A Visit from the New York Family

We were so excited to have Marty's family from New York come to visit recently. We only get to see them once or twice a year, so our visits are a lot of fun! Marty's Uncle Gerry, Aunt Joanne, cousin Tammy and Tammy's kids Jack and Gabriella all came to Marty's parents house to visit. And even though it was almost a month after Brianne's birthday, they brought her some fun presents! Brianne loves any excuse to celebrate her birthday.

Here is Gabriella showing Brianne the nice presents she brought - Disney Princess books and pretty outfits!

Aunt Casey and Brianne with Tammy and Gabriella chilling by the pool.

The next day, we went to Uncle Gerry and Aunt Joanne's condo on Ft. Lauderdale beach. The weather didn't hold up very well, but we still enjoyed relaxing and taking in the view. Brianne was trying to wrap her head around the concepts of height - she wasn't afraid at all.

Brianne hanging with her cousins Tyler and Taylor (and Elmo, of course).

The sun came out for a bit, so we got to spend some time out by the pool. Here is Brianne sitting patiently after getting lubed up with sunscreen.

Brianne had a blast splashing around in the pool and flinging around some pool noodles.

Before we went home, we wanted Aunt Joanne to trim Brianne's bangs. Aunt Joanne is a professional hair dresser, so we all get a hair cut when she comes to town. But when it's Brianne's turn, everyone in the room had to help baby wrangle. It took twice as long, but we managed to get her bangs trimmed up nice and neat.

Get Out the Vote!

The election process has been in full swing with early voting here in South Florida. This election season has been especially aggravating with all the mud-slinging TV commercials, robo calls (at least 2 a day), direct mail and radio ads. The only good thing about all this is that none of it is about Marty, since he is running unopposed. I wish it could be like this every year (dare to dream).

Marty LOVES election day and voting, and he was excited to bring Brianne with us to expose her to the wonderful world of the electoral process. We voted early, and were able to walk right up and vote. When we pulled up to the voting place, Brianne really enjoyed meeting all the poll workers and came away with a whole stack of leaflets.

Here we are on our family field trip to vote!


Here is Marty showing Brianne how to fill out a ballot. She was so excited to vote, she wore a special red, white and blue outfit and brought her little donkey along. Can you guess what party affiliation she is??


After voting, we had a nice lunch at a nearby cafe.


Brianne enjoyed playing with her "I VOTED" stickers while we waited for our food to arrive.

A Fish Named Quirky

Brianne loves fish, so I wanted to get her Baby's First Fish Tank. When I went to Pet Supermarket, I asked for the smallest, most basic little fish tank. The store clerk took me over to the aquarium aisle, and handed me the smallest box, and it was still $50! Not including a fish!

I didn't mind spending the money, but when he told me that I would need to take the tank home, set it up, and let the filter run for 4 days before I could even bring home a fish, I told him to forget it. This seemed like a lot of effort for a fish that will probably die in a week. The clerk saw that I was not looking too thrilled, and ever the sales man, recommended a different kind of tank where I could take a fish home then and there.

So we ended up with a Beta fish, and the coolest little tank that coincidentally matches my house! You can actually hang it on the wall, but we thought that was just asking for disaster, so our new little fish is sitting on our kitchen counter.

Meet the newest member of the Kiar family - Quirky 3! (Quirky 1 was a little fish Marty had when he was a kid, and Quirky 2 was a gold fish we won at a carnival that incidentally died a week later - we are hoping to have better luck with Quirky 3).



Brianne loves to watch Quirky swim. Though we are working on explaining to her why she can't pet Quirky like she does Cooper...

Attack of the 50 Foot Baby

We recently took Brianne to her 1 year well baby check up. We hadn't been to the doctor since she was 9 months old, so we were excited to see how much she had grown. Before we got in to the exam room, we had to have Baby's First Blood Test. A nurse came and pricked her finger, and Brianne didn't even flinch. What bothered her was the nurse squeezing her finger to collect the blood sample, but the nurse gave her a pretty bandaid afterward, so Brianne didn't mind too much. She had to got shots later, so it gave me hope that it wouldn't be too bad, since the blood test didn't bother her.

Once we got in the exam room, the nurse comes to weigh and measure Brianne. Then the doctor comes in to give us the results. First, the doctor asked how she was doing, then did the physical exam. By all accounts, Brianne is doing great health wise, and is growing very well. Actually, she's growing a little too well. She is off the charts in height, and measured in at 32" long (that's almost 3 feet). The doctor even said, if we lined up 100 one-year old babies, Brianne would be the tallest. To put it even more in perspective, our friends have a 3 year old who measured in at 36" at her last doctor appointment. So long story short, Brianne is very, very tall.

The doctor also asked us if she was walking yet, and we told her that she hadn't quite gotten there yet. Brianne is cruising around furniture, and even standing alone without holding on, but hasn't quite taken a step yet. The doctor says this is fine, and that she should start walking at around 15 months.

