Grandma

I went into Brielle's room this morning when she had woken up and was calling for me. We had our usual conversation about how she slept and where the pink turtle is (she has carried it around for days). I then asked her what she dreamed about and she yelled out, "Grandma!" Grandma is all Brie talks about. She dreams about her apparently, but she also talks about her and going to her house all day long. She always wants the phone so that she can call her. Every time we get in the car she yells out, "Grandma's house!" as we drive. She says "grandma" to me a million times a day. Brielle LOVES Grandma Rama.

She loves playing at Grandma's house. Yesterday I dropped her off there while I went to the doctor. We had not even opened the door to the house to go in when Brie was waving and blowing me kisses and saying, "Bye. Bye. Bye.". Each time when I come to pick her up after the doctor appointments she runs into the toy room or clings to grandma and doesn't want to leave her. (I try not to take it personally.)

I REALLY love that Brie loves her grandma so much and has such a good and fun relationship with her. Who wouldn't love being Rama's granddaughter. Brie goes there and gets full and undivided attention. They play with all of the fun toys grandma has. They put on music and dance. They read books together. Rama is teaching her colors and numbers. Brie gets good snacks and juice. She loves it! And I love it too!

Word Explosion!

Brielle is 20 months this week. At her 18 month appointment with Dr. Brian he was telling me the milestones to watch for in the next six months. He said we would see a "word explosion". He said Brielle would start saying so many words and phrases and that talking would begin in these next six months. Boy, was he right!!!!

Scott and I are absolutely amazed every day at all Brie can say. I've never seen this process before and it is incredible to see it with my own child in my house every day. She learns so fast! I feel like she can communicate anything she wants to now. She says words and phrases to me that I have no idea how she picked up, but they are there. She can repeat any word we tell her to. She can tell me exactly what she wants AND what she doesn't want. How did this all happen so quickly?

For my own journal purposes, these are some of the things she is saying now:

bed
baby
blanket
bottle
milk
juice
bear
pillow
couch
guy
hop hop (bunny)
meow (cat)
cow
horsey
octopus
turtle
duck
monkey (said with the sounds)
elmo
lion (said with a roar)
donkey hee haw
toy
pool
water (pronounced "loly")
cartoons
ball
car
truck
flower
bug
grass
leaf
rock
stick
sky
tree
butter (pronounced "butta")
food
eat
noodles
jello
grapes
tomatoes
corn
beans
sticks (pretzels)
dip
mine
grandma
papa
Laura
dress (always begging for a dress)
shirt
pant
sock
shoe
hat
bath
poop
toot
pee pee
diaper
flush
medicine
wipe
Home Depot
dance
paint
picture
pencil
crayon
paper
book
clean
up
down
open
bag (she has to carry all of her goods around in a bag wherever we go)
stairs
teeth
drink
bye (and blows a kiss)
kiss
kneel
prayer
hair
cheek
ears
arms
legs
knee
foot
toes
light
dark
bowl
spoon
fork

Phrases:

Mommy is wacko.
Daddy is wacko.
Ava is wacko. (Scott taught her those)
I want
grandma's house
mommy pool (when she wants me in)
Brie funny
Wa wa baby (when she hears or sees a baby)
Daddy bed
Here you go.
Where is it?
Good girl
Little mouse
No no

I'm sure there are more. These are what I can think of while I sit here at the computer. I am so excited that she can talk to me and I am excited for what is to come (most of it) in us communicating with each other.

Getting Ready For Baby

My sister Laura describes me best when she said that I have a classic case of "Your First Baby Came Early" syndrome. It is true. I am now 36 weeks pregnant. Brielle came at 36 weeks and a couple days. Soooooooooo . . . if this baby comes the same time Brie did, she would be here this week!!! I can't believe it. I know that she very likely will not do the same thing Brielle did. Actually, I hope and believe that she might wait until closer to her due date (Sept. 17), but because of my last and only experience I have to feel ready for her any time.

I try to be careful now when I switch sides while sleeping because that is when my water broke last time. We were in the temple and I was planning out what I would do if my water broke there. I keep having contractions and wondering if this is the day. Can I really go through a whole month of wondering if she'll come today or not? Some people just know to wait until their due date.

Because I feel anxious about the fact that she could come early, I have everything ready. I spent last week preparing - just in case. I washed all of the newborn clothes, blankets, burp cloths and onsies. I bought newborn diapers. I set up the bassinet in our room. I've discussed with Scott and Rama the action plan for when it happens. Anything else?

So, here is baby Ava's bed with diapers and blankets all ready to go. I realize I could put this up in 10 minutes when we come home with her, but having it set up is helping to train Brielle. She is not as fascinated with it now that it has been there a couple days. She absolutely knows that she is not allowed in it and she even calls it "baby Ava's bed". Hopefully we can keep her out of it once a real live baby is in there.

Photo Shoot

I wanted to have pictures taken of Brielle when she turned 18 months. Well, she is now almost 20 months and we finally got them done this morning. It just took me forever to actually want to go do it. We went to Sears a few weeks ago and that was a HORRIBLE experience. The girl didn't have a clue what she was doing, so there were not very many good ones. After 2 hours of picture taking and then waiting, we just walked out.

So, this time we went to Kiddie Kandids and Brie cooperated very nicely. Here are the six pictures they gave me to choose from. If you want to, I would love to hear which ones you like the best. I need to go order my free 8 x 10. If you (grandmas?) want one for yourself, please tell me also and I'll order a couple sheets as well.

