Brielle 5 months old

Brielle you are 5 months old already!!  It’s hard to believe how fast time is flying by.  These past two weeks you got your first cold.  Even though you felt miserable, you were still a sweet angel girl!  If you were being held and loved upon you were happy.  Not as much got done around the house, but I really enjoyed being your mom, your comforter and your protector.  I love nursing you and having you hold my hand.  Brielle, there is something very special about you.  I know that you were sent straight to me (us) from the presence of our Father in Heaven.  You have a special light in your eyes.  I know that you were supposed to be in our family.  God knew that I needed you before I knew it.  I know that God sent you to me for a purpose.  When I look into your eyes, my soul feels at peace, my heart feels like it’s going to overflow with love and I feel soooooo blessed.  You have been nothing but a joy in our lives!!!  We all love you sweetheart!!

Your new accomplishments include rolling all over the place, laughing, eating solid food, ok, you’ve only tried rice cereal so far, but you love it.  You have found your voice and love to talk and talk and talk…. You make so many happy sounds!!  You love walking around in your walker, you don’t have any aim yet so many times we have to rescue you when you walk under the table.  It’s cute, you fit right under it without hitting your head and the table cloth hides you and I’ll just there you laughing and trying to talk under there.  You love holding toys and chewing on them.  You get so excited to see Daddy and the kids when they get home from school.  You LOVE to be played with and talked to.   You get up in the morning so happy and cheerful.  You love helping me wake up the kids in the morning.  You love our dog,  Daisy, she’s got your back.  She cleans up all your spit up messes.  Gross, but convenient. 

Brielle, you are a JOY!!!  We love you our Precious Angel!! 

Merry Christmas!

2012 has been another eventful year for the Laing family. 

LeGrand is in his second year serving as the Principal at the Timpview High School Seminary in Provo.  He is really enjoying the experiences he is having with the students and faculty there.  LeGrand was released from serving as bishop in April. 

We sold our old home and purchased a new one.  We’re still in Springville but just on the other side of town.  The kids had to change schools, which has been difficult for them but they have quickly found lots of great new friends.  Although the adjustment has been and continues to be difficult for us as well, we are enjoying our new ward and stake.  We are surrounded by lots of great people.  We LOVE our new Home and feel so blessed!!!!   

The best part of the year was the birth of our 5^th child- a daughter whom we named Brielle.  Despite a difficult pregnancy, Becca again did an amazing job delivering yet another healthy baby.  Brielle has been an absolute joy to our family!  We love her so much!

Brayden is in 6^th grade and played Tackle Football this fall.  LeGrand was his coach and they both had a blast!!  We all had tons of fun cheering for Brayden and watching him grow!  He LOVES it, just like his Dad!! 

Adelyn is in 4^th grade, in the school Choir, playing Basketball and being my huge helper here at home.  She is soooo good with Brielle.  It’s been nice having a baby when we have such capable helpers!!  

Sophie is in 2^nd grade and is becoming quite an artist!  She is also in love with her baby sister and is so sweet and full of happy energy.  Sophie has the best imagination ever.  She has fun and helps who ever she’s with to have fun too.

Kolby is almost 5. Wow, where has the time gone.  He’s had quite the adjustment with the hard pregnancy, moving and not being the baby anymore.  He love Brielle so much, maybe too much but has become a huge mamma’s boy.  He loves to be where I am and he totally takes care of me.  He’s such a helper, he opens the doors for me, gets things for me and even helps me up from the couch.  He’s my little buddy!!  I’ve really enjoyed this time with my Kolbs-buddy.  I’ll really miss him next year when he starts Kindergarten. 

Brielle is growing up way too fast!!  It has been incredible having her in our family!  She has all of us wrapped around her little finger.  She is laughing, rolling over and makes us smile all day long.  She is such an angel and we are grateful that Heavenly Father sent her to us!!! 

We are so blessed.  We love you and are grateful for you.

May God bless you with a wonderful 2013! 

