Another WI Visit

We had yet another excuse to go back to WI to visit :)  There was a couple's baby shower for friends of ours.  Dan and Melanie are due end of October with their first baby.  We enjoy seeing our Wisconsin friends so much, but we do not enjoy the drive!  Brie is a pretty decent traveler, but it is still a pain in the butt during the drive and staying at other people's house with her!

For the shower we did a Baby Q theme (a play on BBQ), and it was so great.  The hosts did an amazing job, the food was fantastic and we all had such a fun time!  

It was great to go to our old church and seeing lots of people.  When I went to pick up Brie from the nursery this is how I found her, totally passed out asleep in the baby swing:

We stayed at our friend's house, Brad and Jessie.  We are so thankful to them for hosting us for a couple days!  It was a little bit of a crazy time for them, Jessie is a teacher and is just back to work after having a baby in April, but we were so glad to spend some time with them again.  Brie showed them what a disaster an almost 1yr old can be!  She loves to get toys out and make a mess and for some reason hasn't figured out how to clean up after herself..... :)

Brie didn't have much interest in the Packer's game (which is ok with me, I didn't either!  We both ended up taking a little nap during the game.)  But she loved hanging out with all the people and providing entertainment for all!

We got to meet up with Preston, Jennifer,and Anna for dinner one evening.  Both girls are ridiculous picky eaters so they had no interest in Chipotle food.  But they did have a good time checking each other out!

On Monday while Alec was working, us ladies hung out for a little bit with all the kids.  It was so fun spending time together with our babies.  So crazy that we are all moms now, we are so old!

 We tried to get a picture of all 4 kids....this is literally the best picture I got.  Poor Anna was bawling her eyes out, Erin had ZERO interest in staying on the couch, Bennett was wondering what all the commotion was about, and Brie was just sitting there like a bump on the log.  I could not stop laughing!

The real reason we all got together was to celebrate Erin's 2nd birthday!  We got Panera for lunch (Erin's favorite!).  Brie and Anna (queen and princess picky eaters....) did not really eat Panera, they don't know what they are missing!  

Erin got some great gifts :)

Brie even got an early birthday present, a baby doll in a bathtub!

Her present came in handy for the ride home!  I taught her how to give the baby a bottle :)  I am very excited for the baby doll stage, Allyson and I played baby dolls until I was probably WAY to old to be playing dolls.  Very very fond memories!

Roseola

Briana recently got over a crazy virus.  It started last Monday (9/16), I woke her up from her nap and she felt warm.  Sure enough her temp was 103.5!  I thought it was her ears initially since she had just gotten over a cold (ear infections often times follow nasal congestion).  So I called the next morning to see if the doctor could quick take a look.  I figured better get in sooner than later since we were supposed to go to WI for that upcoming weekend.  The doctor took a look and said, "Well, they don't look bad, but they don't look good"  So we decided to wait on antibiotics and see if she could get rid of whatever this was.  Well after she continued to have high fevers (103/104 degrees) Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I decided to call and see if he would call in some antibiotics.  She had her first dose Thursday night.  Friday morning she seemed already to be feeling much better, picking at her ears, but actually playing and being ok on the floor and no more fever.  When I changed her diaper that morning though I noticed a rash all over!  I immediately thought she had a reaction to the medication.  I had to wait a couple hours until the doctors office opened before I could call and let them know, so in the meantime I just worried that she was allergic to penicillin and called a few of the other nurses in my life to see what they thought!

The nurse at the doctors office said it probably wasn't a reaction to the medication (thank goodness!!) but actually a viral infection called Roseola (you can click on that for more information).   Sure enough after reading the description for myself I realized what she had fit the description perfectly!  I didn't even remember learning about it in nursing school, just one of those weird childhood illnesses though.  It was a rough week to say the least, but we are glad to be done with it!  We are still on the amoxicillin for the ear infection, but just a few days left!

Sick babies are the worst, they can't communicate what hurts and what is wrong.  It was so hard to see her miserable!  She fell asleep on me, which NEVER happens.  These were our days though while she had the fever:

Here are a few pictures of her rash.  This was only the first day of it so it is hard to tell in the pictures, it actually got a lot more red the next day before going away.  It also spread to her face as well the following day.  You can see though she is feeling much better though, no more fever and actually interested in playing with toys!

She has really been enjoying bath time recently!  She loves watching the tub fill up, but still does not like when you have to dump water on her head.  

In other news, the pool is officially closed for the season!  That lump in the middle in a inflatable pillow (not Alec!).  

Here comes fall!

We have just been hanging out recently. Alec had a few weeks of limited travel, which was great! We have certainly been getting excited for fall, nice cool temps are my favorite part! Alec started the process of closing the pool, a little bitter sweet shutting it down. But it will be nice not having to worry about it all the time. Here are a few random pictures I have taken over the last couple weeks. 

This is a picture of her woofing, you can see her cheeks are puffed up a bit. Woof! She woofs all day long, anytime she looks at Josie or sees a dog. 

Both Josie and Briana were enjoying the peek a boo game with daddy!  Brie was just cracking up. 

