And just like that, you are 6!

Happy 6th Birthday, Baby!!!!!

Each year on your birthday, I always love sitting down and reflecting on the year and all you've done and accomplished and struggled with and conquered.  OMG, I'm almost overwhelmed at the list of things you've done on what was only your 5th year on this planet.  But I will do my best to recap...

You had one more year of preschool at CEC.  You made some wonderful friends and graduated with smiles!  Mrs. Miguel taught you so much and you went from shy and clingy at the beginning of the year to happy and confident at the end.

You started KINDERGARTEN last week at Limestone Elementary School.  As we mentioned in last year's post, we red-shirted you for school.  Sept 1st was the cut off so instead of starting school at 4 turning 5, you started at 5 turning 6.   There is not 1 single ounce of me that regrets doing this because the growth that you had emotionally this year was HUGE.  You started kindergarten confident and excited and I couldn't be happier with how well you appear to have transitioned to big-girl school.

Teeth!  I could not believe my eyes when not far after you turned five, you got your first wiggly tooth!  I guess it's early to get, early to lose cause I remember you had a mouthful of teeth at a year old when some of your friends didn't have a single one.  Then 3 more fell out so you have the cutest little toothless smile right now.

The first little WIGGLE
Omg #loosetooth

Thanks to my good friend, Lauren Donovan for snapping this cute pics of my toothless wonder!

You learned to ride your bike with NO TRAINING WHEELS.  At CEC, they had a trike-a-thon where you bike around the parking lot raising money for St. Jude Children's Hospital.  A few of the girls in your class didn't have training wheels and you did so you came home and made the decision that it was time to learn and you did it in about 10 minutes.  Just like walking and almost anything in life, you like to wait until you are absolutely ready and then you just do it.  It was the same for walking...you waited until you knew you could run.  You don't like making mistakes, you are a bit of a perfectionist so you like to do it on your own time when you know you got it!  Don't be embarrassed or ashamed to fail.  You gotta hit some lows to appreciate the highs.  I get it though...I'm the same way.
Lookey here! #notrainingwheels #brennaboo

Dive:  You have been diving for a little over a year now and competed in 3 dive competitions.  I was soooooo proud of you because these are like real competitions and you were always one of the youngest there.  They are quite intimidating and just the fact that you competed and did 6 dives each time is something to be soooo proud of.  You're not so eager to try new dives but you really enjoy perfecting the ones you know.  Here you are at your 2nd competition where you got a gold medal :-)
Soooo proud of my little gold medalist today!!!! What a difference in 6 months in terms of guys and confidence!!! #3ddive

Here was your first unassisted front line up off the 3 meter board. GUTS!!!! I can't imagine being so brave First unassisted front line up off the 3m. Guts!!!!! Love my girl!

You participated in 2 dance recitals this year.  A sugar plum fairy in December's Nutcracker and a Bluebird in the Ugly Duckling Ballet in May.  You really were awesome...you totally paid attention and did all the moves.


Notice how you give your friend Sofia a little shove to get going at the end...lol, you know your cues!


In addition to dive and dance, you also played T-ball this year and Daddy was your coach.  You looked so little out there and you were adorable and loved being with Daddy.  You wore #2 just like he did when he was little.  I loved watching this special time for you and Daddy.  He loved it too and was a great coach!

Great season dolphin-mermaids!!!

This year was the year of FROZEN.  It came out in theaters in October and I think we had a constant loop of the soundtrack playing in the car from November - July.  Like every other girl your age, you love to sing "Let It Go"  And you are pretty darn good at it too.



