One-Year Check-up

Yesterday we took Violet for her ONE-year check-up! I still can't believe we have a one year old:) She did so well and the doctor told us she was so advance and acted more like an 18 month old! Her stats now are: 22pds & 7oz. and 30"long. (She's actually gone down a pound because she is so active now!) She is now starting to even out more and is in between the 50th-75th percentile for both weight and height. We can't believe that just a year ago she was 8pds 3oz and 21" long! She has grown and changed sooooo much this past year! I hope this next year she slows down and stays my little baby...but I'm not holding my breath;)

1st Birthday Party...#2!!

Violet had a big birthday bash to celebrate her first year at her MomMom and PopPop's house! She had an absolute blast playing with all of her cousins (Chase, Elizabeth, Kevin, Delaney, Griffin, Madeline, and Arianna), as well as her friend Aidan! And she of course was a riot ripping into her yummy cake! Thankfully she didn't mess up her pretty smocked dress that her MomMom made for her for her 1st birthday! And as you can see her favorite toy seems to be the balloons:)

Violet's Papa and Nana Brown were able to come for a visit and to celebrate Violet turning one! She had a great time showing off all her new moves and kissing her Nana.

Our Little Sweetheart!!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Check out our little heart gal in her cute V-day sweater:) Auntie Havilah and cousin Chase sent that for Violet to wear on this special day! We had a fun "snow" day today with Daddy home. Check out Violet and daddy playing in her fun tent we set up in our living room. Tomorrow Grandpa & Grandma Brown fly in to spend the weekend with Violet for her birthday, so I'm sure we will have lots of pictures coming soon!

Happy 1st Birthday!!!!

Today our little princess turned ONE!! It is incredible how quickly she has grown and continues to grow more and more everyday! We started out the morning singing "Happy Birthday to you" and she got a big kick out of that and tried to sing along by yelling with me. After breakfast we had to run some errands and for lunch Violet had another first...McDonald's Happy Meal! She's a big fan evidently of chicken nuggets and french fries!

This evening, despite sleet, snow, and ice, we had a few of our friends and Violet's Mom Mom and Pop Pop over for Violet's favorite dinner-Pizza! As you can see she really enjoyed that and ate a whole slice all by herself! I think she may be having another growth spurt:)

For the grand finale Violet got to eat her own little strawberry cake that I made for her! She was very excited about this and had just the best time ever! She made us all laugh the way she dug right in and flung pieces of cake all over while squealing the whole time!!

We've had such a great time watching our little baby grow into a little girl this year and can't believe how fast it has gone by. Thank you to all our family and friends who have supported us this year and loved our little girl so much! I know we could never do this by ourselves. It truly does take a village!

Happy First Birthday Violet!!!!!!

Confirmation

Last night, NCC had its quarterly Marriage Matters dinner for couples and the couple that MC'd the event was Tony and Valerie Snesko. Valerie works for Congressman Duncan Hunter, as his scheduler/office manager and they have known Duncan for nearly thirty years. When I left the Navy, she was going to help me get a job on the Hill, and possibly get me onto the Armed Services Committee staff, where Cong Hunter was Chairman. Valerie made several calls to the staff director for the committee, but they couldn't find anywhere for me. So when I actually left the Navy, I decided to take a job as a contractor, because for some strange reason, I couldn't get any offers to work in politics.

Before last night's Marriage Matters, Valerie pulled me aside and told me she was so happy that I didn't get a job when I was looking and that it was a good thing after all. She said, that she couldn't understand why the jobs weren't there. As a Hunter's scheduler, a call from her to the director of the staff would normally have produced any available position, but she couldn't seem to get any openings for me and it made no sense to her. Now, after the election when the GOP has now been returned to the Minority, all the people who had been hired into the committee in the past year were let go (fired), meaning, I would have just been hired, but was then fired a short time later. She was happy that I didn't take the job and then have to turn around immediately and look for another. She told me that it really must be God working, cause any other time, she would have been able to get me a job.

