Our little Sunshine

How can I not be happy with this pint sized ray of sunshine living in my house? Brinley is almost 9 months and her personality remains cheerful and sweet as ever. Here's an update on the latest and greatest with little miss happy : )
Since January 27th She has had back to back ear infections. She was treated with antibiotics for three of them. She finally broke the chain last week and escaped having to get tubes put in her ears! Despite some night wakings she has still been remarkably pleasant through all this.

If the earaches weren't enough, she has also finally decided to break her first tooth! (better late than never right?) Teething has brought out her drooly slobbery side and we see a lot more of her tongue but it's good to know that she does indeed have teeth under those gums.

She's not crawling yet, at least in the traditional way. She is quite capable of getting anywhere she wants with her super inchworm skills, but she just kind of likes to take her time inching from place to place and I guess doesn't feel hurried enough to actually crawl. She does great in the tub though and takes baths regularly with Teya. In fact, Teya now refers to the right side of the tub as Brinley's side.
Her hair is really starting to come in on the top and it's totally out of control! Even when I wet it and comb it down it still ends up spiked out in several places.

And finally, she LOVES music and will "dance" anytime she hears a song with a beat. When she's sitting up the dance consists of her rocking back and forth and side to side with a big smile on her face. When she's on all fours she rocks on her hands and knees till she gets tired and then collapses to the floor and does the floor rock 'em dance (see video) It's one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Anyway, here's a little clip to demonstrate some of her moves. Enjoy!

Taber's new career

It all started one day when a woman stopped Taber at work and asked if he would have his picture taken as a possible candidate for a General Mills Ad photo shoot. He figured, "why not?" so he went and they snapped his picture. Anyway, a few weeks and a couple call backs later he was chosen for the shoot and so began his career as a male model.

On the day of the shoot, while I sat at home in my mommy jeans and food stained t-shirt, up to my elbows in laundry and dirty diapers (okay, not really but I gotta make this sound good) Taber was living the life, getting pampered and primped by the wardrobe and hair people; Eating great food, shooting the breeze with his fellow "models" and occasionally getting in front of the camera for a picture now and then. For all his "hard work" he got a $50 Visa card and a day away from his desk for sitting around and looking pretty. Geez! (In case you were wondering, Taber works for General Mills and sometimes they recruit employees and friends and family members to be in their ads because it saves them $$ that they don't have to pay real models.)

So here is one of the pictures from the shoot. You can see it in all it's glory on the Betty Crocker website here: I thought it was funny that the family they chose for Taber is actually the same make up as his real fam, a cute wife and two daughters ; ) It's also impressive how Springy it looks in the picture since outside the studio the snow was coming down in droves that day.

Anyway, since Taber was getting so spoiled at work I had to do something to give him a hard time. So I taught Teya how to say "Daddy's a male model" Then had her call him at work and when he said "Hello" She said, "Daddy, are you a Male Mah-DULL?" (She totally dragged out the word model giving it some extra oomph!) Taber half laughed and half groaned at his new title. Teya thought it was hilarious and for a week she would dance around the house chanting, "Daddy's a male MoDULL!"

Despite his very fun day in front of the cameras Taber has yet to leave the corporate life. Still, if he ever does, at least he's found his 2nd calling in life ; )

Dog Nanny

The other day I had to run a quick errand but Teya was deeply immersed in playing with play doh and did not want to leave the house.

Me: Come on Teya we have to go bye bye and then we'll be right back!
Teya: No mommy I want to stay here and play with play-doh!
Me: You can't stay here alone, come on let's go.
Teya: No you go with Brinley, I'll stay here.
Me: You can't stay here, who will watch you?
Teya: She looks around thoughtfully then spots our dog and happily exclaims "Monty!"

ha ha! Yeah, I can only imagine what the house would look like if I left THOSE two alone in it! Scary scary thought!

(Teya and Monty when she was 8 monts old)

Love and marriage according to Teya Rigg

Teya has a little stuffed Elephant that she carries with her everywhere. She can't sleep without him, won't drive in the car without him, insist that I zip him up in her coat to keep him warm, makes me throw him in the drier if he so much as gets a drop of water on him because "he don't likes to be wet!"

Anyway, recently Teya has discovered the concept of marriage. She wanted to wear my wedding ring and I told her that she couldn't because it's my special ring that means I'm married to Daddy. Of course she wanted to know what that meant. So I said, "Well, when you really love someone with all your heart and want to spend forever with them then you go to the temple and get married."

It was a brief conversation and I didn't even think she would remember any of it until several days later when she walked in my room with elephant and said in her cute little 3 year old voice,
"Dis is my friend Elephy, he's my best friend and I'm gonna marry him."
"Really?" I replied
"Yeah, I'm gonna marry elephant and we going to get marry at the temple."

I couldn't believe she remembered what I told her about marriage and had a pretty decent grasp of it (well, besides the whole you can't marry an elephant or a stuffed animal thing) . I was impressed! Since then she constantly talks about Elephy and how they're married. She reached out her hand to me the other day and put my hand in hers and said, "there! now we're married because I love you so much!!" She's also informed me that she would like to marry Brinley and Daddy too. ; )
This picture is funny because we were at a restaurant and she looked like a total orphan child with her ratty hair, but she saw what she deemed to be a great background and said, "Oooo Mommy take my picture here!" So I did. Then she smashed Elephant up against the wall and said, "Take a picture of elephant too!" She really does love that thing.

