Independent(s) Days of July

Dear Miss Independent,

It has been SUCH a joy to watch as your personality continues to blossom.  You want more and more independence with each passing day (so please just be easy on this momma's heart...I would love to keep you little forever).  There isn't much that you don't try to do on your own, from getting dressed, to brushing your teeth, to walking into the house (even up the step!).

One of our very favorite things about you is your love for music.  Your daddy and I love to listen to music, and you certainly are no different.  You love to sing and dance, and you are always playing with your noise-making toys.  (Your current favorite songs to dance to are "Get" Up and Dance with Me and Honey I'm Good.)

Daddy said his favorite/funniest things you do are your heavy breathing with your teeth all out (you have quite the flair for the dramatic) and when you squelch your face all up.  We also love it when you help us make our bed, picking up the pillows...even the ones that are bigger than you!!

Mommy loves your latest "thing" where you sit down on the floor with one of your books and then pat the ground next to you for me to come sit down and read with you.  My favorite is when I sit down next to you and then you crawl up in my lap while we read the books together.  I love that you love your books.

It is so fun to teach you new things and watch how quickly you pick up on things these days.  Every day you do something new that amazes us.  We are so proud of the little lady you are becoming and we can't wait to see what the months ahead bring for you!  We love you so much and we are so incredibly thankful that God gave you to us.

Let's take a moment and check out the serious hair growth that has happened in 18 months!! ;)

Eighteen Month Stats
Wearing:  Absolutely no changes here.  Bryleigh is still wearing some 9 month things, but mostly 12 months, and some 18 months.  She got LOTS of cute 18 months clothes that are still a little big, so we are ready for those to fit while the weather is still warm!

Eating:  Anything and everything.  If we give it to her, she will eat it!  Bryleigh LOVES grapes, strawberries, and bananas, and she also can't get enough vanilla wafers ("cookies") and graham crackers.  She doesn't eat quite as well as she used to, but she still does a great job!!

Sleeping:  I'm not sure where we went wrong, but for those of you that purchased VuDu dolls in honor of our epic sleeper, you can put them away. She forgot how to sleep...or the fact that she actually likes it.  It's bad enough that Brad has sworn off future children!  She wakes up pretty early these days, and she fights us EVERY.SINGLE.NIGHT. at bedtime.  There have been long trips in the car, snuggles in the rocker, and test-runs of the "Cry It Out" method (which failed miserably).  She has been sick, so we aren't sure if that's causing an issue, and we also learned about a so called "18-month Sleep Regression"

Teeth:  Bryleigh is still holding steady at 16 teeth, but she is working on cutting some of her 2 year molars. (Lord, help us all!!)

Official Measurements:  Praising the Lord today for GREAT numbers!!  Bryleigh weighs 24 pounds 6 ounces, and she is 33 inches tall, which is 75% and 90% respectively.  Her head is 49.25 cm, which is still well off the charts.

Eighteen Month Highlights


Bryleigh is the best little helper! She is always up to run errands with us, and I'm pretty sure we clean the house "a lot faster" when she is helping out!! ;) (And how could I resist showing off that cute, growing ponytail!?)

Bryleigh loves hanging out behind the vacuum cleaner while it's running so that it blows her hair like crazy.

You know me, I like to celebrate EVERY.LITTLE.THING. with cute outfits, and Bryleigh had LOTS of "America" clothes, so we just wore them all week long!!

Outfits 1 and 2 ;)

We kicked off the 4th of July by heading out to the 50th Annual Arlington Parade, and we were so excited to have our friends from Moldova - Efim and Irina - with us.  They loved it, and Bryleigh was interested in EVERYTHING!! The bands were definitely her favorite, with the horses a close second.

Outfit 3...my fave! Love a good romper!