She was such a wonderful help while I was looking for work, providing support, prayer, and contacts, and I could tell that she really wanted to find me a job. Along with her realization that God was leading me (maybe temporarily) away from the Hill, I told her how I was praying during and about the job search and seemed to have a question from God. It seemed he was asking me, "How do you know that there will even be a majority to work for after November?" While I didn't like the (God's) insinuation, I kept (foolishly) looking for a job on the Hill and yet found nothing, no matter how qualified I was, or how much it was a perfect fit for me and the office. The Basic lesson is this: God is taking care of me, inspite of my desires, and now I have a great job where I work for a great guy and I get paid well. God is taking care of my family's needs even when I have asked for my own selfish desires.

I should never doubt His ability to take care of us and the fact that He has a plan for us all.

Snow Bunny!

Well, we finally got snow this week! It wasn't much, but it counts:) It's been super cold here, so much for global warming, so we definetly deserved a little bit of the flurries! So, I took our little snow bunny out to feel and taste the snow and she was interested but then decided it was just too cold to really want to play in yet. I'm hoping for a bit more snow to come and to be substantial enough to at least get Brandon out of work for one day so we can all go sledding. We bought Vi a little blow-up sleigh that you can pull little kids on, so hopefully we will get to use it this winter at some point!

Another exciting thing this week was that Brandon and I went and saw the musical "Wicked." (For those of you who don't know, Wicked is the story of the Wizard of Oz from the Wicked Witch of the West's viewpoint) It was a christmas present for me and we stayed the night in a very nice hotel in Baltimore where the show was. The play was so good, nothing like the book, but they definetly couldn't have let children go if it had of been. And there were lots of little kids there, little girls to be exact. Seeing all of cute little girls all dressed up for the theater there got us both excited about when we will get to take Violet to the theater for the first time when she is a bit older. I still remember the first time I went to the theater and saw "My Fair Lady". It was so exciting and still is to get all dressed up and see a live performance of your favorite musical! We just had a wonderful evening out and realized that we need to do it more.

"Uh oh"

Violet has been trying to say "Uh oh" for quite some time now, but has only been able to get the "uh" out until this weekend! So, now everything is "uh oh" from the dogs to her food:)

Another discovery Violet made this past weekend was drinking from a straw. While the normal person wouldn't think this is such a great accomplishment, we were ready to submit applications to Harvard or Yale since obviously she is so advance and will probably be ready for college this fall:) Anyways, we were at Outback for dinner and I realized I had forgotten the beloved sippy cup, so I was letting Vi chew on a straw that had water on it and she just sucked up the water, seemed a little suprised at first by what she got, but then quickly caught on and sucked down a ton of water. We were so excited and clapping for her and looking at the people around us like, "Do you see this, she's a genius!" No one else really got that excited for us;) But we were thrilled!

And finally, our little prodigy started saying "nigh, nigh" yesterday when I took her up for a nap. She proceeded to say it the whole time she was suppose to be napping instead of actually doing just that!

Feeling Better!!

Our girl is finally starting to bounce back and feel better! Today we had to take her to the doctor's again because she had a rash on her tummy and back. But, the doc said it was from the virus not the antibiotic that she is on for her ear infection. So, we knew she was feeling better when she started yelling at the doctor as he was trying to talk to us:) Then she proceeded to walk/run back to the play area as soon as we got her clothes back on her and opened up the door! She is getting quite fast! Because she has been so sick this week, she really hasn't eaten anything except cheerios all week, until tonight... As you can see she thoroughly enjoyed her lasgana! It's so good to have our girl back to normal:)

TWO bottom teeth!

Well, we are starting a new blog! Hopefully, it will be easier for us to keep you all better updated on our little one's life. Also, you all can make comments as well now!


Over this past month Violet has FINALLY gotten 2 bottom teeth:) We were starting to wonder if she was ever going to get any teeth at all since she is 11 months old! But, she finally did and she was such a little trooper coping with what I'm sure must be very painful. Last weekend Violet came down with a fever and a cough and has just been plain miserable since. We went to the doctor yesterday and she said Vi had a virus and an ear infection:( So, we've been dealing with a fussy sad baby. She just constantly wants to be held, which is kinda nice since normally she can't sit still for even 5 seconds. (This picture is of Vi playing in her tunnel)

Earlier this month Brandon's mom and John came out for a visit. Violet had such a great time playing with them and getting loads of attention:)