Halloween and Holiday House

Bryn was a super hero for Halloween.  Gigi taught her how to say dant-ta-da-daaaaah when she put her cape on.  It was a really cute (hand made by Mommy) outfit!  We had a week long event of getting candy!  She got candy at dance and gymnastics, went trick-or-treating at school, a carnival with cousins and 2 round of trick-or-treating that weekend.  The girls fought so much over who was going to ring the doorbell each time we finally broke them up and let them go on each side of the street!  I took a gallon size ziplock bag of candy into work to give away!

Maddison, Mallory and Brynlie

Trick-or-Treat

Go Brynlie Go!!  I LOVE this picture!

She was so excited to see the Madhatter!  He was so sweet to stop and let us take a picture.

On November 1st I officially became 100% self employed.  It's been a HUGE blessing and answered prayer to finally be working at home with Brynlie.  That in itself did not come without it's own challenges.  Keeping a 3 year old entertained and happy while trying to run a business out of the house is....well, ummmm challenging!!!  I am so very grateful though that I am here with her, I get to eat every meal with her, read her not only a nite nite book but one for nap time as well too, and can take a break to play outside, paint, or just hold her in my lap.  Now that the NWA Boutique show is over I'm hoping to get us on a somewhat normal schedule.  We did absolutely amazing at the NWA Boutique Show!  We've got enough work to keep us busy through Christmas then it'll be time again to plan for another RL sale.  I'm already looking forward to how much more I can put into the sale now that I'm not tied down to corporate america!!

On November 5th she got her first case of the stomach flu, first time she's ever thrown up!  Since I don't do vomit so well, I can't say that I'm not thankful she was at Nonnie's for the worst of it.  I got to her after she had already thrown up 5 times and she couldn't even make the 12 minute trip home before she threw up again in her carseat.  It was the most pitiful thing I've ever seen.  It literally broke my heart every time she got sick.  She threw up 10 times in just one evening. :(  It took 4 full days to completely be rid of it and I guarantee you she won't drink pink milk or eat spaghetti for years to come!!!  I sat down to eat lunch with her one day (a couple weeks later) with a plate of spaghetti and she said Mommy, is that going to make you sick? 

Brynlie has been her usual funny self and I wish I just walked around with a tape recording in my pocket to catch all this stuff but here's the latest ones I remember.

*I overheard her telling her baby that she was going to teach her how to say holy crap.  I said "Brynlie, what did you say?"  She replied "Anything!"  I said "What did you tell your baby?"  She replied louder "ANYTHING!"  She was trying to tell me "nothing" but gets her words confused....I asked her a couple more times because it was hilarious to hear the attitude while she was yelling ANYTHING!!

*Her favorite cereal is "Yucky Charms" (Lucky Charms)

*I am the bestest and coolest mom in the ever world.....for now anyway :)

*After not eating for 4-5 days I was trying to get her to eat some scrabbled eggs and bribing her with a stroller ride when she was done, really just trying to get her to come on with it so we could get the 3 miles done for the day.  Anyways, she had decided she had eaten enough, let herself down from the table and walked off yelling "Meanness!"  I asked "what did you say?"  She replied, "I'm the baby girl and you the meanness!"  Hmmm....pretty sure 5 minutes before she told me I was the coolest mom in the ever world!  Such is life with a daughter!!!

*She's had a horrible habit of picking her dang nose.  I've tried everything to get her to stop to no avail.  In the car one day I said something about why, don't even remember what I said, but she replied with "cause you got a daughter pickin' nose"  wish I could of remembered the whole conversation because it was hilarious! 

I am looking forward to Thanksgiving and some time off!!  We worked 14 hours a day everyday for 3 weeks leading up to the show.  I feel like I'm recovering from a mini Rhea Lana's sale!  I'm excited to take her to a movie and "play" with our Christmas tree's as Brynlie puts it!

Hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!!

Family Farm Fall 2010

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Fun at Family Farm

On Sunday we went to Family Farm for a picnic with the church. Nonee, Christy, Tatem, Melissa, Maddison and Mallory joined us. Everyone had a BLAST....just wish it actually felt like fall instead of summer. They had a petting zoo with bunnies, camels and a baby zebra. The camel kept wanting to give Brynlie a kiss and she was cracking up over it! They had big slides, paddle boats, a "train" ride, pumpkin patch and an awesome swing! I never thought in a million years Bryn would get on the huge 4 seater swing that you manully wind up and let go, but she did! All of them rode it twice.

Here is the website and password to view Bryn's 3 year old pictures.
www.alishaashleyphotography.com/birdsong
password: birdsong2

Here are some pictures of us building our Halloween Haunted Cookie House.  HOLY orange icing EVERYWHERE!!  We had fun....always do together!!!

