Another Year Older

Tyler's birthday was today!

It's hard to believe that another year has flown by. I've had the privilege of spending his last 7 birthdays with him. And, now, we have the greater privilege of sharing our birthdays with Emma, whose big day is conveniently sandwiched between ours.

The birthday celebration started last night because TB gets kind of excited about his birthday :) He opened his gifts from Emma and me.

Babies and lions make helpful gift openers.


This is TB reading Emma's card.


Tyler and Emma spent the day together today because I had some meetings that needed to be switched to the afternoon. They had all kinds of fun, of course. Wish I could have been there! As soon as I came home, we had dinner (Mexican) and he opened the rest of his gifts.


His Grandma usually sends with her card some momento from his childhood - his baby announcement, pictures, notes that he's written her, etc. This time, she sent a few pictures along with his birth announcement from the paper. It's so fun seeing those things.


He decided that he wanted his birthday cake to be a piece of carrot cake. So, here it is in all of its glory. Yummmm.


After a good day, Daddy and baby did some playing.




And, he blew out his candles and made a wish.

Wordless Wednesday

The Looks-Like-Some-Baby-Proofing-Materials-Need-Baby-Proofing Edition

Photography 101

Now that MyBackSpin is up and running, the entrepreneurial side of me (TB) wants to open another business pertaining to a passion of mine: photography.








Just kidding. Unless people like their pictures blurry.

Wait, here's a good one!

Butterfly Chandelier

I'm feeling a little nostalgic tonight.

This time last year, we were just six weeks away from meeting Emma.

And I was feeling very large,


very excited,

and kind of nervous about the whole giving birth naturally thing.

And, chances are, this time last year I had to go to the bathroom, because that's where I spent the majority of my time. Emma was getting heavy.

But back to the point of this post, because I'm sure you'll hear more about my nostalgia as Emma's birthday nears!

This post is for Tyler's aunt, who at Thanksgiving said to me, "You said you'd post about how you made the butterfly chandelier in Emma's nursery but you never did!" So, a million months later (sorry), here it is :)

As a refresher, this is Emma's nursery. The chandelier hangs above her crib as an alternative to a mobile.


I started by punching lots and lots of butterflies (400 or so) out of cardstock. Honestly, this was probably the hardest part of the entire project.


Then, I cut different lengths of cream colored string (36 strings total), keeping in mind how tall I wanted the chandelier to be. I tied a little knot near the bottom of each string, and then with the help of a needle, lowered a butterfly followed by a pearl bead (to weight the butterfly) onto the knot. I worked my way up the strings, adding more knots, butterflies, and pearls, and left a little room at the top to tie them to the chandelier structure. I probably put 10 to 12 butterflies on each string.

I made the chandelier structure from the largest embroidery ring at our local craft store. I removed the chunky piece from the outside of the ring because it was a bit of an eyesore.


Then, I cut strips of balsa wood and glued them to the ring.


You want the finished product to look like an 8-slice pizza look-alike. I painted the structure cream to match Emma's room.


Finally, I tied each string of butterflies to the chandelier structure in a way that looked pretty.

Easy project? Totally.

You could vary the chandelier by using stars, hearts, letters of the alphabet, flowers, shapes, animals, airplanes, etc. And, I can attest to the fact that babies (our baby, anyway) think they are really fun to look at.

New 'Do

Our poor Maggie has been somewhat neglected in the petting and brushing department since Emma was born, and as a result, she developed some mats on her back that really needed to be shaved off. So, I called the dog and cat groomer down the street to make an appointment for her.

The lady I talked with was really nice and said that she would take good care of Maggie. And, she did.

Maggie begs to differ.

She was bathed, shampooed, and dried.

She had her nails cut.

She had her ears cleaned.

And, she was shaved.

And by shaved, I mean the kitty was shaved.

Ahem, blog readers, meet Maggie the Lion.


Poor wittle baby. Her pride's taken a hit, I think.

I keep telling her to think of the positives. Most importantly, little fingers can't pull hair that does not exist :)

Hail Thoth!

A few weeks ago I, TB, flew down to New Orleans for my first Madri Gras. In the Brew family Madri Gras is a more of a meet up for the family rather than the crazy party everyone knows it to be.

