play dates

Baby Bryson is 12 weeks old as of last Tuesday, and has had THREE play dates in the last week! (Yes, I know he can't play...he can't even reach for a toy yet!) But it has been nice to get out of the house, catch up with my girlfriends, and love on their kiddos a little too!

I wish I had taken more pictures while we were on these adventures, but I've just been so happy to hang out that I've found myself leaving my phone in the diaper bag or my back pocket. And that's refreshing sometimes too!

Our first play date was last week at my high school friend Lauren's house. She got to meet and snuggle Bryson, and it was fun to see her new house and spend time with her 3 year old and her 6 month old. As I was watching her baby throughout the morning, it was crazy to see just how much Bryson is going to grow and change in just a few short months!

Earlier this week we went to hang out at my maid-of-honor Sara's house for awhile. She has a 19 month old, and he was fascinated by Bryson. He liked to put the pacifier in Bryson's mouth and then promptly take it away from him! He did that over and over. It was funny until Bryson decided he didn't like that game anymore!

The next day we went to my friend Colleen's house, and our friend Megan came too. Megan also has a 19 month old who could not have cared less that Bryson was there haha! Colleen has a 3 year old named Lucy who has been watching videos of Bryson every day and has been begging her mom to meet him. The second I walked in the door she said, "Lisa, may I hold Baby Bryson?!"

He doesn't look entirely comfortable, but she's only 3...what do you expect?!

She "held" him probably 5 times, helped me feed and burp him, brought me my diaper bag when I needed to change him (and got her OWN wipes for me to use!), rubbed his back when he was sleeping, and helped me get him back into his car seat when we left. She was so sweet and thanked me for bringing Baby Bryson over to her house to play with her.

I'm looking forward to more play dates in the future...especially when Bryson can actually play and interact with other kiddos!

-xoxo wife (& mommy)

being a bridesmaid

A little less than a year ago, I received an invitation in the mail. Not a typical birthday party invitation, though. This invitation had pictures of my cousin Sarah and I when we were little, along with a question: will you be my bridesmaid?

My first and oldest friend, Sarah was also a bridesmaid in my wedding in 2010 (holy moly, almost TEN years ago!)

I was honored to accept the job. And when I found out I would be 7 months pregnant during the wedding (yikes), and offered to step down from my duties, and said I would totally understand if she didn't want a pregnant bridesmaid...she wouldn't even hear of it. (In fact, I was not the only pregnant bridesmaid!)

It was literally the HOTTEST day of the year. Perhaps even the hottest day of my life (and definitely the hottest day of my pregnancy.) It was about 95 degrees with the heat index. Blazing sunlight. They had chairs set aside for any pregnant bridesmaids (ahem) that might have felt faint and needed to sit down. Luckily the chairs weren't needed. But I wouldn't have traded that day for the world. It was an incredibly special day filled with love and happiness.

However, it was also filled with a bit sadness. The memory of her mom was strong that day. I spent the morning and early afternoon with the all the girls getting hair and makeup done and getting beautiful dresses on. And I couldn't help but tear up multiple times through the day when I wished so badly that my Aunt Robin was there to help Sarah into her dress, or hug her one last time before walking down the aisle.

This pictures is breathtaking...I don't even have words for how I feel when I look at it.

It was a lonnnnng (HOT) day, and by the end my feet were swollen and I was so ready to get home and sleep. But I'm so happy that I was able to be a part of it.

Oh look, Baby Bryson in my belly!

Congratulations to Sarah and Tyler. We wish you a lifetime of love, blessings, and happiness!

baby's first halloween

I'm sloooooowly getting caught up on the first couple months of my kiddo's life. We are finally to Halloween...Bryson's very first holiday! Since he is so young, we didn't make too big of a deal about it, and didn't do a costume and trick-or-treating, but I wanted to make sure to commemorate the occasion with some special outfits, and of course...special pictures!

This was also the day that Bryson giggled for the first time!

Happy Halloween!

newborn photoshoot

We haven't had professional pictures taken since we got married. I love nice pictures, and they're important to me. But I just never wanted to spend the money on pictures of just Ty and myself...it seemed a bit vain. Enter Bryson. Now I feel like I need professional photos to commemorate every single day of his adorable life! I don't care if it makes us look vain anymore. My baby is gorgeous, and I like looking at him!

However, since we do not have a money tree growing in the backyard, I'm going to have to stick to doing most of them myself (see Halloween post tomorrow!) But it was very important to me to have some nice pictures taken while Bryson was still a newborn. I found a sweet photographer who was willing to come and shoot at our house, which I think is super special. Now we will always have pictures in our first home.

Our photographer arrived around 6:00pm, since Ty works during the day. Up until this very night, Bryson had been the most perfect baby. He hardly ever cried or fussed. But I swear, the instant that photographer came in the door and started charging us money, he became a different child altogether! He was so fussy the entire time. I literally fed him FOUR times in the time we were taking pictures. The photographer even stayed an hour later than planned because of it (and 8 months pregnant to boot!) I was worried we weren't going to get any decent shots. But we did, and I'd love to share them!

I'm not going to include every single picture that we got, but I will share some of my favorites. I ordered a few to hang on the walls, and made a photo book out of the rest. So now, without further ado...an insane amount of pictures of my sweet family.

Is it just me...or has he gotten even hotter since becoming a dad?!

We got some super cute shots of his sweet little yawns!

I'm so glad we were able to get some photos in his nursery. It's my favorite room in the entire house. 

At the VERY end of the night...literally the last 10 minutes, he finally fell asleep and was calm/easy to move around and pose.

I get emotional every time I see this picture. 

And just in case you didn't believe me...this is what we were working with nearly the whole time haha! I can't imagine how many pictures the photographer had to delete because he was screaming and crying! But this is real life, and I'm grateful we have a picture to document that the newborn phase was amazing and wonderful, but not always sunshine and rainbows.

I think I'm officially addicted to family photos now. I'm off to go get an extra job to fund photo shoots for every major milestone in his life now!

xoxo, wife (& mommy)