This year was also the year of YouTube, specifically Kindereggs and playdoh art tutorial.  You can watch Kindereggs being unwrapped for hours and you love watching tutorials on playdoh creations.  You've turned into quite the little Playdoh Picasso but what I love most of all is catching you playing alone and pretending you are giving a tutorial on youtube..."Hi, My name is Brenna and today I'm going to be showing you how to build the perfect Mickey Mouse out of playdoh"   Ugh, could you be any cuter!
Brenna the Playdoh Picasso

Oh, another big deal this year was getting your ears pierced.  We went to the mall one day and ran into two friends randomly (Caroline and Cameron from CEC) and they sort of spur of the moment decided to get their ears pierced.  You FREAKED out during your 5 year old shots so I knew there was no way you were going to let 2 holes be poked through your ears.  Peer pressure or not you were not having it.  So we went home but to my surprise you woke up the next morning saying, "Mom, I want to get my ears pierced...I just need to wear my Brave Maeve shirt."   And so we went that day and did it.

So speaking of Brave Maeve and for anyone who might not know...Maeve is the little sister of one of your preschool classmates and I have become friends with their mom, Megan, who is one of the most brave and articulate moms I know and she oh so eloquently shares her journey of having a child with Type 1 Diabetes through facebook journal entries and community fundraising events and you are soooooo interested in Type 1 Diabetes and anything to do with Maeve.  You watch their YouTube videos and when you play house, you are always the "Big Sis who has Type 1 Diabetes."  You "check Lily's blood sugar" in the bathtub.  Megan texted me after she gave a little talk at CEC on Diabetes and said that you are bound to be an Endocrinologist when you grow up because you knew everything there was to know about the disease.  Your Grandpa Les has it too so you are very interested in it.  Your charitable heart is so special.  You were faced with a difficult decision this year because there was a Saturday where you had a T-ball game, a dive meet, and the Brave Maeve walk.  It wasn't difficult for you at all....the Brave Maeve walk it was and you scooted that whole 2 miles with your friend Dagny.  Daddy had to coach the team and you wanted to be with the Brave Maeve team.

You are an amazing big sis.  You and Lily have your share of arguments at home but anywhere else in public you are SUCH a good sister.  Always watching out for her and loving on her.  I'd take you both to a morning of gymnastics camp and you'd always tell me that you hung out mostly with Lily and took her to the potty whenever she needed to go.  The camp posted a picture of circle time on facebook and she was sitting on your lap.  You are her "Baba" even though she can say "Brenna" just fine now.  She loves her "Baba" so much.

Can you believe what a year you've had?  You have done soooo much in just 1 year's time.  I love you so much.  You make me so proud and yet can also drive me so crazy.  You continue to be so emotionally intense.  You are so sweet and kind but can also become very upset and angry (especially if sleep deprived)  This year was not a great one for you in terms of sleep.  You ended up on the floor of our room almost every night.  Even after Daddy built you the most beautiful bunk bed ever, you just didn't like it so we changed everything back to the way it was to try and get you sleeping better.  I'm really starting to see just how true the saying is "the days are long and the years are short."  Keep shining, baby.  You are so special and I am so blessed beyond measure to be your mom.

I heard this song in the car yesterday and I feel like it totally sums up how I feel about you right now.  So proud of you and I feel like I catch glimpses of you growing up before my eyes.  So bittersweet.

Lily Lou is 2!!!!

Lily Lou is 2!!!  Awwww, in 1 year you went from my little brunette just-learned-to-walk cutie pie....

....to my gorgeous sun-kissed, spunky, funny BLOND little love!

Shortly after your first birthday, you started calling Brenna "BaBa."  Even now at 2, you can say "Benna" but you still chose to call her "BaBa" and she refers to herself as "BaBa" and can often be found loving on you saying something like "oh, come here and sit on BaBa's lap and BaBa will hold you."  This was the year that you and BaBa became best friends.  She adores you and takes such good care of you and loves to make you laugh.  One thing we used to do a lot was say "Lily, who do you love?"  And you would reply "BaBa."  And then I'd say "BaBa?!?!?, What about Momma/Daddy/Grandma and go down the list just to have you smile and say "No, BaBa"  And of course Brenna would find this hilarious.  Of course you guys get in fights sometimes but really you love each other more than I ever could have imagined a sisterly bond could be so early on.  Here you are showing off your new trick and wanting Brenna to watch you "Ready, Look BaBa!!!"

