Joy in the Simple Things

Brielle finds so much joy in absolutely everything.
I've been so fascinated just watching her every move.

She LOVES heat registers.
Anytime the heat is on, we know where Brielle is!
She loves to sit on them and even sticks her face right up next to them.



She's had so much fun watching her favorite movie (Baby Signing Time) from the comforts of her cozy little chair.
She's always signing "More Baby Please", then points to the tv. She knows exactly how to get what she wants.

Brielle and I took a two week "Mommy and Me" Swimming class.

She went nuts over it!

Anytime I'd get her in her swimsuit and say, "Should we go swimming?", Brielle would run to the front door, ready to go! She loved it!

She had so much fun learning to kick and reach and blow bubbles in the water. It was a blast for both of us!


Here she is running for the door, excited to go swimming:

Daddy and Breezy:

Presidents Day Weekend:

We spent the long weekend in 801.

Shopping, eating, going to movies, taking naps, eating, laughing and more eating!

Loved every minute of it.

So did Brielle!

The only pictures I took of the entire trip:

Playing piano with Grandma:

The Captain Stance with Uncle Randy:


Randy took Travis and I to Tucano's for our Christmas present.

Man it was yummy!

I'm pretty sure Travis was living his dream.

He's always saying there's nothing better than meat wrapped in meat.

Too bad I don't have any pictures because there were definitely some pristine opportunities.

We had so much fun! Best. Gift. Ever. Thanks Randy!

Another Weekend Getaway
This last weekend we went to St. George for the Parade of Homes.

We stayed with Granny Bev and again had a blast.

Of course we didn't capture our fun times on camera. Why would we? That would mean I'm actually getting better at my goal. Sigh.

I'm awful at taking pictures.

But anyway, Breezy was a trooper going through all the homes with us. What she really wanted to do was jump in the pool. She threw a fit when we wouldn't let her have her way! Poor thing.




Journal Update:

Brielle has grown and changed so much in the last month, it's hard to keep up! Her vocabulary has expanded as well as the number of signs she knows. Her favorite new signs: banana, bird, outside, frog, no, please, thank you, cat, flower, and snow. She learns so quickly.

She's also started throwing little tantrums every now and then. She'll actually shake her finger at me while saying, "No, No, No" when I tell her she can't do something. What a character!

She loves brushing her teeth, but when it's time to be done and I take the toothbrush away, her world ends. She throws herself to the ground, curls up in a little ball and starts wailing. Sometimes she even bangs her head on the ground.

Brielle knows where all of the pictures of Jesus are in the house and she'll wave to Him and blow kisses. She's such a good girl to fold her arms before meals (even before we tell her to) ready to say prayers and she does the same before bed although it's usually short lived.

She's definitely not the most fun at church! What a handful! She wants to roam the halls, play with other kids, and do little dance moves out of our reach. She is so incredibly loud! One time I made the mistake of giving her a little play phone at church and she immediately put it up to her ear and very loudly started saying, "Hi, Hi Hi" along with other baby talk.

She loves to eat string cheese, hot dogs, mac n cheese, kiwi, oranges, apples, and veggies as long as she can feed herself. She's not into me feeding her anymore. Stinker.

She loves her stuffed animals, but her ducky is her favorite. If there are any other animals in the crib when she goes down for nap, she immediately throws them out. She only wants ducky. However, if ducky isn't in the crib for that particular nap, she'll keep all other animals in with her.

She still loves to read and can point out almost any animal and make their sound as long as it's in one of her books. She loves when we ask her where certain animals or different objects are so she can point them out.

When I ask her where mommy's baby is, she'll come over and point to my belly and give my belly kisses. What a sweet sister! I love her more than ever!

Sex Revealed

We had an ultrasound on Feb 12th. Looks like Travis will be outnumbered for quite some time because we're having ANOTHER GIRL!!!!! Yippeee!! We are so excited and can't wait to meet this little sweetheart!

Snow, Curlers, and Self-Feeding

Brielle only wants to eat if she can put the spoon in her mouth by herself. She giggles every time because she's so stinkin proud of herself!



She's never boring, that's for sure.


Playing around the house:

Breezy was laughing so hard when Daddy kept taking her toy hammer from her! She thinks he's hilarious! To be honest, so do I!


