Wordless Wednesday

Just a swingin'!

Perfect Sunday

Today I let myself have the ever so rare lazy day! We didn't even go to church, which was bad of us, but it was so nice to just be home with the family today. When we woke up I decided to make a yummy homemade breakfast for everyone (it's been a while since I did that). I made french toast with fried bananas and banana whipped cream, and bacon. Maddie even got in on the action with some egg yolk-only french toast. She was "bananas" for it! For the first time ever she didn't cry when she was done eating and we had to clean her. And almost immediately afterward she took a 2 hour nap...in her bed! Glory be. I may feed her french toast every day.
After that we took our new dog, Dixie, to Petsmart for a collar & other dog supplies. She is a 3 year old yellow golden retriever, and I'm officially in love with her. She's exactly what I was wanting.
The best part of our day, though, came when we played in the sprinkler outside as a spur-of-the-moment thing. I put the girls in their swimsuits and out we went. We tried playing in the sprinkler with Maddie in June and she hated it, but this time she absolutely loved it. Dixie came outside to play and she loved it too. She went wild playing in it, trying to bite the water. So funny.
Then I made a delish chicken cacciatore from The Throwdown Cookbook. It was amazing. In a few weeks, I am going to start working every other Sunday, and I'm pretty bummed about missing those days with my family. It's what we needed to do after some number crunching though.

MIA

Where the heck have I been? In a nuthshell: moving into our first house (!), chasing a very active and naughty seven month (!) old baby, and sending my big girl off to first grade! It's been a busy month here at the Brewer house, so sorry for the lack of updates lately. I will do a quick run through of what's been happening in our lives.
As I said, we got our house, and we love it. I had forgotten how nice it is to live in an actual home. It still needs a bit of work, and it feels like we're uncovering more things that need done every day, but it's getting there. Pictures soon, I promise.
Maddie recently turned seven months old. She is such a little stinker. She started crawling on August 1, and now you can't stop her. She has also started pulling up on everything she can get her hands on, and she does a bit of cruising on the furniture. I love this age. She is so funny and into everything. She absolutely loves playing with all her toys, as well as Kiley and Delilah's toys.

She loves splashing all the water out of Delilah's bowls

Holding the third door stopper she pulled off in one day

She still eats extremely well-she eats yogurt, oatmeal, peaches, pears, apples, plums, mangoes, bananas, pineapple, green beans, peas, edamame, carrots, sweet potatoes, squash, and is now starting all the various finger foods they have for babies-puffs, wagon wheels, and lil crunchies. So far the only food she doesn't appreciate is still rice. Can't say I blame her, I don't like rice either.
As for my big girl, we sent her off to first grade on August 15. She is doing great so far, but I sure miss her. I said all summer that first grade was going to be harder on me than kindergarten was, and so far that has proven to be true. She is doing great though, and has even made a "BFF". Thursday is her school's open house, so I get to go see her classroom setup then. Can't wait!

Little miss sassafrass on the first day!

So now that life has calmed down a bit, I am going to start updating regularly again. Thanks for being patient!

Be back soon....

Maddie turned 6 months old today, so I will do a proper posting on that later. Why later, you ask? Because in mere minutes we are leaving to go here:

for 5 whole days. Ah, the lake! Boating, beaching, hot tubbing, relaxing, etc. See you later! It's vacation time!

Happy Birthday!

Just a quick note to say Happy Birthday to my amazing husband, Casey Brewer!

I had to go back to January 2010 to find a picture of just the two of us-eek! Rx: Date night, stat!
Anyway, I love you C Brew, so happy happy happy happy 27th (not 26th, seriously what happened to that year of my life?!) birthday!

Wordless Wednesday

Kids will be kids, no matter the age:

Some Firsts for Maddie

Maddie had some big firsts last weekend:

her first Fourth of July

Of course she and Kiley had matching patriotic outfits

her first two picnics

Enjoying some dinner on the St. Edwards lawn

her first fireworks show

St. Edwards puts out the second largest show in Nashville

and she started sitting up solo!

Chilling at the pool

We had a great holiday weekend, as you can probably tell. Sunday the third we went to mass in the morning, then to the store for some foods for the cookout, then back out to St. Edwards for the picnic/fireworks show. It was a great time again (our second year going). We ate lots of delicious food, and I got to try a new (to me) food truck, Fleur de Lis flavors. Oh man, they are good! I am all sorts of craving them now. In fact, I tried convincing the hubby that we just had to go there today before his mom's birthday event, but I don't think he agreed. Sigh. Anyway, Kiley played like crazy on the playground while we waited for the fireworks to start, then when they started she came and sat down. They were gorgeous! Maddie actually nursed through about 95% of the show, and didn't even seem to know anything was going on, then she got up for the grand finale. I covered her ears but let her watch, and she loved it! So precious.
Monday the 4th, we had a pretty low key day. We thought about going to a neighborhood parade and the hot chicken festival in East Nashville, but we were all feeling pretty tired out from the night before, so we stayed at home. Luckily, the rain that was predicted stayed away, so in the afternoon we went swimming with Casey's mom and sister. Maddie was in a particularly good mood, so we got to stay at the pool for over 2 hours! Amazing. She spent much of the time doing this:

While Kiley spent the WHOLE time doing this:

What a little mermaid she is!

Then following the swimming, we had another cookout with more delicious food. I love having a grill. Best investment of the summer. After our dinner, we ate my firecracker cake:

How festive! And yummy!