Thank You Mau-Mau

Mau-Mau was not able to be there for the birth of Briley because she was on a previously planned trip to Europe. She brought back this adorable t-shirt from Monico and I couldn't wait until he was big enough to put it on. I pulled it out of the closet and I must say he looks pretty cute in his racing shirt.

Briley turns the big ONE!

We had the best first birthday party for Briley that I have every been too. It was a wonderful yet sad day since my little boy is growing so fast. The theme was fishing and both my sisters and their kids and my mom came down early to help set up for the party. We also had a lot of help from Brians mom and dad. Since my sisters are really creative it became better than I could have ever imagined. The temperature broke 100 but we still had an amazing turn out with what I believe was at least 40 people.

The entry into the house. We had the fish fry in the front by the garage. This was an attempt to be in the shade and out of the way of the back yard. The men hung out here for the first half of the party.

Briley getting ready for all the people to arrive.
We hung the party favor pails in front of the kitchen. At the end of party we cut them down to give to the kids and they were filled with sunglasses, fish picture frames and swedish fish.

Briley sporting his bass pro shop outfit. The hat stayed on for at least one minute.

We had birthday pictures taken and had no clue what to do with the 10x13 so we made it into a board where the guests could sign.

The food: fruit salad in a watermelon fish, gold fish, fish cake, and we also had kid friendly jello shots with blue jello and gummy fish inside. The main meal was fried fish (caught by daddy), hush puppies and french fries.

This was Briley's special cake made by my sisters. As you can tell, my sisters also had face painting. Avalyn is in the back sporting the hello kitty look.

A close up of the cake.

The backyard was the water park. Due to not wanting to post too many pictures I didn't show the kids playing, but we had a slip n' slide, kiddie pool, sprinkler, and a little pool were the kids could pretend to go fishing. This is Briley running down the hill after getting wet. He had such a good time.

Some of the people crowded in our house. When everyone came in we had people standing in the kitchen, dining room and living room.

Cake time for Briley

It took him quite a while to get the hang of eating cake. At first he wanted me to feed it to him and really didn't want to touch it. Finally after several minutes, and me practically destroying the cake for him, he grabbed a big piece. He thought it was delicious.

Then he just went after it with his mouth. He didn't eat a whole bunch, but it was enough sugar to have him miss his second nap and he stayed up until 9:30. Oh well, it was his birthday.

We gave him a quick bath before presents.

He got tons of great presents from all of his family and friends. Grammy and Grandpa gave him a really cool 2009 coupe. I can't wait until he learns to drive it around everywhere.

He also got this really cute chair that will be perfect to go fishing with daddy in.

After the party was over and everything was cleaned up we decided to give Briley his first haircut. We learned a lesson and next time we will put on Elmo to distract him. It isn't the best haircut but what 1 yr old actually gets one without mistakes. He obviously wouldn't keep his head still but Mau-Mau still did a good job.

July 14th was his actual birthday so this is Briley looking at his Elmo birthday card from Grammy and Grandpa. You can also see his cute haircut.

Another perk about being one: you get to turn your car seat around. I will find out tomorrow if he is 20lbs (another requirement)but I am pretty sure he is at least 20.5 lbs. We took a trip to junction and he had so much fun looking out the window.

Happy Birthday Briley!

Celebrating 3 years!

Brian and I were able to celebrate our 3 year anniversary last night. My family was in town for Briley's Birthday so we went out to a nice dinner at Carino's. It was the perfect night and we got to reminisce on the past 3 wonderful years and how much we loved each other. I can't wait to see what the rest of our lives brings us.

Summer Has Begun

Well I have officially started my summer. It is times like this when I think teaching is the greatest job. Don't get me wrong, I will miss the students, but my excitement about hanging with Briley the whole summer outways the sadness. My first week is dedicated to thoroughly cleaning the house and getting rid of stuff we don't need, and boxing up stuff we won't use until the next baby. The next 2 weeks will also be birthday planning time. I can't believe Briley will be 1 in 2 weeks. We are planning a huge fishing party and I am hoping a lot of people can make it. I know my sister is down with her 3 kids from Nebraska and my other sister and her kids will be here also. I planning on doing a lot of the decorating myself and with their help so I will post pictures of the party later.

Well Briley is doing wonderfully. He is still the sweetest boy but has finally developed a personality. He is very determined to do things himself (pick up big toys and squeeze through tight spaces) and gets very frustrated if he can't. He has also switched from our laid back baby to a squirmy busy-body. He likes to walk everywhere and play with his toys. He absolutely loves Elmo and Veggietales and if we play his DVD he just cracks up. We attempted birthday pics at Sear's yesterday and will probably never do that again. He wasn't really into the posing thing and just wanted to crawl of the mat and go play with the toys in the waiting room.

Now that I am at home with him I got another walking video. He can walk everywhere now and can standup without any help from furniture. The only thing he is NOT doing is saying mama which is quite frustrating. I know he loves me and knows who I am, I would just like him to say it. He can say dada and clock and fan (2 of his favorite things). Hope you like the video and can't wait to post pictures from his birthday.