A Weekend to Remember

Shortly after graduating from college, Brandon and I ventured to the north suburbs of Chicago to start our careers in our first post-college jobs. We settled in Gurnee, found a church we loved, and soon after formed friendships with many people at that church. We only stayed in Gurnee for two years, and have been gone for five years, but still value those friendship dearly.

Brandon and I decided a while ago that we wanted to venture north and visit with our friends that have never even had the chance to meet our girls. So, we scheduled some personal days off from work, booked a hotel, and off we went.

We had a fantastic weekend! Aside from a hotel nightmare that included us switching hotels in the middle of the night with two sleeping little girls, we really enjoyed ourselves. We ate plenty of good food, did lots of shopping at outlet malls, and reconnected with our friends. Looking forward already to the next reunion!

Dinner at Rainforest Cafe was a big hit

Checking out the fish with her friend

A lot of money went down here this night

The fondue tradition has been successfully passed on to the next generation

She means business!

A Magical Weekend

A few months ago, one of my Facebook friends posted something about a Disney on Ice show coming to the area. As soon as I saw that post, I knew what we were going to be doing for Brynlee's birthday. After telling our families about our plans, Brandon's mom was all-in and suggested an extended family weekend to see the ice show. She LOVES ice skating and did not want to miss this. So, we headed out last Saturday with Brandon's parents to Indianapolis and met my parents there. We got a fantastic hotel deal on Priceline and we ended up having the.best.weekend. We were able to check in early to the Hyatt, get settled in our rooms, headed out for lunch, and then straight to the show! Here is a barrage of photos from our weekend that highlight all of the fun we had!

Testing out the comfy hotel bed

Somebody was a little tired

Trust me, Bryn was more excited than she looks

Somebody suckered her Mamaw into buying her a princess light

Enough pictures, bring on the skating!

Little one's nap didn't last long...she wanted in on the action too!

Mickey and Minnie getting things started

She's in the zone now

She spent the whole first half of the show asking for Rapunzel. She just loves her!

All the princesses for the finale...a fantastic experience and great weekend with our families!

Sick Day

Brynlee and I have not been feeling the greatest over the last couple of days. When I picked Brynlee up from her sitter's yesterday, she told me Brynlee was running a 101 fever. So, in the afternoon it was off to the doctor for us. Unfortunately, the sitter had given Brynlee some Tylenol, which in turn lowered her temp, and the doctor thought we were crazy since it appeared we brought in a perfectly healthy child. Brynlee has continued to run a fever for the last 36 hours and this morning woke up looking like this:

All the snot just makes you feel so bad for her, doesn't it?! If you feel really bad for her, we'd welcome you to come make her feel better by trying to wipe all that nastiness off her face every morning. She pitches a fit! Anyways, I decided to use a sick day and stay home with her today and am so glad I did. She's gone back and forth between acting like herself and then being completely pathetic and curling up on my lap. I hate that she's sick, but I'm not gonna lie....I love that she's been cuddling up with me :) I miss those baby days when all she wanted to do was lounge around in our arms. Now, she doesn't have time to snuggle up with her mom and dad....she's got people to see, places to go, and things to explore!

Luckily, it appears Brandon has been spared (hopefully not just temporarily) the nastiness that Bryn and I have endured. Pray that we're on the road to recovery soon and that Brynlee is back to her normal shenanigans in no time :)

My Olivet, Our Olivet

After the Olivet football game last Saturday, we took Brynlee on a tour of our alma mater, and her future stomping grounds. She thoroughly enjoyed the visit and we look forward to many more trips there with her!

Visiting our "spot" where we

would start to think even

in those early days of college

that maybe we could be more than friends :)

Brynlee's really glad her mommy and daddy

got to spend all that time in the quad getting

to know each other!

Checking out Chapman Hall and dreaming

that she can meet her hubby at Olivet

just like her mommy did!

Seeing where Mommy lived her

freshman year (3rd window up on the right).

Daddy spent a lot of time in the

lobby and on the steps of this building too!

Milby Clock Tower

Grandma looks thrilled

to be at the planetarium!

(P.S.-Mom, how HUGE is that sweatshirt

you've got on?!)

My favorite alumnus along with

our future Olivetian!

She was over the "Olivet Experience"

by this point :)

Our Family!

Wedding Weekend

It's been so long since I've updated our blog that my sister had to beg for an update via Facebook. I'm happy to oblige her request :) Things have been pretty busy here lately, so I'm planning installments of the Yoder family happenings in numerous blog posts.