Lily Girl, you get up EARLY!  You are so easy to put down for a nap and at bedtime but honestly I can count the number of times you have slept past 6:30am on 1 hand and I'm not exaggerating.  You get up between 5:15-5:45am everyday.  Luckily your dad and I switch off every other day who gets the early morning shift because man it can really wear on you.  But you're so sweet in the mornings and drink your milk and watch tv on the couch with us.  And because you are up so early, you take 1 early nap when Brenna is at school which works out nice for mommy because I could get some things done for work or around the house when you're asleep.  

You are kinda on Brenna's schedule and this year we spent a lot of time at the pool watching Brenna take diving lessons.  

You think you can do anything that BaBa does and you jump into the water with no fear!!  

Which is why we spent our summer in ISR swim lessons.  

You can often be found walking in plastic princess heels and pushing a stroller around the house.  One thing that is so funny about you is that you are LOVE musicals.  You can watch Annie on youtube over and over again and your absolute favorite thing to watch on tv is Teen Beach Movie on the Disney Channel.  You dance to the music and prefer that over Mickey Mouse Clubhouse any day of the week.  

You answer yes by saying "mmm hmm" in a cute little high-pitched squeak and your new favorite thing to say to me is "Momma, you know what?"  Me: "What?"  Lily:  "Nevermind"  You also say "And...Papa Les" all the time out of the blue because you know it's funny.

When you have a dirty diaper, I say "Are you stinky"  You:  "NO!"  Me:  "Yes, you are, can I change you?"  You:  "NO!!!"  Me:  "Will you tell me when I can?"  You"  "Ok, Momma"  It's your little routine we go through almost everytime.

PURPLE HIPPO  Oh how you love purple hippo.  "Pacy"  "Hippo" are requests I receive all day long.  We even bought a second hippo this year when we couldn't find yours one day.  You LOVE hippo.  Now we just have to get rid of the Pacy but our new puppy, Sydney Mae Grace, is helping with that because she is chewing all of them up that she find laying around the house.  You were scared of dogs until "Syd Syd" came along.  When we leave the house you say "Bye Syd Syd, love you!"

Recently, when you are frustrated or annoyed you let out a big "UUUGHHHHHH"  Wooopsies, you definitely got that one from me.  You've thrown a couple of fits one involved me having to carry you out of the mall in the football hold while people were staring at me.  You wanted to hop through the mall like a frog and any other mode of transportation was unacceptable to you and you let me know it.

I love you, Lou Lou!!!!  You are beautiful inside and out and to be your momma is the best feeling in the whole world!

Brenna, All About You at Age 5!

Brenna, you are 5 years old today!  5 is a big deal...you said to me this morning on the way to school "So Momma, I'm 5 today, right?  Not 5 and a half, right?"  Nope, you are 5...please don't try to speed up the process on me.

Each year I look forward to sitting down and reflecting about who you are and who you have become in this past year.  Your 4th year started out pretty smoothly.  Your new school, CEC, was a terrific fit and you enjoyed learning so much in Pre-K.  You are so smart and I can tell that you are going to like school.  Here you are on your first and last day of PreK-4.

One thing that really stands out this year is that this is the year that you and Lily really fell in love with each other and have become best friends.  You are her "BaBa" and she just adores you!!!!  And you are the best big sister in the whole world.  

My heart just about exploded when I went to an exercise class and it was one of Lily's first times away from me.  You and her were in the childcare room with other kids and Lily was sooooooooo upset.  You comforted her even though Jalyn was there and wanted to play with you.  You took the best care of her, getting down on your knees to talk to her and hug her and have her sit in your lap....I was so proud of you for that...makes me cry just thinking about it.

You are one of the most inquisitive kids I've ever seen.  You want to know about EVERYTHING.  I can't really watch the news because you want to know about EVERY story that comes on...you have a deep empathy for others and that is one of your qualities I am most proud of.  If there is a fire on the news, you need to know where it is and who lived there or if there's a story about a sick child, you want to know more and sometimes will even ask to make a card for them.  If there is a song on the radio, you are not content just humming or singing along, you have to know what the song is about...if it's about a boy and a girl breaking up, you have to know why they broke up...what did the boy do? For example, here you are singing a Christmas song and explaining what the song was about.




