Welcome to the world

Introducing,

Brianna Sue Olson

Born April 5, 2008

5 pounds, 1 ounce

19 inches

above: Brianna and her proud daddy

After a pretty difficult pregnancy, including diabetes and high blood pressure, my sister gave birth via c-section to a healthy baby girl. We are so happy that everything went well and mom and baby are home now and doing well. We can't wait to see you baby Brianna!

above: Brianna with mom and grandma

above: Brianna with big sister Kayla and grandma

Hush little baby...

Our sweet little Grace slept for 8 1/2 hours last night. AMAZING! She has been sleeping pretty well since she was about 2 months old. She usually sleeps for 6 or 7 hours straight at night, with the occasional night where she wakes up a few times to eat. Last night was totally out of the blue. We are so lucky to have such a good baby despite her prematurity. She is always happy and smiling and loves to stick her tongue out at her daddy. She has brought such a special spirit into our home and filled the empty spaces in our family. We love her so very much.

Mission: Organization

There are a lot of things I like about my kitchen. I like that it has an open feel to the living room, but is still partially separated so when I have dirty dishes in the sink or on the counter you can't see them from the living room. I also like the cabinet space that I have in there. Seriously, I have tons. It didn't seem like a lot when we bought the house, but as I was unpacking I realized I have way more cabinets than dishes. There are empty cabinets, and cabinets that have only one small appliance taking up residence inside. My mom is jealous of the empty cabinets. The thing I really don't like about my kitchen is that I don't have a pantry. Well, I guess I do, but it looks like this:

Yes, you are seeing this right... My pantry is narrow and shaped like a triangle (disclaimer: the shelfliners were there when we bought the house). Our garage is on an odd angle to the house so my pantry got the short end of the stick. I can't fit much in there as you might be able to guess. Because of the lack of pantry, I have my food in 3 different places in the kitchen. This gets confusing some times. Justin never knows where any food is (except for the cereal and chips of course) and I forget where I've put things so I end up buying more at the store just to find out that I already have 10 cans of cream of chicken soup. The other day I got ambitious and reorganized my kitchen. I took all the food out of the cabinets and the tupperware out of its cabinet.

I then organized everything and put it all away. All my cooking food is in one cabinet and my baking stuff is in another. I feel much better now.

The after photos:

Say Cheese

Last week I took Grace to get her 3 month portraits and it was a disaster. I had to drive to Tyler, TX which is about 45 minutes from our house. I made an appointment for 2:30 and got there just in time. When we walked into the studio it was about 85 degrees and I was sweating (it didn't help that it was raining outside and we had like 100% humidity that day). The girl who took the pictures drove me crazy. She would set everything up and have me lay Grace down and then decide that the angle was bad, so I'd have to pick Grace up again and let her rearrange it. This would go on for quite some time so when she ended up snapping the picture it would turn out something like this: Grace was getting very fussy because it was so hot in there and because it was getting to be her feeding time. I asked if I could take 5-10minutes to feed her and then continue with the pictures once she was full and happy, but the picture taking girl informed me that she had another appointment scheduled for 3:00. What kind of fool only allows 30 minutes for portraits with a 3 month old? AND I had told them over the phone I was going to have a wardrobe change for Grace. Luckily I had a coupon for the session so I got a free 8x10 and a portrait package for $7.99.

This is the only picture of Grace that turned out decent. This is the one I ordered.

This was the girl's favorite position to put Grace in. I was NOT a fan of it. Grace was having fun playing with her dress though.
This was taken when Grace started to get hungry. We have several pictures of her sucking on her fist. Poor, hungry baby.

The last pictures we took were of the both of us. This is the only one where Grace is not crying. I knew I wanted to take a few of the two of us so when I left the house I had my hair fixed up all cute but between the rain, humidity, and sauna of a portrait studio, it had gone to pot.

Needless to say I will not be using that JC Penny again for portraits. I am now on the search for a new place to have pictures taken that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

P.S. We don't have Kiddie Kandids around here like in Utah. The nearest one to us is in Dallas, 2 hours away.