Sincerely,

The Laings J 

LeGrand, Becca, Brayden, Addy, Sophie, Kolby, Brielle 

Brielle 4 months old

Brielle you are already 4 months old.  You are such a sweetheart, we seriously are all in love with you!!  You are getting so strong, you are rolling over now.  You've discovered your little play station.  You are still trying to get used to it, I don’t think you realize how fun it is yetJ.  You will soon enough since you are just growing up to fast!  You continue to have our whole family wrapped around your little finger.  You are a good eater/nurser.  Our only problem with that is how much you throw up.  We've never had a throw-up-er like you before.  We’re hoping you grow out of this lovely stage before too long.  That might be the only time you’ll hear me say that.  Other than this, you are growing up too fast. J  We have been trying everything to help you keep down your food better, from changing mom’s diet, to nursing for not at long.  The Dr. gave you a prescription to help with your projectile vomiting but we felt better about not giving you those and using essential oils on your little tummy.  If I rub Digest-Zen from Doterra on your tummy each time before you nurse, you don’t throw up as much.  Good news!!  I’m grateful in-spite of all the throwing up, you are still gaining and thriving!!!  Hopefully we can get to the bottom of this soon.  It makes us worry about you.   

I love how your hair is growing in.  It reminds me of Adelyn and Sophie’s hair when they were growing in, but especially Addy’s.  Your hair just sticks straight up.  You look like a cute little dandelion with your fuzzy hair sticking up all over the place.  Even just thinking about your smile make me smile.  We  Love you Sweetheart!!   

Brielle 3 months old

3 months old!!  Wow!!! Sweetheart, You are growing up way too fast!!!  You continue to be such a joy in our lives.  Everyone one who sees you says, “Oh, she is SOOOOO Beautiful!!!”  or “That’s the cutest baby I’ve ever seen…seriously!”  You turn heads everywhere you go.  You are probably the most popular person in our new ward.  I’m teaching primary and haven’t wanted you to get sick with all the germs that are passed around there, so Dad gets to take you.  The only thing is that Dad doesn’t even get you for long.  There are so many nice women in our ward that just can’t wait to get their turns with you.  Seriously, there is a waiting list….people have to call places in line just to get a squeeze on our precious angel girl!!  Everyone who gets to hold you comment to me about how fun it is to hold you, how much peace you bring to them, how there is a special spirit about you.  I agree with everything they say!!  You are the Presh-Presh!!!

You have also found your Thumb.  You little stinker J When ever we see you sucking on it, we pull it out and put your binkie in you mouth…that works for a while, then I turn around again and you’ve found your thumb again.  We’ll see how long you try to pull this off.  

Brielle's 2 months old

Brielle, I can't believe that you are already 2 months old. In some ways it feels like you are still so new and in others it feels like you have been in our family forever! You are such a good sleeper!  Most of the time you sleep a good 6-8 hours in a row at night, then eat and go back to bed for a few more hours!  I'm getting spoiled!  You are starting to become really smiley and fun to play with.  Your brothers and sisters can’t get enough of you.  So far you’ve acquired lots of nick names…some are “the Presh-Presh” “The Bri-Bri” “The Most Bootiful-Bootiful(the beautiful beautiful in baby talkJ) ”  “The most Beautiful Presh Presh” “The Pity Ittles”(the pretty littlesJ) I’m sure there will be more to come!!  We love you our Precious Angel Girl!!! 

Some pictures  from her 6 week photo shoot....

Some pictures from her 8 week photo shoot...

Love this girly girl!!!

Strawberry Footballs

These pictures were taken last year, but because it's full fledged football season in our home right now I thought it would be appropriate to post this on this year.We love strawberries, chocolate and football in the house, so these treats were perfect!!  I love Pinterest!! So many cute ideas!!   

Yummy!!!