After the parade, we headed over to DeDe and Poppa B's for a cookout and some swimming.  Although Bryleigh is still anti-swimming (and now anti-baths), it's still a good chance to rock out her really cute swim suit!!  (Bryleigh the Bumble Bee)

Outfit 4 (and a really cute swimsuit!)  Not pictured is outfit 5 on Sunday. ;)

Bryleigh was SO happy to have some special guests stay with us this month!  The Orbu's are missionaries in their home country of Moldova, and they are in the states to meet with their current supporters as well as raise new support for their family as they serve God in Campus Crusade for Christ.  This was Irina's first time getting to meet Bryleigh...last time she was here, Bryleigh was just starting to grow in my tummy!  It was also my first time (and Brad's) to meet Efim.  Needless to say, the guys really hit it off, and Brad did NOT want to leave for the week!!

Bryleigh absolutely loved Efim and Irina!  She was always so sad when they left for their meetings.

July has NOT been a fun month where Bryleigh's health is concerned.  We still don't have any answers, but this little girl is a TROOPER!!  She is so tough and brave, and she doesn't let almost 20 days *and counting* of fever and diarrhea slow her down...there are way more details than that, but we'll spare you the fun stuff! ;)  (It has certainly slowed this momma WAAAAY down!!)  We are hoping for some new direction at her 18th month "Well" Visit.

3 doctors visits in 3 days = This baby is scarred for life...or at least the time being!

Daddy was SO glad to be home after hearing all the scary news about his baby girl, and Bryleigh was so glad her daddy was home for some good cuddles and lots of playtime.

This girl.  She is SO much fun!!  She makes me smile and laugh EVERY.SINGLE.DAY.  Even the bad ones.  I am so thankful for her life!  We are the luckiest, Bryleigh Renee!

June, Come on and Celebrate!

June seemed to be the month of parties and celebrations, and our little girl went right along with it all!  She is such a trooper, and she is ALWAYS willing to go with us.  We are so thankful for that because it allows us to make even more memories with her.

Bryleigh was SO ready to go to see Mimi and Pappy in Sulphur Springs.

We loaded up and headed off to Sulphur Springs for a very special reason, and that was to celebrate Mimi's retirement from teaching public school after 20+ years.  It was so special be there to help her celebrate.

There were parties, and runs, and sno cones, and LOTS of surprises for Mimi all week long!

The surprises continued to finish out the week with a visit from the Conroe Crew and a dinner with family and friends!

The celebrations continued on Sunday with a baby shower for JULIAN and a graduation party for EMILY.

After all that excitement and on-the-go fun, our Bryleigh girl CRASHED!! Mimi was coming back and forth to Arlington for a few different things we had going on, including doctor's appointments with our favorite Dr. Harris...but Bryleigh wasn't having it.  We won't talk about the fact that she threw up those pancakes AND yogurt you can see her eating below (v), or the fact that her face is red and puffy with some serious crocodile tears because she had been having MAJOR meltdowns all morning.  But we survived that day and enjoyed the rest of the week which included Mommy/Mimi time at DSM's Cinderella and a nice little shopping trip.

Any month with plenty of daddy time is a good month!

My brother came in town for some classes at DBU before he headed to DC with his doctoral program, and his family came in to town over the weekend, along with my parents, for my cousin's beautiful wedding in Denton.  (Throw up was involved, thanks to a WHOLE lot of wedding cake.)

I am SO blessed with an amazing daddy, a great baby-daddy, and a wonderful daddy-in-law.  We had such a great time celebrating all three of them with a yummy lunch at ChaCha's!!

BryleighGirl and I loaded up for one more June-trip to Sulphur Springs so that we could spend some time with Sister and her girls. (Throw up was involved.  Hence the lack of a pillow on Mimi's couch!  And if you're keeping count, that's the third time in June.)

You Look Like Your Daddy

From the very moment my little girl was placed in my arms, there was not one single doubt about who she looked like.  She is the spitting image of her daddy, a little “Mini He,” as I like to refer to the prettiest part of the dynamic duo.

And over the first few hours, days, and weeks that followed that moment, I realized it was more than just looks that the two of them shared.  During one of our nights in the hospital, I had been watching Bryleigh as she slept so peacefully in my arms, and was completely caught off guard when I looked over at her daddy laying in the hospital windowsill-turned-daybed sleeping in EXACTLY the same way. (I wasn’t quite used to all the similarities at this point!)

