The OC (day 1)

We really wanted to take Brinley to Disneyland while she is in this "princess" stage of life.  There wasn't a better time than right now so last week we hopped on a plane and headed for the OC.

I was a little worried about Brinley's first airplane ride, but she did great!

 We rented a car while we were there so we drove to Long Beach so Brinley could see the ocean, but it started to rain so we took her to the aquarium there.

 It was cool.  She loved touching the sea creatures.

 When Dustin and I were in Hawaii we fell in love with Yogurtland.  In fact, we loved it so much that we looked into opening a franchise when we got home.  We thought of a great location and shortly after that someone opened Twizzle Berry near the same location.  We weren't really disappointed because now we get to eat yogurt and we didn't even have to buy a franchise.  If only Twizzle Berry were as good as Yogurtland.  My personal favorite: coconut yogurt topped with almonds, granola, fresh coconut and pretty much every kind of fresh fruit.

Looks like Brinley likes it as much as we do.

 Brinley likes to play squishy face.

 Then we headed back to our hotel and went swimming.  I swear, Brinley's favorite thing in the whole world is staying in hotels and swimming.  When we were headed back to the hotel she was so excited to go swimming and just kept talking about it.  Then she said, "Dad, you can change in the bathroom so we don't see your privacy."  Where does she come up with this stuff?



The Best Valentine's Day Ever

The day before Valentine's Day my Mom had us all over for a Valentine's dinner which was so sweet since she's in the middle of a kitchen re-model.  The kids decorated sugar cookies.  I LOVE this!  I think it says so much about a kid and the way they view life.  The more sprinkles the better, right?

 We normally make a big deal out of Valentine's Day.  Dustin and I have always gone out, we usually try to go to some fancy restaurant, but this year we decided to stay home and celebrate with Brinley.  It was so great and in my opinion, the best Valentine's day ever!

Moments Like This

I blog for me.  This is our history.  I find it easy to sit down at the end of the day or week and write a post about what has been going on in our lives.  I realize I have a lot of information on here.  Most of the things I want to remember, I post here because I turn my blog into a book.  I don't scrapbook, I don't even print my pictures so this is pretty much our only source of history.  I was looking through my pictures and came across a couple that I wanted to include in our history.

 Brinley had this bag of leftover Christmas candy.  On this particular day I told her she couldn't have any treats, I'm pretty sure she hadn't even had breakfast yet, but she chose to sneak her bag of candy into her room.  She got in trouble for not obeying and then for lying to me.  As her punishment we through the bag of candy away.  As you can see, this did not seem like a fair punishment to her.  And it probably wasn't.  I'm pretty sure she only got a couple pieces of candy for Christmas and she had obviously held onto it for a couple of months.  Growing up I had complete trust in my parents.  I thought they had all of the answers and now that I'm a mom I realize they didn't.  They just did the best they could.  More often than not, I don't make the best parenting choices.  I too just do the best I can because this little girl trusts me and she thinks I know what I'm doing.  

A few weeks ago I got really sick.  My husband took great care of me, bought me Jamba Juice everyday and took over when I was too weak to get out of bed for like 48 hours.  OK, this sounds like I was really sick, but it's wasn't that big of a deal, just some flu or something, but unfortunately I gave it to him and although I was still pretty weak it was my turn to take over and take care of him.  Poor Brinley spent days  cooped up in the house just pretty much taking care of herself.  I felt horrible so we had a picnic in the living room.  I'm really grateful Dustin got sick so I could have this picnic with my daughter.  It's moments like this that make life so great!  It's often the simple things that bring us the most joy.

Roxy Roo

So, what do you do when you find out your dog needs a $1,300 surgery, $200-$300 in post surgery visits and a very expensive prescription diet for the rest of her life?

Don’t get me wrong, we love our dog, but $1,300!!!! We aren’t those pet owners that treat our dog like a child. Like I said, we love her, but she’s just our pet. We don’t let her on our furniture, we don’t refer to ourselves as mom and dad and she doesn’t eat off of our dishes.

So, what did we do? We didn’t feel like we had a choice. We have no authority to take her life from her, nor did we want to. So… we paid the $1300 and are so glad to have a happy and healthy dog. I don’t know what Brinley would do without her.

Could this be because I'm pregnant?