She is working on her super spooky evil laugh here!! 

Dentist and Doctor

On September 14th Brynlie had her first trip to the dentist. After practically holding her down to get through the x-rays, which took a total of 4 people, she was so traumatized there was NO WAY she was going to let anyone put anything in her mouth! Didn’t matter if the lady had bubblegum flavored toothpaste or not! After seeing her x-rays I’m glad we got that part taken care of over the cleaning. Her permanent teeth are very crowded. Her two permanent front teeth are crooked and the two beside those are turned sideways. The doctor suggested we place a spacer in her mouth in 6-12 months to start making room for her permanent teeth and correct her overbite. I will definitely be getting a second opinion before this permanent contraption is placed in the roof of her mouth.

Next we went to visit Dr. Weed for her 3 year check up. As always he commented that it simply amazes him how much we look alike. He’s always said if he ever had to have a picture of a mother daughter look a-like, he would pick the two of us. Told me she resembled me more and more as she gets older! Hearing that NEVER gets old!! Monkey weighed 34 lbs which puts her in the 80th percentile and is 36 inches tall which puts her in the 50th percentile. I left with a perfect 3 year old, who didn’t even cry when she got a vaccination!

Brynlie has been singing a lot, and loves to listen to the radio as loud as it can get! She is now making up her own songs. One little diddy she made up went something like this….KK loves me this I know, bor the bible tell me so. No folks, that’s not a typo all her f’s are still b’s.



Here’s some more of Brynlie’s language:



Oh no, what my goin’ to do = Oh no, what am I going to do about it

What you did = What did you do

What her say = What did she say

Where it can be = Where can it be

Are ready = Are we ready to go

How it get off = How do I get this off

What time it is = What time is it

Where’s at = Where is it at

I ass you a question = I asked you a question

Pack pack = back pack



She has this fabulous habit of keeping her finger up her nose digging for gold! She got mad and started yelling yesterday morning “I got no boogers, I got no boogers” I told her that I wished her better luck tomorrow morning!!

She has told me she wanted to be a cow, a pumpkin and the latest was a hamster for Halloween! I’ve made her an awesome super hero costume for Halloween instead and Gigi taught her how to say “dant ta da don” when she puts her cape on. We’ve had fun flying around the house and saving each other with our super hero cape on. I told her maybe Mommy would make herself a cape to go trick-or-treating in with her and she could be Super Hero Mommy’s sidekick!

She loves caring for all her babies. She does not go anywhere with out the build a bear teddy bear I made her when I was pregnant. She sleeps with anywhere from 5-8 dolls and stuffed animals and I help tuck each and every one of them in, along with a kiss and hug goodnight…..for each and everyone, she doesn’t let me leave a single one of them out! She can also carry at least 5 different ones in an armload.

She’s been going to bed in her own bed every night, but rarely stays there. Don’t think she’s not going to come to my bed unaccompanied by her entourage. She brings them all no matter what wee hour of the morning it is, she also walks out the door each morning with an arm load.

The gumball machine I gave her for her birthday was a big hit. Of course, I thought it was going to work out great because I would make her earn her coin to get a gumball, you know like her picking up her own toys in at least her playroom or something. I think that has worked once, maybe twice. So thus far the score looks like this:

Mom: 1 Brynlie: 84 (4 gumballs per day x the 21 days of gumball machine possession)

The Monday morning she woke up after her birthday, as we were preparing lunches, coffee, bags, etc…to walk out the door I heard her at her gumball machine saying:

“good mornin’ gumballs”

“ooohhhh, you missed me?”

“I missed you too!”

“Mommy, my gumballs missed me and I NEED A BLUE ONE!”

I bought a new jogging stroller. A mac daddy jogging stroller, it has built in speakers. I just plug my MP3 player in and bam….surround sound for our journey! We love it!
Now that we’re back out on the streets, this girl cannot get enough! We went walking one morning before school and she was super upset because I did not walk her to school! Most of the time I let her pick the direction we go when approaching an intersection, but once it’s time to head home and she realizes when I turn onto the dreaded Hicks Road that we are indeed heading home she cry’s the rest of the way home and purposely makes it very difficult for me to remove her 34 pound body from the stroller!

Our car search has finally come to an exhausting end! Though Brynlie picked out a black BMW sports car, we ended up with something more practical for the 2 of us and all our traveling. She seriously had a melt down when we left the lot that day in our car….not the beamer. She screamed she wanted the pink car (not sure why she was calling it pink, maybe the tan leather interior) and NOT this car. Someone once told me you can have the good now, or wait for the great! This so applied to my car search. After turning back in 2 different vehicles I got a 2008 Limited Ford Escape, loaded and with low miles. Woot Woot! Bryn and I love driving with the sunroof open, radio cranked and singing at the top of our lungs!