This is normally what she uses for her purse, but as you can see it has many uses!

Our first attempt at curlers! Since this girl doesn't know how to sit still for 2 seconds, I'm sure you can imagine how difficult it was to get this accomplished.

I didn't get the best picture of the finished product but you can kind of see how it all turned out.

She LOVES to tackle her teddy bear! She's quite the aggressive little girl~!

This is where she is for a good portion of the day because she LOVES reading books. We rarely get through the entire book before she wants to go to the next one. She just gets too excited!

Playing in the Snow:

Breezy's first snowball!

She thought it was pretty tasty too!

Having a conversation with the doggie:

It was all fun and games until Sage bumped Brielle and made her bite her own lip. Poor girl. But isn't that sad face just still so cute!

Journal Update:

Brielle is 14 months and is crazy as ever! She is into absolutely everything. She is all over the place and my house definitely proves that. She makes us laugh constantly, and she knows she's funny! I love everything about this girl. She really is a sweetheart. Right now we are working on weaning her from the bottle. She never took a binky so that was never an issue, but she definitely loves her bottle. She has 16 teeth, and a huge smile! She still takes 2 naps. . . . most of the time. She walks around babbling nonstop and her favorite word? Sh**! She loves that cuss word, although she has no idea she says it really. She grows attachments to certain toys, and carries them everywhere. For example, she would take her stuffed yellow fluffy ducky everywhere if we let her. She talks to it and sings to it and tries to feed it. She loves playing with kids close to her age and she's probably the LOUDEST of them all! One of her favorite foods is a gogurt. I just have to be very careful not to let her grab it because she laughs pretty dang hard if she can make the gogurt spill out everywhere. She has a pretty fierce scowl if you give her something yucky too. She loves to spin and twirl until she falls and she gets a kick out of putting a blanket over her head and running into things, laughing the whole time. Silly girl!

As for the pregnancy status: I'm feeling great most of the time! I go through spurts of dizziness quite often, but other than that things are great! Our ultrasound is on Feb 12th. We are so excited!

Christmas 09'

What a fabulous Christmas this year! We had so much fun!

Christmas Eve in Richfield:
Breezy got to open the traditional gift of jammies!







We also got to tell Gary and Margaret that we are expecting again! Surprise! It was pretty funny.




Christmas Day:


Breezy found a camouflage stocking full of surprises that Santa left. She loved it! She thought it was fun to stick her hand in a sock and pull out a present.

Christmas in 801:

Unfortunately I didn't remember to take many pictures once again. We had a blast telling my family about our exciting news though. The entire trip was full of laughs and good times.

Uncle Randy was nice to let Brielle play with his mini remote control car.

It was so funny to watch her chase the little car everywhere. She couldn't figure out why she wasn't able to reach down and get it.


Then of course she would randomly stop running around like crazy for a much needed somersault! She's so funny!

Reading her new book with Grandma

Even more entertaining than her new toys from Santa? Our very own vacuum. She thinks that thing is just hilarious! She follows me around whenever I get it out, or she'll sit right in the vacuum path and just laugh. She loves to try to climb it while it's going.

So, back to my previous secret. . . . . I am 13 weeks along! Brielle and the new baby will be 20 months apart. It was a little bit of a surprise to us, but we are very excited and are really hoping that the trimester of sickness is nearing its end. We are thrilled that by July 1st we will have another sweet little addition to our family.

Guess What?

Hustle and Bustle

I love this time of year. I don't even mind how crazy busy December is because I love the excitement in the air. Every night there's something to look forward to like The Forgotten Carols, multiple work, ward, and family parties, or even just riding around looking at the lights . I love trying to find the perfect gift for someone and having the tree lit as I wrap the presents. I love singing Christmas songs to my daughter, and driving my husband crazy simply because he can't stand not knowing what the big present that he found with his name on it could be. I love the yummy homemade chocolates and the Christmas bows I get to put in Breezy's hair. I guess I love it all. Too bad I'm not too great at remembering my camera when we head out to all these fun events.