They look the same, they sleep the same, they even breathe the same.  Three weeks in to being home with Brad and Little Brad, I noticed something I hadn’t seen before.  Bryleigh was doing some tummy time on our chaise and I saw a mole on the outside bridge of her left foot.  Noting it was NOT de ja vu, I immediately knew I had seen this very same mole before, and it didn’t take too long to remember exactly where I had seen it…on the outside bridge of her daddy’s left foot!  They have the exact same mole on the exact same spot of their bodies. CRAZY.

Some people have apologized to me that she doesn’t look anything like me, others have laughed with me at just how much she favors her daddy, and the few that are bad at the whole “Who do you look like?” game have told me they’re just not really sure who she looks like. 

As Bryleigh continues to grow, she’s definitely starting to change.  One of my favorite changes is that her hair is getting lighter.  She was born with LOTS of dark hair, a head full of it!  But over the past eight months (8?!? How did that happen???), her hair has started to lighten up, and when the light hits it in certain ways, you can see the copper, auburn highlights that I’VE come to be known for.

I had a moment of pride recently when I was talking with Brad’s Grandma and she noticed this feature.  She said something along the lines of, “Well it looks like she’s getting her momma’s hair!”

So mark one up for the “Like Momma” traits.  And while you’re there, you can go ahead and check off the “sleep” category as well.  We are ALL thankful that she got her love for sleep from her momma.  That baby girl could sleep through the night at the early age of SEVEN weeks, and she‘s been known to choose naptime over mealtime!

I know that over time, her features will change and various parts of her will favor one of us over the other.  I also know that as her personality develops and other traits that aren’t necessarily physical come to light, she’ll take a little bit of each of us.

As people come up and talk to Bryleigh, it‘s very common for me to hear, “You sure do look like your daddy!”  Even perfect strangers have commented on how Miss B seems to favor one of us over the other.

As Christians, isn’t that what we want.  How incredible would it be for those we know, or even better, a perfect stranger to walk up to us and say, “That, whatever that was I just saw, I know I’ve seen that before.  YOU must be a child of God.”

Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”  Wow.  Did you catch that?  We were created in HIS image…that means we have His attributes within us.

Beloved, YOU were created, as a child of God, with all the loving, kindness, gentleness (and the list goes on and on) that make up our one perfect Savior.  We were created in HIS image, so we are created with those same qualities within us.

Not every sweet new babe is born into the world looking and acting just like one parent or another.  Sometimes it takes a little bit of time, and as they grow, those likenesses tend to come out more and more.  (And sometimes it’s even day-to-day.  One day, I might have humor that stems from my mom, and the next day it might come from my dad.)

I’ve got brown eyes like my daddy, and I’m left handed like my mommy.  Those are physical traits that could be seen from a very young age, but there are other traits that we couldn’t see until I was a little older.  I get my “math brain” from my algebra teaching father AND my 5^th grade math teaching mother.  And as far as personality goes, there are plenty of things that I get from each of them to make the perfect blend of ME! (Although, I’m sure my brother would take credit from some of my “good stuff”!)

It works the same way with our Heavenly Father and being made in His image.  There are traits that can be seen very early on in our lives, but there are other things that tend to come out more over time, as we grow in our relationship with Him.  As our relationship matures with our Heavenly Father, so do those characteristics that look like Him.

I recently asked my friends the question, “What attribute of Christ’s do you want to embody?”

They each said different things, but it all stemmed from the same place, they want to LOVE like He loves.  Christ forgives us over and over, no matter how bad we’ve messed up, because of His love for us.  Through His love for us, He is faithful to us (which is related to the whole forgive and forgive again thing).  And His beautiful grace.  Oh His grace.  As a part of His love for us, He shows us grace in that He continually picks us back up and dusts us off each and every time we fall short.  And that's exactly how we are to love others as well, extending them the grace our Father gives us.

