Play date days...

I always cherish my Fridays with Brandon cause I always reserve it for play dates. I love the fact that a lot of my friends have children around the same age as him!

Whether its spending the day at the zoo or just inviting people to our little apartment, I love that Brandon already has a good amount of friends to play with. It makes me smile when I daydream about Brandon growing up with his friends and having the same great relationships as I have with their parents.

I cherish each and every relationships I have with all my friends and especially now that we are all mothers. Our relationships now have grown to another level. We are all genuinely happy for one another and have become more patient and understanding. There's just an automatic bond between mothers that is unexplainable, and I am just so thankful to have the chance to be a part of it!

Here are just a few pics from our Friday play dates!

This will NEVER get old!

From 1 week old to now 41 weeks... I will always love this feeling. I can stare and hold him in my arms forever. I always try to remind myself to take these moments in, but time is going by too quickly and each amazing moment are always replaced with better ones!

38 weeks and 4 days

Today marks the day that Brandon has been out as long as was in. Brandon was born at 38 weeks and 4 days and he is officially that old today! It's also crazy that in a 5 days he will be 9 months old!  When I told Josh he said "Wow, that was crazy fast!"  He could not have phrased that any better!!  It has been such a crazy ride for the both of us and we could not be any happier!  Josh and I take a lot of pride in the fact that we haven't screwed Brandon up just yet.  He still has all of his limbs in tact, hasn't eaten anything poisonous, and seems to still like having us around...

Gosh, I remember rolling my eyes when parents would tell me that kids grow super fast...Oh, how naive was I?  

Anyway, this has been the fastest and most amazing 38 weeks of my life! I never knew I would love being a mom this much or let alone function with such little sleep. There's never a dull moment with Brandon...life is much more meaningful and I am never sad when he's around... How did we become so blessed with such an amazing baby boy?! Josh and I could not have asked for a better 1st baby!!

Me and B and 38 weeks 

Brandon at 38 weeks old

What makes me happy

Love these two so much!

Baby Ryan is here!!

Gosh, it seems like it was just yesterday when Merrie told me that they were expecting!  On Tuesday morning baby Ryan arrived!  I was scheduled to work that evening, but was lucky enough to find someone to cover my shift for me.  I would've had a little time before work to go visit, but I really didn't want to have my time be limited.  

I've known Ron and Merrie for over 13 years now and not only are they like a brother and sister to me, but they are also Brandon's Godparents.  They also have a 3 year old daughter Hallie who we just love and adore!  I remember Merrie and I making a pact that if we both had daughters they would be best of friends just like us or if we had a boy and a girl, that they would still be best of friends or maybe even get married!!  Who knows maybe Hallie will end up marrying Brandon, and Ryan and Brandon will be best of friends/brother in-laws!  Haha! Oh gosh, well either way they will be seeing lots of each other cause their parents are BFF's!

Anyway, I couldn't wait for Josh to get off work to see baby Ryan, so Brandon and I just went without him.  We got there around 3sh.  I got to hold Ryan for what seemed like only seconds because lets face it, you can never hold a newborn long enough!  I also had Brandon with me so our time was limited with nap time quickly approaching.  I did come back the next day without him and was able to hold baby Ryan A LOT longer!! While I was holding him it made me think that only 8 months ago Brandon was that small. Now he's crawling, babbling, and laughing!  It's really bitter sweet.

Ryan is one perfect baby and we could not be happier for Ron and Merrie on their beautiful growing family!!  They truly are blessed!!

A visit from Mr. Sandman

Well, I'm marking this day as the 1st time that Brandon slept through the night!! He did cry a few times, but he went straight back to sleep after a few seconds! Oh my, I could totally get used to this!

Sunday fun day!

Due to our scheduled family vacation to Hawaii in October, Josh and I decide that we were just going to stay pretty close to home for labor day weekend.  Sunday is usually our designated family day, but this Sunday felt extra special for some reason.  We started out our day pretty slow, we lounged around in our jammies for a few hours, had breakfast, and around 1:00 we finally got out of the house.  Our first stop was Marination station.  I've heard people rave about their kimchi fried rice so I had to try it!! 

I had the Kalbi beef kimchi fried rice with egg... and oh, yes it was amazing! 

After our yummy and over-filling lunch outside we decided to head down to the waterfront and check out the big ferris wheel! It was such a beautiful warm day in Seattle.  As many of you know, we don't get a lot of beautiful days like this so we really wanted to take advantage of it (and so did the other thousands of other people).  Ya, it was kind of crowded, and the line for the ferris wheel seemed a bit long, but we thought, now is a good time as any. Brandon was super happy, he loves sitting in his big boy stroller.  I think that he loves that fact that he's facing out and able to see more.  He is at this perfect little age where he is just taking everything in like a sponge.  

Daddy and Brandon waiting in line

Leave it up to Brandon to ruin a perfectly good family photo!  Look at this kids face!!

The view was worth the wait!

He loved the view

We didn't get a chance to ride the carousal.  That's next on our list!

My favorite picture from the weekend!

Oh and one last little story for you.  So on our ride we shared a carriage with a nice little European family.  They didn't speak english very well, so our conversations were very short.  As we were all enjoying the nice quiet ride, Brandon thought that it was a good time to take a big ol' fart and shortly after decided to take the stinkiest poo!  Oh those poor people...I'm not fluent in french, but I'm pretty sure they were not very happy inhaling the smell of baby poop in the last 10 minutes of our ride!  Oh, Brandon you really are one funny kid!! Happy 37 weeks!