A glimpse of Spring

On Monday, after 5 long months of winter we were given a little glimpse of Spring. The temperature got up into the 60s! EVERYONE was outside. I saw several people jogging in shorts and tank tops. We went to the little park by our house that we haven't visited for months. Last time we played there Brinley was just a sleepy little lump kickin' back in the Snugli. Now she can go down the slide (on my lap of course) and enjoy the park a lot more.

Today we are back down in the 30's but Monday's beautiful weather was enough to help me realize that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and that my "You have to wear your coat" battles with Teya will soon be a thing of the past. Can't wait!

Girly Girl Initiation

When Grandma Karen comes to visit you know that everyone is going to get a little spoiled. This last week "Queen Grandma" (as Teya calls her) took "princess Teya" (her new preferred title since Grandma came to town) to get her very first pedicure. When we got there they told her to pick a color. We went to a wall with hundreds of bottles of nail polish, most of them varying shades of pink and red. Teya somehow found the blue one in that sea of red and couldn't wait to get her toes painted blue.
When she sat down her little legs could barely reach the water. I thought she would be scared but if Grandma was doing it than by golly she was going to do it too!
The guy who did her nails was so funny and cute with her. When he first touched her feet she flinched, but then declared, "I'M SO BRAVE!" He got such a kick out of that. Through out the whole pedicure he kept telling her, "you're so brave huh?"
The pedicure included some callous buffing and parafin wax dip, but after watching Grandma there was no way she was going to let them do that to her. So they painted her fingernails instead. When it was all over she was showing off her nails to anyone that would look and said, "I can't wait to show daddy, he's gonna lub it so much!"

Other highlights from Grandma's visit:

Visiting the Good Old Mall of America. For all the times we've been there I've still never made it past the first two floors. (There are 4)

Having an extra pair of hands to help out around the house. Seriously, it was pure bliss to be able to run errands, take a shower, cook dinner and work out without any interruptions.
Teya was in heaven having someone who was never too busy to play with her. They played with play dough, painted, colored, made foam creatures (above picture) played Queen and princess, put together puzzles and spent many hours playing with Teya's Dora memory game. By the end of the week Teya would wake up and go straight to Grandma's room without even bothering to say good morning to me. (who can blame her though, Grandmas are just too fun!)
And last but certainly not least, we got to eat at yummy restaurants, which means no cooking for me (yeah!) I love these last two pictures because Teya is just so happy in them. She really was overjoyed to have her Grandma in town.
Sadly Grandma left today and the house doesn't quite feel the same with her gone. We miss her so much but are so glad that she came. Thank you so much for being here Grandma Karen! We love you and can't wait for you to come out again!

Never turn your back for a minute!

If you're wondering what's on the wall behind Brinley : it's squash.

If you're wondering how it got there: So am I!

Shiver me Timbers! Teya is 3!

Any disappointment I had in Teya choosing pirates over fairies was completely gone after her party last weekend. Turns out pirates are super fun and wouldn't you know, there were TONS of pirate party ideas on the internet that really helped out with the party planning! We decided to do little stations instead of a more organized agenda just because the age group we were dealing with was pretty young and if you have a 3 year old you know their attention spans are lacking : ) So here are a few of the activities we had:

1) Shark toss with little beanbags (also worked well for photo ops!) After they got three bean bags through sharkie's mouth they earned a sword and an eyepatch.

2) Pin the treasure chest on the treasure map. Again, we adjusted for the age group and instead of having just one winner we gave everyone a prize who put a sticker on.

3) Tatoo station. Everyone got to go the "tatoo parlor" for their own temporary pirate tatoo.

4) Walk the plank. One of my friend's showed me a video of her niece walking the plank and I thought it was so cute because everyone clapped and shouted, "PLANK! PLANK! PLANK!" While she walked across. We did the same thing with ours and Teya loved it! When we got home that night she grabbed her beloved stuffed elephant and chanted "plank! plank! plank!" while she walked him all over the living room.

5) The kids earned pirate telescopes for walking the plank and they were a huge hit! Teya still plays with hers.
And finally we sang happy birthday and ate pirate ship cake, which didn't turn into a shipwreck and actually tasted pretty good. Woo! For someone who is usually intimidated by cooking it wasn't too hard to make. Here is a link to the instructions if you ever find yourself in need of a pirate ship cake.
We put candles on both sides of the cake to look like cannons. She did a great job blowing them out (with some very subtle help from mom ; )

Also just wanted to throw in this picture so you could see the little pirates and treasure on top of the cake.
Kids ended up eating cupcakes (less mess and they don't need utensils) I didn't monitor how many Teya got but she had a pretty bad sugar hangover the next day. ; )

Glad we got to get a little more use out of our Halloween costumes : )

The Rigg Pirate Clan

In the end we had a great turnout and the birthday girl had lots of fun. I had fun too. As my family can tell you, I love to plan parties! So this was the perfect way to get through a very cold February in Minnesota. Thanks again to everyone who came and once again, Happy Birthday to the cutest Captain on the high seas! ARRR!!

Here's a little video of the festivities. Enjoy!

Pirate Party from Taber Rigg on Vimeo.

Coming Soon...

Pirate party pics are coming soon! As the hostess of the party I was too busy to take many pictures. Luckily I asked some of our awesome friends to take some pics and they were so sweet to snap photos throughout the party. Anyway, as soon as I get the pics I'll post all the details of Teya's pirate bash. : )

In case you were wondering though, I am happy to report that my cake was not a shipwreck and actually came out looking like a pretty sweet pirate ship. (My kitchen didn't fare quite as well and needed some serious recovery after my cake making efforts : )