Happy Halloween!

We finally carved our pumpkin and dressed Kayleigh up for pictures. Thank you Nana for the pumpkin outfit. Everyone thought it was so cute while we were out running errands. For Halloween night, Kayleigh was a punk rocker...perfect with her mohawk hair! Brett painted a shirt for her of a punk band. :) Enjoy the pictures!

I caught this picture while she was laughing really hard. It was funny! She loves her saucer.

Hope everyone had a very Happy Halloween! Love from the Bonner's!

Pumpkin Patch

Well this update is a little late since it is what we did almost two weeks ago, but my camera got lost in the abyss known as Brett's truck. And what good is a post about the pumpkin patch without pictures of pumpkins?

The weekend before last we headed up to Petaluma to the pumpkin patch. We went to pick out our pumpkin and wander through the corn maze! Now I have been to a corn maze before, so I thought this would be a piece of cake. When we bought our tickets they asked if we wanted a postcard map which was an aerial photo of the maze for $1. Now me being cheap said no way. Brett, who is not cheap and obviously not confident in my corn maze skills, said to buy it. So I bought it (and you see who wears the pants). Well we begin and I realize this was not like the maze I did before. There were no clues. You literally had to wander through 4 acres. People were coming out the entrance because they had wandered around for over an hour and just wanted out! At this point, I was thanking Brett for the map! So we followed the map and literally zipped through. It really took some of the fun out of it though. If you go to a maze, I really recommend finding one with clues that you answer and it tells you which way to go depending on your answer. Brett timed us and it only took us 20 minutes. We had lots of fun petting the animals and picking out the pumpkin of course. Now if you have ever picked out a Christmas tree with me, then you know how long it took to find "the perfect pumpkin." That perfect pumpkin still sits in our kitchen uncarved. Pathetic I know! I guess we will carve it on Halloween. Speaking of Halloween, it is supposed to rain all weekend! Now it has not rained more than a sprinkle since like April! Poor kids! Well, here are some recent pictures of Kayleigh! Hope everyone is well!

Kayleigh loves her baby food! I love her beautiful big blue eyes!

Kayleigh is sitting up pretty well now! We put her boppy around her because every now and then she takes a dive.

You can see the mohawk that Kayleigh has in this picture! All of her hair is blonde and short except for the long dark hair on top which she has had since she was born.

Blessed

While I should be working, I could not help myself from catching up on my blog reading. While reading blogs of people I sortof know, I stumbled upon another blog of a family going through a very difficult time with a new baby. I think this week alone, I have heard about at least 5 families who have lost their babies in birth or shortly after. One family who is a friend of a Coastie family lost all three triplets she was carrying when she went into labor at 30 weeks. I cannot imagine. Another fellow Coastie family is facing the inevitable death of their 8 year old little girl, Hadley, who has battled a brain tumor most of her life. Again, I just cannot imagine. But what I have seen in each case is the amazing faith of these people. It is absolutely incredible. Their trust in God and absolute surrender to His will is amazing.

While my heart is so sad for these families, I am reminded how blessed I am, and I am thankful. Brett and I have been given so much. We are so blessed to have a healthy, beautiful daughter. We are so blessed to have our health and each other. And we are certainly blessed to have such amazing family and friends. I had to sneak into the room to give my sweet Kayleigh a kiss after reading about such sadness. So hug your loved ones tight and call your family to tell them just how much you love them. Even when so many people are going through such difficult times with the struggling economy, I think we all have much to be thankful for. On a side note (or rabbit trail as I am known for which I get from my G.G.) call your grandparents! I was talking to my G.G. the other day and mentioned that her friends were surprised that she talked to my brother and I and my mom and dad so often. Apparently, her friends don't ever hear from their grandkids. So if you don't call your family including your grandparents, then you should start! I am definitely going to call mine more. My Nanny has started calling Jared and me weekly and it is so nice to talk to her! While I'm giving out orders, make sure you vote!! I voted a couple of weeks ago (absentee since I am still technically a GA resident) and Brett is waiting on his ballot in the mail, but whether it is in the mail, early voting (which Mom had to wait 45 minutes in line for) or on November 4th, make sure you vote! More importantly, keep this election, our country, and our leaders in your prayers too! Ok...I'll stop giving out orders now.

