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The MVA (DMV for everyone not in Maryland)

Okay so today The Brenton and I had a morning/afternoon date....Brenton ditched school and we ended up ditching Lena and spent 2 1/2 glorious hours together at....The DMV!

Okay so here in Maryland, a little insight for all out "outsiders" is that the DMV here is called the MVA, yeah I get what it stands for and all, but why can't they be the DMV like everyone else?????

So anyway, we were there for 2 good hours so that means lots and LOTS of people watching, and with all of the watching I had about a trillion facebook status updates that I wanted to post...since we all hate when someone changes their status a trillion times in one day...I saved them all for one good blog post...so here we go

(P.S. it seems to be real tiny, so sorry if you have to squint)

It's nice to make new friends

Chloe has found so many new friends here at the new house. Today she found herself a leaf bug. Now I am not going to say that she wanted to play hop scotch with this bug, rather she wanted to eat this green friend....but still a friend is a friend

Life Changing

We moved, yes we did it again....Aren't you tired of reading about us moving?? Sheesh!

There are so many reasons why this move has bettered the life of our family and I can go on and on and on

but I will tell you one of the best benefits of this move

Ahh Mr. Microwave, welcome back!!


Mr. Microwave and I had a falling out

It happened in 2007, when we moved (the first move of many) to a great apt, everything was great, except...it was with no microwave

Why didn't we just buy one?? Well that is a question we debated for a long time, but my answer was that....we had NO counter space for a microwave, well I guess we had some, but if we added the microwave then we would have no place to set down the items that we were microwaving...see the problem???

And then we moved to a new apt here in Maryland that was also without microwave and little counter space


So for 3 very long non microwaving years, we lived in misery, but that misery has finally ended

And I can bring a new man into my life!

The invasion

This is how it started, with just a few boxes here and there. Neatly organized and strategically placed so that the Diva could not get her tape pealing fingers on.
notice my poor insecure puppy Chloe on her pillow, she knows what brown boxes mean

We have to hide boxes on the patio so that both dog and child don't get into them!

This is the box inspector, she has to go through all the boxes to make sure they are up to code!

5 more days and then we are onto a bigger home with get this....SPACE! I am going to be carbo loading all week for our big move, gotta keep my energy up!

I hate Goodbyes

I am a believer that God puts people in our lives for 2 reasons

#1) To make us a better person by giving us helpers, or little angels on earth, as I like to call them

or

#2) To make us a better person through trials because they are a pain in the butt!

So today I am talking about Rileigh Hansen, she is my category #1, angel on earth

Yesterday she and her amazing family packed up and moved to Oregon! Who does that??

Here is my summarized list of reasons why she is amazing

• She always has a smile on her face...always
  
  
• You always felt welcomed in her home
  
  
• She loved my daughter like her own
  
  
• Her frosting recipes were AMAZING, Ghirardelli chocolate and coconut extract..yeah so good!
  
• Anything she baked was a work of art
  
  
• She could dream up a themed party and it would be the greatest thing you've ever seen
  
  
• To call her crafty would be an understatement
  
  
• She knows movies, and in my family, that is a great characteristic
  
  
• She is just one of those people that just makes you want to be a better person
  

She used her great photo-taking-skillz and took

Adalena's 1st birthday pics

Our first family pictures

She made this for Brenton's b-day party
Here she is handing out cupcakes for Brenton's Birthday
Isn't she just amazing??? Okay so Oregon, you better recognize what greatness is in your state now, and find this girl and just love her!! If not, there are many Marylanders who will gladly take her back.

4 Years of Pure Bliss

It's been 4 years, 4 GLORIOUS years of marriage to this guy and it's been the best ever. Now I know some of you are wondering...."what is it like to be married to The Brenton?"
Well here you go, here is your insight to life with The Brenton

• You will never be called by your first name...your first name will become one of many pet names....love bug, honey, sweetie, beautiful, sugar
• Hugs and I love yous a hundred times a day, for no reason, just because he wants to tell you
• Stress?? What is that?
  
• Adventure, he is always up for a good adventure
• I can only count on one hand how many times he has come home without a smile on his face, and in 4 years with me as his wife, that is pretty darn good!
  
• If you ask him what he wants for dinner, he will always list off 3 choices, one always being a breakfast item.
• Bread, rolls, and cinnamon rolls whenever you ask for it, homemade, made with love and they are OH so good!
• You only have to ask him to do something once...that's it, not 2 or 3 times, this guy is on it!
  
• Forgot where you put your glasses or cell phone? All you gotta do is ask and he will know where it is within 3 guesses.
• He is so involved in his child's life
  
• There is nothing he won't do for his family
• Just being around him makes you want to be the best you that you can be, he just radiates happiness and love!
  

