Golden Friends

You know the saying, "Make new friends, but keep the old; one is silver, the other gold"?  I consider Karen one of my "gold" friends.  We lived across the hall from each other during our first year of college at Morningside and even though I left after that first year, she and I continued our friendship via emails, phone calls and visits.  We've now been friends for almost 14 years (wowzers!) and have shared many special times together including our weddings and now becoming mothers. 
For the past six years Karen and her husband have lived in Rochester, NY (that is SO far away!) and I was only able to see her once (almost two years ago) during that time.  Thankfully, we've been able to keep up via all the great technology these days, but it is always so nice to see each other in person and have some good quality time together catching up.  This weekend we had the great pleasure of going to Houston and spending time with Karen and her family.  She had an endocrinology conference (she's about to be a full-fledged endocrinologist, how cool is she?) there and decided to make a family vacation out of it.  It was so great for our hubbies to finally meet and for our daughters to meet.  Julia and Brie became fast friends and it was so much fun watching them play and interact.  They are a couple of sweeties for sure!  I am very happy that Karen will soon be moving back to SD because we should be able to meet up over holidays more often (like we used to in the good ole days before they moved out to NY).  Isn't nice to have wonderful, "gold" friends in our lives?  I sure think so!

 Brie & Julia, chilling at the hotel :)

Fun at the park :)

Exciting Times!

It's been an exciting week around here!
First, Brie started standing without holding onto anything!

Then, Grandma Halvorsen came to watch swim lessons and took some video--see our little fishy here!

And today, Brie took her first steps!  This video was maybe the fourth or fifth time we got her to do it, and she'll only take 2 or 3 steps, but she's on her way to becoming a full-fledged walker!  Wow, our baby girl is growing up fast!  See her first steps here!

11 Months :)

I feel like a broken record, but really, how can it be 11 months since our precious baby girl made her entrance into this world??  She has brought us so much joy, laughter and fun these past 11 months!  She has such a strong, vibrant and independent personality already (I have no idea where she gets her independence from...hmmmm...) and it is so much fun watching her grow and learn.  Here's what little Miss Brie's been up to this month:

• She's started trying out standing on her own, and can balance herself for a good 5-10 seconds before she ever so slowly lowers herself to the ground, it seems walking is in her near future :)
• We're fairly certain we can say her first word (or words) is "A da" (translation "a dog").  One of the books we read multiple times each day is a peek-a-boo book and she LOVES the dog in the book and we think she thinks it's Sierra.  The book says "A Dog!", so we think that's why she's picked up the phrase.  At dinner she continually looks down at Sierra and Mozart saying "A da!"  "A da!"...then she feeds them...no wonder they love her!
• Her second phrase is "ahh dah!" (translation: "all done").  While she does say this during feedings, she also seems to think it works for stopping other things she's not enjoying (i.e during diaper changes, she often looks up at me and very emphatically says "AHH DAH!", nope, sorry sweetie, you are not all done till the new diaper is on!  :)  ).
• She has begun to love the games of peek-a-boo and chase daddy around the island in the kitchen (see here) and her laugh is infectious, she was never much of a giggly/laughing baby, so it is fun to hear her laughs now :)
• She is a tall baby girl, I am looking forward to seeing how tall at her one-year appt.  She weighs close to 19 pounds, so she's still a light-weight little thing, but people often are surprised at her age because she's so tall she looks a little older.  
• She transitioned to her "big girl" car seat this past weekend.  I wasn't quite ready to let go of the infant car seat, but she is quite happy sitting up a bit higher in her new seat.
• She has now been successful in sleeping through the night and napping without her swaddle (for almost five weeks now!).  We were a bit worried about this transition, because she really loved to be swaddled up, but she did very well and seems to be enjoying sprawling out in her crib.
• And finally, Brie is our little fish!  She and I started doing "swim lessons" this month and she LOVES it.  She loves to kick, splash, and fall into the pool (especially if there is a duck or ball enticing her).  She has NO fear (which is good and bad!) and even loves to be dunked.  We're having a great time and I'll be sad when the month is over!  

Here's some shots from our 11 month photo shoot today...our little firecracker was definitely popping tonight!

 Wait, what?  Time for 11 month photos already?  No way mommy!!

 I love that you can see her dimple in this shot because you can tell she's got her mischievous little grin on her face!

 The best shot of the night :)

 She eventually decided reading (i.e. eating) books would be more fun than posing for pictures

 And the photo time ended with some fun rocking the glider, another favorite game right now.  Looking forward to our 1-year photo shoot with a professional...who I KNOW can get some good shots of this little whipper-snapper :)!

Happy Father's Day!!

Happy Father's Day to two of the best dads I know!

I will follow you...

 Last weekend Brie and I spent some great quality time with Kat and Ella.  It was just us girls and we had such fun!  Brie and Ella are interacting a tiny bit more, but mostly still just stealing each others toys (and luckily right now, they could care less!).  One of the cutest things to watch though was Ella following Brie around their house.  Brie would take off crawling and soon Ella would follow.  It was quite hard to get good pictures of the two of them together, because they're both so much on the move right now, so this one below is about the best I could do :).

Kat and I decided we never need to buy them toys.  They're favorite "toys" the whole weekend were their bottles of teething tablets and a couple of baby hangars.  Great fun!  We will surely miss these fun weekends together when they move up to MN in a few weeks...but, we have one more week together in NEbbefore I have to get all sad and really mushy about it!