You are a true beauty inside and out.  You remembered how we gave a donation to Brave Maeve for Lily's 1st birthday and on your own wanted to do the same for your 5th birthday party coming up.

You have a passion for the water.  You excel at swimming and had fun taking diving lessons this year.

And of course a big highlight was the addition of Sydney Mae Grace.  You had been asking for a puppy for months..."A puppy named Sydney."  It was such a treat to add her to our family this year.

The year wasn't without challenges.  Your mood and behavior can be intense at times.  You had a bad bought of UTI's at the beginning of the year and it really affected you and caused you to want to withdraw from a lot of things.  For a big portion of this year, you became very attached to me and didn't really want to do anything other than be at home with me...school, dive, dance...pretty much everything became a struggle to get you to do them without tears.  You ended up in our bed most nights this year.  This is where parenting gets tough...sometimes I would let you bail and sometimes I would try and get you to keep on truckin....I'm not sure if I made the best choices but I did my best, Brenna.  You still struggle with anxiety at times and I have a feeling that this "emotional intensity" will be a recurring theme as you get older.  This parenting stuff isn't for the faint of heart.  This is one reason we decided to "red-shirt" you and repeat Pre-K4.  Being that your birthday is right on the cut-off we wanted to give you another year to be a kid before moving on to elementary school.

I keep a jar on the counter for Kid Quotes and write down some of the cute stuff you say during the year.  Here are some goodies:

1/13:  Upon Lily waking up really early in the morning, I said to Brenna "I'm sorry Lily woke you up." Brenna:  "It's ok, I mean it's probably going to be my low point for the day, but it's ok."

1/13:  Mom, my hands are so clean because I used the whole bottle of soap in the bathroom.  That was a lot of soap so they are like really really clean now."

6/13: Brenna:  "Please give me the lellow crayon."  Me:  It's Y-ellow.  Brenna:  "L-ellow."  Me:  "Say Yo-Yo"  Brenna:  "Yo-Yo"  Me: "Yellow"  Brenna: "Lellow"  Me:  "Yell"  Brenna: "Yell"  Me: "oh"  Brenna: "oh"  Me:  "Yell....Oh"   Brenna:  "Yell...Ow"  Me:  "Yellow"  Brenna:  "Lellow"   Me:  We will try again once my coffee kicks in....;-)

7/13: Brenna begging for a dog says "Don't worry, I'll still play with Lily sometimes too if we get a dog."

7/13: After doing summercamp at Temple Beth Am.  Brett:  "The statue of liberty is hollow, you can actually walk up to the top."  Brenna:  "The statue of liberty is made of Holla like bread???"

8/13:  Brenna:  "Mom, can you have another baby?"   Me:  "No, why?"  Brenna:  "Because if there was another kid here, we could play duck duck goose and it would be more fun"

 My prayers are that you remain strong, healthy, kind, compassionate and brave!  It's ok to push yourself because you can do so many things!  We love you sooooooooo much. xoxo  your momma

Lily's Baby Book - All about her first year!

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Brenna, All About you at 4!

Yay!!!  You are 4!!!!  You have officially gone from baby to little girl.  And you started your first day of Pre-K 4 at your new school today...on your birthday!

I am so happy that we have reached this milestone cause let's be honest...your third year has been a little rough.   When asked by a friend how life was this year, I replied "I either love her so much that my heart literally feels like it could explode with love and pride...or I want to throw her out of the window"   It's true.  A lot happened this year.  For starters, Lily was born.  The first 8 weeks or so were filled with the love for a new little baby and a very sleep deprived and low-on-patience mommy.  First let me say how proud I am of you for making it through that adjustment because I know it must have been so hard.  You were our one and only for 3 years and it was quite an adjustment adding a new little sister to the mix.  You have ALWAYS loved your sister and she has ALWAYS loved you from the moment she arrived.  But truth be told, you were kindof a nightmare to mommy and daddy for the first few months.  I want to recount some of our struggles not to make you feel bad, sweety, but so that we can look back and read this and giggle and maybe it will even help you keep a good perspective when you yourself are a mommy and are sleep-deprived and ready to toss your 3 year old out the window.  ;-)

But let's recall 2 of the lows before I tell you about all the highs that your third year brought.  