Brandon's cousin, Molly, got married last weekend on the golf course. It was a little chilly that day for an outdoor August wedding, but it was beautiful! The occasion allowed for Brynlee to finally meet her cousins Elli and Kolbyn. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the three of them, but Elli and Kolbyn couldn't get enough of "Baby Brynlee." I'm sure the three of them will be thick as thieves in due time.

Brynlee enjoying the rehearsal dinner

Brandon and Brynlee before the ceremony

Brandon and Kolbyn, the ring "bear," showing off their growls

The Girls

Kolbyn sneaking his 2nd (or 3rd!) cupcake of the night

Do these two look like trouble or what?!

Brynlee and the beautiful bride

Take note boys, this girl loves flowers :)

Congratulations James and Molly!

A Review Via Pictures

Blogging has taken a bit of a back seat lately as we have been way too busy. But I'll attempt to review everything we've been up to with the aid of some pictures.

Our dear friends Brad and Aubree welcomed their little baby boy (and Brynlee's future husband) on July 15th. We're excited to go and meet little Owen and hang out with our college crew next weekend.

We attended Brandon's company picnic and Brynlee was the hit of the party. The bow always draws a crowd :) Brandon and Brynlee rocked out their matching Interra shirts, even though it's hard to see in this picture.

We took Brynlee to her first baseball game to watch the South Bend Silverhawks! We put her in the Snugli, which she previously hated, and she was happy and content the whole time. We didn't stay the whole game, but it was a fun experience nonetheless.

Brynlee got to take in the sights and sounds of the Elkhart County 4-H Fair. I intended on taking pictures of her there, but instead all I have to show for our days spent at the fairgrounds is this picture of a pig and her less-than-24-hours-old babies.

Last weekend was Yoderpalooza '09 (aka Yoder Family Reunion). We had a great time spent participating in Yoder Olympics, relaxing, catching up, and spending time with 60 or so of our family members. Brandon won two events in the Yoder Olympics. He was happy about it until he realized he was the oldest winner by about 10 years. I told him it's a good sign...it means that even at the age of 27, he can still keep up with the young kids :)

Brynlee had her 6 month checkup, where she was actually about 6.5 months. She weighed 16 pounds 1 ounce and was 25.75 inches long. She's gone from the 5th percentile at birth to between the 25th and 50th percentile. She had to get 3 shots, but didn't seem phased since she got to show off her crawling skills and play with the toys :)

We've also been doing a lot of baby bathing at our house. Brynlee has decided that her food is far more fun to play with than to eat, so she usually looks like the picture below after every meal. I never thought I'd be the type to undress my kid to eat, but it's either that or change/ruin clothes at every meal.

Brynlee also won Polka Dot Bowtique's Amish Acres photo contest with the picture below. We get free tickets to the Arts and Crafts Festival this weekend and $20 in free bows....woohoo!!

And last, but not least, there has been a lot of this going on at our house. Makes all the fussing, food throwing, and diaper changing worth it :)

Brynlee's First Fourth

Last weekend was extremely busy at our house. My parents arrived on Friday to stay with us for the long weekend and we jam-packed their stay with tons to keep us all busy! 

Friday night we ventured to downtown Goshen. Our town has an event called "First Fridays" that takes place on, you guessed it, the first Friday of every month. This month's activity/event was a classic car cruise down Main Street. We saw tons of great old cars and enjoyed strolling around downtown.

Brynlee hanging out with Grandma and watching the parade of hot rods

Touching grass for the first time

Saturday, Brandon and I had a surprise birthday party to attend. My parents watched Brynlee for us, but I was home pretty quick because our little peanut tried peas for the first time and I wanted to be there to watch her reaction.

This is so much better than that boring cereal!

Sunday night we headed out to Brandon's cousin's house to watch fireworks. I was a little nervous to take Brynlee because it would be way past her bedtime and I figured she'd be just a peach to deal with by the end of the night. But, I managed to get her to sleep inside the house just as the fireworks were starting. And to everyone's surprise, though she slept about 50 yards from where the fireworks were shot off, she snoozed through the entire 25 minute show. Angel!

My All-American Babe :)

We're looking forward to a little more relaxed week here at home. We're taking Brynlee to get her 6 month pictures taken tomorrow night, but that's about our whole agenda for the week. Can't wait to see how her pics turn out!