Brielle Is Turning One!

One Of My Favorite Memories: Brielle Hates Dr. Seuss

~ lovingbrielle ~ Leave a comment

One of the things David and I enjoy about Brielle was how opinionated she was. We had no idea that she would react to books we read her, but once we started reading to her, wow, she really did! This was clearly evident in this memory:

“Yesterday, David went out and bought Brielle a bunch of new books. I told her all about them and she did lots of happy wiggles. She especially wiggled for a Winnie the Pooh book he’d bought her. So I read that one to her. She loved it! She wiggled her little butt the whole time. Then I read her a Dr. Seuss book David had bought her. Nothing, she did not like it. No moving, no excitement. Not even happy snuggles, where she’ll curl up on one of my sides. Nothing. She really hates Dr. Seuss. Who knew a baby could hate Dr. Seuss so much? David said that this cannot be. She has to like ’80s hair bands and Dr. Seuss. I told Brielle I’d protect her from both, especially the ’80s hair bands.”

She also, hated, Fox In Socks.

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One night as David read to her Fox In Socks, she kicked the right side of my belly (where David was reading) hard and then ran away to the left side of my belly and burrowed as hard as she could to get away from the sound of his voice. When I told David to stop and try reading something else, she calmed down.

He picked up Beauty & The Beast and began reading, she waited a few moments and then moved back to the right side of my belly, and snuggled up closer to his voice. So cute. She knew what she liked!

A Look Into Brielle’s Party

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In case you’ve been hiding under a rock, today we are celebrating Brielle’s beautiful life! David invited our closest family and friends. We weren’t entirely sure how well we’d do today and we really didn’t feel like blubbering in front of everyone. I’m hoping we’ll be too happy to blubber, we’ll see!

I’ll post more about her cake later today, but for the food we chose to have Papasito’s catered. Brielle loved the mariachi band when we went there for Mexico Independence Day and I thought it was a perfect way to bring that element into the party. Not to mention a lot easier than cooking.

We’ll be having her playlist on throughout the day and as we all know, she loved her music. Queue one of her favorites:

Before Brielle was born, I wanted to throw her a big party, but for various reasons it didn’t happen. This has bothered me ever since. The week before she was born should have been about her and it wasn’t. In many ways, this party is my chance to rectify that for her and myself. I would like to think she will be looking down and watching our celebration for her and that she’ll know how much I wanted to spoil her and treasure her.

I’ve ordered five three foot pink balloons. I’m pulling out the nice dinner ware. I’ve bought her a dress (I wanted something schmancy, but that’s pretty hard to find in 18″ doll size), and we’re surrounding ourselves with those who understand our quirky way of grieving.

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I am so excited to share this day with them and with you all. One of the greatest gifts you all gave David and I was love for our daughter. In so many ways, y’alls love and encouragement helped make our time with her joyful.

Countdown to Brielle Day: Day One

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*Sorry for the late posting, I wrote this on Monday!*

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Re-posting, just in case you missed it the first time. 

I hope you are all doing well. Today we are starting our random acts of kindness stuff (really having a hard time finding the right word) with a truck full of donations to charity. I’ve been in the process of cleaning out our house and streamlining our stuff to the bare minimum. It’s been great and freeing.

I do feel a bit weird calling it a random act of kindness since I feel like I’m gaining in this situation, but we’re going to roll with it. But hey, I wanted to do good things for Brielle’s birthday…and life has been busy, not to mention kind of painful, so here’s to doing the best you can! And I do have to say it’s so nice knowing we’re starting another year since Brielle died, without the things of our past cluttering up our life. I feel like I can breathe a little easier. As if my never ending to do list has shrunk and is almost manageable.

We will be doing something different each day of the week and then Saturday we will be celebrating! I’m excited for Saturday and plan on sharing some sweet videos and pictures of Brielle Bear and filling the day with happy memories of her.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I don’t want Brielle’s life to feel sad and I don’t want her birthday to be sad either. We were given a sweet blessing, that we were able to share with the world, and Saturday is a day that can be celebrated, because I know that I got to be the mommy of the sweetest little girl there ever was! And I’m not biased at all. 

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Did you guys know that most of you wont even read my posts unless I have a picture attached to them? Doesn’t matter what kind of picture either. Maybe I’ll just post memes that make me laugh, so that you can enjoy my humor while you read about my feelings. Then I get to laugh after I’ve written a serious post. 😉

I encourage you to participate in this celebration and if we all lived near to one another I’d want to celebrate with you all personally, but we don’t, so this is my way of bringing the party to you all. I hope this week and this coming Saturday is a little bit brighter for you.

We’ve cried together, laughed together, and grown together and I look forward to coming together again this week.