Happy Easter!

I have to admit I am a little sad typing this post. Brynn is spending the weekend with my mom and dad! It is her 1st Easter and we have to work so we don't even get to take her to church. We did put her in her Easter dress this morning so we could take some pictures of her. Growing up in my household we always took a family picture Easter morning before we went to mass. Out of us 4 kids at least one of us was always mad about something in the picture which would show by our facial expression, but nonetheless, every year dad would set the tripod up and set the timer on the camera and we would get the Smith family Easter picture. I wish I had some of those pictures to post, now those would be a sight to see. We did give Brynn her Easter basket from us this morning. She enjoyed going through it, she liked the ball we got her the best. It was 1 dollar at CVS so I am glad she doesn't have expensive taste.

Josh and I are really trying to get things going with our landscaping. We are meeting with a couple different designers over the next couple of weeks to get some ideas and estimates. We keep contemplating doing it ourselves but our time together as a family is so limited that we don't know if we want to take more time together away from Brynn to do it ourself or not! I am guessing depending on what the estimates are is what will scare us into doing it ourselves or not.

Brynn will be nine months on Tuesday! She is trying to start and talk more.. she says "dada", "nana", sometimes "mama" and now she is trying to say "ball" and "uh-oh". She is developing quite the personality and unfortunately has quite the little temper. I hate it but it is true. She waves her little arm when she gets mad and has started throwing fits when we put her in the carset.. I am hoping it is short phase she is going through. It makes me nervous because I had a Taro card reading back in February and she told me I would have my hands full with this child, I think it is already starting. Honestly for the most part she is a very sweet little girl.. she loves her mommy and daddy. I think she can already tell daddy is the soft one. Josh has told me since the beginning that I am going to have to be the disciplinarian.. he can't tell her no~ I understand though because that is how it was with my dad too!! I still use that to my advantage at age 30!!

I have to go for now, I can't get the spell check to work so don't judge me if every other word is spelled wrong!

Proud wife!

We ran a five mile race today.. Sarah and I ran together and ran it at a ten minute mile pace so I was pretty proud of ourselves for that. I know to some people that may seem like we are crawling but to us that is our Olympic speed. The race was called the Swamp Stomp and it was at the park across the street from where we live.. it was pretty fun to run on the trails thru the woods. I was scared I was going to get hurt though because there was gravel and big tree roots all over the place, plus it has rained so much the leaves were all slick.

I am so proud of Josh though, he finished 2nd in his age group and 8th overall, it is sad but he finished over 14 minutes faster than Sarah and I did.. he got a trophy and it was so cute because when we got home he gave it to Brynn. He is such a good dad!!

April Showers!!

I can't believe it is April.. Brynn will turn nine months soon, where has the time gone since last July when she was born. I swear every day I look at her at the end of the day and think she has gotten bigger. It is just so much fun watching her try new things every day. We have been feeding her more and more table food and she does so good feeding herself, not so much with a spoon or fork, but with her hands. She is an absolute mess afterwards but that is alright, I think it bothers daddy way more than mommy. He always makes a comment about how he is a much neater feeder than I am.

Last weekend we went to Cincinnati to see Jason and Kelli. It was a good time. We got there Saturday afternoon and immediately went to IKEA, Josh and I always want to go there to get things for the house. I love that place, it has alot of contemporary stuff for pretty cheap so you can do fun stuff to the house for not that much money. Then that night we ate wings, which we all always seem to do when we are together. I think the cutest thing of the weekend is how much Brynn loved Biscuit, that is their Boston Terrier, it was so cute. He would come right at her and lick her face and it didn't phase her a bit. She would be in her chair eating and be looking around at the floor for him. It was so cute. I told Josh we might have to get her a puppy for her birthday.. I don' t think he was sold on the idea. Sunday, Bob, Linda, Jana, Jeff, Bailey and Brady all came over to their house and we had our Easter celebration since the majority of us are in the health care field and work on Easter. It was nice to have all of us together, it doesn't happen too often, maybe just a few times a year.

This week was a crazy week at work.. always is at the 1st of the month. I left things in shambles last night when I left there so I couldn't sleep worrying about it. Josh didn't go in to work til 2 today so I went back into work this morning to try and help them get things caught up. I looked pretty scary because our power went out at 3 am this morning due to the storms so I couldn't take a shower because it was still dark out and I had no blow dryer to use. I probably did more harm than good by scaring customers away with the way that I looked.

I am looking forward to the weekend. We are running a 5 mile race tomorrow.. hopefully the weather will cooperate. Other than that not much planned.. we are getting ready to try and do some landscaping so we might start getting things together for that.

I need to post pictures of Brynn soon.. I haven't posted any in a long while. I will try and do that over the next couple of weeks.

March Madness!

I love this time of year.. mostly I think it is because Spring is here but I also love March Madness! I am a huge sports fan and probably a good thing I am because I am married to the biggest Purdue fan ever.. well maybe not individually but as a family they are the biggest group of Purdue fans I have ever met. Those of you who know us well know exactly what I mean. Every year Josh and I feel out our brackets and always have a competition to see who can get the most right.. I usually beat him which he probably won't admit but it is true. I think it is because he knows too much about the teams and I just sort of fill it out blindly not knowing much going into it. This year has been fun also because Purdue is still in the tournament. They plan UConn tomorrow night, the #1 seed in our region, but that is okay, we have nothing to lose, all the pressure is on them so I am hoping we can somehow pull off the upset. We are having people over to watch the game so I am excited to have all a bunch of Purdue fans over to watch and cheer on the Boilermakers!

