Six Months!

On the 14th, Brynn was six months old! Crazy crazy. At her appointment, she weighed 16 lbs 5 oz and was 26 inches long. She's just about perfectly on the 50th percentile curve...except for her head measurement. Her head is 7th percentile. Obviously it's not a big deal, BUT SOMETIMES IT MAKES ME THINK ABOUT THE ZIKA VIRUS.

Brynn doesn't have any teeth yet, but she likes to eat cereal, bananas, applesauce, avocado, and sweet potatoes. When she's playing on the floor, she can move herself side to side in a big circle, but she hasn't really figured out how to crawl forward yet. We think she might be getting kind of close though! She sleeps 12 hours every night. Yeah. I know I'm lucky. She's curious and can sit and entertain herself for a while when Mom does homework. If she gets lonely, she's pretty happy to sit next to me on the couch while I work. Her favorite toys are Sophie the Giraffe (thanks Lizzy!), the Very Hungry Caterpillar (thanks Sharline!), Daddy's face, and Mommy's hair.

Happy six months Brynn Girl! You make us so happy.

This is a comparison to one of Brynn's newborn sleepers. I can't believe she was ever that teeny tiny!

One day when I was getting some reading done, we snuggled up on the bed, and she fell right asleep. 

Last week we drove to Indiana to spend some time with Greg's brother Kellen and his family. It was so fun! Here's Patrick with Baby Brynn at Reed's basketball game. Pat was such a natural with her! I guess that comes from having 5 younger siblings! (Cameo by Jane) 

First ponytail at Kellen and Calise's house. Oh my gosh. So cute. 

Brynn LOVED playing with her older cousins Ellie and Claire when everyone else was gone at school. She couldn't stop laughing at their silly games! 

Rockin' the sunglasses. We'll have to get a pair when we move back to Florida. 

Grabbing on to Daddy's hand. She would not let go and it was the most adorable thing ever. 

Brynn was playing on the couch while I did homework. Grabbing on to a toy, one sock off and stuck under neath of her...she fell asleep. Sometimes I feel like I'm neglecting her when I do homework, but she can usually take care of herself pretty well. Look

Brynn's new favorite activity is grabbing the edge pieces off her mat so she can suck on them. It makes her really happy and she does it all the time, as you can see: 

Photo Dump...My Baby is Cute

So, uh, has it really been 3 months since I've posted something on this here blog? Good job, Heather. I always mean to, but then we traveled for Christmas and then our dropbox was totally full because I take too many videos of the Brynn girl and so it was hard to get at my pictures, and then I started school... you get the drift. But, I vow to be better! And today when I should have been working on some project about, like, the gendering of American automobile consumption in the 1950s or something, I finally decided to download some pictures and then I decided to check up on my little neglected corner of cyberspace, and voila, here I am.

I don't have anything intelligent to say because I want to go play with my baby, so for my inaugural 2016 post, we're going to photo dump. These are in no particular order because I'm too lazy to sort them out.

We took family pictures at Christmastime!

Mumma and Baby get into shenanigans when Daddy is at work. 

Nakie baby! 

This was at my parents' house for Christmas. My mom gave Brynn a melon baller to play with, and it was her favorite thing ever. I have no idea why. And yes, in the absence of a bouncer or a Bumbo, I let my baby just kind of lay around on a giant pillow on the kitchen floor. 

Playing with Daddy! 

Fell asleep right before we left for church. I made that dress, if you recall! 

Christmas jammies! 

Ready for church (awake, this time). 

Brynn's first attempt at avocado. I would say it was wildly unsuccessful. 

I hope I don't sound mushy or cheesy, but it's crazy how happy she makes me. I find things out about her everyday and I love all the things I'm learning as I figure out being her mom. 

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Life is good. 

Monkey Baby

Happy (late) Halloween! I can't even tell you how much fun Greg and I had sifting through the baby Halloween costumes at Costco. Being parents is THE FUNNEST.

Mine.

I can't believe that Brynn is 10 weeks old. I always mean to post pictures of her, but somehow the time has just gotten away from me. How can I sum it up? Life with her is wonderful. Last night as I said my prayers I just poured out my heart for how grateful I am for her. I can't believe how beautiful she is. And I almost can't believe that she's mine and I get to keep her. 