Oh, one more thing...please keep my Grandmommie in your prayers. She goes to her Oncologist on Monday for her post-op appointment and the plan is to start chemo the following Monday. Please pray for strength and healing for her.

I will post pictures of K soon! Love from the Bonner's! We miss everyone!!

Lily Love & Gourmet Meals

We were supposed to head up to Red Bluff last weekend so Brett could go hunting with his Grandpa, but instead weather (read: big waves for Brett to drive the boat in) rolled in, so we decided to stay in town so he could get some surfman training in. Well I was sort of pouting ok...I was pouting about staying home all weekend while he worked, so Brett decided to cheer me up, so I got to pick 4 different fun things to do and Brett picked one (I like those odds!). We put them in a pile and Brett picked which one we would do. I listed exploring Napa for the day, shopping in Sausalito, watch a girl movie and order in, and grocery shopping and cooking. He picked that I had to go pick out a man movie and pickup food. Well, he picked to go grocery shopping and cook a meal together. For some crazy reason, he was shocked he didn't pick his?!? I think he thought he thought he could read my expressions and know which to pick...but I put on my best poker face. Even though we normally shop for groceries and cook together anyway, I as thinking more like a gourmet, tasty, takes a long time to make kind of meal. It took a while, but we finally found the perfect recipe. (Read: Brett finally had to pick something because if you know me, you know how indecisive I am so I can make a simple task excruciating.) Well, we made Emeril's Shrimp Bisque and Paula Deen's Garlic Cheese Biscuits. It was delicious! Brett said it was probably his favorite meal. The biscuits were so easy to make and so tasty, we've made them twice this week. I took a picture of our meal, but really it doesn't do it justice. As you can tell, I don't think I could get a job in photography or making food look tasty, but trust me, it was wonderful! Nicole, we thought of you while we ate even though this is nothing like Linda's Sandbar bisque. We thought you'd like it just as much.

By the way, Brett did get to play in the waves and of course showed off his awesome boat driving skills to the Chief. Now if we could just get some more big waves, so he can make surfman!

Recently, Kayleigh has started noticing Lily and reaching out for her. Watch out Lily! She is quite skilled at pulling Mommy's hair, so I'm sure Lily will be her next victim. Lily is such a good big sister! We got a few good pictures of them snuggling. Kayleigh also loves blankets and hiding under them. Who needs toys? We've got blankets! :)

Hope everyone is doing well!

Love from the Bonner's!

Birthdays and Yummy Cereal!

So Tuesday was my big 2-5 birthday! We didn't go see Night's in Rodanthe. I just couldn't bear to leave Kayleigh after being gone at work all day! I know crazy Mommy syndrome! So instead we went to Chili's, one of my favorite places and Target! I know fun stuff, but I just enjoyed being with Brett and Kayleigh. Brett made me a delicious strawberry cake and there were flowers waiting for me at the door. I have such a wonderful husband! Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes!!

Tonight Kayleigh had her first taste of cereal. The pictures say it all. First she was unsure, but as you can tell by the end she was enjoying herself.

Going on a bear hunt!

