Party for Two

Our little Brynnie bug is two! We had a massive celebration to celebrate her birthday, along with Rachel Faye and Whitney's birthdays, and Father's Day (all planned and executed by my mom, thanks mom!). Mason started asking Brynn the day after his birthday party was over what kind of party she wanted and without hesitation she always replied, "Minnie Mouse!". So we had us some Minnie Mouse fun at the party with a perfect mixture of Toy Story for Rachel Faye's "Jessie" party.

Of course she had a Minnie cake. We had a fishing pond with our Mickey Mouse "Handy Fishing Rods". Unfortunately the party we planned for outside had to be moved inside due to rain so you'll notice everything is a little bit cramped, but that didn't stop us from having fun.
One of Brynn's favorite things in her Little Gym class was doing the parachute. So we got a parachute for all the kids to play with. It was a hit.

Here is the only shot we got of the birthday girls together. It was set up to be a perfect picture until Brynn's little toes accidentally ended up under Rachie's dress up shoes and so this is what we ended up with. I think it's perfect. Brynn the typical 2 year old throwing a fit and Rachel, the cutest 3-year-old ever, looking innocent and sweet in the back. Brynn absolutely adored all the girly presents she got including a new doll stroller, doll high chair, princess dress up shoes, and a princess scooter.

(She always keeps her baby dolls naked. I think in her mind she's just being a good mama since if she had things her way she would be naked all of the time.)

Brynn wasn't the only one who liked all the girly toys. Mason spent the next few days wearing princess high heels while he rode around on a princess scooter. At first I was amused, then a little concerned, but I'm pretty sure it was just the novelty of all this girl stuff we've never had before because by the end of the week he was back to being a boy instead of a princess.

Now for my journal entry about 2-year-old Brynn.

Brynn has turned into the silliest little girl. She keeps us all smiling and laughing.

Her vocabulary seems to triple every day, but her favorite words are Mine and No Thanks.

She thinks she is 4-years-old and loves to try and keep up with Mason and his friends.

She does not, however, like kids her own age and becomes very possessive and selfish around them.

She finally had a change of heart and went from a complete Mama's girl to being Daddy's girl and she has him completely wrapped around her finger.

She is still a die hard binky and blankie girl.

She loves playing soccer, t-ball, and basketball with her Daddy.

Brynn is a Troublemaker with a capital T!

I think it's called curiosity, but it sure is a handful.

She is very strong willed and absolutely will not do anything she doesn't want to do without kicking and screaming the whole way.

She adores her brother, Mason. She will follow him anywhere and do anything he asks her to.

It's always fun to see what we will find when we check on Brynn before bed. We find everything from her being naked to having a bed full of shoes with multiple on each foot to finding her asleep under her bed or in the closet. It's no wonder she has never come out of her room. She is just fine entertaining herself in there.

She has no fear.... except of people.

We were worried she was color blind, but she finally proved us wrong by learning her colors.

She knows her ABCs and after months of only hearing her sing them when she thought she was all alone, she will actually sing them in front of people now.

She is very OCD about her routines and everything being the same every time she does something.

Her favorite colors are Pink and Orange.

She points out the letter B everywhere we go.

She loves to take care of her baby, but as mentioned before, she always keeps it naked.

She is a little fishy and loves to swim with absolutely zero hesitation in the water.

Brynn is crazy about animals, especially dogs. I don't know how much longer we will be able to hold off getting a real pet.

Brynn loves to count things and can count to 20.

Looking back I don't mind all the hard work we had to put into her as a baby to get the adorable and darling little girl we have now. We love you Brynn and our family wouldn't be complete without you.

We Tried

Last year I set the goal to do a triathlon every year, but when my tri partner, Stacie, decided to go and get pregnant I wasn't sure who I was going to do it with this year. So when Karli called me up about a month ago and told me she had been training for her first tri and asked if I wanted to join her in the Provo Tri I jumped at the opportunity. I was a little overly confident that my Ragnar training would be sufficient to get me through without any swim or bike training. When race day came I did it, but let's be honest, it was far from a personal best. Karli on the other hand was a superstar and blew me away with how great she did.

So here's the race story.

The swim was 800 meters in Utah Lake. The water was a chilly 55 degrees so wetsuits were a must. Because they weren't using timing chips they started all 300 swimmers at once which was totally insane. Usually swimmers are started in heats of 20-30 people at a time, so it made for a very interesting open water swim. From the start I felt really uncomfortable and was battling with some serious claustrophobia due to my wetsuit, the opaque water of Utah Lake, and hoards of people around me. I've had a handful of experiences in my life when I got horribly claustrophobic to the point of sending me into a panic attack. This was one of the worst and at a most inconvenient time. I was able to struggle through it by keeping my head up while I swam for about 1/3 of the swim but hit a point where I felt like I was on the verge of freaking out if something didn't change so I did the only thing I felt like I could do and unzipped my wetsuit and pealed some it off creating some really nice drag for the rest of the race. I then just flipped on my back and swam backstroke the rest of the way which really helped. Needless to say this was by far my worst swim ever. I'm not at all disappointed that they did not provide a split time for the swim.

I transitioned smoothly onto the bike and felt great the entire 12.4 mile ride, although I did feel like everyone was flying by me. It wasn't until that night when I returned my mom's road bike to her that she informed me I hadn't pumped up the tires and the tire pressure was at 40 when it's supposed to be at 100-110. Once again, not too heart broken about not getting a split time for that.

I haven't mentioned that until this point Karli and I had been about even and were even able to ride some of the bike together, which was fun. She transitioned to the run faster than me and so I was about 100 yards behind her. She took off flying and I was never able to close the gap during the 3.2 miles. The run was the one leg that went smoothly and I felt good about. We both crossed the finish line at 1:34. Overall I had fun and am way proud of Karli and how awesome of did. Hopefully this won't be the last race we do together.

Me, Karli, and her mom who also competed after the race.

This is a pretty scary picture s we'll leave it at that.

Preschool Graduate

It's hard to believe his first year of preschool is over, but it's true, Mason is a preschool graduate.We got to go to his preschool graduation where we were able to watch him and his classmates show us some of the fun things they learned this year. It was one of the cutest things I've ever seen and I'm pretty sure I had the biggest smile on my face the entire time. Mason was concerned when I told him we weren't going to be going to preschool all summer long until I reassured him he would be going back to Mrs. Young's preschool in the fall. Mason and Mrs. Young.

She has been so patient and kind with Mason this year as he continues to learn and grow.

I am so grateful for all she has done for him. Mason and his cousin Kennedy. Nice grin, dude. This is Mason and his "best buddy" Benson. I have loved watching their friendship grow this year. Benson is such a good friend to Mason and we are heartbroken he is moving this summer.

We are proud of how far Mason has come this year and can't wait to watch him continue to learn and grow.