Marrying him was the best decision I ever made.For those of you who have met him, you will agree, that it doesn't get much better than this guy!

Farewell morning nap!!

Oh morning nap, you will be missed! I don't know who decided it was time to say goodbye but all I can say is, it wasn't my idea! I enjoyed every single day with you! I enjoyed how you made peace come instantly into our home. I love how just with your presence my daughter was a happy girl from of 11am-2:30pm (then the afternoon nap would take care of the rest!)

I loved how I could count on you every single day, without fail, you would show up! I don't know what I am going to do without you!! Really, I feel helpless, alone, and very much scared. Lena girl doesn't quite know what to do without you either, which means that there is a lot of crying, some her tears, but mostly mine!

I hope you can understand that this isn't goodbye forever, you will be back, I am sure of it. Maybe not for Adalena, but maybe another baby Livingston who will make an appearance at some unknown time. I hope you know that you are always invited to my home whenever you would like, don't bother knocking, just come on in! I'll have a nice cozy bed waiting for you!

Adieu morning nap, may you make other mothers happy wherever you go!!

As for us here, I have a feeling that Mr. Timeout will be a frequent visitor to our home! (SIGH)

Finally

I have been dreaming about the beach ever since the 3 feet of snow melted! It was a 100 degree day with ridiculous humidity, so it was either stay indoors or go to the beach....and the beach won! Hooray!

Adalena loves the sand!! She probably ate 1/2 the sand around her, but she was so happy who could stop her?

So again it was HOT, I am talking about 2nd degree burns on your feet from the sand..and this crazy lady was just lying there!!! Can we say skin cancer??? Seriously!!!! Even Adalena thought it wasn't smart!


We had a blast, and luckily Brenton didn't have the camera with him when I was knocked over by one of the waves and totally fell on my keester...don't worry all the people around us were laughing, so you can picture what I looked like, and then laugh too!

The beach is still calling my name, so there WILL be another visit before the end of summer, wanna come???

G-E-R-M-S

Today my daughter crawled into our fireplace.

So that officially made the fireplace a non working fireplace this coming winter.

I have become one of those moms! The mom that as my friend Julianne once said, "sees the germ particles in the air" I wasn't always this crazy, I blame RSV really 'cause after I have seen what germs can do to my precious delicate baby...well I just don't tolerate it....kinda

I say kind of because I am a big supporter of taking baths daily, sometimes twice a day, washing hands after touching anything that the public has touched, hand sanitizer, Clorox wipes, Lysol spray and any other cleaning product that I can think of.

however.....I don't jump to the fact that she got a hold of a shoe and is gnawing on the bottom of it, I just sterilized her sippy cups for the 2nd time ever! I would be lying if I said Lena has never found a dirty diaper and was curious to how the outside tasted.(she had it for like 3 sec) She may or may not have shared her food with Chloe her dog

Ewww...I know

It's not Official

Until there is a mug created with your picture on it

And this is why we get daddy mugs for his special day!




Doesn't it just make your heart melt???

Seeing Double

One is my Chloe and the other is a friend's dog Lilly. They even have matching bark collars!

It's that time again!

SummerTime!!!

365 Down

I made this and yes I am going to hang it year round!!

I can't believe how fast 365 days can go when you have the greatest baby in the world!
Sadly I can't remember the first 2 months of Lena's life...and if I did then I would be able to remember where I put my wedding ring

Okay so the day has finally come and it was so much fun. On Sunday we had a rehearsal B-day party
As you can see the rehearsal was very much needed since she had no idea what was going on and why we were all singing to her, she kept looking at us like we were crazy.


Now all that practice the day before really paid off. I think today she was actually able to get all her cake on her face/head/ears/eye lashes/up the nose
Uhh Lena...you have something on your face


The moment she hit that awesome sugar high WALL she was dazin' for a few minutes

This picture brought to you by my friend Rileigh!! And the letter T
(All other pictures where taken by me and my "i have no idea how to take pretty pictures" skillz)

Lets just remember last year shall we:
me +hospital bed+the drugs=Happy
Lena+being taken from womb without her permission=not so happy

Here is to another 1 million ba-jillion more days my sweet love!! Next year's b-day theme...Casino night!

Welcome to the Family!!

Brenton and I decided that we wouldn't purchase shoes for Ms. Adalena until she is walkin' around.

This last week she decided that she crawled long enough, and has been walking all over the place it's still so foreign to me.
You could only imagine my surprise when I didn't have to bribe my husband to let me go buy shoes, and he participated!!!

Her Smile lights up my life

For the last 358 days this beautiful little girl has been in my life and her smile just melts my heart! I double dog dare you to look at these and not smile!