We have a great weekend planned with cousins at the pumpkin patch on Saturday and Family Farm with the church and family on Sunday. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of pictures to share. My photographer just emailed me to say she’s almost done editing so when I get the word I’ll post the website and password to look at the proofs. She said Brynlie was such a character and was so entertaining the day of the photo shoot she’s been cracking up the whole time editing!!

This is a picture of the ARMLOAD she can carry....this is 5!!!  Picked up in one swift swoop.  She has a gift of strategically placing them so she can pick up and carry this many at one time.

My Birthday Girl

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Birthday Girl

We had Brynlie's birthday party on Sunday.  It was a Pixie Fairy Tea Party in the Enchanted Garden.  The house was decorated in lots of tulle and paper flowers.  All the little fairies running around were beautiful and everyone had a great time!  Though my house is now covered in glitter, it was all well worth it.  Hands down the best birthday party to date!
She started tap and ballet last week and loves it, just as expected!  I'm already anxious for her first recital!
We had her 3 year old pictures taken in a sunflower field.  What I had is my "sneak peek" the rest will be shown to me in a couple more weeks.  I'm VERY impressed with this photographer!  We had a lot of fun running around the sunflower field!
My website is officially up and running.  Let me just say...I belong creating things behind a sewing machine, NOT a laptop!  That job was soooo not fun and is an ever evolving one!  I've had to learn more technical stuff than I've ever cared to know about in my life!  My head hurts thinking about meta titles, spiders, crawlers, googlebots, sitemaps, froogle, back links....yada yada yada, all the stuff I've had to learn to ensure it was up and running properly.  More importantly that people could find it!  I'm so glad I've brought Gena on board to help me run this "accidental" monster of a business!  I've been pleasantly surprised with the response, moreso with the outside boutiques that have requested to carry my items!!!  YEA!!  The ball is definately rolling...now if it'll just scoop me up along the way and drop me off working at home on my two business that's all I could ever ask for!  I'm...almost on cloud nine! 
Now for the galore of pictures!

Summer 2010

So much has happened in the last month I’m not even sure where to begin! I hosted my 3rd consignment event last week. The growth was astonishing! The number of items more than doubled and the dollar amount sold was more than 70% from the spring sale. We literally got our booty’s kicked!! We worked 14, 16, and 18 hours per day and sleeping very little. I’m still trying to recuperate! The live news cast on KAKE was great, the kids did an awesome job and it ended up being very humorous. I ordered the DVD yesterday so hopefully I can figure out a way to get it posted on the blog when it comes in. I think showing up to the news station on 3 hours of sleep was helpful for my nerves; I was too tired to be nervous this time. Friends, family and shoppers that saw it all said it was a great interview and the kids were hilarious to watch.
So, at this growth rate I’m expecting to be as big as the sales here in central Arkansas in just a few more years. I can’t imagine how awesome it’s going to be to only be 35-36 years old, staying home with my baby, being my own boss working for 6-8 weeks two times a year, all while making more money than I do right now. It sounds surreal, but the day will come. I certainly don’t know what I did to be so blessed with the present and the future, but I am crazy blessed and never do I let a day go by without thanking HIM for it!

To my unselfish, awesome and loving friends and family….THANK YOU from the very bottom of my heart for all that you do in order to help me succeed.

As for Monkey Inspired….I’m currently building a website for the leotards, a FB fan page and having my own clothing labels printed. Hopefully it will be launched just in time for football season. I can’t believe how crazy people go over items with a razorback, power cat, or longhorns on it!!! More so I can’t believe what this accidental business has turned into!! When Brynlie outgrows the original leotard that started all this I think I’m going to have it framed and hang it in my home office/sewing room.

I informed Merrill Lynch about a month ago that I would not be continuing a career with them and would have to turn down the new position I had been training for. Once I explained why, I had full support from the management team and it has made me so much happier now that everything is out on the table, again I am very blessed to be able to keep my job until I am ready to quit.

I finally upgraded to Nikon D40 with lots of extra’s….let me tell you it’s the best money I’ve ever spent. I’m IN LOVE with that camera. There is such a huge difference in the pictures I take of Bryn and the leotards now. I don’t know why I felt compelled to post that on the blog but I did, probably because that’s how much I love it!!! Besides my baby girl, it’s the best thing I’ve ever held in my hands!! Ok, I’m done.

For there being next to no marketing for the house I’ve had good traffic looking at it, more than I would of liked this last month honestly. Since I’m still not certain of what the next step for me and my daughter is I’m not in a hurry to sell. I’ve learned to cross bridges when I actually approach them, not before. I love the crazy looks I get when people ask me where I’m moving and my answer is “I don’t know, I’ll figure that out when the house actually sells.”