She absolutely loves playing in the dog bed, especially if Josie is in it. Josie on the other hand does not love it. 

I found this little car at a garage sale, she really likes it! She really likes sitting on it, but has a couple times stood behind it and taken a few steps while pushing it! I have not come to grips with the fact that she will be walking soon....

Brie really enjoys watching us throw the ball with the ball-thrower (chuck-it) for the dog. She was reaching for it, so Alec gave it to her. She could barely lift it, but it was cute she wanted to try! 

Checking out the fishies on a Meijer trip. 

Our niece, Tia, was baptized this past Sunday (9/14). She was baptized at Thornapple Evangelical (which is the church we have been attending).  We kept Brie in church with us for the baptism since the whole DeLange crew was there. She liked the singing and made it through the baptism, barely. We had a cup of Cheerios she was eating but she was getting squirrelly, so right after it was done I took her to nursery.  

11 Month Bloopers

It was near impossibility to get decent pictures of her this month!  Here are a few of the out-takes I got in the process:

She kept trying to crawl to me:

And got super mad anytime I tried to make her stand up:

Then she figured out the sticker....that was the end of that:

Pointing at me because I took the sticker away:

Biting me:

And very mad:

11 Months Old

Brie is 11 months old.  I am having a hard time believing that in just a few short weeks she will be a year old.  I guess I have a month to process that fact.  She keeps doing more and more new things, it is so fun!

She is still a crawling maniac, she is so fast and gets around to where ever she needs to go!  Brie just started going up the stairs, and does it pretty well.  We obviously stay right behind her the entire time, and going down the stairs to her still means going head first, so we have some work to do on that.  She is starting to take some steps while we hold her hands, but barely.  Really we are just dragging her along, she definitely will not be walking before her birthday, but that is ok.  I am still getting used to her crawling....not ready for walking yet!  She pulls up on everything still, and loves to try and grab anything within her reach (which is a lot further than you think!).  She is starting to 'chat' a lot more recently.  She does say mama and dada, but it is hard to tell if she knows that Alec is dada and I am mama.  But she does say dog (which sounds like "daaaw") and if you ask her what the dog says she will woof, which really she just blows air, but it is really stinking cute!  She points at Josie all the time and says daaaw.

I am still nursing Brie 4 times a day (morning, twice during the day, and before bedtime), I haven't really decided how long we are going to nurse for.  It is going so well and is just so easy, I guess we will just see how things go!  Food on the other hand has taken a turn for the worse, she has become so picky.  She used to eat almost anything that we put on her tray or in her mouth.  But now she is so picky and won't eat anything.  One day she will eat something and the next day she won't eat that same food!  She sticks her tongue out all the way so you can't put anything in, she won't allow anything that is green, different looking, basically anything that isn't bread in her mouth!  It is pretty frustrating to say the least, but I just keep trying to give her different stuff.

Big news in the sleeping department, she is sleeping through the night!!!  Yeah yeah, most people are able to say that when their kid is like 3 months old....but I stand by that most people don't move twice with their kid within 2 months.  She takes 2 naps a day, each is usually around 1hr-1.5hrs; and she goes to bed between 7:30 and 8:30.  We don't exactly have a set schedule, but it works great for us.  I like that she is flexible and can work around things we have planned.  She goes down really easy usually for naps and bedtime, as long as she has her thumb and her lovey she is good to go.

When we get her out of bed she will let you snuggle her on your shoulder for like 2 whole minutes. And she is so funny, while you are giving her hugs she will pat your back. Pat, pat, pat. She loves to clap her hands and say 'aaaaaaaaaa'. Which I think translated means 'yeah!'  She does not give out smiles very easy, especially for the camera.  She is pretty serious.  She also gets very upset very easily; she doesn't like when you take things away from her (especially cell phones), when we force her to eat, when her bottle is gone, and if you have to wipe her nose.

We love Brie so much, Alec and I are just enjoying each month that goes by and all the changes that happen each month.  She is such a blessing in our lives and we are so thankful for her!

Another Milwaukee Visit - Jennifer's Shower

We made the journey yet again to Milwaukee.  I really wanted to go and celebrate my friend, Jennifer's baby shower.  She and her husband just brought their daughter, Anna, home from China.  It was fun celebrating with her, and even more amazing to finally meet little Anna!  She is such a little muffin, she is very attached to her mama but did great at the shower with all the commotion!  Anna and Jennifer got some great gifts!  

I tried to get a picture of Anna and Brie together, neither would look at me.....stinkers!

Jennifer and I with our babes :)

Anna has a leg length discrepancy that she will eventually have surgery for, but in the mean time she just wants her mama to help her walk non-stop!  She loves walking around!

Such a fun night catching up with all the girls!

We stayed with our friends, Shane and Jody, who live in Brookfield.  Their daughter, Erin, is exactly a year older than Brie.  They had a fun time 'playing' together!

This was Erin's fort.  Brie loved crawling in and out of it!

She was a good little rider during our trip!  We moved her into the next car seat, so she is sitting up a little bit more which she seems to like.