The last part of the check up included 3 shots. I had to sit Brianne up and hug her against me while they gave her the shots. She did not take them well, and screamed her head off. Poor baby, I felt so bad for her. She was fine in a few minutes, but I HATE when she has to get shots. All in all, it was a good check up, and we are glad to know that Brianne is A-OK!

Here we are in the waiting room. I remember when we had to bring Brianne in in her infant car seat. Now she sits in a chair like a big girl!


Here we are waiting for the nurse to come back to give her shots.


Brianne getting weighed in. She weighed 23 lbs, which is about 75% for weight, but is in line with her height.

The Butterfly Effect

One of Brianne's favorite gifts from her birthday was a miniature butterfly garden given to her by our friend Lori. Lori's entire back yard is one big butterfly garden, so she knew exactly what kind of plants would attract butterflies (our garden has milkweed to attract the butterflies and parsley for the caterpillars to eat). We had recently visited Lori's house to see her butterflies, and were so excited to have a garden of our own.

Our new little garden even had 6 caterpillars already living on it. Once we got our garden home and situated on our back porch, we watered it religiously, and enjoyed visiting our little caterpillars every evening. A couple days after we got our garden home, I started noticing that a caterpillar was missing. Then a day after that, 2 more were missing. I thought maybe they turned into butterflies overnight, but I learned that it actually takes 2 weeks to go from caterpillar to butterfly (thank you, Google). I couldn't figure out what was happening, and started getting really upset when we were eventually down to one lonely caterpillar.

It just so happened that Cooper woke me up to go outside at 2am one night. When I flipped on the porch light, I saw a tree frog jump out of the garden and up a tree. This whole time, a tree frog had been feasting on my caterpillars. Son of a b*&ch. As soon as we made that discovery, we started bringing in the garden every evening and putting it in the garage, then bringing it back onto the porch every morning. We were determined to see at least one caterpillar grow into a butterfly!!

One day when I was checking on my lone caterpillar, I couldn't find it. I started thinking that a frog had broken into my garage, when I noticed a little chrysallis (coccoon) on a branch. Two more weeks of bringing the garden in and out, and finally it turned into a butterfly! Luckily, Marty just happened to be home and saw the butterfly emerge from his coccoon and fly away. He called me at work to tell me, and I almost cried, I was so happy for our little butterfly.

Here is Brianne admiring her new butterfly garden. Lori even gave her a little pink watering can to water her new garden with.

Can you spot the cocoon in this picture? It looks like a leaf, and is located in the upper middle section of the photo.

After weeks of fighting off tree frogs, here is our caterpillar turned into a butterfly! Isn't it so beautiful?

Here is a close up of our butterfly. I believe it is a Monarch butterfly. We haven't seen it again since it flew away, but hopefully, it will come back to visit us soon :o)

Brianne Turns One!

Brianne's first birthday fell on a Saturday - lucky us! Even though everyone told me "she'll never remember", I couldn't help myself but to throw a birthday party! I've only been to a handful of children's parties, so I wasn't sure where to start. But with Brianne, if you go with Elmo, you can't go wrong. And since we live in South Florida, where the average summer weather is 100 degrees with humidity as thick as a wet blanket, a pool is virtually a requirement. So put those things together and you get an Elmo pool party!

We held the party at Grandma Mimi and Grandpa Monroe's house. They have a great big back yard perfect for parties. They have a pool, though I went out and bought a couple pools that were more appropriate for little kids. The hit of the party was a splashpad (not pictured), which had a bunch of blow up animals and sprinkled water everywhere. I got it at Target for $20, and it was the best $20 I spent! Here is Brianne and her buddy Preston in the baby pool.

Since it was an Elmo party, I was dead set on having an Elmo cake. I found the perfect cake online, however, I couldn't find a bakery to make it for me on short notice. So Mi Ma Debbie saved the day and made an Elmo cupcake cake. She could have a second career as a baker!

Getting her first taste of cupcake (another little Elmo!)

Brianne enjoyed her cupcake so much, she smeared it all over her face in her excitement! Also, you can kind of see it here, but she is wearing - you guessed it - an Elmo bathing suit!

I forget how short kid birthday parties are (they are only supposed to be around 2 hours). The party went by in a flash. Once everyone left, we set about the task of opening all of Brianne's gifts....

Which took us another 2 hours. But Brianne persevered!

Taking a break to play with a balloon.

We managed to get all the presents unwrapped and brought back home. One of her favorites was her Elmo chair, though it wasn't her favorite at first. Actually, the Elmo chair scared her the first time she saw it, and she wouldn't go near it for about 2 days. Now she loves it!

I can't believe one whole year is gone. We had so much fun, and I can't wait to see what the next years with Brianne brings!