I want ALL of Him.  I want every good and perfect part of Him that He has to offer, but there are some pieces I’d prefer to have in IV form dripping right in to my blood stream, those areas that are SO hard for me to live out from day to day (and that love I was referring to up there ^...it definitely tops the list...as can be seen over the past 63 days of my prayer journal).  The patience with my husband or my child that doesn’t always come naturally.  The loving reaction to someone that has seriously hurt my feelings.  The humility needed when I feel I’ve done so much for someone, only to receive nothing in return.  (I could go on, but I think you get the picture.)  As one of the other ladies mentioned when I posed the question, she would like His peace.  An IV of His peace going straight to my heart?  Yeah, that would be wonderful.  (“I mean, was Jesus ever nervous? Nope!” – Michelle M.)

There are areas in my life that I prefer to refer to as “Work in Progress” areas, and it is these areas that I wish for audible, tangible proclamations from the Lord before I cross over the line…I’d be happy with a text message!  A nice little, “Hey Carrie…how about you take about 15 seconds to think over that response to your husband before you bark back that ‘command’ at him?”  Or a, “Um, Carrie.  Remember me?  The guy that died on the cross for every filthy sin you WOULD ever commit?  What’s wrong with forgiving your sister of that one little misstep?  Did you ever stop to think about what she might be going through that caused her to hurt your feelings in the first place?”

But as much as I would love an IV drip of His love or an instantaneous text message as I’m about to royally mess up, I have to remember that as a Child of God…I’ve already got it!!  Because I am His, I have His spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) and 1 Corinthians 2:16 even tells us that we have THE MIND of Christ!  As Beth Moore said, “Beloved, fathom the miracle of it.  We are finite beings of frail human flesh occupied by the Spirit of the supernatural, all-powerful, all-present, all-knowing Godhead.”

When I feel bitter, I have His joy.  When hatefulness seems to just fly out of my mouth (or build up in my heart), I have His kindness.  When I feel like giving up, I have His strength.  I was made in the image of God, and I hope that as I continue to grow in my relationship with Him, people will come up to me and say, “You sure do look like your Daddy.”

Greater is the One living inside me than he who is living in the world.

How do you hope to look more like your Daddy today?

Celebrating5! The Wooden Anniversary

Five years ago, we spent most of the day apart and one epic, fairytale evening together.  This year was similar, starting out like most days do lately.  I got going on things with Bryleigh (Um...she requires to be fed and changed and screams for attention, crazy right?!) and Brad started his (day off, might I add) with a 2 hour conference call and his 98th visit (yes, I've counted!) from Home Health.

We are going to laugh about it someday, and you know...we'll always be able to remember our 5th anniversary.  When we are celebrating our 50th anniversary skiing down some mountain or scuba diving in some ocean, we'll laugh at the fact that Home Health was a part of our 5th anniversary and hopefully not the 50th!!

But after all of that, it was time together and more "epic" memories!  We would dream on previous anniversaries about our future while we sat and ate nice dinners.  We would talk about what our family would look like and the different things we'd do, praying that we'd have a baby of our own to join us some day, so it was no question for us to have Bryleigh along for the day!

Brad isn't so great at waiting on surprises, so he's been giving me a gift each day leading up to our anniversary.  It started with "Four" (an addition to the Divergent Trilogy) on Wednesday, then "The Fault in our Stars" on Thursday, and the Divergent movie this morning along with a beautifully written card and a personal note from him!  I was going to wait until lunch at least to give him his card, but since he couldn't wait...I didn't either! ;) I surprised him with movie tickets to "Into the Storm" for Saturday morning (complete with a babysitter for Bryliegh...she's excited to go play with DeDe, Poppa B, and Aunt Erin!!).  My little storm-chasin'-wanna-be has been so looking forward to this movie, but was thinking he was going to have to wait and Redbox it! I'd say I got him good!!

Once we finished everything up, we loaded up the car and headed to Grapevine for the afternoon!  We had heard great things about Winewood Grill, and it definitely lived up to its expectations!  Pork chops for mom and Snapper for daddy.