And onto Monkey…..I’ve posted the few pictures I’ve taken in the last month. We had Luau theme at gymnastics; of course she looked like a doll.
While she’s still a pretty good kid her behavior has not exactly been up to par lately. She used to be such a sweet sweet baby and don’t get me wrong she still has her sweet moments, but oh my are we approaching the terrible 3’s. She wants her way when she wants it and how she wants it. Do not mess with her trying to pick out her own clothes or dress herself. She will test and test and test me some more.
For example, she’s in a bad habit of getting out of her car seat straps. I’ll tell her over and over to get the shoulder belts back on and she’ll just look at me like I’m singing her a lullaby or something until I get out of my seat belt and start towards her (I’m describing the times I’m not driving of course) before she’ll quickly start moving to put them back on and saying “I do it, I do it.” She has bitten me and Gigi a couple times over the past several weeks; this is in addition to the hitting! That girl wouldn’t stay in time out for me if I gave her a mound of candy! Gena has been trying to show her how to calm down when she gets into her fits of anger by showing her how to take deep breaths and gently saying calm down. The other day when I was getting a little frustrated with her she put her hand on my arm and said “calm down, Mommy…it’s going to be ok.” I couldn’t do anything but sit there and shake my head while trying to hold back the laughter!
We’ve had a hard time keeping her clothed lately, she just prefers to be naked or in her panties while at home…well mostly at home we’ve had one public incident of her stripping down and refusing to put her clothes back on! During the sale she was laying in the back room on her mat watching a movie, I guess she had stripped down to her panties (thank goodness she stopped there) this was while we had a maintenance man there working on the automatic doors, he went into the back room to the breaker box where Bryn was….everyone was busy working and shoppers were busy shopping when all the sudden you see Brynlie come running out of the back room as fast as she could run in ONLY her little rocker panties screaming Mommy and crying. The maintenance guy scared her to death when he went back there. Everyone in the store was laughing, but it took me forever to get her calmed down all while in panties only and the last place she was going to let me take her was back to that backroom she was in!
I’ve been saying I’m the only parent who will have to ask the question “did you keep your clothes on today” when picking her up from school!!!
She said her first cuss word. I don’t, Papa, know where, Papa, she picked up, Papa, that word from!!!! She was having a hard time unwrapping a piece of gum when I heard “Oh, Da**it!”
I calmly asked her what she just said and she repeated it clear as day. Then I had the typical, we don’t talk like that chat.
This week she was sticking her tongue out at everyone at gymnastics.
As soon as we return to a normal schedule she will be returned to her bed, oh wait I guess she can’t be returned if she’s not yet slept in her full size bed!!! Ok, so she’s going to start sleeping in her own bed in her own room. I don’t know how I’m going to get this accomplished but I’m determined to. I’ve never in my life seen a child sleep the way this one does!! I don’t know how she gets any sleep as restless as she sleeps! She’ll fall asleep in there if I sit with her, but she won’t stay in there for the duration of the night, she gets up and gets in bed with me.
Dad and Janet were telling me about her sleeping with them over the weekend and all I could say was “welcome to my nightly world!” Now that summer is coming to an end and she’ll be going back to school 2 days a week, I’m hoping we can all get back on a better schedule.
I’m on the hunt for 2 time out chairs exactly alike, one for my house and one for Gigi’s, that way she knows what it is and what we expect when she’s sat there! I let you know how this great plan of mine pans out!
One last sweet and funny thing. During the stormy season when she didn't like the thunder and lightening I took her out on the back porch and explained to her when it thunders its Jesus playing the drums and when it lightnings it's God taking a picture and she needed to look up and say cheese. When we came in I set her up with finger paints so I could cook us dinner. She said she was going to paint a picture for Jesus and he was going to love it! It's hanging on my fridge and I don't think I'm ever going to be able to take it down. Both of us love to marvel at that finger painting picture. We were out running a furry of errands getting ready to leave for the sale all during a horrible storm. She had Ava with us, her favorite baby doll. As the storm was roaring I heard her telling Ava everything was going to be okay, then she got upset and started saying "Ava don't like Jesus, Ava don't like Jesus" It was hilarious!! I said "Ava doesn't like his drums but Ava loves Jesus just like we do." Speaking of Jesus, Brynlie knows how to say the whole prayer before we eat, sing the whole song of Jesus loves me and we are now working on our nite nite prayer. She joined us for a bible study last month and said the whole prayer for all the ladies before we ate....I was a proud Mama!!!

This is Natalie White, last seasons Survivor winner.  Yes, that's right a MILLIONAIRE is holding my daughter!