That feeling of "mineness" is something I've been so looking forward to. Whenever I would babysit growing up, I always dreamed of the day when a baby would reach out to me and I would be the one they really wanted. And now, even though she's still tiny, that's what I have with Brynn. I'll be honest, I didn't settle into this feeling automatically. For one thing, Brynn is an IVF baby. This was an incredible blessing for us and I am absolutely sure this is what we were supposed to do to add to our family. I wouldn't have done it otherwise. But it did mean that the whole process of getting pregnant and finding out I was pregnant was a lot different than I imagined it--not bad, just different. And then the whole time I was pregnant I was scared. I tried really hard to connect with her and bond with her, but I wonder if something inside of me held back a little bit because I was afraid that what was happening was too good to be true, and I was just afraid I would lose her. I don't think it's a feeling you can really explain unless you've lost a child in pregnancy before. 

And then when she was born, we were so happy. But let's be honest. The newborn stage is hard, and even though I was crazy with love, I was also crazy with sleep deprivation and hormones. But now that things have settled down a little, and we're getting more used to each other, it's really starting to dawn on me: this is my daughter. She's finally here. She's all mine. 

I'm so happy. 

So here are some pictures of our beautiful Brynn girl. Some are kind of old, but I just want to throw them all up here to document some of my favorites: 

Look at that cute face! 

The carrier is her favorite thing ever, so we go on walks a lot in the park across the street. Look at those lips! 

These pictures below are a big deal because they were the first pictures we got of her smiling, when she was around 6 weeks. Oh man. So adorable. 

The wider my mouth gets the happier I am! 

Just doing my ab exercises in my swaddle sack: 

My super cute coat! 

Aren't hats on babies so darling? 

So I never blogged about it, but we went in to New York City for our 5 year anniversary/my birthday. (I saw The Lion King on Broadway and it was AMAZING!!! Greg officially gave me the best birthday present possible when he bought me that ticket!) Brynn was so good the whole time in the city! Just hanging out with Daddy in Grand Central Station:

Her eyes are so lovely to me. 

She's also a pretty fantastic sleeper. While she's still a little inconsistent, she can sleep from 10 to 6, eat really quick, and then conk out for another 2 hours after that. It's amazing. 

In one of the dresses Mommy made for me: 

Tummy time: 

When she woke up this morning. I can't believe how big she's getting. She was a little immodest because her pajamas got pulled down by her sleeper sack. Greg and I thought it was hilarious: 

If you ever read this Brynn, there is one thing you must always, always know. You were so very wanted. And you are so extremely loved. 

Brynn's Blessing

We had a special day here on Sunday. Brynn was blessed at church and we had family in town to be with us. A baby blessing in the LDS faith is similar to a christening, but it is performed by a lay member who has the Priesthood. It was such an amazing experience for me to be able to watch my daughter be blessed by her dad, and I know it was an amazing experience for Greg to be able to do it. 

Blessing her is something we've been looking forward to doing for years. When Austin and Daniel were born they both received blessings. They were very simple and very powerful. It was a window into who they were. I felt the same way at Brynn's blessing. She has her whole life ahead of her. It was a reminder to me that the whole journey of bringing her to our family was never just about "us," if you know what I mean. She has her own life, her own talents, her own strengths. She's going to have her own struggles and make her own choices. She's so little now, but there are so many things she is going to experience. She's not just my beautiful daughter--she is her own person. Maybe that sounds simple and silly, but having this more full picture of who she is just makes me fall in love with her even more. 

I was pretty proud of her blessing dress. I knew she would be a girl the moment we found out we were expecting, and I really wanted to be able to make her a blessing dress. I practiced sewing the whole time I was pregnant so the dress would turn out nice. It was a little big for her, but Grandma Zollinger helped us fix that with a ribbon around her waist. I thought she looked so beautiful and I'm so glad I started the tradition of making my kids' blessing clothes! Hopefully I can keep it up. 

Isn't she lovely though? 

Greg's parents and his brother Morgan's family came into town. It was so fun to have them here! We took Brynn out on some adventures this weekend and just had a blast. 

I'm so happy she is in our family. 

We took some cousin pictures. James was not having any of it! But they still turned out pretty adorable. 

Motherhood is funny. I've never been so consistently exhausted in my life and sometimes I have no freakin' clue what I'm doing. But she is beautiful and life is so good.