We followed up lunch with a trip to the Sea Life Aquarium, and we all three loved it!  It was Bryleigh's first outing to something like that, and her eyes were wide and bright the whole time.  She was just smiling as she took it all in!  We saw sting rays, sharks, seahorses, starfishes, huge turtles, and even Nemo and his friends!!  We finished up our day at the aquarium with a trip to the gift shop where daddy got his girl a turtle!! (They're already B-F-F's.)

Since Year 5 is the "Wooden" Anniversary, we decided to make a family sign.  On our way back home, we stopped off at Michaels (or Heaven on Earth #2 if you will...Hobby Lobby is obviously Heaven on Earth #1) to gather the materials we needed.  So we spent the afternoon relaxing with some HGTV and making our very own "Hammons, Est 2009" sign.  (This nice little project required a little bit longer time to dry than expected, so it ended up being a 2-day project!)  I loved the idea of making something to commemorate our anniversary and planning on doing that again!

Saturday was another fun day, starting with breakfast at IHOP and then on to DeDe and Poppa B's to drop off our sweet girl for the morning.  We hung out for a bit with them before heading off to see the movie.  Brad absolutely loves storm and would give just about anything to be a storm chaser, so it was fun to watch it with him.  It's DEFINITELY a great movie, and one we'll be watching again!

We finished up our anniversary with a wonderful Sunday worshipping with our church family, lunch with our good friends the Atteberry's, and then a relaxing afternoon/evening at home.  The weekend could not have been more perfect, and I'm so thankful to do live with such a caring, fun husband! LOVE YOU BRADLEY KYLE!

The Past 5's Top 10

We have had on incredible journey over the past five years of our marriage with so many incredible memories.  I am looking forward to all of the memories we will make in the next 5 and beyond!

My 10 favorite memories from the past 5 years:

10. Saying "I DO" and celebrating with our friends and family

You can check out a few more precious moments from that magical day over HERE.

09. Honeymooning in the Bahamas

08. Watching sports with my hubby - Rangers, Cowboys, college football, World Cup (Brad says we're soccer fans now!), Olympics, etc

07. Family vacations - St. Thomas and New York with Brad's family, New Mexico with my family

06. Our college graduations (even though mine was RIGHT before getting married)

05. Taking our first vacation - New York City

04. Celebrating the holidays

03. Welcoming Tate and Olivia and our time with them

02. Buying our first house

01. Welcoming Bryleigh Renee

And just for fun, I asked Brad what his top 10 were...I'd say they were pretty close to my own! ;)

1. Bryleigh Renee
2. Wedding and honeymoon
3. Getting the job at CG
4. House
5. Graduating from college
6. Making new friends (people from work and small group at church)
7. NYC and Georgia
8. Sporting events we have gone to
9. Concerts we've been too
10. Family Vacations

A Look Back - Our Fairytale Wedding

I wasn't much of a blogger 5 years ago when Brad and I said "I DO," so I wanted to take a look back at some of my favorites moments from our wedding weekend!

After a 17 month engagement, it was FINALLY our turn! We kicked off the weekend with our rehearsal and rehearsal dinner where all of our family and some of our very closest friends spent the evening with us.

Our wedding day started with golf for the guys and some relaxing girl time for the ladies, and then we headed up to the church to finish up getting ready.

I was so thankful to be married in the church I grew up in, where I committed my life to Christ and was baptized as a profession of that faith.  It now holds a special place for my husband as well because it's where our "Forever" officially began.  We were able to have the same pastor that married Brad's parents (who is also a close family friend and our current Pastor) marry us.  It was truly a special, meaningful day.

We got married in the middle of summer in Texas.  It. Was. HOT!  But we had a beautiful sunny day and there are pictures to prove it!

We both had some of our closest friends, family, and friends that are basically family to stand by our side and support us throughout our engagement, wedding day, and beyond.  We are so thankful for the friendships and love that each of them have shown over the years and we were so glad to have them celebrating our day with us.

We were so thankful for our friends and family that came to celebrate with us and be there to witness as we said our vows to each other before our Heavenly Father.  What an incredible day it was!

All photos in this post (excluding the Rehearsal Dinner picture) are from our wonderful photographer Joseph Mark Photography.