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.
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.
My 25th birthday started out a bit rough, as mentioned previously. By the time David came home I was in much better spirits, but I still wasn’t thrilled about the day, to say the least. We decided to open gifts first since our reservations weren’t until 8:30. My parents had sent a good size Amazon box and an outfit they had ordered a few weeks ago arrived as well. David loves to spoil me (be worried about our children) so he bought me a romance novel, a K-Drama that I love, flowers, a cake, and a gift card to the spa for after Brielle is born. He also got me a very sweet card. He loves me.
I opened my parent’s box and was so surprised. It was filled with things for Brielle! Happy patterns and cute newborn outfits. I was so excited by them. David said in a disappointed voice, “Your parents outdid me this year.” He was not happy about that lol. I spent quite a bit of time looking at each thing and putting the newborn outfits together. David was excited about them too, but kind of jealous that I wasn’t as excited about his gifts. Poor David. Seeing all of those things for Brielle made me so happy and cheered me up. It was so fun imagining her chubby, little legs kicking out of her onesie. So cute! David then said, “How do you put those things on and how do you change a diaper? Do you take the whole outfit off?” It hadn’t occurred to me that I needed to teach David how to do those things. We needed to have a crash course on babies.
We had a nice dinner out, which Brielle enjoyed as well. We have a bit of problem there, she enjoys expensive steak a bit too much. We’re not continuing that for her after she’s born. Mommy and Daddy are still having good steak though.
When we came home, David grabbed Brielle’s American Girl doll, Grace, and I set up a station on the coffee table to teach David how to change a diaper. That was interesting. Not because of David, but because the doll was not flexible – at all. We had a lot of fun though! David did such a good job, he’s worried he won’t do it right, I kept telling him that he will know. He’ll know what to do and he is already doing such a great job. He said he wanted to be a good daddy. I told him he was already a great daddy. Brielle loves him so much! He’s still worried, but hopefully not as much. To be fair, it is quite a bit to take in and learn when you’ve never been around newborns before.
Saturday we saw The Martian, which was good. We have read the book a couple of times and the book is hysterical, terrible language, but hilarious. The movie was not so funny. We still had fun and Brielle liked it too. After the movie we went to a Carter’s store and bought Brielle a bunch of outfits. That was so much fun! We both enjoyed that, David was amazed at how tiny everything was. I even had fun doing laundry that night. I washed all of Brielle’s little clothes and blankets. It made me so happy to fold a little stack just for her.
Overall I had a great birthday weekend. It started out really rough, but spending time with my sweet family was all I needed. I got to spoil my little girl, eat cake, spend time with David, and get dog snuggles from my sweet fur children. And we had an amazing Sunday. It was an emotional birthday, but a great one.
Look at Rosie and Emmy. Do you think they want cake?My white cake with white buttercream cake.Look at all the gifts Brielle and I got!David trying his best to put clothes on the doll.Still trying…He did it!
Brielle is so happy today! Maybe because she knows today is her 26th week! We have a big surprise for her this weekend. A trip to Savannah, GA and Tybee Island. AND we’re meeting Papa and Grandma! So much excitement and adventure for a little girl.
On a side note, she’s been dancing like crazy for Christian music today. Favorite so far is Do Life Big by Jamie Grace. However, a few days ago it was Iron Man by Black Sabbath. Silly girl has very eclectic tastes!
What a day! We’re celebrating Brielle’s 25th week this week. I saw that there was an ice cream festival at Piedmont Park and so we decided that was the best thing to do this weekend!
We’re so silly. The “festival” didn’t offer much and the lines were so long we couldn’t even get close to the food trucks and have ice cream. So we walked, and walked, and walked. Between round ligament pain, the heat, a bum foot, and swollen feet. The park experience had me telling David how much I hated him, surprisingly a first in our relationship. Poor David and poor Brielle. She hated the experience. She was giving me her, “I hate this!” kicks, and jamming her little feet right into my side that was in pain. Oh it was fun.
The real fun part was when we went shopping at Phipps Plaza, before Piedmont Park. This mall of course had me saying, “Why can’t all malls be like this?” Phipps has all of my favorite stores in one building! Other malls just don’t. So David and I took Brielle on a bit of a shopping experience. I think she slept through the whole thing. But Mommy had fun! I tried on shoes at L.K. Bennett, which were amazing, really, everyone go buy a pair. But leave the size 42s for me please (European sizing for those who don’t know). Then we went to Tiffany’s, because they have beautiful charm bracelets and Brielle and I decided that we need one. There is a ballet slipper charm that I’d like to get for Brielle since her first book that she liked was called “The Silver Slippers.” So I picked out exactly what I want and had it written down for David. I like to just tell him exactly what I want for presents, instead of letting him guess and come up with things that I don’t like. Then we went to Saks and walked around, looked at YSL bags, and more shoes. Mommy was in heaven. And then Piedmont Park happened.
I will say the park was beautiful and we can’t wait to go back when I’m not pregnant.
We had dinner at Stony River, a tasty steak house in the Atlanta area. I gave Brielle shrimp for the first time, she was unimpressed to say the least. And we had stone pups, a tasty donut like bread they serve, that was a huge hit! Maybe the first bread ever that she has liked. We then had filet mignon, of course, and au gratin potatoes. She was a huge fan of the au gratin and enjoyed the steak. We then went to Bruster’s on the way home and Brielle and I had chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. She liked it better than the shrimp, but it wasn’t her favorite.
We also discovered today that Brielle likes Van Halen and AC/DC a lot. Really starts dancing for AC/DC. She also likes Queen, while listening to We Will Rock you for the second time, Brielle kicked in time with the stomping clap part. She’s so funny, she loves her music!
lovingbrielle.com 