GROW OLD WITH ME THE BEST IS YET TO BE

JP and I recently celebrated two blissful years of marriage
*December 22*

Then

Oh what a difference two years makes...

now

We are both a little fatter, a little shorter tempered, a little more stressed out, and alot more in love :).

I was telling JP that it seems like we have been married alot longer than two years. Come to find out that sounds a little mean. Fortunately, feeling like we've been together for an eternity already is not a bad thing to me at all. I cant wait for another eternity!

As some of you may know there was drama in the hood back when Jp and I were dating and engaged etc. My mom (who adores JP now) would always ask "Brenna, what do you see in him?" "He makes me laugh," was always my answer. (my mom was never impressed with that response).
That is still one of the first things I think of when pondering my dear, sweet husband. He can make me laugh until I cry!

SO HUNGRY

Charlie cries and squirms everytime I try to feed him...yet he is so fussy because he's starving (WHAT A DILEMMA). I went to a lactation consultant after feeling somewhat like I am going to loose my mind and she thinks I eat WAY to much dairy (seriously that's all I eat/drink). The cow's milk is probably upsetting his stomach.

To see if that is the issue I am on a strict NO DAIRY diet for two weeks. If he seems better, then dairy is no longer an option for another 7 months until I am done nursing him. BLAH! I've been on this diet for a week now and SO SO hungry. :(

But what a cute little guy nonetheless

A NURSING FOOL

Charlie nursed on Rachel's arm. mmm-mmm-mmmThat's my boy-He does this to EVERYTHING

The Holidays

Over the Thanksgiving break My friend Caitlin and I hosted a Bachelorette party for my friend Jen (Mrs. skipper in only 7 more days!). We had the essentials: food, lots of lingerie, and games namely "Pin the manly on the man" :) even though a lot of us at the party were married we all had red, embarrassed cheeks and the giggles during this game...I guess the immaturity never ends.

My Christmas tree is up and looking girlier than ever. JP was proud of the fact that he did not help with it because of the girliness.



the details
all lit up

JUST ONE WEEK OF MY MOST EXCITING LIFE

This past week...

I cooked dinner for my family and we busted out rockband there was a lot of UNCOORDINATION amongst A LITTLE coordination

Brother MarkSister-in-law HeatherSister-in-law Rachel
Niece lily and Bother DanielDad

Like I said, a little uncoordinated :)



Charlie got cuter than ever

JP gave me a wonderful head massage. Unfortunately this was the end result.

JP came home from his haircut appointment all ready for BYU's big loss against UofU Saturday. No biggie, we still love the cougars.

I had my eye makeup done at the MAC shop in the mall with my friend Mandi...not impressed. I HATED my "smokey" eyes

JP+BRENNA

Mmm Paradise. We just got back from an eight day honeymoon! Yes we were married two years ago but we were so poor all we could do was stay in a hotel for one night about 15 minutes from our house. LAME. So....now that times have totally changed and we are rich we went on our HONEYMOON and it was pure bliss.

