The Great Pumpkin

Going back to work has given me a greater appreciation for my weekends, and we definitely made the most out of this one. Every year, the city of Parkland has a Fall Festival with a big pumpkin patch. Now that we have Brianne, we are caught up in "Baby's Firsts", so we went to get Baby's First Pumpkin to get us in the spirit of Baby's First Halloween. We had a blast picking through all the pumpkins searching for the perfect one. It was also fun seeing all the parents with their babies dressed in cute little Fall outfits who had the same idea we did. We found our perfect pumpkin, and will soon be carving it into Baby's First Jack-O-Lantern. We'll be waiting a couple days to carve it, as it is still 90 degrees outside, and we dont want it to turn into pumpkin soup.

Here we are enjoying an afternoon of pumpkin picking.

Here is our little pumpkin up close and personal. She lasted approx. 2.5 seconds in this position before screaming.

Back to the Grind

This past week, I rejoined the working world and left Brianne in the capable hands of Marty and Aunt Joan. I was fortunate enough to be able to change my hours to 7:30am - 4:30pm, but that means I need to leave the house by 6:45am and Marty is in charge of Brianne's mornings. It takes all my will power not to wake Brianne up so I can see her before I leave. Also, because I dont get home until 5:30pm, Marty is in charge of pick up. He has really stepped up as Mr. Mom, and has done a great job taking care of Brianne. While I wish it were me to be the one with the extra hours with her, I'm glad her daddy can be there every day spending time with her.

Brianne did really well at Aunt Joan's house all week. I didn't call more than twice a day, but Aunt Joan was very nice and supportive of the change in our schedules. I think going back to work would be so much harder if we weren't so happy with Brianne's day care arrangements. Believe it or not, we actually just got called by the Royal Caribbean day care this week saying that we cleared the wait list, but we are going to defer and go back to the bottom of the list. Hopefully, the next time we get called, Brianne will be over a year old, and we'll be ready for her to go to a day care center.

Though I was gone for over 3 months, it felt like I had never left. I had a great team helping out in my absence, so things were very organized when I got back. I still had a lot to catch up on, but it was definitely a good distraction from missing the baby. When I got home every day, those few hours with Brianne have been the best. It's true that distance makes the heart grow fonder, and I have really been treasuring the time with my family, and making the most out of the limited time we have together during the week.

Here is Mr. Mom Marty snuggling with Brianne right before I left for work. She had woken up early, so I got to have a last minute hug and kiss before my first day back to work.

What I'm really going to miss is all the little things that Brianne does during the day. This week, she had something crazy going on with her hair - kind of like a little Alf-alfa piece sticking up. She'd had a bath the night before, so her hair wasn't dirty, but nothing would keep that piece of hair down.

Three Months Old and Counting

Brianne is 3 months old as of Saturday, October 17. She continues to amaze us with the new things she's learned how to do. She's learned how to blow bubbles or "rasberries", and loves to do this all the time. She's making a wider variety of noises, and has become quite the "chatty kathy". She is very social and likes meeting new people, which is no surprise considering she is Marty's daughter. She holds her head up very well, and hardly bobbles at all anymore. She kicks her little arms and legs with a fury, and I swear, if you put her on her stomach, she would crawl across the room in a flash. She is almost rolling over (see my earlier post for more details on that). She has started putting her hands on her bottle when she eats. She cant quite hold it up yet, but it is the cutest thing ever, especially when her bib gets in the way and she flips it up over her face.

She is also sleeping 11-12 hours straight through the night, which is amazing. She goes down at about 8:30 and wakes up between 7:00am and 8:00am. One of my latest favorite things is going into her room in the morning when she wakes up, and watching her stretch and smile when she sees me. It really just melts my heart.

She has been a wonderful little baby ever since she joined our family, and while we already miss some of her newbown quirks, we can't wait to see what she'll do next!

Here is Brianne wearing the same outfit we dressed her in for her hospital portrait right after she was born. It definitely fits much better now. What a cutie!

Here is Brianne's hospital portrait in the same outfit. The outfit is size 0-3 (I didn't know when she was born that size 0-3 was not the same as "newborn" size), so we had to tuck it in around her for this portrait.

She's On a Roll

Just this past week, Brianne rolled over for the first time! She has been half-rolling (from her back to her left side) for a few days, but she finally made it all the way from her back to her front. She only rolled over all the way once, and Mi Ma Debbie was the only one to see it.

It is so cute to watch her try. She curls her legs up toward her tummy, then rolls to one side. When she rolled over the one time, she managed to straighten her legs which caused her to kind of fall on her face. You could tell she was just as surprised as we were, especially since she hates being on her tummy.

While we are so excited to watch her make this next step, it makes me nervous that she is getting mobile. There is something comforting knowing that if I put her down (somewhere safe, of course), she will be in the same place if I step away for a second. Now we have to watch her closer than ever, otherwise she might roll away!

Here is Brianne doing her half-roll.