"We're Going on a Bear Hunt" is one of my favorite children's books. Well, last weekend Brett and I ended up on a bear hunt! We went to the mountains in Northern California to camp and hunt with Brett's parents, Uncle Lee, Aunt Renee and his cousin Sydney. I of course hung out with Kayleigh while Brett got up at 5 am to go hunting. Well Saturday afternoon, Lesa watched Kayleigh while Brett and I took their four-wheeler out with Lee and Renee to "hunt." We didn't see much of anything but were having fun just riding through the mountains. Well, it was almost dark and we decided to take a break from riding and walk through this clearing into some woods just to see if we could see anything. Renee went off a different path to look for quail. I am following Lee and Brett is behind me when Lee freezes. I look ahead and see a HUGE bear! I froze! This bear was big, scary and looked like it was about to charge. All I could do is whisper to Brett "Holy crap it's a bear! Holy crap it's a bear!" over and over. Brett never got to see the bear, but I had a full view! Well Lee fires off a shot and as he is reloading this bear barely flinched. She moved her head but her body was frozen and still looked like she wasn't backing down. He fires off another shot and she takes off running. Being the hunters they are, Lee and Brett haul off running to find this thing. They are looking for blood to see if he hit it and running as fast as they can. You can imagine that I am totally freaked out at this point and screaming for them not to leave me! They stop for a moment to listen and we hear Renee somewhere in the woods behind us screaming for Lee. She screams that there is a bear in the tree in front of her. Keep in mind, she is carrying a gun but not one big enough to take down a huge bear. Lee and Brett were thinking they got lucky and could shoot the bear out of the tree. Well, we back up and find out it is a cub. As if I wasn't freaked out enough already, I know that messing with a momma bear and her cub is a really bad idea. Lee tells us to back-up slowly out of the woods. I got to see the baby cub before he ran out of the tree and deep into the woods. He was so cute! We were all glad that Lee didn't shoot the Momma once we saw she had a baby. So that is my crazy bear hunting story! We had a fun time camping and Kayleigh did great!

Other than our camping weekend, we have just been working and hanging out around the house. Kayleigh is growing up so fast and learning all sorts of new things! She is rolling over back to front and front to back, although she only does it when she's in the mood. Imagine that! Stubborn like her Momma! Yesterday she learned to spit. I thought babies drool (which she does), but spit? Really? They certainly don't list that in the development milestones for babies. I told Brett and he said "Did you tell her no?" Well, if I had stopped laughing and told her no, I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have understood me anyway! She has become a Chatty Cathy lately and now apprarently enjoys spitting, on me of course! She must have talked for an hour nonstop last night! She is up to 13 lbs 10 ozs as of last week and is still so long! I can't believe how quickly she is growing up!

Today we are looking forward to the Georgia game! Kayleigh is a big fan and wears her cheerleading outfit for all the games!

Tuesday is my birthday, so our friends, Crissy and Chris, are going to watch Kayleigh so Brett and I can go see Nights in Rodanthe. I can't wait! I'm sure it is just going to make me miss Hatteras even more!

Also, if you could say some prayers for my grandmother and for Cason, we would greatly appreciate it! My grandmother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and had surgery last week. She will be starting chemo in the next few weeks. She is so strong but I hate we are so far away! Cason will be starting the process for a kidney transplant, so pray they find a match and that all goes smoothly.

Hope everyone is doing well! Love from the Bonner's!

So BUSY!!!

Did I mention I went back to work part-time? Part-time accounting and full-time Mommy and wife has definitely kept me busy! I'm enjoying work, and Brett is definitely enjoying his time home with Kayleigh. She has done really well when she's at work with me too. She usually just hangs out in her sling with Mommy. Maybe one of these days I can put her to work! :) We had some visitors last week which was so nice! Christanne (my sorority big sis) came to visit on her way to LA. She took a look at a residency program in Emergency Medicine in the city as she is finishing up med school in Charleston in May. She's got lots of options, but Brett and I are hoping she ends up here! Mom and Grandmommie also came for a visit the same week. We had lots of fun doing touristy things in the city like visiting Fisherman's Wharf, watching the Bush Man, shopping of course, walking around the Marina district and Sausalito, and visiting Brett's station. We also took a day to visit Napa Valley. We toured a couple of wineries and ate some delicious food. While Grandmommie was here, she taught me to sew. Well the basics anyway. We started on a Fourth of July dress for Kayleigh to wear next year. I've still got a long way to go though! We also went to another Giants game (Kayleigh's 3rd game) which was fun. After a nice Labor Day weekend with lots of bar-b-queing and hanging out with friends, we are back into the grind. I will post more pictures of Kayleigh soon. She is laughing a lot more. Right now she is laughing every time I give her a kiss! :) I will try to get her laughing on video soon.

Oh and big news for the family, my newest cousin Jack was born last week. We can't wait to meet him! He is adorable! And...we are going to have a niece! Jared and Nicole recently found out they are having a little girl, Ava Claire.

Hope y'all are well! Love from the Bonner's!