Here are a few pictures of a couple of the things we've been doing during this busy season:

Grandma and Grandpa Kyhl's annual Christmas Party:


Brielle really loves all of her grandparents but definitely has a special place in heart for Grandpa Jack. He and Grandma usually babysit Brielle once a week and Breezy has so much fun with them. They are so wonderful!


Sorry Natalie, Grandma made Brielle give Brooklyn kisses! I hope you're OK with that. Brooklyn looks so adorable!


When it was Brielle's turn to sit on Santa's lap, she wasn't sure whether she should cry or smile so we sort of got a grimace out of her. Better than screaming though! Santa gave her a baby doll that she carries around everywhere. She's constantly giving her kisses, then throwing her across the room so she can run to pick her back up. Funny girl!

Gingerbread Houses!

Richfield Light Parade!

We sat in chairs in the back of the truck on main street for the view. We ate hot dogs and had free hot chocolate and donuts so I think we were all happy!

Journal update:

Breezy has 16 teeth now. Her canines just cut through. Poor girl has been slobbering like crazy but she's handled it like a champ. She still takes 2 naps a day, which is wonderful because when she's awake, she doesn't stop for anything! She is constantly on the go. I had her at the grocery store the other day too close to her nap time. When I was at the check out, Brielle started fussing quite a bit so I asked her what was wrong and she looked at me with sad eyes and said, "Mama, Night Night". I said, "Oh you want to go night night?". She replied with, "Night night". Poor girl just wanted her crib. It was so cute though!

Welcome Baby Cayson!

The newest addition to the Rhodes family is this cute little guy! Cayson was born on Nov 28th. He is such a handsome little guy and is so sweet too.

Brielle loves her new cousin but we had to watch her very closely because she kept trying to play with him (which means hit him and climb on him and everything else that isn't soft!)


She loved giving him kisses and kept trying every chance she got!

Since we were up north we decided to check out the lights at Temple Square. This was definitely NOT Brielle's favorite experience. She HATES being bundled up. She refuses to sleep in a blanket at night, so to stuff her inside of sweaters, coats, scarves, and mittens is just traumatic. I kind of doubt she smiled the entire time we were there! She was quite fussy, so we didn't end up staying too long unfortunately.

We thought she would enjoy a ride on daddy's shoulders.

But instead she just threw her body back, completely exasperated.






My parents were true champs to stick around and continue trying (in vain) to get Brielle to smile for the camera! Unfortunately the pics we got of them with Breezy didn't turn out either.

Thanksgiving!
I realize I'm a little late to post about Thanksgiving, but we've been so busy. We had a wonderful time in St. George with part of my family. Nothing huge or fancy, but the food was delicious and the company was terrific. We laughed a ton and had so much fun!

Breezy's journal updates:

We took Brielle in for her one year doctors appointment on Dec 2nd. She still only weighs 18 lbs. What a tiny little girl. She's in the 100th percentile for height (32 1/2 in tall), but only the 12th for her weight. She's very tall and skinny. We've tried and tried to put a little meat on her bones but it just isn't working. She's off formula and moved on to whole milk, but even that isn't cutting it!

Brielle is such a busy girl! She doesn't stop for anything. She gets in to anything and everything she can. She definitely keeps us on our toes. She loves to do somersaults and walks around until she suddenly bends over and puts her head on the ground ready for me to help her flip over. Then she claps and giggles. It's so funny! She has such a contagious laugh! She also loves to play "Hide and Seek" or "I'm Gonna Getcha". She squeals and screams in delight.

Her vocabulary is also steadily growing. Her new favorite word is "pretty". Except it comes out sounding like "titty". She calls everything pretty from her toys to the Christmas tree.

When she knows she's not supposed to do something, she says "No No No" while doing it anyway. For example, she's constantly trying to climb in the tub all by herself all the while saying, "No No No". She loves bathtime.

Sign Language she's recently learned (besides what she already knows): Grandma, Grandpa, outside, drink, down, and we're still working on thank you along with many others. I can always tell when I've given her some food she really likes because she lets out an exaggerated "MMMMM", but only with the yummy food!

Man we sure love this little girl!

PS: I had so many people ask me where I got Breezy's sleep mask. You can get them online or at many baby / maternity boutiques. I'm still completely in love with it. It's the only thing that saves us at church!