From Brian's phone

I uploaded pictures and videos from Brian's phone. I don't have a fancy phone so I can't do that with mine, but I was super excited to get all his stuff uploaded on our computer so we can save them forever. Here are a few gems I found :)

Bria passed out on a car ride home from visiting family, I love that her right arm is behind her head.

Little Reese at Christmas time

Bria brushing Rapunzel's long, blonde hair

Snuggling with my girl (I love how intense she is when watching a movie)

Seriously, this is the best way to spend a rainy day

She wanted this guy to come home with her so bad 

This is at my friend, Randi's house, it's gorgeous

Amanda and I with our kiddos

And this video is from a couple months ago when Reese first started laughing, I love it!

Preschool time

Bria is slowly getting better. She still resists going to the bathroom, but she is not in pain all day and we are all very grateful for that.

Fun with baking soda and colored vinegar

It fizzes!!! Look at her intensity :)

Good old corn starch and water with some food coloring, Gak never seizes to entertain

I think we have decided on a preschool for Bria and I'm really excited about it. We took Bria to go see it last week and talked with the director. It seems very well structured and lots of learning and playing which I love. It's twice a week for 2 1/2 hours. Every 5 or 6 weeks I go in and help as the teacher aid and bring in snacks. I think it will be fun to see her in there and see how she interacts with the other kids.

My cowgirl

She's got spunk

Reese hit the bottle a little too hard on my jog ;)

Sisters swinging together :)

I'm really hoping for some summer weather soon because those swinging pictures are from a few weeks ago and make me miss the warm weather we had. I wanna go to the park in shorts again! Especially since Bria has gotten over her fear of slides, for now anyway. The girl wants to swing as high as possible, but slides? Oh no, those were terrifying her. But something clicked a few weeks ago and she thinks they are awesome once again:

Layin' low

Portland has been a great move for us. We are loving it here and meeting some amazing friends. I've mentioned by girlfriends before, but I have to do it again because they are that cool. There are 5 of us that have gotten really close and we are always planning a girls night out or family get together. Luckily all of our husbands are awesome too and get along.

Out with my girls!

Don't know what I would do without these girls, they rock!

This week we've still been struggling with poor Bria. She's pretty traumatized from her bad BM (bowel movement for those non doctors ;) experience so it's been challenging. I'm trying to remember that eventually it will get better but it's hard to remember that when you're in the thick of it.

Snuggling with Grammy

Bria helping feed Reese a bottle

I think she felt like such a good big sister :)

So I don't have a lot of pictures of stories since we haven't done much this week. But I'm hoping Bria will be back to her normal self soon and that the weather turns into summer so we can all start feeling better :)

8 months

My little baby is 8 months old. Here is what she is up to:

• Sleep is about the same as last month, 7-6:30 and naps twice. Once around 9 am ish and the second around 1 pm ish.
• Wears 6-9 month clothes
• Wears size 3 diapers

• Started scooting, ahhh!
• Pulled herself up once, my strong little child
• Nurses around 4 or 5 times a day, eats baby food 2 or 3 times a day
• Has eaten little yogurt puffs and cheerios, it's fun to watch her pick them up
• Loves water, she will grab her sippy cup and chug away, one handed even :) 

•  Grabs and pinches EVERYTHING and EVERYONE
• Puts EVERYTHING in her mouth, I can't even read to her because she just tries to grab and eat the book, seriously.
• Enjoys being naked

• Is very ticklish
• Has started screaming back and forth with Bria, such a fun game ;) 
• Says da-da and I think she is trying to say mama because she has started making the ba ba noise.

Baby Harasses Bunny

Goin in for the headlock

"Hands where I can see them!"

"It's all good, Mom!"

• Plays peek-a-boo with a blanket
• Loves to cuddle
• Still has the two bottom teeth

She is at a fun age and is easy to make smile. She does not like when anyone leaves the room though, I think she'll be my social butterfly. We love our Reese's pieces!

Not cool, Anesthesia, not cool

Bria's surgery was quick. Seriously, the procedure took 3 minutes. How do I know this? Because the Children's hospital has this cool little system in the family waiting room. Your child is issued a number and then you watch on these cool screens to see where your child is. It is incredibly detailed, it tells you when anesthesia is being administered, when the procedure has started, when it's finished, when they stop anesthesia, and when they are in the recovery room.

Here she is getting her blood pressure taken

Waiting to be taken back

Her cute little sign :)

She was given an oral sedative and we waited for it to take effect and for the anesthesiologist. It's funny to see your child on a sedative, it's like seeing her drunk. One minute she was all lovey and the next she wanted us to go away. We couldn't help but laugh. 

Happy Bria

Mad Bria

Silly Bria

Perplexed Bria

Who knows.