1)  The Thanksgiving incident:   I'm not sure why I thought hosting Thanksgiving at our house with a 6 week old was a good idea but I swear at the time I thought it was.  It was the week of Thanksgiving and I still didn't have everything together.  You were being awful.  Throwing the biggest fits and I just couldn't handle it.  I lost it.  I called Daddy at work crying and said "You have to come home.  I have to leave and if you don't I'm going to lose it on Brenna.  Seriously, come home.   I need to leave before I lose my mind"  So home he came and out I went.  I think I was gone for probably 5 hours.  I needed it.  As much as I needed a break from you, I missed you once I was gone.  When I got home, I felt like I could breathe easier.  Please take 2 lessons from this...1)  When life gets too crazy, take a breather.  Know when you need to walk away to regain composure.  And 2)  Marry someone who is a true partner and makes your life easier and better in almost all regards.  Marry someone that would come home from work to help you.

2)  The Corneal Abrasion:  One night I was putting you to bed and you were throwing a fit saying you didn't want to go to sleep and you were so overtired that you were entering what Daddy and I refer to as your "Sleep Deprivation Psychosis" where you are not rational and just generally crazy-in-need-of-sleep.  The lights were out and it was very dark and in the midst of your flailing fit you accidentally sucker punched me right in the eyeball.  IT HURT.  A LOT!!!  I tried to go to bed but I woke up at 2am and drove my one-eyed self to the ER where I had to explain how my 3 year old had just punched me in the face.   Low point for sure. 

But just like any good story the lows were superseded by the highs.  You shock me at how smart and sweet you can be.  Your verbal communication soars.  I think because you are so smart and so expressive, I sometimes forgot that you were 3 and expected you to have the rationale of someone much older.  My bad.

You have the absolute cutest helium-sounding voice on the planet.  Seriously, people tell me that you should be the voice of cartoon characters, it is that cute.

Your love for Lily.  You love her so much and she lights up when you are around.  You always want to hold her and kiss her and give her raspberries on her belly.  You make her laugh more than anyone else.  You also protect her.  You make sure she doesn't have something too small to play with and one time you came carrying her out of the laundry room like a dog (holding the back of her PJ's while her arms and legs were dangling above the floor) because she was trying to get shoes.

Your first dance recital.  You were the cutest little Angelfish and you gave the grandest bow and blew a kiss to all of your admirers and even mouthed "I love you Daddy" while on stage.  Don't think I'll ever forget that.

The diving board.  You passed a swim test where you swam the entire length of the pool in order to jump off the diving board.  People kept coming up to me saying "how old is she?"  When I said, "she's 3" they would look at me in disbelief that you could pass the swim test and were brave enough to jump over and over again!

Role playing.  You love to play any sort of role playing game where you are the grown-up.  We played movie theater a lot where you would take money, give tickets, manage the snack bar, and perform all the other appropriate duties of a movie theater attendant.

Your Students: You have had a class of students that have followed you around almost all year:  Chauncy ("He's the naughty one, he never listens"), Nala, Rainbow, Carley, Jalyn.  You run a tight ship.  You do circle time and story time and do not hesitate to put someone in time out if they step out of line.

High point/Low point.  Whenever we are sitting together for dinner we go around the table and do high point/low point.  You share some of the sweetest things.  A typical example of what you'd say.  "Today my high point was when Mommy picked me up from school and we went to the park with my friends and shared our snacks.  My low point was when I didn't want to leave the park and I threw a fit"  Many times, we have the same low point ;-)  Or sometimes you won't have a low point and say "I don't have a low point, today was a pretty good day!" and you'll shrug your shoulders with a "what are you gonna-do-about-it?" expression on your face.  

I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.   I'm sorry for my lack of patience sometimes.  I'm so lucky to be your momma.