Jesus Loves the Little Children

On October 3, Brianne was baptized in the Catholic Church. The ceremony was held at St. David's, and we were lucky enough to have a private ceremony. Normally, baptisms are held en masse with 10 or more babies baptized at once, so our ceremony was very nice - and super speedy. The whole thing lasted approximately 7.5 minutes. We were running late that morning, so if we didn't have the star of the show with us, we would have missed it. We literally walked into the church, threw her baptismal gown on, walked down the aisle and started the ceremony. I'm glad we got it on video, because it happened so quickly, I hardly remember what happened.

Brianne did fantastic and was smiling the whole time. Even when the priest poured the water on her head, she didn't flinch. The only time she started to fuss was when she was passed around for photo ops after the ceremony. As soon as I took her, she calmed right down and fell asleep. So most people's photos are of her sleeping, though I guess that's better than pictures of her screaming.

Grandma Mimi and Grandpa Monroe threw a beautiful party afterwards at our Uncle Gerry's beach condo. We had a great time visiting with all our family who traveled from near and far to celebrate Brianne's special day. It was a wonderful day for everyone, especially our new little Catholic!

Here is Brianne in her baptism gown. This gown is very special because it was the gown that I was baptized in. Great job Mi Ma Debbie for tracking it down!

Here we are at St. David's at the beginning of the ceremony. Marty's brother Marc and his sister Casey served as God parents.

Day Care

Well, I am officially back to work as of Monday, October 19. That's right, 3 months of maternity is already over. In preparation for me going back to work, Brianne is starting day care with a wonderful woman who is a family friend of Marty's parents, Mrs. Wilson, or Aunt Joan, as Brianne calls her. We are so fortunate to have Aunt Joan watching Brianne, though I am sad to leave her for so long during the day. However, I am excited to have conversations with other adults that do not include the words "poopie" or "the wheels on the bus".

By some miracle, Brianne has started going to bed around 8:30pm and sleeping 11 to 12 hours straight through the night as of this week. Brianne went to Aunt Joan's house for the first time on yesterday, October 14, for a half day. She was still sleeping at 7:00am when it was time for her to get up to get ready, and she was extremely angry to be wakened before she was ready (boy, do we know how that feels). But we got her ready, and all her stuff together, and out the door only a few minutes late.

Marty had to unexpectedly go to court, so I had to drop her off all by myself. Once we arrived, Brianne enjoyed meeting Aunt Joan, and was in a good mood up until I had to leave. I don't think it was because she was upset I was leaving, I think she was just a little cranky from getting her sleep cut short and from getting used to her new surroundings. Of course, this didn't make me feel any better, and I was in tears as I walked out the door.

I did enjoy having a few hours to myself, but it is one of the hardest things I've had to do, leaving her behind. Thank goodness we have someone who we trust, and who will give Brianne the love and attention she needs while we can't be with her during the day.

Here is Aunt Joan and Brianne getting ready to start their day together.

On the Road Again

Last week, we went to Tallahassee for Marty's first committee meeting. Since I am still on maternity leave, we made it a family road trip and went for a whole week. Brianne did awesome on the long drive and slept most of the way. She only got really upset in the last hour, but by that point, she had been in her car seat for 7 hours, so I can't really blame her.

I also got a deeper appreciation for all the help we have back at home. While we were there, it was just us taking care of Brianne, so we really couldn't go out to dinner (to nice restaurants, anyway) or see a movie. We tried to be fiscally responsible during our trip and bought food at Publix to make at our apartment so we didnt have to eat take-out every day. The only problem with this is that Marty's apartment is a guy's guy apartment and has very few basic cooking tools - pretty much a spaghetti pot, and that's about it. So I had to cook Macgyver-style, measuring rice in a baby bottle (FYI - did you know there are 8 oz in a cup? Thank God for Google) and stirring everything with a spatula.

Once in Tallahassee, we pretty much just relaxed and enjoyed spending time with each other. We took Brianne to see Marty's office and to meet some of the wonderful staff in the House Democratic Office. We also journeyed out of Tally a little bit and went to a little town call Havana. And this was a true "small town"- to give you an idea, there are more kids (almost 6,000) in our local high school, than in this entire town (about 4,000).

We stayed in Tally until Thursday, then we went to Orlando to visit our cousin Rosemary. Rosemary was kind enough to watch Brianne while we went to dinner with friends on Thursday night and went to Disney on Friday. Then on Saturday, we went back home. We had a great time getting away as a family and look forward to future vacations!

Here we are outside of Marty's office in the Capital building. We ran into Lu Hardin, the President of Palm Beach Atlantic University, who was very nice and was looking forward to Brianne becoming a Sailfish (that is, if she doesn't become a Gator).


Brianne sitting in Daddy's chair. She was upset about all the budget cuts made to the Education system, but Marty promised he would fight for Florida's schools in the upcoming Legislative session.


When we went to Havana, we had lunch at the Tomato Cafe and Tea Room. They had all these fun hats for people to play dress up with, so we had a great time trying on hats.