers and then had the waiter take them away. Luckily no one even noticed.

Luckily I haven't had any morning sickness but I have been absolutely exhausted. I also have to remember to eat every few hours or I just start feeling cruddy. I remember being tired when I was pregnant with Sophia but I don't remember being this tired. Of course that is probably because I wasn't trying to take care of a two year old back then and could lay around as much as I wanted. I am so lucky to have an amazing husband who lets me come home from work and relax on the couch while he fixes dinner, feeds me and Sophia, and then gets Sophia ready for bed. It is the nights that he is at work that are tough. This also explains why I haven't been a very good blogger lately, but I think it is a pretty good excuse.

Long Time No Blog

2011-09-27T22:10:00.000-07:00

Wow, I have been a very inconsistent blogger these days. I feel like for awhile I will post every day and then I will go almost a week without a post. In my defense, we haven't had all that much going on around here lately. This is probably a good thing considering last time something exciting happened it involved a chipped tooth. I did have a few random pictures from the last week to share.

We had company over for dinner on Saturday night. Jamie, Doug, Jamie's Mom (Verlan), and Jenni came over for dinner. For some reason I didn't get out the camera. I definitely should have because Sophia was very cute with Jamie's Mom. We were eating dinner and out of nowhere Sophia says to Jenni, "Jamie's Mom is nice." The funniest part was that Verlan was sitting right next to Sophia yet Sophia was talking like she wasn't even there. Sophia also had fun playing puzzles with Jamie and Doug. The next day she got out one of her puzzles and told us she was going to put it together, then she said, "Jamie and Doug like puzzles too." She sure doesn't forget much.

Sophia doesn't go to daycare on Fridays so she is home with Matt. For the past couple of Fridays they have gone to the Children's Museum. Sophia loves to go and is always asking when she can go back. Matt took the camera along for one of their visits.

Making pizza. Hopefully Sophia turns out to be a good cook like her Daddy.

This girl loves puzzles.

I think Matt took this picture for my brother, Jordan, as Jordan works for Freeport-McMoRan.

Sophia has been loving watching Tennessee football with her Daddy. Matt's Aunt Dana sent her these pom poms to go with Sophia's Halloween costume. She also sent along the adorable cheerleader doll.

We always laugh at the funny positions that Sophia gets into when she sleeps. This was one of her latest. Looks comfortable, huh? :)

Lori gave Sophia these cute Halloween pajamas.

When I put them on Sophia she said she was a Halloween ballerina and proceeded to spin all around the room.

That is about all that has been going on around here. Hopefully my updates won't be so few and far between.

Update on the Teeth

2011-09-21T22:41:00.000-07:00

Sophia thought she was pretty hot stuff in the sunglasses they let her wear at the dentist office when they shined the light into her mouth.

We had our appointment with the dentist this morning to figure out what we were going to do with that snaggletooth Sophia has. Actually both front teeth are chipped, but it is just the bottom of one of them so you don't really notice it too much. Anyway, I was so nervous about this appointment that I had a hard time getting to sleep last night. I was just worried that it was going to hurt Sophia when they looked at it and that something painful might be required. I have been prepping her for this appointment for three days and I was so glad that she had been to the dentist just a couple of months ago so it wasn't going to be a new place for her. At one point she even said, "Where's the x-ray?" because I had told her the dentist might need to x-ray her teeth. She was a little cutie.

Sophia was excited when we got to the office because she loves the train that runs around the ceiling of the office. When the hygienist took us back, Sophia asked if she could color. She made herself right at home. :) Ok, now to the good stuff. The dentist checked out the tooth with the biggest chip and said that it is definitely fractured so it doesn't qualify for a filling. He said that basically there was nothing to do for it unless we wanted him to do a root canal and place a crown on the tooth...ummm, no thanks. He also did not feel that the tooth needed to be sealed or filed. The good news is that Sophia was an awesome patient, was very cooperative, and didn't have to be in any pain. The bad news is that it looks like we are going to be looking at the snaggletooth for a few more years.

The dentist said that Sophia has a pretty large overbite (she can thank her mama for that one) and that her front teeth will be prone to trauma. I told him that isn't the first time she has fallen and hit those teeth, and that last time she did her gums were very red and swollen. He said that he wouldn't be surprised if those teeth fell out early because of repeated trauma. He also said that the chipped tooth might turn gray...excellent! Right now it is just a waiting game. We go back in a few months for her six month check up and he will look at the tooth again at that time to determine if anything further needs to be done. He was pretty unimpressed with the "little" chip as he called it. He also said I was probably more traumatized by it than Sophia was. :)

My Big Girl

2011-09-18T21:44:00.000-07:00

My little girl is growing up right before my eyes. Saturday we went an picked up a new bed for our little nugget. Kari's Mom, Connie, had an almost new bed that she generously offered to us. It was perfect. Matt set the bed up yesterday but we didn't get the sheets washed and on it until this morning. Sophia was anxious to sleep in her bed for nap. As you can see, she had no problem transitioning.

She even stayed in the bed when she woke up until I came in and got her (one of the rules we had gone over before nap). I took a couple more pictures before she went to bed tonight.

She is loving being a big girl.

Now we just have to finish getting her room in order. We are moving things around right now so it is a little chaotic in there. We will probably eventually have to take everything off the walls and move it around as I don't love having shelves right above her bed. I will post pictures after everything ins in place. Hopefully sleeping in the bed will keep going well.