Brynn is doing so much better this week. She is back to her old self. She finally got her 1st tooth.. it broke through this weekend. She is also starting to pull herself up, she climbed up the bottom two stairs yesterday so I think I am going to have to break down and get a baby gate. She is so much fun right now, developing quite the little personality. She definitely has a temper, she must get that from her dad(he he).

We are heading to Cincinnati this weekend to see Jason and Kelli and Biscuit. We haven't been there since September.. so we are excited about going. It is always nice to just hang out and catch up. We have to run 12 miles Saturday before we can leave so I am not looking forward to that but at least I know fun is waiting at the end of the 12 miles!

Boiler up!!!

Finally!

So I wrote last weekend saying how Brynn was sick again.. well it turned into her getting dehydrated again and having to get admitted to the hospital AGAIN! It was awful. I just feel so sorry for her. The thing is when she is sick like that she won't drink anything. We try pedialyte, gatorade, juice, and she won't drink any of them. She just lets them run out of her mouth, down her face, or just pushes the bottle out of her mouth with her tongue. So the only thing she will drink is her regular bottle but then you can't give her that because she throws it up, so it was a losing battle. We would try to just give her like 10 ml at a time in a dosing syringe but she wouldn't swallow that either.

So Monday we went to the doctor after her throwing up since Thursday night. They did blood work and her electrolytes were low so they left it up to me as to what I wanted to do.. she wasn't as bad off as the time before but they were afraid it was heading in that direction. Of course I didn't want her to be admitted and have to go thru getting an IV again.. so the doctor let us leave the office but said if she got sick again to call the office. So around three that day she got sick again so back to the hospital she went. It was so sad to have to take her back. We were there for 24 hours and then got to come home. That was Tuesday evening.. and she is finally starting to act like herself again.

She is with my parents this weekend because Josh and I have to work.. I hated to send her away after being sick but I have missed work more this year than ever before in my life with her being sick so much. Plus, I think the break is good for both of us. She got very clingy during all of us, understandable so, but wanted me to hold her all the time. She hasn't been to the babysitter since the Thursday before last and I don't think Suzanne would enjoy having to hold her all day long with two kids of her own.

I want to wish my friend Jill, a happy 30th birthday!! We have been friends our entire lives. I can't believe we are both 30. We have been thru everything together.. and I am blessed to have her in my life!

Again?!

Brynn is sick again.. she has thrown up since Thursday night. I just feel so bad for her... she is too small to understand what is going and just cries and cries after she throws up. We have done so many loads of laundry cleaning everything up each time. Please pray that she gets healthy and stays healthy soon!

Family and Friends

We had a busy but fun week. I worked last Sunday and Monday and have been off work since then. I picked my sister and Lincoln up at the airport on Tuesday morning, they came to visit for a few days. I was so excited to see them, it had been since Christmas so we were due for a visit. Lincoln will be 2 in June, but is about 3 x the size of Brynn, but it is so cute because he is so good with her. He knows to be gentle and even has sympathy cries for her.. when she gets upset he would get upset too. I just wish they could see each other more often.

Tuesday afternoon we went to the ISU/IU baseball game. My cousin Matt is a freshmen at IU, and he is on the baseball team. We got to see him pitch for a few innings. It was pretty cool, even though it was for IU. It was so cold though, Josh took Brynn and LL back to the house so they wouldn't have to suffer through it. At one point I had a pair of mittens on my feet to keep them warm.

Then Wednesday we headed to Loogootee to see the rest of the family. We were just there for 24 hours but I hadn't been there since Christmas. We of course had to eat at Dairy Master, but it wasn't the same since I gave french fries up for Lent. I will have to go back after Easter and make up for it.

Then Thursday on our way back up to Terre Haute we went to Bob and Linda's to see the pony and cows. Lincoln thought it was pretty cool, at first he didn't know what to think but then he warmed up to the idea. He also got to sit on the tractor, he doesn't see too many of those in Long Island.

Then Friday morning they left to head back to NY. It never gets any easier to say goodbye. I think my mom, Brynn and I are going to fly there mother's day weekend. I am so scared to fly with Brynn but an extra set of hands will definitely help.

Then yesterday morning we ran our nine miles, yes, I did it! It was so hard this week.. it was warmer, which was nice, but the wind was horrible the last two miles. I felt like I was running as fast I could and getting no where.

Then yesterday afternoon, Garrett and Abby, and their two kids, and Dan and Sarah and O, all came over and we grilled out. I lived with Abby all thru pharmacy school and now that we have kids and they are in Evansville it is hard for us to see much of each other. It was so nice to catch up. We had a good time.

Today we are just getting the house back in order and doing some Spring Cleaning!! I am so ready for it to be here. I think ski season might finally be over for Jason, so I am super excited for him and Kelli to get their lives back!!!