So the other day Brinley was clomping around in her dress up shoes. I said, “Babe, that’s really loud.” And she said, “And it’s a doying?”  “Yes Brinley, It’s annoying.”

I don’t know what it is, but EVERYTHING bugs me these days. I can’t tell you how many times I send my husband an email or walk in the door and bombard him with all of the things that bugged me that day. He just laughs at me. So, what’s bugging me today?

• Dear guy that comes into my office, don’t scratch the inside of your ear with a key while you are talking to me. It’s really annoying.

• Dear guy that scratched your ear with a key, you have been in here 5 times today. He’s not here. Wouldn’t it just be easier to call?

• Dear girl in spinning today, don’t get me wrong, I love to exercise… ok I’ll just start at the beginning. You were 5 minutes late for class, what were you wearing? Did you forget you were coming to aerobics? I better not mention the 80’s clip in your hair because that’s just rude and my sister would be offended ( I used to make fun of her scrunchies). Gosh, I feel so rude, but no kidding this type of stuff drives me CRAZY all day! Sometimes for days! Let’s get to the really annoying part… Like I said, I love to exercise and something I have learned is that if I leave covered in sweat I have worked hard enough, but for some reason I could not look at you for fear that I would gag. When I first saw your bike I honestly thought you had spilled your water. It was all the way to the floor! Then I saw the sweat poor off of your body and run down your bike. It was really annoying and while I’m on it. The music was too loud and not to mention annoying. And, was the microphone even on?

• My round face

• My round body

• So many clothes and nothing to wear… again!

• Really intense cravings!

• Dear people that claim to be fitness experts, don’t be advising people to eat cool whip. It’s not a health food. It’s not even food.

• I am horrible with grammar! I’m embarrassed because I know Kari reads my blog and she’s an expert. I bet you can find a million errors on each post, but I can’t quit being annoyed by a random comma that did not belong on a co-workers paper.

• The cost of having a baby

• Out of date maternity clothes

• Maternity clothes period

• Regular clothes

• Regular non-pregnant people

• My pregnant friends that don’t look pregnant

• Pretty much everything else

 *Oh, and how did I almost forget the most annoying one of all?   Quit looking at my stomach!  It's REALLY ANNOYING!

Help! I feel so blessed to be pregnant and I hate it when people complain about being pregnant, but I’m sick of everything bugging me!

Just Because You Can't See it Doesn't Mean it Isn't There

I love being a mom! I remember when Brinley was a baby my mom told me that being a mom wasn’t always fun and since then I have had a few of those not so fun moments she was talking about, but even during those times I know that I am extremely blessed.

Becoming a mom has been a very defining moment for me. I’m different now. Everything I thought I knew before I was a mom has changed. I act different. I think different. I am different and that’s because I have something that no one but a mom can understand. I believe there is no greater love on earth than a mother’s love. Although having so much love for another human being is amazing, it comes with a heavy burden- a constant worry- a responsibility to protect and safe guard.

Life doesn’t always work out as we plan, but it always works out. We didn’t plan on having our kids 4 years apart. That’s just how it worked out and when the time finally came to have another baby we were ready. We wanted it right then.

When we went to the Dr. for the first time we went in extremely excited and left wondering if something was terribly wrong. My Dr. performed two separate ultrasounds, but there were no signs that our baby was still alive. All we saw on the screen was black, no baby, no heartbeat. I was supposed to be 10 weeks and at 10 weeks this is a very bad sign. I was told to come back in a week. I couldn’t get out of that office soon enough. My eyes were filled with tears and people kept asking me when my due date was and trying to get medical information out of me and I just wanted to get out of the building. When the doors opened and I stepped out into the parking lot I just cried. That love that only a mother can have was getting to me. I wanted my body to be able to protect this little baby and I was wondering if I had failed.

I googled the situation. It’s actually really common, in some cases you just aren’t far enough along in the pregnancy to see the baby and in other cases the baby just quit developing and died. You then miscarry the baby. I read so much about both of these outcomes and I was scared to death and didn’t know how I could wait a week to find out.

Somewhere in the middle of the week I started to bleed and I sat down in the closet and cried my hear out. This was my child and I didn’t want to lose it. I was doing everything I could to protect it, but I didn’t know if it was enough. I felt like I had already failed as a mother. I realized that when my friends had lost their babies in the past I had always said the wrong things. I didn’t realize how hard it was, until that moment where I may or may not have been experiencing it, but the thought came to me ‘just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there’.

