Sneak Peek 1 Year Photo Shoot!

My little Brynlee will be 1 year old on Friday! Her birthday party is on Saturday. We're having a pool party/BBQ at my Father-in-Law's house. He has a pool and his house is close to our's so we decided to have it there. One of the teachers at school who is an awesome baker is going to make Brynlee's cake and cupcakes for me. She is making a ladybug smash cake to match the pink and purple ladybug theme. Then we're just having cupcakes for everyone else. We're expecting about 50 people (that is including all of the kids and babies) to be there. Eek! I have never had a party like that before. I am ecstatic to have it at my FIL's house instead of my own! I can't wait to see both sides of our family.

We did her one year photo shoot on Sunday morning. It was SUPER hot outside. The high for the day was approximarely 103 degrees! We did her pictures at 9:30 in the morning and the temperature was about 88-90 degrees. It was really toasty out there. I was surprised that Brynlee held up so well through 3 outfits and then her smash cake pictures! The photographer, K. Rathbun Photography, was awesome. She traveled over an hour to get to us (she was recommended by some mutual friends). She brought her son to help make Brynlee laugh. He did such a great job. She has wonderful ideas and cute props. She wasn't sure what props to bring since she was going to be taking pictures at a location that she had never been before.

She posted a few sneak peak pictures on Facebook while she edits the pictures for the CD. I figured I should show them with you loyal followers. =) I think they turned out great and I am incredibly excited to see the entire CD!


Here she is in her hot air balloon and 1st outfit.



Here is Brynlee hugging her "Brynlee Doll".



The beginning of her smash cake pictures!


I am so in love with the pictures so far. I absolutely loved her hot air balloon idea with the basket. There's more pictures of her in and out of the basket as well as close up pictures so I cannot wait to see them all. I am in love with the picture of her hugging her Brynlee doll. The thing that amazes me is that it wasn't one of the planned shoot ideas. I had changed her outfit and she was just sitting on that rock while we waited for my husband and the photographer's son to bring more props from the car. I handed her the doll to keep her occupied and the photographer just started snapping pictures. My heart melted when I first saw that one. <3

We took a few pictures of her in her Texas Tech tutu, but she wasn't happy about more picture taking at that point so I am not sure if the photographer got any good pictures or not. By the time we moved on to the smash cake pictures, it was HOT HOT HOT! You can see that her cheeks are a bit rosy! I was very worried about her getting sunburned out there in that Texas heat. :/ I put a little sunscreen on her in the morning after her bath. She didn't get sunburned so maybe it helped!

At first, I don't think she really knew what to do with the cake! She kinda put her right hand in it, looked at me for half of a second, and then ate it. It was a cute cake, too and only $7.98 at Wal-Mart! Her little bloomers are adorable. I ordered the bloomers from Ashlyn Grace Design on Etsy. They are SO cute. I asked the photographer to take pictures of the bloomers. She took a lot of pictures and then said, "Okay, I think I took a lot of pictures of her butt." LOL So hopefully I'll have a picture or two to share of the back of the bloomers!

I will definitely use this photographer again and I will share more pictures when I receive the CD!

I'll log on tomorrow and update you guys on other areas of our lives.

Brynlee is almost 1!

I am such a sucky blogger (this statement is starting to sound really familiar). Here's some updates for you.

I was in Austin last week for a work conference. I learned a lot of valuable information, but the conference definitely has lots of room for improvement. I sure did fill out quite the evaluation, too! Hopefully they will actually adjust the conference based on the evaluations because I know a lot of other people felt the same way I did about the conference. Anyway, I was away from Brynlee for 4 days and 3 nights. I had a pretty rough time with it. She has spent the night with people (as in ONE night at a time) before, but I had never been that far away from her for that long. (Austin is a good 5.5 hours away.) She was with Joey, but still. He's not the same as MAMA!

As far as Joey: He found out on June 28th that he will have the colostomy bag for at least another 6 weeks. Argh. He's already had it for 6 weeks so I know he was very disappointed to find out that he would have it for so much longer. His surgeon's reason is that since Joey is finally feeling good (or okay) then the doc wants him to "feel good" for a bit longer before they do surgery #2 and he feels crappy again and has to recover. So I can understand his logic, but it sure does suck. We can't really do much. No swimming (for him), no baseball games, camping, Six Flags, water parks, or any of our other summer activities since he has to worry about how and where he will clean and change the colostomy bag. He also has to have another colonoscopy with his GI doctor before the surgeon will do surgery #2. So he sees his doctor at the end of the month and then sees the surgeon on August 7th.

As far as me, my working out sucks. My eating sucks. My mood sucks. I went to the dentist about my TMJD and now I have to get a mouth guard (for night). If that doesn't help then I'll have to get fitted for a day splint. So I hope the night mouth guard helps. I've also been going to a chiropractor. Hopefully that will help.

I've also been planning Brynlee's birthday party! I cannot believe she will be 1 year old in 3 weeks. *sniff sniff* She's such a big girl now! She has been walking for a couple of months, she's almost completely off formula, she waves and claps, she plays games, oh man the list goes on and on! I scheduled her 1 year pictures for July 15th and I cannot wait. I ordered her some super cute outfits and a SUPER cute diaper cover for her smash cake photos. I just hope she cooperates, lol. I usually have to take like 15 pictures in order to get a few cute ones of her, lol.

Here's some recent pictures for you :)

Here she is modeling her new outfit.



This is her newest facial expression, lol. It cracks me up!



Here she is in the "Air Force Princess" outfit Grandpa got her. He's retired Air Force.



4th of July outfit :)

Cutie Patootie! :)

Here she is today with her crazy pigtails.

I hope you had a good 4th of July! I only have 6 more days of work before summer vacation and I cannot wait.