Farewell to the Colony

I don't believe I have mentioned that we are moving, well I should say have moved. Last weekend we loaded everything up and moved to a new apartment up the road about ten minutes.

We started entertaining the idea of moving last August when we returned home from visiting Utah. When we first moved to our apartment there were 17 other dental student families that lived in our complex. It was heaven!! I felt like it was college all over again, except I was married. Well, each year more and more families graduated but no new families moved in. So each year our numbers went down drastically. I realized that at the end of this school year, because we are the only family in our year, we would be left all alone in this once friend field place. It was a really depressing thought. Anyone who has lived or visited the Colony knows that the only real perk for living here is the friendships.

Anyway so we began to look around. When we got back from Christmas vacation we found an apartment that was offering a HUGE awesome deal and we signed a 14 month lease. We decided that we should move before the baby was born and I'm SOOOO glad we did.

It definitely was bitter-sweet to leave our little home. It spite of all the negative things about the apartment we really truly LOVED living there. It was our first real home together and where we started our family. We made AMAZING friendships that will last forever and created some wonderful life long memories. The Colony for those reasons will always hold a special place in our hearts.

Our new place is WONDERFUL!!! We have lots more space than we did before and the best part is I finally have a washer and dryer and a dishwasher!!! I'll post pictures of our new place as soon as we get it all put together!

A big thanks to everyone who helped us move! Especially Greg's parents who came for 4 days to load and unload us! You guys are the best!

Brinley's two year old update

Now that Brinley is two, I wanted to write a little bit about what she does in this stage of life, mostly for my benefit so I won't forget.

Brinley is very fun and very busy. She has discovered her independence and is running sometimes a little to wild with it. She loves to color and write in notebooks. We are working VERY hard to teach her that she only writes on paper, not things like walls, wood tables, and our leather couch. Yes she drew all over my leather couch last week with a blue pen, still a touchy subject for me so I'll move on. She is SUPER social! Everyday she asks if she can play with friends and go to nursery. When we are at the store she always waves and asks people "how you doing?" Needless to say we make a lot of friends in public.

Her favorite toys right now are her slide, rocking chair, blocks, and baby dolls.
She also is obsessed with Winnie the pooh. She has a little stuffed Pooh bear that we have to take with us where ever we go. She also loves watching him on T.V.

Another thing she is BIG into right now is singing! This girl sings all day long. Her usual songs include popcorn popping, rock a by baby, the Winnie the pooh theme song, five little monkeys, and as of late the song "popular" from wicked. Last week our primary had a talent show so we took Brinley to it and one of the older girls sang "popular" from wicked. Brinley had never listened to the song before, but she was glued while the girl sang it. After the show and we were home, I was putting her to bed. Usually I sing her church songs before she goes to sleep, but when I started singing "I love to see the temple" she stopped me and said "I don't want church songs, I want popular song." So everyday since then we listen to popular at least five times a day.

A few other random things she does that I want to remember is she has become a major negotiator. Whenever I tell her it's time to leave somewhere she looks at me and says "only 5 more minutes." Or if she wants a treat she'll say "I just want one, just one." After I give it to her she comes back two minutes later and says "only one more mom, only one!" If I go in a room to check on her and she is doing something that she knows she's not suppose to do, she says to me "Go Mom Go, go out of the room." I guess she thinks she'll get away with it if I'm not there.

I honestly don't know what Greg and I did before we had this little monkey. She keeps us on our toes like most toddlers do, but we sure love her and love watching her personality develop.

This was the first time she ever fell asleep in a random part of our house. The only place she has ever fallen asleep is her bed or the car.


Here she is singing.


Here she is building one of her tall tall towers.


Eating a cupcake at her birthday party.


Rocking in her new rocking chair.

Happy 2nd Birthday Brinley!!!

Today my little girl turned two! I can't believe it! I know that's what all Mom's say but I really can't believe how fast the time goes. She had a great day filled with lots of birthday fun. This morning she got to go to one of her favorite places, nursery! Then we came home from church, ate dinner, and then Greg took Brinley to the park while I got stuff ready for her party.

We had a small birthday party with our dental student family. Brinley had a great time playing with her little friends, eating cupcakes, and opening presents. She got a lot of darling clothes, an Amish rocking chair and a slide!! I'm trying to download the the rest of the pictures but my computer is being dumb so I 'll so upload them later. Until then......Happy Birthday Brinley, we love you more than you'll ever know!!!!