When I looked at that screen just days earlier all I saw was a sack filled with darkness. To me it looked empty. Little did I know that my baby was not only in there, but its heart had begun to develop and was already circulating blood. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. I was then blessed with extreme nausea and that alone gave me enough faith to get through the next few days.

When we went back we were able to see the baby and hear a relieving healthy heart beat. Turns out the little stinker just likes to play hide and seek. I just wasn’t as far along in the pregnancy as my Dr. and I had thought. I know that some moms aren’t this lucky. I feel like I have more of an understanding of what it feels like to have a miscarriage although I didn’t actually have one. I realize that I can love a little cluster of cells that isn’t even visible to me, because that little cluster of cells was my child. My mom was right, being a mom isn’t always fun, but it’s always worth it!

And a bump to prove it

This is either going to be one gigantic baby or I'm going to be left with a ton of work to do 6 months from now, either way I can't wait to kiss it's face off.

Question of the Day

Brinley:  Mom, can I say what the hell?

Remember This Sad Face???

Now just imagine what she looked like when we informed her that she is finally going to be a big sister.  Priceless!  We are so happy to finally be a family of 4.

The Bachelor

I don’t generally watch TV and I never watch the Bachelor, but somehow last night I ended up wasting two hours of my life in front of the TV watching, you guessed it, The Bachelor.  I don’t understand how they call that reality TV.  I don’t understand how all of those girls are magically in LOVE with this one guy.  How is it that they never have a couple with no chemistry?  I shouldn’t say never because like I said, I don’t watch the show.  And how is it that this guy just so happens to have such strong feeling for ALL of these girls?  Here’s how the show goes.  The bachelor takes a girl on some out of this world romantic yet unrealistic date.  They have a great time, make out, talk about how much they care about each other then go back to the house.  Some girl gets one on one time with the bachelor, but it gets interrupted by another girl saying, “I’m sorry, excuse me, do you have a minute?  So then she tells the bachelor how she needs to know he cares about her.  He assures her he does and she needs to trust him.  They make out and it’s interrupted by yet another girl that needs to know that the bachelor cares about her and on and on and on and on.  How is this reality?  At the end of this, how could anyone possibly say, “I do?”  I’m just saying.  And on a random note, I spent the entire show thinking the bachelor looked a little bit like my husband, only taller and tanner and more fake. 

Now if only I looked like one of these girls

and if only my husband would pick me up in a helicopter and we could fly to Catalina, walk on the ocean floor, lay on a bed in the middle of the beach, cuddle, kiss, talk about how much we love each other, have a romantic picnic, and repel off of buildings in LA.  (sign)

Bottom line... If you:

are gorgeous

have a spray tan

and a boob job

don't have enough drama in your life

are jealous and insecure and like to cry about it

want to meet the love of your life guaranteed (even if he doesn't pick you)

like to share your man

look great in a swimming suit

and want to be on a reality TV show about dating that is nothing like dating in real life you should try out for the next bachelor.

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas

I can honestly say, I have never been so disappointed to have such a green lawn.  The lack of snow didn't stop us from having a great Christmas though.  Traditionally we have a little party at my Mom's house on Christmas Eve.   We had a white elephant gift exchange then Brinley sang Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.

 The other kids had some hidden talents too, like Karson's break dancing.  Who would have thought?

 Then there's my Dad.  He's an amazing guitar player.  I would dare say he plays nearly every day of his life.  Growing up, I remember him sitting on the edge of his bed and he would practice.  The thing is, it takes a lot of convincing to get him to actually play for us and about once a year, he does.  Amazing thing #1, my Dad taught himself to play the guitar.  Amazing thing #2, he usually learns his songs not by reading the music, but buy listening to it.  Amazing thing #3, my Dad was born Deaf in one ear. But when he does play for us, I am always amazed by his talent and wish that I would somehow inherit some of his musical talent.

 We usually spend some time at Grandma and Grandpa Cazier's on Christmas Eve too.  And honestly, one of my very favorite Christmas moments this year was watching Dustin's Grandpa sing Christmas carols.

Brinley had a great Christmas morning,  spoiled as usual!  We were so thankful to be able to spend so much time with our families.