Wicked

For our 13th Anniversary LeGrand and I went to see WICKED!!!!  It was amazing!!  LeGrand bought the tickets thinking that it was a little risky because it was about 2 1-2 weeks before I was due to have Brielle. When Brielle came 3 weeks early we really didn't know what to do.  We wanted to go, but can you leave a 4 day old baby to go to a musical?!?!  Well, we decided to go. Thanks to Helga for watching all 5 of our kiddos we had a blast.  The play was Fabulous and the company was even better!!  I'm so blessed to be married to this amazing man!!  He is one of my biggest blessings and I thank God every day for him!!  These past 13 years have been incredible!!  13 down and eternity to go!!  I love you honey!!  

Brielle 1 month old

Having Brielle in our family has seriously been such a joy.  This first month of life as a family of 7 has been a memorable one. I've loved having the kids home as we've really enjoyed the final month of summer all together.  We enjoyed watching the Olympics together cuddling with a sweet sweet newborn.  I just sat and cuddled her every minute that I could.  I just wanted to drink it all in and cherish it forever.  Babies grow and change so fast, they are so precious, sweet, and straight from Heaven.  It's such a miracle to have a baby.  When I look into Brielle's eyes I feel her sweet spirit, I feel close to our Father in Heaven. Sometime when she's just looking off I wonder what she's seeing, what she's remembering.  Seeing Brayden, Adelyn, Sophie and Kolby with their baby sister brings me so much joy....ok some stress too, especially when Kolby decides he wants to carry her to me or be my extra big helper in some other way.  But for the most part they are all incredible with her.  They all help me change her diaper, get her dressed.  It's been such a different experience to have a baby with older kids that are very capable helper, who can help me with Brielle and help in taking care of themselves more.  Oh it's wonderful!!!!!

Brielle's first month was a little challenging..  Even though the delivery went fairly smoothly I was still tired and trying to recover.  Trying to take care of 5 kiddos is busy...not a lot of spare time...always doing something, loving someone, feeding someone, cleaning up after someone, teaching someone....Nights and days were mixed up which is totally normal, but there were a few things that we had to deal with that we've never dealt with before.  Brielle had Jaundice bad enough that we had to keep taking her back to the hospital about every other day for the first 1 1/2 weeks. If her #'s went up one more number she would have been under the lights.  Due to the fact that she was jaundice and that she was 3 weeks early she just wanted to sleep all the time.  We had to take her clothes off, change her diaper, rub her down, bathe her, flick her feet, wipe her down with a wet washcloth..I know it sounds so mean, just to try to get her awake to eat.  This process had to be done a few time during each feeding to try to keep her awake.  It was a chore to say the least.  She wasn't a very good nurser either which creates it's own set of complications too.  My milk started drying up, she stopped having wet/poopy diapers, she started loosing weight.  I don't know what I would have done without help from my cousin Sheri K who is a lactation consultant.  She was great, she talked to me, texted me, came over to help... she answered tons of questions that I had and was amazing.  You'd think that after I've nursed 4 other babies that I would have this all down and be a pro...I guess the Lord was reminding me that all babies are different and that I still have lots to learn.  I had to nurse Brielle every 2 hours, then pump to try to get my milk supply back up and then give her a bottle after each feeding to make sure that she was getting enough and gaining weight again.

At Brielle's 2 week check up she weighed almost 1 pound less than her birth weight.  That was even after we'd been supplementing after each feeding. It was stressful, I was so worried about her and getting worn out.  Since I fed her about every 2 hours and each feeding took close to an hour, it felt like that was all I was doing....We'll she started latching on better, eating more and finally started gaining weight.  It took her 4 weeks to get back to her birth weight.  Now she's gaining and doing well..  The stress levels have gone down  quite a bit.

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 Brielle seriously has such a sweet spirit.  I know she's a fighter, I know that she's supposed to be in our family.  She already beat the odds of being born healthy, with all of my pregnancy complications.  I'm grateful that the Lord had sent her into our lives.  I can't even imagine life with out our sweet angel girl!!!!