Jp and I flew to Florida and left our sweet baby with grandparents. The airport goodbye was bitter sweet. Doing nothing but mom duties everyday sometimes gets very frustrating and monotonous so I was in dire need of a vaca with some JP and Brenna time (ooh la la). We were excited to get away but I seriously almost changed my mind when I had to say goodbye to Charlie for 8 days. Basically the airport was a cry-fest (for me only. Jp and Charlie are too tuff to cry). Once in Florida we stayed at an amazing resort. Definitley the nicest and biggest I have ever seen. There was a little surpise for us one morning though...Florida is different from Utah in that there are all kinds of crazy bugs and animals all around that you would never see here. I woke up one morning, went to open the curtains, and found a lizard on the chair just chillin. WHAT THE?? We had french doors that open right to the pool and the night before we spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how to shut them once we had opened them to take a swim. Apparantely lizards are an everyday sighting in florida so if you have your door open for more than a few seconds they come on in! (this is what some native floridites explained to us). We went to Seaworld. AMAZING. I have been to the one in San Diego and it doesnt even compare to Orlando's. Unfortunatley we lost our camera later in the trip so we have NO pictures of Seaworld (or much of our vacation at all for that matter. We did buy a new camera the very last day so we have a few).
We then boarded a Carnival Cruise ship and set sail for the Cayman Islands (just beneath the bahamas). We rode jet skis on the open ocean to an area right in the middle where it is all of a sudden only waist deep. Sting Rays flock to the area so we held, played and fed them-No Steve Erwin incidences to report-It was a beautiful sunny day and then as we were done and riding back to shore a tropical storm started pouring rain. It was still so warm and made the ocean waves much more fun :). We saw on the news after we left that a small hurricane hit the Island and everything was flooded up to the middle of their houses. Rewind a little-As we were leaving the island our tour guide offered JP a job to do tours with him. SWEET, but dealing with hurricanes?! I dont know about that. The following pictures were taken with a cheap underwater camera so they look just that-CHEAP Our next stop was Cozumel, Mexico. We shopped, swam with dolphins (cute little things), zip lined through the jungle and walked on the beach. The caribbean water is "blue as hell" (said in a Jamacian accent). A Jamacian man kept commenting as he stood next to us on the deck of the boat. He is right! We were in about 20 feet deep water with the dolphins and you could clearly see the bottom of the ocean floor. "BLUE AS HELL!" Cozumel is where we lost our camera which had pictures of me giving birth and...who knows what else! Some mexican who finds it will have some lovely shots of me. In between all these stops we had a gay old time on the ship. All you can eat food, sun, entertainment, and fun fun fun. I got a LITTLE tan time in (JP got bored after two minutes) and drank my tropical smoothie with an umberella in it. I was hoping to come back as dark as my husband and baby but...that didnt happen.

Just one of the little critters we found on our bed each night after housekeeping turned down the bed and put a mint on the pillows
The groovy inside of the ship Our last night on the deck
The day we sailed back to Florida we hit up Busch Gardens. BEST rollercoasters EVER!
I have decided that responsibilties suck. JP and I just laughed and played together, NO ARGUING, the whole time. Im convinced its the responsibilites that OCCASIONALLY :) make us fight. I felt like we were dating again.
We came back home to a few depressing things...a full bed from a king bed, fourty degree weather from eighty degree weather, me cooking and cleaning from being waited on hand and foot, AND (one non-depressing thing) this HANDSOME
Reunited at last
I pumped religiously while gone so I could still nurse when I came back. After eight days of strictly bottle feeding, Charlie came right back to the boob (which everyone told me he wouldn't). GOOD CHARLIE. All in all, our honeymoon was wonderful and I FELL IN LOVE with JP all over again.

Formal night on the ship. So precious

A FEW CRAZY QUIRKS

Every baby has their "thing(s)" that they enjoy/keep the calm/comforted.

Charlie LOVES to have a fan blowing on FULL BLAST about a foot away from his face. I think its the sound he enjoys but he seems to like the extreme wind as well...silly boy. We use this technique to calm his cries and put him to sleep (it stays on all night right next to him). Even if I'm holding him in front of the fan FREEZING, he is as happy as can be and cries if I turn it off.



Charlie's arm movements still aren't very controlled and he often wakes up by hitting himself in the face etc. We wrap him up tight to remedy the situation but he always wiggles his little arms out to rub his eyes. As tired as he his, he forgets to put them back down and just falls asleep in the eye rubbing position.



Charlie talks to himself (I was kinda far away so turn your speakers up).

BRENNA THE HOMEMAKER

I made REAL dinners 5 nights in a row!!! Will it last? Probably not, but I felt so good about my homemaking accomplishments this last week.

(p.s. this picture of fries and mac and cheese is NOT one of the REAL dinners. We just didn't think to take a picture to document the other nights so this is all I have)

BABY OUTFITS ARE COMPLICATED!

Today I was in the kitchen cleaning (I know seriously, ME cleaning?!?!) and I hear a myriad of grumbles from JP in the living room. He was trying to snap up Charlie's little outfit and apparently its hard or something. I must have had so much practice since Charlie was born that I've forgotten. Needless to say he ended up dressed, just not properly. All the snaps were NOT aligned.

Husbands are so dang cute

MY AWESOME HUSBAND

JP's top two favorite things *Charlie and Video games. Where do I fall on this list? Who knows. If JP read this (which he wont), he would not appreciate me saying that so...Im just kidding. I know I'm atleast one of the top ten :)

He can take care of both things at once. A very talented man.

The good news is, Charlie thinks video games are boring and he fell asleep

JUST ANOTHER SUNDAY

What the?!?!