My Uncle, Aunt, a few cousins, and in-laws (my Aunt's family) live in the area. They have a float in the Krewe of Thoth parade that my Dad, Uncle, and their friends have been riding on ever since I can remember. This year, I was invited to ride on the float and couldn't pass up the opportunity. Thoth is the 2nd biggest parade in all of Madri Gras and is the largest day parade.


I was a bit nervous heading down because when you think of New Orleans you think of gumbo, craw fish, shrimp, and other kinds of seafood. Sounds good right? Not if you don't like seafood or in my case if you are learning to like seafood. That is right, learning to like seafood. Over the past five years, I have taken it upon myself to try food I haven't liked in the past. I have started to like seafood little by little, but this was my first big test. I was going all in and going to eat seafood as much as I could and try it all. First test came minutes after I stepped off the plane and met my Dad and his friend Keller.

Charbroiled Clams


Good stuff. Next up a few options with crab.


Yummm. Next came the gumbo, followed by the shrimp and fish. All delicious. It's official I am a seafood fan. But enough with the food.

My family there took us around and showed us the local hot spots. Though we avoided Bourbon Street for the most part, they were able to get us on a balcony for a few hours to watch the madness in the street below.


We watched a few parades and prepared for our big day on Sunday. We woke up early in the morning and got gowned up. We were then police escorted to our floats in school buses. This was probably my favorite part. 15-20 motorcycle cops stop traffic for you at every intersection and then the next 4 or 5 cops in motorcycles zoom past you with sirens full blast like you are the president or someone a lot more important then we are. It was awesome.


So the parade came and we threw beads straight for 5 or 6 hours. At times, the crowds were 20 people deep and I always seemed to find my favorite people to throw it to, the red headed kids. Too bad my favorite red head was at home along with her mama.

Nevermind

The older Emma gets, the more aware she is of the fact that there's an "outside" and that it's full of interesting things. She likes to crawl over to our front door first thing in the morning, pull herself up, and look outside.




What did she see this morning?


That would be 6 inches of snow. In our driveway. In late March. You can disregard my whole "we finally have hope that the snow is on its way out the door" comment from last night. Apparently, I forgot to knock on wood.

Emma doesn't seem to mind that we have some bonus snow. Always the optimist, this baby :)

Spring Break

Last week, we went south for spring break and for TB to attend a meeting in Dallas. We left town with a few feet of snow still on the ground and returned with only 6 inches left! Although the golf courses here didn't open on March 13th as they did last year or on March 16th as they did the year before last, at least we finally have hope that the snow is on its way out the door. It's been our longest winter yet.

It was heaven to travel south and see family both there and on the way to and from.

We took advantage of the nice weather and spent some time outside golfing and playing. Emma kindly picked Grandma's pansies for her and did some general pruning,


hung out with the neighborhood kitty named Elvis,


and played in the dirt for the first time.


She also visited the nice new library up the street,


played inside (in her St. Patty's Day outfit!),




tried finger foods,




shopped, and visited Grandma's office.

Grandma and Grandpa really liked having her in town, which is, I'm sure, hard to believe. Here are a few pictures of Emma and Grandma playing pat-a-cake and being sweet.






My cute Grandma, Emma's Great Grandma, even came along for the trip.




We had a ball.

Wordless Wednesday

The This-Is-The-Closest-Mama-Could-Get-To-My-Tooth-But-Hopefully-You-Can-See-It Edition

Please Welcome

While TB was out of town this weekend (he'll tell you all about his trip soon), we had family in town for very special reasons.

To see Emma (duh).

And, to meet the two little guys who joined their parents (my cousins) and lucky extended families near the end of February. I had the great privilege of getting to hold both of them on Sunday.

Their mama will have to correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Leif is on my right and Oliver is on my left. Aren't they perfect?


On my left thigh is a polka dotted leg belonging to sweet Emma, who was just dying to have some one-on-one time with her cousins. Unfortunately for her, that's about as close as she got because, um, this is what she does to her baby dolls at home.


It won't be long, though, before they'll get to play together! And, until then, she and her mermaid will wait patiently in their living room.


Yay for babies!