Then the anesthesiologist came and it was time for us to go wait...and watch the information screens.

I watched these screens like it was a new episode of Friends that I had never seen. I was glued. Anesthesia was 20 minutes (holycowiwasfreaking), procedure was 3 minutes, finishing procedure was 6 minutes and then the recovery room was 31 minutes. I was not okay with this 31 minutes crap, I wanted to see my daughter!!! I wanted to be there when she woke up all groggy and cuddle her and sing to her and she would lazily lay there while I comforted her.

Then a nurse came in and instead of wheeling Bria out and us all walking back to her room, she said one of us could go back in the recovery room. I should've know this was not a great sign.

I started walking back there and could hear her screaming. I went to her and her eyes were closed but she was thrashing and crying hysterically. I tried to sooth her, she kind of opened her eyes but they were rolling all over the place and she was hoarse from screaming. She was trying to rip her IV out. After about 15 minutes (it felt like an hour) they finally just let us take her to her room. She was still screaming, even after they took the IV out. To make a long story short, it was over an hour of us trying to calm her down. She could barely cry or talk because her voice was gone. Finally she calmed down long enough so that they could release us and we drove home. She ate and then went down for a very long nap.

I thought we were out of the woods when she woke up to her normal self, we were for a little bit. But due to the pain meds they gave her, she was very constipated. Again, I won't go into detail but it's been 3 days and the girl still screams bloody murder every time she has to go. At one point I started crying because I felt so helpless and she was screaming and crying and saying, "Make the pain stop, Mom!!! What's wrong with me?!?!?! Make the pain go away!!!!" Yeah, I wanted to die. I have never felt so awful and helpless.

I'm not entirely sure if it still hurts to try and go or if she is scared. Can't blame her, it's been pretty traumatic for her. 

So we have not done much else besides comfort our poor little toddler. Both our Moms came up and I honestly don't know what we would've done without them. They cleaned, cooked, let us sleep, and took care of the girls. They are angels, we love them so much.

Hopefully things will be back to normal and regular pooping can be restored. Until then...we've got our hands full.

Thank heaven for big sisters!

Reese is obsessed with Bria. She loves her, Bria can do no wrong in her eyes. Even when we think Bria is being too rough with Reese rolling her across the room, Reese is giggling and laughing. It's actually super sweet and it warms my heart.
Bria loves to help (most the time, she's 3 so ya know) and wants to feed her. The funny thing is that lately when I feed Reese baby food I get about 5 bites in and then she starts screaming bloody murder. I have no idea why. Anyway, I let Bria take over and Reese is all happy. Gotta love dramatic girls, Brian has his hands full.

It terms of food, I've been trying to do things a little different this time around. Less baby food and more real people food. Reese loves feeding herself. I wish I could say I loved it too, but it's SUPER messy. I wish they had disposable covers for high chairs because the food ends up in every crevice of her little chair and it takes me forever to clean it. However, her excitement is worth it. She LOVES avocados:

And on a different note, if you could say a prayer for little Bria. She is having surgery tomorrow morning, it's a very minor surgery on a skin tag that needs to be removed, but she still has to go under and that is scary. We are praying all goes well and it's quick and painless. 

Sun shiny day

Bria gets pretty spoiled with the amount of toys she gets. I'm pretty good about packing away toys when she gets new ones or when I realize she hasn't played with some toys for awhile. But still, anytime there is something new in our home, she thinks it's for her. Probably because it usually is. 

So you can probably guess when something is for Reese, it's a little confusing to Bria. She doesn't throw a fit or scream that it's hers, she just insists every 3 seconds that it's her turn to play with it. I can't complain, that's not too bad for a 3 year old, but you can imagine how long I have been spending pushing the girls in this little ride:

Reese taking her ride for a spin

Bria thinks it's fun to push her around, ya know, for a second and then she wants to switch :)

"This driving thing is a piece o' cake." 

10 and 2, such a good girl :)

Can you see how excited Reese is for her big sister?

I'm just so grateful that we've been able to play outside so much, we've been in the backyard, at parks, going for walks, you name it. Anything we can do to get outside.

Bristol and Bria=Bathing Beauties

My little cutie

Give this girl some sun and water and she is thrilled!

Precious!

Besides soaking up the gorgeous weather we haven't been doing too much lately. Reese started scooting today. Like real scooting, where she actually moves forward a lot. Oy vei. We will be installing a gate soon...amongst other baby proofing things. Some other fun things she is doing include waving, seriously cutest wave ever:

 She says Da da and hi. We swear she has said, "Hi Da da," a couple times but I'm sure no one would believe that unless they heard it, so here's hoping I can catch it on camera :)