Presenting Brielle's photo shoot:
This one I would have cropped at the top. I like it though, because it shows some of her curls.

Love A Good Deal!

No matter what, setting up a new house is expensive! The good thing for me is that I love doing it and it is even better when I find great deals to make it so much less expensive. I try so hard to make it look good without spending a lot of money. I am definitely my mother's daughter. She would shop around forever to get the best deal. Now, when my sisters and I are together, if someone is complimented on something cute our first response is, "Guess how much I paid for it?". Usually, we are only impressed if it was under $10.

This weekend we got Brielle's new room set up. I am so excited about it. We bought her a basic twin size mattress at Costco for $140 a few weeks ago. We had no frame or bed to put it on though so I kept looking on Craigslist.org (people selling used furniture) for a frame. Well, on Saturday morning I came across a woman selling a Pottery Barn headboard, mattress, box spring, frame, two Pottery Barn side tables, a little lamp and some white shelves - all for $150!! Yahoo. So we rushed over before someone else could buy it and bought it all and took the mattress back to Costco. Now she has a whole Pottery Barn cute room all for the price of the twin mattress! Can you believe it?

The bed is a full size. It's kind of crazy that a little 19 pound girl has such a big bed. I didn't have more than a twin until I was 25 and bought it myself. Oh well, she'll get to have this cute little room until Ava joins her and they both have twin beds.

I also worked on the kitchen a little last week. I went around to lots of stores and checked things out and got ideas. I then went to D.I. and other clearance sales and decorated on top of the kitchen cabinets just how I wanted, but for a 1/4 of the price! Yeah!

Another exciting deal was our new rug (sorry Laura). We wanted a rug for under the kitchen table and had been looking, but do you know how expensive they are? I was at Pier 1 one day and they just happen to have these beautiful, soft, plush, wool rugs. They were $300. Well, starting that day they trying to get rid of what they had, so I bought it for $74! Another yeah!!!

Birthday Festivities

I turned 32 years old on August 7!! It was such a great birthday. I'm so grateful for wonderful friends and family that made it so nice.

The festivities began at my grandma's house on Sunday night. She had some of the Allred family (cousins, aunt, uncle) to her house for foil dinners!! They were so good. She also made a delicious raspberry cheesecake! And, of course, there was the card game, Rage. We all had a great time and it was a fun birthday party.

Scott made my birthday especially great! On Monday night we stayed up late and when it turned midnight (my birthday) he gave me my birthday present. I had asked for a pair of pearl earrings. My sister Laura gave me some for Christmas, but through wearing them every day the backings fell off and the earrings were lost. I was so sad. She wears pearl earrings and I think they look so pretty and so classy. So, Scott gave me exactly what I wanted so bad. He went to McKay Jewelers and got me a BEAUTIFUL pair of perfect pearl earrings. They are gorgeous and I was absolutely thrilled. I feel so pretty with them in and that is a good thing right now when I also feel so big! Here I am as "The Girl With The Pearl Earring".
Scott also planned a birthday party for me! How nice, huh? He had my friend Maritza design really nice looking invitations and then sent them out. A few days later he finally told me what was going on. He was lucky he told. I would not have wanted it to be a surprise and I could get excited for it.

We had a mix of some of our friends and their kids over for a barbecue. Scott grilled hamburgers and chicken, friends brought salads and he got a delicious cake with the good kind of frosting! Jose, Jazlyn and Maritza.
Greg and one of his twins, Abigail.
Love was in the air for these two. Bradley met Jazlyn and it was over. They stayed playing together and snuggled on this blanket all evening.

Last night we went to Scott's parents house for another birthday party! Yahoo! Fred's birthday is the 9th, so we got to celebrate together. Rama made a delicious meal for everyone and then a great cake with strawberries. It was fun to celebrate with the Buchanans! Fred is turning 76 and I turned 32, so Scott put a "108" on the cake in candles.

"Meat Locker Boys" Reunion

Again, we are so lucky to be in a city that so many of our friends come to visit. On Monday night we got to see some of our favorite friends from Boston - Tim, Becky and baby Caroline and John. It was so fun to see them again, catch up on what is going on in their lives now and remember good times together in Boston. John was Scott's roommate and dated my roommate, Tim was our good friend and dated another one of my roommates and Becky was a friend that took over my room in our house when I moved out to get married. It's funny how everyone gets connected when you have a smallish LDS singles community.

Scott, Alicia, John, Tim, Becky and Caroline

While Scott, Tim and John were dating the girls in our house they formed the "Meat Locker Boys Club". Their fourth member was Mike Benson, who we all miss and love and told funny stories about to feel like he was there. The Meat Locker Boys came about because the guys would escape together to our sun porch in the winter time. The sun porch is an enclosed porch, but has no insulation or heating. We called it the meat locker. They would sit out there in freezing, snowy temperatures and have their "meetings".

Tim, John and Scott forming the letter "M" in frozen meat in remembrance of Mike Benson.

Scott grilled huge, delicious hamburgers. We had hamburgers, corn on the cob, watermelon, grapes, chips, coleslaw (by John), salad, soda, hmmmmm what else? It was a good dinner.

Tim with his sweet Caroline.

Scott and Tim on diaper duty. Changing the girls.

John playing with little Caroline.

Tim and Becky were so nice and brought Brielle one of the best presents she has ever received - a pink Boston Red Sox cap!! Thank you!