TWO!

we ran out back so aunt katie could snap a few quick photos of the TWO YEAR OLD! love how they turned out!

brielle is TWO!

I can't believe our sweet girl is already two. It sounds very cliche, but she truly amazes us every single day. She is so smart and really soaks everything up. She says "what's that??" all the time and we will answer her with what it is. She then repeats it as a question, making sure she understood right. The doctors agree that we have a strong-willed girl on our hands and I've known for awhile, but wouldn't have it any other way. 

We had a snow day the day before her birthday which was perfect. We made birthday pancakes & went out to play in the snow. It was freezing and windy outside and her eye lashes looked frozen, but she kept saying more and didn't want to go inside. She loved her little sled and having Riley chase her while Ryan pulled her.  

her first fish, she is obsessed and we have to move it to wherever she is

me & my girl

i'm halfway through my pregnancy and can't believe that in 20 more weeks we'll be a family of 4! we will ask who is in mommy's belly and she'll say "baby brother" and it's the. sweetest. thing. she rests goldfish and toys on my belly to share with her brother. she'll kiss it and sometimes hit it. but mostly kiss. :) soaking up these last months with just my girl and even though I hate having my picture taken most of the time, I decided to have Ryan snap of few of us in our sweet matching scarves he bought us for christmas. :)

it's a BOY!

our plan was to go to our ultrasound, have them write down the gender on paper and then go to dinner that night to open up the envelope. well, my appointment was at 9:30 AM and I surely wasn't going to wait that long to find out. not to mention, I was getting several text messages starting as early as 9:35 AM from a few certain people (mom, katie & pauline!) we decided to go out to lunch instead and find out. ryan opened up the envelope first and then handed it to me to look at it. looking back, i have no clue why we didn't just look at the same time, but I'm pretty sure we did the same thing with Brielle too. i knew ALL along Brielle was a girl and I wasn't shocked a bit when we opened it up and it said girl. this time, I've had a feeling it was a boy all along, but for some reason I was still shocked when I looked at it. we are of course thrilled to be able to have one of each. a lot of people say if they have a boy, they want it to be first, but there's something about a boy having an older sister.

quick iphone pic once we found out

we went over to katie's house that night to tell them what it was. my plan was to order pizza (I was going to go pick it up) and put a sign that said "It's a BOY!" but my plan was quickly ruined when they sent out a menu and told everyone to choose what they want. so, instead of having one box of pizza everyone would be digging into, we had a bunch of individual containers of things. it worked out though because we got a small pizza for the kids. they wanted to eat right away so I waited to put the sign in the box and instead, decided to do a mini scavenger hunt. once most people were out of the room (I couldn't get justin away), I quickly taped the sign inside the box and put it in the fridge. my mom kept asking us to spill the beans and I told them there was a sign somewhere in the house, and they had to find it. they really got into it as you can tell by the video. my dad pointed out a blue magnet (wrong) and katie pointed out a wine bottle with a blue label (wrong). even though, technically, they were right on BLUE. ;)

gender reveal from Meghan Hoy on Vimeo.
     

christmas 2013

christmas tradition is always to go to my parents house for christmas eve, open gifts & order chinese food. colin, evan & brielle were up until almost 10 PM, i couldn't believe it. they all just feed off one another and if they aren't tired & grumpy, they are going full speed.

christmas eve dancing from Meghan Hoy on Vimeo.
christmas morning at our house :) getting her to sit still is nearly impossible, so I was trying to bribe her with fruit snacks. this is her saying "please" for them, haha.

snow baby

our first snow of the year and we were ready to go with our snow tube. a couple of years ago when we got the HUGE snow storm, everywhere was sold out of sleds & tubes so we were sure to be prepared this year! sadly though, after just two times down the hill, our tube popped. our backyard is one big hill so we don't have to go far for some fun sledding/tubing. all the neighborhood kids (and adults!) have a blast in the backyards.

thanksgiving in arizona

thank goodness to a DVD player, lots of fruit snacks, lolly pops and juice....we made it to Arizona. it's funny that when you go on a flight with a toddler, you end up giving them things filled with sugar in hopes they will sleep. luckily, she did for a good portion. she was never super fussy but more antsy to move around and be free. we didn't get her a seat so we had an almost 30 lb 22 month old climbing all over us when she wasn't sleeping. it's a long day/trip, but it was worth it and she had a lot of fun with her other grandparents who she doesn't get to see nearly enough.

i looked up things to do there so we could enjoy the weather and Ryan's mom lives just a few minutes away from the Tucson zoo! Brielle had a blast running around looking at all the animals.

Our last full day there Rob's kids & their family came over and we snapped a quick family photo